Okay No Riot Tonight.... + Smackdown vs. RAW 09 announced

This looks like a new trend for Wrestlemania weekend announcing this year's entry for their games. Smackdown vs. RAW 2009 is official as expected and the focus this time is tag teams with momentum meters combined for a team, hot tags, and more double team moves. The story mode, aka Road to Wrestlemania, can be done also co-op along with single player, which is cool. Some other new features like Create-A-Finisher and upcoming DLC for updated rosters makes this year's Smackdown worthwhile. If u want to read more about this one, IGN has the exclusive preview with the first trailer and a long / good interview that is a good read if u liked the recent Smackdown games. Honestly, the last WWE game I bought was Here Comes the Pain back in 2003 and I always like maybe this is the time to buy them again, but I don't. I rather buy TNA's video game instead, TNA Impact!, since I'm getting to be more of a TNA fan than WWE now even though TNA has its own problems of being a good wrestling promotion. In addition, Impact is currently looking way better than this one graphically currently. Let's see if THQ and Yuke's can step it up with the graphics, but the amount of content in this year's game is good enough to please fans.

Lastly, looks like no riot tonight with Jabbawockeez winning America's Best Dance Crew = Yay!!! I guess America voted right after all. Since it is spoiled already before the West Coast viewing, I'm still watching the finale tonight anyway. Hopefully Season 2 is bigger and better, but it will be hard to top this first season with Jabba and Kaba Modern blowing away the competition.

Everyone's A Rat..... (Last GTA IV Trailer)

After killing some time playing Tekken 6 again getting my ass whooped (still fun times), I got home and I watch this trailer below... (Thanks to GameVideos again)

The final GTA IV Trailer has arrived and this month wait couldn't get any longer. Rockstar is going out of a bang on this one being the best trailer out of the 4 official ones released. There is some serious stuff in there, and likely will be my game of the year. The game looks good for its graphical style and I'm willing to pony up for the limited edition, which is already pre-ordered. All the multiplayer details have been pretty awesome, which makes the package feel even more complete besides the single-player craziness. April 29 is going to be a good day indeed.

If Status Quo wins, We Riot!!!!

Hey, a blog about a TV show...

So the season finale of America's Best Dance Crew is tonight and hopefully the right crew wins, you know the JabbaWockeez. Last night, supposedly there was 30 million votes already before the big show and it could be all a lie if Status Quo, the crew that just do flips to me, wins meaning it is rigged and America doesn't know what true dancing skill is. Word from the streets seems it is true, but we can all wait till tonight to see if MTV did the right thing choosing the most deserving crew to win. Here's a reminder why they should and better win.

50 Cent says hello to games again.....

Let's get this out of the way first: The background surrounding naming myself G Unit Ver1 is not because of I'm a fan of 50 and his crew, rather than being called G so many times, I just added in the Unit since it kind of made sense at the time. Then the Ver1 kicked in because I liked WWE's Matt Hardy's heel (Mattitude) gimmick with Version 1 on the end and giving facts about himself as he enters the ring. He should bring that back someday, but enough with that.

Since 50 Cent Bulletproof sold enough copies to be a "greatest hit" for the PS2, I guess Vivendi decides to try again for another game titled 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. MTV News has the official exclusive story and details on this one, but already we know it is probably going to suck like Bulletproof did horribly even though it sold a lot of copies by likely the name itself. According to the story and the first screenshots, it has Gears of War and Army of Two all over it and probably it won't be that bad of a decision for the developers to copy even though it will suck in some way (the game is using Unreal Engine 3). 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is currently targeted for a Fall 2008 release and will probably sell again because it is 50 and his products actually sell, but so far it is better than Bulletproof and that's all I can say about it being good.

The Resident Evil 5 footage Famitsu promised this week

Thanks to Gamevideos.com for putting up the footy as this is new gameplay (not much) of Resident Evil 5. This is from the Famitsu DVD that came with the new issue in newsstands now (at least that Japanese market / mall at Newport Beach). I'm glad I played Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube in 2005 having never played a RE before that, and good thing since RE4 is still one of the best games of this decade so far. With rumors of more versions of RE4 (refer to this thread at NeoGAF) before RE5, I won't mind even though Capcom has milked that game to death already to me. Back to RE5, I can't wait to witness the evolution of the gameplay of RE4 in this one. I don't care if it comes out next year, let Capcom take their sweet time because it worked for RE4, and sure it will for RE5. Here's the video below.

Halo 3 just got more Black

The Legendary Map Pack DLC for Halo 3 has been set with all three maps revealed for the world to go crazy about. See anything similar in that screenshot above? Yeah, it is Lockout from Halo 2 in a different setting. Now called Blackout, this is a flat out remake of arguably the best map in Halo 2, which is now a oil rig in the middle of the ocean other than some random snow facility. While some Halo fanboys may miss the snow, just getting the map is good enough to me, but with equipment now. Bungie mentioned there is a bubble shield, regenerator, and a power drain around the place. They also mentioned changes in certain jumps to various spots of the map making some easier while others harder. I know I'm going to play Halo 3 for a bit again when April 15 comes around, but Blackout alone maybe makes the 800 point deal better than it intended to be along with Avalanche and Ghost Town.

Battlefield: Bad Company Beta (Impressions so far)

So the Battlefield: Bad Company Beta servers went up today and they are getting worked right now. It is hard to get in games currently and the DICE guys noticed it too which they are trying to fix this as quickly as possible. I was able to play 3 matches at least (1 in Ascension and 2 in Oasis). The only mode available is Gold Rush, which the attacking team has to destroy a set of gold crates to win the match while the defending team tries to defend it by lowering their reinforcements bar (just kill them a lot of times). These games can last long especially in Oasis where there is like 5 sets of 2 crates for the attackers to destroy. Ascension is more of a smaller map than Oasis, which seems more vehicle-focused, but the action does fell tense up close. As with previous Battlefield games if I can remember correctly, there are classes to choose from (I mostly sticked with Assault) with a demolition class, sniper class, etc. These will actually play out more on Oasis with the amount of tanks and helicopters going around. 

The graphics so far are good despite it is only 30 frames per second compared to 60 in CoD4. Those usual gray-ish filters (as seen in Burnout Paradise) are in when you are low on health, and it kind of distracts the overall flow of the action to me. The explosions also look great and this game is living up to the message with the whole destructible environments / buildings because they can be destroyed pretty quickly. Sound-wise, it is okay with the guns sounding like guns and explosions sounding like explosions. 

The spawn system goes by spawning at a home base or within the action along teammates. Spawning with your squad can be risky at times if spawned in the middle of a firefight, but at least u get to the action quicker if u prefer that route. There's the whole awards and medals thing for certain tasks as well such as new weapons and whatnot. EA's thing with microtransactions for new weapons is a little funky, since it is EA and they want money, people are willing to cough up the dough. Other than that, it feels like a Battlefield game with guns having secondary fires, vehicles that might ruin the balance of the game, and teamwork, which I didn't notice since no one was using their mics.

I'm going to play more of this when the servers are somewhat working (maybe later today). Maybe I'll just play the new Boston pack DLC on Rock Band instead and those songs kick ass (specifically More Than A Feeling as expected and Peace of Mind, better charts than GH versions). Sorry, no picture for this post.