What Type of Doctor Who Fan Are You? Dorkly Knows You All Too Well…

WHO_fans 
Okay, this new Dorkly strip made me chuckle a bit because I think I’m not on that list, but have been a few of those types over the years. Of course, if you’re not yet sucked into the surprisingly cool vortex that is Doctor Who, you still have time (see what I did there?) before tomorrow’s big event episode rolls in to shake things up on a worldwide level. It’s quite cool that BBC is running that episode simultaneously around the globe so everyone watching can have their eyeballs pop out of their skulls and roll around the floor at the same time. Of course, the sound of all those toilets flushing will make some people go deaf temporarily while the resulting pressure drop in water supplies around the globe may have drastic consequences (such as a TARDIS materializing inside someone’s living room), so make sure you have enough space for an extra visitor, I say…

Dying Light Lighting Tech Demo: Enjoy It Now – You’ll Be Running Like Hell Later…

 
Veteran developer Techland has been making some phenomenal-looking games for a number of years for consoles and PC, but Dying Light looks to be their best work to date. This mere 40 seconds of a recent tech demo shows off some pretty stellar lighting effects, a bit of a zombie problem and hopefully some nice hiding spots as I understand that when the sun drops from the sky, those undead get fierce and harder to put down. Which is why I’ll prefer to stay home and play the game as opposed to popping my head and body out the door to pick up a quart of 2% and some cat food, only to get jumped by some undead in the process. Heck, I don’t even own a cat! “Good Night Good Luck”, indeed… MY slogan would be “Hide and Sleep”…

Queen of the Constellations Barbie. Yeah, You KNOW You Want One.

Zerg Queen BarbieSo. Because she made a purchase a long time ago from either a website or home shopping channel, my mother gets a Barbie catalog popping up in her mailbox every so often. If I’m around and I see one on the coffee table, I tend to leaf through it just to see the collector’s edition variants that range from high fashion recreations to licensed celebrity, TV and movie properties, all costing a premium. Once in a while I’ve even poked around the Barbie Collector website for fun or while waiting for a huge file download to complete, but I’m not a collector of figures these days – for me it’s just fun to see Mattel trying to keep the character relevant in this era of short attention spans.

That said, today someone pointed me to this awesome Queen of the Constellations Barbie and I had to do a double take because it looks like something out of a Blizzard game. Queen of the ZERG is more like it! Anyway, they’re marked down $25 to $75, limit of five per buyer. No, I don’t want one, but I guess if you’re a guy or gal who’s going to be sewing up that next cosplay outfit for yourself or someone else, you can’t go too wrong by using this as a jumping off point. Of course, Mattel may sue the pants (or that lovely “Zerg” dress) you’ve made right off you, so make sure you’re covered on those fronts…

Sabotage Trailer: Nobody Gives Him (Another) Raw Deal (But Me)…

Ah, the Ah-nuld resurgence continues, I suppose. Yeah, this upcoming (April 2014) flick looks nice and gritty and it certainly has a pretty surprising cast in some respects (Mireille Enos as an action heroine?!). But I always start up my cable countdown clock when I see one of these trailers because it’ll be the usual two to three weeks at or near the top of the box-office charts before being bumped off by the next blockbuster or surprise indie hit, then three or four months later onto Blu-Ray and a few months after that it’s popping up as a surprise early premiere (hopefully on a cable channel I can access at home).

Annnnd of course, Arnold is now pissed off at me for this post, as I found out sooner than I’d liked (as in as I was typing):
 
Hey, Mister Angry Dude, you’ll live. TO quote Mister Freeze: “Chillllll…” Now get back to counting your money or something. You certainly don’t need my seal of approval at all. I’ll see your escapist flick soon enough (well, on my own schedule)…

Jimmy Fallon vs. Xbox One: The “Who”, “What” or “Where” Show Returns…

Yes, it’s usually pretty crazy on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but just what the heck was this confusing mess of a live demo? Yeah, the Xbox One has SO many things packed into that black box that it was hard to tell what was going on. I did note that Kinect wasn’t used for the menu navigation (as it seems to have issues with more than a few people in a room according to some early press), Forza 5 got a few seconds of play (not by Jimmy) that showed off some lovely visuals before things switched to the camera scanning Jimmy earlier (and making an awful likeness) and there was some playing of that new Kinect Sports game with Will Forte. Ugh. Meanwhile, that Microsoft rep was no Ron Popeil at all, trying to cram too much talk into a handful of minutes.

Look, if you’re trying to sell an all-in-one living room dominator/media center/juicer to the non gaming public and it indeed does WAY too much for a mere under five minute demo… you need a longer sales pitch. I don’t think that sloppy mess last night was selling any consoles to anyone who wasn’t already buying one because other than Jimmy drooling about the new controller too long, it really didn’t show off much other than pretty visuals and a lot of “wait, what was that?” before it ended. Eh, whatever – we’ll see what happens when the system rolls out later today. Or: yet another midnight launch I won’t be going to cover because it’s all hype and the REAL proof is a few months down the road plus when the post launch titles start dropping into stores…

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Gets Slightly Nostalgic for 1998…

 
I actually got another mighty chuckle going when Hideo Kojima showed that trailer above at the PlayStation 4 launch in NYC last week. I’d been thinking for a few months now it would be wonderful if any developer or publisher who had a key launch or other title for the original PlayStation did something like a remake with all-new visuals, but of course, Kojima goes and has his team get retro in the weirdest manner possible. Hey, it works for me, being a fan of Metal Gear Solid and all. But I know that some younger gamers saw this trailer and nearly spit up their Red Bull because they’ve yet to experience the glory that was (and is) the original MGS. Granted, that Fox Engine is pretty mighty at doing outstandingly realistic visuals on the PS3, PC and other platforms, so there’s no doubt that Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will do well when it lands in a few places (retail and digital) at some point OK< Spring 2014). Yeah, yeah… David HAyter has been replaced by Keifer Sutherland as the voice (and face) of Snake, but I think I'm one of the few who shed a tear and moved on quickly. I have more urgent things to think about besides who's being paid to portray an iconic character – I just want the game to be memorable and really well written.

 
And here’s about 13 minutes of the game with no chunky Snake to ogle. enjoy!

Random Film of the Week: The Man in the White Suit

(thanks, thecinelady!)

the man in the white suit USI recall seeing Alexander Mackendrick’s 1951 film The Man in the White Suit listed as both a comedy and a science fiction film in two separate movie books and as I hadn’t seen it at that time, I was a bit perplexed. Of course, I think I was also about twelve years old, so I was perplexed about a great many things. And in a constant state of perplexed about those great many things believe you me.

Thankfully, once I finally saw this classic a few years later, all my questions were answered – it’s a comedy AND a science fiction film (and a bit of social commentary, to boot). And of course, it’s an Ealing Studios film so it’s just about perfect in every aspect and yes indeed, comes very highly recommended…
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Magus Teaser Trailer: Aksys Has a PS3 Surprise Up Its Sleeves For RPG Fans…

MagusCoverTentativeIn case you haven’t figured this out yet, “next-gen” kicking off with the releases of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One don’t mean that “last-gen” is dead at all by a long shot. Well, not for a while at least. Which is why it’s great to see new games being announced for those “old” systems that won’t be headed to stores until 2014. Aksys Games has one of these games, Magus, set to hit the PlayStation 3 on February 25, 2014.

A wee bit of internet poking about by yours truly reveals that this one’s from developer Black Tower with Aksys Games, runs on the versatile Unreal Engine tech and looks like an Action/RPG of some sort. It’s also a PS3 exclusive it seems and can be pre-ordered from Amazon if you like that teaser trailer above that really doesn’t tell much.

Magus1 Magus2 Magus3 Magus4 Magus5 Magus6

While the game has a decidedly 2005 or so look to it in those screenshots above, I’m gathering these are early screens and not representative of the final game. That said, I like the “rustic” look to the visuals here, but hope things get polished up as far more details in the environments and the somewhat plain (and tiny!) GUI typeface. As to how it actually plays… I guess we’ll see. Aksys doesn’t exactly make NYC a stop on its press tours being a small publisher and all, but I trust them to not release a game that’s not somewhat enjoyable and interesting, “dated” visuals or not. We’ll see how this one is at some point – probably in a review down the road a piece. Stay tuned…

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Complete Pack Now On Steam!

VanHelsingCompletePackHmmm… I never got around to playing The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing when it was initially released on Steam, but it looks like me not getting that review code I asked for was a good thing. A fre friends I recommended this one based on the screens and movies dug it quite a bit, so my job was done on that front. I guess I need to go crack open the piggy bank now as NeoCore Games has been toiling away on making their baby an even more complete action/RPG experience. Got that Steam account warming up in the background? Good – let’s see what’s in the digital box now, shall we? Lift up that coffin lid, please and peek below the jump… Continue reading

Random Film of the Week: Athens, GA: Inside/Out

(thanks, thurna!)

Athens_GA_MPStill one of the best “music scene” documentaries and a must-see if you’re a “scholar” of 80’s alternative music (translation: someone who likes some mighty fine and varied music), Tony Gayton’s 1987 film Athens, GA: Inside/Out is a quirky and fun blast of great music featuring famous up and coming and obscure bands strutting their stuff in a free form style that makes the film quite compelling even to this day.

Amusingly enough, I have extended family in Macon and Savannah and while I’ve not been down that way in decades, watching this documentary sometime around 1990 on tape made me want to buy a bus ticket and head down to Athens just to check out a few clubs. I didn’t, however (my loss), as I had more real life things to take care of and had this film on tape and a copy of the soundtrack on cassette to time me over and keep my eyes and ears very happy… Continue reading