How Much Of A Nerd Are You?

Take the test! This is a good test to see if you are a nerd. At the end, it gives you a percentage. Ton is 27.5% nerd and I'm 25.0% nerd. What scores did you get. Click the link below to find out. And there also a IQ test, Lazy Test, and some others. You can take them all at the link below.

Link

E3 is going the way of the dodo..

GameSpot has learned that tomorrow the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will announce changes to the format and scale of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the game industry event that typically draws in excess of 60,000 attendees and includes over 400 exhibitors.

On July 28, the Web site of UK trade magazine MCV reported discussions had taken place between the ESA and E3 exhibitors which addressed the future of the annual trade show. GameSpot spoke with informed game industry sources late Friday and Saturday and learned that the show would radically shrink in size and move from its usual Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) venue to a smaller location.

Sources said that rather than fill the 540,000 square feet of the cavernous LACC, the show will take place at a location that would support exhibitors in meeting room space only, with companies showing their wares to a select group of attendees numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands.

No! NO!! NOO!!! I can't believe it! Not E3! For some reason I always thought it was great for developers and publishers to get their games shown off to the public.. I don't see how it can be that bad at losing money. It's not official thankfully, but with how detailed this is, it sounds like it will be soon.

I understand that it might be hard for some small companies to pay for going, but more of the bigger news comes from companies like Ubisoft and Nintendo.. And they can then use the kind of responses they get to modify their games and consoles, but now it won't happen.. This is just really hard for me to grasp.

Zam and I had hopes of going some day.. now all we'll be able to do it watch it online like I did last year, and that's crappy. So remember today - 7/30/06 - as the day that E3, the awesome gaming convention, became just another TGS. Linky has the full story :'-(

-Ton

Splinter Cell: Double Agent delayed, again.

Ubisoft's expectations would no doubt be higher, but the publisher also confirmed that it has delayed the release of Splinter Cell Double Agent to "the end of October," pushing it out of the company's second quarter entirely.

Yawn. Getting tired of this, really. It was supposed to be out in February. Now it's July. I still don't have it. Not gonna have it for 3 months. And I'm pissed. I was very excited to get this back in January but now, thanks to these delays, I'm really not very amped to get it any more. Good job Ubisoft.

I guess at least they're polishing it off a little bit more, but I really doubt a month and a half will do much.

Wouldn't post about this usually, but news is about as dry as the Sahara desert this month.

Pac-Man ate Myspace!

I was talking to Zam on AOL and he suddenly yelled "OMG! GO TO MYSPACE!" Well, I went there and found that the Myspace server lost power due to some kind of storm, so there's just a blank page. And at the bottom is Pac-Man!!! So go on, you know you want to, and play this slightly-updated (everything moves a little better) version of the arcade classic! Hey, maybe if it gets popular enough they'll just leave it up and make it like Myspace in a game or something. I'm game for munching pictures of my buddies and then reading their profiles after every level!

Me, I'm off to investigate what Pac-Man has to do with Myspace :).

-Ton

NBC's Heroes

As some of you might have heard, NBC is having a new show for its fall lineup, and one of them is a show called Heroes. Heroes is a show about many different people around the world that wake up one morning and discover they have superhuman powers, but pretty much only one, single power. The show showes their lives and how they deal with their powers. Eventually, these "Heroes" must work together to save the world from an evil guy who wants to take their DNA and do evil things with it. And the first thing that popped into Ton and I's mind as sooned as we saw a preview for the show was, "Wow, that is such an X-Men clone!" And guess what, nothing is really turning our minds away from that. Well, the heroes they follow have such similar powers to so many X-Men, that's its just crazy. Here's some of them: Peter Petrelli is a 30 yr old male nurse who found out he has to power to fly (countless number of mutants), there's Isaac Mendez who is a painter and a junkie who can paint the future when he is high (again, countless number of mutants can see the future, now painting is a different story, but its pretty much the same), there's Niki Sanders who is a Las Vegas Cam Girl who has a very powerful alter-ego (can't think of any X-Men, but I have one question, how does that make her a super-hero? That one is that will have to be seen further), there's Hiro Nakamura (wow, Hiro, what a great name for a Hero), well anyway, he has two powers, he can munipulate time (an X-Men named Sway has that too) and Hiro can also teleport (Nightcrawler, but he can teleport from Japan to New York, so more of the X-Man named Blink), there's D.L. Hawkins who's a prison inmate that can walk through walls (wow, that is seriously one convenient power for his situation, and Kitty Pryde is the related X-Man), there's Claire Bennet who is a High School Cheerleader with incredible healing powers (Wolverine, Beast, Angel and a lot more), and finally, there's Matt Parkman, a LAPD cop who has the power of telepathy (Marvel Girl). So, as you can see, all of the characters are EXTREMELY similar and are doing pretty much the same thing as the X-Men, but NBC is saying that this show is too real to be the X-Men. And they can get away with it, because one of their writers and producers is Jeph Loeb who worked on X-Men before and countless other comic books. Ok, I'm hitting a bit hard on how it is like the X-Men, but it is. But overall, it sounds like a good show. It's probably something I would watch, and NBC needs it because of their current ratings. So, maybe this show will draw in the comic fans and just people who like super-heroes. So look out for this show, Mondays on NBC starting sometime this fall. Stay tooned on GM2 because we will be covering some on important events going on with Comic Con, coming soon.

-Zam

Slip Kid #1

You probably didn't know, but one of our fellow bloggers, Sean McDevitt, has been working on writing a 6-issue
comic series titled Slip Kid. The series follows a boy named Clay who discovers he has teleportation powers and sets out on a journey to find his father, along with his new friend, Sarah. I've only been following the progress for about three months, but it seems it's been in the works for almost two years. His work has finally paid off as he has recieved copies of the first issue yesterday after months of anticipation. At the moment you can only pick up a copy at his local G-Mart in Champaign, Illinois, or at the Wizard World comic convention in Chicago next month, however, you can email him at sean@slipkidcomic.com and work it out with him to have him mail you an autographed copy in exchange for a Lincoln. I suggest checking it out even if you're a little leary, you might like it, and at the least you're helping Sean get his bearings in the world of comic writing. For more information on Slip Kid, slip on down to the official website of the series. Linky will show you out.

P.S. Once I get my copy, I'll write up a review on the Divine Opinion

P.S.S. I'll be in New York Friday through Sunday, so it'll be just you and alakaZam

-Ton

Superman Returns: Second Opinion

Since Zam already wrote a full review, I’m just going to talk about what I thought about it. He gave it a high score of 4.. but after seeing it, I really don’t know where he got that from. First of all, I don’t like the fact that they pretended the 3^rd and 4^th Superman movies never existed, and as Zam already said, it’s a bit late to be making a.. second version of the series.

After leaving this movie, I had so many damn questions it wasn’t even funny. How did Superman even move that island into space? It was made of Kryptonite so he really shouldn’t have been able to touch it, let alone lift it out of the ocean. Why did they cast Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. She was sure pretty, but aside from that I really don’t get why Superman loved her. Was Richard an idiot? He thought he was Jason’s father when obviously Superman was, and I have no idea whatsoever how that works out, because Clark didn’t even know Lois has a boyfriend.. so obviously Superman was dead before Richard came into the picture.. that’s just a big plot hole. How exactly would Lex Luther benefit from the island he was making? He was going to kill all the people he would have made money from. My biggest question though is, how the hell didn’t the people at the Daily Planet figure out Clark was Superman? Clark goes away, Superman goes away, Clark comes back, Superman comes back. Pretty obvious to me what's up.

Aside from that, I don’t think Brandon Routh was a very good Superman. He was pretty good as Clark Kent, and he had the body to be Superman, but he didn’t play the part very well. James Marsden was probably my favorite actor in the whole movie, which is pretty sad, considering he didn’t have a huge part. The biggest problem with this movie though is that there just aren’t enough memorable moments in this film. The most exciting part of the movie was the shuttle/plane scene, because the big island plot was total rubbish. I also didn’t like the whole idea of Superman having a son..

Once you get around all of that, there are a few good things. James Marsden and Kevin Spacey are both very good, there are some neat special effects, and.. it’s Superman. Sadly, I just can’t recommend this movie. A shallow story, a sprinkle of bad acting, and a big side of unanswered questions all adds up to what I call a 2.5 out of 5. After seeing it, I wish they’d just cut the crap and made it a 1 and a half hour movie full of action. Superman, please, just die, and don’t come back to life this time.

All I can give this is at most a rent, because it's possible you'll enjoy watching it a single time, but probably not any more then that.

Bored?....Then Watch Hinoi Team's "Night of Fire"!

Ok, I found this link in some random chatroom or something, but this is one......interesting video. IT's some japanese band name Hinoi Team and they have an extremely catchy song called "Night of Fire". It's in Japanese. But oh man, it's so much fun to watch, and you can't stop watching it. Just one thing, the funny thing is to watch the guy in the back a lot and seeing him attempt to do the dance moves, but wtf is he wearing. Well anyway, here's the vid:

Link

Superman Returns Review

Cast: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Tristan Leabu, Sam Huntington

Plot: The movie starts with a planet deep in space exploding in a supernova. This planet is called Krypton, and because of the explosion, tiny pieces of this planet have mutated and become an element known as Kryptonite. Meanwhile on Earth, an elderly woman lay on her death bed with a man beside her. She is telling him how much he means to her, and is leaving him all of her fortunes and possessions, to this man in the shadows, a man named, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey). But, in a spacey (wow, what a pun) farm land, there is another elderly woman (this one alive and kickin') washing dishes by her window when something shoots out of space. She goes to the crash sight to find her son, Clark (Brandon Routh), returning from a exploration mission. She greets him and takes him back to her house. But back to Lex Luthor, he finds the "Fortress of Solitude", where he steals a crystal and is greeted by Superman's father who tells Lex (of course he doesn't know he's Lex) all that the crystal can do, how it can destroy yet create matter. So Lex is on his way with his wonderful minions to use this crystal to their advantage. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is returning to his town of Metropolis to his job at the Daily Planet. There he sees his old friend Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) and Jimmy welcomes Clark back and all that. Meanwhile, on a plane escorting a space shuttle, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is aboard asking questions for the Daily Planet. Back with Lex Luthor, he’s in his basement where there is a play city and he is gonna demonstrate what happens when you put the crystal in water. So they cut a little piece of the crystal, and are ready to put it in water. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark goes over to Lois’ desk, and see’s a Pulitzer Prize of her article, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”. As you can tell he isn’t happy about that. But he still looks around and sees a picture of Lois with a young child, Jason (Tristan Leabu), and Lois’ new fiancé, Cyclops! (Ok, it’s not really the character Cyclops, but the actor who plays Richard White in this movie, James Marsden, also played Cyclops in the X-Men films. So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna call him Cyclops for the rest of the review.) So Jimmy tells Clark about how Lois got engaged to Cyclops and Clark isn’t very happy.

Meanwhile, back in the basement with Lex Luthor and his minions, the piece of crystal they cut is put into water and the power suddenly goes out. But not just in the house, everywhere, the power is out. Including, the plane that holds Lois and the space shuttle. Back there, the pilots of both the shuttle and airplane are in panic, and back at Mission Control, their power is out as well. The power comes back and they think everything is alright. They try to abort the mission, but the shuttle won’t let them and is still counting down. So the shuttle goes off and takes the plane with it and they blast crazy fast. Back with Clark and Jimmy, Clark sees it on the news and knows what he needs to do. Back on the plane, everyone is in panic and they are almost going into space. But (dun dun dun dun) Superman is here to save the day. He detaches the shuttle and throws it into space, but the plane is going crazy fast down to Earth. So he chases after it. He trys to grab it, but the wing falls off, then the other wing falls off. So he grabs the front and brings it down slowly to the ground in a baseball field. He goes on the plane and makes sure everyone is alright and Lois notices Superman, who she once loved, has returned. The newspapers go crazy with articles after that. Meanwhile, Lex is planning to use the crystals he has to create a continent. But he is scared Superman will try to stop this, so he has a plan. Back in Metropolis, a woman’s car is going out of control. Superman saves her and she is grateful. But while that was going on, Lex stole a large amount of Krytonite from the local museum. They go back to their lair to regroup. So then some other stuff happens with Superman and Lois like him taking her into the sky and all that. Then, Lois is on her way to the Pulitzer Prize awards ceremony for her, and while on the way, she wants to stop by someone’s house to get an interview about the story of the recent blackout. While there with little Jason, she sees a boat. She hears music playing so she decides to go onto the boat.

While on the boat, her and little Jason search for the person, but find no one. While searching, the boat begins to move. Lois and Jimmy are scared and try to run to the entrance. While trying to run, they are intercepted by Lex Luthor coming out of his bathroom, brushing his teeth. So, since she is there, he captures her. They start arguing, and then Lois tells him to give her an interview. He agrees and he tells her his master plan on how to use the crystal to make a continent that will wipe out most of North America and a bit of Africa and kill billions of people. Of course, they’re scared. So, Lex pulls out his enriched piece of Krytonite to further explain. He finds that little Jason has a certain reaction, and wonders who’s the father of Jason. Lois is sure Cyclops is, but Lex isn’t so sure. He puts the Krytonite closer for a minute, but nothing happens, so he starts on his master plan. He goes to the top deck with some minions and leaves one there to watch Lois and Jason. Lex inserts a crystal into a large whole in the Krytonite and launches it into the ocean. While in the ocean, it expands and is ready to create the continent. Back on the lower deck with Lois and Jason, the minion is playing some piano with Jason, while Lois tries to sneak a fax to tell her coordinates to Cyclops who is at the Daily Planet. The power suddenly goes out (due to the crystal’s affect) and so does the power to the whole city. The power comes back on, and most of the fax made it through, but the minion found out about it, and picked up Lois and threw her across the room. He came closer to her, about to hurt her, when suddenly, THE PIANO JASON WAS PLAYING FLIES ACROSS THE ROOM AND SMASHES THE MINION AGAINST THE WALL! Lois looks over, expecting Superman, but only sees Jason, arms stretched, most likely thinking, “Is that Cyclops’ child?” Lois tries to run with Jason to the top deck, but it soon intercepted by Lex and put into a room. Meanwhile, back at the Daily Planet, Cyclops, Clark, and Jimmy receive the fax and know its from Lois due to the handwriting. So Cyclops takes a water plane that he owns and flies to them. At this time, Lex and his minions are already on the already forming continent. Back in Metropolis, a huge earthquake is shaking the city (because of the crystal/kryptonite formation in the ocean) and destroying buildings and such. So Superman must save all of them. Then he goes back to save Lois. There with Lois, Cyclops opens the door to the room they are in. They are happy to see each other, but a spike flies up from underneath them from the forming continent and takes the boat up.

While the boat is going up, it’s splitting. And the half they are in submerges. Poor Cyclops, first he dies in water in X3, and now he is submerged underwater with his fiancé and child about to die. Dude seriously, stay away from water. Well anyway, Superman comes, saves them, then he flies to where Lex is. Cyclops, Lois, and Jason fly away in their watercraft. Back with Lex, Superman comes to try to stop him, but Lex pulls out a huge chunk of Krytonite, stabs Superman with it, and breaks some into Superman. They kick Superman’s natural Krytonian ass, and then throw him into the ocean. But alas, Lois, Cyclops, and Jason know about Lex’s Kryponite, so they fly back to help Superman. They get him out of the water, and takes the Kryptonite out of him. He must go destroy the continent. So he beams the source with his heat vision, then carries the freed continent away into space (Lex and his only surviving minion fly away in a helicopter.) But while Superman does this, he becomes week, due to the large amount of Kryptonite in the continent. So he falls, and lands in a park. The emergency physicians find him, and take him to surgery. They remove the final piece of Kryptonite located in his body, and he is put in critical condition. Lois visits him, and kisses him and all that. Then alas, Superman has escaped the hospital later that night. He is in Jason’s room, and says the words his father said to him. The audience now knows that Jason is SUPERBOY! Then Superman flies away.

My Comments: This movie was pretty good, but it was a bit late. It’s a sequel to a movie that came out a long time ago. But anyway, it’s still a pretty good film. Brandon Routh is a pretty good Superman, but just looks too small to be Superman. The special effects are good, and the story is interesting. So overall, it’s a good movie for Superman fans out there. Superman Returns gets 4 pieces of Kryptonite Lex Luthor stole from a local museum in Metropolis, out of 5.

-Zam

VideoDownloader Plug-in for Firefox

If you’re like me and hate seeing a sweet video on the net and not being able to download it, then you’ll be glad that a new Firefox add-on named “VideoDownloader” has been released. It does pretty much what the name suggests: it lets you download embedded videos from websites. That means that you can download videos from Yahoo Music, Youtube, and just about any other site that you can watch stuff on. All you do is start watching a video, and click on the object at the bottom of the Firefox window. So do yourself a favor and go download this FF plug-in right where Linky is standing. OMG IT’S LINKY!! Long time no see old buddy!

On a side note.. we don’t endorse downloading videos off of Yahoo! Music because it’s most likely illegal. My suggestion is to buy the video off of iTunes and then download it off of Yahoo, because at least then you’ve payed for it, and you just want better quality. Personally, I don't see any thing wrong with doing it as long as you just watch it. It's really just to promote the song, so you should be able to get them free. Basically, it's your choice, but if you get caught by the RIAA it's not our fault.

Possible XBOX 360 bundle?

"Over on the Gaming-Age forums, one poster who goes by the handle "Dr_Cogent" claims that a new Xbox 360 bundle with about $85 of throw-ins will go on sale beginning August 1 for just $399.

Allegedly, the new bundle will come with an Xbox 360, Project Gotham Racing 3 ($50 value), 1250 Xbox Live Marketplace points (just over $15), and a three-month Xbox Live Gold subscription card ($20 value). The post doesn't specify which Xbox the bundle will contain, but presumably it would be the 20GB hard-drive-equipped, $399 premium model.

The post also says that the original Xbox has been discontinued, but did not offer any evidence or reason."

That's a very interesting rumor, as Microsoft confirmed that the price wouldn't drop, but they didn't say anything about a bundle. Though it's not official in any way, this would make a lot of sense because PGR3 is a very popular game and makes use of the Marketplace quite a bit, while the Live stuff would be a great way to promote the service. The biggest problem with this is that the game included is PGR. I'm sure there are plenty of people who like racing, but I'm sure there are many who don't. What would make more sense is to offer it with PGR3, Perfect Dark Zero/Call of Duty 2, or Kameo. That way everyone could find one they would enjoy.

The other thing that seems false is the August 1st release of this package, because it would have more then likely been announced by now. The news about the XBOX, it really shouldn't happen just yet because of the 360's backwards compatability issues. Until they get those ironed out I think it needs to keep being produced, if in small quantities. Sadly, since MS has stopped making games for the original XBOX, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it happens. Keep your eyes open for more news about this.

Thoughts on rising game prices

When the XBOX 360 was released, it introduced gamers to $59.99 games. I personally thought, ah, it’s $10, and if I wait a month I can get it for 50 used. Now that I own 11 of them, I have quite different feelings. I don’t mind quality games like Oblivion and Ghost Recon that I’ll be playing for a long time costing that much, but stuff like Tomb Raider: Legend and King Kong should be $40 or $50 at most. Why? Because you go through them once or twice and there’s nothing else. You’re done. Basically, what I’m saying is, if a game is less then 20 hours long and has no Live play, it shouldn’t cost $60. Even Need For Speed Most Wanted should have a reduced price tag because the Live play is pretty much a pile of unleaded petroleum and virtually un-playable.

What I’m also pissed off about is sports games. They come out every damn year with a few added features and they figure they can charge gamers $60 when the exact same game is on current-gen consoles for $40 or $50? I think not. My other problem is the amount of ads they’ve put into these games. If you played Fight Night Round 3 or pretty much any other 360 sports game, you probably noticed how many advertisements were in those games. In FNR3, ever freaking ring was sponsored and the replays were too. If they can get away with that level of ads, we should be able to get away with a $40 game. Either get rid of the ads or get rid of the high price tag.

I’m worried about this especially now with the Playstation 3 on the rise. Since XBOX 360 games cost $60 and they’re on regular DVDs, use the Blu-Ray logic and you’ll realize that PS3 games will cost a minimum of $70. Think about the fact that Blu-Ray discs hold 53 GB so games will be much bigger, and I think we’re looking at price tags of around $80. Frankly, I can’t see them pulling that off. I understand why they're that high, but in my eyes it’s just another reason Blu-Ray should have been left out of the PS3.

With price tags possibly at $80, what I spoke about earlier will be even worse. Sports titles for that much would be the biggest rip-off I’ve ever seen, as they won’t use more then a tenth of the capacity of those discs. This is probably my biggest problem with the Playstation 3, and the only reason I can see to buy one now is if Assassin’s Creed is exclusive to the system. I’m glad that Nintendo is trying to counter this by offering games at a lower price, and I hope Microsoft and Sony can figure out something as well, because I’m not happy about getting 7 hours of game or the biggest bunch of ads I’ve ever seen for $60.

Your thoughts?

Las Vegas Mayor Fires Off on Rainbow Six

"Now Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman is taking exception to the setting of another Tom Clancy game, Ubisoft's upcoming Rainbow Six Vegas. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Goodman has an issue with the game's plot, which sees terrorists taking over a swanky casino on the city's Strip and seizing a number of hostages.

Goodman reportedly said the game was "based on a false premise," adding he has been repeatedly told by government officials that Las Vegas is "the safest place imaginable" when it comes to terrorist attacks. The mayor also said he'll look into whether or not the city can prevent the game from being released. "It could be harmful economically, and it may be something that's not entitled to free speech [protection]," Goodman is quoted as saying."

What the hell!? If there's one thing that pisses me off the most, it's people like this guy. I mean, it's a damn game for Christ's sake! Of course it's based on a false premise. It's not like Ubisoft is coming out and saying, "we're making a game based in Las Vegas because it's infested with terrorists."

Games have to be based somewhere, and a game like Raindow Six, I'd be happy that it's based in my city. It's not going to hurt the economy. If anything, it'll attract people because of how damn cool the city looks in the game and they might want to see the places from the game in person. I don't even give a second thought to the exact city a game is based in, as long as it looks awesome, let alone be scared to go there because of the game.

And I don't believe Vegas is all too safe. I bet they have gangs, and murders, and everything else bad going on. That is what this mayor should worry about fixing, not what's in a game. It's like some dude is looking to go there and he says, "Oh, a few people got murdered there yesterday, that's fine, but I'm not going there because a game with terrorists in it was based there."

Get working on what really matters, Mr. Goodman. Oh yeah, and good luck stopping a game this popular a few months from its release.

I'm still waiting for Princess Peach to sue Nintendo for making her kingdom look evil..

XBOX Live Arcade Wednesdays

Heh - no, it’s not a new segment. If you have an XBOX 360, you probably know that the Arcade has been dry since UNO came out back in early May. Well, tonight at the Bambuddha Lounge in San Fransisco, Microsoft set up a release schedule for the next five weeks and dubbed it “XBOX Live Arcade Wednesdays”. Starting today, with the release of Frogger for 400 Microsoft Points, a single Live Arcade game will be released on to the Marketplace every Wednesday until August 9^th. Next week, we see the release of Cloning Clyde, which will set you back 800 points and promises to be an interesting departure from the other four classics being released. On the 26^th, the arcade classic, Galaga, is revived and can be bought for the small cost of 400 MS points. The next week brings the most highly anticipated Arcade game, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting to the Marketplace, and is shaping up to be the biggest success the Arcade has had so far. After the mass of delays this game has been through, the release is finally official and it will set you back $10 (or 800 MS Points). Bringing up the rear is an equally popular classic from Namco, Pacman! It carries the same cost as Galaga, at 400 Microsoft points.

It’s shaping up to be a great summer for the Live Arcade and XBOX Live as a whole, and we can only hope they will keep up this once-a-week release schedule with Arcade releases in the coming months.

Wii-Mote Cake

That's right. Someone actually made two cakes that are in the shape of a Wii-Mote and have the Wii-Mote layout on top. We found this on GoNintendo.

Link