Raymond Law

I first read from Marc Andreessen’s post Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web about this. It’s also been techcrunched.

Google is launching OpenSocial API this week. If you are familiar with Facebook’s API platform, you will easily understand the importance of OpenSocial and how it works. Unlike Facebook’s proprietary API using FBML, FQL, ..., OpenSocial uses standard Javascript and HTML so that you can do what Facebook already does on any existing social networks.

As an app developer, you can build your application and have it run in any participating social networks (Will Facebook join one day?).

As an owner of a social network, you can participate in OpenSocial to allow your network’s app developers to build applications to live within your network, and your users to add these applications to their profiles. You can create your own social networks with Ning.

This is indeed great news for everyone as the web has become more and more customizable and flexible, and user experience will be enhanced by innovative app developers.

We will definitely think about doing this at OnMyList.

You bet I will be near my TV tonight when the Wizards plays the Pacers. washingtonwizards.com has a very cool flash introduction. The season schedule is here.

This just does not sound right…

Chris Sheridan from ESPN wrote: NBA to revamp ref gambling rules; Jackson, Nunn see roles reduced:

Technically, it turns out every single current NBA referee has gambled in some form, after all—although none of them are going to be punished for it.

And, strange as it may seem, those very same referees will now be permitted to gamble in a multitude of ways.

It validates my own theory that the Bullets/Wizards have been unfairly treated on the court in numerous games because we are not supposed to win or people just don’t want us to win.

Blowable User Interface

Wii Games

For the past week, when I logged out of Yahoo Mail, it crashes my Firefox and all other tabs. This happened on both Ubuntu and Windows. Another proof that GMail >>>>>>>> Yahoo Mail. Their Ajax stuff already consumes a lot of bandwidth upon logging in, making my other tabs load slower. One of these days they will just annoy me to the point that I cancel my Yahoo account…

I enjoyed Winning Eleven on PS2 a lot as it is the only game that captures the feel and essense of the game of football (soccer in US). I have heard about Konami’s plan for a Wii version, but they have not given us many details until now.

IGN has some pictures and a video for this game. Make sure you check out the video.

From what I saw in the video. I am both excited and worried:

• You point the Wiimote to tell the ball handler to dribble in whichever direction you want. This is definitely cool because you can have more precise control.

• You can tell teammates to run without the ball by dragging that player and press A. This is awesome because football requires teamwork and off-ball movement is an important element of the game. What’s more is you can tell as many teammates to run without the ball!

• You point at the target player to receive a pass. Now you can pass to any player that is on screen no matter how many teammates are before him in the same direction. And it automatically changes to a lob pass if that makes more sense.

• A through pass is executed by passing into open space. Your teammate will be smart enough to run to the ball. But how does the AI know which player I want to run to receive the ball. It does not always mean I want to closest player to get the ball though. And what if I pass well in front of a teammate in a fast counter attack. Does my “very far away” teammate knows he is supposed to run to receive my long through pass?

• You play a one-two pass by pressing both A and B. I can see how that works.

• Shooting is done by shaking the Nunchuk. So I need to use my non-dominant left hand to shoot. Hmm… I can’t tell if it is a good or bad thing until I actually try to shoot. But how do you control power and accuracy? Or a fake shot? My guess would be that you control the power of the shot by how hard you shake and the direction by the analog stick on the Nunchuk. Fake shot is probably done by pressing either the C or Z button immediately after or while executing a shot.

• The video says you can control anyone in set-pieces. So how can I accurately point to the player I want to control in a corner when both teams crowd the penalty area. Especially when I play with the zoomed out angle and a small TV…

• One thing the video does not address is how do you curve the ball in a shot or a pass. This is especially important in free kicks and corners.

• The video does not show much about playing defense and goalkeeping. The only thing about defense in the video is the offside trap. You do that by shaking the Wiimote upwards.

• Complicated control schema. This is the most important thing that Konami has to figure out to not ruin the good name of the franchise. It has to be intuitive and easy to learn, so as to not turn off newcomers to the franchise. I believe veterans will be willing to spend some time to master the controls.

• Too many cursors and trails on screen. It is kinda distracting because it draws your attention more to the cursor than to the actual players.

• Two-player games double the number of on-screen cursors and trails. Imagine that for a 4-player game!

• For multi-player games, all the cursor movements will reveal to my buddy what I plan to do, especially on free kicks. But without showing the cursor, I have no idea who I am pointing at.

• I care about the controls much more than the graphics as long as it looks equally good or slightly better than the PS2 version. The gameplay is what sets it apart from EA’s FIFA. BTW, I did not try to play FIFA and has no plan to.

• Any Mii integration and online plays?

There are a ton of challenges for Konami to make this game right. However, at the same time, I am really excited about the possibilities that the Wii can allow. I can’t wait to see more details or a play test demo so we can find out more about how all that controls work. I really hope Konami can make this right. If they do, they will shuffle FIFA away like some old dust. And then they just need to get the FIFA license one day.

I think the game is due out in the first quarter in 2008 in the US.

I recently bought a Wii from CircuitCity, along with Metroid Prime 3 and extra Wiimote and Nunchuk. We’ve had some fun with Wii Sports so fun. I haven’t had time to really play Metroid Prime 3 yet though. It is said to be a must-have game for the Wii, and from first impression after playing it a little while, the control schema seems awesom as it requires a lot of pointing, dragging, twisting, ... which definitely makes good use of the Wiimote.

I just need to have a large HDTV to go with it…