Disneyland
Latest
GDC09: Disneyland's 'The Haunted Mansion' is a first-person shooter
Scott Rogers is a creative manager at THQ, and a former game designer who worked on titled ranging from God of War to Maximo, and he held a panel at GDC called Everything I Learned About Level Design I Learned From Disneyland, and one of our favorite quotes was "Well, the Haunted Mansion is basically a first-person shooter if you think about it. You're directing what the guest sees and has access to, and that's what we're doing with level design." If Walt only knew! Although not apparent at first glance, once you look at amusement park design and game level design, there are a ton of similarities. We have a lot of goodies coming to you from Rogers' talk which we'll be bringing to you next week. In the meantime, you can reimagine your favorite rides turned into FPS titles. Or you could take the obvious route and just combine a ride and shooter, like Disney already did with Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters.
Attend the WoW Insider Blizzcon meetup tonight, meet cool people
Blizzcon starts tomorrow in Anaheim, CA, and WoW Insider and Massively are already on-site to provide the best coverage we can! If you're in town, we want to invite you to the WoW Insider meetup tonight at 8:00 PM Anaheim time. You'll have chances to win cool prizes and swag if you know your World of Warcraft trivia, and the WoW Insider podcast will be taped in front of a live audience, so you can be a part of that mayhem as well.The meetup will be at The Lost Bar at 1150 W. Magic Way, near the Disneyland Hotel. The party will go on through much of the night, so even if you're not getting in until after 8:00, feel free to show up late and relax with the WoW Insider crew post-flight or drive.
Reminder: Meet WoW Insider tonight at The Lost Bar at 8pm
Don't forget -- if you're in Anaheim for BlizzCon tonight, our meetup starts in just a few hours at 8pm. We'll be over at The Lost Bar -- you can follow the map above, and from the convention center entrance (where you're grabbing your passes today), it's just about a 10 minute walk north and then west of Disneyland. It's a big open air bar -- we'll be sitting, chatting, and drinking, so walk right up and say hi (just look for the folks going through the BlizzCon goodie bags greedily and talking about the latest beta changes).We'll be there late this evening (and later on, we'll do some trivia and giveaways), so even if it's kind of late and you've just made it into your hotel, feel free to come by and say hello (and if you're stuck at home, stay tuned for a post live from the meetup later on this evening). And don't forget that even if you can't make it to the meetup tonight, we're taping our podcast in front of a live audience (with WoW Radio and The Guild) tomorrow evening, so make sure that's on your schedule as well.Have a safe trip to BlizzCon if you're coming down, and we'll see you at the Lost Bar this evening!
Maglev, diesel-electric trains vie for support in US desert
Although the mention of a magnetically levitating train outside of US borders won't grab too much attention, saying that phrase here most definitely perks up ears. Sure enough, a maglev project that would shuttle folks from Disneyland to Las Vegas at up to 300 miles-per-hour is now jousting with a cheaper diesel-electric alternative (dubbed DesertXpress) for support. Reportedly, the latter would cost "just" $3- to $5 billion to construct -- compared to $12 billion for the former -- but rather than escorting folks from Anaheim or even Los Angeles, its origin would be planted in Victorville, California. Still, the trip from there to Vegas would only take three to four hours including the 1.5 hour drive to Victorville, but that still doesn't sound nearly as nice as "well under two hours" for the maglev. As it stands, there's quite a bit of red tape to wade through before either option goes forward, but kicking back on a whizzing train sounds an awful lot better than staring at pavement and blasting the air conditioner for five or so hours.[Via Gadling]
Disney brings back the House of the Future -- with help from Microsoft and HP
The Disney parks have been getting all kinds of upgrades lately, and the latest is the revival of the "House of the Future," which originally opened in the 50s and showcased such space-age household technologies as microwave ovens and plastic furniture. The new attraction eschews the original's pod-shaped exterior, pictured above, for a more traditional look, but it's inside where the action is: Disney, Microsoft, HP and LifeWare spent over $15 million on hardware and software designed to give visitors a glimpse of a hyper-connected future. Tech on display will include home automation, automatic networking, Surface and touch-based computing, and smart appliances -- all things the designers envision as being five to 10 years away. The new House of the Future is set to open in May at Tommorrowland -- any guesses how long it takes before someone builds a complete replica?Read - New House of the FutureRead - Original House of the Future (with pics)
Disneyland getting all new monorails
Earlier this year, Disneyland got a little more zany with the Muppet Mobile Laboratory, but as soon as the park opens up early next year, guests should notice a bit of an upgrade on the monorail. Reportedly, the famed park will be running its first all new monorail car in a score, and while details are scant on the actual engineering upgrades, we do know that the electric cars will sport all new hues. The first in line will feature blue glass and red stripes that "change color in the sunlight," while the next two will be blue with purple glass and orange with blue glass. So yeah, it's probably not enough to make a special trip out to Anaheim for, but if you needed just one more excuse to don those iconic black ears and pretend you're young again, you've got it.[Via Switched]
Get an eye full of the Pirates booth section
Remember when we talked about those special download kiosks that were littered around Disneyland for the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End premiere? Well, it didn't take long before one fine reader, who is known on these vast internets as "Jesus," took a picture and sent it in. Honestly, we're unimpressed and were thinking these download spots would be more in-line with the theme, like swashbuckling us away lest we download their precious booty. Oh well, chalk that up to another instance where our imagination outclasses reality.
Disneyland intros roving animatronic Muppets; Mickey and friends fear pink slips
The happiest place on Earth (Disneyland, not Las Vegas during CES) just got a little happier this week, thanks to a new exhibit called the Muppet Mobile Laboratory that roams the park and delights visitors with inane banter and sprays of water. Probably having nothing to do with the fact that the human costumed characters like to videotape themselves in suggestive poses while still in uniform, Disney decided to eschew flesh and bone for metal and silicon when it tasked the Imagineering studio with whipping up California Adventure's newest residents, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his always chipper, possibly speed-addicted friend Beaker. The two wacky companions approach groups of visitors in their remotely-controlled, cartoonish rocket ship, and thanks to operators monitoring embedded cameras, microphones, and speakers, are able to to carry on eerily-realistic conversations that incorporate actual traits of the audience members. The L.A. Times reminds us that the MML is only the latest in a long line of animatronic entertainers, from the Enchanted Tiki Room and Mr. Lincoln in the 60's to Lucky the Dinosaur and Crush the Turtle in the new millennium -- but Honeydew and Tweaker Beaker are the first that can be modified to entertain in almost any environment. Disney expects the new tech -- which enables remote operation from as far away as Glendale -- to eventually expand its stable of characters to include some of the Muppets who are too small to be played by actors (as opposed to mice, dogs, and ducks, which are just the right size), so next time the kids finally wear you down and win another trip to the Magic Kingdom, at least you'll be able to pass the time by chasing around little Chip 'n Dales or wirelessly hacking Kermit to tell the kiddies what he really thinks of that flaky pig.Update: Now with video! Check it out after the break. Big thanks to commenter John and YouTube member JLOatesIII.[Photo credit: L.A. Times, thanks Armando S.]
