I admit, I am still a SpongeBob fan. After all these years, there’s nothing like tuning into Nick and watching the flamboyant yellow sponge do his thing. And so I sat through the SpongeBob Squarepants panel at Comic Con (which took place immediately before the panel for The River in the same room) with a wide-eyed smile from ear to ear. Highlights comin’ right atcha:
On the panel were creative director Vincent Waller (he comes from Ren & Stimpy) and writers Paul Tibbett and Mr. Lawrence (he gives Plankton a voice).
During the panel they previewed upcoming SpongeBob episodes and specials using clips and rough storyboard images.
In “Mermaid Man Begins” we will learn the origin story of the underwater superhero and his sidekick Barnacle Boy; In “Bubble Buddy Returns” SpongeBob’s Leif Erikson Day friend comes back to Bikini Bottom and Sponge offers to babysit his kids; Plankton and Man Ray will join forces (and Man Ray will get fat from eating too many Krabby Patties); Plankton will steal SB’s DNA so that he grows a second eye; in “InSpongeiac” Mr. Crabs has a nightmare and turns into a mustard dispenser; SB and Patrick will house sit for Sandy; in “Ghoul Fools” the Flying Dutchman returns and funnyman Chris Elliot will voice the First Mate ghoul; the “Runaway Roadtrip” special is an anthology episode airing this fall that will follow each of the main characters going on vacation; in the clip titled “Patrick’s Staycation” SpongeBob encourages his best friend to stay home for vacation and he caters to his every whim.
In the Christmas 2012 special “Tis the Season to be Jerky” the Bikini Bottom gang are reimagined as puppets. They played a clip from the special and the live action puppets matched with the animation works really well. The puppets were sculpted and painted specifically for this episode.
When a fan asked how the creative team manages to cater to the younger demographic and yet still keep hold of an older audience the scribes said that “[they] don’t write [the show] for any one demo, [they] write for everyone.” They admit, like I did, that they are simply “grown up kids.”
And here’s a neat little fun fact: when he was creating the character SpongeBob SquarePants, Stephen Hillenburg turned to Jerry Lewis and Pee-wee Herman for inspiration!
On Tuesday June 28 the newest members of Kanye West’s music label G.O.O.D. (Getting Out Our Dreams) headlined the Heineken Red Star Access concert in New York City. The private concert was invite-only and it was located at Santos Party House. Hot 97’s DJ Camilo spinned the beats before the main guests arrived. Adrienne Bailon of 3LW fame introduced Cyhi Da Prynce who performed eight songs from his Royal Flush mixtapes. After his too-brief stint on stage, main attraction Pusha T was showered with cheers as he performed a bunch of songs ranging from classic Clipse tracks to more recent tracks off Ye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the Fear of God mixtape. P confirmed that his next mixtape Fear of God 2 is complete and it will be released later this summer in August. Also, fans can anticipate his first studio album to hit stores on Black Friday (that is late November).
The concert was a raging good time. Thanks to Heineken’s sponsorship free beer was flowing all night, and the speaker setup inside the venue was phenomenal. Standing literally inches from Cyhi and Pusha T made the experience all the more engaging, though I could have done without the onslaught spit and sweat that came my way. Check out pictures from the concert below (please excuse the poor quality, only had iPhone in hand) and jump after the break to find a collection of the night’s performances in video form.
Today Microsoft kicked off E3 2011 at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. So many game trailers, demos, and Xbox Live and Dashboard updates to talk about. Ready, set, bullet points!
The press conference got started with a demo of Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It is described as being “the biggest, most exciting and epic Call of Duty ever.” I can confidently back that statement up. MW3 downloadable content will be available first on Xbox 360. Due out November 8, 2011.
Crystal Dynamics showed off the Tomb Raiderreboot. Lara Croft is getting down and dirty in this game that shares style and gameplay with Uncharted. The developers explained that the game reveals “how an ambitious 21-year-old Lara Croft becomes a hardened survivor.” Due out Fall 2012.
EA Sports president (and former Xbox honcho) Peter Moore announced that four sports games will support Kinect this year and they are Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Madden NFL, FIFA, and Mass Effect 3. ME3 utilizes Kinect with voice control. Kinect’s built-in mic will pick up your commands. RPG decisions and tactical team controls can be carried out by your voice. Due out March 6, 2012.
Next up was Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This title will also feature Kinect support, but this time it’s hand and arm gestures in addition to voice control. You can create various weapons by exploding them into their small parts using Minority Report-style gestures. This demo really wowed the crowed. Voice commands like “optimize for long range” will also piece together a weapon for you. The weapon customization process with Kinect looks very fluid, fast, and super cool. Ubisoft announced that all future titles in the Tom Clancy franchise will support Kinect in some way or other.
The Dashboard is getting yet another facelift. Somehow Microsoft has made it cleaner and more streamlined. It was built from the ground up specifically with Kinect voice in mind. For example, saying “Xbox, music” will bring you directly to the Music section. The new UI contains the following sections: Home, Social, Live TV, Video, Games, Music, Apps, and Settings. That’s right–I said live TV. Microsoft is forging new partnerships to bring live television to Xbox LIVE in the US and around the world, adding to their current partnerships with Sky TV in the UK, Canal Plus in France, and FOXTEL in Australia. TV listings and a DVR manager will be accessible from the Dashboard. Also coming to Xbox is YouTube, UFC, and Bing search. UFC president Dana White came out to show off the interactive UFC content. You can call fights and compare results with your friends. “You say it, Xbox finds it” is the new Bing motto when it comes to searching for and discovering content on the console. “Xbox, Bing, X-Men” will prompt the console to bring up all games and videos (including movies and TV shows) related to your query.
The following upcoming games are Xbox 360 exclusives: Ice-T joined Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski for a demo of Gears of War 3(due out September 20, 2011); Crytek’s Ryse will take advantage of Kinect as you violently slash your way past enemies in Rome; To celebrate Halo’s 10 year anniversary a remastered version of the original game will release November 15, 2011 and it’s called Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary(co-op over Xbox Live and classic multiplayer maps included); Turn 10 Studio’s Forza Motorsport 4releases October 11, 2011 with Top Gear content and Kinect support for voice and headtracking; Head of Lionhead Studios Peter Molyneux hopped on stage to reveal the next Fable subtitled The Journey (this game too will come packed with heavy support for Kinect, due out in 2012); Minecraft is coming to support Kinect this winter; other exclusives include Kinect-based kids games Kinect Disneyland Adventures and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, and Kinect Star Wars.
Microsoft’s bearded man with designer shades Kudo Tsunoda came out to show off the latest updates of his pet project the Kinect. He announced that Kinect Fun Labs is a permanent addition to the Xbox Live Dashboard and it will serve as a portal for the developer community to share their latest Kinect innovations. Three Labs games were shown off. Kinect Me will capture your face and clothing to create an avatar that looks just like you; in Kinect Sparkler you make poses for the camera, it captures them, and then you can use your fingers to draw sparkling lines of light in the image in three dimensions (you can manipulate the image to make it appear as if it contains two layers); Kinect Googly Eyes allows you to scan real-life tangible objects using Kinect and them manipulate their actions on-screen (at the conference a plush toy was scanned without issue). Kinect Fun Labs is accessible today to all Xbox Live members.
More Kinect games coming to Xbox include: Kinect Sports Season 2 (baseball, skiing, golf, darts, tennis, football); Dance Central 2 (which now features a campaign mode, voice controls, and a revamped Break it Down mode, and simultaneous multiplayer dancing…plus all songs from the original an be imported into the sequel).
And then came the “dawn of a new trilogy for Xbox 360″…it’s Halo 4! A brief teaser trailer was played. Master Chief returns Holiday 2012.
And that was the Microsoft press conference. Though most of the game trailer and demos were stimulating, the overall presentation was lacking in explosive, heart-stopping content. The Dashboard update is nice, the Xbox exclusives are impressive, and the push for Kinect is full speed ahead. It will certainly be interesting to see developers make new and exciting uses of the Kinect peripheral; Microsoft seems to be goading developers into incorporating it into their games somehow. Voice control seems overly gimmicking, but at least new approaches are being made to interactivity. And I gotta say, ending the event with a tease at the birth of a new Halo trilogy was a nice touch.
I attended the press conference this morning, so make sure you check out the pictures I snapped in the gallery below!
Are you the ultimate LOST fan? I know I am, and that is why I purchased the LOST: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray. Besides the 36 Blu-ray discs, the detailed and textured set is packed with tons of Lost related goodies including a “recovered Black Rock journal entry”, the senet board game complete with black and white stones, a replica image of the Island, and an exclusive episode guide. This being a LOST package, it comes to little surprise that hidden easter eggs are aplenty. The included ankh stores a “secret message from Jacob” and a Dharma branded black light torch can be used to search the set for clues.
I invite you to look after the break and watch my encompassing unboxing video; I detail all of the set’s contents and reveal the hidden easter eggs. Also, peer into the galleries below to gander at still images of all the content. The first gallery is an extensive look at every item; the second gallery focuses on the Blu-ray sleeves for each season.
And just like that E3 2010 has come to a close. Oh, was it a wonderful three days of gaming. Things kicked off with Microsoft’s bizarre “Project Natal for Xbox 360 Experience” Cirque du Soleil event where we learned Natal’s true name, Kinect. The Big Three’s press conferences proved to be eventful and packed with awesome new games. Microsoft showed off exciting trailers and demos for Call of Duty: Black Ops, Metal Gear: Rising, Gears of War 3, Halo: Reach, and Fable III. Kinect was finally detailed at length, and we got a sneak peek at the Kinect Hub and many of the casual launch titles including Kinect Adventures!, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joy Ride, Kinectimals, Dance Central, and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. Sports fanatics were happy to hear news that ESPN content is coming to Xbox Live. And to conclude the conference Microsoft unvield a refreshed Xbox 360 model that features a sleek, black finish and “whisper quiet” internals. Nintendo harnessed the power of nostalgia to excite the long-time fanboys (and girls). Appearences by The Legend ofZelda: Skyward Sword, GoldenEye 007, Kirby’s Epic Yarn Metroid: Other M, and Donkey Kong Country Returns did not dissappoint. Before Nintendo’s conference could come to a close the Nintendo 3DS was officially unveiled. 3D glasses are not required to experience the 3D effect and Kid Icarus: Uprising is a launch title; I want one. Sony’s press conference pushed for 3D gaming with an impressive demo of Killzone 3 in 3D (glasses (unfortunately) required). Sony’s turn at motion-based gaming with PlayStation Move was demoed and titles like Sorcery and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 utilized the new controllers well. The introduction of PlayStation Plus (Sony’s subscription based online gaming service), a fantastic trailer for Portal 2, and demos of LittleBigPlanet 2 and Twisted Metal rounded out the conference. All in all, the Big Three were successful in making gamers ’round the world happy with their upcoming offereings.
After the press conferences ended, the show floor exploded open with hundreds of game demos. Fortunately almost every booth was filled with knowledgable game developers who were kind enough to speak with me about their creations. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Donkey Kong Country Returns, SOCOM 4, Fable III, the Kinect games, Super Scribblenauts, Tron: Evolution, and the OnLive service impressed me to no end. But there’s one game that stands out the most. My favorite game of E3 2010 is Epic Mickey. The various types of gameplay, visual style, and controls made for an extremely fun and rewarding experience. I can’t wait for it to release on the Wii this holiday season.
To sum up E3 2010 in so many words–motion-controlled gaming (w/ Kinect & PS Move), 3D gaming (w/ PS3 & 3DS), and fantastic titles (that are both classic and new). I had such a great time attending this event for the very first time, and I hope you found my extensive coverage to be interesting, informing, and engaging. I look forward to attending next year’s show and I already have plans to make my coverage even more exciting and comprehensive! I’d like to give a huge thank you to Regina Durkan and Talia Chriqui for their help on the show floor and behind the scenes.
If there’s any E3 content you missed or like to read/watch again, take a look at the links below. Or you can always click the “[experience-it-all] at E3” coverage button that’s located at the top right-hand corner of the home page.
And that marks the end of the interview + hands-on content. Now it’s time for the booth tours! On the last day of E3 2010 I decided to hit record on my camcorder and capture the highlights of almost every booth on the show floor. I did it so you can get a real sense of how each booth was set up and what it all looked like from the perspective of an attendee. Sure E3 is all about the games, but game studios put a ton of effort into making extravagant booths to attract those in attendance; the booths (and requisite booth babes) play a big part in making E3, well, what it has come to be. No, there’s nothing like actually beingthere and speaking with all the developers and playing all the games. But the following videos and pictures will bring you pretty darn close to the action.
Here’s how the booth tour posts are set up. You’ll find an embedded YouTube video at the top; this video will contain 2-3 booth tours. Below you will see various picture galleries separated by company. Next to each company’s name I hand-picked the most popular games featured at that booth. And that’s it, really. So go ahead and dive into this first one here–it’s Microsoft and Sony, two of the biggest booths on campus.
Microsoft: Kinect games,Fable III, Crackdown 2, Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3
Somehow the video footage from the MTV Games/Harmonix booth got lost in the archives…but I have pictures to put in its place!
The layout of the MTV Games/Harmonix was pretty straightforward. The bulk of it was filled with the current Rock Band titles and they include The Beatles: Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3; a section of the booth contained Dance Central stations (that’s the Kinect-enabled dance party game). Speaking of RB 3, the brand spankin’ new keyboard was playable at the booth. It’s a very solid piece of hardware and a welcome addition to the guitar, drums, and mics. The new Rock BandPro guitars, including the Fender Mustang and six-string Fender Squier Stratocaster, were on display. Man are they beautiful, and they look so real (in fact, the latter one is real)! But don’t take my word for it; look in the gallery to see for yourself.
OnLive is a gaming on-demand cloud-based service that’s able to stream video game titles from massive servers around the U.S. straight into your home. Man is that a packed sentence. Let me break it down for you. OnLive has three data centers in the country (east coast, central, and west coast) that house large servers; these servers act as hosts to a bunch of video games. If you sign up for the OnLive service and become a member of the community, the servers will pump video game content from the data center nearest you to your Internet-enabled PC or Mac. Again, it’s essentially gaming on-demand. After installing a plugin in your browser, you can launch OnLive and gain access to a growing library of video game titles. It’s that simple, really.
The OnLive interface is neat. There’s a game marketplace that allows you to choose from a wide selection of games. With a single click you can play a game; or you can find out more about the game before you dive in by watching game previews & trailers. You can even watch other OnLive members play the selected game in real time. The interface drags you into the action of other players, and this is a great way to get a glimpse of a game’s visuals and game style. Besides strictly being there for on-demand gaming, the service hopes to form a community of gamers with features like profiles, friends lists, and brag clips (you can record gameplay and share these moments with other OnLive members).
What’s most exciting about the OnLive service is that it does away with the need for over-the-top and expensive hardware requirements for games. Crysis, a game that is known to be hardware intensive, will play smoothly and look great playing off an old Macbook or PC laptop. The secret formula is OnLive’s proprietary video compression chips that pump out the games from the servers over the Internet and to your computer. As long as you have a 4-5 Mbps Internet connection you will have no problem playing what used to be hardware intensive games in HD (a 1.5 Mbps connection is recommended for SD quality). I really want to hit this point home as well: Since this is gaming on-demand, the service brings together games from all major game consoles (Xbox, PlayStation, PC) and enables you to play them right on your PC or Mac. No need for proprietary hardware and cables. All you need is an Internet connection, a computer, and a keyboard and/or Xbox-type USB controller.
There’s gotta be some lag, you’re thinking to yourself. I was skeptical at first, too. But I gotta say, after playing Just Cause 2 off an old Macbook over the OnLive service, I did not notice the slightest bit of latency between my controller button-mashing and the on-screen action. It truly felt as if I was playing the game locally off a computer or video games console. And what’s fascinating is that Just Cause 2 was running off a server more than 500 miles away in Santa Clara! Though there likely is some latency if you want to get all technical, I honestly did not pick up on it during my brief session of gameplay. I was told that as long as you are within a 1000 mile radius of an OnLive data center you should not experience noticeable latency.
Now let’s talk pricing and availability. OnLive is available to use today (in fact it was turned on a day after my interview took place). You sign up for the service at their website. The “OnLive Founding Members Program” is backed by AT&T and it offers the first year of use for free (!), followed by a $4.95/month fee for the second year. There’s no contract requirement which means if there’s a month you don’t feel like using the service just don’t for it that month. Right now it looks like the company is slowly opening the gates to the OnLive community; if you want to sign up to play you have to sit on a waiting list. Bummer, I know, but the service is still in its infancy and I’m sure the company does not want to overload its servers this early in the game.
And what about software partners? You will not be disappointed on this front. Just announced was partnerships with Sega, Capcom, Konami, and Square Enix. Popular publishers like EA, Ubisoft, THQ, Warner Bros. Interactive, and Disney Interactive are also bringing their titles to the service as well. I’m told new publishers are jumping on the OnLive bandwagon all the time, and this is great news for gamers.
Beside the addition of developer support, OnLive will be adding their MicroConsole to the mix later this year. Basically it’s a small (and I’m told inexpensive) piece of hardware that will allow members to play the streaming games on their HDTVs. It will support up to four wireless controllers, multiple Bluetooth headsets, and it packs two USB ports for wired controllers and keyboards.
Is OnLive the future of gaming? Though it’s too early to tell, you can definitely see the potential it brings to the table. With OnLive there’s no need for high-end graphics cards and to run to a store to purchase a game disc. No longer do you have to worry about upgrading hardware to play the latest and greatest games. If you’ve got the proper Internet connection and live within range of a data center, you are golden. I’ve experience it with my own two eyes and thumbs–the latency was non-existent on the show floor. Though my skepticism has been lowered down a notch, I’m still going to wait for a final verdict after I give the service a try on my own computer at home. Even if OnLive doesn’t catch on and become widely popular, replace game consoles and eliminate the graphics cards arms race, you can bet everyone from industry leaders to gamers will turn to this service as an example of how the next phase of video game distribution was imagined and first put into place.
