Ever found yourself wandering around the internet when you stumble into something that you can’t tear yourself away from? Me too - enter Tankball 2!

You start off by picking a name for your tank, selecting your team colour and away you go! The controls are very simple, with the cursors controlling your direction (including your turret) and CTRL used for fire. There are power-ups over the map, such as a flame ball, and a speed boost. Controlling the turret is a little tricky to begin with, but soon becomes second nature after a few minutes. Addictive fun, especially when you pwn the map! Play the game now!

The makers of World of Warcraft (WoW) have won a settlement today from a company who created a bot to “level-up” players of the popular online MMORPG.

The software, called MMOGlider, gives players of WoW the opportunity to automate tedious tasks to increase their abilities and ultimately have a more powerful avatar. Players that signed up to WoW agreed under the T’s & C’s to not use utilities or methods other than the normal gameplay to level-up their players. The creators of MMOGlider, MDY have to pay damages of $6 Million to Blizzard after an estimated 100,000 copies of the WoW bot have already been sold - which works out at $60 a copy (MDY sold the software for $30). The BBC have the full story here.

Just a quick post, for a bit of Friday humour. Here are the things we, as gamers, have learnt from our years of late nights and bruised thumbs. [SHOW ME]

And when I say ultimate I mean it.. This device is really aimed at the corporate environment - I guess as an affordable replacement for track days, but if you have the money I’m sure they’ll be more than willing to sell you one! With sales all over the world of over 40 units they’re popular too.

The machine is capable of replicating forces on your body by tilting - replacing inertia with gravity. So as you brake in your game, the whole thing tilts you forward. As you accelerate around a right bend, it tilts to the left - thus fooling your body into thinking it’s being subjected to inertial forces. The screen is built straight onto the device also, so moves with you as you scream around corners. I would suggest anybody that suffers from motion sickness give this a miss - as it looks a little “intense” shall we say - even though apparently, the device is no different other than if you were in a real car, after talking to the people from Force Dynamics, but then we don’t normally sit through a rally stage do we? And I’m sure most of us would feel pretty sick after jumping in to a car with an insane rally driver!

I also know it’s pretty obvious - but the device does not come with any form of computer or software. They are also tailor made for anyone who wants one, hence the reason for no price on the website and they also suggest a 2 CPU platform as a minimum, as the information required by the “301″ can be quite intensive. Included in the media/video section you’ll be able to see this beast in action.[SHOW ME]

Parents of other children labelled a student a terrorist when they notified the authorities of his “wrong doings”. He created a map for the popular on-line game Counter-Strike and uploaded the map for his friends to play. Thankfully no charges are thought to be pressed on the student from Fort Brent, Texas - but he will not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony.

This is probably one of the most ridiculous stories I’ve heard for a long time - and just goes to show how overly reactive the authorities can get when parents start spitting nails over something they don’t understand.

I’ve been meaning to create a map for a counter-terrorism game for ages with my workplace as the theme.. It would be perfect to run around our stores between the racking, taking out terrorists; or hiding in the server room with a flash bang. This ridiculous story doesn’t mean I won’t still do this - in fact it spurs me on even more to get something together! [SHOW ME]

Yeap, I know, a bit of a cop-out. But I enjoyed these games today, which are purely flash-based. There are some good ones, some old ones and some brand-new ones that I hadn’t seen before. Check them out below!!

[pointer]
Navigate a maze with your mouse pointer!

[tactical assassin]
Cool game that gives you a sniper rifle and stick men to shoot. Tactics required!

[bowman]
One of my personal favourites!! A head shot is truly something to behold. Better than bowman II IMHO.

[curveball]
Curveball reminds me of an old ST game I used to have. It’s pong down a tunnel.

[demon]
A recent stumble. Separate the balls. Blue on the left, red on the right. Warning! Lots of Fun!!

[stickman sam 4]
Not that I’ve played the other 3, but this was a good waste of half an hour.

[raiden x]
Raiden gets a flash make-over with this fast paced vertical scroller (now there’s a genre you don’t hear a lot about!!)

I’m sure most of you have heard of SL and even probably some of you have visited for a while. I was one of those people.. After a month or so, I realised this wasn’t any Neuromancer. Now I can safely say I haven’t been online in Second Life for at least a couple of months. The reason? I think it’s just getting too big and crap:

For one thing, the application & server model (from what I’ve heard) is not designed for huge numbers of people being visible, and in the same area at once. For another, when lots of 80’s has-beens start populating the cyberspace (sorry Mr Gibson), you know the place is starting to become unfashionable (like the classical section of your local music store.)

And now, to top it all, both Sun and IBM have held events in the digital game Second Life. Now we need to ask why are they there? It can only be because they think there is a viable market to advertise in. I don’t know about you, but generally all I’ve found in Second Life is a bunch of social misfits trying to get some online sex on the go. Anybody that seems intelligent are creating online courses on how to manipulate the environment, rather than actually teaching people USEFUL stuff. I’m sure Sun and IBM know what they’re doing, or are they just riding the wave of new users to the environment?

So what else is going to make you think, “well maybe first life is better than second?” Well mainly the fact you can meet people in real life that don’t trail endless resource sapping bubbles behind them, and you can browse a shop in the high street without being confronted by a goth (emo in americanism) asking you how long you’ve been a “second lifer.” Not that I have a huge problem with this, but it does kind of make you wonder what these people are doing in their spare time, if they have any.

So Second Life is Rubbish Life and you’d be mad to think that you can “make a go of it” on a bunch of pixels on a server.. This is not a William Gibson novel, and it’s not the American Dream. After-all it’s just a clumsy attempt at getting some cash, which if you invest in you will be disappointed IMO.