Peter Jackson came out and announced the cast of The Hobbit today. I feel like I should be really jazzed, or excited, or something about this. Unfortunately, that something is apathetic. In fact, it took a good two minutes of “Ian, this is shit people care about, you should probably blather about it already!” to get me writing this. I’m not sure why I don’t, and I know I will be excited about the movie once trailers start dropping and the such. But for now? Mehcore. However!, here is the cast list, featuring the official confirmation of Martin Freeman, the dude from the BBC version of the Office as Bilbo.

Slashfilm:

Richard Armitage (MI-5, Captain America) as Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Dwarves, whose grandfather ruled the Lonely Mountain settlement destroyed by Smaug.

Aidan Turner (Being Human) and Rob Kazinsky (EastEnders) as Kili and Fili, nephews of Thorin.

Graham McTavish (Secretariat) as Dwalin, blue-bearded, first to arrive at the home of Bilbo Baggins.

John Callen as Oin, skillful fire-maker. Brother of Gloin.

Stephen Hunter (All Saints) as Bombur, the fat, sleepy and slow member of Thorin’s company.

Mark Hadlow (King Kong) as Dori, strongest of the Dwarves, who carries Bilbo on his back at one point.

Peter Hambleton (The Strip) as Gloin, brother of Oin, initially suspicious of Bilbo’s worth, but eventually convinced. Father of Gimli from The Lord of the Rings.

Also returning are Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf, and everyone’s nightmare, Andy Serkis as Gollum. Well there you go! Be excited, b-e excited for me.

Who the hell releases four screens of something. I’ll tell you who, fools. I’ll tell you good and plenty: Irrational fucking Games. Why and how do they do it? The answer is the same: because they know fanboys of Bioshock (okay, only the original, the sequel was meh-tastic to me) will eat anything Infinite related right up. Gobble it up out of their hands like fuggin’ swine. A piggy pig. Swine like me? Need/want/have to have anything Bioshock Infinite related? Hit the jump for the four new screens.

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Damien Canderle reimagined our buddy Link as a wizened, old bad ass son of a bitch as part of ZBrush Central’s “Age of Legends” contest for Comicon. I don’t think I need to elaborate, but this all smacks of fucking righteous awesomitude. Not that we’ll ever see something like this, but the beard itself makes Link beyond fierce, and the attention paid to the outfit is stupendous. Damien Canderle, you are one talented, jaw-dropping son of a bitch. Slow clap.

Hit the jump for more pictures of Sir Elder Link.

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Views From The Space-Ship, aka Desktop Tuesdays, aka Desktop Thursdays is a (theoretically) weekly column where I show you my worlds.

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Source: Super Punch

Well son of a bitch. No sooner do I post a poorly thought out and rushed rant about 3D gaming sucking rancid ass-breath, I come across a study that 80% of gamers are willing to use 3D glasses. Son of a bitch! Jim Sterling breaks it down.

According to a recent survey, 80% of people are willing to play games while wearing 3D glasses. This study contradicts previous polls which have always indicated an aversion to 3D glasses and a general indifference toward the technology in general.

Of those polled, 65% already owned an HDTV and 35% of them were planning to upgrade to a 3DTV. The survey was compiled by U-Decide, a company that specialized in surveying gamers to find out what they want. According to them, gamers want 3D.

Well then, what the fuck! Why am I surprised? Avatar made more money than god, and it just about kicked off this 3D craze that makes me want to puke blood and chunky bits of corn-based vomit all over my crotch. I need to shut my mouth though, since I’ll let you in on a secret: I enjoyed Avatar the first time I saw it. First time? Yeah, ’cause I actually saw it twice. Shh, don’t ruin my cred. The second time though? I noticed what I couldn’t when I was so bedazzled by the gimmick on the first time through. It was a cliched, slow-paced piece of crap.

So yeah, I was fooled, others were fooled, and we all love gimmicks. Fuck, I hate myself.

When Disney bought Marvel, we knew there could be some dope repercussions. Last week, it was seeing the NBA get Marvel-inspired artwork to promote the upcoming season. This week? This week we’re seeing Marvel comic books get Tron-based variant covers to promote the big Disney movie in December. Shit is hot! Nothing like taking your favorite Marvel characters, and fetishsizing them with latex and 8-Bit retroglory. Hit the jump for the covers.

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Holy good lord, look at this nerd bonery. An R2D2 bathing suit. I am already far too lucky to have my girlfriend. Like, really lucky. There’s not many women out there willing to deal with my desire to stuff video games into my pants, or rip farts in warm cars in the middle of the winter, or the fact that I get crumbs and fluids all over myself. I don’t know if staying with me makes her a saint, or a god damn fool. Or maybe both. So knowing how lucky I am, I’m not going to even try to get her to wear this. But my imagination? Yes, it runs wild.

Our favorite fat Italian fuck turned twenty-five this year, along with the system he originally rocked out on. As part of that whole “Hey, you’re really fucking old!” celebration, Nintendo and Miyamoto have been talking about the creation process regarding Super Mario. I know you’ve asked yourself the same questions I have; was Mario always some awkward, asexual slave to a blundering princess? Was Luigi always that creepy lurker guy, who you just know is waiting to tap Princess on the rebound?

All important questions. But how about this nugget of interest: originally Super Mario was a bullet-shooting bad motherfucker.

Kotaku via 1UP:

During much of development, the controls were A for shoot bullets, B to dash, and up on the control pad to jump,” said Miyamoto. “The bullets wound up becoming fireballs later – we originally thought about having a shoot-’em-up stage where Mario jumps on a cloud and shoots at enemies, but we dropped it because we wanted to focus on jumping action. The sky-based bonus stages are the remnants of that idea, you could say. In the end, we realized that being able to shoot all the fireballs you want while running gave Mario too much of an advantage, so instead we had it so you shoot only one fireball when you start running.

Christ almighty! Wouldn’t that have solved everything back in the day. Here is friggin’ Mario, having to stop over and over on dumb ass Bowser’s neck. Just praying for some sort of paralysis. Seriously! That god damn Dino-Lizard-Turtle-Thing must have adamantium vertebrae. If Miyamoto just gave the poor fat bastard a shotgun, dude could have iced King Koopa eons ago, and put the Mushroom Kingdom in a much better state. I mean, sure, leiniency and all that crap on first offense. But Bowser is a repeat kidnapper and obviously rapist.

Put the boy out of his misery.

[DEFEAT. is Rendar Frankenstein’s truest attempt at fiction.   Presented in weekly episodes, the novella tells the tale of Daryl Millar – a hero who dies at the intersection of pop culture, science-fiction, war epic, and fantasy]

“I’ll teach you to mess with my girlfriend, you dookie-tossin’ ape motherfucker! That’s right, I’m going to catch up to you at some point and when I do I’m going to blast a hole in your goddamn chest! No more of this swinging a hammer, hopping over barrels, climbing up ladders bullshit – I’m going to shoot you in the chest with a fucking gun!”

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