Dan is a Canadian with a penchant for writing things, watching things, playing things and occasionally leaving the house. You can follow him on Twitter: http://bit.ly/WN6xMI
The Oscars are fast approaching, which means it’s time to check the list of nominees and watch as many of the nominated films as humanly possible. Of course, for a regular movie-goer like myself, not only would watching 61 movies in two months be a questionable management of priorities, it’s also nearly impossible to get access to some of the smaller, less mainstream films on the list. However three Oscar-worthy animated shorts you’d likely not have the opportunity to see are now streaming online for free for your viewing pleasure. Here they are:
Welcome to Dark Knight Station, the Hero Express‘s main stop for all the news onThe Dark Knight Rises.We’ll keep you up to date on all the biggest bat-news coming straight from Gotham City.
Mind the gap and avoid the shadows; This stop is the Dark Knight Station for January 25th, 2012.
Batman, Bane and Catwoman Toys Revealed – (Superhero Hype)
At the U.K. Toy Fair, DC Direct unveiled a slew of action figures being added to their toy line and chief among them were prototypes of DKR Batman, Bane and Catwoman figurines in various sizes. Toy news site Idle Hands has scanned images of the toys from DC Direct’s catalog, and they offer perhaps the clearest look at the characters’ design, particularly Catwoman’s, which has been the least prevalent in Dark Knight Rises‘ marketing.
This is Button Mashing, Grizzly Bomb’s video game news headquarters. Previews, interviews, rumors and all the latest stories relating to the biggest games, all in one place.
I’m The Wozz, and here are the most important things you need to know for the week of January 23rd, 2012:
Max Payne 3 Shows Off Its Targeting/Weapon Systems
Rockstar Games is doing a series of behind-the-scenes featurettes which shed some light on the new mechanics and technology going into the upcoming return to the Max Payne franchise. The second one is out now, and it goes into some of the ways they’ve fine-tuned the shooting mechanics.
Initially I was pretty dismissive of a new Max Payne. I really liked the first two games, they were powerfully story-driven, atmospheric and the gameplay was enjoyable, to boot. But the bullet-time feature that drove the whole franchise, and revolutionized almost every single shooter after it was getting tiresome by Max Payne 2. It’s a very cool thing to see the first 6 or 7 times, but it eventually becomes a pace-breaking crutch, just like the more recent ‘VATS’ mechanic in Fallout.
But these little promos are really starting to work their magic. Rockstar Games are just some of the best storytellers and innovators in the industry, and Max Payne looks like it’s just as wonderfully dark and unique as ever before. Begrudgingly it’s turning me around.
Resident Evil fans were abuzz last week because promos for RE6 started being reported at retailers. Posters like this one have appeared in stores around the country, point at a November 20th, 2012 release date:
The news comes, as promised, following a viral marketing campaign from NoHopeLeft.com, which posted dozens of mysterious photos and videos pointing to some kind of conspiracy. The blog repeatedly pointed to January 19th, 2012, at which point the official announcement was made.
Following the reveal of Resident Evil 6 came this teaser:
The trailer reveals the return of Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy, and an amazing amount of content for a first teaser.
Skyrim Creation Kit is Almost Here – (Bethesda Blog)
Coming straight from Bethesda themselves, it looks like the biggest game of 2011 is about to give players the opportunity to create their own content in Skyrim. From Bethesda themselves:
“For all you PC gamers, you will be happy to know that the Creation Kit and Steam Workshop are nearly ready. Bethesda is currently working with members of Valve and their modding community to do some final testing and are on track for a public release near the end of the month. The current update plan for the PC is to first release updates as “beta” versions through Steam. This is something you’ll be able to opt into through Steam and back-out of if needed.“
Meanwhile, the developers are also working on the game’s latest update. Version 1.14 will patch a lot of the game’s hiccups for all 3 platforms, hopefully making it even easier to lose yourself in Tamriel’s Northern-most province. For a list of all the glitches and bugs resolved in the update, they’re all listed on the blog.
Infinity Ward’s Looking Ahead at Next-Gen Call of Duty – (IGN)
IGN shrewdly discovered that a job listing posted on Infinity Ward’s website is requesting a senior animator “with experience in-game development and an interest in working with next-generation technologies.”
It’s not a huge surprise that there are plans to make a CoD game for the next iteration of the home consoles, but Sledgehammer Games has reportedly already done the same. IGN speculates as to the possibility of the job offers being connected, but it will be a long time before the full story is announced – Sony and Microsoft have still not made any official statements regarding the release of new hardware.
Mass Effect 3 Will Feature Kinect Voice Control – (IGN)
If there’s one thing hardcore gamers will come together to support, it’s the unanimous disdain for motion controls and extra peripherals like voice commands. The joypad is king to the dedicated player, so fans were kind of disappointed when it was announced that Mass Effect 3 would allow Xbox Kinect users the opportunity to use voice control for certain actions. However, doubters might want to relax because apparently the voice commands work extremely well, and really compliment the gameplay:
“Mass Effect 3 uses Kinect only for voice commands – absolutely no motion recognition is supported. Instead, any command that players previously had to pause the action to access, like Biotic powers, ammo swapping or party member management can now be managed by voice. This allows players full access to Shepherd’s suite of combat options without ever pausing the action.
Most important of all is that this Kinect integration just works. When you say sniper rifle, Shepherd switches to his sniper rifle. Saying “Adrenaline Rush” activates the biotic power. Say “James, Move” and your squad mate moves to the location you have pointed out. During the entire demo, I never once had a voice command not register properly.“
“Miranda, Disrobe” The one voice command not accepted…
I don’t own an Xbox 360, and while I’m not heartbroken that I’ll be missing out on the voice commands, I’ll admit that bringing up the power menu or designating your squad to move around during combat can be a chore in Mass Effect. If the tech works as accurately and consistently as IGN says, it could resolve one of ME‘s few flaws, and allow for more fluid, better-paced combat.
I know all too well the pain of having to scale back a game’s graphics in order to make it work on my rig (Read: mediocre 5 year old laptop). In fact, I had to reduce Mass Effect 2‘s specs to some extent to run it on Steam and still could only play in 45-minute intervals or run the risk of overheating. It sucks to not be well-equipped, is what I’m saying. But thankfully I’ve got the requirements for Mass Effect 3 right here, so you won’t have to worry about whether or not your PC can adequately handle it:
Minimum Spec:
• OS – Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1, Win 7 *Supported chipsets: NVIDIA 7900 or better; ATI X1800 or better. Please note that NVIDIA GeForce 9300, 8500, 8400, and 8300 are below minimum system requirements, as are AMD/ATI Radeon HD3200, HD3300, and HD4350. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.
• CPU – 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU) • RAM – 1GB for XP / 2GB RAM for Vista/Win 7 • Disc Drive – 1x speed • Hard Drive – 15 GB of free space • Video – 256 MB* (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support) • Sound – DirectX 9.0c compatible • DirectX – DirectX 9.0c August 2009 (included)
Recommended Spec:
• OS – Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1, Win 7 • CPU – 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU) • RAM – 2GB for XP / 4GB RAM for Vista/Win 7 • Disc Drive – 1x speed • Hard Drive – 15 GB of free space • Video – AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB or greater, NVidia GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB or greater • Sound – DirectX 9.0c compatible
Side Mission also included the fact that in order to run ME3 PC users will have to register and run Origin, both for online and offline use.
I’m just going to put this out there: if Cracked isn’t a part of your daily online routine, you’re not using the internet properly. In addition to serving as a home for my favorite internet writer as well as my favorite… whatever the hell this guy does, Cracked is one of the most entertaining places you can go with an internet connection. So when the site’s senior editor (And author of one of my favorite articles of all time), David Wong wrote a horror/fantasy book called John Dies at the End and it started getting huge praise, I was intrigued.
[Actually, full disclosure: I just remembered, literally as I was typing the last sentence, that I placed an order to have a copy shipped to my local Chapters store about a year ago, and promptly forgot about it entirely. I have a phone call to make.]
Anyway, the book is being adapted into a movie by Don Coscarelli, who previously did Bubba Ho-Tep and Phantasm. If you’ve seen either of them, you know that Coscarelli tends to lean towards the bizarre and fantastical. John Dies at the End, it seems, is right up his alley. Here’s a plot synopsis, straight from the book’s website:
“It’s a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users can drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human.
Suddenly a silent, otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs.
Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity?
No. No, they can’t.“
The trailer for the movie, starring Paul Giamatti, is below:
I’m really excited to see how it turns out. From the trailer it looks like the movie will feature all kinds of horror tropes and crazy, off-the-wall moments. In the meantime, I have a book to pick up.
In 2009, web developer Casey Pugh began a massive undertaking to remake Star Wars IV: A New Hope shot-for-shot. But instead of hiring a crew and casting actors, Pugh opened the project to hundreds of strangers; Star Wars Uncut is the result of close t0 500 15-second clips re-shot by fans and uploaded to a website, where Pugh and his team worked tirelessly to edit them all together into something amazing.
The process was simple – Anyone who wanted to participate simply went to Star Wars Uncut and reserved a 15-second segment of the movie, and were free to recreate it however they liked. There were no limitations on creativity, which meant submissions ran the gamut from live-action to animation, with actors and environments changing vastly second to second. It must have been a continuity nightmare for Pugh’s crew but somehow they managed to make 4 transitions-per-minute feel surprisingly fluid and still hold on to that amateur film charm. And you can see it for yourself because now the Star Wars Uncut Director’s Cut is finally available on the internet for everyone to see. The 2-hour long film is streaming on Vimeo and on Youtube:
And how do I know so much about the creation process? I was lucky enough to participate in the project, after it was brought to my attention by a friend of mine. We spent 2 hours shooting in the halls of our university’s science building for a 15-second payoff. And being a part of it all is totally worth it (You can see the four of us from the 2:55 mark until 3:10. I am the rebel in the white shirt).
At the beginning of Star Wars Uncut‘s production, Pugh stated he would consider continuing with the other Star Wars films if A New Hope‘s was successful. I can’t imagine a bigger success than this: Star Wars Uncut won the Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Media, in 2010. I don’t know if there’s been any official word on an Uncut sequel, but I’d love to see a sweded version of Empire Strikes Back.
Cormac McCarthy is a Pulitzer prize-winning author whose work has earned him a place as one of the most well-respected American writers in the world today. And while the quality of his writing has spilled over into Hollywood, where two of his novels (‘The Road’ and ‘No Country For Old Men’) have been adapted into critically acclaimed films, McCarthy himself has never tried his hand at writing a movie. Deadline reports that McCarthy’s first ever spec-script, The Counselor, is about to change that. The new screenplay is not only his first screenwriting endeavor, it’s also his first original story to go to the silver-screen. The script has been picked up by the same team of producers who backed The Road.
Grizzly Bomb 