So I am constantly seeing ads, and news, on this new game coming out, 'Velvet Assassin'. I was pretty underwhelmed by the news on it actually, didn't look like anything too exciting. But recently they showed two new screens that look like Peter Chung animation. This game may have some promise after all!

For those of you that can remember, Peter Chung is the genius who brought us the Aeon Fleux cartoon (not to be confused with that piece of crap movie, which he had nothing to do with), Reign: The Conqueror and Phantom 2049. Unfortunately, his recent endeavors (the Riddick cartoon, the Tomb Raider cartoon and a piece for The Animatrix) , though visually stunning, have demonstrated a lapse of judgement on his part, but hey, we all gotta eat.

So can anyone verify this? Is Peter Chung working on Velvet Assassin? I've found no news that can confirm this, other then those two screenshots which could just be imitations.

Man, I can't believe SO:tLH is going to be an Xbox exclusive. What the $%*# is wrong with Square? First they delay FFXIII for US release so they can make it Xbox compatible, and now this? Oh well, maybe it's for the best, as I've said numerous times, I'm getting kind of sick of ARPG's; that's like all that's been coming out lately. Granted, SO:TtEoT was an excellent game, I just feel that the market for games like that has become, a bit, over saturated.

So I'm always curious as to what type of music people listen to, especially if they're from other parts of the world. So I want to hear who are peoples current musical favorites.

My fav will always be Bowie; but as far as contemporary music goes, my current favorite musical acts are The Cruxshadows, And One and ASP.

So what is everybody else listening to out there in Gamespot land?

Okay, I saw some previews for some movies that really pissed me off recently. Here's the first one:

Tim Burton:"9"

Man, I'm so disappointed that Burton would work on a CG film. I mean, I know that he's only producing it, but still, why would he even do that? It just looks like another one of those piece of crap Dreamworks or Pixar films that come out, like, every other week. I liked stop motion, and sets and models sooo much better then having every visual effect in modern cinema being done with CG, I wished they'd start bringing back the Ray Harryhausen approach to special effects; but they wont because it takes time and requires talent to do that kind of stuff, whereas digital arts does not.

And what's with the cast? My god, Jennifer Connoly, Elijah Wood, John C. Reily; it's like a Hollywood hack convention.

And here's the second trailer, but I warn you, if you haven't seen this yet you may be shocked, you may have a hard time believing that it's real, and not some elaborate joke, (I felt the same way when I saw the Speed Racer trailer), but I assure you, this is very, and sadly, real:

Dragonball: Evolution

I know what you're think, you're thinking "Really? WTF?! Why would they do that?" And I don't have an answer for you. It's appauling, it's disturbing, and it's slightly disgusting.

Can I just ask this? Is it not bad enough that you Americans have to steal all your ideas from us Asians? Why do you then have to re-cast all the leading male roles as white guys? And as if that wasn't bad enough, you then keep all the female leads Asian? So you not only steal our ideas, you then limit our presence in the media and defile our woman? WTF is wrong with you America?!

Man, I'm getting really excited about the Ys I and II port to the DS. This was a game series that I missed out on the first time. From what I can tell it's a continous plot, so I don't want start playing the SNES ones before the NES ones, but when I tried to play I and II for the NES I just couldn't get into it; those games are long and extremely antiquated. I play NES games all the time, like the FF games, Crystalis, and Zelda games, but for some reason I couldn't get into Ys. Maybe it was because all the NES games I can still play now i played as a kid, so I'm use to the antiquated graphics and the style of gameplay they offer, whereas with Ys, the first time I had ever tried to play it was, like, three years ago. So now that they're porting I and II to the DS with updated graphics I may finally be able to get into this long running series.

Have video games evolved? Are video games now better then they were in 80's? Most people would say, quite emphatically, yes. And I agree with this, to a certain degree. Video games have certainly come a long way; once they were, near, unrecognizeable 8-bit shapes running from point a to point b who were enjoyed only by a tight-nit group of people labelled as nerds, or gamers by the general populace; today they're big budget cinematic spectacles whose popularity envelopes an entire generation.

But this "evolution" has not been without it's sacrfices; and, even though, games have made a huge leap in graphics, budget, and general acceptance and popularity in the last 20-30 years, gameplay, unfortunately, has not. With the graphical limitations of the past game designers were forced to think of new and endearing ways to make each new game exciting. This is not to say that all classic games are great, but there were so many games for the NES, Snes and Sega that I still have very found memories of, and still find myself replaying from time to time. But as far as new games go, the experience is, typically, forgettable. Games have become extremely deriative and sacriafice substance for flash and pomp (i.e. graphical improvements, CG cutscenes). There are still some good games out there, but they aren't as abundant as they were fifteen years ago.

Also, with game companies trying to appeal to broader, and, often, younger audiences games seem to have gotten easier and easier to the point where they're just not fun anymore. This demographic of young and casual gamers is made up of people who didn't grow up playing systems like the NES and they've never experienced how rewarding beating a really hard, and often frustrating, game can feel.

Of course there's the argument that this is just the natural evolution of any type of media and that to appeal to a greater audience then the gamer niche and be recognized as viable medium games had to become more visually stimulating and less structually and interactively complex. Though, I wish game designers could find some middle ground between these two extremes, combine the best of both worlds.

Oh well, I suppose that's the tragedy of getting older, you have to see the things you cherished when you were a kid evaporate. Or maybe I'm just too nostalgic about the treasures of childhood, after all, it has been said that "all men look back and think their youth was arcadia".

Here's my list of the top games that make me ask myself "how are these so popular?"

-Kingdom Hearts--A blending of Square and Disney charachters, really? Why'd they make this game? Why are they still making these games?

-Grand Theft Auto--I can understand, to a degree, why these games are so popular, because they're juevenille and unscrupulous and there's, unfortunately, a large percentage of the population that is intrigued by that (they're the ones who work minimum wage jobs well into their 30's, listen to rap music and enjoy watching professional wrestling). However, what I don't understand is why these games are so well respected and aren't just dismissed as rubbish pumped out to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

-God of War--It's that game made for the people who thought Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden were too hard.

-Prince of Persia ( 2008 )--I've already expressed my opinions on this game in various places.

-Final Fantasy XII--Why isn't anyone else outraged by this game? Since when was Final Fantasy an ARPG series? When I play a Final Fantasy game I don't want bad real time battles where your character looks like he's pissing out blue lasers onto the enemy, I want solid turn base mechanics. And what was with having to purchas licenses to equip weapons? That was retarded.

-Halo--Okay, it's not a bad game; but why are people so obsessed with it? It's a fairly standard FPS, there's nothing special or innovative about it. I've never seen something so average draw in such a diehard fanbase. Was it because it was, like, the only other worthwhile game exclusively for the original Xbox besides Ninja Gaiden?

-Megaman Starforce/Dragonforce (.exe)--They really just need to stop making these games. Megaman is one of my favorite game series, and the fact that they took it and made it into some lame Digimon knock off (don't get me wrong, Digimon was bad enough) is absolutely appauling to me. I hate seeing kids talk about how much they love Megaman when they've played none of the games from the OS or the X series. THIS .EXE CRAP IS NOT MEGAMAN!

-Super Smash Bros. Brawl--Oh my god, I was so upset when this game came out; I was looking forward to it for sooooo long. This game may seem similair to it's Melee predecessor at first glance, but if you're a seasoned Melee player (I'm talking tournaments here), then you understand that this game is radically different from Melee. I hate that it's so much more popular then Melee, there's no where nears as much skill involved in mastering Brawl as there was in Melee, it's just way to easy to be cheap in Brawl. And why do Snake and Sonic suck so bad in that game? What was the point of even putting them in there if they're going to make them so weak?

**If I think of anything else I'l update.

So is anyone else as excited as I am about the new Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem Forever?

God, this game has been a long time coming; but from the looks of the previews it's going to be pretty awesome!

Here are some trailers for the "soon to be released game" going more then ten years back.

1998

2001

2007

I really hope they don't f#$% it up and make Duke all politically correct, nonviolent, and non-smoking; or make it super easy and put in some lame crap where you can't die like in the new PoP. I guess that's possible, right? I mean, has 3d realms made anything else that was any good besides Duke Nukem? Don't say Max Payne, because Max Payne sucked; I'm sure the movie did too, anything with Mark Wahlberg in it is destined to suck.

I'm currently replaying old Duke Nukem games in preparation; right now I'm on Manhattan Project.

**Favorite line from any Duke Nukem game: "There's only two ways this can end and in both I kill you".

So I wrote my first review. It was for the new Prince of Persia game. After writting it I was shocked to find that I gave it the lowest score out of anyone (I gave it a 1.0); I was even more shocked to see that most people gave it an 8 or up. Why do people like this game? Why is it popular? I don't understand this; someone please explain it to me. That game is such garbage! People, stop saying how great this game is; stop buying it! Then maybe Ubisoft will get the picture and start making good PoP games again.

Has anyone heard any news about Dark Prophecy? It was too be the sixth instalment in the Legacy of Kain series and take place immediately following the events of Blood Omen II. Unfortunately Eidos cancelled production on it, god only knows why. You can probably find some screens of it online if you check; from the looks of it the game was pretty far along in production. I was wondering if anybody had any news on this title; I heard a rumor that Crystal Dynamics might buy the rights to the game and continue production on it without Eidos, but I haven't heard anything official. Can anyone verify this?