We all know that resident evil has seen its fair share of nice looking ladies (We need something else to look at besides the decaying zombies), but who's Your favourite? To the bad-assed Claire Redfeild to the mystey and seductiveness of Ada Wong, theres a girl for everyone.

You can vote at http://www.albotas.com/2008/06/whos-the-hottest-resident-evil-vixen-of-all-time/

Personally I'm voting the new girl.

And whoever votes for Ashley has some seriouse problems

New to the box office this week is the geo-political thriller Vantage Point and the newest from the guys that did the Bourne Identity, Jumper. While both of these movies reek of big budget Hollywood style movies, are they any good? Or will they fall into the same trap that Fool's Gold and The Eye fell into.

Movies this week range from the mind blowing...

Following an attempt at on the President's of the United States life, eight strangers (not all of them) attempt to unravel whats really going on. The movie is told from a variety of veiw points, including the president's bodygaurd, a news reporter on the scene and variouse terrorists point's of veiw. Each few is interesting and reveals more of the plot, as they all come together in the end for the final showdown. The gimmick to the movie is that every few scenes, the movie rewinds 23 minutes to the initail event and tells the story from a new point of veiw. While this may seem like it may get old, its kept fresh by tight pacing.

While all may seem good so far, the main problem in the movie actually comes from the pacing. The movie moves along so fast and gives you so much information that sometimes it overwhelms you. So instead of thinking about what happens next, I found myself trying to figure out what was going on onscreen at the moment.

Minor problems aside, while Vantage Point isn't the best political thriller out there, its worth a look

4/5

To the mind numbing...

As a travelogue, "Jumper" isn't half bad, with lots of juicy images of Rome, Tokyo, New York and other splendid places. But we're supposed to be watching a sci-fi action film, and that's where things go south. The movie follows the adventure of David Rice, who discovers that he has the ablity to teleport himself anywhere. Unfortunatly, he not alone and a mysteriouse group called "Paladins" is hunting him down.

While the action sequences are fine, as can be expected from the directors of Bourne Identity (who are also directing Jumper), but when the movie gets to slow parts, you can pass the time by counting the numerouse plot holes. These tend to overshadow the action sequences and really drag the movie down. Especailly the ending, which is almost begging for a sequel, which I personaly hope is teleported into the sun and forgoten.

2/5

Thats it for this week, hopefully Be Kind Rewind won't be as bad as Jumper. I can only hope.

As of last week, I've finally got hold of an xbox 360. After buying, I realised miicrosoft suprisingly brilliant strategy: acheivement points. While they may not seem important, I've found myself going out of the way to find them. In order to give back to my fellow gamers, I'll be showing some of the acheivements I've unlocked, and strategies to get them. Enjoy, and I hope their helpfull.

This week I'll be exploring some of Crackdowns unlockables.

10g - Double Trouble
Double your fun - complete your first mission in Co-op mode

The easy wat to get this is to get a freind online, start a new game on tough difficulty and simply rush the first crime boss. As long as both players work together it should be easy to take him down, unlocking the Double Trouble acheivement.

15g - Bare-Knuckle Brawler

Kill 150 gang members with your bare hands (or thrown objects)

While you will most likelly get this for simply playing through the game, you can unlock it quicker by focusing on using bare-handed kills. An easy way to do this is to shoot a gang member in the legs so that he falls, giving you time to death. Another strategy I used was getting the gang members health down just enough so that I could kill him with a single attack, saving time and leaving you less vulnerable. If you stick to these strategies you'll eventually unlock the Bare-Knuckle Brawler acheivement.

15g - Untouchable Agent
Kill 200 gang members without dying yourself

This acheivent is a little more difficult. I suggest waiting until you have some decent weapons (sniper or rocket launcher & a good machine gun) and putting the difficulty down to tough. First anger a gang until they send hit squads after you, then run to the top of a building and begin picking off gang member. If you get low on health or ammo, run to a supply point and try again. This should allow you to eventually get the Untouchable Agent acheivement.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpfull, good night... and happy gaming... you little acheivement whores.

BC

Personal Gamerscore: 815

As we all know todays showcases on of the finest sports games of the year: The Super Bowl. This year shows the matchup of the Patriots and the Giants. But who will win this matchup, who will come out on top?

The Patriots have won every game yet, and show no signs of stopping and becoming the second team in NFL history to do so.

Yet the Giants have been fighting an uphill battle all season and their quarterback has been on fire these last couple games.

My guess: Who gives a damn? Its going to be an awsome game either. Though it would be nice if the Patriots... for more... illicit reasons.

I'm here today to tell you that my punishment is now over! After 1 grueling month of absolutley no electronics (at my house) I'm happy to say I made it out alive with the majority of my sanity. I can now go back to 6 hour jam sessions on Guitar Hero 3, hell ya.

While I was probably supposed to learn something from this, I can only honestly say that I learned 1 thing: Don't get caught when your doing something your probably not supposed to be doing. Whether this be playing M games are operating an illegal suger ring from your room, this lesson can be learned by anyone that has or ever will do something that there parents don't approve of.

As for what my lifes actually been like over these past weeks, I have to three words: Boring As Hell. While I went over to alot of my freinds houses, did sports and watched movies, theres just something about those long hours while your girlfreinds busy and you have nothing to do that really gets to you.

While I may not have beleived in this punishment or completely abided by it, the important thing to get through it and make your parents beleive that actually took out of it.

To all those who will ever find themselves in this situation, good luck

To everyone else, you're a bunch kiss-asses

M.D.

As you may know, Alex N is leaving Gamespot. Maybe I should have seen it coming, with his appearance on The Spot and all, but I sure as hell didn't. I could take this as a slap in the face but no, it was his decision and I'm not going to hate him for it because well… what's the point? Just know that he will be remembered as one of Gamespot's finest reviewers. His reviews were funny, helpful and hit the mark in terms of quality and emotion. I'll never forget his review of Big Rig's. It was to truly a work of art and hit the mark on every aspect.

I'm beggining to beleive that this punishment may actually be good for me, and yes I know its probably symptoms of my withdrawal from video games but what the hell.

Its let me experience things that I've not been exposed to because I've been to preoccupied playing videogames. Things like music, movies and yes, books. Thats the thing, I think society today beleives that just because reading is encouraged by adults means its a bad thing, and I'm here to tell you, its not. Books, especailly those based on video games and Warhammer, can provide stories with well crafted tales of brutality and violence that can entertain you in other ways that video games just can't. While I'm not saying that books are in any way shape or for better than video games, you should try picking up a book sometimes and see if you like it. If you don't, then at least you can say you tried.

Also in this week I've finally been able to uptade my music with songs from Guitar Hero (check out http://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks for free downloads). Thats the thing about Guitar Hero, it not only was a totally kick-ass game, but it introduced me to some kick ass bands that I didn't know about (like what the hell ZZ Top is). Its tracks include a great mix of old and modern day rock that are so good I would actually pay for the CD... if there was no way to get them for free that is.

Unfortunatly, I havn't been able to watch alot of movies this week because I've already watch most of the movies I own. Still, highlights for this week include one of the movie adaptations of 9/11 aptly titled The World Trade Centre. Featuring Nicholis Cage along with other stars the movie follows the strory of two Port Authority cops trapt under the rubble of the world trade center. Its gripping, emotional and I would reccomend watching it. On a sadder and quite pathetic note those I Love Lucy DVD'S may be all I have to watch this week, I pray to the gods that it doesn't happen, but I don't know if I can last the weekend with nothing two watch.

Catch up with you next week

P.S. I think I just say my neighbour dragging a something into his garage and its not garbage.

As movies became more violent and the religously motivated complaints flooded in, the American entertainment industry was face with a predeicament. Something had to be done to calm the raging crowds and thus, the Movie Picture Association of America (MPAA) was created. Though the industry saw it coming with films like Psycho and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

The original rating system was divided into 4 ratings, G, M, R, X each with its own respected levels of content. Parents (as alway) were confused wether M-rated movies had more mature content than R-rated movies. In respnse the MPAA changed the rating to GP, this also cause confusion with parents and it was changed to PG. Because parents beleived GP to be too dismisive and the PG-13 rating was added.

This is were problems begin to arise, as the ratings began to become more Liberal; violence, sexually suggestive speech and action, naked men, and mild cursing were acceptable in the lower ratings, while sexual intercourse (either implicit or explicit) and naked women were not! For example, the G-rated Battle of Britain (1967) had mild British cursing and explicit killings of RAF and Luftwaffe aircrew. True Grit was G-rated after being edited-down in tone; however, it still contained American cursing and strong cowboy violence. Moreover, The Thomas Crown Affair was rated R instead of M (despite its violence being like that of a contemporary James Bond film of the 1960s), because of a chess-game-as-sexual-foreplay between the protagonist and antagonist.

Parents, still confused, whether if PG-13 films were intended for adults, as many movies contained explicate violence and the use of curse words. This arised as many PG movies contained PG-13 level content. The ratings board quickly reacted and PG-13 films began outumbering PG rated films.

As the X rating was never an officail rating or trademark, it was often self applied in pornogphy for busniess reasons. This led many newspapers and television stations to refuse X-rated movie adverts and some cinema owners forbade exhibitions of such movies. Because of the dilenma between art and commerce led the MPAA to create a new rating for adult dramas that were not pornography so that consummers could differenciate between the two.

Most NC-17 films are released in cinemas, either in an edited, R-rated, version or in its original version. For example, the studio Fox Searchlight Pictures released a censored R-rated American edition of the European movie The Dreamers (2003), and later released both the original, NC-17 "Director's Cut" and the censored American commercial version on the same DVD. Only the viewers can determine whether or not that was a marketing strategy to make more money, or if it is censorship. Ironically, American film studios release NC-17 movies abroad uncensored and artistically intact; adding controversy to the subject of the MPAA's movie ratings system in the United States.

That brings us to now, were the current rating system has come under seige by a number of high profile critics. Film critics such as Roger Ebert argue that the MPAA puts to much effort on not showing sex while allowing the portrayal of massive amounts of gruesome violence. Its also said that rating system is geared towards the more trivial aspects of the movie such as profanity and the portrayal of smoking (newly added feature) rather than a movies theme.

Independant distributers have also argued that the MPAA are more lenient with major studios's releases than independent film's and that they receive specail treatment. Their main argumen is with Saving Private Ryan with they beleive would have got the NC-17 rating due to its graphic display of DDay had it not been a Steven Speilberg film. The comedy Scary Movie, released by a division of The Walt Disney Company's Miramax Films, contained "strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence" but was rated R, to the surprise of many reviewers and audiences; by comparison, the comparatively tame porn spoof Orgazmo, an independent release, contained "explicit sexual content and dialogue" and received an NC-17. On the other hand, the studio distributed film The Passion of the Christ received an R rating despite graphic depictions of violence.

These ratings battles have inspired films such as South Park:Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Which directly critisizes the MPAA and hold the world record for most profanity and violence in an animated film. The film was succesfull and is regarded as an intelligent and entertaining peice of political satire.

Also being attacked is its PG-13-rating, which many ethnic and religous group beleive has the smae amount of content as an R-rated film. A Harvard study suggested that the rating system has allowed far more violence, sex, profanity, drug use and other mature content in 2003 than they have allowed in 1992 in PG and PG-13 rated movies. That study found this when they noticed that an R-rated movie released in 1992 had the exact same content levels as a PG-13 rated film released in 2003.

Internal opponent Stephen Farber documents how, since its early days, the board has used the same censorship tactics it uses today: threatening an X rating to force a film maker to delete content offensive to the personal sensibilities of the board's members; the lopsided prejudice against sex relative in favour of violence; and using of psychological jargon to justify restricting films because of their themes rather than their images, even when inexplicit; for example, the anti-war movie The Revolutionary first was rated PG, but later was re-rated R because it is anti-war.

Many critics of the system, both conservative and liberal, would like to see the MPAA ratings unveiled and the standards made public. The MPAA has consistently cited Nationwide scientific polls, (conducted each year by the Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey) which show that parents find the ratings useful. Nevertheless, critics respond this proves only that parents find the ratings more useful than nothing at all.

Whether or not this once fine ratings board can pull itself together is up to itself. It all depends on how much the MPAA is willing to accept its own mistakes rather than making excuses. Let me personally hope that for the betterment of us all, the board will stop using dirty tricks to proceed its own private agendas and veiws. I also hope that the general public will take more notice into this issue, as it is they who have the power to institute change this.

As you may know, I am now officially 1 week into my punishment (no game consoles/computer). While you may be wondering how I'm updating my blog, don't.

While I may not be playing gams at my own home, I'm been playing a hell of alot of Hitman at my freinds house. On the second game already. Did I mention how kickass they are? Although it may be a symptom of my withdrawal from games, they combine stealth with really brutal and bloody shootouts. Even if the only reason you die is cause you were outnumbered 50 to 1.

In all my free time I've been forced to re-watch some of my DVD'. My only fear is that when I run out of good DVD's to watch, I'm going to turn to my mom's I Love Lucy Collection. I can only hope. On the same topic, I've been watching some more horror movies and I just have to say, Stay Alive totally sucks. The premise (a killer videogame) is interesting enough, but the acting is lacking, along with everything else. Though it does have Frankie Muniz, he tottaly rocks.

Also been catching up on handheld gaming, turns out I tottally suck at Starfox and Super Mario 64. shame that there aren't any zombie games on handhelds... I'm sorry, I mean GOOD zombie games (sorry Infected). Though there is ports of old Final Fantasy games... God whats happening to me.

Catch up you next week

P.S. I swear my neighbour is a serial killer... Or I've been watching a little too much Disterbia.

As I counted down to the New Year, I began to realize what challenges this new year is gong to bring.

First is my gaming consoles, dissagreements between me and my parents have gotten them removed for the month of January. This includes the computer so I may not be logging onto my account very often.

Also on my plate is a massive school project thats due by the end of the month. Holiday visits and events have left me little time to work on it and I am beginning to stress about.

Hopefully my year will be better then how its started, but have a happy new years day anyway.