It’s been two years to the day since the release of the quintessential xbox 360 action shooter, Gears of War. With it’s gritty style, it’s tactical ’stop and pop’ game play, and it’s brutally violent kills, the game quickly became a cornerstone of the current gaming generation. Now, with the release of Gears of War 2, questions will be answered. What happened to land Marcus in prison? What has happened to Dom’s family? But most importantly, how does this game stack up to the original. Well, I can answer that last one no problem. “Nice!”

Opening with a quick training sequence, the player will meet up with some familiar faces, along with a few new allies. The game wastes no time jumping into the thick of it, plunging you into a crumbling hospital infested with hordes of locusts and a few nifty new ways to take out half a dozen of them in one shot (you’ll be looking at fuel tanks in a whole new way). It barely takes forty-five minutes before you find yourself aiming your fire arm at multiple brumaks and more than a few reavers. Enough of the story though, wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.

The game looks great, there’s just no other way to put it. While the first installment was no slouch when it came to graphics, the sequel packed on some pounds in the texture department. The city streets look even more run down and deserted than ever thanks to the amp’ed up textures of dirt, cracks, vines and what have you. The imulsion glows brighter and more vibrantly than ever, and the explosion of a body is twice as visceral as ever before. Up graded particle effects and destructible environments create an even more hectic feel as you catch a glimpse of the red, glowing tip of your enemies barrel. The new shading and blur effects also help to convey the rapid play style.

As for the controls? Well, simply put, Gears is Gears. Thankfully though, there have been improvements. The movement is a bit speedier, getting rid of those ‘oh come on’ moments that we all had in the first game. The cover system feels tighter and much more reliable (those ’sniped while under cover’ moments are all but gone). Oh, and as for mobile cover? Well you’ve got rock worms, cars, tables, giant metal shields, and oh yeah; other people. After downing an opponent, should you reach them in time, a simple press of the A button will take them from helpless victim, to helpful and very mobile cover. Grabbing an opponent is no longer all that easy though, those little buggers can crawl pretty darn fast (and leave an awesome trail of blood) by simply mashing the A button. Should you feel that you’d much rather simply end their suffering, well now you can do it in style. Every face button is now a different kill style. A grabs them up and creates a handy shield, B is just a good old fashion weapon dependent melee, X nets you a bloody curb stomp, and Y engages you in an MMA style bare knuckle beat down.  As far as I can tell, the Bull Shit, or BS, is pretty much gone from the online. No more shots with a shotty just to get melee’d a second later. The game just feels tighter over all, a much welcome improvement.

Speaking of the online, multiplayer is down right fun. There are new game variants to be played. These include Guardian (an altered version of ‘assassination’ where team members will respawn until the team leader is killed, in which case it turns into warzone.) Wingman (essentially a warzone style game with teams of two.) And last but not least, my personal new favorite, and the most hilariously frustrating game type, meat flag. This is essentially CTF with one little hitch, the flag is pissed and has a shotty. Using the new ‘meat shield’ feature, you (or a team mate) must down and drag the individual that has been deemed the ‘flag’ to the designated zone. In-case you were wondering, yes this game type is as ludicrous as it sounds. But the biggest and probably most bad ass new mode has to be horde. This mode is exactly what it sounds like. You and up to four friends will be going face to face with wave after wave of increasingly powerful locusts, good luck my friend, good luck.

There are, of course a few other new features added to the game this time around. New weapons are as follows. You’ve got the ’scorcher’, a flame thrower with a ridiculous range. The ‘Gorgon Pistol’, a new locust pistol that is essentially a mid range shot gun of sorts. And the new and improved ‘hammerburst burst’ rifle, which has traded in the three shot burst firing style for a meatier ak-47 style shot. The chain saw duels have also been tweaked. Now you’ve got a fighting chance, mashing B may very well turn the tides of battle. Some of the maps are also interactive, from avalanches that change the very terrain, to razor sharp ice storms that spill death from above, the new multiplayer maps will be throwing you for a loop from time to time.

The game is great, fast paced and epic as hell, I loved playing it and the ten hour career mode is pretty evenly paced, BUT, I do have a couple of complaints. The controls in the vehicle portions of the game are clunky and unresponsive, leaving you saying ‘thank god it’s over’ as apposed to ‘aww is that really it?’. There is STILL that damn lag with the textures more than occasionally and while not a game-play problem itself, it’s a bother in such a graphically intense title. A few frame rate issues just add to that last thing. The match making can be a little slow at times.

The good: Pretty much everything, Epic as hell

The bad: nothing a few firm ware updates can’t fix, for the most part

Graphics: 9

Sound:9

Game-play:10

Multiplayer:8

Replay Value:9

Overall:9.7

Close to perfect, but not quite. Go buy it, you won’t regret it

The movie reviewing responsibilities have been left in my hands as of lately, and as of lately I been a tad too busy to write lengthy reviews. But as owner of the site, I feel like I would be letting myself and our readers down if I did not at least review the movies I reported news on before their debut at the theater. So here we go. Better late then never.

Plot: In the near future our economy is falling apart as the unemployment count rises at an alarming rate. Former race car driver Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) finds himself layed off from his steel mill job and comes home to comfort of his family. While checking up on his daughter, his wife is killed by an intruder and Jensen is sprayed by a chemical and falls unconscious. Upon awaking he is falsely arrested by police for the murder of his wife and is sent to prison on a remote island where the national blood spot Death Race is held. Once settled in to the prison scene, he is approached by the warden and ultimately forced to race in the dangerous sport in order to gain his freedom. As Jensen drives to literally save his life and get back to the daughter he lost, he starts to uncover the truth behind his framing and devises a way to escape the sadistic clutches of the warden.

The Good: Death Race is a great end of the summer pop corn movie. If you love the sight of car races and anything that reminds you of the hit video game Twisted Metal, then you are going to enjoy Death Race. It’s an action packed thrill ride that will give you laughs and a few “OH SNAP!” moments that will have you wishing there was a rewind button. Fortunately since Death Race is an actual show inside the movie, they often show the “OH SNAP!” moments as highlights like any other sports game, over and over again.

Jason Statham is still the same hardened tough guy we all love him for. No changes there. Tyrese Gibson provides comedy as his character Machine Gun Joe keeps having his navigators die on him, sometimes at his own hands. And of course there is the hard as stone, ego driven bitch know as the Warden who you just want to kick in the jaw every time she speaks. That means she does a good job of being the bad guy girl.

The Bad: Some plot elements just don’t make any sense. An example would be a scene where Jensen and Machine Gun Joe are on a mission to break out of the prison together during the race, yet they are still shooting at each other and coming nearly inches of killing one another. I can understand that they did this just to make the warden believe they were still enemies, but the characters themselves still taunt each other and act as if they are pissed off at one another.

Also the plot doesn’t really leave you guessing so the element of surprise was not present through out the entire movie. No creative plot elements what so ever. It is not a big deal, but still would have been nice to see some creativity out side the effects department.

One last thing. The prison girls that help the drivers navigate are done up like models. Seems a little ridiculous that every girl that walks around has the hair of a Garnier Fructis spokeswoman and the attitude of a hardened criminal.  But of course it is all for the audience, so I will leave it alone.

Overall: Death Race is a great film to head out and see in the theater on one of those Friday nights that you have nothing else to do. Round up your friends, go get some dinner at an over priced franchise restaurant, and go see Death Race. Yeah it isn’t a summer highlight movie like TDK, but it is a good movie none the less.

Death Race earns a Bronze Cylon

Hancock is an awesome movie for comic book fans that are looking to get away from this summer’s line up of franchise movies. Not that this summer has a load of bad movies, no no no they are all really great and I feel it’s truly been a magnificent year in film making. It’s just we need something that’s doesn’t follow the crowd. I believe Hancock delivered that.

Hancock is about a super hero with a lost soul who often tries to do good but due to is drunken and sloppy ways, tend to mess things up more. Being under appreciated and shunned by the public, he builds a wall between himself and the world around him. The movie is about breaking down that wall, breaking his bad habits, and becoming the hero he SHOULD be.

Once Hancock starts to accept responsibility for himself and changes his ways, things start looking up. That’s until a person from his past shows up and the movie goes into discovery mode. I won’t go into detail about the film but I will say that it really started feeling like a comic book to me. Showing Hancock’s weakness and revealing a very sad and dark past to him. The movie really shines at this point, presenting an engaging story that you didn’t see coming by viewing the trailer.

Overall Hancock is a fun and enjoyable movie. Will Smith usually does a great job in all of his films, Hancock is no exception. He really played the character out well and offers up a lot humor. So if you’re looking to laugh this weekend go catch Hancock at the theater. Some of the scenes look really great on the theater screen so I wouldn’t want to miss it while it’s playing.

Likes:  The dialogue between characters is well done. Hancock himself is a riot. The special effects are great. The main characters are believable. Hancock’s antics are just funny as hell. Nice to see a super hero not made 100% up of honor, pride, and justice.

Dislikes: A set of regular human villains go after Hancock not knowing his weakness after already getting their butts handed to them earlier in the movie, so I didn’t make sense that they would challenge him again. Hancock’s weakness seems only to apply at convenient times.  The eagle, they never explained it yet it’s all over the film. Hancock’s past was revealing about his relationship to characters in the movie but everything else was left a mystery or merely hinted at.

Hancock gets a Silver Cylon

“Hancock, tuckin me in heh”