allround geek

Diablo III

2012-05-15T10:17:00.000+03:00

Game Review: Gemini Rue

2012-03-25T00:51:00.016+02:00

Launching Gemini Rue is like opening a door to the past, to the early 90s when point & click adventure games were king. Even though the game was released in 2011 it plays, looks and feels like on the of the old school adventure games and you could even confuse it with a game released from Sierra or Lucas Arts back in their glory days.

Gemini Rue could be a Phillip K. Dick story. It is disturbing, it asks difficult questions and portrays a dark future for mankind. You are Azriel Odin, a cop. You were an assasin working for a criminal syndicate but you betrayed them and now you are trying to take them down. Your brother has been kidnapped and is being held in a secret facility were they alter people's personalities. Your goal is to get your brother back. The plot of the game is very well written with great twists. The characters are well thought off and each has his/her own motives and past story that you will discover while playing. As far as sci fi stories go this is a top dog. I find that the better sci fi stories are criticism on the present and this is no exception.

One of the game's strong cards is its atmosphere. It has this noir detective mystery feeling. It feels a lot like being in Blade Runner. The graphics are hand drawn and beautiful. They play their part and get the job done without offering millions of polygons. The sounds and voice acting are nothing special but for an indie game are rather good.

The game is somewhat short but the gameplay is solid and you will never feel that you are bored or doing something that you shouldn't been doing. The riddles are almost all inventory based with the occasional logic puzzle here and there. The game is a bit easy but that will not bother you as the riddles are very well blended in to the story and what your characters are doing. During the course of the game you will control 2 different characters, most of the time each being in a different environment pursuing his own goals. There were no illogical puzzles but there are a few "action" sequences. Don't get me wrong these are not 'action' exactly but rather some shooting mini games that you will have no trouble tackling. They don't feel like they were put there to extend the gameplay or to market the game as having action, but they enhance the thrill at the right moments.

Overall Gemini Rue is a highly recommended game for everyone that enjoys a good adventure or a sci fi story. It is very cheap and you can buy it from steam, or from the publisher's website directly. Just launch it and travel back to the glory days of the point & click adventures

The Dark Knight Rises Prologue: Incomprhensibility and the Masses

2012-01-15T23:14:00.006+02:00

Today I managed to see the IMAX prologue for one of the most anticipated films of 2012, aka Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. The prologue was announced by a staff member at BFI IMAX, something which gathered a fair share of applause. When the 7min prelude ended however, the audience reaction was totally muted. The main complaint over the short is of course well documented, being the fact that the main villain's dialogue (Bane, played by Tom Hardy) is incomprehensible or inaudible. Personally, I managed to get only one sentence out of the 7-8 uttered by Bane, which might say something about my English language level, my hearing problems, or the fact that Bane's dialogue is indeed garbled. Evidence points towards the latter, and Nolan should well be forced to make some compromises in his creative vision of filmic realism and change the sound mix in the final version of the movie.

As for the prologue itself, even with the dialogue explained there are several vague points that are apparently answered by the various viral sites found online. However, that is a relative drawback of the presentation - unlike the Dark Knight prologue, it is not completely self-contained and definitely did not have the same emotional impact, although visually it was much more impressive (featuring an airplane vs. airplane highjacking in Scottish locations). So, as an IMAX presentation it gets high grades (the resolution was amazing, and in fact the IMAX cameras used were much better than the ones used in the main feature, MI:4), but as a teaser it could have been better.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" trailer is here!

2011-12-21T10:11:00.000+02:00

This December marks 10 years after the release of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.

10 years.

I feel old. But this trailer for the first of the two Hobbit movies (titled An Unexpected Journey and There And Back Again) is just the thing to make me feel young again. Get a small taste of what our return to Middle Earth will feel like one year from now.

Movie Review: Drive

2011-11-02T12:06:00.009+02:00

When I first read the synopsis of Drive I did not know what to expect from it. Would it be an action movie? Would it be a film about cars with lots of car chases driving around? Would it be something completely different? I was not very interested to watch it but my girlfriend really insisted, and boy, was I surprised.

Drive is a film about emotions and characters. It sets the tone very quickly with the main character uttering a total of 2 lines in the first ten minutes. A man in control of his life amidst the urban depression. Even the rolling introduction credits were a surprise. I immediately thought of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and I was not far off. From the credits to the shiny silver jacket the main character is wearing, to the fantastic soundtrack all set an 80s feeling throughout the movie without the story taking place in this flamboyant decade. Just the decadence and the sense of lost, of this era is brought to us from the movie.

The main character is a stunt driver that works in a garage and during the nights he drives for robberies. The character is not the cool, do it for the thrill, type of guy. He is actually the genuine nice, kind-hearted, type. We do not know why he does it, so we assume for the extra money, since there is nothing luxurious about his lifestyle. In the course of the story he meets a girl and with no agenda he decides to help her. It sounds simple and it probably is, but the emotions generated are very powerful. The main character is emotion-driven not interested about petty gains.

The action in the movie is actually very little but when we do see it, it is intense, powerful and very well directed. When we do see it, it needs to be there, we justify it and it actually serves a purpose to move the story forward, or to tell us something about the characters. The over all direction is superb and flawless. Nicolas Winding Refn is playing with what we see, what we do not see and what we think we are about to see. It is a thrilling ride...

The rest of the characters are all very interesting and serve their purpose well. At some points I actually felt like playing a Grand Theft Auto game(a blend between Vice City and GTA4). You 've got the filthy maniacs, you 've got the honest but troubled husband, the genuine friend, the thoughtful but evil guy and all of them have their part to play in the story. All the actors do a very good job with their performance delivering a very special overall cast package.

I want to make a special brief mention about the music in the film. It is an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It is definitively not something I would listen to on my own, but after listening to it during the course of this movie I loved it because it was so well blended with each scene.

I intentionally did not include a trailer in this post. Do not watch the trailer, just watch the movie.

Over all, this is a must-see. Highly recommended.

8/10

Escape from City 17 part 2: Half-Life fan made short film

2011-08-25T17:56:00.004+03:00

Allroundgeek.com is a big fan Half-Life inspired fan made films. Over the years we have presented many of those.

One of our favorite, so far, was Escape From City 17 part one. Finally, the people responsible for that short film created the part 2 which is even better, bigger and more awesome.

Come on Valve, give us Half life 3 already. We have been waiting for years.....how many times more do I have to play all the Half Life games(plus the expansions) to quench my thirst for anything Half Life, before we get to play Half life 3?

Here is part 1 in case you missed it the first time round:

Here is part 2:

Review: Rise of the Planet of The Apes

2011-08-24T10:39:00.014+03:00

I went to the cinema with mixed feelings. I had low expectations of the movie mainly because I found the scenario that was suggested in the trailer very silly. It seemed like a far fetched explanation of how we go from today, to the Charlot Heston dystopia of the mute primitive humans and the thriving Ape civilization. On the other hand, the movie was rewarded by a big round 8 on imdb which had to count for something. I was pretty sure that the movie was not an 8 but at least it would be enjoyable and interesting and I was right. In this dry period, of ridiculously bad summer movies, Rise of The Planet of the Apes seems like a good movie, or at at least, a respectable one that the people bored of all the crap of the past 3 months will give a high score to.

This movie is more about characters than it is about action and this is a good thing 'cause when the action starts, about 2/3 into the movie, it feels necessary and well integrated. The movie is the story of an Ape, Caesar. Caesar is a special Ape. His mother was part of some lab experiments to cure Altzheimer's disease which resulted in Caesar having abnormally increased intelligence. This causes some rather interesting side effects in the psychology of Caesar who cannot really place himself as a pet but he also acknowledges the fact that he is not part of the human society. To that mix add many more apes, an advanced version a lab created virus and some stunning CGI effects and you got your self a good summer Sci-Fi mix.

The special effects are brilliant. The people at WETA did some brilliant job bringing Caesar and the other Apes alive. Especially in the scenes where there are not human actors, you really cannot tell the difference. This is not a movie that will astonish you by its obvious use of effects though. It is about not letting the effects get in the way....not let the viewer think that it is CGI. This is really important in this movie since the protagonist is a a computer generated Ape.

Caesar. Very convincing and brilliantly executed role.

Andy Serkis was fantastic as Caesar but I am not really sure how much was acting and how much was 3d modelers working in front of the computer. So, I will just say that Caesar's character was fantastically assumed by whoever that was. I don't have anything important to say about the human actors since you really don't care about them throughout the course of the movie. Ok, James Franco did a good job as the lead human male of the movie but nothing special and you will not really care about him. At least I didn't. The rest of the actors just play their parts to allow the script to move on with nothing particularly bad or good about their performance, except from Tom Felton who played the, badly executed, exact same role of caricature bully he played on Harry Potter for that past 10 years.

Over all I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It is not the best movie of the year but it is a good Sci-Fi cinema experience. If you are a fan of the franchise you will definitely enjoy it. The movie contains countless references to the original franchise with names and quotes. On the downside there are 2 scenes were Caesar does something which I consider a very bad choice from the filmmakers because it almost ruins the experience, at least to me, since it is scientifically impossible. When you see/hear it, try to go past it to enjoy the rest of the movie. Oh, and at the end, don't leave the cinema immediately because the credits include some further explanation to how we got to the dystopian future.

7/10

Back To The Future: The Game Review

2011-08-06T13:11:00.007+03:00

If you were a kid growing up in the 80's or 90's chances are that one of your favourite movie franchises is Back to The Future. It had it all. Excellent plot, wacky Sci Fi, memorable characters, nice action, humor and of course, time travel! Since then I 've seen the movies countless times but they never fail to entertain me. Tell Tale games is a company that has given us some very good adventure games in the past few years, but Back to The future: The Game is their best so far! It continues the story of the movies with a brand new plot and contains all the elements that we loved about the 80s movies.

All the cast is back. Marty, Doc, the Mcfly family, the Tannens and of course everything is taking place in the Hill Valley's past, present and future. The game starts with Marty going back to 30s to look for Doc who has been lost and in the process to save him messes with the normal timeline. In the course of 5 episodes we get to fix things up and maybe even improve some aspects. I do not want to ruin it for you but the scenario is excellent and a worthy successor of the movies.

Since it is an adventure games we will have to solve puzzles to progress the story but these puzzles are so well done and so well implemented in to the story that do not seem like distractions but part of the game plot. In my opinion this is how adventure game puzzles should be. They should not seem something that the designer put there to make your life difficult but something that your character should do towards his story goals. The game is not very difficult but it is challenging nevertheless. If you ever get stuck there is an in-game hint system with 3 levels so you can get some help without ruining the experience.

The game looks beautiful. The cartoonish versions of the characters are convincing and the game scenes are rich with details that enhance the atmosphere. For each time period you will get a nice different feeling out of the graphics. The sounds and the voices are very well done as well. We have the actors of the movies' cast coming back to lend their voices once again and they do an admirable job in recreating the old magic.

One thing that I did not like at first was the controls and direction of how the scenes changed while Marty was moving. It seems as though the designers kept in mind that the game would be released for consoles as well and they made up this unified control method that would work well with a console controller, but at the same time keep the old school point and click control method. After a while I got used it and I did not mind.

Over all if you are a fun of the movies, or adventure games, this is a highly recommended purchase. It will keep you entertained for many hours and at the end you will see the all to familiar 'To be continued' that promises of an next installment to the franchise. I can't wait for it! In the men time Tell Tale is planning to resurrect another beloved franchise and transform it in an adventure game series, that of Jurassic Park. So, stay tuned!

Wing Commander: Privateer. Who needs Eve Online?

2011-08-01T21:36:00.010+03:00

I got out of the jump point into an asteroid field. My radar started blinking with red marks. 3 pirate centurion ships were blocking my way while shooting at me. I quickly lock on the middle target firing two missiles. I hit my afterburner and at the same time and steer to the left to avoid the incoming fire. Soon there were two pirates left and I was dogfighting amidst asteroids. They really wanted my cargo but I wanted to avoid being sucked into the void even more. I hit the afterburner making a run for it. After two nav points I reached an agricultural planet where I sold my cargo for a, well deserved, amount of money which I used to buy some new tachyon cannons for my ship. While in the Merchants Guild office to enlist for a new mission I heard the voice of my girlfriend standing behind me..... "What's this ugly looking crap of a game that you are playing?" Welcome to the world of Wing Commander: Privateer.

It all started with Elite, the granddaddy of space simulators. It was an 8-bit heaven of space travel, bounty hunts, piracy and intergalactic commerce. Fast forward to the early 90s Origin Systems took the old recipe, added SVGA graphics and the Wing Commander universe and gave us an amazing game.

Privateer features a totally open world with dozens of solar systems to visit and countless missions to complete. There is even a campaign scenario that you can totally ignore if you fancy. The player can assume the role of pirate, a bounty hunter, a merchant, a courier, or even a smuggler, trying to make his fortune in the frontier worlds. It is all about the money....

You can use the money to upgrade your ship with stronger weapons, more shields, better armor and much more. You can even buy a newer ship more suited to your carrier. For example, you can get a ship with larger cargo space to move more goods, or a faster fighter for your dogfights.

The game uses the Wing Commander 2 engine to bring us some beautiful graphics that really help to build up the space atmosphere. Most of your time in the game will be spent on the cockpit traveling and fighting but you will visits planets and space stations as well to equip your ship, buy or sell goods and get new missions.

This game was recently re-released from GOG tuned to run on modern equipment. It costs just 5.99$ and for the dozens of hours of fun it offers it is a steal. For those of you that agree with my girlfriend about the graphics there is a free open source remake of the game with a new engine that offers 3d graphics and out-of-the-box support for modern operating systems., now if you 'll excuse me I ve got a shipment to smuggle into a system with really tight security.

Upgrade your HTC Magic to Android 2.3 Gingerbread

2011-07-16T10:03:00.010+03:00

I love my HTC Magic (myTouch 3G in the US). Even though it is a model that was released more than 2 years ago and practically today costs nothing (assuming you can find it in order to buy it), I still love it. Ok, it might not have an Nvidia Tegra in, or 8 megapixel camera plus a front one, or an AMOLED WVGA screen but none the less is a very capable phone that has proved to be an excellent familiar. And lets face it. Spending 500 euros per year for a new model of your favorite smartphone family is plain stupid. Of course 2 years in the smartphone industry is a really long time. When HTC Magic came out more than two years ago it was running Android 1.5. Today the latest incarnation of our favorite mobile OS is 2.3 which is light years ahead of 1.5. Unfortunately HTC and the operators have stopped supporting the phone for many versions now(I am assuming to force us to buy newer models). Only a handfull remain that still provide updates, but for the vast majority of Magic users there has been no official update since 1.6 which was a long, long time ago. Of course many users rooted their phone and upgraded it with custom firmware provided buy the ever excellent community but for more than a year now we are stuck with 2.1.

Finally a stable 2.3 firmware was released by the guys in xda-developers forums. I upgraded last night and I can testify that is working great. Everything works and it is significantly faster than my previous ROM Smoki X2. Do not get me wrong, I was happy with Smoki but it is stuck in 2.1 and it is a bit slow. Being intentionally slow though meant that Magic needed a charge every 4-5 days which was amazing. In addition smoki version included the HTC Sense. Thus if HTC Sense is very important to you do not upgrade to this version since it is the stock Google interface(which I like by the way).

Before upgrading you need to have a rooted phone. If you haven't it will not be possible to upgrade. How to root your phone is beyond the scope of this guide. For rooting you phone search specific instructions on the xda forums. Also make sure you have the 32a and NOT the 32b version of the phone. If you have the 32b version and you try to upgrade you might brick your device.

Assuming you have backed up your data and you have connected it to your computer with a USB cable:

Shutdown phone
From you computer: download the new firmware and the Google apps bundle
From you phone: hold down Home button and press power momentarily.
Menu:Partition SD card
go back
Menu: Select wipe
Wipe/Factory Setting
Go back
Menu:Toggle USB
Copy the two zip file to your sd card
Flash the firmware first
Flash the google apps bundle second
Reboot your phone(it might take 5 minutes for first boot)
Enjoy Android 2.3.4

If you brick/damage your phone following the guide above you are the only one responsible so please do not send me your lawyer/boss/mom/girlfriend/boyfriend to scare me.

Enjoy your 'brand new' HTC Magic!!

Half Life- Singularity Collapse

2011-07-14T23:28:00.006+03:00

Half Life 2 is the single best game ever created in the history of computer games. The story, the setting, the characters, the unbelievable level design and the amazing atmosphere, made it an instant classic that, after so many years, it still inspires people. There have been many fan-made short films and videos. We have presented some in the past but, even after 7 years from its release, people still create new content for the Half Life universe. A couple of days ago a new fan-made short film surfaced and I have to say it is one of the best so far.

Half Life-Singularity Collapse mixes real life action with computer generated graphics from the game and it even shows the man himself, Gordon Freeman, momentarily.

Enjoy.

Google+ the new take on social networking

2011-06-28T22:33:00.005+03:00

I do not have a Facebook account. I am being pressured for years by people and circumstances to create an account but I simply say 'No'. It's like the drugs your mother warned about. Don't use them just because your friends say they will make you cool. I do not like being found by anyone in order to connect with them. Even if you have the option to not be searchable someone that you do not want to connect with asks your for you Facebook account in real life. For social reasons you give it to them and you end up seing every kind of crap that he/she uploads. You do not want to share the same information with everyone. Why your boss has to see that recent weird photos from when you were drunk. No sir, this is not something I want to do.

Google just started a closed beta of the company's new spin on social networking. It seems to address most of the issues I have with Facebook. I still do not buy on the social networking through these kind of services but maybe I will give this a try. I prefer to think that I can keep in touch with anyone that matters to me through other means than silly youtube videos. I just hope that it is not mandatory for the use of the rest of the google services 'cause this will make me a really angry user.

Check out the presentation videos below:

Review: Melancholia

2011-06-05T19:41:00.005+03:00

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of Lars von Trier's Melancholia months before its release in most of the world - for some reason it opened up quickly in Scandinavia and central Europe, while everybody else has to wait until late summer or fall...

Although it will inevitably be compared with 2009's Antichrist, Melancholia is a much subtler affair, not offering the scare- or laugh-out-loud (depending on point of view) moments of his former film. The concept is great though: the destruction of Earth by a huge planet told by the point of view of two sisters living in a remote mansion. The place itself is very much a product of the director's imagination, essentially a cross between high-class Americana and Sweden, making for a very distinct and personal choice of setting. The two sisters, Justine and Claire, are the opposite sides of the spectrum, the one being manic depressive and the other extremely practical and controlled offer the two distinct parts of the movie - barring the abstract introduction which summarizes the entire film.

As has been done before with other American actresses in Trier's films, Kirsten Dunst (Justine) is easily super in the film, doing by far her most challenging role and her best performance since the great Virgin Suicides. Charlotte Gainsburg (Claire), given a much more subtle role that's like a walk in the park compared to her turn in Antichrist, but she's given the chance to shine in the 2nd part of the film. A surprise bit of casting is the very macho Kiefer Sutherland as Claire's husband, the voice of science, who is obviously proven terribly wrong throughout the film's course. The other important player in the film is Wagner's overly romantic overture from Tristan and Isolde that keeps playing throughout the movie, emphasizing the completely 19th-century romantic approach taken by Trier (taken in that context, the director's recent controversial comments do not feel that much out of place).

Trier has finally moved as far as possible from his Dogme95 approach, stylizing his film as much as he can, with the small exception of some handheld shots of intimate conversations. He was obviously aiming for a romantic fairytale aspect in his filming and he quite achieved that. Also welcome is the fact that he seems a bit more restrained compared to his usual provocations, so the end result doesn't suffer from that. The climactic ending with the world's end especially is a superb piece of filmmaking, offering an emotional force that is rarely seen in film. The only serious drawback in the movie is the sketchy plot and characters, which serve more as ideas than actual human beings. Likewise, the film has an excellent idea at its core that is sometimes underdeveloped. Taken that into account, Melancholia is a great film, which doesn't rank as one of Trier's best.

7/10

Saving my Data. Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic

2011-05-14T18:38:00.013+03:00

Recently I moved to Luxembourg. Before that big change took place, though, I had to sort out all my stuff to see what I will bring with me and what not. Of course my data would travel with me but since I had all kinds of things to do to prepare my departure I left the computing stuff for the last minute. I would take my trusty Macbook Pro with me and I would leave my old Windows PC behind. All my data though was in my PC that acted more as a media box. That machine had 3 HDs in it including the one I would take, a WD Green Caviar 1TB. I bought an external Enclosure for the disk but when I put the HD in the enclosure, I found out, to my horror, that neither the PC or the Macbook could read it. What went wrong? I put the HD on the PC again for sanity check and the data was there. I tried another HD with the enclosure to check that it was ok and it worked just fine. What was the problem? Unfortunately I did not have time to find out so I got the enclosure and the HD with me to figure it out when I had time.

That time was today. I tried using the HD with an another enclosure just to be sure but it acted the same. Mac OS X was managing to see that it was a drive but one that could not be read. Before you jump in, I have to say that the drive was, as I thought, NTFS and Mac OSX reads NTFS just fine in fact by installing NTFS-3G you can read AND write NTFS partitions in *NIX operating systems.

After checking with the Mac's Disk Utility I found out that the partition was not, in fact, NTFS but instead it was 'Windows LDM'. What the hell is Windows LDM? After some googling I found out that this is basically Dynamic NTFS partition. What had happened is that when I installed this HD on my old PC, Windows decided that it was a good idea to make this drive Dynamic since it already had two other HDs in the same machine. The problem is that by making it dynamic it can only be read as an internal HD from a Windows machine. Not even Windows machines could read it if connected externally, but only recognize it as a massive storage device that could no read. The anger!

Running TestDisk

Naturally, I had to find a way to change the structure of the partition back to basic NTFS without jeopardizing the data. Microsoft, on their support page, suggests that you should reinitialize the disk. Of course that means that you will loose all the data something I did not want to do under any circumstances. So, no Microsoft , thank you. After some googling I found some Windows utilities that can convert an HD from Dynamic to Basic on the fly. Since I had only the Macbook and the external enclosure, though , I had to make do somehow. I installed the demo versions of a few windows utilities such as Partition Magic using crossover but unfortunately none of them could "see" the external disk.

After more googling I found a fantastic Open source utility called TestDisk that could do exactly what I wanted, among many other things. Being Open Source it was native to Windows, Mac and Linux. I downloaded it and run it. It "saw" the external disk immediately and after following some simple steps it restructured the partition back to basic NTFS. Hoorah! You run the utility from the terminal select the drive, check the partition type(in my case it was "Intel PC") and when prompted, select to "write" the structure. That's it! Mystery solved, mission accomplished and I can again enjoy my data.

Official "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" trailer

2011-04-28T10:40:00.000+03:00

The official trailer for the final Harry Potter film has hit the web and what a trailer it is! The scope of the last entry in the series looks epic with massive battles that place the characters in mortal danger. It gave me goosebumps!

Enjoy it in handy embed below:

Review: Thor

2011-04-27T15:49:00.007+03:00

Given the strange mixture of fantasy with s-f that exists in the popular Thor comics series, the large-scale film adaptation by Kenneth Branagh could easily be a future cult reference, in par with Flash Gordon. Perhaps surprisingly, the film manages to escape the pitfalls of an uber-kitsch adaptation, and settles as a fun hybrid of post-modern superhero movie (a-la Iron Man) with some splashes of intentional camp. (Warning: slight spoilers ahead)

In an unconventional movie structure, the film opens with a short intro into Earth, and then veers for a 40' flashback into the complete fantasy territories of Asgard and Jotunheim. This extended introduction of the main characters in a complete alien setting might prove hard for a large portion of the audience, but its sheer audacity helps distinguish Thor from other superhero movies of the past years. In essence: the film does not fear to provide some cheese when necessary, and in some ways it aspires to become the doppelgänger of reality-grounded movies such as Nolan's Batman franchise.

Kenneth Branagh, yet another unconventional choice for a director, fortunately leaves his mannerisms behind him (mostly his tendency towards melodrama and overacting) and obeys the normal directorial rules of a modern action movie. Thankfully, his classical training allows him to use proper scene setups, so action scenes are always easy to follow. Compared to other Marvel movies of the period (e.g. Iron Man 2), the film fortunately stands on its own, although there are some references to the upcoming Avengers film. Chris Hemsworth is solid the titular role, although he is constantly overshadowed by the other actors around him (especially Anthony Hopkins, who knows how to cheese things up). Natalie Portman does little more than look worried, while the best impression is made by Idris Elba in a supporting but very memorable part. Overall, it's not the disaster that everyone was secretly hoping it to be, although it will leave no deep marks in the overcrowded market of superhero movies.
6/10

[Fanmade] Teaser trailer for the final Harry Potter film

2011-04-19T00:50:00.001+03:00

EDIT: So apparently this isn't an official trailer. It is a fanmade trailer, made with footage from the extras of the dvd release of Deathly Hallows: Part I. Well it fooled me. Good job, guy who edited this. I am sure an official trailer can't be far along. July is getting close.

A teaser trailer for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has been released. You can watch it below in a shitty embed while we wait for a glorious quicktime HD version to be uploaded.

Some people are very cynical towards the Harry Potter series. To those people I have only this to say: You are dead inside!

I for one am really excited to watch the final chapter of this tale. What started out as a kid's film has evolved into a cinematic phenomenon. I can't wait for July to come, so I can do another Harry Potter marathon week and then go to the local cinema and watch the end of this story.

The rise of the teaser trailer for THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.

2011-04-14T12:26:00.001+03:00

What a stupid title! Rise of the Apes was fine (and even Caesar before that) but I guess the marketing department decided that not having "planet" in the title would make it impossible for people to associate this film with the "Planet of the Apes" franchise (as Bill Hicks would say, if you work in advertising go home and kill yourself).

Anyway, enough about the stupid title. The teaser trailer was released today after a live event WETA DIGITAL did last night to talk about how they plan to create the apes in the film (you can watch part of it here).

Here is the trailer:

And here is some concept art:

First production video for THE HOBBIT

2011-04-14T11:50:00.000+03:00

The first production video for The Hobbit has been released on Peter Jackson's facebook page.

It is over ten minutes long and features Peter Jackson doing a small tour of some of the sets and facilities of the production. Those who have watched the making of for the Lord Of The Rings films will recognize some familiar faces from the cast and crew in the background.

I gotta say that watching this got me back to my earliest geek years and gave me goosebumps. I am really excited that this is finally happening!

Trailer for Lars von Trier's Melancholia

2011-04-08T23:47:00.000+03:00

The new film from the crazy Danish auter which he described as a psychological drama/sci-fi disaster film. The film deals with the relationship between two sisters and how it changes when a newly discovered planet is on a collision course with Earth.

The cast includes Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgard, Stellan Skarsgard and Charlotte Rampling.

Say what you will about Trier, but he is a very good director and his films might be hard to watch, but they are nothing if not interesting and unique.

Melancholia, just like Antichrist, looks absolutely beautiful. Trier has broken free from his own Dogma and is now working with his DPs to create breathtaking visuals.

Rift account gets hacked. Slow response from Trion Worlds

2011-04-03T19:57:00.007+03:00

A friend of allroundgeek informed us that his Rift account got hacked. One day he logged in to find his characters stripped from all his items and gold. This is not a situation a player that put hours into advancing his character wants to find himself in. Our friend contacted Trion Worlds immediately explaining to them the situation. It took a full week before he got his stuff back. In addition the customer support gave him some special in-game items and a month's subscription to compensate him for the trouble. Despite that, the fact is that his account got hacked in the first place, which is Trion Worlds fault. In addition, it took them a whole week to reinstate the characters. For a new MMORPG trying to break it into the market this is not good at all.

At the end of the day MMO accounts are not simply game accounts that you 've put hours into. Any MMO account is not less important than any other e-shop account were you put payment and personal information in. You do not want to be in a situation where it is compromised.

Our friend was kind enough to provide us with the email conversation he had with Trion Worlds customer support.

Customer (xxxxxxx)

03/15/2011 11:35 AM

Hello i logged in to the game just now and i noticed most of my chars are naked and and dont have any money one them...
Could you please check out what has happened..

Customer (xxxxxxx)	03/15/2011 12:15 PM
i just found out that some of my chars on another server are as well naked... do i need to contact a gm there or this ticket is enough?

Response Via Email (GM XXXXXXXX)

03/16/2011 07:45 PM

Hello XXXXXXX!

Thank you for contacting us regarding Rift!

We do apologize for the delay in responding to your hacked account inquiry. Hacked account appeals are our #1 priority and we are attending to each ticket as quickly as possible.

While waiting for us to respond to your petition, we recommend NOT playing on the affected characters until your account has been secured.

Once we have investigated your account, we may offer you one of two options. Based on how severly your character was altered, we could restore your character to the most recent back-up we have prior to the account becoming compromised. The second option would be restoring any coin which may have been lost.

Again, we do apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, as well as for the delay in responding to your inquiry. I want to assure you that your inquiry has not been lost and we have not forgotten about you. We are taking steps to both increase our account security as well as increase our customer support staff in order to reduce these wait times. Thank you for your patience while we continue to strive to provide the level of customer service that you should come to expect from Trion.

If you have any additional questions or concerns then please don't hesitate to let us know. Thank you for your continued support of Trion Worlds and for playing Rift. Your reference number for this question is 110312-xxxxxxx

Sincerely,
GM XXXXXXXXX
Trion Worlds Inc.

Customer (xxxxxxx)

03/17/2011 01:18 AM

i would prefer for my characters to be restored from a backuped state before i got hacked... last time i logged out before i got hacked was 4.30AM (GMT +2) on 15/3/2011 around that time at least:) i hope those information help

Customer (xxxxxxx)

03/22/2011 12:23 AM

five days and no reply......

Customer (xxxxxx)

03/22/2011 03:36 PM

And you expect people to renew their subscription with this kind of support?

Response Via Email (xxxxxxx)

03/23/2011 01:20 PM

Hello XXXXXX!

Thank you for contacting us regarding Rift.

We are very sorry to hear that your account's integrity has been compromised. We advise that you immediately run a virus/malware scan on your computer, as well as changing your account password in an effort to safeguard your account.

After reviewing your issue, I have gone ahead and rolled your characters back to a point in which they seem to look in good shape. This means that all data would be lost between from when your character was compromised to now if you played your character during that timeframe.

Please be sure to never visit any questionable websites or open mail that looks questionable, as they could be phishing attempts by seedy websites attempting to siphon off your account information. Remember, never share your account information with anyone to help prevent issues such as this from arising.

If you have any additional questions or concerns then please don't hesitate to let us know. Thank you for your continued support of Trion Worlds and for playing Rift. Your reference number for this question is 110315-xxxxxxx

Sincerely,
Game Master
Trion Worlds Inc.

Filming for the Hobbit films have begun today!

2011-03-21T10:55:00.001+02:00

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

That hole is in Wellington, New Zealand where today was the first day of principal photography for the Hobbit films which are scheduled for release in 2012 and 2013.

To celebrate the first day of filming, Sir Peter Jackson (who is returning to the Director's chair) has released two images from the set of Bag End (Bilbo's home) on his facebook page.

The road goes ever on and on...

Watch YouTube videos from your PS3

2011-03-19T11:58:00.006+02:00

I have bitched a lot about the performance and usability of YouTube on the PS3. It is very very bad. It is abismal. There are two ways of watching YouTube videos from your PS3. From the normal YouTube site or from the YouTubeXL. The first choice simply does not work. The javascript on the site is very heavy for the lame PS3 browser and you cannot even click on the search button to look for something. Abandon this way altogether. The YouTubeXL service is badly implemented and it does not allow you to view all the videos on the service. Official music videos, for example, are out as the service informs you that you cannot play this video from your device (the TV). It is the same thing that happens with certain media players that have an embedded YouTube player. In addition the XL site rarely renders correctly or in full screen.

But wait, there is a third method that actually works! Thanks to a friend of allroundgeek Mac Perlinski I can now watch YouTube videos from my PS3. Mac suggested to use the www.youps3tube.com service which removes all fancy javascript stuff from the page and thus allows the crappy PS3 browser to render the page correctly. At the same time it allows all the videos to be played since it is not the XL version. The video quality from the PS3 browser is not great but I can live with that since it actually works. If you are having the same problem with me give www.youps3tube.com a try and be a happy camper.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim new footage

2011-02-24T18:29:00.005+02:00

Some time ago Bethesda announced the fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls RPG series. After the enormously successful Oblivion it is time for Skyrim to take its position in the hearts of RPG players everywhere. The genre-defining open world setting is here once more. Skyrim will allow us to venture freely into its enormous world for quests, gold and of course ultimately to save the world.

Bethesda released a new video showing footage of the game. Take a napkin with you 'cause you are going to drool all over your computer. For the Hi Res version of the video you can go to the Elder Scrolls website.

The Last Ring-Bearer: A novelization of the War of the Ring from Mordor's perspective

2011-02-21T16:17:00.012+02:00

History, as they say, is written by the winners. The War of the Ring (as depicted in the three volumes of the Lord of the Rings) is written from the perspective of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, and documents their struggle to overthrow a ruthless satanic-like ruler, Sauron, who represents all that is evil in the world. According to the Russian paleontologist/ biologist/ fiction writer Kirill Eskov this was a bunch of romanticized propaganda from the side of the winners. In his novel The Last Ring-Bearer he tells the story of the War of the Ring and what happened after that from the perspective of the losers, Mordor.

The characters of the original Tolkien Trilogy are getting a complete makeover. Gandalf is depicted as a warmonger who wants to destroy the technological marvels of Saruman and Sauron and keep people uneducated and easily manipulated with his fundamentalist ancient witchcraft. Aragorn is a Machiavellian scheming ruler who is a puppet of his Elven wife Arwen. Mordor is depicted as a land of science, philosophy, free thinking and art that places its trust in reason and not ancient religions.

Old wise magician or fundamentalist warmonger

The protagonist is a field medic from the southern lands who is assisted by an orc scout and their task is to destroy an elven magical mirror in the land of Lorien before its ancient magic is used further. After the war is lost the remnants of the Mordor civilization is struggling to fight back and keep its roots to reason and science.

The novel was published in Russia and Poland to great success but, not surprisingly, it never saw a publication in the western world. I am sure that the Tolkien foundation would never approve it and they would be sued and tossed to Mount Doom. Fortunately for us it was translated and is now available as a free download. Since there are no profits involved they cannot be sued as any other fan-fiction story cannot.