Skyrim Machinima - Amazing videos here-->

I never really did know what 'Machinima' officially was, but, as a film guy, was always intrigued. No really, that sounds counter-intelligent but I just haven't gotten around to it! 

Machinima, for those unfamiliar, is a movie genre that uses game technology instead of traditional film technology. By recording in-game footage (usually heavily modded) and applying voice overs, music tracks, and post-processing effects, indie artists can create some pretty impressive short films. 

Sup...how YOU doin'?

Anyways, It simply amazes me that people have the talent AND time to accomplish such awesome videos. I've already seen 'The Beauty of Skyrim' via a  Facebook friends post, and was amazed at the detail/atmosphere of this game I haven't yet purchased. It must be no small feat in the game's editing suite, video editors etc. to make this magic happen. Consider me sufficiently inspired to go check out some of these guys other videos! Skyrim is turning out to be a landmark game, on a multitude of levels, lucky for me, the one that stands out most is the art design, the graphics, the sound and music, which all collide to create a very immersive and atmospheric experience.

Check out this sample, one of the most amazing i've seen so far, entitled simply, 'The Battle of Skyrim', to see what I mean. The Great Battle of Skyrim boasts "500 Draugr, 200 skeletons, 500 Dwarven Warriors", a couple of epic battle mages and one very hungry-looking dragon. Watch the whole thing, as halfway through it gets pretty bad-ass.

The Great Battle does a pretty good job showing off what the Skyrim engine is capable of if you have a killer video card and OC'd rig.

Dovahkiin

Dovahkiin is more of a music video than a film but I really enjoyed the mood created by this one. This example does a really good job showing off Skyrim's visual capabilities. (Something that can be further enhanced through mods.)

There are many more fine examples out there, just surf through the links within YouTube and you will begin discovering the beauty and artistry that is MACHINIMA in SKYRIM!

Diablo III launching May 15th! It's finally coming Ladies and Gentlemen!

 Diablo III is launching May 15th! It's finally coming Ladies and Gentlemen!

Blizzard fans have long known that their games aren't released until they feel they are good and ready. Now, the how's and why's of exactly when that happens I will leave to the conspiracy theorists and naysayers but usually this ensures a great game when its finally released.  What this means for you is the game will be polished to a fine sheen, and will ensure hours of left-clicking mayhem right out of the box. Of course there will be bug fixes, and balance tweaks for the approximately 15 years I'm guessing we will be playing this game, if Diablo 2 is any indication!

My wife is excited! Both her and her Dad played the hell outta this game. I also have fond memories of playing both versions. With the hauntingly beautiful acoustic music soundtrack and sounds, the addictiveness of making the best weapon/armor load-out, the challenge of those final boss battles. It seems like only yesterday that I fired up my first burned game, Diablo, into my first PC and left-clicked into the late late hours in those Air Force dorms, with red candles lit (for Atmosphere!) and beer sweating on it's cardboard coaster, while the northern California winter drizzled out my window. Ahh memories!


Choose your class wisely: Wizard, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Barbarian, Monk 

It looks to be a similarly addictive, and potential profiting game this time around, as we now have an in-game Auction house, similar to what Wow users already enjoy...but with one crucial diffference. This time, you can buy and sell with real-life money. This significantly raises the stakes a bit. Does it make it more fun to seek out rare items? What sort of emergent behaviors will we see in this new frontier of adventure gaming? To be sure, Paypal, and it's parent company Ebay are certainly smiling all the way to the bank. [Paypal is the in-game payment processor]

Hmm, I wonder what the epic green horny-toad boots of velvet doom are going for today?

For all you console cretons', you won't be left out so no cryin'. You didn't think Blizzard would just let an extra couple million dollars pass by would you? Nope, the rumors all point to them developing a PS3/Xbox version of Diablo 3...so you all will be able to slide your credit cards into the online Auction house the same as the rest of us.

For more info at the official Blizzard site go HERE. You may want to pre-order a copy now, as I've seen it a hundred times, hot titles like this will be hard to come by for at least a month after release day!

Let the fun begin next month!

Was the New Apple iPad Made Ethically?

Apple mania took over the interwebs on Wednesday morning as the company unveiled its latest iPad.

There weren't any tectonic technology shifts introduced by the new iPad 3 (or iPad HD or iPad 2S or whatever it's called). The new model has a sharper, high-definition display and 4G wireless speeds (LTE, for the acronym aware). The new iPad also sports better cameras.

In addition to the roar of excitement, the activist watchdog group, “SumOfUs” called on Apple to release employees’ time card data from the last four months to see if workers in China were forced into grueling and illegal overtime schedules.

SumOfUs Executive Director Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman spoke with Mashable on Wednesday morning. She cited the New York Times’ story from January that reported employees at an Apple factory in China were awoken from slumber to work overnight shifts in order to make last-minute changes to the iPad 2. That article was the catalyst for this particular petition, she said, but SumOfUs has targeted Apple and its working conditions in China since the organization launched in late November 2011.

She says Apple’s hiring of the Fair Labor Association is a public relations move, or “whitewashing” as she called it.

“It is a PR exercise, not an actual investigation,” she said. “The head of the FLA was giving interviews one day after he arrived — he didn’t interview any workers. It’s clear anything they release will be calculated.”

This response doesn’t fix the problem, “but it’s cheap,” she said. Apple will have to spend money or change their practices in order to actually make a difference. — “Apple’s going to have to allow it’s suppliers to have a slightly bigger profit margin,” she added.

Last year, Apple’s profit margin was more than 30 percent, while Foxconn (Apple’s most notorious factory) had a 1.5 percent profit margin, Bloomberg reported. Stinebrickner-Kauffman said Foxconn’s profit margin is actually more profitable than a lot of factories in Asia, but still not enough for suppliers to follow Apple’s and the FLA’s code of conduct.

“The other thing they’ll (Apple) have to realize is they can’t make last minute changes and expect their suppliers to hold to their timeline,” she said.

Stinebrickner-Kauffman said she’s an iOS device-user herself and like many folks with Apple devices, doesn’t want to be complacent while accusations of unfair working conditions persist about Apple’s factories in China.

The FLA said the conditions at Foxconn are better than other Chinese factories. It’s also been said that the suicide rate in China is higher than at the Foxconn factories. However, Stinebrickner-Kauffman points out that the suicides we hear about at Foxconn are just the reported ones.

The petition has not yet been emailed to supporters and has already garnered more than 130,000 signatures. Stinebrickner-Kauffman said she thinks Apple will hear the message loud-and-clear, even if they don’t acknowledge it.

“Apple doesn’t like to admit it,” she said. “But there have been successful NGO campaigns against Apple.”

Green My Apple, a campaign by Greenpeace was one of them, she said. It spurred Apple to change its recycling practices and restrict or ban certain toxic chemicals. Apple called the program, “A Greener Apple.”

SumOfUs was launched in late November with the goal of help organize consumers to push companies to be more sustainable and responsible.

Are you going to buy the new iPad or will you wait until Apple hands over employees’ time cards? Are you going to sign the petition? Have you stopped purchasing Apple products because you don’t want to support its overseas labor practices? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

My two cents?: No mass-produced product in the past few centuries was made ethically. If ipads were assembled in the US, the cost would easily be 8X higher. The fact is that almost everything electronic is made in China these days in similar factories. Arguably, FoxConn’s conditions are better than most. What do you think?

Solar Flare on it's way Thursday morning! See video here-->

                                                 We're all gonna get an upgraded sun tan!

One of the most powerful solar storms in the last five years was unleashed yesterday after a massive solar flare erupted from the sun. Space weather scientists are closely watching the sun’s activity as the storm could interfere with satellite communication and power grids.

Joseph Kunches, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said:
“Space weather has gotten very interesting over the last 24 hours… When the shock arrives, the expectation is for heightened geomagnetic storm activity and the potential for heightened solar radiation… There is the potential for induced currents in power grids… Power grid operators have all been alerted. It could start to cause some unwanted induced currents.”

NASA captured a video of the solar flare (below) as it erupted and hurled a “big blob of magnetized material” toward the earth. The AR1429 sunspot region shout off a solar flare on Sunday and two more yesterday. The AR1429 region is currently pointing almost directly at earth which means that the coronal mass ejection could have a big impact on earth.

Harlan Spence, an astrophysicist at the University of New Hampshire, told SPACE.com:

“The sun is waking up at a time in the month when Earth is coming into harm’s way. Think of these CMEs somewhat like a bullet that is shot from the sun in more or less a straight line. When the sunspot is right in the middle of the sun, something launched from there is more or less directed right at Earth. It’s kind of like how getting sideswiped by a car is different than a head-on collision. Even still, being sideswiped by a big CME can be quite dramatic.”

The New York Times reports that the coronal mass ejection will hit earth at about 1:30 a.m on Thursday morning.

Here’s a video about the 2012 solar flare from NASA.

The giant active sunspot AR1429 has given space weather scientists plenty to monitor recently and the solar activity isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon. The sun’s activity is expected to increase until it peaks next year.

“We’ve got a whole series of things going off, and they take different times to arrive, so they’re all piling on top of each other. It complicates the forecasting and predicting because there are always inherent uncertainties with any single event. Now, with multiple events piling on top of one another, that uncertainty grows.”

Alex Young, a solar physicist at NASA Goddard, said that it isn’t inevitable that the solar storm tonight will interrupt satellite communication. Young says that the solar storm may just put on a great light show, saying that auroras will be visible as far south as Illinois.

So folks, make sure you put on your tin-foil hats before going to bed tonight!



My Total War: Shogun 2 Impressions: Epically Beautiful, Japanese, Awesomeness!

With gaming, I’m kind of behind the curve. I am still working through Morrowind, I haven’t finished the original Bioshock, I still haven’t been through all the campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2…and I can’t imagine how many more miles of African savannah I have yet to drive in the beautiful but limited Far Cry 2…so it is with this foreword that I give my late, very late review of the amazing Total War: Shogun 2.


Ooohh..ahhhh...

 Not that I’m not aware of what I’m missing, mind you. I keep up daily with all the latest releases, the current favorite ‘it’ games, and the industry ups and downs. I’ve watched in awe at the newest Bioshock: Infinite that will no doubt be their next work of art, and keep a hopeful eye on the newest XCOM game to come out in many years…also [Someday, I WILL enjoy Skyrim…I will...] But being such a busy parent, and working and generally being tired at any of the 20 hours of the day I’m not ‘sleeping’ has kept me from finishing anything in my ever growing PC game library. It doesn’t help that the holiday season on STEAM for gamers on a budget is similar to what crack is to Whitney Houston….er…yeah.

So I took advantage and picked up the latest Total War game I had my eye on for months, as it was on sale for some crazy 50% off. I also took advantage of all the add-on clans that were fairly cheap at the time. After all, assuming someday I would get to play it, I’d have all the little toys to play with, all the factions in the deck. It’s the completionist in me that keeps the money flowing to Creative Assembly.

I was hooked on Rome, with its massive real-time armies engaged in epic battle, AND it’s Risk/Civilization-style campaign map intrigue. Many, many nights I had to work though ‘just one more turn’. I gasped at the beauty of ‘Empire’ with its authentic looking [but hard to micro-manage] boat warfare and revamped graphics on the battlefield. I merely tasted victory with the introductory revolutionary campaign before getting my ass handed to me in a feathered hat by the Prussians as I attempted a Germanic faction campaign. And again, as I tried to expand westward to the trading fields of America in my lowly, underpowered boats by the Brits AND Spanish Armada’s. Perhaps I’ll get back to this one.

The many unique war-boats of Shogun 2, engaged in high-seas battle!

So it is with great anxiousness and trepidation that I attempt the newest, most beautiful and far-east arena of the Japanese conflicts. After all, this is the setting I know least about, having taken much more European history classes than Asian. My first encounter, after the menu screen pops up, oooh, pretty. This game is beautiful, and polished. It is obvious that real thought went into the design of each and every bit of menu/interface. And the music is peaceful, and everything you expect of epic Japanese traditional music. Quiet and Zen-like on the campaign map, and swelling and ambitious when engaged in battle. With either surround sound or quality headphones, all this sounds pure, raw, and uniquely recorded just for the game. Then, the intro campaign. Even though it’s mostly annoying to be retold the same basic advice I’ve mastered since ‘Rome’, I keep the tutorial chatter flowing in hopes to glean some new and unique feature of the game, or strategy that this version has that the previous did not.

There is a lot to appreciate in this, newest iteration. Perhaps this is Creative Assembly’s crowning achievement. They have perfected the formula, improved the A.I. [for the most part] of not only the naval warfare, but also of the enemy land battle movements, and the graphics are simply stunning. I am a sucker for great graphics, more than other important features sometimes, and there are endless moments when I simply pan around at the sky, what looks like a painting of the Japanese red sun setting over smoky mountains and rolling hills. I track like Francis Coppola himself, alongside a formation of Katana Samurai units, marching not quite in unison, from the side, looking down the ranks as if I were marching alongside next to them…admiring the power and majesty of their intent, as well as their amazingly detailed and colorful uniforms.

We've come for Dragon Warrior IX, Shogun! Give it up!

To top it all off, we have the pre-battle ‘pep rally’s’ that were missing for a few of the games. This was one of those great features of ‘Rome’. No matter how many times I’ve heard the various configurations of speech parts, strung together…they still served a small but important role to let you know the conditions of the battle as it may play out. Hey, every little clue is important when the numbers are stacked against you! Are there reinforcements falling in behind? Does the enemy have to march to me? Or do I need to make the first moves as fast as possible. It’s all very stirring, providing a little emotional involvement in the battle, your General and men’s survival, and gives a lot of character to game. I’ve read that there are over 100,000 possible speeches based on the character, their location, and their relationship to the enemy, etc. Wow. It’s all here, though spoken in the native Japanese, of course, so read along with the captions to glorious battle!

Back off spearmen! My horse spits upon your helmuts!

Though the formula is roughly unchanged, there are still plenty of new units to master, such as the Metsuke, who act like the town sheriff while also repelling most monk and ninja attacks. I also love the new ‘hero’ units that each town may possess. Think of them as your go-to ass-kickers that may single-handedly turn the tide of battle, if called upon. Hopefully, these are balanced enough that they aren’t TOO ridiculously powerful, but this seems to be a controversial subject already. There is also an upgrade path for generals in your armies. These units gain extra buff’s and war abilities as they win and survive each battle. It’s like another mini tech-tree, bidding you to take great care in not losing your generals.

Epic Seige battles await!

There is a much more robust multiplayer element here, which you may find yourself playing more than the single player campaign! Shogun 2 features multiplayer battles with up to 8 players as well as multiplayer campaigns involving competitive or cooperative play with 2 players. In a multiplayer campaign, players can be grouped into different clans, so that for each clan, one player assumes the role of clan leader and others take command of armies. The clan leader has the ability to direct other players and assign rewards based on loyalty and performance, introducing clan politics into multiplayer. As a player's army invades an enemy territory or is attacked by enemy armies, the online matchmaker finds a suitable opponent and initiates a multiplayer battle. When a player defeats enemy armies and conquers territories, the player will gain points and other bonuses for the clan. In addition to all this, an achievement system is designed to provide adhering players with unique abilities and cosmetic upgrades.

My favorite new feature? The Avatar conquest mode, of course! Avatar Conquest is a brand new addition to the Total War franchise. It allows you, the player, to create your own Avatar by customizing its uniform, color scheme, clan banner and more. You are then dropped onto the map of Japan, where you move your avatar around the map into different territories and engage in live land and sea battles via matchmaking. Before engaging in battle, it is wise to create and customize your army and navy via the army management button. You'll have a choice between small, medium, large and huge ’funds’ battles. Warning- large and huge battles are better suited for those with more powerful computers.

That's right...I'm a baaaad mutha "shut yer mouth!"...

Once your Avatar has been customized to your liking, and you've put together an army and navy, you can then drop into the battle map and attempt to smash your opponent. Depending on whether you won or lost, you'll receive skill points, which you can use to upgrade both your Avatar and units stats. Some units will gain veterancy if you use them enough in battle.

A major part of Avatar Conquest is also the Clan system. The Clan system features various user-created Steam Groups battling it out to control parts of Japan. The clan with the most victories in a particular territory will control it. There are many territories for clans to battle it out over and various tier's for clans of varying sizes to fight in.

I’m also impressed by a simple, yet genius ‘drop-in’ feature that allows you to let a real human drop into your campaign battle to fight against you, in real-time. Great idea! Though, I’m weary about the possibility of being spanked by every single ‘pro’ player out there invading my game, I’ll have to experiment with this. I don’t like the idea of losing every battle if i’m only an armchair general.

The campaign map is as gorgeous as ever, introducing a 360 degree rotation view option!

Overwhelmed yet? A beginner to the Total War series just might be, but there are helpful tips abound, and if you crave more there is plenty of online help via fan forums and the like at your fingertips. Don’t be afraid to read up on tactics and strategy, there is always much to learn when attempting to master the Art of War. Here is one excellent and extremely well-made guide to get you on your way. HERE

All in all, this is easily the most polished, graphically beautiful, accessible, and involving of all Total War games, and certainly one of the best PC games you can get, period. For anyone interested in history, strategy and empire building, it’s a must-have. Will you be the next Shogun sitting in Kyoto? Go ahead…give it your best shot!