Techtite's Letters!

About These Letters::

All letters will be responded to, either online here, via e-mail, or both. It doesn't matter whether you fill in the handy-dandy boxes on the offered form, or send a personal e-mail. However, in my experience, people are either more fond of one or the other method, so both letters options are offered here.

Why no "snail mail" address offered? Because while junk e-mail is easy enough to delete, junk mail itself is a pain. It's a shame that I need to refrain from any publicly posted snail-mail address at risk of being put on endless mailing lists for unsolicited mail, though that's usually what happens. Sorry.

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Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

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Got an opinion about Techtite.com? Send it in!

Michael Crichton Made a (Great) Game...

I see you have a review of Michael Crichton's game Amazon. I played it years ago, but never got to the end. I got to the tree with the human skulls, and could proceed no further. Can anyone tell me how the game ended?

Captain Benthale, USA

The good news is that Michael Crichton will not be remembered just for the surprisingly disappointing Timeline; he also made one of my favorite graphic adventure games back in 1982, back when he had a little software company called "Telarium." Personally I loved the game so much; it is among my choices for The Top 50 Best PC Games EVER. Surprisingly, however, Crichton apparently disagrees! In an article posted by the NY Times back in April of 1999, "He was so disenchanted with the result that he vowed...that 'I was never going to do it again until the technology allowed you to do something different.' " Surprising, I must say...!

Unfortunately; for all that praise I can give it personally, I do not remember the ending by heart, though click HERE for a link to a walkthrough for the game, which should give you some general knowledge of how the game ends. I do know that you find an ancient treasure (represented by the diamond in Paco the Parrot's beak on the cover) and everything ends quite happily. I've also heard that the plot has striking resemblances to Crichton's novel, Congo, though I never read that novel myself. Unfortunately while my Apple ][c works to this very day I cannot find the disk for this game though if I do I'll post a full review of the game with screenshots for the upcoming "Classic Game Reviews" page.

One Person's Dirt Cheap Is Another Man's Crystal...

In your 3DO article you mentioned that the 3DO M2 technology was sold dirt cheap. It was sold to Panasonic for $100 million. Now if you call that dirt cheap I'm sorry and retract my comment!

Chewy, Australia

While any one person (myself included) would think of 100 million dollars as a lot of money; keep in mind this was 1) supposedly groundbreaking hardware technology, and 2) a sale made within big business, not just between two people. As an example of the former: Microsoft paid game company Rare $377 million dollars to make games exclusively for the Xbox game system. That was for games; not hardware, or any "tangible" technology. So 3DO puts supposedly groundbreaking hardware on the table and gets $100 million for it? Some would say Panasonic made a steal...though I admit, it's all in the perspective.

Chuck and Life's Big Publicity Gamble

Did you notice? Chuck and Life have second season premieres available days in advance online. And it's free! Why I'm writing is because I really love these shows and I hope this gamble pays off. I'm upset because people may just download the premiere watch it early and then miss it when it airs on TV making the series look like a failure. Is NBC smart enough to know that these free downloads count as real viewers?

Tom, USA

This site's TV review page was in a "limbo" of sorts last season, thanks to the writer's strike. So shows that I admittedly liked, such as Chuck and Life, did not get the reviews they deserved. Once their second seasons are in full swing I'll be sure to review them with the respect they both deserve. I agree about the publicity gambit of free premieres, though. Maybe if these premieres were posted for free after they aired I'd feel better. There is a risk that people will download the premiere, miss it when it airs, and the resulting low Nielsen's aren't seen as the show "failing." However I would assume (insert popular Benny Hill joke here) that NBC is smarter than that, and the inevitable millions of downloads are proof that both series is popular.

The Worst Week Of New Sitcoms?

I noticed you're one of the few early reviews for Worst Week that did not name it "best new sitcom." In fact you called it one of the worst. I'd have to agree based on what I've seen on the commercials. Based on what you've seen of the actual series, why do you think others think it's good?

George, San Francisco

There's a wide translation of "comedy" these days, from There's Something About Mary to Arrested Development, and from Californication to The Office. That said: I didn't like Worst Week at all. In fact I would dare say that it was the worst half hour of TV I've seen in 2008! As for positive opinions of the series online; the problem I have with such opinions so far is that they have yet to give a thorough explanation for them. What was so funny to them? I'm sure more thorough reviews will be coming out like crazy after the series premiere on September 22. All I can say is: I just posted my own, full review of the series, which lists everything I didn't think was funny. The strange thing is: positive reviews might list the same "jokes" as the funniest jokes they ever saw. Normally I'd say it's all a matter of taste, though if someone thinks this show is actually funny, I wouldn't want to meet them in person!