I won't be back to GameSpot until next week, so I may miss some blogs.


In other news: Giant Bomb. I've seen some people say they signed up at this site so I decide started an account there and grab the name I want early before it gets taken. I won't be promoting my profile yet, or leaving GS any time soon. There's still what is apparently some bugs and un-user-friendly items that is making any kind of ramp up on the site slow for me. I want to post my PS2 collection, but they don't have all the games I own listed in their database. They try to make adding new games to my collection easy but sometimes the "Add to My Collection" button is unavailable, and I don't know why. They try to make the search easy, but using a quick search sometimes finds my game but an xBox or UK version, so I end up having to use the full search anyway. Little things like that. I get that's it's new, so I'm not putting down the site. It looks good, and the intended feel of it is cool, I'm just saying I won't be making it a regular community to participate in for a little while.


Speaking of giant bombs, I have another Movie Moment and this time it's for Resident Evil: Extinction. Yeah. I think this movie franchise is ready for extinction. It definitely wasn't the worst movie I've seen and not even too bad for a movie based on a video game, but it didn't really keep me interested. Like the 2nd RE movie, I didn't care about any of the characters. It was also a little boring. I do have to give the team that put the movie together credit for trying to make it different from the first two movies as much as possible, and introducing some new little touches. For example the majority of the movie took place during the day instead of at night, and they had a killer flock of birds in this one. I can live without seeing it again though.


Not much to make mention of in terms of gaming news. I did have some time to make a little more progress in POP:T2T, that's about it.

The group at Pixar are great film makers. If I could sum up Wall E in one word, it would probably be "sweet". But it's sweet on many different levels. It's also not a sickly-make-you-puke kind of sweet. It's a funny and charming kind of sweet. It is however coupled with some more serious undertones.
Pixar does such a great job of communicating the emotions, the humor, and what the characters are thinking through body language. A credit to their animation skills, and story telling in general. Pixar manages to bring us new adventures; not simply retelling the same tale as their last movie with a different coat a paint.
Is it their best movie? Hmmmm.... still undecided on that. It definitely does some things that their other movies haven't (and I don't just mean technologically). It gets my recommendation. It's not just a kids flick; it's a film.

Now, if I could pick on Disney for a moment. They are really lucky to have Pixar. Disney has made some great achievements, but in my opinion, for as successful as they are in marketing they have some incredibly unimaginative groups working for them. If we look back at their classics they include Peter Pan, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, etc, etc, etc. All of these are not original stories by Disney. They borrowed the story lines from books they didn't write. So that was the past. Let's look at today. Last year they released Underdog (also not original content or characters). This year they're releasing Hollywood Chihuahua, and Thunderbolt. Enough with the dogs. Why does their production company sign off on TWO dog-movie scripts which are being released in the same quarter? I know, I know: Cash. Silly me for asking. Take a page from Pixar's scripts: Toys, Monsters, Fish, Super-heroes, Cars, Rats, Robots. Do you see a pattern here? Exactly... you don't.

Suitably, the new game I received ties in with movie theme nicely. I signed up for a Goozex account, and got my free game: Viewtiful Joe. I've never played it before, but heard good things, and hey... it was free!

Hee hee hee! I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this post;

"me change that any game thats a mmorpg with ppl on and chating"

This is the entire post, unedited. Mind you, it was an add on to the post right above it (I guess the poster didn't finish their thought, and wanted to add this). Still, I read the first post, and I'm having trouble with this one. I think they were saying that they would change their current mmorpg to any other one that has a lot of people playing and chatting on it. This must be one of the worst possible ways to say it though.

I still giggle a little bit when I read it.

In other news, I finally did get a chance to play a little PoP:T2T. I'm currently at "the Temple" level (about 1/2 way through chapter 3 of 5).

Sadly, I don't think I'll be making it to the theaters to see Batman this summer, however I am considering taking my son to see Wall-E tomorrow. And with Batman out now, and Wall-E being a couple weeks old, it shouldn't be too busy. Going to a movie theater would be quite the experience for him as he's never been to one before, and with Pixar he's pretty much guaranteed to enjoy it.

Hey all,

I posted a review of Lego Indiana Jones (gave it an .

Unfortunately I had no time to play PoP:T2T. I did however see Hot Fuzz recently. It's a cop-comedy with some spoof elements, but not silly comedy like Naked Gun or Super Troopers. It was done by the same guys that did Shaun of the Dead if anybody saw that movie. There was also quite a few British actor cameos. A fun movie filled with humour and over the top (but not absurd) action.

That's it for me today. Later.

Here's my final contribution to Retro Revival week. Although I must say that this week didn't have a huge impact me, as I tend not to let my retro games require reviving.

I posted a few of minutes of what I consider to be the peak of video-game-hockey: Blades of Steel on the NES.
I'm Montreal (the guys on the left). Sadly, I did not win one fight during the time I had the video recording.

Unfortunately the GS video service has not worked for me all week so I could not upload it here, AND it's not allowing me to post the html so that you can view it on my GS blog. Sweet. If you'd like to take a look, please go here!

Well, I was going to upload a video blog, but GS is not allowing me too. So I'll just post a text version. Sorry for all the reading. It's kind of long even with it edited down a little bit:


I got my eBay shipment in! I got a 3 game lot for $41 including shipping, which is awesome considering one of the included games often goes for $40 on it's own, before shipping.
The games I got:


Soul Caliber 3. I wasn't looking to get this game, and wouldn't have purchased it otherwise, but since it came in the auction lot I now have it. I'm not big on fighting games like this, mostly because I suck at them. I played a few quick rounds on easy mode, and found it some somewhat forgiving, so I might be able to get into it. At the very least, I'll see if my wife wants to go head to head against each other. We used to have a lot of fun beating the crap out of each other with the old PC game "One Must Fall"; so who knows.


Next on the list is Shadow of the Colossus. I was already thinking about picking this game up anyway, so having it included was a bonus. Like the next game on my list that I'll get to shortly, the consensus is that this game offers a unique experience that is outside of the average video game formula, and that's what peaked my interest.


That brings us to the big game that I was looking for in the first place when I found this auction: REZ! Wow. I popped the game in just to make sure I didn't get a dud, just as I do with all my games from eBay, and played up to the
first boss level. This game does offer something special. You're basically a faceless hero flying along a linear path as baddies
come floating into view. It's like an isometric vertical shooter. The graphics are very trippy, but considering the system, very basic. That's fine though, because they work. The sound is something else. It's all music. There's background music playing as you would normally find in a game. Then when you target an enemy the sound effect that signals a lock is a drum sound. The firing and target hits are synth sounds. It all works together make the soundtrack, and it accomplishes this without it sounding like just a mess of sound. I'm having a hard time explaining the game and doing it justice. I had giggles of happiness when I was playing this game for the first time. If it keeps up with the same energy that it started with, I'll be in for a great experience.


This brings the PS2 collection up to 97. I suspect I will reach 100 before the end of the year.
And that wraps up my eBay haul. As for the games I'm playing now:


Lego Indiana Jones. My wife and I are about 85% complete, getting closer to collecting all of the artifacts, and are currently in the middle of our second run of the Last Crusade Episode. I also know there's secret levels to unlock, so we're looking forward to getting to play those.


Prince of Persia: the Two Thrones. I just finished taking down the first big boss and Temple rooftops level. I took a peak at a game guide, only to see where I was in terms of game completion. I was surprised to see that according to the level titles, I'm already a third of the way through the game. I am enjoying this title, although I prefer playing as the light Prince much more than his darker personality. When I do a review as I likely will, I'll go into more detail about that.


Stay tuned later this week, and I'll finish off my contribution to Retro Revival week with a short clip from another great NES game... provided GameSpot lets me upload it.