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Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 31, 2014 in Cinema 
You may have heard the mo-cap extraordinaire Andy Serkis, famous for his work as Gollum and King Kong, would be making the jump to the director’s chair. He’ll be doing the Jungle Book for Warner Bros. (and Jon Favreau is doing one too… for Disney), and rather than take a family-friendly approach, it sounds like he wants to be a bit more realistic and faithful to the book. He said, “What I love about the screen adaptation by Steve and Callie Kloves is it’s very truthful to the original book; it doesn’t shy away from its darkness.” I’ll be interested to see how it turns out, especially given Serkis’ expertise with making CGI animals appear as realistic as possible. It could be neat! Read more…
Tags: Andy Serkis, Jungle Book
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 31, 2014 in Videogames 
Animal Cross: New Leaf has been one of the most successful games on the Nintendo 3DS. Many chalk it up to the fact that people just like games that are slower-paced and allow you to customize everything, but Nintendo recently revealed the truth behind it at GDC: diversity. Half of the development team was made up of women, an anomaly in the game development industry. Aya Kyogoku, the woman in charge of directing New Leaf, said that it opens “you up to hearing a greater variety of ideas and sharing a greater diversity of ideas.” The full Wired interview with the team is incredibly fascinating, so I highly advise you check it out. Read more…
Tags: Animal Crossing, Nintendo
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 30, 2014 in Videogames 
Goat Simulator was originally just a joke — a silly video put out by Coffee Stain Studios while they were fooling around. But when the internet got a hold of it, they demanded more. They asked for it to be real. So, on April 1st, you’ll be able to buy Goat Simulator, weird glitches and all. Yup, they’re not fixing it up or polishing it, they’re just releasing it as is. The features list states there are “MILLIONS OF BUGS! We’re only eliminating the crash-bugs, everything else is hilarious and we’re keeping it.” They’ve hidden a lot of easter eggs in it, too. You can start playing it right now by pre-ordering it on their official site (it’ll then download through Steam). Also, below the jump, I’ve included the launch trailer for the game, which parodies Dead Island’s reveal trailer. Read more…
Tags: Goat Simulator
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 30, 2014 in Videogames 
I’m overly optimistic, perhaps. After years of bad Alien games, I keep hoping, beyond all reason, that the next one will be good. Creative Assembly’s upcoming Alien: Isolation looks to be doing a lot of things right: there’s only one alien, you have to be sneaky, there’s no modern technology (it all abides by the original film’s standards), and your main item is a motion detector. All the pieces are there, but it remains to be seen if they come together well. I really hope it does, because I want a good Alien game… so bad. CA announced that the game will arrive October 7th, later this year, so I’ll report back then. Let’s hope we’re not disappointed! Read more…
Tags: Alien
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 29, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections 
A lot of fans were drooling over the LEGO Simpsons house, but couldn’t justify the high price tag. I’ve got good news though: if you’re just looking to jump in for cheap, you’ll soon be able to pick up some blind-bagged LEGO Simpsons minifigures! These figures are different from the ones in the house model, and includes other additional figures as well. The full list is: Krusty the Clown, Itchy, Homer Simpson, Grampa, Ralph Wiggum, Chief Wiggum, Scratchy, Nelson Muntz, Marge Simpson, Milhouse, Maggie Simpson, Lisa Simpson, Ned Flanders, Bart Simpson, Mr. Burns, and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. These will be available in May, and I imagine it’ll be easier to feel out which one is in which bag due to their unique head shapes. Check out the full gallery here. Read more…
Tags: Lego, The Simpsons
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 29, 2014 in Tech 
Everyone was surprised by Facebook buying Oculus VR earlier this week. It seemed like an odd fit, and many people were incensed by the acquisition, but my opinion on it is as follows: Facebook might not be the best fit, but Oculus needed money — badly. So far, Facebook has let their last two acquisitions, Instagram and WhatsApp, operate on their own, so I believe we can expect similarly of Oculus. As part of their new budget, Oculus has hired Valve’s Michael Abrash, a pioneer of the VR movement and creator behind Valve’s VR tech demo that got so much press. At Oculus, he’ll be reuniting with his old pal John Carmack to build Oculus up. Let’s hope it all goes well! Read more…
Tags: Facebook, oculus rift, Valve, Virtual Reality
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 28, 2014 in Television 
Community always does great references that actually are clever and unique. So today, they’re spoiling one by posting their G.I. Joe PSA parody from the upcoming G.I. Joe-themed episode. I’ve always enjoyed their animated bits — or any joke where they use something other than live-action — and this one is no exception. Pay attention to their code names, they’re pretty good. The only thing: are we going to see parodies of the internet classic Fensler Films version next? Now that would be amazing. Body massage! Read more…
Tags: Community, G.I. Joe
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 28, 2014 in Cinema 
At long last, fans can watch the trailer for Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and either assuage or confirm their fears about the film. Probably “confirm.” Even though this film is advertised as a Michael Bay film, it’s actually directed by Jonathan Liebesman. I don’t know if having his name eclipsed by Bay’s is either a good thing or a bad thing. The turtles appear to have some good effects behind them, but the thing that’s unsettling everyone is their faces. Those lips and the nose are a little too… prominent. Check out the trailer below. Read more…
Tags: Michael Bay, Teenage Ninja Turtles
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 24, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections 
Marketing companies are catching onto the LEGO craze! Even Kit Kat wants to… break a piece… off of that LEGO cash pile. Or something like that! Yes, some LEGO fans at Kit Kat put together a larger-than-life version of a Kit Kat bar, wrapper and all. In a nice twist, they hid extra minifigs inside the bars, and included extra designs that they came up with using the same pieces, just like real LEGO sets. They also made an official-looking box, just to make internet denizens think it’s a real set! Take a look at a few images below, then check out the whole gallery here. Read more…
Tags: Candy, Lego
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 24, 2014 in Videogames 
Earlier, some screenshots and a logo for the next Assassin’s Creed game leaked. The game, titled Unity, features the new setting, this time in Paris during the French Revolution. According to Ubisoft, they’ve been working on this game for roughly three years, so this time it’ll be even better! Right?! Unity will also be exclusive to next gen systems, aka PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Reportedly, there will also be another Assassin’s Creed game released on 360 and PS3, but no word from Ubisoft on that one just yet. We’ll hear more at E3. Check out the teaser below! Read more…
Tags: Assassin's Creed
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 23, 2014 in Videogames 
We’d been hearing for a while about Valve’s long in-production documentary about the first Dota 2 tournament, called The International. They had beta-tested the film (yes, really) by screening it early to people and using their feedback to fix it up. Now, it’s finally available to watch, and it is of course free. To play. Yup. You can watch it on Steam or YouTube, and it runs about an hour and 15 minutes. It’s impressive to watch all the effort these players put into the game, and also the rise of esports in general. I’m really interested in taking the time to watch it later. Check it out! Read more…
Tags: documentary, Dota 2, esports, Valve
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 23, 2014 in Fandom 
A lot of us probably remember being inundated with edutainment commercials in the 90s. It seemed like parents were always being sold something to teach their kids something new, and Muzzy was a big one. The cartoon character was used to teach languages, and while I never actually saw any Muzzy tapes, I did see plenty of commercials. Nacho Punch put together a cute little video that features Muzzy… err… Khal Drogo teaching kids how to speak Dothraki. They even have a Hodor version! Man, they think of everything. Read more…
Tags: Game of Thrones
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 22, 2014 in Videogames 
GDC brought a lot of big announcements, but one of the things I was most interested in seeing was new footage of Hyper Light Drifter. Thankfully, Polygon sat down with the developers of the game and got a nearly 18-minute video featuring footage of the game and dialogue about the game and its features. The animations and art look really impressive despite not being final, which bodes well for the final game. So far it looks like it’ll be exactly the kind of game I want to play. Check out the full video below for some neat footage. Read more…
Tags: Hyper Light Drifter, Indie Games
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 22, 2014 in Cinema, Comic Books 
Sony Pictures has released the final trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which features about as much bombastic action and special effects as you can fit into a 2 minute and 40 second timeframe. It definitely looks like Spider-Man! I hope it will be better than the first film, but the huge amount of villains does make me wary. We have heard that the Rhino is barely in the film though (apparently only 5 minutes) so not only does that lighten up the load, it also means that we’ve probably seen a third of the total footage of the Rhino in trailers and teasers! Check out the full trailer below. Read more…
Tags: Marvel, The Amazing Spider-Man
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 21, 2014 in Cinema 
For a while, many Pacific Rim fans worried that the film wouldn’t get a second chance after its poor domestic performance. Thankfully, a huge opening internationally brought in a huge pull for the film. $411 million isn’t too shabby, but we hadn’t heard anything for a while. Now, Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull said in a recent interview that Pacific Rim 2 is pretty likely, saying they’re “certainly open to it.” In fact, he listed several other big movies that Pacific Rim bested in the box office that did receive sequels, such as Superman Returns, Star Trek, Batman Begins, and Fast and the Furious. Guillermo del Toro is currently filming Crimson Peak, so we’ll see where he goes after that! Read more…
Tags: Pacific Rim
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 21, 2014 in Cinema 
Here’s an exciting rumor to start your weekend off. We last heard some bad news about Ghostbusters 3: Ivan Reitman, the director of the previous two, was stepping down as director of the third, instead opting to stay as a producer. He said the passing of Harold Ramis put the film in a new light for him, which is understandable. Still, fans were saddened and hoped for the best. Nikki Finke is now saying that Sony is looking for a new director(s) and have been eyeing Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hot off of their success in The LEGO Movie. Now that’s a good pick! Their skills would be perfectly suited to a Ghostbusters film. But which would the studios prefer they first tackle — a second LEGO Movie or a third Ghostbusters? Exciting times! Read more…
Tags: Ghostbusters
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 17, 2014 in Star Wars 
Here’s some awesome casting news: the wonderful, Academy Award-winner Lupita Nyong’o (fresh off of her win for 12 Years A Slave) is reportedly up for a role in Star Wars Episode VII. Both the Latino Review and The Hollywood Reporter are confirming this story, say that she’s been speaking to J.J. Abrams about a part not related to the original trilogy. LR says she’ll probably be playing a Sith, but THR says she’ll be a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I suppose there’s always the possibility she could be both! Nyongo’os representatives, when called, said that they’re “not allowed to talk about that.” Well then! That’s about as much as a confirmation as we’re gonna get, aren’t we? Read more…
Tags: Episode VII
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 17, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections, Science 
Man, there’s just a bountiful buffet of LEGO media online right now. Everyone wants to cash in on The LEGO Movie, I imagine. But here’s a world record LEGO robot — yes, robot — that is the fastest Rubik’s Cube ‘bot in the land. The machine is called the CUBESTORMER 3, and has obtained the world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube in 3.253 seconds. This beats out their previous record and robot, the CUBESTORMER 2 at 5.35 seconds. Not only that, it beat the world record for a human time, with is 5.55 seconds. That’s pretty impressive! Watch the LEGO machine go to work at lightning speed below. Read more…
Tags: Lego
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 16, 2014 in Videogames 
If you’ve ever wanted your own titan from Titanfall, this is as probably as close as you’re going to get! To promote the release of the game, CJ Berg and Daniel’s Wood Land were commissioned to put together a life-size titan. It’s currently making its way across the UK, at various launch events for photo opportunities. SlashGear spoke with the creators about how they made the beast (lots of foam!) and their process of working with Respawn, too. Of course, the article is lavished with a multitude of awesome pictures. I’ve included a few below, but check out the full thing here! Of course, all it does is just make us want a real one! Read more…
Tags: Robots, Titanfall
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 16, 2014 in Fandom, Hobbies and Collections 
LEGO Simpsons and The LEGO Movie combine in a LEGO video! How much LEGO can the internet possibly fit into one video? I don’t know, but this video is a big contender. Yes, this is a Simpsons couch gag… made from LEGO… also featuring characters from The LEGO Movie. It’s pretty clever, and is a good use of the Simpsons house set, too. I suppose this post is also a good place to mention that there will be a LEGO Simpsons episode in the near future — May 4th to be exact. And yes, the whole episode will be done in LEGO. So that should be pretty entertaining! But until then, this fan rendition will do nicely! Read more…
Tags: Lego, The LEGO Movie, The Simpsons
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 15, 2014 in Videogames 
This is something a bit off the beaten path: an aluminum NES. Yes, that’s right. Analogue Interactive, the company that made that NeoGeo MVS arcade system into a walnut-clad console, is making another system, and this time it’s an NES, called the Analogue Nt. The system is made from a solid block of aluminum, so it resembles an Apple product more than an Nintendo one. It boasts four controller ports, slots for both Japanese and US cartridges, and can output via RGB, component, S-video, or composite. Analogue claims there is no emulation going on, so one wonders how this is all possible (perhaps they reverse-engineered everything). Price and a release date are unknown, but will be revealed by the end of the month. Read more…
Tags: Nintendo
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 15, 2014 in Videogames 
Sony likes to often interview indie devs that are bringing games to Playstation platforms and post about it on their blog. Recently, they interviewed Heart Machine, the group of devs behind Hyper Light Drifter, the wildly successful Kickstarter game (PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Vita). As part of their post on the Playstation Blog, they’ve also uploaded a new trailer that features gameplay and a plethora of gorgeous pixelated visuals. I love the sharp, colorful art style that Hyper Light Drifter has — and the ruins of a war gone by are a great setting. There’s more details about how the game will play out and what their plans are here. And check out the trailer below! Read more…
Tags: Hyper Light Drifter, Kickstarter
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 14, 2014 in Television 
HBO has been ramping up for the April 6th premiere of Game of Thrones season 4, and what better way to excite people than to remind them of all the tragedy so far?! Yes, they’ve released their season 3 recap, which covers almost everything that happened last year (and has some actor interviews as well), including the infamous Red Wedding. If you haven’t watched the show thus far, it might not make the most sense, and obviously I want to recommend that you watch it all anyway, but not everyone has time to watch 3 seasons of a TV show before April 6th. Either way, it’s a great refresher! Check it out below. Read more…
Tags: Game of Thrones, HBO
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 14, 2014 in Cinema, Comic Books 
Here’s a little pile of interesting Marvel news for all you Kevin Feige fanboys out there. We knew for a while that Marvel had a movie scheduled on the same date as Man of Steel vs. Batman, but we didn’t know what film Marvel would match up against it… until now. It’s Captain America 3. That’s a pretty ballsy move! It just shows how confident Marvel is in their battle versus DC. In other Marvel news, Kevin Feige also brought up Hulk and Hawkeye, mentioning that they’ll have significantly bigger parts in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Also mentioned was the potential for Agent Coulson to return again — and we’ll apparently get more details soon. Let’s hope! Read more…
Tags: Avengers: Age of Ultron, captain america, Marvel
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