Entourage Season 5 Hype Fest (Part I)

I'm very pumped for Sunday's premiere of Entourage Season 5 on HBO despite not having the channel on my TV, but here's a reminder why the show was awesome with a montage of Ari quotes from Season 4.

Why Skate 2 is still going to be the hotness...

The newest trailer for Skate 2 surfaced this week and I still can't wait for this bad boy to come out. Good thing this game is avoiding the crowded holiday rush for a release next year - being in my top 5 most wanted list is a good thing too. The same Public Enemy song from the last trailer is played again in this one and it is still a dope song. EA Black Box was able to establish the innovation the first time around and took Tony Hawk's crown away, but now is the time to perfectly execute on the formula and make the package even more sweeter.

In EA related news, yesterday I exported all my Rock Band 1 songs in preparation for Rock Band 2 next weekend. I'm still pondering if I should delete some of them to consume Hard Drive space for more songs. Who knows, but doing that export process makes me want to play Rock Band 2 now already. If the DLC next week sucks, I might as well trade in my RB1 disc (if I can) for RB2.

On the Fence: Pure

Today, I played the Pure demo on 360 (PSN demo should be up later today) and I have been sleeping on this racer till recently since the game is out in two weeks. After two hours of madness, Pure is a surprisingly fun game and likely will be the sleeper racing game of the year (with Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Midnight Club LA, and Need for Speed Undercover out in the fall). First of all, the game looks amazing for a racing game in this generation with great environments (only seven different types are in the final game with about 50 tracks as the demo says in the end) and draw distance. For the gameplay, Pure plays like a simple racing game with alternate paths and a huge emphasis on the trick system. The trick system is basically the bread and butter for Pure as doing them well will dictate your races. There are four levels of tricks which depend on the buttons will also dictates the boost meter. The more tricks you do, the more boost you gain as these tricks are done with any direction of the left stick and any of the face buttons (X however is boost). Whether to sacrifice doing advanced tricks (on the Y button) to boost more frequently if behind the pack or the other way around is a nice element to Pure's racing.

I'm still on the fence with Pure after playing the demo. This definitely feels like an off-road SSX than a core racing game, which is cool. Basically, this racer is simply fun to play with great graphics and soundtrack to listen to full of rock and electronica tunes. This one has that sleeper hit in it to be something overlooked with other racing games coming out around the same time. Then again, I can see some repetition with Pure as you progress through its World Tour mode if the races feel the same throughout the whole journey or the tricks eventually getting old pending on the character. Other than that, Pure is flat out fun to play and worth your attention for your dollars if you're looking for a new racing game this fall.

Another reason why the Dragonball movie will suck

Apparently, this is Piccolo in the upcoming Dragonball movie and another reason why it is an embarrassment to all the fans of the franchise. I don't know why they still plan to release this thing next year as this is almost like Street Fighter movie territory for how horrible it will be. Piccolo is played by the James Marsters, who was Spike in the Buffy and Angel TV shows. So yeah, can they at least try to get the source material right for once?

Lumines returns home...

Playstation 3 owners will finally get Lumines on their system with Supernova for the Playstation Network. This is actually more of a "finally" moment that Q Entertainment is now supporting PSN along with Xbox Live Arcade (Meteos Wars is their next XBLA game). I still wished these guys will make a new original IP someday, but I guess that could wait a little longer. This new Lumines has new exclusive skins and downloadable ones (not yet confirmed on the specifics on that like Genki Rockets skins). In addition, a new mode called Dig Down will be introduced in this iteration putting a different spin on the Lumines formula. It is still fudamentally the same game, but it is great that PS3 has their own version of Lumines now and the fact the franchise returns home to where it started, which is the Playstation brand (I'm curious if PSP Remote Play will be in this version as well).

The Ting Tings Appreciation

I finally got around to download my current favorite band's album, We Started Nothing by The Ting Tings. They're just a fun little Euro band to listen to right now. Sure they might another one hit wonder with "Shut Up and Let Me Go," but their other singles like "Great DJ" (above) are pretty catchy and enjoyable as well. I started noticing them after watching the "Shut Me and Let Me Go" video on MTV2 and then I didn't realize how popular the song is to even have an iTunes commercial looping at Las Vegas's Fashion Show Mall. At least their music videos get a million+ hits on YouTube. I recommend checking out this Euro-style band if you haven't yet and I also won't mind them having their singles on Rock Band 2 as well.

The 360 has another Japanese Action Game

So Microsoft had their pre-TGS Media Briefing today and other than Capcom teasing some of their upcoming lineup (Bionic Commando, GTA IV for Japan, Street Fighter IV, and Resident Evil 5) rather than announcing the dream sequel, Dead Rising 2, the only big thing worth mentioning about the event is the official unveiling of Ninja Blade. This Japanese action game is published by Microsoft themselves and developed by From Software (Chromehounds, Otogi series). During the briefing, they showed a teaser clip (below) of what to expect graphically in terms of cutscenes and a brief gameplay clip (not yet up anywhere). They also announced this game being playable at the Tokyo Game Show next month, so hopefully we'll have more impressions around that time.