I liked Dance! It's your stage. It has terrible music, but the gameplay was pretty awesome and it's just a question of getting good songs in there and marketing. However, I have grown fond of the extremely corny soundtrack which was actually created specifically for the game by the developers. Given the highly addictive and solid gameplay I see no lack of talent from these developers and I'm pretty sure they went over the top with the corny songs on purpose. As there are no lyrics to be found on the net I'll try and find the songs and transcribe the lyrics. Here's one. I do this because I find them absolutely hilarious. I posted the video below, so that if anyone wants to point out what the lyrics actually are if I'm wrong. Not that I expect anyone to go to those lengths ... !

"Mothers Be Aware"

Verse 1

Rachel is a faithful daughter

only drinking holy water

never misses service in s(t)age 4

to sing Hallelujah!

No one is as nice as Trish is

She's baking bread and does the dishes

made her (armpits?) clean and up the floor

?...................

Chorus

Mother's be aware that your daughter's to prepare

they get ready to leave their lair

Rachel does her hair

sure she's wondering what to wear, it's friday

Tammy's got the blues

she has troubles with her shoes

Mary has decided to pay her dues

I tell you in advance they will party they will dance

it's friday

Verse 2

Tammy is a perfect girl scout

she (plays with pants?), always help out

selling tons of cookies every year

to sing hallelujah!

raising funds for those who need her

going to the couture freeday

mary is a restless volunteer

?......................................

Chorus

Bridge

are you really so naïve?

that you never disbelieve?

do you find yourselves again

and then

soon we'll all get together

chatting over politics and the weather

'cause that's what good girls always do

yeaaaaaaah

Chorus x2

Booth: "i'm an actor from the motion pictures and I don't know the first thing about video games, so why don't you go ahead and ask me about them. Oh, that reminds me, I've been playing these games for ever. Donkey Kong for example, everyone knows this is the prequel to Hitman, even auditioned for it, turns out they didn't need mo cap so when I finally got the chance to do this I did, so here I am, doing a video game. "

Nameless, Faceless, Voiceless, Generic Title Card: "How is mo-capping for video games different from acting in the movies?"

Booth: "It's surreal, there's a camera in front of your face."

Nameless, Faceless, Voiceless, Generic Title Card: "So, Shannon, you're a model and an actress, is that last part still accurate?"

Sossamon: "Yes" (with a feeble gorgeous smile).

Nameless, Faceless, Voiceless, Generic Title Card: "So how is it different from acting in the movies, Shannon?"

Sossamon: "I wish I had bigger boobs, I mean, It's not so different from the movies after all."

Nameless, Faceless, Voiceless, Generic Title Card: Have you ever played video games?

Sossamon: "I plan on playing Hitman 5, which is the name of this game apparently, If Square Enix sends me a copy."

Nameless, Faceless, Voiceless, Generic Title Card: "And now let's watch the cut-scene we've been building up to":

Sossamon's Character: My Jaw hurts. Guess I have to get used to these awkward facial animations they gave me.

Booth's Character: All right, I'm green lighting this project.

Audience: "..."

Tense music builds up to a climactic ...erm, silence. Flashes of Agent 47 are seen as he shoots obscured targets. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Fade To Black.

Hitman Absymal will hit stores in 2012.

Shannon Sossamon and Powers Boothe are in it!

SPOILERS. Here's a few screenshots I took while playing the witcher 2 (High Settings on PC) As far as I can tell these aren't pre-rendered cutscenes and obviously the stuff with the HUD is in-game. This isn't even the highest setting. Also: SPOILERS? I guess. Post your own screenshots of Witcher 2 as well! If someone can run at ULTRA would be awesome to see that :).

My first experience with what quickly became a major franchise is the stuff that makes life enjoyable. It's gripping when you're having fun you didn't expect to have. Assassin's Creed fell under such a category of inexplicable joy. I literally didn't know what it was as I was picking it up from my uncle's living room table and put it in the PS3's disc drive. I was up early and he was still sleeping and suffice it to say that I was still playing when he came back from work late at night, technically the day after. By that time I was playing the final sequence but I went to bed and finished the game right after waking up. Those are moments you could contrive, but this one just happened.

It reminded me of how dramatically different a first experience can be when going in blind. no expectation, no hype, nothing. In this case I was completely in line with what the game was trying to do, truly synchronized. I didn't think for a second about the game's repetitiveness or other flaws and complaints people have talked about. I was completely amazed that I could just climb up any damn building I wanted to, the combat was cool and above all I loved the philosophical ideas proposed in the story. Specifically, the low key conversations between Altair and his victims or his Master. It made me think about my actions, about the people I killed and the dialog was sharp and its themes extremely intriguing.

Fast forward to Assassin's Creed II's announcement. This time not a single video passed me by and the hype built up, this is how these things go. I remember pre-ordering it and being majorly disappointed when it turned out they were just giving the special editions out randomly. I even posted a forum on the site in which I stated that I was "depressed" about this. Had I become so caught up that I actually felt the need to express a feeling I couldn't possibly have felt over such small matters -- on the net like a cheap fanboy? Yes.

Assassin's Creed II came out and sure, it was a great game. The setting had never really been done before in games, it improved a lot of things gameplay wise and the fiction was fantastic, the ending was one of those great LOST-like mind fucks. It didn't have the impact the first game had on me, because how could it really? But I liked where it was going. That all changed when Brotherhood was announced. Most people thought it was a multiplayer focused game with a small half assed campaign implemented on the side, and given the marketing what else were we to think? Turns out there was actually a full on campaign that continued the story, making it an essential must play for fans of the series, but after playing it I still thought it was half assed while so many fans praised it at as the best yet.

I did not like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Everything about it felt stretched, Ironically enough. The new mechanics didn't do much for me and the fiction felt like it had lost the focus it upheld so well in the earlier installments. I had lost faith in the series. I thought to myself they're just milking along as they go, until finally the story will have diverged so far from its initial focus that no one will ever know what the hell was going on in the first place (not unlike LOST either).

Altair's return and Ezio's communication with him Is the kind of high level intrigue I am after so I am immensely excited about Assassin's Creed: Revelations and though bringing the old protagonist back along for the ride is a formula done to death, in this context and with a title like "revelations" it seems promising. This time I'm guiding my expectations the right way and though I wish these games hadn't become so annualized, for doing exactly that they are of an outstanding quality.

So what about that new setting for Assassin's Creed 3, the game we've actually been waiting for? I guess for now Nothing is true, and Everything is permitted.

the following was written 10 months Later...

Having forgotten about this blog post I failed to write a timely follow up to it, in which I would have expressed my thoughts regarding Assassin's Creed: Revelations after beating it. It was such a bland experience that I barely remembered it days after playing it. The story did not do anything significant and the tacked on RTS mechanic (I meaning fucking what?) emphasized the glory years so profusely that I have come to realize that this was probably the first true decline in the series, not Brotherhood.

By now though, several Assassin's Creed III trailers have been released and the game is nearly hitting shelves. I'm sort of passive about the whole thing.

In an economic hub world percentages make up the rules, but when we talk about a 99% percent chance in an attempt to describe our certainty in regards to our world's perception, we start to dabble in abstract banter. If there's a 1% percent chance that the world will end tomorrow than how is that different from that same event's chance of happening being a 100%, and I emphasize, in my mind?

Let's say I am boarding a plane that will fly across the ocean. It will be a long and unpleasant flight since it happens to be I have an extreme fear of heights, home-and-motion sickness. I wouldn't normally take a plane but I have to because the circumstances demand it. "Ladies and Gentleman, welcome aboard, this pilot assures you that this flight is 99% safe". With all the variables in the world and the only true construct being our brain and its inputs what does this figure mean to a man with a fear of heights on board a plane in a post 9/11 era? It means that a 1% chance of crashing does not take away any of the anxiety I will feel, and because fear is irrational, the proposed "99%" figure is in fact untrue. It would be truer I think to attribute to all matters like these a 50 % chance. In the former respect whenever you reassure someone by using a percentage you are in fact lying.

..and then I yelled that we were all gonna die. 99 % of this is a true story.

Watching The GiantBomb Crew sign posters for three hours was actually entertaining, the guys we love and look up to just talking about stuff, with each flick of the pen a focused stare at the paper...these unique shows make Giantbomb the warm, embracing site we've come to know and love. I'd watch something like this over The Big Live Live Show any time. Last year's pax panel was disastrous and this year's was literally incomprehensible, but all of that stops mattering if we were to discuss the essence of the site. I was enjoying their conversation, like all of us do, about everything and nothing, the wits, the cracks, the insights, the truths, the puns, the list goes on, but my right eye kept catching the chat ahead of me : "Steve jobs is dead" it said. I didn't pay attention.

"steve jobs died" "no it's a joke" "it's not a joke" etc. Knowing the answer was just a click away I decided not to check the net and just keep watching the stream. The show kept going and I think I wasn't the only one watching in slightly unsettled anticipation, until Dave finally broke the news to the guys. A few sighs and faint sounds, riddled by confrontation. They tried to keep a normal conversation going for a brief moment but it suddenly stopped like the air was sucked out of the room. Vinny cracked nervous jokes as he finished up the last batch of posters, Brad's mind started to race with thoughts and Jeff just pondered deeply, his eyes staring into nothingness. Someone on the chat even joked "Jeff just thought about his own mortality, now he's thinking about Trackmania 2 again". It was a good joke, but I couldn't laugh. Ryan in this respect, stayed true to his role of host.

It was touching, weird. Not special, no because death is anything but special, it's natural. When the news breaks everyone is an equal, a morbid balance is restored, things put in perspective. For years now I have felt close to this site because these people open up to us, we know parts of them that aren't falsified, we've seen them share actual thoughts and emotions in very human ways, there's no make up. This is what makes this site so damn important, that and of course they're actual knowledge of games and the industry. That's what makes this the bomb. About twenty minutes before the news broke, Dave signed a single poster with what said "Live Long and Prosper". Well, may you all do just that here at Giantbomb.

Originally posted on Screened.com though I thought it was just as related to games so I decided to post it here as well.

March 2010. I am assigned a school project and under deadline pressure I manage to write a screenplay (short film) in under two days. Teacher likes it but I back out because I have no idea how to film it, so all though I was ahead of the class I'm back to square one and I just decide to improvise. At the time I was playing grotesque amounts of MW2 Multiplayer, who wasn't right? I barely slept because of it and as the weeks went by I was a wreck and I thought why not make my short film about this? I quickly conjured up a story which would be made up one step at a time. I called up a friend and we started filming which basically means we played MW2.

You wouldn't say but alot of work actually went into the editing with over 70 hours of editing in 90 hours time. It's awesome when 4 dudes just commit to something that starts like a silly project but we were pretty proud of it. At first it was called Killstreak but I thought it was too generic so a friend of mine suggested Respawn and this title actually shaped the meaning of the plot and I snapped, it was perfect. A few weeks later Zampella and West announced Respawn Entertainement and what a weird coinciding coincidence that was.

Not only because of the name, but the meaning of the name for both the film and the company. That made the moment all the more special, though I'd never call the final product special because I'm humble. There are no subtitles and the few bits of dialogue are spoken in Belgian French but the images speak for themselves (or at least that's what I hope).

All you need to know is that one guy is obsessed with MW2 and is great at it, the other is obsessed but sucks and is jealous of the other and this leads to the final event. I'd be interesting in hearing what non french speaking people think of it, I wonder if its watchable as an interpretation piece. Probably not.

Ow, and here's the "poster" LOL.

About two years ago when I decided it was time to buy a 360, for all the exclusives I was missing out on like...oh well Mass effect was more than damn worth it and Alan Wake is right up my alley, so there's that. Not a Halo Guy. Anyway I actually used to believe that Achievement Points were worth actual microsoft points. I guess you could attribute it to the confusion at hand. Both are called points, but I think it was just wishful thinking on my part. However, Michael Pachter didn't seem to rule out the possibility when asked if this could ever become a reality. In an episode of Pach Attack he even said he was gonna call Microsoft right after the show to propose it to them. I call bullshit on that one. That was a classic Pachter moment, turning analysis into a promise.

Nevertheless I still think this is a realistic proposal. I thought about it for a while and came up with the following model; Achievement points would be equal to/have the same value as Microsoft points. Meaning 1 achievement point = 1 microsoft point. A player would have to earn 400 points to buy the least expensive game available on XBLA. The means to the end don't matter meaning a player could earn 4 achievements worth a 100 points each. However, the monthly limit of points you could earn would be 400, you couldn't just achieve endless points, that would in fact be pointless (sorry).

So if you'd earn 400 points a month for a year, you'd have up to 4800, which amounts to about three 15 dollar titles on XBLA. Seem far fetched much? Given the fact that Sony offers up to 15 titles for 50 dollars a year while offering free online play aside from it, couldn't it even out if Microsoft implements a value to their points system, since playing online costs us 60 dollars each year?

Another way could be to attribute a point to each achievement so to earn 400 points you'd actually have to earn 400 achievements. These are the kinds of theories made up by idealists but the most probable outcome remains the same. Microsoft has never tried to sympathize with its audience, just look at this year's E3. Ah well, it just seems like a nice bullet point for Microsoft and gaming in general that fits in the future's model, with the free to play micro transactions and what not. This isn't a stab at Microsoft however, I do not participate in platform fanboyism but I'd just wish they'd put out some more exclusives. If I say Sony is totally ruling that aspect of the market, that's not fanboyism, that's reality. Then again the 360 isn't as huge in Europe as it is in the U.S, so I tend to forget how popular Microsoft is there and how It don't give two shits about my consumer wishes.

The Bicky Burger is a Dutch, award winning Burger. It's a simple -- but when done well -- extremely tasty burger and unless you've tasted the best of them all, alot of snack owners will serve you just about anything. Don't let 'em get away with it! For Years I ate one of these every thursday after rehearsal with a band I played in. We became the owner's best customers, turns out he was the winner of several "Bicky of the Year" awards.

The classic bicky (if you look close you'll see that there's salad in there, amateurs) consists of a slice of meat sprinkled with fried onion and its trademark three sauces, a yellow, red and brown one, I don't actually know what's in the sauce but there's beef and horse in the meat. (which is fucked up) oh and to finish off there's a pickle. However most snack bars get it completely wrong, the bread has to be compact and small like a burger you'd get at McDonalds but not as mushy, most guys will throw in a piece of tomato, salade and corn in there, this is just wrong! Others will have an oversize bread with the meat in the middle, so that the edges of the bun are just hanging there, flapping up and down as your eating.

So today at the grocery store where I work these new crisps caught my eye, a pink bag with a Bicky print. I had to try these out. I have to say the taste has fatefully been re-created. I was afraid it was just gonna taste like pickle but it even encapsulates the aftertaste of the meat in there, disgusting but a true success! The Lady on the picture thought up the recipe for the crisps as part of a contest and since she won Lays made this special edition. Anyway, it's a pretty good burger. The Bicky Cheese is even better, and there's a royal size as well. It's definitely raunchy but hey it's fast food y'all. God knows what else is in it.

Update : it seems the crisps start tasting like regular pickles after the bags been open for half a day. Also my pee smells like bicky sauce and this product may or may not cause meat sweats.

Last week I bought the Tomb Raider Trilogy and It took me 29.99 euros to finally accept that I do not care at all about these games. I never finished any of the old games because they were bogged down by graphics that actually impaired your vision so solving puzzles became begrudgingly difficult to solve. I remember my first few moments with Tomb Raider 2. The depth perspective was confusing as hell and that tiger scared the shit out of me. Perhaps that tiger is the reason I come back to these games. The tiger stands for a time where a 3D rendered tiger jumping out at you in-game actually made an impression. I never got past the first level because I couldn't find the exit. The only fun I had was when I was using cheats.

So I booted up Tomb Raider: Legend because I am the kind of guy who likes chronology for the sake of story but these new "stories" aren't dark enough, at least the old games were a bit mysterious and threatening. (I've played every level in Tomb Raider I-III by using cheats). And what's up with the tiger in this game? Why is that still in there? It seems completely trivial "someone picked the wrong place to hunt" she says after I am forced to shoot this tiger. Besides the frame rate drops are hideous and this for an "HD" collection. At least the game stays true to the old games by giving you shitty game control and confusing visuals.

I am gonna finish this trilogy because I am still attracted by the promise of adventure which has always been interrupted by frustration but who knows, maybe Anniversary or Underworld will finally meet this hungry tiger's needs? Because after this I am done, that Tomb Raider Reboot will not enter my disc drive. Or will it? Urgh.

UPDATE: One year later and I havent even continued playing tomb raider trilogy HD, fuck those games.