Coffee Talk #310: Do You Care to Understand Game Development?

I’m off to San Francisco in a few hours for Game Developers Conference 2011. In addition to mingling with some amazing talent and old friends, I’ll be hitting up some preview events. Before I left for GDC 2010…

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, Intelligentsia’s Kenya Gichathaini, a special visit from BB, or the NY Knicks’ overrated win over the Miami Heat, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

I’m off to San Francisco in a few hours for Game Developers Conference 2011. In addition to mingling with some amazing talent and old friends, I’ll be hitting up some preview events and meeting with a really cool company I can’t wait to tell you more about. Before I left for GDC 2010, I asked if you understood game development. This year I’d like to hear if you care about understanding game development.

A lot of game journalists (and verbal entertainers) would love for gamers to have a rudimentary understanding of what goes into creating a game. For my part, I want to highlight the incredible people that work so hard at making incredible games. I also think that understanding a bit about the development process helps you appreciate this excellent form of entertainment on a different level. It also helps you understand why some games don’t live up to their potential.

Having said that, I totally understand if you don’t care to learn more about the process. Most people that enjoy music have no idea how many people it takes to record an album. Most moviegoers have no idea what the director of photography does or why the technical lighting director is so important. You don’t need a behind-the-scenes understanding of something to have fun with it. These are, after all, forms of entertainment. Sometimes you just want to sit back and enjoy the ride.

So fire away (please)! Let me know if you’re interested in learning more about how games are made or not.

Today’s Poll: Do You Care About the PSP Price Cut?

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that starting February 27, 2011 the PlayStation Portable will cost $129.99. Do you guys and dolls care? While there are a lot of casual gamers that will be happy to pick up a PSP on the cheap, enthusiast gamers have the Nintendo 3DS and Sony NGP to look forward to in 2011. Is the price cut too late for you to care about? Or is it a great deal on an underrated system with lots of fantastic games? Kindly vote in today’s poll and sound off!

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Mistico Will Wrestle as “Sin Cara” in WWE

At a press conference in Mexico City, WWE announced that former CMLL star Mistico will perform for the company as Sin Cara. For those of you not familiar with Mistico, he’s been the lead face in CMLL for the last six years and one of the biggest draws (of any kind) in all of Mexico.

Time will tell if Sin Cara can make the transition from luch libre to the WWE television style, but the signing will surely nab viewers in Mexico and other countries where CMLL is popular. The WWE has been aggressively pursuing viewers in Central America and Latin America for the last few years. Signing the biggest face in CMLL will go a long way in those markets.

Check out the clip of Mistico embedded above and let me know what you think (please). I absolutely love his tilt-a-whirl head-scissors take-down that transitions into an arm-bar submission. It’s a nice, modern twist on a classic move.

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Two Trailers That Scare Me: Arthur and X-Men First Class

Here are two trailers of movies that I desperately want to be good. The clips also scare me, because there’s a chance that the movies will fail…hard. Above is Arthur, starring Russell Brand and Helen Mirren. On the plus side, Brand is awesome (yes, I have a man crush on him) and Mirren is legendary. Luis Guzman appears to have a hilariously understated role too. All that said, it’s going to be so tough to compete with Dudley Moore’s original, Brand’s Arthur appears sober, and the trailer reeks of a heavy handed “money can’t buy happiness” message.

Next is X-Men: First Class. On the plus side, Bryan Singer helped craft the story, there are a ton of babes in the movie, and several of the mutants look incredible (Beast, Emma Frost, etc.). Unfortunately, Singer isn’t directing the film, which is a shame because he did a nice job with the first two X-Men movies. There are also some portions of the trailer that are just wince inducing.

Still, I’m going to (naively?) hope that both of these movies will be fun. As a Russell Brand mark and a comic-book nerd, I want both to do well. When you have a moment, check out the trailers. I’d love to hear what you think of them.

Save Up to $35 on RPad.tv Merchandise!

Here’s your chance to save up to $35 on RPad.tv swag. Everything is on sale — shirts, coffee mugs, beer glasses, kitchen aprons, and more! The sale runs until Sunday night. All you have to do is enter these coupon codes and follow these instructions:

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You must enter coupon code PFBday$5, PFBDay$15 or PFBDay$35 before completing checkout. Discount does not include shipping, taxes, or additional charges. Offer valid until 02/272011 11:59 PM MST. May not be combined or substituted with any other promotion.

If you can swing it, you can look absolutely awesome sporting some RPad.tv swag and help keep the site going. As always, your support is greatly appreciated.

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Coffee Talk #309: What Do You Want to See in the iPad 2?

The iPad 2 is set to be announced on March 2, 2011. Today I wanted to see if any of you are interested in an iPad 2 and what features you’d like it to have. While I’m sure it’ll have…

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 Miami Heat’s inability to beat elite teams, Charlie Sheen’s insane interviews, or when Miley Cyrus will go all Britney Spears, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

The iPad 2 is set to be announced on March 2, 2011. The original was a crazy success, selling 15-million units in less than a year. Some analysts have pegged the sequel to sell twice as much. Today I wanted to see if any of you are interested in an iPad 2 and what features you’d like it to have. While I’m sure it’ll have a front-facing camera, more RAM, and a faster CPU, it looks like it won’t have the feature I really want — double the resolution.

On a side note, what’s up with Apple taking all the heat away from gaming conferences? The iPad 2 announcement will be during Game Developers Conference 2011 and the rumor is that Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (think iPhone 5 announcement) will take place during one of the same days as E3 2011.

So have at it (please)! What features do you want to see in the iPad 2?

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I have a ton to do before I head up to San Francisco for GDC 2011 on Monday. I’ve been missing DC Universe Online, but I don’t think I’ll be heading back to Gotham or Metropolis this weekend. My copy of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together finally arrived yesterday. This would have come in handy during my crazy Orlando trip. I shouldn’t play too much of it over the weekend…but I know that I won’t be able to resist. It’s my favorite genre and made by one of my favorite developers (Yasumi Matsuno).

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

Gas Powered Games Developing Age of Empires Online

On a recent Facebook update, Gas Powered Games founder and CEO Chris Taylor announced that his company will be the new lead developer for Age of Empires Online. One of the best-selling PC-game series of all time, Age of Empires was started by the late Ensemble Studios. Robot Entertainment, comprised of former Ensemble talent, was originally slated to handle Age of Empires Online. While I’m still bitter about Microsoft shutting down Ensemble, I’m thrilled that the AoE will live on through an excellent developer like Gas Powered Games. Here’s what Taylor had to say:

Newsflash! Today we’re announcing at the MS SanFran event, GPG is now the lead developer of Age of Empires Online!

As Chris mentioned in our chat at DICE 2011 (embedded below), he had an exciting announcement to make in the near future. Yeah, this qualifies as exciting. Ha!

Anyone curious to see what Gas Powered does with Age of Empires?

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MacBook Pro Gets Sandy Bridge, AMD GPUs, and Thunderbolt

Apple has updated its MacBook Pro line of notebooks with new Intel CPUs, new AMD GPUs, and a rebranded version of Intel’s Light Peak technology called Thunderbolt. While the prices and form factors are the same as last year’s models, the under-the-hood changes are pretty significant. Let’s break it down (the Degeneration X theme song should be playing in your head now).

Intel CPUs: MacBook Pros are now armed with Intel Sandy Bridge processors, which are the the true second-generation “Core i” CPUs. These new babies are more powerful and more efficient than their predecessors. The 15-inch and 17-inch models get some quad-core action, while the 13-inch model “only” gets a dual-core update. The new CPUs are blazing. You want one.

AMD GPUs: The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros are now armed with AMD GPUs, in addition to integrated Intel 3000 chips. The low-end choice is a Radeon 6490M with 256MB of video RAM, while the high-end option is a Radeon 6750M with 1GB of video RAM. The 13-inch model only has integrated graphics. The GPUs are more powerful, but what really interests me is how this will impact Nvidia, as the company struggles with stiff competition on multiple fronts.

Thunderbolt: This is a new i/o port with some fantastic potential. It allows you to connect multiple devices with throughput that exceeds USB 3.0 (in some cases 2x faster). Imagine transferring gigabytes of data in seconds — that’s what Thunderbolt offers. You’ll be able to connect multiple monitors, hard drives, video cameras, etc. on one Thunderbolt connection. There aren’t any Thunderbolt products on the market at the moment, but the space should blow up in 2011. As someone that edits video, the thought of a Thunderbolt external hard drive to use as a Final Cut scratch disk is drool inducing.

Those are the three major updates to the MacBook Pro line. What do you guys and dolls think? Anyone tempted to buy one? Any of you have a rich uncle that could buy me one?!? Ha!