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Godzilla and King Kong are coming to 'Call of Duty: Warzone'
Gaming crossovers are really starting to get out of hand (or paw).
Crackle scores exclusive streaming rights to NBCUniversal movies
If you were hoping to catch the big-screen reboot of Miami Vice on Netflix, think again. NBCUniversal Television and New Media Distribution, which owns the rights to the film, signed a three-year deal, giving Crackle exclusive ad-supported streaming rights. Of course, some of its streaming competitors either aren't ad-supported at all (Netflix, Amazon) or are a combination of fee and ad-supported (Hulu Plus). In addition to Jamie Foxx's latest, the arrangement will bring 140 movies including Jarhead and the remake of King Kong. Don't schedule a marathon just yet, though: Films will roll out gradually over the course of the deal. Movie buffs can, however, go ahead and start popping the popcorn -- some of the first flicks from the partnership arrive on Crackle today.
Peter Jackson shooting The Hobbit at 48FPS, should speed up those long walking scenes
Say goodbye to blurry Orcs, because The Hobbit is going 48 frames per second. King of Kong Peter Jackson announced via Facebook that the two-part Lord of the Rings prequel will be shot at an increased frame rate, double the 24FPS that has been the industry standard for the better part of a century. Halo's non-director preemptively addressed critics of the technology, comparing it to the transition from vinyl to CDs -- which, let's face it, some folks still aren't all that psyched about. The technology, when combined with a 48FPS projector, should cut down on blur and strobe. Jackson and Warner Bros. have their fingers crossed that a sufficient number of theaters will be capable of projecting at that speed when the film opens in December 2012. We're eagerly awaiting James Cameron's reaction -- and George Lucas's inevitable Star Wars re-re-re-re-release at the new speed.
Blu-ray releases on January 20th 2009
Many are more excited about the inauguration than this week's Blu-ray releases, but there are a few good movies. The most interesting to us Universal's The Express, but then again we're a sucker for football movies. Next up is Max Payne, which looks fun, but has a really bad IMDB score of 5.6. Just about every studio has at least a few movies this week, but another worth mentioning is a catch-up title for Blu-ray from Universal in the way of King Kong. Next week is about the same with one hot day-and-date like Pride and Glory and a few great catalogues like The Bourne Collection. The Express (Universal) King Kong (Universal) Max Payne (Fox) Antwone Fisher (Fox) UnfaithfuL (Fox) 13 Going on 30 (Sony) The Pink Panther (Sony) Amusement (Warner) Domino (Warner) The Notebook (Warner) Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society (Warner) Repo! The Genetic Opera (Lionsgate) Saw V (Lionsgate) Election (Paramount) The Deal (Peach Tree Trinity) El Norte (Criterion) Henry Poole Is Here (Starz/Achor Bay) Igor (MGM)
King Kong gets additional features for Blu-ray release January 20
One time Xbox 360 HD DVD player pack-in King Kong is finally making its Blu-ray debut, complete with U-Control interactive features and some additional bits we'd missed the first go round. Apparently Universal has seen fit to replace the previous edition's Dolby Digital+ 5.1 soundtrack with a 5.1 DTS-HD MA version, as well as the Extended Edition footage (on an already 3 hour+ movie?) that was missing from the HD DVD. Making the jump from HDi to BD-Live is online My Scenes sharing, just in case you still needed a reason to pay the $29.98 MSRP for this disc January 20.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a troll
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the third in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.Trolls are based on the "wild savages" you've seen in the movies or on TV, from King Kong to Discovery channel. If you've seen people hunting with spears, walking around in the forest without many clothes on, or dancing around in costumes and face paint in some kind of ritual you've never heard of, you've seen the apparent inspiration for trolls in World of Warcraft. The culture of Warcraft trolls are a mishmash of all the different myths and rumors that have grown up about some of the earth's indigenous peoples that live outside modern society: Strange voodoo beliefs and rituals? Check. Bloodthirsty headhunters with a taste for cannibalism? Check. Witch doctors, shrunken heads, human sacrifice, and rampant superstition? Check on all counts.It's important to note here that troll culture is based on the myths about some indigenous people, not on their reality. Cannibalism, for instance, has been rare among human societies, nearly always viewed as anathema, but among the trolls of Azeroth, it appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Unbiased study of the world's primal religions has shown them to be far more sophisticated than early (and prejudiced) Western explorers ever imagined. Don't listen to the Jamaican accent trolls have in the game and assume that trolls are based on real life Jamaicans. There is nowhere near the correlation here that we might find with the dwarves and the Scots, or even the draenei and the eastern Europeans that they sound like. Indeed, one could argue that the choice of a Jamaican accent to represent the trolls and their culture reveals a great deal of ignorance we Americans have regarding Caribbean islanders -- but that's a discussion I'll not go into today.Suffice it to say that as a member of the Darkspear tribe, the only tribe of trolls to join the Horde, your character living in a time of great change for your people. Your tribe is the first to embrace the more modern values promoted by Thrall, to take up the spiritual practices of shamanism, and to integrate itself with other races. Although the Darkspears have officially given up human sacrifice, cannibalism, and now tell you to "stay away from the voodoo," these practices are all elements of religion and superstition that your character would have grown up with, and may find it hard to let go of completely.
Bury the Shovelware: Peter Jackson's King Kong
They say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but who'd expect it to plummet far away from its source, carried far by strong winds and subsequently rolled down a series of steep hills, and later to be picked up by a curious passer-by who takes it home as a souvenir ... overseas. Well, that might be a bit strong. While some felt that Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong was too long or used too many distracting CGI effects, it was generally well-received. The critical reception of the home console games based on the film were also fairly positive. I personally didn't play any of the other versions of the game, all of which looked to have that big-budget feel. Lacking access to the DS version's development financial reports, I'm not sure about the amount of resources that went into creating it. But whether it was an honest effort that encountered flaws along the way or it was simply lacking from the start, there's no denying that it's shovelware once you've gotten your hands on it.
What are the 5 worst DS games you ever played?
What do you think the top 5 worst games on the DS are? As we give you time to ponder that, we'll just dish out the list, as listed on Metacritic. It goes: King Kong Rhythm 'n Notes: Improve Your Music Skills Home Rollerz Wiffle Ball Deal or No Deal But, who cares about review scores, amirite? Instead, we figured there is no better source for the lowdown on crummy games than you all. So, tell us what your top 5 worst DS games are! We'll start you off with a very obvious one: Elf Bowling.
Second Life's Tribute Island
The British obituary, death notices, tribute and celebrity deaths website, Lasting Tribute has created an island in Second Life in conjunction with Nick Hewitt of Associated Northcliffe Digital. Outside of the British Services memorial park, Tribute Island more resembles a theme-park of sorts -- more celebratory than somber. There are numerous small displays featuring icons or scenes, or photo opportunities for visitors.
Aussies get 360 HD DVD March 29 for $249 AUD
In a short but sweet news post, Xbox Zone revealed new details on the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive it discovered from Xbox Australia. The most pertinent news is that Oz will get its chance to pick up the add-on peripheral on March 29 for $249 AUD, which translates to approximately the $200 price tag for the US edition.The initial shipments of the drive will come with a Universal Remote Control (we presume he means the official Microsoft one) and a copy of King Kong on HD DVD. We're not going to pretend we can gauge the next-gen format market in Australia right now, so anyone hailing from the Land Down Under is more than welcome to contribute observations.
Xbox 360 ready for homebrew?
One of the best things about the original Microsoft Xbox console wasn't the fact that it ran games. Oh no, for many, the best part was the ease at which that low-cost / high-powered device could be hacked to run all kinds of Homebrew applications including a damn fine media center. Now, in a tantalizing bit of showmanship put on by a cloaked hacker at the 23C3 Hacker Congress in Germany, a modified Xbox 360 (note attached circuit board) is shown loading Ubisoft's King Kong game just before displaying a trio of dancing 360, Tux, and (old) MacOS logos with the words "coming soon." Could this be a true exploit of King Kong's unchecked and unsigned vector shaders? We don't know, but the ability to execute any kind of code is certainly progress. Besides, with the games already loosed, can the mod-chips and homebrew from a highly motivated hacking community be too far behind? See the complete video after the break. [Via Xbox360 Fanboy]
HD-DVD vs DVD: Let's compare Xbox 360 style
Since we're all about supporting HD-DVD here at Fanboy Towers, we've stumbled upon an article that compares the prettiness of HD-DVD to that of DVD. Games Central put up a few comparison shots of the movies King Kong and Batman Begins, focusing on the image quality of HD-DVD and DVD. The actual pictures on their site aren't of the greatest quality, but you can still tell a difference in many shots. Just look at the image above that was taken from the movie King Kong. The HD-DVD side looks much more vivid and pretty, where as the DVD side is more "blah". As we said, the images from the website aren't the greatest, but be rest assured that HD-DVD will look very pretty up close in your living room.[Via Digg]
Universal adds U-control tech to King Kong HD DVD
Looks like Universal heard our plea for a little sweetener in its November 14th HD DVD lineup, announcing that King Kong will feature the same U-control features seen in Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift and Miami Vice. Using HD DVD's HDi interactivity layer, viewers can watch behind the scenes footage and cast interviews while the movie plays in the background, and a "My Scenes" bookmarking feature to easily come back to favorite scenes later. Kong will also be a pack-in with the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, which will be the first place buyers can get a copy. We're still holding out hope for more -- like a TrueHD soundtrack maybe? -- but its obvious that Universal sees it will need more than just excellent 1080p picture quality to convince customers to choose HD DVD this holiday season.
Boost Gamerscore the easy way: pay for it
Life is hard. Every time you boot up your 360, all you see is the incredible Gamerscores that your friends have. It's embarrassing. Your pathetic, anemic little Gamerscore just doesn't compare. You feel like you just can't perform anymore. You don't have the time. You turn to your significant other and say, "I swear this has never happened to me before." Your significant other turns to you and says, "That's okay, honey. A lot of people have this problem. It's very common." Cold and ashamed, you warm up a glass of milk and go to bed early for 8 hours of fitful sleep. Does this sound familiar? Well, the dastardly fine folks at Levelmy360.com are here to help. Through the goodness of their hearts (and for significant amounts of cash), they will boost your Gamerscore anywhere from 500 to 7000 points. Prices range from $40 to $400. That's right, all the pride and public notoriety of having a high Gamerscore is now free to be bought (and sold) at your discretion. Why on earth someone would actually pay just to boost Gamerscore we have no idea. It's not like World of Warcraft or anything -- the only thing Gamerscore is for is bragging rights. We're not really sure what's worse, paying to use this service, or the countless hours of King Kong and College Hoops 2K6 being played by the people who run it. [Thanks, Christian Santarelli] See Also: Earn 6,000 Xbox 360 points -- without trying
The algebra of wows, inspired by Xbox 360 HD-DVD dancers
Clearly, the parallels to be drawn between high-definition home entertainment and in-your-face dance showdowns are too numerous to list, but Microsoft chooses to highlight some of the more obvious ones in their commercial for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive (embedded in the post, natch). Depicting a rhythmically isolated DVD guy facing off against six HD-DVD dancers, it's a technology comparison competely devoid of technology and filled to the brim with bodies gyrating in largely unimaginable ways. With the upscaled DVD dancers apparently disqualified from the event, HD-DVD soundly trounces plain 'ole DVD, its vibrant victory converted into a catchy and hilariously non-sensical "six times the resolution, six times the wow." Yes, really. Just how much is that, exactly? The answer is, quite sadly, after the break.[via NeoGAF]
X06 announcements crammed into a single post
Microsoft's X06 event started off in a thunderous explosion of news, with pieces of informative debris raining down upon the unshielded denizens of the internet since yesterday. If you're feeling clueless or overwhelmed, allow us to subject you to a helpful hail of bullet points: Peter Jackson reveals a new partnership with Microsoft Game Studios. The king of the rings and his newly established Wingnut Interactive studio will work on an original property for the Xbox 360, as well as an unnamed Halo title. One can only hope that the crappy-game-based-on-a-movie and the crappy-movie-based-on-a-game curses cancel each other out when it comes time to play Peter Jackson's Halo: The Game of the Movie of the Game. A new RTS, Halo Wars, is unveiled. Set in a time before the first Halo, the real-time strategy game is being developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 by Ensemble Studios. Many confused pundits take the opportunity to point out that the Xbox 360 does not have a keyboard or a mouse. Grand Theft Auto IV will have two "epic" downloadable episodes exclusively on Xbox 360. Rockstar and Take-Two promise that the new episodes will provide "hours" of new gameplay and will be available "just months" after the game's October 2007 release. The vague wording of the announcement fails to rule out the possibility that the PS3 could receive different downloadable episodes of its own. The next Splinter Cell game is console-exclusive to the Xbox 360 -- meaning handhelds and the PC are still fair game. Fewer people are upset by this than those who realize Splinter Cell: Double Agent isn't available on anything yet. Bioshock is exclusive to Xbox 360 and Windows when it releases "next Spring". The wording of the press release says nothing of the game should it release during any other season following Spring. Of course, nobody likes waiting ... Project Gotham Racing 4 is coming. And the surprise hit gamers with all the force of a linen sheet flapping in the wind. Rare is working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game. Presumably, players are still keen on collecting all the coins, apples, music notes, beans, feathers, diamonds, pearls, potions, rings, blocks, wrenches and / or yams mysteriously floating around the finely rendered landscape. Marvel Universe Online is announced for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. It's being developed by the folks behind City of Heroes -- perhaps you remember Marvel suing them for creating tools that allowed people to venture online as, err, Marvel characters. Doom and Sensible World of Soccer join the Xbox Live Arcade lineup. The classic first-person shooter was already available yesterday for 800 points ($10). The Amiga footie title has not been given a release date yet, though the press release insists on using the word "soon." The Xbox 360 HD-DVD costs $199.99 in North America and €199.99/£129.99 in the UK, France and Germany. It arrives in mid-November and will include the Xbox 360's Universal Media Remote and the HD-DVD version of Peter Jackson's King Kong. And with that, the circle is complete. Congrats, scavenger hunter, you've found the secret c o d e good for one free copy of B A N K S H O T B I L L I A R D S 2: PRF4Q W798V G7JX9 2RX2W VT94G (Contest ran on 12/30/2006. The code has been redeemed.)
Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to make new Halo game, original IP
Microsoft has confirmed that the Academy Award-winning duo Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are set to create two "new interactive series" for Xbox 360 and XBLA. The first is a "collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next great chapter in the Halo universe.""It's not Halo 3," said Scott Henson, Director of the Game Development Group at Microsoft. "It's a brand new game based in the Halo IP. In a phone conversation with Joystiq, Henson disclosed that writing credits will be given to Jackson and Walsh. As for how the full-fledged game will fit within the continuity of the Halo universe among three installments, a real-time strategy game, and a film, Henson was tight-lipped. "It's going to remain a mystery," he said.The second title will be an entirely new intellectual property -- "completely from scratch," Henson clarified -- created with the intention of "bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment." The game will be made in conjunction with Wingnut Interactive, a new studio created via a collaboration with Jackson/Walsh and Microsoft Games Studio."Fran is a really big gamer and really excited about telling stories through games," said Henson. "We haven't talked about any details and we will when we're ready." If the focus is mass appeal, then Jackson/Walsh -- who managed to make Hobbits cool -- are the best people to have at the helm.
Top 10 awful achievements
Let's face it, some 360 achievements are pretty difficult to get. Others are pretty easy. However, there are some that are too easy or too hard. And of course there are those that are just stupid (here's looking at you Kong). GamersReports has taken our distaste for crappy achievements and combined them with our love of easily digestible lists of information. The product of this peanut butter/chocolate creation? A top ten list of the worst achievements on the Xbox 360, of course! Even better, Joystiq went to the trouble of recreating this list, which we will delicately lift for our own personal gain. It's the American way. Behold: Mini-Games (Enter the Mini-Games mode); Madden 2007 Pyromaniac (Jack used fire to scare off enemies and get out of harm's way); King Kong The Graduate (Earn the highest score on every drill in Training Mode); Rockstar Table Tennis Tactical Instructor (Top marks in every Story Mode mission); Chromehounds Play Some Online (Compete in each of the online game modes at least once); Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 Food Bank; Feeding Frenzy Game Master (Finish the entire game without continuing while using default settings); Smash TV Complete 99 Stages (standard mode); Bomberman: Act Zero Transmissionary (Answer all calls from Otis); Dead Rising World Champion (Multiplayer: Climb to the top of the universal leaderboard); GRAW Do you agree with this list? Any others you'd care to throw up there?[Via Joystiq]
Nintendo's (sometimes sordid) past now available on Google news archives
Google just unwrapped "news archive search," a new feature that allows users to search years and years of old news accounts. The company says the ability to search through a comprehensive database of old news will "make it possible for users to read about historical events as they happened." Just to give the service a whirl, we asked the search engine to dredge up Nintendo's past from its archive of newspapers past. Most of what comes up is trivia (did you know that Universal sued Nintendo for infringing on King Kong with Donkey Kong?), but some of it's more interesting. For instance, there's plenty on Nintendo's alleged monopoly, the subsequent Nintendo price-fixing settlement, and the fight between Nintendo and Game Genie. What's really striking about this historical survey of Nintendo news is how the company's public image has swung from big, bad, litigious monopolist to underdog over the last 17+ years. Flipping through historical news accounts provides a sense of perspective that's sometimes lacking from the day-to-day tussle of the sixth console war now underway.
Hulk, King Kong & Waterworld coming to HD DVD November 14th
Universal is keeping the hits big budget flicks coming to HD DVD. They have announced we can expect Ang Lee's Hulk, Peter Jackson's King Kong and Kevin Costner's Waterworld on HD DVD November 14th. All will feature Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtracks, the extras from the DVD editions and...that's it. Hulk and Waterworld carry a $29.98 SRP while King Kong starts off at $39.98. Excuse us if we're a bit underwhelmed, we're sure they will look and sound great but c'mon Universal, we've got a new standard for blockbuster high-def rollouts. Throw us a bone here, TrueHD soundtrack, IME picture-in-picture extra, Hulk-hands pack-in, something. You can check out these and other dates on our Google HD DVD & Blu-ray release calendars.HD DVD release scheduleBlu-ray release schedule
