Penn’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has long housed an enormous collection of priceless wonders from an all-star list of ancient civilizations — Romans, Greeks and the Imperial Chinese among them. Saturday, the museum hosted another of the world’s great wonders: An eclectic and thorough collection of the world’s best Christmas beers. Jubilantly, I glided past three floors of priceless historic artifacts to arrive at the Philadelphia Christmas Beer Fest.
The festival was held on the third floor with the Egyptian artifacts — appropriate, given that King Tut and the other pharaohs reportedly liked to have a pint now and again. A massive volunteer staff guarded the entrance from a small group of beer enthusiasts awaiting entry, and it soon became clear the $75 asking price for a ticket to the event ($150 for VIP privileges) brought more than just a healthy selection of Christmas brews: There were folks to take your jacket or pour your beer while you gorged yourself on the buffet of meats, cheeses, fruits and spreads.
Less than a five minute walk away from my apartment on Spring Garden, just up Ridge Avenue, sits “The Ridge Center”, Philadelphia’s main intake for single, homeless men. During the course of a Saturday afternoon, fellow Temple journalism student John Kopp and I headed over to the Ridge Center to ask folks some questions, interview the center’s director and document the ongoing work that the center does. In the interview above, we talked to Don Myers, the Ridge Center’s newly appointed director, about a variety of topics. He explained to us how the center handles the heavy influx of first-time visitors during the winter season, some of the outreach programs the center participates in and how the organization works on a day-to-day basis. We used this package as part of a larger package we did for a class at Temple University, the dreaded MURL (Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab), and I thought it was worth reusing, as well as something I’m proud to have on my portfolio site as one of my clips.
The second installation of our trip to NY Games Conference finds us connecting with our younger selves. Though our younger selves had it much rougher than these whipper snappers. "I had to fight that monkey in the sleet and snow, while jumping over barrels, running uphill, both ways." So what do today’s youth think about video games? Apparently they’re not as cool as "Hanging out with friends."
What will the next console generation be about? Bigger? Better? The arms race continued? Or a streamlining of current products? Will there even be another console? *Gasp* Industry execs muse on the future of video game consoles, and push the limits of human egotism to its very edge.
The crew at QP took a long and unnecessary hiatus over the past month (primarily writingotherplaces, ahem) but we promise you such a thing won’t happen again (lest we get pulled away to work on the Peter Jackson/Halo project or something — the likelihood of which is akin to being flown into by an F-117 Nighthawk… in Canada). Regardless, Senior Videologist/Modern Lover/QP Writer Shawn Annable pointed us to an outrageous game over at Kongregate.com (a site we’ve pimped many a time before) that reminds us very much of something we’ve only played at E3 — Little Big Planet.
Though slightly more cumbersome to control (at least when using a MacBook touchpad) than LBP, Fantastic Contraption offers level-after-level of puzzle solving using only five items and the ability to manipulate those items (as well as delete them). We were quickly sucked into it’s grips, unable to escape the tautological argument my brain kept making — “Just one more level, then I’ll stop.” In fact, between this and the ridiculous virtual garden we’ve been upkeeping (review up on Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise by mid-week), there’s hardly time to write about any of this videogame business. Yipes! We assure you though: consider this our return to regular posting form.
Mirror’s Edge, the first-person action game that is totally going to rock my socks, will be released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 11. That’s under two months away! Oh my. Unfortunately, PC gamers won’t be getting it until “later in the winter.” For me, “late winter” is around May, but I’m assuming that the folk’s at EA’s studio DICE have a bit more rational weather than I do up here in the mountains. Anyway, back to Mirror’s Edge - we covered the game during E3, posting some screenshots as well as some initial impressions. Full press release thingy-ma-jig after the jump.
It has been exactly one week without an Xbox 360 and I’ve ventured into this thing people call “life”. Let me tell you it’s a terrifying world where people swim the english channel, adopt twins and become president. One thing I’ve learned this week: UPS doesn’t have a tracking system sophisticated enough to satisfy my constant check-ups with the Box abroad.
It happened. Brady tears his ACL and now I have to endure life without 360 for the next two to three weeks. And so I will document my experience in three parts. Firstly, the initial experience, secondly, life without the box, and thirdly, the return. So without further ado…. Firstly.
The water in Viking: Battle for Asgard is phenomenal. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve seen better water in this generation, even in a Team Ninja product. I could just set on a plateau and stare out over the sea for hours. They really did a good job with the water. Oh what’s that you say? You want to hear about the game? Well, if so, meet me in Valhalla after the jump.
In what Harmonix and MTV Games are calling an “industry first” Rock Band 2 users will be able to export the 55 songs Rock Band “Le Firste” and play them on the most recent version.
Finally, a company that isn’t trying to rip you off at every turn with updates, lack of backwards compatibility and marketing tricks, right? Wrong.
