Toronto - you know a video is f’d up when you don’t need drugs to realized how messed up it is
Archive for February 2008
Vancouver, I could say that I’m attending this years Game Developers Conference but after you read the rest of the post you would probably think that I’m the laziest journalist ever. While the latter is true, I thought it would be nice for people to get an update on the big stories from the conference in an easy to read format. I should warn you, us here at The Panic Manual are Xbox fanboys and girls (yes, that also includes Wade, if he knows what’s good for him), so all the below stories are 360 related. Besides, I think we need to support Microsoft on today, this darkest of dark days. As some of you may or may not know, HD-DVD drew it’s terminal breath early this morning. The bad - I gotta buy a Blu-ray player, the good - HD-DVD fire sale. Holla!
Here’s today’s roundup:
- Joystiq’s live coverage of Microsoft’s Keynote - Gears, Fable, and Ninja Gaiden sequels, plus Xbox Live Community Games.
- Gears Of War 2 Announced - In stores November 2008, here’s the trailer, here’s the box art.
- Ninja Gaiden 2 “Temple of Sacrifice” gameplay trailer - This series is harder than fighting a real demon from the ninja world.
- Unreal Engine Tech Demo - The artificial reality looks unreal.
- Zero Punctuation’s Bioshock opener - Hilarious video by ZP’s Yahtzee. After you’ve finished guffawing, check out his other video’s here.
Here’s another story that’s not GDC relted, but still relevant. Looks like Canadian retailers are dropping the price of the Xbox 360. So now is a good time to buy a new console, along with Windows Vista, Office 2008 and a Zun…what?
I’ve had a bad few weeks trying to post here… for some reason I just couldn’t get into the Panic Manual. I couldn’t sign in, nothing was saving…I was driving Ricky crazy with troubleshooting messages. It’s too bad, because a friend sent me a link to this little gem last week and I was worried that it would get old to all you web-friendly folks out there.
But I just can’t resist…it still has me cracking up. Apparently the actors who do the voices for Spongebob Squarepants did a little re-voicing of some classic movies. Enjoy.
Oh yes…and here are some interesting fire photos from Torontoist. RIP Duke’s and Suspect Video.
http://torontoist.com/2008/02/massive_fire_hi.php
Toronto - Planet Earth. You live there. I live there. Most people do. What’s extraordinary about this thing is that its so big, and seeing as how we mostly confine ourselves to the cities and the streets, we sometimes forget how big and wonderful our world is.
Enter BBC, aside from making quirky funny comedies, they also like to dabble in this thing called ‘documentaries’. A few years ago, they made one about oceans, called ‘Blue Planet‘. Well about one or two years ago, they came out with another documentary, about Earth. It’s called ‘Planet Earth‘. I am sure you have heard of it, most people are like ‘Planet Earth man..it looks amazing on HD’. Well the question I pose to you is..have you actually seen it? I hadn’t until recently, when my friend Gary lent it to me/I took it from his house.
Man. It is freaking off the charts. Off the hizzle. The footage they get of animals is absolutely amazing. They use some crazy cameras with crazy zooms. I swear, if I had this lens, I would be able to zoom in on Lindsay Lohan doing cocaine in an New York apartment from my bedroom window. There are like 11 episodes in total, each feature a different part of Earth - Caves, Deserts, Mountains, etc. Every show is breath taking, every show has a ‘holy sh*t’ moment. Not in the Jack Bauer-must make a moral decision- way either, the footage is just completely amazing. They get rare animals too.
Here is a clip of the Snow Leopard, apparently, first time ever it’s been capture in the wild. The hunt is crazy.
Theres a lot others too, like African Wild Dogs working as a team and flanking left and right to capture an Impala. I was watching that and I was like WTF, thats what we do in Halo! Shiet. Anyways, I highly recommend watching it. It’ll make you want to drop everything you have and travel to these remote places of the Earth just to bathe in its beauty.
Note: Where there’s life, theres deaths. If you are one of those cutesy puppie people who don’t enjoy seeing a baby elephant getting ripped apart by lions, there are some scenes not for you. However, you can always tell when this happens because
a) the lord of the rings soundtrack kicks it into high gear
b) you can always tell its coming by the narrator, it’ll be something like
“The plains are fruitful and vast, but not all who goes here, are here for fun”
“The babies on this mountain playfully jump about on the rocks..however, death is always lurking”.
Classic.
also, dont get US version, Sig Weaver is no narrator compared to the british guy.
5/5
In honor of the Snow Leopard, here is a Cat Power song called the Leopard and the Lamb, off something called the ‘White Session’.
Toronto - Lets go back to 2001. I still remember the exact moment when I saw Vince Carter do his first dunk at the slam dunk competition. It was literally one of the few moments where I freakin jumped out of my seat and was like ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’. That dunk contest for me, was great and made me a big basketball fan. Before then I was pretty casual fan, I mean, I liked the Golden State Warriors for awhile in 95, because I used to love using them in that game (use Hardaway/Mullin/Sprewell to shoot 3s, webber to dunk). But really, I was not a big Raptors or Grizzly fan. that slam dunk contest had just some spectacular dunks by Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Steve Francis. Funny how all three careers have gone downhill drastically in the past few years.
Anyways, here was Vince Carters dunks from that nite:
So since then, the Dunk contest has lacked the excitement from that one, since the standards were set so high. It started getting quite good last year, with lots of props being used, and Nate Robinson not having to attempt the same dunk 2000 times. However, this year, Dwight Howard may have finally matched the standards that VC set 7 years ago.
Yup.
