MADD Is Mad

Now that Grand Theft Auto IV is finally on the market, we can begin to hear outcries from pundits around the country who have not actually played the game. Oh how tasty unadulterated ignorance can be. MADD - the angrily named Mothers Against Drunk Driving - have demanded that GTA IV change its rating to Adults Only. Why? Because you are able to drive drunk in the game.

First of all, it should be noted that driving drunk is a player’s choice. Just like killing cops and prostitutes, it is an act that is allowed but not required to complete the game. Just like people have the choice to drive drunk in real life, a choice that should never be exercised but still exists, gamers have the same choice in a virtual setting. So these mothers are angry that a video game gives people the same choice as real life. Strange.

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Silent Hill: Homecoming–Freakish Nightmare of Joy

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s coming early, with big sacks full of SIlent Hill: Homecoming, the game that makes it easy to love Silent Hill again.

And when you get a look at some of the screenshots on this beauty, you get the immediate sense that this is, indeed, a Silent Hill game. I mean, let’s be honest. Some of the previous games have been a bit…shaky…in that regard. Between the mallrat and the apartment with the lease from hell, Silent Hill games haven’t really, truly, been SILENT HILL games for some time. That’s just me–I personally don’t feel like I’m playing a Silent Hill game unless I can walk down Bachman Street and blow past Midwich Elementary. I want to be in Silent Hill when I’m playing a Silent Hill game.

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This Cake is the Truth

Can you believe something called The Orange Box was one of the best games released in 2007? Even stranger, if you look past the critically adored Half Life 2 and just below the drool-inducing Team Fortress 2, there is a tiny gem that may offer the single greatest experience in all of gaming last year. Portal is candy flavored art.

It’s such a simple game. You are equipped with a portal creating gun. Using only this gun and your (hopefully) powerful mind, you are tasked with traversing a deadly obstacle course in a demented science laboratory. You are a rat in a maze, the reluctant plaything for a crazed computer.

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Monster War!

Have you ever wondered who would win in a fight between Godzilla and King Kong? Of course not, the giant, agile monkey could run circles around that lumbering lizard. But who would win in a fight between generic knock-offs? That is the question War of the Monsters seeks to answer.

This is the direction I would like to see fighting games take–no more plodding, one-on-one battles. I’ve been doing that for 15 years! I want huge environments, destructible buildings and monsters. Lots and lots of monsters.

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Movie Trivia: Fear Itself–Nothing to Fear At All, Really.

This…this is just great news, right here. The single biggest horror bomb on the face of the earth, Fear Itself, has been delayed. Pushed back one week to a premiere date of Thursday, June 5 on NBC, this move shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

I’m on record several times: I think this show is a gargantuan mistake that will hemorrhage cash, frighten small children (only), and bruise fruit. We’re doomed. It rained cheese last night…the Black Squirrel has been seen as far afield as Luton…dogs and cats, living together…real “end of the world” type stuff.

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Movie Trivia: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Roll On

At this point, I’m really rather confused. The Sarah Connor Chronicles, yet another knee-jerk sci-fi show from Fox that’ll be lucky to last three seasons, has been renewed for a second season. By all accounts, the best people can say about this show is that it’s action-packed; reading several reviews has shown that’s the nicest (and most repeated) thing that can be said for it. Meanwhile, detractors are quick to point out the new Terminator’s frequent propensity for wisecracks (did Skynet install a classic action hero mode while we were away?) and relative lack of substance.

Oh, and let’s not forget the season one finale—several audience members are STILL moaning over that train wreck. But let’s be honest. Broadcast TV has been steadily crumbling for years. Aside from a handful of bright spots, most shows that debut on television will be gone in a year or less. I’ve seen some shows that can’t last more than four episodes before getting the axe. Several die after the pilot!

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Movie Trivia: The Grudge 3 May Be Better Than We Feared

Well, kids…bad news coming out our way from Grudge 3 director Toby Wilkins, who gives us a serious bummer. Apparently, early reports that Judd Nelson and William Devane will be involved in Grudge 3 have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, they will have absolutely nothing to do with it.

But there is some good news—Wilkins and company are taking the canon of the Grudge series very, very seriously by the look of it and are picking up almost exactly where the second one left off. Grudge 3, you see, will be about a Japanese woman with the secret to ending Kayako’s two-film reign of terror, and wiping her freaky ghosty self off the face of the earth forever. Thus, she goes to a haunted apartment building in Chicago—EXACTLY where the second one ended!—to finish the job.

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Movie Trivia: The Apple Falls Miles From The Tree

It may come as a surprise to some of you out there that Cameron Romero, son of legendary zombie horror overlord George Romero, is a filmmaker just like his father. Of course, when I say “just like his father” I mean that “he also makes films”. It’s too bad that Cameron’s don’t look to be anywhere near the caliber of his father’s.

His upcoming film, Staunton Hill, features—and stop me if you’ve heard this one—a group of hikers in the 1960s that runs afoul of the evil Staunton family in the hills of Virginia. Okay, you probably should stop me by now, because you’ve heard this one already, haven’t you? I can practically hear your enraged nodding from here as you wonder how—HOW!—a Romero can be so desperate as to do a knockoff of House of 1000 Corpses.

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Grand Theft Auto IV: Day One

Is it possible for a first date to go any worse? After waiting in line for an hour and plopping down a cool $60 to be one of the first to get my hands on the megahit of 2008, I feel obliged to try all this massive game has to offer. So I went on a real date with the very fictional Michelle. I even bought a nice pair of jeans beforehand to make a good impression, American girls seem to put a lot of importance on clothes for some reason. Tight pants was the last of my problems when it was all over, though.

Russians have a pretty cute word for carnival: funfair. You know what you’re getting into there. Instead of just eating food like two normal people meeting each other for the first time, we went to this supposed funfair down by the docks. Doesn’t trouble always spring up there? Turns out, the carnival is closed for renovation - something to look forward to as this sordid tale progresses - but a devastating turn of events on this evening.

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Grabbed by the *blank*!

Grabbed by the Ghoulies had little chance to succeed. It’s probably a bad idea to concoct a title for your future game before you think of, oh, story, characters or gameplay ideas. But that’s exactly what Rare did. They giggled at their dirty minds and threw together a game around that idea. And it bombed. Horribly.

But it could have been so much more. GbtG is genuinely funny and surprisingly addicting. Fighting a hoard of undead creepies with just an analog stick (no buttons for this game), made for a surprisingly deep and satisfying experience.

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