Gravity Trailer: Some Very Weighty Issues In This Sci-Fi Deep Thinker…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

As soon as I heard this was directed by Alfonso Cuarón (the beautifully gloomy future flick Children of Men), Gravity went onto my “Well, THIS should be interesting…” list of movies to catch at some point. Granted, it will probably be depressing as hell and have a few of its bid deal cast members not survive until the finale, but hey – that’s the way the ball bounces. Or floats away, as I don’t think anything bounces in space. And no one can hear you scream, by the way (yeah, yeah, wrong movie!). Anyway, keep an eyeball peeled for this one, folks. It’ll at least look spectacular…

Star Trek: Into Darkness “Vendetta” Trailer: 1 of 8 Is Better Than 7 of 9 (At Least Today)…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

Yikes. I decide to dive into some games this week and *BOOM!* all sorts of trailers and stuff get dumped on the Internet! Hell, Paramount alone posted something like seven or eight new trailers for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Trek sequel (yikes!), but I won’t go and post them all. At least not today. Here’s one for now and I’ll get the rest up tomorrow at some point when I’m up for air. Well, I am a few posts behind in my new schedule, so I could cheat and do eight more Trek posts… but that would be really cheesy, so I won’t. Besides, I’ve got better ways of keeping your attention… hmm… this eyelash batting stuff is HARD. It looks like I’m having a seizure when I look in the mirror…

Oh, alright – here’s another teaser for you since my eyeballs are tired from all that flapping…

Wolfenstein: The New Order – Meet The New Boss (Not The Same As The Old Boss)…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

WOLF_ID_type_white Well, now… B.J. Blazkowicz is coming back in a new Wolfenstein game from a team made up of some pretty talented industry vets originally from Starbreeze Studios? Count me in, especially if it’s got mechs to stomp around in or get the hell away from as they’re trying to stomp YOU.

Of course, the alternate past 1960 setup where the Germans win WWII and B.J. is back in action after too long made me laugh and think of Captain America frozen in an iceberg until he got accidentally defrosted (ah, comics science!), but I think this game will go for a less crazy plot twist and just make with the satisfying Nazi-blasting in solo and multiplayer modes. Er, well… I hope there’s a decent plot here.

Then again, I’m not too worried, as Bethesda’s had hits with Arkane Studios’ phenomenal Dishonored and it’s own Elder Scrolls games. It certainly looks like “new” developer Machine Games is on the case plus tax, as you can see from these two videos that introduces the team in a pretty funny manner. And hell, when your executive producer is named Jerk, you KNOW you’re going to get a memorable experience…

Anyway, they sure look like a bunch of fun folks, so I’ll do what I do best and leave them along until they have something playable to show off in the near future…

Resident Evil Revelations “Survive” Case File: Well, Duh!

Posted on May 8, 2013 by geelw

Can you imagine a Resident Evil game where you HAD to keep getting killed by all sorts of enemies? Good, neither can I. Of course, if you’re really bad at the game and constantly freaked out by the horrors stumbling and shuffling about on that boat from hell, well… you can always go get someone to play the game for you while you camp out on the couch and jump when something scary pops up and starts chasing your surrogate around. Then again, no one likes a back seat driver when they’re playing a game you’re to scared to play, right?

Random Film of the Day* Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

Posted on May 8, 2013 by geelw

*For the next week or so plus, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away yesterday at age 92 in London and yes, the film world owes him more than they can ever repay.

Without Ray Harryhausen’s still impressive special effects, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers would probably have been just another 1950’s “B” movie lost to the ages, only popping up on one of those cheapo compilation DVD’s you see as impulse items at some big box stores. However, thanks to those awesome saucers and some fine destruction of federal property by some rather cranky aliens, the film has been a favorite as well as an inspiration for other flicks from Independence Day to Mars Attacks! and more. The somewhat clunky acting and use of WWII stock footage don’t hurt the film one bit because they’re usually only a few minutes from one of Harryhausen’s cool animated saucers blowing the heck out of something or simply flying across the sky…
Continue reading →

Game of Thrones 3:6 Recap/Inside The Episode: It’s Torture (But We’re Almost There)…

Posted on May 7, 2013 by geelw

So, after by brain tanked out on me on Sunday thanks to my over-thinking stuff while I should have been just watching the show, I watched the episode again last night and it still did seem a bit oddly paced thanks to a few too many surprises dropping out of nowhere and the continuing torture scenes that need a KNOCKOUT resolution for all the build up going on. That’s not a bad thing at all, though. In retrospect, some things just happening the way they did shows how random and unpredictable life is in that crazy world where everyone’s scheming to get over on someone else (with often drastic consequences) and the slower-moving ones get crushed by the juggernaut of fate, which is mighty tall and indeed, heavy as you’d think (times ten). Well, the next few episodes should make for some eye-popping (or finger and other body part mangling) moments as everything comes to a head. Suspense is highly underrated as a commodity on TV these days.

(Well, at least I think so, as someone who hates all this second screen nonsense and trolling the Internet for clues as to what’s going to happen. I say treat the show like a surprise party and yes, you’ll actually BE surprised…)

Class of Heroes 2 Pre-Sales Now Live (Via Amazon ONLY, Unfortunately!)…

Posted on May 7, 2013 by geelw

COH2_small While it’s absolutely great to see Gaijinworks finally get this game out in a GREAT physical/digital pack for a measly $36.99 (with shipping!), the SOLE payment option (Amazon, via credit card ONLY, no Amazon credits, sorry!) means folks like me who don’t use credit cards are going to be holding out longer for the digital-only (boo!) PSN version to ship before we can actually buy this one.

Sure, I get that it’s much easier for the company to set up and deal with than multiple payment types (and those assorted fees they’d need to pay, plus PayPal’s stupid in general manner of doing business), but it also means they’re not going to see those pre-sales sell as fast as they should at the end of the day. So yeah… so much for that convenient Paypal option for those of us stuck with money burning a hole in our accounts or anyone with Amazon credit looking to polish that off.

Griping aside, a poke around the forums reveals that the game seems to be pre-selling well enough that Vic Ireland isn’t sweating the loss of a few cranky jerks like me who want to throw him our money but can’t – yet. Still, I hope to hell that we see some way we can get the game without paying a shit-mint on eBay for. And of course, there are people already “selling” the game there when it hasn’t even been produced yet. Well, a fool and his money are sooner parted than later, right? Anyway, looks as if I’ll have to “settle” for a digital version when the game is released.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Building Character – An Important Life Skill In Games, Too…

Posted on May 7, 2013 by geelw

Here’s more for NeoCore Game’s upcoming action/RPG that’s shaping up to be a huge and very-well polished indie sleeper hit worth grabbing when it launches on May 22, 2013. Hopefully, this will do well enough to get ported to more platforms, as there’s nothing like a good chase ‘n chop to wile away the hours and get caught up in all the loot you’ll rack up as you stack up the monster corpses. As usual, we shall see, but I’ll predict that is this one shows up as bug-free as possible and doesn’t require a new PC to run, it’ll be a must-play among genre fans…

Random Film of the Day*: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Posted on May 7, 2013 by geelw

* Nope, this isn’t a permanent format change, folks. For the next week or so plus, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away today at age 92 in London and yes, the film world owes him more than they can ever repay.

JatA_poster Forget about today’s overblown CG effects, many of which make modern movies worse than better. Ray’s best work was all about blending fantasy into the assorted realities of the worlds he created and transporting viewers to places and making them forget about the outside world for about an hour and a half or so.

Jason and The Argonauts was the sixth collaboration between Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer and for many (including Ray), his best film. As a kid, this was one of the stapes of my TV diet, and as I grew older, finding out just how much work Harryhausen sunk into each film he worked on made me realize the man deserved his “legend” status as well as a the director’s credit denied him by Hollywood’s arcane rules… Continue reading →

FUSE “Hired Guns” Trailer: Well, The Demo Is Free, So They’re Really Not Hired (Yet)…

Posted on May 7, 2013 by geelw

Today’s the big day for Insomniac’s FUSE in terms of the gaming public finally getting a great demo to blast through on PSN and Xbox Live. I’ve been a fan of the game since I got some hands-on time late last year, but the project has been a bit of a gripe-fest for some fans of the developer who didn’t like the visual change from its initial reveal as Overstrike and the made-up rumors that EA “made” the team change the game to a modern-looking “gritty” shooter just to sell more copies. Every game goes through a few redesigns before the final product ships, so I give Ted Price and company the first and last word on the game’s visuals and gameplay (which by the way, are both solid). Anyway, if you’ve got a PS3 or 360 humming in your home, drop everything and go give that demo a shot. Insomniac certainly won’t mind the feedback once you’re all done, that’s for sure…