Razer Chimaera 5.1 Wireless Gaming Headset Review

Here’s a video review of the Razer Chimaera 5.1 wireless gaming headset. Although it can be used with any console or PC, it only allows for chat on Xbox 360. It’s a high-quality product from Razer, a company that’s known some of the best mice and keyboards for gamers…

Here’s a video review of the Razer Chimaera 5.1 wireless gaming headset. Although it can be used with any console or PC, it only allows for chat on Xbox 360. It’s another  high-quality product from Razer, a company that’s known some of the best mice and keyboards for gamers.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

Like

  • Super Comfortable — I wore the Chimaera for several gaming sessions of two hours or more and found it perfectly comfortable the whole time.
  • Great Sound — Although it’s not as impressive as headsets with multiple drivers, I really enjoyed the sound output. At the very least, it blows away TV speakers in terms of clarity and detail.

Didn’t Like

  • Microphone — The mic isn’t noise-cancelling, which could be a deal breaker for gamers that play in crowded living rooms, doorms, etc.
  • Possible Interference — I’m positive that interference won’t be an issue for most people, but if you live in a crowded apartment complex (like me) with lots of 5.8GHz devices fighting for signal then you’ll probably experience occasional dropouts. At home, I experienced a few dropouts but when I brought the Chimaera to my friend’s house in the suburbs I didn’t have any.

Kindly watch the review when you have a chance and let me know what you think! Is the Razer Chimaera 5.1 something you want this holiday season?

Jason Mewes & Blake Freeman Talk Noobz (Videogame Movie)

Actor Jason Mewes (Clerks II) and director Blake Freeman talk about their upcoming videogame movie Noobz in this excellent video. In addition to the movie, the two talk about Gears of War 3, discuss first-person vs. third-person action, send a special message to Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski, and go off-topic in a hilariously lewd way. The legendary Casper Van Dien also pops up in the video making it extra awesome. Warning: this interview contains lots of naughty language and dirty references.

Special thanks to Justin Leeper for conducting the interview while I cracked up behind the camera.

Today’s Poll: Casper Van Dien vs. Michael Dudikoff

Super important poll today: it’s Casper Van Dien vs. Michael Dudikoff in a battle of bad-asses!!! On one hand, Dudikoff is an American Ninja. He’s American. He’s a ninja. He beats the hell out of non-American ninjas. On other hand, Van Dien is Johnny Frickin’ Rico! He slaughters giant alien bugs the same way you or I would swat gnats. Plus, he’s also been Tarzan and James Dean. More pluses include the fact that he’s co-producing the videogame movie Noobz and he follow me on Twitter.

This isn’t really a fair contest. It’s clearly Van Dien all the way…but I’ll let you decide. Please vote and comment!

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Coffee Talk #419: My Casper Van Dien Story

One of the highlights of my Noobz set visit was meeting Casper Van Dien. During our interview, he was super funny and charming. My buddy Justin and I were surprised when Casper hung out with us for a bit after the camera stopped rolling…

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 awesome 3D smoke in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, the awesome power of WaffleBot, or Gmail’s redesign, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

One of the highlights of my Noobz set visit was meeting Casper Van Dien. During our interview, he was super funny and charming. My buddy Justin and I were surprised when Casper hung out with us for a bit after the camera stopped rolling. It was a fun chat that spanned a wide variety of topics: New York vs. New Jersey, getting rattlesnake boots in Thailand, air pollution in Manila, martial arts, and more. I even texted Cliff Bleszinski on his behalf. Ha!

Hanging out with him was especially cool for Justin since Starship Troopers is one of his favorite movies of all time. My mark-out moment was when Casper said, “You on Twitter? What’s your handle? I’ll follow you.” This was awesome because he actually did it himself…right in front of me…on his BlackBerry. Usually these things take place through intermediaries.

Casper introduced me to his (gorgeous) daughter, India Oxenberg. She plays a member of the girl-gamer team in the movie. It turns out that she’s pals with the excellent Chris Cross, one of my favorite peeps in the gaming business. That was a cool coincidence.

Anyway, I know that a lot of you are still big marks for Michael Dudikoff. I’m going to use today’s column to encourage you to drop him as your favorite action star and replace him with Casper Van Dien. He completely rules!

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I’d love to be playing games on my home consoles this weekend, but I’m flying off to Boston for a quick shoot. I’ll use the airplane time to play some Jetpack Joyride, Civilization Revolution, and Scribblenauts Remix on my iPad 2. I’ll catch up on some movies as well. You guys and dolls have any movie recommendations for me?

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

Heavy Rain Director’s Cut Coming November 8

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that a “director’s cut” of the outstanding Heavy Rain for PlayStation 3 will hit store shelves on November 8, 2011. It’s not a director’s cut in a movie sense. It’s more like a special edition…that’s being released a few years after the original. Here’s the features rundown of Heavy Rain: Director’s Cut:

  • Complete, original game, Heavy Rain
  • Heavy Rain Chronicles: Episode 1 — “The Taxidermist” DLC
  • Heavy Rain Original Videogame Score by award-winning film and television composer, Normand Corbeil (16 tracks)
  • New front-end menu and interface with built-in Move support
  • A series of 8 “Making of” Bonus Videos
  • Three Dynamic Themes (Heavy Rain, Heavy Rain ARI Forest, Heavy Rain ARI Mars)
  • 15 additional pieces of new concept art
  • 2 bonus Trailers (Thank You Trailer, Love Trailer)

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Quantic Dream and really enjoyed Heavy Rain. That said, I think it’s misleading to call this a director’s cut. When I first heard about this product, I was hoping for additional chapters or scenes that were omitted from the original game — you know, the type of content you’d expect from a director’s cut of a film. While this is a nice package for Quantic Dream fans and those that haven’t played the game yet, I wouldn’t classify it as a director’s cut…at all. Having said that, this will probably fall into the category of games that I buy over and over again.

Do you think this package should be labeled as a director’s cut? Any of you planning to pick up Heavy Rain: Director’s Cut next week?

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Photos From the Set of Noobz (Jason Mewes!!!)

Here are some photos from the set of the movie Noobz, including a few with actor Jason Mewes and director Blake Freeman. Today’s set was the finals of a huge tournament with the competitors shooting it out in Gears of War 3. It was cool chatting with the cast and crew, particularly the legendary Casper Van Dien and his daughter India Oxenberg. And really, it was just cool hanging out with people that are also in IMDB. I kid, I kid.

I’ll write about my experience with the Van Dien family in another post. That was too cool. For now, enjoy these photos!

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On the Set of Noobz, a Videogame Nerd Movie

I’ll be spending a large chunk of today on the set of Noobz, a videogame movie starring Jason Mewes, Zelda Williams, Jon Gries, and more. The movie is about a group of friends and their dream to conquer a videogame tournament. From what I understand, the finals use Gears of War 3.

I’m excited about this movie for several reasons. First of all, it’s cool when gaming is portrayed in a cool way. Jason Mewes was awesome in all the Kevin Smith films and I’m excited to meet him for the second time. Jon Gries has a special place in my heart for playing Lazlo Hollyfeld in Real Genius and Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. Noobz will make him an even bigger hero in the nerd community.

As always, I wish you guys and gals were with me on set. Please let me know if you have any questions about the movie. Check out its IMDB listing and let me know if you have any questions for the stars. If I have the chance, I’ll ask them.