Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 10th, 2010
Ubisoft DRM, New Forms for the Xbox 360, & Tecmo Bowl is coming back? - Welcome to the column that offers no copy protection (except for the boxing glove that appears if you try to steal any of the bad jokes) known as Dare to Play the Game.
Over the weekend, I actually finished a game review. I know, I amazed myself. The game was Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii. Retro classics, I can’t get enough of them. Needless to say, I played a healthy amount of each game but naturally some games got more time than others. Interestingly enough, the three games that received the most time were Heavy Barrel, Street Hoop, & Secret Agent.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 8th, 2010
In the beginning, many theories suggest that there was a big bang. From that event, it morphed into the planets, moons, stars and life as we know it. However, there is much that is not known in the cosmos and even more to explore. The Universe is entering its fourth season on the History Channel. After forty-four successful episodes, can they come back with twelve more interesting and intricate looks at space: the final frontier?
To explain the show, The Universe takes a subject in each of its twelve 4th season episodes and then usually focuses on an important facet of that which it will spend the bulk of the episode on. They talk to various cosmologists, astronomers, and astrophysicists who offer different ideas of the phenomenon or theories. They use CGI recreations of space and real world situations to simulate the events and bring up some possible conclusions that could result.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on March 5th, 2010
Data East was a great video game company that lasted from 1976 to 2003 when it declared bankruptcy. It had an arcade & pinball heyday for most of the eighties with many fantastic titles. Luckily, most of the assets were bought up by a single company called G-Mode when Data East was forced to sell them off. Recently, Majesco worked with G-Mode and re-released fifteen of them in a very nice retro collection for the Nintendo Wii. With fingers crossed, we hope that this collection has aged well.
It's really hard to sit here and rate graphics on games that range from 15 to nearly 30 years ago. One has to rate it in the context of the era. Most of the games are emulated perfectly. Heavy Barrel looks amazing (the NES really got an inferior version) as does Crude Buster or Caveman Ninja. However, I think we can safely say that Lock n Chase or Burnin Rubber are still pretty ugly. The colors are sharp and they don't need an HD presentation to stand up on their own two legs. The only complaint would be that the menus were really rather dull.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 3rd, 2010
Heavy Rain Film Rights, PS3 Lockdown, & Activision shuts down King’s Quest? - Welcome to the column that asks you don’t read any other gaming columns for the next 24 hours known as Dare to Play the Game.
This week for the time being, I am still playing Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe for the Xbox 360. I ran through the story mode on both sides and grabbed myself all applicable achievements. I’m at 350 points, unless I put some serious dedication to it, I don’t see me getting much more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 27th, 2010
Several years ago, I went through my divorce. We were clearly not made for each other and spent many nights arguing over the simplest things. Despite our constant bickering, our divorce went reasonably smooth and we were able to agree on most things. Thankfully, we did not have kids to further complicate the proceedings. However, if we did have kids and had arranged dual custody, I wonder if it would have turned out like Gary Unmarried: Season One.
Gary Brooks (played by Jay Mohr) is recently divorced. He has his own place and tries to do the best he can. He also takes care of his two kids, Tom & Louise (played by Ryan Malgarini & Kathryn Newton) on alternating weekends and holidays. Most importantly, he is trying to care of his own life and he finds that single life is a very tough struggle. Especially when that tough struggle involves dealing with your ex-wife Allison (played by Paula Marshall) on a daily basis.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on February 24th, 2010
Upcoming Titles for Xbox Live Arcade, Final Fantasy XIII reviews, & Apple gets rough on IPhone Apps? - Welcome to the column that will only be kid friendly to those who just got out of juvenile detention known as Dare to Play the Game.
After about four months and probably more mentions on this column than you care about, I finally have all of the achievement points in WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010. The last achievement I had left was the training checklist. The training checklist is a nice way to learn all of the moves except you have to use the Create a Moveset to modify some of the wrestlers top open up everything.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 23rd, 2010
They say that history is written by the winners. The winners are the ones who fought and the ones who conquered this great land of ours. In reality, history comes from all walks of life, it is unfortunate some are not able to write about it. But once in a while, you find people out there who are able to collect the ideas and tales and weave them into a book. That book will then sell many copies and influence a generation.
Howard Zinn was born in 1922 during the roaring twenties. His youth saw the Depression, the New Deal, and he even participated in World War II as a bombardier. In 1964, he accepted a position at Boston University to teach civil liberties and political science. For many years, he was asked to give advice on finding a history book that was fair and spoke the truth. He didn’t really have an answer until 1980 when he decided to write one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 21st, 2010
Greetings here from your favorite neighborhood reviewer and Spidey-expert: the infamous Kedrix. I certainly have a habit of appearing whenever there is a Marvel or DC superhero involved, especially if the source material happens to be animated. Needless to say, when the opportunity to review Spectacular Spider-Man both volumes 6 & 7 came available, I jumped to the task. Somehow, we missed Volume 5 (I have seen the first four), but I'm sure we can pick right back up and get to the spectacular action. (one paragraph in and we are already using bad puns, tsk tsk)
Volume Six of Spectacular Spider-Man is something short of a breather for Spidey as he is recovering from some run-ins at the hands of Mysterio & Kraven the Hunter. He even had yet another altercation with Dr. Octopus. Things are also looking up for the web slinger as he even gets invited to Flash Thompson's birthday party. Little does he know he is about to run into the Sandman who is still looking for his big score.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 17th, 2010
Recently, I got married to the most wonderful woman in the world. Well, the most wonderful woman I ever met anyhow. Her name is Sarah. Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be awesome if I included her every once in a while in my reviews? She’s very opinionated but she speaks from the heart. When our webmaster sent me New York, I Love You, I knew it was the perfect vehicle to introduce her to a mass audience.
Most of you are quite aware how I start my reviews, but this is going to be something of a departure. Traditionally, I start with a long narrative about the movie. We describe the movie and then I offer some quips and informative points after that. The problem is if I sit here and explain all of the ten stories presented then I might as well compile a book on the subject. I really don’t want to torture my reading audience like that.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on February 17th, 2010
EA Restores NFL Players, Lawsuits involving NCAA Games, & Microsoft spends 200 million on Facebook apps? - Welcome to the column that would be willing to trade bad jokes for virtual currency known as Dare to Play the Game.
This is the part of the show where I tell you I played all these games and then you use the scroll wheel on your mouse and get to the news or the releases because you don’t like reading my witty banter on my own life events. Well, it’s unfortunately worked because I barely played anything over this past weekend. I really didn’t play that much World of Warcraft (Priest at 72, Warlock at 31) and I didn’t even touch WWE Smackdown vs Raw. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to work on the very last achievement so I can put away the game for a while.
![The Universe: The Complete Season Four [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-universe-the-complete-season-f-large.jpg)
![New York, I Love You [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/new-york-i-love-you-blu-ray-large.jpg)
