Dead Island trailer: are developers putting kids in harm's way on purpose?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia/Deep Silver

Last week the cinematic trailer (probably one of the BEST game trailers I've seen in a long while) for Dead Island made its way on the Internet and into the hearts of zombie aficionados everywhere. I admit, I decided to ignore the news about this forthcoming game mainly because I'm over the zombie apocalypse and we've already decided that if zombie warfare were to happen, you definitely want to team up with me. But after reading this little opinion piece from CNN titled, Why I can't get behind 'Dead Island', I was intrigued. Writer Omar L. Gallaga sums it up by stating that game developers are taking quite a few liberties in putting young children in the face of danger for the good of the game's story.

"...I'm getting uncomfortable with how comfortable game developers have become with putting children in peril and, often, allowing them to be gruesomely killed."

I went to IGN.com to check out the Dead Island trailer and knew it was pretty serious business when they asked me to punch in my birth date to make sure that I was over 18 (something any 10 year old can easily bypass). The trailer itself is amazing; the quality of the rendering is up there, the music serves as a melancholic dischord to the chaos that ensues, and the story is told in reverse and in slow motion. You can view the trailer at the end of the entry, but please take into consideration that the content is graphic and should not be viewed by/with children under 18.

Zombies Amongst Us

"'Twas the night before Halloween, when outside the house,
Some creature was stirring, too human to be a mouse.
The shotguns were hung by the chimney with care,
A warning to zombies that they should beware."

Tonight's post is kind of ironic considering I hate movies or games about the dead reanimated. True, I loved 28 Days Later, but that's not really about "zombies" per se; those crazies were more along the lines of human beings who were pissed off about being infected with some aggro-virus and were just looking to rip up anything as opposed to eating your brains. Oh, and we can't deny the comedy that is Shaun of the Dead; I mean, a Queen song was used in the movie for crying out loud!

Anyhoot, my office was hosting a Halloween costume contest and since I didn't participate last year, I figured I had a shot at winning this year's event. Here's a before picture of me:


Before the makeup and the madness - or how I normally look


And here's an after picture:

BRRRAAAAAIIIIINNNNNNNSSSSSS!!!

This is what happens when I don't have my morning cup of coffee, or my usual helping of Raisin Brain cereal.