OK, now I am really happy that Futurama is out of cold storage and running strong with two direct-to-DVD movies, even though The Beast With A Billion Backs (or Futurama Meets Day of the Tentacle, as I call it) left me feeling a lot less happy than after Bender’s Big Score. With the second movie still fresh, we now have a sneak peek at the next one on the list - Bender’s Game, as, usual a pun, this time on the award-winning sci-fi book, Ender’s Game.

Although we can’t really tell if there’s any inspiration for the movie from the book, we have indeed seen (and heard) a ton of references to Dungeons and Dragons, The Lord of the Rings and the recent Beowulf movie. Bender’s Game is scheduled to hit DVD retail shelves sometime at the end of this year. Hot diggety daffodil! Now if only someone would make another Futurama game. (sigh)

Back in May, we got an early glimpse of some less-than-riveting screens of LoveStory 2050 for the PC, the official game based on the upcoming sci-fi film that unapologetically “borrows” as many flicks as Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer can do with Hollywood blockbusters in a few months time (minus the near-existent humor). Then Sanjit Daniel, CEO of Rocking Pixels and 2050’s developer, pops in and slaps us with a large cartoon trout with “Engine Tests!” written all over it. He also promised we’d be seeing some real info in about “two weeks time”, but that was nearly a month ago. Fast forward to today, and now we’re hearing talks of a massively multiplayer online game, backed up by Indian gaming portal Zapak. A sphincter says what?!

Rocking Pixels has associated with Love Story 2050 to create for the first time a Bollywood based 3D game that will bring realistic “avatars” of the stars to the masses that will be able to connect with their most popular icons in a way never before possible. The massively multiplayer games with hundreds of thousands of players competing with each other provide the most interactive lean forward medium which associates players with the stars.

On this occasion, Sanjit Daniel, CEO, Rocking Pixels said, “When Love Story 2050 was announced we realized that the movie will be a great fit to showcase our technology as it was futuristic and loaded with special effects. With Harman himself being a hard core gamer we managed to create a breakthrough game which brings the movie in all its glory to the world of 3D gaming. The game will be released as a massively multiplayer game and will feature exciting game play in a futuristic Mumbai, exactly as depicted in the movie”.

Talk about unexpected developments. Yet, there’s still no mention of a pinned release date or what sort of a MMO will this be exactly. RPG? FPS? Second Life meets Blade Runner? Tieing up with Zapak seems like a good initiative, but having to deal with the weight of a thousand or so players all interacting at the same time is a huge undertaking. That doesn’t come from just an everyday gamer’s perspective, that personally comes from a QA tester too.

The movie will be releasing this Friday. As usual, more info when it hits.

There just isn’t room for creativity in this world these days - at least not if you are a multi-billion dollar Jabba the Hutt like Fox Studios. With Fox’s own Max Payne movie just around the corner, starring Mark Wahlberg as the classy “nothing to lose” anti-hero cop who’s lost it all, the movie studio has decided to eliminate the competition in a move that would make Vladimir Lem real proud.

And who’s the competition, you ask? Why, it’s none other than Payne & Redemption, a non-profit fan film that got over a million fans foaming at the mouth and the stamp of approval from Max Payne’s creator, Sam Lake, himself. A movie that’s been over three years in the making and has burned a hole deep in the pockets of the producer, Luke Morgan-Rowe and the director Fergle Gibson, Payne & Redemption fell foul last month, just after the team released a spanking new trailer, with their MySpace page getting suddenly pulled down citing copyright infringement concerns.

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Not sure how many of you heard of Black20, but it’s essentially an entertainment media hub that hosts quite a few decent Web Series and a mess of one-shot parody trailers. Black20’s latest addition definitely categories into the latter segment, taking on everyone’s favorite puzzle game for a Hollywood spin - Tetris. Yes, even I doubt Alexey Pajitnov himself could’ve envisioned a sort of central plot running through his algorithmic-ly, glorious block party of funka-doria. And yet, that didn’t stop Thomas Edward Seymour and Mike O’Gorman from putting together a teaser trailer depicting just that. Tetris, but with a plot. That is, if you can count the uniformly colored blocks representing as flyable objects that can be manned (or womaned!) and used in some form of a vehicle-combat oriented death sport, but without the lasers and stuff. Indeed, just like the Tetris we all know and adore. Ergo, shut up.

It’s simply, dare I say it… puzzling. Ho ho!

I love Kevin Spacey. That is, in a completely respectful, asexual way. Watching The Life of David Gale for the 100th time last week, my broken husk of a mind somehow kept thinking “Max Payne” every time the theme came on, until I realized that it was on the track listing for the indie film by Fergle Gibson - Payne & Redemption.

With two great teasers that has Max Payne fans like us going apeshit over its release, it looks like the project has run into some very serious trouble. The kind that involves green pieces of paper with presidential figures on ‘em. Checking the production blog for the film reveals a recent post by the producer, Luke Morgan-Rowe, where he’s announced that they are actually, pretty darn broke.

From the outset, Fergle & I have strived to achieve the highest production values within the constraints of an independent film budget. To that end, we employed a professional lighting crew (who recently worked on Casino Royale, and the Bourne trilogy) and shot the film using the Arriflex D20 - a pioneering digital camera, the first to shoot in the same quality as a 35mm film camera. To date, the film has been financed solely by Fergle, and to put it bluntly, he has no more money to complete this project.

The movie, apparently, still has quite a ways to go, and a lil’ money sent their way would be the right thing to do for a Max Payne fan. Considering how much we spend on useless junk, it’d be a sin to let this one slip away into the night, since we’re probably never going to see another Max Payne game ever again. Wonder if Take Two would be interested in helping sponsor the project. It’d sure be a great way to kick off interest in the franchise all over again, especially since Alan Wake is almost turning the corner.

 

Transformers was a true summer movie in all respects after a really *long* time. Straight in the league of Armageddon about 8 summers back, which was the last summer blockbuster that I truly enjoyed. The movie was made on a mega, multi-million dollar budget. And the result was a highly polished, taut presentation of our beloved Lego heroes’ story. But this is not about the special effects or the slick cars used in the movie. This is about what the tittle says. Yes, the music, which I believe is the major yet least talked about aspect of epic movies. Imagine STAR WARS without the classic John Williams score! Imagine Superman without the hugely orchestral yet very pop like theme by the same genius! Imagine Black hawk Down and Pearl Harbor without the ‘To die for my Country’ scores! You guys must have gotten the drift I guess.

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Looks like we have more and more games being made into movies these days. Joining the latest games to make the jump to the big screen is Sega’s absolutely brilliant shooter, Condemned: Criminal Origins. Dubbed The Unforgettable, the movie is being directed by The Cell director, Tarsem Singh, and features a plot that is said to involve “a cop who in the course of a murder investigation realizes that he is not human and uncovers a war between good and evil aliens.” And this is where I did something I don’t usually do - blink.

On a good note though, it looks like the Hitman movie is coming along famously. Talking to IGN, the Deadwood and Live Free or Die Hard actor, Timothy Olyphant talked about the Hitman movie, including admitting that he had never heard of the source material before the movie and a number of plot points, including the introduction of Nika, played by the stunningly gorgeous Olga Kurylenko and Dougray Scott’s portrayal of Mike Whittier. Sure, the plot doesn’t look too special, but oh well, at least the sets and good ol’ 47 look great, as they should. Expect the Hitman movie to release sometime in the next couple of months.