subsphere.co.uk

“          ”

I, like the rest of the cinema, was speechless at the end of Cloverfield tonight having been, as Jay put it, thrashed to within an inch of my life for the passed 90 minutes. The only thing I think I’m safe to say it’s missing is the word ‘monster’, which I’m pretty sure despite the nature of the film, wasn’t uttered at all in the dialogue.

I was skeptical at first about the ’shaky camera’ angle to filming, but they’ve pulled it off with fantastic style. Whilst some may say it was a bit slow to start I think it was about right to building up background on the characters and the relationships between them, but the first 15 mins can be summed up by the trailer. From that point on though it’s a roller-coaster ride of “:o”. (I’m not sure I’m fully comfortable with using a smiley as an adjective).

 The ‘night mode’ scene I could see coming from a mile off, but I thought the camera auto-focus in Central Park towards the end of the film was a nice touch. According to wikipedia there is an object crashing into the sea in the last scene (from the original tape), which presumably forms part of the back story.

There are so many angles left open for sequel(s). The same events from a different view point? The back-story? The next chapter? I’m not even going to try and guess which direction they will (inevitably) take the story in.

The first film in ages that has had me literally on the edge of my seat! What’s more Lost is back as of today, JJ Abrams overload

After the fantastic time I had a Rockness last year, especially grooving to Mark Ronson and Daft Punk on the Sunday night. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the line up to help make my mind up if I’ll make the pilgrimage to Loch Ness again in 2008; finally they’ve updated the website with the current listings, highlights including: FatBoy Slim, Editors and 2manydjs. I suppose mention should also go to The Cuban Brothers, who are always a good laugh.

www.rockness.co.uk

As previously mentioned, Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions fame has been making his back catalog available for download via his website. His latest, and last, offering from the GHP coffers is all of his radio mixes; 12 sets spanning 5 years for the likes of XFM, Radio 1, 6 Music and a selection of stations across the seven seas.

 Anyways, all of the wares are direct links to MP3s over at gohomeproductions.co.uk

I may be a little slow off the mark with this one, but a teaser trailer for Deus Ex 3 has been released. The original Deus Ex remains, in my mind, one of the best games of all time and, despite Invisible War’s dumbed down console-tard interface, a fan of the series in general (although I have never played Project: Snowblind - Eidos’ ginger bastard child of the franchise).

I’m not getting my hopes up just yet, however. Rumour has it the third outing will be based upon the Crystal Dynamics engine, used in last years Tomb Raider: Legend. Yahtzee has some (as usual) excellent comments on this matter and the last thing we want is our prequel JC Denton handling like a cow in a supermarket trolley.

Time will tell, I guess.

In the mean time I’m happy there is something to look forward to on the horizon, although with a project release date in 2009 that might be so far on the horizon it hits me in the back of the head.

My Brother pointed me in the direction of this web site, which is very cool, even if the message behind it is slightly less cool. The No More Landmines trust…

helps and empowers communities around the world by removing the threat of landmines and
unexploded weapons

Back to the site, it features a flick book style set of photos of a chap throwing himself around 50,000m² of London, well worth a watch: www.dangerousground.org.

Just seen a teaser in the form of a flickering neon sign of the ‘Boosh logo following tonight’s Top Gear directing people to the BBC Three website. They’ve got a couple of videos up and a teaser trailer for the new series, which is due to start on 15th November.

The BBC Mighty Boosh website.

Last month Mark Vilder announced he had come to the end of ‘bastard pop’ road, to go on (and in typical mus-o type) and focus on other projects.

At the time he released “This Was Pop (2002-2007)”, which forms a retrospective (or ‘best of’ I supposed) on the whole she-bang. It’s definitely worth a listen, but only if you’re open enough to hear Snoop Dogg & Dr Dre over the top of Crowded House and/or The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and The Monkeys’ “I’m a Believer” in perfect harmony

Anyway, you can get it in two parts (96 & 13MB respectively) and an alternative download can be found on the GHP website.

Mark has also put “GHP Complete” - the entire GHP back catalogue - available for download. The OMFG torrent is over 1GB, but has some rare tracks that have been (until now) difficult to get hold of. It’s available at thepiratebay: Go_Home_Productions_-_GHP_Complete.torrent.

Whilst the countdown over at 24trailer.com still reads 20 hours to go, various people have already leaked the trailer onto the Interwebnets.

…and boy does it look good. They’ve killed off ***, shifting the whole dynamic of the show and hopefully breathing some new wind into its sails.

Last night saw Nintendo’s Wii Sports walking away with six awards from the 4th outing of the British Academy Video Game Awards (The BAVGA’s?), this year held at Battersea Evolution, London.

The family-friendly ‘putting the fun back into gaming’ title scooped: Best Multiplayer Game, Best Gameplay, Best Sports Title, Stratergy and Simulation, Innovation and finally Best Casual Game. Making it, I suppose, the most innovative casual sports, stratergy and simulation multiplayer game (ever! (volume 2)).

‘Sports did not manage to take the crown of Best Game, that honour went to 2k Games BioShock (I really must get round to playing that) and The Sims creator, Will Wright, walked away with a BAFTA Fellowship.

Full write ups can be found on SPONG and the good ol’ BBC.

Gerhard Florin, an EA senior suit, wants to see the console wars of recent years become a thing of the past - making way for an ‘open platform’ for which games can be developed and delivered.

It’s an interesting concept, with EA in particular re-packaging a lot of its games to as many of its 14 supported platforms as possible in an effort to rake in the cash make titles available to everyone.

I’m not sure the rest of the world will necessarily share his somewhat pie-in-the-sky dream though, people are too ambitious and the desire to be the best will always come first, perhaps this is more a scheme for Mr Florin to be able to lay off another couple of departments.

What I can see happening (and will be welcome with open arms), is the standardisation of net code within the games themselves, allowing people playing the same title, but on different platforms, the ability to shoot each other in the head.

Source: BBC News.