Day: July 12, 2007

Universal to handle new Dracula movie

 

An older, more sophisticated Dracula.

I wonder what Bram Stoker would have to say about all the ridiculous Dracula interpretations in this day and age. Or heck, I wonder what Count Vlad himself might have said. I enter this philosophical soliloquy in lamentation of an act of torture committed by Universal Pictures. They are making a new Dracula movie. And I predict its going to be terrible.

Titled “Dracula Year Zero”, this new flick will be directed by Alex Proyas and produced by Micheal de Luca. The story, written by Mark Sazama and Burk Sharpless, will be revolving around Count Vlad “Dracula” himself, rather than a Victorian-era Dracula. Count Vlad, if you don’t know, was a Romanian Warlord who scared the living daylights out of the invading Turks. He was the prime inspiration for Bram Stoker to make Dracula.

The movie can be then, an excellent sword-slashing, curse-babbling period action flick with some supernatural influence here and there. Proyas said that the project “manages to play off the horror and the sympathy you have for a character that sells his soul to the Devil to save his kingdom and family.”

Dracula will be at the height of his powers and bashing Turks open in the movie. I wonder if Sazama and Sharpless decided to cross 300 with Dracula and see what happens. Heh.

“One of the cool things about this is that we’re doing it at Universal,” Sharpless said. “This is the home of monster movies.”

I can’t figure out here whether he means ‘monster’ as in terrible creatures or terrible, impossible-to-watch movies. Awesome or not, this is one movie I’d like to keep my eyes on.

[Via Variety]

Wii Fit Skateboard, Snowboard, Surfboard

Arguably the most exciting revelation at Nintendo’s E3 Media Briefing this year was the Wii Fit. A new peripheral that is able to sense where a person is stepping. Nintendo showed off the possibilities of doing exercises and fun mini-games by using this “stepping platform”.What Nintendo now presents is yet another merge between the arcade and the home console. Imagine using the Wii Fit, not as a excercise platform but as a skateboard, snowboard, or surfboard! Turn the Wii Fit sideways and you’ve got a two-in-one peripheral. Sure you probably won’t be able to do crazy tricks with the board, but for people who can’t find their balance in the real sports Wii Fit is going to be a fun alternative.

For all of the above sports, you’d steer with both feet on the platform. Since Wii Fit is tilt sensitive the peripheral can be as accurate as the real sports. Skateboarding would be a little more tricky, if you want to consider having one foot step down to have your avatar push the skateboard faster difficult.

The real brain teaser is why didn’t Nintendo market the Wii Fit at E3 with more of these amazing game possibilities? As Reggie talked about during the presentation Nintendo is going for the general gaming audience and then the hardcore users. It’s plausible that Nintendo realizes that this peripheral is probably not going to be used by the average male gamer at least as a fitness machine. Lets face it, this is what the game industry considers as a serious game. Have serious games sold well thus far? If you have no idea what a serious game is, that just proves my point. By marketing this peripheral as a fitness machine, it’s the female audience who will most likely be the first to purchase it. If specifically mothers were to buy this peripheral for their family Wii console, Nintendo gains access to the whole family. It’s at that point when Nintendo will unveil more casual games like they have already done with their Wii Sports and Wii Play series.

These short gameplay session games are becoming a key to Nintendo’s success and with the Wii Fit a whole new door of gameplay has been opened.

Halo 3’s packaging revealed!

Halo 3 Limited Edition Lo-Res

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in-between, behold: the most powerful force in the galaxy (Microsoft, if you haven’t guessed) has unveiled before us the packaging for Halo 3. The box you see above is for the Legendary Edition, and it is quite a beauty. Personally, I like the vanilla Halo 3 box best.

All the images below are high quality and massive resolutions. Oh, and we are not going to buy you a new set of underwear.

Halo 3

Halo 3 Vanilla Halo 3 Vanilla Angle

Halo 3 Limited Edition

Halo 3 Limited Edition Angle Halo 3 Limited Edition Inside the Box

Halo 3 Legendary Edition (the shiniest of the lot)

Halo 3 Legendary Edition Halo 3 Legendary Edition with goodies Halo 3 Legendary Edition with Helmet

The Pipeline v2.0

The Pipeline v2.0

Here it is! The above image is what our media player The Pipeline will look like in roughly 3 weeks. The technology behind The Pipeline, SplashCast has been working hard at improving the player in many ways.

The mega improvement here is that you can now navigate each show through a series of thumbnails. You can also make the player full screen by pressing a button directly in the player.

Please leave any comments that you have about this new design of the player, whether good or bad. We need all the feedback so we can provide you with the most user friendly player around the net!