DISCUSSION

Television

• Wonder Woman pilot script review
• The Cape’s order went from 13 episodes to 10 episodes, and the Summer Glau centric episodes may have been cut as a result

Quick Hits:

• Will Ferrel will be guesting on four episodes of The Office
• New webseries spin-off “Becoming Human”
• CW developing zombie series The Awakening
• Sometime in the final 5 episodes of Smallville, Callum Blue and Laura Vandervoort will be reprising their roles as General Zod and Supergirl

Movies

• Henry Cavill is Superman
• Anne Hathaway was rumored to be a lock for Lois Lane. Now that she’s playing Selina Kyle, the rumored choices are: Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, Watchmen’s Malin Ackerman (who is five years older than Cavill), Glee’s Dianna Agron, Jessica Biel, and Rachel McAdams. Other rumors list The Town’s Rebecca Hall.

Quick Hits:

• Wham-O signs with ICM
• Warner Bros wins rights to produce The Stand
• Mark Waters to direct Get Back, a Beatles time travel comedy
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt may be joining the Dark Knight Rises after all, but likely not as a villian; Catwoman will be in the movie, not just Selina Kyle
• James Cameron still wants to do his Battle Angel movie, but will be busy for the next 5 years, will be shooting Avatar 2 & 3 at 60fps
• Mark Millar insists that they are definitely still doing Kick Ass 2, they just have to wait until everyone has the time, and says that they can’t wait until the actors are too old. Chloe Moretz in particular. They don’t want to wait until she’s 15
• Saoirse Ronan is rumored to be playing Silvan elf Itaril in The Hobbit, possibly due to her connection with Peter Jackson

Video Games

• Telltale Games’ next game property: The Walking Dead
• Sony announces their next portable as the NGP (Next Generation Portable). 4 processing cores, front and back touch sensitive areas, 2 cameras, six-axis motion sensing, GPS, Wi-fi, 3g, dual analog sticks, flash-memory based cards for games

Geek Jerk Reaction: The Roommate, Sanctum

Considering they’re breaking their NDA to tell us anything about the game our source must remain confidential, but thanks to them for their review anyway! Here’s what they thought:

Alright first off I’ll take you through the character creation fine
points of the game, some is a little disappointing but for the most
part I’d put it more then City of Heroes, less then champions online.
I’ll explain, first step is your server, we have a choice between two
PvE servers and a PVP. After this step you get the cinematic trailer
they release a while ago, after the battle is over and it cuts to Lex
talking to sups, bats, and wonder woman. He releases the “exobytes” he
stole from Braniac that he had gathered from all the fallen heroes in
the future. Now on to the character creation portion of our story lol.
Male or female, for this i’m going to go male, no differences except
in looks of course. From here we get Large, Medium, and Small, body
type. Large would be normal Bane before Juicing up, still huge and
bulky but not outrageous, medium is every Joe shmo super hero and
villain, and small is Robin size. After you pick your size you get a
choice, Custom designed, or Inspired by, if you pick inspired by you
get a choice of Batman, Superman, Catwoman, Lex Luthor, The Joker, The
Flash, Wonder Woman, Deathstroke, Bane, Circe,Beast Boy, Mister
Freeze, Green Arrow, Steel, or Martian Manhunter. This is your costume
design, and your allegiance step if you don’t change it in your
character sheet before you finish. For fun i’ll list off the the
custom steps

Step 1
Hero or Villain

Step 2
Personality;
Comical
Flirty
Powerful
Primal
Serious

Step 3
Mentor(the guy giving you alot of your orders and steering the
direction of your gameplay.
Hero Side
Batman
Superman
Wonder Woman
Villain Side
The Joker
Lex Luthor
Circe

Step 4
You select your Power
Fire
Gadgets
Ice
Mental
Nature
Sorcery

Step 5
Movement Type
Flight
Acrobatics
Super-Speed

Step 6
Pick your Weapon
Bow
Brawling
Dual Pistols
Dual Wield
Hand Blast
Martial Arts
One-Handed
Rifle
Staff
Two Handed

After this your brought to your summary step(Final Character sheet
where can change anything,including you costume design, I won’t list
everything about the costumes because there is a lot to choose from,
I’ll say the categories you can change, Helmet, Face, Emblem, Shirt,
Back Slot, Hands,Waist,Pants, Feet. Once you are Happy click next on
your character sheet and put your name in and hit Start.
You start out disoriented on a Braniac Hive ship, if your a
Hero, Oracle will begin talking you through who has to happen to get
you off the ship, if your a villain, its Calculator. I won’t ruin
anything more about this part, other then tell you its basically your
training area where you learn basic controls.
Once off the hive ship, once again if a Hero, you end up in a
police station, and if your a Villain, a night club. You get your
missions from your mentor busting in over your coms, or from
Oracle/Calculator, or any other random hero or villain that decides
they need you and some point. You’ll either pick some up like quests
in any other MMO, exclamation point over a head, or the mission will
come in over the coms.
As you level you get Power Points, or you will get Skill
Points. Power points go toward that power you picked, so I’ll give you
the break down of the Sorcery tree because its what I have in front of
me at the moment, I’m not going to describe every little power, I’ll
just say think Diablo 2 still tree, or World of Warcraft, or basically
any RPG with a tree system. For Sorcery there is a Destiny Tree and a
summoning tree, and the destiny tree is more spells oriented, where
the summoning three is more geared toward a few pets that follow you
around, one that is a damage dealer and one you can tell to heal you,
but both you have to tell what to do all the time, as far as I can
tell there is no automatic. At level 9 or 10, can’t remember you get
your upgrade to your movement type, I’ve only tried Flight and
Super-speed, not sure on the Acrobatics, basically for your movement
speed you push F on the keyboard for it to be turned on, and then when
you want your locked “supermovment” you hold number lock,(all keys can
be remapped). its basically just your main movement power only you
triple the speed. My favorite thing to do with super speed, and
unfortunetly might be a bug, is to run up a large building and just as
im about to crest the top, jump, and all the forward upward momentum
gets channeled into the jump and you end up jumping what feels like a
2 or 3 blocks. Also at level 9 or 10 you get access to the Iconic
Powers tree, Heat Vision, and “Non-Venom growth”, and batterang, to
name a few.
On to skill points, these get put into your Weapon tree or your
Movement tree. Your weapons tree are basically the combos you can
preform through combinations of mouse clicks and mouse button holds.
Your movement tree consists of things like tornado if your a
speedster, where you pull your enemies to you grounding them
temporarily.
On to the Gear gathered in game. You will get equipment it will
be better but look ridiculous on you, unlike other games this is not a
problem because of two things, one you can say no I don’t want this to
change the way I look and two because you have the ability to go back
over all the different styles of looks on everything and mix and match
how ever you please. This in my opinion is awesome.
PvP, in open world is just like free pvp in any other game. If
you are on a PvP server, and you see somebody this opposite you, Hero
vs Villain you can hit him and he can hit you, and if you are level 8
and he is level 30 it is going to hurt…
The arenas are a blast, I’ve done a 5 man on Gorilla Island, it
was a blast. I haven’t been able to do to many of the PVP things
because there is never anyone on when I am on.

These are the basics I can think of got any questions that might make
it easier for me then writing a book like I just did, and sorry for
grammer/spelling slash horrible writing, just got off a 9 hour shift
and about to crash.
All and all my verdict on the game is I’m having a blast, I’ve played
through to level 20 on a hero and now I’m at level 18 on my villain.
It is way more fun then Champions Online was to me.

DC Universe Online will be released in 2011.

Microsoft’s briefing was full of glitz, glamour, and lots of games. Nintendo’s conference was full of boring lectures, sales data, a few good announcements, and possibly take-home tests. Sony was a bit of a combination of the two, falling a bit short of the quality of the Microsoft show, but they were far more successful than what Nintendo was able to put together. Sony didn’t cut out all the sales charts like Microsoft did, but they didn’t skimp on showing great looking games either.

Sony’s briefing began with a sense of humor about all the leaks they had beforehand, saying they want to be the industry leader even with news leaks. After a little bit of sales data, Naughty Dog came onstage to show off a demo of Uncharted 2: Drake’s Fortune. The game looks amazing, especially in the quality of character animation. After that, MAG (Massive Action Game) was demoed, showing gameplay for the first time. It looks somewhat impressive, but I’m still not convinced that it will be a compelling experience.

Next up was the official unveiling of the PSP Go. The design is quite a bit different than the current PSP-3000, and it will be co-existing with the current model rather than replacing it. The PSP Go will be in stores the beginning of October with a $249.99 price tag. Coming at the same time as the PSP Go will be a Gran Turismo game for the handheld system. Hideo Kojima decided to show up at Sony’s conference this year (after appearing at Microsoft’s yesterday). This time, he revealed a Metal Gear title for the PSP, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The game appears to take place early on in the Metal Gear story, according to the insanely long trailer that had several different endings. Seriously, the thing just kept on going.

The next section of Sony’s show dragged on for a bit with a few montages and talk about Playstation Home. The crowd had a bit of fun with the presenters when they mockingly cheered for a Hannah Montana game. On the upside, there was a quick mention of a new Rockstar game exclusive to PS3 that is coming called Agent, but little detail was shared.

Luckily Sony got back on track with a live demo of Assassin’s Creed 2. The game looks more colorful than the original, probably due to the Italian setting during the Renaissance. The game’s new lead character, Ezio, is shown climbing buildings and leaping between rooftops much like in the first Assassin’s Creed. However there were several additions and twists to the formula that were shown as well, not the least of which is using Da Vinci’s flying machine to soar over the city. Ezio also has two different hidden blades, allowing him to covertly take out two guards at once, and he can also steal weapons from enemies as he fights them. The demo ended with Ezio leaping into the river to swim away, something that would have meant instant death in the first game. Assassin’s Creed 2 looks very good, and I can’t wait until it hits shelves this November.

Sony then showed off an English-language trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, followed by the surprise announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online coming in 2010, exclusive to PS3. Everything seemed to be on track for Sony thus far, but then Sony revealed their take on a new motion controller, grinding the briefing to a halt.

The new controller featured was just a prototype, so the final look will most likely be quite a bit different than what was shown today. The new controller basically looks like a ping pong ball on the end of a wand. It works in conjunction with the EyeToy camera to detect position and rotation in 3D space. They showed off several simplistic tech demos of the thing, but it came off looking rather cheap and gimmicky, despite working fairly well. It is supposedly coming in the spring of 2010 despite appearing like it isn’t very far along. Compared to the technology behind Microsoft’s Project Natal camera, Sony’s motion controller doesn’t seem to be quite as innovative.

Luckily Sony had more games up their sleeve after the motion controller was revealed. Mod Nation Racers is another title in the vein of LittleBigPlanet. The game is a kart racer with tons of customization options. Particularly impressive was the demonstration of the simple to use, yet robust track editor included in the game. After that was a trailer for the new Team Ico game, The Last Guardian, looking a lot like Shadow of the Colossus in its art design. Next, Grand Turismo 5 showed up in trailer form, looking rather pretty, but very light on gameplay.

And Sony ended the show right there…….okay not really. They showed off a ton of gameplay from the first few minutes of God of War 3. The game looks to play a lot like the previous games in the series, except it is a lot prettier in the graphics department. The level of detail in the environments and character models was very impressive, and I’m sure it will sell a ton of copies when it releases in March 2010.

All in all, Sony had a really good show, despite the lackluster motion controller tech demos. They showed off a lot of games and an attractive new design for the PSP, certainly a lot more content than what Nintendo had.

Take the best things about a chat room, and combine them with the best things about Blogging, and you have Live Blogging. Users will be able to log in, ask questions, discuss the latest news, etc. However, the primary purpose is actually to get the news out there. So whether or not people show up to discuss everything, the show will go on. The blog will get posted, and people will be able to read through the history very easily. 

However, like most things, this is the most fun if people are there to participate. So I hope to see some video game fans for the following dates and times:

Microsoft: June 1st – Live Blogging begins at 1pm EST (Set a Reminder)
Sony: June 2nd – Live Blogging begins at 1:30pm EST (Set a Reminder)
Nintendo:  June 2nd – Live Blogging begins at 4:30pm EST (Set a Reminder)

Hopefully, everyone that cares will be there to share their opinions as they roll in. Watching the show and talking about it at the same time. What could be better? Live blogging begins 30 mins before each conference.

Going into this years Mobile World Conference (MWC) the hottest topics of discussion were new Android phones and new mobile app stores to rival the Apple app store.

So far only the G1 has been available to test the potential of Google’s mobile phone operating system, Android. Although the G1 hardware has had mixed reviews the operating system itself has generally been praised. The market had poised itself for a whole mix of new Android phones to flood the market. So, what came out of Mobile World Congress this year? Answer, the HTC Magic. One phone – not the flood that was expected. It does look like a very nice phone, but then there is nothing else to directly compare it with.

The Apple App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch has been one of the biggest success stories in the past year. Other manufacturers want to get a piece of this very lucrative pie and ‘OnlyAndoid.com’ was launched late last year to support the Android operating system. The handset giant Nokia and Microsoft have now announced their own versions of app download markets for their own operating systems.

From May, Nokia will open up the ‘Ovi Store’ to offer apps and multimedia for their own range of phones. Microsoft will launch ‘Windows Marketplace’ later this year to support their range of ‘Windows Phones’.

Below are my top three phones to be announced at this years congress. All are high end phones that have the standards of wi-fi, 3G and GPS. These are the phones that I feel will make it big in 2009.

HTC Magic

The phone formally known as the G2 has now been renamed the Magic. This is a slimmer, cleaner version of the G1 and in my view a lot nicer. Gone is the slide out keyboard and this has made the device smaller and lighter. All the other specs are very similar to the G1 with the 3.2″ touchscreen providing the majority of the control for the device. The Android operating system has changed slightly to the ‘cupcake’ version to try and address some of the teething problems with the first version. The device will now also record video.

This device appears to be aimed at the group of people who didn’t like the form factor of the G1 and may like the new body of the Magic. Unfortunately the lack of device options that are on the market may still limit the spread of Android (although it didn’t seem to stop the iPhone!)

Sony Ericsson Idou

Sony have gone for the high end multimedia features for their latest phone. The Idou is packed with a 12.1 MP camera (seems a tad over the top for the size of the lens) and a 3.5″ 16 million color touchscreen (same size as the iPhone). What looks interesting with this phone is that will have a similar interface to what is currently used on the PS3 and PSP. I do like this interface, it is very clear and easy to use. Combined with a touchscreen, this is definitely an interface that could rival the iPhone.

The operating system looks to be a variant of the Symbian S60 so there should be plenty of apps available to compete with all the other app markets that are in development.

Samsung Omnia HD

Thanks to the iPhone, touchscreen phones are top of the pops when it comes to phone tech. To complete my trio of the best of MWC comes another touchscreen phone, the Samsung Omina HD. Yes the ‘HD’ gives away the Samsung’s killer feature – it can record 720p HD video at 24 fps. It comes with a 3.7″ AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) display that has the iPhone style capacitive touchscreen technology. This makes the screen very responsive and thanks to the OLED tech, it should look very impressive.

Like the Sony, this phone will use a version of the Symbian S60 operating system so can make use of the solid base of apps available on the market.

Now what could trump all of these phones is the rumour that Apple will be releasing a new iPhone this summer. As with all new Apple rumours, Apple are saying nothing and very little information can be found about what this new version would look like. I personally do not expect anything radical from Apple (there’s not that much wrong with the iPhone design). If Apple do release a new iPhone I would expect more memory (64GB), a weight reduction, color options, a better camera (with video) and some new OS options.

GadgetGeek – Tech Reviews, News, and Future Views

No word yet on Kirstin Dunst, but it is understood that Mary Jane Watson will be featured in the film and Sony isn’t looking to recast the character.

The film’s villain has yet to be announced, but Sony has hinted that “once you find out who the villain is, you’ll know who’s playing it”. Most people are assuming The Lizard due to Dylan Baker’s portrayal of the character’s alter ego, Dr. Curt Conners, in the second and third films, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bruce Campbell playing ol’ Fishbowl-head himself, Mysterio.

Principal Photography will begin in Fall of 2009 for a release in May 2011. The fourth and fifth film will be shot simultaneously to both cut down costs and make certain that everyone involved stays together.

Could all of this lead to an obvious Sinister Six appearence in Spider-Man 6? Only time will tell.

A long… long time.

Alright, I have to apologize up front. The evil podcast faeries came along and stole 2 hours of this episode from my computer. I went into the living room, and came back to an 11 minute episode. I don’t know what happened. One minute it was there, the next it was not.

So, what you are about to hear is the live version of the show. For the most part, it is decent quality. There are some sections where it has bad echos though. My apologies. Again, I have no idea what happened to the good version. If the echoing gets too bad, it fixes itself after a little bit. Hope you enjoy!

2:36 – Congerence is FINALLY getting started. Cool intro with floating X’s, O’s, Traingles and Squares.

2:38 – This Sony guy is the most personable host of the coferences so far. That isn’t saying much. But still.

2:43 – He is talking about the history of the franchise, and the 10 year life cycle of their consoles. Making points about how some of their franchises always start late in the life cycle of their consoles. It’s a  "You should be getting excited for the future" speech.

2:47 – Luckily we finally get to see some content I think. He was starting to drone on and get wordy. Got enough of that from Nintendo.

2:48 – Resistence 2 gameplay being shown. With their 500 foot boss. Looks nice. Very Cloverfield-esque.

2:53 – 8 player online co-op, 60 player competition mode online. Going to show a new trailer with game footage. VERY nice looking trailer. Very moving. San Francisco is getting pounded by tons of of Motherships.

2:56 – Little Big planet being talked about now.

2:58 – The game is all about creating content. They’ve used the game to create a level to present the sales figures for Sony. A unique and more interesting way than it is usually presented. Very cute. :)

3:02 – That wasn’t painful at all. Thank God for showing some innovation with their presentation of sales numbers.

3:03 – Little Big Planet releases October 2008.

3:04 – Talking about PS2. Why? Yes, it sells better, but focus on the future, not the past. Do people still buy new PS2 games? Stop it.

3:07 – Now talking about Singstar and Buzz, their singing and trivia games. Buzz comes to PS3 in September.

3:08 – $149 bundle for PS2 with Lego Batman game and Justice League: New Frontiers movie included. WTF?

3:09 – Playstation Network. Let’s see if they can meet Xbox Live’s challenge. They are going to a single user sign in for all games. They didn’t have that before? Suck. Anyway, across PS3, PSP, and PC it will be the same user.

3:10 – Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty. Playstation Network game. Shorter game, online download. $15 this summer.

3:14 – First shot at the competition I’ve caught this E3: "We’re not interested in filling up our stores with titles no one wants to play just so we can say we have the most". I doubt they’ve ever turned down a game for their network from a game studio.

3:17 – Gran Turismo TV Pay Per View coming to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Apparently you can watch pay per view on actual real life racing and crap. I wonder how many people care about that crap. Starting August 1st.

3:19 – Talking about Trophies now, their version of Achievements.

3:20 – Talking about Home now. They said the wait will be paid off when Public Beta launches. They are going to create stuff from game developers and non-gaming companies like Nike in game. New Video. Sorry, I don’t get the "Social Gaming". Not for me.

3:24 – Talking about their upcoming movies store. Naming their content providers, etc. You can put your content on the PSP, and take it with you.

3:27 – Showing off the video store now. Maybe they should have brought back Little big Planet. That got a bit dull. The new content goes live tonight.

3:30 – Moving on to PSP now. New Ratchet and Clank entertainment pack. New Resistance Retribution PSP game.

3:35 – PSP Gameplay Montage. Lots of games.

3:40 – Life with Playstation. News, sports, weather. Blah, Blah. Welcome to Wii a year ago.

3:41 – Talking about DC Universe Online. They are trying to claim that SOE is good. Don’t buy that. Worst MMOs on the market. :P

3:42 – Jim Lee comes out to talk to DC Universe Online. He is "Literally Pumped" to be here. Sounds painful.

3:44 – First DC trailer….They are making it look like you actually play as the established characters. And those animations look horrible. Typical bad SOE animations. Reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies and its jerkiness.

3:47 – Starting in September you can get the 80 gig pack for the price of the current 40 gig pack at $399.

3:49 – Developers talking about how the Playstation 3 is powerful for making games.

3:53 – Another reel of random games.

3:56 – God of War 3 trailer. Short. Completely CG. Obviously doesn’t look too far along.

3:57 – Time for inFamous. Free Running + Super Powers + Choice of Good or Evil. Looks sweet.

4:00 – One final title that pushes "even the PS3 architecure to the extreme". It "can’t be done on any other system". MAG: Massive Action Game. Up to 256 player battles. Teams will be broken down into 8-player teams with people that have shown themselves to be good leaders leading the teams. Character growth. Trailer time.

4:03 – Looks like another CGI trailer. Reminds me of Frontlines: Fuel of War with more players. Eh. Looks ok. Not earth shaking. Looks like chaos and lag, to me.

4:05 – And they are done. A well organized presentation without many big announcements.

A majority of the week’s events will happen on Monday and Tuesday, as the biggest surprises of the convention generally happen amongst the formal stage presentations (And even then, the majority of the news will likely come from the console makers’ shows).

As such, in order to allow for a majority of the news from the show to take place before we record (You know, so we can actually discuss it), we are going to have to hold off on the E3 Discussion episode. We apoligize to anyone that would’ve been available on the original day, but will now miss the show. However, it’s just about the only way of doing it properly.

The E3 Discussion episode of GeekiNput will take place on Wednesday, July 16th at 8pm EST/5pm PST. The remaining GeekiNput shows will not be effected by this change of schedule, and will continue to record on Mondays.

We hope everyone understands and can still make it.

Rock Band 2 has just been made official. Releasing in September on the Xbox 360, with the other consoles recieving the game "later this year". In addition, IGN has an excellent interview up with harmonix over at their site. Check it out. Some of my favorite bits from the article:

The most important question. Will Rock Band 1 DLC be playable in Rock Band 2?

Dan Teasdale: Yes. We’ve been developing Rock Band as a music platform from the start. All of the songs that you’ve purchased so far (and will be able to purchase in the future) are instantly playable and fully supported in Rock Band 2. We’ve even added some cool new features that let you play your DLC in different ways, which I think people will be very excited to get their hands on.

…

"Rock Band 2’s instruments will not disappoint. Like I mentioned before, our philosophy here is to innovate, then perfect. Along those lines, we’ve been able to take all of the feedback we’ve received to make quieter, more realistic, and more reliable instruments."

…

"Rock Band 2 has the strongest playlist we’ve ever assembled, and I think fans will be blown away not just at the spread, but also at the caliber of acts we’ve attracted."

…

"We’ve taken almost everything people have asked for in Rock Band and added it to Rock Band 2, as well as including some "first time ever" features."

More details will be released at E3 this year. Join us July 15th for GeekiNput’s live discussion of all the E3 events, including Rock Band 2!

Movies:
Michael Sheard, Admiral Ozzel, dies
Star Trek Movie currently known as Star Trek: The Beginning
Jim Carrey and Ben stiller in “Used Guys”, a Scifi Comedy
Lady in the Water starts production

Games:
Sony Bashes Microsoft…again
City of Heroes Issue 5 goes Live

General & Discussions:
DragonCon takes place this weekend
I bought a DS…and I like it!
Every10minutes.com 360 giveaway
Buffcast Season 2, coming soon?
Bandwidth all used up!

Also, a Link for the Unaired Buffy Pilot!