GRID Autosport Discipline/Focus/Endurance Trailer: You’ll Still Get Spanked, Though…

GRID_Autosport_BlackOh, once again, I couldn’t help myself (*whipcrack!*). Anyway, it looks as if GRID Autosport REALLY means business when it comes to bringing racing fans some of the best action out there. While not a true simulation, the team at Codemasters is striking the balance between simple to pick up and play controls and the need to learn each track and how to survive the AI trying its best to blow your doors off when you dive into the single player part of the game. Online is of course its own crazy bird complete with the usual unpredictability of live players, especially in the longer races.

Now,I happen to like endurance race events, as there’s a fine balance of learning all the ins and outs of a race course lap after lap and your own physical condition slipping a wee bit over the hours as you fight off sleep and assorted body cramps. Granted, couch racing isn’t ANYWHERE as brutal as being in a car bouncing around and rumbling for a few hundred miles, but keeping me OUT of a real race car is probably a really good thing. GRID Autosport is out for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on June 24, 2014 in North America, June 27th in Europe.

Gallery: The Red Solstice – Ironward’s Action/RTS Is Looking (And Playing) Like Hot Stuff…

TRS_Cover Art 

 
Fans of the hugely popular RTS genre would do well to seek out The Red Solstice, Ironward Studios’ upcoming co-op focused squad-based action game that that packs in loads of action familiar to shooter fans with the resource management and other elements familiar to RTS players, The game’s recent Kickstarter did more than enough for the game to make its funding goal and a few stretch goals and some hands-on time with an alpha build (that means there’s a ways to go before the final version is complete) reveals quite a thrilling time to be had with one really good looking (in a dark, gritty sci-fi manner) game as you’ll see below the jump… Continue reading

BUY IT! Funko Gets New & Nostalgic With Even More TV & Movie Favorites

funko logoI’ve always liked Funko’s cute collectible figures, but my over-dedication to the games library here means I’ve no room to stock those cool-looking figures (boo!). Still, that won’t stop me from letting you know what’s new and upcoming from the company…

Rocketeer
May brings in The Rocketeer, the late Dave Stevens’ great comic character that also ended up in a decent and fun to watch film directed by Joe Johnston and produced by Disney back in 1991. Arriving as part of Funko’s ReAction lineup, The Rocketeer comes equipped with a removable helmet and jetpack, which doesn’t actually work by the way (so you won’t have Nazi spies trying to break into your place and steal it)…

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Interstellar Teaser Trailer: What You Do After You’ve Gone Batty Thrice…

So, it’s about a year away (!), but Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Interstellar looks as if it will be one more intensely interesting film from one of the more prolifically creative mainstream directors working today. Granted, this SUPER tease may as well be a trailer for a Salvage One movie or a more serious version of Joe Dante’s EXPLORERS, but I like that vagueness going on here and the fact that we have to wait a whole year to see what’s coming. Naturally, there WILL be updates as more of the plot and cast are revealed, but with any new film, I prefer to stay the hell off the internet and far away from speculation and spoilers because it just makes for a better overall viewing experience. Try it sometime and see, I say…

Humor: Get Lost (Or, You COULD Be In New Jersey)…

(thanks, sjmobb!) 

Pine BarrensI live in an area that’s not too hard to figure out if you live here and spend time walking around on a semi-regular basis. However, on occasions where people who drive here to visit friends or relatives, they often run into trouble with one particular spot where an oval splits into four different directions and streets that need to be followed to their destinations or else you end up driving in some rather oddball directions only to find yourself maybe back where you started or worse. This evening as I’m walking home, a car pulls up beside me and as the passenger side window rolls down, I know exactly what’s coming. Sure enough, a woman pops her head out the window and asks which way a certain street is because she and her husband had been driving around for a good fifteen minutes looking for the building.

Nice guy that I am, I point them in the correct direction and of course, the missus is all “See, I told you it was THAT way” while the hubby is getting a case of the “Yeah, yeahs”. As they both turn to thank me, the husband asks “I suppose people get lost around here a lot?”, to which I respond “Well, it’s not so bad here – you could be in the Pine Barrens”. I do believe the husband happened to get what I was referencing, because he burst out laughing so loudly that his wife jumped in her seat and did a double take before asking what the heck was so funny. As she closed the window back up (I’m assuming no one “rolls” a window up any longer) I waved goodbye, turned and left them alone and walked away with a smile knowing the mister would have to do some fast talking to stay out of the perceived doghouse he just cracked himself up into. Thankfully, that episode of The Sopranos is a pretty darn funny one and I’m glad someone actually got a joke I’d made without having to explain it. Victory!

Random Film of the Week(end), Too: Abandon Ship! (Seven Waves Away)

(thanks, S250385!)

“Save as many as you can …”.

abandon shipI’ve been on a grand total of two cruise ships, plus a bunch of ferries and other boats raging in size from canoe to schooner, but after seeing Abandon Ship! (or Seven Waves Away if you’re in the UK), I’ll probably restrict my watercraft enjoyment to playing with toy boats in a bathtub filled with maybe five inches of water.

This 1957 British drama is probably one of the more depressing sea disaster films I’ve ever seen. Clocking in at just over an hour and a half, this harrowing tale gets off to a start as a luxury ocean liner, The Crescent Star hits a stray World War II mine that sinks the ship, killing most of its passengers and crew. There only time for a single lifeboat to launch before the ship goes down and that lifeboat can only fit nine people. Unfortunately (or even MORE unfortunately), twenty seven people end up in and around that lifeboat and soon, you’ll feel as if you’re in that boat with the doomed, the dying and the soon to be dead.

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Dead State: DoubleBear’s Indie ‘ZRPG’ Looks Awesomely Apocalyptic…

deadstate-website-headerlogo_new

 

combat_shot_finalI’ve been way too busy to keep up with every indie game I’d like to play, but once in a while I catch up to something like DoubleBear Productions work in progress, Dead State and all is well in my little corner of the Internet. As you can see, there’s a nice The Walking Dead meets Fallout vibe going on here (which is double cool) and the WIP combat video below shows off a pretty impressive engine and grid-based tactics at work. The writing here is solid as well, with some nicely done descriptions that bring the slower-paced battles to life very well indeed. Hopefully, this will run on my ancient PC or laptop when all is said and done. I could use a nice turn-based post zombie apocalypse RPG that’s not a system hog for the sake of flashy graphics (and so could you, I bet). This absolutely looks as if it’s going to have a wider appeal amongst a few types of folks into the current zombie craze which seems to be without end and only growing in strength.

 

 

Keep an eyeball on this one, folks. If everything falls into place, this just might be an indie sleeper that gets a ton of attention and puts DoubleBear on the lips of zombie fans around the globe. Or at least keeps them busy for way too many hours across many sleepless nights… or both.

Random Film of the Week(end): Sleeper

 

sleeperIf you stripped away the comedic elements and rewrote a few scenes, Woody Allen’s classic 1973 film Sleeper would actually make a pretty solid futuristic drama about a man wakened from a long cryo-sleep who ends up becoming part of a revolution against a totalitarian government. Fortunately, the film never even tries to be that serious and you end up laughing your ass off at its near-flawless writing acting and overall pacing. Granted, the film actually won a Hugo Award for “Best Dramatic Presentation” in 1974 (beating out the deadly serious Soylent Green, the mostly serious Westworld and two so-so fan favorite TV melodramas, Genesis II and The Six Million Dollar Man), so I’d gather there’s a pretty solid futuristic drama underneath all that slapstick after all…

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BioShock Infinite: Some Questions Answered And Mysteries Solved For Your Curiosity…

 

Will BioShock Infinite be as well-received as the original? Will we see so many ads for the game that 2K Games breaks some sort of record for spending on a single title? Will Ken Levine ever give a boring interview? All signs point to “yes” or “no”, as my crystal ball is busted and I’ve been called a False Shepard before. Eh, whatever – I’ll be playing this at some point and know I’m going to enjoy it no matter what the jaded flies on the wall say. As for ken and interviews, well… THIS one at BAFTA certainly isn’t dull at all:

 

 

Anyway, March 26 is rolling up REALLY quickly and I’m betting a few people call in dead from work just to spend some quality time buried in the story, characters and gameplay Irrational has cooked up…

Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz Trailer Is Slightly Nostalgic (Sort Of…)

…Only because I’m ancient enough to immediately think of The Banana Splits (wait, they have an OFFICIAL web site? yikes!) and not the upcoming PS Vita exclusive. Still this is a pretty funny bit of CG, right? Of course, Sega wins in the end here, as just about any SMB game would be a lot better than a game based on a really kooky kids television show that’s older than most people who read this blog. Of course, Cartoon Network might prove me wrong one day (but I hope not!)…