Welcome to the first edition of a regular feature focusing on Video Games written by the X-Boards’ resident gaming expert Jaguar Wong.  Be sure to check back next week for the latest news and insight from the gaming world.

‘So you wait all year for a decent driving game on the 360 and then, just like buses, two come along at once… well, not much like buses really, except that in DiRT you do get to drive great big lorries! The other is Forza Motorsport 2 but from what I’ve read DiRT is the one to go for - you can download a playable demo if you’re wise enough to own Microsoft’s next gen machine. A little side rant; IGNs review of the DiRT scored it low for longevity despite the games’ extensive career mode. Now as a gamer who’s getting a bit narked by paying 40 quid ($80) for a game that only lasts one rainy weekend before you have run the gamut of gobshites in online play this logic really grinds my gears. Rant over.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Console Yourself, Sci-Tech & Video Games •

Day Watch director Timur Bekmambetov has told MTV that he intends to tweak the story for his upcoming Mark Miller comicbook adaptation Wanted.

Bekmambetov has said that definite changes are in order for the story - namely that the supervillain group whom he and his father belong to will now have a more mystical quality:

‘He soon finds himself carrying out the death orders of the Fates, literal weavers of every human’s lifeline…We built a huge textile factory in Prague. The production designer, John Myhre, built this huge set and we’ve created a mythology in this world of weavers. The hero will discover the whole world. It looks ordinary, but it’s not. It’s an industrial world filled with weaving machines, lots of traps, lot of looms flying back and forth and predicting the future. The looms weave these fabrics, and the fabrics have a pattern, like a binary code, that has information. The weavers can read the fabric - they see the structure of it and they can read its messages. Then they know who has to be killed to keep the balance of the world.’

Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, rap star Common and James McAvoy are set to star in the film which is due out late next year.

Discuss Wanted on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Supergirl is coming to Smallville reports Zap2It.

The latest and possibly last season of the show will premiere with the arrival of Kara, Clark’s 19-year-old Kryptonian cousin. As the daughter of Zor-El, Jor-El’s brother, Kara also possesses superpowers, including the ability to fly which Clark has yet to master.

Apparently Kara doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Clark, takes a shine to Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) and catches Lex’s (Michael Rosenbaum) attention. Casting for role is currently underway.

A false Kara has already appeared in the series but was revealed to be a human girl. Other DC Comics characters who have made appearances in the show include Green Arrow, Aquaman, The Flash, Martian Manhunter, Cyborg and Brainiac.

Discuss Smallville on the X-Boards

Posted in Superman, Television •

Amazon.com has published the full track listing for the soundtrack of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which is scheduled to go on sale on July 10th, the day before the movie gets its theatrical release. The track titles are as follows:

1. Fireworks
2. Professor Umbridge
3. Another Story
4. Dementors in the Underpass
5. Dumbledore’s Army
6. The Hall of Prophecies
7. Possession
8. The Room of Requirements
9. The Kiss
10. A Journey to Hogwarts
11. The Sirius Deception
12. Death of Sirius
13. Umbridge Spoils a Beautiful Morning
14. Darkness Takes Over
15. The Ministry of Magic
16. The Sacking of Trelawny
17. Flight of the Order of the Phoenix
18. Loved Ones and Leaving

Discuss Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the X-Boards

Posted in Harry Potter, Movies •

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Gael Garcia Bernal, Danny Glover and Alice Braga are set to join Fernando Meirelles’ apocalyptic drama Blindness for Focus Features International.

Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo already have joined the project, which is based on Jose Saramago’s acclaimed novel that is set in motion when an epidemic of blindness sweeps through a contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown. Bernal will play the King of Ward 3, Glover will narrate the story and Braga will portray the girl with the dark glasses.

Shooting is scheduled to begin in early July in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto.

Discuss Blindness on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

A boy archaeologist is set to fill the void created when Harry Potter finally packs up his wand in July, claims the man who first signed J K Rowling.

Barry Cunningham of Chicken House publishers and previously of Bloomsbury has told the Telegraph that a new fantasy series called Tunnels could become the next must read for children after the release of The Deathly Hallows next month. Two unknown authors have secured advances of more than a million dollars for their debut book about a boy archaeologist, merciless villains, a lost world and a journey to the centre of the earth.

The book has been written by two friends who met at university, Roderick Gordon, from Norfolk, who lost his job as an investment banker in 2001, and Brian Williams, an artist, from London. They self-published the book and it sold out at Mr Gordon’s local bookshop. The duo have already completed a sequel and are working on a third volume. Tunnels will be published on July 2.

Discuss Tunnels on the X-Boards

Posted in Books & Comics, Harry Potter •

Variety reports that Gold Circle Films has acquired the feature film rights to Thomas Wheeler’s fantasy-adventure The Arcanum.

Wheeler’s cinematic debut novel is an occult thriller set in New York City in 1919, following Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his fellow members of a secret society known as the Arcanum, including magician Harry Houdini and voodoo priestess Marie Laveau as they investigate a gruesome murder, rescue horror writer H.P. Lovecraft from jail, consult evil mystic Aleister Crowley, learn the truth behind the ancient Book of Enoch, try to solve the mystery of a tribe of lost angels and otherwise save the world.

Gold Circle’s Paul Brooks told Variety that the banner’s going out to directors, adding ‘We see this as a potential franchise property‘.

Discuss The Arcanum on the X-Boards

Posted in Books & Comics, Movies •

Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis executive producer Robert C. Cooper has told SCI FI Wire that he’s developing a third series for the franchise with the working title Stargate Universe.

‘It’s being developed’ said Cooper, ‘Not a lot to say at the moment, other than it’s … not the characters from SG-1 or Atlantis. It’s a completely third entity. The third series is born of the mythology that’s been established.’ Cooper added that the proposed third series will take place in the present day.

SG-1 will draw to a close after 10 seasons with the episode titled Unending, airing June 22. Atlantis, is currently finishing up its third season and will return with a fourth season later this year.

Discuss Stargate Universe on the X-Boards

Posted in Television •

Peter Cullen, the voice of Autobot leader Optimus Prime in the upcoming Transformers movie, has been talking to SCI FI Wire about his character and working with action supremo Michael Bay.

‘Michael Bay is a character unto himself, and he was a cast all himself,’ said Cullen, ‘He could play all the roles when we were recording this together. Unlike the animated series, when we were all in a room together recording together, for this movie it was just Michael and [me], and it was rather fun. He knew all about the characters and had a great knowledge of them all. There were only a few times when he would ask, ‘Would Optimus say this?’ But that was just at the beginning. He was very well-versed in the world of the Transformers.’

Occasionally Bay would seek Cullen’s advice and ask if Optimus would use a word or phrase as written (Cullen voiced the giant robot on the classic animated TV show).

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Movies, Transformers •