The unique thing about PAX and PAX East as compared to all other conventions is the strong presence of independent gaming on the show floor. This year, three exceptional indie titles are being featured in the Boston Indie Showcase, and I took to the floor to check out what these games were all about.

Available for iPad, iOS, Mac, and PC, Smuggle Truck was the first indie game I tried out for myself at this year’s PAX. With very simple controls, you drive a truck full of refugees through side-scrolling barren wastelands, dark caves, and terrifying forests, all in the hopes of reaching the border without losing all your passengers. The path is wrought with obstacles as well as hills and valleys that test your skills against physics.

Smuggle Truck has caused a certain amount of controversy, but don’t let that steer you away, because this game is a ton of fun. And in talking with the game’s creators, the game is less about pointing fun at illegal immigrants and instead does an incredible job of critiquing the absurdity and difficulty of entering the country and legally becoming a citizen.

Continue Reading →

We’ve been following this one for quite some time and have been bringing you all the news, including that the film will be in 3D and who would play the legendary character. Now, we’ve got even more in the form of the brand new teaser trailer for the film.

In case you’re not familiar with the story, it concerns “the most legendary barbarian of all time on a quest that begins as a personal vendetta for the fierce Cimmerian warrior but soon turns into an epic battle against hulking rivals, horrific monsters, and impossible odds. During the course of the film Conan realizes he is the only hope of saving the great nations of Hyboria from an encroaching reign of supernatural evil.”

Adapted from the original works of Robert E. Howard and “faithful to the mythology and psychology of his iconic character,” Conan the Barbarian stars Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan. It is directed by Marcus Nispel.

Check out the teaser after the jump. Conan the Barbarian arrives in theaters on August 19th.

Continue Reading →

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ti West struck gold with horror fans when House of the Devil came out in 2009. Devil was a fitting throwback to the horror films of the ’80s, and West proved to be a master at creating nail-biting tension and dread, culminating in a doozy of a finale.

West debuted his eagerly anticipated new thriller The Innkeepers at SXSW on Saturday night at a sold-out Paramount theater. If my lack of fingernails are any indication, he’s struck gold once again. I was ready to crawl out of my seat by the end of the movie, and judging by the rest of the audience’s shrieks and gasps, the feeling was collectively mutual.

The Innkeepers tells the tale of a spooky old inn that is in its final season of business before getting razed for development. Most of the rooms have already been retired, and only one floor is available to guests in the final weeks.

Much of the staff has left the premises, leaving Claire ( Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) to hold the fort down. Luke is convinced that there is a ghost haunting the grounds. As legend has it, a lovesick woman hung herself when her fiance left her on their wedding night.

He owns some amateur ghost-hunting equipment and maintains a website with videos and photos he has captured at the inn. He enlists Claire to help him with recording activity at night.

The inn only has a handful of occupants including an eccentric ex-actress turned new age psychic (played by Kelly McGillis). She warns that there are things best not visited lurking in the basement.

Continue Reading →

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the devastating events taking place in Japan following the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami. If you’re feeling the same way (and we’re sure you are) and want to do something to help those affected, Apple has made it easier to do so.

The company has posted a donation page on iTunes where you can use your iTunes account to make a secure donation to the American Red Cross and its Japanese relief fund. 100% of donations made this way go to the American Red Cross. Apple is not taking a piece as it does with other iTunes transactions.

Of course, this isn’t the only way you can help. If you don’t have an iTunes account or don’t want to go through Apple, there are many other ways to make a difference.

TUAW contributor Rick Martin, who is currently in Japan, has put together a good list of donation sites where you can go. The list is very comprehensive and you should have no trouble finding a way to help.

Not a bad weekend for Hollywood and the domestic box office, as Battle: Los Angeles took the top spot with a decent $36 million for a March opening weekend. That is just about 50% of the $70 Million production budget of the film. You know what that means: expect a sequel.

Other opening weekend movies didn’t fare as well including the family CG-animated film Mars Needs Moms, which opened with an unfortunate $6.8 Million (the budget was over $150 Million) and landed in the 5th spot. Catherine Hardwicke’s re-imagining of Red Riding Hood pulled in $14 Million and came in at the 3rd spot.

Movement from last weekend was quite significant, as Rango moved to the number two spot and went down almost 50%, pulling in $23 Million over the weekend, and $68 Million since it’s opening last weekend.

Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau must have had some terrible word of mouth, as it went down 45% since last week, and went all the way down to the number 4 spot, with $11.5 Million.

Next weekend Relativity’s Limitless goes head-to-head with the Matthew McConaughey vehicle, The Lincoln Lawyer, and the fanboy-crazed Paul. Could be an interesting weekend, if Battle: LA doesn’t retain for another weekend.

Alright, I know I’m pretty late to the bandwagon since Kinect was released during the holidays, but I genuinely haven’t gotten to spend any time with the device. Until now.

One of the amazing things about Penny Arcade Expo is the expansive freeplay section available to attendees, and Kinect was available in full force. I stepped in front of a television armed with an Xbox 360, a Kinect, Kinectimals, and Dance Central, and I unwillingly and surprisingly fell in love.

Believe you me, I was just as skeptical about this device as I’m sure you all were, or maybe still are. And since Penny Arcade is pretty much my go-to for my videogame advice, and they aren’t the biggest fans of Kinect, I was expecting to be underwhelmed. Oh how wrong I was. Two seconds of tossing a ball around to a baby tiger and I was sold.

Continue Reading →

With the release of Nintendo’s brand-spankin’ new handheld imminent on the horizon, it was only fair to assume it’d be at this year’s PAX East. I was really happy when I found that my assumptions were correct, as Nintendo had its launch line-up of games out in full force, including the new Kid Icarus and the 3DS release of the classic Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

And while I was anxious to check out these games, what was more important was checking out the Nintendo 3DS itself and seeing how it stacks up against the Nintendo DS, which has been my portable gaming console of choice for quite some time.

Given only a few short minutes to play Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, I immediately had a lot of impressions of the system. Firstly, I was happy to discover that it’s not much different than a DS or DSi, both in how it felt in my hands and how it looked.

Continue Reading →

The expo floor is bigger and better at this year’s PAX East. If you’re a little overwhelmed by how much there is to take in, or if you’re one of the readers at home hoping to hear as much as possible about the con, here’s my guide to everything you might be missing on the show floor.

Child of Eden

The spiritual successor of Rez, an obscure rhythm-shooter released for PS2 before the time of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, Child of Eden is a game you may not have heard of, but should be really excited for. It’s another rhythm based shooter, where your shots release music that goes along with the background music and sound effects in the game, also similar to games like Lumines for the PSP.

What’s really exciting about Child of Eden is that it’ll have Kinect support, allowing you to shoot and navigate through its kaleidoscope world without a controller.

If you’re at PAX East this weekend, you can check out Child of Eden at booth #824.

Continue Reading →

At Toy Fair, Senario gave us a look at their latest line of the Zibits, a series of unique, collectible, miniature RC robots. Unlike most action figures from Toy Fair, the Zibits stood out to us at the Flickcast because they make a perfect little desktop toy.

They are cost effective ($10), small and geek friendly. What geek doesn’t want their own little robot servant?

Now while the Zibits are too tiny to do any real damage, they can definitely be a conversation piece or a time killer in any office. And that makes them perfect as a giveaway for the Flickcast.

How would you win such an awesome prize? Well, it’s simple! Just keep an eye on our Twitter account next week, and we’ll give you some classic robot trivia for you to answer. Get it right, and you can win!

In the meantime, take a look at another one of these cool RC Robots that you can win after the jump.

Continue Reading →

While internet pioneers have yet to find an exact science to viral videos, there seems to be a pretty simple algorithm for highly successful fan films. Basically, spoof a distant classic video game, TV, or film franchise, or spoof something so new, that it’s already top of brain.

What happens, however, if you combined a spoof of a classic video game with a modern film, however? Fan film magic.

We present to you College Humor’s The Fantastic Mr. Starfox, in which Wes Anderson is the focus of satire, and the classic arcade game Starfox is the vehicle of funny.

In it, we get some great references to the classic 1983 Atari game and its following sequels, as well some pretty hilarious realizations about Anderson’s one-note directing style and how laughable the premise of The Fantastic Mr. Fox was, when looked at from a distance.

Check out the fan film after the jump, and hope that this doesn’t spark some studio’s interest in rebooting the Starfox franchise.

Continue Reading →

Though it was upsetting to see Darren Aronofsky to walk away from helming a reboot of the classic 1980′s sci-fi franchise Robocop, we knew that him working on a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine may be a better fit. Also, we were sure MGM would find someone to take on the half-cop, half-machine.

It looks like that creative team is finally coming together. MGM already announced that foreign action director Jose Padilha will be taking on the role of director for the upcoming film, and now news is coming in that the studio has hired Josh Zetumer to pen the script.

Who exactly is Josh Zetumer? Well from what Deadline has been able to dig up, he looks to be Hollywood’s next big thing, if we ever get to see one of his films.

Zetumer first got on the radar when he wrote the script Infiltrator, which made the Black List. That spy thriller script is set at Warner Bros as a potential starring vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio.

He also wrote drafts of Dune when Peter Berg was going to direct that remake at Paramount, and he scripted a fourth installment of The Bourne Identity before Universal instead developed a spinoff with Tony Gilroy. Zetumer just turned in Vale, a supernatural action thriller script at Warner Bros.

So while Detroit is still battling with getting their real-life RoboCop statue to kick off, we could be seeing more of this celluloid version very soon. The next question then becomes: who will they get to play protagonist Alex Murphy aka RoboCop? We’re sure to get an answer soon enough.

Previously, we had just a teaser for this upcoming J.J. Abrams homage to Steven Spielberg known as Super 8. Now, thanks to the magic of the Internets (and the Paramount PR department) we’ve got a full trailer for the movie to share with you today.

This one brings a lot more of the story and characters and goes a long way to cementing this as one of the must-see films of the year. Written and directed by Abrams, the film’s plot has been kept pretty close to chest until now.

From what we’ve gathered, a group of kids in 1979 catch something inexplicable emerge from a train wreck on their super 8 movie camera. Naturally, all hell breaks loose and these kids are the only ones who know something evil this way comes.

Not sure exactly how much Spielberg had in the way of direct influence on this movie, but his influence is felt heavly nonetheless. It looks and feels like a movie he would have made himself during the Close Encounters and E.T. days. And that, at least to us, is a good thing.

Check out the trailer after the jump. Super 8 hits theaters on June 10th.

Continue Reading →