Something is Afoot

You’ll see some changes to the site over the next few days. I’m not quite sure what they’ll be yet, but we’re reinventing what Max Geek is a little. Follow our Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/maxgeek to keep an eye on what we’re up to. Does this mean Max Geek is back? Yes, but we’re trying something a little different. Stay tuned for the changes, Max Geek vol. 3 is coming soon. Or maybe Max Geek 2.0 is coming soon, or maybe 3.0. Could be Max Geek the Next Generation. Maybe Max Geekier? Anyway, it’s something different that’s for sure.

We’re Not Dead Yet

I know, you’re shocked. We fell off the planet for a bit and we missed our 4 year anniversary (yikes). What can I say, we’re both to blame. Anyway, we’ll be back with a new episode soon, we promise. Now I’m going to watch the Macy’s Parade with my my daughters, everyone have a happy Thanksgiving.

President Elect Obama

I’m ready for the change.

Tags: Politics

Election

I’m watching my first election coverage of the evening right now. So far I like what I’m seeing but we all know it’s far from over. Still Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York have all been called for Obama, that’s important. I’m not going to live blog this election like I did the last one. Just a status update or two at most. Any little things I have to say I’ll post on twitter. I’m very hopeful right now.

Tags: Politics

Star Wars: The Old Republic

It’s official, there’s a new Star Wars MMO coming and it’s called Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s being developed by Bioware, the company behind Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). KOTOR is one of the most popular Star Wars games of all time. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be set in a time period 3,500 years before the Star Wars films. It’s a time where Jedi and Sith are abundant and the Republic is at the peak of its power. In short it’s the perfect setting for a Star Wars MMO made by a company that really gets the Star Wars license.

We don’t have many details at this point, in fact the details are so few I almost didn’t post this. However there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about which are promising. First of all it sounds like this is going to be a role playing game first. There’s talk about an emphasis on the personal story, in fact it sounds like it will have a strong solo aspect, since they talked about companion characters which are customizable. It sounds to me like this may be a very non-traditional MMO. Other than that all we really know is the only in game footage they showed was a pre-alpha build. That means we’re probably looking at a couple of years before release.

I’m worried that letting this cat out of the bag so long before release could be a problem. A long wait like that often sets players up for disappointment. Also any details they do release are subject to change and over reaching is common in MMOs. Still it’s too early to worry about any of that really. Hopefully we’ll see some screenshots soon, it sounds like the game will have a striking visual style, concept art come to life was one of the terms used.

Anyway, I followed Star Wars Galaxies for 3 years, I’ll definitely be keeping up with SW:TOR.

Tags: Gaming, News and Updates

It’s Not For You To Decide

Remember that Apple debacle with the software kill switch? The one that was hidden. The one that Apple claimed was to remove malicious software. Well Google just fessed up to having something similar in Android. Now even I cut Apple some slack because I could see it being used to remove malicious software. Google however is a little more vague about what they’re going to use it for. Here’s what Google said.

“Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement … in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion”

Wow, that sounds a lot more ominous. I mean this doesn’t sound like it’s about viruses. Frankly I don’t trust Googles agreements. Google is a big fan of quietly slipping in things that are consumer unfriendly in those agreements and while I haven’t read the agreement (not for lack of trying, all I could find was the SDK license agreement) it worries me. I’m sorry but the software I want to run on my device is my damn choice. This is one thing Microsoft gets right, they don’t forceably remove software, you don’t have to run the malicious software tool. I mean this is an open source OS, isn’t the point to be able to run whatever we want. I can understand Apple, but Google?

I should mention that Google has promised to attempt to recover your original purchase price from the developer. Actually that part worries me more than anything. I paid for software and they want to remove it?  None of their damn business. If they want to check for viruses and social engineering scams great, give me the option to opt out of their interference. Frankly I don’t need their help and I don’t want it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Google has abandoned their original mission statement, do no evil. Now their goal seems to be to do no evil as long as it’s convenient and doesn’t limit our control over everything. Google is rapidly becoming the new evil empire. While Microsoft is trying (although not always very successfully) to correct their past mistakes, Google has embraced their power we all know power corrupts.

Tags: News and Updates, Technology

Short Casts?

So I was thinking. What would people think of really short (like 5 or 10 minute) casts a couple times a week with just some news and a little commentary. Most likely this would just be me riffing (unless Jeff wants in). Maybe just rant casts. Something like that. Any thoughts?

Spore DRM, Taking it Down a Notch

OK, EA isn’t stupid. They’re taking some steps to loosen up the DRM of Spore. The first thing they’re addressing is install limit, it’s being increased to 5. By itself that’s useless really, but that’s not all their doing. They’re taking steps to allow deauthorization without calling EA tech support. So that helps that issue and will make it acceptable to many people (probably not Jeff though ). They other issue they’re taking care of is the number of accounts. Instead of the previous one per copy of the game they’re upping it to 5, one for each install. This should be more than enough for most families so I’d say that one is a win. Still, is this enough?

Well I think the changes are enough for those people in the general populous who weren’t buying the game, but it won’t be enough for the geeks who are already taking a stand against the game. They’re not going to change their minds for anything short of dropping the DRM. The thing is, it may already be too late to fix the good will they lost. › Continue reading

Google, Game On?

So, the latest rumor on the interwebtubes is that Google will be purchasing Valve. For those of you who don’t know, Valve is the game design company behind the Half Life series of games. Now Valve did mention recently that they would be interested in talking acquisition. Does this rumor make any sense? Is there any reason for Google to do it? What could this mean for Half Life? Did John McCain invent the Blackberry? Is Jimmy Hoffa buried in Larry Page’s backyard?

Does this rumor even make any sense? I mean what could Google want with a game company? Especially a 3D first person shooter (FPS) game company. Googles traditional roles in the industry have been about information and advertising. This would be the first time they got into a strictly for profit software venture. I mean advertising is for profit, but that’s not what I mean. This would be the first time Google would straight up charge for their product. Unless of course they go free, which with a license like Half Life, sorry, it just isn’t happening. I mean I can see a 2D webbased game company being bought by Google to release totally free ad supported games. But with an FPS game, there’s too much overhead for that. So why?

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A Few Changes

I actually changed my mind, I’ll just use the article break tag and leave the RSS feeds as is. I didn’t like how short the summaries ended up being. So the main page should be cleaned up but RSS feeds should remain unchanged.