Well, I haven’t been posting much and I sincerely apologize. When you work for yourself, sometimes doing the actual work takes priority over personal things like, I don’t know, blogging. So what tore me away from my meal ticket, why Fanboys of course. If you are reading this you know what a fanboy is and are probably one yourself, but you may not be aware of Fanboys, the movie. I first heard about this cinematic masterpiece in 2007 when its original release date was pushed back due to the unbelieveable event of additonal funding. Director Kyle Newman was given more funding to shoot additional scenes that the original budget did not include. Which is really cool if you think about it. Most fan movies barely have enough funding to be shown on YouTube, but this one actually had George Lucas’ seal of approval and even had Kevin Smith begging for a cameo. So, learning about all this I was willing to wait until 2008 for it to be released in a theater near me, but the movie was again pushed back because the reshoots could not take place before December 2007. These reshoots were directed by Steven Brill and not by Newman, so some of the critical plot points were left out– this caused internet unrest with fans of the project. Ultimately the movie was recut and finally released in the US in February of 2009, but only in limited markets & my local theater not being one of them. This was not too surprising considering that most critics didn’t get it, and a lot of fans didn’t either. The good news? A quick release on DVD– May 19th, 2009 to be exact. Unfortunatley due to a missing Netflix rental, I did not receive a copy until more than a month later. Read more…
But who cares? The Halo Wars Strategic Options Add-on Pack is offically available now for 800 microsoft points, but who does Microsoft think is going to buy it? Most players have already burned this game in to the ground & I don’t know anyone who is going to spend the credits on it. The new DLC doesn’t address any of the original flaws of the online interaction and only gives you a few new easter eggs and game scenarios. (see my earlier post) All said, I was stoked about this game & it was solid for the first few hours, but once I realized i couldn’t play the way I wanted to, i let it collect dust under my copy of Dance, Dance Revolution. Save your self the time and credits and just trade in your copy of Halo Wars for a used copy of Halo 2 and call it a day.
Brilliant is the only word that I can use to describe the newest installment of the Star Trek film franchise. I have waited a few days to write this because I really wanted the film to soak in before I tried to express how I felt about it. Being a Trekkie, I have been excited about this movie since the first rumblings back in 2005. I downloaded wallpaper for my computer, re-watched all of the original episodes & films (even “The Voyage Home” which is my least favorite), & for the last 4 years have been throwing out random “live long & prospers” to perfect strangers. I went opening night, bought my tickets the day before, and got in line an hour early. I sat mesmerized by the sites and sounds of a very familiar story told in an entirely new and exciting way. J.J Abrams thrust Star Trek closer to the 22nd century than any other director before him, while still capturing the essence of the original series. Gene Rodenberry, who created the series and who died shortly after Star Trek VI premiered, would have had a hard time creating a more perfect version of his world. It had everything you would expect from a Star Trek movie– action, adventure, great cinematics, better than real CGI, bad ass aliens, & a hot scantily clad Orion chick (played by Rachel Nichols who will also be in this summer’s GI Joe movie). And as much as I miss William Shatner as good old Captain James T. Kirk, Chris Pine, who starred in Bottle Shock, did an almost seemless job of filling his shoes. Speaking of Cast, Zachary Quinto (heros) as Spock, Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Doom) as Bones, Zoe Saldana (Vantage Point, Black Out) as Nyota Uhura, Freaking Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run Fatboy Run) as Scotty, John Cho (Harold and Kumar) as Sulu, & new comer (if you don’t count TV) Anton Yelchin as Chekov. Plus, Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime and a cameo by Winona Ryder as Spock’s Mom (betcha didn’t catch that one). I don’t think a better cast could have been assembled. I did miss Mark Lenard playing Ambassador Sarek (Spock’s Father) who has been in every variation of Trek since the beginning, but was glad to see a new Crewman #6 disposed of so readily on Vulcan. Read more…
Happy Star Wars Day! I have been too busy to post any new news, but I couldn’t let today “May the 4th” pass by without mentioning it. So, “May the Forth be with you”
Everybody loves free stuff (I know I do), so go get some. Thanks to the new movie coming out May 29th “Drag Me to Hell“, you can download the Left 4 Dead Survival Pack Free! The new Pack introduces a new multiplayer game mode, entitled “Survival”, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode. Go get yours now on Xbox Live or follow the jump to get it now.
Microsoft is getting ready to launch some new Down-loadable Content for Halo Wars. I knew it had to be coming soon, with the lack of overall interest in Halo Wars from die hard Halo fans. Now granted, Halo Wars has just hit the 1 million copies sold mark– so I’m not saying no one likes it– i just don’t know anybody that does. Enough of that– here’s a snapshot of what’s coming:
The new content will be called “Strategic Options” and will contain 4 new achievements totaling 100 gamer points and 3 new multi-player modes (hopefully one that will allow two players to join a campaign from the same console). There is limited info available in regards to the new DLC, but Joystiq.com is reporting that Keep-away will be a CTF variant, Reinforcement will have wave based support, and finally Tug of War. Microsoft has not given up any details on that last one, however the mind reels at the possibilities.
Also, the new achievements are reportedly– “One and Done” for 30 gamer points, Pull Hard, Pull Deep” for 20 gamer points, “Freak on a Streak” for 20 gamer points, and “Living Loving Bug” for 30 gamer points.
As of right now the launch date and price have not been confirmed, thanks to crackrjakk for passing this along via Twitter.
Those of you who have been reading my little blog for a while know I am an avid Apple fan, and when i stumble upon a new trick or tip I like to share it. Last night we had some friends over and my wife wanted to show them the Susan Boyle clip on YouTube –believe it or not, they had not seen it yet. I didn’t want to go through the pain of hooking up my MacBook Pro to the TV and my wife’s PC in the kitchen was already shut down, so I pulled it up on my iPhone via the YouTube app. Needless to say the iPhone is good for a lot of things, but showing a video to a group is not one of them. I don’t have an Apple TV (I have an Xbox and several iPods so I never really saw the need for one), but I do have Apple’s Component AV cable hooked up to my 42″ LCD TV. I use the AV cable to watch movies that I have loaded on my iPod Classic. So, not knowing if it would work I plugged my iPhone into the cable and restarted the clip– it worked perfectly. I guess I should have realized I could do this from the get go, but I never really had a need to hook my phone to my TV to watch YouTube. The resolution was decent & the sound quality superb. So, if you find yourself in a situation where you want to show web based YouTube content to a few people– grab your iPhone and either Apple’s componet or composite AV Cable (each $49 at apple.com) and stream away.
GameFly after a complete overhaul of their website launched a new Trade-In program. The process is very simple. First, log in to your GameFly account. Second, click on the trade-in link. Now, enter the UPC codes for the games you want to trade in. When you are ready, click submit and it will give you the trade-in value for your games. At this point you will be prompted to print the instructions, packing list, & shipping label. That’s it simple. Now, the price you are given is only good for a limited time, so you have to make sure that GameFly receives your game by the deadline they give you. Also, you are responsible for your own shipping, so take that into consideration when you are selling your games– it may be worth more to you to just run down to your local used game store & pawn them there. I just started the Trade-In process on three games I had lying around and will let you all know how it goes.
*****Update 4-24-09*****
I received notice that GameFly accepted all of my games for the value they listed. Hooray! But, when I went to apply that credit to one of the games I have at home to keep it, I found out that the credit is only good toward your membership! Not really sure how I feel about that– granted it will be nice to pay less on my monthly, but I really wanted to use it toward the purchase of a game. I guess next time I will just drive down to my local Used Game Shop.
The Swedes, in a landmark case have jailed the four founders of The Pirate Bay (TPB). Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay $4.5m in damages. The damages were awarded to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. Guess their time ran out– remember “Everytime you download music, god kills a kitten.”
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Everybody loves free stuff (I know I do), so go get some. Thanks to the new movie coming out May 29th “
