Nyko offers a better Wiimote

1Up provides an interesting article on Nyko's Wiimote knock off, which undercuts the Nintendo Wiimote enough to get Nintendo's attention in the future.

Nyko will offer the featured Wiimote by March, for about the same price of $40 as Nintendo's Wiimote. The surprising part, is that Nyko's Wiimote will have Motion Plus built in.

Wii Motion Plus is an additional $20 for EACH Wiimote, in itself another source of income for Nintendo. The fact that Nyko does not sell this Motion Plus integrated Wiimote for $60 might pressure Nintendo, especially since Nintendo Wii is slowly becoming a "party console" in the gamers mind as opposed to the primary console of use.

Which means no owner of a Nintendo Wii will be satisfied with just one Wiimote (no console is ever satisfactory with one controller), and Motion Plus is going to become necessary for most games in the future. Unless you prefer to be unable to do certain moves and pretend developers won't be pressured by Nintendo to use this feature.

The fact that Nyko flaunts Wii Motion Plus integrated, and with no additional cost will undermine Nintendo's Wiimote. So Nintendo will be forced to either try to prevent the release of Nyko's product or be forced to price the bundled Wiimote with Motion Plus for the current price of the Wiimote alone.

All that being said, wait till March if you desire another Wiimote. It will save you money, and save you from having a slightly larger plastic stick.

Movie Review: Daybreakers

I had recently went to see Daybreakers, a movie that I didn't know too much about, but saw a few cool looking commercials for. My expectations for the film weren't extremely high, but I thought it looked good. First, let's just take a look at how cool the movie's poster is. the contrast between the red and the black, the big bold letters, the creepy looking face, and the bloody looking texture, now that's how you do a good movie poster.

But enough about that, let's talk about the movie itself. The film is set in the future, it's never stated how far, but all of the technology seems to have advanced, the only thing is, the majority of the population are now vampires. Edward Dalton (played by Ethan Hawke) is a vampire who is working for a company that harvests humans and is trying to find a substitute for blood, so that humans and vampires may one day live in peace. there are also the blood-deprived vampires, who end up looking more like demon-spawns, that we're introduced to early on.

Without spoiling anything, the movie take a couple of twists, most of which were fairly predictable. However, the movie has a nice change of pace both in terms of the type of vampires and in terms of originality.

These vampires aren't the lovey-dovey daylight-sparkling vampires of Twilight that we've recently been accustomed to hearing about. These vampires are the old-school, burn in the daylight, bite the necks of humans vampires, and it's refreshing to see them return to the big screen.

It's also refreshing to see an original concept instead of the same cookie-cutter movie you see a lot nowadays. Both in terms of setting and characters, the movie feels completely unique, and it's nice to see a director take some risks.

The production value was also very nice, the sets were great and really immersed you in the world. The special effects were nice, very good looking blood, gore, some very nice death scenes, however the burning effect kind of looked a little too CG, of course, I think I'm biased just based on the fact that Avatar looked so pretty.

Overall, Daybreakers is a great popcorn flick for anybody who likes a good sci-fi or horror movie. While it doesn't re-invent either genre, it definitely makes for an entertaining movie throughout, and one that I'd definitely see again.

I give Daybreakers 4 out of 5 stars.

Ed's Trailers of the Month: December

My apologies for not posting, I have had some animosity towards certain contributors of this blog who are in no shortage of insults towards me. They know who they are, and will be grateful I am still posting.

Since I have animosity towards a certain member, I have decided to release my trailers of the month which has been gathering dust.

1. Inception

The actual trailer doesn’t reveal the plot as much as some hope it would, but it gives us a general idea of this as a Psychological Thriller. I personally look forward to this movie, if anything the movie is indeed a big budget indulgence of Christopher Nolan’s mind.

2. Iron Man 2

Must see! I look forward to seeing Don Cheadle as War Machine, but damn Mickey Rourke as Whiplash looks badass. The trailer has me excited, and man does it tease me with all the new elements for the second movie.

3. Shrek Forever After

Do I dare give Shrek another chance after how bad the third one was? The premise removes the stupid kids they had at the end, and starts over the relationship for all of them. This is the final movie; can they make up for the third movie?

4. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Nicolas Cage is hit and miss. This movie looks pretty damn fun and REALLY goes for imagination with the visual effects. The last part of this trailer is a testament to how good Nic Cage is when he’s crazy. I can’t help but think maybe they showed too many of the visual effects in the trailer, which would suck exponentially if this movie isn’t anything else but visual effects.

5. The Crazies

I really don’t go for horror thrillers anymore because they don’t really have the ability to scare you anymore, this one might. I almost thought this was a zombie film with the way the disease was affecting people, but it seems to be something “more”.

Hope at least one movie got your attention.

Microsoft talks Project Natal at CES 10

This year's Consumer Electronics Show has gone underway, and what a way to start off the year of 2010 (which I am now just going to be calling "the future") than with a presentation about the most futuristic piece of hardware coming out, Natal.

I watched a few different videos that you can take a look at below:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

I really appreciate them diving more into the technology front in their explanations, even if they didn't dive too deep. It's understandable, however, since they don't want other companies like Sony or Nintendo stealing their technology. at the very least not until theirs is released. Which is something else that he announced at the keynote speech. The release date for Natal is this Holiday, 2010.

I'm personally very excited for Natal, even though I am still a tiny bit skeptical. It definitely seems like they've been working on smoothing things out since E3, and if nothing else works as good as it should, I'd at least like to be able to navigate my Xbox's menus using my hands.

Here's to you, Project Natal, and here's to the future of gaming, and really, entertainment.