Techpedition

A lot of people are going to hate this one. I’ve already read a lot of heart-felt comments from lovers of the original, and for the most part, it ain’t pretty. To no surprise these comments have ranged from “what their doing isn’t karate” to “first a black president, now this”. Be that as it may, the revamped “the karate kid” trailer is out and posted here for your viewing pleasure. Let the flaming commence.

Many of us have fond memories of Killer Instinct and have been wanting a new installment. Well after doing some digging around it seems that RARE has started hinting at a new installment finally. So far from what I’ve come across it looks like that if it does happen it’s going to be for the Project NATAL. So it could be quite interesting to see how this would work with the motion tracking. Continue Reading…

We are 10 years into the new millennium and I don’t have hoover boards, flying cars, or food in pill form, but what we do have are some kick ass games to play.  I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 games of 2000-2009.  Now before throwing the inevitable “How can you exclude game x?”, remember that I am only one man and can only play so many games.  The games I’m listing here are games that have either had a profound impact on my gaming habits, consumed ridiculous amounts of my life or left an imprint so strong they cannot go unmentioned.  Let’s see what I’ve chosen.
10. Burnout Paradise
Burnout has always been the critics favorite arcade-style racing game, but never sold as well as it’s EA stablemate Need For Speed (probably because of the licensed cars). Paradise brings much needed open world gameplay to the series and its year’s worth of DLC updates makes it a compelling purchase to this day. It’s seemingly never-ending list of online content is what made it the the only racing game to get my attention in almost a decade. Continue Reading…

I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way. Go watch the movie. In 3D. Now. Interested parties can read further. No spoilers, I promise! Continue Reading…

Gears of War is literally one of the most successful franchises on the XBOX 360 and has a rabid fan base of gamers that have dumped days upon weeks upon months into the multiplayer aspects of the experience.  I however, will not be reviewing the multiplayer in Gears of War.  I am diving into the single player to see if it can stand on its own.  I’m also going to try and refrain from making chest high walls references.

I found, despite desperately not wanting to, a lot wrong with the beloved title both objectively and subjectively.  It does some things well, but the 94 it holds on Metacritic was kind of shocking after playing through the entire campaign. I will spare you the rundown of the story since I wouldn’t dream of giving away the ending to a story that’s barely intelligible in the first place.  It follows all of the boiler plate rules for a sci-fi shooter.  Everything from the character design to vehicles to plot and settings reek of B-quality sci-fi game stench.  Nothing in the lore is really explained nor is interesting.  The story is told in the style of “if it shoots at you, shoot back” and the macho gang of characters might as well be WWE wrestlers in costume. Continue Reading…

So…it looks like Square Enix is moving along with their most anticipated game release (at least as far as I’m concerned, heh). They had already stated that FFXIV would be released next year, so everyone was wondering when the beta would start. If history serves us correctly, the beta should hit within the next few months.

Seriously, you have no idea how pumped I am for this game.

If you are interested you can go here to sign up.

So…Android has been out for little more than a year. Development has matured, and the handsets have gained traction. Motorola has even come up with the snazzy ‘droid’ moniker and is attacking the iPhone head on.

And Google decides to drop the bomb.

I’ve seen it a million times in the movies. Scientist dudes develop cool product, then evil guy kills them all…

I will admit, I had a feeling that they would come out with their own handset eventually, but the timing on this just seems to piss in every other handset maker’s pond. It would be the same as if Microsoft came out with their own handset. After all, why would anyone in their right mind purchase a handset from another manufacturer? Shouldn’t Google know their OS better than anyone?

The other big betrayal here is that I hear that this thing is gonna drop completely unlocked. You can bet your blackberry it will be competitively priced too, if not free. Google could easily subsidize the cost with ad revenue. That seems to be their specialty, after all.

I wouldn’t worry too much about this as a consumer, it seems to be win for us.

I’ll be back next week!

The VGA’s (Video Game Awards) were tonight on Spike and while I don’t understand why I still don’t care about them, it did contain some pretty big announcements.

Some of which were pretty huge; like Batman Arkham Asylum 2, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed 2, Spec Ops: The Line and a new True Crime game. They also had the first tailors of previously announced titles such as Halo: Reach, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Crackdown 2, Tron Evolution, and Medal of Honor, but anyone with half a brain knows what I’m excited about.  Harmonix has finally piped up and announced what their next project is: Green Day: Rock Band.

Continue Reading…

Amazon’s buy dvd, get instant digital copy: Buy, Watch, Cancel? Pandora in cars. Ustream to iphone… Why won’t United States camera manufacturer’s put a camera on the front. LG projector attachment. Affordable but low-res slow-motion. NPD Numbers. Sega Genesis for twenty-five bucks, with lots of tech in the box. Turtles Forever has plenty of fan service. Carl watches SF4 and plays TF2: Soldiers v. Demoman. Zelda Spirt Tracks stay true to form, and Sergio talks 1 v. 100. Home-wide synced audio with Airfoil, and USB power outlet hack. Lala has a different twist on streaming music. Finally, Danzo from Naruto and his all seeing arm.

Okay, I really did not want to do this but this movie will not get out of my head until I voice my opinion.  Also for those curious, those dolls are Barbie made and very creepy.  Sold Out at Walmart.com.

–Here Goes–

New Moon is a movie that definitely is meant to cater only to young women.  I do not even believe that ‘mature’ women would enjoy this movie.  It is portrayed in such a way that it is immature and frightening at the same time.  I know women say men only like action and explosions but I can assure you that I can pay attention to a story.  Story is supposed to give you some character building so that you can form a sort of bond with the on screen protagonist.  The only thing this movie developed for me was a great hate for the main character, Bella Swan.  She is the epitome of a young woman who just does not understand how ignorant of life she is.  At some points in the movie I felt like the father should have just had her committed to an asylum. (Late night Dream Screaming)  What scared me the most however is that there are many young women out in the world who can identify with this character.  I hope my future female offspring does not turn out like this.

Moving on to what I as a man look for in a movie, THE ACTION.  The movie is about two hours and ten minutes and contains about three to five action scenes, some so short not sure you could count them.  Each scene is specially made to cater to its viewership, which are hormonal young women.  Sure the wolf animations are superb but they do not make up for how short the scenes are and that they really are just scenes of estrous fantasy.

Scene one has a female vampire (big character in series and in the first movie, forgot her name) being chased by the wolf pack.  It is pretty much a girls fantasy to be pursued by a multitude of naked men.  She gives an old man a heart attack and gets away.  Our first display of super speed portrayed in high frames per seconds Super Slow-Mo.

Action scene 2 is a big disappointment, Bella is approached by a Jamaican vampire from movie one who is going to kill her for the female vampire from part one but to the rescue comes the wolf pack.  We get maybe one or two punches and then they begin chase leaving the camera man to follow Bella.  This could have been a good chance to see what the vampires and wolves could do but all we get is Jacob saying yeah we killed that vampire and look how perky my nipples are.

We now get a scene where Bella approaches the wolf pack and slaps one of the guys because she thinks they made Jacob a wolf.  Well the werewolves in this movie are not full moon types, they are the “Don’t Make Me Angry” type.  Well he changes and then Jacob changes and they tussle for about three seconds before we are forced to follow Bella again to the alpha male’s home where you see he lost his temper once and scarred his wife’s face.  Then Jacob and the other wolf guy stroll in as if they just finished playing one on one basketball and all is well.  Another missed opportunity to display some supernatural action.

Now lets go to Italy where you finally get to see Edward take off ‘his’ shirt (although the wolf pack group never had a shirt on to take off) and twinkle twilight with his ‘emo’ expressionless facade amidst a parade of Vatican attired parishioners.  Thankfully this does not last long as they are then escorted to the old vampire group (Vulturi-They eat people) where **SPOILER** (who cares)  Dakota Fanning makes her appearance.  She has the ability to cause you pain just by saying it.  I guess that can be related to women saying words hurt more than actions.  We get a fight scene here cause the old vampires want to kill Bella and Edward protects her by getting his ass handed to him in a Super Slow-Mo fight meant to symbolize super fast movement. (to much Matrix) Well, to the rescue comes Bella willing to sacrifice herself for the boy(though he is over a hundred years old,  what is it with women and older men, that is statutory, her father is the police. </rant>)  she loves.  See this is why I hate this character, she is only eighteen years old and is ready to die for her first love, such ignorance and immaturity.  Please young women do not be this girl.  Live a little, experience life.  You are only eighteen.  I assure you this is “NOT” it.  Sorry M J.

And final scene; it looks like we might get some action.  Edward and Jacob look like they are gonna square off.  All the girls in the theater are squealing, thankfully Jacobs goes wolf so I no longer have to see so much man skin.  But Bella steps in, tells Jacob she would choose Edward over him and he leaves.  No action.  Then the words “Mary Me”, ROLL CREDITS.

The "300" diet works kiddies

Well If you made it this far then you definitely love a good rant.  I did a lot of complaining about this movie but this movie was not made for me.  But if you are gonna make a movie that a large group of people, outside your regular audience, are gonna be dragged to watch then please give throw us a bone.  For me, watching this movie is probably equivalent to a woman who does not like action movies being forced watching “Shoot’em Up” (Great Man movie by the Way, Sex scene with Ninjas, “giggidy”).  To sum this movie up.  It is a cash in.  The writers, producers, and directors know where the money is.  It’s in the pockets of horny, hormonal young women and the guys they drag with them who are hoping for a happy ending of their own.  I still wonder though,  my girlfriend says the last book is chock full of very vivid gratuitous sex scenes.  Hmm, sounds more interesting by the minute, but how are they gonna get a PG-13 rating this time and stay true to the book.  Well they have years to figure it out, and will probably do them like the action scenes in new moon, make them three seconds each.