Konami Axes “Six Days”

I’m honestly not surprised this happened, and I’m sure this was a possibility that ran through the brains of many Konami execs. The question now is, will a new publisher be sought out?

clipped from videogames.yahoo.com Mere weeks after its unveiling, contentious war game “Six Days in Fallujah” has reportedly been abandoned by game publisher, Konami. “After seeing the reaction to the videogame in the United States and hearing opinions sent through phone calls and e-mail, we decided several days ago not to sell it,” a Konami PR rep told Asahi.com. “We had intended to convey the reality of the battles to players so that they could feel what it was like to be there.” Revealed to the press earlier this month, “Six Days in Fallujah” focuses on the Second Battle of Fallujah, a grim 2004 conflict that claimed the lives of over 2,000 civilians, soldiers, and insurgents. Despite (or perhaps due to) the game’s authentic bend, military veterans, peace groups and bereaved families immediately condemned the title for its touchy subject matter, claiming it was both insensitive and tasteless. “Six Days” developer, Atomic Games, has yet to announce if it will continue to pursue the game’s release.

Revew: “Caprica”

If you were wondering, as I was, what could possibly fill the gap left by this year’s finale of Battlestar Galactica, fear not.  The creators of that successful sci-fi series have given us the prequel, Caprica, which not only gives insight into the creation of the BSG universe, but also tells one hell of a morality tale.  And, it’s got great writing, too.

Released just last week on DVD, Caprica, for those who don’t know, is the pilot for next years SciFi Network series of the same name.  It tells the stories of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas; both have lost loved ones in a terrible act of terrorism, and both are finding ways to deal with the tragedy.  The heads of the families, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stolz) and Joseph Adams (no, that’s not a name misspelling, played by Esai Morales) meet and become friends .  However, their friendship becomes strained when Daniel, a computer and inventing genius, finds a way to bring her daughter back to life.

That’s really all I want to say about the plot.  Not like there’s any major twists or anything like that, it’s just that the writing for this pilot is so good, one should experience for themselves before reading a summary of it.  What I will say is that this show appears to be carrying the torch left behind by Battlestar Galactica.  That show gave us a drama in space, and here we get a family drama set in ‘the future’.  One of the reasons I loved BSG is because it raised all sorts of interesting questions not tackled by conventional shows (‘Is there a God?’, ‘What created us?’, ‘Is there really a right and wrong?’).  Caprica, at least judging by the pilot, has raised a sole question, and it’s a big one, ‘What is a soul?’

Visually, this show shares a lot with its predecessor.  In BSG, many of the exterior scenes that take place on the planet Caprica have a golden over-saturated look to them.  Since all of Caprica takes place on the planet of the same name, the visual style carries over.  Also, there’s also a little bit of grain tossed in, as well.  I’m not sure if this show was shot digitally or not (I’m inclined to think it is), but it doesn’t have that same grittiness of BSG, and it doesn’t need it.  The reason for the grain here was probably more of an homage to BSG than anything else.  Also, you won’t find that pseudo-documentary style handheld camerawork in Caprica, the camera moves more traditionally.

The acting, as expected, is great.  Eric Stolz plays his part well, showing us a conflicted father who, more than anything, wants his family to stay together.  Esai Morales (a very under-appreciated actor), gives us a Joseph Adams who is trying to bring up his only son properly and give him the life he never had.  It’s very easy to see how William Adama (played by Edward James Olmos in BSG) became the man whom we see later.  Joseph tries to be a moral, righteous person, even though it means taking the road less traveled.

Caprica may very well be the show to watch next year, and it suckes that we have to wait so long for the series to really begin.  Galactica fans also have something else to look forward this year: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a TV movie directed by Olmos, which tells the BSG story from the Cylons’ point-of-view.  As a 90-minute pilot, Caprica doesn’t disappoint.

8/10

(image from Amazon.com)

‘Bioshock’ Budget Balloons, Movie On Hold

Well, good luck to them. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the last ‘Pirates’ movie, I think one of its problems was that the visuals got in the way of (what there was of) a story. And it’s probably a good thing they got a new director for ‘Pirates 4′, giving Verbinksi time to really focus on ‘Bioshock’.

clipped from www.variety.com Universal Pictures has put the brakes on “Bioshock,” the Gore Verbinski-directed live action adaptation of the bestselling Take-Two Interactive vidgame. Sources said that the John Logan-scripted picture was gearing up to shoot in Los Angeles, but that changed when the budget rose to the vicinity of $160 million. U and Verbinski are looking at alternatives like shooting in London as a way to pare costs. “We were asked by Universal to move the film outside the U.S. to take advantage of a tax credit,” Verbinski said. “We are evaluating whether this is something we want to do. In the meantime, the film is in a holding pattern.” Verbinski and sources at the studio say they are determined to make the pic. All parties vow that “Bioshock” will not become another “Halo,” the live action adaptation of the Microsoft game that was going to be turned into a film by U and Fox until both studios got cold feet and cancelled the deal over budget fears.

SAG Strike Averted?

Looks that way . . . for now.

clipped from www.variety.com At long last, SAG’s tortuous, yearlong contract drama with Hollywood’s majors appears to be coming to a close, capping a two-year period of labor unrest that included the trauma of the 100-day writers strike.That should have the biz breathing a sigh of relief, right? Not really. Because even if all goes well with the new regime at SAG and a handshake deal is finally reached this month, there’s little respite in sight for the studios: The WGA and Directors Guild of America contracts come up for negotiation again in mid-2011, which means the jockeying will begin this time next year, if not sooner. There’s sure to be more dickering in the 2011 round of negotiations over the compensation formulas that were hard-fought in the 2008 DGA and WGA contracts (the same template that SAG is poised to embrace). Already, the WGA has grievances pending in a dispute over the interpretation of a key point of compensation terms for paid downloads.

Review: Nintendo DSi

Having had about a week to mess around with Nintendo’s DSi handheld, I decided to go ahead and post my thoughts on the system.  However, it’s difficult to give a final verdict on the product, considering it’s a re-design of an existing product.  So, I’ll try and approach it from different perspectives.

The first thing that people may notice are the cameras.  They’re low-resolution (taking cell phone-quality pics at 640×480 res), with one facing you on the inside, and another facing out, on the outer lid.  Do they work?  Yes.  Do they work well?  Usually, no.  Aside from my old Canon A95 digital camera, the only digital still camera I have is the one on my Razr V3 cell phone, which is a terrible phone camera.  The DSi’s cameras are better, but not by much.  They do need a lot of light, and if the only light you have is indoor lighting, you’ll have to take pictures near the light source.  However, outside even in overcast conditions, the cameras work fine.  Once taken, the images can be stored either on the system’s memory, or on an SD card to be used on a computer.  There’s a limited selection of photo editing options on the system, and some are quite fun, but don’t expect Photoshop.  That being said, I’ve used the camera quite a bit, primarily because photos stored onto the system’s memory can be randomly selected and displayed in the system’s start-up menu.  I don’t know why I like this feature, I just do.

Here are some photos I snapped with the DSi:

Using the ‘frames’ option

Using the ‘graffiti’ option

Inside using natural lighting

There’s an audio player and editor, as well.  It can play and edit AAC-formatted music, as well as record 10-second audio clips using the system’s microphone.  I haven’t had a chance to try out the music player, because I don’t feel like formatting some MP3’s to AAC.  But, the audio recorder is kinda fun.  I’ve taken multiple audio clips and messed with them; applying slow-mo, fast-mo, robot, and chipmunk sounds to voice is a fun little distraction.  There are also several other effects that can be applied (12 in all).  Best use of the recorder: I took a recording of my voice to be used on someone’s voicemail, and the effect I applied with the low-synth voice (which sounds creepy).  I called up my girlfriend and left a very disturbing voicemail, which made her laugh because it sounded like I was demanding ransom from her.  Anyway, the recorder and player aren’t great, but they don’t hurt the system any.

The DSiWare store is where it’s at.  So far, there are only a handful of games available, but Nintendo does give 1000 points for free to every DSi owner ($10 worth).  The best use of points that I’ve seen are the games Birds and Beans (200 points) and ArtStyle: Aquia (500 points).  Birds and Beans was originally part of the WarioWare GBA games, now available in a quick, arcade-style game that requires you to catch beans falling from the sky.  Aquia is a Tetris- and Meteos-style game, that is incredibly addicting and well worth the 500 points.  Get those, and still have 300 points left over for more games in the coming weeks.

It’ll take a while for the DSiWare store to catch up to the WiiWare store, or even the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but I have high hopes for it.  The free web browser is nice, but it’s only good for viewing mobile-enhanced websites and not full-page sites. There’s not enough memory in the DSi to display on the graphics, video, flash, etc on normal websites, so don’t try and have this replace a laptop or something.

There are quite a few shortcomings, though.  The biggest issue I have is the internal memory and SD card.  There’s 256MB of built-in memory, which is half of the Wii’s internal memory, and quite small.  To supplement that, there’s the SD card which can support SD and SDHC cards.  But, and this is a big ‘but’, you can’t load things off of the card.  Just like the Wii’s memory problem (which was finally fixed last month), you can store games to the card, but you can’t load them, meaning they have to be installed onto the DSi in order for you to play the.

What.  The.  Hell.

Sure, the DSiWare games are very small in size, but I don’t want developers to be consigned to developing games with concern for space.  I don’t have an issue buying an SD card in order to store more games, as long as I can load them from the card.  As of now, I have a spare 64mb card that seems to be more than enough space, but I’d like to make full use of it.  C’mon, Nintendo, release a patch, let us use the SD card slot.

In the end, I don’t regret my purchase at all.  I sold my DS Lite the same day I purchased this, and I still have a GBA SP and GBA Micro, so I can still play older Game Boy Advance games.  Plus, in the future, there will be DSi-specific games that won’t work on a DS Lite, and of course, all DS games work with the DSi.  I’d recommend the upgrade specifically for the DSiWare store, as I hope that the library will expand considerably in the next few months.  While I understand why someone would want to keep their Lite over the DSi, I think that the DSi is an upgrade in every single way; it does everything the Lite does and more.  If you still have a DS Phat, get rid of it and grab this.  If you have a DS Lite, consider this just for the online store.

Here’s why: you’re not losing anything with this upgrade.  The only thing you won’t be able to use is the GBA port, which rules out GBA games and DS games that use the GBA port.  Guitar Hero: On Tour and Decades won’t be functional, plus games that use the optional rumble pak like Metroid Prime Hunters and Air Traffic Chaos can still be played, just without the rumble.

Here’s what you get: 99% of the DS library (which is already incredible), DSiWare downloadable games, two cameras, an audio recorder, and music player.  Are the last three great?  Not really, but again, they don’t affect how the system works, and the cameras’ resolution is more than enough for the DSi’s screens.

Method Man Starring in George Lucas’ Next Project

Huh… who woulda thought? Actually, the interesting bit of news I got out of this is that Lucas won’t be directing. Which is good or bad depending on your point of view.

clipped from www.xxlmag.com Wu-Tang rapper Method Man is set to star in famed director George Lucas’ long delayed World War II film, Red Tails. E! News reports that Mr. Mef will join fellow Def Jam label mate Ne-Yo as well as Terrance Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the flick, which focuses on African-American pilots who had to overcome racism in order to fight in the war. Lucas has handed directing duties to Anthony Hemingway (The Wire).

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Heading to Wii, PS2, PSP

I own the original for the PS1, but I’ll be picking up the Wii-make as long as the previews are positive.

clipped from wii.ign.com Following relentless internet chatter, Konami has finally confirmed the existence of its Silent Hill reimagining, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, scheduled to release on Wii, PS2 and PSP this autumn. Developed by Climax UK, the team responsible for the diminutive Silent Hill: Origins on PSP, Shattered Memories shares basic plot elements with Team Silent’s classic original PlayStation survival horror outing. Once more, you fill the shoes of protagonist Harry Mason as he searches the fog-shrouded – and apparently now snowy – streets of Silent Hill in a bid to locate his missing daughter Cheryl. However, Konami claims that NPCs now frequent different locations and offer new responses, with new paths and clues altering the original experience. Wii owners can enjoy motion control elements attempting to increase immersion in Silent Hill’s unsettling world. Your remote now serves as both a torch – to scour the darker corners of town – and a mobile phone.

Review: “Fast and Furious”

Fast and Furious is actually a prequel to 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a movie that was able to revive a franchise that was on the verge of venturing into straight-to-DVD territory.  I’ll admit to having never seen all of 2 Fast 2 Furious, but what I did see made me not want to watch the rest.  Bringing back the original main cast of the original The Fast and the Furious, plus the director and some of the crew from Tokyo Drift, this latest installment proves to be possibly the best in the series and a fitting end to the Walker/Diesel storyline.

The movie starts in the Dominican Republic, with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) leading a hijacking of a fuel tanker.  With him is Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), two Latino drivers Don and Tego (Don Omar and Tego Calderon), and a familiar face from Tokyo Drift: Han (Sung Kang).  After barely escaping with their lives, the crew separates, with Dom and Letty going back to the U.S. and Han heading to Tokyo (thus kicking off the events of Drift).  Meanwhile, FBI Agent Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) is running around the streets of Los Angeles trying to bring down a drug kingpin known as Braga.

I won’t give away anything else about the story, as it’s a Fast and Furious movie and the story takes a backseat to the cars and women.  I will say that it’s a surprisingly compelling story that gives the actors enough to work with.  Just like with Tokyo Drift, Director Justin Lin proves himself extremely capable of handling fast action scenes.  Many of the stunts are actually pretty impressive with cars careening through busy roads, flying down highways, tumbling over each other, flipping, spinning, sliding underneath exploding fuel tankers, and all manner of craziness.  This movie is the definition of ‘fast and furious’.

However, there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on the cars.  Sure, there’s lots of them, but this movie isn’t about how to trick out a car, or the rules and code of honor of street racers.  It actually comes down to a more personal story; most of the movie deals with the reprecussions of O’Connor’s actions from the first movie.  Technically, he betrayed Dom and his crew, especially Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster).  No one forgot that, and though he and Dom are after the same guy, Dom has a hard time forgiving.  It’s this personal element that makes this the most enjoyable in the series.

Fast and Furious is also a very technically competent movie.  The colors are bright, the sound design is incredible, and the visuals really hit you hard.  My only issue with the visual style is that it moves too fast at times.  There’s this insane car chase through a mountain that has a dozen or so cars ramming into each other at high speeds.  It gets so crazy I had a hard time figuring out where everyone was, and it made things worse that some of the cars looked the same.

Also, Jordana Brewster was wasted (I don’t mean drunk) in this movie, even though she is smokin’ hot, even more so than in the first movie.  In the first one, she played the love interest of Walker, and acted as the bridge between Walker’s world and Vin Diesel’s world.  Here, she has maybe ten minutes of screen time, in all.  And in those ten minutes, she’s being upset, she’s being sad, she glares at Paul Walker, she glares at Vin Diesel.  That’s about it.  Oh, she and Walker have a brief romantic scene, which I didn’t buy at all.  Or maybe it’s Paul Walker’s fault; although Walker wasn’t exactly giving an Oscar-worthy performance, his acting can’t hold a candle to Vin Diesel’s sheer presence on the screen.

Fast and Furious seems to be the perfect end to the storylines of Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Connor.  I was watching the IGN review the other day, and they mention that maybe, just maybe, they should do one more.  If they do, I’d definitely go see it, as long as it as Walker and Diesel.  That being said, I feel it’s a fitting conclusion to the series.  All the storylines seem to end here, and though Diesel had a cameo in Tokyo Drift, I don’t feel that they have anywhere else to go with these characters.  It’s fine with me since this one is loud, action-packed, has ridiculously hot women everywhere, and has a decent story.  It has everything you need in a movie with street racing.  Basically, it’s Fast and Furious.

8/10

(images from Yahoo!)

Rorschach To Play Krueger

You know, I had this interesting thought when I read this. What if it was Rorschach that came and tortured teens in their dreams? That would be hilarious.

clipped from www.riskybusinessblog.com Jackie Earle Haley is the new Freddy Krueger. The actor will star as the iconic screen villain in New Line’s redo of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” taking over the role that was played by Robert Englund. Samuel Bayer is directing the relaunch, which was written by Wesley Strick. The pic starts lensing May 5 in Chicago. Platinum Dunes’ Andrew Form and Brad Fuller are producing. John Rickard is co-producing. Richard Brener, Walter Hamada and Dave Neustadter are overseeing for New Line. The role would cap a whirlwind couple of years for Haley, who made a splash in the 1970s as a child star in movies like “The Bad News Bears” then faded in the early 1990s. Haley burst back on the scene in 2006 playing a pedophile in Todd Field’s “Little Children,” and also appeared in “Semi-Pro” with Will Ferrell, both for New Line, and indie drama “Winged Creature.” He was praised for his portrayal of Rorschach in the recent “Watchmen” and next appears in Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island.”

Review: “A Haunting in Connecticut”

After being excited to watch, and ultimately letdown by, The Unborn, I was wary of this one.  Sure, the trailers looked nice and freaky, and some years ago I saw an episode of The Discovery Channel’s ‘A Haunting’ series that featured this case, but what if, just like The Unborn, this turned out to be a ‘creature feature’ with cheap scares and a ridiculously bad story, topped off with hammy acting?  Plus, the critical reviews for The Haunting in Connecticut have been less than favorable.  Needless to say, I went in with some low expectations.

And I walked out very surprised, and a little bit spooked.

Let me get it out of the way now and say that I’m a little biased towards ‘based on a true story’ horror flicks, especially ones that deal with possession or haunted houses.  I’m a Roman Catholic and I have to admit that Catholicism definitely has its history of superstitions and a strong belief in this ‘other world’ filled with ghosts, some of which would like nothing but to do us (the living) harm.  So, I already have this built-in fear, or at least a nervous suspicion of, anything demonic and the like.  Basically, The Exorcist is, to me, the scariest film every made and to this day it still cares that pants off of me.  Movies like that will definitely keep me up the night I watch them.

The Haunting in Connecticut is the story of the Campbell family, who moved into a funeral-home-turned-house, then have to deal with the strange and eerie goings-on within its walls.  The family is plagued by financial and personal troubles: the eldest son, Matt (Kyle Gallner), has a form of cancer which has worsened, leaving him extremely weak.  Almost every day, mother Sarah (Virginia Madsen), makes an 8-hour roundtrip commute to bring her son to the hospital for treatment.  The medicine, plus the fact that the father Peter (Martin Donovan) is the sole breadwinner, is taking a heavy toll on their finances.  Add to that a bit of alcoholism in Peter’s history, and you’ve got one troubled family.

Sarah and Peter finally make the decision to move to a house closer to the hospital.  So they pack their things, bring along their other children Mary and Billy (Sophi Knight and Ty Wood), and their niece Wendy, and plant themselves in Connecticut.  Almost on arrival they notice something off about the house.  At first it’s the usual noises and night, then Matt begins having hallucinations involving a horribly disfigured young man and others around the house.  At first, the visions are attributed to the treatment he’s receiving, but soon everyone in the house is having them.

Enter Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas), a fellow cancer patient who happens to believe that the dying are the bridge between the perfectly healthy and the tormented dead.  After some investigation by Wendy, the discover the house wasn’t just a funeral home, it was also used to for seances and other paranormal acts, some of which weren’t entirely. . . safe.  I’ll skip over other details of the plot, only because I don’t want to give anything away, but I’ll just say that this movie has a little more meat, plot-wise, than recent fair like The Unborn.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a horror movie without some freak-out moments, right?  There are plenty hear, and yes, there are quite a few that weren’t in the trailer.  One thing I hate about jump-at-you scares is that they’re cheap and only scare me for the moment they happen.  What really gets me is the anticipation of such scares.  And what really freaks me out is when you anticipate it and nothing happens.  You get a little of both here.  There’s the usual stare-into-a-dark-corner-and-something-jumps-at-you stuff, but then there’s also moments where you think you see something, but it’s too dark to tell, and all you feel is the presence of something there, even if it isn’t doing anything to the characters.

I also appreciate how ‘conservative’ the movie is with some of the effects.  Yes, you’ll see ghosts and disfigured people, but not right away.  At first it’s just heavy footsteps and shadowy figures, then flickering lights, banging doors, and eerie faces staring at you in the dark.  Director Peter Cornwell slowly ramps up the visual scares as the movie goes along, so at the end there’s a whole lot of stuff happening, but it doesn’t feel like too much, as they’ve been building up to a fast-paced conclusion all along.

The actors do a commendable job, especially Virginia Madsen (who sounded genuinely enthused for this movie when I listened to her at WonderCon a few months ago) and Kyle Gallner.  Madsen really made me feel for the family, as she has to be the emotional rock for everyone.  She is doing everything she possibly can for her family, despite demonic attacks, financial woes, and personal demons plaguing them all.  Gallner also does a great job of playing the victim/hero; he is at the mercy of his cancer, which leaves him sick and weak, but at the same time he never gives in to it.  Elias Koteas also gives a similar performance, as his Revered Popescu is dealing with the same things as Matt, although for much longer and has learned to accept his mortality.

What I didn’t fully buy was Martin Donovan’s character.  At one point Peter’s abusive alcoholism comes into play and it just felt like too much, too soon.  Maybe there were some scenes cut, but I felt that we didnt’ spend enough time with this character and the personal crisis he faces.  He has to manage a full-time job at his own company, bring home enough money for a 2nd mortgage and a rent, plus be there for his family whenever he can.  That’s a lot on his plate, and the story just breezes past some of it.  And the little kids, although they were there in the ‘true story’, they weren’t necessary for this story and their acting is about as good as one can expect from child actors.

The Haunting in Connecticut was a genuine surprise for me.  It kept me on the edge with the scares, and emotionally involved because of the characters.  There are plenty of people who find this whole movie messy and just plain bad, but I had a good time with it.  If you enjoyed The Exorcism of Emily Rose or The Exorcist, this would probably be up your alley.  Again, I’m biased because I fully believe that stuff like this is possible (I’m not saying that this really did happen 100% like the movie tells it, I’m just saying that I keep an open mind), but this movie managed to keep me nervous for the nearly 2 hours I was in the theatre.  If a horror movie can do that, then I’d consider that a well-made horror flick.

8.5/10

(images from Yahoo!)