loonyblog.

Today I gathered up a whole lot of games I had piling up and marched down to my local GameStop to sell ‘em all back. I did, and with that credit I picked up Champions of Norrath. It was a toss-up between that and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II, but the deciding factor was the online play (well that and the fact that it was developed by Snowblind, the developers of the original BGDA). Anyway, with the rest of my credit I pre-ordered Doom 3. Now all I need is an official release date so I can buy a new video card (they were saying August 4th at the store, but id hasn’t confirmed anything yet), and I’m good to go. Bring it on id, bring it on.

It’s really tongue-in-cheek, but this article at MSNBC compiles a list of actors that have been rumored to be playing Superman in that movie should it ever get off the ground (pun sort of intended). The least serious one on the list is all the way at the bottom, where you’ll find Christopher Walken. It’ll never happen (at least, I hope not, anyway) but I have to admit, that would be really funny to see.

On a slightly more depressing note, this list doesn’t hold a whole lot of promise. Looking over the list, there are a couple of actors I’d find acceptable to play Superman: Brendan Fraser, for all his goofiness and George of the Jungle-ness, would actually be a somewhat decent choice, as would Jude Law. The problem with most of the people on this list however is that while they may make a somewhat decent Superman, they’d make an absolutely horrible Clark Kent. That was the key to Michael Keaton’s Batman performance, and why I think he was such a good choice. Yes, his cleft chin looked a little strange in that Batsuit, but he was a really likable Bruce Wayne.

Can you imagine David Boreanaz as Clark Kent? Or Josh Hartnett? Or Ashton Kutcher? Ugh. I think Jude Law could do both roles, and Fraser could probably do it reasonably well, but they’re the only two on that list capable of it. Actually, I think Rupert Everett would do a great job in both roles, but somehow I don’t think that will ever happen.

No, that headline doesn’t refer to the next Lord of the Rings uber-edition (which let’s face it, scrapes the barrel in order to fill all four discs for each film), but rather Anchor Bay’s upcoming four disc special edition release of Dawn of the Dead. The set contains three versions (!) of the film, all with commentary, plus the excellent Document of the Dead, and an entirely new 75 minute documentary. Sadly, I imagine this is going to be a bit more than I can afford (by which I mean…any price, as I’m trying to conserve cash) so it’s going straight to my Amazon Wish List. But hoooooo boy does that ever look sweet. And the movie deserves it. That and Videodrome (see this blog post for info about that amazing upcoming DVD release) are my two favorite horror movies of all time (not counting Alien, as I don’t consider that a horror film). I’ve had to wait a really long time (and endured lousy releases of each), but it’ll be great to see each get the DVD special edition they so rightfully deserve.

Teh Shack is reporting today’s rumor du jour, that Doom 3 is coming on August 3rd. If true (and good lord, I hope it is), that means we could be playing the game in a little more than a month. For some time now I’ve been saying that I won’t upgrade my video card until either Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 goes gold. I’m sticking to that. The second I find out that this game is gold, and therefore really, definitely shipping, then I’ll upgrade. I’ve currently got a GeForce 4200 Ti, which has been good to me, but can’t possibly run either of those two games at a decent framerate.

Of course what exactly I’ll upgrade to is a slightly harder decision. The real choice for me is whether or not I’ll buy a 9800 Pro, which is still great, and much more affordable now, or the newer, and naturally more expensive, X800 Pro (not Platinum, that’s overkill). As we’re buying an apartment (whee!) this is probably my last significant purchase of any kind for the foreseeable future, which means I probably won’t be upgrading my game PC for at least two years, possibly more. So with that in mind, I’ll probably go with the X800. It’s more than I need for now, but in three years, if I’m still using the same video card, that extra power will go a long way.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Doom 3 ain’t gold yet (as far as I know), so I’m not making this decision right this second. We’ll see how much longer it takes to get Doom 3 in the can (hopefully long enough for those X800s to come out in larger supplies).

From the good-god-I’m-a-dorky-fanboi department comes this story care of Slashdot reporting that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and Dark Skies creator Bryce Zabel collaborated on a pitch to Paramount for a new Star Trek series with the intention of reinvigorating the franchise. The series would have been completely separate from any existing series, and well…the Trekkie in me can’t help but pray to the gods of Trek for this to actually happen. It probably won’t, but considering that my two favorite sci-fi series of all time are (in alphabetical order) Bablyon 5 and Deep Space Nine, well…it sort of goes without saying that this would have to be The Greatest Thing Ever.

On a less-exciting, but still kinda cool note, is word that Manny Coto (who let’s face it, sounds like a sci-fi character himself) is joining Enterprise as a show runner next year. While I haven’t watched Enterprise for a long time, and at all in over a year (due to its ever-increasing mediocrity), Coto’s addition might help the show out a bit. Coto is the creator of the short-lived Showtime series Odyssey 5, which I suspect I was the only one actually watching, let alone enjoying (there were many reasons why I enjoyed it, but the fact that one of the cast members was really cute didn’t hurt).

My review of Deus Ex: Invisible War has gone up over at ShackReviews. Here’s your token excerpt:

Among us shackers (and seeing as how I’m no longer an employee I find myself as just another lay shacker myself these days), ShackHype is a dangerous and fickle thing. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of middle ground…when a game comes out, it’s either the greatest thing since sliced bread (or Counter-Strike, whichever you think is a more significant invention) or it’s a steaming load of somethingorother. ShackHype has been responsible for pointing me towards several truly amazing games (Battlefield 1942 comes to mind immediately), but as Deus Ex: Invisible War proves pretty conclusively, ShackHype is not law. The hype on this game was largely negative, which lowered my expectations significantly. On the plus side, this meant that the resulting game (which I enjoyed quite a bit) was a pleasant surprise. But at the same time, there are lots of Shackers who skipped the game because of the ‘hype, and to be perfectly blunt, it’s their own damn fault, because while it’s a bit flawed, it’s a fun experience, and a solid and thoroughly enjoyable sequel to a great game.

Yeah, I think Nintendo’s NES Classics line of GBA re-releases are a waste of money, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t consider buying certain ones once they hit the bargain bin. So far, there hasn’t been a single one I’d seriously consider buying at any price (I own Super Mario Bros. several times over, ditto for Zelda…the rest haven’t held up well at all) but Nintendo’s got a survey up on their web site that’s worth a few seconds of your time. Basically they’re soliciting ideas for the next round(s) of NES re-releases. Several of these have already been included in the Famicom re-releases in Japan, but there are some that haven’t. So go over there and tell Nintendo you want Golgo 13, Kid Icarus, Castlevania and Punch-Out. There’s even a pull-down menu with pretty much every NES game ever released. So if you really, really, really want Fester’s Quest, you can vote for that too. Just don’t look for Tengen Tetris, as it’s absent for fairly obvious reasons.

Slashdot Games pointed me towards this announcement about an Art of Oddworld Inhabitants book covering the developer’s first ten years. Oddworld is one of the most creative studios around, and this could turn out to be a really great book. But so far, the gaming art books that have been published in this country have well…sucked. If it were up to me, we’d have high-quality coffee table books for everything from Outcast, Xenogears and Xenosaga to Final Fantasy, Shenmue and Morrowind. The big problem for art books in this country is really the publishers of them. BradyGames, which churns out strategy guides with remarkable speed, simply cannot publish a decent art book (as they’ve proven). It sounds like Ballistic has put out some quality stuff before, so hopefully this will turn out to be a solid book. Japan has been putting out great game-related art books for over a decade…seeing the cheap-o art books we’ve gotten has been quite depressing.

This article from Newsweek about the new Batman film sounds really promising. Actually, everything I’ve heard so far sounds really promising (except for Katie Holmes…she seems a bit too perky for a Batman movie). Hopefully it won’t suck. We could use a decent Batman movie (actually, what we really could use is a decent Superman movie, but I’m not putting any bets on that one).

From the moral outrage department…

There’s a movement among conservatives to put Ronald Reagan on the $10 bill (thanks Jake).

You know, I’ve stayed good and quiet these last few days as the country looked back on the life of Ronald Reagan with rose-colored glasses. He was our president, he died of a horrible disease, and either one of those deserves a great deal of respect. But this is a bit much to ask me to swallow.