EEG News

Boll Wants To Fight You

Uwe Boll is offering a chance for the online gaming community to take their shots at him, in a literal sense. The filmmaker, who has taken a lot of flack by both journalists and internet denizen for his very un-boffo movie adaptations of beloved video game franchises wants a chance to beat up the naysayer on camera. Or get beat up – depending on what the editors can do.

Boll is holding a sweepstakes where critics who have written "extremely" negative articles about two of his films in 2005 via the internet or written text have a chance to fight Boll in a boxing match.

From Gamespot:

To answer his critics, Boll is orchestrating what might be considered one of the more bizarre sweepstakes in memory. After he finishes the ongoing shoot of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, and the subsequent project, Seed, starring the TV incarnation of Conan the Barbarian, bodybuilder Ralf Moeller (Gladiator), Boll will move onto the big-screen version of studio Running With Scissors' controversial Postal series. During that shoot, Boll will personally take on his biggest detractors in boxing matches to be used in the film.

"Towards the end of the filming of Postal the five most outspoken critics will be flown into Vancouver and supplied with hotel rooms," read Boll's press release. "As a guest of Uwe Boll they will be given the chance to be an extra/stand-in in Postal and have the opportunity to put on boxing gloves and enter a BOXING RING [emphasis in the original] to fight Uwe Boll. Each critic will have the opportunity to bring down Uwe in a 10-bout match. There will be five matches planned over the last two days of the movie. Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie. All five fights will be televised on the Internet and will be covered by international press."

You know your film career star is really shining when you have to start throwing punches. But maybe Boll can grab a little glory out of it. Let me direct your eyes to this part of the press release, my emphasis:

Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie.

So yeah, don’t be surprised if Boll comes out the winner on the silver screen despite the outcome.

These are the moments where a one must teeter on the edge of reporting news like this, resulting in unavoidable compliance with an unsavory publicity ploy and a desire to sweep said attention seeker under the rug. It burns my fingers, for instance, every time I must type the name of people like Boll or industry demagogue Jack Thompson. I would just as soon ignore them, but they’re just so wiley.

Wii Wins E3

Nintendo took the coveted Game Critics’ Best of Show prize at E3 for the Wii’s official bow and impressive showing.

If the cranky coil of gamers winding around and beyond Nintendo’s booth in day-long waits was any indication, it wasn’t just the 37 game journalists from across the industry judging this contest who were eager to get their hands on a Wii.

From Greg Kasavin, Executive Editor of GameSpot:

Some important questions remain about how the Wii will finally turn out, but by giving E3 show-goers a taste of what playing games on the Wii will be like, Nintendo seemed to gather much more momentum for the system's launch later this year. So despite how many great-looking games were on display at this year's show, the Wii stood out as the single most exciting and remarkable new product at E3 2006.

A further breakdown of the awards. Winners in RED:

Best of Show
Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PlayStation 3)
Bioshock (Irrational Games/2K Games for PC and Xbox 360)
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360)
Spore (Electronic Arts for PC)
Wii (Nintendo)

Best Original Game
Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PlayStation 3)
Bioshock (Irrational Games/2K Games for PC/Xbox 360)
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360)
LocoRoco (SCEJ/Sony Computer Entertainment for PSP)
Spore (Electronic Arts for PC)
Wii Sports (Nintendo for Wii)

Best PC Game
Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts for PC)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Splash Damage/id/Activision for PC)
Hellgate: London (Flagship Studios/Namco Bandai Games for PC)
Supreme Commander (Gas Powered Games/THQ for PC)
Spore (Electronic Arts for PC)

Best Console Game
Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PlayStation 3)
Bioshock (Irrational Games/2K Games for PC and Xbox 360)
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Games Studios for Xbox 360)
Mass Effect (BioWare/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360)
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo for Wii)

Best Handheld Game
Elite Beat Agents (Inis/Nintendo for Nintendo DS)
Killzone: Liberation (Guerrilla/Sony Computer Entertainment for PSP)
LocoRoco (SCEJ/Sony Computer Entertainment for PSP)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (Kojima Productions/Konami for PSP)
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo for Nintendo DS)

Best Hardware
DS Lite (Nintendo)
Logitech G25 Racing Wheel (Logitech for PC)
PlayStation 3 (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Wii (Nintendo)
Xbox 360 Wireless Headset (Microsoft for Xbox 360)

Note that out of the Best of Show category, only one was actually available to play on the show floor by plebs such as myself. Ah, E3…’tis truely a closed door event.