Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience – A 3-D concert film of the 2008 Jonas Brothers “Burning Up” concert tour, as well as documentary footage on the lives of the three brothers, Kevin, Joe, and Nick.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li – Kristen Kreuk plays Chun Li, an Interpol agent who enters an underground fighting tournament. She sets her eyes on M. Bison who is the founder of the tournament and the leader of a crime syndicate who may be responsible for her father’s death.

Last night, Quake Live hit the ‘ol intertubes. If you’ve never heard of Quake III: Arena, then you’re in for a frag-fest-feast as it is THE game that put multiplayer on the map like none before it. However, this time it’s totally free and even better…it plays right in your internet browser. This fact alone kind of makes my head spin as it doesn’t feel all that long ago when this game required a decent video card and a beefy machine to run. Now, we can play it with just as much ease as pulling up a Youtube clip without much of a noticeable hit in the game.

It took me a little while to wait in que to get the plug-in installer. After installing it and restarting Firefox, I was good to go. They run you through the usual steps of creating a user profile which includes choosing your in-game avatar as well as a chance to customize your controls.  After that, you play a 10 minute match against a computer controlled opponent to both get new players used to the environments and to judge your ranking so that you can be matche dup against players of similar skill. After that, you’re on your own to frag untill your little heart’s content. There are of course the usual Friends lists and leader boards.

The whole QIII: Areana game seems to be present. The fact that its free is pretty amazing as I hear that it is supported by in-game ads. I havent nocited any yet, but then again I haven’t had the chance to relly get into a game yet. All the servers fill up pretty quick. Unfortunately for you out there on Macs, you are out of luck for now as it currently does not support it. However, the site says it has a Mac and Linuix version in the works.

Submitted for your listening pleasure, Episode #01 of Born Again Casual… the podcast that isn’t really about casual gaming at all. This week we talk about the industry trend of building a franchises vs. creating stand-alone titles, as well as the Wii’s upcoming ‘Hardcore’ releases… are you hyped up for MadWorld? Things go off much smoother in our first official episode and we’d like to thank everyone who came out to the chat room during the live broadcast and helped make the show a good time for all.

Many thanks to Jake ‘Virt’ Kaufman for providing our intro music, ‘Blast’ from his FX2 collection. Check out more of Virt’s music at Big Lion Music.

Subscribe to Born Again Casual on iTunes.

Sex Drive – A high school senior (Josh Zuckerman) is a virgin who meets a chick online. He steals his brother’s (James Marsden) sweet car and goes on a road trip from Chicago to Knoxville with his best buddies (Clark Duke & Amanda Crew) in order to get some action.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley – A young girl has a troubled past due to her insane mother trying to kill her but looks to start over when she moves in with her Dad and goes to a new school. She becomes friends with one of the most popular students there but her secrets start coming out.

What Just Happened – a comedy that chronicles two weeks in the life of a middle aged Hollywood producer played by Robert Deniro. Also starring John Turturro, Bruce Willis, and Stanley Tucci. Directed by Barry Levinson.

Monster In My Pocket was a somewhat popular toy line that came around in 1990. The toy line was similar to the old M.U.S.C.L.E. line (that I used to LOVE) in that it was made up of a boat load of small, soft plastic figures. Instead of being wrestlers, Pocket was based after mythical creatures, like vampires, mummies, werewolves, and anything in between. The franchise seemed to have only lasted a few short years, but it made the media rounds in the form of comic books, a made for TV animated movie, and of course, the 1991 Konami video game.

I wasn’t really a fan of the Monster In My Pocket franchise, and by the time the NES game came around, I believe I had already moved onto the SNES so I didn’t care much about the game either. However, there used to be a local video store that rented out NES games, but they weren’t really up to date on their Genesis and SNES stock (actually, they went out of business not much longer after Blockbuster came to town, and now Blockbuster is on its way out, weird huh?). So I was in there one time and decided to rent Monster In My Pocket because of the Konami name branded on the package. Even at a young age, I was confident in Konami products, especially licensed ones.

About an hour after renting it, I had finished the whole thing in a single sitting. It wasn’t really hard, but it was rather enjoyable regardless, and at least I only rented it. That brings us to today, where I felt like playing through the game again, so I ordered a copy off eBay for a whole dollar. The game came in a few days ago, and this morning I recreated history by plowing through it again in a single sitting.

So here it is, the final release of Born Again Casual’s first episode. We’ve labeled this one Episode Zero because in a lot of ways it was a test run for us. As a result I think the audio is nowhere near the level of quality I was shooting for, and to be honest it was a little hard for me to lighten up while we were recording. I’m glad Phil was up to the challenge because he more or less carried this episode.

Each week it will get easier, I’m sure and I know we’ll improve. So thanks to everyone who came out and participated in the chatroom, we’ll keep making you a bigger part of the show each week. And again, a huge thanks to Jake ‘Virt’ Kaufman for letting us use ‘Blast’ off of his FX2 collection. Check out more of Virt’s music at Big Lion Music.

Download the Podcast Here or hit the jump below for an embedded flash version.

Fired Up – Two high school jocks decide to ditch their annual football camp and join cheerleading camp where they think they’ll be able to hook up with tons of hot cheerleaders. One of them falls for the head cheerleader who seems to be on to their suspicious motives.

Madea Goes To Jail – written and directed by Tyler Perry and also starring him once again as Madea, who this time finds herself behind bars after some trouble-making antics. Of course she meets some people in prison that she can help out with some tough love.

There is a special place in gaming history and my heart when it comes to Donkey Kong (aka Donkey Kong ‘94) for the original green screened Gameboy. In gaming history, it was the first time there was a brand new Donkey Kong game since 1983’s Donkey Kong 3. Kind of hard to believe Nintendo went over 11 years without releasing a new entry into the Donkey Kong series, especially when you consider how many Donkey Kong games have been made since the release of the Gameboy title. The year 1994 was a great year for Nintendo’s ape, because only a few months after this game released, Donkey Kong Country happened, and we all know how Donkey Kong Country went over (really, really well).

Why is it special to me? Because I needed to earn that sucker, that’s why. Going back to June of ‘94 puts me in between 6th and 7th grade, an age where I was incapable of making any real money. I knew I had to have this new Donkey Kong game, and so I struck up a deal with my parents. If I clean the house regularly for a month and help with all sorts of chores that I’d normally moan about that they would buy me Donkey Kong. Looking back, I’m not actually sure my parents agreed with this deal, but I guess my dedication won them over because they ended up buying the game for me.

I remember when my Dad and I went to Toys R Us to buy the game. They actually happened to have the game running on their display Gameboy, which I played just for a second to get a taste of it. My Dad said, and I quote “It makes a lot of noise.” He’s right, it does make a lot of noise, and it’s awesome, even by today’s standard.

Sunday afternoon I had the urge to give Donkey Kong a quick play through, which I ended up finishing last night. For those too young to remember, or those who just missed the game completely, Donkey Kong is a retelling of sorts of the original Donkey Kong arcade game. The game begins the exact same way as the Arcade original, in which Donkey Kong ascends a series of ladders with Pauline in hand. The ape jumps around, destroying the structure he climbed, and Mario runs to the rescue. At first glance, this is classic Donkey Kong, but what most players don’t know at this point is that Mario is capable of dozens of moves, many of which have stuck with Mario from this point onward. Instead of jumping over barrels and climbing the ladders, Mario can simply triple jump and back flip his way up to Pauline, clearing the stage in seconds.

So while Phil and Steve were doing the first of hopefully many “Born Again Casual” podcasts, I was spending some time working on the short. I spent the majority of the time doing some design work on a prop that Jacquo has to hold, however I was still able to get another shot done. Outside of the design work, it was an easy shot to do with very simple animation. I had some fun doing this one, but I didn’t want to show it just yet.  So I cropped it to show just a small piece of the shot. I’m sure astute eyes will be able to figure out what it is, however you don’t know how it all works into the short as a whole! Keep those peepers peeled!

I don’t really have time for a long post, but Phil and I wanted to get something up here about this. Tonight around 9PM EST we’ll be recording the first episode of our new podcast ‘Born Again Casual’. Phil and I have been doing tests over the past couple weeks trying to figure out how we can pull off a live recording with picture-in-picture video while both of us are in separate locations. It’s been a bit tricky, but I’m pretty confident we’re good to go.

So if you’d like to see us work out the kinks during our first episode, please come on out. Here’s the ustream show page.