Une nouvelle extension pour Le Seigneur des Anneaux Online

On aurait tendance à l'oublier mais dans quelques mois, Le Seigneur des Anneaux Online fêtera ses cinq ans d'existence. Cinq années qui lui auront fait passer toutes les phases de vieillissement d'un MMO classique, à savoir, le succès, la désertion des joueurs, et enfin le passage en Free to Play - réussi dans son cas.


Turbine et Warner Bros n'ont en tout cas pas l'intention de s'arrêter en si bon chemin et viennent tout juste d'annoncer la mise en chantier d'une nouvelle extension : Cavaliers Du Rohan. Prévu pour l'automne prochain, cet add-on ajoutera une nouvelle zone (les plaines du Rohan avec la forêt de Fangorn ou Amon Hen), une nouvelle faction (les Rohirrim), montera la limite de niveau jusqu'à 85 et introduira enfin un nouveau système de combat : le combat monté. Cela signifie qu'on pourra faire des combats avec (et sur) des montures, qui disposeront d'une barre d'expérience propre et d'une armure personnalisable.

NB : Etant donné qu'aucune image de cette extension n'a encore été montrée, le screenshot qui orne cette actualité est tirée du jeu de base.

· Forum Le Seigneur Des Anneaux Online : Cavaliers Du Rohan

E3 New Super Mario Bros. 2 en vidéo

La conférence Nintendo a été l'occasion de voir une première vidéo sur New Super Mario Bros. 2. Après quelques rares images dévoilées les mois derniers, c'est la toute première fois que l'on aperçoit ce nouveau Mario en action.



L'argent a l'air d'être au centre de cet épisode. En effet, les pièces coulent à flot et de nombreuses éléments servent à augmenter les gains. Des Pow font péter toutes les cases bloques aux alentours, alors que certains bloques restent bloqués sur la tête du moustachu faisant apparaître de nombreuses pièces lorsque ce dernier est en mouvement. Quant aux ennemies et objets habituels (comme la fleur), ils peuvent être transformé en or offrant ainsi de nombreuses pièces. Le reste du jeu parait en somme aussi classique qu'efficace, avec notamment la présence de la feuille transformant en tanuki. Le jeu est attendu pour le 17 août sur 3DS en téléchargement et en version boite.

· Voir le trailer
· Forum New Super Mario Bros. 2

Doom 4 apparaît sur le listing Steam

Il faut parfois attendre de longs mois avant de pouvoir tomber sur une information valable concernant Doom 4, la suite de la licence phare du FPS. La dernière fois, c'était pour apprendre de façon plus ou moins officielle que le titre était toujours en cours de développement. Cette fois, le jeu apparaît dans la base de donnée de Steam.

Ainsi, les petits gars fouineurs de dataminers nous permettent de découvrir une page nommée "ID Software Beta". Comprenez que id Software se sert actuellement de Steam pour distribuer des versions du jeu testables par les internes. Après tout, John Carmack a lui-même annoncé lors de la dernière QuakeCon que Doom 4 serait entièrement supporté par la technologie Oculus Rift. Il ne reste plus qu'à attendre une confirmation officielle et, croisons les doigts, une date de sortie.

· Forum Doom 4

PS Vita Les jeux PSP ne seront pas transférables

Sans crier gare ni donner d'explications, Sony vient d'annoncer à nos confrères de Kotaku que, contrairement au Japon, les États-Unis (et par extension, l'Europe) n'auront pas accès au système de Passport permettant de transférer ses jeux PSP sur la PS Vita. Le système Passport avait été lancé en décembre dernier au Japon et permettait de télécharger les jeux PSP possédés sur sa PS Vita en échange d'une dizaine d'euros environ.


Cela signifie concrètement qu'il ne sera pas possible de jouer aux jeux achetés sous format UMD sur les PS Vita américaines et européennes, du moins dans un premier temps. La rétro-compatibilité annoncée lors de l'annonce de la PS Vita est donc fortement compromise. De toute évidence Sony préfère promouvoir le PSN et inciter les propriétaires de sa future console à acheter des jeux PSP en version dématérialisées et à plein tarif sur sa boutique en ligne. C'est d'autant plus dommage que les jeux PSP sur PS Vita sont légèrement améliorés sur cette dernière.


Rappelons enfin que la PS Vita sortira en Europe le 22 février prochain. Nous avons d'ailleurs reçu la bête à la rédaction et commencerons à vous en parler dès lundi prochain, date de levée de l'embargo imposé par Sony à la presse.

2012-12-21-353

abit IN9 32X-MAX nForce 680i SLI Board

Universal abit launches the IN9 32X-MAX motherboard. Based on the NVIDIANFORCE 680i SLI/SPP190 chipset, it combines into one of the most overclockingfriendly motherboards money can buy. We have left nothing to chance and insistthat every extreme user and overclocker looking to get a fix, will want to ownand tame this Beast of a motherboard.

Featuring a slue of fantastic features which can be found on this LGA775Intel compatible motherboard:

5-Phase DIGITAL PWM for precision voltage stability.
Silent-OTES heatpipe technology designed to cool your components quietly andefficiently.
Guru Technology Integration- Tweak your BIOS unlike any other. MAX yoursettings with the customizable OC ability:
FAN EQ; Intelligent Fan diagnostics to optimize airflow and reduce noise.
FlashMenu; Update your BIOS automatically online or through a step-by-stepprocess.
Guru skins; Skin style change; simple skin, mini panel, transparent skin etc.
OC Guru with AutoDrive to automatically overclock per application.
ABIT EQ to monitor your hardware voltage, temperature and fan regulationinformation
BlackBox which is abit’s very own 24-hour e-service for technical support.
3x SLI: Experience True x32 SLI bandwidth on 2x PCIe x16 slots, with thefuture proof added option of an extra x8 Physics lane on the third PCIe x16slot.
EZ CCMOS: Clear CMOS Reset switch on the backpanel for your convenience
Dolby 7.1 Ch Audio: 7.1 Channel Audio Dolby Digital & DTS surround sound

Other features and spec’s include:

– 2x PCI, 1x PCI-E 2x PCI-E x16 + 1x PCI-E x16 (x8 bandwidth for x4, x8 andx16 devices); Lights for easy jumper installation; 100% Japanese Capacitors;100% Solid State Electrolytic Capacitors; Quick Power & Reset Buttons; 6x SATA3Gb/s connectors; 3x USB 2.0 headers, 2x IEEE 1394 headers, 1x HDMI (S/P DIFheader) header, 1x FP-Audio header; FSB: upto 1333 MHz.
– Dual-Channel DDR2 533/667/800/1066 with support upto 1200MHz
– SLI-Ready Memory with EPP x4 Dimms, Max 32GB’s

2012-12-21-411

Acer readying touch friendly remote for clear-fi

It might not look like much, but Acers upcoming RMTP-S1Q remote is a step in the right direction as far as were concerned when it comes to basic navigation of a home theatre PC. It can be used as both a touch pad and a basic remote control, although its not as fancy as the model Acer offers which also doubles up as a touch sensitive keyboard.

Details of the new remote leaked via the FCC and its made by a Hong Kong company called Syuin Connector. It has a built in rechargeable battery and operates over a 2.4GHz RF link and it looks like the receiver will be built into whatever device that the RMTP-S1Q will be paired up with. It has a usable range of about 8-10 meters and it also sports a G-sensor which will auto detect which way youre holding the remote so the mouse cursor will always move the correct way around.

Its compatible with Windows 7 and Acers new clear-fi media center software which was announced earlier this year at CES. In basic mode, the RMTP-S1Q is a touch pad, although it features a backlight which might be handy in dark environments, such as a home theatre room. It doesnt have any physical clickable buttons though, so youll have to live with tapping the pad instead. However, it does feature multi-touch for scrolling which should make it a bit easier to navigate around Windows with it.

Press the mode button and a selection of icons will light up which includes a menu key, a switch key, previous and next track, play/pause, stop, volume up/down and quick access buttons for video and music playback. These all work as youd expect, although judging by the fact its been designed for Acers clear-fi software, its unlike that it can be used with other applications. The switch key enables switching between various modes beyond audio and video playback, such as image gallery and what not. Hopefully this will be a standard feature on a lot of systems from Acer, as it looks like a neat little solution that we wouldnt mind getting thrown in as a bundled extra.

Source: Wireless Godness

christmas with the psychopaths “silent night, deadly night 5 the toy maker”

And we wrap up the Silent Night, Deadly Night series in 1991, when Brian Yuzna returns (this time in the producer’s chair, with co-writer Martin Kitrosser directing) to again take the series in a seriously different direction.

This time around, Christmas is central to the story, which makes fora welcome change from the last installment, and the psycho-in-a-Santa-suit theme is back as well (sort of, it’s not really central to things, as you’ll see), but there any similarities to what has gone before end. Let me just whet your appetite for this flick by saying this much — it starts with a killer toy making mincemeat of some hapless stepdad and ends with a dickless robot humping away at the erstwhile heroine of the story and screaming “I love you mommy!!!!!!!”

Interested yet? I figured you would be, you sick fuck (takes one to know one). In between all that we’ve got a pretty bizarre little story, too — the dead guy’s stepkid, Derek, is understandably traumatized due to having witnessed his replacement father’s murder, and to cheer him up, his clueless mother, Sarah, offers to buy him a toy. She’s not just taking him to any toy store, though, she’s taking him to Joe Petto’s shop. Petto is something of an anachronism — in a world filled with Cabbage Patch Dolls and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, he still makes the toys he sells himself, in the workshop in the back of his store. Problem is, Petto’s gone off the deep end and is building toys specifically designed to kill their owners (namely, children) — there’s just one hitch : grown-ups seem to be stumbling across all his toys first and getting the deadly surprises he’s actually intended for the tots. Joe’s got an (apparently) unwitting accomplice in all this mayhem, too — his (again, apparently) teenage son, Pino, who doesn’t seem to age —

Okay, it’s painfully obvious what we’ve got going on here — a psycho version of Pinocchio. And while that’s a fun enough idea in and of itself, it’s the casting that makes this straight-to-video curiosity really stand out. First off, we’ve got a visibly autistic guy named Brian Bremer playing Pino. It’s hard to tell if he even knows what he’s really doing here. And as if that’s not enough, portraying his “dad,” Joe Petto, is none other than old-time Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney! Now, Rooney is scary enough in the film’s less lurid scenes, but as the full extent of his depravity becomes known (alcoholic, abusive father, child killer — you know the drill), he really pulls out all the stops and delivers a performance that is, if this doesn’t sound too contradictory, blood-curdlingly hilarious. And just to digress here for a brief moment, it’s worth considering that Rooney is one of the celebrities who was so shocked and appalled — just shocked and appalled, I tell you! — by the first Silent Night film that he added his voice to the coterie of busybodies who eventually succeeded in getting it pulled from theaters prematurely. I guess their money’s as good as anyone’s, though, and seeing how Rooney’s got something like eight or nine ex-wives to pay, he’s more than willing to put his high-and-mighty principles aside when the rubber hits the road.

There are a couple of tangential links to the series’ fourth cinematic chapter on hand here — Neith Hunter is back as Sarah, this time in a much-reduced role (she’s just shown as being the mom of a teenage kid), and Clint Howard returns as Ricky, who’s apparently moved up a bit in the world given that he’s no longer homeless and has a gig as one of Santa’s helpers at a local mall. That’s about it as far as connections to anything that’s happened previously, though, until Rooney/Petto puts on a Santa costume for his crazed finale, thus establishing a thematic link with the franchise’s beginnings (and given that this installment proved to be the end of the series, that ends up bookending things rather nicely).

On the technical front, Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 : The Toy Maker is, once again, available as part of the three-DVD Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection from Lionsgate. The digitally-remastered full-frame transfer again looks very nice, the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound mix is perfectly acceptable, and there are no extras included on the disc to speak of. Don’t let the bare-bones presentation scare you off from seeing this one, though —The Toy Maker isn’t the cream of the SNDN crop (that would be part 3), but it’s definitely the most surreal of the bunch, and your humble host recommends it very highly indeed.

a loud oink for “pig hunt”

Three films into his career as a horror auteur, I feel supremely confident in saying that you just never know what the fuck you’re gonna get from director Jim Isaac. His debut feature, Jason X, was an absolute blast — probably the very best of the entire Friday The 13th canon (sorry, purists). He followed that up with 2006′s abysmal Skinwalkers, and now he seems to be back on track with Pig Hunt, and indie-horror feature that was actually lensed in 2008 before going on to play the horror and sci-fi festival circuit throughout most of 2009 and even into 2010. A few months back it finally turned up on DVD (extras include a making-of featurette, the trailer, and a seriously feature commentary track with Isaac and co-writer/co-producer Robert Mailer Anderson that really adds a lot to one’s appreciation of the work that went into this thing while remaining ridiculously entertaining from start to finish —needless to say, the widescreen transfer and 5.1 sound are both pretty much perfect since this is, you know, a new movie)? thanks to Phase 4 Films under the Fangoria FrightFest Presents label (like a lot of independently-produced genre features that received decent-enough notices while playing the festivals in the last few years — the other major player in this area being Lionsgate with their After Dark Horrorfest series) and this reviewer, who has been giving the films under this banner a go here and there since they came out, found it to be the best of an admittedly very mixed bag.

The damn thing is, it really shouldn’t work — it’s got red flags all over it. There’s an overstuffed cast full of wildly contradictory characters and even more wildly contradictory scenarios, a two-guys-in-a-suit monster, an exposition-laden, supremely talky (at least for a horror flick) script, and some dodgy CGI work on display at times. Nevertheless, Isaac really does manage to pull it off — Pig Hunt? is a wild, if slow (how’s that for yet another contradiction?) ride, full of sumptuously-shot northern California (Boonville, to be precise, where co-writer/co-producer Robert Mailer Anderson, and his co-writer brother, Zack Anderson, hail from) location work that lends the film a sense of both authenticity and genuine foreboding. Simply put, it’s obvious that these guys know this area well and use that to their advantage.

Our story centers around a group of “weekend warrior”-types out for a couple days’ hunting in the forest area where one of them, our erstwhile “hero”, John (Travis Aaron Wade), grew up. John’s an Iraq war vet (and yes, there’s some anti-war, anti-Gitmo, anti-all-that-shit stuff sprinkled throughout the proceedings, which never bothers me but might grate a bit on the nerves of any right-winger who sees this thing) who hangs around with a bunch of other wannabes who work at Costco. He’s also a rather pussy-whipped dude by the look of things, as he’s easily cajoled into taking his ball-busting (but admittedly rather fetching — the actress’s name is Tina Huang, in case it’s of any interest) girlfriend, Brooks (with a name like that don’t you just hope she dies violently?) with him on this so-obviously-doomed-it’s-not-even-funny excursion that for all intents and purposes has “Guy’s-Only Weekend” written all over it.

John’s got an uncle that lived up in the area they’re headed for, and he went crazy and disappeared some time ago, so a visit to the old family haunts is definitely on the agenda, as well. In fact, they plan to set up camp on his late uncle’s property. Wild boar is the target of choice this weekend, and local legend has it that there’s a 3,000-pound pig roaming the forests that the rednecks call “The Ripper.” John’s uncle, in fact, appears to have been pursuing (or, more likely, being pursued by) this beast when he departed this mortal coil.? Me, I’d stay the hell away, but these guys figure they can bag some reg’lar swine while avoiding the big fella.? Good luck with that.

Needless to say, John’s buddies being the city-dwelling fuck-ups that they are, things all go to pot (literally and figuratively, as we shall soon see) pretty quickly, as the? yokel Tibbs Brothers, who grew up with John, show up to lend some local flavor to the proceedings, snort some crank, and generally wreck everybody’s good time. Still, these guys know the area, and sticking with them might just mean the difference between life and death — until one of them is killed and? their whole murderous, motorcycle-riding, inbred clan head out for revenge on our city-slicker hunting party. Could it be that salvation — or at least safety — might come from the cultist hippie commune comprised of dozens of naked, blond white chicks (and let by one seriously feral and ravenous black guy who knows what he likes and surrounds himself with it!) that grow — and smoke — copious amounts of pot by day and —gulp! — worship a giant pig that sure sounds a lot like it might be “The Ripper” by night?

So it’s all here, folks, including the kitchen sink — motorbike chases, hillbilly throwbacks, racial and sexual stereotyping, Manson Family-style dropout drug-dealing cultists, doomed city folk heading out where they don’t belong —and a seriously mean giant pig. The stew is pretty loaded with ingredients, but chef Isaac somehow pulls it all off. The cast, as I mentioned, is uneven at best, some of the redneck dialogue is hopelessly corny, the sex-crazed-black-dude-with-a-harem-of-white-honeys-in-the-woods trope ought to come off as a hell of lot more offensive than it somehow manages to, and a couple guys in a zip-up pig suit at the end should be just plain laughable. And yet —

The tone Isaac takes with this admittedly outrageous material is so absolutely spot-on that the whole mishmash really works. He never takes events too seriously, yet he doesn’t play it all for laughs, either. As I mentioned earlier, the terrific filming locations really help set the mood, and there’s some genuine suspense here that makes itself felt at all the right times. the “cult-commune” set-up is both absurdly OTT and suitably creepy at the same time. The rednecks come off as both hopelessly stereotypical and honestly threatening. And the giant pig — as well as most of the non-CGI-gore effects liberally interspersed throughout — really does look pretty damn good. So count me as a believer in Isaac again, because any slight shift in tone or emphasis here and we’d be firmly into truly absurdist territory. There’s literally only one way for any mix this heady and outrageous to work without turning into some sort of self-parody, and our guy Jim finds it.

Yes, Pig Hunt is outrageous. And on paper, it probably looked like a giant quagmire waiting for some helpless sap to fall into it. But in its realization, Jim Isaac really hits the ball out of the park. It’s nothing groundbreaking or extraordinary, but it’s way better than it probably has any right to be, and it’s a solidly entertaining time from the word go to the word stop. It’s comical where it needs to be, suspenseful where it needs to be, and uniformly in tune with both its material and its audience throughout. With a no-name cast, a small budget (apparently around $6 million), challenging? working conditions, and a short-and-tight shooting schedule, one could be forgiven for expecting an unholy mess. Instead, it’s a damn solid little flick that will make you laugh, creep you out just a bit, show you a few corners of society you’re unlikely to see for yourself (albeit in heavily caricatureized form) and even keep you on the edge of your seat. Making a silk purse from a sow’s ear, indeed.

“the human centipede (first sequence)” offers a mighty test of your gag reflex

There’s no getting around it : the premise of Dutch writer-director Tom Six’s The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is enough to make any right-thinking person feel physically ill.

Hell, it’s enough to make any batshit insane person physically ill.

Those who experience this latest midnight movie phenomenon (also available through IFC On-Demand in both regular and high-definition on most cable systems as we speak) seem to fall into two camps : those who are revulsed by the movie’s premise of a mad doctor, known for separating conjoined twins? but who has apparently taken a turn later in life toward the additive, rather than the subtractive, side of? the human biological equation and now wants to attach three human beings together into one long centipede-like (hence the title) joined organism with a single gastric system, and those who find it so completely outrageous that they literally end up laughing at what they’re seeing unfold before their eyes.

Then again, they say laughter can be a pretty effective defense mechanism. And I can see why a person would want to erect some sort of psychological barrier between themselves and the events taking place in this flick. Because if you do, in fact, take the story seriously, it’s beyond unsettling —it’s downright nauseating.

Sure, on paper there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before — body horror is nothing new, in fact David Cronenberg made it a staple of his early career, and of course the whole mad scientist thing has been done a thousand times over.

But no mad scientist was ever quite as thoroughly, viciously evil as this film’s Dr. Heiter (portrayed with superb menace by German actor Dieter Laser), and even Cronenberg at his most sever and unrestrained never came up with a body horror concept quite so — well, quite so fucking horrific.

Simply put, if you find anything bout this movie to be actually enjoyable, it’s time to seek professional help immediately. Which is not to say it’s a bad film — it’s well-acted, superbly shot, economically paced, and exudes an air of controlled menace throughout. It definitely achieves what it sets out to do.

It’s just that what it sets out to do is so genuinely unpalatable and revolting that you hesitate to pat Six and his cohorts on the back for a job well done, even if it is just that.

I mean, where do we draw the line here on congratulating someone for achiing what they set out to do? “Good job killing that guy, the cops will never find a trace of evidence,” or “nice job on that rape, she won’t be conscious again for a week and there’s no way she’ll ever be able to identify you” aren’t exactly compliments, per se, are they?

And yeah — comparing The Human Centipede (First Sequence) to a murder or a rape might be taking things a bit far, but it’s definitely a full-fledged assault on your sensibilities, taste, and even morals. It’s an extremely confrontational piece of filmmaking that doesn’t offer to meet the audience halfway on anything — it essentially just dares you to keep watching.

As mentioned already, Laser is quite simply superb as the madman-du-jour of our story, Dr. Heiter. From the very first scene showing him looking at photos in his car of a single-file group of dogs sniffing out each other’s butts, you know something is just plain wrong with this guy, and the more Laser reveals about his character, and his character’s motivations, the creepier he becomes. I can’t imagine him at the end of a day’s shooting not wanting to take a shower first thing after spending eight hours or more inside this guy’s head.

The other characters are standard horror-movie tropes — Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie? as Lindsay and Jenny, respectively, are two good-time college girls partying away their summer in Europe who end up having their car break down on a stormy night and (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) stumbling upon the mad doctor’s home near the German black forest on foot in search of a telephone to use to call the European equivalent of AAA.? The bizarre conjoined-twin artwork adorning Heiter’s walls is enough to convince them that something is up with this cat, but before you know it they’re drugged and wake up as the middle and end sections of the evil genius’s titular human centipede, with the “lead” section occupied by stereotypical screaming ultraviolent Asian-student-also-on-holiday-who-can’t-speak-a-word-of-English Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura).

It’s gotta be said that all three performers, though, raise their game to the next level, to employ a sickeningly overused sports cliche, when they find themselves centipede-ized (or whatever the word is) — with kneecaps busted, and mouths sewed onto the person in front of them’s anus, you automatically become a brave performer in my book. You’d think just about any agent worth his or her salt would advise their client to turn these roles down, but they all tackle the strange physicality required to move as a conjoined creature with an admirable amount of chutzpah and portray the shockingly debased creature they’ve become with sickening effectiveness.

And yeah, as I said before, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (its follow-up —ummmm—segment, the Full Sequence, is now in pre-production) is definitely effective. This is a genuinely horrific work of cinematic fiction (thank God) that does everything that it sets out to do. Six’s skill as a screenwriter and director, and his actors’ ability as performers, is never in question here.

What is in question is exactly what we, as an audience, are really supposed to take away from this thing.

I know there are several indelible concepts and images here that I still can’t shake out of my head and probably never will. If that was Six’s goal — to provoke an immediate physical reaction followed by a lingering, perhaps permanent, psychological scar, he’s certainly achieved that. If he was aiming for anything other than that, though — well, he’s set up such a vicious assault on the senses (and sensibilities) here that attempting any further goals with the story is just plain impossible. It takes the film’s entire running time just to absorb the shock of what we’re seeing, and as I mentioned, even afterward it lingers in the mind — and quite unpleasantly at that.

In short, the “feel-good movie of the summer” this ain’t. But if you want to push your own limits as a viewer to what are, more than likely, their utmost fringes, this is definitely worth — shit, I dunno — subjecting yourself to.

I can’t say I’m actually glad that I saw The Human Centipede (First Sequence) — but I certainly won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.