The E3 Soup - What Will Joel McHale Say?
John’s at E3 right now. I’m not. He promised to text me when anything exciting happens, but we all know that’s not going to happen. No, instead I get to sit here at my desk working on other things and imagining what kind of wacky shenanigans are going down in LA.
To make matters worse, Ubisoft announced last week that comedian Joel McHale of E!’s The Soup fame would be hosting their E3 press conference. My mind has been atwitter with anticipation ever since. What celebrities will be unfairly mocked in association with what games? The only problem is we still don’t know much about what Ubisoft will be showing this year. Assassin’s Creed 2, for sure. Rabbids Go Home, definitely. Red Steel 2, most likely. No More Heroes 2, possibly? Um… Petz? Shaun White World Tour? Ah, damn you Ubisoft for giving me so little fodder for Soup-style celebrity ridicule.
As long as I’m imagining it all anyway, let’s pretend McHale is hosting EA’s press conference, okay? Much better. Here’s what I think the Soup star would have to say about some of EA’s big properties, given the opportunity: Continue reading »
Comments: (0)
Tags: assassin's creed, comedy, dante's inferno, derrick sanskrit, e3, ea, half-life, hunter s. thompson, joel mchale, lenny bruce, lindsay lohan, need for speed, no more heroes, press conference, rabbids go home, red steel, shaun white, ssx, the soup, ubisoft
Screen Test: Lunar PSP
Bob is not wrong. The world does not need a fourth version of Lunar: The Silver Star. The first version was a-okay, but inaccessible because no one owned a freaking Sega CD. The Playstation and Saturn remake was even keener. Victor Ireland and the rest of the Working Designs crew did a swell job of translating them both for an American audience. The Ubisoft Game Boy Advance version was less than ideal. You want to put Lunar out again, dump it onto the Playstation Network. Don’t pump out yet another PSP RPG. The system has plenty. Stop it.
That’s what I was thinking earlier today. Then I saw some screens of the remake. Got to admit, I’ve been charmed.
Comments: (2)
Tags: eternal blue, game arts, game boy advance, john constantine, lunar, lunar 2, psp, screen test, sony, the silver star, ubisoft, victor Ireland
Rumorang: First Footage of Beyond Good and Evil 2
There are two possibilities. One, this footage is an elaborate fake lovingly crafted by an animator of immense talent. And two, it’s real. If it’s real, it means that Michael Ancel has returned to us with a powerful fury, delivering a sun drenched modernization of his beloved science fiction adventure in grand style. Six years ago, Jade ran across the rooftops of a Hillysian metropolis and it looked like this.
In 2009, Jade’s brand of investigative journalism looks like this.
Comments: (2)
Tags: beyond good & evil, beyond good & evil 2, e3, hillys, jade, john constantine, michael ancel, mirror’s edge, ubisoft
Whatcha Learning: Francais With My French Coach
Last year, I decided to give Ubisoft’s My French Coach a try. Of course, the second I resolved to buy it, a tempest swept every copy of the Nintendo DS’ French tutor off the store shelves. I was therefore elated to find a used copy at a nearby game store. I don’t even care that I was charged full price for someone else’s gently-used digital dictionary.
My father knows/understands four languages. My father’s father is fluent in seven. I’ve always been a little ashamed of the fact that I’m only semi-coherent in English, even though I did very well in my high school French courses. My grade ten French teacher sucked all the fun out of learning the language. Yes, there was fun to be had—like stuffing the remains of a ham and cheese sandwich in my grade nine French teacher’s coffee thermos. I chickened out, and dropped the language. If I do well with My French Coach, however, I might look into furthering my French superpowers.
Why the sudden resolve to learn the language of love? Last March, I visited Ubisoft in Montreal to write-up a preview of Shaun White’s Snowboarding, and in those brief 24 hours, I felt a lot of my French vocab come flying back to me. I realised that you can never entirely forget a language, but if you’re not immersed in the environment or you don’t otherwise use it, it will lay dormant. Like tuberculosis.
Comments: (4)
Tags: my french coach, nadia oxford, nintendo ds, ubisoft
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
