I’m going to be addressing an issue near and dear to my heart but before I do, I suppose I should link the reason behind my “rant???. The issue at hand was addressed at theflickcast.com and I’d invite you to take a look at the article because it is actually pertinent to what I’m going to be talking about.

Back already? Okay, here we go…

I sincerely and honestly believe there is a word for the nerds and geeks who can’t accept the fact that the line has been blurred between what was once socially acceptable among the “beautiful??? people and what we have long held to be sacred in our little geek hearts. I think we refer to them as “hipsters???.

Yeah, now I have your attention.

The fact is, the line between what’s Popular and what is Geeky isn’t only blurred, it’s nearly gone. It was bound to happen and we, as Geeks, should be applauding the fact that the line is so near to being erased forever.

It wasn’t so long ago that video games were the purview of the Nerd, the Geek, the Dweeb. Roleplaying games were spoke of in hushed tones less the Jocks overhear us and determine it was long past time for the Atomic Wedgie to be visited upon the glass wearing masses. The computer, so long our domain and our solace, was embraced by the masses due to necessity in the workplace rather than a love of the devices.

Now there are video games no true Frat Brother would be without. There are applications for our cell phones that are embraced by the Popular People. Computers are in the hands of the Cool Kids. Some of them even have Macs.

And here we are, the OGs (Original Geeks). We made it all happen. We were the outcasts and the societal lepers and now, we are the Supreme of the Alpha Males, the ones who make it all work, the Rock Stars of the tech world. We talk about a new program and how it works and, where they once yawned and their eyes glazed over, people listen intently and act on our words.

Have doubts about that last bit? Look at the top earners in the Forbes 500 and what do you see? An awful lot of guys who are more than likely intimately familiar with what a Swirlie is due to their experiences in high school.

Now to address the particular point of this article. Read the rest of this entry »

First Glance:
The next installment of THQ’s WWE wrestling video game series.

Short Story:
Featuring over the top action and ridiculously over exaggerated character models, WWE All Stars features your favorite current and legendary WWE superstars. You can either play as the superstars of today or be nostalgic and play as the superstars you grew up watching.

The Score:
WWE All Stars is a pretty fun game to play. If you’ve played any of the old arcade games (WWF Wrestlemania on the SNES) you’ll really enjoy this game. The game features over the top action that’s similar to the gameplay of the old arcade games that you played as a kid. Unfortunately, the game does lack in terms of features though. If you’re a wrestling fan, both old and new, at least play this game. WWE All Stars gets a Busy Gamer 3.

Body of Review:
I’ve been a big fan of the WWE for many many years (since back in the WWF days). And of course, since I’m an avid gamer, I’ve played pretty much every WWF/E game that’s been released. Some of my favorite wrestling games have been the WWF/E THQ games. Starting with WWF Wrestlemania 2000 all the way to the Smackdown vs. Raw franchise, THQ has been making some pretty solid wrestling games. They gave us a taste of what this game offers us with 2009′s WWE Legends of Wrestlemania, which was decent, though it had a more grounded feel to the game play. WWE All Stars gives us what Legends of Wrestlmania gave us as far as the roster of WWE Legends are concerned, and then combined it with the over the top action and crazy physic of the wrestlers on the roster similar to that of the old arcade and SNES games of our childhood.

The game has a pretty impressive roster. It features current WWE superstars including: Triple H, Kofi Kingston, The Undertaker, John Morrison, and the recently retired Edge. And also your favorite WWE Legends: Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and for the first time in a THQ/WWE video game, The Macho Man Randy Savage.

The game offers two different “story modes.” One is the Fantasy Warfare mode, which pits a current superstar and a legend of similar fighting styles against each other in a match. What makes this mode pretty cool is that they splice together clips from interviews or live in ring rants of each superstar and turns them into an impressive little match set up. To me, I was really impressed by the amount of work that went into putting those vignettes together.

The other mode is Path of Champions. This mode includes three challenges, where you can chose to challenge The Undertaker for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, or Degeneration X for the WWE World Tag Team Championship. Each championship path will start with the respective champion addressing you and then you go on your way through 9 matches and then the championship match. For example: The World Heavyweight Champion is The Undertaker. Now, his path starts out with Paul Bearer, yes, Paul Bearer, The Undertaker’s long time manager back in the old days, welcoming you to the Funeral Parlor.

For those of you who were WWF fans back in the day, The Funeral Parlor was a segment that would usually feature Paul Bearer talking to the superstar that The Undertaker was in a feud with and then The Undertaker would show up, usually out of nowhere either working on a casket or coming out of a casket, and scares you half to death. Randy Orton just talks about how much better he is than everyone else, and DX just makes fun of you and plugs merchandise (they plug the WWE All Stars game, yes they plug the game you are currently playing). It’s pretty fun to do.

Other than those two modes, you have your normal exhibition matches, 1v1, tag team, extreme rules, and cage matches. Unlike the Smackdown vs Raw games, All Stars does not include Ladder Matches, or my favorite Hell in a Cell match, but what can you do?

The best thing about this is probably to ridiculously over the top action in this game. There’s nothing like playing as The Rock against John Cena, and giving Cena The Rock Bottom, and jumping about 20 feet in the air to deliver said Rock Bottom! Everyone’s moves and finishers are as ridiculous as this. Plus, on top of that, the character models are extremely overdone. I’ve always said that the wrestlers physics are over done in the games and this one takes it to a whole new level. The Undertaker, for example towers over his opponents and his hands are about as big as most peoples heads. It’s completely unrealistic and it’s awesome!

There were some problems with this game though. The game play gets pretty repetitive, but that’s pretty standard with a fighting game, the thing is, is that you can barely win a match by anything but a knock out. Even if you take out your opponent’s health after delivering a finisher, they will more than likely kick out of the pin. As much punishment as you dish out on your opponent, you have a really hard time getting a pin on them, which is a little annoying.

Another thing that bothered me would be the super stars entrances. First of all, they don’t have their full entrances, they stop at the top of the ramp. THQ has always done a great job putting together video game versions of the superstars entrances. If you look at them from previous games, their video game entrances and pretty much exact to how the superstars come out to the ring in real life, would it have killed them to give us full entrances?

Probably the worst thing about All Stars was the “Create a Superstar??? mode. THQ has always made an incredibly in depth create a superstar mode in their wrestling games. All Stars made it painfully simple. As far as the look of your superstar, your choices of clothing and body features are very, very slim. And it’s no different with selecting your entrance and move set. You don’t get to select individual moves, you only get to choose a superstar’s move set as your own, which sucks. I’ve always enjoyed being able to pick my favorite moves from my favorite superstars and combining them into one to make the ultimate badass, but not in this game. The only individual move you get to pick is your finisher, and it’s the same with picking your entrance, you don’t get to pick your individual music or entrance animation. What was great about previous THQ/WWE titles is how detailed the “Create a Superstar??? mode was. Anything was possible with that system. You could have your superstar come out to Triple H’s music with Shawn Michael’s entrance, or have your superstar weigh 300 pounds and see him fly off the top rope with a Swanton Bomb. I was really disappointed with this part of the game.

WWE All Stars is a decent game. It brought back a lot of memories from playing the old WWF arcade games when I was a kid. But at the same time, I left me wanting more as far as some of the game modes and customization is concerned. If you’re a current or old fan of the WWE, play this game, you will enjoy it.

Till next time Busy Gamers, happy gaming!

M-Dawg out!!

Gazillion Entertainment held an event in San Francisco this week and revealed a few tidbits on what we can be expecting from the new Marvel Universe MMO. “Free to Play” seemed a bit of a suprise to us, but with all the other power MMO’s (besides WoW) heading to free subscriptions (relying on in-game “microtransactions” only) this seems to be the safest route of attack for a game that has to compete with other hero games like NC Soft’s City of Heroes…anyhow here’s a few confirmed goodies.

What we know for sure:

Marvel Universe will be free-to-play, and was planned that way from its inception.

It’s being developed by Secret Identity, a sub-group of Gazillion that was formed in late 2009 specifically to build Marvel Universe.

You can play as Marvel characters, and other players can be the same hero as you at the same time, which the devs believe creates “lots of problems and lots of opportunities.???

You won’t have to choose only one character, but will be able to play as all of them.

Some of the characters you will play as are: Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Spiderman, Nova, and Squirrel Girl.

Doctor Doom will be the game’s main villain (at least at launch).

You will play through existing stories that are told in the comic books.

The game world exists within the canon Marvel Universe–this is not an alternate reality scenario.

Marvel Universe is being made primarily for adults (as opposed to Gazillion’s other kid-focused Marvel MMO, Marvel Superhero Squad). They want to target core gamers first, and also make it accessible for everyone else.

So does that mean I can’t make my own super hot hero chick that flys around in lingerie saving lives and kicking ass? Looks like it. /sadface

[Source]

(Gamespot) – Though the Royal Wedding in the UK will dominate the airwaves on April 29, the day will also mark another significant event in the television realm. Following several days of rumors, Microsoft has confirmed that Hulu Plus will launch on Xbox Live starting tomorrow.

To use Hulu Plus, gamers must be Xbox Live Gold members, at a cost of $60 a year, and also subscribe to Hulu Plus, which costs $10 per month. The service allows users to stream shows and select films from a range of networks, including NBC, Fox, ABC, FX, PBS, Bravo, SyFy, and the Sundance Channel. The free version of Hulu, available on PCs, only lets players watch the most recent episodes of select shows gratis.

Hulu Plus joins such other services as Netflix and ESPN on Xbox Live, along with the Zune video marketplace, which allows for high-definition streaming of films and TV shows. Last November, Hulu Plus became available on the PlayStation Network, where it is accessible at no additional charge from Sony.

There’s not a lot I can say about this. There’s so much awesome in this clip that it says it all itself. Watch it and tell me I’m wrong.

Call of the Dead Brings Quartet of Actors, New Story into Black Ops Zombie Mode

First Glance:
A new standalone Spider-Man video game title from Activision aside from the movie tie-in games.

 

Short Story:
The sinister master of illusion, Mysterio, is in the process of stealing the Tablet of Chaos and Order, a mystical artifact able to give its holder unlimited power. Luckily, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man shows up in the nick of time to thwart Mysterio’s evil plan. Unfortunately, in the process of stopping Mysterio, the Tablet gets shattered into multiple pieces. Madame Webb appears and informs Spider-Man that the pieces have been scattered among four different dimensions, and the Spider-Man from each dimension must work together to reassemble the Tablet before the dimensions are destroyed.

The Score:
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension was an absolute delight. Featuring a great original story and a wonderful combination of cell shaded comic book style graphics and wonderfully detailed scenery, Spider-Man is a great title to play. At times, the levels can get a bit lengthy, but over all, it’s a pretty quick game and it has a great replay value. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension gets a Busy Gamer 4.

Body of Review:
First of all, I am a HUGE Spider-Man fan. Spidey is my all-time favorite super hero, so when a movie or game comes out that features the wall crawler, I’m there. And this game, by far, is the best Spider-Man game I’ve played. The story itself is so original and so good, and it’s a way to get fans of Spider-Man who aren’t familiar with any other Spider-Man book besides The Amazing Spider-Man exposed to the other Spidey universes. As I said in my quick synopsis of the story, you play as four different Spider-Men. You have the Spider-Man that everyone knows, The Amazing Spider-Man (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris), the younger Ultimate Spider-Man (who wears the dreaded Black Suit, but Madame Webb has prevented the suit from trying to bond with Peter Parker until the deed is done), Spider-Man Noir(who comes from an alternate dimension set in the 1930′s. This Spider-Man primarily sticks to the shadows and uses stealth to his advantage.) and finally, the Spider-Man of the year 2099 (who is the only one of the four Spider-Men who is NOT Peter Parker). Assuming that the 2099 Spider-Man is the Spider-Man of the potential future, it is impossible for this Spider-Man to be Peter Parker, unless Peter Parker was cryogenically frozen and awaken in the year 2099, but that’s a little farfetched even for a comic book… or is it? The 2099 Spider-Man is a man by the name of Miguel O’Hara, who is an employee for the Alchemex Corporation. Alchemex started dealing in gene splicing and tried to splice human DNA with that of the DNA of a previous Spider-Man in order create an army, but no subject has survived the process. Miguel somehow becomes part of the experiment and manages to survive, and now he possesses the same powers of Peter Parker. He now uses his power to take down his former employers.

Each Spider-Man has their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Out of all four Spider-Men, The Amazing Spider-Man is pretty much your all around Spider-Man, he’s got the perfect combination of power, speed and agility then the other three. Ultimate Spider-Man is a little more powerful because of the Black Suit and he has the ability to go into rage mode which deals more damage to enemies, but his health regeneration can be a little slow. Spider-Man Noir is not great with hand to hand combat and taking on enemies with guns, which is why he works best at stealth attacks and sticks to the shadows. To make up with his inability to take gunfire well, Noir has uncanny health regeneration. And the Spider-Man of 2099 is extremely quick and agile and has the ability to slow things down to dodge gunfire and homing missiles, but his attacks can be a little weak.

Each level takes place in a different dimension and features a different Spider-Man. And along with a different Spider-Man, comes each dimension’s take on classic Spider-Man villains. For me, my favorite villains were the ones portrayed in the Noir levels. They really brought a sense of realism to the villains back story, and it really shows how sinister and gruesome, twisted and demented the villains are. The villains in the Noir dimension are all carnival sideshow freaks who start a crime syndicate. In the Noir story line, the Vulture is the man that kills Uncle Ben, and not only does he kill him, he eats Uncle Ben alive, so that’s the idea that of what things are like in the Noir world. You will encounter every classic villain in the Spider-Man universe. Everyone from the master hunter Kraven, to the embodiment of fear and evil Carnage, the clinically insane Deadpool, and, of course, in the end, Mysterio.

Probably the coolest things about the game is that at certain parts during the levels, there are sequences where the camera will go to a third person over the shoulder view while Spidey is walking around and there is walking dialogue being spoken. Not only that, but certain cut scenes will take you into a first person view of Spidey and you’ll see what he sees as his villains attack him head on. What I really enjoyed during some boss fights is that for some bosses, they will go into a first person view as Spider-Man goes hand to hand with his enemy, and during these sequences, you get to dodge attacks and punch out your enemy. I really enjoyed those sequences because you get to see the detail on the bosses’ faces and every time you punch them in the face, they usually have something to say about said punch to the face.

The best thing about the game though… Spidey’s wise cracks. I’ve noticed what was missing in the movies and some of the recent games was the lack of Spider-Man’s classic wise cracks and trash talking while he fights. In Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, the wise cracks are back in full force. My favorite is when Ultimate Spider-Man is facing off against Electro, and the entire time Spidey goes on and on about how Electro is not wearing any pants. It was one thing after another in that fight, and it was great.

Even though I had some great things to say about this game, there were some problems with it. First of all, when you are wall crawling, the camera is IMPOSSIBLE to work with. This has been a problem with every recent Spider-Man game to my memory. As soon as you start wall crawling, the camera goes haywire and it’s very annoying. Another thing that bothered me was that the levels get very repetitive. They usually consist of two boss fights, and in between the boss fights, you spend the levels pursuing said boss, either saving civilians, or taking down thugs.

All in all, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is a wonderful game. If you are a Spider-Man fan, you will enjoy this game. If you’re not a Spider-Man fan, you will be after playing this game.

Until next time, happy gaming, Busy Gamers!!

M-Dawg out!!!

Over the last week, the Wii has been rumored to be heading on its way off the market. With all of the major first-party titles released on the Wii, this wouldn’t shock me. What shocks me is how quickly it might be moving out. Could Project Cafe be here by the holiday 2011 or early 2012?

Last week according to CVG, a trusted source has said that Nintendo will cut the price of the Wii to May 15. With this announcement, Best Buy responded online by lowering the price temporarily to $169.99.Of course, Nintendo dodged the question when Nintendo of America’s President Reggie Fils-Aime replied to a few questions from CVG:

Read the rest of this entry »

Careful where you toss your grenades troopers, this has to be one of the ‘unluckiest’ throws we’ve seen. Those aint gifts that Santa would be dropping down a chimney thats for sure.

(Before people get mad, let me remind you I already know I am a big dude, so I can say what I want.)

So check this out…

Ashley Kauffman and her friends were super stoked to get free front row tickets to see this ultra realistic show about real talent and hard work called “American Idol???.

You know that show right? It’s all about helping struggling real musicians earn their way to their big break by hard work and songwriting (I’m being a satirical ass).

Anyway… Ashley gets stopped by the staff and is told she is “too big, too heavy??? to be in the front row and she was banished to the back row. Then when she tried to make her way to the 2nd row… she was stopped again and told she couldn’t be with the “skinny girls??? and her spot was taken by two “super skinny girls??? in little dresses.

Ashley wants an apology from the show. She wants everyone to know how she was treated.

Congratulations Ashley. Welcome to Hollywood, reality TV and all that jazz. You are the weakest link…. So what… you were selected to not be on camera because of your size. You’re a fan of the show, did you ever see any uglies up front? No… did you think this time was going to be different?

Let me let you in on a little secret…

American Idol= pop music. Pop music= Popular Music. Popular Music = spoon-fed crap.

Did you for a second think that the show that is just a popularity contest and not a real singing contest and in no way scientific was going to let you taint their image by being in the front row? I dont know how to break it to you kid, but the entertainment industry that you love to follow is filled with this impossible standards regular people have been fighting for years, just because you have always been on the other side (the home audience) and have never experienced the rules and cut throat policies they have is really not Idol’s problem.

The thing is, you probably won’t hear a response from them because IDOL knows this will blow over. They are a multi million dollar machine that cranks out pre made rock stars and they have weathered way bigger controversies than this one.

We can’t blame IDOL, we have only ourselves to blame. I had a simliar situation in the ninties in South Padre Island when we went to the taping of MTV’s spring break. They said our mohawks and tattoos were not what MTV wanted to portray (but if we had shitty jock tribal tattoos that would be ok) So we scaled the wall anyway, I think some obscure one hit wonder was playing I don’t know… But you see it all the time… I mean look at any reality show, you never see the Bachelor picking a big one, or most magazines will have incredibly petite women plastered all over them.

And before people start calling me mean or insensitive.. let me let you in on a little secret. I’m not a small man. Nope… I’m a beer swilling, steak eating, carb loadin’ son of a bitch and I love it. I am a large man, and I have become comfortable in the ogre’s body that the big guy upstairs saw it a laughing joke I should be with. And that’s fine, because I know, if I wanted to, I would diet, or make some drastic change and do it if I thought that would be something I wanted. But I don’t. I am not a member of the blue ribbon committee. I like to be reminded of my faults because the world is a cruel cold dark place, and none of us are sheltered forever.

I don’t play pop music. I play real music. I don’t have pop fans. I have real fans. Being comfortable with my size has let me do ok in life, and in affairs in the heart. I don’t get every girl, but I do good, and the one I really like, well I’ll win her over with my boyish charm (aka awful disposition for life). The thing is, we punch our weight (ohh bad pun) we do what we can, and we dont petition to demand to be let into some club that won’t have us. Screw that club. We start our own and go for it.

That’s reality. Welcome to the real world toots. Now shake it off and go live life.

[Source]

Be Your Own Souvenir! from blablabLAB on Vimeo.

This “Be Your Own Souvenir!” was a project run in January in the Catalan capital that let people do their best super pose and have a 3D printer recreate their likeness into a small little figure.

The computer takes pictures with three Kinect cameras while plugged into a network of programs that could take the person’s image in 3D, convert it into the necessary code and then have the 3D printer spit you out as your limited action figure.

I would want to get myself done in a regular “cool guy” version, a limited “I was riding on the back of a girl and fell and broke my femur” version, and the ultra rare “drunk as a skunk with my pants on the ground” version.

Attend any of our BG functions and you could get to see one of these three in person. No really.

[Source]