This is not game development related at all, but it is so incredibly cool that I just have to talk about it. I religiously watch Diggnation every week. It’s a video podcast in wich Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht talk about the most popular stories that appeared on the social news website Digg that week. From time to time, they do a live show. Most of the time, of course, this happens in the United States, and I live in Belgium. And no matter how much I would want to attend a live show, I’m not gonna fly all the way to America to see Diggnation Live.
A few months ago, they did a live episode in London. At first I was very excited about this, until I found out there was no way I could attend it. If it was in the weekend it would have been possible, but it wasn’t, and I couldn’t get two days off at work. Big disappointment! But today, they made a very interesting announcement: THEY ARE COMING TO AMSTERDAM! Kevin and Alex will do a live show at the Next Web 2008 conference on april 3. I am SO gonna be there, oh yeah! Even if I can’t get a day off at work I can still make it and get back home in time to get to work the next day (april 3 is on a thursday).

First of all, a very happy new year everybody. It’s been a kick ass year for me (I started this website and finally managed to put a game together and publish it, and I got a new computer!). No new year’s resolutions for me, though! Everyone makes the same stupid promises each year and forgets about them in no time. Everyone’s gonna stop smoking, lose weight, exercise more, write a book, you know the drill. I never do that because I know well enough nobody ever keeps these promises.
Here’s what excites me the most about New Year: it’s the beginning of the Wintereenmas holiday season! You probably think WTF? now, so allow me to explain what it’s all about. Wintereenmas is a holiday by and for gamers. It was invented by Tim Buckley, the creator of Ctrl-Alt-Delete, one of the most popular webcomics. Originally, it was just used as a joke in his comics, but it didn’t take long before his readers actually started to celebrate it in real life!
So when is it? Wintereenmas itself takes place from january 25th to januari 31st, but the Wintereenmas (or Wemas, as it’s also called) season spans the entire month of january. How is it celebrated? Giving gifts is frowned upon. Wintereenmas is a non-commercial holiday and it should stay so. Instead, do geeky things! Play video games, watch anime, read comics, and most of all: be proud of your geekyness! This year, I’m gonna try to play Zelda: Twilight Princess from start to finish in one session. Won’t be easy, since it took me six weeks to finish the first time I played it, but since I know all the puzzles and secrets now I hope so succeed.

I rented the Doom movie from the local video shop this weekend. Most of the time, movies made from video games suck. So far, the only one I enjoyed was Resident Evil (probably because it had Milla Jovovich). Doom, however, was for the most part another disappointment. First of all, the story was different from the game. And the game didn’t have much story to begin with, and even then they decided to change it!
So what was the game about? An experiment with teleportation devices on Mars goes wrong and opens the gates of hell, sending demons through the portals. What happens in the movie? Some sort of genetic experiment turns humans into zombie-like creatures. Why couldn’t they just stick with the original story? No, they just had to borrow ideas from Resident Evil.
So what elements of the game have been kept? The leader of the assault squad is named “Sarge”, wich was one of the enemies in the game. The BFG is included (it’s called the “Big Force Gun”, however, instead of the “Big Fucking Gun”). One of the researchers is professor Carmack, wich is, as we all know, one of the developers of Doom. Towards the end of the movie, someone turns into a creature that looks like the Shambler from the game. One part that made the movie a bit less disappointing was a scene towards the end that was shot in first-person view, like the game. Overall, however, not recommended.