MLB 2k6 or Dark Angel?

When I sat down to play MLB 2k6 for the Xbox 360 I could not wait to lead my Halos to the World Series and reap the rewards of one of the best farm systems in baseball on a next-generation console. To my surprise and utter horror after two innings and countless controller throwing action, I had had enough.

The first MLB game to hit Microsoft’s new console out shines ESPN broadcasts and Fox Sports coverage of the MLB season with it’s visual beauty. From the onscreen graphics to the player models and stadiums, the game is worthy of the 360 packaging. For a few moments the site invokes a sense of awe in which you contemplate setting the controller down and just watching the computer battle itself.

But much like the Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars, the gameplay is the dark side, no pun intended, of the game except in this case it will lead you to turning off the console and wishing you never wasted your time playing the game. Yes it is that bad.

Case in point, Gary Matthews Jr. of the Texas Rangers, an average player at best, hit a fly ball to right field. Nonchalantly I turned Vladimir Guerrero, though not the greatest defender around, and proceeded to guide him to the large circle where he would stand and make the out. But not so says MLB 2k6. Instead Guerrero ran in circles as the ball dropped and Matthews rounded the bases for an inside the park homerun. As the game wore on the players seemed to figure out how to move towards the ball though nearly every time they had the lunge to make the out despite being directly under the ball. The infield defensive does not fall into the same category on groundballs though it does not make up for the horrible controls on defense.

Think the defensive controls are bad? The offense is worse. MLB 2k6 dropped the normal cursor moving “A” button swinging control scheme, for a supposedly better control in the swing stick. Using the right analogue stick gamers can control when the player sets his feet and when he swings. Sounds easy right? Yup, wrong again. The game offers no tutorials to help in the process and leaves gamers with question marks and curse words as they try to figure out how to make contact. The game offers another control scheme, but only the classic mode in press “A” to swing and make contact every time which was never fun. NBA 2k6 made the “shot” stick work, MLB 2k6 made me throw up.

The only gameplay feature that actually works is the pitching, though it fails to make up for the rest of the bug ridden game.

So back to my first question. MLB 2k6 for the Xbox 360 or Dark Angel for the Xbox. Though Dark Angel was a promising series for Fox, the game was a mess. (I got it for free, I would never waste my money on such junk.) For a long time I thought no game would be able to compete with it’s lack of anything resembling fun, but the worst game in history crown has a new face.

MLB 2k6 is like Natalie Portman for some, visually stunning but fails when it actually comes down to performance.

Posted in Reviews, Sci-Tech & Video Games •

The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian moved back to Christmas 2008
In a bitter blow for expectant fans, Exectuve producer Cary Granat has said that the release date for Prince Caspian may be moved back to Christmas 2008 (more from the same interview below).

Beyond Prince Caspian

Filming order discussed
Plans for bringing the remaining Narnia books to the big screen have been discussed by Walden Media in Entertainment Weekly. Exectuve producer Cary Granat said that after Prince Caspian, the books will most likely be filmed in the following order:

3) Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4) The Silver Chair
5) The Magician’s Nephew
6) The Horse and his Boy
7) The Last Battle

Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair are intended to form a trilogy.
source: Entertainment Weekly

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Gregson-Williams nominated for award
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe has been nominated for Best Original Film Score at the prestigious Ivor Novello songwriting awards. The Novello awards are the flagship event of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, the trade association for UK music writers. The score for the first Narnia film was penned by Harry Gregson-Williams.
source: icwales

Narnia enters all time box office top 20
Last week, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe entered the worlwide box office all time top 20 by earning $739.6 million. By doing this it knocked The Matrix: Reloaded into 21st position. In the US, the film has earned $291.6 Million, edging ahead of The Empire Strikes Back.
source: Narniaweb

Narnia DVD sales
Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” held its place as the top selling DVD in the US for the second consecutive week for the week ending April 16.

University of California to host Narnia conference
On Friday May 5, UC Riverside is inviting scholars and fans of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books to its Through the Wardrobe: A Narnia Conference. The event follows a Pottermania conference staged last October, which drew an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd. The Narnia event has already attracted the sponsorship of UC Riverside’s departments of English, Psychology and Religious Studies, Center for Ideas and Society, Visual Culture Program and United Campus Ministry.
source: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1311

Narnia DVD Easter Eggs
For those of you who own the The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe DVD, here are some hidden surprises:

Disc 1 Egg 1
- From the Main Menu press up from any of the Main Menu selections to highlight the shield on top.
- Press enter, you will be treated to a looping “screensaver” of sweeping helicopter shots flying over a still frozen Narnia.
- To exit the “screensaver”, press the menu button on your remote.

Disc 2 Egg 2
- From the Main Menu choose Creating Narnia
- Select Evolution of an Epic
- Highlight Anatomy Of A Scene: The Melting River
- Press left, a yellow symbol will appear on the director’s chair
- Press enter, you will now see Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie) talks about eating too much Turkish Delight

Disc 2 Egg 3
- From the Main Menu select Creatures, Lands & Legends
- Go to the Creatures Of The World section
- Select the wardrobe icon that is underneath the Centaur menu entry
- Press enter and the menu will take you into the Creating Creatures area of the Narnia section
- Select the wardrobe again to return to the Creatures Of The World section

source: dvdtalk

Posted in Chronicles of Narnia •

Following James Cameron’s keynote address on Sunday at the National Association of Broadcasters’ Digital Cinema Summit (reported here), the excitement is already starting to build for the rerelease of Star Wars in 3D.It has been common knowledge that George Lucas has been working on the project for some time, but it now seems certain that it will hit theaters in 2007 to mark the movie’s 30th anniversary.

The company behind the Dimensionalization® of the much loved sci-fi classic is In-Three, based in Westlake Village and Agoura Hills California. Founded in 1999 by Michael C. Kaye, a veteran in post production techniques and an innovator of several patented technologies, In-Three is growing rapidly to accomodate its increasing workload.

Their highly secretive Dimensonalization® process is performed fully in post production. This means that potentially any film can be processed into full 3D and negates the requirement for stereoscopic cameras during filming. Utilising their own tools, artists called Dimensionalists can add depth to 2 dimensional film. It is assumed that individual elements of a scene are isolated and separated into layers to simulate depth (think the OT DVD animated menus taken to the nth degree). Software tools help the artists resolve occlusions (blank spaces left where there is no original information), extract depth information and dimensionally choreograph each scene.

In-three claim that their post production process is actually superior to shooting with dual camera rigs because they can regulate depth properties and have complete control over each shot. Another major bonus of this is that a 3D version can be screened in cinemas with an untouched 2D version preserved for the home market or theaters lacking the necessary equipment. In fact, the content that reaches the veiwers left eye is completely unprocessed. It goes without saying that the potential to dimensionalize studio’s back catalogues is also huge.

To watch Dimensionalized movies, the audience must wear active 3D glasses, produced by partner company NuVision. Because the images are geometrically and mathematically mapped in software and the individual elements don’t stray too close or too deep into the shot, eyestrain is eliminated. According to In-three, dimensionaized movies can be watched comfortably for hours and there will be no ‘blindspots’ in an auditorium.

In-Three technology has already wowed the major studios and has won support from George Lucas, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Randal Kleiser, Robert Rodriguez, and many more, but the real test will be just how far audience jaws drop when that seemingly endless Imperial Star Destroyer passes overhead and swallows the Rebel Blockade Runner.

Posted in Commentary, Movies, Star Wars •

The release of director Ron Howard’s (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) film adaptation of author Dan Brown’s bestseller is approaching fast: The Da Vinci Code will premiere at the Cannes film festival on May 17 and open to audiences worldwide May 18 and 19. With less than a month to go, Sony Pictures has unleashed the marketing monster, having the film’s trailer play in cinemas, publishing ads in magazines and newspapers and sticking huge banners on hardly bigger buildings in various cities around the world, showcasing the movie’s stars: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Paul Bettany and Jean Reno.

Sony Pictures has now supplied us with a load of brand new images from The Da Vinci Code, previewed below. Simply visit our The Da Vinci Code movie gallery to access the full size images (including descriptions) and leave your comments:

In related news, Google launched its The Da Vinci Code Quest yesterday, a series of challenges and puzzles encompassing the next (now) twenty-three days, with an outlook of $100,000 worth of Sony Electronics for the persevering winner. Click here to enter.

Posted in Commentary, Movies •

Live at the Brighton Centre

The Mighty Boosh is the brainchild of Julian Barrett (who plays Howard Moon) and Noel Fielding (Vince Noir). The duo picked up the prestigious Perrier Award for their debut in Edinburgh in 1998 and have been wowing audiences ever since. In its many incarnations, The Mighty Boosh has been a radio show, a TV show on BBC3 and a stage show. Fans of the show recognise it for its sheer surrealness and originality.

Myself, D-Boy and Science Girl walk into the theatre a couple of minutes late and plan to sheepishly take our seats. Unfortunately out seats are 4 rows from the front and the stealthy entrance doesn’t really pay off.

“You think you could get here for the start, the time’s on the ticket you know!” smiles Vince Noir from the stage.

“We’ve been in the pub!” shouts back Science Girl, ill advisedly.

“Alcholism isn’t an excuse, it’s a disease,” retorts Howard Moon.

Amidst the laughter we find our seats and the show continues with a fan mail gag with sound effects and internal monologues that could have come from the Morecombe and Wise Comedy Gold handbook. Noel Barratt and Julian Fielding are the unquestionable stars of this show. While it is always very apparent that the cast have ad-lib input along the way it’s these two that write and perform the majority of what makes the Boosh so good.

The show starts in the same way it always has, the central characters stood in front of a curtain talking about the show to come and in the process setting up running gags you can see a mile off. For this show, Howard has been to mime school. If you’ve seen the first series episode called Tundra then you know where the plot of this 90-odd minute comes from. Naboo, their mysterious yet curiously laid-back shaman friend is dead and the only thing that can revive him is The Egg of Cacundoo which is hidden in the depths of the Arctic… or Spain.

Queue Vince in a poncho and Howard in 19th centre artic explorer gear.
Queue yetis and tent gags.

.. and soon after queue Rudi and the Hitcher, two cameo characters who threatens to steal the show on several occasions. As part of his entrance rant, delivered in trademark mockney cockney, the Hitcher tells us: “I’m evil! I’m a… nob… Yeah that’s right, I raped a dolphin, well technically it was a porpoise, but one blow holes as good as another.”

The Hitcher continues in this ludicrously near the knuckle manner all the way through the show, right up to his climactic (and wonderfully choreographed) show down with Rudi (AKA Cilit Bang) The show’s sets look like they’ve been borrowed from a travelling theatre but actually do a pretty good job of setting the scene. The sound design is pretty special too. The whole thing is acted out with the same barely rehearsed style that has always made The Mighty Boosh so endearing and the whole thing bounces along at an enormous rate, an orgy of song, dance, big hair and bad mime. To top it off an encore appearance from season two character Old Gregg (Noel in a ludicrous wig) left me wanting to see the new live show, whenever it may happen to emerge.

In case you’re wondering why the details of the show as given here are a tad vague then it’s because I was laughing my arse off all the way through. When something is a genuinely laugh out loud hysterical as The Mighty Boosh it’s impossible to remember details and exchanges, you just remember having a completely overwhelmingly great time.

The Mighty Boosh will be recording a new live DVD at Brixton Academy at the end of the month.

Posted in Reviews •