PlayStation.Blog God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup Recap

Can you say, “Biggest meetup ever?” Because if you made it out to San Francisco on Wednesday, you experienced it first-hand. Not that we didn’t expect an early God of War III hands-on event to draw a mega-crowd. But still, hats off to you guys for making it out in spades. A HUGE thank you to everyone who came out for an entire day’s worth of festivities, culminating in a chance to play God of War III before it hits stores tonight/tomorrow ! Thanks also to those who followed along at home — hopefully it will make picking up the game even more exciting! And you East-coasters that have been asking and asking for us to come to you…well, it’s official. The PlayStation.Blog is coming to New York City and Boston ( PAX East ) next week! Specific details coming soon. As for San Francisco, it was a day-long celebration of God of War III. Several of you lined up as early as 5am to secure a spot in our massive tent. (Check out ALL the pictures of our God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup on Flickr !) At around noon, we unleashed the burrito truck upon the line! Now that spells CHAOS! Shortly after, we opened the tent “doors” to the masses. Everyone was greeted inside by PlayStation 3 s loaded up with God of War Collection , and a special challenged awaited. The test? Complete the God of War II Challenge of the Titans “Blind Fury” the fastest…in one try. You die, you’re out. And the winner would lock down a God of War III Ultimate Edition ! We thought we’d see plenty of quick deaths, but in fact, many of you utterly blitzed this challenge. But only one came through with a time that could arguably last through the ages. 16 seconds! 16 freakin’ seconds! Here’s your winner: Throughout the day, we raffled off TONS of games, posters and other unique PlayStation goodies. Anyone who brought a PSP took home God of War: Chains of Olympus , but we also gave away MLB 10: The Show PSP , Heavy Rain , Fireteam Bravo 3 , Killzone 2 and much more. The highlight of the meetup was definitely the presence of Stig and the Sony Santa Monica Studio team who stopped by to sign autographs for everyone who came! All attendees also scored a limited-edition God of War III art book! And finally, there was the chance to take your picture and create a personalized God of War III cover! There are some truly great shots in Flickr , so flip through ‘em!

Read the original post:
PlayStation.Blog God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup Recap

Command & Conquer 4 Now In Convenient Motion Comic Format [Comics]

In the first of a four part Command & Conquer 4 motion comic book series, a young farmer sets off for a GDI Blue Zone looking for work, only to find his destiny. I hate it when that happens. Today EA releases episode one of the four-part Command & Conquer 4 motion-comic series, “An Unexpected Hero,” in which former militia man and farmer Christian Pierce finds a less than warm welcome at the shaky hands of that guy in the picture up there. Turns out the angry man had some brothers killed by local farmers, and is having some trouble turning the other cheek. Visit the official motion comic site to keep up with the thrilling saga, more of which should be revealed as we approach the March 16th release date for Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight.

Link:
Command & Conquer 4 Now In Convenient Motion Comic Format [Comics]

My Trash-80 Powered Gaming Roots [Pic Or It Didn't Happen]

It’s easy to post pictures of your current gaming rig , your oodles of games, to brag about achievements and trophies, but none of that means a thing. True gamers have roots and I want to see them. What do I mean? Take for instance this picture, circa 1987, of my bedroom. Note the distinct lack of tidiness or, for that matter consoles. That’s right my first taste of gaming may have come wrapped in faux wood paneling at the hands of the Atari 2600, but what made me a gamer for life was the time spent in my bedroom with this sweet-ass TRS-80 COCO. I spent my weekends and nights hanging out on BBSes, playing Armored Patrol, searching through stacks of floppies for my bootleg copy of Joust and taking turns texting through Zork with my older brother Drew. Sure, I had a kick-ass sunglass collection, a wall packed with illustrations copied out of D&D books and a letter jacket in “sports health”. But what really made me a die hard geek was the COCO and it’s liquid-fast 300 baud modem. Time to put up or shut up. Let’s see your roots.

Continue reading here:
My Trash-80 Powered Gaming Roots [Pic Or It Didn't Happen]

News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

Natal mascot is part of a “bigger story”. Peter Molyneux has hinted that he has much bigger plans for Project Natal, stating that virtual character Milo is only part of the picture. Speaking to Inc Gamers about the E3 demo of Milo & Kate he said, “It made people look around and say, ‘How could you make a game out of a character like Milo?’ And I think that question is still out there; I’m just not allowed to answer it. “I might hint… Milo is a character in a bigger and more dramatic story that we’re telling.” Read more…

Read the original post:
News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

Natal mascot is part of a “bigger story”. Peter Molyneux has hinted that he has much bigger plans for Project Natal, stating that virtual character Milo is only part of the picture. Speaking to Inc Gamers about the E3 demo of Milo & Kate he said, “It made people look around and say, ‘How could you make a game out of a character like Milo?’ And I think that question is still out there; I’m just not allowed to answer it. “I might hint… Milo is a character in a bigger and more dramatic story that we’re telling.” Read more…

Read this article:
News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

Natal mascot is part of a “bigger story”. Peter Molyneux has hinted that he has much bigger plans for Project Natal, stating that virtual character Milo is only part of the picture. Speaking to Inc Gamers about the E3 demo of Milo & Kate he said, “It made people look around and say, ‘How could you make a game out of a character like Milo?’ And I think that question is still out there; I’m just not allowed to answer it. “I might hint… Milo is a character in a bigger and more dramatic story that we’re telling.” Read more…

Read more from the original source:
News: There’s much more to Milo, says Molyneux

Star Trek MMO Log: The Final Frontier [Mmo Log]

In this, my final MMO Log for Star Trek Online, I desperately claw my way through PVP combat and missions based on classic Trek episodes in my quest to make it to commander rank before the series ends. I want a new ship. That was my ending thought in the third Star Trek MMO Log , and it’s how I begin this one. All of my efforts in this final week’s worth of playing are focused on that one goal. Will I make it? The suspense is killing me! Tuesday, February 16th, 10:00PM Eastern This is it. Bolstered by the determination I exhibited in my previous MMO log, I am ready to log on tonight and start shooting my way towards Commander rank. As I’ve explained previously, Star Trek levels are divided into ranks. Levels one through ten, for instance, are Lieutenant rank. Once you hit eleven, you are technically a Lieutenant Commander zero, until you spend skill points. They you are officially a Lieutenant Commander one. Each rank affords you a new ship, more crew spaces, and lots of new places to put weapons and other devices, so gaining rank is a huge thing in Star Trek Online. Right now I am a Lieutenant Commander four. I have a long way to go. And little motivation to get there it seems, at least this evening. I tool around a bit, talk to the guild, rearrange my equipment, and wander off to watch television. Not a good start. Friday, February 19th, 1:00AM Those of you handy with numbers might have noticed a bit of a temporal jump there. Due to personal issues, I couldn’t make it online on Wednesday and most of Thursday, despite my best intentions. Now it’s time to make up for that. It’s late at night, and I need sleep, so I decide to try and complete a quest I have that requires me to take place in a ground fleet action. Until now, I’ve only participated in space fleet actions, in which massive numbers of players take on massive amounts of powerful enemies from the safety of their very large spaceships. Now I have to beat feet with Starfleet. Unlike normal ground missions, in a fleet action it’s just you without your crew, teaming up with a large group of other players in order to accomplish some ground-based goal. In this case, we had to take out Klingon scouts encroaching on a Federation dig site or something. Then we have to jam communication signals. Finally, we have to defend the camp until a timer runs out. Once the timer finishes, awards are doled out to the top performers in the Federation group. I’ve not done the best job maintaining my ground equipment. Luckily for me, these folks have. In space fleet actions, it’s easy to find yourself alone against incredible odds. In this particular ground action, we find safety in numbers, tearing through the Klingon forces with nary a problem. As I arrived late and didn’t have the best weapons, I didn’t win an award, unless you count the joy that comes from camaraderie as a reward. Me neither. It’s bedtime. Friday, 8:00AM They say sleep is for the sleepy. Apparently not. I wake up early, eager to get a jump on some of the exciting-looking story missions I have lined up on the path to becoming a Commander. One, called The City on the Edge of Never, I’ve been told is particularly Trek-worthy, but first I have to complete its pre-requisite. Technically I don’t have to. Both missions are open and available, but when I see the description of something occurring in one mission included in the next, I like to go in order. The prequel mission is called The Ultimate Klingon. A geneticist by the name of Amar Singh, a follower of the teachings of one Khan Noonian Singh, is working on biologically enhancing the Klingon and the Gorn in order to create a powerful master race, just as Khan tried to do with humans in the past. The fiend! I rush to the Korvat system, which lies in the reddish Klingon section of space. The members of my fleet are not amused by me typing “Little Red Korvat – woo-hoo!” in our chat channel. Hmph. Once we find Singh’s base, it’s a simple matter of watching my crew members being tossed about by augmented Klingon and Gorn troops while I crouch and hit the fire rifle hot key over and over again. We confront the mad scientist, he sics two giant Gorn on us, we shoot them dead and take the misguided soul into custody. Case closed…or is it? Time for work! Friday, 9:00PM (Editor’s Note: If don’t want to spoil one of the best missions in the game, skip down to Saturday’s entry.) The City on the Edge of Never kicks off with a mission to rendezvous with the U.S.S. Kirk, which has been involved in thwarting several Klingon attacks on medical bases in the past few weeks. It turns out Amar Singh was working with a Klingon Ambassador named B’vat, and the two expressed interest in time travel. As we arrive at the rendezvous, we find the Kirk under Klingon attack, led by B’vat himself. What could he want with the Kirk? After waging a firefight through the bowels of the ship, we discover his target: Miral Paris, the daughter of Star Trek: Voyager’s Tom Paris and half-Klingon B’Elanna Torres. In that television series it was revealed that certain Klingons think Miral is the kuvah’magh, a Klingon savoir figure. Obviously B’vat is a believer. He kidnaps Miral and beams back to his ship. We give chase. B’vat leads us to a strange, quarantined planet in a remote system, where one of the Federation’s greatest secrets lies – the Guardian of Time. Oh yes, we’re going to do the time warp. We beam down to the planet, fighting our way through Klingon ground troops, but it is too late – B’vat and Miral have gone through the portal. The Guardian speaks to us, with voice acting, which is a nice touch, tasking us with flying our ship through a time portal and setting the past right. We emerge in the year 2270, and B’vat is helping some ancient Klingon ships take on a similarly ancient Federation vessel. It’s the U.S.S. Enterprise! Kirk’s U.S.S. Enterprise! That dirty Klingon was going to kill off Kirk in the past, but with our aid the Enterprise survives, and B’vat flees. Spock, voiced by Leonard Nimoy himself, hails us, asking for identification. Fearing a temporal paradox, we give chase to B’vat instead. Once we catch up with B’vat’s ship we board her, and are greeted by a very odd welcoming committee. Smooth-headed Klingons fighting alongside ridge-headed Klingons. It’s like old-home week! After a desperate battle through the Klingon vessel, we come face-to-face with B’vat….but this isn’t Ambassador B’vat. It’s his younger, smooth-headed self. In a brilliant bit of classic Trek writing, young B’vat questions how his older self became so bitter, asking my crew and I to give his older self the honorable death in combat he so desires. Not a problem. B’vat goes down, and we head back to the Guardian in order to head home, but damn if those Klingons didn’t set a trap for us. Several waves of enemy ships attack, wanting to dissect our ship to gain advantage over the Federation with future technology. When all seems lost… …here comes the Enterprise! With Spock’s help we dispatch the attackers with shielding left to spare. Hailing us one last time, Spock explains that he is familiar with time travel, and that we should get going. We pass through the Guardian one more time, the past is saved, and I sit back in my chair with a huge grin on my face. This mission might have just made the entire game for me. Everything about it was simply perfect. If Star Trek Online fails for some reason, this mission will always be remembered. Before I go to bed, I spend about an hour trying to take on the Crystalline Entity. A massive creature that appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, in Star Trek Online it returns as a giant, mobile raid boss that no one can agree how to kill. Entering into the zone with the creature, I am greeted by dueling lines of chat in the zone box. Some say I should target the Entity and ignore the countless crystal shards coming off of it, chasing ships and exploding for massive damage. Others say I should shoot the crystals before they return to the Entity, healing it. I fly around for about an hour, firing on the Entity and avoiding the shards. We get it down to 25% health, and then it regenerates up to 80% again. Accusations are thrown, people log off, and I decide it is time for bed. I’m still only a Lieutenant Commander six, and I’ve got a long way to go. Saturday, February 20th, 10:00AM My girlfriend has a lunch appointment, so I kick back and boldly go places for a few hours. I take on a mission that involves The Doomsday Machine, an original series episode about a gigantic weapon that looks like a dried slug with no head. Following up on a previous mission, I locate some advanced weapons the Klingons are stockpiling – special, ultra-destructive torpedoes. After sneaking through a nebula to beam down onto a planet, I take out several Klingon squads and confiscate four of the projectiles. Beaming back up to the ship, the Doomsday Device appears, as dried and slug-like as ever, as you can see in the picture at the top of this article. I have to fly through a destroyed planet’s core to charge the torpedoes, and use them four times on the Doomsday Machine. It’s pretty much a cakewalk. So much for Doomsday. And look, the girlfriend is home, with food. I’ve heard good things about food. Sunday, February 21st, 3:00PM This is it. I promised myself I would get Commander this week, and with my time on Monday and Tuesday severely compromised, this is the only day I have left to make four more levels and earn my Commander’s stripes, or pips. Moving on from Klingon space, my newer missions mainly deal with the Romulan threat. I perform a quick delivery mission, a few station-based fetch quests, and then I face my first major issue with the missions in Star Trek Online. A Starfleet Admiral believes that a remote Romulan outpost is manufacturing weapons in order to stage an invasion of Federation space, and she wants my ship to go investigate. That’s fine, no problem. I’m slightly unnerved by the fact that she accompanies us on the mission, standing stoically behind me as my crew blasts their way through Romulan guards towards the base’s computer. According to the computer, all the base is manufacturing is medical supplies, which makes me feel like utter shit. I killed all of these scientists and there were no weapons of Federation destruction onboard? The Admiral is nonplussed, assuring me that once I’ve been fighting the Romulans as long as she has, that I’d know they were hiding weapons here. Okay, first – ripped from the headlines much? Second – at this point, if I had any choice in the matter, I would have left. I certainly wouldn’t have continued butchering innocent scientists, only to be called out by the Romulan Commander at the end for being a heartless butcher. After we kill the Romulan, the Admiral reveals herself as a shape shifter, hoping to start a war between the Federation and the Romulans. We do battle, she morphs into the dead Romulan Commander and beams out. I am far too pissed at the outcome of this mission to continue playing today. Scripted content is fine, until you force the player to do something he or she doesn’t want to do. I feel better after eating a sandwich, but I’m still a rather surly Lieutenant Commander eight. Three more levels, and an attitude. Sounds like it is time to PVP. I have a repeatable PVP mission, which gives me substantial experience for every five Federation versus Klingon death match-type games I take part in. Losing a round I make half a bar of experience (there are ten bars per level). Winning I earn a full bar. It’s time to turn on grinding mode. From around 5:30PM to 11:30PM, I participate in round after round after round of PVP, earing skill points, experience, and the admiration of my peers. Perhaps it is my weapon selection, my chosen skills, or my Escort-class ship, but I’m consistently on top of the damage charts every round I play. Unless the Klingons swarm and the Federation doesn’t party-up. In that situation, where the enemies are picking us off one at a time, I fly around in circles outside of the range of the attackers. Sometimes I sing a little song while doing so. At 11:34PM, I cross the threshold into Lieutenant Commander eleven. Spending my skill points, I graduate to Commander one. I trans warp back to Earth Space Dock, and soon I’m in my brand-new ride. Behold the U.S.S. Titanic. Long may she sail. The Game So Far This week was one of highs and lows. Star Trek Online continues to wow me in terms of fan service, with references to all versions of the television series littered liberally throughout the universe. To be able to walk in the footsteps of the great Captains and crews from the series is an amazing feeling, and when those footsteps cross with your own, the experience sings. As much fun as I had with the story missions, I was disappointed with that one Romulan mission, and the fact that grinding PVP content was a faster way for me to progress than through normal missions doesn’t seem right. I’m a fan of a PVP system with its own rewards, separate from your standard earning of experience points. In other words, as little as I played this week, I shouldn’t have made it to Commander rank. But I have, and I’ve got a feeling I will be continuing for quite some time. Until I’m the pilot of a Defiant class vessel, I will not be truly fulfilled. I hope you all enjoyed these four installments, and that you’ve gotten a good idea of how much time I’ve spent playing, along with how I spent my time with the game. Stay tuned Friday for Kotaku’s full review of Star Trek Online, and keep an eye out for the U.S.S. Titanic. It has a nasty habit of listing to one side.

Original post:
Star Trek MMO Log: The Final Frontier [Mmo Log]

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Review: A Muddled Mess [Review]

Turns out that Percy Jackson isn’t a trouble maker with dyslexia and ADHD, he’s just the son of Poseidon, and you know how those demigods are. Movie Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lighting Thief shows what happened when a 12-year-old is thrust into a training camp for the children of gods and soon after runs off on his first epic adventure. Jackson has to come to terms with his mythological father, discover his own powers and prove he hasn’t swiped Zeus’ lightning bolt in a two hour movie that seeks to tap into the growing popularity of mythology and Harry Potter. Loved Classic Tale: Mythology seems to be all of the rage these days, at least in video games. This movie lands neatly between the release of Dante’s Inferno and God of War III, both of which deliver classic stories in mythological settings. Percy’s story of three challenges, a quick trip to hell and a damsel in distress also works off the same Greek and Roman template that gave wing to similar adventures of Hercules, Orpheus and Hermes. And it works. The warrior’s descent into and return from the underworld is rife with literary possibilities, many of which the movie ably taps into. The Challenges: Before finding his way into the underworld, Percy, like Hercules before him, has to face three challenges. These are the moments, both in their depiction and the clever way they modernize ancient lore, where the movie is most triumphant. Depictions of the Underworld: While the concept of a journey to hell and back isn’t new, The Lightning Thief’s vision of hell is a remarkable take on something often overblown or undersold in movies and games. In this movie, the underworld is literally a place of lost dreams, and the way that is depicted is one of the more powerful scenes in the story. Special Effects: Despite its novel source material, this is a movie you’ll only really want to see because of the special effects. Those glorious CGI effects are the only part of the Lightning Thief that shines from beginning to end. And there are some truly memorable moments. Strong ending: The first third of the movie is a rushed and muddled creation, more confusing than entertaining. But the final act of The Lightning Thief is almost worth the wait… almost. While it’s not possible for it to pull together the many loose plot lines and characters spilled across the picture’s opening, it does an admirable job of picking the most important parts and doing something interesting with them. Hated Awkward Opening: The movie so rushes its opening that you don’t have time to come to grips with Percy as a troubled child, his parental problems or why you should care about any of his friends, new found or old. The movie wants to get you to the good stuff, the special effects, the monsters, the gods, but it does so at the expense of plot and character. No Flow: Even after The Lightning Thief settles into its special effects and mythological challenges, the movie skips and jumps across the plot. The threads holding together the movie’s challenges and its culminating battle and aftermath are so flimsy that the movie feels more like a series of shorts rather than a cohesive effort. Emotional Void: Perhaps my biggest complaint about Percy Jackson is Percy Jackson and his friends, his family, his enemies. They rush through the opening moments of the movie result in characters that never fully develop. You don’t know enough about Percy, besides the whole son of a god thing, to really care about him. And if you don’t care about Percy why would you care about his friends, teachers and family? I don’t know if the lack of character depth is the result of bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, or all three, but the end result is a series of clichéd, flat characters that never develop, never even seem to show emotion besides the sorts you might find in a sitcom. And the experience of the film doesn’t change them, but a lack of growth characters lacking depth shouldn’t come as a surprise, I suppose. One could fall back on the excuse that this is a kids movie. But Harry Potter, and an entire industry of children’s movies, prove that something created for a child can also be deep, meaningful and entertaining to watch by adults. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief uses special effects and interesting settings to prove that the book franchise has potential, but this first effort is a muddled mess. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief was directed and produced by Chris Columbus and released on Feb. 11. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

Follow this link:
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Review: A Muddled Mess [Review]

Race And Nationality: More Than Promoting Dante’s Inferno In Japan [Ea]

“Look how EA is promoting its game Dante’s Inferno in Japan,” a tipster wrote. If only it was that simple. The gentleman in the Dante outfit is named…Dante. Dante Carver , actually. EA Japan roping in Dante Carver, a well known TV “talent”, to appear at this promotional event for Dante’s Inferno is quite clever. In Japan, television commercials are a big deal. You can tell how popular a celebrity is by the number and types of commercials they appear in. So take fashion model Yuri Ebihara. A few years back she was in ads constantly. Now, she seems to have vanished. So whether it be popstar Takuya Kimura or actress Yukie Nakama, celebrities stay in the public eye by selling products. There is even a magazine in Japan devoted to covering commercials. While Carver appeared at this Dante’s Inferno event and even in a Konami stage show at last year’s Tokyo Game Show, this kind of work is small potatoes for him. His big break came in 2006 when he began appearing in a series of ads for mobile phone carrier SoftBank. The series of ads to promote SoftBank’s “White Plan” discount. As game translator and author Matt Alt points out, “white” is a word all Japanese know and it has pure connotations. The ads have been running for years and center around “The White Family”. There’s the mother (played by elegant actress wife of Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi, Kanako Higuchi), the daughter (played by extremely popular actress Aya Ueto), the older brother (played by the previously mentioned Carver) and the father (played by a white dog). Carver is the yosougai (unforeseen) element in the ad. In Japan, the ads have been a hit. And recently, American film director Quentin Tarantino appeared as the kooky uncle . Tarantino’s appearance got me thinking — subconsciously, maybe, about one of the most controversial films about American racism during the 1980s. A film that was viewed as being so risky, that it was shelved by the studio Paramount Pictures. That film was White Dog . White Dog, released in 1982 in France where Fuller was adored by critics and filmmakers, told the story of a white dog that had been trained by its master to attack black people. Scored by Ennio Morricone and co-written by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), White Dog was director Samuel Fuller’s look at how racism is breed. But before the film was even released, the buzz was that White Dog was racist. Paramount blinked and then refused to release the picture in the U.S. The irony being of course that White Dog is not a racist film. Samuel Fuller was one of Hollywood’s most progressive directors, unafraid of tackling everything from war to prostitution to, yes, racism in the US. Before coming to Hollywood, Fuller had worked as a crime reporter, a political cartoonist and even landed at D-Day as part of the U.S. infantry. Tarantino was and still is a great admirer of Fuller’s films, and during the late 1990s when I was working for Tarantino’s distribution company, I saw a 35mm print of White Dog, one of the rare times the film had been screened for the American public. It’s no accident Fuller picked a dog for his film. Dogs and African-Americans have a long, checkered history. Dogs were used to track escaped slaves. Fire hoses were sprayed at and doges were sicced on blacks during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This imagery exists. Fuller used a white dog as an obvious metaphor to show how racism is taught. And yet, here in Japan, we have The White Family, consisting of a white dog father and a black son. Of course, the breeds are totally different — the movie has a white German Shepherd, while the SoftBank ads have a white Hokkaido Ken. Does this mean the producers of the SoftBank ad were aware of this? Of course, not. This film, while a significant entry into Fuller’s filmography because it marks the last Hollywood film he did, is certainly not a major film in Japan. (It did get a release there in 1990.) Most likely, the producers, the stars and even Carver himself are oblivious to White Dog — and that is fine. However, I would be surprised if Tarantino did not make the connection between the ad and White Dog in his mind at least, even if it is a superficial connection. The connection exits, though while it may be interesting to point out, it is tenuous at best. These White Family ads are actually a breath of fresh air. Even though, the idea of a white dog having a black son might not fly in the US, the series of ads are welcomed in Japan. Here’s why: While the White Family clearly does not look like a normal family, they act like a normal family. Carver’s brother character is just a regular brother-type character. The ads do not bring up his nationality or color, and he does not play up the kooky foreigner angle that dominates so much of Japanese mass media. He’s just a normal guy! (With a dog father.) Just like White Dog before it, these White Family ads examine race — though the SoftBank ads do not directly deal with racism. Instead, by indirectly commenting on racism, the ads shine a light to stereotyping elsewhere in the country’s media. As American-born Japanese TV talent Dave Spector once pointed out, the Japanese often view foreigners on TV as like a panda bear. They’re cute and interesting and fun to throw marshmallows at, but that’s about it. Carver’s character in the White Family is a baby step beyond that. For those who are interested, the White Family ads with English subtitles can be viewed here . [ Pic , Pic , Pic , Pic ]

More:
Race And Nationality: More Than Promoting Dante’s Inferno In Japan [Ea]

Survivor Star Lending Her Voice To L.A. Noire [Hollywood]

Jessica Kiper, actress and contestant on 2008’s Survivor: Gabon reality program, has revealed that she has done voice work for the upcoming L.A. Noire. When asked what Kiper, who also goes by “Sugar” was up to, she told People: I have a band, She Loves Betty White. I play the drums and sing. I got cast as Magenta in [an upcoming LA run of] The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’m in a video game coming out this summer. [Working title is L.A. Noir.] I’m auditioning and back to square one. People know who I am, but I still drive the crappiest car. While she has not been officially announced yet, Kiper won’t be alone. As Variety points out, the recent Game Informer feature on LA Noire revealed that over 300 actors and actresses are being used for the title. The cast is headed up by Aaron Station from AMC’s Mad Men. L.A. Noire apparently features a “groundbreaking facial-animation system”. The 1940s crime title has experienced delays and what seems like a messy development cycle. Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains ‘Sugar: “It Was Really, Really Tough” [People via Variety ]

More here:
Survivor Star Lending Her Voice To L.A. Noire [Hollywood]

Next Page »