The Dark Knight is about identity. The Dark Knight is about moral responsibility. The Dark Knight is about a social conscience. The Dark Knight is about our current political climate. The Dark Knight is about personal sacrifice. The Dark Knight is all about Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight is the fastest grossing film of all time. The Dark Knight is not a comic book adaptation, nor is it an action film or a summer blockbuster.

As a film, The Dark Knight has become lost in a wave of hype, hysteria and hyperbole of epic heights. Which is a shame: this is a great film. It’s not perfect but is probably the best comic-book adaptation to date, though never before has a comic-book adaptation been treated with such professional reverence. At times the film successfully manages to be an intelligent crime drama in the same vein of Mann’s Heat, with an obvious attempt at some social commentary, although the extent of which has been taken out of proportion by some critics. Fierce action scenes which are tightly edited, some superb performances and some a surprisingly effective score: there is plenty to recommend here. But there are problems.

Comic books have, and continue to provide successful platforms for social commentary and debate and Nolan has decided to use The Dark Knight in a similar manner. In this regard, the film doesn’t work. A tense discussion between police Lieutenant, District Attorney and a man in a rubberised bat costume doesn’t work. As someone who isn’t super-human, Batman is believable in the world of Gotham City as a vigilante, especially if one has seen Batman Begins which successfully manages to imbue a plausible back story to a man who needs a necessarily strong motivation in order to be taken seriously by viewers and characters alike, being dressed as his is. In a film that attempts to make a fable for our (apparently) troubled times, the viewer is expected to draw favour with a protagonist who is a lone figure, one person whose decisions and motivations are questionable, whose role as a public figure is vapid and two-dimensional and whose abilities are reliant on imaginative, if unrealistic gadgets. Films of this nature can work as a fable, our heroes are not meant to be perfect, or above criticism and the film can successfully carry a message or commentary for the times the film is created in such as Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, but the issue with the Dark Knight is that these issues are put forward in such a blatant manner. In the Dark Knight we have the torture of terrorists and civil liberties abused versus the need for the protection of the public, all there to see in such contemporary methods as forced rendition and blanket surveillance of an unsuspecting public. But it’s all laid on too thickly, too obvious and provides more moral subjugation for the audience than the public in the film-torture is ok, people can be sacrificed, liberties can be revoked, because in the end, the good will out. This is all undermined by man dressed as a bat, a man who can fly, a man who can buy a hotel if he disagrees with its dress-code, a man who can give chase to the bad guys in a tank. His arch-nemesis in this film might be his own personal desire for normality, to be devoid of his chosen responsibilities, but the contemporary villain of the piece, the Joker is a man who can apparently threaten and cajole an organised crime syndicate into giving into him. As a villain, the joker is astutely created, all physical menace and intelligent nihilism, an extreme of personality and a joy to watch, as much as a murdering psychopath can be to watch. But as an allegory for any contemporary ‘villain’, strapped up with bombs, who uses the TV as a method of delivering warnings of impending doom and records videos of him torturing his victims, he’s all movie-villain, bizarrely funny, devoid of all moral responsibility and pantomime extremities. This is the real success of the film, as an action film, a superior comic-book adaptation driven by action and characters.

The performances here are most notable: Ledger’s Joker is a twisted, unpredictable riot of a character. Cold and yet uncomfortably enticing, he steals every scene with a bewitching performance of physical nuances and malevolent uneasiness. Superb in every regard. Of a much more subtle performance, Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Gordon is understated, considered and intense. Overshadowed by the more layered Joker and the palpable Batman, Gordon occasionally threatens to fall into archetypal angry American cop, but avoids such a pitfall through an underlying amount of depth of character, most obviously witnessed through his actions, but as the film develops, his emotional range. Bale’s gruff Batman and Gyllenhaal’s squeaky Dawes are perfectly suited to their roles and Eckhart is wonderfully realised in his role as Harvey ‘Two Face’ Dent.

Opening briskly, mask-wearing hired guns rob a Mafia run bank, Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard score a breathless pull on the also nimble editing and 6 minutes in, the film is running at a speed most films would take an hour to get to. And it rarely lets up this pace throughout its duration. The Joker on-screen, his crazed personality causing havoc on a mafia-owned bank, the film wastes no time in establishing its intentions as a dramatic, entertaining summer blockbuster with a stellar cast. The plot unfolds, creases and rips apart as characters’ lives are and at 2 and half hours in length, is too long for a film that could lose an act and not be detrimental to the overall story. The Dark Knight though, is never dull. From the swift deviation in Hong Kong to the set piece in the Police Headquarters, every scene is awash with adept storytelling and engaging action. Nolan cleverly balances the dark and disconsolate city of Gotham, overrun with criminals and awash with death, with that of a feeling of hope and salvation when it’s needed most, whether from Batman, the crusading District Harvey Dent or the moral righteousness of prisoners who would give their life for that of innocent civilians.

The film threatens to undo its good work in the final act, Batman’s ‘sonar’ tool one gadget too far, but for a film that’s too long, it’s all over very quickly. A breathless and intelligent exercise in updating the comic-book adaptation as a genre, The Dark Knight is a success so long as you view it as just that, a superior summer blockbuster with superb action scenes, wonderful performances and interesting, not weighty or lofty, comments on modern issues of morality and terror. Superior entertainment.

Goose’s weekly US Box Office report see’s yet more records fall…

1 The Dark Knight $75.6M - $314.2M
2 Step Brothers $30M - $30M
3 Mamma Mia! $17.8M - $52.7M
4 The X-Files: I Want To Believe $10.2M - $10.2M
5 Journey to the Center of the Earth $9.4M - $60.1M
6 Hancock $8.2M - $206.3M
7 WALL-E $6.3M - $195.2M
8 Hellboy II: The Golden Army $4.9M - $65.8M
9 Space Chimps $4.3M - $16M
10 Wanted $2.7M - $128.6M

With a staggering first weekend, followed by record breaking weekdays, what had The Dark Knight got left to achieve in its second frame? How about the fastest film to $300M? Biggest second frame of any film? The Dark Knight got them both this weekend as it continues its fantastic run. Being down around 66% from Friday to Friday is perfectly fine given how huge its opening weekend was - Spiderman 3 dropped 71% in the same time period. Higher Friday drops are expected with films like these simply because of the large amount of Thursday midnight showings that are factored into Friday’s takings, and given The Dark Knight had a record breaking midnight total, a big drop was inevitable. It’s weekend take is nothing short of amazing - many major films don’t open to that much money! In a total weekend to weekend drop, the film is off only 52%.

The film has broken record after record and even more amazing, it’s now the biggest film of 2008, having jumped over both Indiana Jones and Iron Man this weekend to take the top spot. In regards to its $300M+ haul, It took Dead Man’s Chest 16 days to do what The Dark Knight has achieved in just 10. Once final numbers are issued there’s every chance that The Dark Knight will be within the top 20 biggest films of all time. It’s still got some way to go before it could topple Titanic ($600M) but a top five place (between $430-460M) is well within its grasp. After some controversy last weekend thanks to Nicki Finke claiming that Warners has overestimated The Dark Knights take, it turned out that they themselves had sold the film short when its official weekend total was revealed to be $158M and not the estimated $155M. The third Mummy film might give The Dark Knight a bit of a dent next weekend, but it’ll be nothing to write home about. Next up for The Dark Knight? The $400M record, held by Shrek 2 at 43 Days.

After the disastrous Semi-Pro failed to make $35M in its entire domestic run ($60M+ was expected to be its opening weekend!) Will Ferrell once again teams up with John C Reilly in a hope of seeing some of that Talledega Nights style box office ($47M opening). Step Brothers is the tail of two grown men who suddenly find themselves as, you’ve guessed it, Step Brothers. Being at odds with each other to start, they soon become fast friends. That really is pretty much the plot, so a lot was hanging on the comic skills of Ferrell and Reilly. Given how much The Dark Knight took this weekend, Step Brothers has had a pretty decent opening - perhaps people wanting a laugh and a joke instead of the darkness offered by Batman & co. The film cost $65M, a figure it should be able to recoup with a couple of decent weekends. It won’t face direct competition next weekend but will the weekend after in the guise of Seth Rogen’s Pineapple Express.

Mamma Mia! also has a decent second frame and has crossed the $60M mark this weekend. Though not emulating the amazing success of Sex and the City, Mamma Mia! is still doing well, especially in the international market where its total so far easily exceeds that of its domestic counterpart. It’s the only film in the top ten to appeal directly to women so it should continue to do well until it’s pushed out by the glut of releases we’re about to see as we enter August. Made for $52M, Mamma Mia is already starting to reap in those profits.

The last X-Files movie was released just at the right time - the show was still a major TV success and a movie was the perfect way to attract new viewers and satisfy fans who wanted to see something a little bigger than a 40 minutes episode. Though heavily frontloaded the film managed a pretty decent $83M by the end of its box office run. The X-Files: I Want To Believe will be lucky to see half that amount. With the show finishing in 2002, it was a risky move to bring the characters back six years later. Put into production very quickly once Chris Carter had sorted out some long-running legal problems with Fox, the sequel’s production was shrouded in secrecy. Even with a super low budget of just $30M, Mulder & Scully’s return failed to make much of an impact with the public (the lacklustre trailer didn’t help matters) and probably won’t recoup its budget until it hits DVD. Even the hardcore fans (who have probably long since moved on) didn’t show up in any kind of large numbers. Chalk this one down as one of the few casualties of summer 2008.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is relying on its 3D performances to help keep it afloat and it seems to be working as the film has now crossed the $60M mark. The Brendan Fraser action comedy appears to be the family choice alongside Wall-E and should finish up around $85M. Friday saw Hancock cross $200M, the fourth Will Smith to do so. The film’s international gross isn’t that far behind either and we could be seeing the second half a billion dollar Will Smith film in a row.

As Wall-E inches closer to $200M, which it should see by next weekend, it’s set to be the 7th Pixar movie to reach & surpass this figure. This weekend should also see a number of international grosses factored into its overall gross so far and is still amongst the best reviewed of the year. Hellboy 2 is still taking something of a kicking from all sides but still has the international market waiting in the wings. The film should just about recoup its budget from its domestic run but the idea of a third and final movie is still in the air (and a long way off given Del Toro’s commitment to The Hobbit).

Space Chimps will be gone by next weekend and straight on to DVD by the end of August. Wanted has a massive global tally of over $220M and a sequel is already in the scripting stages.

Next Weekend…
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
http://www.robcohenthemummy.com/video.php

Swing Vote
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/SwingVote/T…W_Trl1_High.mov

Zebrahead @ Met Lounge – June 12 2008

PAINTING the Met Lounge with a mask of stripes, my favourite Californian rap-core band, Zebrahead disguised the city venue in a mist of excitement when they returned to Peterborough for a third consecutive year running.

I may be biased, but Zebrahead are by far one of the best acts to come out of the States. Since coming on to the scene over twelve years ago, their settlement of fans has extended across the USA, Europe and Japan and their popularity keeps on rising.

What draws many people in is their catchy lyrics and genre sound-clash of rap, ska and punk, putting them in a similar musical category to fellow americans, Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake.

The heat was on and the room was filled to its full capacity, jam-packed with a selection of younger and older Zebrahead fans.

Support on the night came from city punk heroes, The Ruined and upcoming stars, Go:Audio who have recently stormed to success with their track Woodchuck, a song that frequently appears on Kerrang radio.

Galloping on to the stage, like a herd of wild animals, the fun began when Ali and the boys belted out the notorious Rescue Me. As fans chanted the lyrics word for word, the stage became a centre of chaos with flying drumsticks and frantic stage diving.

Performing a range of tracks from their older albums and more recent release, Broadcast to the World the band gave the crowd a sneak preview of a new song which will be featured on their new studio album, Phoenix.

To say there was a magician in the room, you would be wrong. There were five of them.

Ali, Matty, Ben, Ed and Greg, a quintet from sunny California played an equal role in casting a spell over the Peterborough fans belting out favourites, Hello Tomorrow and Playmate of the year.

Lead singer, Ali Tabatabaee commented; “Met Lounge, this is by far the best night we have had on the tour so far, every time we come here it is amazing, it is so good to see you guys!”

Since their first appointment with the Peterborough music scene, Zebrahead has developed immensely and converted from a hot support act into a world class band.

Their professionalism, friendship and talent puts them in a league of their own and tearing the roof down with Anthem, the crowd were left stunned at yet another top notch performance.

Be certain to grab a copy of their new album, Phoenix which is due to hit the shelves on August 4^th.

www.myspace.com/zebrahead

The Nominations for the awkwardly-named 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize have been announced and are as follows:

• Adele - 19
• British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
• Burial - Untrue
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• Estelle - Shine
• Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea
• Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
• The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

The exclusion of Foals and Portishead is a clear error. More opinion to follow but in the meantime, what do you think to the shortlist? What album will win? Who did the judges correctly choose? Who is missing from the list? Comment below.

Once again, columnist Goose sums up the happenings of the last weekend’s box-office in the USA.

US Box Office Report - July 18th-20th

1 The Dark Knight $155.2M - $155.3M
2 Mamma Mia! $27.6M - $27.6M
3 Hancock $14M - $191.5M
4 Journey to the Center of the Earth $11.9M - $43M
5 Hellboy II: The Golden Army $10M - $56.4M
6 WALL-E $9.8M - $182.4M
7 Space Chimps $7.3M - $7.3M
8 Wanted $5M - $123.3M
9 Get Smart $4M - $119.5M
10 Kung Fu Panda $1.7M - $206.5M

For many, once Iron Man and Indiana Jones were out of the way, The Dark Knight was the one to wait for, but the tragic death of new cast member Heath Ledger during the film’s post production cast a shadow onto everything Dark Knight related. Where would this leave the film and Ledger’s Joker? Warner Bros stuck with Nolan’s vision both within the film and the viral campaign surrounding it. In the end though, would it pay off for all concerned?

The weeks before release had been peppered with record busting ticket pre-sales stories, followed quickly by the announcement that many midnight screenings had already sold out and that 3am and 6am screenings would be added to the first day of release (pretty much unheard of). Even before initial Friday numbers were released it had already become the widest opening film in US cinema history, showing at 4,366 locations. By Friday night it had smashed the midnight showing record held by 2005’s Revenge of the Sith ($16.9M). And the weekend was just getting started; by Saturday morning The Dark Knight had broken the single day takings record that Spiderman 3 held by more than $7M. Only one weekend record remained….

It was difficult to judge whether that success would carry on over the rest of the weekend and break the three-day record set by Spiderman 3 in the process. We’ve seen many films start well but collapse quickly as many fans attended the first showings on the first day, leaving empty seats on Saturday and Sunday (X3 for example). The Dark Knight however, shattered the three day record by nearly $4M to score a huge $155M for the three day weekend. Remember, this isn’t a special holiday weekend of any kinds, just a normal Friday-Sunday. This is a fantastic start for the film and opens the doors for yet another potential record - Shortest time to reach $200M. Without even factoring in foreign market ticket sales this huge movie is just $25M short of being in a profit on opening weekend. How much did the death of Heath Ledger contribute to that phenomenal start? Certainly it figured, but The Dark Knight reviewed very positively, trailers helped a great deal too, as did the extensive viral marketing campaign.

Where does the film go from here? Obviously it’ll see a huge drop next weekend but repeat business from strong word of mouth should keep it to a safe level. Could The Dark Knight trouble Iron Man and Indiana Jones? Almost certainly. The Dark Knight is our record breaking number one film this weekend.

It’s hard to believe that there were actually two other new films released this weekend to varying degrees of success. Mamma Mia! the hugely successful musical gets a big name cast screen adaptation but can’t reel in the female demographic as well as May’s Sex & The City did. Mamma Mia! still managed a not bad $27M and could now dig itself in for a few weeks given that the majority of cinema goers would have foregone it in this frame for The Dark Knight and faces very little direct competition.

Hancock fares up pretty well considering the slamming it would have gotten from The Dark Knight. The Will Smith anti-hero comedy has now cleared $375M in total global ticket sales and was the strongest of the recent releases, including Hellboy II, which outperformed it last weekend. There’s every chance that Hancock picked up business from those people who couldn’t get a ticket for The Dark Knight, for whom Hellboy 2 Or Mamma Mia didn’t appeal. The film should see $200M within the next week or so and will probably end up with over a half a billion dollars by the end of its worldwide theatrical run, perhaps topping I Am Legend in the process.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is still suffering somewhat from having only a third of its location count capable of showing the film in the 3D format. It’s off less than 45%, which is a lot better than expected and a good chunk of the box office may well have emanated from those 3D screenings. The 3D gimmick might give the film a little more chance at a few weeks of better than expected (deserved?) box office. Its low budget of just $45M is a major plus point at this time as its almost recouped it just from its domestic takings. Hellboy II however, is not nearly as lucky. Its Friday to Friday take was off a nasty 77% and there’s little chance it’ll be able to recover from that next week. Probably hit harder by The Dark Knight than any other film in the top ten, the film will surpass the low take of the first Hellboy movie but may struggle to reach the $85M it cost to make. There was always a worry that Hellboy 2 would suffer against the bigger, showier movies of the summer and that appears to have been proven correct. On Hellboy’s side is the massive DVD market, where the film will easily add another $50M to its overall take. Would an October release have benefited the film more?

Wall-E has now recouped its production budget and still has a vast number of foreign locales awaiting its release. Sadly the film has slowed down much quicker than was expected and it’ll still take another few weeks before it sees $200M, a figure it may not reach while in the top ten. Compared to the takes of other recent Pixar movies, it’s not coming off too well, but on a word of mouth level, it’s one of the best. Compare that to the awfulness that is Space Chimps and you can see why people turn out to Pixar movies year after year. Released with little fanfare and having Jeff Daniels as the biggest name in the cast, Space Chimps is one big advert for the DVD release, where this film will probably clean up.

Wanted is starting to look a bit long in the tooth but has made more than a killing in its short box office life. Again, hit hard by The Dark Knight, Wanted was also heavily front loaded and is one of the older action films in top ten (the film has now been on release for a month), it should still manage at least one more week in the top ten. Made for $75M, the film sits on a global total of over $200M.

Get Smart has now made over $170M in global terms, which may be enough to spawn a quick sequel. The success of Get Smart must be a relief to Steve Carrell after the disaster of Even Almighty and the lacklustre box office from Dan In Real Life. Kung Fu Panda, now sitting on over $200M, is seeing its last weekend on the charts, exiting as a huge success for Dreamworks Animation.

Next week…
The Sci-Fi duo Mulder & Scully return - X-Files: I Want to Believe - Trailer

Will Farrell & John C Reilly - Step Brothers - Trailer

About 30 minutes ago a demonstration and Q+A by Shigeru Miyamoto was taking place at E3. I’m sure it was fun.

Then something wonderful happened. Surrounded by dull questions, someone asks whether or not a new Pikmin is in the works. Miyamoto responds that he’ll only announce such a game when he is ready.

And then says “We’re making Pikmin”

Add that to the more casual stuff at the conference proper and things are suddenly looking a lot better for Nintendo again - pointer driven Pikmin is bound to be the best thing ever.

After an amazing 2007 for gaming, 2008 was always going to be a challenge. Microsoft demonstrated their intention to try to appeal to the more casual market but ultimately failed by making ‘Me-Too’ announcements and Nintendo provided a conference some felt to be missing their magical touch leaving Sony was given a golden opportunity and add to the increased momentum the PS3 has had in recent month. Ultimately though, Sony failed to grasp this opportunity and with rumours on the Sony content before-hand seemingly limited to wants, rather than beliefs, Sony delivered neither.

Opening like an MTV awards show, multiple video screens buzzed with life, quick edits for impressive and familiar games and loud bass-driven music and coordinated lighting for added ‘wow’. Jack Tretton, president and CEO of SCEA, was the ringmaster for the event and opened with some after-dinner, corporate-speech style jokes. But he began in jubilant mood and looked confident, name dropping Kratos as someone who’ll make an appearance in the presentation.

Mentioning on more than one occasion that “2008 is the year of the PlayStation 3”, we’re treated to in-game Resistance 2 early. The video itself is impressive in scale and in some graphical areas such as the sky-scraper sized monster that the protagonist, Nathan Hale, is attempting to kill. What followed were a series of scripted events designed to afford the opportunity to shoot the monster in the mouth with a bazooka. Radio communication from NPDs with instructions on how to lure the monster into a trap brings the demo to an end as it fades to black. Clearly a title with a lot of ambition, but Resistance 2 looked uninspired, unexciting and hopefully unfinished.

The corporate part of the presentation was also used to hype Little Big Planet, Tretton using the game’s versatility by using it to help enliven the facts and figures that we all find so boring. And it worked. The stats are obviously still boring, but with charts and numbers all introduced and played with by LBP’s Sackboy, it’s a superb demonstration of what the game is all about and what it’s capable of. The demo almost masked the not-too-impressive figures as well.

Moving onto the PlayStation Network, a new Ratchet and Clank, Quest for Booty, was announced as an exclusive downloadable title. Shorter in length than a ‘regular’ game and with a greater emphasis on action it looked very tidy with some nice lighting effects and great value at its 14.99USD price point. The Gran Turismo TV ‘thing’ was formally announced and with scant details other than the service’s Pay-Per-View model, it was easy to dismiss. Tretton also unveiled the PlayStation Film and TV download service which boasted a slick interface and a raft of partners. It’ll no doubt do well, but it’s clearly an attempt at catching up with Microsoft and even Apple. It should be live in the US from later the same day though, which was a nice twist was the announcement that you can download or buy films and TV shows and transfer them to your PSP. If you’re that way inclined.

Moving onto the PSP, LocoRoco 2 and Patapon 2 look lovely, as did Super Star Dust Portable. Batman Lego got a very brief showing, and so did the newly unveiled Buzz! for the handheld. The PSP has obviously picked up a lot of steam since the release of the Slim and Lite model but the show-reel offered no shocks or surprises save for the stand-alone trailer for Resistance for the PSP. A 3rd person shooter, it looks uninspired. At this stage, 2 hours in, there had been no real emphasis on the PS3. A tie-up with Google was mentioned as was a trailer for MMO DC Universe before the inevitable PS3 show-reel, designed to showcase what’s to come in 2008 which featured Metal Gear Solid 4, an indication of where the PS3 catalogue, released or planned is at.

As the Media Conference came to a close, the big guns were unleashed. Of sorts. The shoe-in God of War 3 was offered in teaser trailer form, providing little other than some immense looking water physics and particle effects, but it’s difficult to say for certain whether the engine could be or is to be deployed in-game. Next up was inFamous, best described as Crackdown with Force Powers. The trailer seemed intent on pushing the back-story, but with a city ravaged by some post-apocalyptic nightmare, it wasn’t anything to mark it out from BioShock, Fallout 3 or even Half-Life 2. The game itself suggested it had a lot of ideas and could provide plenty of emergent play but in any other year may have been looked over.

To close, the team that brought SOCOM to the PlayStation brands unveiled their latest project, MAG which stands for Massive Action Game. Yep. Massive Action Game. A military game that promises 256 players fighting online against each other simultaneously in squads of 8, it takes cues from Call of Duty 4’s and Battlefield as well as any SOCOM game in the last 5 years. It certainly has the potential to be a truly awesome online experience, but such numbers aren’t easy to convey in a trailer, especially one that failed to help sway any naysayers. The footage appeared to be in-game, but events looked scripted at best, planned and coded to script at worst.

As Tretton wound up the conference, there was already a purveying feeling that this year’s E3 had been a let down. Sony hadn’t helped matters. In places dull, in others predictable, rarely did the Sony Conference evoke any form of excitement and it certainly did nothing to convince a gaming industry concerned that there’s little on the horizon to match last year’s gluttony of genuine classics.

Illustration by ajr.

Continuing our coverage of this years E3, attention turns to Nintendo. Iwata mentioned it is five years since he took over a company that people didn’t have a very optimistic view of. It was fair to say that Nintendo was slowly fading into obsolescence. This years E3 was a little different. Rather than resorting to complicated maths or statistical analysis, Nintendo could just put up graphs with easily understandable numbers, each showing off the ridiculous amount of consoles they’ve sold.

And it showed.

This wasn’t a Nintendo that was carefully ensuring it didn’t offend people. The closest the older franchises came to getting an announcement was a half-mention that the teams that made Zelda and Mario were working on games. No specifics at all. Any other year you’d imagine the announcement of a snowboarding game would have been a new version of 1080, here it is the completely unstylised Shaun White Snowboarding played using the Balance board. The demo looked fine, if not particularly impressive, but it was impossible to work out how it played.

The biggest announcement was actually made on Monday, the Wii MotionPlus. It’s a small doohickey that plugs into the base of the Wiimote and increases the accuracy with which movement is detected. Whilst this is obviously a good thing, there is a vague nagging doubt that we’re being charged for an add-on that does what we were once told the Wiimote was already capable of. It even uses the same technology, just smaller and more precise.

The game chosen to launch the MotionPlus was an obvious one, a sequel to Wii Sports. Wii Sports Resort is of course sure to be great, but it didn’t look quite as good as you’d hope. The main problem is that the events shown weren’t really sports. Dog-Disc was simply throwing a frisbee but it showed how tiny movements of the arm were mapped well. Power Cruiser was essentially Wave Race with a Mii sat on it and looked a little clumsy. The best looking was a sword fighting mode played in the same way as boxing, but with the sword accurately following the movement of the remote.

A small summary of third-party games showed demos of Clone Wars (looking better than the last footage shown, but still a bit rough), Raving Rabbids 2 (the rabbids are still ace, the game still looks a bit non-descript) and Call of Duty: World at War (which looked exactly like you’d expect it to). On the DS a new version of Guitar Hero: On Tour - Decades was confirmed, allowing multiplayer between titles, Spore Creatures still looks awful compared to the PC version. Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars for the DS was the biggest announcement, but aside from stating it was similar to the full versions and set in a modern-day Liberty City nothing else was shown.

The closest the show got to a new version of an old franchise was in the announcement that Animal Crossing: City Folk would be released later this year. It looks very similar to the GameCube version, but with the added option of getting up to 4 people in to play in your town. The biggest new aspect however is the addition of a city to visit, featuring an auction house to sell and buy items the Happy Room Academy to check what others are doing for great scores as well as things like Gracie’s store and Harriet’s hairstylist. If any that means anything to you, it’s probably time to be excited.

Animal Crossing brought along a new add-on as well, the Wii Speak, a simple microphone to enable voice communications in games. Rather than a headset, it is simply placed with the sensor bar so everyone has the option to talk, not just the player. But in a house with a baby, or a house with a dog, or a house with a death metal fan it’s got to be said a few flaws might appear. But that they have edged past the concept that only paedophiles play online games and admitted that even normal people like talking to each other. Progress.

The show was brought to a close with Wii Music that will finally be released this year. The demonstration opened with a drumming demonstration that veered between impressive and slightly out of time. That it could be done just by moving your hands in mid-air was amazing, that it sounded significantly less accurate than drum-fills on Rock Band was less so. The demonstration continued in the same vein, boasting that it was a toy rather than a tapping along time video game. With 50 instruments (including cowbell) and lessons for drumming (it uses the balance board for pedals) it should be great fun. Will it be a great game? Almost certainly not.

Nintendo are making lots of money and all the announcements here should sell millions of copies and make them lots more money. This is the first E3 that the new Nintendo have finally given in and ignored their core market, which is a shame. But if you consider yourself part of the new market it was a great performance. Sony conference is up next.

Illustration by Fargalex

So, it’s E3 time again and Disposable Media is going to summarise all the news in an easily digestible form right here. With the Microsoft conference already wrapped up, here is the first of our coverage.

Uninspiring and unexciting are probably the two best descriptions for the conference. Things weren’t helped by a build-up of rumours before the show, there will be a new Halo game and that there would be a new Wii-Remote-esque controller. Neither were shown, but the latter gained momentum when Nintendo made the odd move of announcing a new add-on for their Wiimote to increase its accuracy. The obvious reaction was to assume they knew what Microsoft were planning and were trying to spoil it…but with no announcement of the sort from Microsoft you’ve got to wonder if it was just Nintendo being a bit evil and making Microsoft’s show seem like a bit of a let-down.

What the conference did feature were a number of new glimpses of things that had already been announced before and the things that were genuinely new weren’t particularly interesting. By far the biggest revelation is of a new Dashboard for the 360 in autumn, adding in Avatars and changing the look and feel entirely. Avatars, created by Rare, are essentially the Microsoft version of Nintendo’s Mii, except with the option of choosing their clothing but ultimately a bit embarrassing and ill-suited to the 360’s market. The new Dashboard replaces the blades of the current design with a look vaguely reminiscent of iTunes’ coverflow. The most exciting new feature it brings in is the ability to form a party, chat, share photographs (ideal for exhibitionists) and then stay as a party when going into a game. Xbox Live Prime Time will offer a range of always online game-shows allowing people to take part and win prize. Other features that will come with the update will include the option to copy whole games to your hard-drive to speed up loading times and support for 16×10 aspect ratios over VGA.

In terms of games, it was a world of impressive looking sequels. Fallout 3 opened the show looking extremely grey, but aside from that looked fantastic with great attention to detail, an interesting combat system and a nice variety of weapons. Fable 2 is apparently all finished and ready to launch in October, the latest innovation shown off was an impressive co-op mode that allows you to invite friends into your world with a single button press either to help your mate chat-up women or to seduce his wife as well as the more traditional hacking and slashing. Oh, and the dog is still in there.

Resident Evil 5 had its first gameplay footage shown and was surprisingly unimpressive. The demo made a big deal of the online co-operative play that was little more than making your partner go on ahead to unlock a door while you were forced to snipe from safety. Not necessarily an improvement but it’ll probably be great anyway. Gears of War 2 made showing off seem quite effortless - everything looked better than its already amazing predecessor and nice extra features like the ability to use the locust as “human” shields or their shield for impromptu cover were nice little additions. The best game of the conference despite a very brief showing.

Rare’s only new announcement was that the original N64 Banjo-Kazooie, originally on the N64, will be heading to Live Arcade. Good news in itself but it brings about a very real possibility of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark heading to Live Arcade as well at some point. Meanwhile, rolling videos of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Viva Pinata 2 both revealed nothing significantly new except an awesome-looking gorilla pinata.

Xbox Live Arcade titles announced included Geometry Wars 2, which looked like the original but with nicer explosions and Galaga Legions, made by the same team that put together Pacman Championship Edition, something which bodes very well. Perhaps the most exciting announcement was Portal: Still Alive which despite stopping short of being a true sequel will provide more chambers and more challenges similar to the original and exclusive to the 360.

Square-Enix confirmed 3 titles, the stupidly-titled Infinite Undiscovery (a 360 exclusive for September), Star Ocean - The Last Hope and  The Last Remnant with very little shown of any of them. The biggest announcement, perhaps the biggest of the conference, was that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to the 360. But unsurprisingly it stopped short of announcing any exclusivity, but the trailer did look very nice.

Movie games got their magnificently uninspiring section with Scene it! Box Office Smash announced with Live play, support for Avatars and otherwise looking identical to its Buzz! rip-off predecessor. Perhaps the worst game of the show was an Eye Toy like title, You’re in the Movies which uses the Vision camera and put together the footage recorded during the mini-games to make a small film. Hopefully it was just a poor demonstration.

Music games got a better showing, but Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 both making announcements so close to each other was embarrassing. GH boasted they had Metallica’s next album signed up, RB2 announced they’d have a Metallica track too. GH boasted of having 85 master-track songs, the most ever on a disc. RB2 announced they would have 84, but 20 bonus tracks available to download for free on release. Sandwiched between them to try and make people fail to notice the childish similarities was Lips which seemed to be little more than Singstar with a motion sensitive microphone. It was demonstrated by Duffy and it turns out she doesn’t understand karaoke that well by not not even trying to follow the words on the screen.

A few more announcements based around the movies rentals service, NBC and Universal joining the USA line-up whilst MGM and Constanin Films join the European service. Also for the USA, a deal with Netflix secures another 10,000 TV shows and films for download but it requires a Netflix account.

But really, it has opened the door for Nintendo or Sony to steal the show as Microsoft did little to convince anyone that hasn’t chosen a machine that theirs was the console to buy. It featured boring happy-family pictures like the Wii, embarrassing stuttering introductions (especially the bloke introducing Guitar Hero 4) and even dragged out the old “videogames make more than movies!” line that stopped being impressive in the nineties. Not a disaster, but it is unlikely Microsoft are feeling particularly proud of it. Tune in tomorrow for write ups of both the Sony and Nintendo conferences!

Illustration by MapMap.

Welcome to the first in a series of Muxtapes from Disposable Media. Selected by various staff members, the DM Muxtapes are a random selection of songs presented for you to listen to in a Muxtape stylee; we’ve even gone to the effort of creating some ‘liner notes’ for you, viewable in the comment section, so you can see what why we’ve chosen what we’ve chosen, unless we couldn’t be bothered to provide a reason. For those of you unfamilar with Muxtape, it’s like a mixtape, but in MP3 form. Simple as that.

Disposable Media Muxtape #1 can be listened to here: http://disposablemedia.muxtape.com/

Let us know what you think, and if there’s anything you want to hear in the future via the comments section below.