The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Been a while since a good Batman game has been out. This trailer looks pretty impressive. Enjoy Batman fans! Continue Reading»

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Resident Evil 5 demo released on the Japanese marketplace yesterday, though if you don't have a Japanese account the demo hasn't released on American marketplace. But if you really want to partake here's how to get it.

Option A:
Download the Demo

1. 1) Go Here, Download all 5 parts.
2. 2) Unzip the main content folder
3. 3) Burn the folder
4. 4) Play

Option B:
Create a Japanese Account

1. Go here: http://www.passport.net/
2. Sign up a new account, Click
   "No, sign me up for a free MSN Hotmail e-mail address"
3. Pick JAPAN for your country
   Pick Tokyo-to as your Prefecture
   150-2345 for your zipcode
4. Keep going, and then have it set you up with a @hotmail.com address.
5. Go to your 360, and create a new profile. Log in using your hotmail address on your 360, and it should set it to Japan.
6. If this is less than your 4th trial account you get gold free, so select yes when it asks you.

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It may have taken three years, but the day has finally come. Dave Dinowitz has finally lost his title for the highest gamerscore in the group. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I now lead the race with a whopping 21 more points than Mr. Dinowitz. Don't worry, I'll try not to rub it in too much.


Hail to the King baby. Continue Reading»

Let's get this out of the way first. This is a bad movie. Not just bad. Pretty terrible in fact. Ok well now that that's out of the way.

Good:

• The Punisher. Ray Stevenson is a great Punisher. Stevenson looks just like Frank Castle's depicted in the comics. I never watched Rome but from what I've seen of him in Punisher he seems like a capable actor and a very good replacement for Thomas Jane. It's a shame though that he wasn't given more time to play with the character. Whenever the Punisher was on screen, it was a moderately entertaining movie and when he wasn't it had me wishing he was back.
• Art direction. The movie's dark and gritty and fits the Punisher universe very well.
• Violence. It's not the amount of violence. Its the absolute ridiculousness and over the top qualities of the violence in this movie. The things Frank Castle does in this movie makes the recent Rambo look fairly tame in comparison. I don't want to ruin anything but just know this, he breaks an old ladies neck. Yes you read that correctly. The Punisher breaks an old ladies neck. The amount of brutality that Castle inflicts on some of these guys is so bad you may have to look away in some parts and might even feel bad for some of them. When expecting the Punisher to just kill an enemy in a normal fashion, he goes above and beyond, at one time putting his fist through a man's face. Literally, he put it through a man's face. Waiting to see the next ridiculous, over the top kill was the only thing that kept me from leaving the theater.
  
• Humor? I'm not 100% sure this movie was supposed to be as funny as I found it. Thanks to the over the top violence, this was a very, very funny movie. It had a lot of dark humor to it, which fit the comic's feel well and I've never laughed so hard at people being destroyed in such brutal ways though I'm still not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.
• Newman. Yes Newman from Seinfeld plays Micro, the Punisher's tech and arms guy. It will take you by surpise at first and although it takes you out of the movie for a time, he ultimatley does a very good job of making you like the character.
  

Bad:

• Middle of the movie. This is when the movie lost me. I'm able to suspend my disbelief if you give me crazy and impossible action scenes, but don't give me crazy action scenes and impossible scenarios, then try to get me take you serious all of a sudden by forcing me to watch stupid characters with bad dialogue .

Ugly:

• Looney Bin Jim. To his credit, Looney Bin Jim comes off as a very good impersonation of the Joker. Had the Joker been both homosexual and mentally retarded, it really would have been spot on. This character was just stupid to include in the movie for no purpose and after going through the entire movie, wanting a hideous, terrible death for this character, we are awarded with nothing.
  
• Urban Ninja Guys. There are three thugs in the movie who spend their screen time, doing flips and screaming. Not to mention the leader is a black meth head with dreads and a thick irish accent. Yeaaa... The only thing that is redeeming about these characters being in the movie at all is the fate that befalls them.
• Subplot. I didn't care that they got rid of this subplot involving terrorists bringing bioweapons into the city. What I did care about is that it's brought up as if it will be the main problem, then solved in the middle without the help of Frank Castle at all, and quickly forgotten. Don't waste my time with a pointless story trying to be relevant when I just payed 11 dollars to watch a pointless story about bad people being fucked up to all holy hell.
  
• Jigsaw-LBJ Relationship. Everytime these two brothers were on screen, they had me looking for any sharp object i could use to distract myself from the pain. Dialogue was terrible, their performances were terrible, and their relationship was just plain creepy, bordering on incestous.
• Not enough punishment. The creators of this movie decided, in their infinite wisdom, that viewers don't actually want to see the Punisher at all. They would much rather watch unfunny villians do and say unfunny things, all while doing nothing of consequence to actually futher the plot. Just showing Frank Castle kill a bunch of thugs in a gunfight doesn't do the character nearly as much justice as he deserves. Frank Castle is a killing machine yes but he's also a strategic genius and wages pyschological warfare as well as the violent kind. Criminals fear him more than any other superhero, including Batman. No one is feared like Frank Castle by the regular criminal because they've heard horror stories about what Castle has done to others and they know that they are next. Show the planning, show the fear, show everything the Punisher is in the comics. If you are going to adapt a comic book, at least be respectful to the character and what he does instead of just what he looks like.
  

In all, this was not a good movie. Terrible dialogue, terrible story, terrible characters. It really is a shame because the look and feel of Stevenson's Punisher does fit the comics very well. He just isn't given enough time to actually do anything with it. The only redeeming quality of this movie is the ridiculous violence and the pure shock value of seeing the Punisher truly go to work on some no name bad guys. The gruesome kills and over the top violence were almost enough to warrant the 11 dollar charge but instead, just take a pen, and jab it into your eye for an hour and a half because it is sure to be less painful than watching this piece of shit movie.

Final Verdict: D Continue Reading»

This image just surfaced in famitsu and on kojimas website. I'm taking it with a grain of salt. Could it actually be?


via kojimaproductions Continue Reading»

**Spoilers Ahead**

Good:

• Answers. Questions from issue #1 of New Avengers have finally been answered . Brian Michael Bendis had Secret Invasion in mind for more than 5 years, even before the first issue of New Avengers. Going back, one can see small hints in both the dialogue and art that many passed off as simply mistakes or didn't even notice at all.
• Tie-ins. If you just want to see your favorite heroes punch aliens in the face you can just read the main series but if you want more story to go along with it you also have the option of picking up a large number of tie-in issues. These help to flesh out the invasion. New and Mighty Avengers both gave more back story as to the Skrulls plans while others showed the battle going on around the globe. The best of the bunch were by far Captain Britain and the MI:13, Incredible Hercules, and Avengers: The Initiative.
• Art. The art and coloring is phenomenal. You'll find yourself going back again and again just to look at the pictures.
• Great action. Bendis really gives the reader a sense of a worldwide invasion instead of an isolated incident. Seeing all the Marvel heroes fighting alongside each other for the first time in years is a treat. Seeing the Marvel villains join in to fight the Skrulls alongside their enemies is something that is really cool to see.
• Characters are at their most bad ass. For some reason, when it comes to aliens, characters from the Marvel U don't see aliens as living creatures at all. Because of this, heroes who would never take a human life are seen slicing, stabbing, shooting, exploding, disentergrating, and breaking any green skinned freak unlucky enough to get in the way.
• Dark Reign. If nothing else, SI set the stage for a huge shake up in the Marvel Universe as Dark Reign begins to take over. The effects of Secret Invasion and Dark Reign will go on to last years to come.

Bad:

• X-men. For some reason, writers seem to put the X-men in their own universe outside of the regular Marvel U. while most Marvel heroes interact with each other frequently, the X-Men rarely if ever reference or interact with other heroes. Aside from their own SI mini, no mention of them was made in the regular series, even in a scene where multiple other battlefronts around the globe were being fought. It's frustrating as a fan when the only of the X-Men involved is the over used Wolverine.
• Pacing. SI has taken more than 9 months for every issue to come out. With most crossover events this is ok, in the story however, very little time has passed and it's annoying for readers to wait a whole month and see very little in terms of story progression. Because Bendis tries to show the vast scope of the invasion, very little time is spent on most of the incidents, and some aren't mentioned again for more than an issue.
• Issue #8. On one hand, issue 8 did exactly what it was supposed to do, it tied up all the loose end in the series and push us forward into Dark Reign. On the other hand though, it seemed very rushed. The huge cliffhanger from last issue was solved in the first three pages.
• Pricing. While I mentioned the tie-ins as one of the best parts about the event, it also got a bit rough on the wallet. While none of the tie-ins were essential reading to understanding the main series, it is if you want to know more than just the Skrulls are green and the heroes are going to punch them. New and Mighty Avengers both were the only place to actually find the reasons for the invasion in the first place. I don't want to complain to much about this because I enjoy having the option to pick and choose side stories I'm interested in, I gladly would have payed an extra couple dollars for them to make each of the SI issues Giant-sized and gotten more back story there.
• Skrull Sleeper Agents. While the idea of Skrulls having infiltrated all the major factions is intriguing, it also hits a snag in a very important spot. These are heroes that we want to root for. Telling us that our favorite hero wasn't actually the one doing all the heroic things for the past 4 years kind of takes away from them in my opinion.

Ugly:

• Captain America. Captain America has been the hero of all citizens of the the Marvel U, both ordinary and extraordinary, since WWII. Although a new person has filled Steve Rogers spot as Captain America, he is still the Captain America. I feel that he was done a huge disservice in this series by Bendis. Buck Barnes still hadn't officially come out of the super hero closet so to speak and this was to be the big reveal that he had taken over the red, white, and blue shield. I, along with many others were looking forward to seeing Cap take control of the different factions and lead them to victory. What did we get? Not even two sentences. Seriously. Not even two sentences.
• Nick Fury. Same deal with Cap. Marvel touted SI as Nick Fury's big return after years of exile. He would come to save the heroes of the Marvel Universe in their time of need. Nope. He shot a gun a couple of times. Acted like the grizzled war veteran he is and then fell back into place with the other under used heroes.
• Savage Land. The first issue ends with the heroes stranded in the Savage Land(AKA:Jungle) coming upon a crashed Skrull ship. Inside the ship, some of the same heroes in much older uniforms. Everyone turns on each other, not knowing which person is the imposter, the one from the ship or the one from their team. Not only does the whole encounter in the Savage Land take about 4 issues to long, none of the heroes from the ship turn out to be the real heroes, just Skrull imposters. While I wouldn't like to hear that for the last 30 years, the real hero had been held captive as an alien impersonated him, I did feel kind of cheated that there was no big reveal.

Afterthoughts:
All together, Secret Invasion was an enjoyable read with a few, if large mistakes. If looking for more than just action and fighting, look for some of the tie-in issues to help give your SI experience a more balanced feel. If nothing else, Secret Invasion is just dumb fun and sets the stage for much larger things to come.

Final Grade: B Continue Reading»

**Spoilers Ahead**

With Secret Invasion finally over, the heroes of the Marvel Universe will find the days to come dark ones. In the final issue of SI, as the heroes are closing in on the Skrull Empress, the person to score the kill shot is none other than Norman Osborn, AKA: The Green Goblin. Along with killing the leader of the invading force, he managed to do it in front of news cameras broadcasting around the world. Through both public and politcal manipulation, Osborn has found himself the hero and savior of the Marvel U. He is appointed head of all government agencies in place of the disgraced Tony Stark and goes about remaking the world his way. As of now the exact details have been scarce but what we do know is things are going to be getting very ugly for the Marvel Heroes. The details so far are:

*Osborn has put together a group of super villians to rule
*He has organized a new group of Thunderbolts to assasinate the president
*Iron Man has become the most wanted man in the world
*Osborn forms the Dark Avengers with a man calling himself the Iron Patriot as the leader who seems to be a cross between Iron Man and Captain America
*Wolverines son is also a member
*The New Captain America has become a member of the New Avengers
*S.H.I.E.L.D. has been disbanded and been replaced with H.A.M.M.E.R. Continue Reading»

If you're a fan of Kingdom Hearts you know their is great voice acting and voice actors to compliment it. The new "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories" will be no different. As you watch the trailer you will notice the voice talents of Hailey Joel Osment (Sora) and Quinton Flynn (Axel). Now if you're scratching your head saying I know Quinton Flynn from somewhere, you're correct! Quinton Flynn is the voice actor for Raiden in the Metal Gear Solid series. Now go buy this game and plug in you're PS2 because your PS3 isn't backwards compatible. Continue Reading»

If the video isn't working head over to the escapist. Continue Reading»

Gamesradar has compiled a list of 100 things that video games have taught them here's a few examples:

3. If you’re 14, have hair covering your eyes and live in a small village, man up, because you’re going to have to save the world.

13. Most guards forget you unsuccessfully tried to strangle them after walking around for 20 seconds.

37. In medieval times, women regularly fought in wars, wearing armor that afforded them equal protection to suits of plate mail worn by men, despite only covering about 3 inches of skin.

56. The bodies of your murdered victims will fade and disappear if you wait for a few seconds.

Check out the fill list over at gamesradar Continue Reading»

An abridged script is essentially of spoof script of a movie. Rod Hilton the creator of the editing room has written one about Quantum of Solace and its spot on. Here's a sample:

DANIEL CRAIG speeds along the road with JESPER CHRISTENSEN in the trunk while being chased by SOMEONE OR ANOTHER. The cameraman has an EPILEPTIC SEIZURE, but is told to continue filming.

DANIEL CRAIG

As soon as I evade these random, nameless pursuers, I can have Judi Dench interrogate you!

JESPER CHRISTENSEN

Great, I have some questions for her, too. For example, why is she the only person willing to be in every single one of these dumbass movies?

Make sure you check it out here as well as his plethora of other movies on the link below.

http://www.the-editing-room.com/ Continue Reading»

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Halo 3
2 Gears of War 2
3 CoD: World at War
4 Call of Duty 4
5 GTA IV
6 Fable II
7 Left 4 Dead
8 Madden NFL 09
9 Fallout 3
10 FIFA 09

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)
1 Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
2 A Kingdom for Keflings
3 UNO
4 Castle Crashers
5 Worms
6 Portal: Still Alive
7 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8 Aegis Wing
9 Bomberman Live
10 Assault Heroes

The above arcade list is based on full versions purchased.

- Halo 3....That is all
- Glad to see Left 4 Dead make the list should make Valve see DLC as a serious prospect.
- Say it with me Epic....NETCODE
- People are still playing Aegis Wing?

via majornelson
Continue Reading»

To Celebrate Kingdom Hearts: Chains of Memories dropping for the PS2 today Square Enix confirmed in a press release that 358/2 Days is coming to the DS in North America the full press release below:

Uncover the events that took place during the year Sora was asleep regaining his lost memories. KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days revolves around Roxas, the “other” hero from KINGDOM HEARTS II, and his days as a member of Organization XIII. Follow Roxas and the rest of Organization XIII across the various Disney Worlds, and discover the connection between him, Sora, and the mysterious 14th member, and the reasons behind his eventual departure from the organization. KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days also features a multiplayer mode for the first time, allowing players to control their favorite Organization XIII members!

My thoughts? Worse Game Name Ever. Continue Reading»

I only say this is interesting because I'm just curious does everyone in Japan have 8 DS's? I mean this one is essentially the same as the DS lite just with a camera or did I miss something? Anyway reports are saying that the DSi sold over 500,000 DSi units during its first months sales. Continue Reading»

Seems like the 360 being fought over on black Friday wasn't such an isolated case. According to Microsoft stated: 2008 is the year of the PS3 right?

Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system kicked off the holidays with record- breaking console sales on one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year in the U.S. Retailers reported Xbox 360 console sales over the Black Friday weekend were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007.

Strong game sales rounded out a historic Black Friday for Xbox 360, with record-paced software sales continuing for key Microsoft titles, such as "Gears of War 2," "Fable II," and "Lips." Xbox 360 continues to have the highest game attach rate of any console at 8.1 games per console.

2008 is the year of the PS3 right?

Continue Reading»

Thew New Riddick Game The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is dropping this spring on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. Its a remake of the original xbox hit Escape from Butcher Bay. It includes an overhaul on graphics, a new chapter, and multiplayer. Atari released 3 new images today along with a press release. Though it did look amazing on the xbox, I'm still not impressed with the images that have released so far, though the games spectacular gameplay might make up for what its lacking in graphics.

To see the press release and the rest of the new images shoot over to gamersyde Continue Reading»

Thinking of picking up Prince of Persia tomorrow but not sure if its for you. Gamersyde has the first ten minutes of the game up. I haven't watched for the obvious spoiler reason but if your on the fence it should give you a good idea if its worth picking up. We'll have a review up sometime the end of this week.

Gamersyde Continue Reading»

Minor Spoilers, nothing you shouldn't know if you've been following the game. Continue Reading»