Second Life's Great Depression?

It might be a second life, but our first life is causing it problems. Real world banks seem to be offering their own forms of monetary policy in the virtual world, and are then defaulting upon it. This along with unrealistic interest return rates is destabilizing the Second Life's economy. The Fed, I mean, Linden Lab to the rescue! Demanding any and all Second Life banks get government approval before conducting operations.

Not to start a panic, but if I were finding my bank was 'unregulated' to a near useless state. I'd demand my money out of there. The bank, having thousands of customers all do this at once is what happened in the great depression. Too many withdrawals, not enough money and the market crashes.

To make matters worse, the regulations are expected to start in less then a week, on the 21st. Making getting any sort of accreditation in such little time laughable.

Some banks have already folded, popular bank Ginko Financial folded with Second Life's recent ban on gambling. They responded by holding accounts and transferring from a bank, to a bond like fund for its customers traded on the world exchange.

With Linden Labs being firm to not 'bail' any these banks out, it shall be interesting to see what the fall out shall be, or if a free market alternative with some regulation arises.

It is an interesting case, showing what happens when MMO's start hitting the real world.

https://ginkofinancial.com/
http://business.theage.com

Rumor update. Sam and Max to Wii!

It has been mentioned a few times, and at this point, This is pretty much a slam dunk.

Telltale Games, the makers of Sam and Max, have been rumored to be hunting for an experienced Wii developer. Of course, what game could this be? Everyone's favorite Rabbit and Dog team?

The rumor has been around the gaming community for months now, and it looks a little clearer now due to a translation slip.

"“One of the next projects: Sam & Max. The Adventure of the year, as chosen by the readers of the German ‘PC Games’ (2/2008 issue), Sam & Max will soon be hunting criminals on the Nintendo Wii.”"

A season one port? I'd rate it as likely now. Given the point and click like properties of the Wii already, this is a slam dunk. Hopefully we'll be getting some updates and not just a direct port. I can only imagine what the S&M comedy team will do with 'Wii' jokes.

http://www.evilavatar.com

Review: Brutal: Paws of Fury

It was 1994, and the world was changing. We saw an end to Nirvana, and a start to Greenday. There was OJ and his Bronco, and the King of the theaters was a mighty animated Lion,

There was also a little known fighter game by the title of Brutal: Paws of Fury. The game was released to the Sega Genesis, and then soon after on the Super Nintendo system. It also saw ports to the Sega-CD as well as a semi sequel to Sega’s 32x. It featured a flurry of anthropomorphic animals from your mighty lion to your little rat, each with his or her own special abilities and traits. We have a lion that summons an amp and strums on a guitar on it to stun his foe, to large body but slow bear that has a belly dash attack.

We also have bunny, a cheetah, a coyote, and a vixen rounding out the crew.

The game featured your typical fighter plot; this grand martial arts tournament where fighters gathered to prove who the best is, stop me if you’ve heard this before. But no worries, even if you don’t get the plot, there is really no mention of it between fights to add to the game play.

And there is the biggest problem, the game play. The fighting consists of a light-medium-heavy punch kick system (for the SNES controller at least) The game it self is flawed. Balance between fighters is lacking with some characters being able to endlessly attack and dominate the fight, while others fall into the why bother category. All fighting games have this quality to a point, but it makes it so that even a small cast of characters feels even smaller. The difficulty scaling is terrible. Even on the lowest settings, after the third or forth fight, the game seems to become impossible.

The controls are jerky at best. Trying to pull off one of the quarter rotation attacks feels like a chance at best. Meanwhile, the computer, seems to be able to endlessly attack in a flurry of these, to the point where a corner combo can ruin you in seconds. Even simple fighting concepts such as blocking feel like a risk when you are under a barrage of attacks.

If anything, the game does have few high points in areas that are easily overlooked. The sound for it’s time, admittedly outdated, fits the mood and with a eastern feel to the game. It is simple, and doesn’t get on your nerves.

Artistically, the game is impressive for its time. Lush peaks and detailed beaches stretch wonderfully produced background, complete with lavish details that subtly add to the game. Waterfalls spring blue fluid down to a large lake green foliage grows in the foreground accurately obstruct the fighters from view. A dark storm over head darkens the fighter’s pallet, but they suddenly light up as lightning strikes in the distance. Even in current day fighting games rarely have backgrounds that look this good.

While static backgrounds are one thing, the animated characters themselves, have issues. Some hardly resemble the animal in which they represent, and some look like they were animated with a crayon. The rat, for example, looks like a reject from the blueman group. Heck take a look for your self.

Modern examples of furry art huh? Yeah right. Keep trying. Even as a ‘furry’ game, this hardly makes up for the lackluster combat and failure to match up to rival fighters of the day such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. In the end, even if you can pick up this bargain basement title at your local EB for a few bucks, stay away. I can’t even recommend this game to the newest

The Fast & The Furriest

file this under 'Are you kidding me'

I've heard of games having a furry flare to them, but this might take the cake and then some.

Rare currently is annoucing that they shall be making an XBLA Camera mini game. Similar to the Eye-toy series of the PS2, the game is expected to run upon the player's movements. Mini-games such as running, hurdles, and looking like an utter idiot shall translate to our own screen avatar doing the responding actions, and scoring you points.

So what makes this game 'furry' Well.. I'll let xbox 360 explain


Each player will be able choose a character like Conker or Banjo which will actually be a "suit" (think mascot suits). Players will then be able to scan their face using the Vision camera to skin the face opening of the character suit.


Guh.... say What? So it's effective virtual fursuiting without the hours of glue and sewing?

We'll keep you posted on this one.

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/

Digimon Remote holder

You know, I am always losing my remote. Too bad I don't have one of these. It's cute, it's neat and it would give me a place to store one of my dozen of controllers, remotes, ect.



Cuuuuute!


From:
http://amigurumiworld.wordpress.com

WolfQuest

Ever wanted to get inside the skin of a wolf? Hunt, forage and sniff just like the real thing? Well if your here more then likely the answer is yes. So where does the wolf in all of us go to get their game on? cue in WolfQuest. A game where you explore, chase, play and all all sorts of wolfie things.


Best of all, the game is free!

http://www.wolfquest.org

We'll hit you up with a more in depth look at this game soon as I get some time with it.