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P.S. THERE'S THIS REALLY COOL GAME ON STEAM CALLED OSMOS THAT'S ON SALE FOR ONLY $2.00 FOR A LIMITED TIME THAT I STRONGLY RECOMMEND BUYING BECAUSE IT'S A PRETTY COOL INDIE GAME WITH AWESOME MUSIC THAT NORMALLY GOES FOR $9.99 AND IT CAN RUN ON PRETTY MUCH ANY COMPUTER RELEASED IN THE LAST CENTURY.

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So earlier today my friend linked me to this site that lets you build a list of movies you've seen, add some to your favourites list, and some to your disliked list. After adding 200 movies to my list off the top of my head (there were a lot more but for some reason I couldn't find them) I've come up with 11 movies that I've seen from beginning to end that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

[note: keep in mind this just my personal opinion and if you happen to think any of the following movies is "DA BEST GRATEST FILM EVA" well too bad, because I don't agree with you.]

This list is not in any particular order.

1. Natural Born Killers
seriously, **** this movie. **** quentin tarantino too, take your bull**** elsewhere please.

EDIT: user m0zart has thankfully enlightned me that Quentin Tarantino actually doesn't like this movie. My respect for him has gone up significantly because of this. Will leave my original comment intact though, as to not hide from my ignorance. I guess you can just replace my above statement about Tarantino with Oliver Stone since he's the one who made this drivel.

2. X2
X-Men was tolerable. X2 is a complete pile of melodramatic crap that can essentially be sumarized as two hours of bald guys sweating whilst staring at one another.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
I'll be honest, I liked the first Pirates movie. In fact, I liked it so much that I went to go see this sequel in theatres. Guess what? I hated this movie so much that I didn't even watch the third one, and I never will. Not funny at all, complete mindless trash.

4. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
No thank you disney, no ****ing thank you.

5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Let's get this straight: I'm a HUGE Indiana Jones fan. Always have been, always will be. But this movie just flat out sucks, like, sucks HARD. Everything about this movie is garbage and a complete insult to the Indiana Jones legend. The entire plotline is awful, the badguy (Cate Blanchett's character) is ridiculously annoying, seriously GEORGE LUCAS JUST ****ING STOP I'M BEGGING YOU. Also Shia LaBeouf as INDIANA JONES' SON? WHAT. THE. ****. ? *facedesk*

6. Men in Black II
ughhhhhhhh why did I remind myself that this movie exists.

7. The Mummy Returns
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

8. The Simpsons Movie
Hey, I like the Simpsons just as much as the next guy (well I used to anyway) but this movie sucks, plain and simple.

9. Transformers
SHIA LABEOUF. MICHAEL BAY. MEGAN FOX. WOW.

10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Ok I'm not really a huge Harry Potter fan. I've read the first four books and I liked them way back in the day, and have some pretty fond memories of reading them. (Like YEARS ago fyi). I eventually lost interest and stopped keeping up with the franchise. I saw the first 3 Harry Potter movies and they were enjoyable to varying degrees for what they were. I never saw the 4th one. Now I know a lot of people will give me **** for saying I didn't like this movie when I've never read the book, but as far as my understanding goes reading the book before seeing the movie in almost EVERY CASE causes you to HATE THE MOVIE EVEN MORE. Also, anyone find it funny that the 5th Harry Potter book is like one of the longest (the longest?) and has like, the shortest movie? This movie blows, sorry to say.

11. War of the Worlds
Yes, this is the Steven Spielberg one. Spielberg has made some pretty damn impressive movies - this isn't one of them.

aww yeaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

If you're not already aware, GameSpot is offering free Bayonetta Xbox 360 demo codes (only works for American Xbox Live accounts... and apparently Canadian ones too since it worked for me). I've spent some time with the demo, and I'm glad to say that it's a pretty awesome game.

I should get it out of the way that I've never played Devil May Cry or Viewtiful Joe, which were created by the same mind behind Bayonetta. What I can say however, is that this game is surprisingly fun to play. What Bayonetta seems to have in common with the other two games based on what I've seen, is that it's extremely stylish and really over the top. This game is bursting at the seems with femininity, and is extremely over-sexualized so if that kind of thing sounds creepy to you then you should probably just avoid Bayonetta altogether.

I find Bayonetta kind of interesting though because I didn't really take it as degrading to women, but almost more empowering female sexuality with its blatant outrageousness. The soundtrack is really poppy and over the top but it fits in with the action quite well, surprisingly.

Bayonetta has a ridiculous amount of moves and combos, and there's a bunch of crazy finishers too. You can spin around and shoot enemies like crazy, or hack them to pieces with a katana. There's a lot to see and do here and it's all done in a lavishly well executed visual style. I can't vouch for the PS3 version, and based on what I've heard about the PS3 version by following it through various Kotaku reports it's not as polished as the Xbox 360 version (which is the lead platform for this game's development, the PS3 version was done by Sega rather than Platinum Games) and also features muddy textures, etc. I can safely say however that the Xbox 360 version looks gorgeous and has a ton of visual flair and eye candy.

Bayonetta is shaping up to be a great visual treat with a crazy amount of over the top stylized action and best of all it doesn't feature metrosexual angsty shirtless dudes clad in leather. I'm definitely looking forward to playing the full release once it hits shelves in North America.

p.s.

What's up with the North American box art for this game?

The Japanese box art is so much better:

I'm seriously starting to think that Americans have like zero aesthetic taste, at least the people in charge of this stuff anyway...

The MMO is a strange beast, and I'm not going to lie; I despise the notion of paying to play games that you already own, and I've boycotted every game that has ever followed this structure. Despite the fact that I've always been a big fan of Blizzard's games, I naturally avoided World of Warcraft for years based on this principal alone. In December 2007 I had finally been convinced to see for myself what all the fuss was about, and I've been playing off and on ever since.

So what exactly is it about World of Warcraft that has absolutely captivated over eleven million people? Well, that depends on the person, but put simply: World of Warcraft is fun. Yes, you heard that right, World of Warcraft is fun. World of Warcraft is a game that provides so many different things to a massive audience of people that there's generally at least something about World of Warcraft that any one individual is bound to enjoy, even if they don't realize it yet. Want to play by your lonesome, quest, explore, get lost? You can do that. Want to raid dungeons with your friends? Sure thing. Want to battle against other players? You can do that too.

Let's get the basics out of the way first: World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that has players choose between either the Horde or the Alliance, both of which are opposed to one another. The Horde consists of the Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and Undead. The Alliance consists of the Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Night Elves. (The Blood Elves and Draenei were later added to the Horde and Alliance respectively but can only be played as with the Burning Crusade expansion pack). After you've chosen your faction you then build your character by choosing your race, gender, and cIass. There is a large assortment of cIasses to choose from ranging from the druid, hunter, mage, paladin, priest, rogue, shaman, warlock, and warrior.

Each of the game's cIasses play vastly different from the other, and as you quest and explore the game world you'll level up, gain abilities, and build your character. Each cIass can choose from three unique talent tree specializations that are inherently based on the three different types of moves that your character's cIass can learn. As an example, the paladin cIass learns moves that are based around either holy, protection, or retribution skills, most of which can be learned from a paladin trainer. A paladin can learn and use skills based on all three of these types of skills, but will have to specialize in one of them with talents. The talent tree for a paladin is naturally split into the holy, protection, and retribution talent trees, and specializing in one of them will make your skills of that type stronger. Specializing in holy will make a paladin's healing spells more effective; specializing in protection will make a paladin an effective tank (essentially a character that distracts enemies and takes all the damage while other characters attack and heal); and finally a paladin specializing in retribution will become a powerful melee fighter who can dish out a ton of damage. The way you build your character is entirely up to you, and that's a part of what makes World of Warcraft so fun to play.

If you've ever played an MMO or at least seen one in action before, then you pretty much know what to expect from World of Warcraft from a gameplay perspective. You talk to NPCs, slay x number of x monster and retrieve x number of x random item. Thankfully not all of World of Warcraft's quests are as mundane as they sound, and there's usually some unique quests every now and then that keep things interesting. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of dungeons and nasty boss monsters just waiting for you and a group of compatriots to take them on. This is an incredibly important part of World of Warcraft's end-game content, but there are plenty of dungeons that can be explored by eager adventurers all throughout the lower levels of the game.

Thankfully if you don't have any friends to play with, finding other people to create a party with is easy. When you want to find a group for a dungeon all you simply have to do is open the group menu, select a few dungeons you'd like to go to, select what type of role you can fulfill, and then let match making do its magic. Alternatively you can simply just choose to wait for a pre-existing group already searching for players to send an invitation your way once you've filled out the details. You don't always get into a group as fast as you'd like though, so if you want to do a dungeon it's always a good idea to set yourself up in the group search as you're questing, because even when you do get a group you may have to wait a while until you have a full party with all of the necessary roles fulfilled. Even though it can take awhile, it's immensely fulfilling when you get a good group together and you storm through a dungeon together fighting powerful monsters, finding loot, and getting powerful new equipment to deck out your characters with. Often times the dungeons also have some of the best quests in the game, such as one in particular that has a quest that will be very familiar to anyone who's seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dungeons are often one of the best ways to find rare and powerful new equipment, so you'd be wise not to gloss over them unless you're in an absolute rush to level as fast as possible.

Aside from its diverse gameplay options, one of the reasons why World of Warcraft is so captivating is more or less how incredibly well realized the game world is. Azeroth is absolutely massive is size - so big in fact, that depending on what faction and race you choose to play as, you'll be lucky to see at least half of what the game world has to offer. Even if you're one of those people that isn't heavily into online gaming or the competitive nature of online games, World of Warcraft is a game that you can just get absolutely lost in.

Naturally, seeing as how the game world is so huge and that it's separated into two factions, players of the opposing factions can actually kill one another when they are in the appropriate areas. Every race begins in their own unique starting zone that is allied with their faction, and you cannot be killed in these areas unless you've openly attacked a player from another faction in one of your zones. Contested territories on the other hand are neutral zones that are not owned by either faction, and the vast majority of the game takes place in these zones. Once you've reached level 20 you'll venture out into the vast wilderness where you can encounter players from the other faction, and you can and will be killed by them, and can and will kill them as well. Fortunately if you aren't into that sort of thing you can play on a Player versus Environment server (PvE), rather than a Player versus Player server (PvP). In PvE servers you can only be attacked by other players if you enable it, therefore creating a much more relaxed gaming experience if that's what you're looking for. Likewise, people looking for the intensity and danger of being attacked at any moment and being able to attack other players have that option as well.

World of Warcraft is massive in size and scale, but a part of why it's so incredibly well realized is because of Azeroth's beauty. World of Warcraft is an old game, and even when it was released back in 2004 it had already been soundly trumped in the graphics department by the triumphant Half-Life 2; a game which essentially rendered every other game released prior to itself completely obsolete from a graphical standpoint. Even with World of Warcraft's dated appearance it's still a beautiful game from an artistic point of view. All of the locales are gorgeously well realized, and are truly breathtaking to behold. There are so many unique environments ranging from the snowy Dwarven mountains, to the gorgeous Elwynn Forest, to the vast emptiness of the Barrens, that you'll never tire of simply exploring the areas, as well as trying to find the next one just to see what wonders it will behold. While World of Warcraft is visually dated it never loses it's charm, and that's the reason why it can still be described as a beautiful game, even in light of its aged appearance. The only real issue with World of Warcraft from a graphical standpoint is that you may notice the odd clipping here and there, but it's never a big enough issue to really detract from anything. Some of the animations can also occasionally be a bit funky, but all of this really amounts to nothing more than mere nitpicking.

Complementing the breathtaking world is an absolutely gorgeous symphonic soundtrack that cannot be summarized as anything but perfect. World of Warcraft's music is expertly composed and perfectly fits the game world. Each area is accompanied by its own styIe of music as well as beautiful and mysterious ambience, or dark and sinister undertones that really nail the feeling of each area. Voice acting is minimal, but all of the NPCs have a variety of generic dialogue they mutter whenever spoken to. It's probably not the game's strongest aspect, but since it's such a minor part of the game it's not something you'll ever pay attention to.

World of Warcraft is such a huge game, that it's really difficult to accurately describe every thing that it is, and every thing that it can be. World of Warcraft can essentially be whatever kind of game you want it to be. It has that vast epic scope that fans of questing and exploration will adore, and it also has a hugely competitive player versus player component to it as well. Not to mention all of the guilds, dungeons, and all of that optional stuff you can get into if you want to - but again, that's why World of Warcraft is so great, you can go through the entire game ignoring all of the conventional MMO trappings that are generally associated with the genre that some people who avoid MMOs can't stand. Guilds, socializing, PvP, don't like it? Don't do it! On the other hand, if that's your thing, then go nuts! World of Warcraft caters to pretty much everyone and that's why no other MMO ever has a chance of beating it.

Sure, paying a monthly fee for World of Warcraft sucks, but the game does every thing an MMO should do, as well as all of the things that other MMOs don't do, and it does it better than all of them. If you're ever going to pay a monthly fee for a game, then World of Warcraft should be that game. Every thing from the genre you'll ever need to experience is here, and it's executed at such a masterfully perfected level that only a developer with Blizzard's pedigree could ever hope to achieve.

Score.

2 THINGS:

1. I seriously can't believe I actually just wrote a review for World of Warcraft. I'm sure with the extreme polar opposite views this game gets (being either extreme hatred or the utmost admiration) I'm sure I've lost the respect of at least someone who's tracking me for not only publicly displaying that I've played this game, but also for the fact that I've subscribed to this game. That being said I only have one proclamation:

HAHA I DID IT I GOT TO LEVEL 60 TAKE THAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT THE GAME THAT STOLE 250 HOURS OF MY LIFE I BEAT YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. If you get the blog title reference without having to look it up or only realizing after reading this sentence then you are awesome.

When you break Left 4 Dead down to its core components it's a relatively basic game; you grab some items, run through a level shooting countless common infected, fight a few special infected, and eventually seek shelter at the next safe house ad nauseam. Left 4 Dead has a bare bones selection of weapons and items at your disposal, so playing it by yourself gets very old, very quickly. Fortunately Left 4 Dead has an exceptionally well-realized cast of playable characters and a fantastic online co-op experience that help keep it interesting from start to finish.

Left 4 Dead deliberately skimps on the story and begins two weeks after the initial infection that has turned all but a select few into ravaging brain-dead zombies. In Left 4 Dead you'll have access to four playable characters, all complete with their own vastly different personas: Bill, a hardened Vietnam War veteran; Francis, a tattoo-covered biker; Louis, a Junior Systems Analyst at his company's IT department; and Zoey, a college student and horror film enthusiast. This is as far into each character's background as you're ever going to get, but it's their dialogue, personalities, and the way in which they interact with one another that keeps them interesting.

As one of these four characters (and hopefully with a group of friends) you'll trek through various locations chock full of infected just waiting to ravage you and your comrades. You begin each level armed with nothing but a pistol, but you'll have access to either a shotgun or an Uzi, plenty of ammo, and some medkits. Along the way you'll come across various items scattered across the levels, which includes pain pills, Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, as well as superior firepower. Unfortunately Left 4 Dead's weapon selection is painfully limited and you will only have access to five main weapons in the entire game. Eventually you will be able to upgrade your Uzi or shotgun to an m4 or an automatic shotgun, both of which serve as upgrades to each of the starting weapons, as well as a hunting rifle which can be used as a sniper. Left 4 Dead's gunplay is kind of weak though. It's not really bad but the lack of weapon variety makes it pretty underwhelming in general and the weaponry is not nearly as satisfying as that found in Valve's other games such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat. Oddly enough there are no melee weapons to speak of in Left 4 Dead which seems like a glaring omission, especially considering you're in the zombie apocalypse and all. You do have access to melee attacks with your firearms but they serve more as a shove than an actual melee attack and do minimal damage at best.

Left 4 Dead's level design is pretty good though, and the four main campaigns have enough variety to keep the gameplay experience interesting. Perhaps what gives Left 4 Dead the majority of its longevity is the AI director which alters the gameplay experience depending on how the players are performing. Unfortunately the AI director isn't really as significant as Valve would have you believe, as weapons and items generally always appear in the same few locations. The infected are generally everywhere so it's hard to really take notice of how differently they may have been dispersed this time, especially since the levels always play out the exact same way despite the minimal differences.

You will also encounter various types of special infected throughout the game: the hunter, smoker, boomer, tank, and the witch. The hunter stalks players from various angles and can leap great distances to incapacitate and maul the survivors. The smoker can snatch players with his long tongue from great distances and drag them off to their doom, he'll also explode into a cloud of smoke when defeated, obscuring vision. The boomer can puke on players blinding them, as well as alerting their presence to a horde of zombies which will then hone in on their location. The tank is a rare special infected who usually spawns during climactic moments, such as a chapter finale. He can easily incapacitate an entire team of survivors if not quickly dealt with, and can take an incredible amount of punishment. Finally you have the witch, who will not attack players if left undisturbed, but when provoked can incapacitate a survivor in one attack. The special infected are what keep the gameplay interesting, as their appearances are much more infrequent and unpredictable, and generally require the team to work together to bring down. The special infected can also be controlled during versus matches in multiplayer (with the exception of the witch) which can lead to some amusing moments.

Playing Left 4 Dead co-op definitely gives the player the best experience possible, and you will have to rely on your teammates to make it through all of Left 4 Dead's campaigns. You will constantly be attacked by hordes of infected, and the special infected's unique abilities with often incapacitate players to a helpless state where they will need to be saved by a fellow survivor. When players are incapacitated you will have to revive them, and you'll earn points for doing so. You'll also earn points for protecting other players by shooting infected that are just about to attack them. Friendly fire is always enabled and cannot be turned off, so you'll have to be careful not to shoot your friends. You can heal each other with med packs, and you can give pain pills to each other which temporarily restore health. When you're incapacitated after a serious injury you'll have to wait for a teammate to revive you, and in these cases you can only use your pistols. This can lead to some intense moments as the rest of your team struggles to survive as you blast the infected swarming you with your pistols from the ground.

The finales featured at the end of each of the campaigns hold some of the best moments of Left 4 Dead, as you and your friends protect a fixed position from a seemingly endless horde of infected. If anyone is left behind as you eventually make your way to the escape vehicle the game will display 'In Memory of' listing the players name, along with all of your gameplay statistics listed as if they were movie credits at the end. It's fun to compare your stats to those of your friends, and the way it's all presented makes it a lot of fun.

Left 4 Dead's presentation is perhaps one of its strongest selling points. Each level is presented by a poster showing all of the characters (as well as the names of the people controlling them) topped off with a cheesy catch phrase, reminiscent of campy horror movies. The sound design is excellent, and easily one of the best aspects of the game in general. The music is appropriately foreboding and contains repetitive loops that get stuck in your head and immerse you in the zombie apocalypse atmosphere. The zombies themselves actually all have sound effects provided by experimental musician Mike Patton, who actually made an album based solely around him making weird sounds with his mouth. So it's not really very surprising to see him voicing zombies in a video game, and he does an excellent job. The voice acting is also superb and breathes life into all of the characters as they talk, scream, and laugh together. It really makes them feel like actual people struggling through the zombie apocalypse rather than a bunch of mindless drones void of any type of personality.

Left 4 Dead's replay value is essentially defined by how high a tolerance you have for repetition. There are currently five campaigns in total including the recently released Crash Course DLC, but the campaigns themselves are fairly short and all play out in an entirely similar fashion. With a significant lack of weapons and overall gameplay variety you're probably going to wear out on Left 4 Dead pretty quickly. So unless you have a high penchant for doing the exact same thing over and over again you're probably only going to play through Left 4 Dead once or twice before calling it a day. The versus mode can provide some additional amusement after you've gone through the campaign normally, but it's also riddled with annoying players who hog items, use cheap or otherwise irritating tactics, and people who like to play lone wolf styIe rather than playing as a team. You're definitely going to want to be playing with people you know if you try any of these modes. If Left 4 Dead had more content it would be an easier game to recommend, but as it stands it's a relatively short experience that is significantly lacking in long term replay value and it's sole long lasting benefit is it's charming characters, excellent audio, and entertaining but brief co-op play.

Score.

ZoMg 2 rEvIeWs In 1 DaY!?!? AND 2 BLOG POSTZ?

Here's the Soulcalibur review if you missed it.