Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 6th, 2009
My paying job in life is spent as a computer system administrator (unfortunately it is not writing reviews and columns). Often, I have wondered why I’m in the cubicle jockey life and not tried to find some job where I could use my writing skills more effectively and get paid for it. There is also a lot of bs and chicanery in the corporate world that annoys me to no end. It is little wonder that I was interested in the movie Side Effects which deals with the pharmaceutical sales industry. I wasn’t interested in pharmaceuticals but I was interested to see how one deals with the corporate crap that does go on. It made for an interesting experience.
Karly Hert (played by Katherine Heigl) is a pharmaceutical sales rep. Basically she pushes pills to hospitals and doctors whether they need it or not. Karly has a hard time of it and her sales are not doing well. She meets a fellow sales rep, Zach (played by Lucian McAfee) who decides to quit after the first week. A relationship forms between Karly and Zach as he challenges her views on her work and her life. As a result, she decides to quit her vocation but not for six months. She keeps track of the days on a white board above her bed.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 1st, 2009
Fable is Little Big Planet, Farting Infringement & No More Consoles? - Welcome to the column that passed up an opportunity on trade marking the phrase: Why So Serious? known as Dare to Play the Game.
I did it, I did it! Whoop! 1000 points has become mine in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. This weekend I tried E-Swat once again. I found a lucky break on the 1st level that I had not seen in prior experiences with the game. That led to a pretty easy defeat of the 1st level boss. The 2nd level was honestly cake and I got the 30 achievement points. My remaining game related achievement was with Vectorman 2. Get to the 11th level. This might take a little while. So I started playing and playing. Levels were difficult at first (level 3 absolutely blows), but once I got over the hump of understanding the game, the levels started to go away gradually.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 31st, 2009
Open relationships have never really been in my repertoire. I’m a pretty committed guy. I find a girl or she finds me and we stick it out until one or both of us feel otherwise. Some people will argue that it is not natural to simply have one mate, instead we have to find multiple people to share relationships and intercourse with. In the movie Fling, it deals with an open relationship between Samantha & Mason. My money is on the fact that one of them goes too far in their openness and the relationship becomes strained. Let’s see how good my guesses are today.
Sam (played by Courtney Ford) and Mason (played by Steve Sandvoss) are in an open relationship. Sam is looking to open her own business while Mason writes trashy romance novels. They also find time to have relations with each other and anybody else they can shack up with. At a wedding, Sam rekindles a relationship with James (played by Brandon Routh), an old boyfriend. Mason, meanwhile finds out that his best friend Luke’s (played by Nick Wechsler) sister, Olivia (played by Shoshana Bush) is very taken with him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 30th, 2009
Risk taking has never been my specialty. I tend to keep things pretty conservative and never really tried anything out of the ordinary, at least nothing I would consider dangerous. However, I have been interested by many forms of extreme sports. There is skateboarding, motocross, and of course, snowboarding. This beautiful sport combines flawless riders and picturesque snowy landscapes. So how would I take to a movie that tries to make a comedy out of snowboarding? Hopefully well. But then I saw that it included Tom Green and one of the guys from Jackass. This is not off to a good start.
Max (played by Dave England) and Eddy (played by Jason Bothe) are in charge of Team Shred. Team Shred consists of Chris, Tracy & Juice (played by Carlo Marks, Amber Borycki, & Alain Chanoine respectively). Chris is the breakout star of the team while Tracy & Juice are up and coming. However, Max and Eddy only focus on their breakout star as they arrange parties, videos and other events for Chris and only include the other two as a mere afterthought.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 26th, 2009
The WTO or World Trade Organization came into being on the 1st of January in the year of 1995. It was the successor to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and was designed to supervise and liberalize international trade. In their ministerial conference of 1999, they decided to have the conference on US soil. The site chosen was Seattle, Washington. The WTO had drawn criticism from protestors around the globe that proclaimed that the WTO was pursuing commercial interests ahead of human principles. In 1999, the WTO convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. Protestors came by the thousands and soon despite their peaceful efforts, riots ensued. There was mass police involvement. It also gave way to some of the more horrific scenes of innocents and guilty arrested alike. Battle in Seattle is a docu-drama directed by Stuart Townsend that mixes a drama-thriller with the real events that surrounded the days that followed November 30th, 1999 in Seattle, Washington.
Jay, Lou and Django (played by Martin Henderson, Michelle Rodriguez, and André Benjamin) are three activists who are planning a mass protest at the 1999 conference of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington. Meanwhile, a SWAT cop named Dale (played by Woody Harrelson) gears up for that same conference in order to keep the peace. His mind is not on the protestors, instead his mind is focused on his wife, Ella (played by Charlize Theron) who is five months pregnant.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 25th, 2009
Netflix on the Wii, Drugs & Guitar Hero: Metallica & Call of Duty Dogs vs Nintendogs - Welcome to the column that think this is the gateway drug to Benny Hill episodes & Jerry Springer reruns known as Dare to Play the Game.
I mentioned last week that I didn’t think I was actually going to complete Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. My defining sentence is that honestly I don’t think I’m going to get the achievement for Mean Bean Machine. I was wrong. I got three achievements this week. First I got enough Photons in Vectorman and then I found my way through the first episode in Comix Zone (which is actually a fun game if you can figure out the best way to tackle each room). Last but not least, I found my way to defeating Robotnik in Mean Bean Machine with a very well placed triple combo. Yatta, indeed!
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 18th, 2009
Sony Are Their Own Bosses, Stranglehold without Chow-Yun Fat & Capcom hates complaining - Welcome to the column that thought they were in the charge of their own destiny until they met Miss Dare to Play the Game known as Dare to Play the Game.
My gaming this week has consisted solely of beating the crap out of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis collection for 360. If you remember, I was at about 360 achievement points last week. This week? 710. I beat my own estimates (600) and exceeded them. In fact, out of the 34 achievements available, I only have 7 left to achieve. What is still giving me trouble you ask?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 16th, 2009
A “sexy” movie is more than a movie that just has two people performing the horizontal mambo with heavy breathing. There needs to be passion, there needs to be raw emotion and even sometimes there needs to be love. If there are words to be spoken between the two beings, they need to have strength and feeling. For me personally, I also need a good selection of lingerie. Seriously though, I wondered if those elements would be found in A Good Day to be Black & Sexy or if it would just be an excuse to stick a good looking black woman on the cover.
The movie is a collection of 5 short films (one with two parts) directed by Dennis Dortch. The short films have a range of “sexy” subjects. Reciprocity is the story of Tony (played by Brandon Valley Jones) who goes down on his girl, Jeanette (played by Kathryn Taylor). However, Jeanette does not want to return the favor. The second story is called Her Man. Helena (played by Chonte Harris) and D’Andre (played by Marcuis Harris) have just finished making love and he gets a phone call that he needs to go to work. Helena doesn’t want him to go which leads to a discussion about their “relationship”.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 11th, 2009
Extinction of Xbox 360 Elite, Van Halen Hero & Is there anybody left who can break EA’s NFL Monopoly - Welcome to the column that is considering releasing Gaming Column Hero where you write bad jokes, deliver second hand news and post pictures of hot women known as Dare to Play the Game.
My gaming week was taken up by Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for my 360. Even after my review was posted on Thursday, I spent most of the weekend exploring every sort of Genesis game I wanted to try out. However, the difference this time was that I was starting to get achievements. There were of course the easy style achievements like the ones in the Golden Axe series but then I also started to get some of the harder achievements like Columns (where the achievement title is very misleading). I have amassed 360 achievement points so far and while that may not seem a lot, it is a giant improvement from last week.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on March 6th, 2009
There haven’t been many compilation discs out for the 360 yet. There were the Orange Box and a few Xbox Live Arcade compilation discs. There was also Namco Museum Virtual Arcade which despite the plethora of titles wasn’t much more than a bunch of Xbox Live Arcade games and some retro titles thrown in for the nostalgia factor. Most of us retro purists were waiting for a compilation title that put together not only classic games but blended it with the new technology into an invigorating harmony. Our time has come in the form of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. There are forty plus games from the Sega Genesis and a sprinkling of Arcade & Sega Master games with HD technology and Achievements. We are pleased.
Since most of these games were made in the late eighties to the early nineties, most of us would not expect for these games to stand out graphically. However, Backbone Entertainment has gone to the trouble to recreate every game in 16:9 quality. This does wonders for some games like the Sonics and the Streets of Rage series. However, in a few of the older games like Bonanza Bros or Gain Ground, the stretching is more evident and the quality doesn’t feel as strong. There is also the option to play these games in their original ratio and have a static background behind it.
