I've never been a big fan of prequels. While they do offer greater insight into how everything started and expand on the lore of a given series, in the end they are ultimately predictable films.   While Dead Space doesn't change this formula, it instead gets right to the point of the film: violence, violence, swearing and more violence.   While the movie does have a clear and adequate plot that clearly keeps with the Dead Space fiction, its not what kept me engaged since I knew how it would all end. However It's a stable train-track that keeps things moving until you get to the crazy gruesome parts which is what really makes this film worth watching.   The main characters themselves are your typical military, one dimensional balls to the wall personalities. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing since this movie is more about bodies and body parts flying rather than thorough character development.   And once the action starts it never dies down much after that as you are constantly thrown into one blood-lustful fight for survival after the next, which always keeps the tension high.   These intense scenes are a pretty close representation to how freaky these fights are in the actual game as there is always something out to get you around the next corner with an appetite to slaughter. The animation itself is top notch with endless spurts of crimson splatter and deformed bodies transforming into unspeakable abominations that are really the hallmark of what makes the games so awesome.   The ending is actually one of the finer points of the story as it leaves you with an eerie, creepy feeling that the events that just transpired were only the beginning to something truly horrible. In the end, While I can't say that this movie is all the way on par with the games that came before it, if nothing else it is a glimpse into what the Dead Space universe is and how it came to be.   If you've played both the games in the series and are looking for something to appease your appetite until Dead Space 3 arrives then this short, psychotic animation will keep you warm and happy...for now.

3.5/5

For anyone who loves the NBA and hates the Heat, Sunday was the day to watch one of the most glorious victories for the Bulls, particularly when Lebron James and Chris Bosh both failed to score the game winning basket.  These shots were not only the deciding factor of who won and who lost but also which team has the most confidence and ability going into the playoffs next month. Never mind the fact that the Bulls are 8-14 against top six teams while the heat are only 1-9.  What is particularly disturbing is the Heats inability to make crucial last second baskets and to hold big leads when they matter the most.  
While most players would accept their defeat in frustration and vow to correct these unforgivable travesties, the Heat on the other hand continue to fail and with every passing lose. They have become demoralized husks of their former selves as they continue to lose games that they are more than capable of winning.  So in a way it's not too surprising that according to Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra, "a couple of guys" were crying in the locker room after the game.  
While losing four straight games to teams that both mauled(Spurs), bounced back (Magic), shouldn't have won (Knicks) and held strong (Bulls) against this once idolized Heat team, i could understand there being some disappointment.  Hell, even a thrown chair or two or even a dented locker would have sufficed to show their frustration.  But sadly, it seems players need to express them selves in more effeminate ways to be heard. By that I mean sobbing and feeling sorry for yourself, kinda how most people felt when they lost their little league game, or sprained their ankle and couldn't play for the rest of the game.  When your young, crying and whinning was the only way to get people to pay attention to you, to make people feel sorry for you.
It appears that the Heat spent too much time regressing with their favorite happy go lucky sports films with the sad kid becoming a sports star instead of formulating ideas on how to improve their game. 
While the heat do get a break from facing strong opponents this week when they face Portland on Tuesday, they still have to go up against the unstoppable Lakers on Thursday as well the Spurs next Monday, both of which have proved their ability to dominate teams without mercy. Unless the big three can figure out how to stop tripping over themselves game after game, the crying game will only become a soap opera as the regular season slowly comes to a close.

hi

Of course with every year that comes, there always comes more fantastic games, and with every year that lists seems to get bigger and bigger.  While this is great since it gives gamers the chance to pick from a multitude of genres and AAA titles, it also makes it extremely difficult to pick only a couple of these impressive games especially for those of us who are on a tight budget (college is a bitch like that). I guess the obvious question is which games should i pick up that'll offer me an experience unlike any other, while providing a high level of replay ability so that I can enjoy the game again and again even after i've played through it once (or several times, RE5 im looking right at you)  So, what've done is picked the most interesting and most impressive games from this year and compilled them into a small top ten lists that will breifly describe why im interested in these games.  Any feedback or advice on which of these games look the coolest to you would be greatly appreciated as creating this top ten list was hard enough!

While i wasn't a huge fan of the last game due its reptiveness and lack of overall of depth, im surprised to say that this game has me somewhat intrgued. maybe its because of the huge cast superheros and villians that range from instantly recognizable(spiderman, the hulk, captain america, wolverine etc.) to only familiar amongst hardcore fans of the comic books(grim reaper( lady death strike, firestar, etc.)  But i think the thing that has me the most interested in this game is the fact that you can take any two characters and combined their powers to make one awesome badass attack.  For example, you could have storm imbue the thing with an electric force field to make him a walking mass of heavy rock and devestating electricity.  Combine that with the ever popular story from the civil war series and you've got a game that both Comic fans and those only familiar with popular characters will probably find enjoyment in.

The music genre has literally exploded since the first Guitar Hero was released to the masses back in the 2005 and ever since it has spawned not only a huge and extremely series, but has also paved the way for other games in the genre such as the successful and innovative Rock Band and the not so successful Rock Revolution along with several band specific spin offs such as metallica and Aerosmith.  At this point though, most people would think that the music genre could hardly expand any further based the formula of "pick up a plastic instrument and rock out" which is pretty understandable since thats in a nutshell what we've been getting for the past 4 years.  However, DJ Hero looks to at least change some of those perspectives in some small way mainly by the fact that you are no longer playing sweet riffs on a guitar, but are now instead combining two pieces of music into a spliced masterpiece that can only be done with the power of disc scratching.  ok...it sounded a little weird to me too at first, but after seeing the innovative peripheral that comes with the game and mind boggling game play that comes with it I'm convinced that this game has a chance to revolutionize how we play music on our consoles.  Basically, the game follows the same formula of hitting falling gems as they hit the bottom, but after that it all seems pretty different from what your used to.  The controller has three buttons which are basically frets which are used the color coded notes, while the scratching the disc functions fairly similarly to hitting the strum bar. the controller also has what is called a crossfader which is used to adjust the tone and sound of the music, similar to the whammy bar on the guitar.  Finally there is another button which basically activates star after you've gained enough juice to do so.  While this may sound pretty easy to get a grasp of, after watching someone actually play the game, i couldn't even begin to keep up with what the guy was doing on the controller to what was going on the screen.  But then, thats how i felt about guitar hero at first, and look how popular that game became.  Hopefully, Dj Hero can pull off what guitar hero did by offering a new type of music to a new demographic of gamers.

Ok...I know what you must be thinking: another band game that is simply cash in for Harmonix."  While its pretty easy to see why most people would think that after seeing how games like Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Metallica, failed to really change the music genre formula and just simply offered a game that only contained only more songs of the band which it was named after with a basic career mode that failed to capture the imagination.  However, after seeing the little snippets of what Harmonix is doing with the Beatles in their own game, I have to say that I'm fully impressed with what I have seen.  First off this game is pure Beatles, no other bands will be featured, all 45 original tracks will be all songs throughout the Beatles long and successful career from beginning to end.  Now, this may seem like the game could get repetitive quickly, but the fact that Beatles music went through so many changes in its entirety, that literally one track could be completely different from another in almost every way.  Its not like Metallica, while they are a successful and definitely did their own evolving throughout their career, I don't really think there was enough variety in their music to justifying a specific game to them which is why only half of the tracks are from Metallica and the rest are from bands who inspired them which is a appropriate, but when you have a game with Metallica you expect it to be...well, Metallica.  Thats what this offering to its fans, along with an awesome art style really seems to fit the song your playing perfectly especially when your playing "I am the walrus" all of this crazy stuff is happening in the background which doesn't seem to make any sense, but then neither does that song in the first place which is why it works so well.  Not only that, but the career mode is literally a chronicalling of the Beatles entire career from their first moments in the recording studio to playing at huge concerts around the world, its deffnitely an evolution that is by far one of the most awe-inspiring periods ever experienced by a band as popular as the Beatles.  Combine that with the ability to have 3 vocalists singing at once with, person singing the main lyrics, and the other two harmonizing throughout which really seems to recreate who the Beatles rocked out back in their hay day, and also that the Album Abbey Road will be released and playable shortly after the games debut, along with a wealth of other DLC that will become available over the following months, something no Band has been ambitious enough to do until now.  I have no doubt that this game will please both long time Beatles fans, and gamers who just want a different type of music to play on their plethora instruments when this surprisingly in-depth music titles releases in September.

Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a suave, fearless, and intimidating secret agent who knew all the right moves and could extinguish any situation in seconds without even blinking and eye as I took a sip of martini (shaken not stirred).  While may not be able to be that particular type of secret agent to the T, Alpha Protocol seems to at least indulge some parts of that fantasy to some extent, which is something most wannabe James Bonds would be perfectly satisfied with.  What made this game stand out the most to me was that you could customize nearly everything you own, from your clothing, to gear, to weapons, to your safe house, and even your facial hair, all make for the ideal secret agent experience. There is also an interesting dialogue system that really seems to impact how you play the game depending on what you say offering multiple play throughs that will be completely different each time.  On top of that the graphics look absolutely stellar so far and really seem to capture the intensity and sometimes the cheesy romantics moments in the life of a secret agent who you have created from almost the ground up.  While i'll never be able to be the James Bond that I've seen in the movies...i could probably make one in this game that is even better.

Who didn't play the first Modern Warfare? If you didn't then you missed out on one of the best first person shooters to ever to come out on consoles in recent memory.  It combined intense action with a compelling and captivating story which every is known for its dramatic moments that made you feel like you were the man behind the gun fighting in this war.  However, Modern Warfare was known mostly for its unrivaled multiplayer action which is still being enjoyed by millions of gamers today due to its ability to customize your character with hundreds of custom load outs, tons of game modes that are constantly updated, and the ability to fully level up your character multiple times throughout.  Modern Warfare 2 looks to capture all of what made the last game an absolute blast with a longer story that still seems to capture the constant intensity of the last one, more in-depth multiplayer modes and perks to further customize your online character, and of course tons of new guns that have never been seen in a video game before.  There is no doubt in my mind that Modern Warfare 2 can pull this off and more when its released this fall.

Over 1,000,000 guns....I don't know about you but thats more weapons then i think any first person shooter junkie knows how to deal with.  While this incredible, especially by first person shooter standards, its not the only thing that makes this title my most anticipated game of the year.  With that, it has a huge open world, something that has been standard these days in most games, but its different in that all the environments are randomly generated, similar to Diablo 2, so that every time you play through game, you be in the same area twice, no matter how many time you beat it.  On top of that, its got a unique and visually impressive art style, which seems to combine cel-shading with a soft color palette which makes the everything going on around you seem absolute insane and crazy especially when the bullets start flying.  While this game makes an adequate first person shooter all on its own, it is also an fully fleshed out RPG which allows nearly infinite customization over everything between everything you can equip or own which is impressive considering all the different things you can do with all of these weapons at your disposal.  Finally, there is a fully fledged co-op mode which allows up to 4 players to play through the entire story together if they choose, with each of the four character classes having their own abilities and powers which will allow for a more strategic approach instead of going in guns blazing with mentality of every for himself occurring in every encounter.  Simply put, Borderland offers so much to do in its huge and fully realized world thats hard not to get excited about the endless possibilities... and there hasn't been anything much revealed about the story yet!  So, in the end, Borderlands offers seems to offer a little bit everything, from gun customization, to upgrading your powers, to taking on countless enemy types, to finding countless weapon types throughout the massive world, this is simply a game that everyone should be excited for.

There are a ton of great war movies out there that do an unbelievable job at capturing the emotion and intensity of what being under fire was like, such as the critically acclaimed Saving Private Ryan which had one of the most memorable and intense war scenes of any movie I have ever seen, with thousands of men storming the beach on D-Day.  However, while this movie and several others like it do an adequate job of capturing the tragedies of war, very few them are able portray the hilarity and amusement of green soldiers as they progress through weeks of boot camp.  Enter Full Metal Jacket, a film that takes place during the vietnam war, and revolves around several new recruits as they not only get through the hardships of boot camp, but as survive day in and day out during the Vietnam War and learn of the tragedies that have become part of that country ever since the war started.  Now as I said before, this film does have it's moments of hilarity, which usually come within the first part of the film particularly when the drill sergeant (Lee Ermey) comes in from start cursing at and insulting soldiers mainly through sick and twisted jokes which are often times quite original and more often than not will make you laugh out loud.  While most people would think that crazy banter like this would take away from the importance and realism of the film it actually immerses you and draws you in to the experience because it makes you realize what types of torment and pressure these soldiers were under, which makes for a truly interesting dynamic since you hardly even notice this switch between amusement and seriousness because the film transitions between these two emotions so seamlessly.

Now, I am aware that Keanu Reeves is definitely not what you would call acting material. I mean sure Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was great, but in the end it wasn't really a film that most people took to seriously and was ultimately a laid back comedy that only required Keanu to say "whoa dude" every 5 seconds.  However, The Matrix on the other hand requires something a bit more, something with a more desperate tone that is able to believably convey the feelings an confusion of a computer hacker known as Neo who is simply trying to get by with his dead end desk job.  And for the most part, Keanu is able to pull of this character with entertaining results that make for one hell of a film.  Now to be fair, this isn't too hard of role for the average actor to pull off, since in the beginning all you really see is Neo in front of his computer conversing with a person here or there, but really nothing that gives us a hint on who or what Neo really is and what Morpheus, the man who eventually "frees" Neo from the Matrix sees in him.  Really though, the mysterious attitude and calmness that Keanu brings to the character fit this movie almost perfectly because it simply is so different than from any other hero character that you see these days who is pumped full of testosterone and have to have an epic entrance whenever possible.  Neo on the other hand is a modest hero of sorts who is as much confused as he is potentially gifted which ends up making the sequences when Neo triumphs all that much more satisfying