Diablo III Announced, Lots of Goodies Released

For fans of Blizzard’s Diablo series or Blizzard in general, this was one unforgettable weekend.

A simple press release wasn’t enough to tantalize us. Not only was Diablo III officially announced, a whole slew of content was loaded onto the Internet. Blizzard has their official site up and running, and a cinematic teaser trailer has been released.

But perhaps the most important thing out of the pile is footage of gameplay, brought to you by the folks at Gametrailers. While it appears to be the same game in some aspects (isometric point-of-view, clicking the mouse like crazy to slaughter armies of beasts) Diablo III differs in a lot of impressive ways. I particularly liked the ability to interact with the environment. Now your characters can tear down walls to squash their pursuers. Nothing is stationary anymore.

So far only two character classes have been revealed: the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor. The Barbarian carries a lot of his/her (I almost forgot–you can choose the sex of your character now) signature moves from Diablo II and remains the master of melee combat. The Witch Doctor wields heavy blasts of fire and can attack from the netherworld.

Seemingly gone from the Diablo world are the health and mana potions. Now enemies drop colored balls that your character can absorb to regain strength. In place of the belt that used to hold the potions is a skill bar, where players can quicklaunch special abilities at the touch of a button.

A release date was not given in the press release. Blizzard will gradually put out more information as times goes by. As a fan and veteran mouseclicker, I’ll be keeping a close eye on Diablo III”s development. It’s looking like one hell of a game already.

Comedian George Carlin Dead, Age 71

“Bullshit, I’m gettin’ old. And it’s okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die. I’ll pass away. Or I’ll expire, like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they’ll call it a terminal episode. The insurance company will refer to it as negative patient care outcome.” – George Carlin, “Doin it Again”, 1990

Well, here’s some depressing news to wake up to. George Carlin, one of my favorite comedians and
one of the great philosophers of our era, died of heart failure yesterday. He was 71.

Carlin was admitted to Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA after complaining of chest pain. He died later in the day.

He was famous for his tirades on humanity, religion, and modern language. His “Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television” (NSFW link, protect your co-workers by plugging in headphones) bit caused a ruckus with the FCC and led to a classic case of censorship. He left behind a legacy of media, including 14 HBO specials, four books, and 22 comedy albums. He also hosted the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” and played the narrator on “Shining Time Station”.

He was an established orator and I mourn his departure.

Here’s a little something extra to help digest the bad news. It’s one of my favorite bits of his.

Movie Review: Spaceballs (1986)

While I don’t consider myself a particularly conservative viewer, I do keep a mental list of films to avoid like plague-infected vampire rats. At the top of that list, bolded and underlined, are the Scary Movie sequels and the (?) Movie spin-offs that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg fart out every year. These travesties feature lame-brained parodies of popular scenes, gross-out humor, dated cultural references (oh look, it’s Dr. Phil, ahaha), and a kind of cheap, low-rent presentation aimed at easily misled people with low expectations.

Bearing all of these faults in mind, do I now have to extend the same restriction to Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs? After all, it features lame-brained parodies of popular scenes, minimal gross-out humor, dated cultural references (oh look, it’s the sound-effects guy from Police Academy, ahaha) and, if not a low-rent presentation, then a somewhat mediocre one. And since it’s more heavily a spoof of Star Wars than any of the other sci-fi movies it riffs, it was released three years too late. I’m torn on this one. Spaceballs was one of my favorite movies growing up, but if I gave it any kind of praise now I’d feel like a hypocrite. Is there anything that can save it from ending up on my eBay sale list?

“Postal” Receives Top Award at Hoboken Film Festival

Has Uwe ‘Turkey’ Boll finally created his (passable) masterpiece?

It would certainly seem that way, according to a Gamepolitics post this morning. The notorious director’s latest opus Postal has scored the top award at the Hoboken International Film Festival. GP received word from a press release sent by Vince Desi, head of Running With Scissors.

In addition to the top audience award, Boll received the pick for Best Director. No, I’m not lying. The results are right there on the page.

Postal had a limited theatrical release on May 23. It hits DVD on August 26.

Here’s Boll plugging his movie on FOX News:

Game Review: Bully (2006)

Movie Review: Juno (2007)