Told Ya So

IGN reviews Area 51, and starts off with:

In Midway's Area 51, David Duchovny portrays an ultra unlucky HAZMAT trooper, Ethan Cole, with slightly less emotional pizzazz than your average over-boiled carrot. To mar an otherwise polished and well presented title like Area 51 with such mallet-to-the-face drowsiness is downright inappropriate. It's a wrong that ranks right alongside topping crème brûlée with a handful of half-melted Skittles and a pinch of Reeses.

The man is one of the worst voice actors on the planet. Spread the word. His "work" on XIII was the lowest point in the game. He might have been great as Fox Mulder, but he needs to box his weight. Producers assume that just because someone is "hollywood", they'll sound good in a game. It's a naive assumption, bordering on just stupidity. Voice acting isn't like Stage Acting. To quote Dan Rydell, that's why they have the two seperate words.

All in all, it sounds like IGN liked it though.

Just Wow

That looks like I dream I wish I had.

UMD Bundles

Japanese teen pop music may not be in our future, but Bandai seems ready to deliver us a taste of Japanese culture in a portable format with releases of Japanese manga on UMD video. The venerable Anime News Network is reporting that Bandai Entertainment is in the works with a number of North American UMD Video releases out of its vast video catalog of theatrical anime films. Exact title listings to be released are not yet known, but ANN mentions that Bandai is aiming to release titles in tune with gamers, and mentions the Gundam Seed and Escaflowne movies as an example.

IGN analyzing potential UMD anime bundles. The UMD starts to make more sense when put into this context. I could totally see the anime fan crowd paying good bucks for a decent DVD set with UMD versions AND some kind fo playable game.

A kind of experiment, my ass

Jagged Alliance 3D is not turn-based.

Besides we performed market research before we set to develop the game. At the present moment we are working on a real-time Ja3D with ‘a smart pause’. We guess the innovation may sound a bit shocking to the fans of the JA series. But there’s nothing to worry about. Ja3D branches somehow from the main idea of the sequel. It’s a kind of experiment.

from here ... (thanks Blues)

Kind of experiment? Bullshit. Those words NEVER follow the phrase "market research". Bit of "cheap usage of a classic franchise to churn out basic RTS fodder in hopes for quick cash" is more like it, although admittedly a tad wordier.

This is exactly what's wrong the industry. People can't even stomach the guts to take a basic risk. Making a turn-based JA game is a no-brainer. This is like saying "We did some market research and found the many people think games are too violent. So Quake IV will be sponsored by Nerf. It's a kind of experiment."

To quote my friends from across the pond:

What wankers.

Incommunicado

While things are looking up, communicating with the outside world has been an odd challenge lately. Since my DSL line and voice line decided to go all battle royale on each other, they essentially cancel each other out. Then of course, I lost my cell phone - so there went my last backup. Did I mention that the GF and I have like five people joining us for the weekend?

It might all be resolved this week though. I delivered a DSL filter to our upstairs neighbors, which may resolve the feud of data (though I doubt it, the house has been sharing a line for months now, so I don't know why it would suddenly be a problem) and the girl found my cell phone in her jacket pocket.

Course, it's interesting to note the choices we have these days.

For one thing, Speakeasy offers "OneLink" ... which DSL service without phone service. What's notable about that is that it's remarkably similar to the DSL service I used to have, which required no filters and never had a problem. My personal suspicion is that the fight between DSL providers and phone providers has gotten exceedingly rough since the phone companies moved in on both fronts. I still can't call SBC without them trying to sell me away from Speakeasy.

Course, Cingular (who by magic is becoming my wireless provider) does offer EDGE phones with bluetooth. So with one device, I could have all my voice needs and a decent modem to boot.