Good to its word, Bungie showed off the last game will make under the Halo franchise at the VGAs last night, a game we all know as Halo: Reach. The trailer was a mashup of pre-battle scenes. A warthog driving across some open terrain. A bunch of Spartans back at barracks. A bunch more Spartans at their barracks. A bunch of Spartans leaving their barracks.
Sounds kinda boring, doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is. I embedded the video below so you can see just how boring for yourself. Granted, this all about setting up the conflict that started Halo, so there’s a lot of dialogue. It’s strange, though, that Bungie is investing so much in establishing stock characters in a short trailer. You have the chick trying to prove herself in command. The psycho sharpening a knife with a skull painted on his visor. The dutiful lieutenant reporting for duty. I’m not sure what about this was supposed to excite me, and there was virtually nothing to make me say, “yeah, this will be the biggest game of 2010,” other than the word Halo in the title.
The world seems more conscious than ever of the existence and significance of video games, but it’s not like we’re seeing the voice actors and developers behind Halo showing up on Conan every night. He did make one of the first jabs at the video game world I’ve seen in the mainstream media. Check the video below:
The real game probably isn’t much better. I’m excited for the movie, but every development house should stay away from this kind of trash development unless they’re ready to make something really great. Rush jobs never look good.
So the PS3 is finally going to get Netflix streaming, but it’s like the backwoods, broke down version, and that’s not going to change any time soon. For PS3 owners to stream videos they’ll need a special disc in the drive, a handicap that won’t be lifted until late next year.
I have no idea why that will take a year of development. Netflix’s Steve Swasey explained the problem to G4, saying, “Late next year we expect to have an embedded solution available for PS3s via a system software update slated for release through the PlayStation Network. Until then, enjoy watching instantly via your PS3 using the instant streaming disc!” Oh boy!
I’ll concede that it’s still a nice feature to have on Sony’s console, but the disc thing is a bummer.
Sony’s 10-year plan for the PS3 finally seems to be coming together…halfway into its life cycle. As a Netflix press release announced today, the PS3 will be adding the ability to stream content from the rental service. The new feature will be offered free of charge to PS3 owners;all that’s required is a subscription to the Netflix service, which can cost as little as $9 a month. By contrast, the same service for the Xbox 360 requires that users have a gold subscription to Xbox Live, which runs $50/year.
There is a catch, though. While services like that on the Xbox 360 give users access to BD Live content, the PS3 version requires a special disc for the drive in order to access BD Live content. It’s a small trade-off, particularly if you consider the $50 upcharge for the 360.
At any rate, the PS3 is finally becoming the console we all wanted it to be. Sure, it’s all coming a bit late, but better to have these things than not.
After seeing Daniel Tosh live I was sure his show would be good. Thinking back to the absolute hilarity that was Patrice Oneal commenting on web videos, I knew I’d like Tosh.0, even if the videos were a bit dated at times.
This week’s episode plays host to one video that, though dated, I’m sure you’ll find interesting. Tosh is giving this week’s web redemption to none other than the Nintendo 64 kid. Yes that Nintendo sixty-foooooooooooour kid. If you are unfamiliar, you should be ashamed. Acquaint yourself here.
The show airs on Thursday evenings. If you haven’t seen an episode yet, use those clever interweb skills to get your hands on one.
With Lord of the Rings-like bravado, Peter Molyneux took the stage at GamesCom to give us the latest in his over-hyped, over-promised series, Fable. The new game, Fable III, sets the player as the king of Albion, poised to make decisions that will change the face of the realm. As always, you can be good, evil, or somewhere in between.
The game actually sounds pretty cool, I just can’t get my hopes up about the Fable projects any more. I’ve actually waited until now to even pick up Fable II. Yes, it looked cool. Yes, I wanted to get it at launch, but frankly, I was pretty disappointed with the original. Molyneux just hyped it so much that it sounded incredible. In reality, the “moral choices” were pretty mundane, and once you started murdering the townsfolk it was a little hard to stop.
I have heard great things about Fable II, but I’m going in expecting the worst game known ot man so that things seem in proportion. With the first, I wanted the best game ever. This time I’ll take the other route. For the third, I’ll finally be able to run in with middle of the road expectations. Check out the trailer below.
Nintendo is happily sharing sales figures for Wii Sports Resort and the bundled Wii MotionPlus, and for good reason. Since launch, the $50 bundle has sold more than 500,000 units.
From Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo’s executive VP of sales & marketing, the news sounds something like this: “Through Monday we sold one copy of Wii Sports Resort roughly every 1.5 seconds continuously since it launched in the United States.” That’s an impressive stat, especially considering the nature of the game. Nintendo continues to successfully defy the convention of going for the hardcore market. The Wii Sports Resort sales do more than just add to Nintendo’s fat coffers, it puts the Wii MotionPlus in the hands of the public, effectively reducing the cost of all future games designed to employ the Wii MotionPlus’ advanced sensors. You won’t need to drop the extra $20 next timeyou want to play a MotionPlus enabled game.
Today Warcraft is synonymous with long hours grinding, more long hours raiding, and potentially socially destructive behavior. But do you remember the franchises humble roots? The simple graphics? The excellent campaigns? The franchise has been pegged for a movie for some time, and now there’s finally some real news to speak of. According to Variety, Sam Raimi has officially been pegged to direct the upcoming Warcraft movie.
Raimi, who is famous for movies like Spider-Man and Darkman is excited about the project. “At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story,” said Raimi. “I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen.” Who’s the dynamite production team? That would be Chris Roven’s Atlas Entertainment, the folks behind The Dark Knight. Production is set to begin after Spider-Man 4, which Raimi is supposed to finish in 2010.
There are still a lot of details missing from the movie. No one yet knows whether it will be live action or CG, and there’s still that issue of release date. If they’re not getting started until 2010, we’re years away from actually seeing the thing, time during which the franchise’s flagship, World of Warcraft, is likely to see slumping subscriptions in the face of new IP.
Then there’s the ubiquitous concern about games turned into movies. They’re notoriously horrible, but hopefully with Blizzard and Universal involved this one might be the exception to the rule.
I can’t say whether or not this video is real, or whether or not that’s actually Valve’s Portal you see running, or pretty much anything about this video other than, “Please, suh, I’d like some moah.” The port could be real, particularly considering how terrible the controls look, though I can’t always match what his fingers are doing to what’s happening on screen. At any rate, take a look and dream a little.
And when you’re done, go grab some cake. I hear it’s delicious.
