Slow News Thursday
Not exactly the hottest day for gaming news. So for your entertainment, here are some of today's least essential PC gaming stories:
Out From The Cold
With remarkable timing, the recent revived Microïds have launched a website for the Syberia series of games. That would be Syberia from 2002 (a surprisingly decent point and click adventure) and Syberia II from 2004 (a surprisingly tedious point and click adventure). Four years zip by, and now they've got a website! (From which you can buy and download either for €15 - the first one's worth a go if you're an adventure fan. If you're not, you'll hate its mobile-phoney-clockworky-walk-back-and-forthy nonsense).
Crossed Lines
Crossfire, a new multiplayer FPS for PC due this Autumn has revealed its first screenshots. Which look awfully familiar.
We're not suggesting anything improper at all. And apparently the game is already a huge success in Korea, and interestingly, Vietnam. We are, however, going to suggest that this line from the game's site isn't all that sensible:
"The game boasts sophisticated graphics while using a unique system allowing the game to run smoothly even on low-end PCs."
Casual Junkies
According the a survey carried out by King - a site that takes casual games and then has players bet on themselves... wait, no, not bet.. gamble... no not that, um, place money that they will perform better at the game of skill than the others and then win the money the others placed at the end? - women are crazed casual game junkies. They don't quite put it like that. They invited five of their female players, aged between 34 and 71, as had them speak as a panel at the Casual Connect games conference in Seattle. Using all the science available, they draw some remarkable conclusions based on this vast pool of five people:
• While statistics state women typically spend 7.4 hours per week playing games, the panelists cited they play between 5 and 10 hours per day
• Playing casual games is often the first thing women do when they wake up. They check their ranking and play for between 2-3 hours every morning
• Trivia games are played with the family while action games are played alone
• Women are increasingly playing to compete against each other and not simply to relax. All panelists cited “competition” as their driving motivation
• While community was an important aspect of their online playing experience, none of the panelists had a Facebook profile and two had a MySpace profile
5 to 10 hours a DAY? These women need help! Swap "games" for "heroin" and see how it reads! (Hey - if they can draw conclusions worthy of a press release from a sample size of five, I can make ridiculous hyperbolic straw man arguments like that, right?) These people don't have time to create profiles on Facebook. It's valuable definitely-not-gambling on Chuzzle time, OKAY? This is the best bit of unscientific nonsense I've seen in so long. I'm just going to take a survey to find out what are the most common names in the world. I'm asking me... 100% of people are called John Walker!