Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones is one of the best movie franchises ever! It’s a rare blend of action and humour and doesn’t miss any opportunity to poke fun at itself. It has one of the best, most recognizable theme songs of all time. And it stars Harrison Ford!

My introduction to Indy wasn’t actually the movies though; it was 1992’s Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, an adventure game by the magnificent but now-defunct LucasArts games division. It’s a rare, very rare example of a successful game-movie crossover that retained the qualities of its original, along with a magnificent storyline and memorable characters. It still stands up to any adventure game you’d find on the market today.

If you have been deprived all these years or are in need of nostalgia, here’s the introduction sequence :) :-

I’ve played all the Indiana Jones games and watched the movies more times than I can remember, and I’ve been looking forward to Indy IV for months!Detractors say that Harrison Ford is now too old to play Indy, or that Lucas is just milking an old franchise for money. Well the latter might be true, but Ford will always be Indy like how he will always be Han Solo and the president of the United States. He already has the fedora, the whip, and the Scowl down pat:

Now here’s waiting for May 22, 2008 to see if he has the rest of it still! :).
[Link to 720p Trailer torrent]

Fallout III

Fallout (1997) and its sequel Fallout II are universally considered among the best computer RPGs of all time (I preferred Arcanum, but it was less polished ). In the retro-futuristic Fallout universe, a nuclear war has laid waste to the earth, with the only survivors being the people who took refuge in government-built Vaults. In the original, you are sent out to scour the wasteland and your sister Vaults for a replacement “water chip” for your Vault. Interplay ( I’m so sorry I couldn’t afford non-pirated games back then  :(( ) did a phenomenal job in fleshing out a world of humans dealing with the fallout of nuclear war, as well as implementing a solid game system and an open-ended storyline. The ending of the first game is especially memorable:
If you want to know what it is ▼

The concern everyone is having is that Bethesda Softworks, who bought over the rights to the series, are well-known for focusing more on eye-candy than a solid story ( *ahem* Oblivion ). I’m actually a bit worried for them because there are a large number of scary Fallout fanbois out there!

Whatever the case, we’ll know soon - they are apparently on track (shock) for release in fall 2008.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

My Pottermania has pretty much died down by now, but I’m still looking forward to the sixth movie - the main reason being that I’m very curious how they are going to handle the romance that Harry is supposed to have with Ginny. With all the focus on the big Three, she’s been little more than a wallflower in the movies. Not exactly the spunky, vivacious Ginny from the books.

Context for this still:

[Returning from the village after the DA meets for the first time]

Hermionie: Anyway, at least we know one positive thing that came from today…
Harry: What’s that?
Hermionie: Cho couldn’t take her eyes off you, could she?
Harry: *smirk*
Ginny: *emo*

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