Posts Tagged ‘Xbox 360’

Watchmen: The End Is Nigh (2009)

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Rorschach works out some of his issues with women.

Rorschach works out some of his issues with women.

Released in two parts — March and July 2009, respectively — The End is Nigh is something of a prequel to the Watchmen film and comic book series, set in 1972, before the passing of the Keane Act that outlawed masked vigilantes.

In the first part, Rorschach (voiced by Jackie Earle Haley) and Daniel “Nite Owl” Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) set out to quell a prison riot at Sing Sing. The riot turns out to be a diversion for the escape of crime lord The Underboss, and our caped crusaders end up fighting their way through criminals and cops alike trying to find him, and possibly stop the plot to kill two reporters at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The second part concerns the kidnapping of a girl named Violet Greene, and finds Nite Owl and Rorscach chasing Twilight Lady through strip clubs and brothels, fighting gangs, gimps, and dominatrices. (The voice acting of the gimps and doms is quite funny, especially the ball-gagged ones.)

The Secret of Monkey Island SE (2009)

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Monkey Island's classic interface.
The new Special Edition interface

A comparison of the new and the classic interfaces.

It’s hard to believe now, when they’re known mostly for rushing out one half-finished Star Wars game after another (for one Christmas season after another), but in the late eighties and early nineties, LucasArts were, along with Sierra On-Line, the première adventure game company in the business. For a period of some fifteen years, beginning with Maniac Mansion, they released some of the best-regarded point-and-click adventures of the era. In 1990, at the peak of their powers, they released The Secret of Monkey Island. For a generation of gamers, Monkey Island‘s combination of fourth-wall-breaking comedy and clever puzzles became the standard against which all later adventure games were measured.