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Star Trek goes where it hasn’t gone before: Del Taco

January 21st, 2010, 5:45 pm by

Del Taco teams up with Star TrekPassing along: A new Star Trek promotion may have me boldly going where I’ve never gone before: Del Taco.

The Lake Forest fast food joint has teamed up with game publisher Atari Inc. and to promote  ”Star Trek Online,” a new massively multiplayer online game from Cryptic Studios.  The game comes out in 2 weeks but if you want to get a Star Trek fix before then, Del Taco is offering some limited-edition freebies plus a free trial to the game.

The deal: Buy a Macho-sized drink or combo meal and get one of 4 limited edition Star Trek collector’s cups, plus a code to get a free 48-hour trial of the game.

Apparently, you can get multiple trials and use them all by logging into the Star Trek Online site via startrekonline.com/deltaco. If you get 4, they’ll toss in an extra 2 days of game play for a total of 10 days … away from work. Bonus: Buy the game after the free trial and get a Type-8 Shuttle, a virtual pet for your Starship.

The news should amuse long-time fans eager to get those limited-edition goodies. But it may also appeal to new fans who became enamored with the franchise during last year’s modernized Star Trek Movie with rebelliously dreamy Captain Kirk and cleverly sexy Uhura, Sci-Fi’s latest poster girl. Even my sister-in-law, whose favorite video genre was musicals, is now a fan of the franchise.

The game itself has been getting some good reviews by early testers who pounded Cryptic’s computer servers for a chance to play a beta version of the game.  The game, which will cost $14.99 a month to play, launches Feb. 2. (Note: Lifetime and annual subscriptions are available if you buy them soon. See Cryptic’s “Star Trek Online Pre-Release Promotions and Subscription Pricing“ release.)

As to why this post is not appearing on the OC Register’s Fast Food Maven blog? The Maven says her readers aren’t into that. Really! What does that say about Star Trek fans? Okay, I admit, I may have stepped inside a Del Taco once. It’s just so easy to overlook when there are so many great little taco dives all over Orange County. That reminds me, it’s almost time for dinner…

More info: startrekonline.com/deltaco or deltaco.com

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OC’s Line Rider game turned into McDonald’s commercials

June 5th, 2008, 3:00 am by

McDonalds adds Line Rider TV commercialsMcDonald’s has started airing two TV commercials starring Internet-hit sketch game, Line Rider, a product of inXile Entertainment in Newport Beach.

The campaign was created by Leo Burnett, the Chicago advertising agency. Apparently, someone over there “loves Line Rider,” said Brian Fargo, inXile’s founder.

If you have every played the flash-animated game, it’s very simple. Draw a few lines on a virtual sketch pad and click ‘play.’ Then this little guy on a sled starts cruising along the lines you drew. While simple, Line Rider isn’t easy. First timers will likely create a course where their sledder crashes and burns within seconds.

Line RiderSome fans have spent hours, weeks, possibly years, fine tuning their sketching so the sledder rides the lines perfectly, even coming to a standstill. In fact, thousands have recorded their game and posted it to YouTube, attracting millions of views. In late 2006, inXile bought the rights to the game from its creator, Bostjan Cadez, a Slovenian art student who created the game for a class project. The web distraction is being turned into a game for the Nintendo Wii and DS.

The commercial’s creators at Leo Burnett “probably spent two to four weeks” just creating the 10-second and 30-second spots in Line Rider, Fargo said. And it was created within Line Rider except for the end shot where the sledder jumps over the yellow McDonald’s logo — you can’t add color to Line Rider. Three commercials have so far been approved by Fargo and will air over the next three months, Fargo said.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

If you notice in the middle of the commercial, the Web address linerider.com, appears for about four seconds — that was part of the negotiations, Fargo told me. Since the commercial started airing last week, traffic to his site has doubled.

“I did not get money. I traded it (for the Web mention),” Fargo said. “But to be clear, when my web site traffic doubled, that’s my payoff. They’re not going to pay me a million dollars to use my character. I don’t even care about money. I just want the promotion and coverage and that’s why we’re able to get what we got.”

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Time’s running out in LG video contest

November 6th, 2007, 3:00 am by

Time is running out for anyone who wants a shot at $18,000 worth of LG TVs, a refrigerator, kitchen appliances, GPS system, cell phones and other electronics that we’ve had on the blog before here.

The deadline to enter LG’s “Life’s Good When…” contest is Nov. 10, and voting starts Nov. 14.

LG wants a 15-to-30-second video that shows how experiences makes life more interesting. More details here.

LG’s Orli Sharaby says so far there have been almost 800,000 video views and 700 submissions. He also passed on some of his favorite videos so far: nature, Legos, silliness, baby sleeping and baby laughing.

- iGirl

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First look: New i-SOBOT entertains, at least for a few hours

October 30th, 2007, 12:01 am by

Click HERE to read today’s story on “Tomy Corp. takes a different tactic to market new robot.”

  • Watch our exclusive video HERE.

Tomy’s iSobot robot

REVIEW: iSobot mesmerizes, at least for the first few hours.

The new robot from Tomy Corp. is fascinating to watch as it twists its heavily jointed arms and legs and does all sorts of tricks.

After seeing iSobot in person, my first thought was, ‘It’s tiny!’ At 6.5 inches tall, it’s barely taller than a ball-point pen.

Matthew Wendorf (pictured below), Tomy’s assistant project manager, gave me a private demonstration at the company’s Santa Ana office. He was still learning more about this new two-footed being himself but managed to get iSobot (Tomy folks say it fast, like iso-bot) to do a somersault, push ups and play air guitar.

iSobot with controller Matthew Wendorf, Tomy’s assistant product manager

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Save the animals! There.com teams up with Humane Society

October 29th, 2007, 1:08 am by

Here’s a twist on virtual worlds: The Humane Society of the United States is announcing today that it will partner with There.com.

There.com partners with Humane Society

It may seem strange that the non-profit animal organization wants to take part in a fantasy world inhabited by cartoon versions of actual computer users. But there is a good reason: Raise awareness with a new crowd of potential members.There.com partners with Humane Society

There.com, operated by Laguna Beach’s Makena Technologies, says that its average user is 22 years old — much younger than the 50 year old that the Humane Society usually reaches out to.

With recent animal cruelty news events — such as Michael Vick and dog fighting that hopefully many 22 year olds have heard about — There.com wanted to make this non-profit known to its young world.

Don’t expect to see virtual animals everywhere in There.com, although you can buy a virtual dog.

The partnership includes selling Humane Society merchandise, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. Buy them for your virtual character or actual stuff for yourself! Available are t-shirts (also on sale at the Humane Society site) for $19 to $28, Hoodies are around $50. The virtual versions of the clothing will run a few dollars. All proceeds go to the Human Society.

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Contest alert: Would $18,000 make you happy?

October 16th, 2007, 3:00 pm by

LG’s Life is Good contestI love it when the big electronics companies decide to sponsor a contest because they hand out big prizes.

And LG’s “Life’s Good When…” contest where luck isn’t necessarily going to nab you the grand prize.

It’s a contest where creativity, talent and effort can pay off. It’s still more work than I would do but I bet some readers out there may bite.

All you need to do is create your own video and upload it to YouTube. Just finish this thought: “Life’s Good When …”

What does that mean? LG wants a 15-to-30-second video that shows how experiences makes life more interesting. Huh? America’s funniest home videos?

LG’s Life is Good contestHere are all the details.

The big prize: $18,000 worth of LG TVs, a refrigerator, kitchen appliances, GPS system, cell phones and other electronics.

Contest ends Nov. 10, while voting starts Nov. 14. Check out the competition: HERE (Most are pretty lame, maybe I should enter this…)

More contests…

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Contest alert: Make your own Manga comic book

October 15th, 2007, 10:23 am by

Manga, comic books, Halloween, a contest! What’s not exciting about this post?

Planetwide/TokyoPop’s Halloween contest

Planetwide/TokyoPop’s Halloween contestAliso Viejo’s Planetwide Media launched its Make-a-Manga comic book software over the summer at Comic Con through a partnership with TokyoPop, known for publishing all sorts of Japanese-style comic books.

Now, the two companies have teamed up for the “I Luv Halloween” contest.

How to Enter:

  • Comic Book Creator — the Tokyo Pop versionSubmit a 4-8-page Manga comic book – art available in Planetwide’s Comic Book Creator software. A free trial of the software is available at MyComicBookCreator.com.
  • Create a free account at Hypercomics.com, which is operated by Planetwide, and post your creation.

The grand prize: $1,000 cash and a Planetwide Media gift bundle worth $1,120

Contest closes at midnight, Nov. 5, 2007. Read the rules HERE.

Win more stuff by searching the “Contest” category

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There.com adds CosmoGIRL! Village

October 10th, 2007, 12:01 am by

CosmoGirl!Laguna Beach’s Makena Technologies, which operates the virtual world of There.com, kicked off today’s Virtual Worlds Conference & Expo with news that it enticed a top teen magazine brand to build an exclusive online hang out.

cosmogirlvil3.jpg

Rival Second Life may have the IBM Business Center and Cisco’s Sun Pavilion, but only in There.com will you find CosmoGIRL! Village, opening in There on Nov. 20.

CosmoGirl Village in There.comMakena — which also supports MTV’s virtual worlds of Newport Harbor, Laguna Beach and The Hills — plans to integrate CosmoGIRL! Village into its existing There.com universe, where visitors must be at least 13 years old. For MTV’s stuff, users can only go to MTV virtual worlds, not There.com.

However, Makena created a special coastal area to plunk down CosmoGIRL! Village, which will be heavy on teeny-bop lifestyle. Think dance parties, fashion shows, makeovers and, of course, shopping! There.com promises “real-world clothing and accessories,” which probably means cartoon-renditions from real-world designers.

CosmoGirl Village in There.comWhether teens will log in remains to be seen. But There.com cites research from eMarketer, reporting that 24 percent of 34.3 million children and teens online visit a virtual world at least once a month. That number is projected to grow to 53 percent by 2011.

“There.com is all about fashion, socialization and shared activities, which aligns perfectly with the main interests of CosmoGIRL!’s readers,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies in a statement.

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