She’s had scores of games released, two movies and is probably the hottest video game vixen out there. And from the looks of things, everyone’s favorite Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, doesn’t plan on slowing down in 2010. Thursday, Crystal Dynamics, which is a part of Square Enix Europe, announced the next chapter in the Lara Croft story with the upcoming digital download only Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

Other than the announcement and logo, very little information has been released about the upcoming title. Darrell Gallagher, General Manager of Crystal Dynamics, says that, “This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting… Lara Croft is such an iconic character in video games, with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light we have created what we believe is a truly original digital experience.”

At the moment, Crystal Dynamics has said that Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will only be seen “behind closed doors” at next week’s GDC conference.

A classic staple of the sitcom, aside from the clip show (hmm, they covered that one a few weeks ago, right?) and the Big Wedding (that one, too) is the Baby Episode. Staples, yes, but also synonymous with jumping the shark.

Fortunately, The Office writers seem aware of this and made the wedding episode, Niagra, one the season’s strongest. On the other hand, the clip show, The Banker, was one of the weakest.

The Delivery, The Office’s Baby Episode falls somewhere in between. In this hour-long installment, Jim and Pam, on the verge of joy-bundling, are determined to hold off on getting to the hospital until the very last minute since their health insurance covers only two nights’ stay. As Pam begins contracting, Michael calls a conference to get her mind off the little fella inside her clawing to get out. Andy performs the evolution of dance (sans music, as it’d just throw him off), Erin recites Kentucky Derby winners, and Michael usefully suggests doing the opposite of 10 Things to Induce Labor.

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If you’re been waiting for an excuse to use that extra $499.00 you’ve got burning a hole in your wallet, Apple may have just given you one. Today, the company announced, via their website, that it will begin shipping its brand new tablet device, the iPad, on April 3rd and will begin taking pre-orders on March 12th.

This is great news for those of you who want to take your eBook reading to the next level and also for people who never jumped on the Kindle bandwagon. It’s also great news for those of you looking for a super-sized iPhone that will run all those cool apps without having to agree to a lengthy contract with AT&T. Although, if you do want to have such a contract (and 3G wireless), the iPad with 3G will be available later in April, complete with said AT&T contract.

Even though I’ve pointed out a few things I feel the iPad is missing (although some, like the camera, may actually be there after all) I still feel there’s some merit to the device. I would be even more excited if I didn’t already have a Kindle, which I feel, as a “single use” device, is actually better for reading books than the iPad will be.

Still, the iPad definitely has a lot of possibilities and I look forward to exploring those come April 3rd. Expect a full review of the iPad once I get my hands on one. Until then, if this device is truly for you, better start saving those pennies because April 3rd isn’t that far away.

Even when he tackles darker subject matter, Tim Burton always manages to bring a touch of whimsy to his films.  On the surface, Alice in Wonderland seems to be the perfect tale for the eccentric filmmaker to put his own spin on. With Alice oscillating wildly between giant and diminutive proportions, two queens vying for control of the land, and anthropomorphic fauna and animals, the tale seems ripe for a wild re-imagining.

Trouble is, Burton leaves the enchantment at home along with warmth and heart. The resulting movie is rather cold, devoid of color and brightness (save for the mad hatter’s shock of orange hair and startling green eyes) and not a lot of fun. I’m not saying that makes it bad, but it was very different from what I was expecting.

In this particular retelling, Alice is a grown woman instead of a little girl. At a large party she learns she is to marry a stodgy bore of a man. She rushes off to be by herself and falls down the rabbit hole into the “underworld.”  There she encounters the characters that we are all familiar with. There is the white rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the stoned-out-of-his-cocoon caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and of course, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp.)

This version of the  Mad Hatter is a more tragic character with a brutal back story to explain his madness.  I found Depp’s portrayal of the Hatter annoying and frenetic, crazy for the sake of being crazy. He drifts in and out of a heavy Scottish brogue for reasons not immediately clear.  I wish the character had been toned down a bit as I think it would have made him a little more likable.

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After long month of waiting since the news first broke, tonight fans of Buffy and Angel finally get their wish as James Marsters makes his debut on Caprica. Taking on the role of terrorist Barnabus Greely, Marsters will bring the crazy and definitely up the tension even more on this great show.

In the clip we’re introduced to Greely and from the first moment we know he’s not messing around. He’s here to make a difference and will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. It’s great to see Marsters, one of my favorite characters from Buffy and Angel, become a part of my favorite new Sci-Fi show. Now, all things are as they should be.

Check out the preview for tonight’s episode after the break. Caprica airs at 9/8C on Syfy.

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Take-Two Interactive has a lot to be happy about. They were pleased to report that BioShock 2 has already surpassed the 3 million unit sales mark since its February 9th release. At its current pace, it already looks like it will break the 4 million in sales the original game did. Some of the success is likely attributed to simultaneous releases of BioShock 2 on XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC as opposed to the staggered releases of the original.

Take-Two also reported their latest epic selling release, Grand Theft Auto IV, has topped the 15 million mark across all platforms. This doesn’t even include the downloadable content or Episodes from Liberty City disc pack sales. It’d be no surprise if this year at E3, a new GTA title was announced whether its GTA 5 or a Vice City or San Andreas update.

In Wii and DS news, Take-Two was proud to say that their Carnival Games series has exceeded the 6 million mark and continues to sell steadily. Like many games on the Wii and DS, Carnival Games is experiencing a longer than usual life cycle which lets Take-Two executives sit back with their feet up and not even have to bother planning a sequel just yet.

Originally titled Guardians of the Ga’Hoole, Zack Snyder’s next directorial work, Legend of The Guardians has been picking up quite a lot of steam lately. This is the first thing that Snyder has worked on since he’s finally settled down after the epic task of adapting Alan Moore’s Watchmen last year.

Originally based on the young adult series by Kathryn Lasky, it’s basically an epic adventure of heroism and wonder, but with owls. The book series ended in November of 2008, topping it off at 15 books, and now Snyder and Warner Bros. are planning on taking that success to the world of film.

The film has a pretty huge cast list, as most big-budget CGI films do these days. Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Emilie de Ravin, Ryan Kwanten, Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, and Helen Mirren round out a pretty well known list of players.

USA Today recently got their hands on the first images from the upcoming film, which is currently set for a September 24th release date. Check out the pics along with the very first trailer after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for any new info as we get closer to the release date of Legend of The Guardians.

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In today’s television marketplace the traditional paradigm of new shows in the Fall and then reruns all Summer has gone away. Now, we get new shows almost anytime during the year with the midseason being one of the most popular.

Case in point are our friends at NBC who have several new shows for the midseason and we’ve got preview videos of some of them for you today. Some of these shows include The Marriage Ref, Minute to Win It and Who Do You Think You Are?.

For The Marriage Ref we’ve got a preview where Madonna goes head-to-head with Larry David and the panel turns again host Tom Papa Plus, Kelly Ripa and Don Rickles hand out some marriage advice. Next up is Minute To Win It where we find out just how difficult the challenges can be and get a closer look at two of the challenges with a slow motion camera.

Finally, with Who Do You Think You Are?, watch celebrities such as Lisa Kudrow, Spike Lee, Emmitt Smith and Susan Sarandon experience very personal moments and get a preview of four of these stories as they discover their own pasts. Actually, of the three, this one looks to be the most interesting. But whatever your thoughts about these shows, be sure to check out all the previews after the break.

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If you’re a fan of somewhat obscure cult classic TV series like we are around here, then this post is for you. From the producer of such series as Quantum Leap, Magnum, PI, Airwolf and NCIS came a show about an intrepid adventuring pilot who searches for lost and exotic treasures much like Indiana Jones. It starred Stephen Collins of Star Trek and 7th Heaven, Caitlin O’Heaney, Jeff MacKay and Roddy McDowall and ran for one season in the early 80′s.

And now, thanks to the folks at Shout! Factory and Fabulous Films, the entire action-packed 20 episodes are coming to DVD. Want to know more? Of course you do. Check out all the info from the official press release.

TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY

AVAILABLE ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NORTH AMERICA JUNE 8, 2010 FROM FABULOUS FILMS

Distributed by Shout! Factory featuring 22 hours of adventures, extensive bonus content and a special booklet jam-packed in a 6-dvd collector’s box set

Get ready to take on a thrill-ride to a backwater corner of the South Pacific as Tales of the Gold Monkey The Complete Series comes to DVD for the first time in North America on June 8, 2010 from Fabulous Films, distributed by Shout! Factory.

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Any real fans of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright trio know that they all didn’t meet on the set of Shaun of the Dead. In fact, the reason they got the chance to do Shaun was due to the success of a 1999 BBC TV series they all created called Spaced.

The show, starring Pegg, Frost, and Jessica Hynes, was about a comic book artist who has to fake a marriage with a complete stranger in order to stay in an apartment made for “professional couples.” The show was quirky and funny, and developed a huge cult following on DVD. It also seemed to turn the heads of a few US producers, including McG and now producer of Chuck and Human Target, Peter Johnson.

The U.S. version of the show was a failure, to say the least, and never made it past the pilot stage. None of the original creative team were involved, or even brought into the loop that the show existed, until recently. Simon Pegg twittered a clip from the failed pilot, starring Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect), Josh Lawson, and Will Sasso (MadTV).

Take a look at the clip after the jump, and you’ll understand why the show never made it past the unaired pilot. The only thing worth mentioning is that Will Sasso truly is the US version of Nick Frost. Outside of that, there isn’t much going for this half-assed clone of a show.

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If you’ve never been to Austin, TX during South by Southwest (SXSW), let me assure you AT&T’s network pretty much sucks during the fest. Sure, it has something to do with the sheer number of users concentrated all in one place but still, that doesn’t make it any better. So, to prevent a repeat of last years’s problems (To put it mildly) AT&T is going overboard to ensure a similar wireless network debacle doesn’t happen again this year.

To avoid a second such disaster, AT&T is pulling out all the stops (Well, most of them anyway) and bringing in a lot of additional equipment for the SXSW conference including:

• Bringing in three temporary cell sites that are positioned in areas expected to see high traffic.

• Installing a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Austin Convention Center. The DAS is comprised of 50 antenna nodes that provide the equivalent coverage of eight cell sites.

• Improving the cell sites in the surrounding area by utilizing 30MHz of spectrum for 3G instead of the standard 10MHz and upgrading the system to include the 850MHz band and HSPA.

• Improving the backhaul by beefing up the fiber optic connections that serve the eight cell sites of the DAS and the three temporary sites.

These all seems like great steps in the right direction for the company but still, you have to wonder if it will be enough. Even with AT&T’s recent victory in a PC World survey of network performance, many of us who use the network every day haven’t really seen much of a difference. It still kinda sucks.

When you’ve got thousands of power users with iPhones all in one square mile and all trying to use the network at the same time, will it be able to handle the load or will it fail once again? I guess we’ll find out next week. Any bets?

Even though we’ve brought you quite a bit of information about Activision and Bizarre Creations Blur racing game already, that doesn’t mean there won’t be anything cool left when the game actually hits stores. We’ve had a lot of screenshots and some trailers and this time around we’ve got another trailer for you.

However, this isn’t just any trailer, it’s one featuring actual gameplay footage from the upcoming multiplayer beta for the game. The multiplayer beta, which starts next Monday, allows players to race across the Internets and features “the ultimate multiplayer racing gameplay experience.”

The game offers a first in the racing genre with up to 20 players online at the same time, a progressive ranking system that rewards gamers the more they play, objective based race events, and if that weren’t enough, Blur brings back a fan favorite with 4-player split-screen gameplay. Sounds cool, right? Yeah, we think so too.

Besides, isn’t most everything better in a group? Check out the trailer featuring all the hot multiplayer action after the jump.

Blur will be available this spring for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

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