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GEEKS MEAN BIG PRIZES 3 – CLOSED

Matt Geary
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GEEKS MEAN BIG PRIZES 3 – CLOSED

Tea Party ad

WINNERS

The following people have won :

Jo Tate

Phoenix Tear

Lisa Jackson

GRATZ!

***CLOSED***

Want to win a set of tickets for the Tattoo Tea Party, at Event City in Manchester, on the 2nd and 3rd of March? COURSE YOU DO!

Well as always it is very simple! All you need to do is:

  1. Be a member of Geek Pride (so have liked our FB page)
  2. Like and share this picture

The more Shares, the more chances you have of winning. (make sure they are public so we know who has shared and who hasn’t)

3 Winners will be chosen at random from the shares, on Wednesday 27th Feb

GOOD LUCK!

oh and PS. look out for me as I will be there taking photos for the TTP… cant miss me, big, tattooed Irishman ;o)

More info on the event:

Website: http://www.tattooteaparty.com/
FB: http://www.facebook.com/tattooteaparty

We are getting ready for our second Tattoo Tea Party celebrating everything that is wonderful about the tattoo scene in the UK and Ireland. We aim to delve into the multi-cultural melting pot of the UK tattoo scene and to recognise and showcase the very best art those tattooing on these shores have to offer. Honouring the past and celebrating the present is the theme of this tattoo show.

This unique tattoo convention will host over 150 of the finest exponents of skin art under one roof, and will bring you something different & spectacular in the form of entertainment, so watch this space!!! Hosted in ‘EventCity’, a huge 5850 sq meter hall next to Europe’s biggest shopping hub; The Trafford Centre in Manchester, the venue will allow the attending public and artists to see something they haven’t seen before.Tattoo.TV, Tattoo Revolution and H2 Events have joined forces to form Tattoo Tea Party Limited.

Our aim for the Tattoo Tea Party is to produce a tattoo convention that pays homage to the talent and skill of UK based tattooing, provides unique, quality entertainment, and a fantastic atmosphere for all; hopefully taking a unique place alongside some of the other great conventions out there!We hope to see you at EventCity, Manchester on the 2nd and 3rd March 2013

 

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Facebook

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to Geek Pride and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for identifying and contacting Winner and Runner up of this competition.

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ONE to rule them all?

Andrew Corban
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ONE to rule them all?

You may be forgiven for not noticing this little bit of news given the major Sony PS4 seminar; however, on 19 February HTC revealed its new HTC One.

The new One has been release to the public a week before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, were last years HTC ONE X, S and V were revealed.

The young company that is HTC is up against some very strong competition, with Apple, Samsung and Sony holding strong in the market, Nokia delivering the Windows phone and a re-vitalised BlackBerry hitting the high street.  With all this HTC needed to come out with its strongest and best phone to date, and at first glace they appear to be delivering.

It has a 4.7in display which, because it’s a Full HD resolution, 1920 x 1080 pixels, has the highest pixel density of any phone, producing an amazing 468 pixels per inch making Apple’s Retina display looking old already.

The body is made from a single piece of aluminium and having worked tiredly they have managed to build the antenna into the back of the phone to no lose and signal issues and avoid having to add glass or plastic to allow for a better reception.  What is also nice is its tapered body that is only 5mm on the outside and bevels to 9mm in the middle.

Once again the HTC One comes with Beats as standard and HTC looks to have turned up the sound by adding stereo speakers to the front face of the One.

Blog_Chien-FEATURED

With regard to the camera, HTC has created a whole new sensor which uses what the company calls Ultra Pixels.  The Ultra Pixels on the HTC One measure 2 microns, which they claim gathers 300% more light than a 13MP sensor were each pixel measures around 1.1 microns on rival phones.  What they have also managed to do is listen to some of the complaints over the protruding camera in the existing models of the One.  However, the most concerning issue is that the camera is ‘boasting’ 4MP… Yes 4, F, O, U, R.  But with all the advancements made in cameras will this rival the much heavier MP that will undoubtedly follow on its competition?

So what else is new?  Well something called Blinkfeed. HTC has routinely improved on the Android O/S with its HTC Sence. Blinkfeed is the latest innovation, a visual presentation of what matters to you from your social networks of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, all mixed in with selected news sources focusing once again as per all new HTC’s is on quick and easy delivery.

As an existing HTC One X owner, I am looking forward to the full specs and play tests that will start to feed through in the next few months.  You can find more over at HTC.

Seven Psychopaths

Cristina Bogdan
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Seven Psychopaths

Straight to the point: You take seven psychopaths and throw them together, shake things up with a few well placed bullets and you get a story worth telling and more importantly in our case, worth seeing.

Well, that title sure sounds promising doesn’t it? I already know it’s about seven psychopaths and like any normal person I’m expecting to see lots of blood, lots of gore, very Tarantino…Well, let me assure you, it was not. Which is not to say it wasn’t a very entertaining movie, with lots of laughter, lots of tears and lots of puppies. The trouble with Seven Psychopaths is that it’s not the kind of movie you can tell your friends about. Sure, you can give them the title and tell them that it was written and directed by Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) and that it has a stellar cast from which we can mention Christopher Walken, Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell or Woody Harrelson, but the storyline is so intricate that being able to tell them what’s about without losing something of the movie’s essence it’s going to prove to be a feat.

But let’s try it anyway. The movie is essentially the tale of Marty (Farrell), an alcoholic writer who wants to write his next screenplay, titled Seven Psychopaths. So far so good, except his alcoholism gets him kicked out of his house and involved with people he hadn’t imagined possible, the very kind of people he’d been planning to write about and failing at for weeks. After numerous adventures that leave a trail of dead behind the “golden trio” of mismatched anti-heroes, since he is joined by a slightly unhinged Quaker played brilliantly by Christopher Walken and by his even more unhinged best friend Billy(Rockwell), Marty develops a new understanding of what he’s been trying to bring onto paper and he finishes his script, managing to also kick some of his bad habits away. The movie is mad, mad as a hatter, pushing you through several stories all in one, which reminded me briefly of Cloud Atlas, except without the magnificent sets and the complications, but it’s also fun and wild and while the movie theatre wasn’t full to the brim since most people crowded to see other more hyped up movies, everyone was entertained, laughing in all the right places and reacting appropriately for the more dramatic scenes.

I was surprised to see Colin Farrell in a movie, it has been a while for me and it’s nice to see he can still rock on screen,  since I was mostly disappointed in some of his earlier acting choices, but he clicked with his fellow cast members and made the story believable, despite of the absurdity of some of it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was the tale of a regular man that finds himself thrown into a mad adventure, the desperate search for answers that we all indulge in or the fact that it was enticing, but the movie made its mark, it impressed me and made me think about what I had just watched and what it represented, something that all good movies should make you do as you leave the theatre. All in all, it’s worth watching, if only for Sam Rockwell who more than once stole the show. Still, Seven Psychopaths it’s raw and realistic in a slightly unrealistic way and it will be both worth your money and your time, so don’t let the trailer fool you, you won’t be disappointed.

Zombie Movie Mashups are (Un)Dead Good

James Buckingham
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Zombie Movie Mashups are (Un)Dead Good

You know that awesome run of Marvel Zombies comics? I loved that series… the mashup of my favourite superheroes and the undead was awesome. Now artist Matt Busch has fiddled with some movie poster artwork to incorporate the flesh-munchers too.

Zombie Wars: The Corpse Wars

 

 

 

I think my favourite one may be the “Cadavatar” one… and to be honest, if they did an Avatar zombie movie, I’d watch it – 9ft blue very agile zombies vs humans in mechs – that’d rock!

You can check out Busch’s full range of decaying movie mashups at Neatoshop, along with his non-zombie-orientated work too.

Japanese creator of PSOne Classic ‘D’ dies at age 42

Sai Mealing
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Japanese creator of PSOne Classic ‘D’ dies at age 42

photo

Sadly the game designer and musician, Keni Eno, passed away yesterday at the age of 42 from  a heart failure. Eno-San (shown above) was known for creating music for games such as Sega Rally 2 and as working as a designer for some recent Japanese mobile and WiiWare titles. He was, however, undoubtedly best renowned as the creative mind behind WARP game studios which developed the survival horror series D and D2 back in the 3DO, PSOne, Saturn and Dreamcast era.

mqdefaultAs a game, the original D was far ahead of it’s time and told the story of a girl forced to look for her father in an old hospital after he has reportedly embarked on a massive killing spree. The game dealt with psychological horror before the days of Resident Evil and Dead Space and managed to create a true sense of terror in the player, dealing with some fairly controversial subject matter to boot including cannibalism and realistic in-game violence. It was also a game which featured multiple endings, a concept not often explored at the time, and had what were then considered to be extremely impressive visuals. The Dreamcast-exclusive sequel D2 was never released in Europe, although a rare and edited English language US version does exist, and had a story which was unrelated to the first game but remained just as controversial due to inclusion of occultism and nudity.  If you can find a copy of one of these games and still have the hardware to play them on (any PS2 or PS3 should run the PSOne version of D) then we at Geek Pride would definitely recommend it.

RIP Eno-San. Sadly, innovators are usually born and not made and the games industry has just lost an extremely talented innovator.

Carbon Grey coming at you.

Andrew Corban
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Carbon Grey coming at you.

For those that are unaware Carbon Grey is a wonderful comic brought to us by Hoang Nguyen and published Image Comics.  If you have never heard of Carbon Grey then I’ll let Image tell you what it’s about (not because I’m lazy, but they put saying so much more eloquently than I do).

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“To a noble family twins are born; Mathilde and Giselle, the Sisters Grey. For generations the Sisters have protected and counseled the Kaiser, ruler of Mitteleuropa. But this is a different time. At the birth of the industrial age a great war is raging. When the Kaiser is assassinated Giselle is accused. Pursued by her sisters and hunted by the enemy Giselle must unravel the prophecy of the Carbon Grey before history itself is rewritten.”
carbon-v2-3_1492_generalThere are two bits of news for Carbon Grey fans out there, firstly Image have confirmed that Carbon Grey volume 2, issue 3 will be released on the 27th February 2012, that’s less than a week away, get saving that pocket money.
Secondly, for those new to Carbon Grey, Volume 1 was put out by Image; however, Volume 2 was released with the aid of backers via Kickstarter. Well now it appears that Hoang Nguyen is looking to release Volume 3 and is once again looking to Kickstarter to help fund the project and allow Image to put it into production.
Announced on the Carbon Grey official Facebook site, Hoang Nguyen is asking fans what incentives will be offered to fans who pledge their support to Volume 3.
“What kind of rewards would you like to see offered by the Kickstarter campaign for Carbon Grey vol. 3?”

Carbon Grey is currently available in both physical and digital format and is well worth a read.

 

PlayStation Meeting 2013: PS4 is coming in Winter 2013!!

Sai Mealing
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PlayStation Meeting 2013: PS4 is coming in Winter 2013!!

dualshock 4-580-100

 

PS4 is here! Ever since I was a teenager, few things have managed to excite me as much as a new console launch (I’m a bit sad like that) and this one will likely be no exception. The PS4 is real and is set to arrive this Christmas along with a selection of new titles which were revealed at the much anticipated PlayStation meeting which took place  lastnight in New York.

Specifications:

Sony’s inability to keep a secret is pretty much a trademark for them now and, as expected, the new PS4 will follow a more traditional PC-like architecture allowing for much easier development than the PS3’s custom designed cell-based system.

The PS4 uses a ‘supercharged’ x86 integrated CPU and GPU processing system running 8 cores and with 8GB of GDDR5 RAM and a supposedly ‘massive’ amount of storage space in the form of an internal hard drive.

The controller has also been given a face lift and the new Dual Shock 4 includes improved rumble effects, a tighter control system, a custom light interface  for wireless connection to the console (as opposed to the PS3’s bluetooth) and a touchpad. Record and share functionality has also been added to the controller allowing you to instantly record and upload videos to PSN, UStream, Facebook and Youtube. There is also potential for players to multicast sessions and for developers to monitor player behaviour in real-time although, oddly enough, the reasoning behind this wasn’t really explained.

gaming-ps4-launch-logo

Network capabilities

It looks like PSN is where this next machine could really shine. Integration with the Gaikai cloud gaming service will allow you to play games whilst downloading them from PSN, download and play the PlayStation back catalogue and create an always online and improved interface where the system will make Amazon-style recommendations based on a player’s behaviour and purchase history.

Players will also be able to stream games to the Vita and play them away from the console, like with the Wii U and consult their online friends for help directly from the console, again like the Wii U however, PS4 adds the  ability to allow a player to take remote control of your system and effectively let them play the game for you, which probably constitutes either cheating, laziness or ineptitude dependent on how you look at it.

Gaikai will  create the ‘fastest online gaming network in the world’ and one which aims to create true meaning and depth, removing some of the anonymity present on PSN, XBL and Steam and creating a network where players will be more open to using their full name and communicating with their real-world friends.

The Games8dc1e027f6d10339c690274d85d91efc360b6881.png__620x350_q85_crop_upscale

Obviously all of this fancy stuff is a bit useless though, unless there are some decent titles to go with it and a few new releases were announced tonight along with new footage being shown of some of the bigger names from E3 2012.

Knack(Japan Studio)

Killzone: Shadowfall (Guerilla Games)

DriveClub (Evolution Studios)

Infamous: Second Son (Suckerpunch)

The Witness (PS4 timed-exclusive indie title from Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid)

Deep Down (Working title) (Capcom)

Additionally, tech demos were shown from new engines by Quantic Dream and Square Enix and Media Molecule are working on bringing the Move Controller to the PS4 and making it, well, not shit anymore.

Ubisoft stole the show with a new demo of Watchdogs, which (sadly) will be a next generation title and cross-platform announcements for PS3 and PS4 ports of Diablo 3 and Destiny were announced by Blizzard and Bungie respectively.

No price details for the console or the games have yet been announced. 

Movie Review: Argo – 9GPS

Becca Harper
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Movie Review: Argo – 9GPS

Straight to the point: Believe the hype and watch this film and I don’t say that very often.

Directed and starring Ben Affleck, Argo is the true story of  six American embassy workers in Tehran, Iran and their escape during the pro-Ayatollah post revolutionary chaos of 1980. Based on that description this is not movie I would have chosen, I’m not into heavy political dramas but when you add in the fact that it was science fiction movie that saved them, then you have my interest.

This film has been described as a comedy, and whilst there is no denying there are funny moments and the whole film is based on one large joke on Iran, a better description would be political drama with comedy elements. The story is based on the account of real life  CIA agent Tony Mendez, the lead of this film played by Affleck. When the six escape and find temporary shelter in the Canadian Embassy so begins a race against the clock to get them out of the country before the Iranian militia realise they are missing from the seized embassy.  So they call the best, Mendez, an agent with a reputation for exfiltration of trapped US citizens.argo-still06

His plan is genius if not a somewhat far fetched, which only adds to the tension, something difficult to achieve when the outcome  is already a part of recent history. The daring ruse involves the CIA funding a completely fake sci-fi adventure called Argo. To make it as plausible as possible Mendez enlists the help of  trusted CIA contacts Hollywood makeup technician John Chambers (John Goodman) and veteran mogul Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). This is where the comedy elements come in with a fake script reading and publicity we see the team establish Argo as genuine project.  This builds up to Mendez entering Iran posing as a Canadian associate producer looking to scout filming locations for a completely fake film, with six additional Canadian passports in his pocket for his ‘crew’. The reason the ruse was so risky is it required the six US fugitives, who are fearing for their lives and in hiding, to stroll around in a public setting where the Militia are hunting Americans, whilst pretending to be Canadian film crew. Bearing in mind these people are just ordinary office workers, the only spy being Mendez. Suffice to say things don’t quite go smoothly and there are many nail biting moments to enjoy but I’m not willing to tell you anymore for fear of spoilers.

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Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and hats off to Affleck as both the director and lead. He stayed away from making a shiny gun toting spy film celebrating his good looks;  instead managed to pull off a brilliantly paced believable and gritty story that literally had me one the edge of my seat whispering “Go, go, go, go”. All performances are well delivered with none of the usual fake Hollywood flash. For instance I noted that Affleck had flecks of grey in his hair, a very minor touch that alludes to this being a serious film where realism is the intention. The opening sequence established the events leading up to this story in a mostly visual way, no heavy pieces of text to read. You went into the film not worrying about the political stand point but the people caught up in the violence and fear. The two hours flew by with enough tension to keep me interested and it ended with my heart racing and a little adrenaline running through my system.   The only downside is that, as I understand it, the very last bump the six hit isn’t exactly how it happened, but overall this film is so good that this doesn’t actually bother me.  I recommend this to everyone and don’t be put of by Affleck, he has truly made a brilliant film and deserves the awards he is nominated for.

Awarded: 9 GPs

How to Tell If A Game Is Going To Suck

SeanPWallace
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How to Tell If A Game Is Going To Suck

It can’t have escaped your attentions that Aliens: Colonial Marines is a bit of a disaster. The game is way too short, contains shoddy graphics, gameplay and AI and manages to ruin the canon as well. I truly feel for anyone who pre-ordered the game based on the misleading and unrepresentative demonstrations that Gearbox issued.

But really, the signs were there. And for next time, here are the key factors to watch out for to avoid buying another stinker.

Long Development Cycles

People might say that a work is done when it’s done, that art can take time to come to fruition, especially when it is a collective act between dozens of people.

To them, I’d say Duke Nukem Forever.

Aliens: Colon Mariners had been in development since Fifa ’08 and has languished there, bouncing from generation to generation. Each time there is a graphics bump, with an improved engine, a game has to be ported across and this transition creates additional bugs and errors that need to be worked out at the expense of actual gameplay.

Final Fantasy 13 is another example. That took quite some time to finish and ended up being the worst iteration of the series for more than a decade.

This says some very worrying things about Final Fantasy Versus 13 though…

Review Embargoes

This is a good piece of advice for all media really; whenever a publisher or studio detects a level of whiffiness around a piece of work, they ensure that the professionals whose job it is to filter out such pieces of rubbish don’t get to warn everyone before Release Day.

There are countless examples of this. All Points Bulleting was awful beyond comparison and the embargo on that extended a week beyond the Release Day.

Alan: Colin Mitchell was no exception. As soon as we knew that there would be no reviews until the game came out, we should have known that it was going to be completely awful.

 

Bullshots

Enough said.

Summary

This does give people a bit of a problem when it comes to pre-ordering a game well before it comes out. Normally, I’d say that you should look to the Publisher / Developers and decide whether you can trust them but Gearbox Studios were well considered with their two Borderlands games and look where that took us…

My advice to you would be to either accept that you’re taking a risk with a lengthy preorder or to wait until reviews come out. This may cost you a few quid you’d save ordering well in advance but it would save you from paying £40 for Al Ian: Coroner Supreme…

Star Trek Into Darkness: Trailer, Featurette and More

Becca Harper
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Star Trek Into Darkness: Trailer, Featurette and More

Back in December I brought you the official synopsis and movie poster for the very secretive sequel Star Trek Into Darkness , since then we have had a trailer, a motion movie poster and a little more information about the project, so I thought it only fitting that I should update my fellow Trekkies. 

Let us begin with the trailer:

Wow an action packed, destruction heavy, explosions a plenty, look into what we can expect, with lots of running and jumping. The trailer pretty much confirms what we already knew, Cumberbatch is to be our villain John Harrison. Interestingly the trailer is giving a couple of nods to  Wrath of Khan, namely the Vulcan hand on glass, a reference to Spock’s death in Wrath and the screaming blond woman has been confirmed as Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk’s love interest and mother of his son, another player in the original Wrath. So it is not a massive leap to speculate that Harrison will become Khan. However, J.J. ain’t going to confirm this anytime soon, it is of course his nature to to be secretive and I’m not absolutely sure that we will find out in this film, this may just be forwarding planning on Abrams part. Either way we can wait but see. 

Let’s go back to Dr Carol Marcus, the trailer doesn’t really allude to a romance with Kirk, this could simply because they wanted to make it as action packed and attractive as possible or may be because, as I said earlier, Abrams is setting up for a future return of Khan film. Abrams did have this to say when speaking to MTV:

[box_light] “(Kirk) meets her fairly early on and again she plays a science officer, she’s someone who is a part of the adventure…because it’s very much an action adventure movie and once that gets going it’s a very difficult thing to park the story. So it’s very difficult to do a romantic interlude. Her role is important, she wouldn’t be in the movie otherwise.”[/box_light]

However, I do hope that the makers are not going to completely ignore the fact that she bore him a son. It would be a shame for them to leave out this character development in light of more explosions and a swerve too far from the original may put the hardcore fans off.

In the MTV interview Abrams also confirms that the the Klingons will be making an appearance, he teases “Their role in this is definitely that of adversary, and you’ll see how that plays out.”  I hope it will be full on Cornish pasty headed Klingons.

This film will also see Kirk step up and become not just the captain but the trusted leader of his crew, whilst this is purely guess work on my part I suspect that Kirk’s mother dies in the destruction on Earth resulting in Kirk to have no choice but to accept his crew as his family. Pine has said:

[box_light]“Kirk is fun because he is a brash, cocky, bull-headed kind of guy. I think the journey he goes on in this new film is a lot about – the first one was about getting the chair and the second one is about earning it. And I think that’s a big part of his journey.”[/box_light]

The Super Bowl spot and featurette below don’t really offer much more information but does suggest that this film is far bigger and more of an epic than the first, the word I took away from this was “relentless”. On a side note is it weird that I love to see a Star Ship crashing on a planet? 

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller, and directed by J.J. Abrams it hits our theaters on May 15. Until then for your viewing pleasure the motion movie poster with the sultry tones of our villain:

http://youtu.be/38Ss9LCGAK4

 

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