When Sony Computer Entertainment America released the launch trailer for God of War: Ascension, a few of your were…unenthused. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game now that its surprising multiplayer mode has been revealed. If you need even more info then check out the developer diary above from game director Todd Papy and lead game designer Mark Simon.
Are you more excited about the game now? Do you think God of War: Ascension multiplayer will rock?
Here’s the latest trailer for the highly anticipated Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. Bane and Joseph Gordon-Levitt stood out to me, but after seeing The Avengers last night, I’m not looking forward to this movie as much (more on the later). Naturally, I want to hear your thoughts on the new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Fire away (please)!!!
Instead of my usual evening of WWE Monday Night Raw, I spent last Monday at the USC School of Cinematic Arts judging student projects. My excellent friend Joseph Olin teaches a graduate school class there called The Business of Interactive Media. The projects covered a wide range of topics. I got to see traditional…
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, devouring New York pizza, devouring New York chicken parm sammiches, or Ashton Kutcher going on vacation with Mila Kunis (nooooooo!!!), Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Instead of my usual evening of WWE Monday Night Raw, I spent last Monday at the USC School of Cinematic Arts judging student projects. My excellent friend Joseph Olin teaches a graduate school class there called The Business of Interactive Media. The projects covered a wide range of topics. I got to see traditional games, social networking apps, educational projects, and even a modern interpretation of Hindu scriptures. The projects were very cool…
…but not as cool as the students! It was inspiring and refreshing to hear pitches from MFA students instead of people already in the gaming business. You could feel the passion and energy as the students spoke about their projects. There was a certain purity in their visions — a charming mixture of smarts, bravery, and naïveté combined with a lack of experience that didn’t let them know, “Hey! You can’t do that!” It was beautiful to watch, listen to, and learn from these cats.
The shocking part was that I offered a bunch of suggestions on how to monetize their projects. As most of you know, I’m not the most business-minded person in the world. So I was surprised that I became that guy for one class. “This would be a cool project for Microsoft Surface. Have you thought about partnering with MS?” “This seems like a project XXXX would grossly overpay for!” “How about partnering with AT&T to sponsor an event like Coachella and using your app to sponsor signal trucks?” I felt a little dirty trying to taint these pure visions. Ha!
Anyway, that was a brief rundown of my Monday spent judging interactive media projects at USC. It was a lot of fun and very inspiring. Thanks to Joseph and all the MFA students for the experience!
I’m still in New York, so my only gaming device is my iPad 2012. Thankfully, it’s awesome and it has awesome games! Jetpack Joyride and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP received big updates this week. That’s a good excuse to revisit those fine games. Skylanders: Cloud Patrol is always great for several rounds of cartoonish shooting. Of course I still play Civilization: Revolution every day. Yeah, for work and play, the new iPad completely rules.
How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?
Last week I was talking to my pal Gordon Bellamy, executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). He mentioned that the IGDA has this nifty curated page on Kickstarter that helps prospective backers find cool videogame projects on the site. In addition to new pitches, a backlog of old ones is kept so that people can see and learn from past projects. The descriptions are written by IGDA staffers. For example, I would bet $1,000 that Gordon himself wrote the description to Sira the Game, which begins with, “This game is hot, like the sun.”
If you’re interested in keeping up with Kickstarter videogame pitches but don’t have the time to scour the site every day then I recommend bookmarking the page.
Longtime broadcast journalist Adam Sessler and G4TV have parted ways. Many of you know Adam as the host of X-Play. The man is old school. He started on the show in the late ’90s when it was GameSpot TV on Ziff-Davis’ ZDTV network. He stayed with the show when it became Extended Play and the network was renamed Tech TV. Eventually the show was renamed X-Play and became part of the Comcastic G4TV giant.
In addition to being the biggest television personality in videogames, a wonderful editorialist, and a diligent critic, Adam is universally liked and respected throughout the business. If you have a problem with Adam Sessler from a work standpoint then the problem is almost definitely staring back at you in the mirror. Of course there are times when people disagree with him, but the vast majority of the people I know adore and respect Adam.
On a personal level, I just love the man. Obviously we can talk about games all day, but Adam is really passionate about boxing too. Both of us love watching boxing and spend time training in boxing gyms (neither of us are what you’d call dangerous). One of my favorite moments in our relationship was when I was tipsy (understatement) at a Sega event and ordered a Johnny Walker Blue with soda; Adam chided me for three minutes before making the bartender pour me a Blue on the rocks. He’s smart, he always adds something interesting to conversations, and he’s one of the most outstanding people in the world to drink with. That said, he was also responsible for me working at G4 and I’m going to hold that over his head for at least another decade (“First round is on you, right Adam? I mean, you got me the G4 gig and look how that turned out!”)
X-Play without Adam Sessler is going to be strange. How do you feel about the future endeavoring (WWE trademark) of Adam Sessler?
Competing with Dropbox, Skydrive, Box, and more, Google has launched the Google Drive cloud storage service. Users get 5GB of storage for free, with up to 16TB — yes, terabytes — for an additional fee. Google Drive currently works with Mac OS, Windows, and Android. iOS devices will be supported soon.
Like many of you RPadholics, I’m an avid Dropbox user. However, I’m totally willing to give Google Drive a shot. I’m tied to so many other Google services (Gmail, Google Docs, Google+, Google Voice, etc.) that tight cloud integration with Google Drive would be best. Sadly, Google Drive isn’t available on any of my four Google accounts (two Gmail, two Google Apps). I’ll have to wait to see if Google Drive will serve me as well as Dropbox.
Any of you excited about Google Drive? Do you have access yet?
Just when I thought I was completely over physical books, Darth Vader and Son came along and completely charmed me. This hyper-adorable picture-book features Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker as if they were a normal father-and-son pair doing normal father-and-son things. For example, Vader takes Luke to the Mos Eisley cantina and chides him for making bubbles in his drink. Ha! When Luke has his eye on a Jar Jar Binks toy, daddy Vader says, “These are not the toys you’re looking for.” Double ha!
Check out the video above and the images below for more info on Darth Vader and Son. Any of you going to buy it?!?
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Catchphrases are an important part of professional wrestling. “If you smell what The Rock is cooking,” “That’s the bottom line,” and “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,” are phrases we all know and love from pro-wrestlers. Then there are secondary phrases. I’m talking about…
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, United Airlines being ruined by Jeff Smisek, Metta World Peace’s disgusting elbow shot to James Harden, or loving Bobby Valentine’s Red Sox woes, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Catchphrases are an important part of professional wrestling. “If you smell what The Rock is cooking,” “That’s the bottom line,” and “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,” are phrases we all know and love because of pro-wrestlers. Then there are secondary phrases. I’m talking about short lines that wrestlers say and fans chant. The recent Daniel Bryan “Yes!” phenomenon got me thinking about these types of sayings.
Of course the greatest secondary catchphrase of all time is Ric Flair’s “Whooooooo!!!” It’s simply awesome. No matter what wrestling company and no matter the size of the crowd, you can always count on hearing “Whooooo!!!” after a knife-edge chop is delivered. That’s amazing and powerful. As for the others, I’m a huge fan of Chris Jericho’s “Ask him!!!”. Steve Austin’s “What?!?” is used (and abused) by millions of fans, even when it’s not appropriate.
Please participate in the battle for the #2 secondary pro-wrestling catchphrase of all time by voting in today’s poll and leaving a comment! If you need a refresher on these catchphrases then check out the videos below before casting your vote.
[poll id=”147″]
Let’s see…this week you can pick up Prototype 2 and…well, that’s about it. Wow. This week is bone dry. Thankfully Prototype 2 looks kind of cool. Any of you going to pick it up? Or maybe knock some games off you wish list?
