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      Lonely? Pay some girls to game with you

      March 24, 2010 /

      Game Crush logo.There’s a new “social networking” service aimed at male gamers. When you’re feeling lonely or would just like to hear a woman’s voice on the other end of that headset you can pay for that special touch at Game Crush. The site offers pay per session interactions with attractive female gamers. You can play anything from console shooters like MW2 to a casual Flash game – just keep those hands visible, friend.

      The site launched today and is already down from the amount of traffic it received. That’s probably not interested gamers as much as it is people curious about what this sort of thing looks like. My guess? A train wreck. If anything, I hate to think of the things the poor girls working for this will be subjected to.

      Interested gamers can pay $8.25 for 500 credits, which the company says is about the price of buying a girl a drink. Not if you’re buying her PBR. That’s right, we keep it classy. Each session runs 400 credits, after which you can leave a 100 credit tip. Those sessions will typically last 10-12 minutes, less if you’re playing a Flash game. It’s a pretty stiff way to enjoy the company of a lady, but I guess getting your ass whooped in some Halo by a hot chick might fulfill someone’s wildest fantasy.

      News, Websites

      LoL: Patch day 3/24

      March 24, 2010 /

      Sub-Zero Shen.I’ll admit, this one snuck up on me. I woke up this morning to find patch notes in the Announcements forums for the Shen release. Yes, Shen went live today, along with a Heimerdinger rework I can hopefully try at some point this afternoon.

      From the looks of things (and some time on the test realm), Heimer could be quite strong. His new ultimate not only allows him to heal his turrets to full but gives those turrets a slow as well. There is still the fact that he relies on stationary targets for much of his damage output, but those targets take less time to set up and hit harder than before. I’m actually interested in trying a strange kind of support build, something potentially including Stark’s and maybe even some attack damage. It’s obviously not a high-tier build, but it could be kinda fun.

      I’ve already covered my thoughts on Shen. I’ll wait to pass much more judgement than that until we’ve actually seen him in action, but for now I still think he’s underwhelming.

      The rest of the patch is fairly minor – Udyr got a small mana buff, Ezreal got small buffs to each of his skills, including a much need 20% duration increase for Rising Spell Force. We also get Red Baron Corki in this batch, along with a new Mundo skin and two Shen skins that appear to be a tribute to Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

      The one thing I’m shocked to see is no further Jax nerf. He’s still far too strong at every stage of the game.

      Development, league of legends

      Apple bursts the mobile gaming bubble

      March 23, 2010 /

      Flurry iPhone games chart.Just look at the green slice on that pie chart. That’s exactly where Sony wishes the PSP was. Instead, it’s Apple. Yes, Apple. I never thought I would see the day that a computer manufacturer was stealing mobile market share from Nintendo but here we are. In just 21 months Apple has managed to snag 19% of the mobile market by revenue.

      It’s a pretty impressive stat, considering the lower price of software for the iPhone OS. Can you imagine the number of transactions involved? The really bad news in this story is for Sony, whose revenues are down almost 50% from last year. The PSP Go was obviously not a hit – not that anyone expected it to be – and there hasn’t been much in the way of software to encourage any newcomers to the platform.

      As far as total revenue goes, the iPhone OS is now 5% of the total market share, including consoles. If that’s not something for Apple to be happy about, I don’t know what it would take.

      Source: Flurry

      Development, Mobile Gaming

      LoL: Where are the competitive champs

      March 22, 2010 /

      One of these toons doesn't belong.I understand that balancing a game like League of Legends must be pretty tough. If you cater too much to the best players you’ll make a lot of casual players extremely unhappy. The skill ceiling for many toons will simply be too high, exacerbating the gap between competitive players and casuals. Too far in the other direction and the game seems to lack a team dynamic.

      As things currently stand, most players organize the champs into tier lists to give a sense of where they fit within a team dynamic. Since the holidays, Riot has released a fair number of champs, only one of which really makes the highest tiers – Nidalee. She’s often first pick in competitive play and typically swings the battle in a big way. With every new champion announcement I always wonder if we’ll see a new competitive champion, but it has yet to happen. Ezreal is probably the closest, but next to Nidalee he seems fairly lackluster. She has many of his benefits plus better map control and more gankability. She’s also much more mana efficient.

      In part, I think the lack of more “top tier” champions is that competitive play typically involves a ban system. Implement too strong a hero and it gets banned immediately. Since the Jax buff I see him banned first in every draft game I play and for good reason. If he gets any farm at all he kills entire teams. I would like to see the release of a some top tier champions, though. Currently the best picks for tanks are Alistar, Taric, Malphite and Amumu, probably in that order (Taric and Alistar could be reversed depending on your team). Most games see two of those banned, leaving few options for either team.

      I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for the next champion release after Shen. Shen, like Gragas, will likely be in an odd position with regard to a team. He could fit well with other AOE disable toons, like a Malphite, but there will likely be better options. Malphite ult with an Annie ult is infinitely better because of the AOE damage from Tibbers. More often than not, if you’re living for more than 10 seconds or so in a team fight it’s because your team is dying or the other team is woefully low on DPS, in which case you were likely going to win anyway.

      Development, league of legends

      LoL: Riot teases Gentleman Cho’Gath, announces another legendary Corki skin

      March 22, 2010 /

      Red Baron Corki.The Riot announcement forums have been a flurry of activity this weekend, though not for the things you might expect. Personally, I’ve been waiting on the Twisted Treeline matchmaking release every week since it debuted on the Test Realm. Instead, there was news of a café disturbance.

      The perpetrator appears to be Gentleman Cho’Gath, a long rumored/desired skin for your favorite alien champ. The post included a crude sketch of Cho in a top hat and tuxedo with a monocle and a cane. Personally, I love the skin idea, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see it release with a fairly hefty price tag.

      Speaking of hefty price tags (nice segue, no?), Riot also announced another legendary skin: Red Baron Corki. Why Corki needs two legendary skins is completely beyond me, but maybe he’s just easy to remodel. The skin drops our fearless pilot into a red biplane. It actually looks really damn cool, and one of the screenshots even featured Gentleman Cho, albeit in badly photoshopped form.

      I’m assuming we’ll see Corki in the Shen patch, but it’ll probably be some time before we get the Gentleman. Now I just need to try and win a couple tourneys for the Riot points to buy that overpriced Corki skin.

      Development, league of legends

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