Yeah thought this video (first half) was so full of awesome I would share it with you all. Btw, that’s not me in it… just so we’re clear.

Yeah I know I haven’t posted in a long time. Oh well, not much to say really. I have no PS3 at the moment so I can’t keep doing videos and work has got me fairly busy. However, I do want to do a contest for a few prizes soon (they aren’t much but it’s free stuff!). Prizes are:

1. Gears of War 2 Flashback Map Pack
2. 4 Xbox Live 48 Hour trials
3. 2 inFAMOUS Giga Blades codes

I’ll probably have more stuff coming in the next few months. And so for today’s post here is some gameplay from Assassin’s Creed II.

Alright, so this week was my first week working at EB Games at the store near my home. So far it’s pretty sweet actually, I don’t think I’ve really been there long enough to say that it’s the horror show that everyone makes it out to be. My manager is awesome, she’s very nice (but doesn’t play video games surprisingly). Most of the employees that currently work there are leaving so my manager was really needing people. Ummm, so I met one of the guys I’ll be working with and then there is one more (assistant manager) who I still need to meet. At the moment I’m working full time so it all depends on how many hours I can get.

As most of you have heard from my griping… my PS3 is dead with the YLOD. It’s going to cost me $177 to replace which really sucks (especially since I have the MAG Beta). What can you do? Well, with the new PS3 Slim announce, I’m really considering getting it. I don’t really think it looks that great but I like the fact that it runs much cooler and consumes less power. So the plan is that when I do get payed I’ll get my current 60GB fixed (they should send back a refurbished 60GB) and then I’ll play that for a few months. While I’m doing that I’ll just save some money and then buy the slim. When I do that I’ll just sell my 60GB on eBay (should go for quite a bit because people want backwards compatibility) and then use the money to pay off the Slim. I’ve really gotta be strict with my budget though, gotta save for school and I’d like a new computer.

I thought I might also talk a little about some of the games I’m going to be getting and then explain briefly what I’m excited for or why I’m getting it. So I’ll go in release order I suppose…

Batman Arkham Asylum

Yeah I know it just came out yesterday but I bought it for $45 from Best Buy a few days ago. Pretty sweet deal and I can’t wait to play it. The game has been getting rave reviews from all over and the demo was awesome. My dad is totally going to geek out as he’s the biggest Batman fan I know. I like the fact that it’s got a lot of stealth aspects and is not just some beat em’ up. Oh and Mark Hammel is awesome! Anyways, I’ll hopefully be playing through it right away after I get my PS3 (then I have to finish inFAMOUS as well). I’ll be doing a video guide for it I believe, so I’ll keep you guys up to date on that.

By the way, my Killzone 2 guide well I was working on it back in May and had about half of it done until my PS3 became “inaccessible” .

Halo ODST

You may know me as that PS3 fanboy but really I appreciate both systems. I do have an Xbox 360 and the only game I have is Halo 3 (used to have Gears of War 2). Personally I love the Halo games and just the entire universe, about as much as the Killzone series actually. Anyways, ODST is going to be pretty sweet because it’s a bit of a change in gameplay for Halo which I’m looking forward to. It’s almost like an open world environment and then you have a different way of playing because your not a Spartan. Not to mention that it’s also coming with all the DLC maps plus 3 new ones for Halo 3 multiplayer. Granted I’m not exactly the best player but hey, I’m trying. Catch it on September 22nd.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

What more can I say? The game is gorgeous, it’s got an incredible story, incredible acting, animation and then a multiplayer that should prove to be promising. The new theater mode is going to be so awesome and I can’t wait. I really don’t know what more to say other then GAME OF THE YEAR BABY!!! Catch it October 23rd.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

Eh, okay will I’m really only following the crowd on this one. I mean I thought that COD4 was awesome and everything but I just couldn’t really get into it the same way everyone else was. I’m not much of an army fanatic so I don’t know much about guns and stuff. Since most of the people I play with will be getting it, why not? Should be a good game either way but I’m still not seeing any substantial improvements. The gameplay will still rock though so it should hold me over.

Assassin’s Creed II

I enjoyed the first one and this one is really looking promising. Improving and fixing a lot of the issues in the last game should make this an awesome experience. Though it’s not that high on my priority list so I’ll get this later in the year (probably December or January). The rest of you can buy this November 17th.

MAG

I know it’s not coming out until January but I’ve got some high hopes for this game. The beta seems to be going quite well and it looks like the gameplay is awesome. I can see this becoming my new crack aka. my new Warhawk. Epic 256 player battles with leadership structures and just an overall scale. It’s going to be quite the game. Catch it on January 31st 2010!

There you have it, all the games that I’m really looking forward to in the next coming months. What’s the games your looking forward to? Any other recommendations?

Oh and I want to leave with a trailer for another game I’d like to see more of… it’s called Just Cause 2, yeah I know the first one sucked but this just looks like plain fun!

Not sure if anyone remembers but Sony and Gamebattles partnered together for a Killzone 2 Championship tournament. Well it recently wrapped up with United Gamers being the winners. An interesting little factoid, United Gamers used to be eMazing Gaming which used to be the top ranked Killzone 2, then the padders came in and ruined the game. Anyways, here is a recap video from the game

So it’s been rumored, it’s been speculated and well it’s finally here. Gamescom has started this week and today was the Sony Press Conference. A lot of rumors were swirling around this one and in fact, most of them were correct. So what exactly happened?

• PSPgo Announcements and Deals
• PS3 Price Drop, now $299
• PS3 Slim Announced ($299)
• PS3 Firmware 3.0
• PSP “Apps” (New eReader for comics, PSP minis)

They showed a few extra trailers as well but these are the big announcements. Personally I’m quite interested in getting a new PS3 now, perhaps when I get my PS3 replaced I will. PSPgo is still going to fail because of the absurd price point. Firmware 3.0 is looking very cool, but not much for features. I would have liked to see them start tackling the areas where PSN lags behind with Xbox Live.

PS3 Firmware 3.0 Highlights

PS3 Slim

So I went and saw District 9 yesterday, after much worrying about if I’d be able to get in (apparently I’m 18… who would have known?). The first time I remember seeing something for District 9 was on Gametrailers.com. They had an ad running all over the sight saying “Non-humans Keep Out” or something similar. Naturally I was very curious and I checked out the website. I watched the trailer and presumed that it was the next Cloverfield film, they both share the same visual style at the very least. So over the past months I’ve been watching with eager anticipation (as have many others), and it’s finally here. I’ll try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible.

Trailer

District 9 is set in Johannesburg, South Africa where an alien ship stopped about 20 years ago. The film is presented as almost like a company documentary, a bit like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. What’s in side is a sizable population of refuge Aliens who are sick and dying. Naturally we as “humanitarians” ferry them off and set them up in a militarized slum called District 9. MNU (Multi-National United), a private company placed in charge of the alien population, claims to be interested in alien welfare but in actuality their focus is on the alien weapons. District 9 has become a problem for the people of Johannesburg though, tensions between humans and “non-humans” have come to their breaking point forcing MNU to act. That’s when you meet the main character, Wikus van der Merwe who is a pencil pusher at MNU. You follow him around as he serves eviction notices to the aliens and relocate them to District 10, which is far outside of Johannesburg. Wikus (pronounce the W as a V) through certain events becomes the most important person in the world and you follow his character through as he moves from a utter wimp to the movie’s hero.

I doubt many people know this but District 9 is an expansion to Neil Blomkamp’s short film Alive in Joburg of which peaked Peter Jackson’s interest to produce the film. The story is fairly different from what we’ve seen in the typical “alien invasion” sci-fi film. Normally we are used to seeing the aliens being the bad guys and humans as victims. Some of the really cool things that they’ve done is take actual footage from riots in South Africa and then put the aliens into them. District 9 doesn’t feel that unrealistic, the way the film was presented helps this point. I would place it almost like a mix between Cloverfield and your typical film (Blood Diamond comes to mind). Wikus’ character at the beginning of the film is almost completely different near the end of the film. It’s quite the transformation and very believable. Sharlto Copley does an awesome job as Wikus and plays the character very naturally. He particularly shines in his interactions with the CGI alien characters (commonly referred to as “prawns”).

Visually, the movie is incredible. As I’ve said before, the visual effects are perfectly integrated and feel extremely realistic. The aliens themselves are quite a leap forward in digital characters, in the same way that Gollum was. They were completely believable and there was an emotional connection between the audience and the characters. There were parts of the film where I was getting angry at the humans for how they treat the aliens and I don’t really remember the last time that I didn’t look at a character that wasn’t real, but still feel it was. District 9 isn’t just a plain old political based movie, but it’s very action orientated. For that, it’s a very fun ride and the weapons and battles are awesome. It really does deserve the R rating though as the gore and violence is very graphic (ie. heads being torn off).

There are so many other things that I could really say but I don’t think anyone really wants to read too much into it other then whether I recommend going to see it. District 9 is probably the best movie I’ve seen this summer (second to maybe Up) and I’d highly recommend anyone to go and see it. Neil Blomkamp has proven to be a capable and visionary director and I hope to see more of him in the future. If he can do to a Halo film what he did for this… we may have the first good video game based movie. If I had to give it a star rating.. I’d give it either a 4 or 5 out of 5 stars.

P.S. – Yeah, I kinda rushed through this review… who freaking cares? Just watch the movie before you criticize the bad grammar and amateur-ness.

So I’m finally back up and running (for the most part) and you’ll probably notice a few things right away. One, I got a new blog design. It really shouldn’t have taken this long, but let’s face it… I’m a lazy procrastinator. So, you’ll also see that all my posts are gone. I did this cause I really want to start fresh. So, here’s hoping for more frequent posting (most likely videos) and reviews. So I suppose I’ll get started with letting y’all know what’s been up with me since last time.

Let’s see… I’m now finally finished all 13 years of public schooling. It’s a pretty sweet feeling, I mean now I can finally start going where I want to go in life. Since then I’ve been really rather bored. My PS3 got the yellow light of death so it’s been out of commission for a few weeks now. That of course makes me very bored this summer, and with no job it really sucks. Luckily though, my local EB Games is hiring and I got a job interview there. Things went really well so here’s hoping that I land a job there. After that though, I’ll be working as much as I can and then starting in January I’ll be doing Animation Mentor, it’s an online school. Yes, I know I’m gonna be a freaking troll… but really it’s my best option. I’d like to have the whole college experience, but honestly none of the colleges around me offer as near good of a program as AM. When that starts though, I’ll be getting more busy and you can see some of the cool stuff I’m working on.

So that’s about all that’s been going on. I’m hoping to maybe start a video blog since reading isn’t that entertaining (at least I find). Unfortunately I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to “expose” myself that much. Pssst! I’ll let you in on a secret, I’m a little bit insecure about how my voice (in my opinion) is a bit higher pitched then you would expect from someone who is 17-18. Who knows, it might be all in my head (that’s what some tell me). That and my life isn’t exactly that exciting. Oh.. and walkthroughs. I’m going to be getting into video game walkthroughs (HD) so look for my overdue Killzone 2 guide and inFAMOUS. Keep checking my Twitter and YouTube page for frequent updates etc.

Here we are, the end of my first post. If you have any technical issues or suggestions for my blog I’d really like to hear them. Tell your friends, love me.. you know you want to. At least love my monkey (points to the top left).