I saw a lot of game journalists playing the beta of Halo: Reach over the weekend, though I didn’t detect much in the way of excitement. Not that it matters, as Halo and its sales are critic-proof, nor is it ever reviewed with anything close to a critical eye, seemingly immune to criticism lest magazines and websites upset their vociferous and loyal fan-base. Me? Previous Halo games have been boring and empty. Should be called Hollow.

Now that you’ve completely disregarded my opinion, why not read the opinions of two hardcore Halo freaks as they discuss the pros and cons of the new Halo: Reach beta:

Sascha Lichtenstein: Let’s make this conversation quick, because I’d much rather be playing this beta than talking about it.

I’m having a blast with Halo: Reach. Arena and Invasion are both locked out until the official start, so it’s a little light on new features, but I like the way the combat has evolved. The four armor abilities all bring different strategic elements to the game, and their value changes depending on the map and the game type.

Kyle Wattenmaker: I like it, and I’m saying that with tempered enthusiasm. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic as I thought I might be, but there’s still plenty I haven’t seen. Balance is iffy, but it’s a beta. Armor abilities are awesome.

SL: I was worried that the armor abilities would be completely unbalanced, that some would be incredibly powerful and others would be completely useless. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an armor ability that I haven’t been able to use with great success, save for maybe armor lock…and that’s only because I keep forgetting I have the ability with the battles start getting heated. I always die and say “Dammit, I could have used my ability!” But I’ll get used to it.

The rest of this excellent feature can be found here.

A small group of loyal King’s Quest fans have been toiling away on a fan-made sequel to the classic adventure series for eight years. Eight years! At one point, Vivendi, the IP rights holder, got all uppity and made an attempt to shut the project down, but an agreement was reached that allowed the team to continue working on the project. Known as “The Silver Lining”, the team hoped to release the game, for free of course, at some point in 2010.

Unfortunately, Activision recently came into possession of the King’s Quest IP and are now acting like big, throbbing dicks. That’s a technical term, look it up. Activision has demanded that all materials relating to King’s Quest be removed from The Silver Lining Website, in effect destroying eight years of dedication and labor…and for what? They weren’t going to make any money from this project. The Silver Lining was made for fans by fans. No threat whatsoever to Activision’s license.

A sad turn of events that makes Activision the Darth Vader of the gaming industry, at least until the next corporate snafu comes along and pisses me off.

Statement from The Silver Lining Team:

To Our Fans:

In 2005, Phoenix Online Studios received a Cease & Desist letter from Vivendi Universal, the owners of the King’s Quest IP, in regards to our work on The Silver Lining. We complied with the request, and over the months that followed, we were able to work out a non-commercial fan license with Vivendi that allowed us to continue our work on the game.

We have spent a lot of time recently reworking the material of The Silver Lining into episodic releases, with the first out of a planned five episodes completed, and submitted for review, and had hoped we would be able to bring our game to you, the fans, in the Spring of 2010.

Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.

As before, we must and will comply with this decision, as much as we may wish we could do otherwise.

We cannot say enough how much we appreciate the support we have had over these years from our fans. Without you, we would never have gotten this far. There would be no game to develop, and no one to develop it for. You have been amazing and steadfast, and we will always remember that and appreciate it more than we can say.

Sadly, after eight years of dedicated work and even more dedicated fans, The Silver Lining project is closing down.

What the future holds for us, as individuals or a team, we cannot say. We have an amazing development team, however, filled with talented and hard-working individuals, and we hope the teamwork and rapport we’ve developed won’t go to waste. We hope that when we do know what the future holds for us, our fans will be there to enjoy what we can give them still.

Again, thank you all so much for everything. This has been a long and crazy road, full of more twists than we could’ve anticipated, but more triumphs and wonderful memories than we could’ve ever hoped for. And for that, to all of you and to everyone on our team, we will always be grateful.

Thank You,

The Silver Lining Development Team

Mad Men fans are a unique breed of human. As one myself, I speak from experience. There are a few things you don’t do to a Mad Men fan:

• Don’t explain how Lost is better than Mad Men.
• Don’t explain how any show is better than Mad Men.
• Don’t threaten to shorten season 3 episodes by two-minutes in order to fit in more commercials.

That last point is important, as the AMC channel had made it known that such a thing was occuring in season 3. Episodes would be shorter by two minutes for the sake of shoe-horning more commercials. The fans grabbed their pitchforks and lit their torches, storming the gates of AMC and demanding justice.

The mob won.

AMC has announced that instead of shortening episodes, they will extend the run-time of each episode an additional two minutes, even going so far as to make a deal with TIVO and other DVR companies that will find the popular recording device running extra long to compensate, ensuring you won’t miss those precious two minutes.

Source: Variety

Perhaps the best fan-made film yet created, The Hunt for Gollum, is a labor of love and the work of considerable skill.  While it looks like it was shot on a rather large budget, the reality is quite different: total outlay = $4,500.  The Hunt for Gollum takes place between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring and features some truly superb special effects. Most fascinating is that the director actually received the blessing of the Tolkien estate, who is allowing this film to be shown online as long as it stays entirely non-profit.

The DailyMotion is hosting the premier of the movie, which runs 40-minutes, in glorious HD.

Head here to be amazed.