I’m feeling pretty chuffed with myself right now! I just solved the postcard puzzle from Tron, without having all the pieces 🙂
I wrote about the retro arcade game postcards last week, and each card came with a black strip on the back. Under UV light each design showed a different series of dots. The idea was to layer these dots to spell out something. Up until today there were only 4 designs and we couldn’t get closer to solving the puzzle.
Today 2 new cards were released though, and I managed to figure it out with only 1 of those. The letters spelled out ENCOMGAMES-OT– with the dashes being unknown letters. I guessed that it would have to be ENCOMGAMES DOT something something, leading to some url, so started trying out different letter combos. Pretty quickly I stumbled on the solution! ENCOMGAMES.JP
It’s completely in Japanese (of course) and leads to a new Flash game: Circuit Cycles. Give it a go, it gets pretty tricky quickly. On to the next puzzle!
I’ve been following the Tron viral ever since it started and I’m so glad they’re not only limiting the game to US only (unlike some of the other viral out there). There hasn’t been a proper real life event yet overseas, but they have been sending out their goodies to all over the world.
A couple of months ago I got my very own Encom employee’s badge, and now I received a very cool postcard:
See that black bar on the bottom? If you hold the card under a UV light, small squares appear on it. There are 4 different cards so far (Astro Gunner, Arc Wars, Kraz-bot and Vice Squad) with 4 different bars on the back. Nobody has solved the black bar puzzle yet though, and most think we’re still missing some vital clues (like maybe a 5th or a 6th card).
Check out the Unfiction forum for more theories and clues about the Tron viral game.
I loved The A-Team as a kid (who didn’t?) and once I heard there would be a remake I’ve been dreading this movie. I mean, on one side I thought it was awesome that they were bringing it back, on the other side it wouldn’t be MY A-Team, it just couldn’t be the same, right? So now that I finally got to see it, what did I think?
For those of you that have been hiding under a rock the past 25 years or have recently developed amnesia, The A-Team is a remake of the TV series of the same name about a group of ex-Special Forces imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. Liam Neeson stars as the leader and brains behind the team, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith; Bradley Cooper as Templeton “Faceman” Peck, a smooth talking ladies man; Sharlto Copley as H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock, an insane pilot; and Quinton Jackson as Bosco B.A. Baracus.
The original TV show was set 10 years after the A-Team’s allegedly committed crime, with the team being on the run from the military and hiring out their services to people in need. This movie acts much more as an origin story. It opens with how the team got together 10 years ago, providing some nice background history (like why BA is scared of flying). Then it jumps to the present day setting up the whole “crime they didn’t commit” story.
And it’s because of that origin story that I think this movie works. It’s a great way to give these characters a new slate and create them from scratch. Kind of. I mean, each character has still the same traits from the TV show, but by giving them an alternative background story they’ve managed to bring it into the current day. And we get to see the reason why the A-Team eventually goes on the run and turn into mercenaries.
I enjoyed The A-Team much more than I expected to. It’s a summer action flick with loud explosions and unbelievable stunts, but it’s fun. This isn’t MY A-Team, but it’s not a complete disgrace to the old show as I was dreading. It captures the spirit of the original show and multiplies the over-the-topness somewhat.
Liam Neeson as Hannibal still doesn’t really work for me. He’s believable as the team’s leader and master planner behind their mission, but somehow I still think they could have found a better Hannibal (for the life of me I couldn’t imagine who though, and this is one tricky bit of casting).
After finally having seen District 9 (AWESOME movie btw), I was looking forward to see how Sharlto Copley would be as Murdock. Murdock has always been my favourite character and up until the casting was announced I didn’t believe anybody could succeed Dwight Schultz. Copley though is perfect as Murdock, bringing a convincing craziness and levity to the character, and my favourite moments in the movie all come from him.
Bradley Cooper is great as Face, although in my mind he’ll always be Will from Alias. I never thought he’d ever be an action hero type, but he pulls it off great. He doesn’t get to show his con man skills as much as I liked and if we get a sequel I hope we get to see more of that. Quinton Jackson as BA is a as-good-as-you-can-find fit. It’s hard to step into the footprints of Mr T, but he does an okay job.
As I said above the action is a bit over the top. There’s one scene with a tank which is completely ridiculous and shouldn’t work at all, but still a lot of fun (even though a bit too blue screeny for my liking). I liked the heist like sequences where the action scenes were intertwined with flashbacks explaining “the plan”.
All in all, The A-Team is a great summer action flick, capturing the essence of the old TV show. If you go, make sure you stay seated till after the credits. I didn’t (grumble, grumble, I usually always stay until the end), but I’ve heard you might see some familiar faces…
I’m running a few days behind with this, but WOW. This is what a Mortal Kombat movie should be like:
It first wasn’t clear what this clip was (promotion for the upcoming game? a real trailer?), but turns out it’s a test video shot by Kevin Tancharoen to promote his vision of an MK movie to Warner Brothers. I looove the look of this! Hopefully they’ll pick it up, cause I think it could be awesome.
I know I’ve already blogged about a couple of trailers for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, but I can’t help it, I think it looks great! This latest clip shows a bit of one of Scott’s fights against Lucas Lee, Ramona’s second Evil Ex Boyfriend.
Video game movies… the bane of every video game geek. So many turn out to be terrible movies and they fail to capture what people loved about the games in the first place. The latest gamble is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time based on the 2003 game of the same name.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan, the titular prince. Dastan was originally an orphan, growing up on the streets and rooftops of the empire’s capital city, until one day after standing up for a friend on the marketplace, the king notices him and takes him in. Years later Dastan and his brothers are sent to the holy city of Alamut, ruled by the stubborn princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton). After being blamed for a crime he didn’t commit, Dastan is forced to flee the city with Tamina and prove his innocence.
I really enjoyed Prince of Persia, although it’s not without its faults. From the trailers, I was expecting a fun entertaining action movie, similar in vein to Pirates of the Caribbean or The Mummy (if you haven’t seen the trailer, check it out here). And it pretty much lived up to those expectations. If you didn’t like either of those movies, chances are you’re going to hate Prince of Persia too. If you loved those movies (which I did), I think you’ll be in for a treat.
Jake Gyllenhaal is great as prince Dastan. I had my doubts about him when his casting was announced, but he was exactly what I had imagined the prince to be. Charming, but at the same time rough and mischievous. Gemma Arterton is much better here than in Clash of the Titans, showing that with a decent script she can actually deliver. I loved the banter between her and Dastan!
The story is similar to the Sands of Time video game with Dastan finding a dagger with which he can travel a few seconds back into time. While not used frequently within the movie, it gives us a couple of gorgeous scenes where Dastan falls apart into sand while ‘traveling’ back. The rest of the plot is pretty okay, although a little bit on the predictable side and at times not as polished as it could have been (like bad guys suddenly appearing without any explanation). I like that they added the orphan backstory, giving a reason to why a prince would be jumping from ledges and rooftops.
And those action scenes where Dastan is jumping all over the place are fantastic. Both Gyllenhaal and the kid that played the younger Dastan did most of their stunts themselves, having trained closely with Parkours legend David Belle. I didn’t like the way most of these were filmed though: an overuse of slow-mo and angles that didn’t really work for me. Still the stunts were amazing to watch!
Is it a good video game to movie adaption? Yeah, I think it is. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a fun summer action movie with great action sequences that harken back to the video game. The plot is a bit simple, but it’s a good 2 hours of fun entertainment. And want to bet we’ll get a sequel soon?
By now I think most of you have seen Iron Man 2 and I’m guessing you all noticed the amazing gadgets that Tony Stark uses. The transparent phone at his hearing, his holographic workshop where he ‘creates’ a new element, the ‘smart-glass’ coffee table… those were some cool looking interfaces.
It turns out that one company, Perception, was behind designing all of these. They’ve got a case study about designing for Iron Man 2 up on their website and it’s an interesting read. They first got involved with the design of the graphics during the Stark Expo presentation; so all the logos and animations that you saw behind Tony during the presentation. After that though they pitched their concept of the transparent phone and they got brought on board to develop more concept interfaces.
My favourite has got to be the ‘smart glass’ coffee table that Stark uses to do a background check on Natalie Rushman. Perception presented a couple of futuristic designs of a simple Google search:
At the end Perception worked on tying everything together, fusing their designs into the existing footage:
If you want to read more about what Perception did for Iron Man 2, head on over to their website for their case study. As I said above, it’s a great read and they were involved in designing a lot of the stuff that made the world of Iron Man 2 look futuristic and amazing.
I’m so looking forward to this event and we’re only 2.5 weeks away! The London MCM Expo will take place this year in the weekend of 29th and 30th of May at Excel London, for two days of geeky fun.
Tons of stuff will be happening there that weekend: a Comic and Anime section with stands featuring artists and writers; a Games section showcasing some of the latest games; a Steampunk exhibition with art, contraptions, sculptures and clothing; a Cosplay masquerade; and of course lots of guests from our favourite TV shows and movies.
From the guests announced so far the ones I’m most looking forward to seeing are John Noble and Jasika Nicole from Fringe (Walter Bishop and Astrid), Warwick Davis and Ron D Moore (BSG). Here’s a video from last year’s Expo:
Tickets are available on the London MCM Expo site. Only Early Entry opening tickets are available in advance and with these you can access the Expo from 9am on (2 hours before the General entry).
Remember my failed movie challenge from last year? Cristiano and I realized we hadn’t seen tons of the movies in the IMDb Top 250, so we tried to watch one movie from that list which we hadn’t seen yet. We failed miserably. It was partly to blame to too busy schedules, but also a bit because of the logistics of agreeing and figuring out which movies to see. The ‘priorities’ on both of our lists were movies that the other had seen already. Since then I’ve wanted a simple app that would allow us both to check off the movies we’ve seen and allow us to compare the two lists. Cue: iCheckMovies!
The idea of this website (http://icheckmovies.com)Â is simple: just check off the movies you’ve seen per ‘list’. They support a wide range of lists and are adding new ones constantly. I now know exactly how many films I’ve seen in the IMDb Top 250, but also the amount of Best Movie Oscars winning movies. I can also add movies I haven’t seen yet to a Watchlist (although this becomes one gigantic list if you just add everything you haven’t seen). Also in the future they will be bringing out support for your own created lists, which is really missing at the moment.
The great thing I find though is that you can add friends and get a comparison of which movies you’ve both seen. I can get 4 different lists: movies we’ve both seen, movies neither of us has seen, movies only my friend has seen and movies only I have seen. It’s great! I’ve already discovered a couple of movies that Cristiano has seen, which I can watch by myself while here in the Netherlands (likewise he now knows which movies he should watch while I’m away).
And you can see what both your progress is. In the below image you can my and Cristiano’s progress; I’m green, he’s brown. Basically he’s beating me in most that is shown below, except for Romance and All-Time Worldwide Box Office. Yeah, I’m a sucker for the big blockbustery movies and I don’t think it’s a surprise that I’ve done ‘well’ in that category.
So far I really love this site and I can see myself using it more in the future. There are a couple of things I’d like to see, like list-specific comparisons with friends (I still can’t see a list of the movies from the IMDb Top 250 that neither me or Cristiano has seen yet) and maybe multiple watchlists. I know the creators have said they’re working on a 2.0 version, so I’m really curious to see what the new stuff will be!
I still tend to  say (well, not like out loud, most of the time just in my head) the Star Light, Star Bright rhyme whenever I see a star. But this updated version is way cooler:
