DEMON'S SOULS Will Devour You And Spit Your Bones Out

I've had this PS3 game Demon's Souls for a few months now and am finally getting the hang of it. Its the first rpg dungeon crawler type game I've ever really tried and it really is starting to grow on me. The story in Demon's Souls is simple enough and similar to plenty of other games out there. The kingdom of Boletaria has been overrun with seemingly unstoppable hordes of evil monsters and creatures and it is up to you to single-handedly slay each and every one of them without breaking a sweat in the process. However, this is not just another Dante's Inferno or God of War type hack n' slash button masher(Although I love those types of games just as much as the next guy).

Demon's Souls forces you to really think about each strike and attack. If you don't strategize in combat the game will kill you and keep killing you till you learn what to expect and how to take it down. I know this sounds really frustrating but it is actually one of the game's strongest points. Because of the high difficulty there is a great sense of accomplishment when you finish an area and slay the boss demon. For that briefest of moments you actually feel like you just rid the world of some horrible evil. Then you remember it is just a video game of course and move on.

A few other great aspects of the game are the multiplayer element, the bloodstains, and the message system. As long as you have an internet connection the game is already set up for multiplayer when you start the story mode. You can see other players moving about in ghost-like spirit forms as they play their own games. Every time a player dies they leave a bloodstain that any other player can activate to get a glimpse of that player's last few moments. This sometimes gives you hints of hidden enemies or traps. In addition to this, players can leave messages for other players to read. These can be very helpful at times if you are stuck. You also have the ability to summon other players to join your game. This is a lot of fun and makes for some exciting(and much less frustrating) boss battles when you can team up with a few other players to fight. There is no way to verbally communicate with your teammates but it is by far one of the greatest parts of the gameplay.

Now every time you slay an enemy in Demon's souls you obtain souls. Souls are the currency of the game and can be used to buy items, upgrade items, and level up your character's stats. Tragically though, every time you die you lose all of your souls and are transported back to the Nexus, a staging area beneath Boletaria. This can be very painful especially if you have collected a great amount of souls and then lose them all in an instant. Like other rpg games you decide what type of character you want to be whether that is a soldier, magician, hunter, etc. I started out as the hunter just because he had a bow and a big axe and I thought he looked cool. I then moved onto the soldier who was a little more balanced since he had a nice shield and a long spear. Finally, I started all over again with the magician and I really like him even though I haven't leveled up enough to use the bigger swords and shields yet. I can, however, hurl balls of fire at my enemies with my wand and thats just cool. This game will keep me coming back for quite a while and I have to hand it to the developers for creating an adventure experience unlike any other game I have ever played.

REPOMEN Gives Audience Gory Ride Through Dystopian Future

In the not so distant future you'll be glad to know that you don't have to settle for dying just because you have a faulty organ. You can buy an incredibly expensive, state-of-the-art, artificial organ that will make you as good as new. Unfortunately, if you can't stay on top of your payments for this lifesaving device the company who installed it will be more than happy to repossess it by force. This is the premise for REPOMEN, starring Forrest Whitaker and Jude Law. These two portray the best of the best at what they do. When people fall too far behind on their payments for their artificial organ these guys are sent out to carve it out of their chests in a usually unpleasant and painful-looking fashion. Apparently, a lot of people find it difficult to keep up with the payments so Jude and Forrest are kept pretty busy and do their job with a sense of accomplishment and even enjoyment. However, after an on the job accident, Law's character wakes up in the hospital to find himself fitted with an artificial heart from his own company. He begins to see the clients that he is killing as individuals with families and starts a mission to shut down the company he previously worked for. The film is filled with plenty of blood as Jude removes organs from people and later slices and dices his way through enemies trying to stop him from destroying the company. In the end the viewer is presented with a confusing ending that fails to deliver the redemption I was hoping for.

DATE NIGHT Great Date Night Movie

Steve Carrell and Tina Fey shine brightly in this hilariously ridiculous comedy as a married couple from New Jersey trying to spice up their relationship that has become routine in the midst of juggling work and children. The two portray Phil and Claire Foster, a tax lawyer and a real estate agent, who get caught up in a series of misadventures in New York City, after Phil, in an attempt to get them a table at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, claims they are another couple,the Tripplehorns, who fail to show up for their reservation. Unfortunately, the actual Tripplehorns have stolen a flash drive from mob boss Joe Miletto and Phil and Claire are excorted from the restaurant by a duo of crooked cops who believe they are the Tripplehorns. After being held at gunpoint and luring the cops to a boathouse in Central Park, the Fosters make a daring escape and spend the rest of the evening in an action-packed romp trying to clear their names and not get arrested or killed. In the process they grow closer together and reignite the fire in their marriage. Steve Carell's comedics are genius as always and Tina Fey plays the supportive, overworked mother and wife with very funny results as well. Not to be missed by anyone who wants to laugh for a bit.

The Madness of American Mcgee Returning In An ALICE Sequel

Yes, Electronic Arts(EA) has officially released a teaser trailer for the hugely anticipated, upcoming sequel to American Mcgee's popular PC game, ALICE. The first game presented an older Alice returning to a horribly twisted Wonderland after a family tragedy. Once again, Wonderland needs her help and it looks as if she is going to have to pull out some of her combat skills from her first romp. If it sounds like the recent Tim Burton film don't get confused. The film did share some visual similarities with the game but Alice's character is quite a bit different from Burton's version. The initial screenshots look impressive and subtly remind me of this previous winter's DANTES INFERNO game. EA has announced that the game will be released for the PS3 and XBOX 360 so the game will be accessible to many who may have never played the first one. I remember the first installment fondly and really enjoyed the design as well as the gameplay. ALICE:Madness Returns will definitely remain on my radar.

Immediate's Trailerhead Presents Epic Music At Its Most....Epic

I happened upon a song from this album while listening to Slacker radio in my classroom. After picking up the whole cd I was amazed to find that every song was just as enjoyable and epic as the previous. And I do use the word epic a lot but when I say it here I truly mean epic in every sense of the word. Films like Lord of the Rings and 300 immediately come to mind when I listen to music like this. Your mind instantly pictures historical battles in real or fantasy worlds in which thousands upon thousands of soldiers are clashing in an ultimate battle of good and evil. This is essentially the only album you will ever need if you love epic music and every song features a gothic choir singing in latin. For some reason, this always seems to be a staple element of epic music in general. Prometheus Rising is my personal favorite but, as I mentioned earlier, the entire cd is excellent. I have been looking for music like this for years and will probably not look anymore until the same company comes out with more of this type of music.

Nimrod Antal Does the Predator Justice in PREDATORS

Lets face it. Compared to the first two PREDATOR films neither ALIENS vs. PREDATOR film did the predators much justice at all. The new Predator movie, PREDATORS, starring Adrien Brody, Danny Treho and Laurence Fishburne gives the audience a great action/monster movie experience that feels much more like the earlier films with Schwarzeneggar and Glover. The story is simple enough but works perfectly. A group of humans ranging from the militant to the criminally inclined find themselves stranded on a jungle planet that just happens to be, you guessed it, one big game preserve for predators. As they struggle to survive in the harsh environment the predators pick them off one by one in particularly unpleasant ways. Two new alien species are interestingly introduced and the film brings back a character from the first film in the midst of the carnage. The film was a lot of fun and, although Treho and Fishburne were both more token characters than actual main characters it was still cool to see these actors in the predators' universe. Brody carries his own as the loner hero of sorts throughout. It should be noted that the really cool scene in the trailer showing Brody with a dozen or so laser sights on his chest and face never actually happens in the film. That was apparently just a shameful and totally needless marketing ploy to make people want to see it even more.

Whatever Happened to the Cutscene?

I have fond memories of playing games on my dad's computer as a young boy. Sure, compared to today's graphics they did not look that great and cutscenes were pretty much nonexistant but they were still a lot of fun. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college after my girlfriend(now wife)gets me the playstation one for my birthday. To my astonishment and delight many games now had these incredibly cool, high resolution intros and cutscenes.

The great thing was that you never knew when cutscenes were going to take place. Sometimes there was one when you successfully completed a big level or maybe you would be treated to one right before a big boss fight. All I knew is that they were fun to watch and really added to the gaming experience. Some of my favorite cutscenes I remember were from PSone games like ODDWORLD, HEART OF DARKNESS, and MEDIEVAL. When the PS2 came around most games featured, at the very least, a really nice, full-resolution intro cutscene and, if you were lucky, there were more placed throughout the game. GOD OF WAR 1 and 2 both boasted gorgeous cutscenes that could be played again and again after you played the game.

Now fastforward to present day. The full resolution, highly detailed cutscene still exists. However, we seem to find it less and less in today's typical video game. Because of increasing technology games tend to look better and better. This is not a bad thing. But, because of this, many game developers tend to now use in-game graphics for all of their cutscenes instead of the super detailed, high resolution cutscenes I have come to love so much. Even GOD OF WAR 3, which is still one of the most incredible-looking games I have ever played, traded high-resolution cutscenes for in-game graphics cutscenes.

This is not to say that games need higher-resolution cutscenes to be good games. DEADRISING is still my favorite game and all of the cutscenes were in-game graphics. I can understand that it is probably a lot cheaper for developers to use in-game graphics for their cutscenes rather than pay for the higher-resolution models to be created and animated. To me there is just a deeper richness to the game if the nicer-looking cutscenes are there. So thank you to those of you who still throw in the higher resolution intros and cutscenes. This gamer salutes you.