Edge Of Darkness: "Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Gun"

Mel Gibson is a troubled soul, what with all the booze and Jew-hating. I know there are people who can't separate art from the artist so me recommending Edge Of Darkness will no doubt fall on deaf ears. Edge of Darkness is a slow burn with sparse, dry dialogue. When characters weren't engaging in lengthy discussions on how to kill one another; the action that followed made up for 'meh' moments. The plot is simple and the supporting characters are majorly one-dimensional. Edge of Darkness competently tells a linear tale that many movies of various budgets could learn from. When Gibson is left to being an angry, self-loathing archetype, he is in his element.  

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Letter To Microsoft, "If It Aint Broke, Just Wait"

 

Microsoft, step into my office for a second,its time for a progress report. A couple weeks ago I wrote a letter to Sony and this week its time for a come to Jesus moment with the direction of Microsoft as a gaming company. You are fighting a tough battle in the games industry, but it is a battle you are winning by the hair of your green teeth. You manage to excel both Sony, Nintendo, and your idiot savant brother -- the PC two-fold by not only procuring one of the worst online communities, but you have managed to sell ketchup to a woman wearing white gloves with that overpriced box of plastics and toxic chemicals. Microsoft, you pretty much have to extend the life of the 360. Why? Who would be willing to buy a new console given the history of stability with the previous two?

 

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Where Do You See Gaming Going? Part 3: Game Writing

This is part three of my on-going series, "Where Do You See Gaming Going?" This edition covers the concerns of game writing.

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Commercial Break: Star Wars Tuna Commercial?

My Japanese isn't that great, but that is either some form of processed pork or from what I can decipher...tuna in cake form. Either way, look at C3PO go!

For The Four People Who Care: No New Colony Wars Game

Old news, I am a huge Colony Wars and Psygnosis fanboy. It was the Brog's best kept secret that I was hoping to get an interview with one of the designers of the old Colony Wars/Wipeout series. Thanks to a little help from Tim Wright [DJ ColdStorage and legendary composer for the aforementioned game franchises] I was able to track down some key individuals from the now fragmented Psygnosis team. It is incredibly unfortunate timing that as of this week, most of them have recently lost their jobs. Those who still remain at Studio Liverpool have lost a team that has had one of the longest running racing franchises in gaming.

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The Lovely Bones - "A Beautifully Boring Piece Of Crap"

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Up In The Air - Agoraphobically Great

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Video: Red Dead Redemption Weapons

A couple things of note:

• I couldn't help but notice that the star of Rockstar's most recent epic doesn't have a perfect set of teeth. I have no idea why my eyes became affixed on something so small and minute, but I guess I never noticed [out loud] that most games have 'ideal' modeled faces. Down to the pearly whites.

• Can I hold my gun 'gangsta style' a la 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand, because this could be a deal breaker. I need my enemies to know they are going to die with style.

• How sexy is this guys 'tech demo' -style voice over work. Its great to live in the age of games getting the National Geographic treatment; really, its a serious tone of respect I thought I'd never see. But honestly, we couldn't shell out the extra bucks to get Morgan Freeman to voice over the main guns in RDR? These truly are troubling times.

Video Provided By Joystiq

A Letter To Sony: "You're Doing Great, Now Stop With The Stupidity"

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Stuff I've Been Reading...

In a change of pace from my overly syllabic reviews and rants let me bend your ear to books I've been reading or at least trying to read between all the game playing, website building and movie watching. These past couple of months have bore the fruit of quite the interesting couple of books and dvds. Some of the literature are education-oriented and books most of you have probably read in the sixth grade, but others really surprised me given the medium of being graphic novels.

After The Jump [Awesome Reads, Watches and Team Coco's most expensive sketch is certainly not in this posting]

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