Red Dead Redemption

This is just evil, Rockstar.

I mean, it's not enough that you had to go and release the completely awesome Red Dead: Redemption, with it's open world play and strong narratives and nearly limitless possibilities, but you had to go and make online multi-player FANTASTIC? And you do this so all my friends by it on PS3 and I'm left alone with my XBOX 360 and no friends?

How rude!

Confession #201: I'm a Gaming Addict

"You're a gaming addict," I was told somberly today.

"I'm not!" I protested mightily even though I had just spent over ten minutes gushing excitedly over the arrival of my newest shiny object, the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game.

Truthfully, I don't have time to be playing video games. I'm close to moving, and what little time I have at home should be spent putting stuff in boxes, not in front of my 360. But I couldn't help it. I had been waiting for this game forever, and thus far, Batman does not disappoint.

Outstanding graphics, a solid storyline (the lunatics have taken over the asylum) and hidden treasures throughout the maze of crazy give this game that kind of addiction that just does NOT allow you to stop playing. Plus, it's just FUN. You get to punch and kick guys, and you get to hang out on gargoyles and swing and crawl through grates, and protect your car when the bad guys are pounding on it.

It's like your inner 13 year old boys best fantasy come to life! ...

Okay if your fantasy was to crawl through grates in a maze full of psychotic lunatics and stuff.

But really, there are some games that are just so engaging in story and dialogue and pure interaction, it's better put together than three quarters of the movies you see out there.

And if loving that is silly, let it be so. I haven't been so in love with a game since the original Max Payne.

I still maintain that I'm not a true gaming addict. I didn't stay up all night playing, though the reason why I stopped wasn't because I felt like I should.

Honestly, I just got scared. Scarecrow boss fight. Dead parents. Late at night. In a morgue.

And Batman had just been drugged with the fear potion thingy.

No thank you, I'd rather sleep.

The Balance Board - My Nemesis of old.

I'll say it. I hate my Wii Balance Board. It may be the most transparent personification ever, but I think she's a cocky sonofabitch.

Why? Because the bitch made me fat! Well, okay, I was already chubby - but my poor little Mii character wasn't. She was just happily oblivious, moving along in her own little Mii world, playing with the other Miis, when I went and bought the Balance board and did my 'body test'.

Little did she know that as soon as my board decided I was overweight, it would grab hold of her and balloon up her weight to make her look like she had a basketball stuffed under her generic red shirt! The look on her poor face!

I was horrified. I was scarred. How Rude! And I decided that I hated my balance board, and I swore to my poor little Mii that I would free it from the tubs of lard it had inherited for having the bad fortune to be MY Mii.

Since then, my Balance Board and I have engaged in a battle of wills. It scolds me, I flick it off. It tells me I need to train every day, I glare. It offers a healthy 'tip' and I explain to that bastard that I can read a book for that.

And I ignore the running game completely. But that's more because no matter how 'interactive' that thing wants to be, I'm still running in place.

But at least some of my hard work has paid off - my little Mii is less round than she used to be.

Still, I doubt that immediately inciting horrified gasps by mutating your poor little Mii is quite the approach the WiiFit should take to get results from its buyers.

Then again, this is the game that shoots shoes at your head.

It's such a sadistic little bastard, isn't it?

It's Bullet Time: Max Payne Gets A Trailer

Because I'm a gamer, I get geeky over silly stuff that no one else would care about. Case in point? The upcoming Max Payne movie, which has now released a trailer.

Max Payne and Max Payne II are my favorite video games ever. I don't know if it's the over the top dialogue, or the bullet-time, or just the unrelenting noirish cheese, but I'm a sucker for a good story and complicated characters. The Max Payne universe has it in spades. A dark, tragic hero, a serious femme fatale, and bad guys who are ... well... genuinely bad. And not at all stupid.

So of course it was only a matter of time before some movie studio would by the rights to take the great story and make it into a two hour shoot-em-up action flick. As a fan, I was worried. And a little obsessed. Then they cast baby-faced Mark Wahlberg as the iconic, scruffy, pill popping grisled detective Max Payne. More worried. Then they cast impossibly beautiful Mila Kunis as Mona Sax. I was... surprised. I got a hold of the script, but haven't had a chance to read it. So far it looks like it's going to follow the first game pretty much to a Tee, but with more Mona, which means Mila, best known for playing screechy rich girl Jackie on That '70s Show and helping that guy on How I Met Your Mother get over Sarah Marshall, has her work cut out for her, playing the bad ass hardened assasin Mona Sax.

And now we have a trailer:




It's very very pretty.

Content? We'll see. But at least Mila Kunis looks the part. And Mark Walhberg got the scruffy voice down.

Off Topic but still relevant:

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the screwball comedy about four losers (and Danny Devito) who run a bar, has been picked up for 39 more episodes. That's a LOT of underachieving to giggle at.

The Emmy Nominations came out. 30 Rock continues to rule all, but Two and Half Men? Again? Seriously? Are all the emmy voters over 60? And who on earth still thinks Boston Public is one the best shows on television? Are we stuck in a repeat? New blood, please. NEW BLOOD! Color me thrilled though, that Kathy Griffin got a nomination for 'Straight to Hell'. She already told Jesus to suck it and outed Barbara Walters as a lube user. I don't know what else she can do to offend the masses.

Joss Whedon took over the internet with a web miniseries musical starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillon called 'Dr. Horrible's Musical Sing-Along'. For the record? I hated the Buffy Musical. I thought it sucked. I'm still watching this. You should too. Watch it. Because everyone else already is.

Also, as if Wii can't get any sillier, they're giving us light sabers. Honestly, people, these things aren't making it any easier for us twenty-something losers to grow up.

The Raving Rabbids Try WiiFit.

Of course, if they're anything like me (and they're are), they'd rather find an appropriate snack than try some exercising...

Allow me to have a little bit of a gamer girl geek squeal...

Max Payne I and II turned me into a gamer. Played on my XBOX, this video game caused me to fall in love. I had to play this game, and I had to play hours in a role because not only was it an awesome shooter, but I had to find out what was going to happen.



Also? Max Payne and his estranged hot assasin girlfriend Mona Sax? Hot. Seriously. They were the epitome of the noir dark man and his dark lady, and they will forever be my video game OTP.



So how excited am I that Mila Kunis and Mark Walhberg have finally been cast and this movie is gonna finally be filmed?



So... SO excited.



Gamer geek girl excited.



Excited enough to pull out my copies of Max Payne I and II on the ole Xbox and start blasting away.

For a summary of the lovestory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVgbASv5g4&feature=related

Z Camera - Minority Report Kicks Your Ass

Check out the latest technology that could blow WII motion control out of the water.

it's sweeet.

Sometimes the Technology - it kicks you in da head.

Like any good gamer geek, I'm waiting for the WIIFIT to come out in the States, under some misguided hope that it will make working out FUN. You know. Because people can't be bothered to like... go outside to run or... join a gym or whatever.

But in the back of my head, I think 'It's a little white thing. You stand on. Really?'

Apparently I'm not the only one that thought that. Check out sarcasticgamer.com's rather unique ad for the coming WiiFit: