Rahul Shirke

The Dark Knight Teaser Poster’s out!

Among the movies I’m looking forward to the most next year is The Dark Knight, the promising sequel to Batman Begins. Since Batman Begins is the only superhero movie I can bear and like (except for some ridiculous bits like Ra’s al Ghul’s involvement and such), I am naturally excited for its sequel. While its teaser trailer appears to be a way off, we certainly have news in the teasing section.

SuperHeroHype got the official The Dark Knight teaser poster! We give them their bodies’ worth of kudos and bring before you the poster itself! Click on the image below!

Why so serious? It ties in with the viral marketing campaign that’s being tossed around the Internet lately, and hints at the new look of The Joker. I like the way they used the new Batman logo as Joker’s lips, although Joker’s trademark smile isn’t quite viewable. 🙁

Call of Duty 5, Guitar Hero IV, and what we know about them

We have no doubt that you know of the random Activision-Blizzard merger, which happened yesterday to give birth to Activision Blizzard. A fact sheet for the merger has leaked detail that there are several sequels and games coming from Activision worth knowing about. The two biggest stars here are Activision’s current favourite money-milking franchises – Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, as well as another Tony Hawk game.

As for originals (which are not quite so original), we have a James Bond game to tie up with the next James Bond movie, some games for Marvel comics and then some for Dreamworks movies like Madascar 2 and Kung-Fu Panda. There’s also a racing game from Bizarre Creations (the makers of Project Gotham Raving), which Activision bought earlier this year. You can view the entire fact sheet here.

Decided to do some research on the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero sequels, and found some interesting stuff. Call of Duty 5 was talked about waay back, when in early 2007 a rumour said that Infinity Ward will not handle CoD 5. The reason is that Activision wants a new CoD game every year (much like EA’s sport games and their general be a lousy corporation strategy). Infinity Ward stated that this does not match their interests.

This resulted in a compromise – Infinity Ward churns out a new CoD game every two years, while the middle year’s game is filled in by Treyarch, the guys responsible for CoD 3. So, if this rumour is right, Call of Duty 5 will be done by Treyarch, and Infinity Ward’s next will be Call of Duty 6. I’m not complaining about CoD 4’s quality or anything, but all of this just sounds filthy. 🙁

As for Guitar Hero IV, RedOctane had already announced this April that they will be churning out a Guitar Hero game every year. Not much of a surprise, then, that Call of Duty 5 and Guitar Hero IV will just be a “2008 Batch”. This saddens me in that instead of looking forward to create great games, or creating games for gaming’s sake – corporations have seized franchises to milk money from them, reducing the franchise’s name itself to shame. 🙁 This works only in sports games, Activision Blizzard.

Also, Aerosmith is involved in Guitar Hero IV and hence we should expect quite a few Aerosmith songs in it. If the guys of Aerosmith are right, they are a major theme in the game, and will have much influence over it. Wowie.

What do you think of this? Do you praise Activision Blizzard for the idea? Hate them? Think you smell? Discuss below!

Activision MERGES with Vivendi (and Blizzard)

Right when you thought that all the attention of the gaming world has been turned to the Gerstmann controversy, Activision announces out of the blue (the one you see above) that they are merging with Vivendi, who owns Blizzard. As any good gamer will know, Vivendi is just a frail shell encompassing the massive development powerhouse that is Blizzard. This deal shows promise to our gaming eyes, because both sides of the merger here lie on the good side. Activision have published great games like the Call of Duty series and the Guitar Hero series, while Blizzard is known for their even more popular games like the WarCraft games, StarCraft, Diablo series and of course, World of WarCraft.

This flabbergasting deal is worth $18.9 billion, and the result has been titled Activision Blizzard, although I would have preffered something more catchy, like Actizzard, or Blactivision, or Blizzivision. Even though Blizzard gets to be in the company’s name, Vivendi is the one holding a 52% stock in the corporation.

Blizzard CEO, Mike Morhaime says, “Blizzard’s industry-leading PC games business…is an exceptional fit for Activision’s highly profitable console games business.” This probably hints that Blizzard may now be concentrating on the console crowd, which has now become ever simpler with Activision permanently involved. With the developing genius of Blizzard, and the publishing power of Activision, the new corporation is going to give the strongest competition of the Dark Evil Lord of gaming, EA.

Blizzard has posted a press release on their site, which is basically a FAQ with what is going to happen after the deal. Blizzard has explicitly stated that their operations, goals, beliefs and political ideals will not be affected with this deal. You can read the release here.

I don’t know about you, but I have a feeling Activision did this to compete with EA’s buying of BioWare and Pandemic. With those two devs in EA’s hands, they are an unstoppable force in the RPG market, leaving their fierce rivals Activision at a loss. In retaliation, Activision buys what must be the most successful developer in the past 5 years – Blizzard, and their sorry money-giving shell that is Vivendi.

Possible? Not? Comment.

1UP is on THEIR side!

You must have been under the rock of ignorance, if you missed the Gerstmann conspiracy/controversy that’s doing the rounds the last half week. To summarize, the ever-popular Jeff Gerstmann got fired abruptly from GameSpot, and no official statement can be given as to why. But strong rumours are pointing that GameSpot was under advertising pressure, and fired good man Jeff for his low review of the actually abysmal Kane & Lynch.

While most of the internet world appears to be opposing GameSpot (several boycotts, subscription cancellations, spamming and stuff), it is nice to know that someone is fighting for GameSpot’s cause. Ziff Davis, the guys who own 1UP and FileFront, sent a bunch of their staffers to console the GameSpot staff. Constructing a friendly banner, they marched two blocks up, yelled their support for game reviewers (leaving most passers-by saying “WTF?”) and bummed around a bit.

Disconsider this not, reader. GameSpot is one of the biggest game reviewing and general information sites on the net, and if something serious is happening to GameSpot, something serious will happen to the gaming industry, especially game reviewers and their credibility. Considering our motley crew at StuffWeLike are part-time reviewers (except the charming Ted, who’s full-time), I have sympathy to what GameSpot must be going through. But I shall continue to neglect them just because they fired Jeff, good reason or not.

What do you think of this whole controversy? Are the rumours worth believing? Is GameSpot innocent? Was this all really Eidos’ plan? Is this a shadow of more sinister events to come? Involving aliens, dinosaurs, robots and cowboys (wow)? Discuss in the comments below!

Deus Ex 3 announced, teaser revealed, pants wetted

I’ve always maintained that Deus Ex is the greatest game ever made by man, and with good reason. It was thought-provoking, immersive, intelligent and its unique game mechanics were plain perfect. While its sequel never lived up to its predecessor’s timeless glory, I still liked it for just being. I’m in need of underwear right now, because Eidos has just announced Deus Ex 3. That’s right, folks – Deus Ex is back with a vengeance!

Of course, Ion Storm saddeningly dissolved a long time ago, so this is Eidos’ Montreal studio’s first game, and that’s a blazing inauguration. Gamasutra reports the company’s structure, their goals and other details not concerning Deus Ex. What I found to be interesting was that Eidos mentions that the new studio will have tightly-knit, multi-discipline groups (at the most 80 people) working on a single project. Also, their development cycles will reportedly last 24 months, as opposed to the much lesser numbers of their competitors.

Eidos also released the teaser for Deus Ex 3, which you can find below. It’s as ambiguous as you’d expect from a teaser, and depicts a bio-augmented foetus, along with some mysterious words from a narrator. There are also a series of pictures that run damn fast. There’s a list of what they are at Wikipedia, if you’re that interested. (UPDATE: We have just learned that the guys at Shacknews have spent a good portion of their lives taking screenshots from the series of images. They have 20 images here right now, and I have no idea if those are all the images or not.)

While this is all excellent news, I have a strange fear in the back of my mind that this may get “consolized” as well, just like (*shudder*) Invisible War. Also, the fact that Montreal is facing a development cycle, no matter how long, hints at the same. Deus Ex, the beautiful game, in its unadulterated form is one that can only be reasonably played on the PC in its entirety. I hope that Montreal tries to recreate that, rather than tossing this legendary franchise into the unwashed masses of multi-console video games.

Critics hate the Hitman movie. A lot.

Most gamers have been hailing the famed Hitman movie as being the last saving grace for video game movies. Fans rejoiced when it was confirmed that Hitman is heading straight for an R-rating. It appears that all that has been in vain.

Critics have gotten their miserly hands on the Hitman movie and are not impressed. We have no reason to distrust Rotten Tomatoes, so here’s their score: 13% . Yes folks, time for a loud ‘WTF?!’ That’s right, the critics don’t like it one bit. There are a few positie reviews, but most of it looks bad. We took a quick glance over the reviews, and here’s what they say:

It is mindlessly cold and brutally violent (which is good for most of us).
Plenty of nudity – yes, sir!
Horrible story, direction, screenwriting, action, everything. Then again, when was that ever important in movies?
Comparable to James Bond and Bourne movies – in the bad way.
I particularly like Stephen Whitty’s statement: “A lousy picture.”
The positive reviews appear to be sarcastic, and not entirely hope-inducing.
EXCEPT Pete Hammond from Maxim: “It delivers top-notch action, dazzling gunplay and lots of fireworks. What more could we ask for?” Got a point there, Pete.
Some statements are hilarious: Apparently the film thinks fans of the videogame will empathize with a guy who has zero practice dealing with women.
This is a script written with the sensibility of a geeky 12-year-old boy and then dumbed-down some. More than some.
A movie so bland it’s hard to believe it was inspired by anything more than a Wikipedia entry on ‘action thrillers.’

While this makes for some good laughs for us folks not interested in the Hitman games, you can expect a lot of fuming from the Hitman camp. But nyah, those are critics. We, the viewers do want mindless violence, secks, blood and guns.

You might think that’s not bad for a video game movie, but it actually is. Here are Rotten Tomatoes’ scores for some other video game movies:

DOA: Dead or Alive: 34%
Resident Evil: 33%
Resident Evil: Apocalypse: 21%
Resident Evil: Extinction: 22%
Mortal Kombat: 20%
Doom: 19%

Wow. Hitman is worse than Doom? Is that even possible?

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