Meet leetUP. Best. Idea. Ever. [Event]

If you've been keeping an eye on the social scene in various cities, specifically London or LA over the past couple years, you may have noticed more and more the emergence of the Art Party - a giant bash that encompasses fantastic underground music, art (live, displayed, interactive and multimedia), food, drinks, great people, and creative ways of letting attendees and artists interact. I've truly grown to love these types of shindigs, and the strong community building they promote, and am thrilled to let you know that a whole bunch of people we love and respect have found a way to merge the Art Party with the Convention, my other favorite kind of event, to create what has been referred to as a "Nerd Carnival". The idea of these two worlds coming together is just about the best thing ever and mark my words, this is not an evening you'll want to miss.



leetUP, developed by Attack of the Show darling Kevin Pereira, creator of G4 Charles Hirschhorn and company Iam8bit, appears as though it will hit all of these notes. An Art Party for the Geek crowd.

leetUP, a new live events series, designed as a celebration to share in the experience of nerd art and culture, will debut at Club Nokia in Los Angeles Thursday, March 1. The event is poised to bring an intimate dialogue, a social and conversational setting, to a festival of nerdly delights through panels and podcasts, music, games, and movies, as well as tech and toys.

“We wanted to celebrate all that is nerd — our love for the Internet, podcasting, tech, music, videogames — and remix them in a way that makes us social again,” said Pereira. “We’ve basically designed an intimate and experimental playground, for the discerning nerd, that will constantly evolve at each stop.”

The event will be hosted by Kevin Pereira (host/producer of G4’s Attack of the Show), with programming that includes on-stage podcast sessions with Kevin Smith (Clerks, SMODcast), Chris Hardwick (The Nerdist), Doug Benson (Super High Me), Felicia Day (The Guild), Greg Fitzsimmons (The Howard Stern Show), Jimmy Pardo (NeverNotFunny, Conan), Alex Albrecht (Diggnation, Totally Rad Show), Epic Meal Time and Ask a Ninja, with a special musical performance by VJ extraordinaire Mike Relm. DJ R-Rated will also provide ambience throughout the evening.

leetUP will also treat attendees to a variety of experiential zones, created exclusively for the event. These one-of-a-kind interactions with futuristic technology, videogames, and other lifestyle products will provide for the carnival playground between performances.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster, the Staples Center box office or the iam8bit store in LosAngeles (2147 W. Sunset Blvd, LA, CA 90026)

For more information visit leetup.com, follow @leetup or fb.com/leetupshow.

Um. WHAT? Yes please. Wait. WHAT? This is real? This is a real thing? How has this not happened before? What will it even BE? You bet I'll be on the scene covering however this giant pot of awesome turns out. And hey, maybe if it's a hit, we can expect a similar version held during Comic-Con this year? But just in case we can't expect leetUP to reappear anytime soon, mark it on your calendar now - March 1st, 7pm, Club Nokia, cosplay encouraged. Can't. Wait.

Check out Complex for more details on what to expect

See full post

The Third Annual Fangirl Awards - Nominations

These nominations do not reflect the opinions of the editors at All Things Fangirl, but rather the Fangirl Academy, made up of over 100 lovely ladies who follow us on Twitter, read the blog, or know us in real life. In the case of a tie for the final slot in a category, the ATFG editors acted as the tie-breaker. Some ladies couldn't get their ballots in on time, but the everyone in the Academy will be allowed to vote on the winners.

Ballots to pick the winners will go out this week & the results will be announced February 24th!

* - Editor's Choice - Certain categories have an extra nomination. These additions represent something one of the editors at ATFG feels passionately about that we want to encourage you to check out! Often, the editor's choice was in 6th place for the nomination.

Enjoy!

Best Picture

The Artist

Bridesmaids

Drive

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Shame

Tree of Life

Honorable Mentions: We Need To Talk About Kevin, Captain America, 50/50

Best Actor

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldider spy

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Joseph Gordon Levitt - 50/50

Michael Fassbender - Shame

Ryan Gosling - Drive

Honorable Mentions: George Clooney - The Descendants, Brad Pitt - Moneyball, Tom Hardy - Warrior, Leonardo DiCaprio - J Edgar

Best Actress

Kristin Wiig - Bridesmaids

Michelle Williams - My Week With Marilyn

Rooney Mara - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Tilda Swinton - We Need To Talk About Kevin

Viola Davis - The Help

Honorable Mentions: Meryl Steep - The Iron Lady, Charlize Theron - Young Adult, Elizabeth Olsen - Martha Marcy May Marlene, Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia

Best Supporting Actor

Alan Rickman - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Albert Brooks - Drive

Andy Serkis - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Ben Kingsley - Hugo

Christopher Plummer - Beginners

Honorable Mentions: Benedict Cumberbatch - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Patton Oswalt - Young Adult, Tom Hiddleston - Thor

Best Supporting Actress

Berenice Bejo - The Artist

Carey Mulligan - Shame

Jessica Chastain - The Help

Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Octavia Spencer - The Help

Honorable Mentions: Helen McCrory - Hugo, Shailene Woodley - The Descendants, Marion Cotillard - Midnight in Paris

Best Director

David Fincher - Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Nicolas Winding Refn - Drive

Steve McQueen - Shame

Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris

Honorable Mentions: Terrance Malick - Tree of Life, Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist

The rest after the jump!

See full post

Heavy Fire Afghanistan: PS Move Saves A Mediocre Shooter From Total Damnation

Cross-posted on and commissioned by Gaming Blend

With motion technology becoming more and more a part of at home gaming, we are beginning to see an influx of more arcade style titles. The latest is the railed shooter Heavy Fire: Afghanistan, which essentially exists just to try and capitalize on the success of the Call of Duty franchise. Unfortunately, this isn't Call of Duty: Motion Sensor, it's Call of Duty Knockoff: Motion Sensor, so it leaves a lot to be desired.

First off, the game opens with a painfully disconnected voiceover paired with a painfully pedestrian backstory. Yikes. Not a good sign. Both a Bukowski quote and the line "My name is Will and this is my story" make an appearance. The graphics are a little 2008, but they get slightly better in the gameplay, once you're past the insufferable cut scenes. All of the humans look more or less like cardboard, but this game isn't about humans it's about inconsequential gunfire!

There are 24 missions in total, 12 in Rookie and 12 in Veteran. This will run you under five hours to play the whole game. Though it is designed for repeatability, giving you the stat screen after every mission with your rank, your accuracy percentage, time played, rounds fired, headshots, etc, I can't imagine anyone caring enough to actually go back and attempt to beat a score.

I get the intention, I get the conceit, and for that arcade rush, Heavy Fire is certainly a fine enough time. The controls are very instinctual, I figured out how to shoot, reload, take cover and throw a grenade without ever consulting a guide of any kind, but the gameplay gets a bit bizarre when using the PS Move for anything other than combat enters the equation. A water tower is about to fall on you, move your controller to the right to not die! Move up to jump! Repeatedly move the controller vertically in an upwards motion to climb the ladder! And so on. Sure, they created a game based around a new technology, so they wanted to use it as much as possible, but honestly, these bits here and there did absolutely nothing to make the game more fun, if anything, the added movement hindered the experience, confusing me every time an icon said to move the controller in a random direction. And when I didn't do it, were there even consequences? At least thanks to the PS Move having lots of awesome potential with its accuracy, the gun movement is exceptionally fluid and stands out as easily the best aspect of the game.

Every two missions you beat, you get an armory point, which allows upgrades like holding more grenades and clips, faster reload, extra health, so on and so forth, for you to choose from. So once you're past the basic beginning levels, things get a little more exciting, as you actually have some options. The game starts to engage you a little bit more by, for example, having an enemy with a machine gun be killable by blowing up the car beneath him. This shooter, while mostly blah, does allow some room for strategy in terms of where you throw a grenade or how quickly you can take out the guys before they take cover or what parts of the environment you can destroy to make taking the enemies out happen a bit more efficiently. Little things that move it beyond being god-awful.

But being happy that a game has a sliver of strategy, strategy that doesn't even enter the gameplay until halfway through, isn't saying much. Aside from the accurate gun controls, the game is pretty worthless. As if the laughable voiceover and "storyline" weren't bad enough, there's never a sense of danger. The enemies just look like they are holding sticks that light up, and if their guns are making any sounds of any kind, it's news to me. I never thought the enemies had the potential to kill or even damage me until the last level. But after being so used to flying through the entire game, the sudden repeat deaths of the final level made me lose all interest entirely. Consistency, people. At least put health out when we need it instead of arbitrarily or try BUILDING in difficulty to adapt the player to what is to come.


Would I recommend buying this? No. Would I recommend renting it? If no other PS Move shooter is available and you're dying to try out the controls, well, sure. The shooting is great fun and that's no easy feat. I've played my fair share of frustratingly impossible-to-handle motion based games this year, so props to Teyon for their work in that department at least. Ultimately though, as much as it pains me to give a hard time to a small company, Heavy Fire: Afghanistan is a completely run of the mill knockoff filled with a little too much Marine propaganda for my taste. Your time can definitely be better spent elsewhere.

Players: 1-4

Platform(s): Playstation 3

Developer: Teyon

Publisher: Mastiff

ESRB: Teen

Rating: 4/10 See full post

Kinect Disneyland Adventures: A Magically Addictive Exercise In Wasted Potential

Crossposted on Gaming Blend

Because apparently, there's no such thing as muscle fatigue, someone decided to create the very first open world game for Kinect. Fittingly, since the last time I was at Disneyland I lost the ability to feel my feet, this game is Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.

The premise - you're at Disneyland! And that's about it. During your day at Disneyland, you can experience up to 20 attractions, talk to over 40 characters, go on over 100 different "adventures" assigned to you by the various characters in 8 different lands, take photos of landmarks, hidden mickeys and characters, and interact with just about every item in the park. Completing every adventure, earning every pin for doing well on attractions, getting every autograph, and casting a spell on all 2000+ magical items will take you well over 50 hours. Is it worth the time and money? Let's take a closer look.

After creating your child avatar, which, much to my chagrin, is only allowed to have brown eyes, the game begins. The first thirty minutes to an hour of Disneyland Adventures is dedicated to teaching you how to control the game and understand the essential structure of gameplay through interactions with the main six Disney characters: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, and Goofy.

So how do you function in an open world kinect game? Move your left or right arm forward to move, hold your arm out all the way to the side to turn, wave to interact with characters and attractions (the quicker and more childlike the wave, the better), and once you master opening your item inventory, which involves holding your right hand up at a 45 degree angle until the menu opens, then selecting the item you need (I promise, it's nowhere near as easy as it sounds), you use your left hand exclusively to walk and your right to control various items. Wave it to cast a spell with your magic wand, hold your hand over a target with your blaster to shoot, hold your arm straight out to take a picture, and so on. As the game progresses, items in your inventory will include those, along with a fishing rod for catching random fish (I still haven't found one), baton for conducting musical groups across the park including the singing statues at the Haunted Mansion and any jazz band hanging around New Orleans Square and more. This beginning section also clues you in on the gameplay structure of meeting characters, receiving tasks, accomplishing these tasks, then reporting back to the character.

Once you learn the basics, you can go off and do whatever you want. This virtual map of Disneyland is an exact recreation of the Anaheim park, to a frightening degree. The attention to detail is astounding. I kept having moments of "I bought a corn dog at that stand!" "I sat on that rock for 20 minutes when I was exhausted!" "I threw a coin at that waterfall!" and so on. One of my favorite things about the park has always been how the trash cans are themed to each land, and the same holds true here. You could lose hours and hours just taking in the accuracy of everything around you. And that's *before* you're gifted a magic want by Cinderella. Once you have the wand, count on spending triple the time wandering around the park. You'll be able cast a spell on anything you see that sparkles. And there are A LOT of things that sparkle in Disneyland, you guys.

Each of the 8 lands has over 30 sets of magical items, and each set has 3 to 35 magical items within. So, aiming low, let's say that's an average of 10 items per set, that would mean a minimum of 300 items per land which means there are 2400 MAGICAL ITEMS TO CAST SPELLS ON IN THIS GAME. NOT including the 8 or so landmarks to take photos of in each land, the 30 something hidden mickeys to find in each land, the couple of blaster mini-games in each land land and so on. For a completionist who has major OCD when it comes to video games, the constant messages that I've completed "2 of 20" or "8 or 36" over and over and over, almost drove me out of my mind and kept interrupting me as I made my way to talk to characters or play attractions. This makes it great for irresponsible parents who need to keep their kids occupied for long periods of time and horrible for OCD ridden game reviewers. In that way that you need to open every drawer in Bioshock, you will need to cast a spell on every single godforsaken magical item in Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.


If you forget about using the items in your inventory to earn both in-game and out-of-game achievements, Disneyland Adventures boils down to meeting characters and going on attractions.

Meeting characters is simple, you wave to begin an interaction, then say autograph for an autograph (they will tell you to put your hands out to get one - don't do it, go with the stellar voice command system, save yourself the headache), bow to dance, high five to high five, hug yourself to hug, and put your arm out to take a picture. Although it should be noted that you can only get an autograph and picture if you have earned enough money through picking up coins in the park and completing attractions to go to a store and buy autograph books and photo albums. You heard right - the game encourages you to buy things from the stores at Disneyland! Sure, it's all part of the proper Disneyland experience, I suppose, but I haven't purchased anything but water from Disneyland for as long as I've understood that Disney eats money, and that's been longer than you might think. Better yet, you can only buy photo albums for each land in a store in each land, and you can't unlock the store until you go on an attraction. So it's impossible to just go from character to character, collecting everything you need. You MUST make money, go to the store, and play the attraction mini-games. You also need to have the brain capacity to understand this. I'm looking at you, tiny children. Who are clearly reading this right now.

The characters also give you a series of "adventures' which reminded me of the missions in Fable 3, where in order to make a friend or gain a lover, you had to waste time running around grabbing items and delivering messages. It felt pointless in Fable 3 and feels pointless here. And yet I COULDN'T STOP. To become a Lost Boy for Peter Pan, you have to play through Peter Pan's Flight, then gather his shadows around Fantasyland, then buy and wear a Lost Boy costume. Stich sends you to find him five hamburgers, and then to find a picture he lost of Lilo. Cinderella has you find sewing items, and then gives you the general mission of finding spools of thread around the park. Aladdin needs you to impress the genie with your magic. Some character named Duffy Bear I've never heard of before needs you to find stuffed Duffy Bears, but because he doesn't speak, you don't know that until you accidentally stumble upon 1 of 10 Duffy Bears. These go on and on and on. 


More after the jump. Yes, there is more.
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The Gunstringer: Proving Kinect May Not Be Useless After All

Crossposted and commissioned by Gaming Blend

Earlier this week marked the release of The Gunstringer, the first Kinect title from studio Twisted Pixel. The Austin-based company was looking to create a game that went past the casual nature of most Kinect titles and appeal more to the core players. As someone who has generally been unimpressed with how games have been using this motion technology, I was curious to see if one could actually break out of the box and hold my interest longer than five minutes. So did it? Let's break it down.

The basic concept of The Gunstringer is that we are participating in a puppet show starring the titular marionette with no name. The game opens following a woman into Austin's Paramount Theater as she takes her seat in a packed audience. The camera takes us back stage, where we see the actual, wooden puppet and follow it and its puppeteer through the hustle and bustle of opening night, and up on to the stage for the start of the game. From then on, there are occasional cuts to reaction shots of the audience to remind us where we are and provide a bit of comedy. Some have complained that this reminder completely takes them out of the game, but it didn't bother me in the slightest.

This charming concept lends itself extremely well to the Kinect because of how it figures in to gameplay. You use your left hand as if you were holding a marionette, lifting it to make the Gunstringer jump and moving it from side to side to make the Gunstringer, well, move from side to side. You use your right hand to engage in combat, whether it be with a gun, sword, flame thrower or fist. Knowing that you are "controlling a puppet" makes the idea of holding your hands out for 4 hours much more tolerable. The mere fact that logic is backing up the gameplay goes a loooong way.

Full review after the jump

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Sleep No More, Video Games, and the Potential of Interactive Storytelling.

 This will not be a review of Sleep No More, although it will be discussed. I'll warn you of spoilers.

On Thursday the 12th of August, I attended a performance of Sleep No More. Billed as 'indoor promenade performance', it entails being immersed in the world of the McKitterick Hotel (an impressively redecorated warehouse or three on west 27th, across the street from the back entrance of Scores) and treated to an adaptation, of a kind, of Shakespeare's famous play that shows us the nature of evil, Macbeth.  It was astounding.

Though it is not a word that can be found anywhere on the website (sleepnomorenyc.com), Sleep No More is a highly interactive experience- though one might suppose that physical interaction is a part of any immersive experience. Still, this is important to note for the upcoming discussion: The specific difference between immersive and interactive when one or the other is the goal of an experience. In the McKitterick Hotel, almost every door, drawer and closet is unlocked. You can read anything, pick up anyway, dig through people's luggage and letters. The entire environment is touchable, if not tractable- even the performers. Though it is against the rules of the game to touch the performers, the performers may very well decide to touch you. You may be pushed gently aside, or taken by the hand and led, or- as I experienced- have a madwoman cup your face and lament at the cruelty in your eyes. The world you enter is filled with eerily familiar but ultimately alien landscapes and enough details to drown in. You can watch or play, observe or participate, that much is (largely) your choice.

The performance is interactive, but it is not changeable. Those choices I just mentioned do not effect the characters' overall arcs, their intentions or their stories. Scenes play in a loop throughout the roughly three hour performance.  Short of doing something dangerously disruptive, the audience cannot effect the outcome of the story.

The goal of Sleep No More is an immersive theatrical experience. It is not a game. It sets no goals or objectives for the audience, other than to experience. It's brilliant and freeing.

And potentially frustrating, if you're of a gamer's mindset. Over at Wired, you can read an article by @jasonschreier about his experience of the theatrical piece, which he describes in the headline as "Like a game, but more confusing." Schreier primarily decries the fact that it is impossible for an audience member to see the entire show, and that this fact makes most of what one experiences difficult to decipher or put into context: The experience is difficult to understand.

He argues that video game experiences are more rewarding because you achieve things. The game tells you so. I think this is an ineffective comparison, but the opening of an interesting discussion.

Compare Sleep No More to an open-world game like Fallout: New Vegas. While Sleep No More drops you into the middle of a performance and expects you to figure out what’s happening, New Vegas sets up the story first, then lets you loose. More importantly, New Vegas makes you feel like the things you do matter. Whether you’re shooting down raiders or discovering a pile of bones in a child’s crib, you’re always an active participant, integral to the story. Not just an observer.

 This argument is flawed in a few ways:

You can, in fact, prepare for the sort-of-plot of Sleep No More by brushing up on your Shakespeare, but the story is present in an abstract, exploratory way. The scenes, when you do find them, are not exactly straightforward. Think lyrical and interpretive dance. The story, as such, is not the most important part of the show. More important is the audience's story: What they see and experience and what it does to them. Now, if what they see and experience frustrates and bores them, more the pity, but I have to say, I'd imagine it would take a respectable amount of willful disinterest to walk away from Sleep No More wholly unmoved.

The end result(s) of both Sleep No More and any video game are predetermined. Nothing you do as an audience member or player can actually change what happens outside of a couple permutations. Schreier is absolutely correct in that video games make you feel as though your choices have weight- and they do, but a very limited amount. I will defend the unique special snowflake status of my Commander Shepard TO THE DEATH but ultimately, I am not the only FemShep Paragon with Renegade Tendencies when Faced with Ultimatums who is Bedding Garrus Vakarian aka Dinosaur Batman: The Hero Omega Deserves. No, I am but one of many; because though the Mass Effect series provides the player with thousands of choices to make over the course of the franchise, they are still choices you are being offered and have to choose from. You can't just make up your own. The ending to any work of art or entertainment created by someone other than the participant/user has a finite amount of leeway.  Sleep No More is a single event comprised of smaller, looping events. It's meant to be an immersive experience that theater-goers can explore to whatever depth they choose. It is, in fact, quite possible to see all the primary, story-centric scenes of Shakespeare's Macbeth in one evening at Sleep No More. It's not really necessary, though, nor would it be easy.  

Sleep No More is not a game, it is not a puzzle. It's more like a haunting. It's like watching spectres enact their wicked follies again and again, helpless to stop themselves or break free. Sometimes the ghosts reach out for you, and you can rifle through the relics and detritus they've left behind, but the story cannot be changed.

Now let's pull a bit of a conversational one eighty. The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a breeding ground for fun, funny, original and rather ingenious theatrical experiences. One participating company, Walking Shadow, has mounted two interactive theatrical puzzle experiences. The first was entitled 1926 Pleasant, and ran in 2006. You can read a detailed account of the play/game here: it is, in fact, a walkthru, something all gamers are familiar with. Both a theatrical experience and actual game the audience had to play in order to advance the story, 1926 Pleasant (and their latest puzzle production, Saboteur, reviewed here) seems to accomplish what Schreier says Sleep No More failed to do, but the intent behind the two pieces are completely and utterly different, and so the comparison becomes useless.

Now, if the two pieces could be combined, you would have something that appeals to theater goers and gamers alike. Let's take a look at a video game property like Bioshock and think of how these two formats of theatrical experience could be applied to making Bioshock a live action interactive event. Why? Because I am goddamn obsessed with this whole freaking idea, that's why. If you're still reading this, I don't even know what to tell you. You're as sick a puppy as I am.

As a self contained environment, it could be constructed the same way as the fictional McKitterick Hotel: Six stories of immersive environments fashioned after Bioshock's more iconic levels, like Neptune's Bounty, Arcadia, Fort Frolic, the Farmer's Market, Hephaestus and Olympus Heights.

 Rapture is largely comprised of sweeping atriums and surprisingly open spaces for being an underwater city. However, as Sleep No More demonstrates nicely, constructing outdoor spaces indoors is entirely achievable on multiple floors. Also the ballroom on the lowest level sports two stories of balcony seats and vaulted ceilings. It is a huge room that could easily be transformed into any number of centerpieces from the game.

 Of course site-specific theater is just that. One could find a space more uniquely suited to Rapture's grand halls, but the space Punchdrunk created in the form of the McKitterick Hotel is smartly and very successfully constructed. With relatively few changes, Sleep No More as it stands could be turned into the site of a Rapture live action interactive gaming experience.

The next question, of course, is who would go? Who would shell out, say, $100 to be let loose in that kind of environment for three hours, not knowing before hand how it would go? You'll have adventurous types, you'll have gamers, you'll have theater goers, but the added responsibility that's placed on the audience member when they're expected to participate and actively move the game forwards as opposed to merely observing events as they unfold could potentially scare away much needed ticket sales, and come to that- how many tickets a round would have to be sold to make the endeavor even remotely feasible?  Those are the questions I don't want to think about because the other stuff is more fun, but it does make me think that the ideal place to try out an experience like this would be San Diego Comic-Con.

Your audience isn't just built in, it's swarming the grounds around where your theatrical gaming experience is held. San Diego boasts a throng of beautiful hotels, plenty of which are historic, as well as some industrial and warehouse sites that could be appropriated and converted. Passes could be given away at panels as well as purchased ahead of time to guarantee your spot.  It would be, for the logistics of running such an experience, the perfect litmus test. Branching out to other audiences, of course, would be a different ballgame, but if this sort of thing was going to be made a reality, I think SDCC is a prime opportunity to give it a test run. Not to mention, I'm sure it would be the talk of the con.

Bioshock, Dead Space, Walking Dead, Arkham Asylum, even Game of Thrones- all are properties that could utilize the concepts of mystery, clue finding, puzzle solving and even, eventually, combat to engage an audience and motivate a player, as well as blend seamless with theatrical style presentations and fully fleshed out but self contained environments. We're certainly seeing plenty of transmedia projects happening, and various properties bleeding into other mediums, so who knows- maybe this kind of thing isn't that far off. I hope it's not, because the only thing I want to do more badly than go back to Sleep No More is return to Rapture. See full post

D23 - Disneyland Kinect Adventures Slightly Improves, But Is It Enough?

After being extremely disappointed in Kinect Disneyland Adventures at E3 in Jue, I decided to give it a go here at D23, with a couple more months of work under its belt, to see if anything had been improved upon. There were absolutely new features, game mechanics and levels, but is anything actually better? What I learned and my impressions below.

Facts

-Over 35 characters to meet and greet, each with his own personality, culled from chats with actual Imagineers
-Original voice actors recorded voices for every character
-If you don't wish to follow through the physical motions for character interaction, you can also use voice command
-The game is open world, the first of its kind for Kinect, so they had to design a whole new navigation system - pointing. Point in a direction and your character will walk there.
-The crowd magically parts as you walk through them
-Can take photos with characters (note: as your avatar, not as you) and upload them to the internet
-Have a few objects at your disposal, including the camera, growler, and wand
-With the wand, you can animate up to 300 objects and receive treasure after casting each spell
-Collect enough treasure and you can spend it in shops for souvenirs and costumes
-With the wand, you can also discover magical objects, which the game keeps track of, achievement style
-Right now there are six attractions: Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean, Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise and Matterhorn
-There will be up to 20 attractions, potentially with more as DLC, but that's not in the works right now
-Every ride is based on a story, so the game developers discussed the back story to each attraction with the imagineers, and came up with the levels for each attraction based on the story
-Chapters within each attraction
-Rather than just "ride a ride", each chapter interacts with a different aspect of the attractions' environment, based on the original story behind the attraction.
-Attraction gaming interactions include pose matching, sword fighting, throwing things, flying, skiing, and more
-There will be many cinematics helping to tell the story as well
-Each attraction has a character guide (Jungle Cruise has the skipper and gorillas, Matterhorn has Goofy, Peter Pan has Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, etc)
-Players can jump in or out of the game at any time to maximize social appeal
-Avatars are children, since the idea of the game is to "bring our your inner child"
-Some avatar customizing options
-They created their own avatars rather than use the Xbox ones, because the art of the Xbox avatars is too different from the art of the Disney world that was created
-The park is almost an exact recreation, down to the secret places where Walt's initials are hiding to the golden spike in the castle marking the center of the park.


Impressions

Just like at E3, my favorite aspect of this game remains the world's accuracy. I've always had a thing for recognizing landmarks in my games, usually ones taking place in LA or New York, though rarely is something *exactly* the same, square foot for pixelated square foot. My favorite part of this demo was simply running through the lands, seeing how long the lines were and pushing through the crowds. As a result, I quite enjoyed the introduction of the wand mechanic, as it means further interaction with the world around you as the player. Cast a spell on whatever, and hey, if something happens, you get coins and achievements and a modicum of satisfaction. Yay!

Also just like at E3, I'm still vastly underwhelmed when it comes to the gameplay within each attraction. I tried out the sword fighting chapter, one of the levels in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, which had just been created right before D23. The game seemed completely unresponsive to anything I was doing. Granted, it's new and I kept drifting out of the playing space in order to avoid whacking the Microsoft spokeswoman in the face, but it was entirely too much work for very little  gratification.

An aspect I I enjoyed a lot more this time around than at E3, was the character interactions. We got to see our avatar say hello to three different characters, Mickey, Peter Pan, and the Queen of Hearts. Each had a specific reaction to everything we did, whether it be a hug, high five, or asking to dance. While Mikey was clearly friendly, Peter was friendly, but didn't like getting *too* close, and the Queen of Hearts was regal and demanded our relationship stay so. If only our "photos" with these characters could somehow combine a Kinect photo of us in that moment, with the character on the screen, I'd think the photo aspect was a good add, but a photo of an avatar with a character on Facebook seems rather pointless.

I'm still not sure in what Universe someone would actually own this game, but if a friend had it, I wouldn't object to throwing it on just to explore the park, cast spells, and buy crap, but I'm far from sold on the gameplay and even the theory behind the gameplay. A part of me would kind of rather just get a first person view of the game with the impetus to interact on that level. Like, lean correctly on the Matterhorn and the faster you go, or cast spells on the Jungle Cruise as it goes along to see things come to life - or turn the Cruise itself into a throwing game for points. But taking away the ride aspect completely away is kind of a turn off. It'll take a lot more convincing before I'll think otherwise. See full post

Top Five Movie Related Games Of E3 2011

 I had the pleasure of attending E3 last week, a beautiful yet confounding place that makes one feel privileged and deprived in equal measure. For those of you in the dark about how E3 works, most of the major new games had demos that were only watchable or playable by the gaming elite, by appointment only. Everyone else wanders over to the Activision Booth to play Modern Warfare 3 or 2K to pounce on Bioshock: Infinite only to find nothing more than a poster as the only proof of their existence. But this does not stop Muse. Sure, I can't speak to games like Uncharted 3 or Skyrim beyond what we've all seen online, but my film bloggery sixth sense successfully managed to track down and get in depth with my most anticipated movie and comic based games. And also helped me spot rando celebrity after rando celebrity (Casper Van Dien, Josh Gomez, Aisha Tyler, Scott Porter and ... Zac Efron?), but that's neither here nor there. So without further ado - my favorite movie related finds of E3 2011.

5. Captain America: Super Soldier

The big story surrounding this game starting back at Wondercon was how it held the potential to not suck. And huzzah, that potential seems to be being met! Nice visuals and environment, stellar voice acting, and fighting mechanics reminiscent of Arkham Asylum or even some recent Prince of Persia, this was the only movie-to-video-game adaptation of its specific ilk shown at the entire conference that I thought I'd actually play again (despite fun enough gameplay and a script by Marv Wolfman, the design and tone of Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters were a big turn off, Cars 2 was cute, but not for me, couldn't care less about Transformers: Dark of the Moon and while the Kirk/Spock co-op in the Star Trek is promising, I didn't get close enough to the game to judge anything for myself.) The free flow style combat in particular got my heart rate elevated for about a half second, which is more than I can say for a lot of the games I tried out over the course of these three days. Sega gets a lot of flack in general for distributing sub-par movie based video games, so I'm very curious to see how this turns out. The demo didn't sell me completely, by any means, but it definitely has me optimistic.

4. Kinect: Star Wars

When Kinect first hit E3 last year, the first thought through my mind and many others, I'm sure, was "So how soon til we get to use the Force?" Well, the answer is now! Or, more accurately, in about six months. Kinect Star Wars uses the motion technology for lightsaber slashing, force throwing, kicking, jumping, and the like, and while I'm still not entirely sold on this tech in a full game (Fable: The Journey, you're my only hope), I gotta admit this demo was a lot more fun than I was expecting. Your right hand controls the saber, your left the force, and sometimes you use both hands together (though where the lightsaber disappears to I don't believe was addressed....) to access the force to its fullest degree. To move forward, you take a step forward and kind of awkwardly lean in that direction and to accidentally roll-jump over an enemy you do some sort of combination of awkward leaning and awkward jumping. I still don't know how I did it, but it wasn't not badass...

The pros? I did feel like I was using the force. I went in the second group during my particular demo, which meant unfortunately to the detriment of my partner, my brain already had the moves down, so I kind of destroyed everything in my path before he had a shot. As the demo progressed, we were supposed to try out new moves like the jump kick! But in lieu of that, I continuing using the force to throw every robot in my path into the walls, the ceiling, each other. Screw jump kicking, HELLO, I HAVE THE FORCE, IMA USE IT, THX. I got a lot of joy out of a tiny five minute demo, not gonna lie.

The cons? Despite what anyone may say, the game is clearly on a rail. Yes, you can choose how you want to engage in combat, as demonstrated by the fact that I ignored the guy taking us through the demo and killed those robots how I wanted to kill those robots, damnit, but it isn't open world, you can't choose where to go. This will make for a supremely fun arcade style game that makes you feel like you are using the force, but doesn't exactly revolutionize gaming or prove that this tech can appeal to hardcore gamers (again, Fable, and Mass Effect 3's voice control, I'm looking at you). Another big con? I was told the game goes through all the universes/movies, which means however many hours of going through allthe universes/movies...as opposed to just the good ones. I don't need to spend anymore time with clone-troopers-JarJar-young-obi-wan than I already have. Seriously. Get it away from me. This may be a deal breaker. When Star Wars: Kinect: The Original Trilogy comes out however? I'll be there. Conclusion? Jury's still out on whether or not this will be a buy, but I did enjoy the crap out of throwing enemies around by merely raising my hand.

3. Lord of the Rings: War of the North

As someone who is not a fan of the past Lord of the Rings games, I wasn't even planning on trying this one out, but once I heard playing the demo got you entrance into the Lord of the Rings swanky, exclusive open bar/baron of beef/live orchestra over game footage extravaganza in the south lobby that I had been coveting all week, I couldn't get there fast enough. Good work, Warner Brothers Interactive and Snowblind Studios, good work.

The game is set during the movies, specifically during The War of the Ring, which concludes in Return of the King, but way up North. We were playing co-op and could choose to either be a human, elf or dwarf. I clearly picked the elf, cause it was a chick, and hello. Knowing absolutely nothing about this game, I just jumped in and started fighting, healing my teammates when they got hurt, shooting arrows at the baddies in the distance and staff bashing the baddies who were in my face face, and this was all having no idea what I was doing, what the controls were, what the end game was - literally all I knew was that wine was in my very near future. The game was so unexpectedly intuitive, that I didn't need any of that. I had a fantastic time figuring it out on my own and played for WAY longer than I probably should have. The only reason we died and had to stop playing was because whoever chose the Dwarf didn't pick up on the fact that he needed to save his teammates when they were dying and effed it up for all of us. Jerky, selfish dwarf. You know who you are. Bottom line is even without knowing all the details, I was almost sold - on brief gameplay and graphics alone. Once reviews come out around its August 24th release, I'll know for sure if I'll be making that purchase.

2. Arkham City

Okay, FINE, it's not technically based on a movie, which is why I won't be giving it the number one slot, but mastering the art of the comic book video game, especially one that has been brought to the big screen as eloquently as Batman has, is no easy feat. Arkham Asylum was a pleasant surprise because it worked so hard to be as specific to the character and universe of Batman as possible, that despite the hand to hand combat being somewhat less than impressive, the game still worked fantastically overall. Rocksteady Studios has hands down taken the universe and gameplay to the next level with the sequel. I watched a fifteen to twenty minute demo that showed off the awesome that is playing as Catwoman, then, thanks to some crafty maneuvering, and by crafty maneuvering, I do mean sheer luck, got my hands on the game for a solid twenty minutes, thus getting to see a lot more of the world that the standard twelve minute demo normally allowed. During this time, I hacked into the Tiger soldier radio system, went off track and nabbed a Riddler trophy, attacked a few giant groups of goons, used Batman's detective skills to uncover some vital ballistics information, used the new gliding system to fly around Gotham City and revisited one of all time favorite game mechanics - Batman's stealth takedowns.

I was positively giddy, being in this world again, especially now with the introduction of a solid open world, being able to fight more than one henchman at once (probably the most glaring combat omission from the first game), being able to use the surrounding environment in combat, new gadgets, and entire challenge rooms that open as you collect Riddler trophies. But what has me most excited? Hands down, getting to play as Catwoman. Her mechanics are slinkier, more stylish and yes, sexier, than Batman's, all while maintaining that strong sense of control I've grown to like so much while controlling the Dark Knight. She crawls, she whips, she's fast, and delving into her gameplay adds 10-15 hours to the game, which, if you only stay on course with the main storyline and play only as Batman, clocks in at 20-25 hours. But because playing her does enhance the overall story and certain areas are only accessible by her, the game developers highly recommend taking her for a spin. Confirmed new characters include The Penguin, Two Face, the aforementioned Catwoman and Hugo Strange, plus I got the strong sense that Robin may be making an appearance as well, though no one from the studio would confirm or deny. For more details on the game, arriving on my doorstep immediately upon its October release, head here.

1. Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7

Say what you will about casual gaming, but no one can deny that TT Studios has nailed the art of the movie based video game. Placing you directly into the story with extremely user friendly co-op gameplay, their titles have always been easiest to play with your movie obsessed, if not video game obsessed, friends, while acting as a completely enjoyable respite for the more "hardcore" gamers, a nice break from shooting zombies in the face and getting blown up by faceless enemy forces. Since Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy came out, I have been ecstatic for the possibilities, most specifically one - Lego Harry Potter.

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 was, dorky as this is, a mini dream come true for me, both because the Harry Potter Universe is one I'll always choose to spend more time in, and because 1-4 meant eventually 5-7 aka when shit gets real. When the chance arose to play a level (Godric's Hollow, Bathilda Bagshot, Grave of Lily & James Potter, oh my!) and chat a bit with lead game designer and all around awesome dude, Arthur Parsons, I seized the opportunity. So what did I learn?

During the first four movies, the gang doesn't really venture much outside of Hogwarts, so Hogwarts acts as your main gameboard, Diagon Alley as the menu. But because so much of movies 5-7 take place outside of Hogwarts, the universe has expanded to such an extent that you can go take the train to London if you are so inclined. The new game is loaded with new mechanics, character specific abilities, and spells, 170 playable characters including Bellatrix, Slughorn, Umbridge, Lavender Brown, and Arthur Weasley, and some out of the box levels that will have you squirming with excitement. Parsons is a HUGE Harry fan, so when he heard about the game being developed while he was working on Lego: Batman, he jumped at the chance to be involved. And having a true fan at the helm makes a huge difference. Parsons let on that even more than the last game, this one would have inside nods to the books that will seem perhaps like made up additions to those that have only seen the movies, but will help make the game even more of a special experience for those of us who have devoured the books. He also confirmed the Deathly Hallows flying motorcycle level, the Order of the Phoenix flying on the Thames level, and perhaps the coolest tidbit of all, a 2D platformer, pop up book style, Limbo like level depicting the Tale of the Three Brothers. Plus, expect The Epilogue to rightfully appear as a bonus level.

Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 hits stores around the time of the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two and I will own it and love it and marry it. See full post

And Muse's Favorite Game of E3 2011 Is...

I got to see a 15-20 minute gameplay demo and play the game itself for a solid 20 minutes and am in love. A big reason I am so ecstatic here is because most of the other games I tried and loved I already knew I would love - this came as a very pleasant surprise, as I think it VASTLY improves upon the original. More on this soon. For now - enjoy the video :)

Note: I didn't get to play any of the behind closed doors games, so Uncharted 3, Bioshock: Infinite, Skyrim, and Mass Effect 3 weren't in the running here. See full post

Dragon Age 2: The Mass Effectening

AKA Dragon Age 2: The Consolizationing. Or Dragon Age 2: The Not Quite As Engrossing As Dragon Age: Origins And Not Quite As Cinematic As Mass Effect 2 But Still Quite A Fun Gamening. It has, as you can plainly see, many titles. My personal favorite is Dragon Age 2: Templar Boogaloo.


The non-spoilery rundown is as follows: You play Hawke, the young refugee from Lothering, who travels from Ferelden to the Free Marches city of Kirkwall in search of an ancestral home to reclaim. You play through the next decade of Hawke's life as he or she rises from impoverished nothing to become hailed as the Champion of Kirkwall. You make friends, you make enemies, you make money, you make corpses- typical fair for any adventurer, and in the end, you make some very big choices that have huge ramifications on the lives of the people of the Free Marches and, potentially, the world.

The game bears a passing familiarity if the only Bioware title you've played is Dragon Age: Origins. It kind of looks the same, sort of. It's much prettier- the characters are rendered in better detail and are largely more attractive (Highlite the text for a spoiler: Until you see Alistair in one of his cameos and go WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?! NOT THE FACE. NOT HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE. The same goes for Zevran. Somehow, the characters from DA:O are not nearly as good looking as they were. It positively boggles the mind.) Their hair sways almost naturally as they talk or fight. It's quite charming. The environments bear a lot of the same structuring as DA:O, but are more lush, are fuller and more detailed, particularly the coasts and mountains. There are far, far fewer locals to visit, however, and this is disappointing. We finally see the world outside Ferelden (not counting the locations visited in the expansions for Origins), and find ourselves contained to one very small part of it. We have only one city to explore, one and sort of a half mountains, and one seaside. When new quests arrive, they only occur in the same recycled hotspots of each map. In terms of scale, DA2 is dwarfed by DA:O.


Despite it's uncanny, permeating and intentional resemblance to Bioware's other franchise, DA2 is similarly anemic in scope when compared to Mass Effect 2, the game on which DA2's conversation and decision-making mechanisms are based. The combat is pulled back enough to allow you to manage your entire group, not as much as in DA:O and is actually much more fun to play on a console than the first installment. In appearance and gameplay, DA2 is a very solid bastardization, taking what ostensibly should have been the best parts of Origins and ME2 and then fundamentally missing the point.

There are many places in which Dragon Age 2 succeeds. The characters are colorful and interesting, the combat is fluid, the decisions are hard, it's just that none of them reach the standard set in the two games that influenced DA2 the most. The character voicing is wonderful: Jo Wyatt moves seamlessly but distinctively through the noble, sarcastic and hard ass options, always managing to sound like the same character despite the extremes in the choices of response. Nicholas Boulton, for all that I'm only four hours into my dude!Hawke playthrough, seems so far similarly adept at managing this balance in the character. He has a nice voice, and unlike ME2, I don't feel obligated to make him a douche bag. Side note: If you haven't played ME2, do so, and play as dude!Shep, and make him as mean as possible, because nothing but hilarity will ensue. Howden, Roth, Emery, Kruger, Newman and Myles all deliver well nuanced performances as your hero's traveling ensemble, and their banter is interesting and human, but the truly stand-out performance of DA2- as Steve Valentine (Alistair) was of DA:O and Michael Beattie (Mordin Solus) was of ME2,  is Brian Bloom as Varric Tethras. Regardless of who you decide to romance in the game, Varric will probably be the one relationship you care about the most. Roguish, charming, mercenary, laconic, sharp- Varric not only has one of the coolest weapons of the game, but is by far the best developed of the companions. He is also your questionably-reliable narrator.


Dragon Age 2 is a story being told. Varric, being interrogated by an operative of the Chantry, is recounting the tale of the Champion's involvement in the plot's main event. This leads to some truly wonderful moments, particularly when Varric lies. It's a device that works tremendously well for the story, and a unique take on linear gameplay, especially when massive time-jumps are involved, that I quite liked and that Bioware really has a knack for (see also: the opening act of ME2).



In so far as Romancing goes, your options are automatically doubled as most of your companions swing both ways. Very cool. I found the lack of interaction opportunities a little vexing, though. There was always something both fun and reassuring in the fact that at any point during our travels, my Grey Warden could turn to any companion and have a conversation. In fact, the player feels encouraged to do so throughout the course of Origins, because initiating random conversations, particularly in conjunction with gift giving, frequently led to fantastically written exchanges that you had no prompting at all to experience. It felt very organic, and was extremely cool. Being instructed by the game to talk to your fellows makes it feel like a mission, and this is mostly because one is usually attached to any chat you may have. I also miss being approached out of the blue by a companion with an issue or a question. Sometimes they'll show up at your house to give you a quest- your home and theirs having replaced a 'camp' where everyone congregates- but not often. The crew in ME2 felt more disparate, and each individual crew member was not so predictable or one-note as the DA2 companions are. This is not a comment on the performances, bear in mind, but the way the characters are written. They are cool and they are interesting, but not as cool or interesting as those in ME2. They are idiosyncratic and they are human, but not half so much as the characters in DA:O.  This seems to be the ultimate trend of Dragon Age 2- the whole is not necessarily greater than the sum of its parts, but every component is somehow lacking when held up against its predecessors.



In ME2, I didn't mourn the random conversations that made DA:O so real and so engrossing. The game works seamlessly, and I didn't find any one part lacking, although during a second playthrough the planet probing aspect was tedious; In DA:O, I didn't mind not having a voiced main character, because the dialogue trees were so extensive and the performances by the companions so complete; and in both games, the mission was so grand, the tasks so epic, the world so vast that at times I felt overwhelmed by possibility, but never impatient- except in combat. Difficult fights in DA:O were messy and repetitive, and this has been vastly improved for console users in DA2, though I hear the PC gamers' experience has been less thrilling. As for everything else, DA2 just doesn't quite hit the mark.


Now, it can be argued that DA2 is a much more personal game. You're following one person's rise and possible fall in one city. Much like I think the Iron Man movies showed, a hero's journey can be personal and the stakes don't have to be world endingly high for the story to be grand and feel important. DA2's sort of doesn't, though, and at the end of the game I was left with the feeling that the choices I had made didn't really affect the outcome that much- everything is very binary in DA2. You are for the mages, or you are for the templars, there is no middle ground. At every major plot point, all the little things you thought you were doing, all the times you tried to be fair and balanced, go out the window and you're left with a black or white decision to make. So what's the point of all the little decisions in between? The overall experience just wasn't as fulfilling. This has nothing to do with any attempt on my part to replace human relationships or success in my career with video games. Shut up.

Overall, the game is very pretty and very fun, but fails to surpass what came before.


Now for the spoilertastic fangirly bits. You can stop reading now, I'll just be over here freaking out.

(More after the jump)

See full post

The Second Annual Fangirl Award Winners!

The results are in! Our Fangirl Academy, now 87 members strong, both nominated, then voted for their favorites from 2010. You can find all of the nominees, honorable mentions and winners below.

If you like a little suspense with your awards, watch the videos below! Note: We only have 9 categories to offer you in "suspense" form. A few videos were having trouble uploading, but should be up for your viewing pleasure later today.

After the videos, you'll find all the winners typed out, once again, following Nathaniel R's method of highlighting first place in gold, 2nd in silver and in some cases, 3rd place in bronze. Thanks to the fangirls who participated in voting and in presenting! I hope next year we have an even bigger academy and even more fangirls presenting :). Sign up to be a voting member for next year's awards, by clicking here.

Best Picture

Black Swan

Blue Valentine

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part One

Inception

The Kid's Are All Right

The King's Speech

Scott Pilgrim V. The World

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Honorable Mentions: The Fighter, Shutter Island, Easy A

Best Actor

Colin Firth - The King's Speech

Leonardo DiCaprio - Inception/Shutter Island

Jeff Bridges - True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Honorable Mentions: James Franco - 127 Hours

Best Actress

- Show quoted text -


Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right

Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Haliee Steinfeld - True Grit

Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone

Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right*

Honorable Mentions: Emma Stone - Easy A

Best Supporting Actor

Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Joseph Gordon Levitt - Inception

Christian Bale - The Fighter

Andrew Garfield - The Social Network

Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right/Shutter Island

Honorable Mentions: Jeremy Renner - The Town, Matt Damon - True Grit, Keiran Culkin - Scott Pilgrim

Best Supporting Actress

Helena Bohnam Carter - The King's Speech

Melissa Leo - The Fighter

Amy Adams - The Fighter

Barbara Hershey - Black Swan

Mila Kunis - Black Swan

Honorable Mentions: Marion Cotillard - Inception, Olivia Williams - The Ghost Writer

Best Director

Christopher Nolan - Inception

Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

David Fincher - The Social Network

Edgar Wright - Scott Pilgrim V. The World

The Coen Brothers - True Grit

Honorable Mentions: David Yates - Harry Potter GHP1, Danny Boyle - 127 Hours, Debra Granik - Winter's Bone

Best Adapted Screenplay

Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy -127 Hours

Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network

Joel & Ethan Coen - True Grit

Edgar Wright & Michael Bacall - Scott Pilgrim v. The World

Michael Arndt - Toy Story 3

Honorable Mentions: Harry Potter DHP1, Winter's Bone, The Town

Best Original Screenplay

Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz & John McLaughlin - Black Swan

Christopher Nolan - Inception

Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg - The Kids Are All Right

Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson - The Fighter

David Seidler - The King's Speech

Honorable Mentions: Blue Valentine, Please Give

Best Score

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - The Social Network

Daft Punk - Tron: Legacy

Hans Zimmer - Inception

Alexandre Desplat - Harry Potter: DHP1

Clint Mansell - Black Swan

Honorable Mentions: Danny Elfman - Alice in Wonderland, A.R. Rahman - 127 hours

World I Most Want To Visit

The Wizarding World - Harry Potter: DHP1

The Grid - Tron Legacy

Underland - Alice in Wonderland

The Dreamscape - Inception

Stylized Toronto - Scott Pilgrim V. The World

Honorable Mentions: Berk (How to Train Your Dragon), Narnia (Dawn Treader)

Best On Screen Animal

Pascal - Tangled

Maximus - Tangled

Toothless - How To Train Your Dragon

Little Blackie - True Grit

Hedwig - Harry Potter

Honorable Mentions: Cheshire Cat, Secretariat, Reepicheep

Best Chemistry - Romantic - Film

Amy Adams & Mark Wahlberg - The Fighter

Drew Barrymore & Justin Long - Going The Distance

Carey Mulligan & Andrew Garfield - Never Let Me Go

Rupert Grint & Emma Watson - Harry Potter DHP1

Natalie Portman & Mila Kunis - Black Swan

Anne Hathaway & Jake Gyllenhaal - Love & Other Drugs

Michelle Williams & Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Annette Bening & Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right

Mark Ruffalo & Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right

Michael Cera & Mary Elizabeth Weinsted - Scott Pilgrim V. The World

Honorable Mention: Ben Affleck & Rebecca Hall - The Town, Gwenyth Paltrow & Robert Downey Jr - Iron Man 2, Steve Carrell & Tina Fey - Date Night

Best Chemistry (or is it?) (Mostly, yes) - Platonic - Film - TIE for Bronze

Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Daniel Radcliffe & Emma Watson - Harry Potter DHP1

Tom Hardy & Joseph Gordon Levitt - Inception

Michael Cera & Keiran Culkin - Scott Pilgrim V The World

Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges & Matt Damon - True Grit

Andrew Garfield & Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

Will Farrell & Mark Wahlberg - The Other Guys

The Mad Hatter & Alice - Alice in Wonderland

Nicholas Cage & Chloe Moretz - Kick Ass

Emma Stone, Stanley Tucci & Patricia Clarkson - Easy A

Voiceover Performance

Steve Carrell as Gru - Despicable Me

Tom Hanks as Woody - Toy Story 3

Zachary Levi as Flynn Rider - Tangled

Mandy Moore as Rapunzel - Tangled

Jay Baruchnel as Hiccup - How To Train Your Dragon

Honorable Mentions: Tim Allen - Toy Story 3, Kristin Schaal - Toy Story 3, Craig Ferguson - How To Train Your Dragon

Epic Fail Movie - Genre

Clash of the Titans

Jonah Hex

The Last Airbender

Twilight: Eclipse

Nightmare on Elm Street

Epic Fail Movie - Non-Genre

Sex and the City 2

The Bounty Hunter

Grown Ups

Yogi Bear

How Do You Know?

Best Characterization of an Established Figure

King George VI - The King's Speech

Scott Pilgrim - Scott Pilgrim V. The World

The Mad Hatter - Alice in Wonderland

Tony Stark - Iron Man 2

Mark Zuckerberg - The Social Network

Honorable Mentions: Sherlock & Watson - BBC's Sherlock, Rapunzel - Tangled, Al Capone - Boardwalk Empire, Dicky Euckland - The Fighter

Best Fight/Battle Sequence

Scott/Ramona/Knives/Gideon (Final Battle) - Scott Pilgrim

Arthur's No Gravity Hallway Fight - Inception

Hit Girl Infiltrates Mob Building (Final Battle) - Kick Ass

Scott Pilgrim v. Exil Ex #1 - Scott Pilgrim v. The World

Scott Pilgrim v. Exil Ex #3 (Vegan) - Scott Pilgrim v. The World

Black Widow Hallway Takedown - Iron Man 2*

Honorable Mentions: Scott Pilgrim v. Exil Ex #4, Final Fight - The Fighter, Final Fight - Red, Rooster & Mattie v. Ned - True Grit, Snow Fortress Attack - Inception, Light Cycle Race - Tron: Legacy

Guiltiest Pleasure - Film

Burlesque

Twilight: Eclipse

Tron: Legacy

Salt

Machete

Splice*

Honorable Mentions: The Losers, Step Up 3D, When In Rome, Red, Morning Glory

Best Animated Film

Despicable Me

How To Train Your Dragon

Megamind

Tangled

Toy Story 3

The Illusionist*

Best TV Show - Drama

Mad Men

Fringe

Dr. Who

Lost

The Walking Dead

Honorable Mentions: Boardwalk Empire, Caprica

Best TV Show - Comedy

Glee

Modern Family

30 Rock

Community

The Big Bang Theory

Honorable Mentions: How I Met Your Mother, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Best Actor - Drama TV

Jon Hamm - Mad Men

Steve Bushemi - Boardwalk Empire

Andrew Lincoln - The Walking Dead

John Noble - Fringe

Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad

Honorable Mentions: Hugh Laurie - House, Michael C. Hall, Dexter, Matthew Fox - Lost, John Slattery - Mad Men, Terry O'Quinn - Lost

Best Actor - Comedy TV

Don Glover - Community

Chris Colfer - Glee

Jim Parsons - The Big Bang Theory

Ty Burrell - Modern Family

Joel McHale - Community

Honorable Mentions: Alec Baldwin - 30 Rock, Steve Carrell - The Office, Eric Stonestreet - Modern Family, NPH - How I Met Your Mother

Best Actress - Drama TV

Christina Hendricks - Mad Men

Elisabeth Moss - Mad Men

Katey Sagal - Sons of Anarchy

Anna Torv - Fringe

Kelly McDonald - Boardwalk Empire

Honorable Mentions: Juliana Margulies - The Good Wife, Connie Britton - Friday Night Lights, Polly Walker - Caprica

Best Actress - Comedy TV

Alison Brie - Community

Sofia Vergara - Modern Family

Julie Bowen - Modern Family

Jane Lynch - Glee

Tina Fey - 30 Rock

Honorable Mentions: Amy Poehler - Parks & Rec, Heather Morris - Glee, Alyson Hannigan, HIMYM, Kaley Cuoco - The Big Bang Theory

Best Chemistry - Romantic TV - TIE for Bronze

Eric/Sookie - True Blood

Chuck/Blair - Gossip Girl

Chuck/Sarah - Chuck

Marshall/Lily - How I Met Your Mother

Pam/Jim - The Office

Beckett/Castle - Castle

Boones/Booth - Bones

Roger/Joan - Mad Men

Olivia/Peter - Fringe

Dexter/Lumen - Dexter

Best Chemistry - Platonic TV

Abed/Troy - Community

Jack Donaghy/Liz Lemon - 30 Rock

Neal/Peter - White Collar

Don Draper/Peggy Olsen - Mad Men

Amy/The Doctor - Dr. Who

Peter/Walter - Fringe

Al Capone/Jimmy Dormety - Boardwalk Empire

Casey/Morgan - Chuck

Pam/Eric - True Blood

"The Gang" - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Guiltiest Pleasure - TV

Glee

Gossip Girl

Pretty Little Liars

Vampire Diaries

True Blood

Actor I Most Want To Marry 2010

Joseph Gordon Levitt

Tom Hardy

Andrew Garfield

Ryan Gosling

Jon Hamm

Nathan Fillion

Ryan Reynolds

Robert Downey Jr.

Mark Ruffalo

Matt Damon

Honorable Mentions: James Franco, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rupert Grint, Jesse Eisenberg

Woman I Most Want To Marry 2010

Emma Stone

Christina Hendricks

Natalie Portman

Mila Kunis

Michelle Williams

Olivia Wilde

Carey Mulligan

Julianne Moore

Scarlett Johansson

Keira Knightly

Most Overrated

Glee

Twilight: Eclipse

Toy Story 3

Lost

Anne Hathaway

Honorable Mentions: Olivia Munn, The Black Eyed Peas

Most Underrated - TIE for Silver

Caprica

Fringe

Friday Night Lights

Shutter Island

Archer

Supernatural*

Honorable Mentions: Flipped, Raising Hope, Going The Distance, The Town

Best Graphic Novel

Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour

Xed Out

Batwoman: Elegy

Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit

The Shepherd's Tale

Honorable Mentions: Return of the Dapper Men

Best Comic Series

Buffy Season 8

The Unwritten

The Walking Dead

American Vampire

Batman & Robin

Honorable Mentions: Chew, Daytripper, Uncanny X-Men, Invincible Iron Man

Best Video Game

Halo: Reach

Red Dead Redemption

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Mass Effect 2

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Honorable Mentions: Fable 3

Best Villain - TIE for Bronze

Sue Sylvester - Glee

Voldemort - Harry Potter DHP1

Gideon Graves - Scott Pilgrim v The World

Clu - Tron

Ivan Vanko - Iron Man 2

The Man In Black - Lost

Lotso - Toy Story 3

Bellatrix LeStrange - Harry Potter DHP1

Subconscious Mal - Inception

Russel Edgington - True Blood

Honorable Mentions: Cheney - True Grit, The Rock - 127 Hours, Cooper - Red, Van Alden - Boardwalk Empire

Best Musician/Band

Arcade Fire

Mumford & Sons

Daft Punk

Vampire Weekend

Girl Talk

Honorable Mentions: Katy Perry, Eminem, Amanda Palmer, Broken Bells, She & Him

Best Book

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Just Kids by Patti Smith

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Extra Lives by Tom Bissell*

Honorable Mentions: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King, Room by Emma Donohuge

Most Romantic Line EVAR 2010 - TIE For Bronze

"You were my new dream." "And you were mine" - Tangled

"You were the only thing that got me through. If it wasn't for you I would never have made it back. You saved my life" - Fringe

"Kiss me, James" "You got it, Blondie" - Lost

"I'm in lesbians with you" - Scott Pilgrim v. The World

"The deluminator. It doesn't just turn off lights. I don't know how it work but Christmas morning, I was sleeping in this little pub, keeping away from some Snatchers, and I heard it. A voice. Your voice, Hermione. You said my name. Just my name. Like a whisper. So I took it, clicked it and this tiny ball of light appeared. And I knew. It flew towards me, the ball of light, right through my chest and straight through me. Right here. And I knew it was going to take me where I needed to go." - Harry Potter: DHP1

"You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But, it doesn't matter. Because we'll be together." - Inception

"In my experience, the prettier a girl is, the more nuts she is... which makes you insane. You're probably nutty coo-coo crazy." - Blue Valentine

"If I meet the true death without at least kissing you, Sookie Stackhouse, that will be my biggest regret." - True Blood

"You're my home, Chuck. You always have been." - Chuck

"When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them." - Scott Pilgrim v. The World

Best Fan Outreach

 Scott Pilgrim v. Comic-Con

Networks/Studios Using Twitter In Q&As (Syfy Fridays, Community DVD, etc)

Firefly References on Castle

ElecTRONica at Disneyland

Tron at Comic-Con (Flynn's Arcade/End of the Line Club/Panel)

Marvel at Comic-Con (Avengers Assemble! Panel, Dealer's Room Booth)

Walking Dead Campaign - Comic-Con, NYCC, Win a Walk on role, etc.

Mad Men Yourself Twitter Icons

@ThatKevinSmith's Twitter Account

Machete Taco Truck

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