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Microsoft's first Xbox-exclusive documentary is digging up Atari's past
Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios will launch its first original documentary production next year, a film exploring the rise and fall of game industry legacy Atari. You read that right: a modern game console manufacturer is creating a documentary about a failed game console manufacturer. A bit meta if you ask us! Anyway, the documentary will focus on digging up the symbolic grave of the early game industry: a burial site with "millions of unsold game cartridges" in New Mexico. The game in question was the Atari 2600 adaptation of E.T., a holiday 1982 release -- often called one of the worst games ever made. A new production studio co-founded by Simon and Jonathan Chinn (Man on Wire, FX's 30 Days), named Lightbox, is heading up production; filming is slated to start in early 2014, with an exclusive debut on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One at some point later in the year. It's unlikely that the Atari doc will be the first product from Xbox Entertainment Studios to launch in 2014, as shows are scheduled to roll out starting in early 2014.
MapleStory allies against aliens
It's a bad day to be an alien in MapleStory -- and a good day to be a player. Nexon has released its latest major update for the game, Alliance Unbound, and it's placing a bounty on every E.T. and Klingon you can find. Nasty space critters are causing town-demolishing earthquakes in the area, and what's worse is that their technology is somewhat more advanced than swords or clubs. While a majority of the content for Alliance Unbound is for high-level characters, there's still plenty for lowbies to do as well. The main update quest line opens up at level 15 and offers both a high- and low-level version. The update has plenty of meat to it in other ways. A gigantic 31-part quest chain has been added to Ellin Forest for level 95s in which players will jump back in time and explore the making of one of the key regions in the game. There's also a nifty and powerful alien socket system that grants players the ability to upgrade weapons. Finally, Nexon's got plenty of new Event Cards and a collection system to keep players busy.
Panasonic prices, dates some of its 2012 HDTVs (VT, GT, ET) and accessories in Japan
If Panasonic's CES 2012 lineup of plasma and LCD HDTVs interested you, it's time to dig into more details it's just released about their Japanese cousins. Those "Infinite Black Ultra Panel" plasmas will arrive April 20th as the VT5 series and AV Watch reports the 60-inch will be priced at about 500,000 yen ($6517), while the 50-inch is 360,000 yen ($4694). There's also details on the new GT5 plasmas, in 60-, 55-, 50- and 42-inch sizes, as well as the DT5 and ET5 LCDs. All of those are 3D capable and will start rolling out March 9th (April 20th for some of the larger sizes), although the ET series is its first that works with passive 3D glasses. The new 3D glasses -- passive (2,000 yen, $26) and active with Bluetooth link (13,000 yen, $169) will also arrive in March along new Blu-ray players and recorders plus a refreshed Skype camera that's slimmer and half the weight of last year's model. Hit the links below and let Google Translate bring in the details, we should probably hear more about US prices, specs and ship dates in a few weeks.
Universal celebrates 100 years of movies, finally brings classics like Jaws and E.T. to Blu-ray
Blu-ray fans waiting to see classic flicks like E.T. and Jaws on the format can rejoice, as Universal has officially announced they will be released this year as a part of its centennial celebration. After being in the moving picture business for 100 years the studio has a lot to celebrate, and plans "extensive restorations" of 13 movies including To Kill a Mockingbird, All Quiet on the Western Front, Jaws, The Sting, Out of Africa, Frankenstein and Schindler's List. There's also the special celebration logo seen above, but really, as long as they finally deliver a proper edition of Spielberg's 1982 classic sci-fi flick, they can put whichever picture they want up before it -- check the press release after the break for details, lists and Tumblr links.
Coloring inside the lines: An interview with PlanetSide 2's Tramell Isaac
I think we're all allowed our moments of pure geek squeeing when we bump into the people responsible for some of our favorite video games of yesteryear. So I had to apologize to Tramell Isaac in advance for gushing over his work on the first two Fallout titles, games that are among my all-time favorites. He didn't seem to mind, and he spent a few minutes shooting the breeze about his favorite designs in the game -- designing Robobrain and the Vault Boy cards that accompanied the player perks. MMO fans will probably best know Isaac from his work on the original PlanetSide, a project that is near and dear to his heart. Sony Online Entertainment brought him back on board to be the senior art director for PlanetSide 2. This makes sense -- after all, who else would best know how to evolve the series' design than the guy who started it? Isaac was kind enough to sit down on the phone with me to talk about how PlanetSide 2's visuals are shaping up, following his own blog post on the subject. Hit the jump to find out why each faction is going with a very specific color scheme, how microtransactions will affect how awesome you look, and just what Batman has to do with any of it.
The Game Archaeologist and the dragon of the deep dungeon
The Game Archaeologist is a lazy adventurer-slash-professor who dons his trademark cap for a weekly expedition through some of the most famous MMOs of the past few decades. Each month, he chooses a different title in order to examine its highlights, talk with its developers, and invite its fans to share their experiences. Part of the holy mission of the Game Archaeologist is to ferret out the roots of history that ultimately led to MMORPGs as we know them today. Another part of the mission is to root out ferrets, as my claw-scarred arms can attest. Some of that history is fairly recent, but today we're going to travel back -- way back -- to a time before many of you were born. Including me, as a matter of fact. The year is 1974. The world is hip-deep in the throes of shag carpeting, driftwood furniture and the strains of Grand Funk Railroad. It truly seemed like nothing would ever be cool or non-earth-toned again. At this, the lowest moment in all of history, game designers Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson took the concept of miniature wargaming, merged it with a fantasy motif, and sold it under the name Dungeons & Dragons. Geeks everywhere had a reason to rejoice, and through this roleplaying game the foundations for MMOs were laid. Let's take a brief survey through D&D, giving special emphasis to how this great-granddaddy of RPGs passed down a legacy that we enjoy in our modern online titles. Also, there will be popcorn.
The Daily Grind: What Atari 2600 game would you like to see as an MMO?
For many of us old school gamers, the Atari 2600 was the first gaming console on which we cut our teeth -- literally. Mom said that chewing the wood panel sides would cause splinters, but oh! How good it did taste! Of course, there were games on the system to be enjoyed as well, and many of us have fond memories of plugging away at Space Invaders, jumping the crocodiles in Pitfall, running from Evil Otto in Berzerk, and assembling the phone in E.T. OK, I lied, nobody has fond memories of E.T. Still, Atari 2600 titles (and other games from that era) had a certain bizarre lunacy to them and a charm that couldn't be denied. Perhaps this is why they endure through retro gaming to this day. Engage with us on a flight of fancy, then, and tell us: What Atari 2600 game would make for a fine -- or, heck, interesting -- MMO? Would it be the thrilling vistas of Adventure? The heated PvP battlegrounds of Warlords? The fruit-stained corridors of Pac-Man? Or even the elegant simplicity of Combat?
First confirmed photo of alien planet makes us want to believe
The above planet -- whose existence was first detected in April of 2008 -- is the first confirmed alien planet (meaning that its orbiting a sun-like star) to ever be directly photographed. The system, called 1RXS 1609, is roughly five million years old (our own solar system is 4.6 billion years old), and the planet itself has an estimated temperature of over 2,700 degrees Farenheit. It's somewhat comparable to Jupiter within our own system, though this planet has about 8 times the mass. The star -- which is located 500 light years away in a large grouping of young stars called the Upper Scorpius Association -- has an estimated mass of about 85 percent of the Sun's. So, where does this leave those of us hoping for aliens to show up within our lifetime? Not much closer, unfortunately, but we suggest sending Mulder up there to check things out.
NASA's discovered hundreds of planets where aliens might live
The Kepler spacecraft, which is rooting about outerspace checking for habitable planets has apparently discovered 706 possible candidates by monitoring for subtle changes in brightness. Up next astronomers will run the results through a battery of other tests, identifying the most likely candidates. After that? A reality show featuring seven NASA astronauts in a competition to find the first actual ALF, or Cylon, Yoda or E.T. We're there, dude.
Video: First working Blu-ray Managed Copy demo
Just because Pioneer isn't in the plasma business anymore doesn't mean the company is dead, and one of the new points of focus over there is on media aggregation. So part of the new do-it-all Entertainment Tap concept Pioneer was displaying today included a demo of storing Managed Copies of Blu-ray Discs on a hard drive. The copy itself was done in about 4x real time (dependent on the drive's speed) and looked great thanks to some hardware transcoding. We also appreciated the Pioneer interface that made copying the disc easy. Of course at this point this is just a demo, with no word on availability or price, but it is a start to what will one day hopefully be a better way to enjoy HD movies.
Pioneer shoots for the moon with its Entertainment Tap concept
What do you get when you take every single source of audio and video content, including Blu-ray with Managed Copy, online streaming content and everything else you can think of (except Hulu), and then combine it with control and remote viewing capabilities? You guessed it, the Entertainment Tap. We understand that Pioneer is shooting for the stars with this one, but it most definitely falls under the category of it sounds too good to be true. Of course Pioneer is just trying to throw everything against the wall to see what sticks, which is great, but the anticipated release of 2010 seems ambitions considering everything included in the demo. We could go on and on listing the media sources and control devices, but Pioneer wasn't exactly giving us any negative responses. Lets just say the new ET concept is a do it all media server as well as a client client that plays nice with everything. For example, the ET can connect to a HR22 DirecTV HD DVR via USB and using the data from the DVR, it'll build its own version of the interface. Of course the whole video part is hard to integrate, so the ET simply instructs the TV to switch inputs at the right time to give you a seamless experience. At this point none of these features are finalized so don't be bashful with your ideas in the comments, because who knows, Pioneer might actually include them. %Gallery-72467%
Spielberg enters booming Jenga genre
Which of these two recently-announced Steven Spielberg games would you want to play? an action-puzzle simulator that "neatly blends the creativity of the building-blocks game Jenga with the charm of a Saturday-morning cartoon," or a game in which "you're an ex-secret agent, and the bond that you forge while on the run with [a] computer-controlled woman -- good, bad, indifferent -- determines the nature of her special abilities and the ways in which she'll assist you." We hope you picked the former because that's the project Electronic Arts and the famed director plan to bring to the Wii! The other title -- the one which Newsweek's N'Gai Croal described as "yet another hit" from Spielberg -- is headed for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Expounding on the Wii action-puzzle sim, code-named PQRS, Spielberg explained, "It just seemed like a great thing for the entire family to play together over Christmas." We bet you can't wait for Christmas!
Spielberg working on Wii game with EA
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Spielberg_working_on_Wii_game_with_EA'; EA and Steven Spielberg had recently announced a collaboration to publish three games with authoritative control from the directing superstar. Recently, after Spielberg got totally owned in Wii Tennis after seeing the success and potential of the Wii platform, one of these three was announced to be Nintendo-bound.EA Los Angeles Veep Neil Young revealed in a recent interview that one of the projects, produced by Lou Castle, is coming to the Wii and is "very exciting and interesting". This could not even theoretically be a more generic statement, but this is E.T.-phone-home-guy we're talking about, here. Also, the article mentioned that Spielberg actually spends several hours a week actually going to the production studios and working directly with the staff, as opposed to simply signing a few papers and being done with it. Hopefully, this is cinematic gaming done right.
SETI@home claims its first major discovery: a stolen laptop
Although this case doesn't represent the first time a thief has been tracked down by the very item he / she swiped, it does mark the first time in the history of SETI@home that the number crunching actually discovered something substantial. In another tale of good things happening to diligent people, a Minnesota husband installed the Berkeley-created software onto his wife's laptop to run whilst sitting unused, but he probably never imagined that having it check in with the California-based servers every so often would help him track down a crook. The lappie, which just so happened to house numerous crucial documents from his wife's writing collection, was jacked from their possession on New Year's Day, but as any determined and intelligent being would do, James Melin monitored the SETI@home database until the missing machine logged back into the UC mainframe, where a subpoena was then used to unearth the physical location of the stolen property. As of now, no arrests have been made, and while no pertinent documents were deleted or tampered with, Mrs. Melin noted that the perpetrator (or the eventual underground buyer's) taste in music was among the worst she's ever heard of judging by the foreign tracks that were gifted to her when the laptop returned. But what we really have here is just another good reason to join Engadget's Folding@home team![Via Slashdot]
ET wearable RFID gear turns everything into toys
While the bandwagon approach would be to develop an anti-RFID device to eliminate RFID invasions from our lives altogether, a mysterious Japanese website spells out an interesting take on making wearable RFID, dare we say, enjoyable. The ET (Everything Is Toy) is a "wearable computing system designed to change our daily lives into play," basically transforming the RFID tags on everyday objects into random bits of fun. The video demonstration showcases the system determining that the user picked up an umbrella, but rather than sulking about how rainy it is outside, he proceeds to bust out a few ninja-like moves while the integrated speaker on his person translates the motions into sword clanging sounds. Other examples are a thrown orange becoming a whizzing fireball and your average desk chair revving up like a race car when wheeled around. Of course, the idea is still a prototype, and it won't do us much good without a whole lot of RFID-enabled goods at our disposal, but this looks like a surefire time waster when bored at the office at the very least. Click on through for the sound-filled demonstration.