Disaster Movie – from the douche bags that brought you Epic Movie, Date Movie, and Meet The Spartans comes a new one spoofing all the disaster movies of recent times. The plot goes like this, over the course of one evening a group of people find themselves bombarded by a series of natural disasters.

Babylon A.D. – Vin Diesel is a war veteran turned mercenary when he takes an assignment to escort a woman carrying a synthetic virus out of Russia. A cult is also after her so they can attain the virus that could bring the end to all humankind.

Okay, so anyone who listens to that podcast we do knows that I’ve had a few choice words for those jokers out there at ‘1 Infinite Loop‘. I mean, don’t get me wrong… Apple makes a fine damn product. I just have an issue with rendering each previous hardware revision obsolete every time you make an update*. That’s why I can’t wrap my head around people running out and buying their stuff every time they add a new bell or whistle. It’s like Mac users are just asking to be crapped on. But I digress…

Recently, my boss was making changes to our company cell phone plan and decided to get us all iPhones for work. Initially I declined this offer as I really dislike cell phones anyway. The free one I got from AT&T was doing a fine job of text messaging my wife dirty messages during lunch and that was pretty much all I needed it for. Well, through some cosmic twist of fate I ended up with a brand new iPhone in my hands. After spending a couple weeks with it I think I’m in a position to write up some thoughts about it.

First of all, the iPhone is a pretty solid piece of hardware. It’s got some weight to it and doesn’t feel like your average cell-phone at all. The screen is bright and very pretty to gaze at. Surprisingly, it really doesn’t even get all that smudged. One of the first things you’ll want to do is run out and drop some money on a nice cover for it. I got one of those iPhone condoms from Best Buy for roughly $15. There are more expensive ones, but unless you’re compensating for a tiny dick you really don’t need to shell out any more than $15-25 for one. I mean for Christ’s sake, what are you going to be doing with this goddamn thing anyway?

Okay, so we have been just a little quiet after all was said and done earlier this summer. The gang needed a little time off after getting GFG#03 off the ground, and now that it’s time to buckle up and strap in for another serious animating work out. This weekend I’m finally going to start work on GFG#04 and we plan on wrapping it up mid-September. Lofty goals, I know. Speaking of goals, I kind of have an outline in my head of how the rest of this year is going to pan out for the Shamoozal, and I’ll just share a bit of it with our fellow readers in the meantime.

First, we plan on cranking out two shorts by the end of the year. So expect GFG#04 around September (as said) and then GFG#05 around Thanksgiving time. In between all that jazz, I’m likely going to be doing the live Mario Paint short sometime in October. Heck who knows, maybe it’ll be around Halloween and involve everyone’s favorite Frankenstein. I still have some experimenting to do to make sure I can do the whole Mario Paint thing, but for now, expect it to happen. Oh, and we plan on topping off the year with an insane charity event that is going to blow down houses. This is going to be much, much more than just marathon gaming (though we’ll have plenty of that) so be on the look out for deets in the coming months. I would have shared all this juicy info on the next Shamoozal Radio, but uhh, looks like the gang and I forgot to set a date for that in September. Whoops.

The long awaited XBox Live Arcade title, Castle Crashers, went live earlier today. This marks the first release from Newground’s own Tom Fulp and company since 2004’s Alien Hominid, and it’s a serious labor of love. Those guys seriously work their asses off over there, and after 4 years of hard work they finally have their latest soon to be hit finished. I have been closely following the game since it went by the name of “Ye Olde Side Scroller” and was due out for Gamecube and PS2, so it was cool to finally sit down and play it for a bit earlier today. For those who don’t know, it’s a classic throw back to the old brawlers that were huge in the mid 90s (think Streets of Rage or Turtles in Time), so get ready for lots of button mashing. The game is once again backed by Dan Paladin’s unmistakable designs, making for a truly unique looking title, especially in a time when every freakin’ game looks exactly the same. Good work guys, I’ll be plunking down my MS Points shortly. Everyone else? At least give the trial a quick download, you have nothing to lose.

What Happens In Vegas - Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz meet in Vegas after their lives were on a downward spiral. They get hammered drunk and get married. When they sober up and realize it was a mistake, they accidentally win 3 million dollars and must stay together for 6 months in order to split the cash.

Redbelt – Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mike Terry, a Jiu Jitsu instructor who saves the life of actor Chet Frank, played by Tim Allen. He then gets wrapped up with a wealthy Brazilian family who rig televised Mixed Martial Arts matches. He must compete even though it is against his beliefs.

Postal – from critically and commercially hated director Uwe Boll comes another video game adaptation. This one is about a clueless slack named the Postal Dude who loses his job and joins forced with his shady Uncle Dave and a bunch of scantily clad women in a plot to steal a shipment of hot new toys. But first they must stop Osama Bin Laden. ?!?!?!?!

The Rocker – Rainn Wilson plays a former member of a famous rock ‘n roll band. Twenty years later, he jumps at the opportunity to join his nephew’s garage band as their new drummer so they don’t have to cancel their prom gig. He then starts trying to relive his rock n roll glory days.

Death Race – Paul WS Anderson remakes the 1975 Stallone action flick. This time Jason Statham stars as a former NASCAR driver framed for the murder of his wife so he can come to the prison where the warden, Joan Allen, runs a kill or be killed car race. The inmates must compete to win their freedom.

An old friend of mine, Ryan Jennings, passed a note along to me that he just wrapped up his first game titled Go! for the iPhone. I’ve known Ryan for quite a while and he’s always done really great work. I can’t actually play Go! as I’m the only person on the planet without an iPod, but any of you guys out there who happen to own a fancy shmancy iPhone or iPod Touch can head over and download Go! for a cool $2.99. The game seems to be a puzzler of sorts and features nice clean graphics. Knowing Ryan, I’m sure it plays really well and features a slick presentation.

Like I mentioned, the game comes at a great pice that’s like what, the cost of a bag of chips and a Snapple Ice Tea?

Do the man a favor and show him a little love.

In this day and age, just about anyone can self publish a book. Many artists have taken up the title of authorship and have released their own books featuring sketchbooks, instructional guides, and an array of comic books. One of my favorite character designers, Ben Balistreri, recently finished up work on his comic book, “Seaweed”. According to Ben, it took him nearly six years to accomplish the task as he single handedly produced all the artwork found in this over-sized book. It measures a good 12×15 and all 64 pages are in glorious color.

The story is about a pirate, Seaweed, and his first mate, Poisson, who have a chance meeting with a bat named Mildew who is looking for The Devil’s Cookbook which can grant anyone who has it practically enternal life. As you can see, everyone here is an animal or fish of some sort. It reminds me a lot of the early Disney shorts where everyone is an animal, or like how in the Goofy shorts there’s an entire hockey rink of Goofies. There’s not a human in sight in Seaweed’s world and I think its all for the better.

As usual for Mr. Balestreri the art is top notch. The line work is stunning. I am constantly amazed by Ben’s pencil and ink work, and “Seaweed” shows it all off with positive flair. The second half of the book is a collection of sketches and some insight into Ben’s process. This part is printed on a different stock of paper and gives it the feeling of a second book. Most of all of drawings have been featured on his blog in the past, but they beautifully reproduced here and look fantastic.

Street Kings – Keanu Reeves is a veteran cop whose partner is murdered by two gang members. So he is forced to take it upon himself to go on a reckless quest through the streets of LA to get revenge while his captain tries to control him. Also starring Forest Whitaker, Chris Evans and Hugh Laurie.

Prom Night – a remake of the 1980 horror flick of the same name. A group of high school students cause the accidental death of a young girl but the truth is never discovered so they go free. Years later, the man who witnessed them kill the girl is back for vengeance.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day – a middle aged woman from London, played by Frances McDormand, is fired from her job. In an attempt to find new work she gets caught up in the crazy life of an American actress and singer, played by Amy Adams.

You still haven’t given Bionic Commando Rearmed a shot and you own a 360 and PS3? Then get out of here you nerd. Okay, enough in-jokes from Bionic Commando, but I’ll help try to nudge you in the right direction if you haven’t jumped in yet.

If you’ve played and loved the NES version of Bionic Commando to death back in the day, then this game was pretty much made with you in mind. It is pretty obvious that the team at Grin responsible for this game adores the source material and they have a field day here. They understand that the NES version was translated poorly and they have a ball poking fun of it here. The game has a great sense of humor, but I imagine only the purist will be laughing along with it. I’ll tell you one thing, I was laughing my ass off after having defeated the last boss as it was exactly what I wanted to see. Fans of the original game will also totally dig the updated music in the game. It’s all an awesome throw back to the original title, with remixed themes that still keep their chip tune heritage intact. These guys just get it, plain and simple.

For those of you who missed out on the original NES game, then you’re still in for a treat. Bionic Commando’s design holds up damn well to this day, and anything that was somewhat wonky with it back then has been ironed out and adjusted in this version (with one exception). Grappling is still the name of the game, and I find it kind of funny that people who were waiting for this game were surprised that there is no jump button. The grappling hook is what made BC so different from any other game at the time, and it is what makes the game into a great action/puzzle hybrid. It’s a thinking man’s action game, and they sure do lay the action on thick. Compared to the NES version, it seems like there are way more bad guys running around, some of them are even new. All of the boss encounters are brand new and are damn genius at times, which kind of sucks when the team decides to double dip on the last half of the game. Still, the battles are never dull and always exciting. If there is only one complaint I have to level against the game is that it’s hard to grapple onto objects when you’re on a moving platform. It doesn’t happen often throughout the game, but one stage in particular (secret passage stage) is built around the concept and I had plenty of deaths happen for no reason other than the fact my grappling hook just wouldn’t take. I honestly wonder if anyone else has been having the problem.