Super Bowl XLV Trailers

Seems like the last time I did this was back in 2009, but who can blame me? It's not like there were that many great films last summer... Regardless, I watch the big game for the commercials, more specifically, the trailers:














There's a few missing, like Fast Five, Battle: Los Angeles, Limitless, and Rio... but they weren't very exciting trailers. But that Super 8 trailer... that's the most awesome thing I've seen in a long time. Can't wait!

Star Wars/Adidas 2010 World Cup Ad

To create something cool for the 2010 World Cup (and promote their new line of clothing to an extent I suppose), Lucasfilm and Adidas put together this neat little video mash-up of the famous Cantina scene from Star Wars (a.k.a. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope), but with famous (or should I say semi-famous) athletes, actors, and musicians.

Among the inclusions are Daft Punk, ex-Oasis member Noel Gallagher, Ian Brown (of the Stone Roses), Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, and the annoying voiced Jay Baruchel (She's Out of My League, How to Train Your Dragon). Apparently there's a couple others in there as well, but I don't recognize them.

The mash-up is done pretty well, but if I was to start a sci-fi flame war right now, I'd say the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, "Trials and Tribble-ations" was a way cooler use of new footage in old footage, and did it fourteen years ago. And there's Forest Gump.

I mean, Daft Punk looks awesome and extremely fitting in the Cantina, but who really wants to see a classic scene covered in product-placement and including Jay Baruchel in there like he's actually in the same realm of accomplishment as the rest of the people here are in their respective fields. Just saying, to use a pun, Star Wars is out of his league.

C'mon, "Celebrate Originality"? Really?!

Survey giving early look at Wii Sports Resort?

Call this a mixed bag of information, but I recently was sent some pictures from an apperent survey regarding Wii games like Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. For the most part the images just look like concept art and mock-ups, but if this is Wii Sports Resort, there's definitely more to the game than previously thought.

At this point these concepts could really be for anything. The one layout is clearly for Wii Sports Resort, since it features screens from the games as well at the MotionPlus peripheral; the other, clearly for Mario & Sonic. But the more fleshed out one, with four featured resorts is the one that seems most intriguing, as it too uses screens and similar concepts as that of Wii Sports Resort; but that one lagoon looks way too much like Pac-Man for me to believe it's a Nintendo game.

Anyone else participate in this survey? If so, what do you make of all of this?

New Play Control: Mario Power Tennis Review

Nintendo has begun to introduce a new line of games for the Nintendo Wii, entitled "New Play Control". These games were previously released on the GameCube, but have been updated for the Wii to take advantage of its unique control capabilities, including the IR pointer and accelerometers.

Thus far, Nintendo has released Mario Power Tennis and the original Pikmin, with announced future titles of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Pikmin 2. Today, we’re going to be looking at Mario Power Tennis and I’ll give you low-down and let you know if these new controls make it worth the re-release.

Note: This isn’t a full review of the game, as it is a few years old, so I will be focusing on the changes, mostly with controls, instead of all of the game features.

The controls in this title are a bit interesting, but relatively simple to get a hand of. Instead of pressing a different combination of buttons for a certain shot, like chip, drop, lob, etc, you have a different swing. You can hit a neutral ball by swinging horizontally, or you can slam it by swinging downwards. You can also swing diagonally to put topspin on the ball, or go downwards for a drop shot. These motions take a little bit of getting used to, and you’ll miss the precision of just pressing a button or two for the exact shot you want, but the motion controls add a bit of depth to the game. However, don’t expect to pick them up instantly. You’ll have to play through a couple of sets before you feel comfortable with the controls, but once you are, you can pull off the shot you want 85-90% of the time. Lob shots are particularly different to get, as you have to move the Wii Remote straight up and it won’t always register, so this can get frustrating, but overall, the controls work well.

Another issue I sort of had with the game was placement. It doesn’t seem like moving the control stick effected the direction of the ball, like it would in other games, so I think it’s more based on the timing of your hit, as well as if you swung the Wii Remote backhand or forehand. However, it’s not as precise as Wii Sports Tennis was, where it really mattered how your character was positioned and how you swung the Remote. Overall, the controls were satisfactory and fun to play with once you got a handle on them. It’s unfortunate though, that you can’t plug in a GameCube controller and play; the constant swinging is a bit tiresome and it just would have been nice to have the ability to play a more traditional way.

Mario Power Tennis still has all the fun it did back on the GameCube, with around 20 playable characters from the Mushroom Kingdom, over 10 courses to play on, 6 regular tournaments plus 3 gimmick ones, over 8 mini-games, and the ability to unlock all sorts of bonuses, including star players. There is a ton of fun to be had with this title, so if you haven’t played the original, I would suggest picking this one up. To me, there is just something ridiculously enjoyable with Mario sport titles; not sure what it is. However, if you do already own the GameCube version, then I’m not sure I could suggest getting it for the Wii. The only addition is the control setup, so you’ll be playing through the same thing, but tennis is tennis. You may want to just hold out for EA’s Grand Slam Tennis, which will utilize the upcoming Wii MotionPlus device for a true tennis experience.

Overall Score: 6/10

Posted in cooperation with GamersPlatform

Super Bowl trailers

With the game over, I guess that makes it a safe time to post the only thing worthwhile about it, the commercials. More specifically, the movie trailers (since the actual commercials were awful). Thanks to Hulu, you can find most of the commercials there. However, because of our contact with Paramount, the Star Trek spot is available at VFHvideo. So, let's take a look at the movie trailers that got us interested:

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (available in HD)

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (our first video in HD)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Disney / Pixar's Up

Year One
What do you think? Do you agree with our picks? If you want to see more videos from Super Bowl XLIII's commercial breaks, be sure to check out Hulu.com

Super Bowl Twittering

Hey everyone, sorry for the empty weekend. Just wanted to let you know, I'll be live blogging on Twitter during the commercial breaks of the Super Bowl on NBC tonight. In fact, I've already started. So feel free to follow along with me on Twitter, and maybe even send us an @ Reply if you have comments (or complaints) of your own!

ViewFromHeaven at Twitter

There's a lot of movie trailers airing tonight, I'm going to do my best to get as many of them as I can for a post either tonight or tomorrow. I know a bunch have been leaked already, but I'm looking to get them from official sources. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Super Bowl tweets removed

Summer Olympics - Beijing 2008

This is probably the only time I'll cover sports here, because really it's the only time I give somewhat of a crap. I just always found it nice that for about one month, every 2 years (winter and summer), countries put all of their differences asides and come together for pure sport. No ones out their for a 25 million dollar contract deal, or trying to get yet another car; they're there to represent their countries in numerous sporting events. From the easy to understand track events, to the why is that even a sport?, pistol shooting, the Olympics find something for sports and non-sports fans alike to enjoy.

Last night opened the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing at the planned 8/8/08 at 8:00 PM. To me the highlight of the entire night was the lighting of the torch, in which a 6 time medal winner was brought up by wires, and ran on the walls of the stadium. It was pretty unbelievable and probably could've only happened in China. Also the fireworks display was more than ridiculous, but what else would you expect from the nation responsible for inventing gunpowder and pyrotechnics?

Anyways, I plan to at least check out the events on the many channels it's being broadcast on: NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Telemundo, and Universal HD. And apperently NBC has Basketball and Soccer networks, you can find the games there as well.