God, The Devil and Sam Fisher

Devil May Cry 3 is a brutal, fun, and hardcore action game for action gamers. Then comes along God of War to rip out DMC3's spine and proceed to beat it and all other pretenders to to the action throne to a bloody and gruesome death with it's visceral and blood-spattering gameplay. But sly old Sam Fisher comes sneaks through the shadows in the new Splinter Cell and quietly takes out all other pretenders before they even know what happened. All three are excellent games int their own right, but what really gives Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory the edge isn't even it's revolutionary online play of mercs vs. spies or co-op missions. It's not it's long overdue quick saves and looser importance on objectives, and it's not it's eye-popping graphics that make you wonder why CT looks so good and smooth and Halo 2 still has frame rate issues looking ancient in comparison in the same platform. It's actually all these encompassing things that make it potentially the ultimate Xbox game (granted, the other games are PS2 titles, but I just really wanted to compare the games so I could use that clever header :), because it does so many things so excellently and gives you more freedom that any previous stealth/action game in how you approach a situation. I was suspicious if Ubisoft could make me feel that it was worth blowing $50 on CT when the previous title was released just about 5 months ago and I could pick it up for siginificantly cheaper, but in a mere day it's easily drawing me away from the heavy hours I was putting into Phantom Dust & Phantasy Star Online lately). It should be noted that my entire next gen library only consists now of my xbox live games, so it has officially eaten my soul for breakfast, but I've come along very willingly (and it doesn't help that Gamecube has had no noteworhthy releases since Resident Evil 4 and God of War, while awesome, can be beaten in a day or two).

So, the PSP lauch isn't going quite as well as Sony would have people think, because it's apparently the most available brand new system in recent history. I'm honestly not that suprised, the mandatory bundle package is ridiculous, I don't think anybody like the idea that if they want to watch a movie, they have to buy it for a new format, and it's a known fact that the battery life sucks complete ass (good luck getting any lengthy online gaming sessions or watching a long movie on battery power alone). And the most important aspect-the launch titles, all seem to be lesser versions of the console counterparts(with the exception of Lumines, that sounds really cool). And bottom line, launching a system before October is a bad idea. I'm sure it will make up some major mileage when the holiday season starts, and it's not like it was nearly as disaterous as the NGAGE launch, but Sony should really know better, especially if the next Xbox console is launching this year as everyone expects it to, I know I'd rather save money towards that).

And FINALLY, a movie I'm really excited to check out is opening this weekend. Sin City with Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba and more stars. There's been a couple I've been interested enough to check out, like Hitch and Be Cool, but this is the first film release of this year that I am geniunely excited about. Now granted, I know jack about Frank Miller and his graphic novels, but this movie just looks too cool for words. The only thing that worries me is that I was completely fooled by Sky Captain's visual hook last year, and this could be the same deal, but luckily so far the reviews seem to be saying otherwise. I hope it's good, becasue the only other movie I'm seriously interested in that's coming out in the next couple of months is Episode III. I'll most likely be back this weekend with my thoughts on that, until then, hope to be snapping your neck online....