Modern Warfare2 Multiplayer footage

Not much needs to be said...
11.10.09 can't come soon enough!

Dead Space review

In space no one can hear scream, but if you're playing Dead Space alone at night in the dark....someone might!

Take the two movies Aliens and Event Horizon and you pretty much have a winning formula for a survival horror game. Dead Space may not be ground breaking in originality but it does such a good job with the surviving and horrifying that it really doesn't matter.

You play Isaac Clarke a member of the USG Kellion sent by the CEC (Concordance Extraction Corporation) to investigate a distress signal broadcast by the USG Ishimura at Aegis VII. Isaac's girlfriend, Nicole Brennan, works aboard the Ishimura as a medical specialist. Isaac has saved a portion of her last transmission which cryptically reveals there is a serious problem aboard the Ishimura.

The simple repair job turns into a living nightmare when a malfunction aboard the Kellion causes them to crash land in the Ishimura's docking bay and stranding them aboard the giant ship.

At first the Ishimura seems abandoned but the repair team quickly discovers they're not alone! Isaac gets separated from Kendra and Zach the teams tech specialist and mission leader respectively when they are attacked my a necromorph.

As you delve deeper into the mysteries and horrors aboard the Ishimura the story unravels and it's actually pretty well developed. You learn about Michael Altman, founder of the Church of Unitology, a cult religion that grew to become extremely influential back on Earth. The Marker discovered on Aegis VII which was believed by many aboard the Ishimura, including Chief Science Officer Dr. Terrance Kyne and Dr. Mercer to be a sign from God that Unitology was the truth.

In my opinion whenever religion is incorporated into a horror movie or game it adds another level of creepiness and Dead Space oozes with creepiness. Every aspect of the game from the ambient sound effects to the level design, the lighting effects, the necromorph design down to the overall story arc truly draws the player in and envelopes the player in the sense that not only could something horrible be waiting around the next corridor but there is something seriously fucked up going on in this ship!

Dead Space has some very unique environments aside from the typical blood and guts covered medical lab levels which have almost become cliched in the survival horror genre. Thankfully the game designers didn't forget that we're playing a game that takes place in outer space, and there is no oxygen or gravity out there! Dead Space does a terrific job of incorporating these facts into the game and reiterating the horror and survival aspects in this environment.

Another aspect of Deep Space that I was very pleased with was the menu system, unlike some games within the genre there is not menu screens that take you out of the experience while you check the map or change weapons all info is displayed via your rig (space suit) by holographic display. The weapons in Dead Space were a nice change from the typical handgun/shot gun. BFG1000 types that so frequently show up in survival horror games, in Dead Space most of the weapons relate to the fact you're on a mining vessel NOT a military vessel.

Dead Space also gives the player two other abilities to help Isaac survive the Necromorphs and the environment; Kinesis and Stasis. Kinesis gives Isaac the ability to move large objects, this is most commonly used to solve the puzzles scattered throughout the game. Stasis gives Isaac the ability slow down rapid moving objects such as damaged doors and the occasional necromorph.

Dead Space also incorporates a bit of RPG aspects as well, throughout the ship there are workbenches where Isaac can spend credits to upgrade the weapons, stasis and kinesis modules and his rig via nodes which can be bought in the store or found scattered around the ship.

In conclusion, Dead Space is a worthy title in the survival horror genre, it will totally immerse the player with absolutely terrifying environments, sound effects, creatures and a well developed story and dynamic cast.

I'm looking forward to a sequel!

9/10

Trump Tower breaks ground in....the Shire!

I amar prestar aen. The world is changed. Han matho ne nen. I feel it in the water. Han mathon ned cae. I feel it in the earth. A han noston ned gwilith. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

Since the defeat of Sauron and Saruman and the fall of the Two Towers a new threat has slowly grown in Middle Earth...Trump!

The Sackville Baggineses were unable to out bid the mighty Trump and thus shortly afterwards the fires of Industry sprang to life anew!
The thunder of the legions of Ork & Urukai was replaced by the screeches and dull rumblings of a mechanized monster...the Bull Dozer.

Where was Gandalf the White in the Hobbits darkest hour? Had he abandoned them after one of their own had saved all the citizens of Middle Earth...along with Samwise Gamgee? How about King Aragorn? Master Legolas?, Gimli son of Gloin?

Or it could just be the first images of Bagshot Row being rebuilt for the Hobbit movies!

For more pics and news head on over to the OneRing.net's article @ http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2009/07/18/32790-exclusive-rebuilding-of-hobbiton-has-begun/

Life Imitating Art: Gran Turismo 5 Citroen GT for realz!

Some folks think nothing positive comes from video games, that any time an unfortunate event occurs it's life imitating art (video games). Well here's the flip side to that arguement...Polyphony Digital's flagship racing game Gran Turismo 5 designed a ficticous car for the European auto maker Citroen...the GT! Below is a video of the Citroen GT driving thru London this past June. The video is spliced with in game footage of the Ctroen GT, can you spot em all? Hard to tell right!

God of War the movie Update....

CinCity2000 has just posted an article claiming David Self's script for the God of War feature film is complete and holds true to the games story...Clash of the Titans on Steroids and Methamphetamines"
As is probably the case in the game, all of this is hyper-realized in Self's
script. Athens is a megalopolis, the New York of Ancient Greece with 300
foot-high walls, towers and aeries that stretch even higher, and at its center
an enormous temple to Athena. Satyrs are not impish goat-men, but
8-foot-tall, hellish brutes. Cyclops are 20-30 foot-tall behemoths.
Medusa's lower, serpentine half of her body stretches 50 feet long. The
Hydra is a leviathan of the deep ocean with necks as thick as redwoods.
The gods are not merely human-sized beings in white robes lounging around
Olympus, but titanic in size and power. Ares, when not taking the form of
a fiery tornado, manifests as a giant 600 feet tall, adorned in jet black armor,
with a blazing mane and beard, and bleeds a combustible, oil-like fluid.
In short, everything about God of War is like Clash of the Titans, only taken to
the extreme and amped up to satisfy the 21st century sensibilities of males aged
15-25. "
To read more head on over to CC@K.com!

http://www.cincity2000.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1869&Itemid=2

Robot Geisha Trailer

http://robogeisha.com


Though he’s been brewing his particular brand of madness for a good long while now it wasn’t until the arrival of Machine Girl that writer-director Noboru Iguchi really made an impression here in North America. But when he did, it was a big one - his fetishized story of a high school girl whose arm is replaced by a giant machine gun becoming a genuine viral phenomenon as it raced through the web. And how has Iguchi followed up the success of Machine Girl? With robotic geishas. Lots of them.

RoboGeisha is the latest collaboration between Iguchi and special effects man Yoshihiro Nishimura - himself the director of Tokyo Gore Police - and it bears all of the now-classic hallmarks of the duo: outrageous special effects, grotesquely hilarious gore and weapons where weapons just should not go. Machine Girl had the mechanized arm. Iguchi’s earlier Sukeban Boy had leg and breast cannons. Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police has the infamous penis cannon. RoboGeisha? This one boasts what the trailer graciously describes as hip-katanas, though the swords are actually placed considerably lower and more to the rear. Yes, Iguchi’s latest has ass-swords and women who aren’t afraid to use them. And that’s not even mentioning the giant robot-building, the transforming geisha-tank or the fried shrimp rammed into eye sockets.

The trailer for RoboGeisha is a virtual compendium of the bizarre and hilarious world of Iguchi, all of it narrated in bizarrely dry style. We’re very proud to have been given the world exclusive of the trailer here at Twitch.

Must Watch: Awesome New Full-Length District 9 Trailer!

Are you ready to see this? Sony has just debuted the latest full-length trailer for District 9, the new movie about aliens in South Africa from director Neill Blomkamp. Everyone saw the teaser trailer for this in front of Wolverine, but this new trailer really ups the ante. We finally get to see more of the story and the real intentions of MNU, the government corporation that's attempting to control the aliens. But what's going on with Wikus? So this may exactly not be the next Cloverfield, but it still looks incredible. It's so refreshing to see an original story with some great effects and a whole heap of unknown actors. I can't wait to see this!

Jennifer's Body: Red Band Trailer! HAWTNESS!!!!

First off I highly doubt this movie is academy award material...second I don't care who wrote this movie. Third, I'll be checking fandango every day till preorder's become avail!
For all men out there, young, old, straight, gay, whatever this is our opportunity for revenge for all the chick flicks we've been dragged to! All HAIL Megan Fox!! Only she could pull off this role and create the newest Hollywood genre....THE DUDE FLICK!
Fellow men, I implore you, go see this movie, Megan Fox will deliver hope and change!

Michael Jackson Haunting Neverland? @ Yahoo! Video

The Proposal review

Yay another chick flick my wife dragged me to see, thank God for Optimum rewards!

Quick and dirty, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reyolds) is Margaret Tate's (Sandra Bullock) office bitch at Colden Books Publishing Company. Margret is a soulless overachieving 21st century corporate bitch that no one likes and everyone avoides like the plague.

Andy is a young aspiring writer looking to get his own work published while being Margaret's gofer. Margaret fails to fill out her INS paperwork in time and is told she's being deported to Canada for a year or two.

When her boss asks her what she proposes to to do to stay, the gears start spinning and to Andy's surprise he discovers he's getting married to his pit viper of a boss.


Andy agree's to do this to help Margaret but adds his own proposal (Oh how witty) that he'll only go through with this if he gets his long overdue promotion and she promises to have his work published. They meet up with INS officer Gilbertson who suspects fraud and warns the two of the consequences if they're caught.

So there's the ingredients....lets make some romantic comedy soup! Lets take a trip to Sitka Alaska to visit the Paxton family and wish Grandma Annie (Betty White) a happy 90th. So we have a quarter cup of "Meet the Parents", a dash of "The Devil Wears Prada", chop up the usual romantic comedy ingredients and BAM absolute hilarity and heart warming romance.
Ryan Reynolds did fine in his role, he does very well in the genre since he's been in two guys a girl and a pizza place.
Sandra Bullock is no stranger to the romantic comedy genre either but for some reason I had a difficult time liking her in this movie, she really is hard to believe as a corporate bitch, but once she sheds that skin and becomes human she instantly becomes more believable and likeable. Regrettibly by the time Sandra's character warms up it's too late in the movie and the romance angle is nigh impossible to believe. There are a handfull of characters that have zero depth and feel like nothing more than plot devices to bring Andy and Margret together, like Gertrude (Malin Akerman), Andy's ex girlfriend or Andy's father Joe (Craig T. Nelson).
The most likeable character for me was Grannie Annie (Betty White), seeing her dancing around a campfire chanting Indian songs was priceless, she came across as the most genuine character in the film wether the character was hitting close to home or she was just the best actor in the film is debatable...
The ending was terrible, straight out of the romantic comedy creator template, one character runs away and the other chases after once they realize they luvz the other....LAME! The cut scenes during the credits were more entertaining!
This movie is not original it's a rental at best, better yet dust off your copy of Meet The Parents....that's funnier, save your money.
C

Moon Review

Basic Plot Summary:
Place: The moon. Time: A future not long from now (2030-ish I think). Sam Bell, astronaut, is working on a lunar base of some sort. He is the only person on the entire base, only assisted by an all-knowing robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). He has been stationed on the base for almost 3 years, his contract nearing an end, and with his flight back to earth scheduled only 14 days away, he can't wait to get back home to see his wife and daughter again. However, suddenly one of the automated moon-vehicles (harvesting rock-samples or whatever) goes awry, and he goes outside of the base to investigate it... but then something unexpected happens, and he has to change his perspective on everything.


There are no aliens, lasers/phasers, wormholes, warp engines or jump drives here, just a lonely space age concierge, an unflappable monotone robot, and a whole lot of fodder for your brain to chow down on.
This is what science fiction was meant to be. In short, this is one of the best sci-fi movies I have seen in a LONG time.

A

Alleged PS3 Slim

Alleged spy photo of PS3 Slim's packaging.

We had a feeling we'd soon be hearing more on the rumored PS3 slim, and sure enough, some enticing tidbits have hit the blogosphere. On Tuesday, several sites picked up on a report by Chinese-language site Economic Daily News (UDN.com) that Sony has signed manufacturing agreements with two Taiwanese-based companies, Foxconn and Pegatron, to build the new, slimmed-down version of the PS3 in July.
We've looked at a rather poorly translated version of the story and it's very hard to tell from what we read what the exact details are, but both Joystiq Japan and Engadget China have apparently provided their sister sites in the U.S. with a better translation (they do note that the information is based on anonymous sources, so take this all as rumor, not fact).
Aside from the possibility that the the PS3 Slim might actually be a real product--and coming soon--the key detail in the report is the timing of the PS3 Slim's shipping date. According to the article, the lighter, smaller PS3 units are expected to start shipping in early July "to cope with expected summer vacation demands."
Translation: Sony wants to get a new unit out while kids have nothing to do but play video games (and apparently, in Japan, a lot of game consoles are sold during the summer holidays). Still, July seems a bit early to us, and industry watchers think a fall launch for the revised PS3--if indeed it's coming--is a more likely scenario for the North American market. That would give retail more time to clear the channel of existing inventory of the 80 GB PS3 ($399) without having to blow it out at a discount.
All that said, we have no idea what a new PS3 will cost or what its configuration will be. However, chances are good that Sony will have some system, new or old, priced at $299 for the holidays.

(Source: Joystiq via UDN.com)