“Now slow down guys! Thanks, that’s much better.”

I have the unique perspective of coming into the Resident Evil 5 demo never having played a game in the series before. You may say this immediately discredits any and all of my opinions concerning the game, but remember that there is an up and coming contingent of young gamers who know “survival horror” as games like Dead Space, and aren’t swayed by selling points like “because it’s always been this way.” So how then am I supposed to react to a game like Resident Evil 5 that seems absolutely archaic in its philosophies?

I’ll ignore the logic problems of zombie hoards that sprint at you, then feel the need to slow down when they get in range of your guns so you can adequately pick them off limb by limb. I’ll even overlook that it takes nearly a full clip of ammo to take down most of them, when a clip of ammo is usually all you ever have available to you, unless you want to risk a zombie bite by picking more up during combat. What I really want to know about is the insistence on this “plant and shoot” philosophy which seems like it’s something out of an arcade game that has a gun tethered to the machine by a cord which you use to shoot baddies who pop out from behind crates. In the year 2009, why does a game exist that hasn’t even mastered the art of running and shooting…at the same time? Even a slow sidestepping gait would be useful, but to be firmly planted in the ground, surrounded by zombies on all sides, including those you can’t even see? Come on now.

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(click here to watch after the jump)

There was a countdown timer on Square’s website for awhile, and everyone was wondering what it was for. Final Fantasy XIV announced? New Kingdom Hearts sequel? FF XIII for the Wii??? I’m sorry, that last one is just too laughable to even think about.

And no, it was none of the above, but what we did get was a brand new trailer featuring a surprising amount of gameplay footage and an unusually large amount of machine gun fire for a game series based mostly on magic mechanical swords. I also realized for the first time that protagonist is indeed a girl, after speculating for a while that Square was just taking male androgyny to an entirely new level.

Even though it feels like it’s coming out next century, FFXIII is looking like it’s going to be more than worth the wait, that is if you can avoid dying from seizures while playing.

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The new Watchmen poster shows the whole gang, but it looks like the picture was snapped just before Dr. Manhattan could pull his dong out and rest it on Nite Owl’s shoulder.  A wasted opportunity, no doubt, and classic Dr. Manhattan goofing around.  Rorshach is still furious about the Roman War Helmet Dr. Manhattan gave him at the slumber party.

Everyone’s making a big hullabaloo (yes, hullabaloo), about two pieces of news floating around. First, that the Tomb Raider franchise is being rebooted for unknown reasons and secondly that Megan Fox is NOT going to be Lara Croft. With everyone calling Ms. Fox the spiritual successor to Angelina Jolie, it seems only natural she could fill one of her ex roles no problem. I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little creative visualization as to what this re-casting might have looked like, and I think the results speak for themselves.

Keep it going for more shots of Megan Croft.

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They’re heroes.  They protect us civilians.  And they have some amazing skills up in the air.  Pilots have always been a fascinating subject in movies.  And while the stunts they generally pull in film are probably not the kinds of things that happen in real life, it’s pretty awesome to see in the theaters.

Whether it’s a dogfight, a mission to the middle east, or even landing a commercial airliner when no one else could do it, pilots play an extremely important role in the outcome of a film

Here are 10 awesome pilots in movies.

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Back in November, my man Sub-Zero wrote an article featuring eight foreign actors with great American accents.  Well, I decided to flip that doodie and try to find eight American actors who do great foreign accents.  Doing a foreign accent isn’t easy.  My British accent sounds way too cockney, and my Australian accent sounds, um, British.  It’s just awful.   Here are eight American actors who, unlike your faithful author, are able to speak with a foreign accent convincingly:

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Both are broadly classifiable as science fiction, but Alien is basically a horror flick and Aliens has all the conventions of a war film. That’s a pretty slick transition from one type of movie to another, especially since the switch was so immediate within the series.

So, if Star Wars can venture into the horror genre, what other movie franchises should attempt a genre jump?

Toying with this idea, the folks over at Spout decided to select 5 Film Franchises in need of a change.

In all the rush to green our planet, perhaps not enough credit is given to games like BattleForge. Shouldn’t being able to play a card-based game without the senseless murder of dozens of trees for actual cards be able to usurp at least Vampire Rain or M.C. Kids on Al Gore’s Top 5 Games list?The Countdown

Battle Forge deals first hand on March 24 – [Joystiq]

The Sexy Banned PETA Commercial – [Screenjunkies]

Marvel gets himself sued for 750MM – [Filmonic]

Skydiver does amazing things – [Doubleviking]

I think that’s most people’s reaction to Tin Tin.

When you hear “comic book adaptation” the first thing that jumps to mind probably isn’t a balding Belgian reporter and his white dog, which is probably why everyone is scratching their heads about the upcoming Spielberg governed Tin Tin project. But fortunately for me, I read every single Tin Tin book ever growing up, and though I don’t remember much about the plots besides “Tin Tin + Mystery = Solved,” I remember thinking they were totally kickass when I was eight.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urxAszyZHV8

Here’s a speed run on Ducktales for the NES that someone finished in just 7:58.  Pretty impressive.  Ducktales was one of my favorite games for Nintendo – great graphics, good music, recognizable characters, and best of all, it was FUN.  It’d be great to see an updated version of this game for the new consoles.  Even if it was simple and linear, I’d want to play it.