NETFLIX INSTANT REVIEWS: STAR TREK SEASON 1

So you have Netflix account and you haven't bothered to check out what's on the "watch instantly" on your PC, MAC, LAPTOP or XBOX 360?

No worries, since I cut the cable I've been watching my fair share of instant choices and figured I should share it with my people on this silly little site.

Here's one of my favorites.

STAR TREK: The original series. Season one.
29 episodes of classic trek featuring Kirk, Spock and the crew with CGI smoothly integrated into scenes that helps the series transition from dated to classic.

Some of my favorites episodes The Menagerie, Space Seed, The Enemy Within & City on the Edge of Forever.


Add it to your instant queue, cause you never know when Kirk, Spock, Bones and the ensign in the red shirt have to save your ass from boredom while you wait for that disc to arrive via snail mail.

ANOTHER REASON TO GET A PS3: UNCHARTED 2!

The first game was an awesome gaming experience with characters and stories befitting the best Hollywood treasure hunting films.

But could Naughty dog do it again?

The reviews are in and I believe it's unanimous, uncharted 2 does it better than before as if it where possible.

Here's one review I wanted to share, normally I don't embed X-play reviews (I hate the hosts) but they managed to get some kick ass video clips of the game in action.

Video Games - E3 2009 - X-Play

SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4 : T.HAWK & JURI TGS FOOTAGE

Many Bothan spies died getting this footage....

SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4 IS COMING!

courtesy of IPLAYWINNER.com

Both screenshots include the rumored T. Hawk and Juri, so we can assume the rest of the leaked roster is also going to show up in the game as well. There seemes to be some minor modificaitons to the HUD but overall looks very similar to Street Fighter IV's HUD, so we will have to wait to get more concrete information on the new system changes. Also, note that both stages are from Street Fighter 4, so hopefully we will get information on any new stages included in the game as well.

more info as it develops!

WHO WATCHES THE SACKBOY?

Alan Moore's gonna love this!

( I know I do )

DEAD RISING 2: TGS FOOTAGE

Did Resident Evil 5 leaving you craving for more zombie? Well fear not sickos cause CAPCOM has answered your prayers.

here's a couple of clips of Dead Rising 2, a Survival horror game with a tongue and cheek, Zombieland feel.

How so you ask?

tape a pitchfork to a shotgun for some zombie wasting fun!




Or just whack em with a wheelchair

What could have been......

Here's an costume test image from the aborted Tim Burton Superman reboot that never happened, just more proof that there is a God.

( Thank you white Jesus for shielding our eyes us from this evil for so long )

BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM: REVIEW

By John B.


What is Batman: Arkham Asylum? One of the best super hero experiences ever to grace a gaming console.

I've been reading comics longer than I've been playing quality console games and because of my love of comics I'm extra critical when the gaming industry attempts to deliver the energy and excitement of comics in game form. And with good reason, the last Batman game ( BATMAN BEGINS ) was just a shallow attempt to cash in quickly on a movie license.

Even the much lauded Spider-man games on PS2 fell flat in my opinion. The first game didn't allow spidey to climb, swing, jump or take the stairs down to the sidewalk, condemning Peter Parker to solitary confinement in an endless sea of rooftops.

The second was a repetitive hodgepodge of 5 missions in a beautifully recreated Manhattan occupied by 10 people.

( I do have to mention that the Ultimate spiderman game on the Xbox was awesome & the rare exception but by them most people game up on Spider-man games )

BATMAN: Arkham Asylum manages to do everything right.

A story by Paul Dini who has been spinning excellent Batman v. Joker yarns for almost 20 years ( who to me is right up there with the likes Denny O'Neill and Chuck Dixon ) .

Characters that look like they jumped out of the page and came to life ( You can see influences from all the great Batman artists )

Gameplay that takes what seems like a limited locale and manages to keep things fresh thanks to riddles by Edward Nigma, great pacing of action vs story and a nice variety of enemies that have complete control of the Asylum that means that they come at you from all sides.

In my honest opinion, anyone calling themselves a fan of good gaming and comics needs to go out and pick up INFAMOUS on the PS3 ( which in my opinion is hands down the reigning king of the "superhero" game.) Then go out play Batman which it a very close second.

INFAMOUS is done in the vein of Grand theft Auto, Sly Cooper and BATMAN:AA borrows from Assassins creed, Resident evil & Splinter cell formula. Both games improving on their predecessors by leaps and bounds.

For those of you on the XBOX 360 BATMAN is your only choice ...how sad (PS3 also has the JOKER as a playable character!)

here's a quick clip, enjoy.

(and yes it's all real gameplay footage)

Batman: Arkham Asylum 'Invisible Predator' trailer HD

IRONMAN 2 TEASER

Here you go, the quality is shit but it's all we have until an official release


enjoy

DAVEDEVIL: The last Five years in Nine panels

Courtesy of Comiccritics.com

This is for the Daredevil fans who no longer buy comics and would like to know what they're favorite characters been up to for the last five years.

click to enlarge

SOUL OF CHOGOKIN: COMBATTRA V GX-50

A completely re-designed Combattra ( Combattler V ) stands at about 12" and transforms into the 5 team vehicles Flies in this December for about $205 USD.


A little pricey but worth it if you have $200 burning a hole in your pocket.

SF4: KEN vs GOUKEN ( Brooklyn NY Tourney 8/30/09 )

Yipes (Ken) vs Sanford (Gouken) Battlefield Arcadia Tourney #3 8-30-09 Brooklyn, NY


One of the better Gouken players using him in tournament play against an established Ken user. A good match-up best 2 out of 3 games ( 3 rounds each game)

enjoy.

( and don't mind the annoying commentary )

IL*2 Stromovich: Birds of prey PS3 & 360

I've been playing the IL*2 Demo for about a day now and if you have a the slightest need to dogfight over a WW2 theater of war, this is your game.

I advise people to download the demo and give a go ( the demo on the PS3 has 3 full missions to tackle and 2 difficulty levels each to unlock! )

if your still on the fence, just wait for a used copy. I can see how younger gamers ( the Halo, ADD, quick fix generation ) will probably trade this game in quickly for something a little more flashy.

here's a video review from 1up.com to give a taste of whats in the box.

Video Games | IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey | Review

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

GIVE COLE A CHANCE!....GIVE COLE A CHANCE!

For my PS3 owning readers, if you enjoyed the BATMAN : Arhkam Asylum game and you're looking for you next super hero / villain fix, do yourself a favor and pick up infamous, A PS3 exclusive that kind of lost it's way due to a similar yet substandard game that was released at around the same time ( prototype ).

Here's what INFAMOUS has to offer:

• A fully interactive city ( with four Boroughs )with traffic, villains and a mob of people that will either cheer you on as you do good deeds or pelt you with rocks when you act like a prick.

• An intriguing story worthy of the big Three comic publishers.

• A plethora of custom Good / Evil powers to unlock.

• A wide variety of villains in many shapes & sizes with a variety of abilities to counter your own that actually learn to anticipate your moves and never fall in the category of bland or monotonous.

• Unrestricted missions that allow you do whatever it takes to complete them even if it means wounding innocent bystanders or blowing up a row of cars in traffic.

• You're actions, for good of evil, affect the story in a completely different ways which ultimately determines your powers, relationships and missions. ( also drastically changes what ending you get.)

If your jonesing for a good game and not sure what to pick up give INFAMOUS a shot, still not sold?

here's a clip:

Assasins Creed 2 : gameplay footage

The first Assassins Creed game was a blast to play, there was something about sneaking up and stabbing poor unsuspecting people that really made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

As always there were a couple of silly gameplay "flaws" for lack of a better term that made no sense for me, Like Altair not being able to swim ( he's a freaking assassin, swimming should be a mandatory class in assassin school ) and the pick pocket missions ( just kill the fucker and take whatever you're after, your an Assassin! )

Now Assassin Creed 2 looks to seriously improve on the originals formula, weapons, locals. I'll reserve my final seal of approval after I play the demo ( unless Ubisoft Montreal wants to send me a demo now accompanied by producer Jade Raymond, I would be more than happy to give it to her..I mean it a review)

SUPERMAN / BATMAN : PUBLIC ENEMIES OVA

If you haven't read the collected trade that this Direct to Video release is based on I'll give you the quick rundown.

Lex Luthor has just been elected president of these United States, his first order of business? To blame the man of steel for a Kryptonite rock the size of the moon ( or so I remember ) somewhere along the line, Clark turns to Batman for help, Batman becomes a wanted man as well, a 500 Million dollar bounty gets both Heroes and Villains chasing after the wanted duo ending in a knock down, drag out fight with everyone!

pure comic book popcorn fair that I would love to check out ( netflix link: SUPES / BATS )

Coming Sept. 29th

it looks faithful to the book, they even adopted artist Ed McGuinnuss style of a bulkier Superman which takes a little getting used to but I've seen worse.

Here's a clip:

"ALIEN" Fish Parasite found in UK

As if going to the beach wasn't scary enough!

here's the article courtesy of DISCOVERYON

A rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself has been found off the Jersey coast.

Fishermen near the Minquiers - islands under the jurisdiction of Jersey - found the isopod, a type of louse, inside a weaver fish.

Marine researcher Paul Chambers, from the Société Jersiaise, was one of the fishing party and identified the find.

He said he was surprised to find the isopod away from the Mediterranean sea.

Isopods are normally about 2cm (1in) long and live in fish, surviving on the animal's blood, in warm waters.

'Quite vicious'

Mr Chambers told BBC Jersey: "When we emptied the fish bag out there at the bottom was this incredibly ugly looking isopod.

"Really quite large, really quite hideous - if you turn it over its got dozens of these really sharp, nasty claws underneath and I thought 'that's a bit of a nasty beast'.

"I struggled for weeks to find an identification for this thing until, quite by chance I stumbled across something that looked similar in a Victorian journal.

"Apparently there's not too much ill effect to the fish itself except it's lost its tongue."

Experts at the University of Southampton confirmed that the creature was an isopod and that there had been several sightings of them in Cornwall in 1996.

Mr Chambers added: "It doesn't affect humans other than if you do actually come across a live one and try and pick it up - they are quite vicious, they will deliver a good nip."

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Revisited

Lately been neglecting my fighting games.

One in particular that I've been meaning to get back to is BlazBlue an obscure hot little fighter with HD graphics and a sick combo system that rivals the Marvel Vs Capcom series by Arcsystems works, the same people that brought you the now classic Guilty Gear series.

If you're a fighting game freak like myself, this is definitely one to add to the collection.

Here's a combo video of the V-13, A character I'm comfortable using against people online.

Bon apetite

PS3: DCU online will be subcription FREE!

Courtesy of The Sony insider,

Another reason to get a PS3, Superhero MMO gaming with no monthly subscription fee.

Sony Insider had an opportunity to talk to Wes Yanagi, Senior Producer at Sony Online Entertaintment at Gamescom 2009, go hands on with the game, and came away impressed despite the game still being in pre-alpha. Wes revealed several details on gameplay, character creation, and one big suprise: no subscription fee.

From an interaction perspective, Yanagi stated he wanted it to be more action based in the vein of God of War than World of Warcraft. Character configuration continues to gain detail, but at the same time being true to the world of comics in regards to how abilities are represented. In building your character, you have 3 main areas to customize:

• Power: This defines your character’s main power. Ashram learned mimic skills like Connor Hawke, or telepathy like Saturn Girl?
• Source: This defines the source of your characters powers. Magic based like Captain Marvel or hell based like Jason Blood?
• Movement Power: This defines your primary movement. Prefer to mainline the speed force like Wally West or have fly like Captain Atom?

A few other interesting details from their interview and impressions:

• You have to prove your worth before your recruited by a group (such as the Justice League)
• The ability to map your buttons to a DualShock 3 or to a USB Keyboard
• Open platform servers for cross-compatibility between the PS3 and PC versions

As impressive as no subscription fee’s is, open platform servers is equally as impressive. To be able to play with or against people on either PC or PS3 could create quite an expansive world. Further to play your created character on either a PC or PS3 would be nice when the PS3 is not accessible.

So get ready to jump right in the thick of the Rann / Thanagarian war as the newest member of the Sinsetro Corps next year for free.

STOP GAMESTOP : BOYCOTT

GAMESTOP has done a few shady things over the years that I've happily of overlooked mostly because I'm a lazy bastard that just wants to get his game on quick and on the cheap. But the practice of opening new games and handling the discs and then selling the game as new is bullshit.

I don't know if this is happening in your neck of the woods, but here in New York, this shit is prevalent and getting on my fucking nerves. I know that these fuckers sign out used games to play at home, whats to stop them from playing with the "new" inventory? or selling me a used resurfaced game as "new" just by putting it in a nice shiny brand new case.

I define new the same way most stores do, once the seal is broken I got news for you, it's not new.

So to wrap this rant up, I'll get my new games from J&R or Best Buy or any other reputable game seller that doesn't tamper with the packaging and my used games will come from Ebay ( I'll take my chances) where deals are plenty.

As for Gamestop, you've lost at least one buyer entirely. Good luck when everything goes digital Assholes.

PS3 Hard Drive Upgrade : Success! (Things to know.)

I've completed the operation on my PS3 with less complications than expected. Now we're rocking a 500 gb drive that runs a bit quieter than the OEM 40 gb Drive.

Some things I'd like to share with my fellow PS3 owners:

• I was worried that the drive that I was going to use to back up my PS3 Data ( my PSP with a 4 gb card ) was not big enough I was right. To solve this little problem all I did was erase the GAME DATA from the PS3 ( this is the data that is stored on the PS3 hard drive from the game disk to help minimize load times during gameplay NOT THE GAME SAVES) this takes up anywhere between 1 gb to 8 gb per game.

• With the Game Data removed my back up went from 30 gb to 688 mb and I keep all of my game saves, files, pics wallpapers intact.

• Another great thing to know is that once you slap the new hard drive in and turn the system on, the internal PS3 memory retains your user ID even before you restore the data that you backed up! My user name, password and network settings where right there from the get go, if the back up failed for whatever reason, all I had to do was go to the PS store and download the software I had purchased and start my games over from the beginning ( thankfully that's not the case ) pretty nifty.

• I checked all of my save files in each game and everything from my Burnout paradise car collection to the hard to unlock characters in Street fighter 4 and weapons in Resident evil 5 are all still intact. All I have to do is update each game by popping it in once and downloading each game patch ( the downside of erasing the game data )

Good luck to anyone out there willing to DIY your PS3 hard drive upgrade, just remember, the hardest part is picking the right drive, everything else from back up to paying my saved game took me less than 10 minutes.

PS3 Hard Drive Upgrade : Choosing the drive

I've been a happy PS3 owner for over a year now, A good friend sold it to me for a price I could not refuse and I haven't gone back to Microsoft ever since ( the 360 has been relagated as my 2 year daughter's media player ).

The only concern I had was that this Ps3 had a 40Gb hard drive and I eventually would have to upgrade it... and that time is now!

After carefully researching what hard drive to buy ( cnet, user reviews, forums, etc ) I decided to go with the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive ( available on newegg.com for a messily $89.00 w/ free shipping.) a lot of PS3 owners had made the switch and recommended this drive online.

So tonight I'll back up my current drive ( I'll let you know how that turns out ) and we'll see if it works for me or if I just fuck my whole system up ( I've been know to do that from time to time )

Cross your finger and wish me luck.