This week we're back after a brief hiatus, catching up with our thoughts on the Force Awakens trailer, Suicide Squad casting, the Terminator Genisys trailer and a whole lot more! Plus we review Ridley Scott's 3D bible epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, starring our own Joel Edgerton as a baby in drag!
This week we discuss the new Star Wars title, Cumberbatch engagement, Jared Leto Joker, a trio of movie trailers, we review the National Theatre Live performance of Skylight, look at some books, play the Evolve alpha, World of Warcraft and more! We did all the stuff and the things and we want to tell you about them!
This week Luke and Jacinta soberly and succinctly discuss new Nightwing rumours in Superman vs Batman movie, Ghostbusters III, leaked Transformers 4 dinobots, Marvel television news, new World of Warcraft and MORE! Stick it in your nerd hole!
This week Luke and Courtney review the pilot episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., needlessly speculate on the toiletry habits of your favourite heroes, predict the villains of the newly announced Gotham TV show, get riled up about duelling Chewbaccas, and MORE! This is a silly, tangent-filled episode with lots of fun and progressively little focus! STICK IT IN YOUR LISTEN-HOLES!
DOWNLOAD HERE! (Click to stream or right-click to save).
San Diego Comic Con 2013 is looming and that means that a crap-ton of convention exclusives are jumping up and down, hollering, and vying for our already stretched thin attention. I, of course, will be isolated on the opposite of the world while all this is happening, so I can either satiate myself by looking at these pretty pictures or pay premium prices on eBay. And there's about a billion things to choose from, so I'm going to share with you a hand-picked selection of my most favourite collectibles that have been revealed for the weekend...
After many, many months of mystery, intrigue, and mindless tapping, perpetually enthusiastic game designer, Peter Molyneux's, Curiosity cube was finally opened, gifting one lucky participant the top-secret prize at its center. Molyneux, infamous for his big ideas, passion and hyperbole (on more than one occasion leading to disappointment due to unmet expectations) promised that the prize inside would be both life-changing and meaningful for that one lucky individual. Now we know what it is, my question is: “Was it?”
If you’re completely lost at this stage, don’t worry. I’ll give you the rundown of what Curiosity was, plus the nature of its prize, and its ramifications... after the jump!
Last year, I read Matt Rossi's excellent Bottled Demon, which inspired a seriesof posts about things I had read in the book. Rossi is close to finishing his next book of essays and alternate histories, At Last, Atlantis, and was kind enough to spend some time answering some questions for us.
You can find Bottled Demon at Amazon for only $2.99 (and a free borrow for Prime members!), and Things That Never Were is still available via MonkeyBrain Books and may be coming in an ebook edition soon. His WoW Insider columns can be found at Joystiq, he has a personal blog at Wordpress, and he is active on Twitter via @MatthewWRossi. Our discussion about all sorts of things is beyond the jump.
It's that time of the year again when we, like every other frigging site out there, obediently pump out our obligatory Best of the Year lists for you to disdainfully roll your dull eyes at. DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE FUN!?
Actually it IS a hell of a lot of fun, which is why we're still excited to do it and why you've managed to read this far! And to reward your tenacity I am kicking things off with my Favourite 10 Video Games of 2012!
Are they without a doubt the absolute best games made this year? Well... I'll do all the usual disclaimers (and provide you with the full list)... after the jump!
In a year thick with new MMORPGs, perennial favourite World of Warcraft is facing many challenges. Saddled with an aging engine, all-too-familiar mechanics and an increasingly rare pay-to-play model, WOW has been steadily losing subscribers. And the announcement of Mists of Pandaria, an expansion set on a continent of anthropomorphic martial arts pandas was enough to send Warcraft’s more embittered critics over the edge.
But let’s not get too crazy. Warcraft still has millions of more subscribers than any other MMO, subscribers who have invested a great deal of time and energy into levelling up and kitting out their characters, and aren’t going to stop now. And I’m one of those subscribers. Neither excited nor disappointed by the pandas themselves, I was more keen to take my main character on the journey to level 90 and see what this new chapter had in store. And there’s certainly no shortage of things to do.
To find out what I thought of all this... join me after the jump!
In an unusual press release issued Thursday, the Maine GOP attacked Lachowicz for a “bizarre double life” in which she’s a devotee of the hugely popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft. In the game, she’s “Santiaga,” an "orc assassination rogue" with green skin, fangs, a Mohawk and pointy ears.
Other postings use curse words and make to the joy of “stab[bing] things,” joke about “being in a Socialist guild” and admit to “seriously slacking off at work.”
We live in a pretty strange world right now. Imagine about 20 years from now when a Brony runs for president...
As a long-time player of fantasy time-suck World of Warcraft and an avid fan of construction toys in general, the long-anticipated marriage of the two has really got me excited. Mega Bloks has picked up the Warcraft license and are looking to dig extremely deep with it (if you’ve seen their omnipresent Halo offerings then you know what to expect). The first sets are now available to purchase, and thanks to the generosity of our good friends at Big Bad Toy Store, I have in my clammy, gnarled-from-hot-key-pressing hands the four recently released packs, each containing a rider and his mount!
To find out what I made of all this... join me after the jump!
The new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is bouncing its furry little body into our lives in about a month so, as is customary at this time, Blizzard has released the new fantastically rendered cinematic to get our pulses racing. But this expansion, arguably more so than any other before it, has faced a fair amount of mockery and/or criticism. So this trailer answers the inevitable question... How do you showcase an expansion about pandas while showing the absolute bare minimum of pandas. Observe...
I think it's pretty badass as a short film, and I think that the style is incredible. I know there's been a billion false-starts at making a live action Warcraft feature film, but I don't think many fans would be disappointed if they instead released an animated movie that looked more like this. Horde versus Alliance has never looked better. And when the contentious panda shows up to bamboo everybody's ass I think they've handled the reveal about as well as they could. Plus it has mist in it. (Unlike the beta).
The glaring problem, however, is that it doesn't suggest how this reveal might change the landscape for the players. The previous expansion, Cataclysm, teases a world-wide threat and shows that every aspect of the game will be altered permanently. Everything you think you know is about to change. Conversely, this trailer says... "Well... there are pandas." But we knew that right? What are the long-term ramifications of pandas? I guess we'll find out in September.
What do you make of this? I ask, knowing full well I won't receive an answer.
And it is September 25th, 2012 - completely throwing me off. The prediction had been for Christmas, but Blizzard has been mighty coy and sneaky and will be springing it out earlier.
Whilst I'd been initially a bit - iffy about the premise of Pandaria, I've warmed to it. And it makes sense; Lich King was the Warcrafting equivalent of a Shakespeare play, Cataclysm reached a completely untoppable level of chaos and destruction - where could they possibly go from there? You can't just keep trying to outdo the previous bad guy.
Blizzard official press release can be found here, and click on the pretty picture for pre-sale. That special edition mount looks SWEET.
Back in Part One I tried out the Pandaren starting area and bemoaned the fact that the Mists of Pandaria beta wouldn't allow me to import a level 85 character into the world to test the larger level 85-90 content. Well all that has changed since the last time I logged in! I was able to choose a pre-made level 85 Pandaren monk and begin questing in the brand new continent of Pandaria. (Which, to be fair, is still not very misty).
If none of that made sense, then I've probably already lost you. But, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, then join me after the jump for my next bouncy panda foray into the wider world of Warcraft!
Blizzard has earned a fair bit of Internet snark for following up its death, dragons and destruction-based expansion, Cataclysm, with the upcoming rolling, Kung Fu panda-based expansion Mists of Pandaria. In a fantasy world of orcs, goblins, dwarves and werewolves, playing as a cutesy, walking panda bear does seems a little out of place. You may as well just call it: World of Warcraft: Ewoks of Asia.
That said, having recently committed to a 12 month Warcraft subscription, I was gifted a special mount, a free copy of Diablo III on release, and guaranteed access to the Pandaria beta. Yes, I have now officially donned my panda skin and traversed the suspiciously non-existent mists of Pandaria! Seriously... I don’t remember much mist at all. Misleading, Blizzard! Disappointing!
So what do I think having actually played (a very early) part of the game? Join me after the jolly, chubby panda jump to find out!
There's still a few days before New York Toy Fair opens its magical gates, spilling a beautiful bevvy of upcoming plasticky goodness onto the hobo/pigeon/rat infested streets! But already news is breaking around the globe as press releases flood the inboxes of pop culture sites more popular than ours! So far two bits of news have me confusingly excited, and I stole both of them from Action Figure Insider.
Coincidentally, at Christmas I saw a troll doll in the wild and convinced myself that I should probably reunite with one at some stage. Well it must be a Christmas miracle or some shit, because apparent Dark Horse, in partnership with original Troll inventors Dam Things, are releasing a whole mass of crazy coloured trolls - IN MYSTERY BOXES! Yes! Blind-packaged trolls, so not only will you be willingly spending real money on a troll doll, but you'll get the double whammy of not actually knowing which one you're going to get! Maybe you won't even get a troll at all! Maybe you'll get some broken glass or a hornet's nest!
How sad am I that there's only a 1/30 chance of getting a disco ball troll with bright pink hair! But I love blind-packaging so I'm going to buy one blind and see what fate has in store for me. Loneliness/bankruptcy probably! You can read the full press release here.
And join me after the jump for the other bit of news which is far more exciting. And apparently not actually news...
Blizzard convention Blizzcon is raging right NOW, and the biggest news to pop forth from its loins is the announcement of the newest World of Warcraft expansion. It's called Mists of Pandaria, so if you've been longing to ditch your orc for a kung fu panda then they sure have you covered!
Here's the preview trailer:
And the short version of the most interesting reveals (to me anyway):
- Pandaran is now a playable race.
- Monk is the new class.
- Your non combat pets have been turned into Pokemon and now have abilities and can battle each other. (It's turn-based and you can form teams).
Blizzard, you got your Pokemon all up in my Kung Fu Panda. Not sure about a release date but needless to say I'll be suckered into renewing my subscription again.
You've heard of Blizzcon, right? Blizzard Entertainment's annual convention where Warcraft players across the globe pay $200 a ticket to actually rub against each other? It sells out every year in a matter of seconds - and by all accounts is a huge and sweaty success. So it makes sense then that the blocky, pixellated, digging and bashing game sensation Minecraft - which has earned creator Notch a hundred-thousand-billion dollars - should spawn its own MineCon. The inaugural event takes place in Las Vegas over two days in November and the Internet is going crazy as punters attempt to purchase $99 tickets right NOW.
