Sunday, February 24, 2008

HD DVD RIP, Oscar shorts, and 360 happenings...

Well the Warner Bros. HD DVD announcement at CES back in January (remember... they went Blu exclusive) was the tip top of HD DVD's downward spiral.

Feburary 11th Netflix announced they were going exclusively blu, new HD DVD discs will not be added, and currently renting titles will "rent until the discs' natural life cycle takes them out of circulation in the coming months." Then BestBuy added to the pile by saying they "will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format." Then on February 19th Toshiba announced that they "will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders."

I caught the Oscar shorts yesterday so without further ado my picks are as follows...

Animated short - Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even pigeons go to heaven). A older gentleman cheats death. All of this years animated entries looked good, there seemed to be a claymation-esqe feel to 3 of them, and one that looked like a moving painting. Check out this site for links to some of the animated shorts online.

Live action short - Tanghi Aregentini An office working looking for love must learn to dance the tango in 2 weeks, with a comedic twist ending. Although the winner will probably be At Night a moving look at 3 cancer patients spending the holidays in the hospital.

Documentary short - La Corona a beauty pageant held in a women's prison in Columbia. The academy award though will most likely go to Freeheld a New Jersey county that won't grant a 24 year Police veteran her pension to her lesbian partner.

I'm looking forward to Frontlines:Fuel of War after playing around with the multi-player demo last week. The multi-player feels a lot like a Battlefield game with 5 'control' points on the map the winning team is the one that controls all the points at one time.