Britain’s legendary wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey TV series meets the classic American time travel movie in this amazing animated mashup. The Doctor is Doc Brown, Rory is Marty and Amy is Jennifer in this cross between Doctor Who and Back to the Future. And, yes, there is a DeLorean TARDIS.
CES 2013: Tuesday Roundup
We’ve had a couple of days of action at CES already but Tuesday marked the official opening day of the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show. In addition to some very interesting product news, we had our first keynote presentation of the show from Panasonic.
Sony 4K TVs and Movies – Sony looks for the first mover advantage
Sony’s home entertainment strategy seems to be going all-in on 4K. So far at CES, they’ve announced 4K Ultra HD TVs, a prototype 4K OLED TV, a prototype professional 4K video camera, a prototype 4K Handycam, 4K Blu-Ray discs and 4K streaming movies. Yes, it’s all 4K, all the time from Sony. Well, that would be a good strategy if it all isn’t likely to be prohibitively expensive. The only price Sony has announced is a $25,000 price tag on their 84″ 4K LCD TV.
It’s a sound business plan. If Sony expects that 4K Ultra HD is going to be where the consumer market goes next, being the first mover into the market is generally considered a good move. It would probably be better if they backed it up with 4K output compatibility from the upcoming PS4. I figure that the inclusion of Blu-Ray on the PS3 put that in enough homes to push it over the top in the war with HD-DVD. Maybe the PS4 can get 4K in homes too… When the prices come down. Read the rest of this entry
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Get Ready for Pokemon X & Y
As expected, this morning’s big Pokemon-related announcement by Nintendo was a new Pokemon game for the 3DS. What was surprising was that Nintendo has created a full 3D world for the new game as opposed to the classic styling of the quasi-top down perspective for moving through the world and the mostly static combat screen. That’s fitting considering that it’s the first Pokemon game in 3D (the Black and White series were released on the DS).
In addition to the new graphics style and fully-animated battles, you’re playing in a new area of post-nuclear war Japan the world that looks very much based on Europe. Whether this new region of the Pokemon world is cutoff from the other regions remains to be seen. However, we do know that there will be new Pokemon added to the 649 already in your Pokedex. (That makes me feel old. It was only 251 when I last played a Pokemon game.) Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie have been confirmed as the grass, fire and water type starter Pokemon for the games.
Pokemon X and Pokemon Y are due out in October and will be released simultaneously worldwide, a first for Pokemon games.
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CES 2013: Monday Roundup
I reckon that we can’t start up a geek blog without doing a little bit of CES coverage. Obviously, we’re still a little small to be in Las Vegas for the show but that doesn’t mean we can’t sum up some of the bigger and more interesting news from the 2013 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show.
Samsung OLED TV – Coming soon to store shelves
We’ve been hearing about OLED (organic light-emitting diode) over the years but haven’t seen them outside of trade shows like CES yet. However, Samsung is planning to change that this year. They’re planning to release their F9500 series of OLED TVs this year. This will be an HDTV with 3D capabilities. It will also have a quad-core CPU to power Samsung’s smart hub and gesture controls (finally a practical use for Kinect-like technology).
The most interesting thing from the announcement was the inclusion of multi-view with the TV. This uses Samsung’s 3D glasses with built-in headphones which allow two people to watch two different programs on the same TV. The 55″ Samsung OLED TV will be the biggest application of this sort of technology. Land Rovers have used this sort of technology on dashboard touchscreens since the 2010 model year which allowed both the driver and passenger to see two different things on the same screen. Read the rest of this entry
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars Reaches 100 Episodes
The Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series launched in 2008 with the animated movie that was generally panned by critics. That wasn’t a harbinger for things to come for the TV series itself. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is in its 5th season on the Cartoon Network in America and is expected to keep going strong. There’s a slight irony to the length of the series as Star Wars canon holds that the Clone War lasted only three years.
Anyway, to mark the milestone, Lucasfilm Animation put together a look back at the first 100 episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. (Spoiler alert, naturally.)
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Should We Be Worried About The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct?
When Telltale Games first released 2012’s The Walking Dead, I don’t think anyone was expecting the GOTY-worthy game that they produced given their earlier efforts. It easily set the bar for story writing in video games. Naturally, you could understand why we would keep a close eye on Terminal Reality’s take on The Walking Dead TV series. The game, called The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, is a first-person shooter starring TV series characters Daryl and Merle Dixon.
While previews of the game’s plot and gameplay seem promising, the first gameplay footage has me worried that this is another publisher (Activision) trying to cash in on a hot license and the result will be another terrible TV licensed game. Read the rest of this entry
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The Economics of Video Game Development
A few weeks back, one of the hot stories in the video game world was that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 reached gross sales of $1 billion in only 15 days. What sounded like good news for publisher Activision was quickly reigned in by writers pointing out that CoD: Blops 2 sold fewer copies to reach $1 billion of gross sales than 2011’s CoD: Modern Warfare 3.
This raised an interesting question in my mind: How profitable are video games to make? Even if Blops2 sold fewer copies, shouldn’t Activision still have covered the sunk costs of development and marketing after paying for the variable costs of each unit sold? Read the rest of this entry
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Jadeveon Clowney Scores a Fatality
As good a fighting game as Mortal Kombat was, growing up, we loved it for the blood and brutality. While Street Fighter II was a great fighting game, Mortal Kombat’s sheer violence was what made it legendary in the arcades and living rooms of the world. (Except SNES living rooms since the Nintendo version of the game didn’t include blood because of the company’s family-friendly policies.)
And that brings us to this GIF floating around the internet. When South Carolina linebacker Jadeveon Clowney demolished Michigan running back Vincent Smith, it immediately went viral. It also got a meme treatment which included this Mortal Kombat throwback from @LSUFreek.
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Have Apple’s Sales Peaked? (Infographic)
After blowing away sales expectations for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, Apple’s iPhone 5 fell short of expectations. What was once one of the biggest products in the marketplace showed signs of slowing momentum both at the till and with consumers. Is it possible that the iPhone’s popularity has peaked?
Fortunately, there’s an infographic with a few answers about the state of the iPhone. Read the rest of this entry
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Crash Bandicoot in Real Life
What would it look like if Crash Bandicoot platformed his way through real life. YouTube user Mat’s Films answered that question with this video that’s a great piece of nostalgia for Crash fans from the glory days under developers Naughty Dog. I wonder whatever happened to those guys.
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