Foreclosure Bank Inspection Co. was busted by the feds on Thursday for using an employment scam to con approximately 20,000 job seekers. The United States Attorney’s office indicted Jay Vincent and Anthony Portee on charges of mail fraud. Vincent, who actually played in the NBA from 1981 until 1990, also faces a charge of income tax evasion. In all, the feds say that Foreclosure Bank Inspection Co. scammed job seekers for a total of around $2 million. The con involved making job seekers pay for an $89 background check and another $149 for insurance in order to gain a job inspecting bank foreclosed homes. Foreclosure Bank Inspection Co. advertised in newspapers across the nation and on the internet. If you Google this company, you can see many, many people who fell for the scam. Attempts to get refunds were denied and Vincent claimed all along that the business was legit. The charges he and Portee face are from January 1st, 2006 to August 25th, 2009. Vincent played for the Dallas Mavericks, Washington Bullets, Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers. His brother, Sam Vincent, also played in the NBA and is currently coaching in the NBA D-League. Make yourself at home, Jay Vincent (Image: Flickr) Post from: EveryJoe

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Busted: Foreclosure Bank Inspection Co.

That’s right boys and girls STAR WARS is finally coming to the Blu-ray player in your Galaxy. Over the past 6 years since Blu-ray has entered the market one of the most commonly asked questions has been, “When will Star Wars be released on Blu-ray?” Well the answer was finally given at Star Wars Celebration V taking place in Orlando Florida this week. We will be able to view the saga in all it’s HD glory in the Fall of 2011 most likely around November. Expect a 6 movie box set that will include the Special Edition version of the films and what is sure to be hours and hours of extra features. There is no mention of 3D but I’d expect not as the 3DTV install market will still be quite small at the time of the movies Blu-ray release. Install base is one of the things that has held back the Blu-Ray release for so long. LucasFilm got burned in the past by releasing the films too early in the life cycle of VHS and DVD, later releases preformed very well but the choice was made that it would be better to wait for HDTV and a HD disk format could stand on it’s own feet. Buy the time the Star Wars Saga hits the shelves (once again) it is projected that there will be nearly 100 million Blu-ray devices in homes world wide. Source NYT

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Movie News: Star Wars coming to Blu-Ray

Coming this Fall, Canadians will get to enjoy the streaming services provided by Netflix. That’s thousands of movies at your fingertips (including Starz Play, which has a handful of newer movies). Personally, I love the service and feel it’s worth the subscription price. Currently, there are no plans for a disc-based service, though, but the streaming capabilities could be included for consoles as well as PC/Mac and other Netflix-enabled devices. Source

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Hey Canadians! Netflix Headed Your Way!

Not sure what’s going over there at EA but they just announced another title. The game is titled Dead Space: Ignition and it’s the first in many extensions that will be on the PSN as downloadable content this Fall. Players will be placed in the hot seat as they try to help Isaac Clarke the engineer survive a Necromorph outbreak hours before Dead Space 2 hit shelves on the 25th of January in 2011. “Dead Space Ignition is the first of many exciting game extensions we have planned for the launch of Dead Space 2,” said Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer on the Dead Space franchise. “The interactive comic-style game will give Dead Space fans a unique perspective on the events leading up to Dead Space 2, and will also introduce the storyline to a brand-new audience of gamers.” More information can be found on EA’s Page

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Dead Space 2 Prequel Arcade Game Announced

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Comic-Con 2010 Thursday Program Schedule to Include SW:ForceUnleashed 2 and AC:Brotherhood

Hulu Plus, a new subscription service by Hulu, will be making its way over to the PS3 starting next month. This is the result of the news I posted last week . Hulu Plus will be an ad-supported addition the widely popular Hulu service. What differentiates itself from the standard Hulu service is that, instead of a few ‘trailing episodes’ in a season, you can watch the entire season of a show. Not sure of any other features, but with it coming to PS3 (officially), being able to use Hulu to begin with might be a big deal to some of you. Some more details: The service will cost $9.99 a month, and will be compatible with the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, Samsung Blu-ray players, PCs, and other television sets. The service will hit PS3 next month, TVs this fall, and the 360 early next year (and with that, will probably require a Gold account, too). Source

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Hulu Plus Coming to PS3

Lars from Tekken 6 joins the cast of Namco Bandai’s and CyberConnect2’s Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 this fall as a guest character . You may remember that Naruto artist Masashi Kishimoto designed a special outfit for Lars Alexanderson in Namco’s Tekken 6. See Lars duke it out with Naruto in the following trailer.

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Tekken 6 Fighter Gets Cel-Shaded For Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Microsoft’s Xbox marketing boss Albert Penello made several comments on 3D , and is wrong on two points: “We have 3D games – obviously the Avatar game came out last year – and the console fully supports 3D” He is part right and part wrong on this. 3D games like Avatar require HDMI (see here , here , and here ), so it does work on newer 360 units, but it will not work on older models without an HDMI connection, and those units can not be upgraded to be 3D ready. The 360 launched in November 2005 without HDMI, and it wasn’t until the high end elite model launched on April 29, 2007, that HDMI was an option, and it wasn’t until the Fall of 2007, when HDMI was available on the lower end 360 SKUs. When you consider this for a moment, 360 can only support 3D on part of their user base, while PS3 can support 3D effects on every PS3, you can imagine why Sony is touting this so loudly, and why Microsoft is downplaying it and dragging their feet. Of course, Sony has the additional incentive of being in the consumer electronics business and selling more HDTVs and home theater gear. This also explains why so many tech pundits and journalists are so negative on 3D. It would be reasonable to expect this stereo 3D technology to divide consumers and pundits just like surround sound audio systems do: the enthusiasts and gadget types love it, and many lower end consumers don’t have the patience for it. In contrast to these expectations, the Internet gadget types and journalists have been almost universally negative towards 3D HDTVs. Why? Because they are mostly Microsoft centric and are mimicking the Microsoft cues. The second place Microsoft is wrong, is that Penello implies that consumers are undecided and haven’t voted whether they care about 3D or not: “I think that when we decide we want to jump into 3D it’ll be because the consumer’s voted. But from a technical side, there’s nothing about it we can’t do.” This is clearly not true. As an anonymous studio chief said : “You can make so much more money with 3-D that it essentially puts a tax on 2-D dramas, romantic comedies and other projects, since they just won’t project the same kind of box-office potential.” Movie ticket sales data is quite clear and the guys in charge of the theaters and the movie business are fully convinced. The movie going masses from around the globe have voted with their wallets in large numbers that they want 3D and are willing to pay premiums and drive to a different movie theater to get it. Admittedly, movie theater demand doesn’t translate perfectly to the home theater market, but it’s safe to say that there is a lot more consumer demonstrated demand for 3D than for motion control. The Wii was a huge success, but that involved many factors beyond the controller, as can be seen with the similar success of the DS.

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3D: Sony vs. Microsoft

You know you have a real winner on your hands when a game says “Attempt 72” and you haven’t gotten overly frustrated. Such was the case with the PSN title, Joe Danger. Developed by Hello Games, a group consisting of four people, it puts you in control of the washed up has-been of a stunt rider, Joe Danger. In this game, your overall goal is to bring him back to his status as a legendary stunt man on the biggest comeback tour of his life. And what a ride it is. First of all, the game looks great. Apart from a few blocky shadows here and there, the color palette is nice and bright and the colors tend to really pop out at you (this would also be a really cool game in 3D by the way; hopefully a sequel will come about with such a feature?). The track designs are done very well, too, and none of the props ever seem out of place, either. I’ve noticed a drop in frame rate on some areas loaded with props, though, but that was in sandbox mode (which will be touched upon further into the review). The background really ties the track together, too, with a desert-like landscape (there are, from what I can remember, 4 different backgrounds, but the central theme seems to be desert). I would love to see different environments in the future, though. Tropical perhaps? A ‘Las Vegas’ theme? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Hello Games has planned. As far as sound design goes, the sound effects are nice and, for lack of a better word, fun. I have noticed a few glitches here and there, but they’re generally rare. The music track? It could definitely use more variety, as playing a track over and over, and hearing the same song play can get old, but at least the developers are currently at work on a patch to allow custom user tracks to be playable in the game (though, even more of the quirky music style the game already uses would have been pretty cool, too). The sounds of wrecking have a bit of an impact, though. The overall presentation of the game is decent, though, the menus could have used a little more work (the whole menu system takes place in a pit area, with your trailer and a bunch of billboards and newspapers strewn about that you have to navigate through to find what you‘re looking for). It took me a while to figure out how to get to the “Sandbox” though, since it would seem the “Options” menu should have been the last of the menu choices instead. I would have also have wished to be able to see the progress on each individual tour/event when you highlight them as well. Anyway, with some minor problems I had with the presentation, it definitely more than made up for it in gameplay. If you were a fan of games such as Excite Bike or Trials, you’ll love this game, as it definitely seems to have a lot in common with both games. If you’ve never played those before, though, the game is still a blast to play and very easy to pick up (the physics engine is pretty good, too, but can be a bit forgiving in some situations, so its also a bit accessible to non-gamers as well). Just keep in mind, you will absolutely want to keep track of your position in the air before you land, as well as the amount of boost you use, since those really do require a lot more strategizing to meet some of a track’s goals (especially hidden stars and beating the clock). As you progress through the game, the tracks get harder and harder. At least it’s a pretty gradual advance, as you can usually hold your own pretty well, but can definitely feel the difference in challenge when you go to replay old levels and realize how easy they were. Occasionally, though, some of the tracks will become very challenging if you try to master it and get all the stars and a gold trophy. If you’re searching for hidden stars, though, the game seems more like a plat former than a race, which is a nice change of pace. These different challenges is where my 72 attempts come in. I forget which track it was, but after restarting and restarting to try to beat the clock, I noticed the “Attempt 72” on one of them and though to myself “I couldn’t have done this that many times…” Turns out, the game is so addicting, that when you really get into it and challenge yourself to meet the specific goals, you don’t realize how many times you’ve restarted to meet those goals, and that’s something I have to commend Hello Games for achieving. Most of it is thanks to the feeling of speed and, especially, the combo system. Most tracks require you to complete 100% of the track in a continuous combo (even one of the game’s trophies requires players to get a 100x combo), so learning the moves is a must, but at least they’re very, very simple to use. Usually, the easiest way to start a combo is to pull back to begin a wheelie. From there, you can use the square button to duck, as well as hop, pull back or push forward in the air to do flips, and land on the rear wheel to perform another wheelie. The physics engine has been done pretty well, too. Though you can occasionally get away with doing a flip and continuing it after landing on your head, for the most part, you’ll crash. And when you crash, you really get to see those physics at work. The bike falls to bits (and will react with props around the track, including bounce pads), and Joe’s body flails wildly into the air. If you’d like, you can control his fall, too, and be able to slow down your decent, or, if you use the L1 button, curl up into a cannonball position and fall relatively fast, and bounce off the ground. While racing, the physics hold pretty tight still, and still make it pretty easy to finish combos and moves. It’s not the most advanced physics system in the world, but some things require a bit of finesse to avoid wrecking, yet, it still allows the game to be very accessible to newcomers. To really build up your combos, though, the L1 and R1 buttons are used for the different aerial moves available to Joe. Instead of making it super complex, though, each button is assigned different moves, with the advancement of the moves being solely dependent on the number of times you quickly press the button while airborne (and from what I can tell, the most advanced moves are both buttons at the same time with three consecutive presses). To get even more air to perform such moves, they allow you to “hop” off of the top of a jump to gain some insane altitude and distance on jumps. Just keep in mind some jumps will probably cause you to overshoot a target, or some stars, etc. Given that, you can control Joe in the air to move him more forward or back by pressing the L2 and R2 buttons, or stabilize him to fall straight onto a target. After the first couple tracks, it’s really easy to get used to, though, as you’ll be pulling off some amazing combos in no time, and then share your scores with your friends. And while we’re on the subject of friends, the central online component of the game is to try to beat each other’s high scores, so there is no online multiplayer portion (though, you can play two player split screen on a few tracks set up specifically for that feature, as well as having the ability to make some in the sandbox). And yes, it will automatically retrieve the latest high scores from your buddies when you select a track, so you know where you stand against them (and you can check out worldwide leaders, too). Personally, after playing the game, I think that they should definitely stick to keeping the game competitive with high scores, so if they decide on a sequel, I would definitely prefer to see that system stay. One of the things I would love to see, though, is local multiplayer without split-screen, and multiple log ins. What am I talking about? How about, say, four friends are over. Each of them gets assigned a player spot, and also have the ability to play as a guest or log into PSN. Player one selects a track and goes through it on one run, and the subsequent players are queued up until their turn, so it’s more competitive on a local number, and you won’t have to sacrifice frame rate or anything because of split screen. Just an idea… Now for one of the bigger draws of the game. The Sandbox. It took me a while to get the hang of at first, but you can start to build levels really quickly once you get used to everything. The only thing I would have wished for were more props to use, including those used in some of the career tracks (such as the crushers and old west-style building faces), but there’s enough there to make some truly creative tracks. I still have a few more tours to finish, so maybe new props unlock as you progress? I’ll have to play some more so I can verify that, since my first time into the Sandbox, I was already pretty far into the career. My first project was actually a bounce tower, which had two tall towers lined with angled bounce pads that Joe bounces off of, and, if you hit them right, you can fly over to the next bit. I just wish the mode had a tutorial to let you know some of the basics, but I’ll explain those here. First off, a track is divided into 16 segments to create one whole track. If you run out of room on one segment, don’t fret like I did at first. Though the game doesn’t tell you, that space is only used for one segment, and each segment is able to carry the same amount of props. Placing the finish line, by the way, is as simple as just ending a segment (or, if you do a segment after that, it will automatically continue onto the next one). If you manage to fill all 16 segments (and trust me, that’s a LOT of track), you’ll be playing that track for a while. Laying props is done very quickly, and you have the ability to place them in the middle of a jump or simply driving down the track. Once you are at a point you’d like to place a ramp, it’s as simple as opening the tools and placing it. You can also freely move the cursor to where you want to place them without having to bring Joe along with you, which gives you some freedom to lay pieces on one of the three planes a level has (much like LittleBigPlanet). You can’t pause the gravity, though, so pieces hanging in the air, apart from the bounce pads and spikes, will fall into place, so if you’re wanting to increase the angle of a ramp, you need to place something under where you’re going to place it first. As far as level goals go, you don’t have the ability to put in the D-A-N-G-E-R pieces (which act like the COMBO in the old Tony Hawk games, but don’t require you to combo the entire track to get them), which are found in some of the Career mode tracks, nor can you place hidden stars. You can place coins and the star points, though, as well as landings for the other challenges, though. When placing landing pads, I suggest taking the jump first and placing them just before Joe Danger lands. Some of the things I would have liked to have seen done differently? Well, for one, I would have liked it when you finish a segment, the game would automatically place the staring position on the plane that the previous section ends on, to at least let you know where you left off (though, some segments could have had any of the three planes available to continue into). I would also like to be able to perform different goals on retries, but still get credited for goals I completed on a previous play through like in career mode. I also think being able to pause the physics when placing pieces like in LBP would have been nice as well, so you have the angle of something you wanted to achieve, and then place something else under it to keep it steady when you un-pause the physics. Relatively minor issues, but still noteworthy. Sandbox is really, really fun. What’s more, you can also share your tracks with friends and compete for high scores with that as well. You’re only able to have ten saved tracks, though, and you must use one of those slots for shared tracks and tracks of your own, so you’ll have to keep track of what tracks you already have, etc. (yeah, I used that word a lot in one sentence ). What would have been nice would have been a universal hub to download and share tracks, so it’d be much easier to share your creations with the community instead of solely between friends, and have even larger leader boards so you can track worldwide who has the highest scores on your creation. Now, for a few more details of what is planned, based off of comments and the like by the developers themselves. I’ve already mentioned an upcoming patch including custom soundtrack support, but there are apparently a few more upcoming additions that might make you consider purchasing the game. They’re currently at work on allowing you to view replays, and even upload them to YouTube, so such features would be welcome for sure. Hopefully the YouTube support works on custom tracks as well, so everyone can see the crazy stuff I made without having to get the game or be my friend . Of course, why wouldn’t you? Overall, the game is one of those titles that you simply must own, especially if you’re into challenging yourself and your friends, or to simply just have some fun. It’s family friendly and you can potentially spend hours upon hours playing it and not even realize it. Sharing tracks with your friends is nice, and being able to track the scores of your friends helps add to the fun factor. You’ll begin to spend a lot of time in the Sandbox, that’s for sure. Technically, the game has a nice physics engine, and tripled with the beautiful graphics and fun soundtrack, you have a game that not only plays great, but looks and sounds great, too. The simplicity of the controls make it a blast to do some crazy ridiculous combos and the challenging levels will certainly make you want to try harder to meet the goals, all while not getting to the point where you want to break the controller (though, I can’t say that for everyone). It’s a complete package, and with upcoming features that are planned, it makes it even more of a bargain. You owe it to yourself to pick this one up, as it’s one of the best PSN titles to date, and with that, I can’t wait to see what Hello Games has for us gamers in the future! Review Pros Cons Nice color palette Addicting Fun for everyone Sandbox mode allows for creativity Challenging for those who want to complete everything Trophies are pretty easy to gain Destroy your friends’ scores Some minor bugs here and there Can’t pause physics in Sandbox mode Lack of a tutorial for Sandbox Can’t share track creations globally Has the potential to be frustrating for some Environments and music could use some variety Rating 95%

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Official Review: Joe Danger

The first details of FIFA 11 have been announced with the most prominent new feature is player personalisation. This means Ronaldo pouts, Crouch is as lanky as a bean pole and Messi should look like a small boy. But this doesn’t just stop at physical appearances the players should also play differently from each other with individuals making more of an impact on the game. FIFA 11 reinvents player authenticity – on and off the ball – for every player and at every position on the pitch with Personality+, an all-new feature that sees individual abilities reflected in game, enabling clear differentiation for every player. Here’s a quote that really highlights how players can excel in specific areas differentiating them from others; “Real Madrid’s Kaka will deliver crisp, creative passes, Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta will utilize tighter turns and close control to dribble through defenses, Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney will hold off defenders and strike shots from distance with pace, and top-flight defenders like Giorgio Chiellini of Juventus will anticipate, predict and react to offensive players to win back possession.” Goal keepers will also sport some individuality with 2 different types called acrobatic or traditional, I would think a keeper like Iker Casillas to be acrobatic whilst David James is traditional. The other major announcement made is Pro Passing being more accurately controlled by the player through how they press the buttons on the pad. This results in a higher margin for error but also allow passes to swerve and not all be played in a straight line. Its about time the FIFA series integrated this as body frames have been too similar, this should hopefully open up the Be A Pro mode allowing for some more creative players to be made and more realistic representations. Not too sure what to make of the new passing yet, would have to be play tested to get a good indication. Hit the jump for more screenshots the full press release Half the screens are from the PS3 version and half are from the Xbox, if you highlight the image you can see which is which. Electronic Arts, today revealed that its top-selling franchise from EA SPORTS™ will redefine player authenticity when FIFA 11 launches this Fall on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system. FIFA 11 reinvents player authenticity – on and off the ball – for every player and at every position on the pitch with Personality+, an all-new feature that sees individual abilities reflected in game, enabling clear differentiation for every player. “Personality+ is the evolution of individual distinctiveness that sees a footballer’s abilities on the pitch mirrored authentically in our game, creating individual personalities in FIFA 11,” said Executive Producer Kaz Makita. “We have reached a level of sophistication within our game engine where footballers in our game will behave and perform as true individuals.” Personality+ distinguishes individual footballers from one another by utilizing a database that evaluates and grades each player’s skill-set over 36 attributes and 57 traits. The EA SPORTS FIFA franchise utilizes a network of 1700 scouts, editors and reviewers positioned around the world to evaluate each player, creating one of the world’s most comprehensive databases to drive its market-leading football engine. Personality+ plus will be integrated everywhere in-game. Elite players are now empowered to showcase their world class skills. Real Madrid’s Kaka will deliver crisp, creative passes, Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta will utilize tighter turns and close control to dribble through defenses, Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney will hold off defenders and strike shots from distance with pace, and top-flight defenders like Giorgio Chiellini of Juventus will anticipate, predict and react to offensive players to win back possession. New body types and player models will further distinguish each player on the pitch. In addition, goalkeepers have also been injected with Personality+. The real-life personality of the keeper, whether acrobatic or traditional, will dictate his style in game. Dive attributes will determine the keepers with the ability to reach for further shots while reflex attributes determine reaction times, so a keeper like Petr Cech of Chelsea FC will be able to showcase world-class skills. FIFA 11 introduces new Pro Passing where pass accuracy is determined by a gamer’s ability on the control pad, and player skill, situation and urgency on the pitch, yielding a deeply rewarding passing system. Poor decisions or over/under striking the ball will mean error-prone outcomes. New types of passes such as swerve passes will enable players to make a safer and more effective play. Building on FIFA 10 gameplay, which won 50 sports game of the year awards, FIFA 11 continues to listen to its growing legion of FIFA fans around the world to refine gameplay in ways that matter most to fans. Visit http://www.facebook.com/easportsfifa to join the FIFA group to express feedback directly to game developers and receive exclusive content. New game modes and innovations will be revealed in the coming months along with features on other platforms. Visit WWW.FIFA.EASPORTS.COM for more information. Screenshots are available at www.easports.co.uk/press . FIFA 11 will be available in stores world-wide this Fall for the PlayStation®3, Xbox 360®, Wii™, PC, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo DS™, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and mobile. It is developed under the EA SPORTS brand by EA Canada in Burnaby, B.C. The game has not yet been rated.

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FIFA 11 First Details And New Screens