This blog is a product of myself, Cole Wohler, and was the command center for my assignments in my Intro to Media Arts and Game Development class. I posted all my articles and projects to it, and now I'm keeping it updated with other things I find interesting. I go by my nicknames Ninja or Bear, or just plain Cole.
Virgin America is going to be updating their on-flight touchscreens with book material soon, according to Wired. Their touchscreens already carry food ordering services, as well as media like music videos and such. Adding books would be a great addition, especially since reading is a popular occurence on airlines.
Maybe you would purchase stories or magazines directly via credit card? Or maybe you'd subscribe to a service? It may even be included in your airline fee. Whichever plan they choose to go with, Virgin America could serve to make boatloads (or planeloads) of cash.
One of my favorite trailers of all time is for a game I greatly enjoyed, Brütal Legend. There are several trailers for this game, but the story trailer is my favorite. It features the narrator voice of Don LaFontaine, famous for his "In a world..." movie trailers, and covers the general storyline while displaying cut scenes (which are rendered with the in-game engine), actual gameplay footage, and the voice talent of Jack Black.
It begins by introducing the main character, a roadie named Eddie Riggs and explaining how he enters the world of Brütal Legend. It's met with several cut scenes from the game which show off the humor and several features in game (like electric guitar solo attacks!) and then proceeds to show gameplay footage, followed by some other cutscenes. The entired arrangement is composed in a style similar to your average movie trailer, which is perfect for explaining the story, but not exposing any spoilers.
All in all, this trailer gives a great overview of Brütal Legend's core strengths: humor, heavy metal satire, and varied gameplay. This is a game for metal heads and comedy junkies alike.
According to Microsoft, Bungie's new game, Halo: Reach for the Xbox 360 generated $200 million in sales in the United States and Europe within the first 24 hours, Kotaku reported. It's core predecessor, Halo 3, made $170 million in the United States along during the first 24 hours.
Microsoft is including Europe in its sales figured for the first 24 hours, which most likely means Halo 3 outsold Halo: Reach in the first 24 hours, but most likely not by much. Halo 3 set a record for highest gross of any entertainment product within 24 hours of its release, so it would've been a large feat for Halo: Reach to surpass that number. Surely if they did, Microsoft would be bragging their asses off.
Halo: Reach's single-player campaign puts
you in the place of Noble 6, who is a new
addition to Noble Team on the planet Reach.
"Halo: Reach is the biggest game Microsoft has ever released, and its launch has already surpassed every game, movie and entertainment launch this year," announced Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. "Every major installment has grown in scope and popularity, firmly cementing the Halo franchise as one of the most popular entertainment properties in the world over the past decade." This is impressive on its own, but what will be more impressive will be Halo: Reach's numbers in the coming months. I also contributed to those numbers two days ago when I bought Halo: Reach at Whitewater's local game store, Level Up Games. I will personally attest to it's entertainment value. The game kicks ass. Tonight I will be finishing the last mission co-op on Legendary with a friend, so I won't be sleeping much tonight!
According to Know Your Meme, on July 28th, 2010 a news report in Huntsville, Georgia was conducted on a girl named Kelly Dodson who reported that her home was broken into and that the intruder had tried to rape her. WAFF 48 News covered the story and interviewd her and her brother, Antoine Dodson.
Antoine proved to be very flamboyant and intense in his deposition of the event. He urged the local population to hide their kids, wives, and husbands, because "they rapin' everybody out here". He threated the offender, insulting him for his stupidity in leaving behind evidence and warning him that they were going to find him. When the news footage was posted online it quickly gained millions of views for Antoine's hilarious personality.
Soon after, on July 31st, The Gregory Brothers, creators of the popular webseries Auto-Tune the News, rehashed the news report into a song, as well as releasing the lyrics and chords for the song. Splitting the proceeds of the song with Dodson, The Gregory Brothers released the full version of the song on iTunes, where it debuted at 89 on Billboard.com's Hot 100 chart. The last I checked it was iTune's 3rd most downloaded song this month.
Due to his success, Antoine Dodson has even created his own website to help grow his internet fame. He's even attracted comedian Dane Cook to submit a cover of his song.
You can watch the original video for the song below, where The Gregory Brothers urge viewers to upload their own covers of the song.
Personally, Ask A Ninja is very important to me, for it's the very first thing I watched on YouTube. Long ago when I was about thirteen or so, I used to surf a kiddie forum site called GaiaOnline (which has grown considerably since then) and I stumbled across an Ask A Ninja video on someone's profile, which lead me to YouTube. Thousands of video views later I'm an avid YouTube browser and Ask A Ninja fan. I even bought Ask A Ninja's Ninja Handbook.
Well, one month before its fifth year anniversary Ask A Ninja is bringing in some fresh ideas with a man named Brett Register (The Crew, A Good Knight’s Quest) set to be their new producer-director for day-to-day content.
"Brett is one of the most prolific and consistent people working in the web video space. This is like when your favorite musician brings in a new producer, or a comic book brings in a new artist. Same core, just slightly different execution." - Kent Nichols, co-creator of Ask A Ninja, in his blog post on Sept. 2nd, 2010.
The Ask A Ninja logo
A lot of the direct outcome of having a new mind on the team means more videos, which will be released on certain days corresponding to Ask A Ninja's own schedule. A lot of these will be skits and sketches, or maybe small mini-shows, with most, if not all, featuring the Ninja himself. Tubefilter spoke with Nichols in an interview in which he stated,
"The idea behind the sketch day is to be a total palate cleanser for all of us creatively, as well as, be an incubator for new internally generated shows and concepts."
All of this is good news for fans like myself, as it can only mean more Ask A Ninja videos to watch. This also shows that their popularity is still increasing, as well as their budget.
Personally, Ask A Ninja is very important to me, for it's the very first thing I watched on YouTube. Long ago when I was about thirteen or so, I used to surf a kiddie forum site called GaiaOnline (which has grown considerably since then) and I stumbled across an Ask A Ninja video on someone's profile, which lead me to YouTube. Thousands of video views later I'm an avid YouTube browser and Ask A Ninja fan. I even bought Ask A Ninja's Ninja Handbook.
