WARNING!!

Taking a by-memory based map of your school, and turning it into a Count-Strike level is, apperently, a very bad idea.

A highschool senior has been suspended from Clements High School in Fort Bend, Texas, after it was found out by a fellow classmate that he had created a level on his PC-version of Counter-Strike that was based around his school’s design and layout. After word got out amongst students, and more imporantly their parents, school officials took action, and removed the teen to be placed in an “alternate education campus”. Stating that the level was considered a ‘terroristic threat”, local police also became involved and searched the boy’s home, though found no evidence of criminal activity.

Duh.

This comes not long after the Virginia Tech shootings, therefore awareness for implications of school violence is back on the high. What doesn’t add up is, why hasn’t this happened before? How do you think such great maps for games such as Counter-Strike are made? People visualize a place they can create from simply memory, and use it to map out a level that’s unique and provides a challenge. Why is this any different than a person making a level out their workplaces from memory? With Columbine, it was obvious that the individuals were disturbed to begin with, but this kid seems to be a normal teen who simply likes video games, as implicated by a fellow student.

“I think he just did it for fun,” said student Maaria Faoqi. “I mean, he goes here. He probably didn’t mean anything.”

The ABC News article can be read HERE.

I give it a week tops before the anti-gaming advocates raise in arms to shout out at this.

Seems that news regarding the PSP-exclusive upcoming chapter of the Silent Hill mythos kinda slips by unnoticed recently. However, it seems a bit of new info and new additions to “Origins” has hit the web for Silent Hill enthusiasts to decend upon.

As a recap, Silent Hill Origins is a prequel to the rest of the games in the series, particularly numbers 1 and 3. Until now, only some character information has been sprinkled about, with some screenshots of over-the-shoulder gameplay, ala Resident Evil 4. Now, it seems the SH team scrapped that concept in favor of the oldschool 3rd person. In this game, you play as newcomer Travis O’Grady, whom finds himself in the misty town of Silent Hill after saving a mysterious girl from a burning house. (series fans should pick up on this right away) After which, Travis tries to investigate what happened to the little girl, only to be thrown into the chaos that permiates from deep within the town itself.

According to Game Informers, despite the smaller screen size, the game itself is no less creepy than it’s large-screen predecessors. Gameplay is simple, with some new features thrown in such as being able to charge your attacks and the ability to lock onto several targets and toggle between them.

Have we mentioned the creepy?

Silent Hill Origins is slated for release in fall of later this year.

IGN has released the first trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie tie-in game. The footage comes from the Xbox 360 version of the game and shows off Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Barricade in motion. We see them driving, fighting, scaling buildings and we get a good glimpse of Prime transforming! The character models are very impressive and need to be seen in motion to be appreciated. Best of all the trailer is narrated by Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen!

Source:Transformers the Game Trailer

When Disney’s “Meet the Robinsons” achieved the largest digital 3-D opening in history, people witnessed what could become the future of cinema. Joshua Greer, the President and Co-founder of Real D had this to say during a recent interview with IGN,

“…what’s really happening now with the filmmakers that are being turned on to 3-D is we’re seeing a new creative renaissance. And at the end of the day it’s about the story, but even more importantly how you tell the story, and what’s happening with these filmmakers is the way they’re thinking about 3-D now, as opposed to being just a gimmick, but actually as a storytelling device, is really, frankly, going to reinvigorate the experience of cinema again. So 3-D in and of itself, if we do our job right, in the next 10 years it’ll be as ubiquitous as colour or sound. It’s not like anyone goes out now looking for a black and white television. It’s just a natural part of the world.”

The technology is quite interesting, and seems to be well within the reach of any major multiplex. I’m not sure how much I like the idea of having a box full of special, ‘Real D’ glasses from every movie I’ve seen, but if they have come this far in the last 10 years, who knows what the future holds. If Real D can engineer a version of this tech that does not require migraine inducing specs, Viva la Revolution!

I’m still of the mindset that this new medium is going to need a mainstream blockbuster in order to thrive and become a viable format. Attn: Peter Jackson, I believe a re-release of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy is in order.

Additional “Real D” enhanced movies:
Lions 3D – Spring 2007
U23D – Fall 2007
Sea Monsters – October 2007
Beowulf – November 2007

For the full feature, click here.

Real D Homepage

E3, the once great video game Exposition, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. What was once a never-ending cacophony of lights, sound and swag is now an invitation only press event. While we can still expect industry-shaping keynotes from the big three hardware developers, the show floor is barely recognizable. Industry giants, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, THQ and others have been relegated to a 20’X20′ space.

Quite a contrast to previous E3s where developers battled each other for total show supremacy. After last year’s expo, which was completely dominated by Nintendo and the newly revealed Wii, Sony and Microsoft decided that paying millions or dollars for little or, worse yet, negative press coverage just wasn’t worth the effort. They basically took their ball and went home. The other big companies followed suit and now we have, what I’ve dubbed, Neo-E3, or the E3 Media & Business Summit.

Moved from May to July, and Los Angeles to Santa Monica, the newly redesigned expo is meant to create a smaller, more intimate environment for developers and publishers to talk shop. Neo-E3 is also designed to make it easier for independent developers to roll out their wares to potential publishers, (even though next to no indie devs are on the roster).

Hopefully we can expect more direct feed footage and one on one interviews with the movers and shakers of the industry. The E3 Media & Business Summit will take place from July 11-13th.

What are your thoughts on the redesigned E3 expo?

The Superman: Doomsday DVD arrives this fall, on September 18th, but the website for the movie has just launched! Alright, I admit, that’s not really news in itself, but what IS news is that there’s a pretty telling, very interesting behind-the-scenes trailer that runs as soon as you enter. You can visit the site here and see the trailer in full. If you want a quick look at some some screencaps and analysis of what was said, then read on after the jump.
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Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, the world gets its first look at the ketchup-and-mustard flavored suit Robert Downey Jr. will be wearing in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man. The suit was designed by Oscar-winning special effects man Stan Winston, who has quite an impressive resume to his name, spanning from Edward Scissorhands to Predator to Galaxy Quest to Terminator 2 … and the list goes on and on.

Favreau had made a cryptic comment on myspace yesterday, saying, “Check out this weeks EW. You might want to check their website as well.” And clearly, this is the payoff. I only wish they had a bigger image to share than the one showing on the left.

As for the suit itself, it definitely looks, for lack of a better word, right. I can’t say I’m surprised; they did such a glorious job on the grey suit that I expected them to knock this one out of the park as well. As cool (and comics-accurate) as the suit might look though, it turns out (not too surprisingly) that it’s a bit of a chore to wear. “Robert was very bullish on wearing the suit whenever possible,” said Favreau. “Now I don’t know if he’s such a fan of that idea.” Oh, you crazy Hollywood people, not wanting to walk around in giant, heavy, sweaty mech-suits.

In a bold display that proves you can’t control information, social news network Digg.com has been over run with the code to decrypt HD-DVD, the high definition video format.

The code went up on digg mere hours ago, and the site was served a cease & desist order. Digg CEO Jay Adelson let it be known Digg would comply with the order to avoid the lawsuit. This level of censorship of course drove the millions of nerds who basically run Digg without much actual control or supervision all day completely crazy and the code began appearing in virtually every story submitted and gained millions of hits. In case you didn’t know, on Digg, users submit links which are then approved by other users when they “digg” them. A few hours ago, over 50,000 digs had been counted toward various HD DVD code submissions.

Now Digg Founder Kevin Rose has bowed to his users. Digg will go down fighting.

Gutsy move, sure, but the only option Digg had unless they wanted to monitor all stories and have them go through an editorial process. I hope it works out for the best.
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