I just got word about a new Comic that Lionsgate is putting out that will be a prequel to the upcoming movie starring Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, and Lena Headey. The comic will be 3D – which seems a bit gimmicky, but still intriguing enough to check out. As most of you already know, Dredd is originally a comic series written by John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra.
Above is the cover art for the new comic which looks great! The cover is penciled by Greg Staples. What’s really interesting is that Judge Dredd is a hero from a British publication that is supposed to sum up justice itself. That’s why throughout the years, his appearance in the comics rarely changes and you never see his face. It looks like this new movie will follow that methodology as I don’t recall seeing his face in any of the trailers.
See what I did there? Anyway, came across this pretty cool app in the Google Play Store called AutoRap by Smule – the makers of the “I am T-Pain” App from a while ago. Their quest is to equip sucker MCs from their bad habits by auto correcting their raps and putting it to music.
You can record yourself and share with your friends as well as change the beat to lyrics you just made. You can save all your raps locally on your device to peruse at your leisure. It’s definitely not a cure for bad rapping, but it is pretty fun with a group of people.
We got to take a look at some of the upcoming titles on the Sony PlayStation 3. I anticipate a pretty good gaming season toward the end of the year, but I would say two games really stood out.
God of War Ascension:
I spoke with David Hewitt who manages the design team and he took me through a round. The game wasn’t finished, but it looked really good. Everything looks to be on a grander scale, and Kratos is still as grumpy and violent as ever. However, there was a puzzling moment where Kratos apparently saves someone. Freakish right? I think that may play into the overall story, but that’s just a hunch. But don’t worry, he’s still ripping minions apart and decapitating things. There was also some brain exposure. Yup, you read that right. They’ve also added a new dynamic to the game called “Life Cycle” where you can rebuild anything that’s been destroyed. You can rebuild completely or rebuild up to a certain point. There was a part of the demo where Kratos was able to navigate to another section of the map by climbing a partially destroyed area with the Life Cycle power. Rage mode has also been tweaked to automatically trigger once you’ve reached enough orbs. The designers feared that we weren’t using it enough so now they are forcing it! I complained that if it triggers, I don’t want to have it wasted on weaklings or have it triggered when I’ve just ended a big fight. However, David countered by letting me know that they’ve balanced the fights so that that shouldn’t happen too often, and Rage Mode happens more often all together so it shouldn’t bee too big a deal. We’ll see – the game comes out March 12th. Assassins Creed III:
I was thoroughly impressed with the demo that was shown. I’ll be honest, Assassin’s creed hasn’t really been my favorite game. It’s really cool, and beautiful to look at, but for some reason, I just wasn’t drawn to it. However, I think that might change with Assassins Creed III. The game takes place around the Revolutionary War in the time-line of the United States and there are a few things I’d like to point out. First, our assassin’s movements through the trees looked really fluid. I note it because it must have been really hard to program. It’s trees! Not buildings, or rooftops, which are more flat and linear. I was really surprised at how well they pulled that off. Secondly, you can assassinate with any weapon – not just the hidden blade. This makes your assassinations a lot more fluid as well. I think you see the point I’m trying to make. Lastly, is ship combat. Yea, somehow or another, you end up commanding a ship, and it’s really cool. You see the guys raising the masts and all that other stuff. Your first mate is yelling orders and everyone is working as you steer the ship around the ocean. You’re battles are cool as you send cannon balls hurling through the air towards your enemies. It’s a really fun new dynamic to the game that I personally can’t wait to play.
We managed to snag us a Sony Xperia Ion and played with it for a bit this week. The phone came out on AT&T the end of June and many people are wondering how it stacks up with some of the other devices in AT&T’s stable. Read on to find out!
As usual, I’ll be breaking down the review on the points I liked and the issues I didn’t feel comfortable with or wish could be changed.
Likes:
Form Factor
As soon as I pulled this puppy from my pocket, no less than two people around me approached me to ask me what type of phone I had. I gladly told them what it was and what I was doing with it. I was really surprised, because I don’t usually get that strong of a reaction when I’m holding a phone. Granted, it could have been dumb luck, but I can definitely see why someone might be intrigued with this device. It really does have a sleek, elegant beauty to it – yet you can tell it’s functional. Sony has a way of making electronic devices look and feel really high-grade and the Ion is no different. there is nothing flimsy about this phone which I find really important if I’m going to spend a couple hundred on any piece of equipment.
There is the standard 3.5mm headphone jack at the top, and your volume rocker as well as power-button and dedicated camera button which I’ll talk about in a bit. Nothing but a mic on the bottom, and the HDMI, and Micro USB on the left.
Camera
The Camera is a whopping 12 MP with 16x zoom. It can also record full 1080p video – which looks pretty great on my HD TV. Was quite surprised with the quality of the crappy video I took of my living room on the big screen. The camera is also capable of a 3D Panorama shot. I did find it slightly cool for the first 5 minutes, but then it started to feel a little gimmicky. I couldn’t really think of very many reasons to use it – however, I’m sure there are a few of you who can come up with some ideas. There’s also a front facing camera (1.3 MP) for video chatting with Skype or whatever your favorite video telephony app is. I also liked the fact that you could jump right into not only the camera app, but taking a picture instantly by depressing the hardware camera button.
Speed
AT&T’s LTE network really flies when it wants to. I can’t speak for those in Manhattan in the middle of the day, but when I was using it – downloading apps and playing video was a breeze. I could definitely get used to that.
Dislikes:
Operating System
Now to the disappointment. Androids next iteration of its mobile operating system,Jellybean, has already been announced and is being pushed out to Galaxy Nexus owners as we speak. Ice-Cream Sandwhich is now old. This device is running Android 2.3, a.k.a Gingerbread. Now the OS skinning seems to be a double edged sword. There are UI refinements that were refinements when Gingerbread was the main OS for android, but it also slows down updates. It’s really up to you, but in my humble opinion – this is where the device falls short. I also noticed a bit of lag when moving from screen to scree, however, others haven’t noticed it so perhaps it was my device. At any rate, navigating the older OS, even though it is heavily skinned, was a little annoying knowing that there was something two generations better out there.
There is also the smart dock – which I didn’t have, but got around by just connecting the DMI cord directly to the tv. It’s a pretty nifty idea, and it can be fun playing games on the phone and displaying the image on the big screen. You can also, ofcourse, play movies or music – basically any media on your device on your HD TV. However, I put this under dislikes because there are tons of other ways to get the media from your device to your TV. For example, if you have an HD TV, chances are you have either some apps, or a game system, or some other way to consume third party media. So why go through the trouble to connect your phone? To watch home movies taken from the phone? Yes, but that’s pretty much it. You can also purchase a remote, but it works best with a Sony TV. When playing games on the HD TV, you can’t really take your eyes off of the mobile screen because then you can’t control your character so its really for everyone else’s enjoyment which I found frustrating. I found myself wishing the phone just displayed controls while I played the actual game on the tv.
Little Thick
Not a very big deal here, but I found the device slightly on the chunky side. It’s so slick and cool looking that I just wished it were a little thinner, but those are really my personal aesthetics at this point. Most may not find this to be an issue and it’s definitely not a deal breaker.
Summary:
All-in-all, I enjoyed the device. I will warn you though, there isn’t a specific date announced as to when the device will get an ice-cream sandwich update. A rep told me “later this year”, but that’s all I got. And then when it does, it will only be behind by one update. Other than that, I really can’t find too many other glaring issues with the device. It has a solid build, and a great camera with decent specs.
So any half-hearted fan of the Wutang Clan knows how the group successfully blended the Kung-Fu movie genre with their beats and rhymes. It actually led to my College thesis which was asian culture in hip-hop, however, I digress. The truly important bit of information in this post is the fact that one of the leading members of the Clan, a mr.”Rza”, if you may, has successfully teamed up with another fellow by the name of – Quentin Tarantino, to make a Hong-Kong Styled Martial Arts Movie. The title, aptly named, is “The Man with the Iron Fists.” No doubt, you have ignored this whole post and are watching the trailer right now so I’ll shut up. Cast includes the likes of Russel Crowe,Lucy Liu, Pam Grier, Dave Bautista, and Daniel Wu to name a few. Check this, music on the movie will be made by Black Keys, Kanye West, Wiz Khalifa, Wu-Tang Clan, and the Rza himself. I wish they had Yuen Wu Ping as fight choreographer – but looking at the trailer, I think I’ll be alright.
