CNN reports that Mistborn series author, Brandon Sanderson, has been chosen to finish the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
The Shogun reported on James Oliver Rigney Jr’s (aka Robert Jordan) death in mid-September, after succumbing to a genetic disorder affecting his heart. Mr. Rigney was purportedly working on the 12th and final book in the Wheel of Time series.
According to Rigney’s widow (who also was the editor to his books), he left ‘copious’ amounts of written and audio notes, and she is delighted that Sanderson will be completing the series.
I’ve not read any of the Mistborn books, but I have high expectations for this finale, and if it lives up to my standards, I’ll add Sanderson’s other books to my library.
Author - Jerry Paxton
Microsoft has finally done it! The thing they originally said would never happen: SP1….Yes, the controversial Vista operating system is getting it’s first service pack today. The Service Pack, which is said to fix ‘hundreds of issues’ has been in beta for a month and now that it’s public, we can put it to the test. Expect a full report soon – hopefully it helps gaming performance, I am crossing my fingers on that one.
Gizmodo is reporting that Boeing has retrofitted a C-130H cargo aircraft with the necessessary gear to fire an airborne laser cannon at ground targets. This is the other bookend project in Boeing’s aircraft-laser program, the other being the missile defense plane they have created. Boeing says demonstrations should be ready sometime in 2008.
ComputerWorld is reporting that Microsoft has pulled the offer to get free software if users would sign up for the Windows Feedback Program, citing an exhaustion of free products to give out. Users emailing Microsoft regarding their free product will recieve this response:
‘Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to high
volume, we have reached our ‘while supplies last’ limit and have closed
our free product incentive on 12/11/2007 at 2 p.m.’
GamesIndustry is reporting that Gamestop has announed the opening of what it calls a ‘tournament-focused’ store in San Jose, CA. The store is 4000 sq ft in size and already planning it’s first tournament on December 15th, featuring Madden NFL 08. According to the article, local tournament events will occur most weekends, with system-wide tournament finals occurring at least once a quarter.
TIME has named its ‘Top Ten Video Games of 2007’ and called Halo 3 the best of the bunch. They praise it as the ‘perfect hardcore first-person combat simulator’ and liken it to a pebble, rounded by the ages.
The Top 10 According to TIME:
- Halo 3
- The Orange Box (although that is technically MANY games)
- Rock Band
- Super Mario Galaxy
- BioShock
- Call of Duty 4
- Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
- Mass Effect
- Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
- God of War 2
Now, far be it from me to disagree with TIME… but, I have to call shenanigans on a few things here. First: Halo 3, while a great game, is not as good as BioShock. It is still plagued by problems seen in previous games as far as level design and gameplay is concerned. BioShock, on the other hand, was a superb gaming experience and should have easily been the top of the bunch on the list.
The Orange Box is an interesting choice as well, but should not be on the list as it is a collection of games, not one. Is it a great value? Heck yeah, just not a fair choice as a top ten ‘game’. In the interest of fairness, however, Portal should definitely be in the top ten pack. It was truly a great gaming experience with some novel elements.
Ace Combat 6? Really? Dont get me wrong, the expensive controller was an interesting novelty for most console owners but after getting past that, the game was just ‘meh’. I would have much rather seen Crysis or Assasin’s Creed round out the top ten instead of AC6 and GoWII which was actually much better than the former mentioned.
Crysis, while innovative graphically, added some very interesting gameplay elements into its seemingly normal fps outer shell. The switching of your armor’s modes and weapon customization coupled with the almost-seemless switching in and out of cutscenes make this a far better choice than AC6.
Hopefully, TIME will do a bit more research on their top ten lists for 2008 instead of just pulling a random list of titles from the Gamestop website.
Eurogamer has posted it’s ‘First-Look’ at the upcoming RTS Tom Clancy’s EndWar. The game has been touted as the first ever to be controllable totally by your voice commands. No need to click and drag over units or hit hotkeys – just talk to the damn thing!
From the article:
‘The first menu consists of individual units, say ‘Unit 1’, ‘Unit 2’ and so on, and also general functions like ‘Calling All’. Depending on your order, subsequent menus will pop-up with relevant commands until you’ve completed the Who-What-Where and you can enjoy Watch.
Say, for instance, you want to group off your gunship units to command under a single order. ‘Calling All’, ‘Gunships’, ‘Create Group’. Easy as that. Want to dispatch a unit of tanks to deal with the enemy’s frontline? ‘Unit 1’ (Who), ‘Attack’ (What), ‘Hostile 3’ (Where).
For the first 10 minutes or so, a mixture of uncertainty and mild embarrassment caused us to bumble disjointedly through the steps. ‘Unit 1…. Um, er…. Attack…. Um…. Lima?’ Hardly Henry V. But then, it just clicks, and orders start to flow with increasing assurance and authority. ‘Unit 4 secure Alpha!’; ‘Calling all gunships, attack hostile 5!’; ‘WMD Lima!’. ‘DIE, ****S, DIE!”
MajorNelson is reporting that the Rock Band Punk Pack is readying for rellease. It will include the following songs:
- I Fought the Law
- Rockaway Beach
- Ever Fallen in Love
You can purchase the songs individually for 160 credits each or buy the whole lot of em for 440 creds.
Yahoo Movies has posted several production stills from Alien Vs Predator: Requiem. Some are actually pretty cool! Below is, imo, the best of the bunch.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is the upcoming sequel to 2004’s Alien vs. Predator film. Filming began on September 25, 2006 in Vancouver with Tom Woodruff, Jr. and Alec Gillis from Amalgamated Dynamics handling the special effects (as they did for the previous installment) and Daniel Pearl as director of photography. The Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg Strause) have directed the movie from a script by Shane Salerno. Actors Steven Pasquale and Reiko Aylesworth will play leading roles in the film. Unlike the PG-13 rating of the original, which garnered some criticism, the film is rated R for violence, gore, and language. The BBFC’s classification decision for the movie is the same as the original.
EuroGamer has reviewed Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem for the PSP, based on the movie of the same name, giving it a 4.0 out of 10 rating. Seems as though they believe the game to be VERY average and nothing special.
From the article:
‘Which sums up Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. It’s not a badly made game. With the exception of the camera, everything works. It looks all right. It’s not the worst videogame we’ve ever played, and it’s certainly not the worst movie tie-in. But it’s entirely lacking in imagination and innovation. There’s nothing that hasn’t been done before and no incentive to keep playing. A month from now we’ll probably have forgotten we’ve ever played it. But by then we’ll be in negotiations with Peter Bowles’s agent, obviously.’