Okay, I saw the Watchmen trailer and I thought, that movie look nice. Later check who was the director, Zack Snyder (you know, the guy from ‘300′), okay it may be good. Then I discovered that it is based on a graphic novel from the 1980’s, and I thought….WHAT??? Then went to Borders and saw a whole section dedicated to the graphic novel and I thought, what the heck, let me pick one. After reading it, OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK! How I have lived all these years without knowing of this gem. 

(Click Read More to read the rest of the post)

Let's see, a book with a happy face in its cover. It's should be nice for the kids. What is this red thing? Oh, it should be just ketchup!

You see, Watchmen take the fantasy world of superheroes, and make it real! Complex people, with complex problems, with complex…. costumes!!! Dr. Manhattan and its God complex. The Comedian and his sick mind. Rorschach (my favorite) and his compulsive nature. Nite Owl II and his horniness! Frankly, I don’t know how to recommend this any better. Is one of those books that it will be better to read it before watching the movie to understand it better. This is the way it was meant to experience Watchmen even if the movie turns out good. So watch now Watchmen, I will be watching you!

Spotted another ad of Sprint’s campaign of their Instinct against the iPhone. This one says: “Busqueda activada por voz. Lo que el iPhone jamas penso.” Which in english means:

“Voice activated search. What the iPhone never thought.”

I most say, the previous one was a good hit against the iPhone, the lack of video recording really hurts, but this one…. nothing the AppStore cannot fix.  I currently use Say Who by Dial Directions and it works fine, and its free! 

Sprint: There will be blood!

Ready for some safari?

After booting the game the first thing that you will notice is that this game is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. I don’t know how Ubisoft was able to pull this off on the Xbox, but this is the closest to Crysis on a console that you will currently get. The way Ubisoft was able to cramp so much vegetation at once with almost no slow downs, it’s very impressive.

As the first games made by Crytek, every mission can be done in multiple ways which makes the whole experience very open, but on this sequel, I felt more freedom on how to play the game. Missions are varied and can be done on whatever order you want. Sometimes I just fel like I was playing Oblivion with guns (wait, that is what Fallout is supposed to be). As in Oblivion you can travel anywhere and suprisingly for a shooter, there is a lot of interaction with non-playable characters. Also the nice touch of having “friends” was cool (specially when thay rescue you out of a sure death in a gun battle).

The game is not perfect, some side missions are very repetitive and there is a lot of backtracking, but everything else is pure genius. I just hope people get notice of this game with all the jungle of games released on this holiday season. “Jungle”, did you get it? I am so good at this!

Score:

Went to my local GameStop to get my Gears of War 2 copy! With the reserve in GameStop, they are giving away a free GoW first issue comic and a free code in Xbox Live for a gold-plated hammerburst for online play. Oh, and donuts! Having the game at last is good, having free Dunkin’ Donuts while in line, priceless!

"Is this the line for Wii Music?"

After finishing EA’s Dead Space, I remember having a grin in my face! Not just because I loved this game, but also I LOVE the new direction EA is going! We are talking one of the most powerful developers in the world and at last, they are letting their creative team go wild! And from that new freedom, Dead Space has born. (Click Read More to read the rest of the post)

Dead Space Casting

I will try not to spoil the story of the game so I will not mention any of it on this review. Just let me say that if you mix the movies such as Event Horizon, Aliens and The Thing, the result would be Dead Space.

In this survival horror game, the developers mentioned that when they where designing the game, they decided to go with an engineer (Isaac Clarke) as the main character so the player feels less prepared to confront the horrors inside the USG Ishimura. I do not know if I played it wrong, but I really felt ready to kick ass since the beginning of the game. Even if you start with no weapons, as soon as I get the first one, I started leaving limbs everywhere. The element of shooting the limbs to disable your “zombified” friends is a really nice touch and to my surprise, it does not get old. Because of this, sometime I felt the game was more and adventure game or a shooter than a survival horror. But believe me, this is not bad at all, and makes the game a joy to play.

The ability to upgrade your weapons is a nice touch, but I felt compelled to upgrade my armor and my stats first instead of the weapons since I always felt that a better weapon would be just around the corner, and since you can only carry four of them, it would be a waste to upgrade one that will be left behind soon.

The AI of most of the enemies is really good, and it has a really good variety. Just when you thought you have seen it all, another monstrosity pops out of nowhere. The design of many of them reminded me of the movie The Thing, the design is something that John Carpenter would have created.

In the end, the game production value is really good (love the graphics, but a little more of variety inside the Ishimura would have been nice). The Sound is superb and if you have on of those headphones like the ones made by Turtle Beach, is a freaking experience! And with 10 to 15 hours of playtime, you will feel exhausted at the end with all the tension.

I must say, EA, I forgive you all those license games, all those Madden games, and even your lack of advertisement for BoomBlox (I still won’t forgive all those NASCAR games, maybe Mirror’s Edge can help on that, EA!).

Score:

This year we did not get a lot of scary games but the few released were a tour de force! Following are the ones I will be playing. What? The one on the right does not scares you? Wait until you get a “Big Bumpin’” from the King!

Oh my, sweet, sweet games! Get it? Sweet! Okay fine, jeez.

Jeez, what a busy week! On Sunday was released Guitar Hero World Tour. On Monday the launch of Little Big Planet. Today Tuesday, at last Bethesda’s latest, FallOut 3. Who had the great idea to only put 24 hours in a day? Oh…sorry God….my bad!

Big Daddy's Collectibles Welcome Party

]]> http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/fallout-3-is-out-grab-your-pip-boy-3000/feed/ 0 Carlos La Plaga screen-capture-11 http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/oh-no-they-didnt-sprints-mocks-the-iphone-because-of-its-lack-of-video-recording/ http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/oh-no-they-didnt-sprints-mocks-the-iphone-because-of-its-lack-of-video-recording/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:00:56 +0000 Carlos La Plaga http://techplague.wordpress.com/?p=88 ]]>

Today I saw a giant Instinct ad by Sprint in one of the buildings of a government agency in Puerto Rico with the following message:”Graba y envía videos. ¡Las ganas del iPhone!” which translated from spanish means:

“Records and sends videos. What the iPhone wants!”

(Click Read More to read the rest of the post)

Sprint sticks its tongue out to the iPhone

This Sprint marketing move follows the official release of the iPhone in Puerto Rico two weeks ago. Apple has been known to respond well to competitors attacks with their own ads (am I right Microsoft?). Makes you wonder what response Apple may do to the Instinct:

3G connection for the internet.

Multi-touch capability.

We have a zillion of developers doing apps for us.

We are selling them in millions

We are not in Sprint.

What the Instinct wants!

Apple will need a bigger building.

What the #@$&! I just went to http://turnyournameintoaface.com/ where this site will “create” a face after you enter your name. I entered “Carlos” (as in Carlos La Plaga, what else!) and look at the results!

Perfect drawing of me at turnyournameintoaface.com

Carlos La Plaga Mug Shot

]]> http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/oh-my-god-this-site-has-to-be-banned/feed/ 0 Carlos La Plaga turnyournameintoaface.com CarlosLaPlagaMugShot http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/little-big-planet-servers-are-getting-hit-hard-on-launch-day/ http://techplague.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/little-big-planet-servers-are-getting-hit-hard-on-launch-day/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:49:43 +0000 Carlos La Plaga http://techplague.wordpress.com/?p=71 ]]>

It seems that everybody loves Sackboy since it has been impossible to access the servers today on its launch day. Oh well, the game was delayed for more than a week so what another day can do to you?

Everybody Loves Sackboy