Just a quick round up of some good trailers for films and games that are scheduled to be released in the near future. Sherlock Holmes is a timeless character who has gone through many iterations in both film and TV and he is getting the film treatment again in 2009 with Guy Ritchie directing and Robert Downey Jr. starring as the ingenious detective Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law playing his trusty sidekick Watson. The trailer was released quite a while ago but it is a very good trailer for what will hopefully be a very good movie so it deserves to be posted here.


Crackdown 2 is a Xbox 360 game i reported on during the hype of E3. Amidst all the excitement of the show I didn't even realise that there was a trailer available for the game. This is one of my most anticipated games after E3 because I just loved the first one so much and the idea of a sequel is definetley a good one to me. For those of you who don't know it's a third person open world action game and in the first one you played a cop cleaning up the streets.


District 9 is a movie from South African director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame. Blomkamp originally made a short film called Alive in Joburg about a group of aliens who are forced to land on Earth and are treated like dirt forced to live in terrible slum conditions in South Africa. There arrival causes all sorts of political and social trouble and unrest. District 9 is the feature film adaptation of that short story, taking the established idea of Alive in Joburg and building on that with the inclusion of a government agent who is exposed to the alien technology.



Homefront is a first person shooter for 360, PC and PS3. This game really came out of no where at E3 with impressive visuals and scripted sequences. The game is being made by Kaos studios who made the impressive Frontlines Fuel of War and the story sees America collapsing from its perch as the worlds super power and North Korea invading the United States. You play as a member of the American resistance trying to get your country back. It should have an impressive story as they have recruited the writer of Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn John Milius.


Transformers isn't the only toy franchise that is getting the film treatment this year. G.I Joe The Rise of Cobra, based on the famous toy, comic and television series is getting it's own live action feature film. Directed by Stephen Sommers, The Mummy, it features such actors as Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans and Sienna Miller playing series favourites like Snake Eyes, Cobra Commander, Destro, The Baroness, Duke and Breaker. The film sees the military organisation G.I Joe take on a new super terrorist group lead by a notorious arms dealer.



Finally I'm revisiting another game I wrote about a few weeks back Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising. I was a little slack and didn't post any videos for it so to make up for it I'm going to post 2 videos, one of gameplay footage and one theatrical just because I'm that nice.

Everybody who goes and sees a film like Star Wars or Star Trek or Batman is just amazed by the sheer spectacle of the film. Many of us talk about what we liked and what we hated and how we would do it differently or how we'd like to see this character become the star instead or there's always that what if scenario where we'd like to see characters from several films might meet up and ya know chill or whatever just because they can. Well there are lots of fans who actually go out and make these movies. They use the characters we know and love and put them in to stories we aren't familiar with to explore the full capabilities of these characters. Now sometimes these films are terrible but other times they can be quite amazing and this blog is going to show off some of the most ambitious, professional and just plain fun fan films that are out there.

First off probably one of the highest quality fan films is Batman: Dead End. This short film, it goes for about 9 minutes, pits Batman against the Joker with a few surprises. Widely regarded as one of the best Batman films ever and the definitive Batman before the new Chritain Bale films it's quality viewing.


Next we have to have a Star Wars fan film. Between Star Wars and Star Trek hardcore fan appreciation was born. This fan film Star Wars- Essence of the Force is quite good. Effects are a hard thing to master with Star Wars but they've done a good job. Kind of feels like Power Rangers in parts because they don't use lightsabers much it is still a good film.


Probably the most ambitious fan film project ever undertaken was Raiders of the Lost Ark- The Adaptation. In the mid 80's a group of friends from a small town in America so the film Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. So amazed by the film they wanted to make their version and in doing so made an almost shot for shot remake over several years. Has received critical acclaim from Steven Spielberg himself. Unfortunately the quality is not very good.


There are serious fan films and then there are not so serious fan films. Chad Vader Day Shift Manager is another Star Wars fan film that is an internet phenomenon. It details the adventures of Chad Vader the day shift manager at a local convenience store and is really quite funny.


Fan films are also being about video games. The most popular would have to be Red vs Blue based on the Halo games for the Xbox made by roosterteeth. Such is it's popularity that you can buy it on DVD at JB Hi Fi and download it off Xbox Live.


And finally a Dragonall Z fan film because the real movie was so shit and really looks even worse when you see a fan film like this which actually looks pretty good, as far as fan films go.

In the wake of a vicious school shooting in Germany during March this year German politicians are banding together to not just ban a single game like previous politicians have tried after similar incidents but instead they are trying to ban the production and distribution of ALL violent video games in Germany. If they succeed the move could be law by as early as September. Now you may be thinking its ok I don't live in Germany so it won't affect me but you'd be WRONG! This development may give governments of other nations the balls to ban games in their own countries whilst putting a sever kibosh on kick ass game studio CryTek, of Far Cry and Crysis fame, whose operating base is located in Germany. Obviously this begs many questions like to what extreme will they ban violence, I mean will it only be extreme violence like gore and dismembermant or will it stem to children's games like Pokemon where they attack each other? More than likely it will just be extreme violence but then have they paid attention to recent studies that so far have found no link between violent video games and violent acts? Those same studies which have actually found that certain games, like the often violent First Person Shooters, are actually beneficial to your health? You'd have to assume that they are ignoring these studies by targeting violent video games. The video game industry has faced challenges like this before, largely in the States but this may be a harder one than any of those. Seriously though this is the same old story, there's a truly tragic incident which appears to come out of no where and obviously people want answers but people need to find a new scapegoat which isn't video games. Its just so easy for politicians and family groups to point the finger at violent video games, just like they have with music, movies and books before it whilst ignoring the real problems like dead beat parents, poverty, crime, bullying and a lack of counselling options or people trained to identify and deal with people who show social problems. Obviously these options, amongst others, must require too much effort or money to implement so the politicians don't want to know about them and instead they attack video games. I'm not saying that violent video games don't affect people but so far we have no evidence to suggest they do and until we find such evidence then video games should not be able to be used as a scapegoat. I mean sure regulate them more with stricter ratings systems and point of sale restrictions whilst informing and educating parents on what kids of certain ages should be playing but don't ban them. For now all we can do is wait and see what happens with this German situation and if it goes ahead the full ramifications it has for the rest of the gaming world.

With E3 over many of us have been well speechless as the dust settled. This years E3, I would have to say, was pretty damn amazing one of the best I can remember. For me the Microsoft press conference was the cream of the crop, Project Natal and Milo are cutting edge, pushing gaming technology in to uncharted waters for the better or worse. Obviously though we all look to E3 for the games and it didn't disappoint. Now I mentioned a phantom top 10 list before but now I'm actually gonna make one, got a problem with that?..No?...Good :D now here we go.

1. I said it before and it hasn't changed, God of War 3- lions on his freaking hands people, nuff said

2. A close one but Assassins Creed 2 wins out, actually seeing a game demo was just so cool, I wish Da Vinci was my personal inventor.

3. Modern Warfare 2- Ice Pick to the chest anyone?

4. Halo 3: ODST- It's a Halo game...how can you not be excited about it...and it has a bitchin pistol

5. They may not have said much about it but the 2010 Zelda project for the Wii- I'm just a sucker for a man/boy elf guy in tight clothes

6. Crackdown 2- The first was so fun and so cheap when I got it, here's hoping the sequel is the same

7. Tekken 6- The only fighting game outside Street Fighter I've ever liked or been remotely good at and it's coming to the 360 AND has a new game feature, third person beat em' up.

8. Red Steel 2- I have to be excited about another Wii game seeing as I actually have one of those

9. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction- With no more Rainbow Six Vegas games maybe this Tom Clancy game can fill the void

10. Team Ninja's new Metroid game- finally we hear Samus speak, hooray!!


So there it is my top ten games although there are a few hounarable mentions: Super Mario Galaxy 2 sure to be as trippy as the original, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine hopefullyits better than Fire Warrior, The Last Guardian; beautiful looking arty game...sooo pretty