South Park’s extremely fast production time means they can be bang up to date with current affairs, giving it an edge, other animated rivals lack. So this week we had fantastic a parody of the Terri Schiavo controversy along with a major staring role for Sony’s new portable console the PSP. Kenny gets a PSP with a Heaven vs. Hell game and reaches level 60 when he is suddenly run over and taken into heaven. They reveal that the PSP was created by god to find a commander for their army in the upcoming war against hell. All of this is beautifully portrayed in Lord of Rings style with heaven looking like Minas Tirith and the mission briefing given to Kenny very similar of that given to Frodo in Rivendell during the Fellowship.
Unfortunately for heaven Kenny is revived 24 hours after being pronounced dead and being kept alive in the same way as Terri Schiavo. So we wind up with some great scenes that sum up the debate that has been happening better than any of the news channels, hell are happy with Kenny being alive as he can’t help heaven so they go to the Republicans “like they always do” to try and keep his feeding tube in.
For me the best moment comes at the finale when the army of hell have reached the gates of heaven and Kenny is back in command after having his feeding tube removed. It’s so much like the end of the LOTR its ridiculous. By this time I am nearly screaming out LOTR at my screen, but then the spectating angel who has been commentating on the battle says,
My god! My god! This battle is epic…..My god this battle is even bigger than the one at the end of the Lord of the Rings movie, its, its like ten times bigger than that battle!
Some people say South Park is crude but that was perfectly timed subversive satire. Hats off to Matt and Trey for this one.
I just caught the interview with Doug Lombardi of Valve on ‘Attack of the Show’ (lazy name). It previously seemed like an expansion was being announced when they said he was comming on but he would not be drawn on a question from Kevin about an add-on staring Alex. Instead it’s a new level for steam subscribers which demonstrates some of the new lighting effects Valve are working on. The level is called ‘The Lost Codes’ and features high dynamic (HDR) lighting which is Valve’s answer to the bloom effect seen in many engines (Unreal 2, GTA3, etc). Unlike bloom though this effect populates the whole scene and made a dramatic difference in the clip they played.
He said the feature would be available at points in HL2 and be included in the SDK for mod teams to use, no mention of CS:S but I am guessing it will work there also. Lombardi was adament that only the earlier adopters of high end graphics cards would be able to use the technology.
Good interview considering its length and Lombardi explained everything realy well and Kevin did a good job of trying to get answers to the expansion rumour and the Team Fortress 2 question to which he said “Comming soon”.
I couldn’t help but laugh as soon as I saw this story. Thats right Christopher Eccleston is no longer the Doctor. Hang on a minute, how many episodes of the new season have been on TV? And he is already quiting? If he didn’t want to be typecast he should have never accepted the role and as the ‘grueling schedule’ it’s clear he just doesn’t want to work in Wales.
Excuse me while I go and laugh hysterically in a corner somewhere.
Just ordered Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for ¬£17.95 from mx2, nice! I can always find one site that does a new PC release for under ¬£20, unless its an EA game of course ;-). You’ve got to love these off shore warehouses, with new sites popping up every week the whole of Jersey Island will be covered in large corrugated metal sheds in no time.
Only problem with them is the delivery time, these guys quoted 7 to 10 days for delivery which is pretty slow even considering its free shipping. Good job it doesn’t affect me then as I’m going home this weekend anyway and won’t be able to play it until next week. Expect a full round up in due course.
Well now I feel like I have done it all. Today I have been comment spammed for the first time ever! I haven’t been in the game that long and for some reason I have already been targeted by the losers that distribute this rubbish. This day is right up there with my first email spam and of course my first popup ad, I would like to thank Wordpress, Google and all those other fine web services that make this dream possible. If it happens again I will set up the blog to send every comment to me for approval and stop the beast dead in it’s tracks.
Had an interesting discussion with my bro the other night about videogame sequels reusing the engine from their prequel. Personally being from a PC gaming background I kind of feel that the next iteration of a game should be pushing the hardware further and thus it’s only a true sequel if such a substantial change is made. Any thing else is just a glorified expansion pack really, isn’t it? Well he made a good point about furthering story lines and new environments, the example we kept going back to was Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow which was really a stop gap until Chaos Theory that uses a totally updated engine.
The thing that changed my mind really though was the mention of Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. In terms of the plot, scope and scale of the sequel it clearly is more than a glorified expansion. It furthers the storyline of the previous game and introduces new elements and features to the role-playing to make it more enjoyable. So a definite sequel in the same engine.
This kind of engine reuse becomes more apparent when we reach the end of a console generation. All the games I have mentioned in this post are multiplatform and are limited by technology that’s approaching five years old now. So inherently in the last years of a console’s life we have reached its optimal performance and so there is little use in developing new engines. Obviously on the PC this is not the case and I would continue to hold my original opinion that new engines should be utilized for games that are exclusive to PC (including titles later ported to consoles).
I have been beta testing the Windows XP version of Orb that allows you to stream audio and video content from your PC to any web browser be it mobile, desktop or whatever. I was sure this service would cost something eventually as they were charging for the Media Centre edition when it was first released. But as Robert Scoble points out it looks like its going to be free!
It’s a great service and you should check it out if you have ever felt the need to watch you media content on the go. I remember a few months back Scoble was claiming this as the killer app for Media Centre, but now you don’t need a MC PC and it’s free so scratch that as MS won’t be shifting anymore MC boxes as a result of this.
Well their viral marketing campain worked as 10.5 million people tunned into Dr Who last night. It’s not as big a deal as they make it out to be that they beat Ant and Dec as it’s hardly the pinacle of comedy and entertainment. Why they seek to beat ITV’s low brow trash in the ratings is beyond me as they appeal to completely different audiences.
Wow today is a day of expansion pack announcements for great first person shooters. Next on the list Halo 2, the honourable joystiq have the juice as ever. I am keeping fingers crossed for the inevitable Brothers in Arms add-on announcement, its got to happen, we are on a roll ;-).
I stopped watching The Screen Savers when they sold out and moved to LA but the all new replacement programme called Attack of the Show (wtf?) has a major exclusive this week. Valve will be showing off the new HL2 expansion according to G4TTV’s website. Holy headcrab!
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