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Last month, I posted an article about how I was able to convert my Kindle Fire into a portable viewer of 3D video content. At that point, I could watch side-by-side (SBS) 3D content from YouTube but I had yet to figure out how I could convert my collection of 3D Blu-rays into SBS 3D files that I could play back on the Fire. What I found out was that while such a goal is possible, it was trickier to accomplish than I thought it would be. Read on ... For those of you who want to stop reading now, the software system to get to convert 3D Blu-ray discs into SBS 3D files is DVDFab 9 . This is the ONLY software that I found that can actually do this. I should know, because I had to sift through dozens of software systems that claimed to do the same thing but couldn't do it at all. As anyone who understands 3D entertainment knows, a stereoscopic image has to have one image for the left eye and another image for the right eye in order for the viewer's brain to think that it is see...

You know the old saying: If at first you do succeed, shamelessly exploit it until it stops making money. I previously reviewed a video game called Smashy Road , a fun experience in 8-bit car racing chaos for smart phones and tablets. Now, just a few weeks later, I found another game that's extremely similar to the look and feel of Smashy Road : Smashy City by Ace Viral . Read on for my complete review. In Smashy City , players select a giant monster to attack an endless cityscape, and the monster keeps going until enough tanks, missiles and attack choppers bring it down. The game begins with a giant ape that looks a lot like King Kong, and players unlock a variety of other monsters as they rack up points or make in-game purchases by using real money. If Smashy Road and the classic arcade coin-op Rampage had a child, it would be called Smashy City . Then again, Smashy Road recycles many of the ideas that were already present in Crossy Road , so all we need at this point is a gam...

It's no secret that Lego bricks have become the go-to medium for many geeks who want to build detailed replicas of characters, vehicles and environments from their favorite fantasy and sci-fi franchises. However, few geeks use Lego to build replicas of franchise toys that were planned by toy companies but never made it past the prototype stage. On the other hand, there's BaronSat (a.k.a. Eric Duron), who designs Lego kits for franchises that are both licensed and not licensed by Lego. For Star Wars, he has already provided instructions for Lego-scale replicas of toys that were made by Kenner during the original trilogy, toys such as the Imperial Troop Transporter , the Imperial Attack Base , and the Death Star World sets from Kenner's short-lived Micro Collection line. His latest kit is based on the unreleased part of the Death Star World: the Emperor's Throne Room from Return of the Jedi . The story behind this toy is that after Kenner released its initial wave of Mi...

As I've said before on this blog, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have lived through the early years of video games. I remember a time when the distribution cycle of a video game title would begin in coin-op arcades and continue through ports to PCs and home consoles. Now, the Internet, PCs, home consoles and portable media devices rule most of the video game world, while the few surviving coin-op arcades feature titles that will (probably) never appear in any other medium. The same is true about how the video games appear: Most current games are so beautifully designed that they largely sell themselves through clips of game play footage. Yet when video games had nothing but blocky graphics and clunky sounds to offer, they needed a little extra help to convince people to play them. In honor of the artwork produced during early years of video game advertising, Dynamite Entertainment is publishing The Art of Atari by Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino. According to the boo...

It's amazing what you can find when you're just buzzing around the Internet. I'm currently working on a review of Curse of the Fly for a book called Unsung Horrors , which is being assembled by the same people who published 70s Monster Memories . I've been assembling my thoughts about the movie and looking around the web (no pun intended) to see if I can find any little-known factoids about the second sequel to the original The Fly . During my searches, I found a graphic arts company called Stormbrush, which is owned and operated by illustrator Calvin Chua, which has a design page titled "Project Fly Reboot" . Based on the information and pictures provided on the page, I'm guessing that this artwork is for a proposed remake/reboot of David Cronenberg's The Fly , which itself was a remake. The page includes some interesting designs, such as what the new telepod and teleportation process would be like, but the best part is the artwork for the new man-fl...

If you're a transforming robot toy fan who thinks that the Machine Robo line gets overlooked way too often, you're in luck. Action Toys is taking pre-orders for the first two action figures it is producing for its new Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos line. As the toy line's name suggests, the new designs bring these figures closer to how they appeared in the Revenge of Cronos anime series. The first two figures are re-designs of MR-01 Bike Robo (a.k.a. "Cy-Kill", as it was renamed for Tonka's Gobots line) and MR-17 Drill Robo (a.k.a. "Screw Head"). The second two figures will be re-designs of MR-02 Battle Robo (a.k.a. "Tank") and MR-25 Eagle Robo (a.k.a. "Leader-1"). Like the original Machine Robo MR-600 series line in the '80s, each figure features die-cast metal parts. However, even though the new figures are slightly larger than their original counterparts--measuring between 4.5" to 5" in height--the price is ...

None of the recent hype for Batman vs. Superman made me want to go to the movie theater, but it did convince me to finally pick up a copy of TT Games' Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham video game for the Wii U. What can I say? I was in the mood for some superhero fun, and Lego Batman 3 is vastly more fun than the irritable, bloated and grumpy BvS . As the number in the title suggests, Lego Batman 3 follows two previous games in the series. The first game was strictly a stand-alone Lego Batman game, and the second game introduced Lego Superman during the game and the rest of the Lego Justice League in its conclusion. This third entry begins with Batman and the Justice League, and the game expands from there to all sorts of characters and locations within the DC universe. So how does the third entry fare as a video game? In a nutshell, Lego Batman 3 has both too much--and not enough--Batman. Read on for my complete review. If you've been following Lego superhero games like I have...