The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Watch the exclusive online trailer debut for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, starring Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, coming to theaters November 18, 2011!

Mass Effect 3 coming March 6, 2012

Electronic Arts has confirmed a release date for the anticipated Mass Effect sequel.

Those were almost the very first words out of EA during its pre-E3 press conference this afternoon.

Bringing the most state-of-the-art visuals yet and ambitious new gameplay controls, EA promises Mass Effect 3 will be "the best in the series."

One of the unique features about the Mass Effect series has been its unparalleled continuity. That is, the way players interacted with Mass Effect had a fundamental impact in the way their Mass Effect 2 experience was handled.

In Mass Effect 3, that dynamic will go even further, as players continue their epic journey in which every move they make, every decision they take, has an effect.

Mass Effect was originally an Xbox 360 exclusive, but in one of the biggest scores for the PS3 to date, Mass Effect 2 was brought to the Sony console (albeit after a significant wait following its Xbox 360 release).

For Mass Effect 3, multiplatform support will come right out of the gate, with the PS3 version coming alongside the Xbox 360 and PC versions on the same day.

We now know that day is March 6, 2012.

After 25 years, Ubisoft reinvents classics

Platformer fans rejoice, because there's a brand new, high-definition Rayman game in the works. And that's just the beginning.

Ubisoft, which does not traditionally go to the expense of having a decked-out pre-E3 media event, used this as an opportunity to celebrate its legacy as a 25-year-old video game publisher, which started as a humble company founded by a couple brothers in France.

The company's very first creation was an unlikely superhero with no arms or legs named Rayman. Today, that same character was the first thing shown at Ubisoft's briefing.

Rayman Origins takes all of the fast-paced platforming, puzzle-solving action fans have come to know and love, and brings it to the world of powerful HD graphics and all new gameplay, with support for up to four-player cooperative gaming.

Rayman himself has taken a back seat in recent years, with his spin-off franchise, the crude, toilet-dwelling Rabbids getting most of the attention as of late. So it's nice to see him make a return to gaming.

It's not just Rayman that's getting a refresh. Driver, which first gained notoriety as a blocky, simplistic racing title back in the day, is poised to take over the latest consoles in Driver: San Francisco.

There is more than just remakes of decades-old franchises, though. Ubisoft also revealed a new installment to its high-octane adventure series, Farcry 3. But today's conference was mostly about Ubisoft's rare 25-year mark in the gaming market.

Ubisoft may not be a part of most gamers' everyday vocabulary, but it does have a strong hold on the industry, and its E3 lineup in honor of the company's 25th anniversary looks pretty decent.

ClearOS 6.1 Alpha 1

Dave Loper has announced the availability of the first alpha release of ClearOS 6.1. Previously ClearOS was a small distribution for network and gateway servers, but starting with this release, it is now a full-featured operating system for servers and workstations built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. From the release announcement: "ClearFoundation announces the release of ClearOS Core 6.1 Alpha 1. This release is intended for testing and proof of concept for the new line of operating systems for servers and workstations. ClearOS Core is an enterprise Linux distribution for server and desktop environments. The goal is to provide near binary equivalence and functionality that exists in the upstream distribution, including bugs. Additionally, ClearFoundation strives to release versions, updates and patches in a timely and professional manner (the goal for updates is 48 hours or less)." Download: clearos-core-6.1alpha1-x86_64.iso (3,616MB, SHA256, torrent).

SystemRescueCd 2.2.0

François Dupoux released an updated build of SystemRescueCd, a Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of utilities for data rescue and disk management tasks. Version 2.2.0 comes with a long list of updated packages: "Updated standard kernels to Linux 2.6.38.8 (rescuecd + rescue64); updated alternative kernels to Linux 2.6.39.1 (altker32 + altker64); updated 'Offline NT Password & Registry Editor' ('ntpasswd' boot entry); updated NTFS-3G to 2011.4.12 (driver that provides read-write access to NTFS); updated Python from 2.6 to 2.7; updated Gentoo Portage to 2.1.9; updated GParted to 0.8.1; updated Samba to 3.4.12; Updated Perl to 5.12.3; added xfce4-session package (new menu entry to leave Xfce)." Read the full SystemRescueCd changelog for more information. Download the live CD image from here: systemrescuecd-x86-2.2.0.iso (321MB, SHA256).

The helmets and missiles of X-Men: First Class

The film starts out a little disjointed, but once it picks up steam it’s a powerhouse.

First, this point: X-Men: First Class was not offered in 3D, which is refreshing. I guess that’s all there is to say about that.

Many of the nicest scenes of the film were well and truly spoiled. I found myself disappointed several times at scenes with major neat-factor or twists, as I’d already seen them in the plethora of pre-release clips. Of course, I already knew that was going to happen, and it’s my own fault for watching the stupid things, but it was still a tangible disappointment. I can’t fault the film itself for that, however, that’s a studio marketing decision.

The beginning of the film has a bit of a jerky start, but this was something else that, it seems, could not be helped.

The story is all about Erik and Charles, and how they got together, and ultimately, the differences that drove them apart.

This means that the beginning of the tale goes through the characters live up until the point they meet, and this section flashes between the two starkly different tales (one of loss and remorse for Erik, and of learning and compassion for Charles.

Once they come together however, the parts slip together more wholly, and the film becomes seamless and full, more so than it could have been without that earlier bit of disjointedness.

The themes of the story seem to have changed a bit. While the X-Men stories always focus on the ideas of acceptance, this film is less about exploring the idea of finding a place in society, as it deals with the idea of the need to find a place at all.

It’s a fine distinction, but an interesting shift, none-the-less. Of course, there is the obligatory comparison of mutantness to homosexuality. If you haven’t noticed, each oif the films in the trilogy has at least one line which draws a tongue-in-cheek comparison between the fictional issue, and the real one. In the first film, it even serves as one of the major themes.

The film does a great job of giving everything the beginning it needs. Lots of details about the X-Men canon are established here, and, despite seeing that it doesn’t quite fit with the original film trilogy, it’s made me want to get those films back out and watch them again.

The climax of X-Men: First Class was emotional and touching. It is easily the most powerful scene in a new film so far this year. When the dichotomy between Erik and Charles reaches its ultimate point of resolution, there is truly no turning back for anyone, and all of the characters are so fully sympathetic and dimensional that one might find themselves in tears (not that I did... ahem...).

Then again, as a comics reader, these characters are already so close to me, and knowing all the hurt that they will cause each other after this moment, I just wanted to help them stop this whole thing from starting, though I knew how inevitable it all was.

The film’s overture was familiar. It was the same scene we see in the first X-Men movie relating to Magneto’s origin. Not everything fits in with that canon, however. T

here are several details in this film which do not quite mesh with the existing trilogy. This suggests that they may be planning to branch it off into a new X-men franchise. I would have no problem with that. Now that they’ve given it a new beginning, I want to see where it goes next.