In other news, E3 just passed and unfortunately, there wasn’t much to look at this year. The centrepiece of the expo, Microsoft Kinect (formerly known by its working name, Project Natal), was revealed via interpretive dance performed by Cirque du Soleil (I wish I was joking). The Sony EyeToy Microsoft Kinect promises to revolutionize the console gaming experience. Personally, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

On the other hand, Valve showed off Portal 2 at E3 and my god, it is beautiful. Pushing aside the new features they’ve added to Portal’s already innovative gameplay, there appear to have been some drastic changes to Source’s lighting engine. The videos show off some complex and rather beautiful dynamic lighting which look completely unlike what the current release of the source engine is capable of. Portal 2 is due for release in 2011. I’ll leave you with IGN’s Portal 2 walkthrough videos from E3.

Some significant events have occurred over the last two months regarding Australia’s IT industry. AFACT lost their lawsuit against iiNet. AFACT appealed the decision despite the fact that judge Cowdroy explicitly stated that “… it is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement…”

Meanwhile, Michael Atkinson stepped back from the front bench, giving up his position as South Australia Attorney-General for personal reasons right after he was re-elected. The move was significant because Atkinson has been the main opponent against the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games. Australia remains the only western country without an adult’s only classification which has prevented more intense games from being sold here. A move to amend the current classification system has to be unanimously accepted by all Australia’s attorneys-general which essentially gives any one of them the power to veto such a move. Now that Atkinson has stepped back there’s much higher chance of an adults only rating being introduced.

Speaking of games, Splinter Cell Conviction is finally being released next week after being delayed countless times since its original release date of late 2007. Being a huge fan of the Splinter Cell series, I will be sure to pick up a copy either on steam, Xbox, or both. There is a demo available on Xbox Live Marketplace, which I have of course played repeatedly.

Portal 2 will also be coming out later this year which will be great fun. Valve has apparently found a way to implement cooperative multiplayer in a way that’s fun and challenging, which is fantastic. The news on the Portal sequel has sparked a renewed level of activity in the portal mapping community. I might write a Portal related Hammer tutorial soon, so stay tuned.

Speaking of unfulfilled promises, that carve tool article still hasn’t been published. It is of course, my prerogative, to blame the aforementioned delay on preparing my machine for Windows 7. It should be on the site later today, so stay tuned if you’re waiting for that.

The board originally refused classification for Left 4 Dead 2 last month, which forced Valve to appeal the decision and quickly throw together a less graphic version of the game in order to meet the November release date. The three-person panel, which voted unanimously to refuse classification to Left 4 Dead 2, explained their reasoning in a press release made available today on the board’s website.

The computer game [Left 4 Dead 2] contains a level of violence which is high in impact, prolonged, repeated frequently and realistic within the context of the game.

In addition, it was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters. This was a major consideration of the Review Board in determining the impact of this game on minors.

The decision has reignited the debate concerning Australia’s lack of an R 18+ rating for video games. Video game classification in Australia remains the strictest of all classified media due to its lack of an R 18+ rating. Valve plans to submit a modified version of the game to the board for review.

Okay so it’s been just under three months since I last posted and that has been for a variety of reasons, which I will now outline.

I was briefly sucked back into the world of MMOs, first by playing EVE Online and then World of Warcraft soon after. I managed to get a Hyperion in EVE (a battleship roughly 1.7 kilometres in length) and a level 80 Death Knight in World of Warcraft. Having achieved these goals and essentially selling two months of my life to CCP and Blizzard, I decided I was done with these games for now.

I’ve also had some web hosting and development work for various people that I’ve been dealing with and I’ve been writing a DirectAdmin skin for the guys over at Honest Networks.

On that note, I’d like to say that writing skins for DirectAdmin is a bitch. The fact that there appears to be a relatively high demand for DirectAdmin skins with very few people making them seems to reflect this. The skinning system works, but it’s unnecessarily complicated. You can read more about it over at http://www.directadmin.com/skins.html.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on IRC as I’ve been writing an IRC bot in C#. I may or may not cover some of that in the coming weeks but who knows.

I also received a whole a bunch of messages and emails in regards to the SketchUp video I made, there seems to be a substantial amount of people who can’t find the plug-ins that are ostensibly now included with the regular SDK. Not to worry, you can still download them right here by clicking this link:

http://files.nacimota.com/sketchup_plugins.zip

Speaking of Hammer, I’ve got an article I’m planning to write covering the use of the carve tool, probably the most controversial tool in Hammer. It won’t be particularly long so that should pop up on this page soon.

Speaking of games, I’ve heard whispers of a rumour that Blizzard is planning to roll out the Starcraft 2 beta within the next month or two, but I take that with a grain of salt. Should we be selected to participate, I’ll chronicle the experience in its own post. You can opt-in for the beta by creating an account at Battle.net and changing your profile settings.

Stick around, more stuff coming soon.

http://www.vitocassisi.com/archives/58

We might drag some of our older content out of the cupboard, but for the most part, we’ll be starting fresh. Should see some new articles soon, so stick around.