AMD to Try Tri-Core
Competitive edge or a sign of trouble?
Fly Me to the Moon!
Google drops big bucks to spur a new
space raceG
oogle is hoping to inspire private space
exploration by ponying up $30 million to
fund the X Prize Foundation’s latest challenge,
the Google Lunar X Prize, which tasks entrants
with building and launching an unmanned lunar
rover. Google will give $20 million to the fi rst
group to land a craft on the moon that can roam
500 meters and transmit a video back to Earth.
It will kick in another $5 million if the team com-
pletes additional tasks such as photographing
man-made objects or discovering water or ice.
If your team is slow to launch, don’t worry. The
second-place fi nisher will pocket $5 million, but
you’d best get to work; the grand prize drops
to $15 million after December 31, 2012 and the
competition ends on December 31, 2014.Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17
years. He is Editor-at-Large of Games Magazine.A
sinister cult is trying to awaken the Great
Old One Cthulhu from his watery slumber,
and only Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson can
stop it from happening!
No, it’s not a description of my high school
fan fiction (well, actually, it is, but let’s not talk
about that); it’s the premise behind Frogware’s
latest Holmes game: Sherlock Holmes—The
Awakened. Recruiting Holmes into the Cthulhu
mythos of H.P. Lovecraft is a popular geek
pastime that sometimes actually works.
With The Awakened, the exercise gets a
solid 3D presentation and narrative that reminds
us of the more sedate pleasures of the puzzle-
adventure game. Adventure gaming never quite
dies but continues to dwell in a shadow realm,
on the fringe of the mainstream. Each time I
play a new example of this genre, it reminds
me of a time when the puzzle-adventure was
the dominate PC genre, in the golden days of
Sierra and LucasArts. The ascendancy of 3D
action gaming signaled the decline of the narra-
tive adventure, and it has never—and likely will
never—recover its position.
Yet these games still reward the person
who adjusts to their slower pacing. As always,
I only really understood that when seeing
such a game through the eyes of another.
My son sat by my side for about an hour as
I played through The Awakened. Since the
environments are in 3D, he assumed it was
another action game. When we’d approach
a character, he’d say, “Can you shoot him?”
“No, I have to talk to him,” I explained. When
he saw that Holmes carried a knife, he asked,
“Can you use that as a weapon?” “No, but I
can use it to cut this rope in order to open the
trap door,” I said.
At that, he began to get it. He began sug-
gesting places to search, items to combine,
ways to test and examine objects back at
221B. And slowly, he got caught up in the
story, the puzzles, the process. He adjusted
his expectations and took the game on its
own terms. Sometimes, we need to step
away from the latest 3D adrenaline rush,
slow down, light a pipe, pick up a magnifying
glass, and let pure story take us where it will.Spy vs. Spy—
Cyber Style
A diplomatic brouhaha has coin-
cided with a recent spate of cyber
warfare, with representatives from
a number of governments claim-
ing their nations are the victims
of coordinated attacks on their
computer infrastructure. Systems
in England, France, Germany, New
Zealand, and the United States
have all been attacked in recent
months, and while governments in
those countries have not directly
accused the Chinese government
of coordinating the attacks, intel-
ligence agencies have noted that
the attacks do seem to be origi-
nating from China.
The Chinese government,
however, denies any involvement
in the incidents, and, in fact, says
it has been the victim of cyber-
sleuthing from Western govern-
ments. Lou Qinjian, vice minister
of Information Industry, stated
that 80 percent of the recent
attacks have come from comput-
ers based in the United States,
although he did not directly state
that the U.S. government was
coordinating the intrusions.The Adventure
of the Tentacled
Cosmic Spawn
GAME THEORY
THOMAS
MCDONALDquick start THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
10 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2007
With quads getting downright
cheap, the need for a tri-core cat-
egory is questionable.Are there folks who want something bet-
ter than dual core but less extreme than a
quad solution? That’s what AMD is hoping
as it prepares to release a tri-core Phenom
in 2008. AMD is positioning the three-core
chip as something that will help differenti-
ate PCs that use it from their dual-core
brethren. But Intel’s further slashing of its
quad-core prices—already at the $
mark—could lessen a tri-core’s appeal.
More troubling is how AMD is produc-
ing these chips. The tri-core is likely to
be based on the same quad-core die as
Phenom, so is AMD disabling one core or
is it trying to fi nd a market for its defective
quad-core chips?