First Showing is reporting on a rumor that Charlie’s Angel’s director, McG and Vin Diesel are both in talks to take part in Terminator 4. Diesel is rumored to be in talks to play on of the Terminator models in the film.
May God help us all.
Author - Jerry Paxton
Wired News has posted an interview with Bungie’s content manager and spokesperson Frank O’Connor. Here are some of the highlights from the article:
‘WN: What’s Bungie’s relationship with Halo going forward? Are you guys committed to making the next major first-person shooter entry in this series, or is that still up in the air?
FO: We are definitely working on two Halo projects right now: the downloadable content and the Peter Jackson project. I’ve seen rumors that were literally just speculation that we were sick of working on Halo. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We always had and continue to have very tight almost control-freakish relationship with that IP, which of course belongs to Microsoft, but we’re still creatively associated with it and Microsoft trusts us to make cool Halo stuff in the short term. In the long term, who knows, if we have a cool story to tell in the Halo universe it’s certainly something we’d consider.’
‘WN: What’s Bungie’s relationship with Halo Wars?
FO: We consulted with them in the initial setup — Ensemble knows how to make RTS games, we just helped them with canon, and vehicles, and fiction, and that sort of stuff. And we continue to keep a close eye on it. But at this point we’re an interested observer. They’re making a fantastic product. And obviously we’re looking forward to playing it.’
Gamespot has posted the latest images from Star Trek Online, the trek-based MMO tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2008 (personally I think Dec ’08 or Mid ’09). Not bad looking images at all!
Gizmodo has posted footage taken at the launch of that 25 foot long X-Wing last week. Apparently it all turned awful when the X-Wing exploded in mid-air. For a brief few seconds, though, that was a thing of beauty!
Variety is reporting that Sony is proceeding with plans to turn the ancient old MMO Everquest into a movie. They have tasked ‘300’ writer Michael Gordon to write it. As a friend so observantly put it, ‘Shouldn’t they have made this like 10 years ago?’
Gizmodo is reporting on a series of mice that are shaped like body parts in an alarmingly realistic way. Unfortunately, they are all extremely creepy and I can’t say I am going to line up to buy them.
Joystiq is reporting that Valve’s Orange Box will be released this week for the Xbox 360 and PC platforms. The Orange Box is an anthology of five games: Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, and Portal.
Engadget is reporting that Microsoft has announced a holiday Xbox 360 bundle. Both the Premium and Elite consoles can expect to find both Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in their boxes at no added cost. This bundle should be available near the end of October but the date is not set in stone yet.
Design
The Pro Flight Yoke’s design is a thing of beauty. It’s dark molded plastic has a slightly ‘wet’ look, making it a much more sexy yoke than, say, the CH Products Flight Yoke. The grips are slightly contoured for your hands as well, making this yoke very comfortable to handle. The steel shaft helps make the action smooth and the increased spring force helps keep you from over controlling. The base has a large footprint, however, and we needed to make alot of space on our desk to mount it. In our unit, the buffer plate between the screw mount and the desk would pop off at certain times if it was not mounted just right. Additionally, unlike the CH Products’ yoke, the shaft does not emerge from the back of the base, it is kept internal which is a great feature. There is a built in lcd display which functions as a chronograph to time the legs of your flights and it doubles as a system time clock and a USB hub which is very nice on a cluttered desktop.
Performance
We tested our flight yoke on Microsoft’s Flight Sim X and Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2004 using the standard USB mapping – we did not install the Saitek software. The remapping in both simulators was quick and easy – sometimes a bit daunting as the Pro Flight Yoke/Throttle Quadrants are loaded with switches and buttons. After setting up our axis and maps, we set up a free flight from a local airport. The throttle/mixture/propeller levers move smoothly and have a detent at the low end past 0%. The aileron and elevator actions of the yoke are VERY smooth and very realistic in feel. You can actually use the yoke with one hand, functionally! In contrast, you cannot do this with the CH Products yoke which requires two hands to operate the elevator axis. After flying in the pattern for several minutes whilst getting use to our control mappings we turned out to do some VFR exploring. The yoke and throttle quadrant consistently performed and was a pleasure to use. The increased spring tension helped keep me from over controlling my aircraft and the whole flight was a much improved experience than using a normal joystick or even CH Products flight yoke which, while good, cannot compare.
1up has posted the highlights of q&a with Bungie’s Community Lead Brian Jarrard.
From the article:
‘1UP: Is Bungie now contractually obliged to give Microsoft first-look on future titles, Halo-related or otherwise?
Jarrard: We aren’t at liberty to discuss the specifics of this business arrangement but suffice it to say that we look forward to continuing to work with Microsoft as a great partner and world class publisher.
1UP: For all the super fans: does this mean Bungie won’t work on whatever ‘Halo 4’ turns out to be?
Jarrard: Well we are already at work on another Halo game — I wouldn’t call it ‘Halo 4’, but it is based in the Halo Universe and represents a collaboration between Bungie and Peter Jackson. Halo 3 was definitely not the last Bungie Halo game.
1UP: And perhaps most importantly, this means we’re going to finally see some progress on Pimps at Sea, right?
Jarrard: Fortunately, Bungie LLC does retain ownership of the Pimps at Sea franchise so anything is possible! ‘