Sunday 30 March 2008

He's got jungle fever; they've got GTA fever

So as GTA fever grips the internet, I feel, well I feel unamazed. Don't get me wrong, the game looks amazing, the multiplayer wll surely grip Xbox Live and PSN like a gorilla does a banana, yet as the final trailer hit I got a great yearning for GTA:San Andreas.



The last, last-gen installment of the franchise, was no where near my favourite, but all of a sudden I remembered the casinos, the pool, the altogether cartoonish touch that made it my most played game on the Playstation 2. The way the new GTA is shaping out is great, I am sure it will be perfectly cinematic; the Scarface-esque storyline seems interesting, as do the stereotypical characters such as the eccentric, gangster black guy.

However I feel that there is a gap in the market for that all out fun, kooky open world experience; Crackdown was close to getting it right, yet it lacked a certain amount of polish, maybe Saint's Row 2 can fill the void.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I heard the most ridiculous rumour today; a rumour so absolutely enraging that I'm struggling to write these very sentences.

Hayden Christensen:


Is being touted to play Superman in the Justice League film.

The cast for this movie was never going to be amazing, but I thought that Adam Brody as the Flash was good, btu I feel that this is such a delicate project one that needs perfect execution for it to even be mediocre, that this would be an omen from the start; thankfully it's just a rumour at the moment, but as I've said above, a Justice League movie has to be done just right, and having an actor who looked annoying even next to Jar-Jar Binks is not a good sign.

Gt5 Prologue came out 2 days ago; I've seen a few videos, and a GamerTv special, and I think the graphics look amazing, but the city environments aren't the best I've seen,nevertheless GT is an amazing series and although Prologue does look like GT4 with this gen graphics, I'm going to try and get a hands on, check out the AI et al.

Finally Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 has come out with few improvements, it's still bloody amazing though.

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Desktop Tower Defense: The Casual RTS

Although I should really be gearing up for other important aspects of my life (most notably public examinations) alot of my spare time has been taken up by Desktop Tower Defense; a flash game on the PC.

This game is, as said above, simply put a casual RTS, you have bugs that come across your screen, and by placing different weapons ( with different amounts of power and speed) you destroy said bugs. Like most flash games it's simple but addictive, and reminds me of another favourite Space Giraffe. There is a clip of Desktop below.

Other tidbits:

  • Gametrailers TV is expected to announce that Iron Man will have a cameo in the Incredible Hulk game.
  • An Xbox.com update has been rolled out, and it looks like this:

This is one of the things I love about Xbox Live, I mean everyone knows about MyGamercard.net but I just love the idea of having a quick tag and an interface to synergise your Xbox and your PC and I think it really capitalises o the Facebook/Net2.0 idea.



Finally, I;m hoping to go see 10,000BC this weekend, can anybody tell me what it's like? And depending on how tired I feel I may, just may rent out The Condemned (a.k.a Stone Cold Steve Austin kicks ass)





Monday 24 March 2008

The Hedgehog is Unleashed Again

Hey, this video has been leaked and apparently refers to a Sonic Game (maybe titles "unleashed") that is being developed by Sonic team as well as devs from Europe and America. Check it out:



It looks pretty cools, there did seem to be a distinct lack of enemies, and although I love the Sonic games ( in my opinion they trump Mario several times over) I feel that it's going to be very hard to make achieving such speed attainable without making it frustrating.

However this teaser has deinitely got me interested.

Friday 21 March 2008

Why this summer is going to wicked sick.

This summer is going to be amazing, not only am I fortunate to have 3 months off but:

Iron Man






The Dark Knight Official Teaser Trailer in HQ Video
Uploaded by anil31

I am so hyped for those three movies it is so unbelievable, out of the three I expect Iron Man to be the worst, Iron Man has never been a favourite chracter of mine and even though I think Robert Downey Jnr. is amazing, the humour in the trailers was a tad too cheesy for me.

Also coming out in time for this summer:

GTA IV












Ninja Gaiden

I am so hyped for this game, especially after the GDC presentation (below) I just feel that this game will be so crazy and considering I'm playing through the first one ( if you call being stuck on Chapter 3 playing)



MGS4 is also coming out this summer and whilst I don't have a PS3 I will find some way to check it out.


Also Batman Gotham Knight is coming out sometime this year, that looks really interesting especially with all the eastern influences, I am scared that some of the Japanese directors might stray too far from original Batman art, however I suppose where would Batman be today without McFarlane's drawings, sometimes change isn't so bad.



Finally word on the street is that if you head on over to noob.com you will see a countdown. The interesting thing is that this site has a Mortal Kombat logo, and in 27 days (from now) there is a Midway event, so I'm reckoning that a new next-gen Mortal Kombat will be announced. I'm a big Mortal Kombat fan, I acknowledge that Street Fighter may be technically more advanced/astounding whatever you want to say, but I've always preferred MK, it's way more fun and I even found that the last gen MK's too were crazy fun if not good games.

Sayonara

Thursday 20 March 2008

No Country For Old Men

Sibling directors Joel and Ethan Coen are renowned for their ability to tell gripping stories with memorable characters. Whether it has been The Big Lebowski or Barton Fink it has always seemed that the Coen Brothers have been more interested in exploring the depth of their characters rather than telling the story and No Country For Old Men is no different.

The story follows Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter and a Vietnam veteran who stumbles upon $2 million in cash from a drug deal turned sour. A wild cat-and-mouse chase ensues across Southern America as hired gun (Javier Bardem) sets out to reclaim this money, whilst both are followed by local sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).

No Country perfectly displays the prowess of the Coen brothers – it is both gripping and tense and the brothers use silence effectively to achieve this. Every sound is accentuated; no soundtrack, no score. This enables every scene to lull the viewer into a false sense of security, whilst easily replacing this with an engrossing sense of nervousness and intensity.

This nervousness could only be heightened by the fantastic Javier Bardem whose character’s disturbed and warped mind is chilling. Once again Bardem’s silence, mixed with his schoolboy haircut and large eyes, made his demonic-yet-serene nature formidable. Throughout the film his calm dispatching of innocents and distorted view on “principles” makes his character, Anton Chugur, one of the most spine-chilling to have graced the big screen in recent years.

Overall, No Country For Old Men is a gripping, blood-stained tale, that is reminiscent of the westerns of yore, whilst being accessible and refreshing to a modern audience through its introduction of a sense of anxiety that is rarely done as well as it is done in Coen’s masterpiece.