Interplay ressuscite Black Isle

Voilà deux grands noms du jeu vidéo que l'on aurait eu plaisir à retrouver s'ils n'avaient pas lancé une campagne de financement pour le moins obscure.

On doit à Interplay et Black Isle des titres mythiques comme Fallout ou encore Icewind Dale. Alors quand ils parlent de RPG, on s'assoit et on écoute. Malheureusement, Black Isle a fini dans les limbes, sacrifié sur l'autel du dieu argent. Mais le studio n'est peut-être pas mort. Dans ses cartons, on trouve un certain Project V13 qui est toujours en préparation.

Pas de quoi s'affoler me direz-vous mais la campagne de financement participatif du jeu a de quoi rendre perplexe. Les développeurs nous proposent de donner de l'argent pour financer le prototype du jeu, et uniquement lui. Aucun montant n'est précisé, aucun moyen de se faire rembourser en cas d'échec et aucune certitude de voir un jour le jeu sortir n'est au programme. De plus, si le prototype voit le jour, une autre campagne de financement participatif verra le jour pour le développement du jeu en lui-même.

On ne peut que vous conseiller la méfiance même si votre cœur de joueur et de fan bat à tout rompre. Si vous souhaitez malgré tout les aider en versant une petite somme, c'est à cette adresse que ça se passe.

GCI - Gotham City Imposteurs se lance en vidéo

C'est officiellement aujourd'hui que sort sur toutes les plateformes de téléchargement consoles et PC Gotham City Imposteurs. Le FPS multijoueur de Monolith Productions dont nous vous parlions il y a quelques semaines est désormais trouvable sur le Xbox Live Arcade contre 1200 MS Points, le PSN et sur les boutiques de Steam, Origin, Impulse, etc pour 14,99 €. La seule mauvaise surprise concerne la version PC du jeu puisque ce dernier demande d'installer l'infâme Games for Windows Live pour se connecter aux serveurs du jeu. Et pour fêter la sortie du titre, Warner Bros. dévoile de nouvelles images, deux fonds d'écran du jeu ainsi qu'un trailer de lancement, que voici :




· Forum Gotham City Imposteurs (XLA)

Une superbe offre chez GoG.com

Vous le savez, c'est habituellement le vendredi que nous vous livrons une cargaison de bonnes affaires à vous mettre sous la dent. Néanmoins, lorsque la situation l'exige, nous n'hésitons pas à rompre la tradition et à vous communiquer les bons plans que nous avons découverts au gré de nos errances sur les internets.

Aujourd'hui, c'est GoG qui est à l'honneur avec une très belle offre qui devrait ravir les amateurs de petits jeux de caractère. Le spécialiste du rétro, qui deale depuis quelques temps du jeu indé, propose en effet en ce moment, et pour encore un peu plus de cinq jours, de choisir cinq jeux dans une liste prédéfinie, et de les acquérir pour seulement 10$ (soit 7,80 de nos bons vieux euros).

La liste, longue de 20 titres, vous donnera à coup sûr l'occasion de découvrir tout un tas de petites merveilles. Ainsi, vous pourrez par exemple découvrir le très joli Resonance, un point and click à l'histoire richement travaillée et aux environnements pixelisés délicieux. Vous pouvez d'ailleurs, si le coeur vous en dit, lire notre test ici. Les deux titres d'Amanita Design, Machinarium et Botanicula, sont aussi de la partie, et là encore un petit tour sur leurs tests respectifs (ici et là) devrait vous convaincre de leurs qualités. La liste ne s'arrête pas là, puisque vous pourrez aussi trouver pèle-mêle des titres comme Trine, Defcon, The Ball, SpaceChem ou encore Torchlight. La liste complète vous attend d'ailleurs à cette adresse sur le site de GoG.

IAA - Une date de sortie pour I Am Alive

On pensait ne jamais en voir le bout et pourtant le moment est enfin venu : I Am Alive, le vaporware du moment, s'offre une date de sortie définitive.

Les joueurs impatients pourront donc prendre le contrôle d'Adam dès le 7 mars prochain, mais sur Xbox 360 uniquement. Une exclusivité temporaire puisque la version PS3 ne devrait pas se faire attendre bien longtemps avant de pointer le bout de son nez. Le titre d'Ubisoft sera disponible sur le Xbox Live Arcade contre 1200 MS Points, soit environ 15 euros.

· Forum I Am Alive

what this blog is all about

Here at TFG the format is pretty simple : in the weeks and months (years?) to come I’ll be reviewing favorite and not-so-favorite films of the grindhouse era, as well as the occasional interesting new release, and keeping tabs on what’s happening with various b-movie titles being released on DVD. I’m hoping to have the first batch of reviews up over the course of the coming week, and while there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of similar websites and blogs already out there, I’ve always been an opinionated sort of guy and would like to add my voice to the already-overwhelming cacophony for no other reason well, than, I can, so why not?

2012-12-21-90

[Rumour] ATI Radeon HD 5970 priced $599?

Turkish website Donanim Haber have discovered that Google Shopping liststhe HD 5970 at $599 from ZipZoomfly. While the ZipZoomFly page is missing, this price pointfits in well with the €499 price point leaked by several Europeane-tailers.

If you recall, the HD 5970 was originally set to be priced at $499,according to AMD's slides. At the time, the HD 5870 was priced at $379,with it's price expected to drop with competition. Even so, a dual-5870product seemed like a bargain, and many doubted the validity of thisprice point.

Since then, supply shortages and overwhelming demand for the HD 5870 hasled to the HD 5900 series being delayed, and prices for the HD 5800 series have only increased. Latest information on the HD 5000's series' competitor - Nvidia's Fermi - suggests a release well into Q1 2010. In the end, the market is a little different to what we had imaged back in September. Unfortunately for consumers, all these factors put together point to just one conclusion - higher prices.

At the same time, $599 is a reasonable price point for the Radeon flagship. What you get is a product that will be far and away the fastest graphics card on the market, with no competition in the near future. We have seen the spectacular HD 5800 CF performance, and that is what you can expect from the HD 5970. Considering the underwhelming GTX 280 debuted for $649 back in 2008, and the EOL'ed GTX 295 is still available for $499, HD 5970's $599 is quite understandable.

Unfortunately, unlike the HD 4870 X2, the HD 5970 isn't simply HD 5870 times 2. To keep the power consumption below 300W, in accordance to PCI SIG standards, rumours suggest AMD have had to downclock the HD 5970 to HD 5850 clocks - though still shipping with the full 1600 shaders. In essence, the HD 5970 is two HD 5850s with 2 extra SIMD units. Considering HD 5850 currently costs $299, the HD 5970 is suddenly quite a bargain.

HD 5800 series' excess demand and short supply has meant limited availability - even today, 7 weeks after release. Since HD 5970 is nothing but two HD 5800 GPUs on a single PCB, the availability issues are likely to be carried over to the HD 5900 series as well. TSMC and AMD have promised widespread availability by the end of December. Availability has improved over the weeks, though at an agonizingly slow pace.

The Radeon HD 5970 is set to hit stores on 17th November. A HD 5950 has often been rumoured, though any information on the stripped down sibling is obscure, at best. When it does arrive, a $499 price tag would make sense.

Reference: Donanim Haber

you can keep your christmas cheer, i’ll take “christmas evil” every time

This time of year the question is often asked, “What is the best Christmas movie ever made?” The usual contenders always seem to emerge, of course — “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story” , yadda yadda etc. etc. Horror fans may suggest either “Black Christmas” or “Silent Night, Deadly Night.” But no less an authority than John Waters has gleefully declared writer-director Lewis Jackson’s 0verlooked 1980 B-movie masterpiece “Christmas Evil” (a.k.a. “You Better Watch Out,” actually Jackson’s original — and preferred — title) to be the absolute best of the bunch, and I’m with him on that all the way. Not so much a straightforward horror film as a black, tragicomic morality tale, this bizarre little flick hits all the right notes and is so self-assured in its absolutely singular bizarreness that you can’t help but sit back in awe as? the bleakly absurd spectacle of it all plays out before your eyes.

When little Harry Stradling was a kid, he was the sort of tyke who just couldn’t wait for Christmas. He’d stay up all night, pacing back and forth in his room, hoping to hear Santa landing on the rooftop and sliding down the chimney. Unfortunately, he learned that old Kris Kringle wasn’t real the hard way — one Christmas Eve he thought he heard something downstairs, went to investigate hoping to catch Old St. Nick in the act, and found his dad, dressed in a Santa suit, going down on his mom. He’s never been the same since.

Fast forward about 30 or 40 years and our guy Harry (played by distinguished Broadway actor Brandon Maggart, who never had much of a career in film, apparently wants nothing to do with this one anymore, and is now best known for being the father of Fiona Apple) is??a rather disturbed and introverted sort, the kind of troubled soul his New York City neighbors should probably keep an eye on — except he’s already keeping an eye on them. Or, more specifically, on their children. He’s making a list and checking it twice, cataloging who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. And this Christmas, he’s finally going to do something about it.

Harry works at a toy factory, you see, where he’s recently been promoted from the line up to some low-level management position or other. He misses being down on the factory floor “close to the toys,” as he says, and he’s unimpressed with the executive “suits” he now has to kiss up to. Amidst talk of? post-Christmas plant downsizing (quite prescient in 1980) and a?nebulous new management directive ?forcing the workers to give to charity while?ownership does nothing of the sort (again, a disgustingly common enough practice these days but rather novel for its time) at the company holiday party, Harry starts to hatch his master plan in his mind. Harry’s trauma-inducing?bout with accidental voyeurism has?caused him to grow into something of a Christmas purist, if you will, and he’s out to save all that is?right and true with the holiday season and to — umm — excise all that isn’t.?In short order he procures a van, a bunch of toys, a Santa costume, and some weapons, and he decides to bring back the less-than-jolly St. Nick legends of old to life — the ones where he’s both jolly and vindictive, handing out toys only to those who deserve them, and vengeance to those who don’t.

Soon it’s Christmas Eve, and having blown off his brother’s family for the second holiday in a row (he took a pass on spending Thanksgiving with him, his wife, and their kids, as well), he instead springs into action in his custom (hand)-painted Christmaswagon. Kids at an orphanage get a whole load of goodies. The friendly folks at a large family holiday get-together get a visit where he displays his friendly side (as do they to him). But a yuppie scumbag emerging from a midnight mass service at a church in ritzy part of town gets skewered through the eyeball after declaring that Santa better give him something good because he has “superlative taste” (can’t say I blame Harry for that one), and the guy who suckered Harry into picking up his shift at the factory earlier that night so he could go out drinking with his buddies on Christmas Eve meets his red-suited, white-bearded maker, as well.

Soon, Harry’s a hunted man, as townsfolk who think he’s acting a little bit weird around their kids take up torches and pitchforks and chase him through the New York/New Jersey streets like a modern-day version of the mob hunting down Frankenstein’s monster. But little do they know Harry has a surefire method of escape that delivers one of the most jaw-droppingly awesome endings in movie history. For some reason it’s hotly debated conclusion that some people just can’t get their heads around, but I’m here to tell you that not only is it absolutely astonishingly perverse it its obvious, albeit surreal, simplicity, it’s literally the only way this story could, or for that matter should, finish up.

Available for years only as a bare-bones release from Troma, in 2006 the good folks at Synapse Films finally issued a bona fide and thoroughly comprehensive “special edition” release of full director’s cut of this twisted gem. Not only does it feature a sparkling new widescreen anamorphic transfer of the film with remastered 2.0 stereo sound that’s an absolutely joy to watch and listen to, but there are two commentaries, one featuring director Lewis Jackson where he gives an awesomely involving account of just how low-budget exploitation films such as this came to fruition in the late 70s/early 80s and all the various pitfalls along the way as it moved from script to screen, but there’s a second commentary track featuring Jackson joined by the film’s most famous fan, the legendary John Waters himself! Needless to say, it’s a riot from start to finish. Also included are a selection of stinging lobby comment cards from a test screening of the film, deleted scenes, screen test outtakes, and a comic-style “essay” on the film from “Motion Picture Purgatory” author/illustrator Rick Trembles. Great stuff all around.

What can I say? Everything about “Christmas Evil” works, from the red-and-green-heavy color schemee utilized throughout to Maggart’s amazing, and strangely involving, performance in the lead, to the laugh-out-loud grotesquery, to the police lineup of drunken guys in Santa suits, to the often-quite-incisive sociall commentary,? to the already-mentioned supremely awesome ending. It’s an absolute one-of-a-kind piece of moviemaking. And while Lewis Jackson, sadly, has never made another film, truth be told he doesn’t need to. This stands as a singular work of genuinely madcap, unhinged genius that will never be duplicated and, frankly, in the annals of Chritmas moviemaking, never surpassed.

you can’t piss on “best worst movie” — i won’t allow it!

Ah, Troll 2. Where would we be without it? Still talking about Ed Wood’s films, I suppose.

Wait, we’re still talking Ed’s films, aren’t we? So I guess my point’s been scuttled. If I even had one. So I guess this review’s got something in common with Troll 2 right there.

But actually, this review isn’t even about Troll 2 at all — it’s about the new documentary that’s about the new king of bad cinema, Michael Stepehnson’s superb Best Worst Movie.

Stephenson himself ought to know a little bit about the subject — after all, he was one of the stars of Troll 2 itself, a wet-behind-the-ears child actor back in 1990 who landed his first cinematic role as Joshua Waits, the little by who sees visions of his dead grandpa warning him to stop his family from vacationing in the scenic hamlet of Nilbog.

Stephenson’s not our main point of entry into the peculiar cult universe that has developed around Troll 2, though — that honor belongs to George Hardy, more specifically Dr. George Hardy, an Alabama-born dentist who was trying to make his mark as a part-time actor in the Salt Lake City area back in the late 80s and early 90s and found himself cast as George Waits, Joshua’s dad.

For George, who now practices dentistry back home in ‘Bama, the Troll 2 phenomenon has given him a chance to be what he always wanted to be? — a star, albeit a star known only to a select group of — uhhhmmmm — initiates, I guess we’ll call them.

We follow Dr. George as he goes from convention to convention, screening to screening, reuniting as much of the cast as he can muster up along the way, and it has to be said, this guy never stops smiling. Even as he admits to the severe fatigue and burnout he’s suffering from having watched the one and only film he ever starred in dozens of times over the years, and having? recited his famous “you can’t piss on hospitality — I won’t allow it!” line probably thousands of times, Hardy just keeps on smiling. He’s both grateful for him accidental cinematic immortality and sick of it in equal measure. Perhaps the film’s most telling moment is when he admits to his desire to get off the convention circuit treadmill (and Best Worst Movie offers perhaps the most realistic appraisal of the drudgery offered up by that particular “lifestyle” that you can imagine) and then, a split second later, when asked if he would be willing to appear in a Troll 3 if it were ever made (and director Caludio Fragasso and screenwriting/producing partner Rossella Drudi are, in fact, in pre-production on it right now) he answers “absolutely.” Dr. George loves the limelight and genuinely loves entertaining people, and his enthusiasm for his (I use this term loosely) art shows through in every moment he’s on the screen, even at a UK convention where nobody’s heard of his film, or him, and frankly they don’t seem interested in finding out about either. When George talks about how his heart has always been in acting but his father pushed him into dentistry, your heart sort of breaks for the guy even though he’s certainly got a very comfortable life.

For the rest of the Troll 2 cast, life hasn’t been quite so rosy. Don Packard, the genuinely goblin-esque general store owner in the film, has been in and out of mental hospitals his whole life (and was on a supervised leave program of some sort from one when he shot his scenes back in 1990). Robert Ormsby, who played dead Grandpa Seth, lives a quiet and apparently exceedingly lonely life in Salt Lake City. Margo Prey, who portrayed George’s wife, Diana Waits,? live with her ailing mother and obviously suffers from some mental health problems herself — she’s essentially a shut-in and is the only member of the cast to have eschewed all public appearances in conjunction with the movie so far — but George keeps trying!

As for the principals behind the camera, Fragasso still swears he made a great film that’s just misunderstood by the public and berates his cast at every turn for failing to deliver their lines accurately enough. The scene were they return to the original Utah filming locations and re-enact memorable moments from the film is absolutely priceless and conveys the sort of madness that can probably only happen when hot-tempered Italians try to shoot a super-low-budget horror flick in the heart of Mormon country. For her part, Drudi just sort of silently agrees with all her partner’s wild-eyed excoriations, probably figuring it’s the best way to avoid arguments.

The cult that’s formed around the film itself is explored pretty thoroughly here, as well — it never played theaters but was a mainstay on HBO’s late-night lineup back in the early 90s, back when they just needed to fill up airtime with movies whose rights didn’t cost much. Then it slowly caught on in VHS rental shops. Then the internet came along and everybody who had seen it and loved it began to realize they weren’t alone — and the rest, of course, is history. Now this product of Bizarro-World is right up there with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Eraserhead at the top of the midnight movie pantheon.

Finally, for those who might be wondering whether or not you need to have actually seen Troll 2 in order to enjoy Best Worst Movie, I would say the answer is no — all the basics, like how it had nothing to do with the original Troll, how it was originally titled something else, etc. are pretty well-covered. I will say, though, that if you indeed haven’t seen it yet, after watching Stephenson’s film you’re going to want to. Right away. And that’s perhaps the highest compliment about Best Worst Movie that one can give. For my part, I went right from the 9:40 showing of this on a Friday night last weekend at the Lagoon theater here in Minneapolis to the midnight Troll 2 screening at the Uptown, just up the street, and had the best night at the movies I’ve had all summer, if not all year.

Now, if there’s any justice in the world, we’ll be hearing the name of Best Worst Movie announced on Oscar night, not as “best worst” anything, but as Best Documentary Feature. Needless to say I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, but it definitely deserves it.