UNSCleric.com

Two years ago, during my Next-Gen Infowar article series, I outlined how Electronic Arts was buying up the rights to publish many of the top games of this generation, and even the next-generation, and what EA’s endgame might be.  It became clear when researching EA, especially when looking at how they absolutely refused to support Xbox Live until they could use their own servers, that EA’s ultimate goal is to gain enough support and franchises so that they can justify charging to play their games online, especially their sports line-up.  Since two years ago, EA has gone on to buy up more developers and more franchises, like BioWare (Mass Effect trilogy) and Pandemic (Mercenaries 2).

Earlier today, the news hit that during yesterday’s EA conference call, EA Sports President Peter Moore briefly mentioned concepts the studio is considering for the future of their various titles. Moore stated they were looking at instituting “subscription programs” to the EA Sports library in order to “take advantage” of customer loyalty.

The fact that EA is looking at this “concept” is no surpise, but it falls in line with their past behavior and their agenda for the future.

When Christopher Nolan took over the helm of the Batman franchise in 2005 with “Batman Begins,” audiences all around the world were able to experience how the genius of the man behind “Memento” and “Insomnia” could be translated to the world of a superhero. Many were skeptical, but when it came time to launch the Bat back into cultural relevance, perhaps there was no better man than Nolan. Not only did Nolan succeed in rebooting a franchise that was all but run into the ground by Joel Schumacher with his instant classics “Batman Forever” (1995) and “Batman and Robin” (1997), but he also gave fans of the Batman mythology something they’ve never seen before on the silver screen. With a cast full of top tier talent such as Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, and Katie Holmes (Maybe or maybe not, you decide) it seemed as though nothing could go wrong with the reboot; and little did. The film was applauded for it’s depiction of Bruce Wayne’s rise to becoming the man in the Bat suit. “Batman Begins” successfully created an entirely new universe for Batman films to take place in and exhibited some of the best character development in recent memory. Nolan created a universe that, unlike the previous films, worked in a logical manner and could conceivably take place in the real world. With all of this groundwork already laid in the first film, there was nowhere for the successor to “Begins” to go but up. And up it went.

Nolan giving Harvey (Aaron Eckhart) some direction.

Much of the original cast returns for the sequel, with the only change from the previous film being the substitution of Maggie Gyllenhaal for Cruise’s Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes: Gotham’s female District Attorney and Wayne’s heart throb. In The Dark Knight the audience is introduced to two new characters to Nolan’s universe, Harvey Dent played by Aaron Eckhart, and the Joker played by Heath Ledger. With character development out of the way, Nolan was able to construct not just an amazing summer comic book movie, but an absolutely stunning film that can hold its own against many of the best films of all time. This movie has it all. A plethora of great characters, stunning, and mostly 100% real, action scenes, superb acting and a strong story-line.

The story of “The Dark Knight” follows Bruce Wayne through his struggle to continue being the symbol that is Batman or to give up this creation of his to a more realistic crime fighter that can do Gotham city better than his vigilante alter-ego. As an anarchistic agent of chaos known only as The Joker wreaks havoc among Gotham in an attempt to destroy Batman as a symbol and give Gotham a greater class of criminal, Batman, and more importantly Bruce Wayne, is thrown into a conflict of interests. As the new District Attorney of Gotham, Harvey Dent, shows his true dedication to cleansing Gotham of corruption and crime, Bruce feels that it may be time to put his energies behind a true hero instead of fighting crime in a costume. This would not only give Bruce the opportunity to reconnect with Rachel Dawes, but it would also allow him to see how much this “Batman” had affected Gotham after his arrival as the Caped Crusader in the first film.

This is exactly what the Joker wants to prevent. The Joker despises order, hates justice, and can’t stand the thought of good people wanting to make Gotham a just city. He kills for no other reason than to create chaos. He blows up buildings in no other state of mind than that it’d be fun. He enjoys killing, he enjoys creating a mess, and he enjoys fighting the symbolic opposite that is the Batman.

Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight is none other than mesmerizing. Every scene with any other character in the movie is another scene spent anxiously awaiting the Joker’s arrival. Heath Ledger didn’t just perform a great Joker in this film, he became the man in make up. He became the agent of chaos. From every quiver or lick of his lips, to every limp, to every twitch of his eyes: He is the Joker. Heath Ledger’s performance in this film is the best performance I have seen in years. And I was one of the people questioning Nolan’s decision when casting Ledger. Despite Ledger’s tendency to steal scenes in this film, the rest of the cast is in top shape as well. Aaron Eckhart portrays a goody-goody District Attorney quite well, in a role he seems quite familiar with. Christian Bale returns as confident as ever, but this film is much less about Batman and much more about how Batman has affected the world around him.

This review is less in depth than it could be as I don’t want to spoil the film for anyone, but more give them even more incentive to go out and see it. Multiple times. If you haven’t yet seen it, shame on you. I know that if I went more in-depth about plot details, I’d blow a lot of stuff that could potentially ruin it for others, so I’ll avoid doing that. Instead, I’ll just make this film seem like the Second Coming, and insist that if you haven’t yet seen it, you are living in a world that could be so much better if you’d get in your car, go pick up some friends, go get some food, go to the nearest theater, buy tickets to each showing of The Dark Knight for the next three days and bask in the cinematic glory that is The Dark Knight. Now, if you ask UNSCleric what he thought about this movie, he’d say he missed Katie Holmes, he’d say it was okay, he’d say he’s seen better - but no one is asking him and he’s a little jaded because to Cleric, Christian Bale was cuter in Equilibrium. (No offense UNSCleric)

I'll take the guy on the right...

All of that aside, this film is the best movie of the summer. Period. Just because I’m praising this movie in what seems to be the most fanboyish manner, there are flaws. There are some hiccups in some aspects that may seem a little jarring, but do nothing to detract from the experience. I saw this film in IMAX and am glad I travelled 30-45 minutes away to do so. The scenes shot in IMAX are simply stunning and if you own Batman Begins on Blu-Ray and have seen The Dark Knight prologue on the disc, you’ll see just how much clearer and more vivid it is than standard 35mm film. Now imagine that clarity from floor to ceiling. It’s ridiculously amazing. If there is an IMAX theater near you, go there and do as I stated above with the friends and the tickets, etc.

Nolan once again raises the bar for superhero/comic book films. Not only did he succeed in creating a fantastic Batman film, but he created a film that could transcend genres and open new bounds for comic book adaptations that, before this film, were just fun, big budget films about teens in tights. This is the first film to ever exceed my expectations and thats even more incredible when you take into consideration how much hype surrounded this film leading up to its release.

With the Joker and Two-Face now forever represented in cinematic beauty, where will Nolan take Batman next? Will there even be another film? The end of The Dark Knight may lead many to think so, but with Batman’s arch nemesis already represented, and with the huge obstacles now in place due to Heath Ledger’s passing, what lies ahead for the future of the Nolan Batman franchise? Who would you like to see represented in the next film as the man that Wayne has to overcome? Personally, I’d love to see Mr. Freeze portrayed in a realistic fashion, but Nolan and co. have already hinted that if a third film is made, it’d be a character never before seen on the big screen. So I leave this question to you, the readers, to discuss in the comments: Who would you like to see in the next film? I’d also love to hear what you thought about the film, but as for me:

Everything will be returning to normal shortly … this is not the permanent look to the site.

UPDATE 7/28:

Everything that is going to work, is working now.  Once all the initial problems were figured out, everything went smoothly.  LG, my friend and former savior of UNSCleric.com, spent his Sunday today (and many hours each night the past few nights) working on this site and the site for The Halography.  He has done an amazing job, and everything is exactly as I had hoped.  The only negative in this whole transition is that it seems all comments from March 2007 to today, have been lost.  LG is still trying to figure it out, but it may be impossible to recover them and make them visible on the site.  There is also the glitch problem that LG talked about above, but that is minor.  Basically, today is the day I have waited years for…I have been stuck using outdated and very time-consuming methods for basically every area of the site.  Uploading images, making posts, updating The Halography especially, were all done using very ancient software and techniques, and to top it off, were all done on a bad (and slow) host.

All that has changed now.  For example, UNSCleric.com and TheHalography.com are now on a brand new server and are each on a fully upgraded Wordpress.  I was previously using 2.0.2 Beta … I am now using 2.6.  Due to that change, and other additions, maintaining and working on this site and The Halography have now become much more organized and fun.  This site will no longer be held back by the limitations of the software and all of the problems associated with it.

Previous Updates:
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Bungie.net - Luke Smith

As much as people would like a bit more information on what happened this week with our announcement, there’s nothing additional to add what has already been said. So, if you did miss this week’s events, you can read what’s what here.

E3 2008: Livin’ The Dream:

Earlier this week, I thought Sketch’s and my video project had been unceremoniously pulled from beneath my Sambas, but upon returning to Bungie Software Products Corporation we took a look at some of the “footage” we shot and believe with the right amount of dedication, post-processing, and Final Cut Light that someday, somewhere down the line we’ll have something to show from our E3 trip. It’s really going to be a footrace though to see if we can show our other rad thing first, or if E3 2008: Livin’ The Dream surfaces first (safe bet is on mockumentary E3 2008: Livin’ The Dream not surfacing anytime soon). We feel pretty confident that this piece of history would’ve been an awesome fit in an E3 Lineup; but we read on the Internet that sometimes there just isn’t time to fit everything in. (Nice jab at Don Mattrick there - Cleric)

Despite whatever eased into the ether regarding what we’re working on at Bungie, speculative hunches and guesswork certainly don’t tell the full tale.  We’d go so far as to say these ramblings are barely even a Prologue, not even a Foreword to the storybook we’re putting together. Rest assured, there are multiple machinations afoot at Bungie, one is so close you can feel its familiar warmth on your cheek while you sleep; another so far off and foreign that like a faint star in deep space, you can only look to the heavens as its light speeds ever closer.

Lo, there is still another.

Today, details are coming in about what Bungie intended to reveal at Microsoft’s E3 press conference. While specific information about its upcoming Halo project remain a secret, the developer reportedly planned to show a sixty second teaser trailer, only to have it pulled at the last minute.

“Bungie had a sixty second knock’em down teaser trailer made that was going to unveil the game and it was going to be the close to Microsoft media keynote at E3,” Jacob Metcalf explained. “This was going to be followed up by Bungie doing their separate press event later on in the week on Wednesday to show off the new game.”

“Microsoft has never really explained why they prevented Bungie from going on with their media event on Wednesday at E3. It has to be a new Halo game since if it was an new IP Microsoft would not have their hands on the control of the brand and would not have had the power to silence Bungie about it.”

Bungie informed fans that plans had been changed on Tuesday, later promising something “further down the road.” Meanwhile, Microsoft maintains that the announcement was held back for a “more dedicated event.”

“So soon Bungie and Microsoft will come to terms about when and how Microsoft is going to unveil this new Bungie developed Halo game and then show it to the public,” he said.

However the Microsoft executive that was in charge of their show at E3 is Don Mattrick and apparently there is some possible drama going on behind their evolving relationship with the now independent Bungie. The only person above Don Mattrick in Xbox is Robbie Bach then the chain of command goes to Steve Balmer and the board of directors. Don ordered the new Bungie Halo game to be cut from the E3 briefing at the last moment and essentially gag ordered Bungie from showing the game off that week.

Don didn’t want a non-Microsoft studio game to overshadow all of the Microsoft Studio developed games. He then went on to make a little quip about having an E3 breifing that was not all about Halo. This is sort of like inviting someone to the prom and leaving them at home at the last minute while they can’t get another date.

There is no Halo themed media event that is currently on the calendar. Bungie has been working towards a big media push about this game with the unveiling of the Superintendent character and they have been trying to build a buzz within their fanbase.

—–

It’s good to know more about what they planned to show, but I disagree with this confirming it was Halo they were going to show.  It probably was something to do with Halo, but no matter what project it was, Microsoft is the publisher, meaning they could have stopped the announcement no matter what.

The Bungie Weekly Update will be posted very shortly, and from the things I’ve seen Luke Smith post on NeoGAF today, I don’t think it’s going to bring much good news.

Warning: It’s a horrible excuse.

LATimes.com -

Turns out that Bungie’s latest Halo project was originally part of the program for Microsoft’s press conference on Monday, but it was taken out of the lineup at the last minute. Don Mattrick, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Xbox games business, said the company decided to pull Halo …

… to help trim its E3 presentation to under 90 minutes, from 2 1/2 hours, to accommodate attention-challenged reporters.

“We had an embarrassment of riches,” Mattrick said. “We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event.”

Bungie, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, split from the software giant last year but agreed to give Microsoft first dibs on publishing its games.

For Microsoft, the decision was a blow but not a critical hit. Although the Halo games have contributed over a billion dollars in sales for the Redmond, Washington, giant, the company is less reliant on the franchise than it once was. The first Halo game cemented Xbox as the console of choice for many serious gamers at a time when Microsoft was just entering the market and struggling to earn respect. Halo 3, released in September, singlehandedly pulled Microsoft’s console division into the black for the fiscal year ending in June, giving the division its first profit since entering the market in 2001.

So Microsoft’s decision to pull Halo from its presentation led to quite a bit of head scratching.

Mattrick put a positive spin on the development, saying that Microsoft had managed to build such a solid foundation that it no longer needed to depend on one or two games to succeed. He noted that the company also left out Grand Theft Auto IV. Microsoft snagged exclusive content for the game that will be made available to its Xbox 360 players this fall.

“Two big kahunas were left out of the show, and we were still able to deliver a strong performance,” Mattrick said.
———————-

First of all, this guy is an idiot.  I’ve never liked Don Mattrick from the moment he came to Microsoft last year and took over Peter Moore’s role as the Xbox boss.  Can you imagine Peter Moore pulling some kind of stunt like this?  No, he never would have, cause he loved the gamers, and always had a genuine care for them ever since his Sega days.  This Mattrick guy though, is the former Worldwide President of EA Games, and that pretty much explains everything right there.  This guy doesn’t care about the gamers, never has, and never will.  Does this guy think that gamers and the gaming media are so stupid that they can’t handle a little bit more news coming out of a press briefing?  100% Arrogance.

Without Bungie, the Xbox brand would be most likely dead right now, and if not, they certainly wouldn’t be where they are right now.  How does Microsoft and the Xbox team thank them for that?  They **** all over Bungie’s new announcement that they were having a blast hyping us all up for for the last several months…and then they leak the project to the media.

Related:
08.08.07 - More EA @ MS (and Ubisoft)
07.17.07 - Peter Moore Resigns From Microsoft, Goes To EA Sports
10.11.07 - The EA Cancer Continues to Spread

After spending the last few hours trying to piece together what happened last night when Bungie.net announced that Microsoft was not allowing them to go ahead with their much-planned and hyped announcement, it seemed likely that the game was Halo-related, due to the amount of control Microsoft had over the announcement of the game.  This next piece of news, which just hit the Internet a few minutes ago on this early Wednesday morning, most likely confirm this.

In an interview shot for MTV News on Tuesday, Microsoft’s head of Xbox business Don Mattrick, confirmed that Bungie is indeed working on a new “Halo” game of some sort for Microsoft.

I had been asking Mattrick about the lack of “Halo” news at E3. He said that Microsoft’s Monday press conference was already loaded with content and so any announcements for that series weren’t needed to get gamers excited.

I pushed him on the lack of presence for the series and asked him if we should be worried about the no-show of Ensemble Studio’s real-time-strategy game “Halo Wars.” Not only did Mattrick say not to worry, but that announcements would be coming, he also said that Microsoft is working with Bungie on a “Halo” game.

I asked for clarification, wondering if Mattrick meant Bungie’s project was “Halo Wars” or the long-announced Peter Jackson “Halo” project. Neither, Mattrick said. The Bungie game is something else.

And then, not surprisingly, the topic was changed.

———-

Do you think it’s true?  Is Don Mattrick just confused and out of the loop as the boss, or does he actually know what he’s talking about?  Will this new Halo be a sequel to Halo 3, or will it focus on another part of the Halo universe and not star Spartan-117?  It could also be the expansion pack (Codenamed: Halo Blue) that was rumored earlier this week.  I have a feeling we may have had some answers to these questions if Microsoft wasn’t holding Bungie’s mouth shut.  This wouldn’t be the first time a high-up executive slips up on something big concerning Halo.

From: Harold Ryan
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 7:00PM
Subject: E3 Announce

For the last several months, we’ve been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on. We were looking forward to sharing that with out fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were just changed by our publisher.

We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events; members of the Bungie team share that disappointment.

When the right time comes, we look forward to sharing this exciting announcement with you. Until then, we appreciate your continued support and patience.

Harold Ryan
President
Bungie LLC

Is now:

(Click to enlarge)

It was discovered earlier today that more Superintendent wallpapers exist. Here are the ones that are currently known about:

• PLEASE REMAIN CALM
• HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING INMATES
• YELLOW MEANS YIELD
• OBEY POSTED LIMITS
• TAKE IT TO MAKE IT
• NO PUBLIC ACCESS
• MIND THE GAP

Bungie community lead Luke Smith has confirmed the postponement is legitimate. “We already are deeply disappointed with how things unfolded to this point without getting our fans to the intended payoff.” When forum goers at NeoGAF assumed it was a joke Smith responded with the above comment and added, “Nope. Not our style.”

Luke Smith replied to a comment made in NeoGAF confirming the publisher in question is in fact Microsoft. Responding to the comment, “Bungie is the one who made this great little hype machine. And–although this will just add to the fire–they never say it’s Microsoft.” Smith replied, “Our publisher is Microsoft.”

Luke Smith has commented to Joystiq: “We still have an exclusive publishing agreement with Microsoft, as we confirmed when we announced the split last year. That arrangement has not changed.” Also, all teased images of an announcement have now been removed from Bungie.net and within Halo 3.

Light Map Changes

Originally featuring a circle of lights around the city of Mombasa, Kenya (a place well known to the Halo Universe) the Superintendent shaped lights have now vanished from Bungie.net.

Check out this odd, anonymous news posting over at Kotaku.com…posted at 9:07pm.  I think it relates to the following link about Phil Spencer.

Update: 2am - Microsoft’s Phil Spencer on Bungie’s E3 teaser, absence

As you will see in the comments to that news posting above, I currently believe that Phil Spencer, the newly appointed General Manager of Microsoft Game Studios, is the person to blame for this delay.

—–

Hey Microsoft, I wonder what the best way to make Bungie go multi-platform is?  You don’t have to answer that, cause you’re already in the process of doing it.  Idiots.

That is when something is going to happen over at Bungie.net.  It seems Bungie is doing things their own way this time, and is not using the spotlight of the E3 Press Briefing to their advantage.  Instead, during the briefing, Bungie.net went down and has now been taken over by the SuperIntendent.  Just before that happened, the SuperIntendent corrupted the Cold Storage banner on the Halo 3 pause menu (look at the top right).

There are also reports today that Walmart’s internal Internet service is listing a title by the name of “Halo Blue” as releasing on September 30th of this year, and is rated M.  Many believe this to be some sort of expansion disc for Halo 3, including DLC that they can’t deliver without a disc (like added armor permutations, etc.) plus much more.

Back to Bungie.net though, if you look at the front page of it, there is a countdown in the bottom right, and it ends at 7:07am Pacific Time (9am central/10am eastern) on Wednesday morning.  A huge revamp to Halo 3’s online system could be less than two days away.

There are also reports of strange happenings over on Bungie.net, banners corrupting and leading to strange pictures and numbers, etc.  Basically the entire community has been plunged into chaos, and it’s going to stay that way until Wednesday morning at the least.

Update: E3 2008 trailers and content are all over the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Update #2 (6:30pm Central): Some details on how Netflix streaming will work.

Update #3 (7pm Central): Geometry Wars 2 will be out August 6th.  Halo Wars will be out Spring 2009.

 
The New Dashboard - Coming Late Fall.

When we launched Xbox 360 in November 2005, Xbox LIVE was integrated directly into the console. Back then, Xbox 360 was the first system to deliver access to experiences beyond just the disc in the tray. With the Xbox guide and dashboard you had access to everything on your console as well as your community.

We also imagined that Xbox experience would continuously improve over time, through the power of software.

Since launch, you’ve always pushed us to continuously innovate. It is because you spoke with one loud voice that we added new features like background downloading, 1080p support, movies and TV shows, video chat, a Marketplace blade and instant messaging.

Over time, as we’ve delivered more and more content into the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, we’ve heard from many of you that it has become increasingly difficult to find the games and content you want.

And that brings us to today.

Because of your feedback, we started rethinking the entire Xbox experience. What we discovered was that we could not only provide a better experience for you, but also something that reaches out to new audiences.

What John Schappert unveiled for the world on stage at E3 was just a sneak preview, so I wanted to share some deeper details on some of the new features in the new Xbox experience.

Here is a look at some additional features you will find interesting:

· Play from hard drive. Copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive.  Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well. Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game.

· Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web.  Browse and purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and it downloads automatically to your console.  Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work.

· Dashboard built into the new Xbox Guide.  For everyone who loves the blades interface, it’s not going away; they are now built directly in to the new Xbox guide. Every feature and option is available right from the guide.  You can even access your full games library at all times.  No matter where you are (in dash or in game), immediately call up your games played list and directly launch a game.   

· LIVE Party system.  Create a party of up to eight friends, and stay with them from one game to another, or watch a Netflix movie together, or share a slideshow of your personal photos.  It works with all Xbox 360 titles, not just upcoming games.  LIVE Party allows up to eight people to chat in the dashboard, so you can meet up before playing. 

· Xbox LIVE Primetime. This whole new category of games is going to give you more reasons to get online with your friends.  Games will support everything you’d expect, like Achievements and leader boards, but many of these games will include real prizes. You can invite your friends, and even set a reminder for an upcoming show.  Each game is broadcast simultaneously, so everyone is answering the same questions.  Many events will have a live host, calling the shots as they happen. 

· Avatars. Your online identity started as a Gamertag - it then grew into a personalized Gamercard. Now, it has evolved even further into avatars.  You can express your style, check out new outfits and share this with the community.  Avatars will also be integrated into Xbox LIVE Arcade games, LIVE Party, as well as retail games. 

· New display support. Because you asked for it, we are adding 16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440×900 or 1680×1050.

This is only the beginning.  Over the next few months, we will share more details on the upcoming changes.