Every Single Article Written by N - All 1343
Pay $200,000 For Your Virgin Galactic Flight? They Start Next Year!
It looks like Star Trek, but Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s inaugural departure/destination, is real.
Can you believe it’s been almost eight years since Burt Rutan’s Paul Allen-sponsored Scaled Composites won the Ansari X-Prize with SpaceShipOne, the first commercial vehicle to visit space? It has. It’s also been that long since larger-than-life British billionaire Richard Branson started hocking flights to space licensed from that same award-winning design. You may have socked away the required $200,000 for a ticket to sub-orbital spaceflight, but you’ll still need to wait another year before you can make the trip.
Samsung Electronics, My Monitor Died, Why Must You Make Me So Sad?
To the left, success. To the right, complete sadness.
A funny thing happened when I got home last night: my second monitor wouldn’t work. At all. I switched between my VGA and DVI inputs, switched out cables, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers, and *shiver* used a Samsung live chat to determine that my monitor was, in fact, dead. But I can’t send it off for repair because of… what?
EA Brings Us 20 Minutes Of Dead Space 3
In snow, no one can hear you scream…
I can only presume that this twenty minute slice of Dead Space 3 is what we would’ve seen at E3 had EA not forgotten our invitations. Regardless, they’re now unveiling a huge chunk of their new snow-bound Dead Space sequel and it seems the more things change, the more they look like Gears of War. Wait, hang on…
Angry Birds Trilogy For Xbox 360, PS3, 3DS Is Simply A Bridge Too Far
Look, I get it. Rovio is trying to conquer the world. They’ve made exactly one successful franchise, populated it with similar titles, and they’re taking their success all the way to the bank and beyond, to the burger joint behind it. But the Finnish game-maker knew there was still virgin territory to exploit Angry Birds in, and they’ve found the final frontier: home consoles. Excited? Woo…
Penny Arcade Launches Epic Kickstarter Project: Itself. We Explain.
Penny Arcade takes to crowdfunding once more, confuses the masses.
Reading Mike Krahulik’s Twitter account over the past few hours, it would seem that their Kickstarter pitch is getting more people confused than excited. The artist half of the Penny Arcade duo (you may have seen them on the televisions) was sincerely apologetic as he clarified what their comic syndicate was trying to accomplish: returning to the site’s desperate good ol’ days when they relied on tips and donations to stay alive and went ad-free. Now a (relatively) big company with a dozen employees, a Kickstarter to keep the page ad-free seems a bit peculiar. Let me explain to you, as best I can, what the duo are trying to do.
Aesop Rock’s Skelethon Review: The Best Indie Rap Has Ever Been
Aes’ first album in almost five years had to live up to lofty expectations. Thankfully, it does.
A lot has happened since Aesop Rock released his last album, None Shall Pass: NYC-based indie rap label DefJux went into indefinite hiatus (Aes went to Minnesota-based Rhymesayers for this release), his best friend Camu Tao succumbed to lung cancer, five years have passed, and Aes now appears in public with a hobo beard, appearing as a survivor of the apocalyptic tale he’s put together for Skelethon. Knowing he was taking a long time bringing this album to life, he even forwent the use of long-time producer Blockhead and put his latest album together on his own terms. Welcome back, Aesop.
Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad Review: Solid Rally Racing In A Pinch
Unexpected rally action for Xbox Live Arcade? Sure, I’ll take it.
The bad news: having plowed through of all of the content in Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, I still don’t know who Jeremy McGrath is. In fact, if I hadn’t been presented the opportunity to review the game, I would’ve glossed right over the whole thing. From the game alone, I can only guess he’s a popular rally racer sponsored by Monster who barks out obvious tool tips in real life like ‘stay on the road, it’s faster’ and ‘if you lose control, throttle down until you gain control again’, even after you’ve turned the tool tips off. Maybe he’s a draw in Europe I suppose, which reminds me of why Codemasters dropped the late Colin McRae’s name from their DIRT rally series to make the game palatable to Americans.
The good news? They made a pretty good rally game with Jeremy McGrath’s name on it.
The Father Of Geometry Wars Speaks: Stephen Cakebread On The Life And Death Of Bizarre Creations
The chaos of Geometry Wars!
Stephen Cakebread isn’t done with dual-stick shooters, but he’s definitely done with Geometry Wars, for now. Following the dissolution of Bizarre Creations last year, the Xbox 360’s iconic Arcade franchise seems to have been lost to the share drives of Activision’s corporate headquarters. But Cakebread doesn’t see Geometry Wars in the small scope of a mere Microsoft-exclusive shooter – after all, he created the bloody thing – he envisions art installations with projections, fog machines, and lasers. “It isn’t a game for consoles, it’s a game for gamepads,” he says, referring to how well the game would work on a variety of gaming hardware, even the PlayStation Vita. Given the time and resources, he’d develop a version in 3D, or one that takes advantage of displays with external lighting (think: Philips’ Ambilight televisions) and emphasize the series’ pyrotechnic beauty and rapid-fire calamity.
A high bar for twin-stick gaming action (in which you move your avatar with one analog controller stick and shoot with the other), Geometry Wars casts you as a claw-shaped ship out to enact rapid polygonal genocide for gobs of points. The games were a critical and commercial success for developer Bizarre Creations, known most famously for their Project Gotham Racing titles. I got to chat with Stephen about his time there, how Geometry Wars came to be, and how one of my favorite developers became another notch on the United Kingdom’s growing list of reorganized or shuttered game makers.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Review: Needs More Hatchet
Dividing a country with an election, dividing vampires with a hatchet.
Normally we’d give a movie like this a midnight release treatment, but for whatever reason, it slipped through our grubby paws. To be honest, if I don’t get to a film early on, chances are I’ll never catch it in theaters. I’d known about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter since the book was on shelves, but as the trailers would blare before other films, it appears it’s finally reaching a mainstream audience. “They seriously made a movie called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?” they say. It sounds like the perfect idea: take one of our country’s most historically influential president, a quiet, introverted guy with few friends, and turn that sad sap of a back story into a chronicle about how he avenges the death of his mother and becomes a highly-skilled vampire hunter! If only it worked…
Shut Up And Take My Money: LEGO Introduces Ultimate Collectors Series Star Wars B-Wing
“Yeh, the LEGO ve produce is so… how do you zay… zexy?”
When we were at Phoenix Comicon last year, one of the most interesting things I saw was a booth where a fully-constructed 3,000+ piece LEGO Millennium Falcon, then the largest set they’d ever sold, sat alone on a table. Oh, the people that ran the booth weren’t selling anything, it was just there. The idea of celebrating a LEGO Star Wars creation is something I’d put in video form, but I’m not sure if I’d rent a booth and do it. To each their own.
