DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER/PLATFORM: Sony Santa Monica/Sony/Playstation 3

FUN FACT: 7-Eleven’s limited-edition “Kratos Fury” Slurpee (ayo!) is a combination of blackberry and lime flavors. Actually, it’s “blackberry lime blended with chaos.” Seriously.

WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Because as much the franchise’s first two games stand as truly epochal experiences of the Playstation’s previous iterations, this one ups the ante by squeezing every last dark drop out of the PS3’s processing power. In the form of ichor. It’s hugely violent, hugely entertaining, and hugely fucking huge. By now you’ve seen clips of the opening sequence, with Kratos scaling Mount Olympus on Gaia’s titanic self, but believe us when we say it somehow gets bigger from there—not always in scale (that’d be impossible), but in scope. If you’re going to spend $44 million on a game, this is how it should be done. Plus, we could never pass on a game that has Kyle from Living Single as the lead character…

Yes, really.

GAMEPLAY: If you’ve played either of the previous God of War titles, there’s not much here that’s different. Light attacks, strong attacks, combos, magic, and occasional button prompts that trigger finishing animations. The game veers, as its predecessors did, from button-mashing imbroglios to puzzle/platform sequences to some mindblowing and hellish (always figuratively, sometimes literally) boss battles. The gore, somehow, is ramped up—you can see where that $44 million went the first time you pry a mid-boss’s jaws apart to crack its skull, gouge out someone’s eyes, or pull the innards out of a centaur.

And when the game goes big, it goes BIG. The opening level, which takes place on, in, and around Gaia, redefines “cinematic” not just as a cut scene, but as a feel that permeates the entire damn experience. It’s like that scene in Uncharted 2 (you know the one), but bigger. And more shirtless. (Speaking of which, yes, there’s a sex game. Yes, the sex game has nipples. And yes, there’s girl-on-girl. Goodbye, $60!)
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Please, hammer, don’t hurt ’im.

GRAPHICS: Hmm, maybe you haven’t been reading this. THIS SHIT LOOKS CRAZY. It’s not a game of light, it’s a game of darkness, and (for the most part) it enshrouds you without feeling claustrophobic. It’s also a game of textures—and stone, wood, water, fire, and viscera all get the loving treatment. Even facial animations, so often short-shrifted in action-adventure games, are a joy.

We mentioned the nipples, right?
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It’s dark, and Hell is hot.

DOWNSIDE: Most trivial concern first: In the sex minigame, Kratos’ thrusts sound like a sword strike, which is a little disturbing (we’re sure Aphrodite can handle it, we’re just saying). More importantly, as crisp as the graphics are, there are instances and locations in the game—we’re looking at you, Hades—when darkness and shadow border on murky. Call us crazy, but if a game asks us to calibrate our TV’s video to accommodate its range of blacks and whites, then that shouldn’t happen. There’s also the fact that the final boss isn’t as exciting as others earlier in the game, but that’s a concern shared by plenty of other titles. It’s not that the game takes a nosedive, more that it plateaus during the final few hours, feeling ever so slightly repetitive by the end. Other than that, what’s not to love? Grandeur, gravitas, Kyle from Living Single (and Malcolm McDowell! And Kevin Sorbo!) and ultra, ultra, ULTRAviolence. Rated M for Mammoth.
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The Wackness, set in 1994, taps into some of the same nostalgia. High school outsider Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends the summer before college selling weed, getting put up on new hip-hop by his connect (Method Man), trading trees for psychiatric therapy, and crushing on his shrink's stepdaughter (Ayo!’s boo-to-be, Olivia Thirlby). While Kids captured actual city teenagers doing how they once did, The Wackness attempts to transport young actors back in time, which proves tricky. The era references and slang spilling out of their mouths feel forced and untrue at times'though still infinitely more believable than a mesh-tank-top-rockin’ Meth's embarrassing Jafakin' accent.

If some details are off, the film still wins by focusing on the angst of first love, making it the coming-of-age story to Clark's cumming-in-underage-girls story. After all, between skating, boozing, drugging, fucking, fighting, and slurping juice with tampons, we did occasionally fall in love with these hoes. See the trailer and watch scenes after the jump.

Related:
-The Wackness Drops A '90s Rap Purple Tape
-Watch Scenes From The Wackness

We knew shit was heading downhill when the very first race sequence couldn't even sustain our attention. Talk about a premature bust-off: the film dribbles its load in the opening race scene'full of colorful, frenetic CGI effects that must've impressed somebody at some point'and then just repeats the same formula over and over again. And over and over again. One hundred and thirty five fucking minutes. That's a long time.

Yeah, Speed Racer is PG-rated, but you can't even use the “it's just for kids” excuse. There were two tykes sitting next to us, and we've seen more excitement at a Siberian orphanage. The story is needlessly confusing, filled with laughable dialogue, more earnest than an after school special. Poor Emile Hirsch'you can't really blame him. (Definitely blame Matthew Fox, though.) On the plus side, Susan Sarandon is…yo. Christina Ricci plays Speed's love interest, but how's his moms look twice as good? Susan, Susan, Susan. You are not a MILF. You are a MILKCSFAMSLT(*). In short: Speed Racer blows. But you already knew that. See the trailer and the (*) answer after the jump.

(*) MOM I’D LIKE TO KISS, CARESS, SUCK, FONDLE, AND MAKE SWEET LOVE TO

Related: The Official Complex Iron Man Review

So it was with breathless anticipation that we cracked open Prodigy's latest, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2, the follow-up to last year's end-to-end burner, Return of the Mac. Prison bars can't stop the flow of this Pee, pissants. We've got an exclusive track-by-track review after the jump.

1. “Real Power Is People” (Prod. By Sid Roams)
SOUND: We have no idea who Sid Roams is, but he produced five joints here. The album opener, like Sid's other ones, sounds pretty much like a creepy Alchemist beat. Which is a good thing.
THEME: A preview of what's to come on the rest of the LP'Prison Pee's on that dead prez, militia shit.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “They lit the Pentagon on fire/That's lighting the pentagram on fire.” Yooo!
RATING: 4 out of 5 P’s

2. “The Life” (Prod. by The Alchemist)
SOUND: The current video/single, you've probably heard it. Crack-adamia nuts, kitko.
THEME: A little contradictory, in that Pee is glorifying the material shit he just shunned in the last one. But maybe he wrote this shit before he got sentenced. Nihilistic rap at its finest!
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “You chinchilla soft/I'm Brillo pad coarse/Take your skin off you.” And throw a TV at you, crazy.
RATING: 5 out of 5 P’s

3. “Young Veterans” (Prod. by The Alchemist)
SOUND: Downtempo shit, sounds kind of mailed in by Al, but even his mail-in beats are knocking.
THEME: IT'S LIKE ONE OF PRODIGY'S BLOG POSTS SET TO MUSIC, SO BACK UP AND STOP THINKING SHIT IS SWEET BECAUSE YOU WILL GET WOUNDS THAT NEVER HEAL!!!!
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “Don't be mad at me, be mad at yourself/For being so garbage, you need to be killed.” Go fuckin' paint a house.
RATING: 4 out of 5 P’s

4. “Illumanati” (Prod. by The Alchemist)
SOUND: The melody sounds like it could've been rocked on a Zamfir's magic flute. Also those “Touch Me, Tease Me” hi-hats'word to Case.
THEME: Pee takes his famous line from LL's old posse joint back from Jay (”D'Evils”). You think it might be some secret society talk but really it's some general shit-talking.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “I got friends in high places/Multiple races, and cultures on my side/All you got is paper.” Jigga, what?
RATING: 3 out of 5 P’s

5. “New Yitty” (Prod. by Sid Roams)
SOUND: Another ALC-sounding joint from El Sid. A good companion piece to “The Life.”
THEME: New York life, type trife.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “You's a ugly dipshit, the black Craig Mack/I'm a handsome shooter/I simply clutch the Ruger/And blow your bumbaclot rot-face back to Bermuda.” Word to Saigon.
RATING: 4.5 out of 5 P’s

6. “ABC” (Prod. by Sid Roams)
SOUND: Some super menacing, horrorcore shit. This was actually the first video, featuring Pee's bloody eyes and ol' dude from Judgment Night, a.k.a. Zed's dead.
THEME: Let me count the ways I'mma kill your ass.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “I razor-blade you up and cut you bad/You gonna need plastic where your face was at.”
RATING: 3 out of 5 P’s

7. “Click Clack” f/ Big Twinz (Prod. by Sid Roams)
SOUND: Gunshots, dun. You's a dead muthafucka.
THEME: It's kind of amazing that Prodigy has never done a song called “Click Clack” before. He talks about gunplay here but also about women, I think for the first time on the album thus far.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “'Cause I'm an animal pimp, I get up on a female/And tell her things she likes, she give me that tail/And I call heads, but I was all wrong, dog, the sex was the best.” Put it on a Hallmark card.
RATING: 3 out of 5 P’s

8. “Veteran's Memorial Pt. 2″ (Prod. by The Alchemist)
SOUND: It sounds like a sad version of Kanye's “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.”
THEME: In memory of…
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “I miss my pops/All I got is lonely teardrops/And memories of him teaching me to hurt people/With my bare hands, and how to shoot people/I remember me and him stuck a jewelry store/He did the sticking, I was in the getaway car.” Now that's father-son bonding.
RATING: 4 out of 5 P’s

9. “Field Marshal P” f/ Un Pacino (Prod. by Havoc)
SOUND: Havoc's first beat on the album. Not real memorable, to be honest.
THEME: Pee and Un talk some shit and get serious about Sean Bell. Timely!
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “Niggas scared to hang around me, like, 'What's wrong with Un?” We fucks with Un Pacino, for real.
RATING: 3 out of 5 P’s

10. “3 Stacks” f/ Big Twinz (Prod. by Sid Roams)
SOUND: If they sped this shit up it could actually be a club joint.
THEME: Probably the catchiest, shortest hook on the album. Still sinister as fuck.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “When I was a kid I drank beer, not soda/Never hit the girls if they panties had the odor.” Words to live by.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 P’s

11. “When I See You” (Prod. by Apex)
SOUND: Nothing remarkable but serves its purpose.
THEME: Don't fuck with Pee.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “Niggas come home from jail like they supposed to have me/Under some type of pressure, go fuck your mother/You really want to step to me? Get on line/It go around the block, who next to get live…When I hit him in the titties/Catch him in the city/Do him real dirty/Cut his face real pretty.” Lake, holla!
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 P’s

12. “Dirty New Yorker” (Prod. by The Alchemist)
SOUND: Our press release says this will not be on the album, but on the GTA IV soundtrack. Damn shame too, 'cause it's a banger. It's gonna be fun shooting up Liberty City to this one.
THEME: Title says it all. Pee actually flowing for real on this one.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “I'm a Mobb Deep gangsta/Infamous soldier/If you got a cold heart, then my shit is froze over.”
RATING: 5 out of 5 P’s

13. “I Want Out” f/ Havoc & Un Pacino (Prod. by Havoc)
SOUND: Dramatic, with the church organs, with Havoc on the beats and the second verse.
THEME: A thoughtful one for the album closer .
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “On the YouTube, I'm killing them out there/Crazy views.” Indeed, Pee. Indeed.
RATING: 5 out of 5 P’s

BONUS: “ABC (Vox Spanish Remix)”
SOUND: Same as #6, but with Voxonic's new translation technology, some of the lines are morphed into Spanish.
THEME: Shit, we want to hear Pee in Sri Lankan.
INSTANT QUOTABLE: “[mad violent words en espanol]”
RATING: 3 out of 5 P’s

ALBUM VERDICT: 4 out of 5 P’s

Overall, this is not as strong as Return of the Mac, which is a more cohesive album with a better range of beats. H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 is a decidedly darker, angrier, more violent album, which makes sense from a man who's probably staring through some bars right about now. All that said, it's still colder than 99% of the shit out there, so go pick it up. And Free P!

Can matrimony curdle the milkshake that brought all the boys to the yard? Thankfully, Kelis's sassy sexual confidence is as sweet as ever on her fourth album. (”I don't just like you, /I like you like you,” she sings on “Like You.” “Can we come together? You can fluff my feathers.”) Even with a ring on her finger, the 26-year-old Harlem-born chanteuse is equal parts domination fantasy boss bitch (”Bossy”), playful sexual seductress (”What's That Right There”), devoted lover (”Til' The the Wheels Fall Off”), and humble, introspective entertainer (”Lil Star”). Producers such as Will.I.Am of The Black Eyed Peas, Cee-Lo, and Raphael Saadiq support the sultriness of Kelis's deep, raspy vocals and sincere lyrics with tracks that range from raunchy buzzing synth to funk and rock guitar-driven soul. The boys in the yard may be disappointed that Kelis got wifed up, but at least they can still throw on her CD, close their eyes, and fantasize about having Kelis for dessert.

Justin Monroe
Illustration by Sean McCabe
For more on Kelis, check out her sexy photos from our Hot Complex Section.

Kelis Was Here Jive Records.