With the race for awesome graphics having finally rested, developers are coming up with some really innovative titles at last! Probably spurred by Portal, EA will be doing Mirror’s Edge and Ubisoft will do I Am Alive. What is so innovative about that, you ask? Well, I Am Alive will put you in your own disaster movie as you will have to use real-life skills and techniques to save yourself from an earthquake.

It looks like Ubisoft is all ready to turn the game into a franchise already. This is a pretty weird trend I’ve been noticing lately, with developers starting franchises before the completion of the first game (Mass Effect, Crysis being examples). Well, it’s not bad, so who’s complaining?

It is no genius guess that in the potential sequels, we may have our hero facing other objects of natural fury: floods, tsunamis, tornados, storms, maybe volcanos. In any case, you just know that if I Am Alive’s style can be used on earthquakes, further iterations are inevitable. Oh well, guess the franchise idea wasn’t that far off either!

Also, the first trailer of the game was rather mysterious in itself. Perhaps the events of I Am Alive aren’t as natural as you think. Of course, we, who have been raised on the X-Files will be first to theorise this being part of some global conspiracy, alien invasion or some test created by our alien benefactors. So Ubisoft is going to have to come up with something more original in the story department.

Another question is if the game will at all work. I’m not saying that non-violent games don’t have a chance, but Portal was a work of utter genius, and I’d be shocked if we get a Portal every year. I Am Alive will focus largely on character interactions and problem-solving. Now that we mention it, I’m starting to think that a zombie survival game along the same vein would be awesome…

Hmm, I hope Ubisoft is listening.

I remember first going to Pandora. The site asked me to enter some of my favourite artists. I did. And then it told me that it will play other artists similar to the one I entered. “Excellent!” I utter. I expected a chat room where someone will search up artists. But nope. It was all automated. It was amazing.

It wasn’t perfect, and Last.fm was larger and more attractive, but Pandora was unique. It was the most accurate when it came to recommendations, because of the Music Genome Project, while Last.fm relied on users’ listening habits. But it did not last. As royalties for Internet radio were on the rise, Pandora had to cut access to foreign visitors.

That left me cut out, although I do remember accessing the site once without a proxy and using it for some 20 minutes before expiring my song quota. Could never replicate that moment, but what the hell, it was cool. I really sympathised with Pandora, partly because of the polite apology letter they left for foreign visitors.

Looks like it’s finally time for Pandora to hang up its boots once and for all. SoundExchange is putting on some draconian fees for Internet radio, which is going to hurt Pandora like hell. Royalties have been projected to reach 2.91 cents per listener at 2010. Pandora and others are attempting to petition SoundExchange, but we all know how petitions work.

If it ends up unsuccessful, Pandora will have to pay a whopping 70% of their projected 2008 revenue. Tim Westergren, owner of Pandora says that the minute such an event occurs, Pandora may have to shut shop, which isn’t very surprising. Will this be the demise of free, dynamic Internet radio?

Meanwhile, a new contender has come up to rise the ranks of Internet music. Grooveshark appears to be a brand new site similar to Pandora and Last.fm in that it is a music recommendation system. It appears to be undergoing maintenance right now, so I can’t check it out, but the guys at Mashable seem to have really liked it, so take a look.

Sony Pictures will be doing the big screen version of R.L. Stine’s hugely popular Goosebumps line of books. I’ve read dozens of these as a kid, so I have a reason to be excited, you know. There are 62 books in all, written over the years 1992 through 1997. That’s a lot of content to pick from, almost as much as a comic book franchise.

Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander have been signed on for writing the screenplay. This early, we have no idea on which story will be adapted. If you ask me though, an anthology or a series of loosely connected segments wouldn’t be such a bad idea either, considering the source material.

The tone of the movies is also up for debate. Goosebumps is largely a children’s horror series, which means that you can’t have anything overly horrific or sadistic. For quick reference, they are nothing like Saw or Hostel. The point is, which was the last horror movie you saw that looked like it was perfectly safe for an 11-year old?

Still, the Goosebumps series can perhaps be best appreciated for its eerie settings and the situations that the protagonists encounter. While the resolutions may end up being a bit cheesy or mild, they definitely get you thinking on what Hollywood could do with them and a bit of gore and dark stuff.

Let’s just see how this turns out, then.

Lost
Touchstone Television/Bad Robot
Seasons 1-3 now available on DVD and Blu-Ray; Season 4 available December 9, 2008
3115 minutes

It may sound obvious. Of course any TV series is better on DVD, whether it’s a sitcom, drama, or sci-fi series. But with Lost making fans wait until February 2009 for the fifth season on ABC, and Season Four due out on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 9, 2008, dig out, rent, or buy the first three seasons and start watching. Here are six good reasons to do so: Continue Reading

If you haven’t heard the news already it’s the next Harry Potter movie is to have it’s release delayed so instead of coming out at the end of this year it will be out in the summer of ‘09. While fans are screaming all over the net about the injustice there is another way to look at it on behalf of everyone else.

The world is nearing Potter fatigue and I think Warner Bros is starting to sense it. Before the fans start shouting that the movies are already a few years behind the book’s releases just a few key points to remember. There have been Harry Potter movies coming out for nearly a full decade with the big story a few years back about which would win the box-office wars between Potter and Lord of the Rings.

While Potter has kept on going, and going, Lord has been on hiatus for several years. Long enough for the dust to settle, plans for more movies come along and pre-production to begin. Since there has not been a pause in the endless Potter production line hype between each movie and books release maybe a delay would be a good thing for all concerned.