Have you seen all the movies that came out this year? Well, I'll give you a hint. There were 230 of them. Assuming they're an average of 2.5 hours long each, that would be 575 hours of your life wasted, or gloriously spent, depending.
The above video contains every single one of them. It's kind of fun to see some of the good ones that came out. Captain America and Super 8 among the top of them. You can find the full list of them with their time stamps here.
When Nintendo's 3DS came out, it cost $250. And within a few months of dismal sales the price was dropped to $170. Nintendo realized that it was screwing it's early adopters, the fans who'd been with them from, well, birth. The 3DS Ambassador Program was born.
10 free downloadable NES games have been released and the concluding free 10 GBA games should be out on Friday. The list of games, via Engadget, is as follows:
Verizon is finally getting its vanilla Google phone, sans crapware. Released today, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a powerful and pretty device with specs to rock your apps. It's an LTE phone, the first to run Ice Cream Sandwich.
These awesome, tacky looking spectacles will bring you hours of video entertainment, and allow you to walk around too. For those of you who really hate nature and want to be blinded by a stream of entertainment at all times, you can finally watch The Matrix instead of paying heed to the car that's about to hit you as you cross a stream of traffic.
According to Engadget, the glasses recreate an 87 inch screen, viewed from 10 feel away. Check out the video to more or less see it in action. I think you'd have to try it out to really get the idea.
Unofficial concept for the next Xbox courtesy of XboxFreedom.
The Xbox [please have a better name than 720] should be releasing sometime in 2013, according to GameInformer.
A report be Develop magazine, that this is the case, has been confirmed by CNET sources. Dan Coyner, a designer on the Xbox team, has been relocated in the company. A report on this is what contains the information.
The PlayStation Vita is due out in Japan in two days (02.22.12 for American gamers), and Japanese gamers are psyched according to a report by 1UP.
Three fourths (read: 73.3%) of those surveyed at Japanese game site, Famitsu, are prepared to buy the console day one. Not just the console either, the more robust and expensive 3G/Wi-Fi version. The odd thing is that not all of them are planning on buying any of the launch games. Only 68.8% said they were interested in a any launch games for the new device.
Having finished up helping Nintendo with Mario Kart 7, Retro Studios has some free time on their hands, according to a 1UP article. And Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda, has some ideas about more future collaboration.
Retro has already worked with Nintendo to create modern versions of some very, very beloved franchises. They created all three Metroid Prime games, and well as Donkey Kong Country: Returns. There's also some speculation that they had a hand in the Zelda tech demo for the Wii U.
And now, Miyamoto is considering them for collaboration in the next Zelda game, potentially the HD Zelda game undoubtedly in the works for the Wii U. And as Retro has already claimed to be hard at work on an unnamed Wii U game, it could be that the consideration is a thing of the past.
So, this isn't necessarily news, but it is funny. And funny things deserve attention too!
IGN released a slew of hilarious demotivational posters about some recent games. If you suck at videogames, it's likely that at least one of these fits you.
Did you buy Batman: Arkham City, only to find out that it was full of puzzles and not quite as action-y as you might have hoped? Well guess what:
Some new promotional banners for the Avengers movie have been released, and you'll likely see them at your local theater in the near future. They fully show off the new costumes for the star studded cast, and advertise the 2012 release of the Joss Whedon directed film.
Between Whedon, the actors and the comic fiction, I, along with most other people in this nerdiverse, am about ready to wet myself in anticipation.
Link, from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword courtesy of The Tanooki.
According to IGN, Nintendo will be releasing a patch to fix the game-ending glitch that many players of Skyward Sword have endured.
Nintendo will soon be releasing a program to fix the glitch. This only makes it blindingly clear how archaic their network is, as if this were an issue on the PlayStation or the Xbox, they would simply release a patch.
No worries though. If this doesn't work for you, they are asking that you send your Wii to them so they can fix it there. Don't worry, you're sure to get your console back within 2 months... ...
If you want tips on avoiding the glitch altogether, that is an option too, as they can be found here.
This video, which I made, can be viewed separately, but offers an alternative to the guide below.
I recently stumbled upon a build of CyanogenMod 7 for the Droid X which is on a separate development process. What it has, that an official build of the mod does not, is a newer kernel. Gingerbread instead of Froyo. Hooray!
The new Xbox Live dashboard is highly anticipated by some. It promises to add control-it-with-your-body functionality with complete Kinect support. That, and it looks a lot prettier.
Joystiq reports that this new dashboard is ready to be viewed by ... well, not all, but some. Microsoft has launched the Xbox Live Public Preview Program, via Major Nelson's blog. To sign up you need to fill out a survey that will ask you how often you play, who your ISP is, etc. This is so that they can get a fair swatch of people from each play style, connection and so forth. They'll gather feedback and make the experience more enjoyable for everyone.
The sign up can be found on the aforementioned blog of Major Nelson.
"Enhance image" is a phrase spouted by countless workstation sidekicks in countless movies and TV shows, CSI probably being the worst offender. Anyone who's messed with Adobe's Photoshop knows that it's just not possible to create details that aren't in the image to begin with. However, at some undefined point in the future, a version of Photoshop will ship that can take a blurry image and make it crisp.
The above video, via Gizmodo, shows a technical demonstration of this miracle, along with a quick witted Rainn Wilson (of the U.S. version of The Office fame) to poke fun. You can't quite make out the details, but you can see the basic difference between the images before and after they've been de-blurred. You can also hear the crowd cheering and gasping in amazement. That's enough for me.
On November 8th, the London Philharmonic Orchestra will release an album titled The Greatest Video Game Music. This proves, as Game Informer points out, that this orchestra "likes to make money."
If I may, lol.
Anyway, it's full of hits and good music, regardless. The tracks range from Zelda to Final Fantasy, from Mario to Bioshock, from Fallout 3 to Oblivion. Tetris will of course be there, alongside Halo, again, as always. The odd man out is clearly Angry Birds. I personally don't know that song because I turn off the sound whenever I play that game. And finally, World of Warcraft holds a spot on the roster, sure to get them another 100,000 purchases.
In all fairness, the tracks are predominantly good. I let my cynicism get the best of me. To see for yourself, head on over to Game Informer. They've got the full tracklist on which your hungry eyes can feast.
Steve Jobs presenting an iPhone in 2010, courtesy of Gaming Bus.
Gizmodo thinks that Steve Jobs left a four year plan for Apple. Well, at least they don't think it's the craziest idea they've ever heard. Who would. Steve cared about that company a lot. He always said that you should love what you do, and that he did. Having to quit, and knowing that he's going to bite it, I would imagine that the first thing he did as chairman, sans the CEO title, was start working on a plan.
Gizmodo argues that he had always been good at looking toward the future. They quote Tim Cook, the new CEO, reminding people how Apple has bought screens and other computer parts ahead of time to "secure supply for the company." During the same even Cook let loose that Apple was dropping a large sum on a secret something that won't show up for a long while.
Suffice to say, Apple knows what they're doing, and a four year plan is likely, notwithstanding the fact that there's no solid proof to show for it.
So I was sitting there at the laundromat, doing my laundry along with some various homework on my laptop, when this brilliant commercial came up on the television screen. I recommend clicking this link and letting it take you to YouTube, where you can watch it in a higher resolution on Sony's YouTube channel. It's awesome.
The video starts out with a troop of World War II soldiers (Battlefield, maybe?) creeping through the forest until they reaching an opening with an inconspicuous, but rather large house. They walk in, talk to the mysterious lady at the desk and drop their money into a tray, which happens to also hold various other objects used as currency in various Sony games. Immediately after, they set their weapons on a rack filled with other game specific weapons. This was when I first started asking what was going on.
Into the bar, you see Nathan Drake (from the Uncharted series), talking to Lightning (from Final Fantasy XIII). Cole (from Infamous) is talking about someone who helped him become good. Meanwhile, the camera switches and you can see old Solid Snake (of Metal Gear Solid 4 fame) who eventually stands up and talks, almost successfully duplicating the famously grainy and deep voice of his videogame counterpart. Sweet Tooth (from Twisted Metal) can be seen playing chess with Sackboy (from LittleBigPlanet), while Chel sneaks out of a Portal, barely visible in the background.
A Greek goddess, maybe Athena, starts praising this same person who helped them all, while Kratos (from the God of War series) stands near. During this time, the Hellghast (from Killzone), a creepy Little Sister (from Bioshock) and Ghost (from recent Call of Duty Games) stand around, along with Issac Clarke (from Dead Space 2) in full armor.
Ezio (from Assassin's Creed II) begins to show his adoration until all the characters start chanting the name "Michael! Michael!" Ans the bartender raises a picture of Michael, who holds a game controller.
After all ... these games, I suppose, would be nothing at all without the people who play them. Watch it!
The Qwikster and Netflix logos, courtesy of GameDynamo.
According to Engadget, Netflix is backpedaling. Your DVD and streaming functions and queues will remain on the same website: good, old Netflix.com.
Netflix tried to drop its DVD-by-mail service off into it's own company called Qwikster a couple weeks ago. I'm definitely in the camp that believes they were/are trying to drop it while it's hot ... er ... so to speak.
I'm not alone in thinking that they're trying to get rid of the DVD service altogether, in the long run. It costs them more money than streaming with Netflix Instant Watch, which is what Netflix was to become, solely. The money they eventually save by making the DVD service more low-key could be spent on acquiring more content for their streaming library. And, let's face it, Instant streaming is replacing the DVD, slowly but surely.
Mass Effect 3 screenshot, courtesy of the game's official website.
Update: 1UP updated their article with information with a tweet from one of the higher-ups at Bioware, who conveyed that the multiplayer will be cooperative instead of competitive. That makes me happy.
Mass Effect games are deep and immersive role playing games where the player takes on the role of Commander Shepard, the head of a starship, which he and his team of well developed characters use to save the world. The plot is rich, and the characters full of grit and compassion.
1UP.com is reporting that Bioware, the game's developer, will be adding a multiplayer component. But why would this game of all games need multiplayer? Shouldn't they be spending those resources working on the singleplayer campaign? All I want to do is finish the story and find out what happens to Shepard and his squad ... like a good book. I want to finish this game like I wanted to read the last Harry Potter novel.
However, it's important to remember that it is Bioware that we're dealing with here. They're generally hard pressed to make a bad decision. So I guess I'll be waiting with not-quite-bated breath.
And with it comes support for a plethora of Android phones.
CyanogenMod is easily the most popular modification you can make to your android phone. It adds innumerable features and capabilities to your phone. You can, for example, up the amount of decibels your phone can put out through it's speaker. It does require root access, which basically gives you (or applications, or mods like Cyanogen) permission to mess with some of the phone's files and processes that are usually locked to keep the phone stupid-proof. Rooting your phone can be a breeze though, nowadays.
A list of the phones newly supported can be found via this article on CyanogenMod's website, and instructions for installing the mod and a full list of phones supported can be found on CyanogenMod's devices page.
Batman: Arkham City is swiftly approaching its release date on the 18th of October. These skins might make playing through the heavily anticipated title just a little more fun, or possibly nostalgic. I grew up with Batman Beyond, the cartoon, and always drooled over the futuristic art style.
Speaking of which, from the left, Batman Beyond is the first pictured, far more muscular than the Spider-man physique of his cartoon predecessor, but nonetheless awesome. The Dark Knight Returns follows, from the comic books, featuring an absolutely ripped Batman. Earth One Batman is next, again from the comics, followed by 1970's Batman so you can imagine yourself as Adam West's over the top portrayal of batman, even in a gritty Arkham City, which quite opposes the neon color palette of the former. The Animated Series Batman is next, making the biggest visual change, choosing smooth angles over in-your-face brawn. And of course, the Batman depicted furthest to the right is the typical game model that will be used by default.
How can you get your hands on these? Well, bad news, you have to live in the UK. They do look really, really cool though. If you are in fact fortunate enough to hail from across the pond, you can find all the information you might want at Batman Arkham City's UK website.
I didn't actually think I'd care too much. But I find myself strangely, I don't know... taken aback might be the correct phrase? It was surprising when he stepped down, as we've seen what happens when he's not running Apple. Remember those orange or red or blue, translucent apple computers from around 10 years ago? That was Steve returning to his post because Apple was failing against Windows -- Jobs brought the design back, in both software and hardware. He made that company.
I never bought any Apple products beyond an iPod, which I eventually replaced, leaving me now as one of the few, and not-so-proud Microsoft Zune owners. But somehow, his influence, what he has done for the world, is inescapable. He has left even me in a strange place.
Sadly though, it seems he knew it was coming. He dropped his CEO title just over a month ago. In a letter quoted on Wired, he had this to say:
"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately that day has come."
Wired also collected various quotes from people including President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Roger Ebert, Steve Ballmer and many, many more. Bill Gates also chimed in though. Here's what he had to say:
"The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely."
For what it's worth, best wishes to Steve's family and friends. He will be missed, even by non-Mac users.
