Apr 18

Geek Actually Episode 80 – Jebus Juice

Hosts: David McVay, Josh Philpott & Celine Roberts

The Geek Actually Podcast, your weekly dose of ‘the week in geek’. This week David McVay and Josh Philpott are again joined by Celine Roberts who helps us review the new film by The Hughes Brothers, ‘The Book of Eli’. We also take a look at news highlights from the tech and entertainment industries. Your show links follow.

Watch us live at geekactually.com/live 12pm Saturdays (AEST UTC +10)

Tech News

Well, we were warned that gamers are more dangerous than bikies.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/boy-kills-dad-with-sledgehammer-after-banned-from-playing-computer-games/story-e6frfro0-1225853471820

Wii Fit made her a sex addict!!!
http://www.news.com.au/technology/wii-fit-fall-made-me-sex-addict/story-e6frfro0-1225854379626

The Microsoft Ad team does it again, this time they encourage sexting…well done!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20002585-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

A sad day for all of us that are waiting for the iPad.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/apple-delays-ipads-worldwide-release-by-a-month/story-e6frfro0-1225853844662

The US government has admitted that the MPAA/RIAA’s facts on piracy are bullshit.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars

Entertainment News

The Star Wars remake that could be fun to watch…I stress COULD BE!
http://www.news.com.au/technology/fans-pay-the-ultimate-tribute-with-casey-pughs-star-wars-uncut-the-new-hope/story-e6frfro0-1225853630100

Joss Whedon is directing The Avengers!
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118017689.html?categoryid=10&cs=1

and while we are talking about Joss Whedon…
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/15/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-both-the-avengers-and-captain-america/

and while we are talking about Marvel…
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/14/iron-man-2-easter-egg-scene-revealed/

We take a look at the new trailer for ‘The Other Guys’
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810116447/video/19060028

Oh God! It’s on the radar again…Masters of the Universe gets new writers!
http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/04/masters-of-the-universe-screenwriters.html

Green Lantern’s suit to be a CG creation…neat!
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/11/exclusive-green-lanterns-suit-will-be-almost-entirely-cg/

and while we are talking Ryan Reynolds, Green Lantern isn’t the only superhero for him…
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/ryan-reynolds-is-captain-excellent-in-the-trailer-for-paper-man

Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) has a new film coming and we are excited
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/12/first-footage-from-the-congress-ari-folmans-follow-up-to-waltz-with-bashir/

Film Review

‘The Book of Eli’ the new film by Albert and Allen Hughes (or collectively know as The Hughes Brothers). The film is written by Gary Whitta and stars Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon and Tom Waits.

Thirty years after the world has been turned into a wasteland by war, Eli (played by Denzel Washington) is on a journey west to deliver his mysterious book to unknown people. He is a peaceful man who just wants to get to where he needs to go, however, when confronted Eli becomes an absolute killing machine. Eli finds himself in confrontation with the evil Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman) who wants the book for his own purposes.

Watch the trailer here

General consensus: An average acton popcorn film that suffers by not know what it wants to say and not knowing how to end. Do yourself a favour and wait for DVD.

This episode carries an explicit tag due to infrequent coarse language.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes

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Celine tries (and I do stress tries) to plug Studio Four and their productions. To find out more about them go to their Facebook page (Studio Four) for more details.

Geek Actually is brought to you by listeners, just like you. Thanks for your contributions. If you wish to make a contribution, go to the “Support Us” link above.

Send feedback for this show to feedback@geekactually.com or leave us a voice mail message to play on the show at (Sydney number) 02 8011 3167. If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review as we are trying to get on the featured list and every review helps. Your comments (good or bad) help us improve the show.

Join us on our Facebook Fan Page: facebook.com/GeekActually for information on the Unofficial Geek Actually Movie Club screening times.

Apr 18

Geek Actually Replay – Geek Actually Episode 80 Live Show

Here is this weeks live video version of The Geek Actually Podcast Episode 80 – Jebus Juice. This week David McVay, Josh Philpott and Celine Roberts review the new film by the Hughes Brothers, ‘The Book of Eli’. The audio podcast of this episode can be found on this site or on iTunes.

Almost every week we record the Geek Actually Podcast while feeding it live to Ustream. We record the Ustream feed and it is available go back and watch later if you want. It occurred to me that we should just embed the past shows here so you can find them easily. You never know, you’re listening to that podcast and something visual happens, now you can simply find the show here and watch what happened. Enjoy. (Note: We only started recording the feed as of episode 46, there are no videos of earlier shows.)

Apr 18

Geek Actually Replay – Platforms Episode 27 Live Show

Every week we record the Platforms Podcast while feeding it live to Ustream. We record the Ustream feed and it is available go back and watch later if you want. It occurred to me that we should just embed the past shows here so you can find them easily. You never know, you’re listening to that podcast and something visual happens, now you can simply find the show here and watch what happened. Enjoy.

Platforms Episode 27 (Recorded 12th of April 2010)

Apr 15

Geek Actually Tech Episode 009 – Enough with the Multitasking

Hosts: David McVay, Josh Philpott and Shane Gregory

The tech show by geeks for geeks and non-geeks. Accessible tech for everyone is the motto we live by. First off, an apology for last week, David was ill so the show was cancelled at the last minute but we are back. A slightly different show this week, we have no fixed structure just an open discussion about the release of the iPad, good or bad. Geek Actually Tech is recorded live on Wednesday nights at 8pm (Australian eastern time). Go to geekactually.com/live to watch it live.

As there was no news section this week, we have no real links for you. The Apple videos we showed can be found on apple.com in the iPad section. The two Steve Jobs keynote speeches that we played parts of can be found on iTunes, just search for ‘Apple Keynote’ in the podcast section.

Listen or download the podcast here or you can subscribe through iTunes by CLICKING HERE

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Geek Actually Tech is brought to you by listeners, just like you. Thanks for your contributions. If you wish to make a contribution, go to the “Support Us” link above.

Send feedback for this show to geektech@geekactually.com or leave us a voice mail message to play on the show at (Sydney Number) 02 8011 3167. If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review when the feed is established so we can build our audience. Your comments (good or bad) help us improve the show.

Join us on our Facebook Fan Page: facebook.com/GeekActually.

The Geek Actually Tech Podcast is recorded live on Ustream every Wednesday. We start at 8pmish Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time (UTC+11). Search the Geek Actually site for ‘Replay’ to find a replay of the live show.

Apr 13

Retro Review: Condemned

In these quiet times between game reviews it is an industry Tradition to dig through ones collection and revisit some of those titles that made you do all this in the first place.

While rifling though my games I found an old copy of a personal favourite of mine, a game by with merely a glance at it’s spine brings up fond memories.

‘Condemned’ is one of the 360’s first titles, and at first glance you can instantly see what has dated the worst, it’s graphics. The characters are so blocky they are almost impossible to tell even their sex (It wasn’t till the second game that I found the lead character was in his 20’s. I thought he was 40). The enviroments are pretty bland and as a title close to launch I contribute this to is low exposure. The times called for looks not gameplay.

What this game lacks In visuals it makes up for in atmosphere.

From the start we are surrounded by tension, your character is visiting a serial killer murder in a derilict building and once you enter you are hit with the reality of guns only have 6 bullets. No ammo crates, no clips from enemy bodies. 6 shot then you are out. From that point you are stuck with melée weapons such as pipes, hammers, clubs and crowbars. This adds an amazing level of tension to every combat encounter and combined with the enemy AI happily running from combat to wait somewhere hidden for you later on, it makes footsteps and screaming enemies truely terifying. The combat system itself is nothing to write home about consisting mainly of one or 2 straight forward attacks for all of the games weapons, but for me this made the combat more real and awkward as I would flail my way through encounters with a great sense of desperation. The controls that I did think worked were the criminal investigations, the mechanics are straight forward but really put the grizzly nature of the story up close and personal using CSI style dialog to make sure the player know all the grotesque details of each killing and nicely breaks the sometime repetive nature of the combat.

The enviroments were also amazingly well designed featuring some of the greatest of horror locations like derilict buildings, creepy alleyways, empty schools and my personal favourite an abandoned shopping complex (complete with warped elevator music looping throughout the store).

The story itself is simple but effective using both reasonable voice acting and Ethan’s “is it or isn’t it” hallucinations to keep the story driving along and does a good job of pacing right up to it’s heart wrenching conclusion involving an epic game of cat and mouse and a brutal final boss battle that goes in my favourites of all time.

All and all it is still a horror game and won’t appeal to everyone but for those that dare, the game is incredibly rewarding, even though the game is far from perfect it will still give chills to even the most hardcore of horror fans and deserves it’s place among the top horror games.

Apr 13

Platforms Episode 27 – New Yoik New Yoik

Josh Philpott and Dave Kozicki (with David ‘Beardy’ McVay)

Platforms is a gamers podcast by gamers. The podcast is recorded live on Ustream with chat interaction so come and join the fun as your host candidly discuss the latest in the gaming world. The podcast is uncensored, explicit, honest and very non ‘PC’. We kick off this week with the trailer for ‘Blazblue: Calamity Trigger’, this week’s feature review. Dave Kozicki is back and live in the studio with Josh and he brings news of ‘Crysis 2’ and ‘F.E.A.R. 3’ (or ‘F.3.A.R.’ as the promos would have it.)

News This Week: Original Xbox titles leaving Live, iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad getting a gaming network, Microsoft restructures it’s point system, Cliff Bleszinski on Jimmy Fallon this week (….this time we mean it), Josh talks about the new UFC game and the THQ event and Dave is back from New York with photos and news about ‘Crysis 2’ and ‘F.3.A.R.’ – We also watch the trailers for these two.

Coming Soon Titles: The Nintendo DSi XL, ‘Splinter Cell: Conviction’ and ‘Super Street Fighter IV’.

Review of the Week: This week, Josh and Dave review ‘Blazblue: Calamity Trigger’. A fun and highly detailed Street Fighter style fighting game. Not a lot new but good fun.

We finish the show off with an update on the Friday Night Games, last week we all played a rather disappointing multiplayer game of ‘Lost Planet 2 Beta’ – Listen to find out why.

Want to leave a voice mail? Call 02 8011 3167.

Quick shout outs to our friends at Game Pron, Oxcgn, Australian Gamer Podcast and The Game Arena Podcast

Got to www.everyoneplays.org.au for more information on how you can support the introduction of an R18+ rating for games.

This episode carries an explicit tag due to frequent coarse language and adult themes.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes.

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Platforms is brought to you by listeners, just like you. Thanks for your contributions. If you wish to make a contribution, go to the “Support Us” link above. Platforms swag can be purchased at cafepress.com.au/geekactually.

Send feedback for this show to platforms@geekactually.com. If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review as we are trying to get on the featured list and every review helps. Your comments (good or bad) help us improve the show. You can contact us here. Make sure you join our Facebook Page at facebook.com/PlatfromsLive (yes it is mis-spelt on purpose)

The Platforms Podcast is recorded live on Ustream every Monday Evening 8pm Australian Eastern Time (UTC+10). If you still just want to listen to the audio podcast, it will go out as normal on Tuesday. To watch a replay of this show’s video feed search for replay on this site.