Ninja Assassin-ation? Assassin-nation?

WHOA! RADICAL!

HEY LOOK AT THAT! WOW!

90 minutes later, what the hell did I just watch?

Ninja Assassin is about a ninja assassin who leaves his training grounds and kills political leaders, apparently against the wishes of his ninja clan? But then the kgb is onto his trail? lead by a investigative journalist, paid by the kgb? Who ends up helping the ninja assassin? The ninja assassin and the kgb/investigative journalist's journalist partner join up to escape the ninja clan and the kgb people, except the kgb people and the ninja clan start to fight, and they all avoid the ninja assassin, even though they were originally hunting them down?

Read whatever spoiler/review/whatever you call it on the movie, above is literally what happens, and it doesn't make a bit of sense. Basically, its' 90 minutes of action and arms being cut off, and ninja moves, and blood and more blood, and more arms off, and then some blood.

The plot is confusing, the music is orchestrated until the end with the standard rock credit music, the visual effects are apparently amazing on a blu-ray player and a plasma tv, however on the mac's 13inch it seems pretty par.

Buy? no. Rent? Nah. Watch if friends are watching it? Nope, get new friends.

It's not that it's a horrible movie, it just didn't make much sense, didn't say much, and was dark most of the time, so even then it didn't look that cool. meh.

Xbox 360's Metro 2033

I gotta start making these shorter.

METRO 2033, the last of a dying PC shooter.

on an xbox.... ok shut it.

Remember games like System Shock, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Dark Forces, Crysis, Far Cry 1, Half-Life 1, Deus Ex 1, A vs P, you know... when Medal of Honor was kicking the shit out of Call of Duty, which was just a boring WW2 sim game? Remember those times?

Single Player First Person Shooters, amazing storyline, and fuck no, we don't have multiplay, get out.

Just a solid shooter, with a solid system, some inventive elements, and a great story?

Yeah, those are dead, and COD:MW is the retort.

Fallout 3 was boring, Oblivion was a system hog and too long, Far Cry 2 was too big, Bioshock 1 needed multiplay, Borderlands was too short and F.E.A.R. was too linear: according to the modern fps fan.

Well, COD fans be damned, you're just a passing Halo fad anyway. I'm talking about the games that they made knowing full well there wouldn't be a deathmatch mode, no CTF mode, what was happening to Team Fortress when Blue Shift was coming out, solid single player games.

Metro is probably going to be one of the last of it's kind. But if that's to be true, Metro does it in style.

Lemme preface, if you love Halo and COD:MW and don't know what System Shock or Deus Ex was, just leave now.

Metro takes that long missing concept of the single player shooter, and does it up in spades. An excellent original (dear god what a concept) storyline, a creative, but not hindering control and inventory system, and an excellent combat system make Metro such a great game, but it appeals to such a dying breed.

There, no more soapbox, onto the game.

You are a Russian, living in a metro station, after a huge war, think Fallout but.... everyone survived by hiding, like EVERYONE. The surface world is filled with toxic gas, and monsters that invade the metro ever so often.

Blah blah blah, the story is good, but this ain't no book club.

First of all, inventive features of the game. Lighting plays a pivotal role, you can't see in the dark, but neither can your enemies, so shooting out a light has an obvious effect to the world around you. You don't have money, you use bullets as currency, bullets you shoot..... hmmmm.... there are nice military grade bullets, which are essentially worth more and shoot much better and do more damage, and there are dirty bullets, worth less work less but are more common.

You don't have a hud, well.... you can... but the idea is to count your own damn bullets, because... you have to manage a gas mask too. You only have so many filters and they only last so long, as indicated by your watch. When you start to have a hard time breathing, or your watch's second hand starts to get closer to the empty side, you have to switch filters or... find some clean air, not as easy as it sounds. Especially considering a filter costs about 10 clean bullets.

So basically I was fighting on the surface of Russia, with a gasmask, having to manage my air, kill these monsters, count my bullets and find cover. Oh, did i mention your flashlight has a battery charger you have to charge by pulling the trigger button, only you can't do much else while you charge your flashlight. However you need your flashlight to scare off the spirits of those who have died.

phew, amazing game, great original concepts, if it was released 10 years ago it would have won game of the year 10 times over, easily. Alas, it stands as a dying memory of a great generation of games that have fallen to the wayside.

Rent or Buy? For me, this will probably never leave the shelf, due to what it represents. For most those, it's an excellent weeklong journey into a great game, but you'll have to let it go once you experience it, times changing and all that crap.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey DS

I have a love/hate relationship with the SMT series, and Atlus as a whole.

Here's my problem, they make RPGs, really good rpgs, usually jrpgs. But... they're usually really hard. Devil Survivor....basically impossible unless you grind the tutorial level. Persona 3.... 200 levels? A 200 lvl dungeon? Do you hate level progression?

So when they came out with their first SMT DS game (they've made many many Atlus games on DS, just never the SMT series), which was Devil Survivor, it was met with a strong appeal from the audience... but it ...was so damn hard. Most people attempted it, but gave up due to the unforgiving battle system.

Think of a tactics game, like Disgaea or FF: Tactics, but when you go to battle it switches into a first person view, SMT style. You have demons who can join your team, that act basically like pokemon, expect they're basically useless unless you combine them with other demons.

Ok ok, now we have the idea.

SMT:SJ was made as a sort of apology to that. They got rid of the tactics board, opting for a more compatible random-encounter system, they removed the need for demons, although they help a ton, and they added numerous systems to make the game easier.

The demon who encounters you seems too tough? You can run away, you can talk to it and try to bribe it using HP, PP, or items, or you can just buy it to join your group.

This leads to a different kind of problem, sever under-leveling but a quick story progression. Sure there are bosses, and you can avoid all random encounters until the boss, but you'll be very outgunned.

The game plays in a first-person mode, it feels very similar to a Heros of Might and Magic style, the demon management system is basically the same as your own character management. The maps are huge, the music is good, the storyline is bizarre but interesting (I won't go into the details, basically a blackhole eating Antarctica).

Pretty much if you love rpgs, and want something other than pokemon, or you love the first person rpgs from the old pc days, or you've understood anything I said in this review, and you own a DS, this game might be one to try, since let's face it.... RPGs are the only reason you own a DS, that and Mario Kart.... and Scribblenauts.... and Super Mario 64..... and New Super Mario Bros.... and Chrono Trigger.... ok yeah

Xbox 360's Bayonetta

"If you combine Bayonetta, Darksiders, and Dante's Inferno, essentially you'll get a good game on the Xbox"

direct quote to a customer. And totally true.

I love Bayonetta, I love the style, I love the art, the controls, the music is great (think DDR inspired RatPack hits), the storyline once I understood it, everything felt great.

And....felt familiar. Basically, if Darksiders is God Of War, Bayonetta is essentially Devil May Cry. You have orbs you collect, items you can use ingame, trophies you can win, and weapon sets you can use. No, you know what, it IS Devil May Cry, just with a female lead and a nice facelift.

not that there's anything wrong with that! Just that... it's good.... but....

Basic storyline, Bayonetta is a witch, who kills angels, but she's got amnesia, so she tries to figure out who she is the entire story, which is kinda a neat angle.

One button is kick, one is punch, one is jump. Or one is pistols, one is sword, and one is jump, or one is shotgun, one is... you get the idea.

The levels are nicely divided, each one taking roughly 30 minutes to get through, with a nice range of level differences.

It's not that there is anything wrong with the game, essentially if you play the demo, imagine that over the course of about 8 hours, and you have Bayonetta.

Remember, this game came out at such an odd time that Darksiders, Dante's and Bayonetta were all seen as just smaller shorter versions of something looming on the horizon, needless to say that horizon was a sony sunset, wah wah.

If you like any of the games I've mentioned, you'll like Bayonetta, but rent it, play it until you get tired of the same old, kick punch finisher move, trophy, end of level, repeat. That's essentially what their intention was. Good game, just not a shelf-keeper.

Recently in the gaming world..

Oh how the months...well month.... has passed.

Allow me to elaborate. Microsoft was nice enough to backwards-compat their warranties to cover any system made within the last 3 years. So if you got a red ring, and it was made between about march 2007 and oh how's about now-ish, your system will be covered.

Sweet deals. However....my system has a manuf date of 2008, early 2008, which basically means it's getting closer and closer to its final resting time. Believe it or not kids, gaming systems that use a disc drive have a shelf life, since they use a laser, and technically speaking all lasers don't last forever, just ask any laser expert.

Cartridges however, can never die, since essentially you're hard-lining your game into the system, what with the carbon boards and 1.21 gigawatts and the such.

Bringing us to our topic of the day.

My Xbox, she is dying.

Rest assured however, this coming tuesday, the 13th of all days, is when Splinter Cell: Conviction, a highly anticipated (see: 4 years) game will be released. As what's quickly becoming the standard for microsoft, they will be releasing a special xbox system along with it.

As they've done only a few times before.....

Resident Evil 5, Halo 3, COD:MW2, Final Fantasy 13, Forza, Lego Indy and Kung Fu Panda, 300, Facebook, Gears of War and Splinter Cell

only a few times.

However, with a combination of some sweet deals, and the reason I work at a game store, I'm essentially getting the new system for my old system and a song.

HERE'S WHATS COMING UP.

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Alan Wake

Red Dead Redemption

UFC 2010.

When I get my system tuesday I'll be sure to post some fancy pictures, until then feel free to browse the blog reviews I've been meaning to post!

Game On?? Yeah