WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Review for games™

Oh Noes! A fan of our podcasts just dropped me an email, inquiring about WoW matters and made me realize that I totally forgot to plug my very own review of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in games™ issue 01/09.

When Soenke Siemens, associate editor in chief of German games™, asked me for a WotLK review for their print publication in October 2008, how was I supposed to say "No!". Especially given that such an inquiry translated to an excuse for burning time hunting down Arthas in Blizzard's latest extension to Warcraft lore?

My personal history with WoW started as early as fall 2004 with the US Beta and has been unfolding ever since. Admittedly, the journey hasn't been without frequent pauses of several months. After all, real life obligations require their share of attention and levelling up too :)

So, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that after my initial three weeks of intensive adventuring in Northrend, thanks to a beta key provided by good friend and former Google colleague Sumer O. (Blizzard employee, now) and the big ol' collector's edition box by the magazine, I had to attend to my other - i.e. RL - character, Mustafa.

I might get around to pick up a little WoW-ing over the course of the next four weeks though. If you feel like teaming up with our friends & family guild on German server Khaz'goroth, I suggest you drop me a note. I have a dormant US account too, but chances for me to pick up that one too, while living in Germany and barely finding time to dwell in the European server pool, are currently very low.

Distilling the essence of the massive expansion to a two page review wasn't easy, especially when aiming for an original article that does not mimic a fact sheet or worse resembles little more than a mutated press release.

Judging from the feedback we received for the article, coming up with a compelling review seems to have worked though. Thanks to everybody for the kind words and feedback.

If you're interested and lucky, you might still be able to pick up a copy of the issue at a newsstand of your choice, before the February wave of magazines washes it all away.

On the other hand, thanks to games™'s PDF offer, you can always opt for the cellulose-free way of digital distribution and get access to any back issue you'd like ;)

Review: I Love Katamari (iPhone/iPod Touch)

Roughly a week ago, in a surprise move, Namco released an iPhone game based on one of their more recent and creative IPs, that is Katamari Damacy. The official title of the version for Apple's handheld combo is dubbed I Love Katamari.

The basic game mechanic remains unchanged to what fans of the series have come to expect from the various incarnations of the title for the PSP, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360.

The goal is to roll a sticky ball, that is a Katamari in the game's lingo, around and snowball it to a certain size by rolling over items strewn around in 3D stages.

As you roll around the first level of five for the iPhone title, you quickly realize the nature of the challenge ahead: you can't just roll up objects in any arbitrary order.

Items of a certain size will only be picked up by a Katamari that has reached a respective minimum volume. Thus you are required to iteratively identify objects you can pick up as the monstrosity you are pushing through the level reaches bigger and bigger sizes.

I Love Katamari features four modes which provide for slight variations while keeping the core game mechanic intact. In Story Mode you get a taste of the crazy background of the series, where you are prince to the King of All Cosmos, who requests you to roll up a particular object, varying from stage to stage and involving items such as a dog or a truck.

You start out with a blank Katamari that is just big enough to pick up the smallest items, depending on the stage setting these range from sushi to footballs.

A tight time limit forces you to hurry up and grow your Katamari as fast as possible in order to be able to pick up the requested object. Stages for all playmodes are made available subsequently through successfully completing challenges in story mode.

Once you have cleared a stage it is available in any of the other three modes. Time Attack gives you the opportunity to roll up a Katamari as big as possible within a set time limit, Exact Size Challenge requires you to do exactly that and Eternal Mode is your chance to enjoy stages without having to watch any limitations while building a behemoth to your liking.

The standout feature of the iPhone/iPod Touch version of the game are the controls. Navigation through the leves is accomplished by tilting and turning the device in a very intuitive fashion. To me this feature made me grok the Katamari Damacy fascination for the first time, despite having played the PS2 version for a short while.

From my personal experience I consider the game absolutely suitable for short bursts of playtime. Over the last five days, I have fired up the title every single day in order to try and please the King of all Cosmos while riding the subway or waiting in line.

Unfortunately not all that shines is gold and thanks to frequent slowdowns, occasional sluggishness and control issues every now and then, I Love Katamari makes sure we don't forget.

More than the obvious technical bugs, I am disappointed by sloppy design decisions. For instance, at certain points your Katamari goes through a distinct growth phase - which by the way always causes a slowdown and makes the framerate drop to something around 2-3 fps - where I'd expect to see some kind of consequence to the sudden growth. 

Something along the lines of all of a sudden being able to pick up significantly larger objects than was possible before. That usually doesn't happen though until you've rolled over a couple of more items, that would have already stuck to the Katamari before the growth sequence, which doesn't help to make sense of the whole growth animation/framerate meltdown.

Despite the issues that the game suffers from and which Namco will hopefully address in a future update, my verdict is very positive. This is quite in contrast to the conclusion Luke Plunkett draws in his micro-review on Kotaku and Chris Kohler on his Game|Life blog on Wired.

If you are in for a game that does not mimic the bad half of 80s game concepts - as they seem to be flooding the AppStore - I suggest you grab a copy of I Love Katamari and start nagging Namco to release a patch ASAP - not telling them of course that you already enjoy the game - as I do ;)

Update - Dec. 22nd, 2008: Namco has released an updated version of the game which resolves most of the technical issues I Love Katamari was suffering from. The title in version 1.0.1 plays much smoother now.
The bug fixes also result in a significantly decreased difficulty level. For instance I was trying to get past the Park stage for the last two days, but failed miserably each and every time I attempted to. After the patch, it took me exactly one try to roll up the requested light truck and pass the level.

The UI stayed pretty much unchanged, aside from an element showing the extent of tilt the iPhone/iPod Touch sensor reports to the game. I suggest you either update your version of the game, if you have purchased it already that is, or use the new release to get it in the first place ;)

Space Siege Preview for games™

My Space Siege Preview for gamesTM, originally uploaded by Mustafa K. Isik.

As listeners on Germany's most popular gaming podcast games und so already know, Alex and I met up with Chris Taylor and talked about his studio's latest game Space Siege.

gamesTM asked me for a preview of the title which has been published in their latest, i.e. August 2008, issue. The magazine is available at newsstands and bookstores as well as a slick DRM-free PDF online.

It is jam-packed with previews (e.g. Civ IV: Colonization, CoD: World at War, Treyarch's Bond, Dawn of War 2), reviews (Battlefield Bad Company, Alone in the Dark) and a LucasArts Indy retro flashback - well worth shelling out the bucks ;)

Google Tech Talks: Wiring Hacker Synapses & More

Some of the talks given at EclipseDay at the Googleplex are available as videos via the Google engEDU Tech Talks Channel on YouTube now.

For your (and my) convenience, I have embedded our very own Eclipse Communication Framework Wiring Hacker Synapses talk right after the jump. But if you are really in for a ride to remember, I suggest you indulge yourself in the full list of EclipseDay Grand Teton room recordings.

• Eclipse @ eBay, Michael Galpin
• How Mylyn Changes the Way I Develop, Bjorn Freeman-Benson
• GWT in Eclipse, Bruce Johnson
• Plug-in Development Tips and Tricks, Chris Aniszcyk
• and Wiring Hacker Synapses, Mustafa K. Isik & Scott Lewis

Wait - there is even more ;) Photos.

Visiting the Friendfeed Global International Headquarters ...

... and helping out with the move.

Since I was in Mountain View, CA for the first half of this passing week, I used the chance to make up for all the missed friendfeed open house and TGIFF invitations. On Monday afternoon I took a break from preparing my slides for EclipseDay at the Googleplex and dropped by the Friendfeed Global International Headquarters - new and old.
It was great to finally meet up with the team behind the service of which not only I think that it is excellent in scope, execution and promise.
After a warm welcome by Ana and a chat with Paul, I joined the team in moving from the old office to the new location, contributing my share to friendfeed's continued success ;)

Among the non-trivial tasks of relocating a global international headquarter was mounting a high-tech mailbox to the precise specifications laid out by Ana - that is "So that our short and chubby mailman can reach it". Paul and I had to make more than one attempt to get it right.

Over the course of my stay I was successively introduced to the rest of the team and I have to say you guys rock. I had a blast talking to you all and I am sure that my Monday afternoon friendfeed diversion helped with the success of the talk at Google the following day :D

P.S.: Ana thank you for the shirts. I took mine out for a walk in Munich today. My girlfriend says thank you for thinking of one for her too - since you and I could not find the girl cuts in the box, it looks like as if I'll get around to wear that one too though :)

Corresponding items on my friendfeed:

• blog post
• T-Shirt flickr photo

Hot Off the Press: Slides for Cola Tech Talk "Wiring Hacker Synapses"

These are the slides for my Cola: Real-Time Shared Editing talk at Google for EclipseDay.

You can download the PDF version of the slides by clicking through to the scribd page for this presentation.

The embedded slides/PDF version have been stripped off any animation, that is are fully built and thus should be well suited for non-presentation style consumption.

Wiring Hacker Synapses - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Wiring Hacker Synapses

Cola: Real-Time Shared Editing - Screencast

The Ganymede release is looming on the horizon and the Eclipse community is busy wrapping things up. Our team - the Eclipse Communication Framework - is no exception there.

In the course of getting ready for launch, I have put together a short screencast, showcasing the first incarnation of "Cola: Real-Time Shared Editing" for Eclipse.

Follow my friend Thomas K. and me, lead you through an exemplary shared editing session.


Cola: Real-Time Shared Editing from Mustafa K. Isik on Vimeo.

You can enjoy high resolution versions of the screencast at the vimeo page (higher than the embedded version) or by clicking on the HD icon when doing a mouseover (full 720p glory).

EclipseDay hosted by Google: Attendee list filling up fast

On Tuesday June 24th, 2008 we will hold an Eclipse event at the Googleplex. The first of its kind, hosted by the great folks of the Google Open Source Programs Office (OSPO).

As Ian noted on his blog, I suggested an event of this type while I was interning with the Build Tools team at Google last year. Soliciting the eclipse committers mailing list for feedback concerning a potential DemoCamp at Google revealed great interest in the community and knowing of Google Engineers' love for all things technologically slick - and Eclipse definitely qualifies ;) - ultimately led to an event of larger scope.

Ian Skerrett, Marketing Director for the Eclipse Foundation, Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager for Google's OSPO and Rob Peterson, Manager of the Google Build Tools team, signed up for the idea right away.

We started brainstorming ideas for the conference and bouncing them off of each other via emails and phone conferences late last year and have since been supported by more members of the Google Build Tools team and OSPO. I would like to single out my host Rob Konigsberg, colleague Rob Clevenger and Tiffany Griffith for their efforts on making this event happen.

Even with so many people involved and the event having developed a dynamic of its own, I like to think of EclipseDay as my personal Waynestock and if you attend, it shall be yours too.
I hope for a similarly fun get-together :)

The Google-hosted very first EclipseDay will manifest as a gathering of one hundred eclipse-enthusiast developers. The talks will provide for a general hands-on approach and should prove to be insightful for a broad audience. I suggest you have a look at the agenda.

Space is limited so please sign up if you would like to join - only nine spots are left on the attendee list.

It would be great if you could make it to the talk Scott Lewis and I will give on ECF work: "Wiring Hacker Synapses: Collaborative Coding and Team Tooling in Eclipse"

See you at the Googleplex.


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On Being an Easter Egg

This morning I woke up to the realization, that I had been easter egged.

I can't tell for sure whether it had something to do with the fuzzy feeling in my head or an email I got from my Google Santa Monica buddy and Wine hacker Lei Zhang, asking me to have a closer look at a screenshot in his Google Lat Long Blog post.

Thanks Lei, this made me feel a little like Sam & Max in various LucasArts adventures. I'd like to share the spot in the limelight though - Lei is the second from the left :)

Macbook Pro Modding: Resurrection of the Rainbow Apple

The first computer I consciously laid hands on was an Apple II.

It must have been sometime between 1983 and 1985 while visiting family in Dortmund, Germany. The exciting beige box, crowned by an amber monochrome monitor, belonged to Uncle Celal, a cousin of Dad and computer science student at the time. 

I vividly remember playing Choplifter on the huge, at least to my childish eyes, machine for years to come - and I remember the Apple logo on the box. The prominently featured, colorful symbol of joy. 

Even though given this early and intensive experience, I did not turn into an uncritical fanboy. For most of the early nineties I was much more interested in the Amiga - for the games - and IBM-compatibles for their flexibility, my teenage love for Turbo Pascal and even more games. I enjoyed to hack then popular fire demos with inline assembler, devise systems for my friends and then assemble them.

But the Apple logo stuck with me ... unfortunately it did not with Apple Inc.

Apple came up with Mac OS X, I started to use their machines as of 2001, but gone was my chance to ever own a piece of equipment bearing the Rainbow Apple.

Until recently that is. Browsing the web for a classic Apple logo sticker that I could use on my Macbook Pro, I came across iColours.ca, a Canada-based retailer selling plastic inlays to be used with the backlit Apple logo behind notebook screens. I was instantly sold.

Below I have documented the process of opening a Macbook Pro and replacing the standard white fill with a custom inlay.

1. In order to remove the back panel of the notebook display, you have to unscrew two tiny screws to the far right and left on the bottom of the screen frame.
        
2. Once you are done, use a sturdy but thin credit card to carefully pry open the screen casing. I suggest you start inserting the card/your-other-tool-of-choice towards the very bottom of the screen. Work on the inner side of the thin plastic rim that circumvents front and back part of the notebook screen casing.
        


3. Work your way towards the top on both sides of the screen. Three latches on either side of the screen hold the front and back parts together. Be careful not to break any of them.
4. After loosening the sides, the back panel will slide off towards the top of the screen.
   
5. Remove the white fill cover above the logo window.
   
6. Use some heat-resistant adhesive to secure the custom inlay in place.
   

The rest is straightforward reversal of the opening steps to close and finish your custom logo MBP mod.