First, I announced yesterday that Microsoft had launched their new NXE which is a new dashboard design and provides many new features. What I forgot to mention was the coolest feature of being able to load games to your HDD. Now you don’t load the full game and have no use for the disc anymore but this will definitely help with loading and performance times for most games. Most games….what doesn’t work you ask. Well probably the biggest would be Halo 3. Yes the most popular game on the system performs worse when you install it to your HDD. Bungie, the creators of Halo, responded as so:
Basically, the game was programmed to copy map files from the disc to the HDD to speed up load times. If you install the game to the HDD, it copies the files from your HDD to…another part of your HDD, which is a lot slower than a disc-to-HDD transfer…….we shipped Halo 3 before Microsoft finalized this particular feature. As a result, we were not able to take advantage of it (or any other potential optimizations we discovered after shipping Halo 3)
No word on if there will be a patch to address this issue or if they will just recommend not installing Halo 3 on your HDD.
On a lighter note below is a video highlighting all the fatalities from Mortal Kombat vs DC. Some of them are kinda weak, but that is expectable for a T rated game. I hope to have my hands on this game soon and will provide my thoughts/analysis on the game. Spoiler alert…I guess.
Jai Nitz is a Kansas-based comic book writer whose work for DC includes “Blue Beetle” and his current project, “El Diablo“. He recently discussed his work, his history in comics, and the blossoming Kansas comic scene with Nerd City’s own Max:
Jai, currently you’re writing”El Diablo” for DC, and you’ve also worked an all-Spanish issue of “Blue Beetle”. Why don’t you tell us a little about how you came to work for DC, and some of your training and earlier work?
I have always wanted to write comic books, but didn’t seriously try until I was 22 years old. I had just graduated from film school and wanted to write comics. I self-published a few books and got small work from Marvel and DC. I went to cons and befriended pros and editors (in the days before MySpace and Facebook, mind you). I had a few creator-owned books at Image. One of the people I met at cons was an assistant editor named Nachie Castro. He worked on Green Arrow with my mentors Phil Hester and Ande Parks. Nachie eventually took over as the full editor of Batman Strikes! at DC (it was the print version of the animated show, The Batman). I had kept in contact with him over the years and he gave me a shot at an issue of Batman Strikes! He liked what he saw and gave me another. And another. I did six issues in all. During my run, I visited the DC offices in New York and landed El Diablo. That led to Blue Beetle. It’s been a series of baby steps for a decade to get where I am.
Could you please tell us a little bit about the character of “El Diablo” and the changes being made to the character by you and Phil Hester?
Our El Diablo starts off as a bad guy. He’s a bad guy given powers that make him do “good” things in the name of vengeance. That’s the drive of the story and the main difference from other incarnations. The other versions of El Diablo have been heroes. Ours comes from a very different place. Visually, he’s very different from the other versions. One looked like a Zorro/gaucho, the next looked like a masked bullfighter. Ours looks like a luchador from Hell.
Is “El Diablo” DC’s first Hispanic superhero? How does the character’s heritage affect the storylines and overall feel of the book?
Nah, he’s not the first. Currently, Blue Beetle is the biggest and best example. One person described our El Diablo as an American-Mexican-American which is very accurate. LOL. The ethnic background ties to me writing about what I know. The name, heritage, and look all draw from Hispanic influences. They’re all good touchstones for things that happen in the book. El Diablo is set in the Southwest and Mexico. Issue two is set in New Mexico. New Mexico is the “Land of Enchantment”. I take that literally. LOL.
You live in the Kansas City area. As do Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron and frequent Hester collaborator Ande Parks. Why do you think Kansas is currently producing such top talent?
It’s weird. I grew up (for the most part) in Kansas City. Growing up, there weren’t as many guys and gals around that were serious about making comics in KC. Every now and then someone would put out a book, but there weren’t any legit pros that were working in the business on a monthly basis. Now? There are comic writers and artists all over the place. There’s me, and Freddie Williams at DC. Fraction, and Aaron at Marvel. Clay Moore, Alex Grecian, and Harold Sipe at Image. Ande at Oni. Kerry Calen at Slave Labor. Nathan Fox and Chris Grine at Dark Horse. I know I’m leaving out several other guys and gals. It’s awesome.
I don’t know if KC is producing top talent, or if talent has settled here because of cheap living and cool amenities. Oddly, Fraction (North Carolina), Aaron (Alabama), and I (Georgia) all lived in the South before we moved to KC.
So what’s next for you?
Right now I’m concentrating on making El Diablo as good as it can possibly be. I’ve always got my eye on the horizon, but I want to knock that off and worry about the here-and-now. Of course I have several projects in the hopper, but few come to fruition. We’ll see how El Diablo is received, then I’ll worry about what’s next.
Based off of a novel, the Halo movie will look to be prequel to the video game. Peter Jackson Is set to produce the film. Below are a few concept art shots.
So I haven’t really been covering much Xbox 360 stuff on here and that is mainly due to my lack of interest in the system. But I have a responsibilty to report the news just like Fox does and keep it fair and balanced. So to start off my 360 news, I thought I would let you all in on a fantastic looking bundle for Gears of War 2. With this highly anticipated game launching this November, many fans will probably want to check out what Amazon has to offer. Just like the Halo 3 Legendary edition with the Master Chief helmet, this limited bundle for GOW2 will include a Lancer replica (which appears to be pretty much to scale). The Lancer is a pretty boss gun with the chainsaw attachment, which the replica will have chainsaw sounds and vibration. Enough with the chatting here is what things will look like. Pics from Amazon.com and teamxbox. Amazon.com description as follows:
Pre-order the Amazon.com Exclusive Gears of War 2 Lancer by November 7, 2008 and receive the Standard Edition of Gears of War 2 free or upgrade your order to the Limited Edition of Gears of War 2 for $10 more. This offer applies only to the purchase of the Amazon.com Exclusive Lancer and the Standard or Limited Edition of Gears of War 2 offered by Amazon.com and does not apply to products sold on our site by third-party merchants or through third-party areas such as Amazon.com Marketplace or Auctions. Limit three per household.
* Pre-order the Amazon.com Exclusive Gears of War 2 Lancer and either the Standard Edition of Gears of War 2 or the Limited Edition of Gears of War 2. Add your selected items to your cart and proceed through the purchase process. Upon check out $59.99 (the cost of the Standard Edition of Gears of War 2) will be deducted from your total order.
* This offer applies to qualifying purchases made before 11:59 p.m. PT on November 7, 2008 while supplies last on the “Gears of War 2″, “Gears of War 2 Limited Edition”, and “Gears of War 2 Amazon.com Exclusive Lancer Bundle.”
* Offer does not apply to out-of-stock items.
* Offer may be used in conjunction with the purchase of products sold by or under the brands of third parties, including, but not limited to, Target.com, eToys, or any other merchants, or sold through third-party areas such as Amazon Marketplace or Auctions, but the but the qualifying products must be purchased directly from Amazon.com. Offer cannot be redeemed at Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp, or any other Web site operated by Amazon.com, its affiliates, or third-party merchants (including Web sites linked to from the http://www.amazon.com site).
* If the offer has a minimum purchase requirement, taxes, gift-wrap, and shipping and handling charges do not apply toward the minimum purchase amount.
* *Free: Shipping rates and tax may apply.
* Offer cannot be applied to orders placed after November 7, 2008.
