What if an ordinary night with friends turned into a Sims micro managed hell? This is the premise for one of the funniest College Humor skits I have seen in a long time. Check it out.

[Thanks Danny]

I mentioned yesterday that a screenwriter has been hired for Hitman 2 and now we learn that a new game is coming as well and it will be directly related to the movie’s storyline.

Hitman 5 will be released late next year and certain parts of the story will tie in with certain parts of the movie. There are no details as of yet, but I don’t like the idea of combining a movie that’s probably going to be awful with a game that could very well be awesome. It seems like a recipe for tears.

Go Nintendo

Warning: The Watercooler is the best thing you will see on the Internet today, mainly because it is the best thing I saw on the Internet yesterday. Be advised that these Watercooler stories are not necessarily videogame related (they usually won’t be), and are often silly, controversial, and/or not safe for work (NSFW). If this type of content frequently offends you, please be aware that I just warned you — if you still click through and get offended, it will be your own stupid fault. Otherwise, please continue…

Today’s Watercooler features classic Captain James Tiberius Kirk watching the new trailer for the Star Trek remake that we had featured on a previous Watercooler (which you could watch if blip.tv ever starts working again). Seems like Kirk Classic dislikes New Kirk as much as I do, and I’m sure there’s a funny picture to be made about this sentence.

No, I’m Captain Kirk.

You’re welcome.

Think you have something that could be Watercooler material? Send it to dlandis@ripten.com. If your submission gets featured, you will win a prize package full of pride and accomplishment.

If you’re a gamer, this movie will be especially painful to watch.  My hope going in, was that the movie adaptation of the Max Payne video game would be full of Payne … and it was, just not the kind I had hoped for.

Following in the sordid footsteps of video game to movie adaptations is the recently released Max Payne. Staring the talented Mark Wahlberg (I Heart Huckabees, The Perfect Storm, The Departed) and a cast of talented actors, this film feels like it makes an attempt to render the intellectual property into something that non-gamers (also see: cretins) will understand.

Sadly, their attempt falls flat and turns the movie into nightmarish gibberish usually reserved for Subway employees, Republican Vice-Presidential candidates, and the functionally retarded.

As a fan of the game series, I went into this movie skeptical. I had read an interview with the developers at Remedy who said about the movie, and I’m paraphrasing, “What the fuck?” Evidently developers watched the movie at a special screening and didn’t even recognize their beloved title.

The plot is more or less preserved; characters are present with a few extras as are the major plot elements, but I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t watching the Max Payne I had struggled with on “Dead on Arrival.”

The fact is that this movie was hamstrung by a PG-13 rating. However, Max Payne is not, repeat not, a PG-13 game. Max Payne is a gritty shooter in which there’s so many bullets flying it’s a wonder how you don’t get lead poisoning. The watered down Max Payne is so plainly cosmetic it renders the movie a nugatory pass at a genius game.

Director John Moore has taken a public shellacking from critics and game fans, making him a social leper. His Wikipedia entry was even defaced as an angry gamer wrote next to his Max Payne movie credit “ruined the movie…pg-13!? you and fox both blow you ‘cockgobblers’(i know you like that word you damn fag)”

Perhaps a tad unfair but that’s hardly the point. You can’t argue with the pull that hacks like Uwe Boll and Paul Anderson have had on the video game industry by creating adaptations that are so bitterly repugnant to their target audience that the very mention of their names makes even the most casual of gamers bleed from the nose and bite strangers on the face. Om nom nom nom nom.

There is a rumor that an unrated version will be released of Max Payne, but we’ll see. I know that for myself that after having seen this I doubt I will want to see it again with the promise of coitus or behavior modifying recreational pharmaceuticals.

What makes me the most utterly dejected is that you can tell from the production value that this movie had it all: a quality cast, a nice big budget, and a story that wrote itself – and Moore squandered it.

Marvel producer guy Avi Arad, the dude behind such fine adaptations as the Iron Man, Spider-Man, and X-men movies, has recently snatched up the rights to Bioware’s awesome story-driven RPG Mass Effect.

I personally think Mass Effect is already a movie, but the idea of slicing off all the running around and repetitive alien-squishing to concentrate more on the story certainly could make for a decent two-hour entertainment experience.  Oh yeah, and no load screens, though if they made a joke about an extremely long elevator ride, that could be pretty humorous.

I’m curious to see what the plans are for the license.  Will they simply just remake the trilogy of games into movies, will they incorporate the books into the films, or is there going to be a whole new story that just happens to take place in the Mass Effect universe?  Time will tell on this one… or not.

At this point, there is no other information on the project other than the rights being sold.  Considering the multitude of Marvel movies already slated for production by Avi Arad and crew in the next few years, Mass Effect doesn’t seem like it’s going to be hitting the theaters anytime soon unless it gets put on the fast-track.  There also exists the possibility that Mass Effect was picked up simply because it’s a popular game and nothing will actually become of it.

Avi Arad’s newly formed production company is currently working on another videogame movie that you may or may not have heard of — Lost Planet (which is being written by Solid Snake himself, David Hayter).  We’ll see how that turns out and let that be the gauge for how excited we should be about this Mass Effect movie news… unless it has hot blue alien lesbian scenes, in which case I will totally see it no matter how lame it is.

Source: Variety

In an interview with MTV News, director Brett Ratner, expressed his interest in making a film based on Activision’s extremely successful Guitar Hero franchise.

“I love Guitar Hero and I think it’s a part of pop culture … I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let me. I’m trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie. So that would be cool, to do a Guitar Hero movie.”

“It could be about a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition … One of those dreams-[come-true] kind of concepts.”

Shall I barf now or later? Do we really need another “dream come true” film, and how on earth is wanting to become a rock star and ending up holding a fucking plastic guitar a dream come true? That’s like a girl heading to Hollywood to become an actress and ending up a fluff girl on a porno set.

Afterthought: What do you think? Should Activision give him the green light on this? Maybe they should allow him to film two movies back to back — one for the full version, and then another based on a different kid from a small town who has a dream to play the harmonica. That kid can end up winning a Guitar Hero DS competition. Feel good story of the year material right there. I am holding back the tears.

Source: multiplayerblog.mtv.com (via: escapistmagazine.com)

God of War fans looking for some sort of film confirmation at this years Comic-Con, had a bone thrown their way in the form of a tiny leak courtesy of MGM’s “Robocop Reboot” press release. Below is a snippet from the release:

“David Self’s credits include 13 Days and Road To Perdition. He wrote God of War for Universal, to which Brett Ratner is attached to direct, and was a writer on Universal’s Wolfman currently in production.”

Brett Ratner’s previous directorial works include Rush Hour 2 and 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, and the pilot episode of Prison Break. I could live without his X-Men adaptation, and while his style worked for Rush Hour, I can’t picture Jackie Chan as Kratos.

Like it or not, based on the facts above, it appears that Universal and Ratner are attached to any hopes of a God of War film.

Source: Slashfilm

Aint It Cool News and CC2K have brought us the first ever script review of Paul W. S. Anderson’s new Castlevania movie, and it’s about as ugly as Medusa. The reviewer predicts, “I have no doubt it will crash and burn like so many of its predecessors.” Harsh words, and a bad omen for the director of the Resident Evil films, Mortal Kombat, and Aliens. vs. Predator.

Apparently this draft of Castlevania reads like a bad clone of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but even worse, the legendary chain whip plays almost no part. Instead, it’s been replaced by a sword. WTF?

This script analysis is definitely worth a read– if you don’t mind the heavy, heavy spoilers. This draft sounds pretty disappointing, but I’ll wait until we learn a little more about the movie, like who’s in the cast, and what kind of art style they go for, before deciding if I’ll see it in theaters or wait for it to be on cable.

Source CC2K via AICN

I just watched the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Max Payne, and it was shockingly good.  I had a certain expectation considering it was a videogame movie (that being that it would suck hard), but this film may have a shot at breaking the stereotype.  Read on to see the YouTube-ified trailer.

Personally, I like Marky Mark.  I think he’s a fine actor and has the perfect scowl-face for Max Payne.  Honestly, he would have made a much better Wolverine in the X-Men movies, even though Hugh Jackman is the shit, and the Funky Bunch could have been those other mutant schmoes.  Anyways, Marky Mark has played cops before, and he’s played sulky, angry dudes before.  He’s even already played an angry cop that was sulky and a dude –  Marky Mark is Max Payne.

Enough of my rambling — check out the trailer for yourself:

A deal has been signed between Universal and Take Two to turn arguably one of last year’s greatest games, into a film. The movie is to be directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, whose previous work includes The Ring and The Weather Man.

As any gamer knows, most good games become terrible films, with the last major game set for movie stardom, Halo, failing to leave the design board. Is there any hope that BioShock: The Movie won’t suck? Thankfully, yes. In an interview with The Cut Scene, Verbinski had these comforting words for us: “We want to take all the strengths from the property. Of all the games I’ve played, this is the one that I felt has a really strong narrative.”

He also spoke about how the game’s more adult themes would not be compromised for the sake of the film, “We’re prepared to make it an R-rated movie. I don’t intuitively see it as PG-13. The content and the graphic nature of the story itself is smarter than that. It’s not for young kids,” adding that “I think we’ll go right up to the edge with the Little Sisters. I don’t want to soften it to the point where the core audience feels betrayed.”

He also mentions during the interview that he and BioShock’s creative director, Ken Levine, have talked on the phone, discussing what will and won’t work within the confines of a film. Since most of the game’s strength and success hinged on Levine’s vision, this can only be a good thing.

Source: Variety

Games to movie adaptations have always been…O.K. to put it nicely, but the Resident Evil movie took the cake. Hopefully things are going to change

The original game was an instant hit and it invented the genre we now know and love as Survival Horror. However, when it was taken to the big screen, fans expected the movie to live up to the name. In short, and I’m also being very nice here, it didn’t.

Our favorite characters from the first game, such as Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, had disappeared and were substituted by an unknown special forces team and Milla Jovovich. The only thing relevant to the original story was the G-virus and the zombies. In the end it wasn’t taken well by critics and fans alike. In fact, it was slaughtered.

But to our delight Capcom and Sony are getting down and dirty with a whole new Resident Evil movie with no relevance to the previous movie trilogy. This time it takes place seven years after Raccon City was taken off the map and we join our favorite couple, Clare Redfeild and Leon Kennedy kicking zombie butt once again. And all in glorious CGI.

So now I will shut up and let you sit back and watch the Resident Evil: Degeneration trailer. Enjoy!

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I just wanted to take a brief moment to share the sweet Hitman advertisements that have been popping up all over New York City (in case you haven’t seen them) to promote the November 21st release of the movie.

I’m really digging the fact that my non-video game playing friends are interested and excited about this flick. I like anything that helps the world look at video games as legitimate works of art with compelling characters and stories.

If you haven’t done so already, check out Hitmanmovie.com. The site offers up a game that allows you to call out hits on your friends via email. You pick the weapon, and the approach. The hit is not always a guaranteed success, and if you fail, they have a chance to retaliate! Super fun.

I’ll have a review when the movie drops in a few short weeks. For now, check out these wallpapers. Who knew head tattoos and designer suites would go so well together?

So while MGS 4 has been regrettably been delayed until spring, the Hitman movie approaches.

Baldness > Mullets and Mustaches.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl scribe, Stuart Beattie, proclaimed in an interview with GamePro.com that the Gears of War movie will mirror the recent box office hit “300″ in that the entire movie will be shot on green screen.

“There’s no way to build that world any other way, really”, said Beattie. “That’s a huge world. It’s a planet and it’s a bubble and it’s a building. It’s an epic sci-fi war and an enormous film. To get it made at all, the only way to make it for a price is to be on a soundstage. But the game also has that look, which is really interesting, so I think it will dovetail really nicely.”

CliffyB will be working closely with Beattie, closely monitoring the scripts development and tapping into the Studios in-depth knowledge of the world and now iconic characters. We have a good feeling about this one.

Source: GamePro.com

Nearly one year after the co-production of a Halo movie by Fox and Universal studios was canceled, 20th Century Fox has resurfaced to sign an exclusive deal which now names them as the primary licensor for Halo merchandise worldwide, can the move be far behind?

The relationship between Fox and Microsoft predates the failed Halo project as they have worked in a similar capacity in the past on the Microsoft published titles “Perfect Dark” and Kameo: Elements of Power”.

Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President of Domestic Licensing for Fox was quoted saying “Those two games established our relationship with them as a licensing agency, and those conversations continued during the same time that a ‘Halo’ film was in development here.” He then stated that the primary focus of Fox’s licensing division is teens and young adults as apposed to kids, and believes that this reason makes the Halo franchise a good fit.

On May 21, 2007 Peter Jackson, in an interview with Cinematical.com, said that he expects that the Halo movie project will get back on its feet once studios “catch a glimpse of the Halo hype first-hand”. Could that be exactly what happened? It is possible that the big wigs over at Twentieth Century Fox finally got that “glimpse” Peter mentioned and are ready to put the events of the past behind them and give the fans of the series a movie they so justly deserve! One can only hope so. Stay tuned here as we plan to keep you posted.