Posts tagged ‘games’

It’s been a quiet time around the Grapefruit office while everyone’s away on summer break. Or at least, that sounds like a good excuse for the lack of things around here. I have been watching films and television, and playing games — I’ve just been a bit lax writing about them. I’ve only got three episodes of Battlestar: Galactica season one to watch and it’s still awesome. I won’t start reviewing it until I get to season two, though. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was great, too — I’ll probably review it too, at some point. Yes, I’m a little behind.

We got the yellow pages the other day. L-Z is now sleek and black with yellow highlights, an inverted A-K. I reckon A-K must be getting jealous. L-Z looks awesome. Speaking of awesome redesigns, the DS got a whole lot more sexy yesterday (or rather, it will) after the announcement of the DS Lite. A hot Australia Day was made even more annoying when I had to wipe the drool off Andy’s keyboard as he gibbered in the corner.

Finally, X3 seems to be getting a subtitle: ‘The Last Stand’. I don’t like subtitles. I don’t know where to put them on reviews. When X2 came out I saw ‘X-Men United’ bandied around the place but it’s not on the actual film. IMDb calls it a “promotional title”. After the film’s release they’re lost in the mists of time. Besides, what’s the point of doing subtitles when “The Secret of the Ooze” has already been taken? Nothing’s going to top that. X3 is apparently “the conclusion of this trilogy” according to some 20th Century Fox executive. I like how studio bosses are getting artistically involved in movies these days.

No, no, not that Jackson. This one. Peter Jackson was interviewed recently by Paul Fischer about the upcoming Halo film (which he’s producing) and gave some really straightforward replies:

Question: You’re still producing Halo?
Jackson: Yeah.
Question: What attracted you to Halo?
Jackson: I’m a fan of the game.
Question: But video game movies suck.
Jackson: They do.
Question: So what will be different?
Jackson: Hopefully it won’t suck.
Question: But why not direct?
Jackson: I want a break. I want to have the fun but not the hard work. I just want to be part of the creative team but not actually have the pain.

He may have screwed up The Return of the King, but he’s a good apple. I feel reasonably confident that a Halo film with him involved will rock considerably. Mind you, I’ve chosen not to read the (well received) leaked script. Some people out there probably know whether it’ll suck or not. But not me.

Oh, and just a quick mention that there’s an X-Men 3 trailer out. It’s… loud and impressive looking, but there’s not much hint at plot. Ah, it’s useless to try and work things out from trailers sometimes. I’ll just wait patiently.

Only for those in Melbourne, naturally. Back in April, when the Metcards had price adjustments, they changed the way that 10 times 2 hour tickets work. Now, if you validate them a second time in one day, they automatically last you until 2am the next morning. How sweet is that?

Well, it’s pretty good, anyhow.

I got Neverwinter Nights yesterday, having ordered it online the day before. Pretty efficient. My adventuring career is going well. Except, I keep trying to charm animals, and I do, and they’re my friend, but my actual human friend hasn’t noticed and keeps trying to hit it: which makes it angry and distinctly uncharmed. So I keep trying to charm, and he keeps getting hit by my stupid friend, and one of them dies while I desperately try to keep them apart.

And yes, I know Neverwinter Nights is a really old game that you can get for $20 for a PC. But that is the way of Macs and Games.

Ah, what could possibly distract from the important task of writing essays and studying? Bearing in mind that these things must be accessible from the same places that I’m supposed to be doing work; i.e. my room.

Trailers. I’ve always enjoyed movie trailers but now Apple has high resolution trailers on their QuickTime High Resolution Gallery. QuickTime 7 introduced a new codec, eloquently named H.264, which makes the movie muchas smaller. The awesome Serenity trailer comes in a resolution of 1920×816, which is even bigger than my rather big 20″ LCD screen. Scary. Obviously these are only for people with bandwidth to burn.

TV. Doctor Who is nearing the end of its first season in the UK and is going from strength to strength. Alias finished with yet another of its trademarked irritating cliffhangers. Frankly, I’m getting a bit weary of the show. If Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber weren’t in it I’d probably abandon it at this point.

Games. Having seen Revenge of the Sith, I’m now able to play through the last third of LEGO Star Wars which is great fun. What I’m itching for is a game that makes some use of my new iMac though. I may have to order Neverwinter Nights quite soon.

Domains. The grapefruits.org domain is up for renewal soon. I’m vaguely tempted to change it to something like thegrapefruit.org given that grapefruits is completely wrong from a grammar point of view. But then, people are pretty used to grapefruits.org. It might well be the most spurious reason I’ve ever had for doing something so complicated.

Web Design. I don’t know how it happened but I’m working on a new grapefruit design. Semi new. Still the same header pics obviously as they’re a lot of work. It started when I dropped the yellow sidebar and as it hasn’t looked that good since I’ve decided to really go for it. Foolishly. But it wouldn’t be swot vac without a grapefruit redesign. It’s like a biological imperative.