Archive for February, 2006

Spider-Man 3

Monday, February 27th, 2006

See the picture now!

New shot of the upcoming Spider-Man 3 movie has been released. That picture has been on the net for a few days and you might of seen it. It’s a shot of Spider-Man dressed up in black. Still fans of Venom will not be dissapointed as someone edited the picture and made it look just like the one in the comic. Little is know about the plot of the next feature film but their official website has displayed pictures of Sandman and recently a black Spider-Man leading to think it will also involves Venom.

The movie will come out in 2007 and will star Tobey McGuire as our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. You can check out a higher resolution of the picture from Sony’s website [1] or the one supplied by a fan featuring a Venom modification [2]

Posted in Movies | No Comments »

Dead Series Society (Part 1)

Sunday, February 26th, 2006

This pun came to me, a little play on words referring to the movie the Dead Poets Society. I’m dedicating this post to the TV shows that have been cancelled carelessly after only one season. From what I understand the television business is worse than the one of movies. If the ratings are low, that means around 6 millions viewers, the show is cancelled and the fans disappointed. I’ll open my heart about two TV series I’ve discovered recently and have been butchered by FOX in 2002/2003.

FireflyMy discovery of Firefly started with a movie trailer, the one of the movie Serenity. The weird thing was that during the trailer they mentioned critics who had loved it. It did not make sense at the time since the movie was not due for an other 6 months! But I discovered that this movie was in fact a sequel to a TV show that was cancelled. Seeing the trailer again and again I was gaining some interest in the whole series and decided to watch the show before the movie was released in theaters. I was disappointed to realize such a great series had been cancelled without me ever hearing about it before. I really loved the characters and themes that were used in this series produced by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel). I won’t discuss the story line but that sci-fi show was cancelled by FOX and they even chopped three of the filmed episodes. In my opinion they really wanted to get rid of that show because of its ratings.

Now you’ll all tell me it makes sense to cancel a show that no one likes, but is tricky because you have to consider the democracy we live in. It was decided that for their audience the show needed to be removed from the air in order to make room for new and better shows. But have they ever considered international viewers? We keep talking about global economy and exchange market but some “produces” are not deemed worthy of being exported. The same thing can happen to games and music. The power of Internet is not to be taken lightly and it is through that medium I’ve discovered the existence of this show and took a deep interest. If it had been broadcasted here I would of been a weekly fan! My logic would bring us to a point where the work of someone, whether it is music, art or a film could be easily shared to the whole world at minimal cost helping the “minorities” get full coverage. Who knows, there is possibly a TV that aired in UK and that I’ll never be able to see or hear about. Does it mean it’s a bad show? Does it mean that to be good you need to be internationally acclaimed?

My analysis will be extended on Part 2 of the Dead Series Society. Stay posted, syndicate my blog with RSS feeds, bookmark me and leave comments!

Posted in Myself, TV | No Comments »

MGS3.5 LE

Saturday, February 25th, 2006

MGS3.5 LEI’m huge fan of the Metal Gear series, I’ve mentioned the series in the blog before and I have grim news for the fans out there. I’ve been hyped about getting this recut of the original Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater that was to my opinion the best of the series. But a wild set of circumstances are clouding my serenity. The limited edition, that is supposed to include a third disc that reprise the game’s action like a hole 3-hours movie cut. It was also announced that all pre-orders of any of the Metal Gear Solid release to come on March 14th, 2006 would also get Metal Gear Saga, a documentary DVD featuring Hideo Kojima doing a fine recap of the series up to now.

The real problem is that the limited edition seemed to be unavailable to Canadian customers. So even if EB Games had listed the limited edition on their websites, their retail stores in Canada were not going to get it. It’s still not confirmed and we still can’t have the final word on the subject but the Saga DVD should be shipped this week and all who had pre-ordered should be able to get the free bonus. As for the limited edition it went out of stock from their websites in about one week (or two). The extreme lack of communication between EB Games, it’s employee and customers is causing major headaches for Canadian who did not buy from the EB Games website. Let’s just mention that EB Games sells in US dollars and asks a shipping price of $14.99 US, you have to be prepared for sales tax and customs in some cases… Anyway the picture of Snake wearing the US flag face paint is appropriate to the situation of this games release. I know it’s supposed to be a limited edition, but if there is 2,000 pre-orders they should at least make that much and have the real limited number slated for after the release. If people are willing to buy, you must be willing to sell.

MGS3.5 CoverI still have high expectations to the release of this complete version of MGS3 called Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. It will update the experience you had with Snake Eater by giving you extra camouflage, 3rd person camera view, online mode, demo theater, original Metal Gear 1 and 2 Nintendo Games. Great gift for your action loving friends, that expect a high quality story telling and impressive use of the PS2 gaming console.
*Update on release*: Official word from EB Games is that the LE is US only
release.

Rumors do say that a very few number of people received the LE by keeping their original pre-orders. Nothing is confirmed, but from what reviews can tell, we are not missing out a lot without the 3rd disc.

*Update* The limited edition is a US release only.

Posted in Games | No Comments »

Reading week

Friday, February 24th, 2006

Nope, I haven’t tripped and fell on my head. Starting Monday is my “Spring Break”! But somehow my teacher don’t seem to understand the focus of taking a week off because they all refer to it as a reading week. I good guess would be that in University you can never really have a break. Lots of work, all the time! I have papers to write videos to make, websites to design… never the less I intend to recharge my batteries and catch up with all the work I’m late in. Hope you like the new look of the blog as much as I do!

Posted in Myself, School | No Comments »

The real deal on PS3

Wednesday, February 15th, 2006

The word is not official yet but Sony’s next generation console may be release September 21st in the US, September 16th in Japan. Next-Gen reported today that game developers are aiming for a September release. Hopefully this means Sony will have good games ready for the release (Unlike Xbox 360) and will have a way to compete against Xbox Live. As it has been rumored for a few weeks Sony plans to release a counter-offensive called HUB. HUB would be a subscriber service that would allow chat, music and movie download, independent games and demos. None of this has been confirmed by SCEA, as usual they do not comment rumors, but all this is very likely.

Let’s get real, the developers got their hands of the PS3 last week, how can you expect them to port the games in a few weeks for a Spring release (it is still possible though, but unlikely). As for the price, with the specs of the console they estimate a $900 US to manufacture. Which would make the selling price of $499 US sound right, but hold on! They had estimated the Playstation 2 to sell for $500 and Sony crushed them with a $299 starting price. But it is much likely that Sony will match the Xbox 360 price of $399 (premium) in order to compete with it. Anyhow, from my point of view, even if the PS3 is release a year after the X360 it is still a superior machine that will be worth the price. We’re talking HD gaming, dual screen capabilities, massive connectivity (USB, SD, Memory Stick, Ethernet, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g) and the best games out there :p .

When they say it’s worth waiting for it is. You’ll have the new blu-ray reader at your disposal for their new DVD format (Games will come on blu-ray discs, unlike X360 that uses regular DVDs that contain 5 times less data)… Did I mention you could have up to seven wireless controllers? Thinking of a multiplayer football game in your living room, good to know

Point made, you have an extra 6 months to save money and buy a PS3. (+ a home theater sound system + an HD LCD/Plasma screens that support 1080i/p [or two!])

* – CNET.com and other websites report a rumord that the PS3 could be delayed up to 2007. Problem is that Sony will still not comment witch leaves rumor control out of hand.

Posted in Games, Technology | 1 Comment »

IE7 aka Internet Explorer 7

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

After a few hesitations I’ve decided to try out the all new IE7, it’s still a beta version but found no problems thus far. Since it’s not my favorite browser I might not fall on any potential bugs from rendering web pages. For the purpose of making an accurate "hands-on" review of Microsoft’s preview of it’s next generation browser I had to break my allegiance to Opera for a few hours. I must say it now, and I though of it by seeing the screenshots before, they’re are not bringing something new, and Internet Explorer will not reinvent our way of browsing. This version that should be released later this year should of been out in 2004! Better late then never is taken to the extreme because all their new features (tabbed browsing, RSS feeds, plug in control, and page zoom) have been existent on both Opera and Firefox for a long time! The only innovation feature is it’s Quick Tabs function that brings a preview of all your tabs so you can visually pick the one you want to go to instead of reading it’s title name. Only thing left to mention is that the fonts are smoother like if it’s Flash Text and the visual conception of the browser is pretty interesting, foreshadowing what we’ll get in Windows Vista (next version of Windows due in fall).

Good: Pop-up blocker, build-in search bar, RSS feed, Anti-Phishing filter.
Bad: Still in beta, Windows XP SP2 & Vista only, cheap shot copy-cat, weak browsing experience. Read what Ina Fried had to say about fine printing…
Bottom line: You don’t get more than what you can get on pre-existent alternate browsers. Wider funtions and plugins are available right now and 100% working.

Opera gives you mouse gesture, IRC, mail, download manager, skins and voice control enabled.
I don’t hate Internet Explorer anymore, but I’m sad that their team couldn’t bring this up by themselves, we need competitive alternative to make them work. Hopefully they wont stay in their lazy boy now that alternate browser have made their mark!

Posted in Technology | 2 Comments »