Raymond Padilla

Coffee Talk #356: Make Your Own Videogame TV Show!

While I respect and admire the videogame television programming produced by G4tv, Greedy Productions (Electric Playground), and Spike TV (GTTV), I’m still waiting for my videogame dream show…

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, T-Mobile HSPA+ 42 launching today, Oscar De La Hoya in rehab, or changing your name to Lord RaRa, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

While I respect and admire the videogame television programming produced by G4tv, Greedy Productions (Electric Playground), and Spike TV (GTTV), I’m still waiting for my videogame dream show. It’s a total rip-off of ESPN’s Around the Horn, but hosted by Adam Sessler and featuring a rotating panel of gaming journalists and one verbal entertainer. Adam would be the perfect host for the show and it’s not hard to find game writers that are full of opinions. It would be weekly since it doesn’t have as many stories to cover as a general sports show. The show would be relatively cheap to make too. I think it would be a blast for the price!

How about you? What’s your dream videogame television show like?

Scared of Gotham City Impostors

When I first heard about Gotham City Impostors, I was psyched. In my head it combined the multiplayer gameplay of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood with the awesome characters of the Batman universe. I had visions of diving through the Gotham skyline as Nightwing, hot on the trail of Killer Croc.

Then a few of my journalists friends told me more details about the game and I read the press release. On paper, the game sounds like a standard shooter featuring characters “inspired by” Batman and The Joker. Here’s a clip from the press release:

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment today announced Gotham City Impostors, an original download-only first-person shooter where players battle for control of an unhinged Gotham City overrun by impostors inspired by the DC Comics characters Batman and The Joker.

Yeah, that sounds pretty lame. It could very well turn out to be a nice little downloadable game, but a shooter is not what Batman fans want. The “glorified tag” gameplay of ACB sounds perfect for a multiplayer Batman game. The Bat Family’s no-gun policy fits in with that style. Instead it sounds like Gotham City Impostors will be a fairly generic shooter.

What do you think of this game? Will it be a vanilla shooter with the Batman license slapped on? Or will the talented people at Monolith be able to make something cool?

The Muppets (2011) Trailer: Yay or Nay???

I was on the fence about The Muppets movie. The poster scared me and I’m not sure that kids care about The Muppets these days (heartless bastards). On the plus side, I’m a big fan of Jason Segel and Amy Adams. This new trailer pushed me over the fence and I’m now in the “very interested” zone.

How about you? What did you think of The Muppets trailer?

More Than 25% of WrestleMania VII Performers Are Dead

Here’s a sad statistic for you — according to The Wrestling Observer, over 25 percent of the wrestlers that performed at WrestleMania VII (1991) are dead. The list of deceased WrestleMania VII performers includes legends like Randy Savage, Mr. Perfect, Kerry Von Erich, and Andre the Giant. Take a look at this chart:

That’s completely nuts. Compare that list to the 1991 MLB, NBA, and NFL champions — the vast majority of those guys are still alive. Most of these deaths are drug related — either overdoses of recreational drugs or heart failure accelerated by performance-enhancing drugs.

Thankfully the business is slowly cleaning itself up. Sure, a lot of wrestlers today aren’t as big as the ones in the ’80s or ’90s, but most of them aren’t killing themselves for our entertainment.

Are any of your favorites on this tragic list?

Source via Yahoo!

Justin Leeper Talks Still Man Fights

Some of you know Justin Leeper as an old Game Informer editor. Some of you know him from his writing in the SmackDown vs. Raw videogame series. A few of you know him from his comments on this very site. Now you can meet Justin Leeper, author of Still Man Fights!

In this interview, Justin Leeper talks about Still Man Fights and how his experiences in gaming, pro-wrestling, stunt choreography, and writing came together in the book. Find out why people are saying that it’s great for A Game of Thrones Fans and how the book’s fight scenes are similar to combat in Infinity Blade.

Kindly check out the interview and if you dig what Justin has to say then please check out his book.

Amazon Uses Lady Gaga to Extend Cloud Player Reach

In its war against Google Music Beta and Apple iCloud, Amazon has pulled out a secret weapon to give its Cloud Player an edge: Lady Gaga. It’s a move that’s even more aggressive than Amazon’s 69-cent MP3s; take one of the hottest artists in music and price her new album, Born This Way, at 99 cents. Millions of people will buy it and as an added bonus get their Amazon Cloud storage bumped to 20GB.

Certainly only a fraction of people that buy Born This Way for 99 cents will take advantage of Amazon Cloud Player. Still, the company will surely get some new customers out of the deal. Through this promotion, it will get more customers that regularly buy its MP3s, use Cloud Player, and buy other Amazon goods. Most importantly, it strikes a blow to Google’s recently launched Music Beta service and Apple’s upcoming iCloud service.

Did any of you buy Born This Way today? If you’re new to Amazon MP3s, what did you think of the buying experience? What do you think of the promotion in general? Brilliant or risky?

Ashton Kutcher and UberMedia Launch A.plus Twitter App

Celebrity nerd Ashton Kutcher has teamed up with UberMedia to launch a Twitter app call A.plus. The app runs on Adobe Air (Mac OS and Windows) and is available now. Even though geeks should hate him on paper, Kutcher is actually a pretty savvy tech enthusiast and investor. He’s also one of the most popular Twitter users in the world. I’m curious to see if his popularity will help this app take off.

I’m going to give A.plus a spin this week. It’ll be tough letting go of TweetDeck, but I’m always down to try something new and exciting. How about you? Any interest in A.plus?

Source

PlayStation Network Breach Will Cost Sony $171.2-Million

According to a recent financial statement, the PlayStation Network security breach will cost Sony a little more than $170-million. While that’s certainly a large sum of money, I’m actually surprised it isn’t higher. Increasing security, investigating the cause of the “external intrusion”, compensating customers, and hiring new staff adds up. I would have guessed more. Hell, some analysts predicted that this whole affair would cost Sony more than $1-billion.

What do you think of the figure? Is it inline with what you were expecting? Or is it significantly higher or lower than your guess?

Source via GamesIndustry.biz

This Week’s Videogame Releases

After a huge release last week, there are a handful of interesting games coming out this week. The Nintendo 3DS gets a big franchise and big-boob jiggling in Dead or Alive Dimensions. Dirt 3 should keep racing-game fans happy, though fans of actual dirt might be disappointed. Last, but not least, is a move tie-in — Kung-Fu Panda 2 brings the adorable martial artisan back to consoles, but with some motion-control goodness this time around.

Any of you picking up new games this week?

Coffee Talk #355: Where’s the Hot Battery Tech?!?

Phones have dual-core processors these days. Handheld consoles and tablets are capable of displaying high-resolution images in 3D. Yet most devices are still using some form of relatively old lithium battery tech.

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, Verve’s El Salvador La Montañita, the countdown to Lady Gaga’s new album, or Lady Gaga’s new album cover making her look like a Terminator reject, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Why hasn’t battery technology improved as rapidly as other technologies? Phones have powerful dual-core processors these days. Handheld consoles and tablets are capable of displaying dazzling high-resolution images in 3D. Yet most consumer electronics are still using some form of relatively old lithium battery tech. This results in amazingly powerful devices…with single-digit battery life hours. Just look at the HTC Thunderbolt and Nintendo 3DS for example.

I’ve been reading about incredible advancements with hydrogen, polymer, and zinc batteries for years, but none of these technologies have found their way into consumer electronics. Let’s get on it battery people! Electronics are becoming more powerful and portable every day, but they’re being handcuffed by old battery technology.

I want my phone, laptop, tablet, and portable consoles to have battery life that’s measured in days, not hours. At the very least, their battery life shouldn’t be measured in single digits, don’t you agree?