Ladies and Gentlemen, if there is one movie you go see this summer, go see Man of Steel. I have been waiting my whole life for a Superman movie that would be as big and grandiose as I felt a Superman movie deserves to be. Finally, with the combined star power of Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan, we have that film. They have managed to take Superman from the Campy, very comic, borderline terrible (we loved them because we didn’t know any better) films of the past, and transform him into this absolutely incredible, grounded, more serious, yet still fun, epic film we have today.
This is an origins film, but it is a reboot of the Superman franchise. They manage to tell Superman’s origin in a way that feels fresh, not overly drawn out, and is exciting for both fan and non-fan alike. The beginning on Krypton, is visually breathtaking, and does a great job of Introducing Russell Crowe as Jor-El, as well as Michael Shannon as General Zod. From there we are shown, through flashbacks, a young Clark Kent, and are treated to a bit of insight into how difficult it was growing up with these strange powers, and how important the moral guidance from the Kent family was. They took some liberties here with the mythos, and just like anytime you make changes to a character like this, some fans will hate it, and others, will accept and enjoy it. Personally, I felt they were acceptable changes and only served to strengthen my enjoyment of the film.
This movie has some absolutely INCREDIBLE battle scenes. I mean never have I seen anything like it. The scale of the destruction from the fights… WOW. Zack Snyder and company NAILED these fight scenes. You can tell the love and care they put into them, the sense of scale is just mind-blowing. I think my mouth just hung open in awe for almost the second half of this film. We have seen some pretty epic battle scenes recently (Avengers anyone?) but nothing prepared me for the raw visceral kick that this film produced. They are big, HUGE, over the top battles, and I loved every second of them.
Part of what makes the battle scenes so believable is the music and sound. Hans Zimmer did a wonderful job of the score, the music really sets the tone, and he really went to the next level to make every scene feel so surreal and legendary. The sound effects in this film, with all the different battle scenes and special effects, simply shines. You will want to see this movie in the best quality cinema possible, it is worth it.
I feel as though they did a great job casting this film. Henry Cavill is a wonderful Superman, not only does he look and act the part, but I felt that he did a great job of conveying the emotional side of the character as well. Micheal Shannon is a fantastic General Zod, delivering a legendary performance and truly selling the character to the audience. When I first heard Amy Adams was Lois Lane I was nervous, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about, as she does a great job of being that brave, plucky reporter that we know and love. She and Clark have great chemistry together and it really goes a long way in the film to create attachment with these characters. There was the odd character throughout the film that felt a little campy (mainly a daily bugle reporter or two) but overall I was very pleased with the acting in this film.
After having seen this film, I couldn’t come up with any real gripes that I had. There will be people out there that will hate on the mythos changes, but I personally found them acceptable, enjoyable even. There will be some who will hate on it because it’s so unrealistic, Ummm guys, it is a film about aliens, and super-powered beings, so of course it will be unrealistic. I am sure that there will be the people that will hate on it because this is a more serious, less campy Superman, they will say it doesn’t “feel” like a Superman film. All I can say to that is, FINALLY, the Superman movie I have been waiting for my whole life, has finally arrived. When someone asks if I want to see it again, the answer will be an astounding, YES.
Giant Robots… ✓
Giant Demons from another Dimension… ✓
Total Badassery… ✓
From acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro comes “Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ Pacific Rim.”
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is one hell of a wild ride. It’s not a long ride, but the time you spend on it is well worth the price of admission. It throws you into the action, and outside of the cutscenes, it never really lets up until it’s over. Platinum Games and Hideo Kojima decided that while it may only be about 5-7 hours per play through, they were going to cram as much into them as they could, and god am I glad they did.
The story is exactly what you would expect from Hideo Kojima with a Platinum Games flair. It has all of your usual Hideo Kojima ramblings about life, power, environment and war as an economy. It’s big, it’s outlandish, and it’s HUGELY over the top, but in this context, it fits the game perfectly. If you’re not a Metal Gear fan, then you will enjoy seeing how the universe changed after the events of MGS4, and how all of that led to the events in Rising. If your not a Metal Gear Solid fan, well then skip to the good stuff and enjoy the rest of the ride. The story is really there for the fans, and as a fan I appreciated that. But I also understand there are those out there who do not, luckily there is a bit here for everyone.
Metal Gear Rising’s combat is fast and furious. They give you a weak and strong attack, which you can chain together to produce combo’s. Combo’s start with just your basic chain, but once you start leveling up your move set, you gain access to bigger and stronger combo moves. Once you do enough of these combo’s and fill your power gauge, you can go into what is essentially “blade time”. Blade time essentially slows everything down and allows you to use the right analog stick to free swing your sword. You can use this time to deal out as much damage as possible as well as use precise blade cutting on a target to do some massive damage. For example: you can remove limbs, heads and sometimes if you’re fighting the right enemy, the left arm for a bonus. Sometimes after you have worn an enemy down or blocked correctly and you trigger blade time a little red box will show up. If you manage to slash within that box you will be rewarded with a “zandatsu” What that basically means is, you will reach in and rip out your enemies guts and use them to recharge your own, it is a bit gruesome, but all of the enemies in the game are cyborgs, so you don’t have to feel bad. Defense also plays a pivotal role in Metal Gear Rising. Instead of giving you a block button, the only way to block in Rising is by pressing the light attack button and pushing in the direction of the enemy. It is a good system, one that is easy enough to be useful, but engaging enough to keep it interesting.
As you progress, the game also allows you to use secondary weapons. These are usually after a boss fight and allow you to have a variation of their own weapon. I personally didn’t find them all that useful, as there is a slight pause when pulling a secondary weapon out, and as such I found it more fluid to play with the default sword. But some of the secondary weapons are kind of fun. The Sai for example, while not overly powerful, allows you to disrupt the enemy A.I, stunning them, which allows you to really go to town on that enemy. So by including them they allow for some changes to the play style and variety. There are also consumable weapons such as grenades, rocket launchers and the like. Again, I personally did not find these all that useful, save for the odd time i shot at a helicopter with a rocket launcher.
Graphically I found Rising to be a beautiful game. The frame rate was very stable, even during crazy boss battles or hectic chases. One of the cooler features in the game is the ability to slow down time and chop stuff up. While doing it, there is a little counter in the corner telling you how many pieces it has ended up in. The camera was, for the most part, very good, although there were a few times that it did get a little crazy. Overall, for this kind of game, the camera was very good. I found the voice work as a whole to be fairly solid as well. Although, I am still not sure if the guy they chose to voice Raiden (Quinton Flynn) was the best choice, as I feel out of all the voice work in the game his could be considered the weakest.
Metal Gear Rising is by no means a long game. I think on my first play though I logged around 6 hours. There is also, in true Metal Gear Solid tradition, VR Missions to unlock, as well as many collectibles and secrets. Also, I do know they are planning on releasing some DLC as well, so that should help bring some people back for another go. For myself personally, I liked the length, nothing about it ever felt like they were adding fluff to make the game longer. But if you are the kind of person who will burn though this in 2 days and then be angry that it’s not longer, well then, this game is clearly not for you. But if you are the person who always wondered what would happen if Platinum Games made a game set in the Metal Gear Solid universe with crazy cyborg ninjas, hacking through cars and don’t mind a shorter playtime. Well then, man, do I have the game for you.
I love Zack Snyder, he is one of my favorite directors of recent times. So when I heard that he was doing the new Superman movie, well lets just say that I was rather excited. Then i found out that Christopher Nolan was also involved, and I feel like if these guys can’t make a great Superman movie, then no one can. So far from what i have seen, has really made me think they are really on the right track though, and this latest trailer is no different. It looks amazing! Check it out below and let us know what you think.
PAX East was a blast, and of course with any convention we get Cosplay. Here’s a large compilation of all the amazing Cosplayer’s I managed to run into at PAX.
Welcome peeps from Reddit, if you like my site it would be awesome if you could show me some love with a Facebook like or follow me on twitter and thanks again for checking us out. These photos unfortunately are compressed due to the size of the original images if any one has a good suggestion of where I can upload the album as a whole for people to download uncompressed let me know.
NEW YORK, Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today introduced PlayStation®4 (PS4™), its next generation computer entertainment system that redefines rich and immersive gameplay with powerful graphics and speed, intelligent personalization, deeply integrated social capabilities, and innovative second-screen features. Combined with PlayStation®Network with cloud technology, PS4 offers an expansive gaming ecosystem that is centered on gamers, enabling them to play when, where and how they want. PS4 will be available this holiday season.
Gamer Focused, Developer Inspired
PS4 was designed from the ground up to ensure that the very best games and the most immersive experiences reach PlayStation gamers. PS4 accomplishes this by enabling the greatest game developers in the world to unlock their creativity and push the boundaries of play through a system that is tuned specifically to their needs.
PS4 also fluidly connects players to the larger world of experiences offered by PlayStation, across the console and mobile spaces, and PlayStation® Network (PSN).
The PS4 system architecture is distinguished by its high performance and ease of development. PS4 is centered around a powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor.
The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has been enhanced in a number of ways, principally to allow for easier use of the GPU for general purpose computing (GPGPU) such as physics simulation. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two.
PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of unified system memory, easing game creation and increasing the richness of content achievable on the platform. GDDR5 is used for this memory, giving the system 176 GB/second of bandwidth and providing a further boost to graphics performance.
The end result for gamers is new games with rich, high-fidelity graphics and deeply immersive experiences that shatter expectations.
Shared Game Experiences
Social interaction is central to PS4 experiences, so new features were built into the actual foundation of the system’s hardware architecture. PS4 provides dedicated, “always on” video compression and decompression systems that enables seamless uploading of gameplay. For the first time ever, gamers can share their epic triumphs with the press of a button. Gamers simply hit the “SHARE button” on the controller, scan through the last few minutes of gameplay, tag it and return to the game-the video uploads as the gamer plays. Gamers can share their images and videos to their friends on social networking services such as Facebook.
PS4 also enhances social spectating by enabling gamers to broadcast their gameplay in real-time to friends using live internet streaming services such as Ustream. During live broadcasts, friends can make comments on the streamed gameplay and, if a gamer gets stuck on a challenging level, friends can also join the game in completely new ways. For example, friends can offer health potions or special weapons when a player needs them most during actual gameplay.
Furthermore, users can connect their Facebook account with Sony Entertainment Network account. Through PS4, users are able to deepen their connections through co-op play or “cross-game chat”.
PS4 Second Screens
PS4 integrates second screens, including PlayStation®Vita (PS Vita), smartphones and tablets, to wrap gamers in their favorite content wherever they are. A key feature enabled by second screens is “Remote Play” and PS4 fully unlocks its potential by making PS Vita the ultimate companion device. With PS Vita, gamers will be able to seamlessly pull PS4 titles from their living room TVs and play them on PS Vita’s beautiful 5-inch display and intuitive dual analog sticks over Wi-Fi networks*1. It is SCEI’s long-term vision is to make most PS4 titles playable on PS Vita*2.
A new application from SCE called “PlayStation®App” will enable iPhone, iPad, and AndroidTM based smartphones and tablets*3 to become second screens. Once installed on these devices, users can, for example, see maps on their second screens when playing an adventure game, purchase PS4 games while away from home and download it directly to the console at home, or remotely watch other gamers playing on their devices.
Immediate Gameplay
PS4 radically reduces the lag time between players and their content. PS4 features “suspend mode” which keeps the system in a low power state while preserving the game session. The time it takes today to boot a console and load a saved game will be a thing of the past. With PS4, gamers just hit the power button again and are promptly back playing the game at the exact point where they left off. Additionally, users can boot a variety of applications including a web browser when playing a game on PS4.
PS4 also enables games to be downloaded or updated in the background, or even in stand-by mode. The system takes it one step further by making digital titles playable as they are being downloaded. When a player purchases a game, PS4 downloads just a fraction of the data so gamers can start playing immediately, and the rest is downloaded in the background during actual gameplay.
Personalized, Curated Content
On the newly designed PS4 menu screen, players can look over game-related information shared by friends, view friends’ gameplay with ease, or obtain information of recommended content, including games, TV shows and movies. The long-term goal of PS4 is to reduce download times of digital titles to zero: if the system knows enough about a player to predict the next game they will purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go before they even click the “buy” button. PS4 will further enrich users’ entertainment experiences, by meeting their potential needs.
Gaming in the Cloud
Launched in November 2006, PlayStation Network, a network service for PlayStation users, now operates in 67 countries and regions*4 around the world with the total number of downloaded content of more than 2.8 billion*5. In addition to a variety of games available in PlayStation®Store, PS4 users will be able to enjoy a variety of services offered by PSN, such as Sony Corporation’s Music Unlimited, a cloud-based music subscription service and Video Unlimited, a premium video service, as well as various content distribution services.
By combining PlayStation Network with Gaikai Inc’s cloud technology, it is SCE’s goal to make free exploration possible for various games. In the future, when a gamer sees a title of interest in PlayStation Store, they can immediately start playing a portion of the actual game – not a stripped down version of the game. With Gaikai and PlayStation Store, gamers will be able to experience appealing games and only pay for the games they actually love. PlayStation Network and the cloud will offer additional value to PlayStation gamers. SCE is exploring unique opportunities enabled by cloud technology with the long-term vision of making PlayStation libraries including an incredible catalog of more than 3000 PS3 titles*6 that is unmatched in the industry, mostly ubiquitous on PS4.
SCE will announce new details of PS4 and its robust lineup of games from 3rd party developers and publishers, the independent gaming community and SCE Worldwide Studios, as well as further enhancements to the entire PlayStation ecosystem between now and the holiday 2013 launch.
Main Processor
Single-chip custom processor
CPU : x86-64 AMD “Jaguar”, 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics engine
Memory
GDDR5 8GB
Hard Disk Drive
Built-in
Optical Drive
(read only)
BD 6xCAV
DVD 8xCAV
I/O
Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) 、AUX
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
AV output
HDMI
Analog-AV out
Digital Output (optical)
*Specifications are subject to change without notice.
*1 Depending on network environment or titles, users may not be able to play games outside comfortably.
*2 Exept games that require peripherals such as PlayStation®4 Eye ).
*3 Depending on the version of OS or other conditions, users cannot use the application.
*4 Number as of December 31st , 2012
*5 Number as of February 19st , 2013
*6 Number as of December 31st , 2012, including free trials.
Don’t forget to turn on your Wii U and snag the new Nintendo TVii app. Nintendo promises that their TVii app will be a game changer for how we watch our TV content. If you aren’t sure what Nintendo TVii is watch the video below.
Hold a gaming convention and the Cos-players are bound to show up. I definitely didn’t get them all but there were some great costumes on site. Check out the gallery of images I took from the show.
GEEKOHOLICS 
You must be logged in to post a comment.