Monthly Archives: March 2013

Geek Links of the Week

Researchers from the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh have done a thorough study of professional StarCraft games and have determined which of the three factions would win the war. [Wired]

This week, a source inside Maxis tried to blow the lid off of EA’s story that SimCity needs to be hooked up to the cloud to work. Well, a modder confirmed that story by making the game run offline. Hell, it might actually be better modded than standard. [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Looking for something to drink in a couple of weeks’ time when Game of Thrones returns? You should try Game Of Thrones: Iron Throne blonde ale. [Businessweek]

Google is killing Reader as of July 1st. It’s only been the backbone of my blogging and internet surfing for years. There are a lot of people who use it or rely on it more than I do. So what is Google’s game? [Forbes]

The thinking is that Google is trying to replace Reader for reading recommendations with Google+. The problem is that no one actually uses G+ and it drives absolutely no traffic, especially compared to Reader. [BuzzFeed]

What if Superheroes had Sponsors?

Samsung Unveils Galaxy S 4

samsung-galaxy-s-4Just when you thought that BlackBerry had gotten back in the game, Samsung officially unveiled their new flagship mobile phone for the Android platform.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 isn’t a revolutionary new phone but it certainly is a step above the GS3. It is also, on paper, a step above the iPhone 5. You have to wonder if Apple doesn’t answer the bell with the iPhone 6 (or 5S, which ever they launch this year) if they will start to noticeably lose market share to Samsung and Android.

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Learn About Voice Acting with Commander Shepard and Liara T’Soni

I didn’t want to turn this week into Mass Effect 3 Week Part Two but we’re getting close to that. The team of Holly Conrad, a noted Commander Shepard cosplayer and costume designer, and Jessica Merizan, a community manager at BioWare and also a FemShep cosplayer, also known as Crabcat Industries, show you how to build your own soundproof booth (which, ironically, looks more professional than the booths they had at the campus radio station at my alma mater).

They also talk to Jennifer Hale and Ali Hillis, AKA FemShep and Liara from the Mass Effect trilogy (or Bastila Shan from KOTOR and Lightning from FF13), about voice acting. If you’re interested voice acting or are a huge Mass Effect fan, you probably should give this a watch.

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Want a Veronica Mars Movie? Kickstarter Makes It Happen

For many years, fans of the cult hit TV series Veronica Mars have been clamouring for a movie to continue the series. The script for the movie has been ready since around 2008 as series creator Rob Thomas had been working on the movie since the show was cancelled in 2007. However, the movie has been pushed back due to a lack of funding and support from the studios.

Now, thanks to Kickstarter and the power of crowd funding, it looks like the Veronica Mars movie will become a reality. Thomas took to Kickstarter looking for $2 million to get the movie made and came up with it in under ten hours.

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Building (Critical) Consensus: God of War: Ascension

Has Kratos worn out his welcome? God of War: Ascension is the fourth game in the God of War series for the PlayStation home consoles. The GameRankings and Metacritic scores for each of the first three games were 92 or higher. The aggregated scores for Ascension are around 80%.

Critics haven’t taken to GoW: Ascension quite like they did with the numbered GoW trilogy but does that mean that this is a bad game? Read the rest of this entry

“The Clone Wars” is the First Casualty of Disney’s Control of Star Wars

star-wars-the-clone-warsOn Monday, Lucasfilm announced what they called a “new direction” for their animation division. Unfortunately for fans of Lucasfilm Animation, the direction that Disney has set appears to effectively close down Lucasfilm Animation.

In an announcement posted on StarWars.com, Lucasfilm announced that they would be “winding up” The Clone Wars animated series and indefinitely postponing the Detours series that was in production with the team behind Robot Chicken.

As expected, the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney marked the end of The Clone Wars run on The Cartoon Network. However, it was expected that a Disney network would pick up the series from starting from this fall. Lucasfilm seems to have decided that the critically acclaimed series will finish its run on TV this season.

The announcement did leave open the possibility of “bonus content,” possibly in the form of webisodes, to wrap up The Clone Wars’ story. Sounds to me that this season’s finale wasn’t planned as a series finale and a few loose ends will still have to be tied up.

As for Star Wars: Detours, Lucasfilm felt that the series wouldn’t fit with the direction that the new trilogy is taking. In other words, don’t expect the humour of the old trilogies to be in episodes seven through nine. I’d guess that this is our first official indication that the new trilogy is going in a darker or more serious direction.

What’s next for Lucasfilm Animation? The company says “We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming.” No one quite knows what that means but safe money says that it’s going to be a prequel of sorts to the upcoming film trilogy.

Source: Star Wars – A New Direction for Lucasfilm Animation

The Most Mind-Blowing Mass Effect Cosplay Ever

Okay, short of getting Mark Vanderloo, the actual model for BroShep, to cosplay as Commander Shepard, this is the most mind-blowing bit of Mass Effect cosplay you’ll ever see. It’s the voice of Commander Shepard, Mark Meer, cosplaying as Commander Shepard with the face of Samara and Morinth, Rana McAnear. I told you that it was pretty mind-blowing.

mass-effect-cosplay-uncertain-futures-meer-mcanear

Via Soul Fire Photography.

Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC Review: An End, Once and For All

mass-effect-3-citadel-dlc-bannerThis is it, isn’t it? One last ride with Commander Shepard as we take on a group of well-armed and ill-intentioned bad guys in order to save the galaxy with our friends in tow. BioWare made us well aware that this was going to be the final piece of DLC released for Mass Effect 3. In effect, Citadel would be a send-off for the series that people had invested so much time and energy into over the last six years.

So how was our ride into the sunset with Commander Shepard and crew?

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Cosplaying Violinists Play a Journey Medley

Yesterday, we had Austin Wintory’s detailed commentary of the music he composed for last year’s Game of the Year, Journey. Today, we’ve got more Journey music.

This time, we have violinist Taylor Davis and some intrepid cosplayers put together this two-song medley from Wintory’s Journey score. The songs in this are Apotheosis and I Was Born For This. While you might not know the songs by name, you’ll certainly recognize the sound of the music and the costumes that Davis and friends are wearing.