Movie Time

Oh, we're getting to that time of year that I love the most. Summer! Not only do I get the luxury of living in an area that has plenty of parks for hiking, warm weather, bright sun, gorgeous days... Summer is the time of great movies. And there are a whopping number of movies on the must-see list this year. Impressively, the first three movies come back to back to back. May is going to be one sweet month.

• Star Trek - May 8 - I shouldn't, by rights, want to see this movie. I've never been a Star Trek fan... but the folks at Bad Robot proved themselves great film makers with the stunningly epic Cloverfield. Plus, it looks to have a solid cast, including Zachary Quinto of Heroes fame. Now that Watchmen has come and gone, this is what I want to see the most.
• Angels & Demons - May 15 - Say what you will about the novel The Da Vinci Code, the movie kicked ass. This is one of the very few book-to-movie adaptations for which I will say the movie is better. Angels & Demons the novel was a far better book than The Da Vinci Code, so I anticipate huge things from the movie. 
  
• Terminator: Salvation - May 21 - Christian Bale + Terminator = win. This movie looks to be utterly fantastic with much grim storyline and many explosions throughout.
• G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra - August 7 - I've been waiting for this for more years than I can sanely count. From the very little that's been leaked about this movie, it looks like it's got a ton of potential. Can't wait to check this one out.

*EDITS* I forgot a couple when I did this yesterday, so here we go.

• Fast & Furious - April 3 (tomorrow!!) - These are certainly not the deepest movies out there, but they are certainly good for an entertaining couple of hours. The newest in the franchise reunites Vin Deisel with one of my personal favorites, Paul Walker, and I think this is going to be a ton of fun. Hopefully they maintain the stance on CGI they took with Tokyo Drift and just don't use it.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - May 1 - How in the hell did I forget this one? This makes May a month with 4 back to back must-see movies! Perhaps the things I'm most excited about in this movies are seeing Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and finally getting to see Gambit on the big screen. 

I could get started on the video games coming out soon too, but that would take more time than I have at the moment. Cheers!

Follow Me!!

I added the follow module to the left side of the blog. Follow me, and join a really cool and very elite group. You know you want to!

I'd promise everybody a free iPod for following this blog, buuuuuuuuut... I'd just end up keeping any I bought for myself, so you'll just have to settle for being one cool cat. ;-)

Today in Politics...

It's blog time once again, folks. I meant to do some blogging over the weekend, as the proverbial fan is a very dark shade of brown after this weekend... but I was busy apartment hunting and doing lease paperwork and such. 

In slightly positive news, the Missouri Highway Patrol retracted a document in which they linked conservative groups with domestic terrorism. Mentioned by name were the folks (such as myself) who agree with and are active for the causes championed by Ron Paul. 

The document was originally released last month by the Missouri Information Analysis Center. The name of this government agency sends chills up and down my spine, as thinking of it reminds me in too many ways of 1984. The agency is meant to be a collaborative "fusion center" for government agencies in Missouri and around the country when dealing with national security issues, namely militia movements. 

The document suggests that domestic militias often oppose immigration, abortion, and federal taxes; it is "not uncommon", according to the report, to support third-party political candidates, such as Ron Paul.

Pardon me, but as an American citizen, I have a Constitutional right to make my voice heard. Just because my voice happens to find harmony with a political figure who, by modern standards, is neither Republican nor Democrat, that should not allow some asinine, privacy-violating government agency to associate me with terrorists. The political movement in which I am active does not condone nor does it encourage violent or aberrant behavior. It encourages it's members to grow support for the cause using the Internet and other resources to educate people. I reiterate, it's our Constitutional right to do so.

I know I'm not alone in this belief, because Campaign for Liberty called upon its members to peacefully make known their grievances relating to this document. It was subsequently retracted. 

I mentioned how this particular agency reminds me of 1984. The government in this story controls everything, from the newspapers to the manufacturing. Everything is controlled and manipulated by the government. The book is absolutely horrifying, yet I see the real government of the United States heading right in that direction.

Take, for example, the proposed bailout of the newspaper industry. Yeah, you read that right. We've nationalized (read: socialized) the mortgage industry, the banking industry, a heaping chunk of the insurance industry, and the auto industry (more on that in a minute), and now we'd like the government to control the newspapers too. Well, perhaps "we" as the American public wouldn't like to see that, but the government probably would. Essentially, the government would allow the newspapers to become non-profit organizations with a bunch of tax breaks. So, the government offers the newspapers money (tax subsidies) in exchange for semi-nationalization of the industry. Does that scare anybody else? That's not too many steps away from our very own Ministry of Truth.

Sorry to all the journalists out there who work for newspapers, but the industry is dying and we need to allow it to do so. The industry has been going under for quite some time; it really has nothing to do with the current state of the economy. Simply put, why wait to read today's news in the paper tomorrow when I can just go online and find it right now? The news-reporting model of the newspaper is outdated and will never see a comeback in the age of the Internet and 24-hour news networks. I think the bigwigs in the industry realize this, but they are either too stubborn or greedy to let it happen. Alas, they ride the wave of companies requesting government bailouts and try to get their share of the pie.

Dominoes Pizza is currently running a line of commercials that show the CEO poking fun at companies who are looking for bailouts. while its jest is obvious, it's still sobering to be reminded of it every time Heroes goes to a commercial break.

In perhaps the most horrifying turn of events from the weekend, the Obama administration has forced Rick Wagoner to retire. For the unfamiliar, Wagoner was the CEO of General Motors. In a speech given at the White House over the weekend, Obama promised us that he is absolutely committed to the survival of the U.S. auto industry, but he feels the industry is not moving in the correct direction fast enough. 

This comes after the announcement that GM and Chrysler requested, and were turned down for, additional bailout funds. As part of the original auto bailout approved by the Bush folks, the two automakers received a total of $17.4 billion in bailout funds - $13.4 billion to GM, $4 billion to Chrysler. GM requested another $16.6 billion and Chrysler requested another $5 billion. Obama said "no", a decision I approve of. He did, however, say that the government is now backing the warranties on all US-made automobiles. So, in reality, if you purchase an American-made vehicle (particularly from GM and Chrysler - Ford did not receive a bailout), you might as well be purchasing from the government. 

Let's go back to the original statement though. Obama's administration has forced GM's CEO to retire and appointed a new CEO, who happens to be the old COO. They also appointed a new chairman of the board. In his speech Obama said, “Let me be clear: The United States government has no interest in running GM; we have no intention in running GM." Soooooo, all that forced reorganization stuff, that's not actually considered "running" GM? Do I have that right?

Like I've been saying since the beginning, while I agree that GM (and Chrysler, for that matter) is very much on the wrong course, it is not, nor should it ever be, the the place of the government to make hiring and firing decisions. That is so far beyond the scope of what the founding fathers had in mind in literally bewilders me that our country has come to this. Under the guise of "change," Obama is literally trying to take over the private sector. If the past has taught us anything, such a system is bound to collapse under the weight of its own greed and depravity. 

What's more, the government is now bailing out the companies that supply parts to the American car manufacturers to keep them afloat. MagicMoney at work here, folks. We don't have it, but we're spending it anyway.

I'm going to derail this train of thought before I end up writing a novel. As always, I encourage all my readers to be more active in politics, because now it's more important than ever. Start educating yourself at the Campaign for Liberty. 

Interesting News Day

People have been IMing me the craziest stuff today. Talk about silly news. 

Colbert Nation is reporting that Stephen Colbert has won NASA's "Name Node 3" survey. The survey's function was to allow the public to vote on names for the new room on the international space station. The name "Colbert" beat out the second place name, one suggested by NASA, by over 40,000 votes. Colbert had been asking his viewers to submit his name (because NASA allowed write-ins), and the Colbert Nation responded and voted in droves with a whopping 230,539 votes (out of about 1.2 million). Hilarious.

NASA is not yet sure if they will actually name to room "Colbert". They reserved the right to use one of their suggested names.

Yahoo! News has a couple of interesting gems as well. First, a 15-year-old in Florida was suspended from riding the school bus for passing gas. This might be politcal correctness gone too far. The bus driver's write up noted that the "stench was so bad that it was difficult to breathe." Last time I checked, farting was a natural process, albeit a smelly one, but natural nonetheless.

You think that's bad? The last line of the article reads, "Whether he did it or not, he might have gotten off easy. A 13-year-old student at a Stuart school was arrested in November after authorities said he broke wind in class." Arrested for farting. What is the world coming to?

Perhaps both of these kids would've gotten off easier if they had the new, Japanese-developed,stink-free underwear. Yes, that's right, now you don't even need to change your undies; you can wear these for more than a week, the Japanese textile experts who developed the product say. I don't really see a market value for these, unless your son/daughter happens to be Calvin.

Lastly, in really awesome news, I read on The Knight Shift that Jackson, Mississippi has banned the use of red light cameras. This is awesome on a number of fronts. First, and most importantly, those cameras have been an invasion of privacy since their debut, so that will be no more in Jacksonville. I hadn't heard of this one before (but some quick Googling confirms it): People have accused cities of decreasing the length of the yellow light (sometimes below legal limits) in order to catch more people running red lights with the cameras, thus increasing revenue.  Never mind that an increased yellow light time decreases accidents while a shorter one increases accidents. The cities involved put the value of the dollar above that of human life. For these reasons, I truly hope that this starts a trend of banning red light camera enforcement.

More on Resident Evil 5

It's official: Resident Evil 5 is the best game I've played on the 360 and is easily in the top 3 games ever. I've spent the last two days with my attention divided between co-oping the campaign with my room mate Kevin over split screen and playing The Mercenaries mode. For starters, when playing the campaing in co-op, you can take everything I said in my first review and multiply that by 4 or 5 or so. There just is not a game that is more fun to play out for any system right now. I mean, Kevin and I are so into this game, so excited by the prostect of playing it, other things in our lives have kind of fallen by the wayside. There is time for eating, sleeping, working, bathing, and Resident Evil. This week has been filled with 5pm to 3am gaming sessions and a decided lack of that sleep thing. It's made for one very sleepy week at work, but I just can't motivate myself to quit once I start playing. 

Our nights have transformed from relaxed, do whatever nights into intense, edge-of-our-seats action, with us shouting things at each other (Behind you! I need ammo! Etc.) and unable to bear even the short loading screens. It's ridiculous. After running through the campaign on co-op, we switched gears and started playing a made called The Mercenaries, which is unlocked after beating the game once on any difficulty. This mode is amazingly addicting, hard as hell, and really intense. I haven't had this much fun playing a video game in... well, I'm not sure if I've ever had this much fun in front of a gaming console. 

I would also like to go out on a limb here and say that Chris Redfield is one of the more interesting and well-developed characters in modern video gaming. Sheva's awesome too, but Chris is obviously the central character here, and Capcom does a great job of making him one that I care about. It's been too long in a non-RPG video game where I gave a damn about the main characters, and RE5 fills that void plus some. Kudos to Capcom for putting the time into this storyline to make it rock.

I've said a TON about this game in the past week or so, so let me sum everything up right here in one sentence: This game defines what video games should be. 

As such, I have updated the previous review with a more accurate score. Score: 10.0/10.0.

So, I was browsing the Amazon reviews, and I found some particularly entertaining ones, which I've pasted here for my own personal amusement. Check them out.

5 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

 HYPED UP TRASH, March 13, 2009

By

razrodude

Fun: 

The demo was all I needed to play to determine that this game is garbage. From the slow, sluggish controls and elephant-like movement of the characters to the hilarious "starvin' marvin'" chainsaw guy, this game must be some kind of joke. Resident evil 4 was one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, as well as a huge success worldwide. 
It's obvious that they were just trying to re-create resident evil 4, only in Africa this time instead of Europe, and with ethnic characters to try and reach out to the areas of the market that they may have missed with RE4. The result is a glitch-ridden disaster that is as boring as it is difficult to control. It's about as entertaining as wathcing one of those ads for the christian children's fund.

Do I even need to say anything about this one? Pathetic, yet remarkably funny for it's complete ignorant-but-trying-to-sound-smart tone.

I'm pretty sure this next one is meant as a sarcastic insult against those like the above reviewer who don't actually play the game before reviewing it, but it is kind of funny, if poorly written.

8 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

 Can't tell a game by its cover, March 13, 2009

By	Steve Ptasznik "GowithGod" (Costa Mesa, Ca) - See all my reviews

Fun: 

Why not take it a step further from reviewing games having only just playing them for a couple hours. Let's rate a game by its cover. First off, on the cover, Chris and Sheva should be switching places so we can see Sheva's cleavage. But looking at the back cover, under the Mature rating, it does not include sexuality. So that would make sense that Chris is in the forefront. Now I must say, and I'm no, what do you call it, fanboy(I think you have to be under 12 with pimples to be a fanboy), the cover for the PS3 looks much better than the Xbox 360. Oh wait, my bad, I have not opened the game and the wrapping makes the cover look all shiny and bright. Ok, I take that back, it looks the same as the 360. Sticking with the visuals. On the back cover it reads "Intense visuals so real, you won't be able to forget them." Since I don't have to face fear alone, why would I want to remember them. That is a big thumbs down for me, I give the graphics a one star. Now I hear a lot of complaints about the control, especially with those who played the demo. Now I have not even played the demo, let alone, unwrapped RE5, but the game feels pretty good in my hand, I'm able to flip it over and back over again with no problem. However, the game slipped from my hands and fell when my hands got a little sweaty. Again, like the graphis, I have to contribute that to the plastic wrapping. I give the controls a 4 stars. The fun factor gets a 1 star as the excitement of my purchase has worn off after reading the back cover twice now. I don't know about you, but are you aware that this game has blood and gore, intense violence, and strong language? As far as bringing down the rating, Don't worry, after the hundreds of ratings, mine will not matter. I'll update my rating after I have played the game for one hour. I'll then provide another review once I finish the game. As for those on the fence on which system to buy it on, I would wait for it to come out on the WIIIII!!! I have an insider scoop from a fanboy that it is coming out on the Wii on 4/1/09 and will also have Sheva wearing a G-sting. Now don't be hating on me 360 fanboys as according to the Mature rating, you must be 17+ to play this game.

Amusing, but really stupid. 

Finally, a review I actually had to respond to.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

 Tell me it isn't true!, March 17, 2009

By	James Ellender "What Does This Say?" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

Fun: 

Resident Evil 5 had to be my most anticipated video game relase in a very long time. Too bad I was greatly disapointed with it... 
This isn't to say that the game is absolutely horrible, it just doesn't live up to the expectations I, and many others had. 

My biggest problem with the game is the actual gameplay. Resident Evil 4's gameplay, while far from perfect, was forgiveable because it was a HUGE improvement over all the previous entries in the series (and yes, I have played them ALL). Resident Evil 5's? Not so much. In fact, if memory serves me right, the controls are exactly the same. The inability to move while shooting or using your knife is completely ridiculous and unnecessary. And would it have absolutely killed the development team to put a little more ammo in the game? These things DO NOT make for a more fun, intense, scary game, they make for an incredibly frustrating and unenjoyable one! And speaking of scary, aren't Resident Evil games supposed to be at least a little bit scary? Because this one is not. 

How about the co-op gameplay? Well, I wish I could tell you how it is, but contrary to popular belief some people still enjoy a deep, solid, single player experience in a game! I am one of those people. I don't really have a friend who is into gaming, and I don't care to play with a stranger over Xbox-Live. I can't help but feel Capcom left people like me in the dust. Sure, you can still play the game with an AI Sheva, but this hinders the experience even further. She goes through ammo WAAAY too fast, which is a huge problem due to the incredible lack of it, and she does the same with health items. I can respect what Capcom was trying to do, but I wish they would have had a single player option to play as either Chris or Sheva without the other one. 

The game does have it's strong points as well. The story and sound are very good, and the graphics are outstanding. Most of the "zombies" seem like they were just recycled from RE4, but the bosses are very inventive and cool. Although I haven't beat the game yet, I have heard that there are plenty of unlockable items and game modes to keep playing the game long after you beat it. I know I shared my personal view as a single player on the co-op gameplay, but I suspect that the game would be a lot of fun for those who DO have someone to play it with. 

After saying all of that, I would be lying if I said I didn't regret paying $59.99 to buy this game. It is a good enough game to warrant a rent, or maybe a buy later when you can get it used for a lot less money, but I don't think it is worth sixty bucks. I plan on finishing the game quickly, and selling it used right after so I can get as much of my money back as I can. There is still some fun to be had, but after all the time they spent developing this game I expected much more.

Let's start at the top. This reviewer is incapable of aligning his expectations to what was actually delivered. A game, particularly a sequel in a long running and popular franchise, is always going to have fans with lofty expectations. Chances are high that the game will not meet everybody's, and that's usually not the fault of the game, but rather the people who set their expectations too high. RE5 exceeded my expectations, and I thought those were pretty lofty as they were.

The default controls in RE5 are not the same as those in RE4, though you can change them to be. And we return to that whole point of not being able to move while shooting/knifing. I get it that it's a very subjective thing, but it certainly doesn't break the game.

Putting more ammo in the game would be silly. There's already more than enough ammo to make it through the game on even the hardest difficulty, so I fail to see a reason to add more. True, there is definitely a shortage of magnum ammo, but the guns that use those bullets are absurdly strong, so limited ammo is a must to maintain game balance.

Resident Evil 5 is a blast in single player. I gave it a freaking 9.9 just on the single player alone. I never had problems keeping both Sheva and myself well-stocked with ammo and herbs. 

Yes, the game's story is very, very good, and the graphics... well, "outstanding" just doesn't do them justice. The game would've been wrth $80.

Idiotic Government News - Another $1 Trillion in MagicMoney

Yet again, the government, in the form of the Federal Reserve, has made a poor decision while spouting "save the economy" as the reason. The Fed is now looking to "pump" another $1 trillion+ into the economy. They're accomplishing this by purchasing treasury bonds and mortgage securites. According to the International Herald Tribune:

Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air. But the moves on Wednesday were its biggest yet, almost doubling all of the Fed's measures in the last year.

There you have it. MagicMoney at work again. Has nobody in the US's central bank (now there's a socialist term for you) heard of the inflation that comes with printing too much money? Anybody? Hands?

Never mind how the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low. Never mind that the Fed's only real idea here is that the economy can be saved by increasing banks ability to loan out money to consumers - as if we actually need more debt - even though credit is a big portion of what got us here in the first place. Never mind that despite the government's "efforts," banks are lowering credit limits (one of my cards just got lowered by $400 for no real reason and with no notice) and raising interest rates and fees. 

The government's "best efforts" are failing, and failing miserably at that. It is beyond ridiculous that the people this country elected (and in some cases, the people put into power because they were friends with the people we elected) refuse to sit down and actually think about a way to solve this problem. No, the government is, and has been since this whole thing started, is in reactionary panic mode. 

Take, for example, AIG. Who hasn't heard of these bastards by now? We, the taxpayers, have pumped $180 billion into that company to save it from going under. Let's timeline this:

• AIG gets $85 billion in bailout funds
• AIG Executives take $440,000 taxpayer-funded weekend retreat, execs say they will do it again soon
• AIG receives second bailout of $37.8 billion, public outcry forces AIG to cancel second retreat
• AIG execs take $86,000 hunting trip, financed by taxpayers
• After meeting with New York Attorney General Anthony Cuomo, AIG agrees  to reduce expenditures, including a $10 million severence package for it's former CFO. These cut expenditures include cancelling over 160 conferences/events that would have totaled more than $8 million.
• By this point, AIG has used about 3/4 of its $123 billion in bailout funds.
• AIG receives yet another $40 billion in bailout money. This comes after AIG posted a 3rd quarter loss of $24.47 billion dollars. In their press release, the Fed and Treasury state that this additional bailout is necessary "to keep the company strong and facilitate its ability to complete its restructuring process successfully." When did the restructuring begin exactly? This additional funding brings the total AIG bailout to about $163 billion, which means taxpayers own about 79.9% of AIG stock.
• AIG execs hold $343,000 seminar. Execs state that meetings like this are "necessary". AIG CEO issues a statement also calling the meeting necessary.
• AIG sends letter to NY AG Cuomo promising that the 7 top execs will not get bonuses. Everybody else will, but those guys don't get raises. Instead of bonuses, AIG execs get "Retention Payments". Because they don't make enough money as it is.
• AIG posts 4th quarter losses totalling a whopping $62 billion. 
• AIG announces that it will use $165 million in bailout monies to pay bonuses. Lawmakers and taxpayers get upset. The sad part here is that the bonuses are being paid out to the executives of the Financial Products division, which was the division responsible for bringing AIG tumbling down. AIG says they have to pay these bonuses for retention purposes, and because they are contractually obligated to. 
• NY AG Cuomo starts investigating, issues subpoenas. It is discovered that these "retention" bonuses are being paid to people who left the company.
• House Financial Services Subcommittee holds hearing about AIG.
• AIG CEO Edward Liddy requests half the payments be returned, calls payments "distasteful."
• It is made known that President Obama and Congress have been aware of these bonuses for months. 
• Finally, the House and Senate both plan to vote for taxing any bonuses paid to AIG execs or any exec that works for a company the governement bailed out under TARP a whopping 90%.

Isn't all that exciting?!?!? Isn't it funny that despite the fact that our economy is taking a grand nosedive, we can focus this much attention on one company? Obviously what they're doing here is wrong, but there's a bigger picture to all this. These bailouts aren't doing anything to stimulate the economy. The news is riddled with sotries about banks using bailout funds to fill their own coffers, not to provide money to customers, as the bailout funds were designed to do. You have companies like AIG abusing the money we are giving them. The bailout plans are obviously failing, so we instead just pump more money into things like buying securities and bonds, using money that actually doesn't exist. Both plans, the bailouts and the buying, hinge on the idea that we can "make" as much money as we want, but here is a simple fact: every dollar printed reduces the global value of the dollar. When you print trillions of those dollars, just think of how much the value of the dollar is going to plummet. 

I would call yet again for America to start paying attention to what is happening to the country around them. Apathy no longer cuts it - we all need to be involved or this country is going to keep right on spiraling out of control. You can start educating yourself and immersing yourself in ideas and solutions at the Campaign for Liberty.

There's my rant for the day. A thank you shout-out to The Consumerist who do a great job at tracking these things, and all issues relating to consumers, and being snarky about it. 

RE5's Scandalous Multiplayer Content Debacle

OK, so one day after reviewing what is quickly becoming my favorite game on the 360, I catch wind of people getting uppity about Capcom's plan to release more multiplayer content for Resident Evil 5 and (gasp) charge for it. 

STOP THE PRESSES!

Kotaku announced the upcoming patch last Thursday, then apparently the forums went nuts. Capcom responded to the backlash, then responded a second time by calling the accusations "BS". No joke.

Now there's downloadable content readily available for purchase for countless games on both the 360 and the PS3, so what makes this different? This patch doesn't add new characters or vehicles, it just "unlocks" a new multiplayer mode. This has led people to believe that the content is on the disc, it's just not accessible without paying for it.

Normally speaking, I'd side with the consumers here, because it always seems companies are out to gouge people, but I really just don't get this. It really doesn't matter whether the content is on the disc or not. Let's look at it like this:

• It only costs $5.00. Even I can afford that, and I live on a tight budget.
• There's literally TONS of content on the disc. Nobody was saying "There needs to be more content" before this was announced.
• This is NO DIFFERENT than any other piece of downloadable content out there. Nobody complained when Bungie released map packs for Halo 3 that you had to pay for. 

One of the other major complaints from people is that the release of this PDLC (paid downloadable content) is too soon after the release of the game. I'd like to shoo this answer away. It would seem that there is no winning here for game companies. If they release it too soon, then people say they should've just included it in the game. If they release it too late, people say they're not living up to the expectation for downloadable content (see: Mass Effect). This is early, so what? I'd rather have the content sooner than later, so once again, I fail to see an issue here.

The simple fact of the matter here is that if you don't want to pay for the content, don't buy it. 

On a tangent, I would like to say that it looks really bad to respond to feedback as was done by Capcom's VP of Business Development, Christian Svensson (second response link above), who said 

"I'm sorry guys, but this is the part where I have to call 'BS'. RE5 is well worth every penny of $60. A huge game, with tons of replay value, loads of unlockables, new weapons, co-op, mercenaries mode, etc. If any game warrants its price point, it's RE5.

"Prior to the announcement of the Versus mode, no one complained they weren't getting their money's worth with the initial release because it packs TONS of value because it is an amazing game. So if people were already satisfied with what the package had, when we offer MORE, why is it people feel they've been somehow cheated? If you don't find value in our secondary offerings, the choice is simple, don't purchase it. If you do find it valuable (and we hope you do) please do buy it and enjoy it.

"Secondly, whenever we do PDLC, that content exists with its own budgets, it's own profit and loss analysis with its own forecasts. If it didn't, that extra content wouldn't have been put into production, because it did not fit within the production budget of the base product.

"The content that is shipping in the full game exists within its own budget. The content shipping afterward (regardless of how close to release it is... because the goal IS to have it release relatively closely to the base product's release) exists within its own budget. 

"To try and have it release in a timeframe that is relatively close to the initial release, development starts well before the base product is on the shelves. There's no other way to keep it within 3 to 6 weeks of the initial release (which is the goal).

"And again, for those people looking at this anew, the DLC in question is not an unlock on the disc."

Calling your customers' feedback "BS" is not the way to develop or maintain a healthy customer/corporation relationship. Period.

That being said, I agree with him in the principle of his argument. The heat being generated by fans is FAR in excess of what this announcement deserves. It is ridiculous.

Resident Evil 5 is a great game (attested to by the 400 million units shipped, 4 million+ downloads of the demo, and the fact that RE5 had the biggest launch day of any previous RE game, including the much-vaunted RE4) with a ton of content already included. It's more than most games offer for the same price tag. People need to be happy with what they are given and stop bitching about little things like this.

Resident Evil 5 - The Review

It's been one of my most anticipated games in a really long time. It all started when the demo for Resident Evil 5 was released, and I played through it... then played it again... and again... and so on for the course of about 2 months. It was so different from the Resident Evils of previous generations, but it was different in all the right ways. It's fun, it's gorgeous, it's viscerally intense like few games that I've played recently, and did I mention how fun it is?

In order to approach the game correctly, you need to ignore the marketing pitch. The game is being sold as a horror game, "Fear you can't forget" and all that. But this is not, in any way, scary. It's more of a deliberately paced action game. So for the survival horror aficionados, you may want to look to something more horror-ific like Dead Space. 

That being said, the game shines in a truly astonishing number of ways. The graphics are drop dead gorgeous. I haven't seen anything this good on any system thus far in the generation. The details are rich and vibrant. The fictional African world is immersing and, well, vibrant. Amidst the chaos that is the battle, I can't help but stop and stare in the kind of slack-jawed admiration that I haven't felt in a game since playing Halo: Combat Evolved. The character models, particularly for Chris, Sheva, and Albert are phenomenally detailed. Even when the camera is really close, I don't notice pixels as I would in most games, but I notice the attention to detail that the creators doted on their characters. Skin, possibly for the first time in gaming history, looks like skin. I know, I know, that's a bold claim, but it's true. It doesn't look plastic-y or rubbery. The clothing and guns are equally detailed. If the camera cuts close enough, you can even see the patterns of the weave in the shirts. 

There are cinematics peppered throughout the game. They are beautiful. There are times that I forget that I'm playing a video game and think I'm watching a movie instead. Not only are the graphics gorgeous, but the crew at Capcom obviously went through a lot of pains to make the lip-syncing and facial expressions look realistic, and it really pays off. Staying on topic with characters, the voice actors, for the most part, are very good. Of note, the actors who voice Chris and Sheva are particularly talented, though the gentleman who voices Albert bears mentioning as well. 

These little details further my favorite parts of any game, the story and character development. All this attention to detail that I've noted goes very far in pushing the storyline from just "meh" into "WOW!" Of particular note are the characters and the way they are developed. They are developed slowly, over the whole course of the story arc, and it's nothing short of delightful to watch these characters reveal themselves. 

This is not an RPG, yet the story is told and the characters are developed so well that it feels like one sometimes. When I sit in front of the TV holding the controller in my hands, I'm not really there - I'm right there with Chris and Sheva living in this fictitious world, blasting the hell out of zombies, and fighting to get sweet revenge. Without giving away too much, when I did get to dole out the vengeance, I felt righteous, I felt justified - it was utterly sweet.

For those of you who've played the previous 10 (or so) RE games, you know that Chris Redfield has been in several of them. I have not played most of these games. In all honesty, the survival horror versions of yesteryear don't really appeal to me. I tried to like them, numerous times even, but it just never really worked out. Back on topic, I have no previous connection to any of these characters, yet through the 24ish hours of game presented in RE5, I feel like I've been "in the fold" through a lot more. Such is the power of good storytelling. These characters feel like real people as much as they look the part.

So, storyline out of the way, how's the gameplay? Simple answer: Wonderful. From my admittedly limited experience with past Resident Evil games, this is WAY outside the box (though I hear RE4 was close to this in terms of gameplay). Like I said at the beginning, this is a deliberately paced action game. It's got it's moments for run and gun (though not at the same time) gameplay put together with interesting, if not too difficult, puzzle sequences. While the pacing isn't as fast as something like Halo 3, it's certainly not as slow as the pacing in the survival horror RE games. The action is the very definition of intensity at every turn, but it's the boss fights that really elevate the intensity to the highest levels. Most of the boss fights take the intensity present in the rest of the game and jack it up another 28 notches or so. 

The gameplay really focuses on the cooperative aspect. Each character, Chris and Sheva, can be controlled by a player through system link, split screen, or over Live (or PSN for you Sony fanboys). Capcom makes good (though too infrequent) use of this mechanic in various parts of the game. Puzzles and secrets are unlocked through sometimes clever use to "tag team" moves which allow one person to go forward to press a button or throw a lever or collect an item from a chest, while the other person will generally hang back and help take out enemies. I understand the decision to make these segments short (it is supposed to be a cooperative game after all), but in the portions where you are fighting by yourself, the intensity is even higher than it is normally. I think the game would've benefited from even a couple of levels where the paths were split and each person went through a specific portion of the level to meet up again later. Other than that, the co-op is smooth and the game is far better when playing with a friend - especially over Live so I can have my entire screen to ogle all the beautiful detail. 

Playing through the game in single player, though not quite as fun as co-op, is still a blast. It's a much less political thing (there's no "I want that gun!" because you just take whatever you want), and the AI is usually really smart. There have been some times when computer controlled Sheva stood in front of a rocket in a gruesome display of masochism, but those moments are thankfully few and far between. All told, the AI engine is really quite good. 

Given that this is an action game, I was expecting to get bored with the combat mechanics after a while, but that is most certainly not the case. They keep the gameplay interesting by varying the things that you have to do - I have read some reviews that call the variety in gameplay the downfall of the game and firmly beleive these reviewers have their heads planted firmly in their nether regions. In some parts, only one person can wield a weapon while the other carries a flashlight. Another such scenario has one character trapped in a cage while the other works to find a way to get that character out. There are several vehicle portions where characters man the turrets or one character drives while the other shoots. The Hummer chase through the desert is particularly awesome. Boss fights often involve one character doing one thing while the other character does another. For example, one fight requires one character to lure the boss into a furnace while the other one stands ready to throw the switch. Though I have to say, there's really not a boss fight that you can win just by shooting the boss randomly; there's lots of strategy involved always.

Additionally, the game has numerous God of War style timed button moments. These are tastefully done and aren't numerous enough to be annoying (unlike the aforementioned God of War). I personally love these moments in this game (especially when they're used as storytelling mechanics), even though I'm not usually a fan of them in most games.

Control-wise, the game took some getting used to for me. I experimented with the various controller schemes (there are 4), but I found the default one most to my liking. Now that I'm used to the controls, they are second nature.

Going back to the intensity thing for a moment, Capcom, citing increased intensity as the reason, made two choices in particular that are bothering people. First, as I alluded to earlier, you cannot move while wielding a knife or aiming your gun. This is a holdover from the previous iterations of RE, coming from the survival horror aspect of the game. While I will always prefer the ability to literally run and gun, I can't really complain too much about this decision. As I've said, this is a deliberately paced game. Not only does the inability to move help control that pacing, it really does add to the intensity. Second, people seem to dislike the inventory system a lot. The inventory system is simple, each character has 9 slots of inventory that can be used for weapons, health, ammo, or grenades. If the characters are in close proximity, they can trade items on the fly. Everything you do in the inventory screen takes place real time, which means that the enemies are still attacking you. I personally love this about the game. The limited space requires you to plan ahead, and the real time nature of the inventory screen requires you to think fast if your planning fails. This is a great feature of the game and does a lot to ramp up the intensity in those moments where you planned incorrectly and need to make changes. The only thing I hoped for after playing the demo was a shortcut key for giving and taking items from your team mate. The ability to do that very quickly is often necessary, and I think that would be a nice balance between the real time system and a non real time inventory system that people seem to want.

In my Dead Space review I noted that with a game like Dead Space out, Resident Evil 5 had some big shoes to fill. Those shoes happen to be far too small for Resident Evil, because it is that good. This game stands poised to knock Mass Effect straight off the "Best game on the 360" podium it has occupied since its release a little over a year ago. It's certainly the best use of $60 since Mass Effect, and like I said, maybe even better than Mass Effect. I'll get back to you after I've had time to play more thoroughly.

In the mean time, Score: 10.0/10.0

EDIT: After having played through the game again and having spent much time in The Mercenaries mode, I have decided that gaming just doesn't get much better than this. The score has been changed to reflect that.

The Economy, Barack Obama, and the USSR

I was planning on writing a thing or two about what I consider to be the already epic failure of our current President. Not only has he started off his 4 years of Presidency with fear mongering and further bailouts that are proving just as ineffective as the previous round of magicmoney (my own term for the money that's made out of thin air for the purposes of bailing out, TARPing, or otherwise servicing our troubled economy) printing, but he has failed to set a plan in place to withdraw troops from Iraq (a major platform issue during his election speeches) and he has failed to rescind the evil laws that were put in place by Bush post-9/11. 

Obama's entire campaign rested on one word: "Change". Yes, there was some "hope" and other sweet keywords that were part of the election, but the one word that got him elected was "change". Yet, here we are, 3 months after the chimp left office, and we are the same country. Not one thing has been accomplished under Obama. New jobs haven't been created. Steps have not been taken to rectify the economic crisis. No plan is in place to withdraw from Iraq. Change... psh. Perhaps by the time his 4 year term is up, the country will have pulled its heads out of its collective rear end long enough to elect an official who actually understands the issues and how to work towards a solution. Somebody whose idea of saving the economy isn't creating randomly ginormous amounts of money that might make the economy look decent now, but will crash the economy with hyperinflation. Can you believe how much money we've created for the bailouts? 

This site lists all the bailouts in the country's history through the GM/Chrysler bailout. In essence:

Then, Obama takes office, and this is what he does: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It sounds all PC and happy, but check out the amount of magicmoney we're creating for this bad boy: $787.5 billion. Let me write that out for you: $787,500,000,000. So, let me get this straight, the first $1.339 trillion didn't fix the economy (as smart people knew it wouldn't), but an extra (almost) trillion dollars is going to do something? Is having common sense a prerequisite to holding a political office? Apparently not.

There is a reason Zimbabwe had to make a 1 trillion dollar bill. It has everything to do with creating too much money.

The one thing I was hoping would change with the new administration is the repeal of the laws Bush put into place after 9/11. The laws I'm referring to are the ones that strip us of our Constitutional rights as American citizens. The Patriot Act and everything that followed should have been removed by now, but no, it's still alive and kicking. But, I will defer to Mr. Robert Hawes, who posted this to Campaign for Liberty.

The Dream That Was America
By Robert Hawes

In Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, the ailing Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (portrayed by the late Richard Harris) travels from the comforts of Rome to the muddy battlefields of second-century Germania on a mission. The Roman army, fighting under the capable leadership of General Maximus (Russell Crowe), has finally defeated the Germanic tribesmen, and Aurelius now longs to turn his attention from the maintenance of an empire to the restoration of a republic. The chief obstacle that stands in his way is his own failing health. Rome needs a young, strong and vigorous leader to take it down the path that Aurelius envisions. His son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is weak and spoiled, full of base ambition, not at all the man for the job of relinquishing power. Maximus is the man Aurelius wishes to succeed him to the imperial seat, but Maximus is tired of war and strife, and more than anything else he simply wants to return home. In the following lines of dialogue, Aurelius struggles to convince Maximus that Rome still needs its finest soldier: 

MAXIMUS: "5,000 of my men are out there in the freezing mud. 3,000 are cleaved and bloodied. 2,000 will never leave this place. I will not believe they fought and died for nothing."
AURELIUS: "And what would you believe?"
MAXIMUS: "They fought for you and for Rome."
AURELIUS: "And what is Rome, Maximus?" 
MAXIMUS: "I have seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark. Rome is the light." 
AURELIUS: "Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end he wants to know that there has been some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher, the warrior, the tyrant? Or will I be remembered as the Emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter." 

Most of you probably know the story. Commodus learns of his father's intentions, kills Aurelius and tries to do the same to Maximus, who barely escapes with his life. Maximus is sold into slavery, becomes a gladiator, and eventually fights in the Colosseum under the eye of Commodus. At one point in the film, Maximus points toward the bloodthirsty crowd awaiting him and exclaims, "Marcus Aurelius had a dream that was Rome... And this is not it. This is not it!" 

Say whatever derogatory thing you will about Hollyweird; chances are, I'll see your insult and raise you a little righteous indignation. But every once in a while a film comes along with a message that rings true in a powerful way. Braveheart was such a film. And while Gladiator isn't quite on the same level (the story it depicts is fictional), it carries its own impact. The struggle it portrays, that of a good man battling against evil in high places, has universal appeal. The ideals behind the story rise above its historical setting. 

And every time I hear Richard Harris speaking as Marcus Aurelius I can't help but think: there was once a dream that was America too, and I fear that it may not survive the next election. 

For a moment, set aside your party affiliation and whatever special interest you might have and travel back in time with me. We won't need to go far; the seventies and eighties will do just fine. This was the era in which I grew up. 

It was also the latter part of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was our great enemy. Why? Because the Soviets were communists, and communists were the sworn enemies of freedom. They were not merely authoritarians but totalitarians. They believed in absolute state control over every aspect of an individual's life, and they were intent on spreading their system throughout the world. 

I clearly remember being taught that, in the Soviet Union, fear ruled with an iron fist. Government spies were everywhere. The secret police could listen in on your phone calls at any time. They could read your mail. They could search your home and other property and seize whatever they liked. You could never be certain that you weren't being watched, no matter where you were. You had to carry identification papers everywhere you went, and many times you had to have permission to travel very far at all. And it wasn't just government agents that you had to be concerned about; you also had to live with the fear that your own friends, co-workers or family members might report you for "suspicious activities" or "politically questionable statements," sometimes for no other reason than to endear themselves to the communist party bosses. You had no enforceable rights where the state was concerned. Government agents could kick your door down in the middle of the night, drag you away to a state prison, torture you and even execute you. Your family would never know where you were. More than likely, you would not have legal council or ever see the inside of a courtroom. You were the property of the state, which was free to do whatever it liked with you. 

We called this oppressive, militaristic mega-state "the Evil Empire," and we prided ourselves on being everything that the Soviets were not. 

In America, the common man had enforceable rights, even where the government was concerned. Americans were not the property of the state. You could travel where you wished, and most of the time the government didn't care about what you were doing. Americans could say what they wished, engage in whatever peaceful political activities they wished, with no fear of violent reprisal. Americans did not disappear into gulags. If the government accused you of illegal activities, it had to give you a day in court and prove its case before a jury of your peers. Sure, America had its problems; virtually everyone admitted that. But we were still the "land of the free," and our institutions and daily lives backed that claim to a high degree, certainly in comparison to the Soviet Union. 

This is the dream that was America versus the nightmare that was the Soviet Union. 

Now, fast-forward in time. As I write this, fewer than twenty years have passed since the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War specter lifted. The Soviet Union is gone, and America. . . well, if you had told us in the 1970s or 1980s what America would be like today, and where it seems to be heading, I don't think we would have believed you. 

You see, today the American government tells us that it can spy on us whenever and however it likes. It can read our e-mail and postal mail, track our financial records, pry into our medical histories, force libraries to turn over lists of the books we read, force internet service providers to turn over records of our surfing habits, and tap our phones and record our calls. It can deny us the right to travel without certain government approved "papers." It can send its agents into our homes without warrant and remove whatever it wishes, without ever notifying us even. The president claims that he can seize anyone, including American citizens, and turn them into non-persons. The government -- the American government -- can arrest you without warrant, put you into prison without charge, and hold you for as long as it pleases. It can deny you legal council and try you before a military court, where none of the regular rules of evidence and reasonable person standards apply, and where your guilt will be assumed. It can subject to you "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture, by any other name -- "Ve hev vays of making you talk"), and you will have no recourse. Your family may not be permitted to know where you are. Since September 11, 2001, the precedent has been set that presidents -- and those who take orders from them -- are not bound by law or accountable to anyone in any way whatsoever, as long as they claim to be acting in the name of "national security." And if you question any of this, these self-appointed caesars bristle like enraged porcupines and suggest that maybe you don't have the best interests of the country in mind, that you need to choose whether you'll be "with us or with the terrorists." We have former president George W. Bush (a member of the party that once prided itself on being the "party of limited government," and that even now prides itself on being the party that brought down the Evil Empire) to thank for this unfortunate state of affairs. Even more unfortunate is the fact that his successor, President Barack Obama, has not repudiated these police-state doctrines. 

This is America, 2009; not the Soviet Union, circa 1980. Like it or not, we are, by degrees, becoming like the very thing we once hated. And we are becoming more like it all the time. 

Some will call this unpatriotic nonsense. "We're nothing like the Soviets," they claim. "We're just changing to meet the changing threats of our time, and if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." 

Really? 

So, we can do the same types of things that the Soviets did but not be like them? We can adopt their police-state tactics, spy on people like they did, hold secret courts like they did, kick down doors and haul people away like they did, throw people into secret prisons like they did, torture people like they did, refuse to answer questions like they did, ignore the laws like they did, and criticize the opposition as being disloyal like they did. . . and yet be nothing like them? Notice that I'm not saying that we're the same as the Soviets; I'm saying that we're becoming progressively more like they were, that we're on a slippery slope here, and that we're desperately trying to rationalize our way out of confronting the obvious (torture isn't torture as long as we don't call it that, etc.). 

Tell me, how much evil do you have to do before you yourself become evil? Is there a certain magic number of people that we need to have in prison without charge before it becomes wrong? How many do we have to waterboard and stuff into cramped, freezing cells before it becomes un-American? 

And as for not having anything to worry about as long as you haven't done anything wrong -- please, don't tell me you've fallen for this! This argument assumes two things: 1) that the government is accountable to someone for what it does with you, and 2) that it has to prove that you've done something wrong before anything bad can happen to you. Neither one of these is necessarily true anymore. All the government has to do is classify you as a suspected "terrorist" and the legal niceties that we used to call "rights" suddenly vanish, along with all of their guarantees. If the president and his subordinates have the authority to ignore the laws of the land, then whether or not you've done anything illegal is a moot question by default, because the law no longer exists as far as you are concerned! You are no longer being judged by that standard; you are being judged by the whims of the powerful, whose motives and actions are not being judged by anyone. You cannot tie the hands of the law and then expect it to protect you. 

Our Founding Fathers understood this. This is why they required an oath to support the Constitution on the part of our government officials, because they knew that the only way the common people can be safe from tyranny is if their government is restrained by the law. The Constitution isn't there to hinder us, it's there to protect us -- because freedom is fragile. It must be guarded, handled delicately, cared for like the precious thing that it is. 

Some will argue with the comparisons I've made to the old Soviet Union, because, like General Maximus, they refuse to believe that our country is caught up in corruption, that our leaders have anything but pure motives, and that our men and women in uniform are killing and being killed for nothing but the most honorable of causes. They too have seen much of the rest of the world, if only by way of CNN or Fox News, and they find it brutal and cruel and dark. America is their light in that darkness, and as long as it remains a bit brighter than what they see around them, they seem willing to overlook the fact that our "city on a hill" doesn't shine as brightly as it once did. Cruelty, brutality and darkness are creeping in here, but as long as we're not as bad as someone else, we're generally content with our illusions of safety and superiority. We find no contradiction, no hypocrisy in speaking the tyrannical language of the Soviet state with an American accent. 

God forgive us. The men who froze at Valley Forge, who crawled up the beaches of Normandy into the murderous teeth of Nazi machine gun fire, who faced undreamed of horrors in steamy jungles thousands of miles from the comforts of home, did not fight so that we could let our country slip into the hands of those who would re-make us in the image of our enemies. Whether you agree with every cause that Americans have spilled their blood for or not, we can acknowledge that most of them believed that they were fighting for freedom, to protect the whisper-fragile American dream. They didn't sacrifice to give us Moscow on the Potomac. We owe them, ourselves, and the future generations who must live with the world we give them, more, much more, than to let this happen with so little struggle. 

There was once a dream that was America. And friends, this is not it. This is not it.

It's ridiculous how well he is able to sum that up. Wouldn't you agree?

Watchmen - The Review

I'll admit it, I have not been a fan of Watchmen for a really long time. I actually picked it up and read it because of the movie. I saw a trailer for it when I saw The Dark Knight on IMAX. After that, a fairly large portion of people that I knew were talking about whether it was even possible to make a good movie out of the best comic of all time. I'd heard of Watchmen before, because I have read V for Vendetta, but I'd never actually read it. How "important" could a comic about super heroes really be? But there was something captivating about the first trailer I saw for the movie last year, something that caught my attention and made me sit up and lean forward in my seat. I took notice. Then the people started talking, conjecturing about the quality of a movie based on this book that seemed to have attained some sort of legendary status. Everybody was talking, not just a few here and there, but everywhere I turned people were talking about Watchmen. And when it was made known that I had not read it, I was admonished and told to read it immediately.

I did get around to purchasing the book. I procrastinated, I dithered about. I finally sat down to start the book. 

It was an ideal setting. Snow falling outside, a mug of hot cocoa steaming merrily in my hand. A blanket on the couch. This yellow-covered book, a smiley face with a blood spatter, sitting in my lap. Could it really be that good, I asked myself as I opened to the first page. 

Truth be told, I was captivated from the first frames, the viewpoint pulling back from the image of the being blood hosed off the sidewalk. Farther back until we can see the two detectives talking about how it happened. How does a man as well built as the victim end up falling through a plate glass window?

From there on, I was utterly absorbed by this book. It had absolutely everything I look for in any work of fiction: intricate and complicated characters who are developed well, a deep plot rich in subtexts and social commentary, lots of detail to absorb about the world itself, and an ending that left me agape and to this day hasn't strayed too far from my thoughts. As I wrote on this blog after I read the book, this is one of the most important pieces of fiction ever written and ranks very high on the "best books I've ever read" list.

Since then, I've been getting people to read the book in preparation for the movie. I haven't seen my copy of the book in months, as it has been making the rounds. Yet, all along, I was wondering how this could be made into a really good movie. Is it possible that Zack Snyder could succeed where even the ever-brilliant Darren Aronofsky (among others) failed?

After seeing the movie and having thought about it all weekend, I can say with certainty that yes, he succeeded. And in a really big way.

I described it to a friend earlier today, "The movie succeeds on so many levels, it's hard to put it all into words." That statement remains true, but I'm going to try anyway.

The opening scene of the movie is the fight between the Comedian and mysterious bad dude (whose identity I will not reveal here for the sake of those who have not seen the movie nor read the book). This is one of the most beautifully filmed fight sequences ever. The camera angles, the music, the tastefully implemented slow-mo work, it all came together so wonderfully. I knew the movie was going to be good from this moment.

Speaking of camera work, this movie is chock full of awesome camera angles and perfect shots. It's completely obvious that Snyder worked very hard on setting up his shots so they captured the feel of the comic book. Some of the shots came right out of the comic, others probably should have been in the comic.

The introduction credits also need to be noted for their artistry and superior execution. In the book, Moore and Gibbons have a long time to show the reader this altered imagining of the 1980s where Nixon breaks the 2-term rule and America actually won in Vietnam on the backs of Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian. This is a world where costumed bad guys duel with costumed good guys until Nixon outlaws masked "vigilantes". It's a staggeringly complex world, the details of which are doted upon in the novel. Snyder and company have considerably less time to expound upon viewers the vast differences between the Watchmen world and the real world. This is a feat they accomplish through the opening credits. Set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'", the opening credits show us through a montage of pictures and short filmed sequences the history of this version world, what happened to the original Minutemen, and a slew of other small details to look out for. Plus, the music is so completely out of place for this type of movie (one one hand) but still completely fitting (on the other).

Speaking of music, it must be said that this movie has some of the best music choices ever. Snyder and friends really put a lot of work into licensing music that fit the scenes and did a great job of including music that was mentioned in the novel as well. Examples of this include Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and ""All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix. I won't tell you where these come up, because half the fun is the surprise at hearing these songs where you might least expect them. :)

Brian Tyler's score was memorable and sounds like something pulled right out of that era. Kudos to the whole team behind the music, for you all did a really stellar job.

Casting. This is one of the points that I've debated with many people about over the course of the weekend. I think it was spot on. The first and most stand-out casting choice is Jackie Earle Hayley as Rorschach. This can only be equated to Heath Ledger's Joker character. Hayley is Rorschach. Period. This is how I saw Rorschach in my head when I was reading the novel. This is how I heard him, this is how he moved, and they even nailed his face, which was so important in the book. He is Rorschach, and that's one point everybody I know seems to agree on.

Billy Crudup plays Jon Osterman, aka Dr. Manhattan, the only hero in the movie with actual super powers. This must have been a very difficult role to play, as the simple fact that he does have powers, that he is a god for all intents and purposes, has caused a rift to develop between him and humanity. He can no longer sympathize with humanity's emotions or drama. As with Hayley's Rorschach, Crudup nails this role. He comes across as nearly emotionless, as is required of the character. It's hard to watch sometimes, because D. Manhattan truly is removed from the plights of society.

Patrick Wilson (also in Hard Candy, another very good movie) plays Dan Dreiberg, or Nite Owl. Yet again (I'm starting to feel like a broken record here), he looks and acts the part to near perfection. Dan's timid nature and impotency that's slowly shed as he allows his Nite Owl persona to consume him is brought to life by Wilson. This guy's really good. Hopefully he lands some more roles in the near future.

There was much controversy over the end. Once it was announced that the end would be changed from the version penned by Moore and Gibbons, the Watchmen community was on fire with speculation and early criticisms. Yet, after watching it, I teeter on the brink of saying that it was, in fact, better than the ending in the novel. It fits perfectly while still accomplishing what Moore and Gibbons set out to do. Yet it is somehow more plausible but allows for the same reaction from society. Bravo to Snyder for taking this huge leap out of the box and making it work.

As a whole, the movie experience really flows well. At no point in the movie did I stop to consider that the movie was almost 3 hours long. At no point was I bored or did I find myself paying attention to other things. I was engrossed from start to end in this movie, a movie that can very seriously be described as a masterpiece, a monumental achievement. This is a movie unlike movies that are made today or at any point in Hollywood's past. This is a movie far ahead of it's time, and I think people will be talking about it for a long time to come. If this weekend is any indication, anyway. I spent the entire weekend with people filing in and out of my place talking about this movie. It's interesting to see what other people pick up on.

Anyway, there's the review. This movie is awesome, epic, monumental, a true masterpiece. The unfilmable book has been filmed, and it was done very well. Even with all these words here, I still feel like I haven't gotten across just how unbelievably good this movie is. So, do yourself a favor if you haven't already: go watch Watchmen.