So let us pretend for a minute, a situation where you are in front of an imaginary television screen that is hooked up to your Xbox 360 with Fruit Ninja Kinect being the game of choice. Your first fruit pops up in a stylistic fashion from the bottom of the screen, and you execute a slicing motion with your arm to cut the fruit (add juicy sound effect as fruit is being cut). However, what actually goes into that single swinging motion is actually an integration of many different ones that happen subconsciously and almost instantly.

Vision is an amazing and powerful sense. The retina in your eyes alone has about ten distinct layers of a combination of neurons, photoreceptors, membranes, and other cells that allow for you to sense the outside world through your eyes. And the way that you perceive that deliciously looking fruit being popped up into the air is not just because you see a fruit; but because you also recognize spatial dimensions, the amount of luminance that is conveyed, the contrast between colors, the sense of motion found in the fruit twirling in space, and more. This package of information is transferred to what we know as the occipital lobe, or the part of the brain in the back of your head, in a pathway that involves many crossing over events and dissection of the visual field into top, bottom, left, and right compartments. In essence, the way that an image is projected on the retina is actually inverted and reversed, and when transferred to the brain, is meticulously divided further into distinct pathways of information. It is incredible that we can make sense of what we see in the first place! Furthermore, after visual recognition of an object, there are different lobes in your brain that help with the process of voluntary action through individual steps of attention to that object, the identification of what it is, and ultimately what to do or the idea of planning. Once you and your brain agree to the plan of cutting the digital fruit, your musculoskeletal system is accessed through the interface of your nervous system. Using your shoulder, chest, and arm muscle groups which are innervated by many different nerves, you are finally able to cut the fruit with your arms and achieve success!

What we perceive as a simple motion of cutting a digital fruit in a video game is actually a complicated set of mechanisms and integration of various physiological systems. I have mentioned the visual and nervous system in combination with your musculoskeletal system; however, there are more “behind the scenes” organ systems which also help you in accomplishing this task – systems such as your cardiovascular system that help to perfuse blood and energy to your muscles and brain in conjunction with your pulmonary system. If we wanted to take a step further, an added layer to the complexity is the idea of metabolism on a molecular level. Metabolism can be thought as the underlying energy industry in your body that serves to power your organ systems, and to allow the interaction and exchange between them. I’m sure that I have missed the mentioning of a plethora of other mechanisms that help me to cut my deliciously looking digital fruit, but one thing is for sure – we are amazing. Imagine what goes into a task that is a hundred times more complicated than just looking at something and swinging your arms!

-J.W.

Satisfied in my thirst for knowledge (and a growing fanboyism towards the Havok system), I continued my physics abuse. Though my next point may not directly refer to the physics, it was fascinating nonetheless: weight. The game has a weight system built in to punish the player for taking too much loot, forcing the player to make value-based decisions on what to hold and what to drop. For example, if I’m at max weight (starting base is 300 units of measurement), and I decide to pick something up and it puts me over, I have to drop something to bring me back down to an even max (exactly 300) or under. If I stay above the max weight, I receive a significant cut to my movement speed. As all gamers know, movement speed is crucial to all games, and being slow is usually a bad thing.

One time, I was at 300 weight because I’m brilliant and didn’t level up my carrying capacity. Or, at least I thought I was at 300. No, I was at 300.1. That one-tenth of a weight measurement (I’m guessing lbs, but I’m really not sure) was the deciding factor between running and waddling. So, I looked in my inventory and saw a potato that managed to sneak into my gear. After tossing the potato, I was back to maximum movespeed. I suppose this is the modern rendition of “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, referring to things piling up and being too much to manage, but in this case referring to a potato that encumbered the great hero of Skyrim.

Curse you, cumbersome potato. I hope some sabrecat ate you.

My point, though, isn’t to avoid potatoes. My point is that the game, regardless of your vast strength, has an entertaining quirk (a necessary one, at that) where a simple potato can hold your hulking hero back from sprinting along and saving some estranged NPC from a dragon or a bandit. Also, there are various renditions of my potato story, including, but not limited to: Butterfly wings, mushrooms, salt, carrots, troll skulls, and your spouse’s homecooked meals.

Potatoes aside, there are some really neat mass interactions in Skyrim. My personal favorite is with the spell Telekinesis. Telekinesis lets you pick up an object within a set range and pull it towards you. However, you can also throw the object and watch the physics engine freak out in ways akin to the murderous mule cart. You see, the Havok engine, to the extent of my knowledge, registers velocity in a very sensitive fashion. If I were to pick up a goblet with Telekinesis and drop it, it would bounce a little, roll on the ground, and eventually come to a halt. If I were to throw that goblet into a pile of baskets, however, the baskets would register no resistance and scatter across the room as if a grenade were tossed at them. For those of you who have the game, I thoroughly recommend abusing this, as it is extremely entertaining and is a good way to grind levels. It’s worth mentioning that baskets are not the only potential victims, making me think that these collisions and their hilarity is fully intended by the Bethesda crew.

So far, we have a murderous mule cart, plump potatoes, and goblet grenades. What’s next? Being clubbed by a Giant.

When a Giant attacks you at early levels, it will instantly kill you and send your body hurdling hundreds of feet into the air. This is a pretty amazing collision interaction: The Giant, which is about four or five times larger than you are, slams its club onto your head, causing the force to course through you. Instead of diffusing into the ground, the force comes back skywards, sending our hero on a quest to the moon. There isn’t much more to it than that the physics engine only accounts for terrain when the Giant misses, at which time a temporary crater is formed. Otherwise, the terrain about as absorbent as a tissue in a pool.

I think that about wraps it up for the majority of Skyrim physics. However, there are more interactions that are worth noting, but the gameplay experience itself is much more gratifying than explaining them. For example, when a dragon lands, the controller and camera shake. Makes sense, considering the dragons are massive. Another interaction is with instant-kills with a bow and arrow, which propel the enemy backwards. It’s really more gratifying to do than to explain, as you get a great sensation of power and success by plowing some poor villain back into last Tuesday with a well-placed arrow.

- M. B

The answer is to continue along the path the game allotted to you, since the sequence of these dungeons is linear. However, there is one great obstacle in your path, the one thing that is truly the source of your dread: The mule cart. A simple cart meant to be drawn by a beast with the intention of delivering goods is the greatest threat in this damp dungeon of horror, but why is that? Well, there is (or at least, was. It’s probably been fixed by now) a physics issue with the mule carts of Skyrim.

Upon walking over an upturned mule cart, the cart will sporadically fly across the room and bounce off of whatever surfaces are available. Worst of all, this mule cart is deadly. That’s right, it’s a murderous mule cart with a dark past and an angry heart. I ventured down the very same dark path that you did, but my journey was abruptly cut short by this devilish fiend. However, I was apparently not the last of his victims…

Unlucky Man Attacked by Mule Cart!

Though very frightening, we must consider this incident and use it as a springboard moving forward. We must learn from this and be cautious of other “Mule Carts” in games, as they serve as constant reminders that physics aren’t always on our side. With the cart in mind, let us be thankful that our world doesn’t have flying mule carts. Or fire-breathing dragons, for that matter.

- M.B

I’ve started listening to the Weekend Confirmed podcast which is run by the folks at Shack News, a gaming news site / blog from back before blogging was even a noun/verb. The podcast is run by game reviewer/illuminati Garnett Lee, and I began listening after the Totally Rad Show’s Jeff Cannata mentioned it as another podcast he did that focuses solely on games and gaming culture.

I enjoy niche podcasts as they tend to represent discussions that would be best described as being like dialog penned by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin – that is, intelligent people speaking quickly about things they are passionate about. Confirmed is no different. The discussion from two weeks ago zeroed in on speculation about the next Grand Theft Auto game – GTA 5. Xav de Matos, one of the show’s other frontrunners, brought up a point detailing the disruptive nature of GTA games in general, highlighting how interesting it might be if this next GTA game had a woman as the central character. It occurred to me how amazing this would have been. (We now know that this is not the case, as a trailer for GTA 5 was recently released.) A further sad realization is that the gaming industry is taking a page from Hollywood with a surprising dearth of gaming experiences driven by strong, complex female characters.

This is a shame, as I believe that Rockstar (makers of the GTA series) does have the talent and audacity to do something like that and do it well. And before you cite the somewhat tired examples of GTA games highlighting violence against women (such as assaulting prostitutes), I would counter that being an open world game means that people can make morally despicable choices, but can just as easily not do those things. Secondly, the strength of supporting female roles in the more recent Rockstar games Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire suggests that this is something that they are giving serious thought to.

Seriously though, other than Faith from DICE’s ambitious but slightly flawed Mirror’s Edge, what other games have had substantial female lead characters?

I wanted to focus on one of those characters today, Mordin Solus. l suppose it would have been easy for the writing team to have made him the one dimensional “Bones McCoy” type of space-faring physician who occasionally acts as a humanistic counterpoint in discussions about the ethics of certain situations. Fortunately they instead chose to weave a fascinating backstory about a brilliant scientist who is also a warrior monk of sorts – a physician who uses intelligence and logic to explain some of the occasionally ruthless decisions he makes. Perhaps some of the most compelling discussion involves exploring the ethics of modifying the Krogan genophage that essentially resulted in the wide-scale rendering of the belligerent Krogan species largely infertile in the hopes of curtailing their becoming a threat to the galaxy and ultimately being slated for genocide. The ethics here are murky at best, and being a physician myself, I appreciate the inherent complexity of the various viewpoints and how they can change with time.

Despite Dr. Solus’s apparently cool and calculated intelligence, it becomes apparent that the warrior side of him and the physician side of him are at constant odds, as made evident by this quote:

“Have killed many, Shepard. Many methods. Gunfire, knives, drugs, tech attacks, once with farming equipment. But not with medicine.”

This comes to a head when he realizes that his trusted colleague is performing perverse experiments on the Krogan in hopes of justifying a cure for the genophage. In a watershed moment in which he realizes that science and logic can be used to justify both sides of an argument, he opts to make the irrational decision to execute said colleague, requiring an intervention by your character, Commander Shepard.

This certainly struck a chord with me regarding the importance of appreciating the complexities of medical ethics in general.

The six commonly understood pillars of medical ethics (summarized nicely here by the good people of Wikipedia) include:
● Autonomy – the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
● Beneficence – a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
● Non-maleficence – “First, do no harm.” (Primum non nocere.)
● Justice – concerns the distribution of scarce health resources and decisions regarding who gets what treatment (fairness and equality).
● Dignity – the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.
● Truthfulness and honesty – the concept of informed consent.

Adding to the complexity of dealing with these concepts is the understanding that viewpoints can also change with time – something that I (and I only) might refer to as the “Solus Paradox.” This is what adds true grist to the practice of medicine, in my view. I’ve had patients who were at first staunchly opposed to the idea of life-support and resuscitation change their minds at the last moment. Similarly, I’ve had patients who explored all avenues of care in the treatment of conditions with poor prognoses calmly and confidently determine that “enough is enough.” Anticipating that patients can and will change their minds when it comes to difficult decisions equips you to be a better physician.

Thanks, Dr. Solus!

One can’t but help feel powerless. When patients are dying from imminently treatable conditions such as cholera, it’s enough to make anyone shake their heads in despair.  It may be small, but we here at NCL feel compelled to help and would like to engage your help in doing so.  $5 buys a weeks worth of antibiotics or 2 sachets of oral rehydration solution. We’ll donate $5 for each comment posted on our voting panel listed here , and wanted to thank those that have already commented.  Seem like a cynical ploy to obtain votes for our SXSW panel?  Nah, we’re more interested in the discussion, hence our tying our pledge to comments only.  After all, we do label ourselves a social enterprise – so this just made sense.

For those of you that have already posted – thank you! We will honor your posts with our $5 donations, and keep you appraised of the giving process here on our blog. On August 28th, we’ll run our final tally, and write a check to Doctors Without Borders.

So far there are 11 comments = $55 worth of antibiotics and ORS packets. Can we hit $1k? Nerdcore army, that’s up to you.

In the spirit of keeping things interesting, I wanted to share with you why we chose to run a wiki for our knowledgebase. We’re huge fans of keeping things open and sharing our work with the community. A wiki felt like the best way of doing this as, in addition to it being a forum for our sharing concepts with you, it should likewise allow you to share your ideas with us.

Once the wiki re-launches, you’ll see two new additions. Under the descriptions of each Apothecary healer and Lord of Pestilence, there are going to be two new sections: Lore and Hearsay.

Lore is a direct print of what appears on the Healing Blade combatant card – and is generally considered truth.

Hearsay is just that. Rumors, myths, legends or perhaps just things overheard that add to the richness of the world of Soma. After the game re-launches in September, we plan to run a contest aimed at the budding writers looking for the most interesting and well thought out back-stories.

In the meanwhile, if you feel like helping us out by helping to correct the attacks of the nefarious spam bots, we’d greatly appreciate it. If you’ve never edited a wiki before – here’s a crash course in rolling back edits:

a) Just above the ‘Main page’ title heading, are the links Page, Discussion, Edit and History.
b) Click on ‘History’
c) This brings up the edit history and you can see that we’re constantly being revised by spam-bots.
d)Underneath the ‘Browse History’ box, click on the link ‘Earliest’ and you should be able to scan down to where it went from legit edits (either Amathews, or Light Image Studio) to spam bots.
e) Click on the date of the last legit edit (in the case of the main page, August 10th)
f) Viola! the page is restored! NCL 1 – Spambots 0! Now you just need to save the reverted page.
g)At the top of the page, next to the History link, click on the Edit link and then hit Save at the very bottom – and yer done! You have the option to document your change if you like.
h) The people of SOMA thank you!

You folks are businessfolks, right? You’re interested in selling as much stuff as possible, right? I read about Healingblade in The Scientist, immediately thought of how much fun it would be to play this game with my kids, but one look at the artwork snuffed that ambition right out. Any chance of making an edition without the T and A, or maybe just cranking it down a degree? Seriously, why flip the bird to an entire market? I’m sure there are many others out there who’d buy it for kids except that all the breasts and buttucks make them uncomfortable.

All valid points, sir.  Let’s start off with the obvious.  We are businessfolks, but, really, just barely.  I mean, seriously, who waits until their stock is about depleted and then drops a story onto the intertubes only to have hundreds of potential customers bump up against a ‘sold out’ sign? Uuhhh, that would be us.  We’re more a bunch of guy and gal docs that happen to have a little too much free time on their hands, that happen to be excited about learning in new ways.  As for the T&A?  There’s no way you could have known this, but on the box we clearly state that the lower limit of ages that we feel comfortable handling this stuff is 13.  Yes there’s T&A, but no less than your average Lady Gaga or Rihanna video.  Perhaps most importantly though, two of the most sexed up characters happen to be abstract representations of sexually transmitted diseases – T. pallidum and N. gonorrhea.  At what age should kids start learning about these particular conditions?  Well, I’ll defer to my public health colleagues on that one.

But we’re not completely absolved here, as Carlso Hernandez magnificently iterates:

N.B. I do worry, slightly, about the male-subtext here: what, only male and lesbian warriors get the pox? A small detail, but the semiotics of the game seem to me important beyond just political correctness; they might create misleading subtexts for the diseases and treatments they characterize. So be careful with your text and art, fellas!

This was something that we completely overlooked and are supremely glad that it was brought to our attention.  You’re absolutely right, Carlos – our art would suggest that only sultry women act as honeytraps pertaining to the transmission of STD’s.  This of course is ludicrous.  There is gender equality with regards to STD’s and our art, by a glaring oversight, does not accurately reflect this.  We will be working to balance this in future editions of THB, and appreciate your bringing this to our attention, sirs.  If you feel strongly about this either way, consider heading over to the Healing Blade FB group and commenting on this issue.

We’ve made a ripple on the gentle wave of counter-culture that is Nerdcore HipHop. A few days ago we got a shoutout from BlakLotus, the bassist for one particular MCFrontalot, seen by many as the group of individuals that pioneered the Nerdcore movement. How epic is that?  Here’s a little bit of NCL trivia for you.  Back when we were putting together our little startup, and had to deal with the onerous task of putting a name onto this project, our original thought was to go with the moniker ‘NerdcoreReviews’.  Shortly thereafter I peeped a documentary on the all-so-awesome Nerdcore movement called ‘NerdcoreRising’, and literally had a Eureka moment.  We were like: Nerdcore+prenominal adjective = WIN!  Hence, NerdcoreLearning was born.  Thank you BlakLotus and the rest of the Frontalot crew for helping to shape our history here at NCL.  Schwag bag dispatched!