…And another great reason to pick up the game, of course. If you have to ask what tablature is and you’ve were playing Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band back when they were the big deal in music games, then you’ve half-answered that question on why it’s key to actually learning to play a real guitar. Life isn’t that hard when you learn something new every day and put it into practice, I say…
Hmm. So, a friend who snapped up his Xbox One at midnight called me over today to play some games and Killer Instinct was one of them. I was not impressed. Granted, I’ve never liked KI all that much for a few reasons, but I respect anyone who can put up with its quirks on the SNES and even more of its quirks as a launch title for Microsoft’s $500 ego-center deluxe. Paying for characters piecemeal in a fighter may be the hot new thing, but while I was combo-ing away like a chump and winning a few rounds against my pal (he still kicked my butt around the room after about 20 minutes of us both fiddling with those yuck-worthy triggers on that new controller which work BEAUTIFULLY in Forza 5 but not for a fighting game), I kept thinking of the somewhat lousy pay to unlock “deal” going on here.
After about two hours of next-gen thrills, I hoofed it home thinking of something to write about and ended up walking in the door, yanking a few fighting games (or fighting game hybrids) I’d rather have played down from the PlayStation section of the library, snapped a few pictures and here you go. As many characters as you can stand all on discs and not stacked with fees or “coming soon” features. Granted, you cool kids who don’t mind the enforced evolution of mandatory DLC and playing games that aren’t exactly finished because you’ll be buying in for as long as you can stand it (or longer as you get lured into the pay schemes here and on the way) will be all over this one like bees on a bear trying to steal their honey. Me, I’m a plug an play guy for life and it seems some of these new consoles and me won’t get along like best buddies anytime soon. But if this sort of thing floats your particular boat, knock yourself right on out and pay (and then pay again)…
*DING!DING!! DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!* Translation: Since Gilligan IS the Skipper, he knows it all. Check out the man himself unboxing the gift that keeps on giving, one of the best shows on TV and yeah, you want it even if you’ve seen every episode multiple times and can run lines with the family pet (who wants to bit the heck out of your foot for making him watch all that TV when it wanted to catch up on naps and playing with your shoe). I think I need one of these. Or one for each hand. I’ll give the second one away as a gift, you know…
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…
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”…
So. 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…
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)…
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…
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!
(thanks, thecinelady!)
I 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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