Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

Coffee Talk #506: Have FFIII and OnLive Changed Your Opinion on Ouya?

Kickstarted-funded console-company Ouya recently announced two major partners: OnLive and Square Enix. The former announced that its streaming games service will be available for the upcoming console, while Ouya revealed that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy III will be a system launch title.  Those are two great partners to have. My question for you today is this: Have these collaborations changed your opinion of Ouya?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Microsoft’s shockingly good Outlook.com email service, Michael Phelps’ resemblance to Gheorge Muresan, or season-changing MLB trades made this week, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Kickstarted-funded console-company Ouya recently announced two major partners: OnLive and Square Enix. The former announced that its streaming games service will be available for the upcoming console, while Ouya revealed that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy III will be a system launch title.  Those are two great partners to have. My question for you today is this: Have these collaborations changed your opinion of Ouya?

On the plus side, OnLive brings a large number of games and several top publishers to the mix. Detractors will point to this partnership looking like a desperate and weak reaction to Sony’s recent purchase of Gaikai. Cynics will say that this is a case of a sinking company (OnLive) teaming up with one that will never make it out of the gates (Ouya).

Seeing the glass half-full, Square Enix is a marvelous partner to have. It’s possible that the relationship will lead to several classic games from Square Enix’s extensive library being available on Ouya. Seeing the glass half-empty, Final Fantasy III has been out for iOS since March 2011 and available for Android since June 2012. While the Final Fantasy name is nice to have, it’s not all that impressive that FFIII will be a launch title for an Android-based console arriving in 2013.

What do you make of Ouya’s partnerships with OnLive and Square Enix? Does having an established streaming games service and Final Fantasy III as a launch title change your opinion of Ouya?

Andrew Lloyd Webber Wii Game Coming in September

Coming in September is…an Andrew Lloyd Webber videogame?!? It’s true! Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing & Dance arrives for the Nintendo Wii on September 14, packed with songs from more than a dozen of the composer’s musicals. According to the press release, the game will feature timeless hits such as:

  • “All I Ask of You”
  • “Any Dream Will Do”
  • “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”
  • “Memory”
  • “The Phantom of the Opera”
  • “Superstar”

Featured musicals include:

  • Cats
  • Evita
  • Jesus Christ Superstar
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
  • The Phantom of the Opera
  • Starlight Express
  • Sunset Boulevard

The game will feature separate song and dance modes, as well as a career mode that combines both.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing & Dance is set to be published by Tubby Games and, quite sadly, is only confirmed for a UK release. I’m so jealous of British gamers right now. I love musicals.

(Green) Arrow Trailer is Totally Bad Ass!

Has Green Arrow ever looked cooler than in the trailer for Arrow, a weekly series hitting CW in October. In past comics (prior to “The New 52”), he was an ultra-liberal womanizer with an outmoded appreciation for Errol Flynn’s style. He shoots arrows in a world where guys have rings powered by alien science and people are running around at mach one. Also, his last name is Queen. It’s hard to see him as much of a threat to any self-respecting villain.

That doesn’t appear to be the case in Arrow, where he looks like a total bad-ass. The show appears to be a dark and realistic take on Green Arrow. While comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy are inevitable, I’m getting more of a Jason Bourne vibe from the video.

Check out the trailer for Arrow and let me know what you think (please!).

Signs Point to iPhone 5 Launch on September 21

You’ve seen the leaked photos and videos of the “iPhone 5” housing. More recently, iMore has reported that Apple will be holding a press conference for the next iPhone on September 12, with a launch set for September 21. The report was met with equal parts excitement and cynicism…until The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple — the unofficial arbiter of Apple rumors — legitimized it with his trademark “yep”. After that, it seemed like loads of web sites received confirmation on the dates from various unnamed sources.

It’s also interesting that iMore claimed that Apple will be unveiling the heavily-rumored iPad Mini and Dalrymple didn’t grace that part of the report with a “yep”. To be fair, he didn’t give it a “nope” either.

To recap, the next iPhone is rumored to have a four-inch screen, a 4G LTE radio, a thinner body, and a new dock connector.

Are you guys and dolls psyched for the iPhone press conference? Do you think the iPad Mini will be part of the show? Also, black or white?!?

Source

Tokova Tiger Shark: Meet Soulja Boy’s Android Tablet

Say hello to the Tokova Tiger Shark Soulja Boy Edition, a Google Android tablet that bears the American hip-hop artists name. After thinking about it for several hours, I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that we live in a world where a Soulja Boy-branded Android tablet exists. Part of me thinks it’s cool to see more celebrity-branded consumer-electronics (Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Lovers camera was cool!). Part of me is afraid to see something like…I don’t know…a Toby Keith-branded mobile phone.

Here are the Soulja-specs for this $399.99 tablet:

  • Display: 7” Display 1024X600 IPS Resolution
  • Size: 7.5 x 5 x 0.4
  • Weight: 12 ounces
  • OS: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
  • Hardware & Processing: 1.2 GHz 1G DDR2
  • Battery: 4500mAh/3.7V Li-polymer
  • Battery Life: Up to 8HRS.
  • Storage: 64 Internal Storage Supports 32 SD
  • Camera: Front-Facing Camera Rear-Facing 2 Mega Pixel
  • Smart Phone Connectivity: GSM 850/900/1800/1900/ UMST/2100
  • WCDMA Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n
  • USB: Micro USB port HDMI Port Bluetooth® DC Port
  • Multimedia: Stereo Speakers Stereo Microphones
  • Video Output: H.264, DIVX, XVID, RM, RMVB, MKV, WMV, MOV
  • MP4, MPEG,DIVX, XVID
  • MPEG, MPG, FLV. HD 1080P
  • FM Radio Tuner (NO INTERNET REQUIRED)
  • Web Browsing: Adobe Flash® 10.3 HTML 5

Branding aside, it’s kind of pricey for a seven-inch tablet. You might as well get a Nexus 7 and have a talented artist write Soulja Boy on the back of it. You’d either be lauded for your originality or someone will make a diss track about you and your poser tablet. Either way, you’ll still have better tech at a cheaper price.

What do you tink of the Tokova Tiger Shark Soulja Boy Edition? Are there any celebrity-technology pairings that you long to see?

Source via TechCrunch

Katamari Damacy Featured in NY MoMA Exhibit

Namco Bandai has announced that Keita Takahashi’s Katamari Damacy will be featured in the NY Museum of Modern Art. The exhibit is called Century of the Child: Growing by Design and it will be on display from July 29, 2012 through November 5, 2012. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

“NAMCO BANDAI Games’ KATAMARI DAMACY has touched countless people, from children to adults, and is truly a modern video game classic,” said Carlson Choi, Vice President of Marketing, NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. “The inclusion of KATAMARI DAMACY in this ground breaking exhibit is a testament to the creative designs embodied in NAMCO BANDAI’s games and shows the importance of video games in peoples’ lives in addition to being a validation of video games as a modern form of interactive art.”

Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000, is the New York MoMA’s ambitious survey of 20th century design for children. The exhibit is the first large-scale overview of the modernist preoccupation with children and childhood as a paradigm for progressive design thinking. The exhibition brings together areas underrepresented in design history and often considered separately, including school architecture, clothing, playgrounds, children’s hospitals and safety equipment, nurseries, furniture, and books. KATAMARI DAMACY will be featured within a section of the exhibition that concentrates on toys and game design.

This is awesome news for Namco Bandai. I love that a videogame is being featured in a MoMA exhibit. However, I was a bit disappointed that Takahashi wasn’t mentioned in the press release at all. It’s fantastic that the game is being celebrated, but its designer should be as well.

This Week’s Videogame Releases

It’s a brilliant week to be an RPG fan! Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance brings Sora and the gang to the Nintendo 3DS. Fans of fantasy RPGs will want to keep an eye on Risen 2: Dark Waters. If old-school JRPGs are your thing then you’ll want to pick up Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time for PlayStation Portable. Lots of RPG excitement on a variety of platforms!

Any of you picking up new games this week?

Facebook vs. Twitter: Which Social Network is More Powerful?

Facebook and Twitter can be immensely powerful tools, but which one is the more powerful social network in your mind? As a marketing tool, Facebook has the edge. Its media-rich features allow people to market goods, services, and brands in shockingly effective ways. It’s just easier to grab attention with images and videos than it is with 140 characters.

Socially, Twitter had the edge. Thanks to its brevity and speed (and Facebook’s woefully sluggish mobile apps), Twitter reaches millions of people quickly. Celebrities tend to interact more with fans on Twitter than on Facebook. The social network revealed that the U.S. was on the verge of nabbing Osama Bin Laden way before President Obama confirmed his death. Many protesters in the 2011 Egyptian revolution used Twitter to give the world first-hand accounts of what was happening in Tahrir Square. (To be fair, they used Facebook too, but again, those sluggish mobile apps….) Twitter has become a powerful tool for citizen journalism and making people more aware of global events.

I don’t want to discount the marketing power of Facebook. It helps billions of dollars (and other currencies) around the world exchange hand. That’s just huge. That said, there’s just something purer and more romantic about reporting world events in 140 characters or less through Twitter.

How about you? Which social network is more powerful in your opinion? Please vote in today’s poll and expand on your choice in the comments section (please!).

[poll id=”158″]

Coffee Talk #505: My Problem With Christopher Nolan’s Batman

Now that Chrisopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has wrapped up with The Dark Knight Rises, let’s take a look at his movies through the old retroscope. Nolan’s Batman flicks have been critically lauded and there are lots of reasons why the praise is totally deserved. However, it seems like the director gets a lot of passes, partially because he’s Christopher Nolan and partially because he’s not Joel Schumacher.

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Kristen Stewart’s cheating heart, Michael Phelps disappointing Olympic 2012 start, or super cute Jordyn Wieber failing to qualify for the all-around gymnastics competition, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Now that Chrisopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has wrapped up with The Dark Knight Rises, let’s take a look at his movies through the old retroscope. Nolan’s Batman flicks have been critically lauded and there are lots of reasons why the praise is totally deserved. However, it seems like the director gets a lot of passes, partially because he’s Christopher Nolan and partially because he’s not Joel Schumacher.

As a comic-book nerd, my biggest issue with Nolan’s Batman is based on the director’s penchant for realism. His ultra-realistic take on the Dark Knight made for some distinct movies, but it also took away from one of Batman’s defining characteristics: his desire not to see anyone die. I had a problem with the cavalier way that Batman let Ra’s al Ghul die in Batman Begins. The Bats that I know and love in the comics would have found a way to save Two-Face and Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight. Naturally, villains died in The Dark Knight Rises too. It was real and made sense under the rules of reality, but it wasn’t like comic-book Batman.

Look at the panel on the right from Kingdom Come. For those of you without the benefit of flash photography images, it’s Superman telling Batman, “More than anyone in the world, when you scratch everything else away from Batman, you’re left with someone that doesn’t want to see anybody die.” To me (again, as a comic-book nerd) this sums up Batman perfectly. The traumatic death of his parents has left him with an irrational desire to make sure that everyone lives — even his greatest enemies like The Joker! At times it’s frustrating, because comic-book Batman’s world would be simpler and his life would be easier if he’d let the occasional baddie die (or if Gotham had the death penalty). But comic-book Batman is not about simpler or easier. He’s about life.

So yeah, that’s my big issue with this particular Batman (and I totally admit it’s a nerd nitpick). Now it’s your turn to go on a Bat-rant! What are your problems with Christopher Nolan’s version of Batman?