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Sandbox Gameplay is an increasingly popular feature in video-games today. Players don't just want a linear aspect in levels where you have to get from A to B; they want a large, open level where you have a certain degree of choice concerning what you do and how you do it. The most popular sandbox games out there would have to be the Grand Theft Auto series (which has spawned a number of GTA Clones) and The Sims.
Usually, the term "GTA Clone" is used in a pejorative sense, but in the case of "Destroy All Humans!", a martian and B-Movie themed sandbox game developed by Pandemic and published by THQ, this is probably what saves the game.

The story is pretty straightforward; you play Cryptosporidium-137 (nicknamed Crypto for posterity's sake), an alien who holds an aversion to being called small and green. Crypto is sent to a 1950's earth in search of his brother Crypto-136 and Furon DNA that we humans carry in our noggins. The game mainly revolves around Crypto's quest for world domination.
From the offset, the humor is evident and incredibly tongue-in-cheek. Crypto's first mission is to interrogate a "four-legged gasbag" -more commonly known as a cow- on human tactics and the like. There is also a heavy amount of B-movie references, in particular the oh-so relevant films of Ed Wood.
The humor is also rather low-brow. As an alien with an oversized cranium, Crypto is able to scan the thoughts of unsuspecting human citizens and listen to their deepest thoughts (for example "Look at this new brassiere! I could torpedo a U-Boat with these things!"). Crypto comes equipped with an array of alien technology, my favorite being the anal-probe which never seems to get old. All of these funny elements really combine towards making the game enjoyable to play, though you'll probably appreciate the humor more if you're a fan of the B-Movie cheese.
While I described the gameplay as "sandbox" earlier, don't be entirely fooled. The game is broken up into different levels, where each level represents a different town in the US. While in one of these levels, Crypto can freely move around on foot or in his saucer and do whatever he pleases, so while it's not complete sandbox gameplay, it is a good substitute.
I was slightly disappointed in the voice-acting for the game, though. I'm starting to get sick of supposedly foreign bad guys with American accents. I think it would have been a more realistic attitude towards the aliens having them speak in an invented language and the player having to rely on subtitles. Nevertheless, this could get monotonous after a while, as the majority of the game involves dialogues between aliens. One could also say that the American accents are another reference to those B-movies where all the aliens look and sound American.
The mission structure can also get rather repetitive; in a lot of levels, the missions simply entail you taking DNA or destroying structures.
A note should go towards the use of the HAVOK engine, which means that pretty much all of the structures in the game are destructible. The AI is also fairly commendable: if citizens become spooked by Crypto's presence they'll run, hide and alert the authorities. Players are therefore encouraged to disguise themselves as humans.
As a final point, once you've completed the game, you're treated to being able to watch the classic B-Movie "Teenagers from Outer Space". Also on my version (PS2) I got Plan 9 From Outer Space. Can't complain at that.

8/10

Ah, Christmas. The time of giving and more importantly, receiving. Today I was lucky enough to be given the game GUN for PS2, and what a game!
Players are thrust into the Wild West of the 1880s, where you take up the role of Colton White (Thomas Jane), a cowboy looking for revenge for his father's death (played by Kris Kristofferson). The main hallmark of the game is sandbox gameplay and a non-linear storyline, which allows the player to freely explore the quite large game world, which is made up of canyons, great plains and towns such as Dodge City. It takes roughly ten to fifteen minutes to travel from one end of the map to the other on horseback, and that's galloping at full speed.
I was really amazed at the voice cast for this game; the developers really went all out. We have Thomas Jane, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Skerrit, Ron Perlman, Lance Henriksen and Brad Dourif playing major characters in the game and they put on one hell of a performance. The story is invigorating and I felt completely immersed by the various plot-twists that appeared throughout the game.
Other than the main storyline, there are also a number of side-missions to follow including bounty hunting, working for the Pony Express, hunting and working for the Federal Marshall. Having said that, I was quite disappointed that they didn't take these further: the side-quests can be accomplished relatively quickly and are quite repetitive (lots of chasing people around on horseback). Longevity-wise, the main story can be finished quite quickly, too. I managed to finish it in about 12 hours though having said that I had played it many times before (on the Gamecube) and I was playing on Easy. The shortness in gameplay can easily be forgiven though, as I could spend hour after hour galloping around the rich environment, and fending off bandits. The experience feels authentic enough, and the story-line is like that of a movie (or several).
The game looks good, too. The graphics are sleek and well rendered. The only thing I would like to see is a decent animation for when you're climbing stairs, but no games these days seem to have those. Pity.
In the end, I can't give this a perfect score because it does hold a few longevity issues, but I am tempted to give it the following:
Story:8/10
Graphics:7.5/10
Gameplay:7.5/10
Longevity:7/10

Overall:7/10

Last night Shiv and myself sat down in front of the computer with the aim of watching a really terrible movie, so that we could take the jackson out of it all the way along. Shiv found a pretty naff-sounding movie: The Brain That Wouldn't Die, made in 1962. Of course good B-Movies are usually hard to find, but in between the truly awful ones, you can usually find one that has that "so bad it's good" factor and is at least enjoyable to watch. Take Plan 9 for instance (see Shiv's review just below this post); while it was sincerely terrible it still had the laugh factor in it because it was just that terrible. I am sad to say that The Brain That Wouldn't Die is not one of these films. We went in with terribly low expectations and still found it painful to watch.

The plot is fairly simple: Jason Evers plays a successful doctor with a penchant for being a bit of a mad scientist up in his country house away from prying eyes. One day he decides to take his fiancée (Virginia Leith) up to said country house but lo-and-behold, the car crashes because he's driving like an idiot and she's decapitated. He rushes to the country house and with the aid of his Igor-esque sidekick(Leslie Daniels) (with a really unconvincing deformed hand, seriously, it was just a clenched hand) manages to keep his fiancée's head alive in some sort of magic mixture. The film then follows his pursuits in trying to find a hot body for his wife. Oh, and did I mention there was a deformed monster in the film? Well, there is, he was played by circus performer Eddie Carmel and the film was supposedly his breakout role. Go figure.

Again, this movie is really not worth the effort watching it. There are some scenes in the film that just don't make sense. For example the aforementioned scene when he's driving like an idiot along a windy mountain road; there's just no reason or explanation for him to suddenly speed up and start driving like a blind amputee. It's completely spontaneous and holds no real place in the film other than to advance the film's plot.

The music is also truly bizarre at some points; it takes on that lame 50's jazz soundtrack that, when coupled with the scarily exaggerated amount of women in skimpy clothing, gives the film the air of a tacky *spam filter*. The dialogue is so clichéd it hurts and any attempts at giving the script a vaguely philosophical air fails terribly.

As Shiv pointed out, the ending is also horribly abrupt. The film lasts approximately 1h10 minutes, but the actual action happens in perhaps the last three minutes of the film. The whole plot feels pretty much like it's just building up to seeing what the deformed monster looks like.

Surprisingly enough, according to the film's WIKIPEDIA page, this film was actually fairly well received by critics, and is now allegedly considered as a classic B-Movie. What's even more surprising is the amount of people who actually like the movie. For instance, on the INTERNET ARCHIVE, someone commented on the film saying that:



Having said that, most viewers praise the script for it's sheer cheesiness and call it a classic B-Movie, which it probably is in some respects. I still say it's painful to watch.
If you do indeed feel the sudden urge to put yourself through an hour or so of torture and bad scripting, the movie has slipped into the public domain, meaning that it's free (and legal) to download. You can download it at aforementioned Internet Archive (click the link above my head) and you should be able to DL it.

Overall, I gotta say, I won't be rushing out to Amazon to buy this.
Rating: 2/10.

This is my first foray into writing stoner rock lyrics, lemme know what you all think

[Spoken word]
We stray to the desert, man
Our lives perpetuated by our own ego
Not meaning to sound shallow but,
Some people just ain't good enough for me

[Song]
We stray... to find
Our lives redefined
Why can't you see
This absolute representation of me

I find my desire
I fight instinct
Cuz i'm not what you think I am
I'm not what I planned to be
I'm not human...

I am, i'm a monster

We see ourselves
As great avatars of society
What am I?

Monster...
Father...
Lover...
Mother...;
I'm ME!

We try to redefine
Our bodies intertwined
I can see you
But you want to..
Degrade me

I fight my needs
I fight the urge to bleed
These colours
I fight my inner
Retreat inside this shell you came from

What am I?

Killer...
Helper...
Mother...
Father...
Lifeless
Souless...
Heartless
And it's just the way I wanna be

Why can't you
See into
This soul of mine
Why won't you
Accept me?
I'm christ...personified

Mother... i'm your father
Father i'm your killer
I'm CHRIST...
Christ!
Christ!
Personified....

I saw it through an ad in the paper, like. One of them home exchanges, where you swap your home with a bloke in another country, and have a holiday in it, ya know? I thought "Columbia? That'd be fantastic, man!" All that cocaine, lovely looking women, all monkeys in the trees... (looks around) I'm a little bit disappointed. I mean, this is meant to be the British part of Columbia. I thought that'd be like Columbia, but with proper beer and Sky Sports in the pubs... I've been here three months. All i've seen is an elk!!

Get it?

Here's a Joke in the style of Jeffrey Chaucer:

3 fellows went-en into a pub-en and gleefully their hands did rub-en in expectation of revelry for it was the hour known as "happy". Great bott-els of wine did they quaf and had a really good-a laugh till drunkeness held full dom-ini-on for it was two for the price of one! Yet after wine and mead and sack, man must have a massive snack. Great past-ies from Cornwall! Scottish eggs round like a ball! Great hams, quail duck and geese they suck--ed the bones and drank the grease. One man stood all pale and wan for he was a vegetar-ian. Yet man knoweth that gluttony stoketh the fire of lechery. upon three young wenches round and sly the fellows cast a wanton eye, one did approach with wanton wink "Hello darling, do you fancy a drink?" Soon they caught them on their knee, t'was like some gruesome puppe-try. Such was the lewdness and debauchery t'was like a sketch y Dick Emery-eh... Except Dick Emery is not yet born so such comparison may not be drawn. But then the fellows began to pale for quail are not the friend of ale and in their bellys much confusion and from their throats vile extrusion! Stinking foul corrup-ti-on came shooting forth from streaming lips the stench did fill the pub, it was like the arse of beelzebub-eh. Thrown they were from the Horn and Trumpet into the street, no coin, no strumpet. Homeward bound must quickly go, and they fell into a ditch of sh*** they all agreed "what a brilliant night!"