Well, after weeks of no real news for gamers, several big announcements have come to light. The firs two being bad. One of the premiere games for the 360-Full Auto(think Burnout with guns), has been officially pushed back till next year. No one really knows how much This will affect the launch until we see what else is actually available, but it was something I had fully pre-ordered, so I'll have to think about what else I'd want to put that money on.
But much worse for Gamecube owners is that Zelda: The Twilight Princess has officially been delayed until at least the middle of 2006. This is realistically the one great game that was worth holding onto your Gamecube for, now with it possibly being pushed relatively close to the launch of the Revolution, they may even just move it on to their next system, as it would be a garaunteed system-seller.
And now for the big news-The 360's price was finally announced, and the rumors about there being a stripped-down and deluxe version were confirmed. The basic $299 model will not come with a hard drive or wireless controllers, but you also apparently won't need the hard drive to play most games (inlcuding the new Morrowind title, which is probably my most anticipated 360 game). But for only a $100 more (which it will cost to buy the 20 gig hard drive seperately), you will get a wireless controller, the hard drive, a head set and a dvd remote. In addition, the 360 only becomes backwards compatible with the hard drive, and obviously any downloadable content or media files you'd want to store and use for games or other purposes would very quickly fill up the standard memory card.
But the bigger implication here is that the hard drive will not be a standard in every 360 bought, possibly even only a small minority, meaning that most 360 games really won't take advantage of the possible features (i.e. save a game anywhere, faster loading, downloadable content, etc.). For me personally, things like downloadable content and backwards compatability aren't really a big deal though, so I'll have to see what if any affect the hard drive will have on any launch or near launch titles. If all it's good for is getting extra money out of me through downloadable content, I'll probably skip it.
Moving on-after a couple of weeks of mediocre offerings, we finally have some good-looking films open this weekend. First up is Wes Craven's Red Eye. This actually looks like the first promising thriller in a few years, but the previews already have given too much away, showing that Rachael Mcadams gets off the plane. Sure, it would've been harder to pull off, but a thriller taking place entirely in the confined space of a plane that has nothing to do with terrorists or prisoners would be a very cool idea.
And then there is Steve Carrell's first starring role-The 40-year Old Virgin. Normally, I would toss this off as another bad sex comedy about a total loser, but the great cast and suprisingly funny previews give me hope that this will be a great comedy.
Ok, that's really all for today, now excuse me while I readjust me 360 launch day budget.....
8/17/2005
8/11/2005
Same Ho, Same low.
Couple of fairly noteworthy game tidbits this week, so I'll address them first. Out this week is the forst NFL game with no competition, Madden 2006. I'll sum up my feeling s about this with a quote from Scrubs: Dr. Cox: You'd better go ahead and enjoy this while you can, Bob, because if your evil genie goes ahead and grants your wish and I'm gone forever, then the only one you're going to be able to contend with around here is yourself. And when you really get to know *that* person, oh, dear God, you'll scream so loud that Satan will want to tear up that contract he made with you at birth just so he can get some sleep.
The other big tidbit is that supposedly on August 17th, Microsoft will finally announce a firm date & release price for the 360. Hopefully they'll also announce what that standard price will definitely include as rumors are again picking up that the hard drive will actually be a seperate purchase. We'll just have to wait & see on that one.
Now onto the movies. We have 4 fairly underwhelming ones opening this weekend. First up is The Great Raid-Another true story about another small group of soldiers that faced great odds during a war. No dissrespect to the actual soldiers, but this seems so similar to the last 40 billion movies of this type that I have no interest in it.
Next up is Four Brothers which just has one of the silliest plots I've heard in awhile. 4 adopted kids come back home for their Mom's funeral. She was murdered and they want to take out revenge on whoever did it. The thing is, the previews hint at some huge citywide conspiracy, which given that she was some little old lady in a very poor neighborhood makes me laugh.
Then there is The Skeleton Key. The latest in a long line of particularly unscary and just plain horrendous horror films. In fact, it pretty much looks like a direct rip off of The Grudge, just with a Voodoo twist.
But all these seem like oscar contenders compared to this weeks biggest stinker-Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolow, starring talentless ass Rob Schneider. It'll be the same horrible jokes as last time, only in a different country (Deuce is a big loser, he only gets strange & freakish women, throw in some fart jokes). The box office has been in a huge rut this year, I seriously hope that trend continues this weekend in order to show that nobody wants to see this crap.
Perhaps the best thing to do this weekend is pick up a copy of the first season of Muppet Show. It's a good reminder of real family (meaning anyone of any age) entertainment when almost nothing is geared towards the entire family anymore.
The other big tidbit is that supposedly on August 17th, Microsoft will finally announce a firm date & release price for the 360. Hopefully they'll also announce what that standard price will definitely include as rumors are again picking up that the hard drive will actually be a seperate purchase. We'll just have to wait & see on that one.
Now onto the movies. We have 4 fairly underwhelming ones opening this weekend. First up is The Great Raid-Another true story about another small group of soldiers that faced great odds during a war. No dissrespect to the actual soldiers, but this seems so similar to the last 40 billion movies of this type that I have no interest in it.
Next up is Four Brothers which just has one of the silliest plots I've heard in awhile. 4 adopted kids come back home for their Mom's funeral. She was murdered and they want to take out revenge on whoever did it. The thing is, the previews hint at some huge citywide conspiracy, which given that she was some little old lady in a very poor neighborhood makes me laugh.
Then there is The Skeleton Key. The latest in a long line of particularly unscary and just plain horrendous horror films. In fact, it pretty much looks like a direct rip off of The Grudge, just with a Voodoo twist.
But all these seem like oscar contenders compared to this weeks biggest stinker-Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolow, starring talentless ass Rob Schneider. It'll be the same horrible jokes as last time, only in a different country (Deuce is a big loser, he only gets strange & freakish women, throw in some fart jokes). The box office has been in a huge rut this year, I seriously hope that trend continues this weekend in order to show that nobody wants to see this crap.
Perhaps the best thing to do this weekend is pick up a copy of the first season of Muppet Show. It's a good reminder of real family (meaning anyone of any age) entertainment when almost nothing is geared towards the entire family anymore.
8/06/2005
YEEEHAAAWWWW!!!!!
Ok, pretty much the only thing worth talking about is this weekend's only major release-The Dukes of Hazzard, starring some of our greatest thespians-Sean William Scott, Johnny Knoxville & Jessica Simpson. In case you can't tell, that's complete sarcasm, but the fact is that there are few actors I could imagine fitting the roles better, and it looks like an incredibly fun popcorn movie, which is probably befitting the series (of which I've seen maybe half an episode ever). I know there has been some controversy stirred over keeping the confederate flag on the General Lee, but this is yet another example of PC gone too far. The confederate flag stood for a lot of things, not just slavery. It's more a representation of the rebel attitude, and removing it would be far too conformists for true troublemakers such as the dukes...
8/04/2005
Speak No Evil
I seem to be doomed never to play FFXI. My old PS2 was barely working, and the new one isn't compatible with the required hard drive add on. But I figured that was fine because it's coming out for the 360. It was a big reason I wanted to buy the system. It's still coming out for the 360 and by the end of the year, but it won't support a crucial feature-Voice Chat. You'll still have to buy a USB keyboard if you want to play FFXI on your 360. They claim it's to help keep track of player abuse through the chat log, but this is complete bull. I refuse to play a game that only supports keyboard chat, there's no excuse for it these days, and neither will most other xbox live users who have been weaned on the good old headset. If Bungie & Blizzard can keep track, why can't Square? It's just really ridiculous and they just lost themselves a sale...
The only other big news this week so far is also from Square. Seem that Square may be going truly multi-platform, as there a big rumors that they may bring their biggest franchises (i.e. Final Fantasy & Dragon Warrior) to all 3 next gen consoles. It would be cool, but Sony would lose plenty of their pull if they could no longer claim to be the only system with most of Square's most popular titles, so my guess is they'll do whatever it takes to lock down at least a few exclusives.
And that's really all for today, but I'll definitely be back tommorow to talk about the weekend movies and if anything else pops up....
The only other big news this week so far is also from Square. Seem that Square may be going truly multi-platform, as there a big rumors that they may bring their biggest franchises (i.e. Final Fantasy & Dragon Warrior) to all 3 next gen consoles. It would be cool, but Sony would lose plenty of their pull if they could no longer claim to be the only system with most of Square's most popular titles, so my guess is they'll do whatever it takes to lock down at least a few exclusives.
And that's really all for today, but I'll definitely be back tommorow to talk about the weekend movies and if anything else pops up....
7/29/2005
Fast Times at Superhero High
Really not a whole ton to talk about today, so I'll just briefly discuss the movies. First up is Stealth, which looks like some horrible combination of Top Gun and Knight Rider (or possibly 2001). I mean seriously, haven't we had enough of the whole machines gone horribly wrong? And notice that at least from the previews that much like any other machine, it's instantly evil. I also know they are pushing it as a Jamie Foxx film, but that's only cause of Ray. It's not a Jamie Foxx film, he's a supporting player, which means he'll be minimal if not die halfway through the film leaving us with Jessica Biel and the other dude who I am too lazy to look up.
Then there's Must love Dogs with Diane Lane & John Cusack. Now, putting these two wonderful actors in anything is almost enoug hreason to buy a ticket, but this is the same lame ass Sleepless in Seattle crap they've pulled a million times and nothing in the previews seem to indicate anything funny or remotely interesting.
Finally, there is the week's one bright spot-Sky High. The concept of superhero high is a little over the top and since it's a Disney film, probably can't be as edgy as I'd like, but it has a pretty stellar cast, and looks very slick, so I'll definitely check that out this weekend.
That's really about it for today, I'd post more if there was more to post about :), hopefully there'll be some more newsworthy stuff next time!
Then there's Must love Dogs with Diane Lane & John Cusack. Now, putting these two wonderful actors in anything is almost enoug hreason to buy a ticket, but this is the same lame ass Sleepless in Seattle crap they've pulled a million times and nothing in the previews seem to indicate anything funny or remotely interesting.
Finally, there is the week's one bright spot-Sky High. The concept of superhero high is a little over the top and since it's a Disney film, probably can't be as edgy as I'd like, but it has a pretty stellar cast, and looks very slick, so I'll definitely check that out this weekend.
That's really about it for today, I'd post more if there was more to post about :), hopefully there'll be some more newsworthy stuff next time!
7/27/2005
Jack Thompson is an idiot...
Jack Thompson, for those who don't know, is a sleazeball lawyer who basically is trying to make a career of suing the game industry. He is the nutball of all nutballs. He has been constantly quoted as calling anybody who even dares to disagree with him A Nazi, a towel-head, and much worse. But before last week's historic deicision to make GTA: San Andreas a AO title, he was merely another in a sea of scumbag lawyers attaching himself to the latest trendy thing to censor. Now, that he has declared "victory" over GTA (something he really had nothing to do with, if you can even call it victory over a game that has already sold millions and will be in circulation for years thanks to this publicity), he is leading one of the most screwball causes I've heard in years-Thompson, being backed by of course some idiotic fringe religious group, has attacked the most popular series in PC history-The Sims. Specifically the Sims 2. The reason? Because of the ability to put different looks on your Sims, specifically, make them nude. But it's not really the nudity he's objecting to. He claims the skins make it a "paradise for pedophiles" because they can look at little digitized kids. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? I am literally at a loss for words at the sheer stupidity of this statement. If I ever meet Jack Thompson, I fully promise to beat the holy hell out of him using moves I saw on WWE. How's that for bad influence, jackass?
Moving on, two big press conferences were held by both Sony and Microsoft last week, and the most suprising thing is that no new information was really given. Sure, some more meaningless specs and BS about how their system is superior to all were said, but no announcments of pricing, no release dates, and no gameplay was shown on either system. I know these companies love to piss away their money, but this is ridiculous.
Finally, I did see both Wedding Crashers & The Island this past weekend. Wedding Crashers was absolutely brilliant, not original by any means, but every single actor brought their comedic a-game to the table, and that made it extremely funny. The first 25 minutes of The Island borders on excruciating (real proof that Michael Bay has no idea how to develop story or characters) but as soon as the action gets rolling, it becomes an excellent action film, so I'd reccomend it.
That's really all for now, but I'll hopefully be back tommorow...
Moving on, two big press conferences were held by both Sony and Microsoft last week, and the most suprising thing is that no new information was really given. Sure, some more meaningless specs and BS about how their system is superior to all were said, but no announcments of pricing, no release dates, and no gameplay was shown on either system. I know these companies love to piss away their money, but this is ridiculous.
Finally, I did see both Wedding Crashers & The Island this past weekend. Wedding Crashers was absolutely brilliant, not original by any means, but every single actor brought their comedic a-game to the table, and that made it extremely funny. The first 25 minutes of The Island borders on excruciating (real proof that Michael Bay has no idea how to develop story or characters) but as soon as the action gets rolling, it becomes an excellent action film, so I'd reccomend it.
That's really all for now, but I'll hopefully be back tommorow...
7/24/2005
Remember kids, massive sweraing and homicidal violence is ok, but we draw the line at sex!
This post is quite a bit later than I expected to do it, but given the big news this week of GTA: San Andreas being the first major game to get an Adults Only rating, I wanted to wait for all the initial reactions to come out and see what progessed before I posted my thoughts on the subject. Now, if you weren't aware, this is all due to some creative programmers with too much time in their hands that discovered some leftover code that the public was never really meant to see. Rockstar, acting much like our current administration, started out by blantantly lying that it was strictly the work of some hackers, but finally admitted that it was something left in the game after mounting evidence had piled up. Now granted, probably less than one percent of people who actually own the game would actually get this hack, but odds are at least of few of them would be kids, which would make GTA a bigger scapegoat than it already is. And bottom line, Rockstar dropped the ball here. They should be punished in the wallet, where it hurts them the most. But the reasoning behind the new rating is pretty goddamn spurious. Seriously, this is already a game where you can mercilessly beat the hell out of innocent people, have sex with hookers and run them over, as well as run your own drug cartel. But one little minigame pushes it up a whole level? Right. The game probably should've been rated AO to begin with, but that's the kiss of death since no major retailer will carry it, and money talks.
Moving on to movies; we have yet another unecessary remake in The Bad News Bears. My guess is that this will be worth it just for Billy Bob Thorton, as he is possibly the only one who could do justice to a role the great Walter Matthau defined. That being said, I'll wait for video.
And then there is The Island. Now either you love Michael Bay's cheesy action formula, or you think he's pretty much responsible for the downfall of Hollywood in terms of creativity. He made some true stinkers the past few years (namely Bad Boys II & Pearl Harbor), but The Island seems to have him back in his element and back on track. I'm seeing it tommorow so I'll let you know.
And that's pretty much it for today. It's been a hectic weekend, but hopefully I'll get another post in Monday to write about anything I might've skipped over.
Moving on to movies; we have yet another unecessary remake in The Bad News Bears. My guess is that this will be worth it just for Billy Bob Thorton, as he is possibly the only one who could do justice to a role the great Walter Matthau defined. That being said, I'll wait for video.
And then there is The Island. Now either you love Michael Bay's cheesy action formula, or you think he's pretty much responsible for the downfall of Hollywood in terms of creativity. He made some true stinkers the past few years (namely Bad Boys II & Pearl Harbor), but The Island seems to have him back in his element and back on track. I'm seeing it tommorow so I'll let you know.
And that's pretty much it for today. It's been a hectic weekend, but hopefully I'll get another post in Monday to write about anything I might've skipped over.
7/20/2005
CG killed the Animation star
Traditional animation has been just barely hanging on for awhile now (I think what officially killed bid budget animation films was Treasure Planet, brilliantly animated but a horrid film). More and more TV shows are cropping up as CG style (which in my opinion mostly looks blocky and awkward), but I always figured that the right movie could bring it back to the fore front (even Pixar heads said they'd be willing to do traditional animation for the right film).
Now, two movies have been announced that seem like a perfect fit for traditional animation, but instead they are going the CG route because of course, that's what is popular with the little kids now. Both the Smurfs and the Ninja Turtles are coming to the big screen sometime in the future, but it has been announced that they will be CG films, which seems like a poor fit. I really don't think either of these films will have a smooth transition over, and any fans will be annoyed and turned off by the choice, which seems to be a lose-proposition.
I did see Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and while it was quite enjoyable, I did have two major issues. The effects that happen when the kids do something stupid that nearly gets them killed (i.e. Augustus in the Pipe, Violet blowing up like a blueberry) seemed far more fake than the pratical effects used in tghe original, and Charlie seemed to win more by sheer luck than character in this version. But I still highly reccomend it overall. I didn't really get around to seeing Wedding Crashers yet, I figure I'll do it Friday at the latest.
That's really all for now (slow news week so far), but I'll be back by Thursday with thoughts on this weekend's movies.
Now, two movies have been announced that seem like a perfect fit for traditional animation, but instead they are going the CG route because of course, that's what is popular with the little kids now. Both the Smurfs and the Ninja Turtles are coming to the big screen sometime in the future, but it has been announced that they will be CG films, which seems like a poor fit. I really don't think either of these films will have a smooth transition over, and any fans will be annoyed and turned off by the choice, which seems to be a lose-proposition.
I did see Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and while it was quite enjoyable, I did have two major issues. The effects that happen when the kids do something stupid that nearly gets them killed (i.e. Augustus in the Pipe, Violet blowing up like a blueberry) seemed far more fake than the pratical effects used in tghe original, and Charlie seemed to win more by sheer luck than character in this version. But I still highly reccomend it overall. I didn't really get around to seeing Wedding Crashers yet, I figure I'll do it Friday at the latest.
That's really all for now (slow news week so far), but I'll be back by Thursday with thoughts on this weekend's movies.
7/15/2005
A Chocolate Factory by any other name...
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is pretty much sacred ground. Lord only knows who would dare even attempt to remake it, and of course the question is why bother? This isn't like the several bad versions of Dune that exist out there, they got it perfect the first time. But, if anybody's got the stuff to make another version and do something different with it and have it not completely suck, it's got to be Tim Burton, the master of wonderfully weird. And someone like Depp is sure to put a unique stamp on the eccentric candyman.
And while I'm interested to see how Charlie & The Chocoalte Factory turns out, I'm actually much more interested in this weekend's other offering-Wedding Crashers with Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson. Why? Because it's the first big budget comedy in a couple of years (I think the last one was American Wedding) that's clearly aimed at a non-middle school audience with an apparently hard-earned R rating. And while guys like Wilson & Vaughn don't need to be raunchy to be funny, it's when they are really allowed to let loose in adult fare that you see their best stuff. It's also good to know that no sacrifices were made for the bottom dollar. I'm really expecting this to be the first great comedy of 2005 (not hard considering the only even good one so far has been Hitch).
In the realm of WHY GOD WHY?!?!?-Sony pictures has apparently greenlighted three more sequels that nobody asked for in the first place. Roadhouse (without Patrick Swayze, because apparently he's too busy being a janitor in a pet store), Hollow Man and I Know What You Did Last Summer are ALL getting sequels. Road House and Hollow man were pathetic, and Last Summer was entertaining, but c'mon it already has one horrible sequel, it doesn't need a second. It's just amazing how people love to burn money in Hollywood. You can't claim brand recognition because they don't have any with these titles, and I doubt anyone who was in these movies and still has a career would bother signing up, so there goes any star power. I would just love to sit in on these pitch meetings where someone came up with this idea, someone else thought it was great, and nobody else in the room had the brains to say "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?"
Finally, The primetime emmy nominations were annoucned today, and it was nice to finally see Scrubs and especially Zach Braff get nominated (although John C. McGinley does such a great job as Dr. Cox that he should've also been nominated as well) considering how hard NBC has made it to even find out when the damn show is on. But otherwise there weren't any really good suprises (although I like that the guy from House was nominated, he's awesome, actually he's like Dr. Cox if he was in a drama) and mostly old favorites (only reason Sopranos didn't scoop up all the nominations possible was because it was taking the year off). But I was geniunely delighted and suprised to see Arrested Development win for best comedy last year, so maybe if they start giving awards to shows and people that actually deserve it, I'll start tuning in again.
And while I'm interested to see how Charlie & The Chocoalte Factory turns out, I'm actually much more interested in this weekend's other offering-Wedding Crashers with Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson. Why? Because it's the first big budget comedy in a couple of years (I think the last one was American Wedding) that's clearly aimed at a non-middle school audience with an apparently hard-earned R rating. And while guys like Wilson & Vaughn don't need to be raunchy to be funny, it's when they are really allowed to let loose in adult fare that you see their best stuff. It's also good to know that no sacrifices were made for the bottom dollar. I'm really expecting this to be the first great comedy of 2005 (not hard considering the only even good one so far has been Hitch).
In the realm of WHY GOD WHY?!?!?-Sony pictures has apparently greenlighted three more sequels that nobody asked for in the first place. Roadhouse (without Patrick Swayze, because apparently he's too busy being a janitor in a pet store), Hollow Man and I Know What You Did Last Summer are ALL getting sequels. Road House and Hollow man were pathetic, and Last Summer was entertaining, but c'mon it already has one horrible sequel, it doesn't need a second. It's just amazing how people love to burn money in Hollywood. You can't claim brand recognition because they don't have any with these titles, and I doubt anyone who was in these movies and still has a career would bother signing up, so there goes any star power. I would just love to sit in on these pitch meetings where someone came up with this idea, someone else thought it was great, and nobody else in the room had the brains to say "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?"
Finally, The primetime emmy nominations were annoucned today, and it was nice to finally see Scrubs and especially Zach Braff get nominated (although John C. McGinley does such a great job as Dr. Cox that he should've also been nominated as well) considering how hard NBC has made it to even find out when the damn show is on. But otherwise there weren't any really good suprises (although I like that the guy from House was nominated, he's awesome, actually he's like Dr. Cox if he was in a drama) and mostly old favorites (only reason Sopranos didn't scoop up all the nominations possible was because it was taking the year off). But I was geniunely delighted and suprised to see Arrested Development win for best comedy last year, so maybe if they start giving awards to shows and people that actually deserve it, I'll start tuning in again.
7/11/2005
Yo ho Yo ho a Pirates Life for Me!
Ok, first up, I did see Fantastic 4 over the weekend, and it was actually quite enjoyable. It wasn't quite up their with the cream of the crop like Spider Man or Batman Begins, but it was far better than disasters like Daredevil & the Hulk. It's a fun mindless blockbuster film with a good sense of humor and the entire cast filled their roles surprisingly well (with Chris Evans as the Human Torch being the highlight). I will definitely be buying a ticket for the inevitable sequel (and being that the movie not only did far above expectations, but can be credited with lifiting the box office out of a 19-week slump, it's almost a given).
Any Xbox owner should be forced to walk the plank if they don't do themselves the favor of picking up Sid Meier's Pirates!, which ships out tommorow. I was a HUGE fan of the original version which popped up way back in 1987 and I last played the pretty awesome Genesis version back in 93. I was planning for this to be my last Xbox purchase originally, but I fully plan to pick it up to really test out the 360's backwards compatibility when it comes out in Novemeber. It's the perfect title for anybody who's a fan of ship battles, swashbuckling and/or treasure hunting. And really, how many good pirate titles are out there, anyways?
Although a couple of fairly noteworthy movies are opening this weekend (which I'll talk about later in the week), easily the biggest release of this week (possibly of the whole year) is the new Harry Potter book, The Half-Blood Prince. I unabashedly worship the Harry Potter books. It's one of the few series where I will actually turn off everything in my room (I usually have at least two electronic devices on at any given time) and just read silently for hours. That being said, I'll pick one up this weekend if it's easy to find, otherwise, I may just wait till the hysteria dies down a little, as I've never really been one to do fanatical things like wait days in line or pick things up at midnight (aside from Halo 2, and only because a friend was willing to give me a ride). Course, that's one of the good things about living in a relatively small town, it's probably not gonna be that hard to find :)
I pretty much decided to pass on Killer 7, so you'll have to get word from other sources. Mainly because of just about every review, even the positive ones, ask you to look at the game strictly as "art in gaming" not as an actual game. Well, I'm sorry to be a spoilsport on edginess and creativity, but I believe that a game can have good, involving gameplay and also be a good artistic expression as well (i.e. Pyschonauts or Viewtiful Joe). I want art, I'll go to a museum (hell, there's even a gaming art exhibition touring right now called "I am 8-bit").
And lastly, I'd like to leave you with a better look into the diseased mind that is Uwe Boll.
Any Xbox owner should be forced to walk the plank if they don't do themselves the favor of picking up Sid Meier's Pirates!, which ships out tommorow. I was a HUGE fan of the original version which popped up way back in 1987 and I last played the pretty awesome Genesis version back in 93. I was planning for this to be my last Xbox purchase originally, but I fully plan to pick it up to really test out the 360's backwards compatibility when it comes out in Novemeber. It's the perfect title for anybody who's a fan of ship battles, swashbuckling and/or treasure hunting. And really, how many good pirate titles are out there, anyways?
Although a couple of fairly noteworthy movies are opening this weekend (which I'll talk about later in the week), easily the biggest release of this week (possibly of the whole year) is the new Harry Potter book, The Half-Blood Prince. I unabashedly worship the Harry Potter books. It's one of the few series where I will actually turn off everything in my room (I usually have at least two electronic devices on at any given time) and just read silently for hours. That being said, I'll pick one up this weekend if it's easy to find, otherwise, I may just wait till the hysteria dies down a little, as I've never really been one to do fanatical things like wait days in line or pick things up at midnight (aside from Halo 2, and only because a friend was willing to give me a ride). Course, that's one of the good things about living in a relatively small town, it's probably not gonna be that hard to find :)
I pretty much decided to pass on Killer 7, so you'll have to get word from other sources. Mainly because of just about every review, even the positive ones, ask you to look at the game strictly as "art in gaming" not as an actual game. Well, I'm sorry to be a spoilsport on edginess and creativity, but I believe that a game can have good, involving gameplay and also be a good artistic expression as well (i.e. Pyschonauts or Viewtiful Joe). I want art, I'll go to a museum (hell, there's even a gaming art exhibition touring right now called "I am 8-bit").
And lastly, I'd like to leave you with a better look into the diseased mind that is Uwe Boll.
7/09/2005
BRING ME THE HEAD OF UWE BOLL!!!!
The whole "bring me the head" line may become a runner if enough people start pissing me off, and this is a LONG overdue one. Uwe Boll is the talentless prick who brought us the unimaginable horrors House of the Dead & Alone in the Dark. Now, I wasn't as mad about these horrible films as most people because of two main reasons. First, they were both based on practically dead game series that weren't that noteworthy to begin with. Second, it's not like he was hurting any good actor's career (Christian Slater & Stephen Dorff have been barely hanging on to their career for years, Alone in the Dark was just a possible final nail in the coffin).
But with only two major films under his belt, Boll has officially become one of the most reviled directors in history, with MANY websites and columns continually pleading or threatening him to stop making films, and with his latest projects and announcements, I am officially on the bandwagon.
First up is the movie Bloodrayne. Now, while I am not a big fan of this game series, it has some potential as a fun action film with it's interesting mix of Vampires and Nazis (in the games, Bloodrayne is actually a good vampire that hunts down evil Nazis). But of course Boll is making the biggest mistake he can by completely ignoring the storyline and instead making it some lame tale about Bloodrayne taking on her vampire father. The real kicker? Her vampire father is Ghandi! No, not the character of Ghandi(though at this point, it wouldn't suprise me), but the actor who is best known for portraying him-Ben Kingsley! That's right, Uwe Boll has somehow blackmailed Ben FUCKING Kingsley into one of his movies (although with his last two movies being Thunderbirds & Suspect Zero, Kingsley may have just lost it completely). And that's not all! Kristanna Loken, Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Billy Zane are all in this certifiable brain hemmorage of a movie.
Then there is the recently announced cast for the Dungeon Siege movie. Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman, Lelee Sobieski & John Rhys-Davies have all signed on the dotted line (and Loken is in this one as well). Let's keep in mind that his movies combined have not even grossed $20 million! How is this guy getting all these films and mostly talented actors other than witchcraft?!?
And that's hardly the end of it. He's snapped up the filiming rights for Far Cry, Fear Effect, and Hunter the Reckoning. He's also mentioned in at least one interview he'd like to destroy several other popular franchises, specifically naming Hitman & Warcraft.
I think we should all start running a pool on who's career could actually survive a Uwe Boll film (although apparently Boll's own career is thriving through some sort of evil ritual where he sacrifices 10 bunnies a night to his dark gods).
But with only two major films under his belt, Boll has officially become one of the most reviled directors in history, with MANY websites and columns continually pleading or threatening him to stop making films, and with his latest projects and announcements, I am officially on the bandwagon.
First up is the movie Bloodrayne. Now, while I am not a big fan of this game series, it has some potential as a fun action film with it's interesting mix of Vampires and Nazis (in the games, Bloodrayne is actually a good vampire that hunts down evil Nazis). But of course Boll is making the biggest mistake he can by completely ignoring the storyline and instead making it some lame tale about Bloodrayne taking on her vampire father. The real kicker? Her vampire father is Ghandi! No, not the character of Ghandi(though at this point, it wouldn't suprise me), but the actor who is best known for portraying him-Ben Kingsley! That's right, Uwe Boll has somehow blackmailed Ben FUCKING Kingsley into one of his movies (although with his last two movies being Thunderbirds & Suspect Zero, Kingsley may have just lost it completely). And that's not all! Kristanna Loken, Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Billy Zane are all in this certifiable brain hemmorage of a movie.
Then there is the recently announced cast for the Dungeon Siege movie. Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman, Lelee Sobieski & John Rhys-Davies have all signed on the dotted line (and Loken is in this one as well). Let's keep in mind that his movies combined have not even grossed $20 million! How is this guy getting all these films and mostly talented actors other than witchcraft?!?
And that's hardly the end of it. He's snapped up the filiming rights for Far Cry, Fear Effect, and Hunter the Reckoning. He's also mentioned in at least one interview he'd like to destroy several other popular franchises, specifically naming Hitman & Warcraft.
I think we should all start running a pool on who's career could actually survive a Uwe Boll film (although apparently Boll's own career is thriving through some sort of evil ritual where he sacrifices 10 bunnies a night to his dark gods).
7/08/2005
What's better than Halo 2? MORE HALO 2!!!!
Most of my gamer friends know that although I've been trying to keep myself busy with whatever games PS2 currently has to offer, I've definitely been suffering Xbox live withdrawal in a major way, and it's really hit bad this week with the release of the Halo 2 expansion pack. For $12.00 online you get a bunch of new maps to play with that should massively extend the shelf life of the best FPS of this console generation. And for $20 at your local software dealer, you get all of the recently released maps (although half should be free online by now) along with useless extras like artwork and videos (hey, I appreciate the stuff, but if it'll keep costs down, chuck it!). But the thought that I'll probably be able to get all that stuff for pratically nothing and pick up Halo 2 again for dirt cheap if I feel like it in November (which will probably only happen if Perfect Dark Zero is a letdown) helped calm my nerves a bit.
In the realm of "I want to believe": Although Xbox live was clearly a far superior service, the PS2 had it won hands down in one online arena-The online RPG. Between the Baldur's Gate games, Everquest, the upcoming Phantasy Star Universe and especially FF XI, Xbox gamers were left wondering why our only option has been an old Dreamcast game (Phantasy Star Online). With the 360 focusing even more on it's likely online advantage, rumors are flying about what Live will offer in the online RPG arena. The only confirmed offering is once again, a game that's been available to PS2 and PC owners for a couple of years already-FFXI. But strong rumors for City of Heroes and World of Warcraft along with some other original properties have been floating around. The interesting thing is that Microsoft recently renewed the trademark for their high-profile MMORPG cancellation True Fantasy Live Online. Now granted, this most likely is just because Microsoft just wants to keep the rights so no one else can use them, but we can dream!
Moving on to this weekend's movies, neither of which I have high hopes for. Fantastic Four seems to have a pretty good cast going for it. Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans & Julian McMahon all seem perfect fits for their respective roles. Jessica Alba is a decent actress and undeniably the hottest woman on the planet, but just seems miscast as Sue Richards (maybe in about ten years she could do the role). And although Ioan Gruffudd looks like Reed Richards, he's hardly been tested in terms of carrying a film, with only a major role in the forgettable King Arthur under his belt. Add to that cheesy-looking special effects and a large majority of poor early reviews and it looks like we have the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rather than the next X-men.
But it seems like a much better choice than this week's other big release-the latest crappy Japanese horror flick turned into an even crappier American one; Dark Water. And once again we have the latest in a string of high-profile Oscar Winning actors/actresses slumming it in the cheesy horror genre with Jennifer Conelly starring. She must be getting bored of all her acclaim and serious work, either that or it just doesn't pay enough.
That's it for today, but my copy of Killer 7, the latest bizarre release from Capcom (you play a wheel-chair bound assasin who has seven personalities that can manifest themselves, going up against an invisible gang known as the Heaven's Smile, ooookaaayy) should be in my hands by Monday, so I'll definitely have some thoughts on that if nothing else earth-shattering comes up in the entertainment world over the weekend.
In the realm of "I want to believe": Although Xbox live was clearly a far superior service, the PS2 had it won hands down in one online arena-The online RPG. Between the Baldur's Gate games, Everquest, the upcoming Phantasy Star Universe and especially FF XI, Xbox gamers were left wondering why our only option has been an old Dreamcast game (Phantasy Star Online). With the 360 focusing even more on it's likely online advantage, rumors are flying about what Live will offer in the online RPG arena. The only confirmed offering is once again, a game that's been available to PS2 and PC owners for a couple of years already-FFXI. But strong rumors for City of Heroes and World of Warcraft along with some other original properties have been floating around. The interesting thing is that Microsoft recently renewed the trademark for their high-profile MMORPG cancellation True Fantasy Live Online. Now granted, this most likely is just because Microsoft just wants to keep the rights so no one else can use them, but we can dream!
Moving on to this weekend's movies, neither of which I have high hopes for. Fantastic Four seems to have a pretty good cast going for it. Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans & Julian McMahon all seem perfect fits for their respective roles. Jessica Alba is a decent actress and undeniably the hottest woman on the planet, but just seems miscast as Sue Richards (maybe in about ten years she could do the role). And although Ioan Gruffudd looks like Reed Richards, he's hardly been tested in terms of carrying a film, with only a major role in the forgettable King Arthur under his belt. Add to that cheesy-looking special effects and a large majority of poor early reviews and it looks like we have the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rather than the next X-men.
But it seems like a much better choice than this week's other big release-the latest crappy Japanese horror flick turned into an even crappier American one; Dark Water. And once again we have the latest in a string of high-profile Oscar Winning actors/actresses slumming it in the cheesy horror genre with Jennifer Conelly starring. She must be getting bored of all her acclaim and serious work, either that or it just doesn't pay enough.
That's it for today, but my copy of Killer 7, the latest bizarre release from Capcom (you play a wheel-chair bound assasin who has seven personalities that can manifest themselves, going up against an invisible gang known as the Heaven's Smile, ooookaaayy) should be in my hands by Monday, so I'll definitely have some thoughts on that if nothing else earth-shattering comes up in the entertainment world over the weekend.
7/06/2005
Just because you're crazy doesn't mean you're wrong...
Behold the latest pearl of wisdom from Sony's Ken Kutaragi, on the goal of the PS3-“for consumers to think to themselves ‘I will work more hours to buy one’. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else.”. This has already caused some ire among gamers and added more fuel for the anti-Sony fanboys, because they rightly believe this means that the PS3 may come out at a ridiculously high price (note that most current rumors point at $400, which doesn't seem unresaonable, but a bit too pricey for my taste, especially when they will most likely drop significantly by next Xmas). Anyone who reads this blog knows that I personally think they need to put a muzzle on Kutaragi, as almost everything he says is paramount to shooting yourself in the foot. But I'm actually defending this statement, because in reality, it is the ultimate goal of all products, especially pricey luxuries like game consoles. Kuturagi just had the balls to say what no one else will. They want you to want the system so bad that you will ignore bills, work longer hours, starve yourself, etc. in order to afford that system if that's what it takes. Company execs would slit their own mother's throats for this kind of brand loyalty, so don't kid yourself that this isn't also what Microsoft and Nintendo really want.
That's really all I have for today, but I'll be back tommorow with thoughts on this weekend's movies and anything else going on in the entertainment world.
That's really all I have for today, but I'll be back tommorow with thoughts on this weekend's movies and anything else going on in the entertainment world.
6/30/2005
BRING ME THE HEAD OF STEVEN SPIELBERG!!!
That was pretty much my gut reaction today after suffering through what is easily Spielberg's worst movie and may also be Tom Cruise's (although it's hard to top stuff like Cocktail & Days of Thunder in terms of pure crapulence). I have never been so bored watching tons of Earthlings be brutually eliminated. The special effects were just loud, noisy and clumsy. There was no plot to speak of (you can tell because they keep repeating the same lines over and over throughout the movie). Any dramatic moments or character development feel horribly forced and hollow. Cruise is horribly miscast as some normal kind of jerk dockworker, and Dakota Fanning literally just spends the whole movie being an annoying whiny kid. And to top it all off, Senor Speilburgeo felt it was a good idea to stick with the original ending, and to add on top the ultimate mushy happy Hollywood ending. I was expecting something at least equal to Independence Day (dumb, but pretty entertaining), but this is more on the level of Plan 9 from Outer Space, just with an actual budget which makes it all the sadder. I wasn't expecting it to be a great film, but the fact that it wasn't entertaining on ANY level makes this easily the biggest dissapointment of this year (but The Longest Yard still beats it out by a little for worst movie I've seen this year).
After subjecting myself to the pure torture that was WOW. I definitely needed a pick me up. Luckily, this same day the newest RPG from the brilliant minds at Nippon Ichi came out: Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. The story is nothing new (mana is dissapearing from the world, blah, blah, blah), but it's main feature is the alchemy system. It sounds a little intimidating and limiting at first, since you have to combine elements you collect in order to make powerful attacks that are necessary to beat even the standard enemies in the game. But luckily the system itself is pretty simple, and since you can turn many enemies and inanimate objects that respawn into elements it's hard to run out. This also adds plenty of strategy and variety to otherwise mundane battles. The encounter rate is also suprisingly low, which can be trouble for big boss fights since you may be underpowered, but it's a refeshing chancge of pace. But like any really good rpg, the key to AI:EM is that the characters are chraming and interesting and you like spending time with them (really, it's important in all forms of entertainment, but since RPGs usually ask for much longer commitment, it's more important that the characters are at least not annoying and preferably entertaining). That's really it for now
After subjecting myself to the pure torture that was WOW. I definitely needed a pick me up. Luckily, this same day the newest RPG from the brilliant minds at Nippon Ichi came out: Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. The story is nothing new (mana is dissapearing from the world, blah, blah, blah), but it's main feature is the alchemy system. It sounds a little intimidating and limiting at first, since you have to combine elements you collect in order to make powerful attacks that are necessary to beat even the standard enemies in the game. But luckily the system itself is pretty simple, and since you can turn many enemies and inanimate objects that respawn into elements it's hard to run out. This also adds plenty of strategy and variety to otherwise mundane battles. The encounter rate is also suprisingly low, which can be trouble for big boss fights since you may be underpowered, but it's a refeshing chancge of pace. But like any really good rpg, the key to AI:EM is that the characters are chraming and interesting and you like spending time with them (really, it's important in all forms of entertainment, but since RPGs usually ask for much longer commitment, it's more important that the characters are at least not annoying and preferably entertaining). That's really it for now
6/27/2005
We should've killed E.T. when we had the chance
Seriously, that little bastard got on the mothership and nearly 25 years later, he's brought back all his buddies to slughter the human race! It would be cool since Spielburg did the ultimate friendly alien movie and now he's doing the big theatrical version of War of the Worlds. I have faith in the combination of Cruise and Spielberg (Minority Report is one of my favorite movies of the last few years), but there's a lot of big question marks behind this film. War of the Worlds was a radio broadcast, so how do you expand that into a movie (yeah, it's been a couple of movies and a TV show, but this movie seems to have no relation)? And honestly, on the surface, it looks a little like Signs, which was such an asbymal waste of time. And hell, last time the aliens were beaten by our own atmosphere, so I hope that's not the ending here. I guess we'll all find out in two days, but if I see any police aiming walkie talkies at the aliens (in case you forget, he altered the DVD release of E.T. so that the police only had walkie talkies instead of guns), I'll know Spielberg has been drinking from the same kool-aid mix that Lucas has been on the last decade or so.
Although it's not even out yet, the upcoming 25 to Life is already the favorite whipping boy of several senators (including Hilary Clinton) and one idiotic CNN analyst. Off course they are complaining about the violence level, and the fact that you can live the life of a gang-banger, setting up ambushes and drive-bys. Of course, they forget to mention that EVERY preview so far says you also have the choice to play as a police officer. And they are mostly doing the usual song and dance of protecting little Billy from things he'll learn about from his friends at school anyways, but they are taing it one step further and pleading with major retailers to not even carry the title. This is a nifty little way of getting around the first amendment, because they aren't trying to pass anything, but unless a better election issue comes up, come release time they may actually resort to protesting outside stores that carry the title (while ignoring plenty of other equally violent titles that are releasing in the same time frame), which can be just as bad as any legislation. Wal Mart has a pretty good history of having no spine, but I hope other retailers will take a stand and tell these morons to stop being such assholes and focus on important issues like oh I don't know, the war effort or social security or the drug war or the defecit or gas prices. I could keep going but I'll spare you readers.
There's been a lot of fairly unholy unions in entertainment, but I think this latest one tops them all. Midway, maker of overrated recycled crap like 5 million similar NFL Blitz titles and the mostly laughable Mortal Kombat titles (MK II was the only worthwhile one of the whole series) has teamed up with MTV to make games. Take a few minutes to let the horror of this news sink in. MTV is officially in the games buisness (and they are making their own game division called MTV games). This means we'll be forced to be subject to horrors like Pimp My Ride The Game, The Ashlee Simpson Game and whatever other crappy shows they have. I can see a Real World game right now, hopefully it's an FPS.
And finally, if you thought Jack Bauer had a lot of bad days before, it's about to get even worse for the most beleagured federal agent in TV history. A movie is supposedly in the works, although I don't know how they squeeze what's normally 24 hours of TV into a two-hour movie. But more pressing is 24: The Game. It takes place between seasons 2 & 3, and it looks pretty damn cool. I just hope it's not actually based on a clock, because I loathe time-based titles. I'll most likely be back on Thursday, so until then....
Although it's not even out yet, the upcoming 25 to Life is already the favorite whipping boy of several senators (including Hilary Clinton) and one idiotic CNN analyst. Off course they are complaining about the violence level, and the fact that you can live the life of a gang-banger, setting up ambushes and drive-bys. Of course, they forget to mention that EVERY preview so far says you also have the choice to play as a police officer. And they are mostly doing the usual song and dance of protecting little Billy from things he'll learn about from his friends at school anyways, but they are taing it one step further and pleading with major retailers to not even carry the title. This is a nifty little way of getting around the first amendment, because they aren't trying to pass anything, but unless a better election issue comes up, come release time they may actually resort to protesting outside stores that carry the title (while ignoring plenty of other equally violent titles that are releasing in the same time frame), which can be just as bad as any legislation. Wal Mart has a pretty good history of having no spine, but I hope other retailers will take a stand and tell these morons to stop being such assholes and focus on important issues like oh I don't know, the war effort or social security or the drug war or the defecit or gas prices. I could keep going but I'll spare you readers.
There's been a lot of fairly unholy unions in entertainment, but I think this latest one tops them all. Midway, maker of overrated recycled crap like 5 million similar NFL Blitz titles and the mostly laughable Mortal Kombat titles (MK II was the only worthwhile one of the whole series) has teamed up with MTV to make games. Take a few minutes to let the horror of this news sink in. MTV is officially in the games buisness (and they are making their own game division called MTV games). This means we'll be forced to be subject to horrors like Pimp My Ride The Game, The Ashlee Simpson Game and whatever other crappy shows they have. I can see a Real World game right now, hopefully it's an FPS.
And finally, if you thought Jack Bauer had a lot of bad days before, it's about to get even worse for the most beleagured federal agent in TV history. A movie is supposedly in the works, although I don't know how they squeeze what's normally 24 hours of TV into a two-hour movie. But more pressing is 24: The Game. It takes place between seasons 2 & 3, and it looks pretty damn cool. I just hope it's not actually based on a clock, because I loathe time-based titles. I'll most likely be back on Thursday, so until then....
Funerals & Birthdays
Ok, let's start off with the bad news. The voice of Tigger is dead. Paul Winchell died on Friday, and while Tigger will live on, it's a very well established fact that when the original voice of a cherished character dies, the character loses something. Most likely because the originator of the distinctive voice (Mel Blanc for example) had enough power and concern for the integrity of the character they were portraying. Then some new person who most likely could really use the job on their resume comes in as a replacement and simply becomes the company's latest "yes-man". Mainly because their are thousands of people who can do a more than adequate impersonation of at least one well-known cartoon character, giving the new guy no reason to rock the boat. The the character slowly turns into a bad combination of catch-phrases and simply pushing merchandise. And given that Tigger is the one character in the 100-acre wood I wouldn't set on fire and then do a happy dance if given the chance, I consider this a sad day since he will most definitely go the route of corporate schmuck soon. You need to see no further example than the fact that the best thing the Looney Tunes have done in the last decade or so is Space Jam for evidence of this.
As for happier news, the original gaming icon, Pac-Man (yes Pong came before, but it isn't really an icon) turns 25 this week. Actually, that makes me feel old, since I'm actually a full year older than the little yellow ghost gobbler. But, anniversaries of this sort do sort of make you take a look back and see how far gaming has come as a medium. It's been quite a trip if you've been along for the whole ride. Also makes me think anybody who says games were better in the "good old days" has completely lost their mind.
Alright, that's really it for now, but seeing as it's officially Monday, I'll be back later today with thoughts on War of the Worlds, the newest game rattling politicians' chains and whatever other news seems to creep up during the day. But for now, checl out the awesomeness of this trailer for The Transporter 2, due out in September
As for happier news, the original gaming icon, Pac-Man (yes Pong came before, but it isn't really an icon) turns 25 this week. Actually, that makes me feel old, since I'm actually a full year older than the little yellow ghost gobbler. But, anniversaries of this sort do sort of make you take a look back and see how far gaming has come as a medium. It's been quite a trip if you've been along for the whole ride. Also makes me think anybody who says games were better in the "good old days" has completely lost their mind.
Alright, that's really it for now, but seeing as it's officially Monday, I'll be back later today with thoughts on War of the Worlds, the newest game rattling politicians' chains and whatever other news seems to creep up during the day. But for now, checl out the awesomeness of this trailer for The Transporter 2, due out in September
6/21/2005
So a foul-mouthed alcholic squirrel and a homicidal alien walk into a bar...
Best described as a Bizarro world version of Disney Land, the original Conker's Bad Fur Day was one of the last great releases on the Nintendo 64 (hell, it was one of the few good ones). You played a wacky squirrel who got piss drunk on his 21st birthday, and woke up with a hangover in a stange land that included things like flowers with huge breasts and a giant living mound of poo that sang opera. But for the time it was also a brilliant platformer thanks to what at the time was a fairly original take on your normal cute and cuddly platformer and an extremely robust single and multi-player mode. And years later, when Rare was snapped up by Microsoft, one of the first announcements would be that they were porting over the nasty and twisted tale of Conker to the Xbox, with a huge online mode. Problem is, they didn't change anything, so a lot of the balance and camera problems that were forgivable when the game was new just seem annoying now. And the witty movie jabs have aged really terribly, as have the bad fart jokes and toilet humor. I'm sure it will sell well, but I'd rather they have a real and creative sequel (especially since the damn game took at least two years) than some game I played years ago that seems rather dated now.
Also out this week is Destory All Humans, an homage to campy sci-fi classics (so much so that there was a special offer where you could get a free copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space). You play an alien whose ultimate goal is to get DNA to save your planet from dying, but the real purpose is to use all the cool weapons at your disposal to blow the hell out of every human and cow in sight. It probably won't offer much in terms of original gameplay, but running around with an alien death ray causing major havoc is always fun.
Going with the philosophy if it ain't broke,fix it anyways; the Big N is apparently considering revamping the look of the classic games that it will have available to download on its upcoming Revolution system. This is a HORRIBLE idea. The whole reason people are excited about this concept to begin with is to play these classics in their orginal pixelated glory. The only games I would support doing this on is the N64 games because they all looked horribly pixelated and blocky, so they could use some smoothing out, but not any kind of real upgrade. I really hope Nintendo at least offers the original version as an alternative or this may turn off a lot of the old school hardcore crowd they were hoping to attract.
Finally, I saw The Longest Yard today, and I can say it is easily the worst movie I have seen this year. The jokes are all painful, the performances are horrible, it badly needs at least 30 minutes cut out, and by the time they get to the big game, you just don't care. I have rarely ever wanted 113 minutes back so badly in my entire life.
Also out this week is Destory All Humans, an homage to campy sci-fi classics (so much so that there was a special offer where you could get a free copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space). You play an alien whose ultimate goal is to get DNA to save your planet from dying, but the real purpose is to use all the cool weapons at your disposal to blow the hell out of every human and cow in sight. It probably won't offer much in terms of original gameplay, but running around with an alien death ray causing major havoc is always fun.
Going with the philosophy if it ain't broke,fix it anyways; the Big N is apparently considering revamping the look of the classic games that it will have available to download on its upcoming Revolution system. This is a HORRIBLE idea. The whole reason people are excited about this concept to begin with is to play these classics in their orginal pixelated glory. The only games I would support doing this on is the N64 games because they all looked horribly pixelated and blocky, so they could use some smoothing out, but not any kind of real upgrade. I really hope Nintendo at least offers the original version as an alternative or this may turn off a lot of the old school hardcore crowd they were hoping to attract.
Finally, I saw The Longest Yard today, and I can say it is easily the worst movie I have seen this year. The jokes are all painful, the performances are horrible, it badly needs at least 30 minutes cut out, and by the time they get to the big game, you just don't care. I have rarely ever wanted 113 minutes back so badly in my entire life.
I see lots of dead people...
Ok, since I have several planned posts on specific topics this week, I thought I would talk about this weekend's movies a few days early, especially since none of them seem particularly appealing. First up is Lindsay Lohan in yet another tepid remake of a mediocre original-Herbie Fully Loaded. Granted, it's probably the last chance you'll get to see her as a hot curvy redhead as she's become a bad Paris Hilton imitator, but that's not really enough reason to go see this pathetic attempt to milk money out of a franchise that nobody cared about to begin with.
And then we turn to the latest TV show turned movie-Bewitched. Granted, unlike most remakes, it's actually got a pretty solid cast behind it-Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, and Michael Caine, but again, the question becomes does anybody care? Bewitched wasn't even that good of a show to begin with.
Finally, there is George Romero's return to the genre he created with Land of The Dead. Now I loved Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and the last few zombie films (28 Days Later, the new Dawn of the Dead) have been pretty entertaining. But Romero is insisting on the traditional slow-moving zombies, which have always been a huge plothole to me-If these zombies are not only incredibly slow but completely brainless, how is it that they haven't just been eliminated? And as good as Romero's first two zombie films were, his third, Day of the Dead was a complete joke and he hasn't really done anything worthwhile since then, so I'm not too sure it'll be worth checking out either.
Although Batman Begins hasn't even been out two weeks, there is already a huge buzz about the sequel. Apparently, all the key actors will be back, except Katie Holmes (which is probably a good thing, as she was at best ineffectual), and it's most likely that the new villain will be the Joker, and early reports indicate that there is a push to get Mark Hamill the role. This may seem like an odd choice, but anyone who is a Batman fan knows that Mark Hamill has been the animated voice of the Joker for years in various shows and movies, and he's done a brillaint job, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch (although given Hamill is in his mid-50s, they may opt for someone younger).
Halo is coming to a theatre near you. But all that has really been decided so far is that Fox and Universal are teaming up to make the film. Now, even though he's far from a brillaint director, I think this is material that is straight up Jerry Bruckheimer's alley, so it would be smart to get him on it, and I think The Rock would also be a good choice for the role of Master Chief. But just don't let Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark) anywhere near it, and it should have a decent chance of being the first good video game movie (I have little hope for the upcoming Doom movie).
That's really all for now, but I'll be back later on in the day with thoughts on the newest game releases and some other news that has happened recently...
And then we turn to the latest TV show turned movie-Bewitched. Granted, unlike most remakes, it's actually got a pretty solid cast behind it-Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, and Michael Caine, but again, the question becomes does anybody care? Bewitched wasn't even that good of a show to begin with.
Finally, there is George Romero's return to the genre he created with Land of The Dead. Now I loved Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and the last few zombie films (28 Days Later, the new Dawn of the Dead) have been pretty entertaining. But Romero is insisting on the traditional slow-moving zombies, which have always been a huge plothole to me-If these zombies are not only incredibly slow but completely brainless, how is it that they haven't just been eliminated? And as good as Romero's first two zombie films were, his third, Day of the Dead was a complete joke and he hasn't really done anything worthwhile since then, so I'm not too sure it'll be worth checking out either.
Although Batman Begins hasn't even been out two weeks, there is already a huge buzz about the sequel. Apparently, all the key actors will be back, except Katie Holmes (which is probably a good thing, as she was at best ineffectual), and it's most likely that the new villain will be the Joker, and early reports indicate that there is a push to get Mark Hamill the role. This may seem like an odd choice, but anyone who is a Batman fan knows that Mark Hamill has been the animated voice of the Joker for years in various shows and movies, and he's done a brillaint job, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch (although given Hamill is in his mid-50s, they may opt for someone younger).
Halo is coming to a theatre near you. But all that has really been decided so far is that Fox and Universal are teaming up to make the film. Now, even though he's far from a brillaint director, I think this is material that is straight up Jerry Bruckheimer's alley, so it would be smart to get him on it, and I think The Rock would also be a good choice for the role of Master Chief. But just don't let Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark) anywhere near it, and it should have a decent chance of being the first good video game movie (I have little hope for the upcoming Doom movie).
That's really all for now, but I'll be back later on in the day with thoughts on the newest game releases and some other news that has happened recently...
6/16/2005
Those who do not learn from history....
One of the oldest and most true adages of all time, yet we constantly see people who flagrantly ignore it and suffer the consequences. With that in mind, it appears that Sony & Toshiba's talks about coming up with some sort of compromise between the Blu-Ray Format & DVDHD format have compltely fallen through. Now, there's going to be a winner and a loser here for sure, but the suprise is that it will most likely be Sony. Why? Let's hit the way back machine and go back in time to the betamax vs. vhs wars.
Sony was fully behind their format betamax, and why shouldn't they be, it was better quality than vhs, surely people would want better quality, right? But betamax was more expensive for both the studios and the consumer, so vhs won out. Once again, we have the exact same situation coming up. DVDHD has far less capacity than Blu-ray, but it's far easier to develop for and significantly cheaper to make, so when the average consumer looks at a DVDHD and a blu-ray dvd and notices the price difference, they'll go for what leaves a little more in their wallet, especially when they have to pick a dvd player that will play just one format (wanna bet the Blu-ray players will cost significantly more as well?). Heck, if DVDHD's are noticably more expensive than the current standard format, the average comsumer may just say screw it and stick with what they've already got.
Ok, I completely forget to mention last time that I did see Mr. & Mrs. Smith over the weekend, and it was a very fun popcorn flick without a whole lot of rhyme or reason, but plenty of good action to make up for that. I also saw Batman Begins today and I think it's easily the best Batman movie done yet and could be argued as the best superhero movie I've ever seen (that's right, better than Spider-Man 2).
Sony was fully behind their format betamax, and why shouldn't they be, it was better quality than vhs, surely people would want better quality, right? But betamax was more expensive for both the studios and the consumer, so vhs won out. Once again, we have the exact same situation coming up. DVDHD has far less capacity than Blu-ray, but it's far easier to develop for and significantly cheaper to make, so when the average consumer looks at a DVDHD and a blu-ray dvd and notices the price difference, they'll go for what leaves a little more in their wallet, especially when they have to pick a dvd player that will play just one format (wanna bet the Blu-ray players will cost significantly more as well?). Heck, if DVDHD's are noticably more expensive than the current standard format, the average comsumer may just say screw it and stick with what they've already got.
Ok, I completely forget to mention last time that I did see Mr. & Mrs. Smith over the weekend, and it was a very fun popcorn flick without a whole lot of rhyme or reason, but plenty of good action to make up for that. I also saw Batman Begins today and I think it's easily the best Batman movie done yet and could be argued as the best superhero movie I've ever seen (that's right, better than Spider-Man 2).
6/14/2005
Ressurecting the Dark Knight
It wasn't the Joker, It wasn't Bane, hell it wasn't even some laughable villain like The Ventriloquist. In the end the one who was finally able to basically kill off Batman was Joel Schumacher and his insistance on a campy, nipple-suit filled film with horrid acting and ridiculous casting choices (Ahnuld as Mr. Freeze? a very non-athletic Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl?) that really did in the caped crusader's movie career. After all, although Batman has still thrived very well in comics and TV, it took nearly a decade to get him back onto the big screen, and it was a long and ever-evolving journey. How do restore faith in a franchise that left such a thoroughly bad taste in everybody's mouth?
There were probably a ton of ideas. Maybe leaving Batman dead and buried and showing what Gotham was like without him would've been an ideal choice? Really, no idea seemed too out there in breathing badly needed new life into the franchise. For awhile there was even serious effort to get out a Batman/Superman film to pump new life into both franchises. But what's coming out tommorow is more a result of Christopher Nolan's vision. Going back to the beginning, showing how and why Batman is Batman, and making Gotham a more real and gritty place, where Batman would really standout rather than seem right at home like he did in previous films. And the early reviews seem to indicate that this approach has worked in bringing back the franchise from beyond. I'm hoping they are right, and the previews do look very impressive, but I did see one preview where Christian Bale's scary Batman voice sounded more like he just had a really sore throat, which causes me to worry some.
I finally picked up the first season of Scrubs & the first two seasons of Newsradio, easily two of the best comedies of the last decade, and both were not given enough of a push by the now dead last NBC (granted, Newsradio lost an integral cast member when Hartman died, the show was definitely never the same and somewhat deservedly slowly died off after, but there's no excuse for them not pushing Scrubs as their premiere sitcom if not the best show on their network). Any fan of truly brilliant comedy needs to go pick these up. That's all for today....
There were probably a ton of ideas. Maybe leaving Batman dead and buried and showing what Gotham was like without him would've been an ideal choice? Really, no idea seemed too out there in breathing badly needed new life into the franchise. For awhile there was even serious effort to get out a Batman/Superman film to pump new life into both franchises. But what's coming out tommorow is more a result of Christopher Nolan's vision. Going back to the beginning, showing how and why Batman is Batman, and making Gotham a more real and gritty place, where Batman would really standout rather than seem right at home like he did in previous films. And the early reviews seem to indicate that this approach has worked in bringing back the franchise from beyond. I'm hoping they are right, and the previews do look very impressive, but I did see one preview where Christian Bale's scary Batman voice sounded more like he just had a really sore throat, which causes me to worry some.
I finally picked up the first season of Scrubs & the first two seasons of Newsradio, easily two of the best comedies of the last decade, and both were not given enough of a push by the now dead last NBC (granted, Newsradio lost an integral cast member when Hartman died, the show was definitely never the same and somewhat deservedly slowly died off after, but there's no excuse for them not pushing Scrubs as their premiere sitcom if not the best show on their network). Any fan of truly brilliant comedy needs to go pick these up. That's all for today....
6/10/2005
Nothing solves marital issues like a little espionage
A lot of different movies open this weekend, but honestly the only one that seems worth seeing is Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. It's a real shame a film that looks almost guaranteed to be the slickest action film this summer has been overshadowed with the nation's disturbing obsession with famous people's sex lives. The reviews of been really good so far and anything from the director of The Bourne Identity is gonna be awesome.
The other offering just seem like pure dreck. Hooneymooners is an insult to Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and everybody who made that brilliant sitcom that basically set the standard for guys like Fred Flinstone, Al Bundy, Homer Simpson and every lovable loser since then. The mere fact that the studio wouldn't even put in Ralph's famous "Bam! Zoom! Right to the Moon!" line (and all his variations on it) because they feared it would be seen as supporting violence against women makes it a certainty that this will be a humorless, painful affair to anyone unfortunate enough to waste money on it.
High Tension is yet another thriller from a foreign land, this time France. Now, the reviews have been solid, but any horror film I've seen over the last decade, American or otherwise, has been laughably awful at best(for some reason critics have a weird reverance for foreign & independent films, even though they make just as many crappy films as big budget Hollywood does). Plus it looks like a bad Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip off.
The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D is the latest family offering from Robert Rodriguez, and like his other family offerings, it should fill you with dread. The Spy Kids series was severely overrated and Rodriguez just seems so much more in is element when he is doing extremely visceral and violent movies like Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn & Desperado.
And then there's Howl's Moving Castle, the lastest from Miyazaki, which I think will be like all of his films-Brilliant animation, but thin plot and atrocious dialogue. More evidence of the sacred cow that reviewers to think foreign films are.
Video Game wise-two big releases are out this week-Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for Xbox, I more or less said what I thought about this way back when I first started up this blog, but I"ll expand on it a bit here. I think the GTA series has more or less peaked with Vice City. It had just about everything you could ever want to do in a violent crime game, and had incredibly cool nostalgia feel to it. San Andreas by comaprison, just felt like it added tons of stuff that wasn't necessary and was really boring-namely exercise & calorie-counting. It's bad enough we have to do this stuff in real life if we want to live past 40, we don't want it in videogames.
The other would be the latest WWII shooter Medal of Honor: European Assault. Forget banning violent video games, let's at least put some kind of moratorium on historical shooters. These things seem to be multiplying like tribbles, and they won't stop till all other genres are ingored completely.
All right, that's really all I have for todya, but I'll most likely have an update Saturday or Sunday as well.
The other offering just seem like pure dreck. Hooneymooners is an insult to Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and everybody who made that brilliant sitcom that basically set the standard for guys like Fred Flinstone, Al Bundy, Homer Simpson and every lovable loser since then. The mere fact that the studio wouldn't even put in Ralph's famous "Bam! Zoom! Right to the Moon!" line (and all his variations on it) because they feared it would be seen as supporting violence against women makes it a certainty that this will be a humorless, painful affair to anyone unfortunate enough to waste money on it.
High Tension is yet another thriller from a foreign land, this time France. Now, the reviews have been solid, but any horror film I've seen over the last decade, American or otherwise, has been laughably awful at best(for some reason critics have a weird reverance for foreign & independent films, even though they make just as many crappy films as big budget Hollywood does). Plus it looks like a bad Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip off.
The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D is the latest family offering from Robert Rodriguez, and like his other family offerings, it should fill you with dread. The Spy Kids series was severely overrated and Rodriguez just seems so much more in is element when he is doing extremely visceral and violent movies like Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn & Desperado.
And then there's Howl's Moving Castle, the lastest from Miyazaki, which I think will be like all of his films-Brilliant animation, but thin plot and atrocious dialogue. More evidence of the sacred cow that reviewers to think foreign films are.
Video Game wise-two big releases are out this week-Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for Xbox, I more or less said what I thought about this way back when I first started up this blog, but I"ll expand on it a bit here. I think the GTA series has more or less peaked with Vice City. It had just about everything you could ever want to do in a violent crime game, and had incredibly cool nostalgia feel to it. San Andreas by comaprison, just felt like it added tons of stuff that wasn't necessary and was really boring-namely exercise & calorie-counting. It's bad enough we have to do this stuff in real life if we want to live past 40, we don't want it in videogames.
The other would be the latest WWII shooter Medal of Honor: European Assault. Forget banning violent video games, let's at least put some kind of moratorium on historical shooters. These things seem to be multiplying like tribbles, and they won't stop till all other genres are ingored completely.
All right, that's really all I have for todya, but I'll most likely have an update Saturday or Sunday as well.
6/07/2005
They shoot horses....
So for a long while now I've been thinking about trading in my Xbox. Sure, there would be a couple of games I might miss out on and a few months of live I won't be able to take advantage of, but I thought I'd best do it soon. And upcoming games for the current platform will most likely be playable on the new one. Also, by showing a little patience I can probably also save a few bucks and pick them up for my new console at a nice used or discounted price. Then I pretty much realized the same thing applies to my Gamecube, so this morning I traded them both in. Now for the Xbox, this was a fairly easy decision as I think a few months away from live will only make me enjoy it more, and there are only a couple of Xbox titles I might initially miss out on and pick up a little after they are out. For the GC, it was a pretty painful one. Even though the system is clearly pretty much on it's last legs (despite what any insane fanboy will have you believe), they already have an early favorite for Game of the Year with the new Zelda game, and anyobody will tell you that it will most likely be worth buying a cube just for that game, and while I don't disagree with that, the economist in me reasons that no ONE game is worth keeping or buying a system for, especially when it's only going to go down in value, and probaly pretty damn soon. So, it will royally suck to wait a year after the game comes out to play the it on the Revolution, but it'll great to pick it up for only about twenty dollars or less.
Suprisingly, it's easily my PS2 that still has plenty of life left in it (at least gamewise, I finally had to trade in my old one that just barely works for a nice used slim PS2, good way for Sony to completely gaurauntee that there's no way I am picking up a PS3 at launch), as there are quite a few upcoming games I want for the system (mostly rpgs like Atelier Iris, Shadow Hearts 3, Kingdom Hearts 2, etc.). And if Sony keeps to their word, my PS2 will probably still have a couple more years before I really put it out to pasture (and with a 90 million+ user base, they have very good reason to keep supporting the system).
Ok, that's really all I have time for today, I'll finish up by saying I saw Cinderella Man on Sunday, and I'd rank it as an overall excellent movie that captures boxing really well with tremendous performances by Russell Crowe & Paul Giamatti (as for Renee Zelwegger, well...)
Suprisingly, it's easily my PS2 that still has plenty of life left in it (at least gamewise, I finally had to trade in my old one that just barely works for a nice used slim PS2, good way for Sony to completely gaurauntee that there's no way I am picking up a PS3 at launch), as there are quite a few upcoming games I want for the system (mostly rpgs like Atelier Iris, Shadow Hearts 3, Kingdom Hearts 2, etc.). And if Sony keeps to their word, my PS2 will probably still have a couple more years before I really put it out to pasture (and with a 90 million+ user base, they have very good reason to keep supporting the system).
Ok, that's really all I have time for today, I'll finish up by saying I saw Cinderella Man on Sunday, and I'd rank it as an overall excellent movie that captures boxing really well with tremendous performances by Russell Crowe & Paul Giamatti (as for Renee Zelwegger, well...)
6/05/2005
Why the 360 will fail
Looking back through my last few posts, I realize I've probably lately sounded at best like a cautiously optimistic Microsoft fanboy, when in actuality I am far from it (heck, if anything I'm a diehard Sega fan, secretly hoping that they will one day return to consoles with a new system that will smite all opposers!!, ok that's probably saying too much). But the reality is that out of the 3 current consoles, I've probably gotten the best overall experience out of my Xbox. A steady flow of quality games(which the Gamecube seriously lacks in), an excellent online service(which both the GC & PS2 lack), and I've never had any serious problems with playing dvds or certain games that use certain types of formats that should work(this happens a frustrating amount on my PS2). But all the same, I got far more games for the PS2, and the same will probably hold true for the PS3 because they tend to have every type of game under the sun (especially in the rpg area, which is by far my favorite genre), and when you look at the Xbox library in comparison, it's marketing seems clearly designed for mostly drunk frat boys as it's filled with an overabundance of mostly mindless shooters and sports titles. So, while I honestly believe Microsoft will give Sony a much better run for their money in the next round of the console wars, their is a serious chance that they will be scrapping for a distant second with Nintendo just like this round, and here's why:
1. Too much belief in online-Now, I honestly believe that online gaming is the next big thing, but it's not there right now (out of over 20 million Xbox users, less than 2 million have live, not exactly a number to boast about), and it may take awhile to get there. And as someone who is recently new to the waters of online gaming (at least in it's current incarnation), it can be very rough going at first. Although I've met quite a few good friends, you definitely meet a large share of cheaters, idiots and total assholes (sadly, a large number meet all that criteria at once). I have a few friends who actually refuse to go online even though they have months of Xbox live left specifically because they've just dealt with way too many jerks to make it worthwhile. Also, while I love the potential idea of Microsoft's marketplace, where you can get demos & custom items; there's also a lot of potential for gamers to be pissed off by companies nickel & diming gamers to death, therefore turning them off the service and the 360 entirely. Microsoft is banking on this being their biggest gun in the next round and they could fall flat on their face because of that.
2. Coming out first-Just because Microsoft will be there first doesn't gaurauntee anything. It may give the impression that they are afraid to compete head to head with Sony. Sony is the gaming equivalent of the 800-pound gorrilla right now, they will launch when they want on their terms and they have no reason to think otherwise. It gives both Sony and Nintendo a chace to look at Microsoft's launch and plenty of time to see what they can do better. It's also a good bet that the PS3 games (at least any exclusives) will look noticeably better than any first gen 360 games (at least if Sony's reps aren't completely talking out of their ass), and better eye candy will do a lot to sell systems.
3. The Price war-We know the 360 will launch in the range of $300-350, which means it will probably be cheaper than the PS3, whose price could be significantly more, or it could be a lot closer in price with some Sony reps claiming it would probably be around $370-$400. And those numbers aren't that far apart, so who could blame someone who has to choose one system for spending just a little bit more on one that's supposedly significantly more powerful?And then there's Nintendo. We know that next gen games for the PS3 & 360 will likely hit the $60 range. With Nintendo's system being far less powerful, not only the system, but the games might be significantly cheaper. And With system exclusives becoming less & less common these days, There might be a huge backlash against both Sony & Microsoft for their high prices compared to Nintendo's.
4. The stagnation of the gaming industry-I know, with all the billions the gaming industry makes, the idea of the entire industry having another big crash like they did in the 80s seems nearly impossible. But they thought it was impossible back then too. And while I'm generally excited about what the next generation has to offer, we seem to be getting into a rut of "safe" titles-Lots of shooters (especially WWII-based ones), lots of games based off of TV shows or movies, or cookie-cutter sequels to already popular franchises. And that's mostly what we are seeing in the next generation as well so far, so why buy a new system that doesn't offer anything new in terms of gameplay? Seriously, if all the next gen systems offer is the same games with shinier graphics, the whole industry will pay for it. And while I believe Sony & Nintendo could easily survive a crash, Microsoft may pull out completely if the industry goes south considering how much of a bath they've already taken.
5. Concentrating on the American market-Gaming is a global thing, and while Microsoft has acknowledged that just concentrating on American gamers (and specifically virtually ignoring the very different Japanese market) was a mistake, and they are supposedly working to rectify that. But I'll believe it when I see it. Grabbing the cooperation of Squarenix (as well as acquiring Mistwalker studios, which is made up of former Squarenix alumni) is a big step foward in that direction, but the PS2 has always had a nice balance of big name titles and odd quirky ones, if Microsoft really wants to succeed, they need that sort of balance.
6. Everything to everyone-The more things a system can do, the more things can go wrong with it. I don't really intend to use most of the 360's "features", and I'd prefer it didn't have them to begin with. Besides adding to cost of the system, if something goes wrong with one particular feature, it could potentially affect the entire system, leaving gamers with a busted system because of a feature they don't even use and feeling ripped off because of it. Granted, Sony's doing virtually the same thing, but having crappy hardware that barely works didn't stop them last time.
7. Lack of HD-DVD or Blu-ray capability-One of these will be the next step in storage capacity, and despite J. Allard's claim of it being the "HD era", the 360 still uses a standard DVD drive, not compatible with either HD-DVDs or Blu-ray, both of which are capable of a lot more storage capacity. And Sony has clearly cast their vote in the Blu-ray corner, which can hold a massive amount comparatively. It's way too soon to tell whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray will become the definitive format, but since the 360 doesn't really support either, they could easily be left in the dust.
8. Lack of strong launch titles-With every current system, the initial launch sucked complete ass in terms of games. Usually one or two pretty good titles, and it was months before we saw a steady stream of quality titles start to turn up on a regular basis. And what do we have promised for launch? We can expect 15-20 titles, but we don't really know what aside from EA's 2006 sports titles (which you can pick up on all systems, and for ten bucks cheaper if the price raise actually happens) and Perfect Dark Zero & Kameo from Microsoft. That's really it. If the launch lineup doesn't deliver some mind-blowing stuff, it may be enough of a blow that Microsoft is never able to recover from.
9. Bill Gates is the devil-At least that's the perception in a lot of people's minds. At best, he's an outsider, just burning his company's money on another wacky idea and doesn't really care if it's succesful or not. After all, he's worth a couple billion all by his lonesome, how much capital do you think the damn company has stashed away? And with that perception in mind, alot of people may steer clear of the system just because it's supporting Gates, which plenty of people don't feel all that comfortable doing. Granted, it's the least likely legitimate reason, but any fanboy for Nintendo or Sony will probably use it as an excuse.
10. Abandoning their current user-base too early-Sony plans to fully support the PS2 for at least a couple more years, most likely so gamers can more easily transition into the next generation of hardware. Microsoft is pretty much abandoning their current console, thus burning some loyal customers in the process, and making them extremely weary that Microsoft may do the same thing next round.
So, as you can see, there are a lot of pitfalls Microsoft has to avoid if they really want a serious chance of duking it out and becoming the top dog in the console wars. Bottom line, it's going to take a lot of well-thought out strategy and plenty of good luck. But serious competition is good, so I'm hoping they (or by some miracle Nintendo) are able to pull a tight race because close competition will be good for ALL of us gamers.
1. Too much belief in online-Now, I honestly believe that online gaming is the next big thing, but it's not there right now (out of over 20 million Xbox users, less than 2 million have live, not exactly a number to boast about), and it may take awhile to get there. And as someone who is recently new to the waters of online gaming (at least in it's current incarnation), it can be very rough going at first. Although I've met quite a few good friends, you definitely meet a large share of cheaters, idiots and total assholes (sadly, a large number meet all that criteria at once). I have a few friends who actually refuse to go online even though they have months of Xbox live left specifically because they've just dealt with way too many jerks to make it worthwhile. Also, while I love the potential idea of Microsoft's marketplace, where you can get demos & custom items; there's also a lot of potential for gamers to be pissed off by companies nickel & diming gamers to death, therefore turning them off the service and the 360 entirely. Microsoft is banking on this being their biggest gun in the next round and they could fall flat on their face because of that.
2. Coming out first-Just because Microsoft will be there first doesn't gaurauntee anything. It may give the impression that they are afraid to compete head to head with Sony. Sony is the gaming equivalent of the 800-pound gorrilla right now, they will launch when they want on their terms and they have no reason to think otherwise. It gives both Sony and Nintendo a chace to look at Microsoft's launch and plenty of time to see what they can do better. It's also a good bet that the PS3 games (at least any exclusives) will look noticeably better than any first gen 360 games (at least if Sony's reps aren't completely talking out of their ass), and better eye candy will do a lot to sell systems.
3. The Price war-We know the 360 will launch in the range of $300-350, which means it will probably be cheaper than the PS3, whose price could be significantly more, or it could be a lot closer in price with some Sony reps claiming it would probably be around $370-$400. And those numbers aren't that far apart, so who could blame someone who has to choose one system for spending just a little bit more on one that's supposedly significantly more powerful?And then there's Nintendo. We know that next gen games for the PS3 & 360 will likely hit the $60 range. With Nintendo's system being far less powerful, not only the system, but the games might be significantly cheaper. And With system exclusives becoming less & less common these days, There might be a huge backlash against both Sony & Microsoft for their high prices compared to Nintendo's.
4. The stagnation of the gaming industry-I know, with all the billions the gaming industry makes, the idea of the entire industry having another big crash like they did in the 80s seems nearly impossible. But they thought it was impossible back then too. And while I'm generally excited about what the next generation has to offer, we seem to be getting into a rut of "safe" titles-Lots of shooters (especially WWII-based ones), lots of games based off of TV shows or movies, or cookie-cutter sequels to already popular franchises. And that's mostly what we are seeing in the next generation as well so far, so why buy a new system that doesn't offer anything new in terms of gameplay? Seriously, if all the next gen systems offer is the same games with shinier graphics, the whole industry will pay for it. And while I believe Sony & Nintendo could easily survive a crash, Microsoft may pull out completely if the industry goes south considering how much of a bath they've already taken.
5. Concentrating on the American market-Gaming is a global thing, and while Microsoft has acknowledged that just concentrating on American gamers (and specifically virtually ignoring the very different Japanese market) was a mistake, and they are supposedly working to rectify that. But I'll believe it when I see it. Grabbing the cooperation of Squarenix (as well as acquiring Mistwalker studios, which is made up of former Squarenix alumni) is a big step foward in that direction, but the PS2 has always had a nice balance of big name titles and odd quirky ones, if Microsoft really wants to succeed, they need that sort of balance.
6. Everything to everyone-The more things a system can do, the more things can go wrong with it. I don't really intend to use most of the 360's "features", and I'd prefer it didn't have them to begin with. Besides adding to cost of the system, if something goes wrong with one particular feature, it could potentially affect the entire system, leaving gamers with a busted system because of a feature they don't even use and feeling ripped off because of it. Granted, Sony's doing virtually the same thing, but having crappy hardware that barely works didn't stop them last time.
7. Lack of HD-DVD or Blu-ray capability-One of these will be the next step in storage capacity, and despite J. Allard's claim of it being the "HD era", the 360 still uses a standard DVD drive, not compatible with either HD-DVDs or Blu-ray, both of which are capable of a lot more storage capacity. And Sony has clearly cast their vote in the Blu-ray corner, which can hold a massive amount comparatively. It's way too soon to tell whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray will become the definitive format, but since the 360 doesn't really support either, they could easily be left in the dust.
8. Lack of strong launch titles-With every current system, the initial launch sucked complete ass in terms of games. Usually one or two pretty good titles, and it was months before we saw a steady stream of quality titles start to turn up on a regular basis. And what do we have promised for launch? We can expect 15-20 titles, but we don't really know what aside from EA's 2006 sports titles (which you can pick up on all systems, and for ten bucks cheaper if the price raise actually happens) and Perfect Dark Zero & Kameo from Microsoft. That's really it. If the launch lineup doesn't deliver some mind-blowing stuff, it may be enough of a blow that Microsoft is never able to recover from.
9. Bill Gates is the devil-At least that's the perception in a lot of people's minds. At best, he's an outsider, just burning his company's money on another wacky idea and doesn't really care if it's succesful or not. After all, he's worth a couple billion all by his lonesome, how much capital do you think the damn company has stashed away? And with that perception in mind, alot of people may steer clear of the system just because it's supporting Gates, which plenty of people don't feel all that comfortable doing. Granted, it's the least likely legitimate reason, but any fanboy for Nintendo or Sony will probably use it as an excuse.
10. Abandoning their current user-base too early-Sony plans to fully support the PS2 for at least a couple more years, most likely so gamers can more easily transition into the next generation of hardware. Microsoft is pretty much abandoning their current console, thus burning some loyal customers in the process, and making them extremely weary that Microsoft may do the same thing next round.
So, as you can see, there are a lot of pitfalls Microsoft has to avoid if they really want a serious chance of duking it out and becoming the top dog in the console wars. Bottom line, it's going to take a lot of well-thought out strategy and plenty of good luck. But serious competition is good, so I'm hoping they (or by some miracle Nintendo) are able to pull a tight race because close competition will be good for ALL of us gamers.
6/02/2005
Battle of the biopics
Two very different biopics open this weekend-Cinderella Man & Lords of Dogtown. Cinderella Man is the latest shot at Oscar from the powerhouse assembly of Russel Crowe, Paul Giamatti, Renee Zelwegger, Ron Howard & Brian Grazer. It's about depression-era fighter Jim Braddock, who pulled off a miracle comeback in the boxing world. I expect it to be a fairly formulaic sports movie, but as long as it's done well, there's nothing wrong with that.
Lords of Dogtown is actually based off the documentary, Dogtown and the Z-boys, which featured a group of skaters that revolutionized the sport in the 70s and made it possible for guys like Tony Hawk to make a living off skateboarding. Skateboarding movies are usually pure garbage, although the superb directing ability of Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) may make this the first one actually worth checking out (although critics seem to be saying otherwise so far).
The movie Serenity takes place 6 months after the last episode of Firefly that was made (this is another show I HIGHLY reccomend picking up, it's just a shame only 13 episodes were made). But a guy like Malcolm Reynolds can't possibly stay out of trouble that long, so if you want to know what happened between the end of the show and the start of the movie, Joss Whedon is making a short run (three issues, I think) comic that shows what adventures the crew of Serenity have in the mean time. I haven't read comics in over a decade, but I might pick these up if they are by some miracle able to capture the humor and spirit of the show.
I've already beaten Advent Rising on easy(that's right not even a full day!), so while I had fun, I wouldn't reccomend a purchase. It was a very fun 10-hour roller coaster(like most good action games these days), although admittedly the frame rate could've used a lot of smoothing out. But I can't wait for the next two entries as the story, cinemas and music were all top notch.
The big shocker of game news this week has been that the PS3 may not come with a hard drive. Now, if you want to just play games on it (like I will), it probably won't be a huge deal and like the PS2 you can probably pick up a rather inexpensive memory card of some sort. Unfortunately, the problem is that you won't be able to do all the things out of box the 360 can do with it's standard 20 gig hard drive (stream music, record videos, not have to buy memory cards in the first place), and I think Sony will probably charge a ridiculous price (just look at any decent storage device for the PSP, they are ridiculously overpriced).
All right, that's really I have for today, til next time....
Lords of Dogtown is actually based off the documentary, Dogtown and the Z-boys, which featured a group of skaters that revolutionized the sport in the 70s and made it possible for guys like Tony Hawk to make a living off skateboarding. Skateboarding movies are usually pure garbage, although the superb directing ability of Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) may make this the first one actually worth checking out (although critics seem to be saying otherwise so far).
The movie Serenity takes place 6 months after the last episode of Firefly that was made (this is another show I HIGHLY reccomend picking up, it's just a shame only 13 episodes were made). But a guy like Malcolm Reynolds can't possibly stay out of trouble that long, so if you want to know what happened between the end of the show and the start of the movie, Joss Whedon is making a short run (three issues, I think) comic that shows what adventures the crew of Serenity have in the mean time. I haven't read comics in over a decade, but I might pick these up if they are by some miracle able to capture the humor and spirit of the show.
I've already beaten Advent Rising on easy(that's right not even a full day!), so while I had fun, I wouldn't reccomend a purchase. It was a very fun 10-hour roller coaster(like most good action games these days), although admittedly the frame rate could've used a lot of smoothing out. But I can't wait for the next two entries as the story, cinemas and music were all top notch.
The big shocker of game news this week has been that the PS3 may not come with a hard drive. Now, if you want to just play games on it (like I will), it probably won't be a huge deal and like the PS2 you can probably pick up a rather inexpensive memory card of some sort. Unfortunately, the problem is that you won't be able to do all the things out of box the 360 can do with it's standard 20 gig hard drive (stream music, record videos, not have to buy memory cards in the first place), and I think Sony will probably charge a ridiculous price (just look at any decent storage device for the PSP, they are ridiculously overpriced).
All right, that's really I have for today, til next time....
5/29/2005
If I had a million dollars....
So, I didn't really get around to seeing either the Longest Yard or Madagascar this weekend, but I'll probably catch them a little later in the week. In the meantime, I'd like to talk about the first Xbox game I've been really excited about in awhile-Advent Rising. Pretty much the easiest way to describe it is if you put Halo & The Matrix in a blender, this would be the most likely result (the lead character even bears an eerie resemblance to Keanu Reeves, if he says "whoa", or "I know Kung Fu" at any point in the game, the Wachowskis should sue). You play one of the few remaining humans in the universe, so long forgotten that most regard humanity itself as a myth. From the previews it's sort of unclear why or how, but you get imbued with special powers to take on a race of aliens known as The Seekers. But this promises to be more than a mishmash of two popular franchises, as the story is written by Orson Scott Card, who is probably most famous for writing the cult classic Ender's Game. And to sweeten the pot, the first 500,000 who buy the game (and have Xbox live) have a chance to win one million dollars by finding special easter eggs hidden throughout the game that are downloaded through Xbox live. Granted, I'm not really expecting to get the million, but it's way better odds than the lottery and a man can dream! I know most people would probably buy a bunch of stuff with it, but as I previously stated, I'm fairly frugal, so I'd probably just get a decent apartment in an inexpensive city where I could get a nice gaming setup and just hoard the rest like a little old miser. I might also change my name given all the bad stories I've read about people who win big money.
Coming back to reality, we finally have some not exactly earth-shattering confirmations by J. Allard (who, thanks to the guys at Penny Arcade, I will from now on refer to as Microsoft's offical pirate, cause they are right, he looks like one with that bald head and cheesy earring) about the Xbox 360. First up, he said it would deinfitely be in the "neighborhood" of $300. While this makes a 299 price point unlikely, it's probably going to be $330, but almost definitely won't be more than $350. Not a huge suprise, but it's nice to hear it definitely won't be something outrageous like $400. And he confirmed it will launch in mid-november, again not a huge surprise, but it's nice to have a good idea of when it will be out for sure. Now if we can just get confirmation that next gen games will definitely not be 59.99 as most sites have been listing, I can die a happy gamer (uh, not before the 360 comes out, though...)
Coming back to reality, we finally have some not exactly earth-shattering confirmations by J. Allard (who, thanks to the guys at Penny Arcade, I will from now on refer to as Microsoft's offical pirate, cause they are right, he looks like one with that bald head and cheesy earring) about the Xbox 360. First up, he said it would deinfitely be in the "neighborhood" of $300. While this makes a 299 price point unlikely, it's probably going to be $330, but almost definitely won't be more than $350. Not a huge suprise, but it's nice to hear it definitely won't be something outrageous like $400. And he confirmed it will launch in mid-november, again not a huge surprise, but it's nice to have a good idea of when it will be out for sure. Now if we can just get confirmation that next gen games will definitely not be 59.99 as most sites have been listing, I can die a happy gamer (uh, not before the 360 comes out, though...)
5/26/2005
"The PS3 is not a game machine"
That's more words of wisdom from Ken Kutaragi in his latest interview, Sony's Emperor (uh, I mean President). I'm seriously starting to think Sony has become the arrogant ass Nintendo used to be when they ruled the console world, truly believing they can do no wrong. Now, to be completely fair, they had the best overall showing at E3. No one can deny the awesomeness of the PS3 videos we saw, real or not, and they showed very strong support for the PS2, with plenty of games I am very interested in (even if most are out next year). But they keep shooting themselves in the foot with their strategies or lack thereof. First up, they claim that they see the PS2 as having a ten-year life cycle. Well, if that's the case, then why the hell should I ditch my PS2 if it still has a few good years left? We know that the Xbox & GC have max 1 year left, so there's not really much of a reason to hold onto those systems much longer, Sony is in effect competing against itself in this way, and as impressive as those videos were, we know what we saw for the 360 is going to look BETTER at launch because the games were running on underpowered test units. Odds are that the PS3 games are going to look worse (but hey, if I'm wrong I'll gladly pick up a PS3 as soon as there's a quality rpg on it, just like I did with PS2).
Secondly, and probably Sony's biggest mistake is their online strategy, or lack thereof. In a recent interview, a top Sony rep stated that they don't really plan on changing their current online plan of letting the game publishers do all the work. So, there's an immediate slight advantage in that in a sense, Sony's online service for the PS3 will be completely free like it is for the PS2. The problem? The system sucks right now. It's complete and utter chaos when you compare it to Microsoft's slick and fairly inexpensive setup ($50 a year isn't much to ask, folks) that allows for a fairly universal interface, not to mention ONE username and password for most games (I think EA has a seperate setup, but that's one more reason to hate EA), whereas if you play games online with the PS3, you'll theoretically have different user names, passwords and friends lists (assuming they even have those) for EVERY SINGLE GAME! That's just massive insanity keeping all that crap straight. This pretty much garauntees I will not be playing any online games for the PS3 because it's just an incredibly clumsy and lame setup. And, while online gaming isn't currently the monster Microsoft claims it to be, it will get there in a couple of years and this will hurt Sony in the long run when people actually start caring about a simple, easy to use online system.
And then there's Katarugi's latest. The PS3 isn't a gaming machine? Well, I and millions of others gamers get news for you Kenny, WE WANT A FUCKING GAMING MACHINE!!! Microsoft may offer different types of entertainment on their upcoming console, but they made one thing perfectly clear: it's mainly a gaming machine that can do other stuff, not some machine that can play games. I know that may not sound different, but the bottom line is that if the PS3 isn't optimized to mainly play games, we won't get the best games possible out of that system now matter how many numbers you throw at us. That's why most people buy consoles and not computers to play games, especially in this next generation, where the difference between a high-end game console and a decent computer isn't much in terms of price. Pretty much the only smart thing to come out of anyone from Sony is that they are reportedly saying the PS3 will be around $370, still a bit high for my tastes, but if the 360 is truly going to be around $350 or even $400 as some early reports are saying, I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing a PS3 if it's only a little more or especially if it's less.
Moving on, this weekend we have two somewhat interesting selections for movie goers. First up, is Madagascar, the latest generic CG film from Dreamworks. I'm sure it will be fun for kids, but aside from the psychotic penguins, this seems to be yet another tepid "safe" film for kids much in the vein of Robots. I like the the film is obviously more focused on visual style than pure technical prowess, but the previews and reviews seem to point to another fairly bland movie that you can take the whole family to, but only kids will really enjoy.
And then there's The Longest Yard, from the critics' favorite whipping boy, Adam Sandler. Now, Sandler has done some true stinkers the last few years (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Eight Crazy Nights, 50 First Dates), and although it was good, no one really went to see Spanglish because it wasn't his usual frat boy antics. I think it actually looks like stupid fun, like Sandler's best films, and I expect to go in and just have a good dumb time at a good dumb movie, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and play my GAMING MACHINE.....
Secondly, and probably Sony's biggest mistake is their online strategy, or lack thereof. In a recent interview, a top Sony rep stated that they don't really plan on changing their current online plan of letting the game publishers do all the work. So, there's an immediate slight advantage in that in a sense, Sony's online service for the PS3 will be completely free like it is for the PS2. The problem? The system sucks right now. It's complete and utter chaos when you compare it to Microsoft's slick and fairly inexpensive setup ($50 a year isn't much to ask, folks) that allows for a fairly universal interface, not to mention ONE username and password for most games (I think EA has a seperate setup, but that's one more reason to hate EA), whereas if you play games online with the PS3, you'll theoretically have different user names, passwords and friends lists (assuming they even have those) for EVERY SINGLE GAME! That's just massive insanity keeping all that crap straight. This pretty much garauntees I will not be playing any online games for the PS3 because it's just an incredibly clumsy and lame setup. And, while online gaming isn't currently the monster Microsoft claims it to be, it will get there in a couple of years and this will hurt Sony in the long run when people actually start caring about a simple, easy to use online system.
And then there's Katarugi's latest. The PS3 isn't a gaming machine? Well, I and millions of others gamers get news for you Kenny, WE WANT A FUCKING GAMING MACHINE!!! Microsoft may offer different types of entertainment on their upcoming console, but they made one thing perfectly clear: it's mainly a gaming machine that can do other stuff, not some machine that can play games. I know that may not sound different, but the bottom line is that if the PS3 isn't optimized to mainly play games, we won't get the best games possible out of that system now matter how many numbers you throw at us. That's why most people buy consoles and not computers to play games, especially in this next generation, where the difference between a high-end game console and a decent computer isn't much in terms of price. Pretty much the only smart thing to come out of anyone from Sony is that they are reportedly saying the PS3 will be around $370, still a bit high for my tastes, but if the 360 is truly going to be around $350 or even $400 as some early reports are saying, I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing a PS3 if it's only a little more or especially if it's less.
Moving on, this weekend we have two somewhat interesting selections for movie goers. First up, is Madagascar, the latest generic CG film from Dreamworks. I'm sure it will be fun for kids, but aside from the psychotic penguins, this seems to be yet another tepid "safe" film for kids much in the vein of Robots. I like the the film is obviously more focused on visual style than pure technical prowess, but the previews and reviews seem to point to another fairly bland movie that you can take the whole family to, but only kids will really enjoy.
And then there's The Longest Yard, from the critics' favorite whipping boy, Adam Sandler. Now, Sandler has done some true stinkers the last few years (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Eight Crazy Nights, 50 First Dates), and although it was good, no one really went to see Spanglish because it wasn't his usual frat boy antics. I think it actually looks like stupid fun, like Sandler's best films, and I expect to go in and just have a good dumb time at a good dumb movie, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and play my GAMING MACHINE.....
5/20/2005
I find your lack of faith disturbing...
A lot of this past week was about faith. Not religious, of course, better described a faith of the geeks. Faith that Lucas would finally deliver a movie at least somewhat worthy of the massive legion of fans his films have created of the past 28 years, and depending on what camp you were in (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo), faith to deliver one hell of a knockout blow to doubters and competition at this week's Electronic Entertainment expo. In some aspects, that faith in all respects was probably shaken, or certainly not given any sort of renewed zeal.
In the case of Epsiode III, it was more of keeping faith that Lucas hadn't totally lost it. It was far, far better than the pathetic hack jobs that Episodes I & II were, but a the same time, many lines of dialogue and wooden acting nearly sunk the movie. And we have to fault Lucas, becasue we've all seen this fine ensemble cast do some great acting in other films. Plus, I think many fans complaints that the Jedi are painted as somewhat weak in the movie is pretty damn valid (I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't seen yet, so I won't elaborate on it). Yet, I'd still rank it as pretty good and the third best movie in the series (behind IV & V, I'm really not a big fan of VI). So ultimately, enough of my faith (and apparently most others from the most reactions so far) was restored that I am overall satisfied and am interested in the new Star Wars series coming soon to TV.
In the case of E3, I think faith was lessened on all sides. From what I've seen and read, it was a good show, no doubt, but way more downs than ups. Despite Sony's extremely impressive video conference, it would appear that nothing that was suppossed to be PS3 was actually running on PS3 hardware, just a suppossed approximation of what the PS3 is supposedly capable of. Suddenly we harken back to when Sony debuted the PS2 and promised "Toy Story" quality graphics, on which they didn't deliver. Then there's the design aspects. Not only does the PS3 system look pretty damn hideous (and that may not matter to some, but when everyone is touting how "sexy" their stuff is these days, it matters a lot in the eyes of your average consumer who is concerned with how this system would look in an entertainment center). The controllers look like Batarangs, so hopefully, that'll change before launch. And there are very strong rumors that the PS3 will retail for about $460, which they may feel justified since they claim their system knocks the others out of the park in technology, but I think that's above a lot of people's price thresholds. Plus, my fellow GUG'er Charred has come up with a pretty good comparison that shows the PS3 isn't really all it's cracked up to be when you really break the specs down. There were several games I was very interested in for the PS2 (Kingdom Hearts II, Final Fantasy XII, Okami & Phantasy Star Universe), but they are all way off, possibly next year.
As where Sony just seemed to keep going down, Microsoft had a lot of ground to make up. I tried to defend it eariler, but Microsoft blowing their wad so early was a horrible move in hindsight of what Sony had to show everyone. Whether or not PS3 could actually do this stuff is irrelevant at this point, Sony showed us a bunch of cool stuff we haven't seen before from franchises we love (Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, Tekken, Final Fantasy, etc.) as well as some new things. It was all new. Most of Microsoft's stuff had been leaked way earlier or shown at the pathetic infomercial on MTV prior to the event. Plus, Perfect Dark Zero, Microsoft's big gun, failed to impress with some really bad screenshots. Luckily, they did make up some ground-According to everyone who actually saw the game behind closed doors, Perfect Dark Zero actually looks and plays pretty damn good, but then why didn't us gamers get to see any of this? But if Perfect Dark Zero didn't take away gamers' collective breaths, Gears of War did. Plus the LONG delayaed Kameo (which was originally suppossed to be on the N64) was actually looking better and better with each new movie I saw. Plus, I think people are geniunely confused about the new levels of xbox live service, exactly what Xbox titles will work (what exactly would be the cutoff point for "best-selling"?), and if the 20 gig hard drive actually comes with every system or will be an add-on. The final verdict? I've reserved my 360 with an initial $50 down payment, but I'm ready to pull it immediately if I feel the price is too high ($350 is pretty much my price threshold) or the software isn't up to snuff. As far as current Xbox titles, I can say that I'll probably be getting X-Men Legends II, but that'll be available for all systems, so once again not much to look foward to.
And Nintendo continues to march to it's own drummer. I think they definitely have the right attitude about the console wars no longer being a pissing contest in terms of pure power, but they had a pretty quiet and just plain weird showing otherwise. Aside from Zelda, there was nothing noteworthy for the Gamecube (maybe Fire Emblem, that's about it). Do we really need a Game Boy that's roughly the size of an Ipod shuffle? It's too small for anyone over age 8 and I can see anyone that age a younger losing something like that quite easily. And then there's Nintendogs. Is everybody at Nintendo fucking high? I was hoping that I had seen the last of that whole "virtual pet" thing. I mean that's really the whole thing. You get a pet dog, and you pet it, feed it, clean up after it and eventually make it fat enough to sell to a Asian restauraunt for their "puppy chow" special (at least if I have anything to say about the game, that'll be in there). It's the same huge problem I have with the Sims games as well. You don't really play these games, they play you.
Overall, what all three companies really failed to do was make you think that your current system sucks ass and you need to upgrade, which they were all able to accomplish last time. I hold high hopes for the next generation, but also no rush to jump into it (my 360 reservation notwithstanding, I will definitely wait on PS3 and probably not buy the Revolution right off the bat either unless it's unexpectedly cheap, which may end up being the case).
And I thought I'd end with my thoughts on some odd but possibly very inpsired casting choices. Kelsey Grammar as the blue furball Beast in the new X-Men movie is a stroke of genius. Sure, he obviously can't do anything physically required of the part, but he's perfect to play the voice of the most intelligent mutant in comic book history. It will be interesting to see how they blend him into what will obviously be a mostly CGI character, but if they pull it off, it'll be great to see. Then there's Topher Grace in the new Spider-Man flick. The only comment is that he will play an unspecified villain. Grace is a great actor, but I just can't honestly think of a noteworthy Spidey villain he could pull off. He's obviously too small to play Venom, and if they are going to do the Green Goblin, it has to be James Franco since he is Osbourne's son. And to be honest, most of the other Spider-Man villains are far too hokey for me to think about (maybe Mysterio, but he was a pretty lame villain, so I hope they don't use him). Until next time...
In the case of Epsiode III, it was more of keeping faith that Lucas hadn't totally lost it. It was far, far better than the pathetic hack jobs that Episodes I & II were, but a the same time, many lines of dialogue and wooden acting nearly sunk the movie. And we have to fault Lucas, becasue we've all seen this fine ensemble cast do some great acting in other films. Plus, I think many fans complaints that the Jedi are painted as somewhat weak in the movie is pretty damn valid (I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't seen yet, so I won't elaborate on it). Yet, I'd still rank it as pretty good and the third best movie in the series (behind IV & V, I'm really not a big fan of VI). So ultimately, enough of my faith (and apparently most others from the most reactions so far) was restored that I am overall satisfied and am interested in the new Star Wars series coming soon to TV.
In the case of E3, I think faith was lessened on all sides. From what I've seen and read, it was a good show, no doubt, but way more downs than ups. Despite Sony's extremely impressive video conference, it would appear that nothing that was suppossed to be PS3 was actually running on PS3 hardware, just a suppossed approximation of what the PS3 is supposedly capable of. Suddenly we harken back to when Sony debuted the PS2 and promised "Toy Story" quality graphics, on which they didn't deliver. Then there's the design aspects. Not only does the PS3 system look pretty damn hideous (and that may not matter to some, but when everyone is touting how "sexy" their stuff is these days, it matters a lot in the eyes of your average consumer who is concerned with how this system would look in an entertainment center). The controllers look like Batarangs, so hopefully, that'll change before launch. And there are very strong rumors that the PS3 will retail for about $460, which they may feel justified since they claim their system knocks the others out of the park in technology, but I think that's above a lot of people's price thresholds. Plus, my fellow GUG'er Charred has come up with a pretty good comparison that shows the PS3 isn't really all it's cracked up to be when you really break the specs down. There were several games I was very interested in for the PS2 (Kingdom Hearts II, Final Fantasy XII, Okami & Phantasy Star Universe), but they are all way off, possibly next year.
As where Sony just seemed to keep going down, Microsoft had a lot of ground to make up. I tried to defend it eariler, but Microsoft blowing their wad so early was a horrible move in hindsight of what Sony had to show everyone. Whether or not PS3 could actually do this stuff is irrelevant at this point, Sony showed us a bunch of cool stuff we haven't seen before from franchises we love (Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, Tekken, Final Fantasy, etc.) as well as some new things. It was all new. Most of Microsoft's stuff had been leaked way earlier or shown at the pathetic infomercial on MTV prior to the event. Plus, Perfect Dark Zero, Microsoft's big gun, failed to impress with some really bad screenshots. Luckily, they did make up some ground-According to everyone who actually saw the game behind closed doors, Perfect Dark Zero actually looks and plays pretty damn good, but then why didn't us gamers get to see any of this? But if Perfect Dark Zero didn't take away gamers' collective breaths, Gears of War did. Plus the LONG delayaed Kameo (which was originally suppossed to be on the N64) was actually looking better and better with each new movie I saw. Plus, I think people are geniunely confused about the new levels of xbox live service, exactly what Xbox titles will work (what exactly would be the cutoff point for "best-selling"?), and if the 20 gig hard drive actually comes with every system or will be an add-on. The final verdict? I've reserved my 360 with an initial $50 down payment, but I'm ready to pull it immediately if I feel the price is too high ($350 is pretty much my price threshold) or the software isn't up to snuff. As far as current Xbox titles, I can say that I'll probably be getting X-Men Legends II, but that'll be available for all systems, so once again not much to look foward to.
And Nintendo continues to march to it's own drummer. I think they definitely have the right attitude about the console wars no longer being a pissing contest in terms of pure power, but they had a pretty quiet and just plain weird showing otherwise. Aside from Zelda, there was nothing noteworthy for the Gamecube (maybe Fire Emblem, that's about it). Do we really need a Game Boy that's roughly the size of an Ipod shuffle? It's too small for anyone over age 8 and I can see anyone that age a younger losing something like that quite easily. And then there's Nintendogs. Is everybody at Nintendo fucking high? I was hoping that I had seen the last of that whole "virtual pet" thing. I mean that's really the whole thing. You get a pet dog, and you pet it, feed it, clean up after it and eventually make it fat enough to sell to a Asian restauraunt for their "puppy chow" special (at least if I have anything to say about the game, that'll be in there). It's the same huge problem I have with the Sims games as well. You don't really play these games, they play you.
Overall, what all three companies really failed to do was make you think that your current system sucks ass and you need to upgrade, which they were all able to accomplish last time. I hold high hopes for the next generation, but also no rush to jump into it (my 360 reservation notwithstanding, I will definitely wait on PS3 and probably not buy the Revolution right off the bat either unless it's unexpectedly cheap, which may end up being the case).
And I thought I'd end with my thoughts on some odd but possibly very inpsired casting choices. Kelsey Grammar as the blue furball Beast in the new X-Men movie is a stroke of genius. Sure, he obviously can't do anything physically required of the part, but he's perfect to play the voice of the most intelligent mutant in comic book history. It will be interesting to see how they blend him into what will obviously be a mostly CGI character, but if they pull it off, it'll be great to see. Then there's Topher Grace in the new Spider-Man flick. The only comment is that he will play an unspecified villain. Grace is a great actor, but I just can't honestly think of a noteworthy Spidey villain he could pull off. He's obviously too small to play Venom, and if they are going to do the Green Goblin, it has to be James Franco since he is Osbourne's son. And to be honest, most of the other Spider-Man villains are far too hokey for me to think about (maybe Mysterio, but he was a pretty lame villain, so I hope they don't use him). Until next time...
5/17/2005
The next generation, Round 1-Draw?
Well, the first salvos have been fired, and I'm not really sure who's come out on top. All the systems look really slick, but there's been some major missteps on everybody's part. But I will say at the same time, unless something major changes, I plan all getting all 3 (just not necessarily at launch). The Big N arguably has the coolest straight out design, but we already know their system is the least powerful for the next round(easy math, Revolution is 2 or 3 times more powerful, 360 is 13 times more powerful & PS3 is 35 times more powerful) and there was no gameplay footage shown whatsoever and nothing about a general release date(but they will also probably be significantly cheaper than 360 or PS3, which will help). Honestly the only cool thing to come out of their preliminary press conference was the new trailer for the latest Zelda game for the GC-where a lot of incredible gameplay footage was shown, including Link turning into a wolf that is ridden by a mysterious character. It'll be probably just enough reason to hold on to my GC a little longer, but that seems to be Nintendo's specialty, giving you just enough and not even a bit more (i.e. though not shown, Nintendo's official asskicker, Reggie Fills-Aime mentioned that Smash Bros. will be on the Revolution and will have Wi Fi capability, that's really all I need).
Microsoft, having already blown their load early, showed several upcoming games and talked about how their console will be everything to everyone. That's great, but I want my console to play videogames, not be some ridiculously overpriced media center. And while some titles looked pretty damn cool (Morrowind IV), Most looked skecthy at best. And what was suppossed to be the premier title, Perfect Dark Zero, was a no show. Even more troubling was Bill Gates recent statement that Sony would definitely be going up against Halo 3 when they launch(which is officially next Spring), but no footage of Halo 3 was shown either. But what officially got me onboard is that they will have Final Fantasy XI, which I didn't even consider a realistic possibility, and there will be limited backwards compatability (big selling titles like Halo 2 will work for sure, but I probably won't be playing Worms 3D or Phantom Dust on the system). Also, not one upcoming Xbox title has got me excited, at least not any exclusives.
And then there's Sony. I will officially say that the video for Killzone 2 (check it out at Gametrailers) had me saying "holy shit!" out loud several times. But given that the last Killzone was an incredible graphical feat, but sorely lacked in gameplay, it's not enough to make me want the system. Plus, not one other title really gave any good impressions. They gave a vague launch date of Spring 2006 (and I still say that's a bad time to launch any system). And given that they easily will have the most powerful console (and feel they can do no wrong), their system may be significantly costlier than others. Add that in with Sony's tradition of extremely buggy hardware, and they actually come out not looking any better than Microsoft. And aside from Kingdom Hearts II, I can't honestly say there's many PS2 games on the horizon I'm looking foward to.
Now, there's still a few days left, but considering how much the last generation blew us away, this isn't a great start. I'm not saying I'm not geniunely excited about these new systems, but not with the level of pure awe and glee I felt the last time. And to lessen that glee, EB games has officially started accepting preorders on Xbox 360 games at 59.99. While it's not official, it's damn likely, which means I'll be a lot more finicky about my next gen purchases.
Microsoft, having already blown their load early, showed several upcoming games and talked about how their console will be everything to everyone. That's great, but I want my console to play videogames, not be some ridiculously overpriced media center. And while some titles looked pretty damn cool (Morrowind IV), Most looked skecthy at best. And what was suppossed to be the premier title, Perfect Dark Zero, was a no show. Even more troubling was Bill Gates recent statement that Sony would definitely be going up against Halo 3 when they launch(which is officially next Spring), but no footage of Halo 3 was shown either. But what officially got me onboard is that they will have Final Fantasy XI, which I didn't even consider a realistic possibility, and there will be limited backwards compatability (big selling titles like Halo 2 will work for sure, but I probably won't be playing Worms 3D or Phantom Dust on the system). Also, not one upcoming Xbox title has got me excited, at least not any exclusives.
And then there's Sony. I will officially say that the video for Killzone 2 (check it out at Gametrailers) had me saying "holy shit!" out loud several times. But given that the last Killzone was an incredible graphical feat, but sorely lacked in gameplay, it's not enough to make me want the system. Plus, not one other title really gave any good impressions. They gave a vague launch date of Spring 2006 (and I still say that's a bad time to launch any system). And given that they easily will have the most powerful console (and feel they can do no wrong), their system may be significantly costlier than others. Add that in with Sony's tradition of extremely buggy hardware, and they actually come out not looking any better than Microsoft. And aside from Kingdom Hearts II, I can't honestly say there's many PS2 games on the horizon I'm looking foward to.
Now, there's still a few days left, but considering how much the last generation blew us away, this isn't a great start. I'm not saying I'm not geniunely excited about these new systems, but not with the level of pure awe and glee I felt the last time. And to lessen that glee, EB games has officially started accepting preorders on Xbox 360 games at 59.99. While it's not official, it's damn likely, which means I'll be a lot more finicky about my next gen purchases.
5/15/2005
Kicking it Old School....
I really intended to do a big summer preivew, but I've just honestly been tired this weekend and there isn't a real comprehensive list of what's coming out and when for the next 3 months (especially if I wanted to include smaller releases), so I apologize to anybody who was expecting one.
Moving on, I saw Unleashed on friday, and it was pretty damn good. Jet Li won't be stealing any oscars soon, but he gave a surpsingly good dramatic turn and the story was told very well which is incredibly rare for any action film, but especially a martial arts one. My only complaint would be that his female co-star was like an annoyingly bratty 12-year old you just hoped would die the whole film, but luckily the other elements make up for that fact.
Ok, I have now had Xbox live for about 3 months, and I love it, but there's one thing I think is badly missing: Old School arcade games! I know what some of you will say, xbox live already offers a service that provides old school style games. But the fact is that the only worthwhile game they offer is Ms. Pacman.which comes free with the starter disc. The others are fairly bad and overpriced knockoffs (it'a roughly $10 a game, which is ridiculous for something that can be made over a weekend). And hey, I'm enough of an old school nut that I'd pay $10 for the right titles, but how about offering ones that are actually old school favorites: Dig Dug, Gauntlet, Altered Beast, River City Ransom, Joust. They offer lots of these in nifty little compilations, there's reason they couldn't offer online versions (like they did with the Street Fighter Anniversary collection). I think that's exactly what would help get even more casual people int Xbox and xbox live (not online "chess" as Peter Moore has suggested). There's very minimal investment and all the old school gamers it would attract would be a no-brainer, so hopefully they'll do it soon since the basic technology is already in place. That's just my thoughts on the subject. Until next time....
Moving on, I saw Unleashed on friday, and it was pretty damn good. Jet Li won't be stealing any oscars soon, but he gave a surpsingly good dramatic turn and the story was told very well which is incredibly rare for any action film, but especially a martial arts one. My only complaint would be that his female co-star was like an annoyingly bratty 12-year old you just hoped would die the whole film, but luckily the other elements make up for that fact.
Ok, I have now had Xbox live for about 3 months, and I love it, but there's one thing I think is badly missing: Old School arcade games! I know what some of you will say, xbox live already offers a service that provides old school style games. But the fact is that the only worthwhile game they offer is Ms. Pacman.which comes free with the starter disc. The others are fairly bad and overpriced knockoffs (it'a roughly $10 a game, which is ridiculous for something that can be made over a weekend). And hey, I'm enough of an old school nut that I'd pay $10 for the right titles, but how about offering ones that are actually old school favorites: Dig Dug, Gauntlet, Altered Beast, River City Ransom, Joust. They offer lots of these in nifty little compilations, there's reason they couldn't offer online versions (like they did with the Street Fighter Anniversary collection). I think that's exactly what would help get even more casual people int Xbox and xbox live (not online "chess" as Peter Moore has suggested). There's very minimal investment and all the old school gamers it would attract would be a no-brainer, so hopefully they'll do it soon since the basic technology is already in place. That's just my thoughts on the subject. Until next time....
5/13/2005
360 degrees of HOLY ^%$#@
Ok, so I watched the MTV half hour special, and quite frankly, was less than impressed. They were very sketchy about ANY details, the celebs obviously had no clue (except maybe Elijah Wood, as he has a reputation as a gamer), and while Perfect Dark Zero sounded incredibly awesome, we barely got to really see any of it (and none of the others games showed anything that would qualify as impressive gameplay graphics). In essence, it was like any other MTV "special" full of flash and completely lacking in any sort of actual substance. It was smart of MS to appeal to the mainstream like that, so I don't fault them for going to MTV and using a bunch of celebrities that couldn't tell an Xbox from a toaster oven, but that isn't going to sell me, the hardcore gamer who if you get his attention will sell blood and undergo experiments if that's what it takes to be able to afford a system.
But what did really get me excited was IGN's very detailed 6 page article devoted to all the ins and outs of the Xbox 360. I'm not much of a techhead, so things like processor power won't actually mean anything to me until I actually see what it can do in actual gameplay, but all the nifty little bits got me very excited. Although it's almost assured there will be multiple versions of xbox available, the core unit itself will most definitely come with a massive hard drive, and most are expecting a base price point of $300 for that system. The ones fully decked out will probably be significantly more, but If 300 is all I'm paying and it plays games and my dvds, I'll be extremely pleased. The features I like most are that I can just transfer over my xbox live service with no problem and I can upload tracks from my ipod (which is something I have badly wanted to do since I got my shuffle).
But there are still some issues. While I obviously see the convienence of wireless controllers, depending on battery life, keeping those suckers powered could easily eat up a lot of money very quickly. I'm hoping there's some sort of alternative option at launch if not soon after.
Backwards compatibility also hasn't been answered one way or the other. I think at this point it would be a wise idea since that would instantly give us gamers a good variety of Xbox live games if nothing else, because we really don't know what launch titles will be available.
Which leads me to my next issue-Launch games. Aside from the obvious sports titles, nothing has been officially tagged, not even Perfect Dark Zero (although if that doesn't launch with the system, it may be lacking a much needed killer app, so it's 99.9% likely), and none of the the current generation of consoles had a particularly solid launch lineup. It was usually one really good game and it took awhile for all the systems before solid games started coming out at a regular rate (and it never really happened for Gamecube, there's really only one good game every 6 months for that system).
So, while I'm not officially on the Xbox bandwagon, I will probably be eating Cup O' Noodles for the next 7 months so I can have enough to splurge if I really want to....
But what did really get me excited was IGN's very detailed 6 page article devoted to all the ins and outs of the Xbox 360. I'm not much of a techhead, so things like processor power won't actually mean anything to me until I actually see what it can do in actual gameplay, but all the nifty little bits got me very excited. Although it's almost assured there will be multiple versions of xbox available, the core unit itself will most definitely come with a massive hard drive, and most are expecting a base price point of $300 for that system. The ones fully decked out will probably be significantly more, but If 300 is all I'm paying and it plays games and my dvds, I'll be extremely pleased. The features I like most are that I can just transfer over my xbox live service with no problem and I can upload tracks from my ipod (which is something I have badly wanted to do since I got my shuffle).
But there are still some issues. While I obviously see the convienence of wireless controllers, depending on battery life, keeping those suckers powered could easily eat up a lot of money very quickly. I'm hoping there's some sort of alternative option at launch if not soon after.
Backwards compatibility also hasn't been answered one way or the other. I think at this point it would be a wise idea since that would instantly give us gamers a good variety of Xbox live games if nothing else, because we really don't know what launch titles will be available.
Which leads me to my next issue-Launch games. Aside from the obvious sports titles, nothing has been officially tagged, not even Perfect Dark Zero (although if that doesn't launch with the system, it may be lacking a much needed killer app, so it's 99.9% likely), and none of the the current generation of consoles had a particularly solid launch lineup. It was usually one really good game and it took awhile for all the systems before solid games started coming out at a regular rate (and it never really happened for Gamecube, there's really only one good game every 6 months for that system).
So, while I'm not officially on the Xbox bandwagon, I will probably be eating Cup O' Noodles for the next 7 months so I can have enough to splurge if I really want to....
5/11/2005
Coming Full Circle
I bought my Epsiode III ticket yesterday. I tried not to be optimistic given the last two, but the early critical buz is actually pretty good and the each new preview looks better, so I'm officially extremely pumped for the final movie installment. Not so pumped that I'll be going to a midnight showing or waiting hours in line, but I'm officially excited to see the film.
I also saw Kingdom of Heaven over the weekend, and it was pretty entertaining. Not as good as Gladiator, but far better than Troy. Ridley Scott knows how to make awesome battle scenes. So see in it the theatres, as it will definitely lose something on the small screen.
Tommorow at 9 on MTV, the Xbox 360(the most likely name for MS' new console) is finally going to be officially unveiled to the public(thereby giving me actual reason to watch the channel). Now, pictures have supposedly leaked to several gaming sites already, but I tend not to really trust those sort of things until I see them with my own eyes. And of course, all sort of implications come with this. Console pricing, backwards compatability, etc. The most important aspect being game pricing, as there is an ongoing debate whether or not we are likely to see games rise above the magic $50 barrier they have been at for over a decade to $60 or even $70. On some level, I can see the reasoning behind this, as games are getting more and more costly to produce, but the game industry should take a REAL close look at both the music & movie industry, both of which after a few steady years of rising prices, have suffered some severe backlash, with profits way down. And with games being even more expensive, all but the hardcore will balk at significantly higher prices. I am considered a fairly hardcore gamer, but I'm fairly picky about what I actually buy, it probably only averages out to about 20 games a year out of out the hundreds that come out all year. I'd expect that to drop significantly if the price goes up and the same will probably go for most gamers, especially the casual ones that all companies are vying for. One solution that I think is viable is offering premium downloadable content, but that may also lead to greedy companies not even selling finished gamess & then charging you just so you can get the last few levels. And as far as the next generation blowing us all away, I've seen "footage" of several games so far (Madden 2006, Dark Sector, Alan Wake) and they either look like cheesy tech demos or lacking any sense of artistic creativity. But nothing's really official until E3 next week, so I'll hold off on any real opinions until we see what is actually going on.
Several interesting choices are coming out in theatres this weekend. The one I'm most interested in seeing is Unleashed with Jet Li & Morgan Freeman. Li hasn't really made a good transition into American films, but this looks very promising with lots of good action and an actual story to boot. Kicking & Screaming is Will Ferrel's latest, and while a terrible coach taking over a bad team is hardly anything new, Ferrel is worth seeing in just about anything. Mindhunters, a thriller about a group of profilers trapped by a serial killer who may be one of them seems intruiging, but it was also supposed to be out last summer and got pushed back for some unknown reason. This usually screams bad film.
And finally there is Monster-in-Law, with Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda and Michael Vartan (Alias). While I see some potential here, it seems pretty obvious that this relies far too much on the mother being a complete whackjob, which means this is another thing that would probably be funny as a short sketch but not enough filler for a feature film. Plus, the last good film Lope did was The Cell, which I think was way back in 99'. But I can honestly say I have at least some interest in seeing every major release this weekend, which is a huge change from the last 5 or 6 months.
Ok, that's really all for today, but I intend to be back on Friday with a BIG summer movie preview in addition to my usual thoughts on daily happenings.
I also saw Kingdom of Heaven over the weekend, and it was pretty entertaining. Not as good as Gladiator, but far better than Troy. Ridley Scott knows how to make awesome battle scenes. So see in it the theatres, as it will definitely lose something on the small screen.
Tommorow at 9 on MTV, the Xbox 360(the most likely name for MS' new console) is finally going to be officially unveiled to the public(thereby giving me actual reason to watch the channel). Now, pictures have supposedly leaked to several gaming sites already, but I tend not to really trust those sort of things until I see them with my own eyes. And of course, all sort of implications come with this. Console pricing, backwards compatability, etc. The most important aspect being game pricing, as there is an ongoing debate whether or not we are likely to see games rise above the magic $50 barrier they have been at for over a decade to $60 or even $70. On some level, I can see the reasoning behind this, as games are getting more and more costly to produce, but the game industry should take a REAL close look at both the music & movie industry, both of which after a few steady years of rising prices, have suffered some severe backlash, with profits way down. And with games being even more expensive, all but the hardcore will balk at significantly higher prices. I am considered a fairly hardcore gamer, but I'm fairly picky about what I actually buy, it probably only averages out to about 20 games a year out of out the hundreds that come out all year. I'd expect that to drop significantly if the price goes up and the same will probably go for most gamers, especially the casual ones that all companies are vying for. One solution that I think is viable is offering premium downloadable content, but that may also lead to greedy companies not even selling finished gamess & then charging you just so you can get the last few levels. And as far as the next generation blowing us all away, I've seen "footage" of several games so far (Madden 2006, Dark Sector, Alan Wake) and they either look like cheesy tech demos or lacking any sense of artistic creativity. But nothing's really official until E3 next week, so I'll hold off on any real opinions until we see what is actually going on.
Several interesting choices are coming out in theatres this weekend. The one I'm most interested in seeing is Unleashed with Jet Li & Morgan Freeman. Li hasn't really made a good transition into American films, but this looks very promising with lots of good action and an actual story to boot. Kicking & Screaming is Will Ferrel's latest, and while a terrible coach taking over a bad team is hardly anything new, Ferrel is worth seeing in just about anything. Mindhunters, a thriller about a group of profilers trapped by a serial killer who may be one of them seems intruiging, but it was also supposed to be out last summer and got pushed back for some unknown reason. This usually screams bad film.
And finally there is Monster-in-Law, with Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda and Michael Vartan (Alias). While I see some potential here, it seems pretty obvious that this relies far too much on the mother being a complete whackjob, which means this is another thing that would probably be funny as a short sketch but not enough filler for a feature film. Plus, the last good film Lope did was The Cell, which I think was way back in 99'. But I can honestly say I have at least some interest in seeing every major release this weekend, which is a huge change from the last 5 or 6 months.
Ok, that's really all for today, but I intend to be back on Friday with a BIG summer movie preview in addition to my usual thoughts on daily happenings.
5/06/2005
Attack of the Sequels Part XXVVVIIIIXXXIIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI
Sequels are of course the bread and butter of the entertainment industry, and while most rightfully decry sequels as creatively bankrupt factory-assembled money machines, I also have to play devil's advocate as someone who enjoys seeing the new adventures of characters I enjoy spending a couple of hours with. I'm hopeful about the upcoming Shrek films (word is there's going to be at least two more) because the first two were damn enetertaining. I'm hopeful about the reported 4 upcoming Spider-Man films (Sony wants a total of six and Director Ted Raimi sees no problem with making that many as long as he's still invested in doing them, whatever that means).
But now we are getting sequels nobody wants from marginally succesful or just plain horrid movies or long dead franchises we no longer care about at a increasingly alarming rate. In addition to recent pure crap sequels like Ring 2, Miss Congeniality 2 & XXX: State of the Union, sooner or later we are going to see follow ups to Mrs. Doubtfire, Cheaper By The Dozen, Basic Instinct, Conan, House of The Dead, Resident Evil, The Grudge, Jurassic Park, Meet The Parents, Austin Powers, Fast and the Furious, Die Hard, Independence Day, Jumanji, The Mummy, Night of the Living Dead, The Punisher, Scary Movie, Scooby Doo, Garfield, Saw, Terminator and many, many others. It's obviously overkill when you are making sequels to movies that no one cares about anymore or didn't even care about in the first place. Is it any wonder ticket revenues keep going down even though ticket prices keep going up? It's really hard to justify spending any amount of money to see these sequels either because you know 99.9% of them are going to be inferior to the previous film which in most cases was not even worht seeing to begin with. The real problem is that studio execs obviously don't see the long term consequences of this practice. It may not even be anytime relatively soon, but eventually either the moviegoing crowd gets tired of it or the stars get tired of it or just too old to do it anymore and suddenly, the studio is screwed since they were too busy developing sequels in order to develop any original properties. Now if you'll excuse me I have to start developing my script for Howard The Duck 2....
But now we are getting sequels nobody wants from marginally succesful or just plain horrid movies or long dead franchises we no longer care about at a increasingly alarming rate. In addition to recent pure crap sequels like Ring 2, Miss Congeniality 2 & XXX: State of the Union, sooner or later we are going to see follow ups to Mrs. Doubtfire, Cheaper By The Dozen, Basic Instinct, Conan, House of The Dead, Resident Evil, The Grudge, Jurassic Park, Meet The Parents, Austin Powers, Fast and the Furious, Die Hard, Independence Day, Jumanji, The Mummy, Night of the Living Dead, The Punisher, Scary Movie, Scooby Doo, Garfield, Saw, Terminator and many, many others. It's obviously overkill when you are making sequels to movies that no one cares about anymore or didn't even care about in the first place. Is it any wonder ticket revenues keep going down even though ticket prices keep going up? It's really hard to justify spending any amount of money to see these sequels either because you know 99.9% of them are going to be inferior to the previous film which in most cases was not even worht seeing to begin with. The real problem is that studio execs obviously don't see the long term consequences of this practice. It may not even be anytime relatively soon, but eventually either the moviegoing crowd gets tired of it or the stars get tired of it or just too old to do it anymore and suddenly, the studio is screwed since they were too busy developing sequels in order to develop any original properties. Now if you'll excuse me I have to start developing my script for Howard The Duck 2....
5/04/2005
I'm gonna party like it's 1199...
Marking his 5 billionth appearance in some film about an epic war, Orlando Bloom's latest periodic war epic-Kingdom of Heaven opens this friday. It's hardly the first movie about the crusades Although I've certainly had my fill of overblown war epics lately, the fact that Ridley Scott (Gladiator) directed this one gives me some hope, and it's certainly a much more appealing option than House of Wax, which is yet another remake of a remake (there should be a law against more than one remake of a film) of a craptacular horror film with yet another cast of disposable young "actors" (Elisa Cuthbert has yet to prove she can act to me, and she's the best of the motley crew of WB rejects in this film). I mean seriously, when your biggest star is literally Paris Hilton, I'd rather see something with a bunch of rejects from the Pauly Shore acting academy (no that doesn't actually exist. yet.)
The Epsiode III video game is out this week, which is an interesting move since you know it has to be filled with spoilers, yet it's out a full two weeks before the movie. As if that wasn't enough , all of the action-based Star Wars games so far have been disturbingly mediocre at best, so I'm not sure whether to be hyped about this game or not. Also out for Xbox is Pariah, the latest me-too shooter, which seems decent enough but I honestly think no one will be puting away Halo 2 until Half-Life 2 finally surfaces later this summer.
That's really all I have for today, news and releases have sort of slowed to a crawl until E3 happens and the summer season really starts kicking off, but I'll hold off talking about those until we get closer to the actual dates, but I'll definitely be back this weeknd with something else. Until then...
The Epsiode III video game is out this week, which is an interesting move since you know it has to be filled with spoilers, yet it's out a full two weeks before the movie. As if that wasn't enough , all of the action-based Star Wars games so far have been disturbingly mediocre at best, so I'm not sure whether to be hyped about this game or not. Also out for Xbox is Pariah, the latest me-too shooter, which seems decent enough but I honestly think no one will be puting away Halo 2 until Half-Life 2 finally surfaces later this summer.
That's really all I have for today, news and releases have sort of slowed to a crawl until E3 happens and the summer season really starts kicking off, but I'll hold off talking about those until we get closer to the actual dates, but I'll definitely be back this weeknd with something else. Until then...
5/01/2005
Damn the broccoli, damn you and damn the wright brothers!
That is one of the many gems from Stewie, the baby with a giant head who wants to tale over the world and kill his mother. And if you have no clue what I'm talking about, get off your ass and go pick up the first 3 seasons of Family Guy on DVD RIGHT NOW. Go ahead. I'll wait till you come back....
Ok, that was long enough. In case you don't know, Family Guy was initially concieved as a ill-fated Simpsons wannabe (and still may be considered such by some hardcore fans), and like many high quality shows, it never got the proper promotion or any real chance to grow by its moronic network (FOX) but yet held on a few seasons till Fox finally canned it. But, proving that cancellation means nothing, it became a humongous hit on dvd and the cartoon network, and amazingly, Fox has ressurected it and new episodes begin airing this Sunday, essentially giving some ray of hope to all campaigns for shows that were canceled before their time (maybe I'll start a campaign for new Adventures of Brisco County Jr.! I loved that show!). But my hunch is that FOX knows the Simpsons is on it's last legs and they are looking for anything that can possibly take the reigns of their biggest remaining non-reality show.
Speaking of ressurected shows, There is a new muppet tv show in production in England, and I pray to god we get to see it over here, because the muppets are always absolute gold. I still watch old episodes of the various tv shows and the older movies on ocassion. They should have a constant presence on TV until the end of time.
And finally, Kevin Smith (AKA Silent Bob) has seen Episode III and posted a review up at his website-viewaskew.com. It's supposedly full of spoilers, so I haven't bothered reading it, but he apparently was extremely impressed with it, which is a good sign considering how much of a fanatic he is of the franchise. That's really all I have for today, be sure to check out Family Guy tonight on Fox so they don't cancel it again!
Ok, that was long enough. In case you don't know, Family Guy was initially concieved as a ill-fated Simpsons wannabe (and still may be considered such by some hardcore fans), and like many high quality shows, it never got the proper promotion or any real chance to grow by its moronic network (FOX) but yet held on a few seasons till Fox finally canned it. But, proving that cancellation means nothing, it became a humongous hit on dvd and the cartoon network, and amazingly, Fox has ressurected it and new episodes begin airing this Sunday, essentially giving some ray of hope to all campaigns for shows that were canceled before their time (maybe I'll start a campaign for new Adventures of Brisco County Jr.! I loved that show!). But my hunch is that FOX knows the Simpsons is on it's last legs and they are looking for anything that can possibly take the reigns of their biggest remaining non-reality show.
Speaking of ressurected shows, There is a new muppet tv show in production in England, and I pray to god we get to see it over here, because the muppets are always absolute gold. I still watch old episodes of the various tv shows and the older movies on ocassion. They should have a constant presence on TV until the end of time.
And finally, Kevin Smith (AKA Silent Bob) has seen Episode III and posted a review up at his website-viewaskew.com. It's supposedly full of spoilers, so I haven't bothered reading it, but he apparently was extremely impressed with it, which is a good sign considering how much of a fanatic he is of the franchise. That's really all I have for today, be sure to check out Family Guy tonight on Fox so they don't cancel it again!
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