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Medal of Honor Beta First Impressions

AC Slater — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:21:06 +0000

Thanks to the generosity of a random person on Twitter, I obtained a beta key for the latest Medal of Honor game that is set to come out in a few months so I thought I'd give you guys my first impressions. Now keep in mind that I've only had about an hour or so with the game so I haven't gotten to experience everything there is to offer yet, and plus it's a beta so not everything is there and polished.

The beta is multiplayer only and contains 2 different game modes that you can play, one is team deathmatch and the other is sort of an attack and defend type game, similar to "war" from Call of Duty: World at War and CoD3, I'll get into the game modes more in a minute. The game starts off and you can go through and edit your guns. You only have a choice of 3 different load outs to start, a rifleman, a specialist and a sniper and each of these classes only has 1 gun available at the beginning as far as I could tell. You have to level up in order to unlock new guns and attachments, similar to MW2. So once I figured out the menu system and turned up my sensitivity, it was time to play.

I jumped right into a quick match which dumped me in the "war" type game (I can't remember what it's called at the moment). It's still a team based game, but one team is trying to defend certain areas while the other team is trying to take them over. The offensive team must take over one area before they can move onto the next as they slowly make their way from one end of the map to the other. I actually thought this game mode was pretty fun, but I did have one big problem with it that could kill the whole game for me... the respawning. It got to a point where someone on the other team got right behind our spawn and just sat there. As we respawned in the same spot over and over again this guy would just kill us instantly. I know when you get to certain spots on the map you can choose to respawn in your base or on the frontlines, but each spawn seemed to only have one set location rather than randomizing it a bit, so even when the teams switched and I was on the other team I got trapped in spawn camper hell. For me to really enjoy and play this game they are going to have to rethink the respawns and figure out a way to curb the spawn campers. On a positive note I didn't seem to have the same problem when playing a team deathmatch game though.

Aside from the game modes, lets talk about gameplay. The multiplayer aspect of Medal of Honor is being developed by Dice, the same guys that brought you Battlefield Bad Company 2 and if you've read my review of Bad Company 2 you already know where this is heading... kind of. Coming off of Modern Warfare 2, I was not a fan of Bad Company 2's multiplayer so going into Medal of Honor I was pretty worried. When I first started playing I was very annoyed with it because it wasn't Modern Warfare 2, but once I convinced myself that it wasn't, I was able to get into it a bit more. I like the scale of things in MoH much better than Bad Company 2 so that was a nice change, but the control aspect that I hated the most in Bad Company 2 is very much alive in MoH... you can't strafe when you're running. I think this is just something I've got to get over because the more I think about it the more it seems realistic that you wouldn't be able to strafe while running full speed ahead, but it doesn't help that I've been used to it for years now in the CoD series. So strafing aside I think I could grow to like this one, but I hope the single player is really good because I could still see myself going back to CoD when Black Ops comes out, but I will probably pick up Medal of Honor in the meantime.

I'll play a lot more this weekend and see if my perspective on the game changes, but I think I got the gist of it after a few sessions last night.

Sucker Punch Trailer

AC Slater — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:45:22 +0000

Check out the trailer for Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch". If you're not sure who Zack Snyder is he's responsible for Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300 and Watchmen

DVD & Blu-Ray Releases for July 27, 2010

AC Slater — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:46:25 +0000

DVD Releases

Blu-Ray Releases

Fantasy Factory: Cheese Ballers! (7/26/10)

AC Slater — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:50:13 +0000

This new Monday night time slot is messing me up here, sorry for not posting the synopsis yesterday, but here you go.

Cheese Ballers!: Rob competes in the Grilled Cheese Invitational in Los Angeles, where he hopes to wow foodies with his take on the sandwich. Also: pro skater Torey Pudwill visits the factory.

The episode was decent, Rob and Drama took time out of their busy schedules to hit up the cheese store in search of the most expensive cheese and bread they could find in order to compete in the Grilled Cheese Invitational. Overall they spend ~$500 on a loaf of bread and 2 bricks of cheese, which is pretty insane. Rob even went as far as to get some gold food coloring spray to spray on the sandwich. Meanwhile, Chanel got a squad of cheerleaders together so they could cheer on the Cheese Ballers. But as I expected, the Cheese Ballers did not do so well at the competition. I think it was more a lack of experience than anything else so hopefully next year they'll go back and use what they learned to win the whole thing.

The side story of the episode was with pro skater Torey Pudwill and his new grip tape company, Grizzly Grip. He approached Rob with the idea of Rob joining the team and of course Rob was willing to help him out. He even helped Torey out with the first ad for Grizzly Grip in which Rob was dressed up like a giant bear.

Overall it was a decent episode, I still think last weeks was better, but at least next week we get to see Chanel in a bikini as she poses for her Maxim Magazine spread.

Inception

AC Slater — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:38:35 +0000

I don't even know if I know how to explain in words what I thought of Inception. I knew going into it that a lot of people found it confusing, but if you take it at face value I think it's fairly easy to follow, it's when you really start to think about it that things start to get interesting.

There will be a lot of spoilers from here on out so if you haven't seen the movie I suggest you stop reading now. Seriously, go into the movie the first time not knowing anything then come back here and read my thoughts and theories, you'll ruin the movie for yourself if you read about it first, trust me.

So again, I'm not sure if anything I say here is going to make sense, but I'm going to try. The movie itself is, at it's core, is a heist film. It's about a team of people that are hired by a third party to break in to a secure place, that place just happens to be the mind of another person in this case. So Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is hired to break into the mind of Robert Fischer Jr., the heir to a large corporation, by Saito, the head of a rival company. But this case is different, Saito doesn't need Cobb and his team to retrieve a secret, he needs them to plant an idea that would cause Fischer to break up his father's company, thus leaving Saito's company as a super power. The idea of planting a thought it someone's dreams is called Inception and it's only been done once before, by Cobb to his wife who ended up killing herself because she couldn't see the difference between the real world and the dream world, so after her and Cobb awoke from spending a lifetime in "limbo" (which is another aspect of the dream world) she thought that reality was just another layer of the dream, so she killed herself. And since Cobb wouldn't go along with her plan, she framed him for her death instead, and it's she who has been haunting his dreams ever since.

I really don't want to go through and explain the entire movie so I'm going to skip to some theories I had and a couple that I read elsewhere that I didn't think of, but kind of make sense. When I left the theater my initial reaction was that everything ended as it ended, Cobb and his crew successfully completed the job and Saito made good on his end of the bargain, Cobb went back home to his kids and everything was great. But after thinking about it for a while longer, that spinning top at the end really stuck with me, as Nolan intended it to, but it got me thinking. As I said, my initial reaction was that the plane to LAX was reality as was the train at the very beginning, which would then make him going home to his kids in the end reality as well, but what if it wasn't. What if the entire movie was a dream and what he thought was reality in the end was just another level of the dream.

We're never really shown any sort of indication that reality is "reality" other than the totems that each person carries around to let them know that they are still in reality, but those could all be tricks that their subconscious is playing on them, or just on Cobb, since it could just be his dream that this whole movie takes place in. I don't really know how to explain it all, but it could make sense, but I also had another theory.

Everything up until the testing of Yusuf's sedation is reality (aside from the beginning when they are obviously in Saito's dreams), meaning that they do wake up on the train and Cobb does go seek out Yusuf, but once he tests that sedation, everything after that is a dream. I think the main point that leads credence to this theory is the fact that when Cobb "wakes" from the sedation he goes to the bathroom to splash water on his face because something about it terrified him, but Saito interrupts him before he can spin the top in order to see if this was still reality. So in essence after this point in the movie we never see the top spin and stop ever again (if I recall correctly). So everything after that would just be Cobb diving deeper and deeper into his subconscious as he battles the idea of him implanting the Inception that nothing is real, in his wife, thus leading her to kill herself. So once he comes to terms with that and "defeats" her in the end, he can move on and lead a happy life, but his happy life is still within his dreams.

I think this 2nd theory makes more sense to me although I can't take credit for it, I did read it online. It just seems to fit more with everything in my mind. Fischer was just another projection that Cobb created to help him get passed his wife's death. His subconscious created all the characters that he needed to help him overcome it.

Or maybe Cobb also killed himself with his wife and the whole movie is his purgatory as he tries to overcome the guilt of knowning that his mind was too weak to discern between the real world and the dream world and he's the reason his wife killed himself. So in order to move on he had to help her move on as well... Ok, now I'm just babbling because that doesn't really make sense, because in his perfect world I think his wife would be there with his kids, not just his kids so I'm going to stop now before I start coming up with more ridiculous theories.

Either way you look at Inception it's a great film from beginning to end. The writing, the acting, the directing, everything about this movie was incredible and just the fact that I'm still thinking about it makes me realize just how good of a movie it really is. So thanks again Christopher Nolan for showing Hollywood that there are still original ideas out there and that people will still support them if they are good.

SAW 3D Teaser Trailer

AC Slater — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:46:01 +0000

Here is the teaser trailer for the final entry in the SAW franchise, SAW 3D. If you're looking for more information on the SAW movies head on over to jigsawslair.com.

The Walking Dead Poster from Comic-Con

AC Slater — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:15:02 +0000

I should just rename this site "The Walking Dead Central", but I'm really excited for this. Here's another poster that was created by Drew Struzan and shown to Aint it Cool News. Supposedly if you're going to Comic-Con and go to the autograph signing, this is what they'll be signing.

The Town Trailer

AC Slater — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:16:11 +0000

20 minutes with the Kinect demo unit W/Video.

AC Slater — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:31:47 +0000

A buddy of mine recently got some hands on experience with Microsoft's new motion sensing technology, Kinect, at the Macy's store in downtown Chicago and wanted to share his thoughts. After reading his review, this is pretty much what I was expecting from this device/technology. So check it out below and if you've had a chance to try it out let us know what you thought in the comments.

Personal background:

I’ve been playing video games since the late 80’s. I’d like to think of myself as a gaming everyman. I’ve owned the NES, Gameboy Color, Sega Genesis, 32X (not proud of that), Game Gear, SNES, Playstation 1 & 2, Dreamcast, PSP, iPod Touch, various PC setups, and the Xbox360. No Playstation 3 or Wii. I didn’t realize how much of a gaming dork I was until I just re-read how many systems I’ve owned. Anyways, I’ve just about tried them all out so I’m fairly well versed in video game controls (from controllers to super scopes to DDR dance pads). The video games currently making their rotation in the Xbox are Read Dead Redemption, MW2, Forza 3, Mega Man 10, and Trials HD. I’ve got plenty of other games of various genres, but these are the ones I’m playing at this time. Most of my multiplayer gaming is done via Xbox Live or Steam. I haven’t done much local multiplayer since Halo (1-3). I’m a 26 years old mechanical engineer who makes my money by designing and construction rail road signal, traction power, and communication systems for a large Midwest specialty electrical contractor. Now you have a baseline to compare yourself to.

Judging a book by its cover:

I will admit that prior to trying the Kinect that I thought it was pretty stupid looking from the games that were demoed to the wacky wavy-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man like motions that players had to do. The games didn’t really cater to my personal gaming style. I will never buy a game where I stroke the air to pet a virtual animal. Everything else just seemed to be mini-games rather than complete story driven games. When I saw the alleged $150 price tag for the unit and $60 for the games I pretty much decided then and there that this was not for me unless this was something really special.

Macy’s Chicago 7/17/10

I was back in Chicago for a company charity event (recently moved to NJ for a multi-year project). This trip also coincided with a 21st birthday party my sister was having down town. After the charity event, I made my way home, cleaned up, met with my brother (Kevin [not much of a gamer, keep in mind for later]) and headed to the party. Bought my sister a drink that she couldn’t finish (Irish Car Bomb), had a couple of my own then took off so the kids could play. Kevin and I wandered the streets a bit to check out some of the Transformers 3 cars and props that were littering the Chicago streets. Knowing that MS had their demo unit up at Macy’s, I convinced Kevin that we should make the pilgrimage to the store since we were in the vicinity. When we made it there I went up to a cashier to see if they could point me in the direction of the Kinect since there were no signs or indications that it was anywhere in the building. They had no idea what I was talking about so they sent me down to customer service. Luckily customer service was aware of it and sent me in the right direction which just so happened to be in the vicinity of the first guy whom I asked where it was. On display was the Kinect and the new Xbox, a 52” (estimated) Samsung LCD TV, a couch for spectators and a big purple MS Kinect rug. The Kinect looked larger in person that I thought it would be. Like the pics show, it is the same glossy black plastic that the new Xbox sports. It has the two cameras to the center and to the left is another sensor the same size as the cameras. It puts off a faint series of red lights that reminded me of the scanners at retail checkouts. It wasn’t distracting while playing, but when looking directly at the unit, you can’t help but notice it. When I walked up some guy was playing the track and field game. He was having a difficult time jumping over the hurdles in the race and came in last place three tries in a row. After a few minutes he walked away with a fairly indifferent look on his face. Since there was no one else waiting to try, I jumped right in.

Impressions of each of the games after the jump.

Kinect Adventures: River Rush

I took my place on the big purple carpet and convinced Kevin to join me. The rep loaded up the “River Rush” game and after the load screen and some instructions, two avatars appeared in the raft. The rep gave us a quick spiel about how it worked then told us to jump. We jumped and were on our way. The premise of the game is as simple as it gets: steer the raft between certain markers and collect coins on the way. The rep said you actually had to move your whole body to the left or right to steer the raft. We were able to steer it by leaning, so I think the rep may have been exaggerating about the movement. Was there lag? A little, but everything was so frantic that it was hard to notice. I had to tell Kevin which way to lean so we could coordinate movement. It felt awkward. The rep yelled jump when it was time to jump and which way to lean at certain sections. Since I had seen many of the Kinect videos online I pretty much knew what to expect. This was Kevin’s first experience with the unit so I’m guessing the verbal commands were more beneficial to him. We made it through the whole course and the MS rep claimed that we set the high score. Kevin promptly got off the carpet and took to spectating. He didn’t appear to enjoy it. As for me, it is not something I wouldn’t care to play more than once or twice. The game just had no lasting appeal to me personally.

Verdict- Worth trying once, but nothing the Wii couldn’t do with the pressure pad and nunchucks.

Kinect Sports: Bowling

The MS rep rebooted the Xbox since it was just going to be me playing. It went through what looked like a diagnostic screen where a silver outline of my body appeared on the screen. When I moved, the outline followed. The movement wasn’t instantaneous, but I assumed that was because it was still familiarizing itself with my body. After it calibrated itself to my body and it was time to go. The rep asked if I wanted to try the track and field game that the previous guy was playing and I somewhat reluctantly said “Sure.” After watching the last guy try and fail multiple times, I wasn’t really looking forward to it. When she loaded up the Kinect Sports demo it gave options to play four different games: track and field single player, T&F multiplater, Bowling, and something called Conduct the Crowd. When I saw that bowling was available I reached into the air in front of me to make a cursor appear on the screen and moved it towards bowling. The rep said “Track and field is to the left.” I told her that I knew that and wanted to try bowling. She didn’t seem to care so we proceeded. I was prompted with a screen that basically said” When ready grab the zipper and pull”. On screen was a zipper about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the screen. I didn’t realize that at first and the rep told me to hold out your hand and grab the zipper. I held out my right hand and a circular cursor appeared on the screen. I moved it towards the zipper and after two failed attempts finally got it to work. The whole screen was completely unnecessary. Finally after a couple more loading screens and instructions the actual game appeared. The lane appeared in front of me and there were ball returns to either side of me (to cater to left and right handed players). I leaded to the right to grab a ball and the avatar picked it up. The rep told me to limit my forward travel when throwing so that the Kinect could still pick up my movement. I lined up my shot, took one step and rolled. The ball went straight down the lane. It didn’t appear that there was any way to control spin. That is a big drawback to me since prefer to spin when I actually bowl. Over the course of 6 frames I racked up a 46, no strikes, no spares. The demo ended after the 6th frame and I was unimpressed. As someone who can typically bowl around 160-170 this kind of hurt my ego. The limited forward movement and lack of spin were deal breakers for me.

Verdict – If you must play a virtual bowling game, stick to Wii bowling. Nothing compares to the
real thing though.

Kinect Adventures: Obstacle Course

People kept on walking by the demo, but no one was stopping to play. That meant I had more time to dick around with the unit. The rep asked if I wanted to play the obstacle course next so I agreed. Again, the zipper screen showed up and I unzipped in one try. Loading screens, instructions, then it began. The avatar appeared on a platform with horizontal handles to either side. I was instructed to grab the handles and push myself forward, similar to how an ice luger gets their start. The rep told me to jump to increase the speed of the platform. I did so and immediately hit an obstacle I should have ducked under. When low obstacles appeared I jumped to avoid them and was then hit by the overhead obstacles again. This process repeated itself for 2 minutes. You duck to miss one obstacle, you hit another. You jump over an obstacle then are immediately hit with another. It didn’t help that this game seemed to have the glitchiest movement of them all. I would duck and the avatar would jump in some cases. I’d move one way and the avatar would do something completely different. You could attribute the poor performance to the fact that this was the first time I’ve tried it so it could have been me doing something wrong. I’d like to think that I’m well versed enough in gaming that I could just jump in and do it right the first time. Either way, something was off with this demo. Precision is not the Kinect’s strong suit.

Verdict – If the control was more accurate, it could have been fun. Because it seemed so flawed, it just felt like I was racing to make it to the finish so I could move on to something else.

Kinect Adventures: Whack a Ball (As seen in video)

Next up was the dodge ball like game where you have to hit the balls at squares for points and power ups. Menus, waiting etc. then the game started. I reached over my right shoulder and the ball appeared. I hit it forward to put things in motion and that’s when shit got crazy. This it the type of game where precision motion capture would be necessary. To the trained eye, the lag was noticeable. At around 39 seconds into the video I posted, you can see me lift my left arm then the avatar follows shortly there after. As someone who started playing Counter Strike on a 56K modem, I am quite familiar to lag. I never liked taking AWP shots with my crosshair on a guys head just to see him disappear from the screen as I click the mouse. While we’re not talking 56K modem lag with the Kinect, it is still enough to make you miss a ball or two in this particular game. Was the game fun? It was cool to try, but again had no lasting appeal to me.

Verdict – You definitely have to incorporate your whole body into this one. Fun for a little while, but just seems like a complete clusterfuck on screen.

Kinect Sports: Track and field (shudder…)

I decided I was pretty familiar with how the Kinect worked at this point. I figured why not give the track and field game a go to see if I could do better than the guy who was playing when I showed up. The rep loaded it up and I waited for the start shot to sound. As soon as I heard it I began crazily running in place. The avatar did not match my leg movement 1 for 1 as I was clearly hauling ass and the avatar was taking its time. The speakers started beeping to indicate that a hurdle was coming. The hurdle came around the corner glowing yellow and the beeping increased. When it was time to jump the beep became a steady sound and the hurdle became green. I jumped and cleared the hurdle. I have no idea what was making that so difficult for the other guy who couldn’t seem to clear one. I repeated running in place and jumping when necessary but couldn’t seem to find the proper technique to make the avatar gain speed. The other avatars surpassed me and then I crossed the finish line. That was enough for me.

Verdict – Track and Field for the NES had it right. Even then running in place barely let you win but you could always hit the pads with your hands rapidly to kick some ass.

Conclusion –

Microsoft, show me something more than mini games. If I wanted gimmicky motion controlled games I would have picked up a Wii ages ago. Given a choice between the Wii and the Kinect I would go with the Wii just for the fact that it has a large game library for me to choose from. I have yet to see a Kinect game that would warrant a day one purchase. I hope that Microsoft can work with developers to pump out something special and unique. From what I saw, the games are not worth $60. They should be priced comparably to Wii games or hopefully less. I hope the $150 price tag for the unit comes down significantly. If they insist on charging that much, at least have the decency to toss in one or two games with it. Doe the unit have potential? It will really depend on how much support third party developers give to it. There is definitely room to think outside the box with game development for this peripheral. I just can’t see myself flailing around the way I did for hours on end. That is the beauty of controllers. I can sit and play a game without completely tiring myself out or breaking something with my erratic movement. Hopefully as we get closer to November we will see some cool things start to emerge. If this thing was released today for $150 and they stuck to the $60 for games, I would avoid it like the plague.

DVD & Blu-Ray Releases For July 20, 2010

AC Slater — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:03:31 +0000

DVD Releases

Blu-Ray Releases

acSlater.com

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