Nice. They don't seem to be hitting that many cities in this tour, so you got pretty lucky. Their reunion at the Grammies was pretty good.  I saw the Beach Boys aka Mike Love and Bruce Johnston years ago, and I only wish I could see Brian Wilson, but he never comes here.  But I'll definitely be getting the album.

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative!  

It could be used to highlight even more sharply the differences between this universe and the previous one.

You mean in terms of how their first meeting could differ? I guess with Spock being back,  he could be the one pointing out how different things are.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking.  Also, it's still earlier in their careers compared to when they discovered Kahn's ship.  Kirk is even more rash and impulsive.

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Even so, the alternate timeline should be an opportunity to explore storylines that wouldn't have been possible before, not retread old ones. If they're using an old TOS villain, how exactly is that helping their cause of making a movie for those that aren't Trekkies? It just smacks of laziness when they could be doing so much more with their new playground. In other words, if this is not Daddy's Star Trek, as they've often phrased it with the media leading up to release of the first one, then why are they using Daddy's villain?

Maybe, but I think Karl Urban does make a surprisingly good Bones. One of the brighter things about J.J's Trek. But if we're going with an older crew, I think Micheal Weatherly from NCIS would make a good Kirk. With his hair like this, he looks even a bit like Chris Pine and a hint of Shatner:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm98546176/nm0915762

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative!  

It could be used to highlight even more sharply the differences between this universe and the previous one.

You mean in terms of how their first meeting could differ? I guess with Spock being back,  he could be the one pointing out how different things are.

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative! 

Gah, this makes me feel sad for my local liquor store as they have very little in terms of selection. They built a refrigeration room a few years ago, and while it started out with a great selection, it's dwindled down over the years to about one or two really good selections in terms of singles, the rest being sixpacks , mainstream crap, and coolers and other shit like that. So, I get a choice between a Scottish style ale brewed locally and different varieties of Innis & Gunn. That's it. They do have a number of ESB's, but not interested in those as I don't like bitters. That's what we get for the government controlling the liquor. I'll get lucky from time to time to spot something special, but that doesn't happen very often anymore.

colors are 8bit, the resolution is higher than 8 bit systems though.  That might be why you thought that.

Yeah, that and the fact that it's a good use of the palette, I'm guessing, so a combination of those two factors.

Yeah, what Tilt said. I also think it depends on the kind of social circles people have. I just call it "current gen" and leave it at that. I consider the Next Gen XBox 720, PS4, and Wii U.

Or maybe it's Half-Life 3: Left for Dead.

Half-Dead?

Those are exactly my thoughts...  Half-Dead: The Quest for Brains

That's 8-bit? Looks more like 16-bit. Like something that would have appeared on the Amiga. Also Mountain Stream looks like something from Skyrim

I'm surprised he hasn't left sooner considering how terrible the channel is. Now I guess Morgan Webb's the only TechTV Alum left.

It's hardly surprising. I've always seen them more of a racing dev/studio.

Ohhh, interesting. I'm in, definitely if they make an interesting game. I imagine it's going to be quite expensive getting the license for all their likenesses.

It's possible that they'll just put Daniel Craig's Bond in all of them, especially since they're tying everything into one story.  The new Goldeneye had Craig as Bond even though it was Pierce Brosnan in the film.

Yeah, that thought did cross my mind, but the title and description does make it sound like they're going for the distinct versions of the character, as per their movies. Part of me feels that if they're going for a tribute of the movies, that they'd want to get the actor's likenesses for each of the Bonds they want to portray. Having Daniel Craig play all of them would kind of take away from what they're trying to accomplish, I think.

Eh, it's a programmer's kind of game really.

I'm missing something really fundamental here

Hi, I'm Notch, and this is my new game. It's going to be a space game, and it's quite ambitious!

I had always viewed the programming aspect to be side entertainment but if it's the game and the space game is tacked on I'm out of here

Yeah, I'm worried that the programming part of it might be too much. It's likely to be very much the opposite of Minecraft, where this is very much a niche game, weighed down by its complexity. And while the processor is very neat and very innovative, I do have to wonder how much of a game there will be.

Ohhh, interesting. I'm in, definitely if they make an interesting game. I imagine it's going to be quite expensive getting the license for all their likenesses.

Maybe a new franchise from NaughtyDog?

Exactly. It's not so much a gimmick if it's done well like Avatar was. I loved that movie and I thought it was brilliant. But it's all these post-conversions that are hurting the potential of 3D in general.

Is there any good news for the consumer with these next gen consoles?

better graphics

Sad but true I am afraid.   

Heh, I do not have a problem with the graphics now.  Wish they put the new console thing off till 2015 or something.

Yeah, actually I've been very impressed with what they've been able to do with 720p.

Awesome. I'd love to see what these guys could do with new technology.

I supported Cameron and Avatar even when it was bashed heavily, however I feel the 3D re-release of Titanic as nothing more than a money grab taking advantage of the anniversary and my respect for him has gone down. I honestly thought he'd be better than to get into post-conversions, and now seeing him suggest something which wouldn't gain anything from it at all makes me sad. I kind of feel that since his success of Avatar, that he's seen as the 3D posterboy for the industry, and I wouldn't doubt if the industry is putting pressure on him to mention some ideas in order for them to make them happen as he seems to be a powerful voice in the industry. Godfather in 3D would be incredibly sad in terms of shameless greed.

Sounds like pretty much how I use my PSN access   I guess it wouldn't really affect me too much then.

I'm not too keen on that. I think it would be a terrible move. I think the adoption rate its had has been due to the free access, so forcing people to pay for access could be detrimental. I don't use the services much, but I think if they do that, they'd need to distinguish between online services and patching so that those who don't care about the service can still get online to patch their games.

OK, I saw this via Amazon, and I have to admit that it wasn't all that bad.  it actually felt like it could have been a cartoon set in the 80's.  I'd say if you were a fan of the show then it's probably worth a rental.

Agreed. Just saw it today and I didn't think it was half bad. It actually had a lot of redeeming qualities and referenced itself quite a bit. It had quite a bit of respect towards the source material and it was a fun light movie. The trailers actually made it look worse than it was. Perhaps what's most scary though is how I've agreed with CK. They didn't smurf it up.

Man, every time I see an article on her new book that's for adults, they headline it as "Rowling Writes First Adult Novel!" like it's for Penthouse or something.  Maybe they're better off just saying it's the first novel she didn't expressly write for children, which isn't to say that zillions of adults didn't enjoy the Potter stuff too.

Yep, that's the way I see it too. The headlines I've seen make it sound like she's writing something shocking and scandalous when it's likely just that it's her first novel not written expressly for children.

In terms of first person shooters, Goldeneye is really quite decent for a Wii shooter, although with it coming out on the 360 and PS3 now, it might be a bit of a moot point. It also got quite hard towards the end, made harder by the imprecise aiming.

Just announced: a Leisure Suit Larry 1 HD remake kickstarter. I thought the remake was announced a while ago, though. Oh well, the Al Lowe "pledge" video is definitely his/Josh Mandel's humor.

I hope Josh is involved in the remake as well. The Matt Chat videos with him are really interesting and Freddy Pharkas is one of my favorite games.

Yeah, I thought so as well. It was announced awhile back that they were going to remake them with mobile devices in mind, and I think Al Lowe was said to be involved. Likely the Kickstarter is mainly for the funding. As far as the recent Larry games are concerned, well, Al Lowe wasn't involved in any way, and we all know how that turned out.

I didn't know it even had games, let alone free ones. The ones I'd seen when I first tried Home out were games you had to pay to play and I didn't know how many of them were really games. This looks pretty decent. Might have to check it out again.

Yeah, I guess there is that, which I forgot about. They're popular games, so we'd likely get to play updated versions of our favourite games, like say, Uncharted 2? Can't really see how that could be improved upon though.

Booo on no backwards compatibility. There's no real reason why they can't have it at this point as there's less of a difference than between the PS2 and PS3. The only big difference will be the increased power between the two, and I don't think there'd be a need for emulation like with the PS2 compatibility.

Huh? What do you base that information on? According to the rumors, the new Playstation will have a very different CPU layout than the PS3. Creating full, bug-free backwards compatibility is extremely complex in such cases. They have to write a wrapper that translates commands between PS3 expectations and the actual way the PS4 works. Every single game would have to be tested to make sure it works. It's one hellishly expensive thing to do, and it doesn't really matter in the end anyway. Backwards compatibility has proven to not be very important anyway, despite the complaining from some people. It's cute when people say they'll skip the entire next generation of consoles because of lack of compatibility. We all know that's not going to happen, in the same way it didn't happen for the current generation.

Just based on conjecture like most of everything in this thread. I'm just saying that it doesn't seem like such a leap compared to when they did it with PS2 backwards compatibility. When you look at a PS2 vs a PS3, you can see a bigger difference between the two in terms of what they're able to display. But I doubt we'll see much of an advance graphically with the new generation. So, far from what we've heard, it seems to me that the PS4 would be more similar to the PS3 compared to how the PS3 was to the PS2. And I do think that there are a lot of good PS3 games, namely some of the exclusives, that people would love to play on the PS4 and that could perhaps take advantage of the PS4's processing power, where they've lagged a bit on the PS3. That can't be done by now?

Booo on no backwards compatibility. There's no real reason why they can't have it at this point as there's less of a difference than between the PS2 and PS3. The only big difference will be the increased power between the two, and I don't think there'd be a need for emulation like with the PS2 compatibility.

Haha, awesome. Almost feels like we're getting an April Fools joke early.

Almost sounds like the name of an antivirus program.  

Personally, I'd love to see an expansion that delves more into who the Thelmar are.

I'm actually not surprised that they jumped onto the Kickstarter bandwagon as they'd been trying to get a Tex Murphy game off the ground for quite some time now.  I remember Project Fedora being spoken of as early as around when Access was bought up by Microsoft, so in retrospect this seems like a great fit for them.

Needs more backstory

Actually, I'm out.  Everyone's just going in circles at this point.  Nothing new has been added and I believe everyone has made their point.  I don't agree with some, they don't agree with others, and Ceekay loves puns.  I think that just about sums it up.  

Yeah, don't think anyone's really talking about the movie anymore at this point.

There's one villain and one villain only in the movie. I hardly believe it would suffer from too many origin stories since that number would always be...well...one.

I still believe in my earlier assertions.  although I'll watch it again soon, I've already seen it twice and had the same impression so I doubt that will change.]/quote]

Yep, it can't be weighed down by what wasn't there in the first place. It's quite obvious from the comic book that they spent a lot of time thinking about the backstory, only to cut it from the movie.  Anyway, I did watch it recently and the faults came across more strongly. I ultimately couldn't make myself care about Nero. And I'd argue that he was one of the main focuses as he was part of the reason why we were seeing this version of the crew.

As for the "you could explain it all in 10 minutes of footage" argument, unless you have an intimate understanding of the editing process, I don't think you can really say that with any authority.

And you can't say it couldn't.  The comic book presents Nero's back story in fairly short order.  Since a comic book is basically a storyboard presentation, I highly doubt they would have had difficulty in translating that economically to the screen.  But, as you said, I'm not an expert...and neither are you.

Yeah, what I described is pretty much verbatim as it happens in the comic book.

RE Kahn, the episode itself wasn't really needed to be seen as the movie properly explained their history, but because of it you could understand why Kahn would want revenge,  something this movie didn't even deal properly.

Yeah, they totally were. I liked that the well-known faces were merely co-stars. And yes, now that you mention it, I thought that was an odd scene to choose as it ruins the intended surprise. Better scene to choose would have been the one where he catches her hugging herself with his jacket.

Nice And nice nod to Space Quest with that mop.

If you're into the Space Quest games, I highly recommend playing Space Quest: Incinerations, a 3D animated fangame. It's really quite good.

Computer doesn't meet the minimum specs. *sigh* Oh well...

I'm slightly above the minimum, but based on my experiences of running FS since version 3.0 I know that's not nearly enough. Heck I barely get framerates in the 20's in FS 2004 with all the bells and whistle turned on and 3rd party scenery. 

Yeah, flight sims are among the most demanding, so it's not surprising. My computer's not a dual core and I'm finding it more and more common that dual core is needed, yet I'm not about to upgrade. I just can't spare that kind of expenses anymore.