If you own a smartphone and play the occasional game (or addicted to them) you probably heard of Angry Birds – A puzzle video game developed by Rovio in which the player is using a slingshot to launch the birds at structure, with the intent of either hitting the pig enemies directly or damaging the structure, which would cause it to collapse onto the pigs and eliminating them.

Rovio, the developers of Angry Birds, has admitted that it can’t get the game to run with “optimal performance” on all Android phones, which basically means, that if you own one of the older phones running Android, it may not be able to run the games smoothly. In a blog post, the company listed 17 handsets that are not officially supported, and said it was creating a special lightweight version of the game for these phones. This is not to be confused with the beta version of the game, which is also called lite. This new “lite” version will have all the same levels and options, only it will be optimized for “less than optimal” devices.

This move by Rovio ignited some additional controversy around Steve Jobs rant about platform fragmentation on Apple’s last earnings call. What Steve Jobs neglected to mention is that running current applications on older platforms may always be problematic, simply because older platforms have less processing power to run current applications, in the same way the first generation iPhone will not be able to run all iPhone 4 designed applications. Every platform has shifts that break old application compatibility. It happened to Apple’s Mac again and again, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile in the shift to Windows Phone 7 and many other platforms.

Thumbs up to Rovio for supporting their release so strongly. With the huge buzz around their first and only released game so far, I hope they will use that momentum to develop additional great games for multiple platforms.

French wholesaler MCA Technology signed a deal with SEGA that allows it to sell old SEGA consoles and build new ones based on existing technology, starting with the SM 4000. With that license, MCA Technology will complete its product offering and confirms its status as a specialist in the world of multimedia and addresses a not so new but neglected target group in the video game world: The nostalgic gamer.

The first product made available by MCA Technology is the hand-held SM-4000 SD with 20 built in games on memory card, the games include titles like Sonic and Strike Fighters, Golden Axe, Crack Down, Flicky, Columns III, Jewel Master, Alien Storm and many more. This is an excellent initiative and in a low price for those who just want to remember the good old times.

The device is very light and has a 2.8″ (7cm) good quality backlit color screen, SD slot, a built-in rechargeable battery and includes an A/V cable used to connect the console to a TV (you can use the TV screen instead of the built-in screen). The device quality is pretty good though not as high as premium devices, the battery lasts for about 6-10 hour of gaming and uses a mini USB port to recharge (3 hours charge time) or to connect to a PC.

Aside from the 20 built in games you can install up to 2GB of games on the SD card that might fit the entire game library which consist of a total of 915 games. It is important to remember that the device support only the BIN format so if you have any games in MDS or other format they must be converted to BIN first.

It does have some negatives though. Obviously it’s a limited device with a set library of games that will not change. Only the hardware is emulated, which means that some titles might not work, though the number of the titles is very limited. In some games you may find the sound is not up to par with the original or other games. The frequency is very slow when playing with TV output (below the traditional 50hz).

This is a great device for enthusiasts and for nostalgic gamers, if you’re not looking for the most advanced graphics and sound while wishing to play in some of the fantastic old style quality games and some of the games that shaped the industry, this is a device for you.

I’m not a big gamer, actually I’m not a gamer at all. I do play games occasionally, my favorite genre is Strategy and one of my favorite games in this genre is Civilization. I’ve played the original game back in 1991 up until the last expansion of Civilization release in 2007. As the game developed and time passed, I played less and less of it (well, you know, life gets in the way, work, wife, children, …)

Now, 2K games and Firaxis (Sid Meier’s gaming company) announced the impending release of Sid Meier’s Civilization V (also known as Civilization 5) in the last quarter of 2010 (Some rumors claim September). Given that the last proper Civilization title (Civilization IV) came out five years ago, this is welcome news for all the game’s fans.

Civilization V will feature a new combat system, hexagonal map tiles, a completely new engine, and full-screen diplomacy and more. As many other games in recent years it will also include built-in community features, modding and multiplayer elements. Many other changes and developments have been made to the game, as we got used to expect. It has been confirmed there will be eighteen civilizations available out of the box and all leaders will speak their native tongue.

The niche social networks are starting to thrive all over the internet. Students, sports, adults, you name it, every typical common interest has it’s own social network. Raptr is here for gamers.

Raptr which is launching today tries to be a central location for friends who want to play together, and for gamers to find new gaming partners. Raptr helps track games you want to play on your PC or on any of the three major game systems, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Using their platform users can lets their friends know what they are playing or set up game sessions in advance. It will also publishes game skill levels or other game specific related information. Raptr uses available APIs to hookup other common social networks like Facebook or Twitter to send out alerts about current activities.

Aside from the social network itself, Raptr also has a desktop software client that keeps PC-based games up to date behind the scenes – patches and updates are downloaded automatically. Raptr intends to support about a thousand different games from all different developers.

Raptr business strategy is to generate income by selling ads and sponsorships. By owning a very focused niche advertisers can specifically target the network users. Founder Dennis Fong says the company will also be announcing some deals soon to bundle Raptr software with some PC games.

The CES show last month, had it’s share of rumors and gossip. Now, one of the less popular rumors seems to prove itself as true. When it comes to Sony products you can never really know, but according to a well-informed insider, looks like Sony is getting ready to unveil an all new PlayStation 3. The new version will be slimmer, lighter and sexier than it’s earlier sibling.

Sony have a history of making things slimmer and lighter, the first PlayStation, Playstation 2 and the PSP all shed a lot of its weight as later version appeared on the market.

The specs of the new machine are suppose to be similar of the current version, or at least to the American version of it. I wouldn’t be shocked if the new version will include the much hyped 160GB hard drive.

So far, Sony refused to comment on any “rumors and speculation”, but that’s exactly what they say to any kind of speculation prior to official release.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is the most talked about and anticipated game expansion ever made. The releaseddate was set to be end of 2006 with no other details about an exact date, thats how it’s been for a long while. For some reason, I’m not very surprised to hear the following statement:

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”

Blizzard began the closed-beta phase of testing on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade earlier this month. The January 2007 release window will allow extra time for current beta testers to participate in the final stages of development and continue providing valuable feedback.

Further information on specific worldwide release dates, pricing, and other details will be announced in the near future.

As any gamer know, tweaking games and content can be a gruesome work that require a lot of time and patience. Though WOW players eagerly await the expansion, the fact that Blizzard is pushing the release date beyond the nearing holiday shopping season, may indicate that they take the tweaking and testing of the new expansion very seriously. Seriously enough to miss the biggest shopping season of the year. Or it might just indicate that they have enough confidence in the new release to believe that it will not affect sales.

This is good news to other publishers trying to get their games noticed during the next couple of months.

Even though Sony has announced a global launch of the PlayStation 3 gaming console, a new official statement from Sony indicate different plans. The console will not be available in Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia until March next year. According to an official statement the decision to postpone the launch date was taken following the delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode within the Sony Group, thus affecting the timely procurement of key components to be utilised in PlayStation 3.

In August, Sony confirmed that the PlayStation 3 is already in full production. This means that PS3 is on track of meeting the goal of debuting in Japan on November 11, and on November 17 in United States.

Sony announced in the past that it will have 2 million consoles available during the launch window and ship 4 million PS3s worldwide by the end of 2006. By March 2007 the company plans to supply 6 million. Regardless of the delayes, these objectives were confirmed during today’s press conference in Tokyo.

What I dont understand is why while meeting the objects Sony still delays the luanch in so many markets?

With the influx of news about game consoles in the last few days (attributed to E3, of course), this is a special edition of the Daily Friction with updates about anything and everything among the latest news on game consoles hardware, games, prices and other information.
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While browsing the hardware device managers on my workstation, I discovered an alarming “device”, this device is the Starforce software. Starforce is a very controversial copy-protection system by a Russian development company named Protection Technology. Various reports about malfunctioning CDROM devices, slower burning processes, unstable Windows systems and corrupted drivers surfaced after installing a video game, that includes Starforce.

This situation made many gamers wary of this copy protection technology and the games which include it. There are also reports of customers who claim the Starforce-protected games refuse to work on notebooks. Unwilling to take chances, I feel that Starforce-protected games should not be supported in any way, as the risk of undesired side-effects and dangers to computers is simply too high. The problem is that publishers don’t state what type of copy protection they use and it’s not clear from which games we should avoid.

How does it work?

StarForce is believed to operate by measuring the physical angle between the first and last written sector on the CD. This will be identical on all copies pressed from the gold master but is at present difficult to reproduce when burning a duplicate CD. In addition, StarForce uses blacklists of optical drive emulation programs such as Daemon Tools and Alcohol 120%, as well as blocking the use of SCSI optical drives when IDE optical drives are present in the system. The latter measure is due to the fact that many optical drive emulation programs appear as SCSI drives. If no IDE drives are present, however, SCSI drives will function normally without interference from StarForce.

Some good information about the unfolding and dangers of the StarForce system can be found here.

A good resource about this system is the Boycott Starforce site which includes information about Starforce, a way to detect it, means to remove it and a list of games that include it.

As for me, it seems Straforce got installed together with TrackMania Nations – An online free racing game sponsored by nvidia. This is all too strange why Starforce would be Bundled with a free game is yet to be discovered.

Here is another list of games, some of which are not on the Boycott Starforce site:
7 Sins – Atari
Anstoss 4 – Ascaron Entertainment
Area 51 – Midway
Bandits: Phoenix Rising – Tri Synergy (US) / Pan Vision (EU)
Bet on Soldier – Nadeo
Beyond Divinity – Hip Games / Larian (dev.)
Black Mirror – The Adventure Company
Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder – CDV
Blitzkrieg 2 – CDV
Breed – CDV
Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon (only US version) - The Adventure Company
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood – Ubisoft
Cycling Manager 3 – GMX Media
Cycling Manager 4 – Digital Jesters
Chaos League (demo and release) – Strategy First
Chaos League: Sudden Death (demo and release) – Strategy First
Codename: Outbreak Virgin Interactive
Codename: Panzers – Phase One - CDV
Codename: Panzers – Phase Two - CDV
Cold War (demo and release) – Dreamcatcher Interactive
Colin McRae Rally 2005 – Codemasters
Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars – CDV / GSC (dev.)
Cross Racing Championship 2005 – Graphsim (US) / Project Three (EU)
Curse: The Eye of Isis – The Adventure Company
Cycling Manager 3 – Digital Jesters (?)
D-Day (release and demo) – Monte Cristo
Dead to Rights – Hip Games
Demonic Speedway (release and possibly demo) – Cenega (forum inactive)
Desert Rats vs Afrika Korps – Encore Software
Domination – Dreamcatcher Interactive
Emergency Fire Response – Dreamcatcher Interactive
Enigma: Rising Tide – Tesseraction Games
Etherlords II – Strategy First
Fire Chief – Strategy First
Fire Department – Monte Cristo
Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich – Irrational Games (US) / VU Games (EU)
Gangland – Whiptail Interactive
Garfield – Hip Games
Gooka: The Mystery of Janatris – Cenega (forum inactive)
GT Legends (demo and release) – 10tacle
Heroes of Might and Magic 5 – Ubisoft
Horse Race Manager – Cyanide Studio
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter (some releases only) – Interplay
Kicker Manager 2004 – Deep Silver
Kill Switch – Hip Games
Korea: Forgotten Conflict – Cenega (forum inactive)
LMA Professional Manager 2005 – Codemasters
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Gold version) – Ubisoft
Medieval Lords (demo and release) – Digital Jesters / Monte Cristo (dev.)
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary – Namco
Obscure (both CD and DVD version) – Dreamcatcher (US) / Microids (EU)
Pferdehof – Pferd und Pony – dtp Entertainment
Pax Romana – Dreamcatcher Interactive
Peter Jackson’s King Kong (demo and release) – Ubisoft
Pariah – Groove Games
Pop Star Academy- Monte Cristo
Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend – Running With Scissors
Prince of Persia Sands of Time – Ubisoft
Pro Rugby Manager – Digital Jesters
Pure Pinball (German version only) – Koch Media
Rally Championship Xtreme – Warthog Entertainment
Restaurant Empire – Enlight
Restricted Area – Whiptail Interactive
Revolution – Activision Value
Runaway A Road Adventure – Tri Synergy
Scrapland – Enlight
Second Sight – Codemasters
Silent Hunter 3 – Ubisoft
Silent Storm – Encore Software
Silkolene Honda Motocross GP – Midas Interactive
Singles: Flirt Up Your Life – Eidos (US) / Deep Silver (EU)
Singles 2: Triple Trouble – Koch Media / Deep Silver
Sniper Elite / Sniper Elite: Berlin 1945 – Namco (US) / Wanadoo (EU)
Soldiers Heroes of World War 2 – Codemasters
Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory – Ubisoft
Space Rangers 2 – Elemental Games
Sommerspiele 2004 – dtp Entertainment
Steel Saviour – SR-71
Still Life – The Adventure Company
Street Racing Syndicate – Namco
SuperPower 2 – Dreamcatcher Interactive
Syberia II – The Adventure Company
The Fall: Last Days of Gaia – Deep Silver / Koch Media
The Moment of Silence – The Adventure Company
The Suffering: Ties That Bind – Midway
The Westerner (Wanted: A Wild Western Adventure) – The Adventure Company
TOCA 2 (Race Driver 2, DTM Race Driver 2) – Codemasters
Trackmania – Nadeo
TrackMania Nations – Nadeo
Trackmania Sunrise – Nadeo
Traitors Gate 2: Cypher – The Adventure Company
UFO: Aftershock – Cenega (forum inactive)
V8 Supercars 2 – Codemasters
Virtual Skipper 3 – Enlight
Wildlife Park – Encore Software
World War II: Frontline Command – Strategy First
Worms 4: Mayhem – Codemasters
XIII – Ubisoft
X2: The Threat – Deep Silver
X3: Reunion – Deep Silver
Xpand Rally – Micro Application
Xuan-Yuan Sword 4 – SoftStar Entertainment

Publishers known to use or have used Starforce:
10tacle, Activision Value, Ascaron Entertainment, Atari, CDV, Cenega, Codemasters, Cyanide Studio, Deep Silver, Digital Jesters, Dreamcatcher Interactive, dtp Entertainment, Eidos, Elemental Games, Encore Software, GMX Media, Graphsim, Groove Games, Hip Games, Interplay, Irrational Games, Koch Media, Micro Application, Midas Interactive, Midway, Monte Cristo, Nadeo, Pan Vision, Project Three, Running With Scissors, SoftStar Entertainment, SR-71, Strategy First, Tesseraction Games, The Adventure Company, Tri Synergy, Ubisoft, Virgin Interactive, VU Games, Wanadoo, Warthog Entertainment, Whiptail Interactive

Videogames have a reputation of being violent. This has been the case since the begining of computer gaming. But a while ago a group of students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Entertainment Technology (MET) program decided to develop a videogame with the aim of teaching and encouraging players to create peace. The players assume the role of the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president and take on the challenging task of reaching and maintaining peace in one of the world’s most volatile places.

The game, named PeaceMaker, is a single player game. The player must respond to events, such as diplomatic negotiations, suicide bombings or military actions and interact with eight other political leaders and social groups to resolve the conflict before the player’s term of office ends. The player controls 17 role-based actions in 3 categories: 1. Security, 2. Political, and 3. Construction (long-term and strategic actions). PeaceMaker is a game about relations. Eight different actors are simulated and interact with the player based on conditional mood. Although a peace game, the player is not automatically penalized for committing military actions. In some occasions, a judicious use of military actions against extremists might achieve an overall positive progress.

PeaceMaker will be available online to the public in spring 2006 for free, so people all over the world will have access to play.