Tag: action

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Game Reviews

We Review: Splinter Cell: Blacklist

American author Tom Clancy has penned many a spy novel and since the late 90s lent his name to a range of video game sneak-em-ups including the Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell series. His involvement in the creation of the games may be questionable but there’s a Clancy-esque technical and tactical nature to them. It’s never been a match for my loose and free style of play, as such none of these titles have lit up my radar.

Times are a-changing though, what with the economy on the downturn and the cost of video game development reaching atmospheric levels. Publishers and developers can’t just target one segment of the market as freely as they might have in the past. To broaden its appeal, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist casts a wider net into the pool of gamer stereotypes. As a newcomer to the franchise, I decided to test the waters.

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Game Reviews

We Review: Star Trek: The Video Game

Like a certain sexually transmitted disease, it seems that we’ll never be rid of shameless game tie-ins. Just a few weeks ago, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was met with some disdain from gamers and critics alike for being dead boring. And now, Star Trek the video game comes under fire. Despite the (best?) intentions of the developers, by the time the last credit has rolled, Star Trek does nothing to stem the tide of tired tie-ins. A terrible movie may be finished in an hour or two but game tie-ins often need to be endured for much longer. Several hours later and I’ve concluded the captain’s log on Star Trek, a video game that does not reach warp speed but sputters into mediocrity.

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Game Reviews

We Review: BioShock Infinite

Irrational Games’ new action shooter BioShock Infinite leaves its watery home and heads to a new lofty, fantastical setting. The trip there hasn’t been smooth sailing though, with developmental delays and a small cover art crisis. Has the wait been worth it? Is it just another BioShock in the sky? Find out after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Awesomeness Entertainment Video Clips

Kittens on the Beat

Roto and Bowie love their socks. When a bunch of ninja thieves launch a sophisticated raid into the sock drawer, the kittens spring to action. Check out Kittens on the Beat.

The video was created by Niko and Sam at Corridor Digital and the tune “Wildstyle” by Aleksander Vinter is available for free download on SoundCloud.

[via The Presurfer]

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Featured Game Reviews

We Review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series celebrates its 26th anniversary this year. It’s a party to which I had no interest in attending, figuratively speaking. Since the first “Metaru Gia Sorid” on PS1, I’ve skirted around the game. It’s no secret that I don’t have the attention span for sneak-em-ups and the thought of travelling around in cardboard boxes and enduring feature-length cutscenes was not for me. I have subsequently missed every successive Metal Gear game across all the platforms. Until now.

So why is someone like me without any interest in the Metal Gear franchise, so enthused to play Metal Gear Rising: Reveangeance? Did the flurry of media lure me on board the hype train? Truthfully, yes. Not once during the extreme frenetic trailers, did I think of the possibility of stealth and death-by-cutscene creeping into this new game. All I wanted to do was slice people up into teeny tiny hors d’oeuvres.

So how does Metal Gear Rising: Reveangeance (henceforth shortened to just “Revengeance”) play for someone who is unburdened of experiencing past Metal Gear games? The answer lies in wait, after the jump.

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Awesomeness Entertainment Featured Movies Video Clips

The Raid

Some films are all talk, and no action. The Raid isn’t one of those films, not according to the trailer at least. In this Indonesian action film directed by Welsh director Gareth Evans, it seems a rundown apartment block in Jakarta is home to a ruthless drug lord and his vicious cronies. The beat cops are too scared to even ring the doorbell, so it is up to a 20-man squad of elite cops to raid the apartment and take down the boss.

The plot may be paper-thin but it certainly sets up the throat-slitting, face-shooting, ass-kicking action that is about to assault you. Take a look at the action-packed red band trailer to The Raid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7B__KkLCLM

The movie showcases the Indonesian martial art  of Pencak Silat. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to much acclaim. Sony Pictures Worldwide have acquired the distribution rights but IMDB tells us that there are currently no release dates for any of the territories aside from Indonesia.

[via Collider]

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Awesomeness Movies

This Year’s Blockbuster Movie Posters Done in LEGO

As the southern hemisphere descends into a damp dark depression that is winter, Hollywood is preparing for the season full of bots, bikinis, and the phenomenon that is Johnny Depp.

To celebrate the number of sequels and comic book adaptations headed our way in the coming months, NextMovie commissioned a series of posters for this year’s biggest summer movies, where all the main actors have been replaced by their more cute LEGO forms. See them after the jump.

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Featured Game Reviews

We Review: Demon’s Souls

Demon’s Souls is, at a very bare-bones level, an epic fantasy RPG with a tongue twister in its name. That description is also about as apt as calling the Internet a “series of tubes”: you’re missing a lot of subtle nuances, nuisances, and other wonderful, shaggy things that begin with the letter “n”. Calling Demon’s Souls “very difficult” doesn’t quite describe the game aptly, either. Nor does calling it “the hardest game you’ll likely play in a long while”. “Brutal”, perhaps. “Punishingly unforgiving”, almost certainly. But at no point is this game “unplayable”. Not by any stretch of the term. Either way, most gamers today are gutless pussies, and this game eats a bowlful of them every morning for breakfast. Without sugar. And with white-hot lava instead of milk. And it hates every mouthful of gutlessness, hoping for a gamer of some substance to come along and give it a chewy challenge for once. Someone that will make it spit you out in disgust because you’ve defied all its attempts to swallow you down and drown you with antacids. Is it you? Are you gamer enough? Will you rise to this challenge? Find out after the jump.

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Awesomeness Movies Video Clips

The “Future X-Cops” Trailer is Absurdly Awesome

Fans of godawful Asian cinema may like this. Andy Lau is Hong Kong’s most commercially successful film actor, having appeared in over a 100 films. I watched just four of them – Infernal Affairs I, II, and III (these were remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed), and The House of Flying Daggers.

And in Future X-Cops, Lau plays a cop from 2085 who travels back in time to thwart a corporation’s plan to eliminate a scientist who has created a new technology to break up the monopoly on energy resources. Seems like a humdrum plot doesn’t it? What could possibly improve it – perhaps an enemy who arm is made entirely of robotic snakes? Or maybe a baddie that has bullet-proof bat wings? Oh yes, and what about some super-cop cyborg armour? Dude, totally.

I don’t understand a word of Chinese, but I do speak the language of awesome, and the Future X-Cops trailer has left me speechless. It’s absurd, I love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-KlEHa_Dkw

The $20 million movie is directed by Jing Wong and will apparently release on February 25th. I doubt this will make it to South African cinemas though.

[via I Watch Stuff]

Categories
Movies Video Clips

The Expendables: Semper Fight

After the release of a bootleg trailer a month back, a new (extended) promo trailer for “The Expendables” has just surfaced. Penned and directed by Sylvester Stallone, it stars the man himself, along with memorable action heroes Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, and Jet Li.

I was expecting to see gratuitous violence akin to Stallone’s 2008 effort “Rambo” where his actions resulted in 236 lives coming to an end (that’s 2.59 people a minute according to the stats) but I was pleasantly surprised to find what could be the makings of a cheesy ’80s action-thriller. Have a look at the 3-minute trailer below and let us know what you think of it.

Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are expected to take part. The explosion fest is set to hit U.S. theatres on August 20th, 2010.

[thanks to Macross for the tip]

….and here’s the official trailer (keep an eye out for the cameos).