Friday, June 24, 2005

Updates...

Well since it's summer, and most of my "What I'm watching" list was out of date. I've updated the side panel for a more current reflection.

The dead are alive, er.. yeah.

Well I watched Land of the Dead this morning, and I must say that is one excellent zombie flick. I would rank the Romero dead movies like this Dawn, Night, Land, followed by Day. Land just can't come before Night, but they could be really close, maybe a tie for second favorite (I'll have to watch Land again, and see if it holds up to repeat viewings). Of course this doesn't include any of the remakes, or similar premise movies like Return of the Living Dead series, 28 Days Later, Zombie, etc.

It had some good gore moments, although like Dawn of the Dead there were more than a couple laugh out loud times too. That might be why I enjoy most of the Return movies also, you get a great dose of horror, but they still manage to provide some comic relief. :P

Speaking of good gore I heard that High Tension (U.S. name of the french film Haute Tension) has some really gory bits. I just couldn't bring myself to watch the half dubbed/cut version that Lions Gate shoveled out, so I picked up the uncut french version (Switchblade Romance the U.K. name of the same french film?!) dvd. So I'm looking forward to watching it at some point.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Betas, demos, games, and movies...

Well I was accepted as a beta tester for GameTap. It's a broadband entertainment network, kinda reminds me of Phantom console that was supposed to come out but without the hardware. You use your PC to connect to an area of playable games, download content, and more. I guess they had a booth at E3 that somehow I missed, I do remember seeing people with GameTap shirts, but didn't see anything else.

Picked up Destroy All Humans! this weekend, finally got around to playing it yesterday and must say it's a lot of fun. You have missions to accomplish in each area, but then you can go back and roam around finding hidden objects, complete objective points, or just run around probing everything in sight. :) It's kinda like GTA, except set in the 1950's, with little grey men. The starting area is pretty big, but I guess by the time you get to the third area the map is huge. I can say this is one game where the demo sold me, I really enjoyed it, and the actual game is just as good.

Speaking of demos, I did finally download Battlefield 2 but have yet to install it and try it out. I also got in on the F.E.A.R. beta (which I guess is public now, so not really much of a feat) downloaded it over the weekend too. I need to clear off some room on my PC to try out all this stuff.

I also finally got around to playing the Darkwatch demo (XBOX) that was on the Official Xbox Magazine coverdisc a while back. It was a "expired" demo that got put on the disc, and finally found that you have to change your Xbox system date to play it (and unplug your LIVE connection if you have one!?). It's a Western themed FPS where you play a vampire looking to kill a few dead/demons. At points during the demo you can make a choice, either to do something evil or good which seems to have a impact on your special abilities, and it also features targetable areas so you can shoot off both arms, a head, etc.

I finally looking forward to some of the summer movie releases, this week Land of the Dead comes out, and next week is War of the Worlds, both of which look good. Now if I can come up with some time to watch them...

Thursday, June 09, 2005

DS Blues... Handheld burnout?

Well the Electric Blue Nintendo DS finally came out yesterday, and I will admit it looks pretty cool. I was never a big fan of the silver DS (or any of Nintendo's Platinum releases), but looking around on the net this morning I run across another new color (see below). Unfortunately this is another Japan release (which brings them up to 9 variations? Original, Charcoal, Turquoise, White, Pink, 2 limited edition Pokemon, Pepsi contest Blue, and now Red. Now to be fair 3 of these are limited versions, but still where's the love for the US?

Of course I would almost be just as happy with some more game releases. There were a couple of good weeks there, but I've played the E3/Japanese demos more than any game I own in the past month. Which since I bring it up I will say I really enjoyed Meteos, Trauma Center, and the Submarine tech demo was neat. I still do not understand Elektroplankten its more of a music maker than a game, just not my thing.

My Daughter got a DS for her birthday and really likes pocket Urbz. She wants Wario Ware, and is looking forward to Animal Crossing, and Nintendogs. That's where I'm at too looking forward to games on the horizon. I just haven't had much urge to play anything handheld (DS, PSP) for a while. I have been playing a bit of Guild Wars on the PC (kind of like an updated version of Diablo II in a more MMORPG setting), and also went back and dusted off Half-Life 2. The next console game I'm really looking at is Destroy All Humans, I've played the heck out of the official Xbox Magazine demo, and can't wait for the release.

Almost forgot the Red DS :)
Awesome (Japanese) Red DS

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Life after E3, NDS demos...

Wow, missed the update last friday. Wasn't much to say I was "recouping" from E3 (like when you need a vacation from your vacation?). 8+ hours for 3 days straight, and it almost seems like a job. Got my mouse that I won at E3 hooked up (MX518) haven't put it through any FPS action yet, but it works great on everyday tasks. It's so nice to have browser forward/back buttons on the mouse again, I just need to get back in the habit of using them.

Well I found out last weekend that someone had "ripped" the Nintendo DS E3 demos and made them available. On top of that there is a program called WiFiMe that is a wireless multiboot application, meaning that with the proper wireless card you can send streams from your PC to the NDS. What this all boils down to is you turn on your DS and select DS Download Play it searches for the "beacon", and then using the WiFi you can download the demos to your unit. They stay in memory until you power off your unit, so you can put the DS in sleep mode and keep it alive. I read some post where people had slept thier DS's since E3, and still were playing the last thing they downloaded. I'll post some more today when I have a chance.