Every Single Article Written by N - All 1343
I Want To Subscribe To Wired Magazine, But…
Between 1996 and 2002, I collected every new issue of PC Gamer, most of which were purchased individually off magazine racks. I wanted to know more about PC gaming and, well, they were the premier publication to acquire facts and opinions about it as a 12-year old kid. I developed a connection to the magazine during Gary Whitta’s time as Editor-in-Chief (he’s gone on to much bigger stuff since then) and loved to follow the staff as they made each issue an adventure. Nowadays, the publication’s merely a brochure for the hobby and I doubt it’ll be around much longer. So why do I bring it up? Because it reminds me so much of how I want to fall in love with Wired, but I just can’t pull the trigger.
It’s FleshEatingZipper’s First Birthday!
It’s hard to believe, but a year ago today we posted our very first article. It’s been a long and storied road since then and we’ve certainly made an impression in that time while making friends and (I suppose) making a few foes as well. The Truth Hurts, our tagline, represents our mission: you don’t have to like what we post, we’re posting it anyway. It seems kinda hard to imagine a world without FleshEatingZipper at this point…
Ron Paul: Hurry Up And Win Already
(N’s opinions on Ron Paul do not necessarily reflect those of FleshEatingZipper, its staff, or its affiliates.)
It’s easy to say that Ron Paul is unelectable, because he is. He’s the Conan O’Brien of the GOP race: he can’t win, but we want him to. Meanwhile, a schlub like Gingrich (Jay Leno) or Romney (uhhhh…) is winning over audiences with middle-of-the-road talking points with a flat or conniving character behind it. Let’s me be frank: if Ron Paul can’t win the GOP nomination, then the party doesn’t deserve to win this November against Obama.
Pinterest. I Don’t Get It.
I finally received an invite to Pinterest, a photo/link sharing service that has recently exploded in popularity. Now that I’ve used it, I don’t get the big deal. Let me explain my predicament.
‘The Grey’ Review – Intense Wintry Survival
You should see The Grey. I wouldn’t say the theater is a necessity, but this is a film to be enjoyed in pitch darkness with a booming sound system. So, yeah, go see it in theaters. As a survival thriller, it suffers from the ‘natch’es of the genre. Like: natch, there’s going to be a diverse cast and they’re going to get knocked off one by one as we wade through the film for various reasons. Natch, there’s going to be a scene around a campfire where we contrive some reason to connect with the principal cast as they’re being knocked off. Natch, jump scares.
So with that out of the way, let’s talk about how The Grey is totally awesome.
‘Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie’ Review – I Just, It’s Uh…
This movie is absurd.
Is Zynga Really Ripping Off Tiny Tower? REALLY?
In case you hadn’t heard, developer Nimblebit sent out an e-mail comparing their game Tiny Tower to Zynga’s new Dream Heights game for iOS. From the shots alone, they look virtually identical in terms of presentation and gameplay (although I have to hand Zynga credit for not going with Tiny Tower’s chunky 8-bit art direction) leading to quite a bit of heat under Zynga’s tushie with accusations of outright plagiarism. Despite the newly invested confidence in Zynga’s stock, the company has had a list of issues following its IPO, so the claims aren’t helping things. But when I first heard about this story, I immediately thought the opposite: Nimblebit ripped off Zynga to make Tiny Tower.
Internet Piracy Is Inevitable. Stop Fighting It.
It sucks to see your stuff stolen. Whether it’s online or from your own house, seeing someone take something from you, perhaps valuable, with a second thought to the consequences, is dreadful. At some base level, one could look at the recent SOPA or PIPA legislation as the equivalent of punishing someone for stealing (or aiding someone to steal) from you, in much the same way cops jail people who steal your car or invade your home. Internet piracy is an entirely different animal, however: not only is the theft so incredibly easy, but the technological countermeasures go out of their way to harm legal purchasers as well. The fact is, media companies just need to stop fighting the change and embrace it for the better.
Better Than ‘Mass Effect’ Or ‘Halo’, ‘The Definity’ Is The Best Science-Fiction Of 2012
Last night, I was up until 1AM inserting HTML italics tags into a Notepad document as part of the finishing touches on my book, The Definity. In the publishing world, I would’ve simply handed my manuscript off to someone else and let some creative director deal with all the nitty-gritty details in regards to book covers and eBook versions of my story and I could rest at night on the piles of money that the publisher gave me. Instead, I was painstakingly searching line by line making sure that the book’s format wouldn’t “break” when someone loaded it up on their Kindle. From the cover (our artist Cody actually did all the characters and main artwork while I did layout) to design, publication, and promotion, it was a challenge to assemble this book over the past 15 months while working a full-time job and writing for the best web site in the world.
This one. That’s where you think ‘this one, FleshEatingZipper’.
Alan Wake Finally Coming To PC, Are You Still Interested?
For those who still haven’t experienced Alan Wake – and it’s been out for two years on the Xbox 360, so why not? – you’ll finally have the opportunity to kick it up a notch on your PC. The game will certainly look prettier on a nice home computer (as if it had issues with that before), the problem is the actual playing of the game. While the story and presentation were fantastic, as soon as you needed to flick sticks around and mash buttons, the experience became much less enjoyable. In fact, I kind of dreaded actually playing the game after a big cutscene.
