Brutal Legend Trailer: Tim Schafer awesomates awesomeness with Jack Black voicing lead

By Tyler Barber



No, you probably didn't play the critically acclaimed Psychonaughts, but something tells me that casting Jack Black as the game's protagonist ensures that many of you will play Schafer's latest, Brutal Legend.

The trailer is all CG, but from what I can tell, they're hitting all the sweet spots: babes, copious blood, demons, hell, machine-gun-toting hot-rods, axes that chop and axes that shred. Top that with a rich-glaze-over-the-top hair-metal and you've got a cult classic.

So watch the trailer, provided by the good folks at gamevideos.com, (check 'em out, tons of exclusive vids) and let us know what you think.

RAWK!

“Sing out Louise!” SingStar: Pop, Rocks!, Amped & ‘80s Reviewed

By Jody Worthington


Console: Sony PlayStation 2 | Rating: E10+ | Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

It was about 10 o’clock on a Friday night when the pizza guy showed up. Only - we didn’t hear him. His feeble knocks were completely inaudible over the thumping bass of “I’m a Survivor” by Destiny’s Child, the spastic jumping-slash-booty-dancing and the piercing, sporadic shrieks we tried to pass off as “singing.” For singers, non-singers, gamers and non-gamers, SingStar karaoke for the PlayStation 2 brings about a revolution within two venerated, cult-ish pasttimes: videogames and karaoke.

First, forget that it’s a videogame. I did. I’m your typical non-gamer, the type who twiddles aimlessly with analog sticks and is confounded when my boyfriend tells me that “up means down.” Yet, the first time I hooked up the PS2 and popped in a DVD, I found the SingStar control scheme and menu panels to be pretty visceral. The clean, white background and simple colored icons are refreshing. The complete lack of a daunting learning curve allowed me to concentrate on the most important part - picking a song.


The song selection is, surprisingly, quite awesome. Now, I’ve done a lot of karaoke - I even own an old-school clunker of a karaoke machine and a ton of CDs to go with it. I’ve always lamented about the lame-ness of most karaoke compilation discs. They usually consist of two or three good, solid hits, while the other 20-odd tracks are pure duds that no one has heard of. Not so with SingStar. Every DVD is bulging with hits that people actually get excited about. So far, there are four compilations: Amped, Rocks!, Pop and ‘80s. You can buy each game on its own for $30, or with the two obligatory microphones included for around $50. There is also a bundle package with an exclusive white PS2, SingStar Pop, and both microphones.

The dual mic setup is crucial - I’d say the duet and battle mode are 100 times more fun than the traditional solo approach. Duet lets you share the burden of embarrassment during the high warbles of Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” while battle mode ups the ante a bit. Competitors (red team vs. blue team) will take turns screeching/rapping/grunting the versus and choruses, while striving to get the most pitch-accuracy points. Some songs are great for battle mode (usually the ones that have rapid-fire back-and-forth cadences, notably Run DMC’s “It’s Tricky”).

The makers of SingStar know that a great song is enhanced tri-fold by a great music video. Until now, I had never seen such a large crowd gather ‘round the TV for karaoke. If you don’t care to sing, or don’t care about watching people sing, you can just catch the original recordings and their accompanying music videos.

Quite the opposite of the geek-in-basement-for-days stereotypical gaming experience, SingStar, with its ADD-proof music videos and easy learning curve, creates an impromptu party atmosphere - whether you have two or 20 people.

Final Grade: B+

Halo Short Film by Director Neil Blomkamp

By Tyler Barber

Though I got my copy of Halo 3 early, I didn't have enough time with the game to write an in-depth review for the most recent issue of the Free Press (October, Issue 84). I figured this live-action video short from director Neil Blomkamp would help you through the long wait 'til our next issue.

The video is the third in a series of shorts from the budding director, who a year ago was getting set to direct the Halo movie, but has since only worked on the short films due to the funding being pulled from the film. Blomkamp has never directed a feature film before, but he has done several other shorts and commercials that are thematically complimentary to the tone of Halo 3. All of Blomkamp's shorts have a grounded-futuristic, yet grainy video quality to them. I really hope the funding can come through on the Halo film, and that Neil is in the director's chair, as the video above perfectly captures the Halo universe that I've come to love.

As for Halo 3 -- in short, it's amazing, but the long answer will be dealt with in the next issue. Really, all you need to know is that if you don't own an Xbox 360 or an Xbox Live Gold account, acquire those two quickly, then get Halo 3 and find me online: dirtytea.

2007, A Deep Sea Odyssey: BioShock Reviewed

By Tyler Barber



Every five or six years, there comes a videogame that's avowed by gamers, developers and critics as a beacon of gaming's progression as both an art and a respectable form of entertainment. Enter BioShock, a rich adventure carefully crafted to provoke ominous moral and gameplay decisions.
"Is not a man entitled to profit from the sweat of his brow?" asks Andrew Ryan, the megalomaniacal dictator of the maritime metropolis ironically named Rapture. You find yourself struggling to answer such philosophical questions minutes after your plane crashes in the Mid-Atlantic, where you descend to a sunken city. Built leagues beneath the ocean's surface, Rapture is a product of idealists and elitists looking to forge a utopia where science, industry and art are unconstrained by authority -- DIY genetic engineering has become as commonplace as buying a new TV set. However, a macabre irony greets you as you're introduced to Rapture: cryptic warnings scrawled in blood across beautifully detailed Art Deco walls, bellicose scavengers roaming the city in search of Adam, the genetic currency needed to splice genes into superhuman powers called Plasmids. You learn that the side-effects of gene splicing disfigured and lead to the eventual demise of both Rapture and its residents. All that's left is the ravaged skeleton of a city buckling under the pressure of the dark sea.

Big Daddies
My vision shakes and blurs as I crouch behind a machine-gun turret rigged to an office chair, unleashing a hail of bullets on my assailant. If I hadn't hacked the turret seconds before I would be taking 50 caliber rounds to the face. As the rumbling gets closer, a behemoth encased in a diving suit rounds the corner: the Big Daddy -- the newest and most unnerving icon to videogames. I royally piss-off the Big Daddy when I set him aflame using my Incinerate Plasmid. Through a blanket of fire, I see the yellow-cautious glow of the Big Daddy's helmet-portholes turn bright red. He emits a roar, paralyzing me behind the turret. Luckily, the hacked turret is already pumping lead into the beast. Unluckily, the turret stands no chance at stopping the Big Daddy's charge. Flying 10 feet backward through the room, my health is all but depleted when I noticed the Big Daddy standing in a glorious puddle a water. Arming my Electro Bolt Plasmid I shoot electricity at the puddle, stopping the beast in his tracks as he seizures with lightning dancing around his exoskeleton. I step forward, place my shotgun to his face and pull the trigger.
The Big Daddy drops like a ton of bricks and I notice something I didn't before. A little girl crouches at the side of the fallen monster, sobbing at the loss of her protector. Looking directly at me, the little girl backs into a corner begging for her life, crying out a hollow pray for, "Mr. Bubbles" to wake up. A voice overhead tells me its a Little Sister, and that she carries inside her the only material in Rapture that ensures my survival, Adam. I can save the possessed girl's life, but extract less Adam, or I can kill her, and harvest all the Adam she has. What would you do?

Choices and Details
If reduced to two words, BioShock is all about choices and details. Not only will you rack your brain trying to outsmart the malicious AI of your aggressors, you'll also get the bends trying to decide whether or not you're going to "harvest" the Little Sisters. All the while, you're swept away by the flood of detail that Rapture encompasses in both in its fiction and aesthetics. From start to finish, BioShock delivers on gameplay, graphics, sound, mood, pacing, story and setting, while perpetually introducing new elements to the gameplay. More importantly to videogames as a whole, BioShock has managed to slip in some serious topics (like the pros and cons of Objectivism) into its fiction, and gameplay that has yet to be executed so elegantly in other games.

End Scene
Stretched to the sky with a slight kindle, the dire, black monolith placidly beacons the primitive closer. A new horizon is peeking over the convex profile of our world of gaming. The primitive nervously approaches the monolith, with its forefinger perked outward. Touching the monolith imbues the Heavens with golden enlightenment as trumpets blare Strauss' Zarathustra. A videogame emerges: BioShock. You are welcomed gamer, to the intelligent age, the age of Rapture.

Final Grade: A+