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Wednesday Review: Portal 2

Matt — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:18:48 +0000

Anyone who has been following us here at Seattle Geekly for any length of time will already know two things that are going to influence this review; first, I have been excited about the prospect of Portal 2 since I finished the first game right after it came out and second, in general I cannot stand to play multi-player FPS games, at least with people I don’t know well. One of the biggest criticisms I have had of reviewers of games like the Halo series, Gears of War II and even Red Dead Redemption is that they gloss over the single player modes of these games to focus on multi-player. To be completely frank, I don’t give a single crap about the muliti-player aspects of games of this nature. I want to know up front if a game has enough value for a single player to justify the price I am going to have to pay for it because chances are good that is the only way I will ever play it. Now that we have that established, let me talk about Portal 2.

The short version is that I loved it. Every aspect of the game lived up to the standards that people have come to expect from Valve. I was playing it on an approximately three year old PC (that wasn’t top end when it was new) and it still ran smoothly and looked amazing. The voice acting, especially Stephen Merchant as Wheatley, was very good and the writing kept the same snarkiness and irreverence that made the original game such a standout.

The basic premise of the game hasn’t changed; you get your portal gun and use it to maneuver through an increasingly difficult series of test chambers. Many of the same techniques that were used to solve the puzzles in the first game still work but the addition of new elements, repulsion and speed gels, catapulting platforms, hard light bridges and the like, kept it fresh enough that it really felt like a new game rather than just a Portal expansion. If you enjoyed Portal I can’t think of a single reason that you would not thoroughly enjoy Portal 2.

The question is, though, does the single player campaign by itself justify the $50 retail price and, much as I enjoyed the game, unfortunately I have to say that it does not. While the single player game is definitely longer than the original Portal, I was still able to finish it in just a couple sittings. I do highly recommend picking the game up, but if you have absolutely no intention of ever playing the co-op mode, I would wait until Portal 2 goes on sale and pick it up then. $50 is a lot to ask for ten to fifteen hours of gameplay.

For myself, in spite of my aversion to multi-player, I do intend to try the co-op mode but I am going to wait until I can schedule time to play with a friend rather than risk the vagaries of random partners from the internet.

Portal 2 is available now on Steam, XBox 360 and PS3.

Monday News Roundup 04/25

Matt — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:46:52 +0000

The big convention weekend has come and gone and, as far as I can tell, Seattle survived! Attendence numbers for Sakura-Con and Norwescon were both impressive, though on very different scales. Sakura-Con topped out at over 19,000 and Norwescon had it’s largest convention ever with 3,600 attendees. We spent the whole weekend at Norwescon and had an amazing time which we will be talking about in some detail in this week’s podcast!

The Monday News is under the fold.

Books

The British Science Fiction Association Award winners were announced this weekend at Eastercon. The winners are:
- Best Novel: The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
- Best Short Fiction: ‘The Shipmaker’ by Aliette de Bodard
- Best Art: Cover for Zoo City by Joey Hi-Fi
- Best Non-Fiction: ‘Blogging the Hugos’ by Paul Kincaid

The winner of the Philip K. Dick Award was also announced this weekend at our very own Norwescon. The award went to The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder, with a special citation to Harmony by Project Itoh. The award cerimony was live-streamed to the Internet for the first time ever this year and the response was good enough that it will most likely be streamed again next year.

Last but not least in awards news, the Hugo nominees were announced this weekend at a joint ceremony held at Norwescon and Eastercon. The nominees include:
The full list of nominees is available at the Worldcon 69 Website.

Amazon announced in a press release that “Library Lending”, a new feature launching later this year, will allow Kindle customers to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the United States. Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps. No specific release date was given.

Comics

Greg Rucka announced in an audio interview with Stumptown Trade Review that he will be creating a new steampunk webcomic. Titled Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Ether the comic will feature art by Eisner Award winner Rick Burchett and will be a “steampunk, pirates, western thing” with airships, floating islands, gunslingers and sword fights. Rucka said that this was planned to be an ongoing series and that he hoped to launch in July.

Tabletop

WizKids has announced the upcomming release of a series of Street Fighter Heroclix. The series will include a starter pack with Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Blanka and Guile and will also have 21 additional Clix including M. Bison and E. Honda. , the starter set will retail for $19.99 and individual figures will be priced at $2.99. The Street Fighter set will, of course, be compatable with the entire HeroClix line and is scheduled to be in stores this August.

Video Games

Sony’s PlayStation Network has been down since Wednesday due to “an external intrusion.” The netwrok was not crashed but was turned off by Sony in order to “conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of network services going forward” according to the announcement on the Playstation Blog. As of this morning the network remains down and the most recent entry posted by Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media Patrick Seybold says that “I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time” as far as when service might return.

Monday News Roundup 02/28

Matt — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:00:52 +0000

The world of science fiction and fantasy fandom has been around for a long time and occasionally it is nice to be reminded of that. Andy Porter has posted a collection of historical photos of science fiction fandom on Flickr that I have enjoyed browsing through immensely. The collection is 92 photos from conventions, author portraits and more dating back to the 1920s. Porter told SFScope that “I have thousands which are not scanned in. They are, primarily, from the late 1970s through 2002″ and I really hope that more of the collection makes it online soon.

This example of the enduring nature of fandom was nice to see since, once again, genre films did not fare terribly well outside of the technical awards at the Oscars last night. Inception picked up awards for cinematography, visual effects, sound editing and sound mixing, Alice in Wonderland won for art direction and costume design and Rick Baker and Dave Elsey won for makeup in Wolfman. The highlights were slim enough that Anne Hathaway’s electric-blue dress (which apparently looked kind of like something from Tron Legacy) made Blastr’s list of 11 most memorable sci-fi moments during last night’s Oscars. Oh well, there’s always next year!

The Monday news is under the fold.

Books

The Horror Writers Association has announced the nominees for the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards. The nominees include:
The awards will be presented at World Horror Con in Austin, Texas the weekend of April 28.

The final ballot for the 2010 Nebula awards has also been announced by the SFWA. The nominees include:
The awards will be presented at the 2011 Nebula Awards Weekend, May 19-22, in Washington, DC.

Movies

Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. The project has Wolfgang Petersen attached to direct, David Self adapting the screenplay and Scott Stuber producing. Word from John Scalzi himself via his blog;

I’m very happy with the team putting it together. I’ve been an admirer of Wolfgang Petersen’s for a long time now, both as a director and as someone whose films do great business here and abroad, and I think he’s a very good fit for Old Man’s War. Scott Stuber is likewise a very smart and savvy producer, and someone who knows how to shepherd a film through the process right to the big screen. Screenwriter David Self has done some great work adapting material (see: The Road to Perdition), so I was very happy to hear he was operating on my work. I’m also very pleased to be at Paramount, who knows their way around making, marketing and distributing very large science fiction and adventure films. Basically, a good fit all the way around.

He also notes that “As with any potential film project, there’s a lot that can happen between an announcement of a project and the first time it ever gets shown to an audience. We’re in very early days, and my philosophy is: let’s see what happens next. I’m optimistic and realistic.” Fingers crossed!

Music

Just in time for his show at Kracklefest in Seattle this Saturday, Adam WarRock has released a mixtape in conjunction with Oni Press. The album features music inspired by several Oni comics and includes “interlude” tracks with Oni creators Jarrett Williams, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt, Jen Van Meter, Greg Rucka and Antony Johnston. Best of all you can download the mixtape for free from Adam WarRock’s website.

Video Games

Some good news for fans of Guitar Hero and DJ Hero. After the well publicized cancelling of the franchises by Activision it was announced that, following the currently scheduled releases, no further downloadable content would be forthcoming. Now, due to “continued support” from fans, it seems Activision may have reconsidered. The announcement of new DLC was made via the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero Twitter pages but no other details have been released.

Monday News Roundup 2/21

Matt — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:12:21 +0000

Those of you following us on twitter or facebook will already know that we are in the process of moving ourselves and the massive Seattle Geekly production studios from one part of north Seattle to a different, slightly more southerly part of north Seattle. Fear not though! This move will not (fingers crossed) disrupt the flow of geeky goodness! We are still on track to have our Pre-Emerald City ComiCon show next week which will feature, among many other things, interviews with Felicia Day and Amy Okuda from The Guild! You’ll want to listen.

The Monday News is under the fold

Anime

Some good news for Studio Ghibli fans. The Borrower Arrietty won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year on Friday (full list of winners here). This, along with Ponyo in 2009, is the second win for Studio Ghibli in the four years since the Animation of the Year category began four years ago. Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away won for Picture of the Year prior to the creation of the animation category. In other Ghibli news, Anime News Network is reporting that studio founder Hayao Miyazaki will be directing another film. No details on the story or release date were given, but it is possible that the film would be one of the “epics” mentioned in the studio’s 2008 5-year plan.

A teaser trailer for the X-Men anime being developed by Marvel and Madhouse Studios has been released into the wild. The show is set to premiere in the U.S. later this year on G4TV.

Internet

I mentioned back in January that Wizard and it’s sister magazine ToyFare were ending publication to be replaced by the online-only Wizard World magazine, now there are a few more details about what Wizard World will be. In an interview with iFanboy, Wizard founder Gareb Shamus says that the new magazine is “going to be free, and it’s going to be weekly, and it’s going to be available everywhere. So however people are going to want to read it, whether it’s through their iPad, they’re going to be able to read it online, they’re going to be able to read it through a bunch of different mobile devices.” The first issue of Wizard World will be out February 23.

TV

HBO has released another preview trailer for Game of Thrones. Enjoy!

Video Games

Telltale Games has come out with a string of very cool announcements over the last few days. First they have a long term agreement with Robert Kirkman to produce games based on The Walking Dead. According to the press release Telltale will be releasing multiple Walking Dead titles for PC, Mac, console, handheld, mobile and social gaming media over the next few years. They have also announced an agreement with DC Entertainment to create games based on Bill Willingham’s comic book series Fables. The Fables game will also be “episodic and multi-platform”. Finally they have announced a sequel to their popular game Puzzle Agent. Puzzle Agent 2, scheduled to release for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and PlayStation Network, “builds on the award-winning puzzler developed in collaboration with indie comic artist and animator Graham Annable.” No specific release dates were announced for any of the games.

Monday News Roundup 02/07

Matt — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:29:53 +0000

Apparently there was some kind of sporting event going on in between the new movie trailers that came out yesterday. If you missed it, we got new trailers for Thor, Captain America and Cowboys vs Aliens all of which look moderately promising!

Those trailers and the rest of the Monday News are under the fold

Superbowl Movie Spots

Comics

Passes for San Diego Comic Con went on sale this Saturday at 9 am. Four day passes were sold out within a matter of hours and single day passes quickly followed. The convention was entirely sold out by 6pm, though additional passes may become available as cancellations are processed. The online ticket buying system was not exactly capable of handling the volume of customers with many people able only to get an “over capacity” error screen. The problems were so pervasive that San Francisco comic store Isotope has created a commemorative “Fail Frog” button for those that weren’t able to get through. The comic below also sums up many people’s experience with the system.

Bone creator Jeff Smith is apparently working on a superman project for DC. Smith posted this sketch of Superman (which you can click to enlarge) on his blog , saying only that it was “for an upcoming project.” He has already done some fine work on DC owned characters, namely Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil which featured Captain Marvel. No further details of the Superman project were available, but it will be one to keep an eye out for.

MMO

Blizzard has announced the dates and location for BlizzCon 2011. This year’s BlizzCon will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on October 21-22. The press release promises that attendees will enjoy “Hands-on play time with the latest versions of Blizzard Entertainment games, discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers, competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents, community contests with great prizes [and] commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes” but offers no specific details regarding announcements or guests that will be in attendance.

Video Games

Game Informer is reporting some good news for Fallout: New Vegas players on the PC and PS3. Dead Money, the first major downloadable expansion for Fallout New Vegas, will be arriving on the PS3 and PC later this month after being out for the XBox 360 since December. In further good news, Bethesda has announced that all future DLC packs will be made available simultaneously on all platforms.

Wednesday Reviews: Soon I Will be Invincible and Marvel Pinball

Shannon and Matt — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:54:34 +0000

Two reviews this week with a superhero theme! Shannon takes a look at the novel Soon I will Be Invincible and Matt plays Marvel Pinball on the PS3.

I personally think that there aren’t enough good superhero prose novels. Don’t get me wrong, comics are awesome, but it’s really neat when an author helps you dive into the head of superheroes and supervillans like Auston Grossman does in Soon I Will Be Invincible.

The audiobook I listened to was narrated by two people, Coleen Marlo and Paul Boehmer who take the roles of Fatale, the Cyborg heroine and Dr. Impossible, the nemesis of The Champions, the superhero group of which Fatale is the newest member. Throughout the book we follow multiple heroes and villains as they time travel, go to junior high and high school, and try to keep their identity secret from the world. By having the story told by opposite sides of the law, it gives a lot more dimension and depth to the story and the decisions that the characters make. How do superheroes decide to become heroes, and are all supervillians cutters at some point?

The world Grossman created for the book has a long history of heroes and villains that we are only given a tantalizing glimpse of in the 10 hours of the audiobook (or less than 300 page novel). As for the characters, it’s hard to get away from the known superheroes in the Marvel and DC comics’ worlds but Grossman has done a superb job of bringing in original ideas. Of course bits and pieces of well known superheroes show up in Grossman’s characters, but not enough to pigeonhole them.

Written with familiar tropes of the world of comic books comics but held together by witty dialogue and great characters, Soon I Will Be Invincible should be picked up by genre fiction and comics lovers both. This book even garnered a review by fellow geek Jonathan Coulton in his blog and if that isn’t enough to recommend it, I don’t know what is.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Auston Grossman was published by Pantheon Books and is available in paperback (and audiobook) for around $10.

I am a sucker for pinball and I grew up reading Marvel comics so something that brings those two elements together is going to be a pretty sure bet for me. Zen Studios’ Marvel Pinball consists of four tables, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Blade and Wolverine. I went into the game expecting Wolverine and Iron Man to be my favorite tables since those are two of my favorite Marvel characters but I found myself enjoying Spider-Man and Blade much more.

The physics model for the games is quite impressive and makes for very realistic play. Sometimes frustratingly realistic for someone with my meager pinball skills. While I suspect that a couple of the ramps in the Spider-Man game would not quite be possible in a physical pinball table, those looking for an authentic experience will not be disappointed.

All four tables do take full advantage of the fact that this is video pinball and not a physical table by having 3D animated characters that are flashy enough for the video game crowd without distracting from the actual game play. The one complaint that I do have in regards to video game-like enhancements of the pinball play is the little halo and comet tail that the ball gets when it’s moving fast. Remember when Fox Sports took over broadcasting NHL hockey games and they added the halo and comet tail effects to the puck and everyone made fun of them for doing it? It’s kind of like that. It’s a minor complaint but I just wish there was a way to turn it off.

The game has huge replayability. I’ve played a good handful of games on all four tables and haven’t even come close to finding all the animated battles and other little gems. It also has local and online multiplayer so you can have tournaments with your friends.

I am of the opinion that everyone needs at least one pinball game in their library and this is unquestionably one of the best ones I have run across in a long time.

Marvel Pinball is available for PS3 as a standalone game and on XBox 360 as a downloadable add on for Zen’s Pinball FX 2. Both versions are around $10.

Monday News Roundup 01/10/11

Matt — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:40:01 +0000

The People’s Choice Awards were given out last week. I mention this not because there were several nominees that were of interest to the geek set but mostly because I am, as always, almost completely baffled by the winners that The People Chose. Winners included:

Favorite Movie: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Favorite Movie Actor: Johnny Depp
Favorite Movie Actress: Kristen Stewart
Favorite Action Movie: Iron Man 2
Favorite Drama Movie: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Favorite Family Movie: Toy Story 3
Favorite On Screen Team: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner
Favorite Horror Movie: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show: Fringe

I guess The People really loves them some Twilight.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention again that Episode #87 of the Seattle Geekly podcast will be out this Thursday and we’ll be running down our 2010 Year in Geek. We welcome your input, so if you have something in particular that rang your geek bell this last year leave us a comment and let us know! Even if it was Twilight…

Your Monday News is under the fold

Comics

I normally try and stay away from rumor mongering here on the Monday News but this is just too good to pass up. Writer Gail Simone made a post over on the Jinxworld forums in response to a poster lamenting that she had never written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer indicating that she had a standing invitation to do just that.

They asked me to, they said I can write as much Buffy as I want, and they sent all the tpbs for me to look at.

They have been pretty wonderful, actually!

Buffy Season 9 should be starting up in the not too distant future and I’m just saying that it would be pretty awesome if Gail Simone picked up the writing duties…

Digital comics distributor Graphic.ly is trying to entice new users to try their service by offering the first issue of David Petersen’s Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 as a free download this week. Graphic.ly also has Caryn A. Tate‘s Red Plains: Range War available as a free download as well as many other indie and self published titles. Graphic.ly apps are available for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, Adobe Air and Windows 7.

MMO

The beta for DC Universe Online ended last week with a bang. Beta testers were treated to a full on street brawl against Lex Luthor and The Joker and they had the chance to fight along side Batman and the previously unannounced and never before seen Superman. After the brawl Sony made the official (and not tremendously surprising) announcement that Superman will be part of DCUO and they released his character art (which you can click to enlarge)

Movies

All six Star Wars movies are being released on Blu-ray in three different collections. According to the press release fans will be able to buy Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films), Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III) or Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI). The Complete Saga includes “more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more” but neither it nor the Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy set will include the theatrical releases of the original Star Wars films.

TV

The highly anticipated HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series finally has a solid air date. The series will premiere on Sunday, April 17th 2011. I am officially stating right now that this series had better not suck.

Video Games

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a statement at the Consumer Electronics Expo on Friday that seemed to indicate that Microsoft is working on Kinect support for the PC. Balmer told the BBC that “We’ll support that in a formal way, in the right time. When we have an announcement to make, we’ll make it.” CEE also saw an announcement that Kinect control for Zune, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and ESPN on XBox would be available sometime this Spring.

2K games is taking aplications for the Alpha test of their new Facebook game Civilization World (requires Facebook Connect). The testing will begin January 12 and those lucky enough to get in will get a special trophy that they can display to show off the fact that they were there from the beginning. Civilization World is, of course, a social gaming adaptation of Sid Meier’s Civilization and Sid Meier has put up an open letter on Facebook explaining what to expect from the game.

Monday News Roundup 12/13

Matt — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:05:15 +0000

Epic Game Day was this Saturday and it was a blast! Somewhere between 150-200 people showed up and for 12 hours they played in 20 scheduled games and uncounted impromptu pick up games.

The event was truly epic and we want to say thanks to everyone who showed up to play, all the GMs and especially the great people from Wizards of the Coast, Zaxy.com and the AFK Tavern.

If you missed Epic Game Day 1 we have a few pictures up on our Flickr and keep your eye on Zaxy and also Pacific Fen Spotlight both of whom shot some video at the event. You’ll probably see a couple of familiar faces in their coverage!

We have had a lot of people asking us when the next one is going to be held. There haven’t been any formal discussions about this yet but we here at Seattle Geekly, as well as everyone else involved in putting this on, had such a great time that you can be sure that we’ll be throwing another one of these soon. Follow @EpicGameDay on Twitter, keep an eye on the Facebook page and stay tuned!

Your Monday news is under the fold.

Anime/Manga

The general affairs committee of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has approved Bill 156 which amends the city’s Youth Healthy Development Ordinance regulating the content of anime and manga. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government already has the authority to declare publications that are accessible to minors as “harmful” but currently manga and other publications designated by publishers as “adult only” are exempt. Bill 156 would expand restrictions and would give the TMG the power to directly regulate images “considered to be excessively disrupting of social order”. The bill still has to pass a vote in the full assembly which is scheduled for this Wednesday. A coalition of manga publishers, including some of the largest publishers in Japan, has threatened to withdraw from next year’s Tokyo International Anime Fair if the bill is passed. Dan Kanemitsu, who did the translations for Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance and Slayers – The Motion Picture among others, has a good write up on the proposed bill.

Anime News Network is reporting on an article in Japan’s Nikkan Sports newspaper in which Shoji Nishizaki, the adopted son of the late Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers) producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, hinted that he has begun production on a new Yamato series and movie. The last movie in the series, Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection, was released in 2009 but has not been released on DVD in the U.S. yet. The live action Yamato movie is out in theaters in Japan now.

Comics

IDW Publishing’s True Blood comic is getting some new writing talent for it’s next story arc. Michael McMillian will be co-writing the book along with Marc Andreyko. Alert readers will recognize McMillian as the actor who played creepy anti-vampire televangelist Reverend Steve Newlin on the show. The story arc will involve Reverend Newlin along with several other characters from the show including Hoyt Fortenberry, Terry Bellefleur and Arlene Fowler. The new True Blood comic storyline will start this February.

Movies

Just in case anyone hadn’t seen it already, the first trailer for the upcomming Thor movie has been released into the wild. Enjoy.

TV

Another trailer that has been released into the wild is that of the new BBC adaptation of the Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently’s Hollistic Detective Agency. Enjoy!

Video Games

The Spike TV Video Game Awards were given out this weekend. The winners included:
- Game of the Year: Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego)
- Studio of the Year: BioWare
- Best Xbox 360 Game: Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts/BioWare)
- Best PS3 Game: God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Studios Santa Monica)
- Best Wii Game: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo/Nintendo)
- Best PC Game: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment)
- Best Handheld Game: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (Konami / Kojima Productions)
The full list of winners is available on Wikipedia. In addition to the awards, a number of game trailers premiered on the show including trailers for Batman: Arkham City, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Insane (with Guillermo del Toro), Mass Effect 3 and Portal 2. Game Informer has links to all the videos.

Monday News Roundup 12/06

Matt — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:32:21 +0000

We’ve been getting a few messages from people wondering why there hasn’t been a new episode of the Seattle Geekly podcast recently. Never fear! For those who are new here or just haven’t listened to the most recently released episode, we are on a winter vacation from podcast production but the triumphant return of the Seattle Geekly podcast is planned for January. You can still keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal or through the regular posts right here on the website.

Your Monday News is under the fold

Anime

I mentioned last month that a very limited U.S. theatrical release of director Mamoru Hosoda’s latest movie Summer Wars had been announced. Fortunately for those of us in Seattle, we live in one of the handfull of cities in which it will be playing. If you aren’t among the lucky few there is now an Eventful page for the movie where fans can demand that it be shown in their city. If there is enough demand there is some hope that distributor Anime USA will expand the release.

Books

Google has launched their very own e-book store claiming to have nearly 3 million titles available for download, most of them free of charge. The store supports ePub and PDF formats and will work on a variety of devices, but not Kindle, though Google does says that they are “open to supporting [Kindle devices] in the future”. In addition to free titles there are “hundreds of thousands” of titles available for purchase as well including sections for science fiction, fantasy and horor.

Dark Scribe magazine has announced the nominees for the fourth annual Dark Quill awards. The nominees are:
The winners will be announced February 1, 2011

The long awaited sequel to Vernor Vinge’s novel A Fire Upon the Deep will be out in hardback in October of next year according to the latest catalogue from TOR. Vinge spoke about the book, titled The Children of the Sky, at Norwescon 33 this year and said in a pre-convention interview that it would be a “near-term sequel”. A Fire Upon the Deep was originally published in 1992 and a prequel, A Deepness In the Sky, was published in 1999.

TV

A behind-the-scenes preview for the new HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones has been released into the wild. Enjoy!

Inside Game of Thrones

Rumors were flying last week that The Walking Dead director Frank Darabont had fired the show’s entire writing staff and was planning on have freelancers write the show’s second season. Well now creator Robert Kirkman has stepped in to set the record straight in an interview with TV Guide Online. Kirkman says “It’s kind of unfortunate that it’s being reported that our writing staff has been fired because that’s not the case. It makes Frank look bad. I don’t think Frank wants it out there that he’s just firing people off of a successful show seemingly for no reason.” Kirkman did say that executive producer Charles Eglee had left the show to persue other projects but that no decisions regarding wirters for the second season had been made.

Video Games

Yet another temptation for me to break my resolve never to play a game on Facebook. Developer Zattikka is working on a Monty Python-inspired Facebook game called Ministry of Silly Games. According to a preview on Rock Paper Shotgun the game appears to be a collection of mini games loosly tied together with some RPG elements. Based on screenshots from the site it looks like you will be running in to several familliar characters from both the show and the Monty Python movies. If you are interested in trying it out Zattikka is currently taking beta applications

Monday News Roundup 11/29

Matt — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:38:46 +0000

We twittered about the announcement of a Joss Whedon-less Buffy reboot last week and I think it sums up my reaction pretty well. Joss Whedon shared his thoughts on the project in an e-mail to E! Online which said, in part,

This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.

…

I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don’t love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I’m also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly.

Buffy and Angel star David Boreanaz shared his reaction to the news via a tweet from Bones creator Hart Hanson:

Not all reactions have been negative though. Graeme McMillan, a writer for Comic Book Resources’ Spinoff Online has stepped up and suggested that the reboot could be a good thing. He presents an interesting argument, but I’m sticking with “no”.

Your Monday News is under the fold.

Comics

Drawn and Quarterly has announced that they will be publishing the complete works of Seattle underground cartoonist Lynda Barry. Straight from the D&Q blog:

Next fall will actually see the publication of the first volume of the complete Lynda Barry comics work (consisting primarily of her Ernie Pook’s Comeek strip but not limited to just that, oh no!) Things to look forward to are her college strip, “Spinal Comics” (edited by none other than long time pal Matt Groening for the Evergreen State newspaper) and the precursor to Ernie Pook, “Two Sisters”. Eventually there will be many other rare or rarely seen tidbits like Lynda’s Esquire strips. We’re not completely sure how many volumes there will be but we figure somewhere around ten.

This is of particular interest to us here at Seattle Geekly since both of us also graduated from The Evergreen State College. In spite of that neither of us has, as yet, gone on to be successful underground cartoonists.

Guerilla Geek has an interview up with Concrete creator Paul Chadwick. Among other interesting items in the interview, Chadwick mentioned that he has a new Concrete series in the works titled Stars Over Sand. No details regarding a publisher or release date were mentioned, but he did say that the series “will be about how much we can lose and still be human. That, and the special qualities of being in true wilderness.”

Video Games

Southend Interactive’s platform puzzle game Ilomilo has secretly launched on XBox Live Arcade. The game does not show up on a regular search of the XBox Marketplace, but if you go to the super secret access site you can get a code to download the demo along with the option to purchase the full game. Ilomilo has previously only been available on AT&T Widows 7 mobile phones. Gameplay, according to a review by WP Central, invlolves “pushing switches that move platforms, migrating boxes to more useful locations, and exploring a 3D landscape with hidden curios and hard to reach collectibles” in order to reunite the two characters, Ilo and Milo. Ilomilo is scheduled for an official release on XBLA in January.