Avary working on Wolfenstein movie script

Wolfenstein

I pondered months ago as to what basis Hollywood takes when adapting games into movies. I am still wondering the same. News has it that Roger Avary, scriptwriter who has worked on the likes of Pulp Fiction and Silent Hill is working on a script for a movie on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, due for release in 2010.

Yes, that game about an American prisoner in a German prison castle and involving undead Nazi zombies and what-not. Seriously, that’s the game Hollywood wants. After games with exceptional storylines like Doom, Far Cry, Dungeon Siege and Mortal Kombat, we have this. Wonderful.

Still, with Avary on the project, perhaps the movie can be heavily twisted to make it actually good. Also, Uwe Boll is not attached to the project in any way, which can only mean good. Avary hasn’t disclosed anything about the project yet, so anything can happen.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id, says:

“There’s some contract provisions and if they don’t have certain things done within a certain period of time they can’t just sit on the rights forever and not use them.

But apart from that me kind of nagging on him ‘hey is it done yet, hey is it done yet?’ will probably just be annoying and then Rog won’t answer my emails any more. I would probably get the one-sentence email that says, ‘Do you realise I have an Academy Award?’

Heh.

The Mojave Experiment

People can be easily persuaded by others. I mean lets face it, why would you be reading this if you didn’t want my thoughts and opinion?

For a long time now, Apple has been giving Microsoft a run for its money with an amazing PR campaign. I’d imagine that everyone reading this right now has seen the Mac vs. PC commercials. Sometime after Windows Vista came out, Apple started airing commercials that smeared Vista for crashing and not being secure.

I’ve been using Windows Vista since it came out and while I have had issues with the operating software at times, it is a big improvement over previous Windows platforms.

Microsoft has come up with a way to ‘fight’ back against the bad rep Vista received in its earlier days with The Mojave Experiment. The website claims that these are all ‘regular people’ who don’t like Windows Vista, but who have also never used it.They are given copies of Microsoft’s newest operating system codenamed Mojave, while in reality it’s simply a copy of Windows Vista.

Obviously the website shows people who actually enjoy Mojave, and then are revealed that it’s just Vista.

Even if these people are paid actors, not saying that they are, it’s a great experiment. It goes to remind everyone, that you have to be wary of the source that you’re receiving information from. Remember that the best source for information is you. Only you can decide if something is good or bad. Please don’t be ignorant and base a judgment on something before you’ve actually tried it out.

And with that in mind, enjoy your weekend!

Birds of Prey DVD Review

StuffWeLike.com reviews the DVD collection of Birds of Prey the TV Show.

This DVD features all 13 episodes of the series. It also has 30 episodes of the Flash Animated web series Gotham Girls and the Birds of Prey un-aired TV pilot.

This show originally aired on the WB.

I personally do not recommend anyone buy, rent, or even touch this DVD. It’s a waste of time and production effort.

If you think that I’m totally out of my mind for saying such things, let me know. I like to read absurd comments.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie delayed!

Prince of Persia

The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie, which was slated for release next year has been delayed to the next, i.e. 2010. Expect it to come for you at Memorial Day weekend, 2010, the spot that Indiana Jones caught this year.

Disney explained the delay to extensive post-production work. Disney wants to make this a huge franchise, in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean. To do it, Disney is going to need a whole lot of special effects and what-not, and that’s what Disney is going to do in the extra year it gets.

How does to move affect the rest of the movies? Transformers 2, slated for next year will now go smooth sailing without any competition to its visual effects. The move to 2010 may upset a whole different batch of movies, though.

Marvel’s Thor will opening right next week. If Iron Man II ends up being awesome that year, it may affect Thor‘s success as well, putting the Prince in a tight spot. Still, it isn’t all that bad, and since it’s still almost two whole years away, we might see plenty of restructuring and what-not.

QuakeCon: More on Rage, Rage Extended Trailer, Doom 4

Finally, with QuakeCon going, we can get some more dope on Rage, id’s flagship project for their much-touted id Tech 5 Engine, which appears to have been dubbed the Rage Engine now, albeit unofficially.i

Carmack clears the fact that even though their website claims Rage to be a “vehicle-based” game, the vehicular element is not the focus of the game, and it’s still a very first-person shooter. It won’t be a “mindless” open world game, and all its missions will be pretty story-based. Still, it’ll put quite a bit of focus on the open world aspect, seeing as that’s what id wants to prove with id Tech 5.

The engine which Rage will be showcasing is pretty much near completion, according to Carmack. It’s been in development for some three years, and id still has some polishing to do, such as working on the animation system and some tweaks to the big-time MegaTexture system. But all the biggie stuff is done and the engine is almost ready.

While Rage will showcase all the large world environments in the engine, the real meat should be “the next Doom” game, which is to you and me, Doom 4. According to Carmack, Doom 4 will have 3 times the horsepower of Rage, but will have to run at 30 FPS, which is half of that of Rage.

Doom 4 will also be significantly better on the “creative aspects” and “level design”, which isn’t surprising since Doom 3 blew everyone else out of the water for level design. As for what it will feature, Carmack merely says that we’ll have “guns, blood, demons, and gibs” which is a shocking departure from Doom‘s tradition of magical pixies, fairy dust and ponies.

Still, details on Doom 4 are pretty bleak, so we’ll head back to Rage.

Rage

Rage will be delivered for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac. On the Xbox 360, however, id seems to be coming across some problems. The game will fit on 3 DVDs for the Xbox 360, which seems to be a limiting factor. Due to royalties, the cost of a third DVD would go into millions. This would mean that id would be forced to compromise on textures and compress them into 2 DVDs. Darn you, Microsoft!

The PS3 goes sailing smooth with the Blu-Ray discs and the game should come on both DVD and Blu-Ray formats for the PC and Mac. As for when it will arrive, ask any id fanboy and you will get the curt reply of “when it’s done.” id isn’t really sure, but denies it would take as long as 2011. I’d place my bet on early 2010 then, with Doom 4 later that year.

And finally, id played an extended trailer at QuakeCon, which the folks at Shackvideo caught. It’s almost the same as the one at E3, but has some extra stuff. Check it out!