Desperate Escape was created for mainly one sole purpose: to provide fans with a challenge. Thus, this DLC features multiple boss Majini, from the Chainsaw Majini to the Red Executioner Majini. Take into mind: Desperate Escape has been built to be extraordinarily challenging, especially on the “Professional” difficulty settings, as it’s almost impossible for even the developers to clear it. Throughout this brutal challenge, you’ll go through three “chapters.”

Through chapters one and two, you fight through Majini-infested areas, fighting horde after horde, wave after wave of the Majini pests. Boss Majinis make their appearance throughout, and these chapters feel much like the rest of the game, but to a more challenging level.

Chapter 3 is much like a “Mercenaries” level. You must stay alive, fighting off hordes of Majini on the roof of the communications tower, and wait out the timer for your helicopter. As more time passes, and you kill more enemies, harder enemies will appear. This chapter lasts at least 10 minutes.

Though Desperate Escape had some very tasteful action sequences, it didn’t have that same vibe as Lost In Nightmares. Jill and Josh aren’t the most dynamic duo, and banter and one-liners are kept to a minimum. Resident Evil 5 had a nice, loyal fanbase, and if you liked everything about RE5, this is a relatively short, but sweet extension.

Imagine losing everything you love. Imagine watching your wife and kid killed before your very eyes. Imagine learning that one of the two men involved in the murder is going to walk free. Would you just accept the justice system’s decision, or would you want blood?

Gary Gray returns to the director’s chair after a 4 year vacation with Law Abiding Citizen, an emotional yet action packed flick that’s guaranteed to get your blood pumping. With an amazing cast of familiar faces such as Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Bib, Bruce McGill, and Regina Hall, Law Abiding Citizen appears on the surface as an amazing flick. But the surface seems to lie when it comes to Hollywood’s expensive flicks. The question is raised in the mind of most movie goers, “Will this movie be worth my money?”

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is a brilliant planner and inventor. One night two robbers invade his Philadelphia home and brutally kill his wife and daughter, and almost kill him. The killers are caught, and Assistant DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is assigned the case. Nick is ordered by the DA to make a deal with one of the killers to testify against his partner for a 10 year plea bargain prison sentence. Clyde doesn’t want Nick to make the deal, but Nick says it was too late and the deal is done. The other killer got the death penalty. After 10 years, the other killer is released from prison, and he soon ends up dead. Clyde is arrested and kind of admits to Nick that he did it. Clyde is put in jail, and he warns Nick that he must fix the broken justice system that failed him and his family or else anyone connected to his case will soon die. Even from jail, Clyde’s threats become a reality, and Nick must stop Clyde before his family is next. (imdb.com)

This movie is one that could have taken a wrong turn numerous times down its production road. The biggest flaw could have easily been the acting; however, Butler and Foxx make a perfect team of good guy bad guy in this flick. Foxx’s role as the determined assistant DA is perfect, he’s smart, witty, and will do anything to protect his family. Butler’s had the practice to play a murderer, and it really shows in his execution of Shelton in this movie.  The acting is near flawless, and the only complaint that comes to mind is Butler’s constant sneer.

The plot is strong. On the surface it seems shoddy, but in execution, the work is brilliant. While Kurt Wimmer’s history in the movie business is nowhere near good, there’s a possibility that his role in writing the screenplay for Law Abiding Citizen may turn his career around. The characters were in depth and developed perfectly throughout the course of the movie, the action was tight and the story moved at a speed that kept the audience interested. This is one of those movies with a target audience of men who don’t like depth, and while the story lacked depth, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Law Abiding Citizen is a perfect example of the modern day action flick. Filled with plenty of blood, gore, and explosions, the movie really hits its target audience. Foxx and Butler’s work together was perfect, and the script was smooth. Regina Hall, Bruce McGill, and Leslie Bibb fill their supporting roles impressively, and aided greatly in this movie’s outcome. Unfortunately, no movie’s perfect. The cinematography is really complicated at moments, and some actions performed throughout the movie are simply unbelievable. This movie really makes for mindless entertainment.

4.5/5

Are you affected? Here’s what we’ve learned so far:
-This glitch seems to only affect “fat” PS3s. No reports of a slim-line PS3 with a glitch have been reported.
-It really is GLOBAL, affecting Japan, Europe, and North America.
-This glitch prevents you from conencting to the PlayStation Network.
-Only games prevented from starting are trophy-enabled ones. Older PS3 games without trophies should work fine.
-The error codes vary from game to game, but all appear to be trophy related.
-This glitch occurs initially when powering on your PS3. This does not matter whether you are connected to the Internet or not.
-Manually resetting your PS3s time and date will not resolve the issue.
-Some report re-seating the internal battery will resolve this problem. These claims are NOT verified, but even if they were, I wouldn’t attempt this even with a no-fault insurance policy. Aside from voiding your warranty, this would require full disassembly of you PS3 system and meddling with the core components.

As of 9:55 PST, according to Sony’s Twitter page, this glitch should be fixed by 1 PM EST March 2nd, 2010:
“@JeffRubenstein: Summary: PS3 slim is good to go, older models should be fine within 24 hrs. Leave em off until then.”

[UPDATE]
It seems that as of 00:00 GMT, all PS3s seemed to have fixed themselves. Since then, I’ve booted mine and have had no problems throughout use. It seems this “nightmare” to some has ended, and it was just a small, technical glitch by Sony. But no hatin’, we’re all human, we all make mistakes. Everything’s back up and running: PSN is good, Netflix, trophy-enabled games… all good. So relax, release your paranoia, and feel free to power up and play! Kick back, and turn on your PS3!

Players will take control of BSAA agents Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine as they enter the Spencer Estate sometime in 2005, in search of the founder of the Umbrella Corporation, Ozwell E. Spencer. This mansion highly resembles the mansion of the Arklay mountains from the first RE game. Players will work through the mansion to reach Ozwell E. Spencer just moments after he is murdered by Albert Wesker. It really captures the original essence of the Resident Evil franchise. The Moonlight Sonata will make an appearance, as well as some familiar puzzles.

This DLC will have you tensed-up about moving forward, it’s great in quality, and the experience from it is amazing as well. Pretty short in length, but great at its low cost of five dollars.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Dragon Age Origins Awakening – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360 and PS3
God of War III – PS3
Just Cause 2 – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Metro 2033 – Xbox 360 and PC
Red Steel 2 – Wii
Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition – Xbox 360 and PS3
Resonance of Fate – Xbox 360 and PS3
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – Nintendo DS
Yakuza 3 – PS3

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the fourth and latest installment to this ever-growing space exploration series. Going against the trend that JRPGs have set in over time, Star Ocean uses its famous real time battle system, and after a decade of work on the title, it has been perfected. Although TLH is the newest publication it takes us back to the series’ origin, S.D. 10, where Earth stands on the brink of destruction after World War III. The protagonists, Edge Maverick and Reimi Saionji, take off on a journey across the universe for the Space Reconnaissance Force to find a new home for humanity. These two young heroes are humanity’s last hope.

In the year 2064, World War III had broken out on Earth, and weapons of mass destruction were used without hesitation, razing the planet. Critical situations began to occur, and both factions of WWIII signed a ceasefire, but it was too late; most of the Earth’s population had been killed, and the land was deteriorating at an extraordinaryily alarming rate. Any surviving population were forced to live in underground cities, and countries formed together to create the Greater United Nations. The Universal Science and Technology Administration was formed by the G.U.N. with one sole mission: to find humanity a new home in the outer reaches of space. Humans soon discover travel at warp-speed, starting the space date, S.D., calendar. Space date 10 comes along, and you have been selected as humanity’s first venture into the outer reaches of space. Will you be the one who saves humanity? Or will you parish in your attempts to find a planet suitable for human life, surrounded by monstrosities unimaginable, dooming humans to extinction?

Star Ocean: TLH comes with a whole new pack of features tagging along with it’s original. The first and foremost new features are those in the battle system. One of the most useful new technigues is the Blindside, which can be used to slip behind enemies, confusing the enemy as you attack it from behind with automatic criticals. There is also a new system called the “Battle Exalted Action Type System,” refered to in game as the “BEAT System.” There are three different choices for each character’s BEAT settings. BEAT.S, an offensive setting; BEAT.B, a defensive setting; and BEAT.N, a neutral setting which combines the stat enhancements of other BEAT settings. The “Fury” Gauge from the previous installment has been removed, and replaced with a “Rush” Gauge. The Rush Gauge build up as you land attacks and take damage, and can be released to attack faster, with more power, and without being interrupted by enemy attacks. On a sad note, MP death has been removed from this game. Yeah, now it’s harder for them to kill you! But it’s also harder for you to kill them. One final battle feature is the utilization of characters. Not only can you use four instead of three characters, like in Till The End Of Time, but death finally makes sense in this JRPG! After all four characters die in battle, you may select one reserve member to take their place in battle until everyone’s been knocked out. Not only that, but you can change party members during battle too, which can be extremely helpful.

The other big feature to TLH is your ship, the SRF-003 Calnus. With your ship, you can travel to previously visited planets to recollect items and complete mini-quests, meet with your other party members in the conference room for Item Creation, and has a quarters in which, with the right character pairings, can trigger special Private Actions, a feature from previous Star Ocean titles.

The graphics, like any other modern Square-Enix game, are near breath-taking. The quality really brings out the interstellar feel of the game, and makes it that much more interesting to play.

The audio quality itself is very good. Unfortunately, the voice acting did not meet the bar set by the former titles. The facial movements of the characters is downright terrible to a point to where it’ll make you feel like you’re playing a modern Sonic The Hedgehog game. Music, on the other hand, is fantastic. The soundtrack lives up to Sakuraba’s name.The composition is precise, and it fits most situations perfectly.

Cutscenes, cutscenes, cutscenes. Everybody knows how RPGs love their cutscenes, and TLH is no exception.  Not only are there many of these out-of-game videos, but they are extremely lengthy. Some reach a point that your controller will hibernate and force the video to pause. There is an upside though: during any of these monstrous progressions, you can just press “Start” on your controller and select “Skip Cutscene,” which will promptly end the video. In return you receive a summary, and (if followed by a battle) will receive a warning before you’re thrown into a fight for you life. This feature is extremely useful for those with little to no attention span, or for those that just don’t have the time to waste on a drawn out sequence of events.

Unfortanately, the five people who actually enjoyed the Battle Arena from Till the End of Time will be disappointed in hearing the multiplayer aspect has been removed from this installment.

Throughout this massive three-disc game, no errors were experienced. The cutscenes are lengthy to a point to where your controller may shut off though, and the cutscene will pause. Don’t mistake it for a frozen game as many others have done.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a pretty lengthy game, with a story of about 40-50 hours if you watch all the cutscenes and level as you should. It’s always a nice, fun challenge to run through again on a harder difficulty, with alright re-playability. It’s full of a bunch of little twists that will catch you off guard, but nothing less is expected of Tri-Ace and Square-Enix. With that, this game gets a solid

Enter the world of this new psychological thriller known as Heavy Rain. The Origami Killer is out there, taking the lives of young boys. How far will you go to stop a killer? (This review contains a few spoilers that occur in the beginning of the game).

Heavy Rain starts off with Ethan Mars, happily married, living with his wife and two children. Life seems as though it can’t get any better than it already is. That is until, an unfortunate event unfolds at the local mall. Your son Jason starts to wander off in the mall. Ethan keeps following him but eventually starts to lose him. Jason ends up crossing the street, and just when his father sees him, he decides to run back across. You can probably guess what is going to happen (unless you haven’t already seen the mall gameplay video). Let’s fast forward. You spend time with Shaun, the brother of Jason, at the local park. Suddenly you start to black out, wake up in the middle of the street, and have no idea where Shaun is. Thus, our story begins. You take the role of four different characters throughout the game. Constantly switching between them, you will learn that all of their stories intertwine with one another. You will play as Ethan Mars (Architect), Madison Paige (Photographer), Norman Jayden (FBI Profiler), and Scott Shelby (Private Investigator). This is not your typical game, during action sequences you will have to be quick with your fingers because Heavy Rain is heavily focused around QTE (Quick Time Events). Buttons will constantly appear on the screen, and you must hit them before time runs out. Messing these up could possibly alter what happens to your character, thus altering the entire game itself. Any and all of the four characters can die, and if that happens the game will continue on without them. There are multiple endings and many different choices to choose throughout your gaming experience. Some choices you will NOT want to make. Heavy Rain will make you so attached to the character that you may not want to make a tough decision. I found myself pausing the game at some instances where I had no idea which option I should pick.

Heavy Rain has an amazing graphics engine to it. Everything has such incredible detail that you may find yourself just walking around looking at all the little things and interacting with them. The world you’re in is so beautiful. I personally would have loved to have had a first person button just so I could look around at the little things better. I have to say that I think Heavy Rain has the most outstanding graphics to date.

The four main characters transfer their emotions to you so well that you may feel fully immersed. The facial animations match the dialog so well that you may not even realize you’re playing a video game. At times you may not notice the music playing, but it fits so well in most of the situations. The ambiance, voice acting, and music is all spot on. I have seen no issues at all.

This game has absolutely NO prerendered cutscenes. Everything you see is what you get, it is all ingame. If they were to have prerendered cutscenes, the only difference that we would see is some anti-aliasing, and a solid framerate.

I have only encountered one bug in this game. Sometimes when I was doing some crime scene investigating, my game froze right after Norman finished talking. I could hear the ambiance still, but the screen was frozen and I couldn’t use my controller to do anything. It has a constant autosave so if this happens to you, then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. This bug doesn’t bother me one bit because I was able to just restart my PS3 and jump right back in where I was.

Heavy Rain is roughly 8-10 hours in length, and has an amazing level of re-playability. You will probably find yourself going to play it again right after you beat it, just to see the other results for different options you choose. Combat is fun, story is amazing, and at some point you’ll find yourself yelling, “WHAT!? I DIDN’T EXPECT THAT!”

Part of the new expansion of Resident Evil 5, Lost in Nightmares, has been released today on the XBL Marketplace. I’m going to assume that the content will be released late tomorrow for you PS3 users as well. You will be at Spencer’s Estate, where you team up with Jill to fight a new evil. This is just one part of the DLC that is coming out, and the full version (Resident Evil 5 GOLD) will be released March 9th, 2010. Along with the DLC today, there is also a download for two costume. One costume is a fairy tale outfit for Sheva, and the other is a Warrior outfit for Chris. Download them today!

Lost in Nightmare – 400MSP aka $4.99
Costume Pack 1 – 160MSP aka $1.99

Left4Dead 2 with be releasing new DLC called ‘The Passing’ for Xbox 360 and PC to be release late March. The Passing takes place between Dead Center and Dark Carnival. In the beginning and end of campaign, you will encounter the survivors from the first L4D (Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey). At the end of the campaign, they will help you fend off the horde while you try to escape.

In the campaign you will find a new weapon that looks like an LMG, as well as a golf club to bash in the heads of zombies. There will be a new kind of uncommon common infected known as ‘Fallen Survivors.’ They carry weapons, health, and all other equipment. You may see one of the running from you, but that’s when you should chase after them and kill them so you can get an item from their corpse. There will be interaction between the new and old survivors, as well as more dialog for all the characters (hurray for more stories about Ellis and his buddy Keith!)

The first Left4Dead will also be receiving DLC that explains how the original survivors get to the point where the new survivors are. Thus linking their stories together.

You return to the world of Rapture as Subject Delta. You’re on the hunt to find the little sister that you are bound to, known as Eleanor.

Bioshock 2 starts off with you and your little sister (Eleanor). You are fighting to defend her when a splicer uses a plasmid on you to control your actions. You are commanded to shoot yourself in the head with a handgun, and you do so. One may think that Subject Delta is dead, but he might just be waking up, 10 years later (2 years after the first game ended). You explore the underwater utopia known as Rapture, trying to locate your little sister, who is now grown up. You start off with your drill, using it to fight your way through splicers and such. Throughout the game you will acquire many guns such as the Rivet Gun, Shotgun, Machine Gun, and others. Each gun may be upgraded a maximum of 3 times, thus making the firearm even more deadly. There are a total of 11 plasmids, each with their own unique power. You will also find many more tonics in this game than you did in the previous. Little sisters still exist in this title, and are more important than they even had been before. As a big daddy yourself, you can take a little sister from another big daddy by killing him. Once you have a little sister on your shoulder, you can go gather ADAM from two bodies per sister. Before you pick them up each time, you can decide to adopt, or you may harvest them. When you are done gathering your two parts of ADAM, you may take a little sister back to the ventalation system and either rescue them or you can harvest them. After so many rescues you will be given a gift. There are a total three gifts that you can obtain, and the first two contain very useful tonics that will help you with your little sisters for the remainder of your game. Researching is still a very useful part of this game. It will help you gain more advantages when fighting a researched enemy. There are a total of nine different enemy types as well. While you are on the hunt for Eleanor, you will find more certain characters that you may either kill or let live. Letting them live, depending on your play style, usually will help you out in the end. You’ll also be on the hunt for audio logs as usual.

Graphics in Bioshock 2 look incredibly similar to that in the original Bioshock. There has been improvement but you can still see the same old style there was. The developers definitely paid attention to detail. The morbid artwork and the disturbing environments. I was constantly awed by the beautiful scenery and art on the walls. The water effects are similar to the first game, but greatly improved. You will see so even in the beginning of the game. The ragdolls in this game react the same as they do in the first game. Objects sometimes glitch through the floor but I have only seen it happen a few times. While I was playing on the PC version, I am not aware of the drop in graphics that the console versions had, but I’m sure they were not much different.

When listening to the audio logs, you will notice that they are done so well that you may even stand still just to listen to the whole thing. The voice actors in this game did a very well job of combining insanity with beauty. You will find that music is only in place when there is a working record player, you can also hit the record player to hear a funny skipping of the needle. Loading screens may not be around for long, but the music that plays during them is also quite fantastic.

Bioshock 2 has very few prerendered cutscenes, mainly in the beginning and the end, but they look fantastic. Mostly everything else that exists is all ingame. The character movements and the weapon animations are spot on.

The mulitplayer game mode feels like it was just slapped together real quick. On the PC version, it sometimes takes quite a while to get into a game. If you do get into one, with balanced teams and a fun game type, then it is pretty enjoyable. Playing with friends in the only way I could see you playing multiplayer for that long of an amount of time. There are 40 levels to get to and you unlock plasmids, weapons, and tonics at certain levels. It’s 5v5 and there are game modes such as Team Deathmatch, 1 Flag CTF, and Free For All. You can pick from a small list of characters and also customize your mask and your melee weapon. It’s a little weird to explain how it all works, so you would just have to see it for yourself.

The only bugs that I have encountered are things such as a door glitching through a wall, objects falling through the floor, and splicers being idiots and not realizing I’m right next to them. This isn’t exactly a bug, but autosaves only happen when you load a new level. Levels can take up to 2 hours each, and if you don’t save and your PC/console messes up, you’re screwed out of all the work you had been doing. Thus, ragequit ensues.

I was able to complete Bioshock 2 on Medium difficulty in roughly 10 hours. The replay value of the game seems kinda low. Half of the appeal of it is the story, but there are multiple endings (four) that you can get by doing different options throughout the game. The only downside to this game that I can see, is that the multiplayer didn’t have a lot of thought put into it. The guns and upgrades are awesome, the plasmids rule, the combat kicks ass, and you may find yourself running back for more.