descent
Latest
The Descent giving fits to BD-Java-less Blu-ray players
If you've just picked up the recently released The Descent on Blu-ray disc, hold back from tearing the plastic off just a minute. If you're using a first-generation Blu-ray player that doesn't yet support the "BD-Java environment," chances are you'll be graced with a depressing black screen instead of an action-packed thriller. Users across the web are complaining that the film isn't playing back on their particular Blu-ray player, and High-Def Digest has suggested that units that don't play nice with BD-Java extras are having a hard time swallowing (and playing) the featurette-packed disc. Sony's BDP-S1 and Pioneer's BDP-HD1 have been singled-out as the two most problematic players in this ordeal, and while Sony has promised a firmware update to add BD-J support "early this year," the Pioneer users are currently out of luck. Notably, Panasonic units, Samsung's BD-P1000, and Sony's own PlayStation 3 are having no troubles, although some Samsung devices may need the latest firmware installed to overcome any glitches. Hopefully more manufacturers will get on the ball and start supporting these newfangled extras that were supposed to make high definition discs worth more than the pretty resolution, and kudos to Lionsgate for pumping this one up with BD-J action -- even though some of us are still trying to make it spin.[Via High-Def Digest]
Descent 2 updated for OSX - and free!
I don't know why or how, but the gaming classic Descent 2 - yea, the entire thing - is available for OSX, Windows and Linux, and was just updated to version 0.2. It looks like an open source team somehow got ahold of the source and has been chugging away at getting it to work across platforms. (Looks like Interplay, the game's original publisher, has a pretty barren site these days.) I played the 0.1 version on OSX and it was pretty slick, but the game didn't like my mouse very much. Hopefully that was addressed with this update, but either way: go check out this most awesome of classic 3D spaceship fly-around-and-blow-up-crazy-robots games.
