First let me say, Star Trek Into Darkness does a great job telling the story of Khan and mixes it up a bit to play on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  The movie has many references to the old T.V. show and movies. So many that the audience was laughing for a great deal of the flick while yours truly sat in confusion. I’m no Trekkie, but still the movie delivered a great story of Captain Kirk’s younger years.

The second prequel to the original Star Trek series did better that the first according to stats gathered by IGN. The move grossed “$80.5 million internationally so far (an 80% improvement over the reboot) for a worldwide income of $164.6 million”. Star Trek Into Darkness is beating out Iron Man 3 in the States with $70.6 million and $32.2 million respectively.

Now about that problem that a friend brought to my attention. This situation effects more than just Star Trek Into Darkness, it also goes for Iron Man 3 too. What’s with the ethically wrong casting in these movies?

Let’s take Iron Man 3 first. The Mandarin in the comics is born in China which suits the name (let’s not get into if the name itself is racist). In the movie, we have an English actor, Ben Kingsley (great actor; no knock on him), playing the villain. What gives? Why couldn’t the casting people go for a Chinese actor?

Now let’s go back to Star Trek. I think you know where I’m going with this one now. It seems that Hollywood has a hard-on for villains portrayed by actors who hail from the UK. Why is Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan? Khan isn’t a White person’s name let alone English. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Ricardo Montalban, a Mexican and a man of colour, does a great job fitting the role of Khan.

Are movie makers today afraid of making the bad guy a different ethnicity? Did you even notice this? Let’s hear some thoughts.

These crazy photos of mini-Pokemon toys are done by Flikr artist Alexander.Quinn. By “done”, I mean extreme past tense; he posted these pictures in the Summer of 2010. What is old, is new again!

The above picture was also featured (if you can call it that; it’s just a picture with no text) on Kotaku. Either way, the accomplishment is more than I can say for myself.

How crazy would a Pokémon game with these graphics be?

You can visit Mr. Quinn’s Flickr for larger versions of these pictures (also linked on each image here) or you can visit his Behance profile to buy framed versions (or just support the dude for a job well done).

I never expected to see Iron Man 3 this early. I probably would have waited for the DVD release before seeing it. I had no expectations going into the movie. My mind was clear in terms of any spoilers which is very rare for my movie outings. Marvel movies are passé; it’s DC’s turn in my mind.

The Iron Man 3 story is pretty good. For a very PG movie, I was never bored. There was always something going on. Robert Downey Jr. does a fantastic job at Mr. Stark once again. For the most part, the movie deals with aftermath of the battle of New York in The Avengers. Beyond that, the movie is about Stark surviving without the Iron Man suit. Iron Man 3 is basically Marvel’s version of The Dark Knight Rises: Who is Iron Man?

If you recall from The Avengers, Captain America asks Mr. Stark, what happens when you take away the armor? That’s the premises of Iron Man 3 and it answers the question well — complete with mental breakdowns and a nemesis that can beat the iron suit. This time, Tony needs to out-think the enemy to win.

Different Iron Man suits in the comics. Click for bigger view

The highlights of the movie are seeing so many different Iron Man suits and Tony being able to remote control them. From the impressive Mark 47 to a gigantic suit that can re-enforce its spine to become an over-grown car jack is just cool. Tony taking control of the Mark 47 with a headset blows my mind and opens up so many cool possibilities.

The question Iron Man 3 leaves us with is this: How does Tony Stark move into The Avengers 2 after his surgery at the end of Iron Man 3?

This game is fun and easy to learn compared to other mobile TCGs. If you have a background with Magic: The Gathering or any TCG, you’re at an advantage but it’s not necessary since the tutorial does a decent job of explaining how things work.

The goal is simple: Bring the opposing hero to zero health. In a very basic explanation, you have two main phases; your casting phase and your attacking phase. Your casting phase is where you place your minions, cast spells or discard a card to increase your mana pool. Then you have the attack phase where minions either attack the adjacent minion or the opposing hero.

Before you even get into a match, you’ll pick the race and profession of your hero. Unfortunately all you can read is a very basic synopsis of how the hero works. You can’t read the hero’s ability until you get into a match. Also if you accidentally click the hero twice you’ll select the hero and there is no going back. You can’t delete a hero.

To progress in any TCG, you want better cards. In O&C Duels, you gain new cards by playing through the campaign or spending gold or runes. Other than the campaign cards, which seem to fit in your deck, the ones you buy are always random and may or may not help you. It’s a shame that Gameloft doesn’t allow players to pick what type of card they want to buy, even if that means getting a really bad card. It’s better to get a terrible card that syncs with your deck than feel like you wasted gold or runes on a card you can’t use.

The campaign in Order & Chaos Duels is fun but eventually you’ll hit what I like to call ‘the new card wall’; you just can’t beat the next NPC until you get better cards. So the game forces you to pillage other players or go head-to-head in an online multiplayer match to earn gold and runes. Or what Gameloft really wants you to do: Buy runes from the store. If you don’t go the purchase route, you’re in for a really long grind. If you do decide to buy some runes, get ready to fork over some serious cash: $100 for 10,050 runes which equals to 50 new rare or epic cards and 150 common cards. Enough to keep you competitive for a long time if you’re lucky those cards sync with your deck, but are you willing to dish out a hundred bucks on a mobile game?

Order & Chaos Duels sets the standard for mobile TCGs with a great campaign and awesome visual effects for each card ability, but Gameloft makes the grind for new cards really long and asks too much money to buy them. In the end, after about a month of grinding O&C Duels sits on my phone untouched.

The author says the roller coaster was created in Creative Mode on the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. I guess the console version of the game isn’t so useless after all. It took the author two months to create this epic ride.

Although it looks like a Pokémon version of the Enderman, it’s still a really awesome picture of the creature getting angry. Someone probably looked at it. The picture is by deviantART artist Hiji-K, who also has a comic to go along with this drawing.

This epic piece of work, actually done in Minecraft, is a feat by Ludolik. I didn’t know Endermen can bleed. Makes be feel a bit sorry for killing them. OK, I’m over it. The artist has made the word save available for download if you want to tinker with it.

First the Miis where caught running around Toronto, now they’re back for a snow day at Whistler Blackcomb. I must say it’s pretty cool public relations tactic to have the Miis out and about mingling with all us normal-sized heads.

Has anyone been so lucky to meet a Mii yet?

Other than beating out your friends for top-spot in a video game, another fun part of the website is customizing the message that shares the game you just started playing.

To do this, log into Raptr.com. Once you’re inside, hover over your username on the top right to see the drop-down menu. Click Settings from the list, then Sharing & Privacy from the left side. Change the text where it says, “When I start playing a game, share this status text”. Keep in mind “%g” will change to the game you start playing.

Let’s see if you can come up with some more clever messages than these:

I’m not playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 because I want to. raptr.com/Lowlander2?typ…

— Connor White (@Lowlander_2) January 8, 2013

Being anti-social and playing Mass Effect 3. raptr.com/GavinNavlehc?t…

— Irrelevant (@KavinNavlehc) January 8, 2013

Lettin people know I’m a warrior in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. raptr.com/iCero?type=tw_…

— Nyk G. 海の平和ウォーカー (@Manup21) January 8, 2013

Playing Gears of War 3 like a BOSS raptr.com/-O5C4RM1KE?typ…

— O5C4RM1KE (@O5C4RM1KE) January 8, 2013

I am now playing Brink.There may be a reason, there probably isn’t. raptr.com/Ian_gameinvade…

— Ian B (@Ian_BPm) January 8, 2013

Violence solves everything in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. raptr.com/JDawgMadden?ty…

— John Fries (@JDawgMadden) January 8, 2013

is nerdin’ it up in Forza Horizon. raptr.com/TorchModz?type…

— Rande Gabriel (@TorchS2) January 8, 2013

What does your message say?

First I must say that Black Ops II is a great Call of Duty game. It changes things up enough to make it feel like a new experience than the original Black Ops. The story is great (or at least to the part I got to, more on that later). It’s well written and, although the graphics look more cartoony than Modern Warfare, the voice acting is well done too. It’s also great to see Michael Rooker play a good guy after three seasons of playing the evil Merle Dixion on The Walking Dead.

To understand the problem we must realize that many developers — including Treyarch and Infinity Ward — are stuck to a strict deadline by their publishers. The publishers are the ones that have the big pocketbooks, so they make the rules. In this case both of the Call of Duty developers have two years to create a new spin on the franchise.  Modern Warfare 3 was an unbelievable failure; it was the same game as the previous Modern Warfare 2. But Treyarch saw the future of technology and gave us futuristic weapons and gadgets; something that makes the game feel… new.

Now the problem with having a deadline to push out a game, other than limited time to come up with a new idea on an already played out franchise, is not every bug gets addressed. There is just no time.

During a recent mission in the campaign my gun went invisible so I had to run around hip-firing, which is difficult but doable. After completing the mission, I watched the next cut-scene and was ready to get back into it — with a gun — when the game went green:

Green Ops 2?

So I haven’t been able to go any further in an otherwise enjoyable story. Shame. There is always multiplayer though. Unfortunately there are some glitches there too.

I usually play split-screen with my brother (I know, damn those split-screeners!) who has his own Xbox Live account. Nine times out of 10 I’m first player and he’s second. Now I wouldn’t think this would make any difference but for some reason it does; he can’t see any new emblems or calling cards. All he can see are the ones I unlock even though he hasn’t for his account. Weird, right? It’s annoying to see “New” plastered all over the emblems and calling card screen and you can’t get rid of them unless given first player.

That’s not all. Another small glitch is the ‘helicopter blade’; the nickname we’ve given the bug where, what looks like a helicopter blade flashes on the screen distracting you from the action. We’ve been able to tune it out after multiple games but it’s still annoying.

So, I ask it again: Is bug and glitches acceptable in today’s games? Have we just come to terms that we spend $60 on a game that isn’t complete? Are we OK with update after update to fix said bugs?

Before seeing the flick, I got prepared. Over a course of a week I watched The Lord of the Rings movies and read The Hobbit. I didn’t want to miss one tidbit of reference to the events to come in Middle-earth. I also wanted to see where Peter Jackson puts his own creative stamp on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel.

Mr. Jackson does put his own spin on the story. There are many events that don’t happen in The Hobbit that come into play in the movie. They are mentioned in the book, but not in detail, like The Necromancer. The extra detail is helpful, though, in making an otherwise boring treasure hunt journey more important and exciting.

However there are minor annoyances with Mr. Jackson’s creativity. The way Biblo greets the dwarves in the beginning of the movie makes him seem less hospitable than how he is in the book. Mr. Jackson has Biblo the hero with the trolls, not Gandalf, probably to speed up the importance of the hobbit. The director also has Bilbo escape the goblins and find The Ring a different way than in the novel. The riddle game between Gollum and Biblo does seem forced, unlike in the book where it seems natural to have a game of questions. I digress as they are, as I said, minor annoyances and if you didn’t read the book, you wouldn’t notice. The book is always better than the movie.

Overall the movie is amazing. I’m really happy that many of the songs in the book are kept in the movie. I got goosebumps when Thorin sang about the devastation of Erebor, The Lonley Mountain. There are a few references to Sauron, the main baddie in The Lord of the Rings, which helps foreshadow the events to come in the later movies. Can’t wait until next year to finally see Smaug, the dragon!

Oh, and I got to meet some really cool people doing some cosplay.

A cute elf and… is that Gandalf?!