Dangers of Being Young in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games is an examination of the increasingly dangerous and even deadly world our young people live in.

More than ever, they are expected to participate in pop culture, to engage entertainment, and to emulate what is advertised to them. They become a part of the spectacle of the evolving reality-entertainment. Their peers judge them, not on natural merits, but on the standards advertised to them by mainstream style corporations.

Project Cafe: Nintendo Unifies Their Platform

Nintendo will unveil their new game console, codenamed Project Cafe, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week.  Serious rumors that the key feature of Nintendo’s new device will again be a revolutionary controller have been circulating for the last six months or so.

Speculation says that the new controller will feature a large touchscreen embedded in a more traditional game controller.  Most believe the screen will be single-touch, but feature a high-resolution display.  More wild rumors claim that the console will then stream games directly to the controller so you can play anywhere in your house or that the controller itself will be a portable game device.

I see a real opportunity for Nintendo should the new console feature a touch-screen controller.  Between your large TV screen and the touch-screen in your hand, using Project Cafe will be a lot like using a DS.  One of the first opportunities for Nintendo will be selling DS games through the updated Virtual Console.  This is an easy place for Nintendo to continue to provide access to (and make money from) a library of older software titles.

More importantly, though, is that Project Cafe could unify Nintendo’s game platform.  For an entire console generation, Nintendo portable games and Nintendo console games would be the same format: dual-screen and touch-enabled.

A unified game platform is something neither Sony nor Microsoft can benefit from.  This could be the real win-factor for Nintendo in the next console cycle.

 

Interested in Project Cafe?  The Wikipedia entry has a lot of information.  The Nintendo E3 press conference is June 7th at 9:00 am PT.  You can catch a live stream and blog of the event from 1up and GameSpot.

Quick Blog – Halo and Unconventional Media

I really like Halo. Yes the video games, most recently Halo: Reach, but I really enjoy the stories that are told in that universe. Even more than just the stories themselves, I am fascinated by how these stories are being told.

Thoughts on The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

I just finished reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (yes I started it like two months ago). It was excellently written, and created a vivid 12th century world populated by realistic and engaging characters.

It was actually the quality of the work that kept me reading for over half of the book. The author presents characters that are righteous and good but that have little defense against the aggressive tyranny of the evil men who also inhabit this world. At times, Follett’s realism and attention to detail in his descriptions of the suffering of the characters are too much to take. It is a civilized barbarism that filled me with grief and despair. Small victories were rendered meaningless by the persistent ruthlessness of the antagonists.

I kept wondering, how did we ever live like this? There seemed to be no decency. And those few decent characters were abused and punished. But they did not break. And that is the ultimate message. The world is changed, in the end, not by the despicable acts of greed, but by the righteous persistence of the hopeful and kind.

It left me wanting more. But at the same time, I have to wonder, is that my own bit of evil, wanting to see these horrible people more than humbled?