Yes it’s finally here. I’ll keep it brief as I’ve already written enough posts about the complications. Paul and I fixed our big problem (it was only messing up the last sketch) which now should happen again because well… We know how to fix it. So here it is the second episode of “The Morgue” I hope this delayed release doesn’t discourage anyone from wanting to work on this stuff but I can assure you, no matter how long… We will always finish them.

Here’s a link but it’s still processing so the quality will improve. Keep checking for when it’s available in HD.
“The Morgue: Episode 2 – In the Ghetto”

Peter Graves
1926-2010
I just couldn’t let time pass without this blog paying tribute to the late great Peter Graves. Known for such roles as the star of the Mission Impossible TV series, movies including Stalag 17, Night of the Hunter and of course his legendary performance as Captain Clarence Oveur in Airplane. With a career that spans almost 60 years Peter Graves built an impressive body of work in everything from dramas, to b-movies, to comedies and so on, he will be missed.

Sony announced they like to move it move it today at GDC when it unveiled the new motion controller, the PlayStation Move. While it at first looks like a black Wii controller with a lightbulb screwed into the top of it, the device is actually pretty cool.

Using the PlayStation Eye, the camera that you probably don’t already own, Move allows gamers more precise motion controls than we’ve experienced before. It can read your movements in three dimensions, and it looks like it works really well. It sounds like this is a really functional next step for motion controls, pretty much invalidating the Wii, but not taking as crazy a leap as the unproven Project Natal. Oh, and that “light sphere” on top of the controller? It changes colors.

It looks like players can expect to use any combination of one Move controller, one Move controller and a sub-controller, or two Move controllers. The sub-controller looks to be exactly like the Wii Nunchuck, except wireless, so it can never actually be a nunchuck. The sub-controller has two triggers, a d-pad, an analog stick, the X and O buttons, and the PlayStation button. The Move controller has a trigger, start and select buttons on the sides, X, O, square and triangle, along with a PlayStation button and what appears to be a Move button.

Sony showed off a couple of games, starting with Sports Champions, probably Move’s version of Wii Sports, which has a sword and shield gladiator mode. There’s another game called Move Party, where you are intended to use Move at a party. SOCOM 4 will use Move and the sub-controller. And there’s a fighting game called Motion Fighters. LittleBigPlanet will be update for Move support, as will EyePet.

There will be three ways to get move later this year. You can get the controller alone, with an Eye (for less than $100) or with an Eye and a PS3 (for probably a lot more than $100).

Mark Linkous
1962-2010
I was schocked to read this morning that singer/songwriter Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse had committed suicide by gunshot. For those who don’t know Sparklehorse, it was more or less solely Mark Linkous with a revolving door of collaborators.

I wasn’t a huge Sparklehorse fan but I loved his 2006 album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain now his final album. A moody collection of lo-fi indie pop songs produced by frequent collaborator Danger Mouse. It was one of my favorites of 2006 and it’s worth checking out for any indie fan. Though it’s a sad occasion perhaps the news will introduce new listeners to his music, I already plan on taking a deeper look at his catalog.

If you don’t know any Sparklehorse tunes the popular “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” has always been my favorite. It’s a good representation of what his sound is all about, so I found some video with trippy images accompanied by the song.

Valve announced today that Steam, their digital distribution platform, and the Source engine will be ported over to Mac OS in April. They also announced a new feature called Steam Play which allows Mac users who purchased a game on PC to play on their Mac for free and vice versa. This means games like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead can be played on your Mac laptop and desktop PC with one purchase. And, with Steam Cloud, you can even keep playing the same save file on both computers. Furthermore, all future Valve games will be developed with the Mac as a “tier 1” platform, meaning if PC gets it, so does Mac; at the same time. The first example of this will be Portal 2 which is coming to PC, Mac and Xbox 360 later this year (but not PS3… burn). All this is making me really happy that I spent so much money on upgrading my PC last year. We live in a beautiful world.

Usually I write a huge, bloated review of the Oscar ceremony but I surprisingly don’t have much to say this time round. You can tell it was an uneventful Oscar night when the biggest surprise was in the adapted screenplay category. Feel bad for Up in the Air getting shutout by the way. Aside from that most of the winners were basically the frontrunners from day one so not much to say there really.

I was fairly satisfied with the ceremony, with the exception of how long it took to present the Best Actor/Best Actress categories. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were hilarious especially in their parody of Paranormal Activity. Which led into a fairly underwhelming tribute to horror movies. I’m a big horror movie fan but you know something is off when you have a montage that includes clips of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. I would of liked to see maybe more focus on the honorary oscar inductees this year Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman (Think I’ll do a post about my favorite Corman films sometime).

So yeah it was a good ceremony better than last year just no big surprises. The Hurt Locker was the big winner which I’m happy about and everything seemed to go well, not too shabby. So until next year see ya at the movies, Otteni out.