In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
CHEATS – The Gamer’s Moral Compass
Up, Up, Down, Down, Up, Up, Up, Up. And all of a sudden, I can level select in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on my Sega Genesis. So what if I don’t earn my way to the Ice Cap Zone? I’ve played this game 50 times already – it’s been done. But you’d never catch me sprinting through GoldenEye or Quake with God Mode on – ruins the game for me. So my cheating in games is based on convenience and sportsmanship (after a fashion). But am I the rule, or the exception to it?
Cheats and secrets have been around in games since 8-bit systems. I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a cheat to make your Pong paddle bigger (and I’m not referencing the herbal medicine junk email we get every day). Back on the Genesis and NES/SNES, we had Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat codes to unlock characters, and Battletoads, Sonic and many other codes for level selection. Later, on platforms like the N64, Playstation and PS2, codes became a way to unlock secret features of the game, features that you couldn’t unlock without the codes. A great example of this is Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the N64, which had a code to unlock the Naboo starfighter from Episode I. However, LucasArts only released the code after the movie had been released in theatres – so noone was unlocking that baby by accident a few days before opening weekend at the box office. Cheats and secrets are still a big part of games, but as the core gamer demographic grows out of the desire for codes (and more importantly, grows out of hard-core gaming into casual gaming), these become more rewards than hustles.
Not many games offer the good old codes and secrets these days – everything is either unlockable or achievements. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against unlockable secrets. It’s probably the best way to give the cheats but still ensure the player gets the full experience of the game. Beating every level in the game then being able to level select from the main menu is a perfect example of this. Or like Metal Gear Solid 4, where you earn the infinite ammo bandanna only after sneaking through the game without a single kill (or acquiring 5,000,000 Drebin Points, which requires mass murder – a challenge in and of itself) and the stealth camouflage if you can get through the game without being seen.
I suppose that the point I’m trying to make is that older platform games seem to endorse the childlike desire to just get everything at once, regardless of losing out on the real gameplay value. I wouldn’t enjoy a game of Monopoly if I stole a bunch of cash when noone was looking. Newer games reward skill and persistence with achievements, and the occasional secret. But it seems that the unlockables are fading away. Why is that?
Sometimes it ain't easy being a plumber in the Mushroom Kingdom
Well, one big example is that games aren’t as hard as they used to be. Hear me out! Most games now don’t have a finite health bar, like older games like… well every older game. Newer games like Resistance, Call of Duty, inFAMOUS, the latest in the Rainbow Six series and others have a replenishing health system where you might get hit a few times, but you’ll heal that damage as long as you stay out of harm’s way for 30-40 seconds. Try that tactic in Super Mario Bros. or Quake II. But those games had power-ups like health packs and invulnerability, which tended to compensate for the ease in which you could expire. Newer games make it harder for the player to die, which really does fit in with the changing demographic of young gamers growing up into more casual gamers. I don’t want to sit down in front of my PS3 and have to learn for an hour how this game works – I want it intuitive and fun. So that’s what we get. Games that don’t have the same depth as they used to (with some exception); so why would game designers bother with unlockables and codes and secrets that the average casual gamer won’t bother to unlock anyway? Answer: they don’t.
This, I think, is the major reason behind the achievements and trophies systems seen on the XBox 360 and PS3 consoles. An easy way to have a rewards system in place that doesn’t demand that the gamer in question lose their entire social life by trying to get through the game in under 6 hours without dying once or firing a shot standing on their head blindfolded (I’m looking at you, Metal Gear). So while I rue the loss of the symbiote suit and others we saw on the Playstation Spider-Man game, or the Naboo starfighter from Rogue Squadron on the N64, I find that my lifestyle lends itself better to the little pop-up at the bottom of my screen that tells me I just earned the trophy for 100 headshots (I mean, it was bound to happen eventually).
Until next time,
Cheers.
