flightplan
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Summon Night 1 and 2: The other, other simultaneous RPG remakes
We recently learned via scans that the first two Summon Night RPGs were being remade for the DS, joining other tandem series remakes like Dragon Quests IV, V, and VI, and the simultaneously (but separately) releasing Ys I and II. These two Summon Nights, rather than coming out on the same day, will be a few months apart, the first planned for spring and the second for summer.They are, however, being promoted and previewed in concert, with Famitsu posting separate screenshot posts on the same day. That's ... actually a bit strange, in that the preview for the second game talks about all the improvements that were made over Summon Night, like being able to select your character's sex, and what looks like an improved map view. It's just slightly awkward to hint about a game's relative obsolescence in an adjacent piece.Read - Summon NightRead - Summon Night 2
Switched On: Flight of the damned... usage terms
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: (Based on a true story.) During fourthmeal a few days ago, I realized that I couldn't well let my fellow Engadget columnist Stephen Speicher grab all the Internet video glory with his recent tripartite YouTube encomium, so I decided to spend some time this week with an Internet video service that trades in good ol' Hollywood-produced motion pictures.Announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Vongo is offered by the Starz Entertainment Group and competes with other PC-targeted movie services CinemaNow and MovieLink. Much as the iTunes Music Store gained credibility by letting people buy music the way they do in the physical world, Vongo has received accolades by operating similarly to a premium cable network or even a service such as Netflix. For a relatively low subscription price of about $10 per month, you can watch as many movies as you like on the service on up to three PCs as well as watch a video feed of the Starz premium movie channel, Vongo is also working on support for portable video "sideloading" to devices that use Microsoft's Portable Media Center platform. Vongo also offers "pay per view" movies at $3.99 per viewing. I tried the latter option for my first crack at Vongo, choosing the movie Flightplan, the 2005 thriller in the Hitchcock tradition starring Jodie Foster and directed by Robert Schwentke.
