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So I've finally got around the listening to the entire album Slayer are about to release called World Painted Blood.

For the impaired, Slayer used to be one hell of a force within the metal world with their first 4 albums - Show No Mercy, Hell Awaits (their best), Reign In Blood and South Of Heaven. In between Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits, they released an excellent EP called Haunting The Chapel, which is like a preview of Hell Awaits. Why preview of Hell Awaits and not a mini-redo of Show No Mercy? Show No Mercy was more influenced by bands like Judas Priest and Venom, as opposed to in Haunting The Chapel and beyond, where they developed their own unique sound, but with some Venom influences here and there.

After South Of Heaven, their material went from *bleep*ing classic to just good. Seasons Of The Abyss and Divine Intervention were enjoyable, though I must be in the minority with Div
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For the past week, the weather has been fairly eratic in Australia. One minute, it's sunny with the birds singing and bees trying to have sex with them, but the next minute, the sky turns gray and it starts pissing down with rain. To make matters worse, there were a couple of thunderstorms. One of them, we even saw lightning bolts a few times while the wind pushed everything it touched that wasn't fixiated to the ground (so think leaves and stuff). Hell, most people had a little trouble keeping their bearings and balance, though being tough Australians and others, we managed to brave the storms and resume education, despite a couple of blackouts.

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On the video game front, I've just purchased Halo 3: ODST and Batman: Arkham Asylum [PS3]. Both games prove to be excellent upon first impressions. Batman: Arkham Asylum is a definite contender for GOTY, with its healthy mix of stealth and action
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Imagine this. You're raising a kid. You're looking to get him/her into something, but unfortunately, footballs and make up aren't captivating their interest. The next best thing to do is to give them a cricket bat, but they don't like it either. You try many things, but it all fails. Your kid, then, notices your PS3 (or whatever) and plays it. The game that he/she happens to be playing is Resistance. It's gory, it has swearing, it has a fair few things that is to be concerned about by certain parents. As a concerned parent, you get your kid away from the game, mostly because the enemies are scaring the shit out of him/her (and I don't blame him/her...I wasn't the same after playing through Resident Evil 1 the first time when I was 8 years old) and the blood and shooting would most likely desensitive your kid. Now, if all you did was replace it with some kiddy platformer like Ratchet And
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If you answered no to the title in question, prepare to change your opinion.

Now that I got that out of the way, I want to tell you all of an amazing RTS game I've been playing for the past few years; Warlords Battlecry 3. I love this game. If I feel like playing an RTS that's not Command And Conquer or Age Of Empires, I boot this game up.

But what makes Warlords Battlecry 3 so special? Well, I'm a huge fan of the Shining Force series, and I like the Fire Emblem series (well, whatever we can get from Japan, sans that new one). I loved their mix of strategy and RPG. I loved how Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 continued this sort of thing, but allow free movement. But, as much as I love Shining Force, Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles, I also like a real time equivalent. If I didn't know of Warlords Battlecry 3, I'd be going "man I wish this was in real time". That would have driven me cra
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Today, I'll talk about Street Fighter 4, which I...or rather, my little brother, bought today and I had an hour of playtime with it, plus I show a part of my Halo 3 review, which will (HOPEFULLY) be my best yet.

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Street Fighter 4 features so much classic elements that made Street Fighter 2 so awesome; fluid controls, tight physics, addictive gameplay (unfortunately, my brother wanted to play, and since my back hurts like *bleep*, I let him) and some awesome visuals. It's basically everything that Street Fighter 3 should have been. Street Fighter 3 was good, but wasn't really as good as it could have been. Regardless, all of the Street Fighter games (1, 2, 3 and 4, not so much the additions) are worth playing, but bloody hell, Street Fighter 4 is one of the few games of today that gave me the same rush that I got when I first picked up my first game controller - the Sega Genesis controller
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Basically, it's what I think the top 5 greatest PS2 games are. If there are any future releases that can somehow make its way into my top 5, then MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL! But whatever, let's just look into it. If you don't agree, that's okay, but please don't show it down my throat, because (and I'm only going to say this once) opinions are not facts! My list is my list, not the official list (hence THE VERGIL EDITION in the title).

So without further ado:

5. Contra: Shattered Soldier
As a fan of Contra since I was about 2 years old, I figured that a PS2 game in the series would make its way onto this kind of list. Well, that's what they said about Sonic. The difference is that Contra actually has a good sixth generation game to its name...rather, two good games. I prefer Shattered Soldier's no bullshit approach and found it to not only be a lot of fun, but also quite simple while bein
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