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.
Marina and The Diamonds are working on some new music, but Marina is being very secretive about it. Although the release has been delayed, she let’s us in on some secrets about the new album, and how alcohol changed her life.
Once upon a time, long before the sold out stadiums and screaming fans, little Howie D was a self-proclaimed “Dough Boy.” Apparently, his first love wasn’t music, it was Twinkies. In all fairness, Howie went on to much better things, however, for this interview the guys reminisce about some of their more embarrassing moments.
The Play offs have started.
The last hockey game I bought for full price was Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey for the N64, since then I haven’t really fallen in love with any new hockey games. Sure, I’ve played my share but nothing has captured the frenzy of the old hockey games and has left me wondering if maybe my expectations are a bit too high. No, I haven’t been under a rock or anything, I’ve played and kept up to date on the newer NHL games but nothing has really stood out enough for me to merit a purchase.
When talks were brewing about NHL 2K10 utilizing the Wii Motion Plus accessory I was really excited to see how evolutionary this title might turn out to be. This excitement was due to the fact that the last sports title I played that utilized the Motion Plus was the excellent Tiger Woods 10. In the end it’s the actual utilization of this little gizmo that will either make or break this title.
So does NHL 2k10 have what it takes? (more…)
After reviewing over 10 games on the Wii, I finally got my hands on a hockey title. Leading up to this exciting day, my mind would fill with ideas of how the controls would work, simulating a slap shot, dekeing and faking, basically hoping for a direct simulation of an actual game of hockey thanks to the Wii’s unique position in terms of controller inventiveness. When I popped in NHL 2K9 for the Nintendo Wii, the first thing I noticed was the sharp cut off between the intro music and going straight into a quick match setup. It seemed that there was no true main menu in the game unless you read the small text at the bottom saying “press the + button to select menu”. I guess I could shrug this off in the assumption that 2K Sports was trying to instill the idea of instant action without bothering the player, and in fact, I support this decision as it makes the game begin that much quicker.
Playing the game itself is challenging. The introduction and all aspects found in most hockey games are present, but once that puck drops, it feels like a totally different game… or at least a hockey game you might have played a few years ago on the Gamecube. The graphics found in NHL 2K9 are nearly insulting to watch, with basic reflections, abysmal audience and simple animations, the un-detailed renderings of the players, while smooth, are simple at best.
Music wise you get the same old rock anthems and hockey jingles that appear in any other game and the voice commentary, while appreciated, is frustratingly repetitive to a point where you just want to mute your TV. Otherwise, the sound effects coming from the skates and players are simple recordings of real life sounds, both realistic but bland.
Now let’s talk about controls, what the Wii prides itself on. Controlling the flow of action is pretty unique in NHL 2K9, you use the analog stick to skate around and the remote to control your stick handling, sounds great but its so touchy and reactive at times while being sluggish at others that it’s nearly impossible to pull off a high skilled deke shot without making a mistake somewhere. Using the Wii-mote’s accelerometer to wind up slapshots is cool, but when you want to do it, it doesn’t work out how you hoped it would, and when you just want to dump the puck, you wind up… well, winding up! It’s hard and cumbersome to do simple maneuvers other NHL games can do with easy such as checking or stripping the puck from another player, and to go back to the graphics issue, the animations are so simple you don’t even realize your doing a move by the way the players look. One feature that still do this date eludes me is that no matter how hard I try to get into a fight, I just cannot seem to start one, there aren’t any instructions in the manual about how to control a fight and from all the demos I’ve watched and times I’ve played, I have yet to see a fight, I’m starting to think perhaps there is no fighting in NHL 2K9 for the Wii
Once your done playing exhibition games, 2K9 offers a number of other game modes to enjoy such as the following: Franchise mode allows players to focus on any NHL team to guide them to the Stanley Cup, making decisions about players on the ice, management, coaching, drafting and more. Mini-rink gives 2 on 2 hockey action on a tiny rink, bouncy walls and no penalties make for one action packed minigames. Pond hockey gives players a 4 on 4 match with invisible walls that still clank like plexiglass, and finally, the all important shootout mode. While these options aren’t all that expansive, and there isn’t a creation mode of any kind, it’s still nice to have some extras in a game that seems to be missing the ball on so many other features.
All these negatives being said, I still feel NHL 2K9 is the best hockey game out there on the Nintendo Wii to date, the nunchuck controls are fun to skate around with, and with the selection of other game types, you will have plenty to draw upon when the old NHL leaves you lying flat. After all, there’s always next year… NHL 2K10?
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Graphics: 2.0/5
Sound: 2.5/5
Replay Value: 3.0/5
