GTA IV XBOX 360


Bobby Hundreds, of The Hundreds clothing line, received an exclusive GTA IV Xbox 360. It looks to be only an elite with a graphics wrap of the game's cover art on it. According to him, only 500 were made, or more accurately dressed up, and half of those going to the US.

I'm curious what the faceplate looked like, since he only took a picture of the side of the Xbox. One would think Rockstar would deck out the whole console, instead of slapping on a big sticker on the side, and calling it exclusive. Oh well, it's free, right?

Since the game isn't available yet, no game was included with the gift.

USD 70 UCONN 69 OT

Just want to congratulate the men's Toreros team for an awesome upset against the #4 seed today. May they stay hot throughout the rest of the post season!
This made me smile, so I had to share it.

From woostercollective.com

DOTHETEST


Click the pic for a cool UK public service announcement for transportation and bike safety.

Pay attention.

Metal Gear Solid shoes



Not sure Konami or Kojima has anything to do with with this, but Run Athletics owned by Russell "Run" Simmons, of Run-DMC) has released a shoe inspired by the famed video game franchise. There is nothing that resembles or is related to the game on the shoe at all, so the word "inspired" is used most loosely.

Ebay auction selling them

New Super Street Fighter 2 vid



Lookin' nice, as Microsoft lifted the file size limit to avoid gimping the Xbox 360 version. I sure hope they release this well before SFIV comes out.

The Non-Ang Lee Hulk Trailer




I dunno, it seems a little too soon, dontcha think? It's only a trailer but I have a hard time being convinced Ed Norton can play a convincing Bruce Banner. Sure Ang Lee's interpretation of the jolly green giant (sans the frozen veggies) was much too ambitious and poorly executed, but at least he tried to make us feel a little sorry for the guy, while this movie seems much more WWE meets Fast and the Furious. Maybe that's not a bad thing. I shall wait and see.

1 Hour in the life of a Bansky



"This is Banksys latest street work on the Essex Road, London N1. I filmed the spot for 1 hour on 6th March 2008. It was interesting to note the diverse cross section of the local community that were interested in his work.
Unfortunately it is now covered with perspex to stop it being vandalised.
See for yourself. Now covered up unfortunately." -romanywg

Mass Effect DLC: Bring Down The Sky impressions



*may be spoilery!

So this morning I downloaded Bioware's first downloadable content for their space epic RPG. For 400 MS points or about $5, you get an extra mission that introduces a new race and about 90 minutes of game time.

I was looking really forward for this, and for the most part, it does not disappoint. The mission involves Shepard and his crew stopping a runaway asteroid, set sail by a band of Batarian
extremists. The setup is the same like most of the game's side missions, travel to a new star system, land on a planet, or in this case, an asteroid, drive around looking for the bad guys while finding minerals to survey and ancient artifacts to discover.



It was nice to see new locales in the game. While the exteriors of the buildings looked pretty much the same, the interiors somehow looked better, with better lighting and new textures.

The mission itself is pretty fun, but there are some nagging issues though. Usually when you receive a new mission to go on, Admiral Hackett calls you up on the space-intercom thingie, and briefs you on the task at hand. In BDTS, there is none of that, just a circle on the map that highlights the star system you just downloaded. Your chosen companions on this mission, who usually have something to say when you click on them or not, are stoic and silent. Like mindless drones following you blindly into the firefight. Even Joker (played by Seth Green), the candid and confident pilot of the good ship Normandy, is replaced by a female robot voice. The whole thing does take you out of the experience a bit, knowing that it would've been much cooler if they had the voices in.

Obviously, Bioware either couldn't get the original voice-actors for these new missions, or they could not get it into the code and transfer it on time. My bet is on the former. I would think getting these actors back to record just one or two more lines on dialogue would be difficult. I hope they can remedy this in the next DLC.

Either way, it's still a cool feature to have DLC released regularly for such a cool game. Looking forward for more.

LOST:Via Domus + Boy Bawang

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This past Friday and Saturday I sat down with a pack of Boy Bawang Cornuts (Philipppines finest cornuts, or cornicks, as the packaging says) and popped in Lost: Via Domus for my 360.

The game had some shoes to fill when it was announced last year that it would be coming to the 360, the PS3, and the PC. I'm sure when many of us heard about it, we were ready to shoot it down, anticipating another half-ass attempt to rake in the dough from ABC's hit TV show. I know I did.

Unfortunately, dismissing the game as such wouldn't be that much of a stretch. To give the team at Ubisoft some credit, they did manage to create one experience any LOST fan, such as myself, would enjoy, and that one is walking around the infamous island where the survivors of flight 815 and the mysterious Others reside. You will be doing quite a bit of walking in this game, slow walking. Elliott feels sluggish and unhurried as he "races" to find his past and get home. Good thing the rain forest looked so nice. One nagging issue about all that walking, the hit detection is a bit off, occasionally causing you to stick or re-enter areas you were just in.

The beach side camp is sunny and beautiful, haphazard pieces of the airplane wreckage and palm leaves made into shelter scatter the sand. The various locations like the Hatch and other Dharma stations are suitably dark, creepy and accurately modeled, making it very cool to walk around in. Also, the sound is well designed, especially with a 5.1 setup, as the wind and fauna are used to create nice depth, various rustling in the undergrowth suggesting boars, polar bears, Others, and other creatures scamper by.

But where is everybody? Weren't there suppose to be 42 or something original survivors, not counting the Tailies? The camp and stations were noticeably deserted, save for the main cast from the show.

About those faces we Losties are all used to, the character models are convincing and well acted, it's just the voices can be hit or miss. Ubisoft did manage to snag the actors for Ben, Juliette, Sun, Claire, Tom, and a few others I can't remember, which are all cool to hear and well done, it's too bad key players such as Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and especially Locke, who your character interacts with the most, sound bad. Talking to the any of the characters brings up a dialogue menu, you pick the line of text, they voice their response. After playing Mass Effect though, I wish they recorded the main character's voice as well, because the conversations in the game seem odd and artificial.

Which brings me to the gameplay. Despite the fan service this game offers, the game is flat-out boring. You play as a photographer Elliott, who is one of the survivors of 815. Stricken with amnesia, you follow a very linear path toward figuring out who you are, who is this chick covered in blood you keep seeing, and avoid the Black Smoke. As you do this, the game is broken up into 7 levels or episodes, a nice touch, each episode beginning with the prerequisite "Previously on LOST..." recap, with the cool voice-over too. It's still a short game, me finishing it in about 5 hours.

It might have helped if Elliott was at least interesting, but he is so void of personality. You just end up controlling him from point A to point B, not really caring about anything that's happening at the moment. I would put him into the Nikki and Paulo Camp for LOST's Background Characters or NPCLBC, as we should already know that there is a reason why we don't care for those other survivors cutting firewood or gathering water. He isn't as annoying as those two, but he and this game are about as boring as watching the San Antonio Spurs play b-ball.

The only saving grace for the game is for it's easy achievement points, as it hands them out to you generously. You still have to play through the game though, for this isn't another Avatar gimme. I'm still missing 95 points to get the full 1000, but I really don't want to sit through another play session.


Oh yeah, tomorrow March 10th, Bioware is releasing the first (of hopefully many) Mass Effect downloadable content. Pick that shit up for 400 MS points sucka!

DMC4

Sometime ago I said I was going to post a review for Devil May Cry 4, following my first 2 hour impressions of the game. Well, I don't need to now because Zero Punctuation reviewed it and it sums up everything I feel about the game:

Hugging no more


You remember the saying "everything is bad for you"?

Well, the Anti-Hugging Coalition (I totally made that up) of Mesa, Arizona's Shepherd Junior High School has brought out it's own version of the jaws-of-life by allowing only two second hugs for its students, and no more.

It used to be no hugging at all until the embrace-starved young'uns worked out a deal with the school principle to add the two seconds, so as not to go through the brutal withdrawal of the hideous two-arm act.