So I play the game to a pivotal spot in the story mode when I get the message that reads “Disk Change, Insert Disc 2 to continue.”  I immediately do my best Darth Vader NOOOOOO! impression. I think I sat there for 3 minutes staring at the this screen in disbelief. I went to redbox’s site thinking maybe I just didn’t get the 2nd disc but the review comments proved my worst fear. They only included Disc 1 of the game!

Out of sheer frustration I snap off a picture of the “insert 2nd disc” prompt screen and post it to instagram and subsequently twitter and facebook.

Damn you @redbox only including the 1st disc to #MaxPayne3. For shame!instagr.am/p/K0Sx1Jh3CR/

— Bryan Lee (@bryansays) [link]

I immediately get responses from the @RedboxCares twitter account:

@bryansays Sorry about that!It’s a 2 disc game, and Redbox doesn’t have a way to offer a 2 disc rental at the moment.
— Redbox Care (@redboxcare) [link]

We have a conversation that goes like this:

@redboxcare I guess a warning would have been nice or at least let us rent the 2nd disc. That’s how netflix handles 2 disc movies. — Bryan Lee (@bryansays) [link]

@bryansays Agreed and that’s why it’s noted at the top of the game description before you’re allowed to select it for rental. — Redbox Care (@redboxcare) [link]

@redboxcare I mean a warning like the Blu-Rays that’s like “Hey we only have disc one” It’s so disappointing playing 1/2 a game. — Bryan Lee (@bryansays) [link]

@bryansaysIt’s understandable to feel that way. Feel free to email redboxcare@redbox.com and we’ll see how we can help! — Redbox Care (@redboxcare) [link]

So I do as instructed and fire off the following email to Redboxcare@redbox.com:

This is @BryanSays from twitter. I’m very disappointed that you guys only have Disc 1 for Max Payne 3 for the Xbox 360. You don’t know how heart broken I am to only finish 1/2 the game. I feel this was a bad business decision. The only way for me to finish the game is to buy it so Redbox gets no credit for that. On top of that you should see all the negative reviews that’s left on the Max Payne 3 redbox page.  To fix this, why not have the full 2 disc available to rent and they have to be rented at the same time. Yes that means $4 to rent the game per night but it would be worth it.

I get a quick response with the following:

Hi Bryan,
Sorry again for the trouble with the game rental.  You bring up some excellent points, and we’ll be sure to pass those along to the Redbox games team.
To apologize for the inconvenience and for the cost, I’d like to give you some promo codes, good for free, one-day rentals of any DVD of your choice, or discounts on one-day video game or Blu-ray rentals. The codes are valid for 45 days from today’s date.
If you have any more questions, please contact us via email.

Thanks!
Social Media Moderator, Customer Support

Now I have to commend Redbox here for their customer service as I’ve said before in the past, their customer service goes above and beyond to help their customers. Getting free codes is nice and all but it still doesn’t change the fact that I won’t be able to finish the game without purchasing it for full retail or use another service like gamefly or <cringe> Blockbuster. Reading an article on TheVerge about the matter, it seems they came to this decision because they felt:

“Since customer feedback has told us that many of our game customers like to test out titles before they buy them, we’ve decided to offer Disc 1 of Max Payne 3 for Xbox 360 so that renters can try it out for a low daily rate.”

That’s great in concept but a better warning needs to be in place besides just putting it in the description. Something similar to their blu-ray warnings could be implemented that reads, “This is only disc 1 of the game and contains half of the story plus multiplayer. Click Yes to continue.” If you have a Play Station 3, count yourself lucky since your game fits on one disc.

The moral of this story is always read the description when renting from redbox cause you may not get what you’re expecting.

Back from my month long hiatus. I’m here with Lee Benoit in this episode to kick it talking about Minecraft. Our latest digital obsession and apparently the internet’s obsession too. We each give our points on what we like most about the game, what can be improved, what’s coming out in the future, and general tips and tricks. Lee tells us about his rap song that he put together about Minecraft and his kick-ass multiplayer server that I’m on the time. Go get the game and come hang out with us on our server. You’ll see me playing as curs0r and Lee is on as Skettalee.

Episode Links

Main Minecraft Site
Crafting Recipes
Update List  for Halloween Release
Avatar Skin Editor – SkinEdit
Someone built a computer!
Crazy stuff people have made in minecraft
Lee’s Minecraft Rap
Lee’s Minecraft Server

Notable Screenshots from the video:

You can also play the game in the music video as well on Das Racist’s site.

Sources: [Pitchfork.com] [DasRacist.net]

I don’t get it. Has Hollywood not learned from past failures in this genre that video game movie adaptations (VGMA) are a losing battle? I think the producers automatically think of the movies that did good like Lara Croft or Mortal Combat but those movies are few and far between. They forget about train wrecks like Double Dragon, Super Mario Brothers, and Doom.

For the fighting game genre of VGMA there are even fewer movies that made any money. The last one to come out was Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li which grossed a tiny $8Million in the box office. DOA:Dead or Alive was even smaller with $480K. My speculation is the movie studios know they can cast no name actors cheap for these types of movies and they have a built-in audience from the video games. The problem is the audience will only take so much of these piss poor representations of their beloved video games before they won’t go at all.

I for one will probably skip Tekken when it comes out. I wasn’t much of a fan of the video game. I was more into Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter growing up. If Tekken sounds good to you, check out the trailer below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdUrryP0eWE

Here are some more preview articles for Tekken: io9 firstshowing

 I reviewed Crayon Physics two years ago but it was in demo form then. A year after that, Crayon Physics Deluxe (the full game) was born. Apparently the makers of the game, Kloonigames is having a birthday sale to pay what ever you like for the game. On their blog site they say “you’ll get the full game if you pay anything.” This reminds me of what Radiohead did for their album In Rainbows where they released it first online and told their fans to pay whatever they think its worth. By the way, this offer doesn’t last forever, its only until January 15, so  you still have a little time but not much. You can also read my short review of the beta here.

Below is a video of the game in action:

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

When I showed up for the tournament, it cost $25 to register and you were given 6 booster packs to build your own playing deck of 40 cards. I was lucky to have some friends give me pointers on color choices, what to keep, what to set aside, etc. There’s a lot to learn but that’s what draws people. I can see how the game can get addictive the more you play.

Since I was a big time newbie to the game, I prepared myself mentally to get pwned. I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly most of my opponents were and offered little tips on what I did wrong (after I did it of course). Trial by fire is the best way to learn, I always say. One of the bad side effects of my newbage was how slow each round went since my opponent had to explain what they were doing or some of the game mechanics to me. For two of the five rounds we were the last to finish while people everyone else stood around waiting. As you guessed it, I didn’t win a single round or game for the whole tournament but I still had a good time. I played the tournament mainly to learn how to play and hang out with friends.

Keep reading if you want to see the new features in Zendikar.

Zendikar Features

I did some research before the Pre-Release and here is a list of the new mechanics with descriptions and youtube videos created by Magic the Gathering to demo each element with examples.

ALLIES

Ally is a new creature type. Allies are good at teamwork, so nearly every Ally has an ability that does something good when it enters the battlefield, as well as whenever another ally enters the battlefield under your control. For example, if you already control three such Allies and you put a fourth one onto the battlefield, the abilities of all four Allies will trigger! you choose the order those abilities will resolve.

LANDFALL

Landfall abilities on your artifacts, creatures, and enchantments do something whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control.

INTIMIDATE

Intimidate is a new keyword ability seen on creatures that are particularly difficult to block. If a creature with intimidate is attacking, it can be blocked by creatures that share a color with it. It can also be blocked by artifact creatures, regardless of what color they are. But that’s it! No other creatures can block it.

TRAPS

Trap is a new subtype that appears on instants. Although the subtype Trap has no specific rules meaning, each Trap has an alternative cost you can pay to cast it if a certain condition has been met.

QUESTS

“Quests” is the nickname for a set of _Zendikar_ enchantments that reward you for certain achievements while playing the game. Not all quests have the word “quest” in their names. Each quest has two abilities. The first ability triggers whenever a certain condition happens and puts a quest counter on the enchantment as a result. The second ability works only if there are a certain number of quest counters on the enchantment. Once there are enough counters on a quest for its second ability to work, there’s usually no particular need to add more counters to it with its first ability, though you are free to do so.

KICKER

Kicker is an ability originally seen in the _Invasion_(TM) block. It represents an additional cost, and may appear on any type of card that can be cast as a spell.

For more information about the new Zendikar Expansion check out the Zendikar section of the MTG site.

Just downloaded this iphone game from the app store and I have to say its a pretty good offering my our friends at Id Software. The game mechanics are pretty simple: to aim you tilt the iphone in the direction of the enemy and tap in the bottom right corner of the screen. Reload is in the top right corner and change weapons is in the top left. The game is basically “on rails” so you don’t move forward yourself. This doesn’t mean the game is super easy. There are enemies that lob projectiles at you have to hit a dodge button in the bottom left at the right second to avoid being hit. I’m only in the first level but I like what I see so far. Don’t expect the same detail or experience you get from a PC and you will enjoy this title as well. The game is on sale for $2.99 ending today (08/17/09) and then goes back to $9.99. This is a great game for the price.

See more images after the break

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Most of the podcasts I listen to are tech-heavy. Just a warning. I will list each one and give a short description of each an whether its an audio or video podcasts. I have 3 categories: Tech, Gaming, and Misc. I personally use a 30GB Zune (Brown) to listen  or watch my podcasts only because it was such a good deal. I purchased it for $85 on woot.com! The podcast list is shown after the break.

TECH SHOWS

SYSTM [Video]

SYSTM is a hand-on tech show created for the hardcore DIY Hardware crowd. It’s also hosted by Patrick Norton but the show was originally started by Kevin Rose back when he worked for TechTV and G4. You will learn such things as Building your own NAS, DIY WiFi Antennas, and DIY Power Packs.

Diggnation [Video]

Diggnation is a weekly tech/web culture show based on the top digg.com social bookmarking news stories. The hosts are Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht who are both G4 Screensavers alumni. Kevin Rose started the Digg.com website as a news site where users “digg” or vote for the stories they like the most and the most popular hit the frontpage. Well Kevin and Alex review the top stories while drinking tasty beer beverages out of their houses which make for some colorful commentary. You can see why their show is so popular LoL. Recently they have been branching out of their California homes and starting going to areas around the country to meet their fans. Their show usually ranges from 30 minutes to 1 hour. They have a email answer segment at the end of the show and usually show fans in Digg shirts around the country.

GAMING

1UP Yours [Audio]

1UP Yours is the premier videogames podcast where hosts Garnett Lee, Shane Bettenhausen and John Davison report on the videogame industry and the community that surrounds it. This is a really long podcast and it can range from 1:30 hours to 2:30 hours. This is a casual gaming podcast and they stray sometimes from their own format to talking on a variety of subjects. The hosts are editors and game testers from some of the popular gaming publications like EGM, 1Up, GameVideos.com, etc. You will hear them talk about game current on the market as well as those still in production. One of the best segments is “What are you playing?” where the hosts and guests talk about what games they are into at the moment.

1UP Show [Video]

Each week, the editors of 1UP cover new titles and discuss the latest topics in gaming – all the while giving you a behind the scenes look at the on goings at the offices of 1UP, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and Games for Windows magazine. The show gives some great insight into the games they review by doing interviews with the staff of 1up while showing you game footage. They also have some great interviews with game developers as well. You can also see great field reporting from such places as E3, Quakecon, and Comicon.

MISC

The Totally Rad Show [Video or Audio]

The Totally Rad Show is the summer blockbuster of geek news shows. Every week, hosts Alex Albrecht, Dan Trachtenberg, and Jeff Cannata rip into the world of movies, video games, tv, comics, and more and pull out what’s rad. Most shows last 1 to 1:30 hours. They have either a audio or video feed. They have a quirky and fun approach to their reviews. Every show is started with the guys recreating a scene from one of their favorite movies of the past.

NPR Fresh Air [Audio]

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio’s most popular programs. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.

This American Life [Audio]

The radio and TV shows follow the same format. There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There’s lots more to the show, but it’s sort of hard to describe. Ten Commandents was the last program I listened to and Ira Glass goes over the real ten commandents by personal interviews with each person’s account of one of the ten.

Here is the description of the game straight off the website:

“Jimmy lives a simple life. All he’s got is a roll of toilet paper. Until the faithful day that his TP rolled away. You play as Jimmy on his epic adventure to get back all that belongs to him and find love and meaning to his life on the way.”

This is a cute little game anyone can play and just like crayon physics, its easy to pick up, moderately challenging and pretty fun. Check it out and let me know what you think of it. Here is the link to download the game to try it out:
http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/tp

This video is in two parts so make sure and keep watching till after 2:49. Trust me it gets funnier.