Amazon is already gearing up for Black Friday with sales all the way up until the big day and today’s deal is particularly good. You can get the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray Set for only $19.49 in the Gold Box Deal of the Day. That is 72% off the regular price.
This is a stupid good deal.
How good a deal is this? I paid full price for this when it came out three years ago and I am not even mad about having it be available this cheap. It is the most comprehensive Blu-Ray collections I have ever bought and still watch the movies and special features on a regular basis. If you are in any way a fan of this series you owe yourself to pick it up today.
To complete your collection Amazon is also offering Prometheus on Blu-Ray for $9.49.
Get on this deal here and hurry, it is only available today.
Batman: Arkham Origins has had its share of problems since its release on October 25th, including save data losses which is why I will not be reviewing the game. Now WB Games has issued a statement resolving to fix the multiple issues that have plagued the title.
Here is the official statement explaining the glitches found so far:
“Some players have been stuck in an endless loop of falling, making it impossible to complete certain missions and progress through the single-player campaign. We believe we have identified the issue and are currently testing the software update, which will push most players back to their previous save so that they will not be stuck in an infinite loop.”
“Some players can see their story progress in the main menu, but once they choose the story slot they don’t see an option to ‘Continue’ and only ‘New Game’ shows up. This issue should be resolved and the ‘Continue’ option will once again be available.”
“FreeFlow Focus mode not unlocking upon reaching Shadow Vigilante rank 3.”
“Players have reported recurring crashing and freezing while playing the game. We have been working hard to track down and resolve the problem as quickly as possible. We believe we know what is causing these issues and need a few more days to validate before pushing this patch through. In the meantime, some players have managed to avoid the freezing by disconnecting their console from the Internet while playing.”
And the biggest of the bunch it the data on 360 versions of the game being corrupted (like mine).
“Players have reported losing their saved game to data corruption. Specifically, when you try to choose a story slot to continue, it says ‘Corrupted’ and if you select it, an error message appears which says, ‘The save is corrupt. Please delete it.’ We believe we know what is causing this and need a few more days to validate before pushing a patch through.”
When you see just how many problems have been found with this game it is amazing that it got through QA testing. It screams of a studio that had to make a release date no matter what even if that meant shipping a game that was not ready. I feel bad for Rocksteady who has built the Arkham franchise into a gaming giant and entrusted it to another studio just to have this happen.
If you are looking to pick up an Xbox 360 for yourself or a Christmas present I would suggest doing it early. As in today. Best Buy is offering the Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Bundle that comes with Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports Season Two and Forza Horizon for only $244.99. That is a whopping 40% off the retail of $399.99.
Also, they have Playstation Vita’s for only $179.99 today only.
First off, don’t expect any Spartacus levels of blood here. It is a television ad but it does do a good job of showing off the ferocity of battle. The transition to in-game footage near the end is almost seamless and it took me a second or two to realize it had switched over.
Pretty game is pretty.
[amazon_link id=”B00CMQTU74″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Ryse: Son of Rome[/amazon_link] releases on November 22nd.
As an added bonus take a look at the video below which shows the crafting of the real armor and weapons based on the game.
More bad news for South Park fans as Ubisoft has delayed South Park: The Stick of Truth again. The game will now release on March 4, 2014.
Trey Stone and Matt Parker have been closely involved with the project to ensure that it is like playing an actual episode of South Park.
Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc was surprisingly honest about the delay:
“Within three weeks after acquiring the game, we sadly realized we had to turn this thing upside down if we hoped to deliver the experience everybody wanted. It’s been such a major overhaul to get to the point where we are that we couldn’t let it go, even if that meant missing December.”
While this certainly does suck worse than a bowl of chili made of Scott Tenorman’s parents, if it means the game will be a more polished and quality game I am all for it.
Ubisoft also released this seven minute gameplay trailer today as the boys hunt down The Bard on their quest for The Stick of Truth.
Happy Halloween! My second favorite holiday is here and that means watching my favorite horror series ever. So I decided I would give everyone an easy list of all the movies in the Halloween franchise from best to worst.
Beware! William Shatner masks and annoying singing TV commercials ahead.
1. Halloween (1978)
I decided to do this list first to worst instead of vice versa because the real intrigue is what will be at the bottom. The original John Carpenter classic will always be number one. It brought a new kind of terror to theaters 35 years ago and essentially created the slasher movie craze.
2. Halloween II (1981)
After Halloween hit John Carpenter became the next big thing for directors. He was too busy with his schedule of finishing up The Fog and filming Escape from New York to come back for the sequel but he and partner Debra Hill wrote the script which continued the story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers on the same night. While there is a dip in quality, its hospital backdrop has always been a favorite of mine. Also, it has given us the song that Bud sang. “Amazing Grace, come sit on my face. Don’t make me cry, I need your pie.”
3. Halloween (2009)
After a five year break, Michael Myers returned in the form of Rob Zombie’s Halloween. The director retold the origin story of Michael and his subsequent madness in today’s time and it worked. It was brutal, visceral and made way for new versions of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. Did anyone else find it weird seeing Danielle Harris nude after watching 4 & 5 so many times?
4. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Acting as if Halloween 4-6 never happened, Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in the sequel to Halloween 1 & 2. Still haunted by memories of that one night 20 years earlier even though she has moved across country and changed her name, Michael returns to come after her and her son. You also get an early Joseph Gordon Levitt death.
5. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
When Halloween 3’s attempt at a new singular story failed to capture anyone’s imaginations it was decided that Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis needed to come back from the supposed dead that happened at the end of Halloween 2. With Jamie Lee Curtis off being one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood, the writers killed her off in a car wreck and had Michael return to go after her daughter played by Danielle Harris. It was a decent addition to the franchise and had good box office since Michael Myers was back.
6. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1996)
A young Paul Rudd plays Tommy Doyle, the boy Laurie Strode was babysitting in the original Halloween. Jamie Lloyd (not played by Danielle Harris) is killed off and her baby is hunted down by Michael and some secret society that want to harness his power. This was Donald Pleasence’s last appearance as he died between filming being completed and the movie’s release.
7. Halloween 5: The Curse of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween 4 was a hit so how did the studio react to it? By rushing out a sequel only a year later which put Halloween 4’s good ending on the back burner and had Danielle Harris return as Jamie Lloyd only to have her do her best Jodie Foster Nell impression for the first half of the movie. I always wonder what could have been if this had not been put on the fast track.
8. Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Halloween 2 director Rick Rosenthal returned to the franchise which also had Jamie Lee Curtis return as Laurie Strode for a few minutes. Then she died. Yep. On the run for 24 years and she lost. Michael returns home to see that a reality show has invaded his home and he starts offing folks until Busta Rhymes kung-fu fights him in a fire. I shit you not. It sounds like I just completely put a random set of words together to make a movie plot but this is really it.
9. Halloween II (2009)
Two years earlier Rob Zombie’s Halloween became the highest grossing movie in the franchise and people like me were excited when he came back to direct the sequel. What happened? Michael lumbers around with a lumberjack beard hanging from the bottom of his mask and almost stabs everyone in the face while sounding like he is having the world’s best/creepiest orgasm. I don’t know why Zombie got so face stab happy but it was a bit creepy. Scout Taylor-Compton returned as Laurie but the script called for her to act like such a massive bitch that I was actually hoping Michael would hurry up and stab her in the face 43 times. They also turned Malcolm McDowell’s Dr. Loomis into a fame-seeking asshole that I wished had stayed dead in the first movie.
Long story short; there won’t be a Batman: Arkham Origins review. At least not anytime soon. This is due to the fact that I was twelve hours into the latest game in the series when I got a corrupted data message. The only solution? Delete my save and start anew.
I went online and read story after story of 360 owners who had experienced the same issue. Some had restarted the game two, three and even four times and at certain points their data became corrupted again. As of this writing the 360 version is the only one that seems to have this problem although the PS3 version is having frame rate issues. It looks like the Wii U and PC versions are the best of the bunch.
The only news from WB Montreal is that they are “investigating the issue” which is company speak for “oh shit, we missed something. Find it and patch it”. Now if you know me personally you know how much this hurts me. As the tattoos on my body and shelves of Batman action figures (not toys dammit) and statues can attest I am a bit of a Dark Knight freak. So the fact that this happened stings worse.
Why not just start over and play through the game? I can hear some of you saying. This is a multi-part answer. It will lead into my early impressions of the game which were…meh. The game looked beautiful and the voice acting was top notch. Roger Craig Smith was a good place holder for Kevin Conroy and Troy Baker sounds so much like Mark Hamill it is uncanny. There was something just a bit off about it. While keeping the same combat and control scheme of the previous two Arkham games, the timing seemed different and led to a lot of frustrating fights.
I have played through Asylum five time and City three. I even played through both of them before Origins came out to make sure I had my timing down correctly and to acclimate myself with the controls again. In both previous games, I had no problem with big groups of thugs even while playing on hard. Playing Origins on normal difficulty (for the sake of review) I regularly found myself almost dying in groups of six or seven guys. The counter system, while technically the same as Rocksteady’s games was not reading all the counters I was doing. With a game that requires multiple counters in a row to keep combat flowing you need the game to be able to react to them. I was regularly getting annoyed at the combat in a series where combat is the best thing.
Also, while this is our first opportunity in the series to play in an actual open version of Gotham City, it feels decidedly vacant. I understand the story permits this with it being Christmas Eve and people are asked to stay in there homes because of the danger. So it is just you and thugs galore to occupy the city. I know Gotham City is a dangerous place but damn. If my apartment building had two snipers, two knife-wielding psychos and a guy with a baseball bat I would be calling Two Men and Truck…now. I am still looking for that first true Gotham City experience. I want Spider-Man 2 except with Batman. Bustling streets and patrons. Random robberies to stop. Driving the Batmobile around Gotham.
The second part of my reasoning for not starting the game again is I do not have the time to. Besides this site I have a full-time job and, despite what some people think, do not want to spend every waking moment in front of a television or computer screen. Maybe one day I will give Arkham Origins another chance or I may just wait for Rocksteady’s next installment that will be free of these problems. For now I have to get ready for the next-gen launches and even though I juuust said I can’t spend all my time with video games…I have to review WWE 2K14.
With the Playstation 4 only a few weeks from release, Sony has posted what they call the “Ultimate FAQ” about their next-gen console. Let’s take a look at the details in three handy categories for you fine people.
The Good
-The Playstation 4 will release on November 15th in North America for $399.99.
-HDMI cable included (at last)
-PS4 is designed with an internal power supply, so it does not have an external
“power brick.”
-PS4 is capable of 10x the processing power of the PS3 system. The system
features an optimized design featuring a unified 8GB of high-speed GDDR5 RAM, an
eight core X86 CPU, and a powerful graphics processor.
-The majority of new features that have been announced will be available when PS4
launches. These features include background downloads, cross-game voice chat,
transitioning to a network based on real-world friends, and live streaming
gameplay footage via Ustream and Twitch.
-PS4 supports up to 2,000 online friends, an expansion of the 100 friends limit
for the PS3 system.
-You can continue to play a game as a patch is downloading.
– One PS Plus membership will continue to grant benefits for your PS3 and PS Vita
system, even after you pick up a PS4.
-You can use content you’ve purchased on up to two PS4 systems simultaneously —
simply sign into a friends’ PS4, and the content you’ve purchased will be
available as long as you remain signed in.
The Bad
-The PS4 will not support an external hard drive. PS4 is equipped with a 5400 RPM SATA II hard drive. Users can choose to install
a new hard drive so long as it complies with these standards, is no thicker than
9.5mm, and is larger than 160GB.
-Support for high-resolution 4K output for still images and movie content is in consideration, but there are no further details to share at this time. PS4 does not currently support 4K output for games.
-PS4 will not support Dynamic Themes as they currently exist on the PS3 system.
-We strongly recommend that Remote Play be used within the same WiFi network
where PS4 is connected. Remote Play may or may not work over a wide area network.
-You can not share your captured videos on YouTube.
The Random
-What’s in the box? Playstation 4 console, Dualshock 4 controller, micro USB cable for charging controller, mono headset for voice chat, power cable and HDMI cable.
-Input/ Output ports: HDMI OUT, DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL AUDIO), Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, and an
auxiliary connector reserved for PlayStation Camera. PS4 also features
integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi for wireless internet connectivity and Bluetooth
2.1 for DUALSHOCK 4 wireless controller connectivity.
-PS4 can be used in the horizontal or vertical position. In North America,
vertical stands for PS4 will be released by partners as officially licensed
program products during PS4’s launch window.
-Blu-Ray and DVD playback with PS4 (duh). No audio CD capability.
-PS4 supports up to four DUALSHOCK 4 wireless controllers at one time.
-Remote Play will work best when the PS Vita system is located within the same WiFi network where PS4 is connected. We also recommend that PS4 be connected to the local area network via an Ethernet cable, that a router suitable for gaming be used and that the PS Vita system be within close proximity of the WiFi access point so that the connection is free of interference.
The good people at CBM.com have some new rumors kicking around about Ben Affleck’s car and costume in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel. First off, it seems that Cadillac is indeed working on the new version of the Batmobile. The new vehicle should be more of a car design and a far cry from the Tumbler seen in the Nolan trilogy.
Now onto the costume which is the exciting part. Their sources are saying that Affleck’s costume will be based on the Lee Bermejo graphic novel, [amazon_link id=”1401232132″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Noel[/amazon_link], which was released in 2011 and has become regular Christmas reading for me since. It is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with Batman, The Joker and an actual glimmer of hope at the end. Also, off subject, if you have not read Bermejo’s graphic novel, [amazon_link id=”1401215815″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Joker[/amazon_link], then you are missing out badly.
As far as the costume, I love the idea. It is a realistic looking fabric with body armor look and the cowl should fit Affleck’s version of Batman great.
