5 Hottest Video Game Females: Not the Main Character

Inspired by Top 5 with Lisa Foiles I think I'm going to do a top 5 from time to time and well Lisa Foiles is definitely in the running for number 1 of my top 5 hot female geek culture divas.

By the way Laura Croft doesn't make my list, one she's the star and two well she was ruined forever thanks to Angelina Jolie. The other rule here is that video game girls from fight games aren't included. Let's face those are total T&A characters so they are all hot why debate the issue. Anyway lets proceed shall we:

Number 5 - Batman Arkham Asylum: Harley Quinn

I definitely like the new outfit it fits her character and well, her better, than the stupid court jester outfit. She's insane, dirty, and lethal and her appearance definitely spiked my interest in the game. I even like the voice but then again I had and still a have a crush on Jennifer Tilly so for me those voices are annoying in a good way.

Number 4 - Dead Rising: Jessie

Unlike my buddy Rob I found the first Dead Rising to frustrating to finish but still logged a lot of hours and some of those hours were to admire the virtual artistry that went into Jessie's two most prominent attributes.

Number 3 - Half Life 2: Alyx Vance

Video games have striven to capture the cute, spunky, smart, and butt kicking geek dream girl for ages and usually they fail and the character just becomes annoying. However, Valve did an amazing job with Alyx. I actually found (and find) myself enjoying the stupid training and story pieces purely because of her character.

Number 2 - Dragon Age: Morrigan

Until I played Dragon Age Origins I would have advised you to get out more if you said you actually felt some attachment to a video game character. However, Bioware did an amazing job with this game and I actually felt a pile of guild and regret when I ended my character's relationship with Morrigan simply to get the achievement for bedding Liliana. I still did it but you know that decision was pretty much why I never finished that game.

Number 1 - World of Warcraft: Lady Sylvanas

Lady Sylvanas, what can I say she's a bit evil, mean, bossy, uppity, and damn hot for an undead gal. I'm always confused why all the other undead are gross rotting zombies but Sylvanas still has it going on. Every time I found myself in Undercity I made a point of going to the Lady's court just to check her out as she was way better than all the Night Elves dancing around in their underpants in Stormwind.

Honorable Mention - Fable: Lady Grey

I'm not talking about the undead Lady Grey in Fable 2 but the original present demanding blonde of the original Fable, you know the Fable that didn't suck. Really there was nothing appealing about this woman's personality but I still ran around fetching her presents so that says something.

Boxee Impressions from Canada

I started this Boxee review quite a while back but got side tracked due to work and computer issues. Now that I got things under control and have had time to play with Boxee I figured I'd complete the review because my good buddy Rob was asking me about it.

If one watches or reads any technical, business, or culture media one would likely have heard of the Boxee Box. Hell they had it in Men's Health gadget list a few issues back: you know the one with Olivia Munn in it ...

The Boxee Box hardware isn't cheap and dropping $200 on something for a review isn't in my budget. However, you can download and install Boxee for free on almost any computer that can be hooked up to a TV so I installed Boxee on my old laptop and it worked fine. I could even control it with a Andriod app on my phone as a remote control.

My first impression of the interface wasn't initially positive but after a few minutes I got use to it and it grew on me. At a glance Boxee is quite an application. It can access Netflix's streaming service, Vudu, television network streaming sites, and pull media from my main PC across my home network. With out a doubt the most robust media management application available that I know about.

After playing with Boxee for the last couple days I've made some discoveries. First off if you live in Canada your not going to use Vudu so you lose the ability to rent videos on demand which is something you can do with AppleTV, XBox, or the PS3. Another short coming is that the Netflix app will not work in Boxee for Canadian Netflix customers. It seems to work but you'll notice your accessing the American media catalog, which by the way is way better than the Canadian, and if you try to watch anything it just hangs when trying to connect to the Netflix servers. However, other than that it seems to work pretty well. Not a bad selection of television to pick from (even with living in Canada), some nice apps that still work for Canadians, and it seemed to stream across my home network PC to Boxee Laptop. It does hiccup and fail to stream some listed network television from time to time but no surprise there, you are accessing free internet content what do you expect for free.

In a nut shell if you live in the US I'm thinking this is a pretty good deal even if you shell out the $200 for the Boxee Box itself. However, for Canadians that is a pretty expensive price specially when you know Americans are getting a lot more for that money but if you have a spare computer around I say hook it up.

Final word if you like internet media such as The Escapist, Revision 3, YouTube, or even The Guild. Boxee brings all that to your big screen instead of your computer. For me that made setting up the laptop worth while.

Red Dead Redemption

I gotta say, so far 2011 is stacking up to be a great year for video games from 2010! I was completely blown away by how much I enjoyed Mafia II, and now I'm rockin' Red Dead Redemption on a level I never expected. If you clicked the links on the games above you'll notice that while I linked the Mafia II website I chose to use the Red Dead Wiki for the other, and there's a reason for that, there is just that much going on.

I have only ever played one Rockstar game, Red Dead Revolver, a pathetic attempt to bring a spaghetti western to life, a genre which I don't think should have ever lived, let alone be bastardized in a video game, but I digress. I have avoided the GTA series due to my aversion to sandbox games, and what I perceived to be weak story-lines, so this game was something of a risk for me, but one I'm glad I took.

I won't go into great detail, but I will note what I like: a decent story with a quest driven narrative, great characters, especially the main, John Marston, stunning scenery and background detailing, and attention to detail that makes failure to immerse yourself impossible.

To be fair it's not without problems, horses can be painful to maneuver, weapon mechanics aren't as streamlined as they could be, and the side quests can be a little too immersive, to the point of distraction from the main story. The problem I found with this was I got a little bored with hunting and gathering and almost quit playing the game; I actually had to take step back and get myself in the campaign again. The whole balancing act between side and main questing took a bit to catch onto, but now that I have it I find they go hand in hand very nicely.

Really not much more I can say, I've already bought the DLC expansions for it and looking forward to complete everything. I even downloaded an app on my phone that is essentially a checklist for the game, it's just that massive, there is no other way to keep track of it all.

Your Highness (Restricted Trailer)

I have to say this looks funny:

The type of role you could see Jack Black doing, but your soooo glad he isn't going to be going way over the top with it.

The Star Wars Room

While it's been our personal hope to spread the wonder of the movie The Room here, words cannot do this justice, it can only be experienced:

Mafia 2

During the recent Steam Holiday sale I spent more money than was wise, but ended up with a number of games, if I ever get around to playing them. While on this budget spending spree I decided to take a chance on Mafia II. While it's a bit late in the game for a review on it I thought I'd put out a few thoughts about it.

First, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've never played any of the Grand Theft Auto's but what I understand of them seems to put this game in the same genre; the campaign takes you through 10 years of the life of Vito Scaletta, from the middle of World War 2 to the early 50's, as he rises through the ranks of a crime family in Empire City, using theft and violence as his tools. You make friends and enemies along the way and learn a few life lessons. Sounds trite, but actual ends up being a bit deeper than you'd expect, the ending actually threw me for a bit of a loop, really didn't see it coming.

The joy and the pain of the game was the lack of apparent sandbox attributes. While not on a specific campaign related mission you were free to roam the city and do as you please, steal cars or hold up stores for cash, beat up people, or just make trouble with the police, do what you want, it wasn't necessary for the main story line; sure you got some extra cash for upgrading cars and buying clothes, but the campaign supplied you with most of what you needed anyway. In short, you could take it or leave it, so I left most of it, which was good for me as I don't care for sandbox freeplay, but it left the game feeling a little incomplete. I would have liked to see more side missions like in Gun, which was essentially a polar opposite of Mafia 2, there was essentially no sandbox freeplay and the side quests were pretty much required to level your skills.

As for the driving, well, I'm on my second playthrough and I still haven't mastered it, although I'm doing much better. AI is a problem as you never know what to expect from the other drivers and they will often react in the exact opposite manner of a real driver; stray across the street a little bit and an oncoming car is just as likely to turn into you as it is to swerve away. Police can be arbitrary too, often ignoring hit and run accidents, but then deciding to chase you down for grazing another car when it suits them. On the plus side, they could care less about you obeying signs and lights; you can pull into the oncoming lane and drive past them to run a red light, just don't hit them while you're doing it.

So why do I like the game? The story was rock solid and the game played like an interactive graphic novel. The writers portrayed what I think is a good window into organized crime, from the rush of power to crushing depths of defeat, you manage to like Vito and sympathize with him, but at the same time realize that he's in the wrong. The shootouts are fun with a number of different weapons to use, the locations are great, the cars are varied and fun, and the music is used perfectly; I've never realized how much good music came out of the 50's both Jazz and Rock. You spend a lot of time driving so giving you the option to change stations really helped keep the music varied and fresh, from Chuck Barry and Eddie Cochran to Dean Martin and the Andrews Sisters.

Finally, I won't lie, the Playboy collectibles were great. The writers chose to ignore the fact that Playboy wasn't first published until the mid 50's, 5 years after the end of the game, and threw 50 different centerfolds in the game that you collect as you go through the missions by finding magazines lying around; pick one up and you're given an actual uncensored centerfold from the 50's and 60's. Sounds dated, but it was refreshing to see the women Playboy published before plastic bodies became he norm. Sex was generally rampant throughout the game, and if there is one caution I would make, it's that this is a VERY adult game, and not just because of the graphic language.

If I had payed 50 bucks for the game I might not have been as enthused, but since I got it for 12, I couldn't be happier. I highly recommend this game if you can get it on sale, however you might not want to spend the full price for it, just not enough going on for my money.