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Friday, August 29, 2008
‘Little Known Facts’ about Sarah Palin (Meme alert!)
Little Known Fact: On Friday, Sarah Palin became a Twitter phenomenon.
Moments after news outlets began putting the spotlight on the Alaskan governor who would be chosen as John McCain’s running mate, users of the microblogging service Twitter.com began posting anything they could find online about the candidate for vice president.
As Palin’s Wikipedia.com entry grew, Twitter commenters began posting tidbits about Palin’s political views, her family and anything else they could find.
Within hours, the facts began to get fuzzy. Not long after, a series of “Tweets” about Palin took a Chuck Norris turn: prefaced by the words, “Little Known Fact,” posters began making up silly facts.
Among the best:
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin CAN touch MC Hammer.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is Batman.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin has a brother in England who is a professional fish-slapping dancer.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin invented SPAM.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin was a ghost the WHOLE TIME!”
“Little Known Fact: Even Sarah Palin didn’t know who Sarah Palin was until today.”
So goes the “Little known fact” meme — like past Internet-spawned jokes, it spread like wildfire, spawning hundreds of responses within hours.
Little Known Fact: Most of Twitter will probably be sick of Sarah Palin Known Facts by Monday.
(To search for the latest “Little Known Facts” about Sarah Plain on Twitter, click here.)
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Video game review: ‘Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2’
The first “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved” game was so good it was one of the best, first reasons to own an Xbox 360. A cheap, infinitely replayable game, “Retro Evolved” was a space shooters with simple controls: one analog stick controlled movement, the other shooting (plus a shoulder trigger for screen-clearing smartbombs).
Its mix of easy controls and increasingly frenetic gameplay made it the first must-own title of the fledgling Xbox Live Arcade service.
Almost three years later, how do you improve on a game that spawned a whole subgenre of dual-stick arcade shooters? Game developer Bizarre Creations wisely doesn’t mess up the formula that made the first “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved” game a success, but adds so many new takes on the original game that no fan of the first game will want to pass it up.
In “Geometry Wars; Retro Evolved 2,” the original “Evolved” mode is still here, but it has of course been tweaked to make it even more frantic and lovely. The high-definition graphics, already neon-blinding in the original, have been made more dynamic with brighter explosions and a larger variety of enemies. The music, a propulsive disco-techno soundtrack, actually distorts according to the gameplay: when your ship explodes, the music warps and slows and then comes right back as a new ship appears.
The biggest change in this game mode is the addition of “Geomes,” small particles that appear when you blast away enemies. Retrieving them before they disappear fuels your power-ups and increases your score. It’s a simple change, but it creates an entirely new dynamic. Instead of simply avoiding enemies and firing at them, you’ll want to go back into contested areas to pick up as many geomes as you can.
New modes include the hair-pulling “Pacifism,” in which all weapons are disabled; the only way to destroy enemies is to pass through exploding gates. In “King” mode, the player has only one life and must navigate to safe-zone circles on screen. Outside of those zones, which start to disappear after a few seconds of use, weapons are disabled. In “Sequence,” short levels must be completed in 30 seconds, and the player must survive all the levels. And in “Deadline,” it’s a race to get the highest score in three minutes.
None of the new modes would make a particularly strong stand-alone game, but taken together, they make “Retro Evolved 2” a fantastic package. And one more very smart design choice makes the package even better: for each mode, the high scores of your Xbox Live friends is displayed constantly, always giving you something to strive for. Think gamers no longer care about game scores? Check out the insanely high scores on the “Retro Evolved 2” leaderboards.
The other major addition is local multiplayer. While its disappointing that you can’t play with online friends, you can at least add up to three friends on the couch to play competing or cooperative modes. I found the action to be dizzying even with only one additional player, but it’s a nice feature to have, especially if you have a large HDTV.
Just like its predecessor, “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2” is a no-brainer purchase for anyone with an Xbox 360 and a Live account. It’s space shooting at its addictive, basic best.
“Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2”
$10, Xbox Live Arcade
Rated E for Everyone
(Screenshots below, plus a little video I made showing the fear you’ll hear in your head while playing the game.)
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