Raymond Padilla

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I suddenly find myself with a bunch of games that I really want to play. Sadly, Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns and Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster will have to wait. I’m always juggling around 10 games of Wordfeud and Heroes of Dragon Age gets played every few hours. The big priority this weekend is sinking some time into South Park: The Stick of Truth. I’ve been high on this game for a long, long time. It has classic turn-based gameplay that I love, old-school RPG elements that I adore, and a heavy layer of South Park humor. Aside from the obvious (plot, voice acting, etc.), the South Park flavor permeates so many aspects of the game. Character classes, weapon descriptions, and more are made hilarious through the inimitable style of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

So how about you? What’s on your weekend playlist? I know that a few of you have picked up South Park: The Stick of Truth. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Fire away in the comments section (please!).

Dragon Age: Inquisition Trailer

Here’s the latest trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition. As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, it’s game I’m looking forward to the most in 2014. Even though I’m not terribly big on graphics (I’m more of a story and characters guy, especially with RPGs), I was really impressed with the visuals in the trailer. The footage is all in-engine and it’s a safe bet that Dragon Age: Inquisition will be the most visually impressive BioWare game to date.

Visual splendor aside, I’m dying for more plot details. I’m sure lots more will by revealed by E3 2014, but I want details now! I want to know more about the main plot. I want to know more about characters from the first two Dragon Age games, the books, and the comics having a role in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I want to know whether or not BioWare used my suggestion to have the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall joined by That Really Interesting Guy From Antiva. Yeah, those answers are still a few months away, so for now I’ll just watch this trailer a few dozen times and make up my own stories.

What do you think of the Dragon Age: Inquisition trailer? Are you excited for another romp in Thedas?

WWE Network Update: Much Better, But Still Flawed

Here’s a followup to my first impressions article on WWE Network. After 10 days of uptime, performance is considerably better. However, there are still some issues that are puzzling. If you’re using WWE Network, I’d love to hear more about your experiences. Now in the immortal words of Degeneration-X, join me as I “Break it Down!” with more random thoughts on WWE’s new streaming Internet video service.

– As I mentioned, network performance has gotten much better. The buffering issues that plagued my first few days of WWE Network no longer occur. The streams have been smooth on both my MacBook (Google Chrome) and iPad (Safari). This was my biggest issue with the service and I’m happy that it’s no longer a problem.

– For some reason, I’ve been watching goofy moments in wrestling. One of my favorites is Robocop’s WCW appearance during WCW Capital Combat 1990. The card is worth watching just for Robocop’s angle. Sting selling Robocop as a menacing ally is impressive. The Four Horsemen cowering in fear of a foe that moves roughly five feet per minute is legendary.

– Although WWE Network’s streaming has improved greatly, the search function is still annoyingly primitive. Searching on a PC is okay at best. As long as you’re sticking to wrestler and show names, you’ll get good results. If you input something more complex or specific, it can confuse the search engine. Searching on the iPad is just awful. The WWE App limits your search to wrestlers’ names and the results don’t always work. For example, I know that WWE Network has a classic WCCW match featuring Kevin Von Erich. If I search for Kevin Von Erich on the WWE App, nothing comes up. Search is a basic function that’s hugely important. WWE Network needs a more robust search engine.

– Keeping on the goofy tip, check out the SummerSlam 2005 match between Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan. It’s HBK like you’ve never seen him before. Going into the match, Hogan exercised creative control and went back on the agreed upon plans to put himself — and only himself — over. There wasn’t much HBK could do…except make Hogan look like a fool for most of the match. It’s frickin’ hilarious watching HBK oversell all of Hogan’s moves. From punches to clotheslines to the legendary Hulk Hogan leg drop, Michaels sells each move as if he were taking a gunshot. It’s pretty awesome.

– I’m really enjoying the NXT archives. Part of the fun is watching up-and-coming talent, but for me, it’s all about the atmosphere. I dig the relatively small size and high smark concentration of the NXT audience. It’s like watching a Ring of Honor show…but with much more production money and cameramen that actually know what they’re doing. As an RoH fan, I especially enjoyed the last match between Cesaro and Sami Zayn. I enjoyed Zayn when he performed as El Generico in RoH, while Cesaro has several of my favorite matches from the last decade from his days as Ring of Honor’s Claudio Castagnoli. Between talent I use to watch in high-school gyms and an intimate atmosphere that’s quite different from Raw/Smackdown, I’ve been loving these NXT shows.

Conclusion (Updated): Despite the primitive search functionality, I recommend subscribing to WWE Network at this time. The streaming is smooth (for now) and new programs are added every week. Hopefully network performance doesn’t take a dive during WrestleMania, but I’m cautiously confident that the company will plan ahead and make sure that it has the bandwidth it needs. Between the classic content, original programming, and pay-per-view events, $9.99 a month for WWE Network is a steal.

Please let me know how your WWE Network experience has been so far. Are you getting your money’s worth? Are you happy with the service and content quality? Leave a comment and let me know (please!).

Star Wars: The Clone Wars — The Lost Missions Trailer

Here’s the trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars — The Lost Missions. New episodes start on March 7, 2014 on Netflix. I’m super-psyched for this Netflix exclusive. The animated series told some really excellent Star Wars stories, but was cancelled by Disney for reasons that still don’t make sense to me. None of that matters now, since The Lost Missions should tie up several unresolved issues and will hopefully give the series the excellent ending it deserves.

The trailer kicks off with a haunting message to Yoda from Qui -Gon Jinn. The dead Jedi tells Yoda to head to Dagobah. I’m pretty sure Jinn was using the Force to troll his old master. The infamous “Order 66” is touched on too. Sadly, there’s no sign of Ahsoka Tano. I was really hoping to see Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan. Hopefully The Lost Missions reveals her fate.

Anyway, check out the trailer when you have a chance and let me know what you think (please!). Are you excited for Star Wars: The Clone Wars — The Lost Missions?

Coffee Talk #616: Heroes With Limited Vocabularies

The Guardians of the Galaxy trailer has me totally geeked out. One of the reasons I’m excited for the movie is Groot. He is the coolest talking tree in sci-fi and fantasy. Groot is way cooler than those lamers in The Lord of the Rings. As I mentioned in my story on the trailer, I was anxiously awaiting Groot to say his trademark phase, “I am Groot.” Since he didn’t, my anticipation for the next trailer has increased exponentially. The trailer also got me thinking about other heroes with limited vocabularies. There are so many great ones to choose from. I’m going to use today’s column to talk about some of my favorites and I’d love to hear about yours. Let’s start with…continued

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, the 2014 Oscar winners (and losers), hosting vape shop openings with charming models, or the Oklahoma City Thunder getting bitten by the injury bug, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Timmy From South Park: Timmy Burch made his debut in South Park season 4 and the world has been a better place ever since. Wheelchair-bound and mentally disabled, Timmy’s vocabulary is limited to his name. He has shown, time and time again, a broad range of emotions simply by saying, “Timmy!” Hell, he even fronted a kick-ass band called Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld. One of my favorite Timmy clips was when he was being chased by a dinosaur in prehistoric times. The palpable sense of fear he conveyed while limited to saying, “Timmy!” stopped me in my tracks and made me think, “Acting.”

Pikachu: The most popular Pokemon in the world has spent years entertaining millions of television watchers, moviegoers, and gamers while limited to saying three syllables. Purists of heroes with limited vocabulary argue that Pikachu has an unfair advantage over his contemporaries since he uses numerous permutations of pi, ka, and chu. Personally, I give him a pass on that technicality since he has saved the world on multiple occasions.

Groot: Of course I need to spend some time talking about Groot. At a glance, it’s easy to dismiss him as a large talking tree that’s merely a heavy hitter on the Guardians of the Galaxy’s roster. Yes, he can deal some heavy damage, but he’s more than just a bruiser. He’s Rocket Raccoon’s confidant and anchor. When Gamora wants to lower her guard and shed the burden of being the most dangerous woman in the universe, Groot is there for when she wants to be a girly girl. (That has never been shown in the comics, but I know it in my heart to be true.) In Guardians of the Galaxy #17, he hatched a plan with Maximus of the Inhumans, showing a deep knowledge of “quasi-dimensional superpositional engineering.” While there are numerous heroes with limited vocabularies, Groot is arguably the smartest and most educated.

Your Picks: Now it’s your turn to talk about heroes with limited vocabularies. Kindly use the comments section to talk about heroes from comic books, television, and movies that are limited to a handful of words. Can you think of one more heroic and legendary than Groot?!?

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Team Up For Console Wars Movie

In addition to working on the nerdily anticipated Preacher TV show for AMC, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are teaming up for a movie based on Blake Harris’ Console Wars book. Rogen and Goldberg will be directing and writing the movie. The book’s subtitle is “Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation,” so as you can imagine, the Console Wars movie will cover that chapter in the never-ending saga known as ~~Robotech~~ The Console Wars.

Console Wars focuses on former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske. Known for his brash and aggressive moves, Kalinske helped Sega thrive from 1990 to 1994. At the time, it was unusual for a Westerner to have such a prominent role in a business that revolved around Japan. Of course he also contributed to Sega’s demise with the mishandling of the Saturn console (1995-1996). It will be interesting to see how the book is adapted and what portions of videogame history will be covered.

Here’s a clip from the press release:

Sony Pictures and Scott Rudin (Moneyball, The Social Network) are developing Console Wars as a feature film to be directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Knocked Up, Superbad). Rogen and Goldberg are also writing the screenplay. Harris is serving as Executive Producer, and is also co-directing a documentary on the same subject, with Rudin, Rogen and Goldberg producing as well.

Of course I’m excited for the Console Wars movie. The subject matter is near and dear to my heart. I’m also a big fan of the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg duo. I’m sure they’ll treat the topic and the people involved with reverence. Those guys seem like nerds at heart.

How about you? Are you interested and excited for the Console Wars movie? Have any of you read the book? Kindly use the comments section for casting ideas.

Source

WWE Network First Impressions: Not Ready For Prime Time

WWE Network launched earlier this week. The new online video service offers new WWE content and lots of archival content. The initial price for the service is $9.99 with a month with a six-month commitment. The company is offering a free one-week trial of the service. On paper, this is an outstanding value for wrestling fans. You get live WWE pay-per-view (PPV) events and tons of classic content for less than the cost of a single PPV. That said, there are some major issues that the company needs to work on. Here are my initial impressions on WWE Network.

– Do yourself a favor and watch all the Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat matches from 1989. If you like classic wrestling, these are some of the best matches you’ll ever see. The Ric Flair content alone makes WWE Network worth $10 a month.

– It was great fun watching wrestlers before they became huge stars. I enjoyed watching “Stunning” Steve Austin. There are a lot of wrestling fans out there that are totally unaware of his WCW/ECW work. The same goes for Mick Foley. I was always a fan of Cactus Jack in WCW/ECW.

– Naturally (and it’s a sad fact that it’s natural), WWE Network has lots of matches with wrestlers that died too young. It was great taking a stroll down memory lane with Rick Rude, Brian Pillman, Owen Hart, and others.

– It was fantastic watching classic Sting matches. I was a Little Stinger back in the day. He was one of my favorite wrestlers ever. Then he watched The Crow. That gimmick sucked. Give me neon-tights wearing, rat-tail sporting Sting over Crow String any day of the week.

– I’m hoping that newer wrestling fans will watch some classic Bruiser Brody matches on WWE Network. Every “monster heel” character has been influenced by Brody.

– It was weird watching standard definition video in a 4:3 aspect ratio. It feels…unnatural.

– It was disturbing to hear the word “oriental” used so much in 1989 broadcasts.

– It’s annoying that WWE Network censors profanity. Wtf.

– While I expected the service to be loaded up with WWE, WCW, and ECW content, I was hoping for more WCCW content. I was big fan of the Von Erichs, Fabulous Freebirds, Chris Adams, and other wrestlers that worked for the Texas promotion. You can even see the Ultimate Warrior when he was known as the Dingo Warrior. Hopefully more WCCW content will be added on a rolling basis. I’m also hoping for more content from the “territory” days, like Mid-South Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling shows.

– Watching the Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart feature made me sad. Michaels seems at peace with where he is and what he’s done. Hart has let go of a lot of his anger, but it still seems to be lingering in the back of his psyche. He, rather sadly, wasted too many years of his life being a bitter and angry man.

– The live stream works just fine. I haven’t had any issues with whatever is being pushed as “current” programming on WWE Network.

– On-demand content is another story. I’ve had numerous issues with buffering, as well as quite a few crashes. Performance on my MacBook (Chrome) and iPad (WWE App) has been disappointing. This is a big-time concern. While I’m jazzed about WWE Network’s potential and I’ve really enjoyed watching old matches, the performance has been abysmal.

– Watching WWE Network on my MacBook reminds me of why I hate Flash. The performance is shoddy and the CPU utilization is ridiculously high. I really wish the company went with HTML5 video. Hell, Microsoft Silverlight (think Netflix) would have been much better. This is what happens when a huge Internet video project is headed up in Stamford, Connecticut. If WWE had a satellite office in Silicon Valley, it could have hired a number of engineers to make a superior product.

– WWE has already added new features to WWE Network. Shows now have bookmarks, so you can skip to the matches you want to see. Of course the buffering issues make this more difficult than it ought to be. Personally, I wish individual matches were available instead of entire shows. Slicing up PPV events into individual matches would potentially help performance and make the mediocre search function more meaningful.

– I’ve been using WWE Network primarily at home through an AT&T U-Verse Max Turbo connection (24 Mbps downstream). The service was usable 30 percent of the time, which would be a fantastic average in Major League Baseball, but is rather pathetic for a streaming Internet video service. When I took my iPad to a nearby coffeehouse to test out the service through a decent AT&T DSL connection, it was completely unusable.

Conclusion (For Now): WWE Network has so much potential, but it’s not ready…at all. It feels like a product that needs several months of beta testing, yet the company is comfortable charging for it now. While the current content lineup is great and has the potential to become brilliant, the performance is just dreadful. Hopefully WWE gets past the numerous technical issues that plague WWE Network and make it the streaming video service smarts and marks have dreamed of.

Stay tuned for more updates on WWE Network soon. For now, please use the comments section and let me know about your WWE Network experience. If you can, please list the type, speed, and provider of your Internet service.

Coffee Talk #615: What’s Your Dungeons and Dragons Alignment?

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, getting ready for the glorious 2014 Derek Jeter retirement tour, Kate Upton showing how zero gravity can be, or Posh Spice getting her fake boobs removed, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Severely important questions today: Which Dungeons and Dragons alignment do you consider yourself to be and which one would you like to be? In case you need a refresher, check out the alignment chart above, the nerdy alignment charts below, and the Wikipedia page of Dungeons and Dragons alignments. Hopefully none of you RPadholics are evil (but if you are, this would be useful information for all of us to know). I’m curious to learn if you’re more neutral or good, as well as more chaotic or lawful. So give it some thought (please) and let’s have a go! As for me….

I’m probably more chaotic good than anything else. I try to be a good person in general. Occasionally I do something mildly evil, like throwing away soda cans instead of remembering to put them in the recycling bin. However, I do have a problem with authority — government, bosses, teachers, parents, etc. I’ve always had this issue. Sometimes it has served me well and other times…it wasn’t the smartest attitude to have.

What I’d like to be is neutral good. My authority issues can be immature. It would behoove me (professionally, not personally) to question authority less. I blame my constant questioning on being a philosophy major; I was trained to respond to everything with, “Why?” While this has often lead to superior and well-examined results at work, it has almost always driven my bosses crazy. “Because I said so,” isn’t a good enough reason for me, but I would to better in the workplace if I would just shut up and do my job. Ha!

In a perfect world, I’d be chaotic neutral, but I’m not cool enough or rich enough to pull that off. Damn that George Clooney and that Leonardo DiCaprio for being able to live the dream.

Now it’s your turn! Kindly use all the information in this post and let me know which Dungeons and Dragons alignment you are and which one you’d like to be.

Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer (I Am Groot!)

Even though it stars the talentless hack known as Batista (Drax the Destroyer), I’m rooting for Guardians of the Galaxy to succeed. I’m a fan of the Brian Michael Bendis comics and the movie has several enjoyable performers that compensate for Batista’s formidable sucktitude. The new trailer (embedded below), has me cautiously hopeful for the movie. Check out the clip and let me know what you think (please!). For now, I shall break down why I’m cautiously excited for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Gamora: Zoe Saldana is a sexy woman. Zoe Saldana in green body paint playing a universally feared assassin takes her sexiness to a new level. I want to see her slice, dice, and kick ass…while being an alluring shade of green.

Star Lord: I like Chris Pratt. I enjoyed his supporting roles in Moneyball and The Five-Year Engagement. Even though he’s the leading man in Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s surrounded by actors and actresses that are way more famous and accomplished. Since he’s liberated by being under the radar, I’m hoping that he’ll give a surprisingly strong performance as head honcho Peter Quill.

Groot: I kept waiting and waiting for an, “I am Groot!” utterance in the trailer. It never came. That just makes me want the second trailer more. Ha! A friend of mine was saying that Vin Diesel’s best roles are ones with a limited vocabulary. I’m hoping he can get as much mileage from “I am Groot!” as he did saying “Hogarth” in The Iron Giant.

Rocket: In a stroke of genius, Guardians of the Galaxy has one of the hottest leading men in Hollywood (Bradley Cooper) doing voiceover work…as a talking raccoon with a ton of attitude. That’s just funny. On a more serious note, this is the character that will probably make or break the movie for me. Rocket is a tough one to pull off. It would be really, really easy to get too comical with him. I’m anxious to see if the movie delivers the blend of attitude and heart that Bendis deftly portrayed in the comics.

Rhomann Dey: If you’re a comic-book purist then John C. Reilly doesn’t make any sense for this character. At all. That said, he’s frickin’ John C. Reilly! I am of the opinion that he should be in every movie.

While I’m excited for Guardians of the Galaxy, I don’t expect it to do as well as Marvel’s previous comic-book adaptations. These characters aren’t as well know as The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, or Thor. People that are unfamiliar with the comics will see a talking tree and a talking raccoon, which will lead to many WTF moments. It also has Batista, a person that’s terrible enough to keep away millions of moviegoers. Still, the trailer was fun and the source material is excellent. I’m hoping that Guardians of the Galaxy will rock.

How about you? What do you thing of the trailer? Any moments stand out for you? Any predictions on how Guardians of the Galaxy will do at the box office? Shout it out in the comments section (please!).

15-Minute Game of Thrones Season 4 Preview Video

In the immortal words of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, “This is f*cking awesome.” Don’t you agree?