Marvel Movie Merger Mania

I've been following the Marvel movie explosion very closely, putting forth ideas and opinions. A big thing happened since the last time I wrote about any of it. Disney happened, and while more money is never initially a bad thing, the end game is yet to be seen. Disney has been pretty adamant about letting what works, work for Marvel, much in the way they've done with the ESPN brand. But the Disney demographic is much closer in make up to the Marvel demographic than the ESPN's.

A friend of mine and I talked at length on the day of the buyout of the pros and cons of it. Mostly pros, I mean I doubt Disney would spend a couple billion dollars on a brand and then run it into the ground. But Disney has Hannah Montana so it's possible the Disney could whore a brand to death. The biggest pro in my opinion is a two pronged situation. Disney Animation and more specifically Pixar. Pixar has almost universally kicked ass with every movie. Some people brush off Ratatouille but w/e. I think that they've already proved they can simulate comic book super powers with the Family centric Incredibles (Fantastic Four reboot cough cough). I feel like any number of characters and teams could be put in this medium. A lot of strain would be taken off of casting actors with less actual acting talent, which would cut down on cost and time till production.

Another bit of awesome is Disney animation in general. Snow White stills looks great to this day, and it was made in 1937! Take that artistic excellence and mix it with the already awesome artists talent aligned with Marvel, and the enormous back catalog of stories and you can't lose. Marvel has already done a stellar job with the Hulk vs. series so the writing is there. The only qualm I had about those movies was the animation quality. Not that it was bad, but it definitely could have been better. Enter Disney to ratchet up the animation, and mixed with their almost magical ability to market anything to anyone, and you've got an equation that equals new comic book fans!

Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD

The first Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD motion comic came out today. Word like vibrant, dynamic and freaking sweet come to mind. This is the first in a series of five iTunes released motion comics from Marvel. Brought to us my the scribe of the century Brian M. Bendis, and with beautiful art by Alex Maleev. For those of you not in the know, a motion comic is just that. It's not a cartoon, or rendered 3-D animation, it's a comic with certain parts of its panels in motion, with voice acting and soundscaping. It sounds corny, but it is executed fantastically. There have been motion comics in the past. Leading up to the Watchmen movie, motion comics that represented the graphic novel were released, and other properties like the Peanuts and Dead Space prequel stories, have been adapted into motion comics. Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD represents the pinnacle of this craft.

Marvel is "it" right now. They are at the top of their game in every aspect. Regardless of what you as a comic fan, and or pop culture follower in general, think about the company, you cannot deny their industry dominance. And what do you do when you're top dog in almost everything you do? Enter a new realm and dominate that one.

Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD takes place after the events that are chronicled in the Marvel event Secret Invasion. A cliff's notes version of this event is as follows; a shape shifting race of aliens named the Skrulls infiltrate the ranks of almost every super hero team in the Marvel universe and seek to upset the balance of the world in order to claim it in a religiously fueled crusade. And the leader of the infiltration, the Skrull queen, assumes the form of the aforementioned Spider-Woman. So when the Invasion is stopped, and the real spider woman returns, the world still sees her as the face of the invasion that almost destroyed the human race. Not a great home coming.

Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD will be the return of Spider-Woman, whose real name is Jessica Drew, into her life. And it will also be a story of revenge. She's pissed, and she wants to take down every Skrull she can get her hands on. S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) is a counterterrorism and intelligence agency whose focus is on extra terrestrial threats. They too were hit hard by the Skrull invasion and the head of SWORD, Abigail Brand, approaches Jessica Drew with a job offer; to track down, detain, and destroy alien threats to the earth.

This Motion Comic is visually stunning. Alex Maleev has never been my favorite artist, but after seeing the promo art leading up to the release of Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD, I was completely converted. What I saw in his motion comic today totally blew me away. I imagined that the panels, while being wonderfully drawn, would be mainly static with voice acting but what I saw was inspired. It's not a cartoon. I really want to make that clear. You're not going to seeing Spider-Woman doing black flips. What you will see is a dynamic portrayal of what goes on in the minds of creators brought to life.

Brian M. Bendis is my favorite comic writer, and his dialogue and pacing do not disappoint in this medium. Even his choice of voice actors sound like what I think these characters would sound like. Jessica Drew comes across as a strong woman, who has had her world completely turned upside down and is searching for a way to right it. I really hope that the standard set in this first comic will continue through the remaining 4 motion comics and into the standard paper comics that follow. Spider-Woman: Agent of SWORD has set the industry standard for new avenues in which comics can reach a broader audience.

Will all comics eventually be digitized? Probably not. People love the collecting aspect of comics too much to allow the publishers to take there comics out of there hands. But if this Motion Comic does well we might see more comics getting the same treatment. It's only $.99 for the next two weeks so you should at least give it a chance. It wont be for everyone because it doesn't have a marquee character in the title, but the art alone is worth the minuscule price tag.

Marvel Movie Update

A lot has happened in the time it's been since I wrote about any of this stuff. The four movies that have been confirmed by marvel with dates, directors and all that jazz are as follows. We've got Iron Man 2 running full throttle with Mr. Favreau and Thor has had it's two biggest roles thus far (Thor and Loki) filled by relative newcomers which will hopefully work out. You also got Spiderman 4, multiple reboots and retellings coming down the pipes at Fox and whether or not they take the Avengers route of super crossovers movies that Marvel Studios is taking remains to be seen.

Now the two other movies from Marvel proper are the Captain America movie, and the aforementioned crossover extravaganza that will be the Avengers movie. These movies are still completely up in the air. What we do know is that the Captain America movie will take place during World War II, most likely during the Allied (US) entrance and involvement in the war. I'm crossing my finger for the Red Skull and Cap punching Hitler in the face. The Internet has a billion lists of who should play Captain America, and my vote is still for Mark Valley, but I feel that since they've gone with big names so far for the big name characters, that Brad Pitt should be cast. Seeing him in Inglorious Basterds lets me know he'll have studied WWII US military protocol and his accent in it, with a little more swagger and a little less righteous fury would come across as what I think Cap Sounds like. And I mean the ladies will pour into the theaters to see Brad Pitt ripped on screen. Third place goes to Nathan Fillion just cause I have a man crush on him.

So we got Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor for the Avengers as far as titular movie characters are concerned and with secondary characters in War Machine, Black Widow, Loki bound to show up, it leads me to believe that they will be trying to stick as relatively close to the original avengers story as possible. That leaves out the Wasp and Ant-Man, and makes me wonder if they're gonna unfreeze and stick Cap in there right away. The Ant-Man movie has a writer in Edgar Wright who is absolutely the man, but is best versed in comedy. His best collaborator is Simon Pegg who I, in my fanboy frenzy, have decided must be Hank Pym, as long as he doesn't do any wife beating. As big a fan of the various Avengers books I am, I still don't know enough about Hank Pym and the Ant-Man to make guesses as to who should really play him because it all comes down to how the movie is written.

Another kind of big deal movie wise but not necessarily (yet) Marvel movie wise it the rumors of big time studio mergers.

Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures could merge with Sony Pictures, Universal Studios or another movie studio amid a wave of consolidation in the industry over the next few months, veteran investor Mario Gabelli said in the latest issue of Barron’s.
The chief executive of Gamco Investors Inc, who owns shares of Viacom ( VIA - news - people ), said he expects deal making among movie studios as they seek to cut costs.

Now this is cool and a bummer at the same time because merger is a scary word to the people who work for the companies that will merge. Merge=Layoffs to most people, and while the prices of movie making will come down and things won't get tied up when it comes to choosing a studio, if a ton of people get laid off then their won't be enough people to work on these movies and they'll never get finished. The only real upside at this moment is that Sony owns the rights to Spiderman and I'd kill to have an avenger movie with Spidey in it (hopefully not the Tobey McGuire one).

Thanks for reading and as always be safe.

Some cool Super Mario Pic's for your enjoyment!

NRA= Not really aware

Alexis had an idea for a rant of the day for either my blog or Facebook and while I thought it was a good idea I hadn't really had anything piss me off enough to warrant a post. That is of course until today.

I was delivering on the scoot scoot riot today and I pulled up behind a truck with an NRA bumper sticker that read: "NRA the front line of freedom". I call shenanigans on this self righteous interest group right here right now. The front line of freedom is and always will be the troops in wherever they are. Don't ever presume that owning a gun automatically makes you a patriot that's just recklessly irritating and ignorant. Now to be clear, I find no fault in the NRA by in large. They are a special interest group and thus are prone to bias towards their chosen field and I approve of that just like I approve of the fact that our Constitution allows them the right to bear arms which they champion.




But just like everything else the extremes tend to stick out and the extremes are what get on my nerves. This guy might have been and ex solider of some kind or maybe just affiliated with the armed forces in anyway and if so I would have given him the benefit of the doubt. But as far as I'm concerned this man believed himself on par with those people who have signed their life into the protection of this country and as a person with family who are not only in the military but have been physically effected by it's campaigns, I won't allow for foolhardy bluster to go unchecked.

Don't Fear the Apatow

It's seem like we can't go a month without a new movie from people affiliated with the Apatow camp showing up in a movie. To be clear we're talking about Judd Apatow, the producer, writer, director that has had his name or hand in 75% of every comedy movie since Anchorman in '04. And Anchorman while not only being arguably Will Ferrell's funniest movie but one of the most quoted films in comedy history, has brought forth a menagerie of comedic actors from obscurity to the fore front of Hollywood. But some people don't like this. People seem to be increasingly frustrated with seeing all the same faces in every movie just playing different characters. People find it weird that a goofy guy that played the cameraman in Anchorman would go on to star opposite Katherine Heigl in a movie about knocking her up. Another knock on these movies is that there are all to similar, that it's the same kind of jokes over and over and tend to run over into the rest of the movies due in part again the the recurring actors. Trust me I get it, all these points are valid and worth taking a second to think about. But for starters this isn't the first time you've seen people play bit parts in the same movies over and over again. Bill Murray played the arguably the same character in every movie he was in from his starring role in Meatballs for almost the next two decades. And the comedians and writers he worked with over and over again had ties with SNL much like Will Ferrell's and Adam McKay's work with Apatow. And The brat pack I'm sure ring a bell in most peoples minds. All I'm saying is that every movie generation has a group of people that you're gonna see a lot of and these cats in the Apatow squad are our generations group. And these movies are the bee's knee's right now and that's the starting point for a list of reasons why Apatow is great for comedy.

1) His movies are good.

I know it's sounds simple maybe even a little stupid to say but his movies are undeniably funny and even heart warming at times. Of course this brand of comedy comes off a little sophomoric and low brow at times but these characters remind us of people we know just a lot funnier and that allows a connection that doesn't come across in most comedies. If you've got a good formula why mess with it. Almost all the movies that he's made have been big hits. And he's making us laugh and I think that's what most important.

2) Bringing relative unknowns to the forefront and revitalizing careers.

These days saying you don't know who Paul Rudd or Steve Carrel is is like saying what's so important about this Jesus guy. But five years back the best Rudd had done was have a vaguely incestuous relationship with Alicia Silverstone in Clueless and Steve Carell was a lowly correspondent on the Daily Show, which in my opinion is a good job but whatever. Add in him re introducing most of the casts of his two TV shows to the world like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, who have both worked there way up from background characters in his early movies to Starring roles in current ones and you kinda see the idea. Of course you have to chalk it up to their talent being the reason they're so well known now, but Judd gave em the chance, which brings me to the next reason.

3) He works best with his friends.

I don't know how many of you watched Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared while it was on TV but those shows were some of the funniest and most aware shows I've even seen and if you go back and watch them you'll see so many cameos and the stars of the shows themselves are the people that make his movies great today. He has stayed true to his roots, his friends and the people who helped him get to where he is today and I think that not only does that show his character but it has made his movies all the better.


4) Rush

I love Rush and it seems that if not all the actors in these movies do, that the people writing and producing these movies do and I'm alright with that!

5) Work Ethic

This guy is always working. The shear volume of things coming out each month that have his name attached to it is astounding, and nothing ever comes across as half assed. He's not the guys that do the Stupid spoof movies trying to get at least two movies out a year for as little amount of money as possible. He's really trying to bring quality comedy to the viewers.

So yes, if you go to a movie and the lead roles are filled by anyone from anchorman or the 40 Year Old Virgin, you can expect to see at least 2 more people from either of those movies in it. But it's not gonna go away because these movies are good. Instead of blowing movies off before you see them just because of who's in it, maybe give it a chance because you can rest assured that a few of your friends will love it and quote it for the next month. I guess if you want a better excuse just say you don't have the money. No one's gonna call you out on that.

More Evidence that Auto Tune needs to Die!!!

It's been a while folks but this whole blog thing is gonna be up and running very soon. In the meantime check out this awesome commercial for Wendy's.

Batman Profile Sketch

Style is going through a Skottie Young phase whihc I really enjoy!

RDJ talks about Iron Man 2

These quotes are brought to you by way of geektyrant.com from MTV. The rest in my interpretation.

“Day one I’m doing a Senate hearing where the government is saying the Iron Man tech needs to be turned over to the Senator and the Senator is Gary Shandling, and we had this fantastic day that was somehow this controlled chaos of a Senate hearing where I keep interrupting them and dah dah dah.”

So it seems that the government will be getting more involved with Iron Man. Comes as no surprise what with him coming out and proclaiming his identity at the end of the first movie. What will be an issue however is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s place in all of this. I assume that S.H.I.E.L.D. will be affiliated with the government but hopefully still a largely secretive group, not known wide spread throughout the country. I hope this isn't just an easy way for the Iron Man designs to get out on the market, but It'd kinda make sense because it turns out that Mickey Rourke's character is supposed to be a Whiplash/Crimson Dynamo mixture. As far as Mickey is concerned:

“I’ve seen his stuff and it is literally remarkable. Literally remarkable. He’s so good. And he’s formidable and he’s very much reminding me of that kind of charming, confident guy that we know.”

This is a concept from the Iron Man Animated show.

I'm really worried about how his character is gonna come across, and how this will fit into the idea of the Mandarin being an overarching shadowy figure. Mickey Rourke spent some time at a Russian Prison to get ready for his role which lends itself more to Crimson Dynamo. Guess it's just a waiting Game. RDJ goes on too say that there will be multiple Iron Man models, apart from the predicted War Machine suit to be worn by Terrance Rhodes (played by Don Cheadle). The addition of Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer though brings an interesting concept to the table. Armor Wars lite? It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have this Senator be a puppet for Justin Hammer, who would acquire the specs in a way that would allow Rourke's character to become the movies Whiplash character. Stay tuned, when I know, you know!

X-Men: First Class, and Ideas for the way it should be handled.

BamKapow.com ran a comment from X-men producer Lauren Schuler Donner about the possibility of rebooting the X-men movie franchise. This is nothing new; in fact the people behind the Fantastic Four movies have been talking about a reboot for a good month now, and the idea of X-MEN: First Class the movie has been floating around for a little under a year. What is new however is that it would be a flash back heavy movie leading the characters back into the X-men movie universe. This is all brought on by the fact that the Wolverine movie is expected to be huge and a boost for the Marvel machine. I loved the first 2 X-men movies, and even though the 3rd was totally mishandled and brought to light the terrible acting skills of most of the people in the movie by trying to cram 3 different story arcs into a 2 hour movie, there were still some cool parts in it. And Wolverine, without sounding to much like a fan boy, looks really really cool. Having Sabertooth and Wolvie as half brothers aside, I think they’re going about his back story as best as they can. That being said I don’t think that should set a standard for every X-movie from now on. I think that finding a way to bridge what’s already been done with the first trilogy and bring in new mutants would be the way to go. Here are some ideas.




NEW MUTANTS

Bring in a whole new crop of mutants. As far as the movie verse in concerned Xavier is dead for the time being. Jean and Scott are both gone and Magneto has been “de-powered”. They could spend the first half of the movie recruiting a new team. You could even throw some dark teenage angst in it to try and keep up with the standard that has been somewhat unfortunately set by the Dark Knight and Watchmen. It’d be a decent idea because you could establish the remaining X-men as teachers and find a way to get people to invest in these new faces. They’re starting a new volume soon anyways so it’d be a cool tie in for comic sales.

Mutants I’d want to see: Wolfsbane Karma Sunspot Cannonball Elixir



Marauders/Morlocks/Mutant Massacre

This one might be a little tougher because of the amount of big names crossing over, which would have to be kept out of the movie. But I think with the right writer it could be pulled off. They had a group called the Omegas in the 3rd movie that were similar to the Morlocks but not exactly so they could still be used. A lot of the major players are already established in the movieverse (Angel, Kitty Pride, Night Crawler) and it’d be a good way to bring in some new people. And if Wolverine does well you could have Sabertooth show up. You could bring in any number of Morlocks and only play up the few you wanted for sequels. That plus the Marauders would allow for another huge cast movie like Xmen3 but with better direction. Also with the inclusion of the marauders into this movie you could set up for Sinister in a sequel which could lead to any number of stories.

Mutants I’d want to see: Psylocke (she was killed in X3 but next to no one knew it was her so it’s a possibility) Night Crawler (returned and revamped) Sinister (at the very end and not directly) Callisto, Mystique (as marauder) and Harpoon


Operation: Zero Tolerance

Now this one would be the easiest transition and the hardest to write, especially for fear of alienating comic fans while attempting to appeal to the movie fans. X1 and especially X2 and X3 were very government heavy, and X3 came closest to what I think could be done with the anti mutant group idea. We got a glimpse of a Sentinel in the danger room in the 3rd movie and I think if it was done correctly wouldn’t come across as corny. Xavier’s mansion is well known the government by now so a siege of the school wouldn’t be out of the question. Iceman has a pretty big part in this story leading his own little group, and that would be a good way to bring new kids to the fore front. On the other side, Bastion, because of his relative obscurity to most people, could be handled in any number of way, as well as the Prime Sentinels he’d be rolling with. They could even throw in the whole Graydon Creed assassination but really shouldn’t be touched on in anything more than a flash back or montage in the beginning of the movie. Also the idea makes me really wish that Marvel still had the sole right to this franchise because this could be a good way to meet up with S.H.I.E.L.D. and bleed into other movies.

Mutants I’d want to see: Jubilee, Marrow, Chamber, Synch

I just read to on io9.com that the movie will indeed be flashback heavy. I really hope this is just pre production bluster. If you’ve got any ideas, mutants you want to see or just general content feel free to post them. As always be safe.

Allure Naked Spread

Also for the ladies reading this one, and fellas if you've actually got a point, feel free to chime in as well, how do you feel about the Allure Naked spread? Do you think it's soft core porn, artful photography, gloating by ladies with nice bodies or something completely different?

http://www.allure.com/magazine/2009/05/nudes?mbid=aol

(Disclaimer (and bummer to the guys): this isn't naked in the sense that you see everything)

NWA?? Stands for Nice White Attire I guess?

These guys look more like pissed off New Edition than the Hardcore gangster rappers they turned out to be. Guess it shows no matter how tough you are there's always another side.

NEW BANNER!

Gotta love that bachalo guy!

Assassin’s Creed 2 Trailer Review

I've always wanted to do a ridiculous review of something so small and menial, but that a few select people will really appreciate. Enter the new Assassin’s Creed 2 Trailer. The imagery of the teaser trailer and website have as little amount of information as possible, but I'm gonna milk the hell out of both.
For starters the website's name is Animus the machine from the first game that could stimulate the recall of ancestral memories buried in the Desmond's/Altair's DNA. I've heard rumors that the next game will not be a direct sequel but a different part of the same story, and that the protagonist will be new and a lady. That fits with the theme of the website because Animus is psychologically the name for the masculine side of the feminine mind. The girl from the first game turned out to be an assassin as well so maybe it's her story. Animus can also mean one's true self so you could probably scrap all that stuff I just said.


Now the end of the first game gave us a lot of gloom and doom Armageddon stuff from all different cultures and religions. Time line wise, the first game took place 3 months before what the Mayans have predicted to be the end of days 21/12/12. You got mathematical problems, Templar/Mason imagery, and even an nod to Japanese Atlantis. What does all of this mean? Probably nothing, just enough information to keep fan boys busy until the next game came out. What i believe does have some meaning is the actual trailer.




Rumors abound about the setting of the next game pointed to Venice, Italy and the Trailer seems to perpetuate that with the use of Da Vinci-style drawings, even a sketch of the hidden blade used by the Assassins. Note: It didn't really seem like the people in the pictures were missing fingers like Altair was. Also the Vitruvian Man towards the end of the trailer i seen with a sketched wing (more mechanical than natural) behind his right shoulder, and an concealed blade on his left arms. This kinda makes it seem like there will be more gadgets to use in the next game. Maybe flight, which would be cool over short distances especially when running away from guards or during those infernal flag missions, or even guns of some sort. And if were sticking with the Da Vinci stuff, how about some water walking shoes so you can traverse some water.

As far as history is concerned if it is in Venice I don't know when it would take place. Venice was just becoming a city state around the time of the first game and became a Imperial power after the fourth crusade which would kinda play into the mythos of the series. Also the imperialism and it's ties to the fledgling but short lived Latin Empire might provide for the corruption needed for the brotherhood of assassins to feel the need to take action.

At the end of the teaser, the mirror image of the words "Game Informer 04/16/2009", so i'll give that a read and tell you what that says as well.

And some Pictures!

All cool things for you!

I've been busy..

But i can neglect the Internet no longer! So here are some videos to check out!

Iron Man vs Bruce Lee

Prostinauts

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Extreme Humor | TV & Movie Spoofs

And the day keeps getting better!

This is one of the screen for the User Inventory for Diablo III! I couldn't be more psyched about this game and i'll have a more in depth post about this in a few days! Click the pick for the Kotaku article about it!

I just re-joined the American Work force!

It's about dam time!

Last One for Today

Watch Impressive Chameleon and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

I've seen a lot of cool things today, is all! Night folks.

New Poster for Sherlock Holmes

Frakking sweet! Also if you haven't hear about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies well hop on the band scooter before it becomes a wagon cause hipsters, trolls, and general "I saw it firsters" will be all over this thing! Click the Pic!

The Coaches take the cake!

This comes into close contention with the Hedi Klum commercial for being the best Rhythmn based game commercial of all time!

RE5! It's exactly like RE4 but completely different?!

Yes I am as puzzled by the title as you might be. Let me start by saying this is a good game. Maybe even a really good game, and the way I'm about to write this review.... well some of it might lead you to believe other wise. I think i can justify my actions by saying that I expected so much out of this game and I find it important that I be hyper critical. Trust me if you've ever played a Resident Evil game (especially RE4) or have any kind of stake in the franchise, then this is a must for you. But at the same time familiarity and similarity to the last game's winning formula is what might make all this seem negative.



All the innovation and awesome game play from the last game is...well it's still there, but that's about it. There's not a lot new stuff in this installment. And much of what made the last game great has been, dare I say it, dumbed down. Now I can hear the fanboys crying, what about the new AI companion? Well let me put it to you this way, if you want that "partner" to actually help you, that makes her existence in the game worthwhile, better grab a friend because this character's AI makes her borderline brain dead. Sure occasionally she'll shoot at things, most of the time with her weakest weapon, at a part of your enemies' body that takes the least amount of damage. And shell grab items from time to time but usually it's just more ammo for her to waste, or pick up grenades instead of herbs. And she can even take up different positions on the map to open up paths or give you cover, but after you send her on her way be prepared to hear almost immediately "I need some help here" because A) she'll have no bullets because she shoots like a blind person, and B) she'll almost immediately have no health because of her lack of ammo and poor shooting skills.

No health also leads to a lot of unnecessary continues because your partner has died. And gone is the extremely intuitive inventory system from RE4. Everything you have on your person takes up one of 9 spots in your "inventory", so a box of ammo takes up the same amount of space as your rocket launcher. If they wanted to make it more realistic for you to have all these items on your body, they should have allocated a certain amount of spaces for each type of item. And please, please don't get me started on the fact that you and your partner have a shared inventory system that makes switching items in the middle of combat harder than playing tennis with no arms. The amount of little things that are wrong with this game could be an entirely different review, but all that technical stuff aside I'm sad to say that this story feels very similar to what transpired in the last game.

It seem like you were playing RE4 blinked, and opened your eyes to find yourself in Africa with 40 pounds of extra muscle, your companion a little different looking but no more helpful, and zombies that are a little darker and speak another language you don't understand, but still have a vested interest in killing you. I understand the idea of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but I thought this was supposed to be a brand new game. And even the "surprise twist" near the end is visible from 45 minutes into the game. Even the story isn't that different and it's funny because the game and all it's bad guys (and even the developers it seems) drop lines throughout, trying to reassure gamers that this really was a different game.

And you know what? That's not a bad thing at all. Like I said in the beginning, no matter what it sounds like this is a good game! RE4 was my favorite of the series and this game delivers on what the prior game set up. And on a side note, I'm really starting to see other companies try to step up to what Konamii has done cinematically with the Metal Gear Solid series. Story wise it's just another Umbrella remanent at the forefront of a biological conspiracy, with ever increasingly evil (and disgusting) bosses to fight, concluded in an inevitable showdown with a RE series top baddie with almost Biblical ideas about a biological Armageddon.

Controls are smooth, and the over the shoulder 3rd person perspective that has been widely copied since RE4 came out, still allows for enough clunk to scare the shit out of out, but enough freedom to feel like a bad as zombie killer. It looks beautiful too, the amount of locals you go to span all different kinds of environments but still manages to feel like it's in the same game. And the story, even with all it's similarities to the last one, doesn't get bogged down at any point, in fact it was a little short. Add in some stellar cinematics, and a decent supporting cast, RE series vet Chris Redfield is your leading man in this one and you got all the proponents of that winning formula. This is not a revolution in AI in anyway, and u might get déjà vu a few times, but if this is truly the last game in this branch of the RE franchise, they went out with a bang! Play this game folks, but save yourself a lot of frustration and play it with a friend.

Oh Ensemble, you just made Peanut Butter Cups!

It's been awhile my friends and it's not that I don't love you all but I've had a busy busy few weeks! One thing i did get to do while I was away from the blogosphere was play Halo Wars, and despi trepion and legitimate and well placed apprehension, I found it to be a great blending of two storied franchises. Halo Wars comes to us from the good folks at Ensemble Studios, and is a RTS set in the now storied Halo Universe . While this wasn't the next Halo game I planned on playing (I'm really looking forward to that ODST game) but I was pleasantly surprised and actually happy with the game. Ensemble is the folks that brought us the incredible age of empire series, and they have very successfully pasted the Halo universe over their perfected RTS build.

Technically the stars of this game are Captain James Cutter, Sergeant John Forge and Professor Ellen Anders because they are the crew and hero of the forces you command but really the true stars of this game are the Spartans. In the ever expanding time line of the Halo universe, this game falls under that time slot before the destruction of most of the Spartan (the last of who is the Hero of the Halo series' Master Chief). They make an appearance 4 levels into the game and completely up the fun level of the game.

The story is, the aforementioned "main characters" are sent to investigate Covenant activity, and this, as in all Halo stories leads to a huge military campaign between the Covenant and the UNSC. Through battling on different planets, and gaining new forces throughout, as per the RTS make, they eventually coming into contact with the parasitic Flood (again a staple of the Halo Stories) and are forced to take an amazingly drastic suicidal step to containing the Flood and defeating the Covenant (if only for a little while). All this is nothing new to a Halo Vet, but this style of play may not be something most of the Halo crowd might not be familiar with. That being said, the control scheme is overwhelmingly intuitive and makes for a very enjoyable game. This isn't a port folks this game is tailor made to the XBOX 360 controller and it shines in this way.

The micromanagement of most RTS' has been placated, so those who come here looking for a hardcore experience will have to up the difficulty to get their monies worth, but for the casual gamer this is a great segue from either RTS to Halo or the other way around. I, being a fan of both, find this a great meshing of not only the two series, but the two genres. This is a good game, the online mode is as difficult as any other RTS because there are always gonna be kids as with any game, that spend an amazing amount of time getting good at this game, and I'd wait until this eventually gets ported to PC for lan style play, but overall it's a definite play. Maybe not a buy, depending on how you feel about RTS' but rent this, get a feel for it, and send me your gamertag :).

Thanks for reading folks and as always Be safe!

TO ALL OF YOU NOT READING THESE :)

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating this thing as much as i should be, but with Spring Break last week and trying to catch up this week I haven't really been able to do any interneting. So I beat Halo Wars and i'll have a review up very soon but if you wanted a quick review, if you like Age of Empires and Halo and thought hey maybe that come that did the first should RTS the later, well this is your game. Meanwhile

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Enjoy the Evolution of the Bat symbol brought to you by College Humor.

Been gone for a while!

Here's something i painted for my brother based on a lenil yu page . I'll try and get a better resolution picture of this thing up one of these days!


This is a shot from the Upcoming CG adaptaion of the GOON from Geek Tyrant. Looks beautiful and the source material is good.

Thor and Iron Man 2 Updates!

So according to the The Latino Review we might have a face for Thor. In a short email sent to El Mayimbe of LR this guy was said be seen at lunch with Kenneth Branagh. Here's a link to the full story.
In other new, and this is barely news, some guy shouted Iron Man 2 at Mickey Rourke to which he replied hell yeah. Whether or not this means anything is still up in the air but I'm going to go ahead and hope out loud that this means he's back in contract talks for Iron Man 2!

The Watchmen have been watched...

But is the world going to keep watching it? For those of you looking for the next Dark Knight, you're gonna have to keep that search going because this isn't the Dark Knight. It's 3:40 in the A.M. and I'm waking up in 4 hours to drive to Alabama so I don't have time for a full review so here it is in a nutshell. Watchmen was good not great. Not for every casual movie goer, and tough on fanboys. The ending was handled as well as it could have been, but Silk Specter and Ozymandias were weak. Rorschach was amazing! There you have it, more when I get a chance.

New Legends of Comedy

Coming to you from me, Via Film School Rejects, from Vanity Fair. Yeah that's Jonah Hill. Enjoy!
Check it out here!

Ash Captured Pikachu

Here's another one. This one may not be the final but I think it's pretty cool!

Donkey Kong is here!

Just a little something I'm working on. First of a set.

And it continues!

Jack Black on the show that brought you the Dancing Hat. He's quoted as saying ”Hopefully, it won’t be too scary for the kids. But you know, Charlize Theron wasn’t looking her best in Monster and it won her the Oscar. This episode is my Monster, basically.” Man you just gotta love the Aquabats for finding new way to be awesome all around.

You can dance like DJ Lance!

I'm really glad that we missed out on this fad as children, because I know a few friends that would have had this hat, and because of that, we wouldn't be friends anymore.

New Wii Controller

Hmm?? Maybe good for re-invigorating Smash on the Wii (and game cube) but I'm still just waiting for the Wii motion+. Also a non Star Wars George Lucas Movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. I'll hold my assumptions till I hear more about it.

Terrible Opinions

I know that the title of this blog post in unfair right from the begining but there is just something in this article that i just can't agree with. The writer goes on to list terrible movie sequels and while this list is mostly agreeable, the writer plugs Clerk II in a list with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde and Speed 2: Cruise Control. I think this is wholly unfair, because the styles of these movies couldn't be any different. One was an independent film, shot in black and white and completely observational. The sequel is a viable progression, both in film making and writing for Kevin Smith. Saying Clerks II is bad is saying that every other Kevin Smith movie (save for the original) is bad, and that seems like it's coming from a disenfranchised fan boy rather than an unbiased film critic.

I watch the Watchmen

Big old lol to this one. I super stoked on the Watchmen, and i'm not gonna get sucked into all this internet hating! I already preordered my Ticket for the midnight screening here in gainesville, and even if i don't get to put a largely comprehensive review of it up, you'll atleast see a smiley face of a thumbs down!

Also look like the Adam McKay comedy train is gonna keep rolling with an A team spoof staring, who else, Will Ferrel and Mark Whalberg. Here's hoping it's over the top silly, full or ridiculous action, and packed with a bevy of returning cameos from the Mckay/Apatow roster.

ULTRA COMBO FINISH!!

Well, me and the boys finally unlocked all the characters in the the new Street Fighter. Let me start off by saying that Seth, the final boss in this incarnation, is probably the cheapest and most irritating boss in any fighter. His move set is an amalgamation of all the signature moves of your SF favorites (Ryu, Guile, Dhalsim ect.) and each move fills in a void that the original characters had because of their special moves. But not only is Seth cheap, the AI in this game is irrevocably brutal. Spawning special attacks, repeating the same moves, back to back to back throws; pretty much everything frustrating about playing real people has been programmed into your computer opponents and multiplied by 5. This game is hard folks, this isn't as pick up and play as Soul Calibur, or Tekken. The game is balanced out by a good tutorial mode though so whether your reworking your favorite classic combos, or trying out a Sonic Boom for the first time, you're catered to. While the roster is smaller than recent fan serving SF titles, the cast is robust and well balanced. The new comers are Abel the amnesic Frenchmen, C. Viper (C stands for Crimson, but after playing against her you might think of a better word), Rufus the rotund American powerhouse, and El Fuerte Mexico's E. Honda, none of which thankfully are Ryu clones. The 3-D as 2D aspect comes across perfectly, and for those of you who might have been afraid of the dimensional change need not worry, this is still street fighter. It might not be as fast as any of the alpha series, or over the top intense like the crossovers, but it is truly a throw back to SF2 and i think old school fans will appreciate it. The new online mode is pretty seamless (as long as you playing someone within your own country) and will humble many who think their SF champs because they can beat their friends, and with two costume packs out already, and rumblings of down loadable characters in the future, SF look like it's back to the top of the fighting world. A definite buy for fighting fans and people who enjoy multiplayer festivities.

First Post

Thats about it this is the first one, do most of mine of Facebook, but whatever, i'll just cut/paste to here in the future!