Looks like I’ve neglected the old personal blog again. Some random observations:

Finally got to play Red Dead Redemption, and quickly formed the dissenting opinion that it’s boring. High production values are worth something, but once you realize the scope of the actual action entails dead-simple shooting and listless horse riding, there’s just not much to do but run around and gamble. I will say that I enjoyed schooling everyone in Five-Finger Fillet. I also enjoy saying “Five Finger Fillet” in a country-western accent.

Got a strange urge to buy Fight Night Round 3 for $8 at GameStop. Like always, my rise to glory was halted by freakin’ Sugar Ray Leonard. I can’t explain this game’s ability to sway me psychologically, to the highest highs and lowest lows. I don’t even like sports games.

Someone sent me a really nice complement about my article on the Dell Streak’s sloppy non-launch.

Then I made a short list of my favorite video game music, making it public record that I have a weird taste in video game music.

I saw some interesting apps this week at the LA App Show. I’d maybe download Moe’s Notes if I was in more casual multimedia note-taking situations. I would not download Glee for iPad, but that has nothing to do with the app’s quality.

At Daring Fireball, John Gruber takes issue with a wonky piece that I wrote for Technologizer about Google Pac-Man. The game was created with HTML and Javascript, which I read as a subtle jab at Apple. Here’s the quote Gruber pulls:

“So, you can look at Google Pac-Man for iPhone two ways: The more benign explanation is that Google on some level agrees with Apple, and wanted to create a version of Pac-Man that was as widely accessible as possible and not as resource-intensive as Flash. I prefer to think that Google’s beating Apple at its own game by creating a version of Pac-Man that runs nicely on the iPhone without App Store approval.”

And his response:

“If using real web technologies instead of Flash is a “jab at Jobs” and “beating Apple at its own game”, then what would it have been if Google had instead created the whole thing using Flash? Does Newman think Apple is opposed to web-based software in general?”

Since Gruber left the door open, I say “not yet.” Native apps rule now, and Gruber himself notes that controlling the native app ecosystem is what keeps the iPhone OS unique from other platforms.

But what if Web apps become just as capable as native apps using the standards Apple supports? That’s a threat to Apple’s ecosystem too, and I believe we’ll see Google exploit this more with time. It started with Google Voice, continues with Google Pac-Man and will probably happen again with Google Editions.

This is what I mean by “beating Apple at its own game”. HTML and JavaScript, endorsed by Apple, give Google unrestricted access to iPhone OS users. Flash would give Google no access at all.

I’m happy with this punchy little post on Technologizer that ponders the fate of Halo in the wake of Bungie’s exclusive development deal with Activision. Personally, I’m thrilled to see Bungie shake things up — a little wary given Activision’s tendency to milk franchises dry, but optimistic — as it’s about time the developer rejuvenated itself with some new IP. Here’s hoping it’s not Marathon, which isn’t new at all.

Jared: “what is the point of this game if there is no consequence for dying?”
Teammate: “idk lol”
Teammate: “to level up”
Jared: “sigh”

-Chat during Pocket Legends, a free to play MMO for iPad. I’m deleting the game and playing Progress Wars instead.

It’s been all about Apple lately, and I’m just about ready for it to stop. Not necessarily because there isn’t more to be said about the company and what it’s trying to do, but because it’s discouraging to see the vast amounts of people that only read commentary to have their preconceptions validated. And Apple, for whatever reason, brings out the worst feelings in a lot of people.

In the meantime, here’s an article I wrote for Technologizer about iPhone Game Center. Kind of puzzling that no other phone or mobile game console is doing this kind of social networking layer already.

Like every other tech blogger out there, I wrote way too many articles about the iPad. It is a beast that cannot be satisfied, as one editor put it. Here are a few of my favorite posts: For MyCE, a brief review. It’s more of a statement on why I, or anyone, would buy the thing, and why it’s an important product. For Technologizer, some thoughts about how the big touchscreen saves the idea of the touchscreen as a legitimate input device for gaming. For PCWorld, an observation that the iPad App Store is notably missing crap apps like iFart and iBeer, going to the more general point that the iPad’s most popular apps are more serious compared to the iPhone. Oh, I wrote this blog post on the iPad. Tumblr, props to you for a wonderfully designed mobile site.

Obviously, I let the Newmanfeed fall by the wayside. When you write roughly 10 articles a day, you want to relax, not link dump. So I’m going to abandon that practice, along with my old blog, from which I’ve drifted away for similar reasons.

Here, I hope to post a smaller running sample of work. Not necessarily the best of the best, just whatever strikes me as worth sharing. Perhaps I’ll also get a chance to open up a bit more on the process, on the occasion that Twitter’s character limits don’t cut it. Why now? Because I just redesigned my Web site.

So let’s start with something light: Horse Gaga. I was a little late to the party on this (two days in the gaming blogosphere are like two years for the mainstream press, as evidenced by the renewed controversy over Rapelay, but I digress) which meant I had to put in a little extra effort to make GamerCrave’s story special. And that meant I had to fuse Lady Gaga’s head to a horse’s body in Pixlr. Yes, 21st century journalism requires a new skill set. Unfortunately, Lady HorseGa Photoshop is not it.