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All The News...Or Close Enough!

Here's the latest "week-end" news for:

 April 4th, 2008

Top News Of The Week:

Most Elaborate (Humorless) April Fools Prank Ever? The gaming world was abuzz on Tuesday, though not because they were terribly "punk'd"; they just couldn't see why a big name game news site could resort to such a costly (literally) April Fools prank, and all for...what? To wit: IGN had a feature story April 1st, about a supposed first look at the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie. Of course; there isn't one, and if there was one you'd be sure to hear about it at least six full months before any video was made of the project. The upcoming Street Fighter movie, for example, was already announced months ago, even though principal photography for the film was only begun in the past few days. So, long story short; this prank was worthless as a gag to get people believing it's true, unless your 8 year old nephew snuck online and is too gullible for words.

So, the real question: why? That's something only IGN can answer, and aside from a "how we did it" follow-up story, I doubt they have a good answer. This would've been a cool prank if the teaser was funny. You know; poke fun about how the look of Link has changed through the years, poke fun at the typical quests, poke fun at a few of the classic stories, or hey; make up a really bizarre new story and act like Link/Zelda are in it. This trailer did none of that. So what was the point, exactly?

Jodie Foster: Guitar Hero Fan. Do celebrities play video games? I remember an interview with Robin Williams where he admitted to trying out an FPS multiplayer game some years back, though some idiot sniper kept killing him in mere seconds, so apparently, Mork will never be playing multiplayer games with us ever again (way to go, there, all you antisocial not-really-playing-the-game "snipers" everywhere!). We can only hope Jodie Foster's love for gaming has better success. According to ContactMusic.com, the actress is a big fan of Guitar Hero. Says the Oscar winning actress: "We fight each other over [Guitar Hero]. I'm bad at it, but I'm still better than them. I have no musical ability. I tried in my life. I tried to learn the trumpet, that wasn't so good. The good thing about Guitar Hero is you can just [press the buttons and] go 'blue, green, green, green, blue, green, green.”

Roswell capitalizes on "Supporting Actress'" Success...

Roswell: Now With Katherine Heigl...! Huh?!? Don't be fooled (April or otherwise) by the new sales pitch for the long-defunct sci-fi teen drama, Roswell, which is set for re-release on DVD, April 29th. These "new" season sets herald these episodes as "starring" the Emmy-Award winning actress, Katherine Heigl. So what's new? Nothing, really. My sources say the only difference between these "new" season sets and the old ones, is the revised cover art, and the added sales pitch on the cover: "Starring Emmy_Award Winning Actress Katherine Heigl." Given the new sales pitch, you would think they would at least offer a new video interview of Heigl, or new audio commentary for her favorite episodes, or...something. Nope; the only sales pitch here is the new cover art, which has been photoshopped so Heigl is the largest character visible...even though Heigl's "Isabel Evans" was rarely in the forefront at all, throughout the series. Even more perplexing: the series' real lead female character, Liz (Shiri Appleby), has been bumped from the season 2 front cover completely(!). Then again: whoever said that sales pitches needed to make any sense?

PSN Update? Nope. Here is why.... Fanboys can defend PSN all they want, though this week they had it rough. Why? No PSN update. None set for next week, either. Again one must ask "Why?" Well, as reported by The Playstation Blog, the PS3's online store is getting a "makeover". To be fair: this update is needed. For one thing it will be "built into" the firmware, a la Xbox Live's Marketplace, which will make navigation faster and controls more intuitive. Until now, the PSN store was basically a web page, which made it slow, cumbersome, and barely navigable (the cursor would slowly move as if mouse-based, and not automatically click from button-to-button like most game-controller-friendly menus. If you ever tried to buy something on PSN, you'd know what I'm talking about!). This would be good news, except for one itty bitty hiccup: apparently the overhaul of the store includes a complete transfer of all current files on the store. Which means that it would be foolish to update the current store only to have to start from scratch, and transfer data from the newly updated library. You can see where this is going, right? No new content will be available for the PSN store until the new store is online. Personally; the smarter move would be to keep the old store updated, and simply add the new content gradually on the new store, when available. I mean; they're going to have to update the new store weekly anyway, right? So why not keep it business as usual on the old store until then? The bottom line from a consumer standpoint: no new content for two weeks, and new store or not; that just sucks. Though, hey; let fanboys say what they want to try defending Sony this week. Good luck, eh?

Wii Monday Adds A New "Classic" System. This week's Monday update of the Wii "Virtual Console" store adds another classic game system to the downloadable game roster: The Sega Master System. Though released long before the Sega Genesis, and not a very big competitor against the NES, it had its moments of being an admirable system with a nice roster of exclusive titles. Among them was Wonder Boy; the first Sega Master System game offered stateside. At a mere 5-- points to download (around $5), it's a pretty affordable way to see what games on that system were like.

Sonic: Not Gone, And Now Unleashed. A teaser look at the upcoming game Sonic Unleashed has been uploaded all over the internet this week, "officially." By that we mean this is pretty much the same footage of the game that was leaked last week, though at that time it was unofficial footage that apparently nobody was supposed to have yet, and no official word on the game was given or confirmed. Yet Sonic Unleashed is now an official game slated for release on, presumably, all three "current" game systems (PS3, Wii, 360). This will be of particularly good news to 360 and PS3 owners, since Sonic has yet to get a legitimate release on those systems aside from that abysmal "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, over a year ago. Let's hope this game has better load times...and oh yeah; if you invite Shadow, be sure he drives faster than 5 MPH this time!

"The Rock" and a Mummy Star Join GI Joe Project. To be perfectly candid, fans of the classic toy/cartoon franchise GI Joe are not terribly thrilled at the prospect of a GI Joe movie, as soon as they heard it was a project controlled by the same guy who brought you Van Helsing. That doesn't ring as a "hit" to me, for some reason. So here's hoping this latest news perks your interest a little but: specifically the two new cast members: Dwayne Johnson ("The Rock"), and Brendan Fraser. As reported by Latino Review, "Rock" will play the wisecracking sailor Shipwreck, while Fraser will be Gung Ho. In the end, however, it's all about the script, and I have yet to get any official word on that one.

King of the Hill: Second Longest TV Cartoon Ever. As reported by Variety this week: King of the Hill has been renewed by FOX for a 13th season, which unlucky number or not, ranks it as the second longest-running animated series in TV history, with Simpsons at #1. Of course; the renewal notice is no surprise from a network that seemingly renews every animated series they currently air (Family Guy is still on the air? Seriously?!?), though any renewal notice is a good one for fans.   

Mathew McConaughey as Magnum PI? Not to challenge Yahoo News' accuracy  or anything, but: guys, we hope you're wrong about this one. So you're casting for a re-imagining of the show that made Tom Selleck a star: Magnum PI. One would wonder what current 30-something star would fill the shoes of Selleck in the new film idea. Well: how about Selleck? If they can bring back the cast of the original 1960's Star Trek for six movies; why not? Nope: someone wants Matthew McConaughey to fill the role. I know I'll get letters galore for saying this ---and I am a guy here--- though I don't see the love for McConaughey. I don't think he's a bad guy, really: I just don't see him as the sort of guy you'd invite to a Magnum PI casting call. Yes, fanboys (or fangirls!) of McConaughey: I wouldn't be invited to such a casting call either, though let's not get silly here. More to the point: who sees classic episodes of Magnum and thinks that the dude from Failure to Launch would be great in Tom Selleck's old role? I'm just saying.

Amazon Offers Text-Message Shopping. Here's an interesting idea: offer a text message service that sends back a listing of whatever you're looking for. That's what Wired reports that Amazon.com will soon offer: just text a message to AMAZON (262966) with an item description, and they'll reply with a list of possible matches to that item. Reply to the reply with the item you want, and then you'll get a call on your cel to confirm the order. Better idea: an iPhone button offering Amazon purchases, so you could call up an iPhone screen friendly description and photo of the item. In fact; with an Amazon account you could just touch and click your way to an order. Just another idea, really.

Woman Sues Apple For "Millions Of Colors" Claim. While this sounds like an April Fools gag, it wasn't...at least, we're pretty sure it isn't. PC World, which posted the story, isn't much of a source for practical jokes. Anyway: seems that a woman is suing Apple computers for, believe it or not, the "millions of colors" cliché. While this claim has been used on many a computer by now, she insists that her new 20" iMac only shows what she deems as "252,144" colors. On second thought; I hope this was an April Fools Joke. Either that or some woman has a downright creepy amount of unused time on her hands.

Final News Byte This Week: Stupidest April Fools Joke, Anyone? It boggles the mind that some people still "celebrate" April Fools Day, especially when the "purpose" of the "holiday" has already been cleared up, and it's as politically incorrect as they come! Seems that some prejudiced jackasses sailed to a country some time back that (gasp!) didn't celebrate New Years Day on the same day. Well, of course they didn't, idiot; that would mean they followed the Roman calendar, and how could they accomplish that, had they never been to Rome? So these people who celebrated their New Year on April 1st were called "April Fools." I'd recite Obi-Wan Kenobi's classic "Who's the more foolish...?" line once again, though it's the end of the news page and I've digressed long enough. Anyway; it seems many sites had their own share of really stupid April Fools jokes. The stupidest of them is up to interpretation, though we'd have to give the honor to Egotastic, whose "April Fools" joke was that the site was going out of business. Yeah; that was a really good way to drop the popularity of your site in 24 hours, guys. Here's hoping the majority of the site's fans checked the site again the next day, to hear the "punchline"...!

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