Section: Gaming News, Features, Lists, Mashups

Haven’t caught all of the Gamertell news this week?? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!

• New Battlestar Galactica series to begin airing January 2010
  “SyFy sent out a press release today (July 27, 2009) announcing that the new Battlestar Galactica series, titled Caprica, will start airing 9:00 p.m., January 22, 2010, on the SyFy channel. The first episode…” MORE ?
• Comic Con 2009: Gettin’ telekenetic with Mattel’s Mind Flex
  “Have you ever thought you had telekinesis? Well it turns out everyone does! I didn’t believe it myself until I tried out the new Mind Flex game by Mattel at Comic Con this year.? …” MORE ?
• Comic Con 09: Hands on with Smith Micro’s Anime Studio Pro 6
  ”? Animation and manga software company Smith Micro has just released it’s newest version of Anime Studio and Gamertell was able to get an exclusive look at it at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.…” MORE ?
• Gamertell Interview: Madden NFL 10 Wii art director, Tim Spangler
  ”? I was able to meet the art director of the Madden NFL 10 for the Wii, Tim Spangler, at this year’s San Diego Comic Con (2009). Tim has…” MORE ?
• Three free, browser-based, text-based RPGs worth gaining experience in
  “RPGs weren’t always glorious, lavish epics with cutting edge graphics, intense character development, voice acting and entire world to explore. No, they started out more simply. With pen, paper and people’s imaginations. Some people have sought to reclaim that nostalgic…” MORE ?
• Apple App Store gaming update for the week of July 20 to July 26, 2009
  “The Apple App Store gaming update is Gamertell’s weekly look at the previous week’s Apple App Store game releases. We cover them all – good and not so good – in their respective categories with a breakdown…” MORE ?
• PlayStation Store Update: Shattered (July 26 to Aug. 1, 2009)
  ”? This week’s PlayStation Store is featuring the game Shatter for $7.99 for the PlayStation 3, this…” MORE ?
• Opinion: When a DS device is an in-game tool, a game becomes believable
  “Video games are designed to take players into an entirely new world. The goal of developers is to make this new environment identifiable, and to create an atmosphere where players can lose themselves in this virtual world and feel they’re a part…” MORE ?
• Comic Con 2009: A closer look at three new Playstation games
  ” Playstation was hands-on at Comic Con this year and Sony brought out a few of its best games for the PS3 and PSP to show off. I attended a media party at the Hard Rock Hotel (across the street…” MORE ?
• Comic Con 09: A peek at DC Universe
  ”? DC Comics fans are surely anxious for the release of Sony Online’s newest MMO, DC Universe, to come out on the PC and PS3. I was able to get a look at this awesome title at MORE ?

Full Story ? | Written by NEWS for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article ?

It is that time of year again.

It is that time of year again.

It is that time of year again.

Section: Exclusives, Features, Interviews, Ads & Media, TV, Web

Fear Clinic is one of the first series that will be exclusively online and will play exclusively on Fearnet.com sometime in October 2009. The show is directed by Robert Hall (Sarah Connor Chronicles, Laid to Rest) and includes horror greats Robert Englund and Kane Hodder (Freddy and Jason, respectively), co-stars Danielle Harris (Halloween remake) and newcomer Lucas Till, among others.

The show is about Dr. Andover (Englund) who claims to be able to cure any phobia by using his patented “fear chamber.” Several unsuspecting clients come to his clinic hoping to get cured. They realize however, the horrors that are in store for them. There are five episodes made so far, each dealing with a different phobia.

I was fortunate enough to sit at a roundtable interview with Hall and the actors to discuss this upcoming series.

First up was Englund, who I could write this whole article about alone. Englund was a nice, docile old man, despite the usual characters he plays. He is also very animated and loves to talk about his projects and past endeavors. It was actually hard to keep him on the topic of this series.

“[Fear Clinic] is looking to raise the bar on the horror experience. It started with a script written by Aaron Drane who wanted to put this series on the web, so we had to figure out how to chunkcate these chapters into episodes.” He also mentioned that each episode would only be about 5-8 minutes long, and that it is all spent anticipating what will happen. “It’s great working with such a fun cast, but we end up killing off half of them.”

Hall, who is the director and producer of the series, was also excited to talk. “I grew up as a horror kid. Jason 7 was my favorite horror movie, so to be able to work with greats like Englund and Hodder is a horror kids dream.”

I asked what he thought about the series being on the internet rather than on TV and he said, “I’m actually cool with it being online, with things like Hulu and YouTube, I don’t think it matters anymore. You know it’s gonna get to people.”

I talked to Danielle Harris about her character Susan who is the first client. Her character suffers from scotophobia (fear of the dark). She said, “Susan’s parents died when she was young, and no one really cared about her. She meets Andover and, even though he is probably trying to kill her, he is the first person to really care about her, which gives them a weird sort of relationship.”

I asked Englund about his character and how he interacts with Harris’ character. “Andover can’t cure her and, because of this, she becomes his obsession, his Achilles heal, because she is his only failure.”

We will see Harris a lot in these episodes, as she tries to escape from this clinic, unlike the other phobia’s who will only be dealt with in one episode.

Kane, who is mainly a stunt man, plays Andover’s nurse in the series. He told me that it was great to work with such a great cast. “Me and Englund were actually in several movies together, but this is the first time we are in scenes, acting together.” He also told me that he prefers to be an actor and a stuntman because it’s easier to coordinate an actor when you are playing them.

Finally there was Lucas Till who is best known for his role as Travis in the Hannah Montana movie. “It is really cool to be able to work with Englund and Hodder in this show, I am not a huge fan of the horror genre, so this is all new to me.” Till worked previously with Hall in Laid to Rest, which is how he got the role.

I had a good time talking to these awesome people and it really got me excited about this new series. It is unclear whether or not their will be more than five episodes since, as Hall explained, it really depends on how the show does and how audiences perceive it. “I would love there to be more and more shows on the internet, and it is great that we are the first one,” Kane said.

Site [Fear Clinic] Read [Dread Central]

Full Story ? | Written by Jessica Moen for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article ?

Section: Gaming News, Exclusives, Originals, Features, Previews, Consoles, PS3, Handhelds, PSP, Game-Companies, Developers, Distributors, Publishers, Conventions

Playstation was hands-on at Comic Con this year and Sony brought out a few of its best games for the PS3 and PSP to show off. I attended a media party at the Hard Rock Hotel (across the street from Comic Con) and was able to try out a few of the awesome titles coming out. Here are three I was able to extensively play.

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time

They showed us two different parts of the game, one with Ratchet and one with Clank. Clank’s was a but hard, basically you had to step on these platforms and by doing so it created a clone of him that would mimic everything he did until you stopped the recording. You would use this to your advantage to open a door that required you to stand on two platforms. You press Go and your clone runs over and stands on the platform like you did, while you stand on the other to open the door and run through. This got harder as the puzzles got more difficult since you had to make multiple clones doing different things. It was actually a bit frustrating.

Ratchet’s was basically him running around in this big open field and trying all his gadgets while killing huge machines. You got to try out his hover boots (which allow you to float quickly across the land and over water) and various weapons to destroy all the huge machines that were walking around. Much simpler, but I still didn’t quite know what I was doing. Either way it gave us a sneak peek about what the game would be like. It’s coming out Fall 2009

Heavy Rain

I was excited to try this out since I read about it a while back. The game starts with you being a detective with futuristic gear that allows you to analyze DNA and other evidence simply by touching it. You walk into a junk yard and talk to a rather tough looking guy operating the forklift. You ask him about a specific car and he basically tells you to go stick it. So you are on your own to look for clues. By hitting your controls you activate your special glasses that allow you to see all the evidence stick out at you. By clicking on specific things like a DNA or tire tracks, you can determine if it belongs to the person or car your looking for.

It took a while to figure all this out. I did a lot of walking around, button mashing, and consulting with people around me to get to this point. After you search around for awhile, the big tough guy gets angry and confronts you, eventually grabbing you and dragging you along with a gun to your head. If you hit certain buttons when the icons pop up, you can knock things in his way, or trip him up long enough to get away or grab the gun. This part requires perfect timing and you may need to start over.

Another feature of the game is to know what is on the characters mind and what he thinks about different things. By clicking a button, you bring up several options including mood, sadness, weather, etc. When you click on these, you get a better sense of how he feels about himself and what’s around him. I think once you get the control schemes down, this could be a very fun game. It reminded me a bit of Indigo Prophecy for the PS2. Available sometime in 2010.

Fat Princess

This was an awesome, fun little title. It is a “Defend the Castle” type game that can be played online. I was playing as a character from the red team, defending my castle from the blue team. You can pick from five classes including mage, archer and gunner. You can change these classes at will and each class has different weapons you can switch from by hitting a button. All you do to switch classes to to pick up the different hats. The hats are found at your base (produced by machines) or by finding them on the field. You can even get a rivals hat.

Not only do you have to defend you castle but you have you have to infiltrate the rivals castle and save your princess who is in the rival castle. This is not easy because people will be shooting at you from all over. The best option is teamwork, which was hard for me since I was playing with people I couldn’t communicate with. In order to stop the rivals from saving their princess, you can feed her cake that you find laying around the field. When you feed them the cake, the princesses get fatter and fatter, and it will take several people to work together to save her, making her harder to rescue.

This was a fast paced, quick moving game that had a lot of fun with. If you get killed, you just start back at your base and try again. And you can play with your friends online to team up against the rivals, or be on separate teams for more competition! This title is available at the end of the month at the Playstation store.

Site [Playstation] Read [IGN] Read [Gamertell]

Full Story ? | Written by Jessica Moen for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article ?

Section: Gaming News, Exclusives, Features, PCs, Mac

Animation and manga software company Smith Micro has just released it’s newest version of Anime Studio and Gamertell was able to get an exclusive look at it at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.

Anime Studio is a program that allows you create fun and detailed Anime cartoons. It’s easy to use and great for a beginning animator. I was able to get a hands-on view of all the features of this program.

The animator started out with a basic drawing – a big blob – and then got to the animating. By clicking on an icon, the animator was able to add bends to his blob so that it was able to bend it’s appendages. He also showed me how to expand or contrast an object so that it got bigger or smaller as it walked across the screen.

On feature I thought was cool was the motion sensor. The animator took an object and had it move across the screen for a few frames, then he added a sensor to a different object that allowed it to follow the first one across the screen. In this case it was a car driving down the street. He added a motion sensor to a chicken he took from the clip art and that caused the chicken to follow the car (at a distance) creating the illusion that it is chasing the car.

I was also shown various effects you can add to your animation such as rain falling, wind blowing, and even allow for a warp speed effect (for a spaceship). These effects are built into the program, and you can also create your own effects. There is also clip art included into the program for quick use, all you have to do is add the animation. You can even import 3D animation onto the program and into Flash.

From what I saw in the display, the controls all seem simple and easy to use. There are many different things you can do to make your character animated. As with everything, it will take practice to get all the effects down, but once you get to know how each icon works, you will be able to make great anime cartoons.

You don’t even have to be an artist, you can make a great cartoon using some of the clip art and scenery already included in the program, as well as your own crude or well drawn characters.

The product is in stores now and is available for $199.99. A bit pricey but worth it if you are truly trying to become an animator or just have a passion for it. It is available on both Mac and Windows.

Site [My Smith Micro] Read [Gamertell] Also read [Designer Today]

Full Story ? | Written by Jessica Moen for Gamertell. | Comment on this Article ?