The start of the end

First watch this video (it is from Project Natal, on the XBox 360):



If half of this video is true we are in serious trouble; it will be the start of computers replacing people as companions. Sure there are a couple people right now that attach themselves to the odd story book hero, anime girl, or new hot American Idol, but those characters can't react back to your affection. This program on the other hand, has a personality, idiosyncrasies that take time to learn, interaction in both physical and mental.
It could be argued that the interaction that is taking place (at least from the standpoint of the human) is real. And as long as it feels real for the human it will push all the buttons that a real human interaction will normally push, this means that there won't be a reason to have human relationships. Why try to date somebody that will just break your heart in the end? Why have a baby that will wake you up in the middle of the night? Why put so much effort into a kid that will not appreciate the effort until far too late in life? All of these can be replicated in the program, and you get none of the inconvenience.

The human race might have just met its hardest foe yet -can we survive when the other option is bliss?

Cargo Bridge

There is something about the "build something and then see how well it does" genre of games that I really like. Cargo Bridge falls right into this category (Fantastic Contraption is another game of this type that I like). The point of Cargo Bridge is to make a bridge that spans a gap or two that is constructed well enough to hold the workers and the cargo. The trick comes in that you only have a limited about of money to buy supplies with so some planning has to be used. The game starts with just wooden pieces that are light and cheap. After a couple of levels there is also an option to use metal pieces which are more rigid, and can have longer spans, but are heavier and cost more. The challenges given always seem fairly easy but they have twists thrown in, so different building style has to be used. This game is getting heavy playing time on my computer, you might want to give it a shot as well.

Oh, also the workers give off a satisfying yell as they fall to their death, so even when I don't make a good bridge I still get some entertainment from it.

Music Catch 2

Music Catch is a very simple game where you want to get blue, yellow and purple while avoiding red objects. While the rules are simple the game is quite fun because of the presentation. If you need a couple minutes of relaxing give this one a shot.

Mega Super Fun Game Post

I have been hoarding some good games in my bookmarks and I never get them posted, so lets just get them all out so I don't have to think about posting them again.

Age of War - This game is brought to you by my office mate, which has been his poison of choice recently. The point of the game is to eliminate the opposing city and to do so you make troops and improve technology. There are also mega attack things that are free to use and kill lots of stuff, however you have to wait for them to be available again once you use them.

SeppuKuties - A platformer where you have to sacrifice cute animals to finish the level, be careful though, you only get one set of animals to play though the whole game with. I am currently stuck on level 9 and I can't seem to figure out how to beat it.

Robokill - A sweet game where you are a robot and you kill other robots and get upgrades to your own robot. It turns out that this is only the first "world" and you have to buy the expansion to continue playing, but the free part of the game is long enough that it is still very fun to play.

IncrediBots - This game is alot like Fantastic Contraption only there is way more options to choose. It is a little too detailed for me to like it as much as Fantastic Contraption but it is still fun. Going though the tutorial before you start with the levels is a big help.

Powerpool - This is the game that I have been playing when i need a 15 minute break from my normal work routine. The goal of the game is to sink all the ball, except the cue ball, like normal pool. But in this game some of the balls have special powers. Zanyness ensues.

Super Stacker - You get blocks and you get a platform to build on, just make sure that the blocks don't fall off the platform and you pass the level. could it really be that hard?

Go ahead try them all!

Auditorium

As is generally the case, the easy post trumps the hard posts. So the other posts I had thought about writing today will not happen: My Geekyness (Out of a bookcase full of interesting books I chose the basic stats book as reading material for the bathroom) and The Govt. Bailout (the worst idea since unsliced bread) .

Instead I found one of the coolest looking games to play, Auditorium. The basic Idea is to get the stream of particles to go through the sound bar things to make music. The way you direct the parties is through movable deflectors and other particle manipulators. As the bars light up parts of the overall song turn on until the full song is playing. The game sounds great and looks even cooler. It is like somebody went on board the Starship Enterprise, found what casual game they were playing and then made it for us to play. (It's a little know fact but Deanna Troi is an avaid casual game player on the comand consoles.) Now you can play visual awesome too. Clicky.

Splitter

Time for some fun. In Splitter you take the role of a chef that has a very sharp knife that can cut through wood and other objects. The goal of the game is to get the smiley faced ball into the orange disc. This physics based puzzler is a good way to pass by the odd 15 minutes. I wouldn't say that this game is the best puzzler ever but some solutions are clever. However, if you do get stuck they do give an option of watching a video that shows how to solve the level. Check it out.

Friday Ball Games

Come right up and get a three pack of ball games for your Friday needs.

We will start off easy with FunkyBall. The object of this game is easy, just get your pink ball into the pink box. You move your ball left and right with the arrow keys. The key to this game is to always keep your ball under control because once it starts bouncing around all willy-nilly it is all over. On the easy level I finished up with a time of 14:54.

After you have warmed up a bit it is time to move on to The Eyeballing Game. The point of this game is to get as close to the actual geometric answer as possible. The tasks involve making a right angle, picking the center of a circle and bisecting an angle. I actually had a good time playing this game. My overall average was 7.97.

To round out the three-pack we have These Balls Are Made for Hiding. In this game you direct a laser that bounces around on hidden spheres. The point of the game is to not let any of the spheres reach the bottom of the screen, while trying to get a high score. The more spheres you hit in one shot the more points you get (click the mouse to take the shot). Every 15 shots or so the level changes and the spheres get a bit smaller and different walls are available to bounce the laser off of. This one is oddly addictive. I got to level 4 (the second red stage).

Check them out.

Campaign Game

November is a only a couple of months away (mental note, register to vote in Tulsa) and that means General Election time! To get in the mood for mud slinging and money bagging you should check out Campaign Game.
The game is somewhat like chess, where you are trying to capture the opponent's king piece, however there is an element of area control. The more regions you capture the more money you raise which you can use on better attacks. It is a cute game, fun for a play or two. Clicky.

Now Boarding

New game time! Now Boarding is a fun little game where you try to make money by running an airline. It is somewhat similar to Diner Dash where you are trying to fill orders, but in Now Boarding you get to open new routs, buy upgrades, and plan out how to manage all the passengers at once. A game last for a simulated year (which is much shorter than an actual year), and at the end of the game you get points based on various goals. This game isn't too in depth but it does make a good distraction from being productive. Check it out.

Three random words, that aren't so random: "cnet eyeballs bleed". If you know why they aren't random words gimmie a comment.

Fantastic Contraption.

Back in my younger days I would participate in Odyssey of the Mind, a competition where teams of kids would do certain activities under limitations. It was quite fun to try to problem solve and think of solutions to problems that at first glance has no obvious answer. Nothing was quite like it, until I found the game Fantastic Contraption.
The goal of the game is to get the pink object into the pink goal area. The tools that are available to use are; two kinds of gears, a wheel, and two types of sticks. From those pieces you have to figure out how to beat each level.
I have to say that this is one of my favorite games on the internet, it might possibly be THE best one. I have beat all 20 levels and I am contemplating coughing up $10 to get more levels. Warning: If you have work to do today I do not suggest you start playing this game.

Totem Destroyer

I know that you have been looking for a good time wasting game, well look no further, your search has resulted in one result, this one. The name of the game is Totem Destroyer, and it is much like Jenga, but instead of worrying about making the tower fall down your only concern is to keep the golden totem off the ground. Each level you need to destroy a certain number of blocks, the trick of the game is to get the tower to collapse in a certain way to save the idol. Quite fun I do say. Play on!

The Stock Market Game.

This is a game that I thought up of to play at work yesterday. It works pretty well because when the window for the Internet browser minimized the Dow is still displayed and updated about every three minutes on the tab. (At least on Firefox)

You get $1000 to buy stocks of the Dow Profits.

The market change can be found here:

Yahoo Stocks

You can buy and sell stocks at anytime, you just have to use the current price.

So for example the current Dow change is at +61.72, so using my $1000 I can buy 16 stocks at $61.72, with $12.84 left over. If the Dow change ever crosses zero, you lose all of your stocks.

If the prices are in the negative, just play like they are positive, but remember anytime the price crosses zero you lose all of your stocks.

The person with the most money at the end of the day wins.

Yesterday I ended up with about $2 left, hopefully I can do better today.

Boomstick

In many shooting games one of the hardest weapons to get, and the one that is usually the most fun to use, is the shotgun. Boomstick thinks that a good ol' shout gun shouldn't be so hard to come by and so that is the weapon that you get from the start of the game. And a shotgun is quite useful in this fast paced shooting game.
Instead of shooting zombies or mutants or ice cream men like you do in most games, in Boomstick you are tasked will killing a real menace to society, shapes. And those shapes move fast. That just means that you will have to be quick on your fingers to dodge the red daggers of pain all the while collecting more ammo.
The level I am at right now is 12 and I think there is 25 levels in total, so I have to get back to laying the smack down on some triangles. Check it out yourself.

Nanotube

Sometimes people that make games just get it right, and the people who made Nanotube got it right. Nanotube is a game where you try to match the colors of the balls that are shooting out from the center with the colors in the ring around the center. It isn't that complex of a game, and I have seen this kind of game before, but Nanotube does it just right. It is a really fun, simple game. Check it.

My high score so far is 29618, which gets me the rating of "shaven monkey"

Lt. Fly vs. The Spiders From Above

The award for the longest named game goes to Lt. Fly vs. the Spiders from Above. While it comes on down to claim the award I will give you a brief overview of the game. LFVTSFA or Spiders from Above is a hybrid puzzle and action game smooshed together. On the left hand of the screen is a game sort of like Bejeweled, where you try to match four colors together to remove bricks. As the bricks are removed ammo works it's way down into your storage. Why do you need ammo? Because while you are working on the puzzle Spiders are attacking from above and they must be fended off. So during the game if the Spiders look like they are getting to close to the bottom of the screen you can move your cursor over to the right side of the screen and use the ammo you got to take the spiders out.

The game does a really good job of balancing the puzzle and the action parts of the game At times I had to frantically play the puzzle so that I could get more ammo because the Spiders were attacking. Other times I was sitting on 50+ bullets picking off Spiders at will. It is a fun game, and it only has about 15 levels so it doesn't take too long to beat. You really need to stop whatever you are doing and play this game.

Onslaught

I figure that if I play a game for a couple of days during all of my free time I probably should post it here so that no one else gets their work done either. Onslaught is a Tower Defender type of game where you build and upgrade gun turrets that shoot enemies that are trying to get to your base. The reason Onslaught is so fun though is because there are alot of guns to buy and lots of options to upgrade. Also there are many combinations of guns that shoot off super weapons if the guns are grouped in a certain way (and are upgraded enough). This game is one of those that I play over and over just to try out different combinations just to see how it works. And last night I got things working really well and got to wave 555 before dying. Click to play (if you dare).

p.s. you might want to mute the sound if you are at work.

Filler

I have not yet found a reason why I like some game remakes and I don't like others. But Filler is one that I really enjoy. This game takes the old game where you try to section off a certain amount of the playing field to go on to the next level, and changes things around a little bit. The object of Filler is to fill up 2/3 of the screen with balls (or maybe really heavy balloons) that you make. The only problem is that the are little gray balls bouncing around that will take away one of your lives if they touch the white ball that you are making. Every level that you get to adds another grey ball to the playing area, after awhile it gets kinda difficult to make the white balls to fill up the playing area. Oh, and you can only make so many white balls each level... and there is a time limit. It is quite addictive. Check it.

Chat Noir

Does the cold weather have you down? Well I have a game for you. It is called Chat Noir, the point of the game is to trap the cat into one circle. It is harder than it seems, but once I get used to how the cat runs I won about half the time. this game is a good use for those odd minutes you have laying around the house. Check it.

Friday Fun

I know what you want to get done today; alot. And I also know how much motivation you have; none. Let these powers combine to form "the great time waste of Friday." To help you along a bit I have found an update to an old favorite, called Bubbles 2.

The point of the game is to make your bubble get as large as possible without getting popped. There are power ups along the way to making things a bit more spicy. The arrow keys move the bubble, and all the other keys on your keyboard cheer you on.

It sounds simple, it sounds easy, don't be fooled, it will consume you. Or something like that... click to play. My high score is 1501.

Hotcorn

For some reason popping bubble wrap is really fun. Similarly popping kernels of corn with a sun is also really fun. The object of Hotcorn is to pop as many kernels as required in a given amount of time. When I explain it it sounds like it would be boring, but when I explain popping bubble wrap also doesn't sell it. This is one of those games that you just have to play to see why it is fun.

(So far I have got to level 34 with a high score of 30897.)