SimCity makes it back to life, almost
Happy news for the hundreds of thousands of SimCity owners: the game is almost fully up and running. After a week that was plagued with incredible server issues, in which EA had seemingly no way of predicting the massive amount of online play for a game that is always online, the company looks to have their game related problems in check.
“I’m happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us,” Lucy Bradshaw of Maxis writes in a message on the company’s blog. They’re close to getting an “All-Clear” on the resolution, with crashes down 92% and almost everyone able to finally get in to the game.
The bigger issue lies in the residuals of this mess: how will EA restore faith in its games’ fans, including the upcoming Battlefield 4, and how will consumers react to future always-on games? Right now its probably best to be cautious until our country’s online capabilities make it out of 2006.
[Source: EA]
The Xi3 Piston “Steambox” goes up for preorder
Those looking to get their hands on the first “Steambox” may be in luck… if they have the cash for it. Xi3’s Piston is the first licensed Valve Steam-focused devices to hit the market, coming in at $999. Ordering between now an March 17th chops $100 off the price in a special SXSW promotion. The computer comes with 128 giggles of SSD hard drive space, 8GB RAM, and a quad-core 3.2 GHz processor. The boxes should arrive “in time for the 2013 holiday season” where they’ll assuredly be competing with the Playstation 4 and a new Xbox.
If you’ve got a chunk of change to drop, head on over to Xi3’s order page.
Marvel gives away 700 free digital comics
Some people have all the fun at SXSW. Marvel is included in that group, as the company announced during a panel yesterday that they’re giving away — for a limited time — 700 free digital comic books through Comixology apps and online. These include several of the Marvel NOW! #1 issues, classic issues, Avengers vs X-Men, and more.
Hurry and hit the apps, since the servers are having some incredible issues and can’t keep up with demand.
Wait, have we heard about that happening before somewhere?
[Source: Marvel]
Pauline rescues Mario from Donkey Kong in one father’s gift to his daughter
Coding dads make the rest of us look bad. One father, Mike Mika, witnessed as his daughter was saddened as she couldn’t play as a female character in Nintendo’s classic Donkey Kong game, so took it upon himself to hack the code. Now, Pauline rescues Mario from the ape’s clutches, as the sprites between the two characters are basically switched.
Time for me to learn C++.
[Source: reddit via Ars Technica]
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