The Nerdy News Blog - November 4th, 2010

The Avengers Delayed?

Perhaps Nick Fury will educate Thor in the do's and don't's of foot massages?

Is Joss Whedon looking to spend too much money? According to BleedingCoolNews.com, Marvel Studios has delayed the pre-production process on the movie that will cause millions of fan boys to quite literally die from the excitement of seeing Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk all on one screen. I might be one of them. And by might, I mean almost definitely. But it's okay, the new Star Trek should come out before The Avengers hits the screen. But the film's shaping up to be pretty expensive, with big name stars like Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, combined with what will surely be massive amounts of CGI and filming on location in New York City. So Marvel's accountants are understandably freaking out. With any luck, the movie won't be delayed. Cross your fingers, true believers.

James Bond to Reappear (Maybe) in Late 2012

Thanks to MGM's keen desire to blow all it's money like a drunken frat boy in Vegas with his daddy's credit card, many of its big properties, like the James Bond series and The Hobbit have gone through development hell due to lack of funds. In the case of The Hobbit, some iffy rights issues led to the film being a joint-venture with Warner Brothers. Agent 007, however, has not been so lucky. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's money problems have left it looking for another company to make it their bitch. Yesterday, however, MGM filed bankruptcy - otherwise known as a Financial Get Out Of Jail Free Card. Now that they've got some breathing room, MGM is aiming to get Bond 23 out in November 2012. Daniel Craig currently has a pretty tight schedule, so it looks like they may not get to film until late 2011 at the earliest. Luckily, the current Bond series doesn't rely too much on CGI, so post-production shouldn't take too long. Woo! Yay for big Hollywood companies going bankrupt!

TIE Fighters Will Soon Be In Your Living Room And Everywhere Else You Go

I don't think Homeland Security saw The Galactic Empire one coming.

So, file this one under "Now I Wish I Had An iPhone." This really isn't all that important, I just enjoyed the thoughts of thousands of people all over the country saying to their neighbors, "Hey, you've got a TIE Fighter on your face."
THQ is working on a new augmented reality game that has you shooting down TIE Fighters with whatever your camera sees as a background. It's a simple arcade shooter of little consequence, it just lit up my eyes with nerdy glee when I saw it.

Out.

The Nerdy News Blog - October 28th

It's Thursday, that means it's time for this weeks updates! This was the week for rumors and denials, it seems!

Batman's Got His Next Title and Won't Be Fighting The Riddler in 2012

What they didn't tell you is that Christian Bale broke a glass milk bottle over the photographer's head at this photo shoot. He claimed the man was being "so f***ing unprofessional."

On Wednesday, director/writer/producer Christopher Nolan, who brought us the wonderful awesomeness that is the last two Batman movies, gave us a couple tid-bits about what to expect with the third and final part of his epic Batman trilogy. We'll be seeing The Dark Knight Rises on our local IMAX screens (there will be absolutely no 3-D) in the summer of 2012. Nolan also told us that the script that he wrote with his brother, Jonah Nolan, and David S. Goyer does not involve The Riddler. So much for everybody expecting that the recent casting of Tom Hardy (Inception, Star Trek: Nemesis) in an unnamed role would end up with him as Edward Nigma. Oh, good God. Don't let it be Robin.

George Lucas to Convert the Indiana Jones Movies To 3-D Too? Wait. Nope. Nevermind.

Damn you, quit messing with my childhood! And making me pay $3 more on a $10 ticket!

For a brief moment on Tuesday, I thought I was going to have a coronary. It's ridiculous as it is that George Lucas is going to convert all six Star Wars movies into 3-D and release them into theaters over the course of six years. I call it "ridiculous," but I'll still go see every one of them. Anyway, rumor broke like wildfire all over the Internet that Lucas was also planning to convert the four movies in the Indiana Jones series as a ploy to further enhance our rage as a fan base. Luckily, within a couple of hours, a Lucasfilm spokesman let it be known that it was all utter crap and we should pay them all our money to see Star Wars 3-D Spectacular on Ice.

Entertainment Weekly Is Kind Enough to Give Us A Glimpse At Captain America: The First Avenger

The people who pissed and moaned about Chris Evans not being a blonde won't like this...

Well, I have to admit, the boy cleans up well. I didn't like the idea of Chris Evans playing Steve Rogers at all when I first heard. Not because he wasn't a blonde, but because I just couldn't picture Chris Evans as being this legendary hero that the likes of Iron Man and Thor would view as a leader. Just listen to this phrase: "Robert Downey Jr. admires Chris Evans as a hero and leader." Did you scoff? I've got to hand it to director Joe Johnston, though. These pictures make me feel a little better about how respectable Chris Evans looks in the role. At least he doesn't look like the slacker skateboarder next door - kind of like his Scott Pilgrim role (only the second time I really liked him in a movie). Now hopefully I can wash out the bad taste of his take as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movies... Yuck.

Kieth Richards Cut From Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides? Wait. Nope. Nevermind.

Keith had actually just tried to smoke the little guy prior to this picture.

So this is another rumor that was circulating the ol' Intrawebs this week. The word was that Kieth Richards was going to be removed from his role as Jack Sparrow's father, Captain Teague, due to, get this, his alleged drug use. Wait, what now? People have been making jokes about how Kieth Richards has smoked every substance and object known to man at some point for decades now. They were making those jokes before he played Captain Teague in the previous Pirates movie, At World's End. So what's the big deal now? Well, Richards just released a new autobiography that apparently shows that he was even crazier about smoking stuff than anybody even knew. Lucky for all of us Stones fans out there, Disney had a spokesman come out and deny the rumors. Kieth Richards will definitely be in the next Pirates of the Caribbean. Thankfully, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are still out. I don't see how this movie can fail. Well, unless Keith smokes the film reels.


As usual, there's a ton of different things I could also tell you about, but you'll just have to look them up for yourself.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3) - Review

I suppose this is a little late in coming, since Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, developed by LucasArts, came out in the middle of September. I, however, just completed the game today in my efforts to relax on this lovely three-day weekend I've had.
I suppose curiosity killed the cat when it comes to me shelling out the $8 it cost me for a five day rental (thank you, Blockbuster), but with this game being hailed as official canon and all, I just had to play through. So, wanting to witness the new Euphoria engine that LucasArts has been touting about for the last couple of years as well as find out what the hell Darth Vader was up to with some secret apprentice, I decided to devote my weekend in passionate gaming on my roommate's PS3.
The result turned out to be a mostly positive experience.
The game follows Darth Vader's secret apprentice, codenamed Starkiller, as he terrorizes the galaxy at Vader's bidding, taking down Jedi that survived Order 66 (the other nerds out there will know that that is the order given by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith to exterminate the Jedi) and making sure no one, Imperial or otherwise, lives to say they saw him.
Storywise, the game is solid. Some of the advertising might have you believe that there are branching paths to take in the game, but it follows the same path until just before your final boss fight, where you decide whether to follow the Light Side of the Force or give in to the Dark Side. Though the plot was somewhat predicatable, especially the Light Side ending (which is the "official" ending that fits into Star Wars canon), it is still fun and there are a few good surprises in there. Rather than try to barrell through the game a second time before I had to take the game back to Blockbuster, I just found the Dark Side ending on Youtube. It was good, but it didn't have the same sense of resolution as the Light Side.
The use of actual actors for motion capture, likenesses and voice was a brilliant move on LucasArts' part, because it makes the characters feel much more natural and empathetic. Not to mention the fact that these characters now might be able to make the transition to live action via the forthcoming live action Star Wars TV series set in the same time frame. However, I think they should have made an effort to get James Earl Jones and Ian McDiarmid in to voice Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, respectively. Though Matt Sloan's Vader is downright perfect sometimes, it often just doesn't sound quite right. Surprising, Sam Witwer (known to some genre fans as the short-lived Crashdown in Ron Moore's updated Battlestar Galactica), who portrays Starkiller, also portrayed the Emperor and did a good, but not great, impersonation.
Now, for the technical stuff.
Anybody who has ever played God of War or Devil May Cry will probably be pretty comfortable with The Force Unleashed. It's all about fast combat and beating the ever-loving shit out of stuff in very cool ways. Literally, you can pick up a Stormtrooper with the Force, swing him around a bit, zap him with some lightning, throw your lightsaber into his gut and then fling him into an abyss. Starkiller is nicely customizable with the games levelling system. Basically, with every level you gain, you get points in three different areas - Powers, Combos and Talents - that allow you to decide which Force Powers to upgrade, which awesome melee and force combos to learn (getting them all by the end of the game is not difficult) and what attributes you want, such as more life and less damage taken or faster recharge rates on your Force Powers. Also, you can customize Starkiller with different lightsaber crystals and costumes that you can find hidden throughout the game's levels. It's a fun system to work with, because you have to make strategic decisions about what to upgrade based on your playing style. I, for instance, tended to use combos of Lightning with melee attacks, so I bolstered my defenses so I could survive longer at close range and increased the potency of my lightning attacks. It's much more satisfying than having all of your abilities and attributes pre-determined, though it's not a system that hasn't been done before.
Also, much like God of War, there is a high degree of repetitiveness, because all you really do is barrell through constant streams of enemies until you hit a boss, most of which can be killed with similar tactics, and then have to go through some interactive cutscenes that at least look cool enough to make the monotonous fights a little better. I would live to have seen LucasArts come up with a few more animations than they did for the interactive kill sequences on some of the larger non-boss enemies. It was cool to see Starkiller finish off an AT-ST by jumping up between its legs and cutting it in half, but after the eighth or ninth time, it was just boring.
Some greater attention to some of the gameplay mechanics would have been nice too. The Force Grip was something I found especially flawed. The environments were full of objects that could potentially be picked up and thrown at unsuspecting enemies, or with enemies that could be picked up and thrown at other enemies, but it proved so difficult to control anything with the dual analog control I largely ignored it until the final section of the game when I had a bit more control over it. The targetting system was especially flawed, because it changes as you move, so you might have your eyes set on a Stormtrooper running from your left to right that you want to zap with lightning, but end up missing him completely because your target won't stay with him. This also plays a role in the times when you really need to use that grip ability and just came seem to grab the object.
There were points where these flawed gameplay mechanics made the game insanely difficult. There were also points where the game was just flatout difficult in general. In an effort to add to Starkiller's general badassery, the game is often filled with dozens of enemies at one time. Sure, when you clear out a hangar full of Stormtroopers, nasty assault droids and a couple AT-STs, it's pretty satisfying. But not when you have to start over ten or eleven times because it's so hard to stay alive. Battles against other Jedi characters were also frustrating, especially the second to last boss fight, because some Force attacks seem completely impossible to dodge.
One last technical thing, all the claims of technical acheivement LucasArts made with this game fell short. I saw occasional framerate drops, which sometimes left Starkiller vulnerable in a tight spot. Also, the "advanced physics engine" needs tweaking, especially its collision physics, because I often found Starkiller running with half his body through a wall, standing on things he shouldn't have been able to and looking like he was floating while running uphill. I never really did see this advanced enemy AI that had them reacting realistically to being thrown around, because there were so many enemies on screen most of the time that I couldn't take the time to notice.
In the end, I generally enjoyed my experience with The Force Unleashed. If LucasArts can deliver another compelling story and fix some of the gameplay issues, I'd happily play a sequel.

7.5/10