Ghost Rider [PS2]

Based on the comic books, Ghost Rider doesn't try for much of a plot, but focuses on action instead as you travel through different areas of Hell and Earth to save Roxanne. The action is fast and there's a good number of on-screen enemies to contend with at a time. As you dispatch them back to Hell, you collect souls to cash in for power-ups, and also build a ranking that earns you bonus souls at the end of the level. You'll also ride the Hellcycle quite a bit, avoiding obstacles and fighting off enemies in a sort of Zaxxon-meets-Road Rash style. Both gameplay styles work well and keep things more interesting than either would be alone. The graphics look alright, but seem like they were probably kept simple to reuse on the PSP version. There are places where everything on the screen is either red, orange, or black as well, which gets rough on the eyes and makes cycle jumps harder to time and some repeated locations give a somewhat cheap feel. Speaking of which, there are a couple of pretty cheap boss fights as well, so be forewarned. The game makes occasional reference to the film during the comic-styled cutscenes, where Mephisto(pheles) looks similar to Peter Fonda and on the power-up menu, where a movie still of The Caretaker (Sam Elliott) provides the background. The alternating beat-em-up and driving action and array of power-ups make this Teen-rated clone of God of War better than it could have been, but not worth more than a rental for fans. [5/10]

Ghost Rider [Film]

Ghost Rider is the latest in Hollywood's campaign to resurrect "classic" comic book characters and bring them to the silver screen, and hopefully, renewed popularity. Though I somehow missed out on the comics in the seventies, I definitely would have dug the whole flaming skull and badass bike concept from the get-go, which means I was more than happy to check out the film.

Our story revolves around Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), a motorcycle stunt performer, who makes a deal with the demonic Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) in order to save his father's health. This is a bad idea of course, and though Johnny becomes famous, he pays the price when Mephistopheles comes calling to hold him to his end of the deal and become a soul-collecting bounty hunter. Thus begins Johnny's transformation into a Ghost Rider. A lot of people had reservations about Nicolas Cage, and I have to agree somewhat, since it looks like he didn't get enough direction here. His Johnny Blaze has almost zero chemistry with love interest Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendes) and he tends to waver between playing the character straight and going over the top. That's not all Cage's fault though, as there's definitely a lack of a single vision that permeates the entire film. The supporting cast fares a little better though, since most of them are strictly defined and only in a few scenes. There's also some truly bad dialogue, especially between Johnny and mentor figure The Caretaker (Sam Elliott) that will likely even have long-time fans cringing.

The film is an effects extravaganza, as expected, with the badass bike leaving trails of flame and massive damage in its wake when Ghost Rider appears. It's well shot in general, with some interesting camera placement and cool wall-riding action, but the pacing and editing are way off, with the reasoning of why Johnny turns into a dude with a flaming skull left largely unexplained. The evil minions that come after Johnny are generic wanna-be goths that each have their own elemental power as well, and mostly serve as fodder for Ghost Rider to learn how to use a flaming chain as a rope or a whip. There's also a generic sense at times, as some of the scenes seem to be ripped straight from Sony's other superhero films such as Blade and, inevitably, Spiderman. It's like there's a bunch of stock effects and characters in their computers that keep getting reused. The film also closes with a fairly cheesy remake of Ghost Riders in The Sky, that could have been really cool, but isn't.

Despite its flaws, Ghost Rider is somewhat successful, and even though parts of it get pretty cheeseball, it's still a good time, if partly for the wrong reasons. It's too bad it seems to have been made by committee, instead of Director Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Elektra) taking firm control of the project. [7/10]

Crackdown [360]

Tracking down various gang lords and taking them out as a bio-engineered supercop sounds cool, but ends up playing a lot like GTA. Skimpy directives and the use of a voice-over instead of cutscenes prevents players from caring about the situation, and the game quickly becomes an exercise in finding enemies with the radar and dispatching of them. Scaling buildings with your super jumping abilities to get at rooftop enemies is kinda cool, but sometimes it's a pain to figure out how to get where you need to go. Overall, there's just too much here that we've seen and done before. [6/10]

Battlestations Midway [360]

Join the U.S. Navy and command ships, subs and planes in various missions based around WWII. There's a lot of depth here, but the controls and various option screens are generally intuitive and well thought out, letting you stay focused on the action. You can choose to command from afar, issuing engagement orders, or take control of individual units for a more hands-on approach. The graphics are realistic, but not mind blowing by any means. In addition to the single player game are various challenges and an online battle mode. Military and strategy game fans should have a blast here, but it's likely a bit more than casual gamers will want to take on. [8/10]

Sonic The Hedgehog [PS3]

Sonic makes his next-gen return and somehow manages to fail almost completely. There's an even greater sense of watching the game rather than playing it this time and the core gameplay has flaws that you'd only expect from the greenest of developers, such as a text box that appears telling you to jump after you already should have. Adding in the silly "shop for power-ups in the town" feature, some truly atrocious presentation with voiceless characters, and probably the most loading times I've sat though in years and you get the worst possible combination of everything wrong with Sonic since the series went 3D. Shame on you Sega! [2/10]

A Delta State primer [DVD]

I did this up since the Delta State season one DVD set is out today, and if you don't know what Delta State is... you should, because it's pretty cool. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long for the second season.

UPDATED: Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection [PS3]

This PlayStation Store download appears to be a direct port of the arcade machine, including support for 1080p resolution and it looks great. Dark Resurrection continues the Tekken 5 story and adds fighters Dragunov and Lili, as well as unlockable boss character Jinpachi Mishima (Heihachi's father). Armor King fans will be happy to note his return as well. The standard Arcade and Vs. modes are here, as well as Ghost Battle, where other players' fighting styles are downloaded as ghosts for you to play against. It's not the same as directly playing online, but it works well, and eliminates any concerns with network lag ruining the gameplay. You can also buy items to customize your characters with gold earned during fights. Though the bonus games fans have come to expect are missing here, the game is easily as good as the excellent PSP release, and for less than $20 will more than sate the appetites of fans until Tekken 6 is released later this year. UPDATED: The game is available now in Hong Kong and Japan, and will be coming to North America "later this month". [9/10]