Black Mesa enfin disponible

Mercredi, nous vous parlions des 10 projets soutenus par la communauté Steam via Greenlight. Parmi eux se trouvait Black Mesa, un projet ambitieux permettant de rejouer tout Half Life avec une nouvelle bande sonore, et des graphismes remis au goût du jour grâce au Source Engine.

Si le titre n'est pas encore disponible sur Steam, sachez cependant que ses auteurs l'ont d'ores et déjà mis en libre circulation à partir de leur site. Vous pouvez donc foncer à cette adresse immédiatement pour télécharger cette petite merveille. Armez-vous cependant de patience, car le site crashe régulièrement sous l'afflux de visiteurs. Et si ce petit speech ne vous a pas encore convaincu, sachez que le jeu est entièrement gratuit.

· Télécharger Black Mesa sur le site officiel
· Forum Black Mesa

halloween horrors 2011 “ozone! the attack of the redneck mutants”

Our annual survey of the cinematic horror landscape wouldn’t be complete without a few nods at some of the homemade horrors that made it into (somewhat) wide circulation during the VHS boom years, and given that the pseudonymous producer-director team of Matt Devlen and Max Raven have just seen their two mid-80-s efforts, 1986′s Ozone! The Attack Of The Redneck Mutants and The Abomination (from the same year, apparently), released as a DVD combo pack from Muther Video (sans extras, it must be said, although the remastered full-frame transfers and stereo sound are both about as good as you could possibly hope for given the Z-grade source material) these seem like as good a place as any to start down the homemade moviemaking road this Halloween season.

Ozone!, as you can probably guess, features incredibly over-the-top semi-competent “acting,” an equally OTT plot, and plenty of fun, if completely unconvincing, gore effects. I’ll give Devlen (who sat in the director’s chair on this one while Raven produced) credit here — he didn’t aim for too much, like many backyard horror auteurs? seem to have this thoroughly misplaced compulsion to do, and set his sights squarely on what could be accomplished. He wasn’t out to prove that he could outdo Herschell Gordon Lewis with his first effort, but he wanted to make a film heavily influenced by Lewis’ non-stop array of blood, carnage, and viscera,? and that had its tongue just as firmly planted in its cheek.

The end result is unprofessional in the extreme, to be sure, wildly uneven in terms of tone, performances, and quality of effects, slow as molasses in places, and transparently, even jubilantly, juvenile. The goal of Ozone! isn’t so much to compensate for, much less hide, its numerous shortcomings, but rather to include a rather overt acknowledgment of them as part of the fun.

Look, the initial premise of a chemical leak at a toxic refinery causing local yokels in Arkansas (I assume, since I’m pretty sure that’s where this Super-8 spectacle was shot) to turn into hideous, melting, vomiting, killing, cannibalistic monsters due to said chemical leak not directly mutating the rednecks but burning a hole in the ozone layer right over the backwater environs they inhabit (remember, knowledge of how all this global warming stuff worked was pretty limited at the time) isn’t one begging to be taken seriously. Throw in a nosy college-student environmental activist who’s teamed up against her will with the son of the owner of the chemical (or is it oil? the script seems to want it both ways) company to get to the bottom of the problem, a plethora of wildly stereotypical hicks, and no money and you don’t have Oscar bait bait (or even anything like it) on your hands, but you do have the recipe for a fun, stupid night in front of the TV.

That’s all that Ozone! The Attack Of The Redneck Mutants promises, and by and large it delivers. Sure, you most definitely have to be willing to go with the flow and not let things like a wildly out-on-synch audio track (the soundtrack being recorded separately and laid down later in true no-budget style), preposterous hamming by most of the cast, shots with literally no composition to them apart from point-that-fucking-camera-and-shoot, and the kind of effects you could probably come up with yourself if you had the time and/or inclination not only not detract from your appreciation of the proceedings here, but rather form the backbone of it, but that’s never been a problem around these parts.

I’m not here to tell you that Ozone! is must-see viewing, or that it’s even a spectacular example of DIY moviemaking. It is, however, a good example of what you can achieve what a backyard filmmaking team can achieve when it sets out to do something squarely within its means — not much, to put it kindly, but the kind of “not much” that’s done with enough passion, heart, and balls that it ends up having its own kind of demented, but thoroughly watchable, charm. There’s no need to take any of it even remotely seriously since the filmmakers didn’t either, but there’s no need to feel guilty or stupid for finding most of it thoroughly entertaining, and frankly even endearing, nonsense.

Skyrim Le Patch Non Officiel enfin disponible

Bonne nouvelle pour les amateurs de Skyrim, à l'occasion de ses 10 ans d'existence le célèbre forum de moddeurs Wiwiland vient de mettre en ligne la première version du Patch Non Officiel français pour Skyrim (appelée PNOS pour l'occasion). Comme d'habitude avec les PNO de Wiwiland, ce fichier améliore sensiblement la traduction française puisque les moddeurs ont intégralement revu le nom des objets, corrigé les erreurs de traduction et retiré les abréviations du jeu. Wiwiland a également corrigé les divers bugs de quêtes qui subsistaient malgré les patchs officiels, remplacé des objets correctement dans le monde du jeu et amélioré le rendu de quelques textures HD.

Ce Patch Non Officiel n'en est encore qu'à sa première version. Il se télécharge sur nos serveurs contre 140 Mo et la liste des corrections ou le signalement de bugs restant se consulte à cette adresse. Sachez enfin que nous n'avons mis à disposition que la version installateur du jeu, mais il est possible de mettre la main directement sur les fichiers de ce mod en se rendant sur cette page.

Sachez enfin que les 10 ans de Wiwiland sont également l'occasion pour eux de lancer un concours, et que la liste des évènements liés à cet anniversaire se consulte sur ce topic.

Mise à Jour : L'administrateur de Wiwiland nous a demandé de retirer le PNOS de nos serveurs.

· Forum The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim

250 clés à gagner pour la beta d'End of Nations

Vous êtes friand de versions beta et de stratégie ? Tester un jeu en avant-première vous procure des frissons le long de l'échine ? Alors nous avons ce qu'il vous faut !

End of Nations, le MMORTS en préparation dans les locaux de Trion Worlds, s'apprête à débuter son second événement de beta fermée. Ce dernier se tiendra du vendredi 3 août dès 6h00 du matin jusqu'au lundi 6 août à 6h00 du matin également. Si vous n'avez pas encore reçu de clé d'accès après votre inscription sur le site officiel, c'est l'occasion idéale d'en obtenir une grâce à TomsGames.

Pour réclamer l'une des 225 clés beta que nous vous offrons, il vous suffit simplement de posséder un compte TomsGames, de vous identifier, puis de laisser un commentaire sous cette news sans faute d'orthographe. Les gagnants de ce petit concours recevront leur clé jeudi 2 août en message privé. Si vous arrivez trop tard, sachez que 25 clés sont également mises en jeu sur le compte Twitter de la rédaction.

Bonne chance !

· Forum End of Nations

2012-12-21-524

Aerocool Readies Strike-X Fan-Controller

Taipei-based Aerocool is preparing to release the Strike-X fan controller, adding on to its Strike-X series of products.





The controller, occupying two 5.25” drive bays, features a touchscreenwith futuristic looking LEDs, five fan channels with fan-speed andthermal monitoring, and two front-side USB 2.0 ports and audio connectors. The Strike-X fancontroller comes in red/ black colors and can be purchased from majorretailers and e-tailers soon at a MSRP of 54.90 Euro.


News via [Techconnect]

2012-12-21-373

AC Ryan Relaunches PlayOn! HD

SINGAPORE - January 2010 - AC Ryan has relaunched its Playon! HD with new features, giving users the optimum viewing pleasure and convenience.

The Playon!HD supports audio and digital files, including those downloaded or streamed at quick time or real time from the Internet and computer, to be played on a television set directly. It enables users to enjoy their Full HD media on their large-screen LED or LCD TV with the highest 1080p Full HD quality.

Itallows you to play a plethora of audio, pictorial and video file formats and codec, including and not limited to MKV, H.264, RM/RMVB, AVI, MOV, WMV, ISO, MPEG, JPEG, HD JPEG, BMP, TIF, PNG and even Blu-ray formats.

The formula of the success lies in its simplicity and practicality. The Playon!HD centralizes all your media, using a user-installable 3.5 inch SA/ SA II hard disk drive, supports up to today’s largest 2 TB HDD.

Connecting with HDMI (high definition multimedia interface), the Playon! HD loads quickly within 5 seconds just as you would expect a living room consumer device to be. Whilst browsing for a file, a window displaying a preview of your files will be played as you scroll your media library, hastening the search process for a particular movie or video clip. Next, just press “Play” and enjoy the show!

The optional Wireless-N 300 mbps Adaptor (retailing at S$59) dongle brings the Playon!HD to the forefront of wireless high definition media streaming, where users can view Flickr, Picassa and news feeds off the player directly, bypassing the need of a computer. A built-in UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) has been integrated into the media box which enables the player to auto-detect UPnP Media Servers on the network to browse and stream media files from them.

Empowering data generation with content-driven innovations
The firmware can be updated frequently from http://www.playonhd.com/ official website to empower users the choice to upgrade online for free and stay attuned to the most dated firmware advancements. It is a reliable and stable source, and addresses feedbacks from users. The updates are as frequent as monthly.

Features of AC Ryan Playon! HD include:
- Movie Jukebox: With a stylish graphics user interface, the readily available thumbnails guide user through selection process, with information such as synopsis of the movie displayed, reducing the time of clicking into the option to read from the menu.

- Internet Radio: Once connected to the internet via your router, you can listen to your favourite music from the internet radio stations available on the World Wide Web.

- Internet Feeds: From reading the RSS news feeds to the viewing of photos from Flickr and Picassa portals, you can’t help but feel that the world just one click away.

- Bit-torrent Downloading: User can now download their files directly into the media player from online sources. This will free up the usage of the PC for downloading.

- Media Library search function: Helps the user to automatically sort their music, photos and movie files in alphabetical order or search by key word and by Artist, Year, Genre and Date etc.

- Wide Language Selections: Worried that mommy who does not understand English has difficulty handling the device? Worry not; the user-friendly menu comes with multiple languages, from Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean to European languages. Once selected, the file names and subtitles will change accordingly.

On top of the above enhanced features, the Playon! HD retains the popularity of:
- File management is relatively simple as well as it supports file delete and file copy directly into its box.
- 2 years warranty as compared to the benchmark of 1 year in the market.
- It comes bundled with 2metre AC Ryan HDMI Cable, together with other necessary cables for video and audio output; and ready plug-ins for media storage like—External USB harddisks, two USB ports, Mediacard reader slots for SD/ SDHC/MS/ MSPro and Network.
- Stylish exterior ringed by blue lights that glow with each functional navigation. An understated piece of accessory for your sleek TV set. Skinz your Playon! for just S$19.90.
- Music lovers can look forward to the support of latest Dolby Digital Plus as well as the regular DTS and Dolby Digital pass-through. For use without amplifiers, the smart Playon! HD recognises and plays DTS and DTS-HD MA downmix.

Gaining strong international following
The AC Ryan Playon! HD is currently shipping to more than 30 countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Brazil, USA, Taiwan, Spain, Italy, etc.; and with more countries in the pipeline. AC Ryan Playon! HD is powered by RTD 1073 chipset, with a Recommended Retail Price of S$249 (without HDD), retailing at all Challenger and Carrefour outlets, and selected Sim Lim Square and Funan The IT Mall retail shops.

bleedin’ to the oldies “killer workout” (a.k.a. “aerobicide”)

I know what you’re thinking already, my friends — -can any movie possibly be as good as that cover? For that matter, can any movie possibly be as good as good as this cover —

The answer in this case is an emphatic “hell yes!”

If you’re a lover of B movies, and slashers in particular, writer-director David A. Prior’s 1986 offering Killer Workout, also released (as if you hadn’t figured it out by now) under the if-anything-even-better title Aerobicide has everything you’re looking for and then some.

Gratuitous nudity? It’s in there.

Gratuitous violence? It’s in there.

Bad 1980s hairstyles? They’re in there.

Even worse 1980s soundtrack music? It’s in there, too.

Lots and lots of cheesy-in-a-seriously-hot -way chicks in tight workout leotards? In there by the score.

What, then, is honestly missing from this flick? Absolutely nothing. It even had a reasonably coherent plot with a semi-involving little murder mystery at its core, not that you necessarily need that given all the other sheer awesomeness on display here, but it’s a nice plus.

From the very opening scene, you’re guaranteed to be hooked : a rather shapely young lady arrives home at her apartment and checks her answering machine messages to find that she’s flying to Paris tomorrow to shoot the cover of Cosmo magazine! Her agent (or whoever it is) warns her not to have any tan lines, though, so she heads to her favorite tanning salon and strips completely naked to lay out and soak up that UV goodness. Once she closes the bedcover (or whatever it’s called), though, a horrendous malfunction traps her inside and the heat cranks up past max. Does she live? Does she die? All will be revealed, even though we spend the first 3/4 of the movie wondering just what the fuck any of that had to do with anything.

Next we jump ahead to the present day (although the events in the pre-credits opening sequence could well have happened the night before for all we know at this point) we’re at a typical 80s aerobics studio owned by a lady named Rhonda (Marcia Karr) that’s called, unimaginatively but admittedly appropriately enough enough, Rhonda’s Workout. Rhonda is stuck leading that day’s group session (filmed in lovingly close-up detail) because her perpetually untrustworthy employee? Jaimy (Teresa Van der Woude) is running late yet again, She gets there in time to clean and lock up and gives Rhonda essentially no excuse whatsoever for her tardiness (the condoms that drop out of her purse in the parking lot clue us in, though) but promises it will never happen again for what we can tell is the umpteenth time.

In the showers after class, though, a fetching young lass is murdered gruesomely with a giant safety pin, and when Jaimy finds her body stashed away in her locker while pursuing her decidedly unglamorous cleaning duties, she screams and screams and screams and next thing you know the cops are there, led by Detective Lieutenant Morgan (David James Campbell, who’s got the 80s moussed-hair look down every bit as well as any of the women in the flick), who hard-assedly (think I invented a new word there) interrogates Rhonda, Jaimy, and anyone and everyone else associated with the club.

With no real leads to go on, his investigation grows more urgent — and he grows more stereotypically belligerent — as more people associated with the club all start turning up dead in and around Rhonda’s joynt, all despatched in the same manner — by giant bad-ass motherfucking safety pin.

To complicate matters, Rhonda’s absent silent partner in her operation, one Mr. Erickson, send in a new male employee named Ted (Chuck Dawson), who seems to have a habit of snooping around in Rhonda’s file cabinets.

Who is he? What’s he really up to? Again, all will be revealed, because unlike a lot of B-movies, every loose plot strand in this one is explained in at least something like a satisfactory fashion.

Mostly, though, it’s the details that matter in Killer Workout, and I’m thrilled to say it gets them all right. Inventive and gruesome kills, big hair, bigger boobs, cheesy period fashions and hair — we already went over our little checklist of everything that could possibly make this movie awesome, so you already know they’re all present and accounted for. And you can add barely-competently staged fistfights, scenery-chewing overacting, stereotypical gender roles, and a truly gleeful fourth-wall-busting ending to the list, as well.

You could want more from a film than that, I suppose, but why be greedy?

Is Killer Workout a great movie? Of course not. But it’s definitely a great B -movie, and that’s what we’re all about here at TFG. Consequently, it earns, and I do mean earns, your humble host’s highest possible recommendation.

Killer Workout is, sadly, not available as an official DVD release in Region 1, but fortunately that doesn’t stop the ever-enterprising Flesh Wound video from offering it anyway, and if you feel no moral qualms about needing to see this flick ASAP (and you really shouldn’t), then I suggest you get off your ass and go over to http://www.fleshwoundvideo.com right away. As usual, Todd there does as good a job as humanly possible in transferring this over from the given source elements (which I assume in this case to be VHS). It’s a nicely-done full-frame transfer with an equally nicely-done opening title menu that, for all intents and purposes, looks like the “real” thing — and is probably as close as we’re ever going to get, anyway.

There are better movies out there than Killer Workout — lots of them, in fact. But I doubt you’ll have more fun watching them. If I were burying a time capsule in 1986, I’d put this in itside. It tells you everything you need to know about the era it comes from. It’s more fun to watch now than it probably was when it came out, and in 50 years’ time plopping down in front of the tube to it is gonna be an even better time.