VideogameVagabond.com

Country Music Television is the producer behind this Toby Keith film; unless, that is, you count Ford Motor Company, to whom this film is a passionate love letter; especially when it comes to the Ford F-150 truck. A country music and music video star already, Keith makes his movie debut in this film about southern lawmen whose exploits are only remotely connected to the classic Keith-Willie Nelson duet of the same name.

The plot of the film revolves around the arrest of a group of small time anhydrous ammonia thieves that just happens to include the brother of a powerful Mexican drug lord and whose intelligence in said pursuit resembles fig trees. Keith, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film with Blue Collar Comedy Tour comic Rodney Carrington, stars with Carrington as the arresting officers of the drug lord’s brother.

The twist comes when Keith’s girlfriend, played ably by Claire Forlani, is kidnapped by said Mexican drug lord and a swap – brother for girlfriend – is demanded. The film has a decent and deep cast, including Ted Nugent, Tom Skerritt, Willie Nelson and Mac Davis.

There are light comedy moments and action film intensity that call to mind Witless Protection, the product of another Blue Collar Comedy Tour member, Larry the Cable Guy. What grounds the movie, however, is Keith’s rumbley bass voice and commanding screen presence. He comes off convincingly in his role, which holds the rest of the film together.

Rock legend and conservative talk radio standby Ted Nugent is effective in a comic non-speaking role as Skunk Taylor, a lawman who eschews guns and uses instead a bow and arrow to take down his opponents. Of course, that means a genuine hunter’s compound bow, not some Robin Hood lightweight stick-and-twine.

The plot is nothing original, but as a popcorn movie it keeps a person interested from beginning to end, despite some over-the-top antics by Carrington. The biggest strike against the movie is that there are no positive Mexican roles in the film and by casting all Mexican parts as bad guy roles, the film can come off with a negative racial bias, especially with some of the anti-Mexican comments tossed into the movie by Keith and Carrington.

This problem could have been solved easily by tossing a Mexican FBI agent, eager to help take down the drug lord with Keith and Carrington, into the mix, but that choice was not made in this case. The film suffers for this oversight, limiting its potential appeal.

The annuls of television drama have rarely known as odd a duck as Dr. Gregory House and this collection of Season Four episodes is a perfect example of why the show has become a runaway hit for Fox and made an international superstar out of the actor in the title role, Hugh Laurie.

Although Laurie is best-known in the US for his role on House, in Great Britain he would have struggled to get cast in a similar drama due to an early career as an extremely silly comic actor, whose roles ranged from supporting bits on Rowan Atkinson’s Black Adder series, all the way to a sketch comedy show with Stephen Fry, known as “A Bit of Fry and Laurie.”

His transition to drama, however, has been nearly seamless. Using his British wit to make Dr. House seem cruel and dispassionate, Laurie has made the role uniquely his own and garnered quite a bit of acclaim in the process of playing a curmudgeon. He has worked hard behind the scenes against any efforts to soften his character up, preferring to play House in the bitter, asinine mode that the role was originally conceived in.

Season four, like all shows last season, was shortened by the writer’s strike (and perhaps some troubles with light fixtures), cut off at a mere sixteen episodes. Yet despite losing six episodes from their typical twenty-two episode season, it turned into one of the series’ most memorable.

Unlike most shows, who stay with the same core cast members throughout its entire run to the maximum extent possible despite taking place in a supposed “teaching” environment (how old were the sweathogs on Welcome Back, Kotter again?) House last season struck out in a bold direction by graduating its three main residents under Dr. House’s tutelage and forcing House into selecting a new group of understudies.

Of course, House maximizes the cruelty of the selection process, as well as our entertainment value, but putting the prospective interns through a reality-show style series of challenges. As the numbers dwindle over the course of the first ten episodes or so, the stars who possess the best chemistry with Laurie on screen eventually emerge, leading to the casting of Kal Penn, Peter Jacobson and Olivia Wilde as the newest recruits.

Of course, the original cast members were kept on, but their episode appearances have been cut back, beginning with this season and continuing into the current season five airing on Fox right now. This changing of the guard was a risk for a hit show, but was pulled off craftily enough to inject a sense of freshness into the drama, rather than making it feel like the show was gutted.

And the casting call stunt led to story possibilities even for some who didn’t make the final cut, setting up – in a strike-shortened year, mind you –the most affecting season finales of the show’s four-year run. All sixteen episodes, of course, are here in the collection, as over a half-dozen special feature documentaries and a commentary track on the season’s penultimate episode, House’s Head.

In all, any fan of the series will find this collection a must-have and it may be a season that helps hook new fans into the show, since the new cast of residents provide three new touchstones within the show.

It takes guts to step into the shoes of a legendary horror director like George A. Romero. Blood and guts, actually. And brains … plenty of … BRAINS! And yet, that’s exactly what Zack Snyder attempted in 2004 with this remake of the George A. Romero classic, Dawn of the Dead, part of Romero’s classic Dead trilogy of zombie movies.

With a $28 million budget and gross receipts over $100 million worldwide, Snyder had a much larger palette to paint with, compared to Romero, who made his version in 1978 with a budget of $650,000 and yet went on to gross $55 million worldwide … at 1978 ticket prices. Despite the much larger budget and a cast featuring stars like Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames, it’s hard to say Snyder did a more effective job than Romero on about 1/50th of the budget.

Dawn of the Dead is set primarily in an American shopping mall, where a group of non-zombified survivors attempt to hold zombie hordes at bay, hoping that by dawn, help will arrive. In the intervening action, many fall and transform to zombies, many brains are eaten (resulting in a memory upgrade for the undead), and much blood and gore is displayed all ‘round.

In the bleak original, the help never came and in that sense, Snyder’s ending places a new twist on the film, seeming to offer a sense of hope, only to snatch it away in the closing seconds of the film. The gutsiness of taking on an intimidating project like this has defined Synder’s directing career, the most recent example of which – with the impending release of The Watchmen, the long-desired film version of the classic Alan Moore comic book – is due to be released in March 2009.

The Blu-Ray offers stark detail to ever scene, and there are plenty of extra features to satisfy the morbidly curious. The best feature is the commentary track, lifted directly from the four-disc DVD Ultimate Edition release, which included Romero talking with Snyder about the film. While the track is, by now, a bit dated, since Romero was still at the time trying to find financing for his fourth Dead film, it is nevertheless the jewel of the assemblage of special features.

Also nice is a home movie on the making of the film, made by a zombie extra; a tour of the Crossroads Mall, and several other mini-documentary features. With a decent, if not quite “better,” remake of the original film, the only major complaints here is the absence of the Romero original movie and several really nice special features that didn’t make it over from the four-disc Ultimate Edition DVD.

What’s with all the profanity problems with otherwise terrific videogames like Bioshock? I’m not usually that offended by most profanity, but I do take exception to the use of the name of God when uttering profanity and I was at least shocked, if not BioShocked, at how often that is done in BioShock.

Now, most of the game is a wonder to play. Graphically, it’s beautiful on the PS3 and the tone and theme of the game make for some of the most compelling gameplay I’ve encountered in quite a while. But do we really need to hear background characters invoking divinity and damnation in the same breath?

Personally, I think the same emotion is communicated with a robust “Damn it!” without bringing the Almighty into the picture. Now, BioShock isn’t the only game to do this by any means; sadly, it is the game I’m most disappointed in for doing so. Yet I’d rather spend three hours searching for the best diet pills than playing a game with this particular kind of potty-mouth.

From a gameplay standpoint, I really wanted to keep the game. Due to the coarse language factor, though, it’s trade-in-bound. Too bad.

I’m not a big fan of shooters; I’m more of an RPG player. But I have to admit that after digging into Resistance 2, the sequel to Sony’s huge shooter hit that launched around the same time as the PS3 itself, that I enjoyed my experience.

Maybe it’s the cool creature designs, maybe its the solid action, maybe its the intriguing storyline and maybe it’s just that I played the game on the easiest section where I wouldn’t end up dying constantly (since I’m not a big shooter fan, remember?) or what, but I have ended up really enjoying my time with the game so far.

Searching out aliens to blast is less healthy, but more fun, than searching out the best diet pill. I can’t imagine anyone who loves shooters not loving this game.

Tonight I played Fable II for the first time; my wife and I went and picked it up, and after supper, I told myself I’d play about an hour and then start writing my blogs and videogame reviews up.

Only an hour very quickly turned into, like, four hours. That’s how addictive the game plays. The pacing is much improved this time out and, with plenty to do both in-town and out, the game is much better than the first Fable, which was a classic but not exactly as polished as this game is.

You can do just about anything in the game, from having sex to performing at a real work-a-day job, to getting married and whatnot. And the graphics, this time, are on par with the best Xbox 360 titles on the market. About the only thing you don’t get to do in the game is sell car insurance: mainly because there are no cars in the game.

Otherwise, I’m sure they would have thought of it.

My picks are sometimes eclectic, sometimes a bit weird, but I think this holiday season, there’s no question for me which game I’m looking forward to playing most on any platform. I call it my must-have game of the holiday season.

There were really just two main contenders this time out: Fable II and Fallout 3.

Fable II is addictive and deep; I loved the first game and my wife and I have been looking forward to the new one ever since we got our 360.

Trouble is, Fallout 3 is also mighty attractive. From the same folks who stole literally hundreds of hours from both my wife and me with Oblivion, as much as we both want to play Fable II, there’s simply no contest, in this case.

Fallout 3 is our must-own title of the 2008 holiday season. No question about it. And I think this is a choice that’ll be as widely popular as Outer Banks rentals.

Alright, here’s the blunt, honest truth. Normally I would list some games in here for the PSP platform that will help make your holiday season a happy one. But like an honest acne care treatment doctor, I don’t want to blow smoke up your nose.

Sometimes there’s just nothing worth getting. This is one of those months for PSP Slim. Save your money for other games on other platforms.

While most people are investing in theater seating for their PS3 setups, there are still good games to be had on the PS2 this holiday season. Here’s our ultra-picky pick:

Eternal Poison

I like Atlus’ role-playing titles more often than I dislike them. This one’s worth having; it’s the best-looking PS2 tactics-style RPG that Atlus has released to date! Could have used it on the PS3, but at least it’s cheaper on PS2. And it’ll play on PS3 unless yours is a recent one that lacks backward compatibility. Cheapskate.

You don’t need the services of a South Carolina injury lawyer to determine where my review of games worth getting in November 2008 will go next… I’m focusing on the PlayStation 3!

Resistance 2

The follow up by Insomniac Games’ debut PS3 title has been long in appearing, but it’s finally here. I tend to prefer the Resistance series to Gears of War, even though I expected that to go the other way, the first time I tried both. Go figure!

Valkyria Chronicles

My hopes are set high on this one, not so much because it’s a PS3 RPG (which is much-needed) but because it looks like Sega’s finally going to make a great RPG for the first time in too long. Just hoping the game lives up to the hype for a change.

Alone In the Dark: Inferno

A great survival horror franchise returns from the (un)dead to set up all-new chills and wet-your-bed moments. The tight episodic structure encourages frequent gameplay sessions because you know what kind of time commitment you’re making each time you pick it up, and it’s not overly-demanding.

Tomb Raider Underworld

Lara Croft hasn’t disappointed yet in this generation of hardware. This title is also available on Xbox 360, but I discovered the series on the original PlayStation, so I prefer to pick the PS3 version and have a DualShock 3 in my hand.

These are four great titles, but with God of War III, Killzone II, Resident Evil 5, inFamous and Final Fantasy XIII all missing this holiday season, Sony’s left with another holiday season in which they don’t have as many killer apps overall as does the Xbox 360.

This is a nice November crop, but not enough for PS3 to overtake the 360.

We continue our survey of promotional products… wait, no… games worth getting in the month of November 2008. It’s the last big month of the year, so our ultra-picky picks are your best guide to not wasting your hard-earned cash. We’ll now focus on the best to be had on the Xbox 360.

Left 4 Dead

Once EA gets into a new game genre, they really get into it. More survival horror from the company that did so well with their survival horror debut, Dead Space.

The Last Remnant

Another SquareEnix RPG on 360 instead of PS3? Believe it. This one’s typical epic stuff on the new next-gen RPG champion, Xbox 360. Not much has been leaked about this one, but it’s supposed to be the latest RPG goodness from the company that recently gave us Infinite Undiscovery. ‘Nuff said.

Where’s Gears of War II on our list? Sorry… didn’t care for the first one, so no go on the second. We’re that ultra-picky. Ignore us at your own expense.

Here’re VideogameVagabond’s ultra-discerning picks for the month of November 2008, the last great games month of the year, for games worth getting on the Nintendo DS, which is a list far more reliable than a random car insurance quote.

TecmoBowl: Kickoff

It’s been over 15 years, but Tecmo Bowl non-licensed football has returned, this time on Nintendo DS. Worth owning for nostalgia alone.

Chrono Trigger

The classic SquareEnix game that started a worldwide obsession that’s outlasted two successive hardware generations and counting is back, this time on the DS. A must-have for SquareEnix fans.

That’s it! But what fun you’ll have.