Futurama Voice Actors Being Recasted

Fail.

Twentieth Century Fox, which is still producing the series even though new episodes will air on Comedy Central, is recasting the major voice roles for the show. That means no more Billy West (Fry, Professor, and Ziodberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, among others), or Tress MacNeil (Mom, and several others). Worst!

Fox released a statement saying "We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on. We are confident that we will find terrific new performers to give voice to Matt and David's brilliantly subversive characters."

-- 'Futurama' getting new voices for Fry, Leela, Bender, and others

I just don't quite see that working. Willing to give it a chance, but a lot of those voice actors were those characters.

Rundown of iVerse Comics on iPhone

With work as it is, I've had less time for actual gaming and more time for flipping artistically rendered panels on the iPhone. iVerse has been trying to push the digital envelope for comics and some of their titles are pretty interesting. I think at this point I've read through most of their library, so here's a quick review of each.

Atomic Robo
It's an interesting blend of old school comic plot structure with a great deal of humor and the occasional dose of humanity, played up well since the lead character is well, made of metal. First title to hook me into reading comics on the phone and well worth the read.

Proof
Proof is one part X-Files, one part fantasy and a dash of crime drama. You get your titular character - a Sasquatch adapting to life without Sasquatches helping a world inhabited by more mythical creatures (cryptids as they're called) than anyone realizes exist. It shares much of the same space for me as Atomic Robo with strong character design that feeds well into the plot. Definitely recommended.

Neozoic
Great art design, interesting premise of an alternate future where mankind struggles against an Earth where dinosaurs still roam. There's clearly a well thought out backstory here and the writing doesn't make the mistake of feeding it all to the reader all at once. It's action packed and a great read.

Hexed
This may be my favorite title so far, which is a bit painful since only two issues have been released for the iPhone. The story is edgy but contrasted by the main character's complexities - Lucifer, the female thief of the comic, seems almost soft until she pulls some stunt with a demon or breaks a nose. Hopefully the next two issues will get released soon.

The Red Star
A fascinating blend of religion, technology and magic - The Red Star offers a great tale of a vicious war where tanks, fireballs and gods seem to clash into each other. Very unique, very well done.

Chance of a Lifetime
This two parter will surprise the reader. The cover lends to a kind of average Silver Age sort of read, but the story of a normal person being suddenly gifted with powers making him one of the first superheroes on the planet isn't entirely straightforward. There isn't a great deal of depth here, but the length of the two issues feels just about right, this isn't a typical hero plot - but a short story about a person in extraordinary circumstances.

White Picket Fences
A great blend of 50's sci fi and Cold War fears make Fences a very worthy read. It also has a great sense of humor and plays its child protagonists quite well. Great to see a title without capes or superpowers, a very excellent read.

Armor X
Armor X's saving grace is the internal conflict of the main character, a loser high school kid with more than a few sociopathic tendencies. Without this twist, it would be more of a "boy meets alien device, gets girl" affair, but the lead and his interactions with the world kick it up a notch. Not my favorite, but worth a look.

Abyss
I didn't have much interest in Abyss as it seemed like a pretty standard hero setup, but the upside is that Abyss is actually pretty darn funny, walking a fine line between parody and homage to the genre that it plays off. It's not a great read, but it is certainly entertaining.

Update: Now that Abyss' is completely out, I should note it really pretty much sold me by the end. It sticks to this homage/parody line very well, and makes for - despite my earlier comment - a great read.

Dynamo 5
Pretty generic in a lot of ways, Dynamo 5 does at least use the premise pretty well. A squad of superheroes with only one thing in common - their now deceased superfather, tries to fight crime under the tutelage of his authoritative and manipulative wife. There's a lot of possibility here, so I certainly would like to see more than the two currently released issues.

Super Human Resources
A deeply funny parody of the superhero genre, SHR is punchy and entertaining. Combined with office jokes, the title might not appease the the hardcore comic reader - but should if they have a sense of humor.

SuperFogeys
Funny, not hilarious and often pretty sophomoric, SuperFogeys might tickle your funny bone and worth a try. I liked it and hope to see more out of the title, but didn't enjoy as much as SHR.

ShadowHawk and FX
It's not that these are necessarily bad titles, but they're really not for me. Fairly generic rehashes of Spider-Man in their own ways, these might be good for people looking for more standard superhero stories as reading material.

Wind Raider
There's something missing to Wind Raider's backstory to really make me suspend disbelief around a group of warriors who can summon the wind, but the post-apocalyptic landscape is well done if only marginally cliche. This is a title I'm hoping will pick up in future issues, but it has bit too much Fist of the Northern Star meets Mad Max for me right now. Course, that may be your thing.

Star Trek
I'm just going to lump all the Star Trek material together for brevity's sake. The prequel to the recent summer movie is certainly worth reading, but for the most part if you're a Trekkie, there's plenty to like here.

Flash Gordon
Better than I expected for a story which has been done and redone several times. The art is quite magnificent and the source material used extremely well.


Well, that's more or less it. I haven't read much of the manga and stayed away from the other TV adaptions (Ghost Whisperer and Eureka), but if iVerse doesn't get more material through the review process soon, I may give in there as well.

EA Hosts GLAAD Event

EA was kind enough to send this along:

This Saturday, EA is hosting an event for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization. GLAAD is facilitating a panel on Homophobia & Virtual Communities which will spotlight key issues and include the perspectives of both gaming companies and LGBT gamers. Discussion will revolve around the state of the problem in these communities, policy solutions that have been developed to address homophobia – what’s working as well as what’s not, plus challenges and opportunities.

Confirmed panelists include:

Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net
Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.)
Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft's XBox LIVE
Moderator: Justin Cole, Director of Digital & Online Media, GLAAD

Event details are as follows:
WHAT: Homophobia in Virtual Communities - Highlighting the Problem and Working Towards Sustainable Solutions
WHEN: Saturday, July 18th, 2009, 11am-1pm
WHERE: Electronic Arts, 250 Shoreline Drive Redwood City, CA 94065

The event is free of charge and open to the public. More information can be found at: http://www.glaad.org/digitalevent

Online registration is closed, see the link in the quote for more information reserving still. Event will be recorded, so it may be interesting to see it afterwards as well.

Nothing To See Here

Barely enough hours in the day to get work done, much less thoughtful blogging - so expect posts to be sporadic. Appease yourself with the Cathode Tan News in the meantime.

TV Watch: Harper's Island

So a quick side story here, The Girl and I jumped on this show via Netflix Instant thinking it was a show that had already aired and passed, but it turns out this is part of Netflix's program to air recent material, and Instant gets the episodes after they air on television.

Most of the season is done with only what appears to be the two episode conclusion to air this weekend. Instant is a great way to catch up on the show to date, especially if you can grab the HD stream (say on your Roku).

The show itself is a pretty by the numbers murder mystery, feeling a bit like a good beach read. And it is good, don't let that factor in as much of a negative opinion. There's a great backstory that the show allows to breath and by the middle act there is quite a lot of fun to be had in trying to guess the various parts of the mystery.

Island is also relatively violent for a network show, so this doesn't feel like a sanitized made for TV affair, but manages to actually offer up some scenes with real teeth to them.

Highly recommended, and we're looking forward to seeing the ending.

Pirate Bay Going Legit

Well known and recently battled in court torrent site The Pirate Bay is being bought and going legitimate:

Pirate Bay Acquired, Will Compensate Content Providers
by Kris Graft
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June 30, 2009

Pirate Bay Acquired, Will Compensate Content Providers
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Embattled file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has been acquired by game networking company Global Gaming Factory for $7.8 million, and will turn the website into a legitimate operation that compensates content providers.

"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site, " said GGF CEO Hans Pandeya in a statement. The acquisition is slated to close in August.

Pandeya said that Sweden-based The Pirate Bay is one of the "top 100 most visited internet sites in the world." He added, "However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."

It will be interesting to see what changes this will cause, if the kind of content is radically different or if the legal issues will be handled by the new company or what.

For Sunday: '9' Trailer

Burton's Alice Looking Amazing

Wired has a great preview of Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland adaptation:

Game Play: Sims 3 for iPhone

The Sims is one of those iconic franchises which will get a lot of buy-in pretty much no matter where it gets ported, so it is nice that EA has put a lot of polish and presentation to the iPhone implementation of Sims 3.

I don't have the PC version of this latest installment, so I can only compare it to the original Sims and the Sims 2 that hit the PlayStation a while back. How well does this ultra-portable take on the game hold up? Well, there's good and bad.

All of the tamagotchi style play remains intact, you still have to make sure your Sim's bodily functions are being appeased as well as a long chain of wishes that (very) randomly come along. You'll get a house that you can upgrade and furnish, but you can't modify the layout (just buy bigger houses). Those wishing to trap Sims in one room prisons with a stove and waiting for them to catch on fire will need to look elsewhere.

Only one Sim can be controlled, the one you create with various personality traits and some chosen fasion statement. There's no family dynamics save for marriage, although like many things in the game marriage seems to be mostly a status update as my current SimWife has no problem with my romantic interludes with my LiveInSimGirlfriend, even when performed right next to her.

In fact, the game seems to be a lot easier when you more or less try to have sex (oh, sorry, WooHoo) with everyone you meet. I went from the bottom rung on the politics to the top in a single Sunday afternoon by just repeatedly asking my boss (who I was sleeping with) for a promotion. I almost quit right there on the spot.

Jobs are a bit odd, actually, because promotions are slow unless you're a whore and you can earn five to ten times more by fishing than going into work any given day. Fishing is done via a quick mini-game which is about as challenging as playing tic-tac-toe alone. All of the mini-games, which include cooking and repairing things, are about as difficult. Oddly getting better at cooking is less rewarding because it ends up making even a grilled cheese more annoying since you have to juggle four pots instead of two (yes, in the world of Sims, grilled cheese sandwiches are a stew).

In just a few days of playing on and off, I've made friends with everyone, made a nemesis, slept with half the women in town, got fired, became Vice President (who knew towns had Vice Presidents?) and own a pretty snazzy house. Except for fulfilling all the possible wishes, which apparently unlocks the Pawn Shop in town, I've more or less maxed out the game.

So bottom line question - is it fun? The short answer is yes, and addictive as all get out. The long answer is yes, but ultimately somewhat shallow. I miss the wide variety of goods you could buy in previous versions. I miss being able to cultivate multiple Sims in different directions at the same time (in the same house). I miss well established goals which might take longer than an hour to accomplish. There's a serious lack of depth in both the interactions with the game itself, like the minigames, and with the Sims (like not being able to annoy your wife by moving in with another woman).

Recommend, but with a but of a shrug. I'm still playing it, and Sim fans will have already bought it and have made their second or third Sim by now. For those not already into some kind of Sim fetish, though, you might be cautious.

Book Read: Anathem

We just finished Neal Stephenson's Anathem on audiobook last week. We've been fans since Snow Crash, and loved the audio adaptations for both that book and Diamond Age

First, a side note that I'm a bit of fan about audiobooks. It fits easily with the fact that I rarely have time to read for fun anymore and The Girl and I can share the book in tandem. It helps that production of audiobooks has gotten a thousand times better (we can probably thank a certain Jim Dale for that a bit).

Anathem is a fascinating book and a little hard to talk about without getting to far into spoilers. This is partially because one of the interesting things Anathem is a bit of a word game. Stephenson actually opens the book with a bit of a preface about that, but what follows is an interesting set of rules, some ruses and a lot of word play that fits neatly into the book's themes and manages to make some interesting twists and points on the genre in large.

Compared to his other books, the story starts off slow (OK, slower than Snow Crash and Diamond Age at least) with a lot of explanation - this is not just for exposition but also sets up foundation blocks for questions and mysteries that crop up in the second and third acts of the book. There's some work to stick with, but there is a great deal of payoff in the end.

Highly recommended.

Amazon's Gold Box Loves PS3 Today

Amazon has some great PS3 game deals right now.

Anathem Book Trailer

I didn't even know this kind of thing existed, but this was a promotional trailer released for Neal Stephenson's Anathem:


The World of Anathem

Diamond Age Miniseries

This is one of those bits of information that's so old, it's new to me. George Clooney's production company is working on several things with SciFi Channel, including a Diamond Age miniseries. Diamond Age being a novel from Neal "Snow Crash" Stephenson. That was announced in 2007, and apparently development got wrangled up in the writer's strike, but production continues.

We're about finished with the Anathem audiobook here at the Cathode Cave, so it couldn't come any quicker.

Lost News Clippings: Natal, Pachter, and Digital TV

Posting is going to be slow for a couple weeks, peeps, thanks in large part to a heavy workload. I have a few emails I need to catch up, but I thought I'd catch up on some news stories of late.

The news mill has pretty much announced and denounced that Microsoft is issuing a new 360 to coincide with the Natal launch next year. I'm siding with the latter, as the former feels like a) pretty high noise to signal interference that stemmed from an excitable quote about how big the Natal launch will be and b) the real launch is still a bit too far away to know how big the Natal launch will be. Big, I'm sure, but there's a lot of factors involved and I don't really know why Microsoft would be doing anything other than a bundle for the new product. Redmond is going to have enough work on Natal adoption itself, they don't need to compile that with new console hardware as well.

Pachter hit the news again, with both decrying and then apologizing about decrying Sony's PSP Go price. I'm rather with Pachter here, I think the Go pricing is a bit odd. Sure, they're going up against the iPhone - but why go up against the iPhone if you don't need to do so, especially with the 3GS just being announced. Hopefully Sony is trying to balance out some PS3 losses and has done some decent math. Honestly, they could make $99 and they still wouldn't have convinced me to get one. My DS is gathering enough dust as it is.

And I don't think any link is necessary here - digital TV took over analog this weekend in the much reported and recently delayed rollout which kills the analog signal for more bandwidth for digital providers. I can't really complain, we've had cable for years and anything we would get over the air would be digital at this point as well, but I do still remember watching the Dukes Of Hazzard in my brother's room on a tiny black and white set. So let's hope it goes quietly into the night.

Game Play: Boom Blox

Boom Blox is one of those games that will remind you why you got a Wii. You could sparsely describe it as "Jenga with bombs", but that simplifies a deceptively complex gameplay structure which include several mechanics revolving around the basic theme of "fun with physics".

Players can take turns tackling the blocks, depending on the subgame you'll pull, throw, explode or shoot at the things in an attempt to score as many points as possible - and each of those actions have variations of their own like bowling balls and water hoses. With others, you can either cooperatively try and take down structures or go head to head for the most points.

There's very little flaw in the game. I'm not a huge fan of the shooting aspects of it, since it seems a bit like a cheap light gun game to me, but nearly everything else about it plays great and makes for an excellent multiplayer experience as well.

Highly recommended.