3 Shocks

Last night was a night of pleasurable shocks for me. First of all, I finally braved myself to pick up Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the X-Box 360. I bought the game + wireless guitar combo and I cannot wait to rock it out on Live. I already browsed through the additional tracks that can be purchased online and I have my eyes set on the three No Doubt songs. The reason why I waited a while was to see if they would release a patch that would allow the PlayStation 3's wireless guitar to be used with the first and second game I own on the PlayStation 2. That doesn't seem to be happening so here I am.

A simple assembly is required.

I just love that glowing green X-Box light on the guitar!

While I was out, I also picked up the new Dualshock 3 controller for the PlayStation 3. This thing is expensive at $54.99 but I miss the rumble, especially when I am playing PlayStation 2 games on the system. Sony should be ashamed for ever calling the rumble feature as something last-gen and they knew even then how desperate they sounded. Rumble is more fun than the tilt even though you do get both here. The controller is a bit heavier than the Sixaxis and feels very sturdy in my hands. I tested it by playing Super Stardust HD and God of War II and the vibration came through strong and forceful. There is really nothing extraordinary here of course. It is just that we finally get the real controller for the console.

Rumble is here and boy it's expensive.

The last thing that happened last night was a total super shocker for me. I was listening to some music on my PlayStation 3 and I accidentally hit the controller that was sitting right next to me. Suddenly, the screen changed and I saw the following images:

What happened to my screen?

I didn't start the Folding@home program, did I?

The details of the console's March 13th version 2.17 update clearly stated the availability of "a new pattern... for the visual player." I kind of remember reading it before so it I must have totally forgotten to check it out after that update. The spinning globe is hardly responding to the actual music playing in the background but it looks cool nonetheless.

Suffice to say that last night was a great night for me. It's always fun being a gamer.

Review: Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore

Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore (2008)
Developer: Blitz Games
Platform: PlayStation 2
Induction Date: 03/30/2008

Loner Gamer likes singing Sweet Dreams...

I must start this off with the following confession: I used to be a big American Idol fan. I hardly watch the show nowadays because of the following reasons: 1) Ryan Seacrest is getting on my last nerves. I don't watch the show live and during my TiVo Idol session, I would skip all the parts that involve Seacrest opening his big and boisterous mouth. 2) My favorite singers never win the competition. Apparently, I am always in the minority when it comes to recognizing singers with amazing potentials and talents thus I stop caring to vote for contestants on the show. When Latoya London was booted off, my passion for Idol faded as well. Still, the American Idol brand slapped onto the game disc isn't the real allure for me here. I own all of the Karaoke Revolution games that have graced the PlayStation 2 console. Just like all the previous games on the series, this latest installment is just another "booster" pack that can be added to the ever growing song list I use for my Karaoke parties.

The best way to Karaoke is to Karaoke Revolution!

Like always, singing here is most fun when you are actually trying to rack up points and have the game analyze your pitch and rhythm while you're belting out a song. If you are not up to snuff, the music is stopped and your game is over. To make it even more thrilling, you can have the three American Idol judges -now with Paula Abdul- criticize your performance as well. Thank goodness they haven't gotten to a 3D Ryan Seacrest yet... The funny thing is, you get to hear Paula being utterly negative here when we know that if she is really there in person, she would never say such honest things. They still haven't gotten the American Idol Contest mode right: you still jump from song to song without anything exciting punctuating your progress to the top. The only difference between this and the arcade mode seen previously in the series is the judges' comments at the end of your performances. So those who want to know how it feels to win the competition will still need to go to the actual audition and work it out from there.

These three are ready to tell you how terrible your singing really is.

The game is amusing when played alone. There are numerous things to unlock and believe it or not, it does help improve your singing if you take the time to learn the songs and keep aiming for higher difficulty settings. There are a lot of ways to customize your avatar and you can still use a USB camera to have your face mapped to your character's head (still looks spooky though). The game is definitely best played with a group of friends and you will be surprised by the amount of people who would actually want to try out the game during your next get together even if it means that they may be utterly ridiculed by Simon Cowell. By the way, don't believe the claim on the back of the case stating that you can play this version online - your local friends will have to make do.

The back of the instruction manual. Run for your lives!

American Idol Encore may be the final addition to the series on the PlayStation 2. It is disappointing that word recognition is still missing from the game and you still cannot swap discs without rebooting the game. This latest entry also has some terrible list of songs - just like the real show - second only to Karaoke Revolution Country. If you are new to the series, I do recommend getting the PlayStation 3 or the X-Box 360 version of the game just for the ability to purchase and download additional songs into the game. These are songs that appeared on the series' previous PlayStation 2 discs.

RATING: 3 out of 5

Review: À l'intérieur

À l'intérieur (2007)
Genre: Horror
Format: DVD
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury

I have been looking forward to watching À l'intérieur (Inside) ever since its announcement though the excitement level here is much less than the long delayed US release of Frontière(s) - several more weeks folks! I do have my share of doubts about the validity of this movie's praises, having seen another lavishly over-hyped yet ultimately disappointing French horror film by the name of Haute Tension. Thankfully, this stylish, dark, and moody bloodbath delivers - pun intended.

Why would anyone make a pregnant woman suffer so severely?

The movie captures one hellish night when a very pregnant woman is entrapped in her own house, stalked by a mad woman who is obsessed with obtaining the unborn baby inside of her. To share anything else means to spoil the fun you will have with this movie. The many deaths that occur within the film are hardly creative but the details put into their messy brutality are hard to deny. Inside is very taboo when contextualized to the culture we live in and there is no way you can watch a US made movie about the same subject matter. The way the pregnant woman is unapologetically traumatized throughout this bloody tale both physically and mentally is depressing and very disturbing. I found myself ouch-ing and squealing every time she gets hurt. The movie also has an apocalyptic ending in the style of Frank Darabont's The Mist.

Beatrice Dalle's character is very wicked and truly evil.

I highly recommend À l'intérieur as a must watch. Brave yourself through this sick movie and be richly rewarded by its cleverly-paced, tension-filled experience unlike anything you have seen before. The directors are responsible for the upcoming remake of Hellraiser. If this debut effort is any indication of their upcoming work, we may have one of the best horror remakes in our near future. [Update Note: Unfortunately, Bustillo & Maury are no longer associated with the Hellraiser remake.]

RATING: 4 out of 5

Censored Statham

What greater way to start off this site [Note: Movie-related articles used to be housed on http://lgfilm.blogspot.com] by defending actor Jason Statham's dignity. I wonder if anyone else realize that there is something funny lurking inside the recent flash advertisement for Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale on the internet. Here's how it looks like at the end:

Off with his bald-ing head!

I haven't seen this film yet but since it is from disaster master Uwe Boll, I may not be watching it any time soon. Notice how they cut off the top of Jason Statham's bald-ing head in both the ad and the DVD case. Apparently, they must think that seeing a bald head equals less sales and less interest in the movie. Do they not know that this bald-ing head is Mr. Statham's trademark? If they wanted someone who actually has hair on top of their head, wouldn't they have chosen a different actor to be the star of the film? This prompted me to do a little investigation and I found two very funny posters for the movie:

US Poster


Region Unknown: Probably wherever bald people are seen as human beings.

Great Photoshop work on the first poster, filling the empty sections of Statham's scalp with virile hair. I really don't understand the sudden fear of his baldness when it comes to promoting the film. People should sue the movie then because there is no CGI hair on his head and that he is not wearing a toupee in the actual film. I am going to end this on a positive note: There is nothing wrong with Statham's bald look. He would have used Rogaine by now if it bothers him and he looks really good the way he is. Just look at his profile photo on imdb.com and how cool he is portrayed without baldness censorship in the below US movie poster:

Macho bald-ing head. It's a great movie too!

WoW: The Quest for Alternatives Part I

Enter the portal at your own risk!

I have been playing World of Warcraft since mid-2005. That is close to 3 long years. I have spent more time on this game than any other games I have in my library. I quit in late 2006 but then returned in early 2007 to experience the Burning Crusade expansion. I quit again in mid-2007 then returned to it later the same year. I have recently cancelled my subscription again. I still have two more months on it before it ends but I have a feeling that I will not be going back to it with the same amount of frequency.

Everyone raced towards the new island after the last patch.

Don't get me wrong, WoW is a good game. The problem with it is of course the fact that it is a persistent online game, which means that it is a video game that is an anti-video game at the same time. It is a game that you have to play everyday and commit to if you want to be successful in it. A game that you can't stop playing may sound like a gamer's dream come true and for a while, that was the feeling I got from it. It is just that the end game is not getting any better for someone who just cannot see the point of doing large, lengthy, dungeon raids a million times just to get the next epic drop. I am hardly a casual gamer but WoW was supposed to be a game that is solo-friendly and more forgiving than its massively-multiplayer brethren. That statement is true when you are leveling up but when you finally reached the end, the whole facet of the game changed dramatically. I have a level 70 undead priest and what I have been doing of late is endlessly grinding gold to get my epic flying mount -5,000 in game gold is not cheap- and doing some arena battles to get the best epic gears available outside of raiding. Recently, with the patch that introduces the new Sunwell Isle area, I discovered that raiders can also get the gears that used to be exclusive to those who do battleground. The funny thing is, if you only play the battleground, you cannot exchange the honor points you receive from it with the nice epics you can get from raiding. With that, I went to the account management website and cancelled my subscription. I know what this game has become. It wants all of my time, my very soul, and it will accept nothing less. I have a lot of other games to play and WoW is hardly a complete gaming experience.

I like exploring the open areas and not get stuck in one of those unrewarding, mercilessly long instance runs.

Thus, I started looking at my gaming library. I checked for other role playing games that can be my WoW replacements because I know I will not be able to quit cold turkey. There has got to be some games somewhere in my list that contain similar concocted formula that makes WoW so addictive without being attached to a subscription fee and without being another persistent online game. I found several titles that stood out from the crowd and I plan to play these games during the time around the evening hours when I usually would jump on WoW. I will chronicle this life-changing intervention by measuring the performances of these WoW replacements via the following factors.

A snippet of lyrics from the newly announced WoW music video contest. It clearly shows you the kind of demographics this game is really tailored for.

Factor 1: Social Gratification
Seeing how some of the WoW players act online, especially the popular egotistical ones, you may conclude that a lot of them are socially awkward in real life. WoW is the only place where they can pretend to be cool. Do the alternative games attract a lot of people to play them thus creating a large community of followers? Do they even have online functionality at all? For the last 3-4 months, the only reason why I still play WoW and eventually extended its subscription is because a good friend of mine is also online. Though I have heard tales of people actually finding love on WoW, finding like-minded people in the game is like finding a needle in a haystack. I guess I'm more into finding life-long friends and trustworthy people than just hanging out with your generic guildies.

If you are not a shadow priest, you are a healbot.

Factor 2: Illusion of Grandeur
WoW does a great job of making you think that you are a powerful being, until you get killed mercilessly in the middle of nowhere by a gang of grievers. Preying on players' subconsciously hidden god-complex, WoW lures new players in with its fast leveling up system and almost unreachable epic armor sets. How addicting is this process in other games? Do they make the players feel better about themselves as they level up?

I don't know... The only pain I have been suppressing is the endless grinding to get my gold to reach the 5,000+ mark.

Factor 3: Illusion of Uniqueness
Even with the unlimited number of drops you get from adventuring in WoW, you can always find your twin. This is true especially with the fact that the character creation options are so shallow. As a matter of fact, you get to feel less unique if you are a maxed out level 70 because you will be wearing the same gear set as everyone else in your particular class. You may think that you can actually experiment with the talent specialization options when only certain combinations are truly meaningful to effectively play the game. Still, that doesn't stop people from thinking that they are god's gifts to the WoW world. How will the other games fare in tricking people into thinking that their existence in the game is important and cannot be substituted? Do these other games allow the players to create unique looking characters?

What's that? You have +1722 healing? This Paladin has +2000, dude.

All of these factors will be rated with a 5 point rating scale. I will then conclude the analysis with a direct comparison whether the game in question is indeed a good WoW substitute. Will I be able to escape the wrath of this addiction or will I fail and be beckoned back to the eventual Wrath of the Lich King? Stay tuned for Part II that will pit PlayStation 3's Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom against this evil game!