Trash VentThe number one spot to vent!

I consider myself a moderate gamer, loyal to the called ‘realistic’ or action/crime/suspense genre games such as the Grand Theft Auto series (my favorite one), The Warriors, Hitman: Blood Money and Max Payne series… in other words, I am a Rockstar Games junkie.

What I have not (so far) been a fan of is the movies of my favorite games, because they always seem to have let me down. Whether it’s the wrong choice of character for the antagonist, director’s eye candy additions to attract different (non-video gamer) audiences or other extras that are alien to the game and take away the nostalgic feeling of the game.

I understand that the movie producers demand return for their money, but as an artist I find it unethical to steal a concept or idea and turn it into something different than what it originally was. Let’s take Hitman The Movie for example… look at the photo of the Hitman, and compare it to this… wouldn’t Bruce Willis or even Billy Zane be a better candidate? What was the director thinking of going with a young and inexperienced looking actor to represent Hitman? And the storyline was shit with no actual relevance and connection to the game settings and plots.

Now back to this entry: past experiences with movies and their wrong representation of video games have left me no reason to be excited for the upcoming Max Payne The Movie releasing tonight.

While I am a big fan of Mark Wahlberg, again I am not sure if he is the right choice. Why? Well, first of all the Max Payne character in the video game is by no means a muscle guy like Mark is; he is your ‘nothing to live for’, rugged, smoking, average Joe cop. A better candidate would have been the actual character in the game - pictured right.

As for the the plot, watch the trailer and tell me what’s up with the winged creatures? What is Ludacris doing in the movie, to my knowledge, there are no references of him in the game!

Again, I hate to be pre-judgmental - but once again the movie will not represent what the video game is all about.

If you watch the movie this weekend, I’d love to hear your opinion and review.

Here are a couple of reviews of the movie that you may find helpful.

• Review by Urban Cinefile
• Review by Arstechnica Journals

Well the day has finally come Red Ring of Death has hit my xbox 360. Sitting at home the other day I decided to watch a dvd on my system, all of a sudden the scene on the movie froze. At first it almost seemed like there was a scratch on the dvd or glitch so I decided to eject the movie and check the disc just to make sure that blockbuster didn’t give me a dud. Imagine my surprise when the movie came out looking like I had just purchased it from the store. It was flawless not even a spec of dust on the disc. So I shut the xbox off and turned it back on with the disc in tray ready to play. Fast forwarding to the scene I was previously viewing, the disc started to play and once again froze in the exact same spot. I went through this procedure another 3-4 times and on the last time I looked at the power button and noticed that 3 of the 4 LED lights had turned red! WTF?!?!? I remember hearing or reading something about this on a forum a long time ago, but since I have owned my xbox 360 for over a year and a half I figured I was one of the lucky ones.

That’s it I called the hot line to find out what the hell was going on. After spending 5-7 minutes going through the stupid menus with my friend MAX I finally got in touch with a rep. We tried some trouble shooting techniques and I will admit that at this point in time I was still somewhat optimistic. By the time I pulled the hard drive off to balancing the system with tooth picks wrapped it in a towel and done some voodoo the agent informs me that I have to send it in. You can only imagine how pissed I must have been at this time.

After going over my information and verifying my address the agent informs me that they will send a pre-paid Purolator box for me to mail back my system. Four days later in the mail the box arrives I pack it up and ship it off. Now here comes the best part of the whole story. After sitting around waiting for over 2 weeks I receive a phone call from the call center asking me to do a survey about quality and customer services. ARE YOU KIDDING ME…DOES MICROSOFT REALLY THINK I AM HAPPY? Needless to say I gave the customer service agent a good rating since it is not their fault Microsoft built a less than quality machine. But when it came time to the service questions I made sure to let them know how un happy I am.

After about another week I receive a call from Purolator to notify me that I have a package waiting at the pick up center. So gladly I go down to sign for it and bring my Xbox home. After opening the box and setting it back up on the 46” Sharp I read a letter that Microsoft put in there. The letter pretty much read “Hi since we built a less than quality product we were unable to fix it and have had to replace it with another console”.

What ticks me off the most in the whole situation is, WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE ME THE HASSLE AND JUST LET ME RETURN THIS TO THE STORE? Microsoft should have some sort of agreement with the retailer saying that if you receive the following list of defects please accept the system back and give out another console at our expense.

So to sum it up I waited 3 weeks for a system they could not fix only to have it replaced by them. I should have known better…I mean this is the company that got us to use windows. Never again Bill, never again.

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I am a fan of NHL and hockey, but only on TV until I started hearing about NHL 09 - EA Sports‘ masterpiece art work.

I recently played this game on XBOX 360 at a friends’ house and since have been hooked on it. The game play is extremely smooth and the motion/action of players is kept very natural.

Here are some of the key features of the game:

Be a Pro
Similar to “road to the show” in the MLB series, be a pro allows the gamer to start off as a player on the 3rd line of an AHL team. This is the only player on the ice that you control in 3rd person perspective. The in-game “performance tracker” will rate the player’s play in 3 categories, Position score, Team play and Stats. You will also be able to choose what type of a pro you want to be, these classes include sniper, playmaker, grinder, dangler, power forward, offensive defenseman, defensive defenseman and goalie. You will also have the choice of playing as an existing player on a current NHL team.

Breakouts
This feature allows the player to completely control how the team goes from their own zone into their opponent’s. Last year, players could only set up a play in the neutral zone, or in the offensive zone.

Defensive skill stick
NHL 09 expands on the “skill stick” of NHL 08 by adding the power to stop offensive attacks. It allows you to block passes and to raise an opposing player’s stick just before he is about to receive a pass.

New checking/fighting
More than 300 animations of fighting and checking will be added along with a new physics-based checking and a fighting engine which simplifies all fights into one punch KO’s. The euphoria engine is not being used in NHL 09. However, it was used to capture the 300 animations that are seen in NHL 09.

EASHL
The new online league on NHL 09 will let players form teams of up to 50 players. Although games can only hold up to 6 players per team, each game will be recorded for the organization and will represent an online rank compared to other organizations, once EA straightens out all of the problems they are encountering with their servers. At the end of a certain amount of decided games the top teams will battle in the playoffs and receive prizes and other rewards from EA. Players will also be recognized by statistics that will keep track of points and display the top players with their real names instead of their Gamertags.

NHL 94 controls
In order to compensate how complicated the NHL games have become, EA Sports have added an option to use a simplified style of controls to help new players get used to the game. These controls will use the face buttons to do most of the work, such as A being pass and B being shoot (X and O on the PS3), instead of using the right-analog stick. This is an option.

New Moves
One handed dekes: A new type of deking, this allows the user to hold the stick while controlling the puck in one hand.
Flip Dump: Allows players to flip the puck up into the air in any direction.
Lift Stick: Allows players to lift the stick of opponents to gain control of the puck.
Protect Puck: Allows players to protect the puck with their body from opponents.

Commentary
Gary Thorne and Bill Clement return to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

Centennial Tournament Mode
Commemorating the Montreal Canadiens 100th “birthday” NHL 09 will feature a team of all-time Canadien greats, such as Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Jean Beliveau, Guy “The Flower” Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Bernard “Boom Boom” Geoffrion, Toe Blake, Dickie Moore, Bob Gainey, Yvan Cournoyer, Steve Shutt, Henri “Pocket Rocket” Richard, Howie Morenz, Jacques Lemaire, Jacques Laperriere, Doug Harvey, and Emile “Butch” Bouchard. Also lacing them up for the Centennial “Habs” in net will be Patrick Roy, Jacques Plante, and Ken Dryden. In addition to gamers being able to play as the team, they are also able to enter “The Centennial Tournament”, in which they will have to go through an eight-team bracket for a chance to play against these all time greats.

Official NHL 09 Trailer