With my newly made preorder of Dead Space 2 came this rather interesting little downloadable title. Taking place right before Dead Space 2, Ignition is for the most part a series of 3 different types of minigames with motion comics as cutscenes in-between. There are also 4 different "paths" for you to follow through the game depending on some choices you make about where to take your character.
The story follows Franco, an engineer, and your trusty cop companion Sarah across the Sprawl right before the events of Dead Space 2. As an engineer you are tasked with performing various types of hacks to repair things that have started falling apart, apparently by sabotage. Soon enough the Necros start popping up and it's up to you to hack your way through doors and other various helpful things while Sarah holds off the Necros.
It's about as boring as it sounds.
There's a kind of 2D race/obstacle game where you guide a constantly forward moving red dot past obstacles which slow you down while avoiding other dots that can knock you to the sides, impede your way, or even reverse the controls on you. You have some tools at your disposal too, including boosting along with the things the other dots do to you. Basically you run the course and hope to get to the end before the other dots.
Then there's the least difficult one, which is kind of like being at the opposite end of a tower defense game. You are given several types of viruses which you must then send out to try to destroy everything in your path and destroy this green terminal at the end. Especially later on once you've got the super virus which turns turrets against other turrets this game becomes more about just pumping out viruses and waiting until they reach the end than anything else. Technically there's a limit to the amount you can release at any one time, but they get destroyed at such a fast rate (and even if they don't your energy replenishes quite quickly) that it will never hinder you.
The one I had the most trouble with were the hardware hacks, which are essentially laser redirection puzzles. You're given a certain amount of reflectors that you have to place in a certain way so as to point the green light into the green receptacles, the red light into red, and eventually combine green and red light to make yellow go into yellow. It's more complicated than it looks, and eventually I just resorted to walkthroughs because it really wasn't worth it.
Okay, you may say, so the puzzles are real bad. Is the story at least worth the playthrough?
Nope. For one, the motion comic style might have been cool, but the animation, especially the motion part of the animation, is so poorly drawn that I often found my eyes drifting away and just listening to the dialogue because it was so bad. On top of that, the ending comes out of the blue, and while I'm sure it will set the stage for Dead Space 2, the rest of the game provides absolutely no explanation for why it happens. You spend practically the entire game running away from Necros. Depending on which path you choose there are some interesting variations on how you get to that end point, but the why of how you get there remains completely elusive. **SPOILER...KIND OF** Franco is fairly obviously a follower of the church of unitology, which looks to the Necros as what prophecy foretells as the path to immortality. So he gets these cryptic messages throughout the game from someone mysterious, which eventually set him towards the psychiatric ward of a medical building (Sarah has died along the way) where none other than Isaac Clarke resides in what appears to be a stasis pod. Franco hacks into the terminal and starts the sequence to set Isaac free, and then the game ends. Whoopdedoo. It is almost assuredly in this series of stasis pods that the Dead Space 2 demo begins. **END SPOILER**
So basically, if you preorder Dead Space 2, you might as well play this and get what little kicks you can out of it. There are some leaderboards if you care enough about these minigames to do anything about it. But under no circumstances should you pay the $5 retail price. It's worth the free pricetag, but no more. It's quite sad because this could've been an interesting way to set up Dead Space 2 and build excitement for it, like what I hear Case West did for Dead Rising 2. Instead it's a lackluster mess that barely earns its name as a prequel.
Dead Space Ignition gets a 3/10.
Monday, December 27, 2010
A slew of demos
So on a whim I decided to download some newly released and some older demos to see if I wanted to spend my new found Christmas money on them. First up:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I already kind of figured from the look of this game, and the fact that I had never played a Castlevania game before, that it wouldn't be for me, yet it was getting good reviews so I figured I'd take a shot and give it a look over. Now, I understand demos are almost always poor representations of the full game, but frankly it seemed like just another mindless hack and slash, though admittedly the controls were tight. Still, looked fairly boring.
Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2. Oddly enough, playing this demo felt eerily familiar to playing the first Force Unleashed's demo. Hordes of stormtroopers who are simply fodder for your force powers, some bigger baddies who require a little more thought, and a shoddy control mechanic that took away what little fun there was to be had. It felt like just another hack and slash which looked flashy, but had no real substance. Pass on this one, it appears the developers didn't learn from their mistakes like they assured us they did.
Maijin and the Forgotten Kingdom. Boy did this one lose me on practically all counts. The graphics were poor, the voice acting/dialogue was beyond childish, and the fighting vs. stealth mechanic was beyond rudimentary. The only interesting bit to this demo was the strategic element it introduced with, say, setting up the Maijin to throw a wall down while you jump down below and lure the enemies over to where it would crash. Held some interesting possibilities, but I'd doubt from the way the demo played out they made much use of it in the regular game. Big disappointment.
Costume Quest. I'm a fan of Tim Schafer. I understand the man has some brilliant and hilarious ideas. The main problem is he just doesn't know how to craft the game from there. Now, unfortunately I haven't played Psychonauts, which according to critics is the best most underappreciated game of all time, nor have I played any of his earlier work which everyone seems to agree were awesome games. Still, I played Brutal Legend. I saw what should've been an awesome game in there, but just never came together. So when he announced he was planning on doing smaller, more kind of indie downloadable games I was all for it thinking it would be a better space for him to simply present his vision. So I pick up the demo for Costume Quest...and am underwhelmed. Yes, the humor is there. Yes, his unique vision is there. Yes, it seems like it should be an awesome game. And then you get to the game itself, which has the most simplified combat system I've ever seen. It's highly based on exploration, yet there's no map, no way to pinpoint which houses you might have missed besides running all over the town until you spot the one that was hiding from you. You can change costumes, and each has a specific function in and out of combat, but they don't seem to make much of a difference besides opening up new areas to explore. It's just sad to me because even in this smaller downloadable space, just like Brutal Legend the great ideas are there, they're just really poorly implemented. Costume Quest feels like it should be a lot of fun, but then the actual game gets in the way of that. We'll just have to wait and see what happens with his next downloadable title, and hope the trend finally breaks.
Split/Second. I'm not a big fan of racing games, mostly because I'm no good at them, but my favorite series that I've played was the Burnout franchise. There was something so lovable and enjoyable about crashing anywhere you please and causing as much mayhem and destruction along the way as you could that I couldn't put it down. Split/Second is essentially Burnout's bastard child, fathered back in it's heyday on the PS2 before it moved on to the (in my opinion less fun) open world of Paradise. It works on much the same mechanics, except where in Burnout you did certain actions to raise your speed boost, in Split/Second you do certain things to fill a meter that allows you to make "Power Plays" which cause explosions to rain down from the sky, sometimes even amusingly completely rearranging the course, to knock down your opponents. There was unfortunately very very little to play, but what there was seemed fun enough. Might be worth a look.
Little Big Planet 2. This game made the best case for getting a 3D TV that I've seen. Not just for the eye popping effects, but because it appears it can be a vital part of gameplay. There were several points in the first level where I couldn't tell what I was supposed to do next because I was actually meant to go towards myself or away from myself. If there had been 3D, I'm sure that depth issue wouldn't be a problem. However, will this heavy investment in 3D detract from the game? I doubt it. It was still fun, and while I'm not particularly interested in creating my own stuff for this game, I cannot wait to see what other people do with it. This game looks to have infinite potential.
Mass Effect 2. I've already played this game on my PC when it came out at the beginning of the year (though not since all the DLC has come out), but I still wanted to take a look and see if the graphical upgrade would be worth a new purchase since my poor PC can't handle anything close to max graphics settings. And I have to say, I'm considering it. Definitely not at the new game price point of $60, I mean...come on. It's a year old, and I understand the developers put a lot of effort into it, and it really does look VERY good now, but seriously? It's selling for less than $20 just about everywhere, and while all of the DLC you get for free on PS3 totals up to $32, $32+$20=less than $60. This is not a new game, don't try to sell it like one. Anyways, the demo is quite extensive, leading you through both the initial escape from the lab complex and the mission to find Mordin Solus. The graphics have received an obvious boost (you can find comparison videos between PS3 and Xbox), though I still noticed significant frame rate drops during cutscenes and screen tearing. It wasn't that bad, but the obvious improvements elsewhere made them stick out all the more. Basically, if you've never played Mass Effect 2 before, pick it up now because this will be the best version out there. However, if you've already got Mass Effect 2 and the DLC, the graphics aren't really enough to say go out and spend that money all over again.
Dead Space 2. This game has had me the most excited since it was announced and showcased at E3. And so, I would like to present to you my thoughts while playing the demo:
"Wait...this part wasn't shown at E3...........why is nothing attacking me yet....why is there nothiOHCRAP...WHAT...THE...HELL?......Okay, first new necromorph pukes at me, lovely...man it takes a lot more damage than the old onesNOWTHEREAREFOUROFTHEMOHGODWHY...Okay, this part was at E3, shouldn't be too shocking...doing okay, doing okay, doing....okay...damn it...DAMN...BABIES....EVERYWHERE...CLAWING MY FACE.....NECROS EVERYWHEEEEEEEEEERE.......Phew, made it....preorder, done."
It was real freakin impressive. I had seen a great deal of the demo played already several times over at E3, and it STILL managed to freak me out. And with what I'm sure will be a really fun Aliens vs. Predator type multiplayer to back it up, look out for this one to pull a Mass Effect 2 and be a game of the year released in January. Though admittedly its competition is stiff (see "2011 is going to take all of our money"). But boy oh boy am I excited for this game. It looks to surpass the first game, which I gave a 10/10, by a healthy margin. CAN NOT WAIT.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I already kind of figured from the look of this game, and the fact that I had never played a Castlevania game before, that it wouldn't be for me, yet it was getting good reviews so I figured I'd take a shot and give it a look over. Now, I understand demos are almost always poor representations of the full game, but frankly it seemed like just another mindless hack and slash, though admittedly the controls were tight. Still, looked fairly boring.
Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2. Oddly enough, playing this demo felt eerily familiar to playing the first Force Unleashed's demo. Hordes of stormtroopers who are simply fodder for your force powers, some bigger baddies who require a little more thought, and a shoddy control mechanic that took away what little fun there was to be had. It felt like just another hack and slash which looked flashy, but had no real substance. Pass on this one, it appears the developers didn't learn from their mistakes like they assured us they did.
Maijin and the Forgotten Kingdom. Boy did this one lose me on practically all counts. The graphics were poor, the voice acting/dialogue was beyond childish, and the fighting vs. stealth mechanic was beyond rudimentary. The only interesting bit to this demo was the strategic element it introduced with, say, setting up the Maijin to throw a wall down while you jump down below and lure the enemies over to where it would crash. Held some interesting possibilities, but I'd doubt from the way the demo played out they made much use of it in the regular game. Big disappointment.
Costume Quest. I'm a fan of Tim Schafer. I understand the man has some brilliant and hilarious ideas. The main problem is he just doesn't know how to craft the game from there. Now, unfortunately I haven't played Psychonauts, which according to critics is the best most underappreciated game of all time, nor have I played any of his earlier work which everyone seems to agree were awesome games. Still, I played Brutal Legend. I saw what should've been an awesome game in there, but just never came together. So when he announced he was planning on doing smaller, more kind of indie downloadable games I was all for it thinking it would be a better space for him to simply present his vision. So I pick up the demo for Costume Quest...and am underwhelmed. Yes, the humor is there. Yes, his unique vision is there. Yes, it seems like it should be an awesome game. And then you get to the game itself, which has the most simplified combat system I've ever seen. It's highly based on exploration, yet there's no map, no way to pinpoint which houses you might have missed besides running all over the town until you spot the one that was hiding from you. You can change costumes, and each has a specific function in and out of combat, but they don't seem to make much of a difference besides opening up new areas to explore. It's just sad to me because even in this smaller downloadable space, just like Brutal Legend the great ideas are there, they're just really poorly implemented. Costume Quest feels like it should be a lot of fun, but then the actual game gets in the way of that. We'll just have to wait and see what happens with his next downloadable title, and hope the trend finally breaks.
Split/Second. I'm not a big fan of racing games, mostly because I'm no good at them, but my favorite series that I've played was the Burnout franchise. There was something so lovable and enjoyable about crashing anywhere you please and causing as much mayhem and destruction along the way as you could that I couldn't put it down. Split/Second is essentially Burnout's bastard child, fathered back in it's heyday on the PS2 before it moved on to the (in my opinion less fun) open world of Paradise. It works on much the same mechanics, except where in Burnout you did certain actions to raise your speed boost, in Split/Second you do certain things to fill a meter that allows you to make "Power Plays" which cause explosions to rain down from the sky, sometimes even amusingly completely rearranging the course, to knock down your opponents. There was unfortunately very very little to play, but what there was seemed fun enough. Might be worth a look.
Little Big Planet 2. This game made the best case for getting a 3D TV that I've seen. Not just for the eye popping effects, but because it appears it can be a vital part of gameplay. There were several points in the first level where I couldn't tell what I was supposed to do next because I was actually meant to go towards myself or away from myself. If there had been 3D, I'm sure that depth issue wouldn't be a problem. However, will this heavy investment in 3D detract from the game? I doubt it. It was still fun, and while I'm not particularly interested in creating my own stuff for this game, I cannot wait to see what other people do with it. This game looks to have infinite potential.
Mass Effect 2. I've already played this game on my PC when it came out at the beginning of the year (though not since all the DLC has come out), but I still wanted to take a look and see if the graphical upgrade would be worth a new purchase since my poor PC can't handle anything close to max graphics settings. And I have to say, I'm considering it. Definitely not at the new game price point of $60, I mean...come on. It's a year old, and I understand the developers put a lot of effort into it, and it really does look VERY good now, but seriously? It's selling for less than $20 just about everywhere, and while all of the DLC you get for free on PS3 totals up to $32, $32+$20=less than $60. This is not a new game, don't try to sell it like one. Anyways, the demo is quite extensive, leading you through both the initial escape from the lab complex and the mission to find Mordin Solus. The graphics have received an obvious boost (you can find comparison videos between PS3 and Xbox), though I still noticed significant frame rate drops during cutscenes and screen tearing. It wasn't that bad, but the obvious improvements elsewhere made them stick out all the more. Basically, if you've never played Mass Effect 2 before, pick it up now because this will be the best version out there. However, if you've already got Mass Effect 2 and the DLC, the graphics aren't really enough to say go out and spend that money all over again.
Dead Space 2. This game has had me the most excited since it was announced and showcased at E3. And so, I would like to present to you my thoughts while playing the demo:
"Wait...this part wasn't shown at E3...........why is nothing attacking me yet....why is there nothiOHCRAP...WHAT...THE...HELL?......Okay, first new necromorph pukes at me, lovely...man it takes a lot more damage than the old onesNOWTHEREAREFOUROFTHEMOHGODWHY...Okay, this part was at E3, shouldn't be too shocking...doing okay, doing okay, doing....okay...damn it...DAMN...BABIES....EVERYWHERE...CLAWING MY FACE.....NECROS EVERYWHEEEEEEEEEERE.......Phew, made it....preorder, done."
It was real freakin impressive. I had seen a great deal of the demo played already several times over at E3, and it STILL managed to freak me out. And with what I'm sure will be a really fun Aliens vs. Predator type multiplayer to back it up, look out for this one to pull a Mass Effect 2 and be a game of the year released in January. Though admittedly its competition is stiff (see "2011 is going to take all of our money"). But boy oh boy am I excited for this game. It looks to surpass the first game, which I gave a 10/10, by a healthy margin. CAN NOT WAIT.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 was, like many others, my first foray into the Fallout universe and boy was it fun. Quest after quest, character after character was so entertaining it was hard to put it down. I've actually only finished the main storyline once (and haven't finished the Broken Steel expansion) because it was always such an adventure to see that open tick on your compass and go exploring only to find something completely unexpected. Tack on the many expansions and you've got a game that can easily eat away hundreds of hours of your time.
And now comes New Vegas, a game that seems to fall in much the same vein of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood in not being a full on sequel, but is still another iteration. Unfortunately, unlike Brotherhood instead of there being big improvements across the board, there are several rather annoying steps backwards.
This game is essentially Fallout 3 in terms of game mechanics. You still have a pip-boy, the same 7 SPECIAL stats (Strength, Intelligence, etc), many of the same perks, and VATS (the targeting system). Practically everything is the same, just with some added new items, new types of crafting stations, new weapons, and the sometimes appreciated iron sights mode where you actually look down the sights on your weapon when aiming. Only sometimes appreciated since some weapons' sights are just plain really poorly designed. These things I have no problem with. After all, besides having to press Tab to open the pip boy for every single menu instead of just pressing I for inventory and such, I really had no problem with the mechanics of Fallout 3 and New Vegas only adds to them.
So why is New Vegas such a worse experience than Fallout 3? Let me count the ways...
Just to get this out of the way, the glitches. I understand they were bad at first in Fallout 3 and will most assuredly get fixed in the future. I had some big problems, mostly with characters getting stuck in the environment, but I'm sure they'll be fixed in time and weren't really a big deal to me.
Perks are now gained every two levels instead of every level. While some may appreciate this for making perk choice more strategic, which I'm sure was what they were aiming for, you end up missing out on some that add to the enjoyment of the game like Terrifying Presence where you get the dialogue option to make crowds flee before you, or Miss Fortune who randomly shows up in VATS and does something I don't know about since I had other more important perks to get. Becoming a terrifying powerhouse of destruction was part of what made Fallout 3 so fun, and I'm sad to see that go.
Radiating entire areas of the game does not make sense. Supposedly New Vegas got hit much less by the nukes, and so should be less irradiated. WRONG. Entire sections of this game require you to be constantly exposed. There are two situations this creates. If you don't have enough rad-x, it then becomes a mad dash to rush through the area before you accrue too much radiation and die, forcing you to ignore possibly important sections in said area and completely rendering useless any stealth character (like I like to play). If you do have enough rad-x, then the radiation is simply an annoyance and serves no purpose besides forcing you out of the experience as you have to constantly make sure your levels don't get too high. In any case, it was a very bad design choice.
In Fallout 3 each waypoint usually indicated something interesting or unique. In New Vegas there are a great deal that are simply placeholders. Like a shack. Is it important in any way? No, but it's a quick travel location in case you need it. And speaking of locations, the Mojave is unfortunately a lot less varied and interesting in simple landscapes than Washington DC. Everything is either in a dark cave, on a mountainside, or in the open desert with very little variation even within those categories. While everything may carry a more lifelike brownish/yellowish hue instead of the odd greenish tinge of everything in Fallout 3, it doesn't really matter because none of it is interesting to look at.
New Vegas is a much much more political game than its predecessor. You carry reputations with certain factions that you increase as you do quests for them or demolish as you kill their members or support rival factions. Depending on how they view you they may give you discounts, extra support, or attack you on sight. This can sometimes be avoided by wearing the armor of a certain faction, which identifies you as one of them and makes anyone below a high ranking member automatically think you're a friend. Of course, if you accidentally keep that armor on when you enter a rival faction's town, get ready to reload from a checkpoint because they immediately attack you and make you gain infamy with that group. As you go on you also start to lose out on certain quests with opposing factions depending on who you support, but honestly I never noticed a big difference besides a kind of no-turning-back point in the story. While some may appreciate this change, I thought it felt more like a tacked on system with an interesting premise and poor execution.
What this political turn also means is that a great deal of the quests revolve around talking and traveling to talk to someone. I once was surprised after about an hour when I suddenly realized I hadn't had to draw my weapon in that long because all I was doing was fast traveling between areas as one talking quest lead me to another. The quests themselves seem very tuned down from before, with only three or four really funny or surprising ones sticking in my brain as opposed to the countless fascinating turns held in Fallout 3.
Possibly the most disappointing part of New Vegas was that after a short time I never felt interested in going to explore the Mojave, because there was never any reason to. In Fallout 3 each new quest takes you to a new and different part of the Wasteland with all its own surprises and curiosities. In New Vegas, quests are either isolated experiences in one area that don't require much venturing out, or point towards the Strip where the main story mostly plays out. Before I knew it I had finished the disappointing main quest line, leaving a great deal of the Mojave unexplored despite several forays out into the wild just to see what was there (the answer was a whole lot of nothing). You could tell from the memorable parts that there was still some great humor and ingenuity in this game (like everything at the Super Mutant camp), but besides a few shining gems everything else just felt flat and uninteresting.
New Vegas certainly has some things going for it, but the numerous things it does wrong far outweigh the underlying things it does right, most of which are from Fallout 3 anyway. If you've played Fallout 3 and are thinking about getting New Vegas, go back and play Fallout 3 again. You'll have a better time swimming through those familiar waters than dipping your toes in the shallower water of New Vegas. If you haven't played Fallout 3 before and are thinking about getting this game, go back and get Fallout 3. If you really just want to play this game...then play it. Other reviewers seem to have had a more positive experience than I did, so maybe I'm missing something. I'm going to give this game one more shot, forcing myself to explore more of the Mojave where supposedly all the best parts of this game reside. But for now, New Vegas just feels like a poor substitute for DC.
Fallout New Vegas gets a 5/10.
And now comes New Vegas, a game that seems to fall in much the same vein of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood in not being a full on sequel, but is still another iteration. Unfortunately, unlike Brotherhood instead of there being big improvements across the board, there are several rather annoying steps backwards.
This game is essentially Fallout 3 in terms of game mechanics. You still have a pip-boy, the same 7 SPECIAL stats (Strength, Intelligence, etc), many of the same perks, and VATS (the targeting system). Practically everything is the same, just with some added new items, new types of crafting stations, new weapons, and the sometimes appreciated iron sights mode where you actually look down the sights on your weapon when aiming. Only sometimes appreciated since some weapons' sights are just plain really poorly designed. These things I have no problem with. After all, besides having to press Tab to open the pip boy for every single menu instead of just pressing I for inventory and such, I really had no problem with the mechanics of Fallout 3 and New Vegas only adds to them.
So why is New Vegas such a worse experience than Fallout 3? Let me count the ways...
Just to get this out of the way, the glitches. I understand they were bad at first in Fallout 3 and will most assuredly get fixed in the future. I had some big problems, mostly with characters getting stuck in the environment, but I'm sure they'll be fixed in time and weren't really a big deal to me.
Perks are now gained every two levels instead of every level. While some may appreciate this for making perk choice more strategic, which I'm sure was what they were aiming for, you end up missing out on some that add to the enjoyment of the game like Terrifying Presence where you get the dialogue option to make crowds flee before you, or Miss Fortune who randomly shows up in VATS and does something I don't know about since I had other more important perks to get. Becoming a terrifying powerhouse of destruction was part of what made Fallout 3 so fun, and I'm sad to see that go.
Radiating entire areas of the game does not make sense. Supposedly New Vegas got hit much less by the nukes, and so should be less irradiated. WRONG. Entire sections of this game require you to be constantly exposed. There are two situations this creates. If you don't have enough rad-x, it then becomes a mad dash to rush through the area before you accrue too much radiation and die, forcing you to ignore possibly important sections in said area and completely rendering useless any stealth character (like I like to play). If you do have enough rad-x, then the radiation is simply an annoyance and serves no purpose besides forcing you out of the experience as you have to constantly make sure your levels don't get too high. In any case, it was a very bad design choice.
In Fallout 3 each waypoint usually indicated something interesting or unique. In New Vegas there are a great deal that are simply placeholders. Like a shack. Is it important in any way? No, but it's a quick travel location in case you need it. And speaking of locations, the Mojave is unfortunately a lot less varied and interesting in simple landscapes than Washington DC. Everything is either in a dark cave, on a mountainside, or in the open desert with very little variation even within those categories. While everything may carry a more lifelike brownish/yellowish hue instead of the odd greenish tinge of everything in Fallout 3, it doesn't really matter because none of it is interesting to look at.
New Vegas is a much much more political game than its predecessor. You carry reputations with certain factions that you increase as you do quests for them or demolish as you kill their members or support rival factions. Depending on how they view you they may give you discounts, extra support, or attack you on sight. This can sometimes be avoided by wearing the armor of a certain faction, which identifies you as one of them and makes anyone below a high ranking member automatically think you're a friend. Of course, if you accidentally keep that armor on when you enter a rival faction's town, get ready to reload from a checkpoint because they immediately attack you and make you gain infamy with that group. As you go on you also start to lose out on certain quests with opposing factions depending on who you support, but honestly I never noticed a big difference besides a kind of no-turning-back point in the story. While some may appreciate this change, I thought it felt more like a tacked on system with an interesting premise and poor execution.
What this political turn also means is that a great deal of the quests revolve around talking and traveling to talk to someone. I once was surprised after about an hour when I suddenly realized I hadn't had to draw my weapon in that long because all I was doing was fast traveling between areas as one talking quest lead me to another. The quests themselves seem very tuned down from before, with only three or four really funny or surprising ones sticking in my brain as opposed to the countless fascinating turns held in Fallout 3.
Possibly the most disappointing part of New Vegas was that after a short time I never felt interested in going to explore the Mojave, because there was never any reason to. In Fallout 3 each new quest takes you to a new and different part of the Wasteland with all its own surprises and curiosities. In New Vegas, quests are either isolated experiences in one area that don't require much venturing out, or point towards the Strip where the main story mostly plays out. Before I knew it I had finished the disappointing main quest line, leaving a great deal of the Mojave unexplored despite several forays out into the wild just to see what was there (the answer was a whole lot of nothing). You could tell from the memorable parts that there was still some great humor and ingenuity in this game (like everything at the Super Mutant camp), but besides a few shining gems everything else just felt flat and uninteresting.
New Vegas certainly has some things going for it, but the numerous things it does wrong far outweigh the underlying things it does right, most of which are from Fallout 3 anyway. If you've played Fallout 3 and are thinking about getting New Vegas, go back and play Fallout 3 again. You'll have a better time swimming through those familiar waters than dipping your toes in the shallower water of New Vegas. If you haven't played Fallout 3 before and are thinking about getting this game, go back and get Fallout 3. If you really just want to play this game...then play it. Other reviewers seem to have had a more positive experience than I did, so maybe I'm missing something. I'm going to give this game one more shot, forcing myself to explore more of the Mojave where supposedly all the best parts of this game reside. But for now, New Vegas just feels like a poor substitute for DC.
Fallout New Vegas gets a 5/10.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Neuromancer
Honestly I don't know if I can really write a review for this book, mostly because I didn't have a speck of understanding as to what the hell was going on for most of it. There were vague glimmers of comprehension sometimes, but for the most part I can only describe the feeling of what I read. As such, I'm going to try to hash this out as best I can without a score at the end because I can't really give an accurate one.
The novel revolves around a young formerly adept hacker named Case. Case's job used to be to jack into cyberspace kind of Matrix style, break through a company's "ice" (security), and steal the information within. However, after having been caught by his former employers trying to steal from them, he's injected with a mycotoxin (fungal) that damaged the receptors in his brain in such a way that he can no longer access cyberspace. Without access to the wonders of the net, he becomes trapped in the pleasures of his flesh, constantly looking for a new high while living in the slum-like Chiba City in Japan.
After some very trippy and confusing sequences involving misunderstandings with a drug lord, a shuriken in a shop window, and his girlfriend, Case is rescued by a mysterious woman named Molly with several augmentations including retractable razors in her fingers and opaque glass covering her eyes. She reveals that she has been sent by a man named Armitage, who will cure Case and allow him to jack back into cyberspace in exchange for him completing a hacking job. After some hesitation, Case goes through with the procedure, and finds out afterwords that there are more conditions attached. Along with his nerves being repaired, his liver and pancreas were replaced and modified so he could no longer get high. Also, sacks of the same mycotoxin that crippled him are wafting around in his blood, and will dissolve after a certain period of time. Get the job done, and the sacs go away. Take too long, and he goes back to his own personal hell.
From there it's a long confusing mass of conspiracies, cyberspace heists, hallucinations, and weird characters all trying to figure out who Armitage is, what he actually wants Case to do, and why every time he and Molly dig deeper there's one word that keeps popping up: Wintermute.
The best way I've found to describe this book is as a mix between Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Requiem for a Dream. The state of the reader follows much the same state as Case. He starts off high and paranoid and completely confused about everything but knows it must all be happening for a reason so he goes with it to get what he wants, and then just when he sobers up and things start to get a little clearer, more confusing crap gets thrown his way to keep him off balance. I think too part of the problem for me in reading this book is that I'm a very visual reader, by which I mean I like to try to visualize/imagine what's going on, and a lot of the imagery is so abstract that I could never really get a handle on what was supposed to be going on.
So was it a good book? I think so. Did I at least take a positive experience away from it? Kind of. Would I recommend it to others? Maybe.
If nothing else Neuromancer is a great example of some classic sci-fi that no doubt gave inspiration to many after it came out. Supposedly it even started the entire cyberpunk movement. Basically, if this madly complex, highly surreal and mind bending story sounds interesting to you, I would recommend picking it up. If, like me, you prefer a slightly more straightforward read, then pass it by. As for myself, I'm in both camps on this one and remain confused as ever.
So with that, Neuromancer gets an undetermined score.
The novel revolves around a young formerly adept hacker named Case. Case's job used to be to jack into cyberspace kind of Matrix style, break through a company's "ice" (security), and steal the information within. However, after having been caught by his former employers trying to steal from them, he's injected with a mycotoxin (fungal) that damaged the receptors in his brain in such a way that he can no longer access cyberspace. Without access to the wonders of the net, he becomes trapped in the pleasures of his flesh, constantly looking for a new high while living in the slum-like Chiba City in Japan.
After some very trippy and confusing sequences involving misunderstandings with a drug lord, a shuriken in a shop window, and his girlfriend, Case is rescued by a mysterious woman named Molly with several augmentations including retractable razors in her fingers and opaque glass covering her eyes. She reveals that she has been sent by a man named Armitage, who will cure Case and allow him to jack back into cyberspace in exchange for him completing a hacking job. After some hesitation, Case goes through with the procedure, and finds out afterwords that there are more conditions attached. Along with his nerves being repaired, his liver and pancreas were replaced and modified so he could no longer get high. Also, sacks of the same mycotoxin that crippled him are wafting around in his blood, and will dissolve after a certain period of time. Get the job done, and the sacs go away. Take too long, and he goes back to his own personal hell.
From there it's a long confusing mass of conspiracies, cyberspace heists, hallucinations, and weird characters all trying to figure out who Armitage is, what he actually wants Case to do, and why every time he and Molly dig deeper there's one word that keeps popping up: Wintermute.
The best way I've found to describe this book is as a mix between Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Requiem for a Dream. The state of the reader follows much the same state as Case. He starts off high and paranoid and completely confused about everything but knows it must all be happening for a reason so he goes with it to get what he wants, and then just when he sobers up and things start to get a little clearer, more confusing crap gets thrown his way to keep him off balance. I think too part of the problem for me in reading this book is that I'm a very visual reader, by which I mean I like to try to visualize/imagine what's going on, and a lot of the imagery is so abstract that I could never really get a handle on what was supposed to be going on.
So was it a good book? I think so. Did I at least take a positive experience away from it? Kind of. Would I recommend it to others? Maybe.
If nothing else Neuromancer is a great example of some classic sci-fi that no doubt gave inspiration to many after it came out. Supposedly it even started the entire cyberpunk movement. Basically, if this madly complex, highly surreal and mind bending story sounds interesting to you, I would recommend picking it up. If, like me, you prefer a slightly more straightforward read, then pass it by. As for myself, I'm in both camps on this one and remain confused as ever.
So with that, Neuromancer gets an undetermined score.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
2011 is going to take all of our money
As 2010 nears to a close, and thoughts of Christmas gifts loom on the horizon, everybody and their mother starts to come out with lists of the best games and movies of the year to try and sum up for people what they should be buying in case they missed it. But as I look back on 2010 I notice something odd. There really weren't that many big name games that I just had to get. Sure there were the big ones like Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Red Dead Redemption, God of War 3, and, I think the surprise of the year, Heavy Rain. And there were several exclusive titles I just didn't get because I don't own a Wii (Epic Mickey, Donkey Kong, Kirby) or Xbox 360 (Fable 3, Halo Reach, Kinect). However, what really throws this all into perspective were the just released previews for what's coming in 2011 on Spike TV's Video Game Awards. Needless to say, any money I have is going to be gone by the end of the year.
To date, these are the games that I am looking forward to that are currently scheduled for 2010:
Uncharted 3, Batman: Arkham City, Dead Space 2, Portal 2, Little Big Planet 2, Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Resistance 3, Mortal Kombat reboot featuring Kratos, Infamous 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Killzone 3, Dragon Age 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Bulletstorm....you get the idea.
And those are the ones with an actual release date. If there is a god Diablo 3 will be on that list sometime soon. And those are just the ones I'm interested in, while several more big name titles on the way like Gears of War 3 and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be emptying the wallets of many others.
Oh, and that's all not to mention the Nintendo 3DS which will be releasing next year but doesn't have a US price point yet. But have fun shelling out the money for that and ports of old Nintendo 64 classics like Starfox and Ocarina of Time, I know I will.
And of course, as the year goes on more and more titles will be announced. So basically, for all the video game enthusiasts like me out there, start saving now, cause it's all going to be gone by next December.
To date, these are the games that I am looking forward to that are currently scheduled for 2010:
Uncharted 3, Batman: Arkham City, Dead Space 2, Portal 2, Little Big Planet 2, Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Resistance 3, Mortal Kombat reboot featuring Kratos, Infamous 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Killzone 3, Dragon Age 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Bulletstorm....you get the idea.
And those are the ones with an actual release date. If there is a god Diablo 3 will be on that list sometime soon. And those are just the ones I'm interested in, while several more big name titles on the way like Gears of War 3 and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be emptying the wallets of many others.
Oh, and that's all not to mention the Nintendo 3DS which will be releasing next year but doesn't have a US price point yet. But have fun shelling out the money for that and ports of old Nintendo 64 classics like Starfox and Ocarina of Time, I know I will.
And of course, as the year goes on more and more titles will be announced. So basically, for all the video game enthusiasts like me out there, start saving now, cause it's all going to be gone by next December.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Pillars of the Earth (miniseries)
For those not in the know, like I was, Pillars of the Earth is a nearly 1,000 page epic novel written by Ken Follett. Set in 12th century England, Pillars centers around...well...about 5 different storylines which are all far too detailed to try and summarize, especially when I haven't actually read the book. However, my dear girlfriend Amanda has, and so when the 8 hour miniseries was announced and subsequently released I decided to watch it with her based on her praise for the story and characters (and detractions for the repetitive writing). And after 8 long hours, it's done, and was quite worth it.
I am assured by Amanda that the plot of the miniseries is actually quite different in several places, sometimes for no discernible reason, but again, since I haven't read the book I can only remark on what I saw.
Now, first things first, 8 hours is a daunting number. Thankfully, and kudos to the production team for managing it, it never feels long. Each hour is somehow able to at once have the dramatic structure of a TV episode while maintaining the feel of an epically long movie, thanks greatly in part to the wonderful writing, sets, costumes, and high production values that went into this work. Add to that a high caliber cast portraying some wonderfully rich characters in very dramatic situations and you've got a recipe for one of the best miniseries I've seen.
To at least try to sum up what this story is all about, almost all storylines converge on the building of a cathedral over many many years. There's Tom Builder, who first dreams the dream and begins its construction. Ellen, a so called witch who lives in the forest with her adopted son Jack, who wears a strange signet ring and is eventually apprenticed to Tom after they meet when Ellen tries to save Tom's wife as she suffers complications from childbirth in the forest. The overly pious and proud prior Philip who commissions the work. Waleran, a man of the church who is overly ambitious, and after being spurned in his efforts by Philip tries in every way to stop the building of the cathedral. William Hamleigh, an evil bastard (not literally) who besieges the town of Kingsbridge at every turn, mostly at the bidding of his incestuous and slightly blemished mother Regan (different in the book) or Waleran. King Stephen, who having taken the throne under dubious circumstances arbitrates the disputes between Philip and William, often favoring William. Aliena, daughter of the Earl of Shiring who opposed Stephen taking the throne, who seeks to help her brother reclaim the earldom while he is enlisted with Stephen's army (under duress) by starting a sheep shearing business located out of Kingsbridge, and catching the eye of young Jack, as well as the lustful eye of William.
It's a lot of characters. Not only that, it's a lot of main characters. It's a lot of main characters who then each have their own distinct storylines. And each of those storylines converge and split apart and converge again over the course of many years. The point I'm trying to make is that it's a BIG story, with enormous depth, and it's obvious that even with 8 hours to tackle it, some parts got rushed or simply glanced over. However, that same large quality gave this miniseries a kind of robustness which made 8 hours feel like it was just the right amount of time to tell the story in.
But what really made Pillars of the Earth so wonderful to me was the acting. Ian McShane is spot on as the cruel and ambitious Waleran. Natalia Worner brings terrifying rage alongside playful affection and a grounded realism as Ellen. Matthew MacFadyen stands out as the proud, and ashamed of it, prior Philip. I could list each actor's name here along with their great accomplishment, but the man who really carries this show is the always brilliant Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder. While he normally plays a villain, and a damn good one at that, Sewell manages to bring one of the most brilliantly subtle performances I've seen recently. As a character Tom is kind of the everyman of the situation, looking only to do his job quietly in the background while the politics of war rage around him. Yet there is also great complexity that Sewell gives him, even in the simplest of moments while he scans the workers or looks up and imagines what these collection of rocks will one day become. There is far more that happens to him which gives even more substance to why I loved his portrayal so, but I'd hate to ruin anything more.
There are a couple moments that feel rushed or awkward/forced (more often than not things that weren't in the original story), and for me Eddie Redmayne as Jack got less interesting the more he talked, but on the whole there is very little bad I can say about this finely tuned work which much like the cathedral at it's center takes a long time to complete, and suffers some blows under its own enormous weight, but at the end shines brightly.
In short, if you're willing to invest the time, Pillars of the Earth will more than pay you back with a rich story, complex characters, and a high production value to back it all up.
Pillars of the Earth (miniseries) gets a 9.5/10.
I am assured by Amanda that the plot of the miniseries is actually quite different in several places, sometimes for no discernible reason, but again, since I haven't read the book I can only remark on what I saw.
Now, first things first, 8 hours is a daunting number. Thankfully, and kudos to the production team for managing it, it never feels long. Each hour is somehow able to at once have the dramatic structure of a TV episode while maintaining the feel of an epically long movie, thanks greatly in part to the wonderful writing, sets, costumes, and high production values that went into this work. Add to that a high caliber cast portraying some wonderfully rich characters in very dramatic situations and you've got a recipe for one of the best miniseries I've seen.
To at least try to sum up what this story is all about, almost all storylines converge on the building of a cathedral over many many years. There's Tom Builder, who first dreams the dream and begins its construction. Ellen, a so called witch who lives in the forest with her adopted son Jack, who wears a strange signet ring and is eventually apprenticed to Tom after they meet when Ellen tries to save Tom's wife as she suffers complications from childbirth in the forest. The overly pious and proud prior Philip who commissions the work. Waleran, a man of the church who is overly ambitious, and after being spurned in his efforts by Philip tries in every way to stop the building of the cathedral. William Hamleigh, an evil bastard (not literally) who besieges the town of Kingsbridge at every turn, mostly at the bidding of his incestuous and slightly blemished mother Regan (different in the book) or Waleran. King Stephen, who having taken the throne under dubious circumstances arbitrates the disputes between Philip and William, often favoring William. Aliena, daughter of the Earl of Shiring who opposed Stephen taking the throne, who seeks to help her brother reclaim the earldom while he is enlisted with Stephen's army (under duress) by starting a sheep shearing business located out of Kingsbridge, and catching the eye of young Jack, as well as the lustful eye of William.
It's a lot of characters. Not only that, it's a lot of main characters. It's a lot of main characters who then each have their own distinct storylines. And each of those storylines converge and split apart and converge again over the course of many years. The point I'm trying to make is that it's a BIG story, with enormous depth, and it's obvious that even with 8 hours to tackle it, some parts got rushed or simply glanced over. However, that same large quality gave this miniseries a kind of robustness which made 8 hours feel like it was just the right amount of time to tell the story in.
But what really made Pillars of the Earth so wonderful to me was the acting. Ian McShane is spot on as the cruel and ambitious Waleran. Natalia Worner brings terrifying rage alongside playful affection and a grounded realism as Ellen. Matthew MacFadyen stands out as the proud, and ashamed of it, prior Philip. I could list each actor's name here along with their great accomplishment, but the man who really carries this show is the always brilliant Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder. While he normally plays a villain, and a damn good one at that, Sewell manages to bring one of the most brilliantly subtle performances I've seen recently. As a character Tom is kind of the everyman of the situation, looking only to do his job quietly in the background while the politics of war rage around him. Yet there is also great complexity that Sewell gives him, even in the simplest of moments while he scans the workers or looks up and imagines what these collection of rocks will one day become. There is far more that happens to him which gives even more substance to why I loved his portrayal so, but I'd hate to ruin anything more.
There are a couple moments that feel rushed or awkward/forced (more often than not things that weren't in the original story), and for me Eddie Redmayne as Jack got less interesting the more he talked, but on the whole there is very little bad I can say about this finely tuned work which much like the cathedral at it's center takes a long time to complete, and suffers some blows under its own enormous weight, but at the end shines brightly.
In short, if you're willing to invest the time, Pillars of the Earth will more than pay you back with a rich story, complex characters, and a high production value to back it all up.
Pillars of the Earth (miniseries) gets a 9.5/10.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Like many others, I've been a fan of the Assassin's Creed series since the first one. It may have been more than tedious, but it was so different in both play style and story that I couldn't help but enjoy it. Then the second one came along and varied up the gameplay nicely, though it still had several issues with freerunning and combat, and the money system seemed a little extraneous. So now Brotherhood comes along, an unforeseen new title inserted into what was originally going to be a trilogy. The best description I've heard explaining this was that they ran out of development time for Rome in Assassin's Creed 2, so they took it out and bloated out the edges to make it complete. Then they took Rome and bloated it up to make a complete game out of it, basically making it Assassin's Creed 2.5. Does that mean it's bad?
Goodness no. Yes, we're still playing as Ezio, who while being a great character can't help but have the same motivations and pretty much the same story as last time. And despite good intentions Rome feels much the same as the other Italian cities, this one is just way bigger and has open countryside incorporated instead of on the outskirts as it was with the others. Oh, and you can now ride a horse through the city, which unfortunately more often presents an inconvenience than a faster method of travel (especially since galloping is restricted to certain memories). But with all that being said, there's a lot of much needed improvements that make Brotherhood what Assassin's Creed 2 should have been.
First up, the story. There are two components here. One is Ezio's story, which revolves around his search for Cesare Borgia, who lays waste to Monterrigioni at the beginning, and the assembling of the assassin order to take him out and restore Rome to its former glory. The plot is unfortunately rather straightforward, with little surprises, but there are still some fun set pieces along the way. They also revived from the first game the ability to replay specific memories, which is much appreciated, especially since they also added challenges to each mission to get full synchronization. The other component is Desmond's story, which keeps getting more and more interesting as the series progresses. In another semi-revived feature from the first game, you can leave the animus at any time (it was in between sequences the first game) to explore the now crumbling ruin of the Monterrigioni mansion and modernized town. Unfortunately there is almost no development during these trips out of the animus. You can check yours and (thanks to a suspicious sender) others' e-mails to keep up to date on what they do when you're under, but most of it is inconsequential bickering or status updates on other assassin teams. There are also some artifacts you can find around town (which you are given 10 minutes to explore at a time since the Templars are looking for you) but I only found one and it appears there isn't much use to finding them all. However, I don't even care. You know why? Those beginning and ending sequences with Desmond are stunning, and tease you with what you can expect for the final installment. In traditional AC style the ending left at a cliffhanger with my jaw firmly on the floor.
Now here's the odd thing about Brotherhood. Most of the meat of this game lies far outside the actual storyline. This game, as a completionist, is both my heaven and my hell. It is my heaven because there is so fucking much to do that even after I have completed the story I've still been playing for a couple hours trying to get 100% completion. There are Borgia towers, which present a challenge where you must first kill a captain and then burn down the tower to reduce Borgia influence in the city, allowing you to renovate buildings like blacksmiths/tailors/doctors/etc. And the shops closest to your base have shop quests where you trade in certain items to get better weapons/armor. There are courtesan, thief, and assassination missions. There are all the assassins you recruit and send off on missions (more on them in a bit). There are 101 borgia flags, 10 feathers, and over 140 treasure chests to collect (and this time chests give items too, meaning there's a reason to open them all now). There are Lairs of Romulus, Brotherhood's assassin tombs equivalent, which once you complete unlock the armor and dagger of Brutus, equivalent to Altair's armor in AC2. There are challenges to complete for each guild, along the line of killing x number of papal guards, escaping pursuit by hiding x number of times, etc. There's a virtual training simulation along the lines of Mirror's Edge where you can race against the clock on freerunning courses or try to get to a 20 kill streak or many other things, each giving you a gold, silver or bronze medal depending on how you do. There are various deadly machines Leonardo Da Vinchi was forced to construct for the enemy that you then must destroy.
And all of that is why it is also my hell, because there's simply TOO much to do. For the casual gamer there's plenty there to simply occupy your attention between missions, but for the completionists like myself who are bothered by that spot on the map that needs to be CLEARED there's simply too much to this game to make it fun after a lengthy period of time. It's all well and good when you've still got a story mission ahead of you, but once those are gone there's still so much left over you're left wishing there were more than 9 sequences to complete, the last two of which are fairly rushed through. Once you're on to sequence 8, it's pretty much a straight road to the end.
But enough complaining, because this is actually a really fun game. So what did they do right?
Combat. Hoo boy is it improved. While in AC2 battles were a matter of blocking, waiting until someone swung at you, counter killing them, and rinsing and repeating, combat has been so amazingly streamlined that you won't even recognize it. The main method of getting through battle is still counter killing, but on top of that you can amass some major kill streaks by pushing the left stick towards your next target in the middle of an execution and then hitting attack, leading to a one hit kill. It's hard to manage since enemies now attack you in the middle of these maneuvers, and even when blocking you still take damage (like in AC1), meaning fights are much more feverish and finish in much faster time than in AC2.
The Brotherhood. Your new cadre of assassins is managed almost perfectly. With a simple push of a button you can summon a recruit to take out a guard in your way or a fleeing target. They pop up out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly once the job's done. Once you have enough assassins you can do this up to three times, or even use all three at once for an arrow storm that eliminates all guards in the area. Each time you use this ability it takes about a minute to recharge, which often isn't a big deal, and it really lets you feel like you've got an army at your beck and call, especially once they're leveled up. To do so you send them on missions throughout the continent to gather experience and sometimes rare items. Of course, sending them off means you can't summon them to help you, so especially at the beginning it's a hard decision of whether to send them off to get more experience or keep them around to help you with the next mission. Thankfully most of the errands you send them on keep them away for 10 minutes or less, but it's still something you have to plan.
Subject 16. He's back, and creepier than ever. It's quickly revealed that the codes you get after solving the glyphs from AC2 are actually coordinates for further puzzle madness in Rome. While the puzzles remain largely the same (pick the 5 pictures that are similar, use a code wheel to decipher a code) the things you listen to and find out, especially from the computer that says "Loading" between each puzzle, are just plain insane. And what's finally revealed at the end takes the surprise and confusion from the previous subject 16 revelation and cranks it up to 11.
Freerunning. In AC2 it could often be hard to navigate the rooftops from one area to another simply due to large gaps between buildings or a lack of things to jump on between them. Those problems have been solved here, though at the expense of horse riding, which is fine by me. While you will still spend a lot of time cursing at Ezio for jumping in slightly the wrong direction and plummeting to his death or severe harm (alleviated by parachutes sometimes), it's quite easy to get from point A to point B most of the time by a combination of horse riding in open areas, freerunning in close quarters, or using waypoints scattered throughout Rome if the distance is really great. It all flows wonderfully, though it certainly helps to have practice, which brings me to...
Virtual Training. Admittedly I haven't done many of these yet besides the short freerunning time trials, but they actually do teach you a lot about how to move in the environment. And that quest for a gold medal makes sure you have those techniques down and can apply them in game. They're varied enough and present enough of a challenge that you can keep going back to them to hone your skills.
The Lairs of Romulus. One of my favorite parts of AC2 were the assassin tombs, and their equivalents in Brotherhood are no less spectacular. Featuring combinations of Prince of Persia like platforming with heated chase sequences all set amongst highly unique backdrops/environments, with the added challenges to get 100% synchronization, these lairs are a joy to run through.
Multiplayer. Boy has a lot changed from the beta. While most elements remain the same, they've tweaked several underlying mechanics to make it much more playable and FUN. Unfortunately Alliance mode (Wanted mode but with teams) falls flat because nobody works together, but Manhunt (teams of 3 or 4 spend 5 minutes as hunters and then 5 minutes as hunted, earning bonuses for staying hidden) is surprisingly entertaining. There are also WAY more abilities and perks to unlock along with different gear and colors for each persona and tons of new maps. Basically everything plays a lot smoother and requires much more strategy than it did in the beta, which is highly welcome.
To sum up, while story-wise Brotherhood does at several points feel like a bloated DLC, they improved and added so much that it easily stands on its own, and in many ways outshines its predecessor.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood gets an 8.5/10.
Goodness no. Yes, we're still playing as Ezio, who while being a great character can't help but have the same motivations and pretty much the same story as last time. And despite good intentions Rome feels much the same as the other Italian cities, this one is just way bigger and has open countryside incorporated instead of on the outskirts as it was with the others. Oh, and you can now ride a horse through the city, which unfortunately more often presents an inconvenience than a faster method of travel (especially since galloping is restricted to certain memories). But with all that being said, there's a lot of much needed improvements that make Brotherhood what Assassin's Creed 2 should have been.
First up, the story. There are two components here. One is Ezio's story, which revolves around his search for Cesare Borgia, who lays waste to Monterrigioni at the beginning, and the assembling of the assassin order to take him out and restore Rome to its former glory. The plot is unfortunately rather straightforward, with little surprises, but there are still some fun set pieces along the way. They also revived from the first game the ability to replay specific memories, which is much appreciated, especially since they also added challenges to each mission to get full synchronization. The other component is Desmond's story, which keeps getting more and more interesting as the series progresses. In another semi-revived feature from the first game, you can leave the animus at any time (it was in between sequences the first game) to explore the now crumbling ruin of the Monterrigioni mansion and modernized town. Unfortunately there is almost no development during these trips out of the animus. You can check yours and (thanks to a suspicious sender) others' e-mails to keep up to date on what they do when you're under, but most of it is inconsequential bickering or status updates on other assassin teams. There are also some artifacts you can find around town (which you are given 10 minutes to explore at a time since the Templars are looking for you) but I only found one and it appears there isn't much use to finding them all. However, I don't even care. You know why? Those beginning and ending sequences with Desmond are stunning, and tease you with what you can expect for the final installment. In traditional AC style the ending left at a cliffhanger with my jaw firmly on the floor.
Now here's the odd thing about Brotherhood. Most of the meat of this game lies far outside the actual storyline. This game, as a completionist, is both my heaven and my hell. It is my heaven because there is so fucking much to do that even after I have completed the story I've still been playing for a couple hours trying to get 100% completion. There are Borgia towers, which present a challenge where you must first kill a captain and then burn down the tower to reduce Borgia influence in the city, allowing you to renovate buildings like blacksmiths/tailors/doctors/etc. And the shops closest to your base have shop quests where you trade in certain items to get better weapons/armor. There are courtesan, thief, and assassination missions. There are all the assassins you recruit and send off on missions (more on them in a bit). There are 101 borgia flags, 10 feathers, and over 140 treasure chests to collect (and this time chests give items too, meaning there's a reason to open them all now). There are Lairs of Romulus, Brotherhood's assassin tombs equivalent, which once you complete unlock the armor and dagger of Brutus, equivalent to Altair's armor in AC2. There are challenges to complete for each guild, along the line of killing x number of papal guards, escaping pursuit by hiding x number of times, etc. There's a virtual training simulation along the lines of Mirror's Edge where you can race against the clock on freerunning courses or try to get to a 20 kill streak or many other things, each giving you a gold, silver or bronze medal depending on how you do. There are various deadly machines Leonardo Da Vinchi was forced to construct for the enemy that you then must destroy.
And all of that is why it is also my hell, because there's simply TOO much to do. For the casual gamer there's plenty there to simply occupy your attention between missions, but for the completionists like myself who are bothered by that spot on the map that needs to be CLEARED there's simply too much to this game to make it fun after a lengthy period of time. It's all well and good when you've still got a story mission ahead of you, but once those are gone there's still so much left over you're left wishing there were more than 9 sequences to complete, the last two of which are fairly rushed through. Once you're on to sequence 8, it's pretty much a straight road to the end.
But enough complaining, because this is actually a really fun game. So what did they do right?
Combat. Hoo boy is it improved. While in AC2 battles were a matter of blocking, waiting until someone swung at you, counter killing them, and rinsing and repeating, combat has been so amazingly streamlined that you won't even recognize it. The main method of getting through battle is still counter killing, but on top of that you can amass some major kill streaks by pushing the left stick towards your next target in the middle of an execution and then hitting attack, leading to a one hit kill. It's hard to manage since enemies now attack you in the middle of these maneuvers, and even when blocking you still take damage (like in AC1), meaning fights are much more feverish and finish in much faster time than in AC2.
The Brotherhood. Your new cadre of assassins is managed almost perfectly. With a simple push of a button you can summon a recruit to take out a guard in your way or a fleeing target. They pop up out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly once the job's done. Once you have enough assassins you can do this up to three times, or even use all three at once for an arrow storm that eliminates all guards in the area. Each time you use this ability it takes about a minute to recharge, which often isn't a big deal, and it really lets you feel like you've got an army at your beck and call, especially once they're leveled up. To do so you send them on missions throughout the continent to gather experience and sometimes rare items. Of course, sending them off means you can't summon them to help you, so especially at the beginning it's a hard decision of whether to send them off to get more experience or keep them around to help you with the next mission. Thankfully most of the errands you send them on keep them away for 10 minutes or less, but it's still something you have to plan.
Subject 16. He's back, and creepier than ever. It's quickly revealed that the codes you get after solving the glyphs from AC2 are actually coordinates for further puzzle madness in Rome. While the puzzles remain largely the same (pick the 5 pictures that are similar, use a code wheel to decipher a code) the things you listen to and find out, especially from the computer that says "Loading" between each puzzle, are just plain insane. And what's finally revealed at the end takes the surprise and confusion from the previous subject 16 revelation and cranks it up to 11.
Freerunning. In AC2 it could often be hard to navigate the rooftops from one area to another simply due to large gaps between buildings or a lack of things to jump on between them. Those problems have been solved here, though at the expense of horse riding, which is fine by me. While you will still spend a lot of time cursing at Ezio for jumping in slightly the wrong direction and plummeting to his death or severe harm (alleviated by parachutes sometimes), it's quite easy to get from point A to point B most of the time by a combination of horse riding in open areas, freerunning in close quarters, or using waypoints scattered throughout Rome if the distance is really great. It all flows wonderfully, though it certainly helps to have practice, which brings me to...
Virtual Training. Admittedly I haven't done many of these yet besides the short freerunning time trials, but they actually do teach you a lot about how to move in the environment. And that quest for a gold medal makes sure you have those techniques down and can apply them in game. They're varied enough and present enough of a challenge that you can keep going back to them to hone your skills.
The Lairs of Romulus. One of my favorite parts of AC2 were the assassin tombs, and their equivalents in Brotherhood are no less spectacular. Featuring combinations of Prince of Persia like platforming with heated chase sequences all set amongst highly unique backdrops/environments, with the added challenges to get 100% synchronization, these lairs are a joy to run through.
Multiplayer. Boy has a lot changed from the beta. While most elements remain the same, they've tweaked several underlying mechanics to make it much more playable and FUN. Unfortunately Alliance mode (Wanted mode but with teams) falls flat because nobody works together, but Manhunt (teams of 3 or 4 spend 5 minutes as hunters and then 5 minutes as hunted, earning bonuses for staying hidden) is surprisingly entertaining. There are also WAY more abilities and perks to unlock along with different gear and colors for each persona and tons of new maps. Basically everything plays a lot smoother and requires much more strategy than it did in the beta, which is highly welcome.
To sum up, while story-wise Brotherhood does at several points feel like a bloated DLC, they improved and added so much that it easily stands on its own, and in many ways outshines its predecessor.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood gets an 8.5/10.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wittenburg
Running in rep with Hamlet comes a play about Hamlet's time in school at Wittenburg, before the events of Hamlet take place. His instruction comes from two teachers who actually might have been there around that time, Martin Luther and Dr. Faustus. Luther, a priest who is dissatisfied with the church and the giving of indulgences, teaches Hamlet about God's path while Dr. Faustus, a medical practitioner and devout questioner of all things biblical, tries to lead Hamlet down the path of skepticism and philosophy.
The play is absolutely littered with quotes and semi-quotes from Hamlet, all twisted for humorous effect. In a brilliant move, the only people who actually speak in Shakespearean dialect are people from Denmark. Everyone else talks normally and kind of puts up with Hamlet's weird way of talking. It also leads to some absolutely hilarious moments such as the tennis match between Hamlet and an offstage Laertes, who every time he loses a point shouts something along the lines of "Thou hast got to be kidding me!" or "'Swounds! 'Sblood! 'Snails!" and ending with "'Sballs!" (Shakespeare used 'S as a contraction of "God's" for those who don't know). Oh, and during it all, Hamlet is high, and Connor Toms who plays him is to be well commended for being able to mime almost perfectly hitting an invisible ball matched with a prerecorded sound cue.
But don't be mistaken in thinking this is all about Hamlet. In fact, it was rather obvious that while the overall structure of the play dealt with some overarching themes in Hamlet like purgatory (absent, as far as I could tell, in the other Hamlet oddly enough), the source of Hamlet's ambivalence and his fear of dreams, the real purpose of this show was to have the discussion between Luther and Faustus. Between God and not God essentially. And have no doubt, the author liked Faustus much more. Both present their cases equally well, but the character of Faustus was just so damn funny and likable, and he got all of the good jokes and scenes, that there was no question who the star of the show was.
Yet despite the bias there's some solid philosophy sitting under this play. Unfortunately it's the kind of philosophy that doesn't quite make sense in one sitting, but you get the sense that were you to study it you'd be blown away. And the nice thing about this play is that even if you don't necessarily understand the main point being delivered, there's plenty of funny bits to keep it entertaining. Some of the humor was surprisingly, and to its detriment, low brow (namely a poop joke that occupies the beginning of the play), but for the most part it all hits the mark, and the actors had wonderful comedic timing to make it work.
Overall Wittenburg was a play I enjoyed, though much more would rather sit down and read through and study to get the most out of it that I could. Watching it, it became fairly apparent that this was a new play, and needed some more editing to really make it great, but what's there is still a fun mash up of religion, philosophy, comedy, and Shakespeare.
Wittenburg gets an 8/10.
The play is absolutely littered with quotes and semi-quotes from Hamlet, all twisted for humorous effect. In a brilliant move, the only people who actually speak in Shakespearean dialect are people from Denmark. Everyone else talks normally and kind of puts up with Hamlet's weird way of talking. It also leads to some absolutely hilarious moments such as the tennis match between Hamlet and an offstage Laertes, who every time he loses a point shouts something along the lines of "Thou hast got to be kidding me!" or "'Swounds! 'Sblood! 'Snails!" and ending with "'Sballs!" (Shakespeare used 'S as a contraction of "God's" for those who don't know). Oh, and during it all, Hamlet is high, and Connor Toms who plays him is to be well commended for being able to mime almost perfectly hitting an invisible ball matched with a prerecorded sound cue.
But don't be mistaken in thinking this is all about Hamlet. In fact, it was rather obvious that while the overall structure of the play dealt with some overarching themes in Hamlet like purgatory (absent, as far as I could tell, in the other Hamlet oddly enough), the source of Hamlet's ambivalence and his fear of dreams, the real purpose of this show was to have the discussion between Luther and Faustus. Between God and not God essentially. And have no doubt, the author liked Faustus much more. Both present their cases equally well, but the character of Faustus was just so damn funny and likable, and he got all of the good jokes and scenes, that there was no question who the star of the show was.
Yet despite the bias there's some solid philosophy sitting under this play. Unfortunately it's the kind of philosophy that doesn't quite make sense in one sitting, but you get the sense that were you to study it you'd be blown away. And the nice thing about this play is that even if you don't necessarily understand the main point being delivered, there's plenty of funny bits to keep it entertaining. Some of the humor was surprisingly, and to its detriment, low brow (namely a poop joke that occupies the beginning of the play), but for the most part it all hits the mark, and the actors had wonderful comedic timing to make it work.
Overall Wittenburg was a play I enjoyed, though much more would rather sit down and read through and study to get the most out of it that I could. Watching it, it became fairly apparent that this was a new play, and needed some more editing to really make it great, but what's there is still a fun mash up of religion, philosophy, comedy, and Shakespeare.
Wittenburg gets an 8/10.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Hoo boy have I been lax in keeping up writing reviews. So the long process of getting up to date begins with a big one: Harry Potter. But before getting to the actual movie review I feel I need to expound upon some things leading up to it.
In prep for seeing it, as many others did I'm sure, I not only read all the books once again but went back and watched all the other movies too (over a course of several weeks) to get a better sense on what the movies had missed, how the movies themselves had developed between directors, and what could be expected from this first step towards the final movie. I remember in watching Half Blood Prince the first time how wonderfully surprised I had been at how good it was, though I realized that there had been several plot lines left out that would pose a problem going into Deathly Hallows. Then I reread the book...and watched the movie again. It was then I realized...they fucked themselves over royally.
So how were they going to fix it? How could they possibly talk about horcruxes without any mention of Voldemort's past? What were they going to do about the Burrow being burned down? What about Dumbledore's funeral and his casket? The answer? A combination of ignoring what has come before/pretending it never happened and assuming that if you're watching the Deathly Hallows, you've read the book. Unfortunately, along with this comes several important pieces (namely the mirror shard) that were missing in previous movies and for some reason are never explained in this one. Basically, more than any of the other movies if you haven't read the book, you're going to be lost. And if you haven't read the book in a long time, you still might get lost. However, despite this, it was probably the best thing they could've done. Because then instead of spending valuable time trying to explain the things they messed up, they just move past it as a way of saying "sorry", and then proceed to follow the book more closely than any previous installment.
And that's why Deathly Hallows shines above the rest. Reading through the book, I was actually kinda sad because I realized that out of all of them, Deathly Hallows is really one of the only ones that doesn't need two movies. There are very few big set pieces, with most of it being the trio roaming the countryside trying to figure out what in the hell to do. That being said, I am glad they decided to split it up, mostly for the director and screenwriters' sake, who you can tell were finally allowed to breathe and take some time telling this story instead of hurrying through and trying to choose what should be important. With this breathing room, not only did they get to really get the most out of the big moments like the first battle but they also got to focus on the relationship of the trio and how they've grown up and matured after all these years together.
Yet despite all the good, there are still some awkward moments (Ginny is bland as always, poor Daniel Radcliffe is awkward kissing anyone), and despite following the book so closely, they have still somehow managed to avoid the number one most important thing about the horcruxes, namely why Voldemort chose them, which helps the trio figure out where to find them. The movie also ends rather abruptly, which is expected given it's only technically half a movie. It feels like the intermission between discs 1 and 2 of a Lord of the Rings movie. The first part ends at a good/important stopping point, we switch discs, and then keep going. Only problem is we have to wait 8 months before we can move on. Oh well.
All in all it's a wonderful start to the end, and I can't wait to see how they do choose to finally bring things to a close.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 gets a 9/10.
In prep for seeing it, as many others did I'm sure, I not only read all the books once again but went back and watched all the other movies too (over a course of several weeks) to get a better sense on what the movies had missed, how the movies themselves had developed between directors, and what could be expected from this first step towards the final movie. I remember in watching Half Blood Prince the first time how wonderfully surprised I had been at how good it was, though I realized that there had been several plot lines left out that would pose a problem going into Deathly Hallows. Then I reread the book...and watched the movie again. It was then I realized...they fucked themselves over royally.
So how were they going to fix it? How could they possibly talk about horcruxes without any mention of Voldemort's past? What were they going to do about the Burrow being burned down? What about Dumbledore's funeral and his casket? The answer? A combination of ignoring what has come before/pretending it never happened and assuming that if you're watching the Deathly Hallows, you've read the book. Unfortunately, along with this comes several important pieces (namely the mirror shard) that were missing in previous movies and for some reason are never explained in this one. Basically, more than any of the other movies if you haven't read the book, you're going to be lost. And if you haven't read the book in a long time, you still might get lost. However, despite this, it was probably the best thing they could've done. Because then instead of spending valuable time trying to explain the things they messed up, they just move past it as a way of saying "sorry", and then proceed to follow the book more closely than any previous installment.
And that's why Deathly Hallows shines above the rest. Reading through the book, I was actually kinda sad because I realized that out of all of them, Deathly Hallows is really one of the only ones that doesn't need two movies. There are very few big set pieces, with most of it being the trio roaming the countryside trying to figure out what in the hell to do. That being said, I am glad they decided to split it up, mostly for the director and screenwriters' sake, who you can tell were finally allowed to breathe and take some time telling this story instead of hurrying through and trying to choose what should be important. With this breathing room, not only did they get to really get the most out of the big moments like the first battle but they also got to focus on the relationship of the trio and how they've grown up and matured after all these years together.
Yet despite all the good, there are still some awkward moments (Ginny is bland as always, poor Daniel Radcliffe is awkward kissing anyone), and despite following the book so closely, they have still somehow managed to avoid the number one most important thing about the horcruxes, namely why Voldemort chose them, which helps the trio figure out where to find them. The movie also ends rather abruptly, which is expected given it's only technically half a movie. It feels like the intermission between discs 1 and 2 of a Lord of the Rings movie. The first part ends at a good/important stopping point, we switch discs, and then keep going. Only problem is we have to wait 8 months before we can move on. Oh well.
All in all it's a wonderful start to the end, and I can't wait to see how they do choose to finally bring things to a close.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 gets a 9/10.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Hamlet
For several years now it's been a great pleasure to be a subscriber to Seattle Shakespeare Company. They always present an interesting season, mixing Shakespeare with a sprinkling of modern or classical works like Turn of the Screw or, this season, the Threepenny Opera. And while the quality of the plays they produce can vary from completely lackluster (last year's disappointing Henry V) to the mediocre (Two Gents) to the surprisingly amazing (Electra) all within the same season, they nonetheless never fail on their unspoken promise to deliver shows with something different to them. Whether it be in concept, costume, or setting, there's always at least something that sets them apart from your run of the mill Shakespeare.
Now, last season was supposed to see the return of director John Langs after his very popular production two years ago of Merchant of Venice (and King Lear before that...we'll ignore his ill advised Romeo and Juliet). However, due to unforeseen circumstances he wasn't able to do it, but instead of scrapping it completely they simply delayed the production until this year, their 20th season (and also opened the way for Electra to be shown). And boy was it worth the wait.
If you follow the Seattle theater scene or simply happened to chance upon any reviews for this show, you'd see reviewers calling this one of the best Hamlets they've seen and even going so far as to call Darragh Kennan's performance "the performance by which all other performances of Hamlet will now be judged" (seattle.broadwayworld.com). And seeing all of these unabashedly glowing reviews you might, as I was, be a little suspicious. I am here to tell you...don't be. So just for emphasis, before I even begin to summarize anything...
Seattle Shakespeare Company, John Langs, and the entire cast have produced the best Hamlet I have ever seen, and likely ever will see for many many years to come. Never before have I experienced a play like this. Never before have I wanted so badly to go right back inside and watch it again. Never before have I payed the rather large price of $22 a ticket to go back just to see it one more time. Never before have I been so incensed that Seattle Shakespeare doesn't sell videos of their performances so I could watch it over and over again and get something new from it each time. Never before have 3.5 hours gone by without me noticing or caring. And never before have I been so enthusiastic that EVERY SINGLE PERSON MUST SEE THIS PLAY. You have until December 5th. Do not hesitate. Pay the money, and enjoy the show of a lifetime.
With all that said, I almost don't want to write anything about this production until it's over, just to make sure that every single moment was as refreshing and original for you as it was for me. To those who know nothing about Hamlet, this is easily the most decipherable production I've seen. To those who are intimately familiar with all the different interpretations and theories strewn throughout the text like myself, be prepared to rediscover this play in a completely new and wholly welcome way. After seeing it, the only problems I had with it were purely theoretical in nature. It was such a perfect production that I just wished they had tackled more of the themes hidden in the text that I love to make it even more perfect, which is of course practically impossible until I direct it myself, and even then I could only dream of achieving half as good a production as what has been put before me.
Normally in any production there's at least one weak link, whether it be supporting cast, set, lighting, costuming, sound, direction or the main actors themselves. In this rarest of shows, there is no weak link. Every single character, even if they have one line in all of 3.5 hours, is solid. The set is stunning and can't help but be marveled at. The sound design is sparse, but it provides tugs at the emotions, whether to suspense or sadness, at all the right moments. The lighting provides some amazing opportunities with shadows and wonderfully juxtaposes complete darkness with complete light. The costumes are simple, but very well crafted, with each character sporting variations on black and/or white depending on a symbology that I couldn't quite decipher, but couldn't wait to sink my teeth into for deeper analysis upon seeing it again. And the direction...Before this production I recognized Langs' vision in Lear but put it mainly down to just plain good acting and design working together. In Merchant, I saw more clearly the hand of a confident man with a solid understanding of where he wanted the play to go and of the actors he had to support it. In Hamlet, his touch is undeniable and reveals a true visionary who balances perfectly a deep dedication to the source material while still incorporating his own very fresh take on a play that many consider great but well overdone. He is able to takes speeches and scenes that have been performed and spoken thousands of times before, and bring a completely new twist to them. Of course the actors he has to express that vision were especially amazing (Kennan really is the Hamlet by which all future Hamlets will be judged), and he probably couldn't have done what he did without them, but for the first time I really see as an audience member that John Langs is one powerful director, and I can't wait to see what he comes out with next.
For a full breakdown, you'll have to wait until December 5th. Until then, go see it if you can. If you're out of town, drive or fly back here and see it. If you don't have the money, beg borrow or steal to get it. This production is not to be missed.
Hamlet gets an 11/10.
It's that good.
Now, last season was supposed to see the return of director John Langs after his very popular production two years ago of Merchant of Venice (and King Lear before that...we'll ignore his ill advised Romeo and Juliet). However, due to unforeseen circumstances he wasn't able to do it, but instead of scrapping it completely they simply delayed the production until this year, their 20th season (and also opened the way for Electra to be shown). And boy was it worth the wait.
If you follow the Seattle theater scene or simply happened to chance upon any reviews for this show, you'd see reviewers calling this one of the best Hamlets they've seen and even going so far as to call Darragh Kennan's performance "the performance by which all other performances of Hamlet will now be judged" (seattle.broadwayworld.com). And seeing all of these unabashedly glowing reviews you might, as I was, be a little suspicious. I am here to tell you...don't be. So just for emphasis, before I even begin to summarize anything...
Seattle Shakespeare Company, John Langs, and the entire cast have produced the best Hamlet I have ever seen, and likely ever will see for many many years to come. Never before have I experienced a play like this. Never before have I wanted so badly to go right back inside and watch it again. Never before have I payed the rather large price of $22 a ticket to go back just to see it one more time. Never before have I been so incensed that Seattle Shakespeare doesn't sell videos of their performances so I could watch it over and over again and get something new from it each time. Never before have 3.5 hours gone by without me noticing or caring. And never before have I been so enthusiastic that EVERY SINGLE PERSON MUST SEE THIS PLAY. You have until December 5th. Do not hesitate. Pay the money, and enjoy the show of a lifetime.
With all that said, I almost don't want to write anything about this production until it's over, just to make sure that every single moment was as refreshing and original for you as it was for me. To those who know nothing about Hamlet, this is easily the most decipherable production I've seen. To those who are intimately familiar with all the different interpretations and theories strewn throughout the text like myself, be prepared to rediscover this play in a completely new and wholly welcome way. After seeing it, the only problems I had with it were purely theoretical in nature. It was such a perfect production that I just wished they had tackled more of the themes hidden in the text that I love to make it even more perfect, which is of course practically impossible until I direct it myself, and even then I could only dream of achieving half as good a production as what has been put before me.
Normally in any production there's at least one weak link, whether it be supporting cast, set, lighting, costuming, sound, direction or the main actors themselves. In this rarest of shows, there is no weak link. Every single character, even if they have one line in all of 3.5 hours, is solid. The set is stunning and can't help but be marveled at. The sound design is sparse, but it provides tugs at the emotions, whether to suspense or sadness, at all the right moments. The lighting provides some amazing opportunities with shadows and wonderfully juxtaposes complete darkness with complete light. The costumes are simple, but very well crafted, with each character sporting variations on black and/or white depending on a symbology that I couldn't quite decipher, but couldn't wait to sink my teeth into for deeper analysis upon seeing it again. And the direction...Before this production I recognized Langs' vision in Lear but put it mainly down to just plain good acting and design working together. In Merchant, I saw more clearly the hand of a confident man with a solid understanding of where he wanted the play to go and of the actors he had to support it. In Hamlet, his touch is undeniable and reveals a true visionary who balances perfectly a deep dedication to the source material while still incorporating his own very fresh take on a play that many consider great but well overdone. He is able to takes speeches and scenes that have been performed and spoken thousands of times before, and bring a completely new twist to them. Of course the actors he has to express that vision were especially amazing (Kennan really is the Hamlet by which all future Hamlets will be judged), and he probably couldn't have done what he did without them, but for the first time I really see as an audience member that John Langs is one powerful director, and I can't wait to see what he comes out with next.
For a full breakdown, you'll have to wait until December 5th. Until then, go see it if you can. If you're out of town, drive or fly back here and see it. If you don't have the money, beg borrow or steal to get it. This production is not to be missed.
Hamlet gets an 11/10.
It's that good.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tractor Beams
I haven't done a science-related post on here in forever, but this deserves notice. We're one step closer to Star Trek people. Tractor beams, though still on a somewhat small scale, officially exist now. Scientists have been able to, through a series of lasers, move a glass bead 5 feet, and they say they can move farther. It unfortunately doesn't work in a vacuum, so no being beamed up into space quite yet, but still, it's one step closer to the future.
Full article here: http://io9.com/5634323/major-breakthrough-in-tractor-beam-technology
Full article here: http://io9.com/5634323/major-breakthrough-in-tractor-beam-technology
Red Dead Redemption revisited
So completing this game took much less time than I thought it would. I was basing my sense of how long it would take based on how many hidden story trophies were left, and assumed that they'd all take the same amount of time as it did to get from the beginning of the game to Mexico. However, in short order I started finding these trophies dropping after just one mission, which I have to say was a little disappointing but oh well.
Since I already covered most of the core of the game previously, there's only one thing I want to focus on for this follow-up: the story. I won't be posting any spoilers here on the off chance that you might accidentally read them. If you haven't played this game yet, go and get it right now and play through it all. If you don't think you'll ever play it so spoilers don't matter, I will come over to your house and make you play it. It's that important.
Red Dead Redemption has not only crafted one of the best games ever made in terms of story, but one of the best endings to a game ever made as well. And not just the very end, but the entire experience from when it feels like the main story would've normally ended in any other game to the final actual end. It's a finely tuned masterpiece that pulls all the right strings and makes the entire journey you've been on really hit home. I can't say any more than that, but it was an experience I won't soon forget. It's a long road there, but well worth the ride.
Oh, and to all the boars, cougars and bears of the world: FUCK YOU. In RDR they have a tendency to sneak up on you and knock you over, leaving you a mere second or two after you get up to pull out your gun, go into dead eye, and take them down. If they don't attack you twice in the same charge and kill you. I swear to god there was one point where even when checking my back I went through the same sequence with three or four boars in a row. Damn them.
In any case, while the somewhat slower pace of the game (especially when taking time for side quests or completing challenges) can take some getting used to, you realize by the end that it couldn't, or shouldn't, have been any other way. Red Dead Redemption has provided one of the best gaming experiences ever created in its expansive and compelling story, its finely tuned combat and weapons, its distinctive and beautiful environments, its quirky and fascinating characters, and its sheer volume of both interesting and challenging tasks for wanderers and completionists like myself. And I haven't even played multiplayer yet. Or the just released Undead Nightmare expansion which looks quite fun despite completely breaking the setting. You fight zombies, what else matters? On top of that, Rockstar has created a Social Club which posts challenges I believe every week or so that unlock special things in game if you complete them, providing yet another reason to keep coming back to New Austin. Basically, despite having finished the story it looks as though I'll be playing RDR for a good long time.
Red Dead Redemption gets a 10/10.
Since I already covered most of the core of the game previously, there's only one thing I want to focus on for this follow-up: the story. I won't be posting any spoilers here on the off chance that you might accidentally read them. If you haven't played this game yet, go and get it right now and play through it all. If you don't think you'll ever play it so spoilers don't matter, I will come over to your house and make you play it. It's that important.
Red Dead Redemption has not only crafted one of the best games ever made in terms of story, but one of the best endings to a game ever made as well. And not just the very end, but the entire experience from when it feels like the main story would've normally ended in any other game to the final actual end. It's a finely tuned masterpiece that pulls all the right strings and makes the entire journey you've been on really hit home. I can't say any more than that, but it was an experience I won't soon forget. It's a long road there, but well worth the ride.
Oh, and to all the boars, cougars and bears of the world: FUCK YOU. In RDR they have a tendency to sneak up on you and knock you over, leaving you a mere second or two after you get up to pull out your gun, go into dead eye, and take them down. If they don't attack you twice in the same charge and kill you. I swear to god there was one point where even when checking my back I went through the same sequence with three or four boars in a row. Damn them.
In any case, while the somewhat slower pace of the game (especially when taking time for side quests or completing challenges) can take some getting used to, you realize by the end that it couldn't, or shouldn't, have been any other way. Red Dead Redemption has provided one of the best gaming experiences ever created in its expansive and compelling story, its finely tuned combat and weapons, its distinctive and beautiful environments, its quirky and fascinating characters, and its sheer volume of both interesting and challenging tasks for wanderers and completionists like myself. And I haven't even played multiplayer yet. Or the just released Undead Nightmare expansion which looks quite fun despite completely breaking the setting. You fight zombies, what else matters? On top of that, Rockstar has created a Social Club which posts challenges I believe every week or so that unlock special things in game if you complete them, providing yet another reason to keep coming back to New Austin. Basically, despite having finished the story it looks as though I'll be playing RDR for a good long time.
Red Dead Redemption gets a 10/10.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Darksiders
Darksiders has a little bit of a problem. See, the main idea of the game is that you play as the God of War....wait, sorry, the Horseman War, who has been called down to Earth at the beginning of the apocalypse only to find heaven and hell duking it out and some angel saying the seventh seal wasn't broken, and thus War shouldn't be there, also evidenced by the fact that none of the other horsemen show up. War consequently is stripped of all his powers by a bunch of stone faces that talk and seem to rule the horsemen, is killed by a demon, resurrected, and then sent to perform various tasks for various demons in exchange for getting his powers back and slowly moving closer and closer to confronting the demon who killed him.
At the very least it's an interesting premise with some promise of creativity behind it. Unfortunately Darksiders then decides to take some of the best games out there and replicate them almost exactly. Namely: God of War, Legend of Zelda, and Portal. Yes, I said Portal. Sword and scythe combat feels very much like God of War or other hack and slash adventures, you get a glaive which works as a combination of Dark Sector and Link's boomerang (allowing you to imbue it with flame if you send it through a torch first), a hookshot, and you can make portals which are either red or blue depending on which you shot first (instead of being able to shoot them independently, a blue portal turns red after the second one is formed). Add on top of that typical Zelda boss fights mixed with enemies only getting a different look and more powerful as you go on (with some welcome fresh faces every so often) and you've got a game that feels recycled instead of fresh, and not even just a good combination of everything it borrows from. It borrows so heavily from each that it ends up not being as fun as any of them.
Possibly the best part of Darksiders, though, is the story, but not for why you might think. Everything is so gleefully complicated, the dialogue so preposterously cheesy, and add to that that for no apparent reason every single time a character mentions a name or something the creators deemed special they would highlight the subtitle text in a glowing blue. Put it all together and you end up laughing through most every cutscene. It's all just so ridiculous I eventually stopped paying attention except when told to go here and kill this guy. Why? Because he's EVIL that's why. Now DO IT. Another wonderful addition is this shadowy creature that's tied to your arm who follows you around making sure you do the will of the stone faces. The best thing about him? It's Mark fucking Hamill in top Joker form. I don't even care that it's basically the same voice as the Joker. It's awesome, and hilarious, and it made me smile.
But now back to your regularly scheduled review.
One thing I can say for Darksiders is that the different environments and set pieces you encounter are very well designed both from a cosmetic and gameplay standpoint. You go from wrecked city to jungle to mostly submerged area to subterranean sewers to a spider lair and so on. Each area is very distinct and easy to get back to should you need to return (which you will) to blast open blocked areas with new weapons. The weapons themselves are also fun to play around with, though I found myself mostly just using the sword, but they keep getting more fun as you upgrade them, which is nice.
As for the puzzles you encounter in these areas, or the areas themselves (which are basically like temples in Zelda)...some are legitimately good and require the use of multiple weapons/tools along with some intellect to get to the end of them. However, a great deal are on par with God of War's simplistic designs and require more time and effort than is worth it, even when it's clear as day what you have to do. The haphazard move train from point A to point B by switching rails and a bunch of lever pulling puzzle is a good example of this.
Also, for those trophy hunters like myself, some of the trophies are simply insane or require a great deal of backtracking and grinding to get. The best example is the infamous Dark Rider trophy, where you have to ride 100 miles on your horse. To give you an idea of how ridiculous this is, there are only about 3 places in the game where you can ride your horse, and only one of those for great distances. Then factor in just exactly how fast the horse goes (~50mph), and you quickly see that there is no way to get this trophy in a simple playthrough. Not only that, but unless you ride your horse every god damn time you can, it can take up to 2 hours of running in circles to get it. Prepare your favorite method of keeping that analog stick in place and go watch a movie, that is honestly the best way to do it, and secures it as one of the most pointless things to ever include as an "achievement".
At this point I also have to address a big issue. The controls. Most of the game plays absolutely fine and you don't need to worry about anything but square to slash, triangle for alternate weapon, x to jump, and circle to open chests or grab enemies. However, a surprising amount of trouble comes from just one button: R1. You see, some wise guy who designed this game thought it would be a good idea to assign both block and dash to the same button, and then make certain combos reliant on doing one or the other, along with making many of the enemies you face require constant movement to stay alive. I barely blocked the entire game. Not because I didn't want to, but because every time I tried, if I was moving even slightly, I dashed instead. If you're already blocking and you nudge the movement stick, you dash. In some tight combat situations, especially against enemies whom the best strategy against was to block, it becomes a very frustrating issue that caused me more than one game over screen. The targeting system, especially in what is basically first person mode, is also pretty terrible. It's nearly impossible to use in combat, as evidenced by 3 particularly frustrating boss fights trying to use the equivalent of the portal gun, as well as the fact that it highly reduces both movement and view of the battlefield, which becomes highly important when fighting more than one monster. Even when fighting one on one targeting usually just gets in the way.
In any case, as much as I've ragged on it Darksiders is still a fairly fun game to play. The lack of innovation and complexity really gets in its way, but it's still hard to go wrong with all the components that it has borrowed. They may not be as good as their originals, but they're still good. When it really gets flowing the combat is intense, gory, and fun, and when they require some thought the puzzles/temples are quite satisfying in their completion. It's just when the structure of the game gets in its own way that things become tedious and not as fun. Trying to remember which areas had blocked off parts that could only be accessed by the newest weapon you just got gets tiring when you have to do it for 3 different ones. Enemies are recycled and buffed up as you progress so you end up fighting a combination of bats, grunts, armored grunts, or big beasts at pretty much every point in the game. Bosses are a simple matter of finding a way to get to a weak point, smashing the weak point until it stops you, repeat way to get to weak point, smash, etc. Yet somehow, despite all this, I had a good time with it. I think as long as you don't take too serious a look and jump in and just have a good time, Darksiders can be quite rewarding as an action game. Look deeper though, or try to go for everything littered about the world, and you'll get bogged down.
Darksiders gets a 7/10.
At the very least it's an interesting premise with some promise of creativity behind it. Unfortunately Darksiders then decides to take some of the best games out there and replicate them almost exactly. Namely: God of War, Legend of Zelda, and Portal. Yes, I said Portal. Sword and scythe combat feels very much like God of War or other hack and slash adventures, you get a glaive which works as a combination of Dark Sector and Link's boomerang (allowing you to imbue it with flame if you send it through a torch first), a hookshot, and you can make portals which are either red or blue depending on which you shot first (instead of being able to shoot them independently, a blue portal turns red after the second one is formed). Add on top of that typical Zelda boss fights mixed with enemies only getting a different look and more powerful as you go on (with some welcome fresh faces every so often) and you've got a game that feels recycled instead of fresh, and not even just a good combination of everything it borrows from. It borrows so heavily from each that it ends up not being as fun as any of them.
Possibly the best part of Darksiders, though, is the story, but not for why you might think. Everything is so gleefully complicated, the dialogue so preposterously cheesy, and add to that that for no apparent reason every single time a character mentions a name or something the creators deemed special they would highlight the subtitle text in a glowing blue. Put it all together and you end up laughing through most every cutscene. It's all just so ridiculous I eventually stopped paying attention except when told to go here and kill this guy. Why? Because he's EVIL that's why. Now DO IT. Another wonderful addition is this shadowy creature that's tied to your arm who follows you around making sure you do the will of the stone faces. The best thing about him? It's Mark fucking Hamill in top Joker form. I don't even care that it's basically the same voice as the Joker. It's awesome, and hilarious, and it made me smile.
But now back to your regularly scheduled review.
One thing I can say for Darksiders is that the different environments and set pieces you encounter are very well designed both from a cosmetic and gameplay standpoint. You go from wrecked city to jungle to mostly submerged area to subterranean sewers to a spider lair and so on. Each area is very distinct and easy to get back to should you need to return (which you will) to blast open blocked areas with new weapons. The weapons themselves are also fun to play around with, though I found myself mostly just using the sword, but they keep getting more fun as you upgrade them, which is nice.
As for the puzzles you encounter in these areas, or the areas themselves (which are basically like temples in Zelda)...some are legitimately good and require the use of multiple weapons/tools along with some intellect to get to the end of them. However, a great deal are on par with God of War's simplistic designs and require more time and effort than is worth it, even when it's clear as day what you have to do. The haphazard move train from point A to point B by switching rails and a bunch of lever pulling puzzle is a good example of this.
Also, for those trophy hunters like myself, some of the trophies are simply insane or require a great deal of backtracking and grinding to get. The best example is the infamous Dark Rider trophy, where you have to ride 100 miles on your horse. To give you an idea of how ridiculous this is, there are only about 3 places in the game where you can ride your horse, and only one of those for great distances. Then factor in just exactly how fast the horse goes (~50mph), and you quickly see that there is no way to get this trophy in a simple playthrough. Not only that, but unless you ride your horse every god damn time you can, it can take up to 2 hours of running in circles to get it. Prepare your favorite method of keeping that analog stick in place and go watch a movie, that is honestly the best way to do it, and secures it as one of the most pointless things to ever include as an "achievement".
At this point I also have to address a big issue. The controls. Most of the game plays absolutely fine and you don't need to worry about anything but square to slash, triangle for alternate weapon, x to jump, and circle to open chests or grab enemies. However, a surprising amount of trouble comes from just one button: R1. You see, some wise guy who designed this game thought it would be a good idea to assign both block and dash to the same button, and then make certain combos reliant on doing one or the other, along with making many of the enemies you face require constant movement to stay alive. I barely blocked the entire game. Not because I didn't want to, but because every time I tried, if I was moving even slightly, I dashed instead. If you're already blocking and you nudge the movement stick, you dash. In some tight combat situations, especially against enemies whom the best strategy against was to block, it becomes a very frustrating issue that caused me more than one game over screen. The targeting system, especially in what is basically first person mode, is also pretty terrible. It's nearly impossible to use in combat, as evidenced by 3 particularly frustrating boss fights trying to use the equivalent of the portal gun, as well as the fact that it highly reduces both movement and view of the battlefield, which becomes highly important when fighting more than one monster. Even when fighting one on one targeting usually just gets in the way.
In any case, as much as I've ragged on it Darksiders is still a fairly fun game to play. The lack of innovation and complexity really gets in its way, but it's still hard to go wrong with all the components that it has borrowed. They may not be as good as their originals, but they're still good. When it really gets flowing the combat is intense, gory, and fun, and when they require some thought the puzzles/temples are quite satisfying in their completion. It's just when the structure of the game gets in its own way that things become tedious and not as fun. Trying to remember which areas had blocked off parts that could only be accessed by the newest weapon you just got gets tiring when you have to do it for 3 different ones. Enemies are recycled and buffed up as you progress so you end up fighting a combination of bats, grunts, armored grunts, or big beasts at pretty much every point in the game. Bosses are a simple matter of finding a way to get to a weak point, smashing the weak point until it stops you, repeat way to get to weak point, smash, etc. Yet somehow, despite all this, I had a good time with it. I think as long as you don't take too serious a look and jump in and just have a good time, Darksiders can be quite rewarding as an action game. Look deeper though, or try to go for everything littered about the world, and you'll get bogged down.
Darksiders gets a 7/10.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Get Him To The Greek
I have to say that I was quite surprised watching Get Him To The Greek. All I knew about the movie beforehand was that it was an indirect sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with Russel Brand reprising his role of the rock star Aldous Snow and Jonah Hill playing a music industry guy trying to get him to a big performance at the Greek theater while much hilarity ensued. Since it was from the same team as Sarah Marshall I figured it would be a lot of light-hearted comedy with some grossness thrown in there. Instead I got about half that, and half Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And you know what? It really worked.
Snow, who in Sarah Marshall was a sober yoga machine trying out monogamy, is now with an equally famous songstress wife and has a child with her. However, after releasing an incredibly racist track called "African Child", his career immediately spirals down, his wife leaves him and gets custody, and he returns to his rock and roll drug-ridden debauchery.
Meanwhile, a record company owned by a guy named Sergio (played hilariously by P. Diddy) is losing money, and he needs some new ideas to start raking in the dough again. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a fan of Aldous Snow, who suggests that they hold a concert for the 10 year anniversary of Snow's most famous concert at the Greek theater. Snow agrees to it, and Aaron then has to get Snow from London to the Today show to make the announcement, and then to the show itself.
Aaron's prudence doesn't last long against Snow's complete disregard for everything besides living like a rock star, and is soon sucked into his trippy and seemingly carefree but really quite depressing life while still trying to remain on good terms with his girlfriend back home. Yes, they get into some quite hilarious situations, but the surprising thing about this film was just how deep they reached with the seriousness of Snow's addiction and how much drugs ruined both his life and everyone else's around him. Brand seems to have been born for this part, and Hill surprised me by finally giving us a character that isn't the same as all the other parts he's played (though admittedly it wasn't dramatically different). But it was that serious tone that really set this movie apart from the typical Apatow fodder.
It's kind of easy to see where this movie's going to end right from the beginning, but eventually the plot doesn't even really matter. What matters is the experience along the way, and Nicholas Stoller has provided a wonderfully balanced experience that treads confidently between slapstick and high drama. The movie does simply fall flat in some scenes, or goes too over the top, but in between is a surprisingly solid movie.
Get Him To The Greek gets an 8/10.
Snow, who in Sarah Marshall was a sober yoga machine trying out monogamy, is now with an equally famous songstress wife and has a child with her. However, after releasing an incredibly racist track called "African Child", his career immediately spirals down, his wife leaves him and gets custody, and he returns to his rock and roll drug-ridden debauchery.
Meanwhile, a record company owned by a guy named Sergio (played hilariously by P. Diddy) is losing money, and he needs some new ideas to start raking in the dough again. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a fan of Aldous Snow, who suggests that they hold a concert for the 10 year anniversary of Snow's most famous concert at the Greek theater. Snow agrees to it, and Aaron then has to get Snow from London to the Today show to make the announcement, and then to the show itself.
Aaron's prudence doesn't last long against Snow's complete disregard for everything besides living like a rock star, and is soon sucked into his trippy and seemingly carefree but really quite depressing life while still trying to remain on good terms with his girlfriend back home. Yes, they get into some quite hilarious situations, but the surprising thing about this film was just how deep they reached with the seriousness of Snow's addiction and how much drugs ruined both his life and everyone else's around him. Brand seems to have been born for this part, and Hill surprised me by finally giving us a character that isn't the same as all the other parts he's played (though admittedly it wasn't dramatically different). But it was that serious tone that really set this movie apart from the typical Apatow fodder.
It's kind of easy to see where this movie's going to end right from the beginning, but eventually the plot doesn't even really matter. What matters is the experience along the way, and Nicholas Stoller has provided a wonderfully balanced experience that treads confidently between slapstick and high drama. The movie does simply fall flat in some scenes, or goes too over the top, but in between is a surprisingly solid movie.
Get Him To The Greek gets an 8/10.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (movie)
There's not too much to be said about this movie so I'll keep it short. Which of course means this is going to be much longer than I intend....
Prince of Persia is based on the deservedly popular video game series of the same name, starting back in the side scrolling adventure days up until modern times. The basic premise of the Sands of Time video game (a reboot to the series) was that you played a rather smart-alecky prince who is tricked by the evil Vizier into unleashing a devastating force called the Sands of Time from an hourglass, which transforms everyone but him, the Vizier, and the princess of the city they conquered that contained the sands, into monsters. The prince then spends the game trying to right his wrong and return the sand to the hourglass with the help of the snarky princess.
The movie is...loosely based on that. Instead of a nameless prince we get Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who instead of being of royal blood was adopted into the royal family as a kid when the king stumbled upon him in the market doing some crazy acrobatics to outrun some guards. Why? Because he was being brave or something like that, or the all around cop out in this movie "IT WAS HIS DESTINY". Anyways, fast forward several years and the Persians decide to storm the holy city of Alamut based on suspicions that they are giving weapons to the enemies of Persia. The recalcitrant princess of the city (Gemma Arterton) sends a man with a precious dagger to try and escape the city, but Dastan intercepts him and takes the dagger, which has a strange kind of sand in the handle. Then the king is suddenly killed by a set of poisoned robes with Dastan presented as a gift, though they were from his eldest brother, and soon Dastan is running for his life with the princess who helped him escape, unraveling the conspiracy behind the king's death and the mysteries of the sands.
The plot may be completely different, but thankfully a lot of the personality of the game and its characters remains. There's a lot of high flying acrobatics, antagonizing remarks between the princess and the prince, and even a welcome addition in the eccentricities of a Sheik played by Alfred Molina. Unfortunately Ben Kingsley, as he always seems to be in these kinds of movies, is woefully underused as they spend most of the movie hiding the fact that he's the main villain and then barely letting him do anything but look uncomfortable around some deadly assassins once he is revealed.
Still, the action is over the top and quite entertaining, with several likable and other likable enough characters to keep the movie afloat. For the most part it's very much a standard Hollywood action flick, and I just couldn't help shake the feeling that it was a lot like Pirates of the Carribean (which makes sense considering it's a Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney production) without Jack Sparrow. Gyllenhaal is quite likable as the Prince, but he's not a standout. Basically all the elements of the movie all work together fine (besides some indifferent supporting cast performances), but there's nothing that pushes it beyond into something great. It's certainly better than most crap, especially video game based crap, that rolls out of Hollywood, but not by much.
Price of Persia: The Sands of Time movie gets a 7/10.
Prince of Persia is based on the deservedly popular video game series of the same name, starting back in the side scrolling adventure days up until modern times. The basic premise of the Sands of Time video game (a reboot to the series) was that you played a rather smart-alecky prince who is tricked by the evil Vizier into unleashing a devastating force called the Sands of Time from an hourglass, which transforms everyone but him, the Vizier, and the princess of the city they conquered that contained the sands, into monsters. The prince then spends the game trying to right his wrong and return the sand to the hourglass with the help of the snarky princess.
The movie is...loosely based on that. Instead of a nameless prince we get Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who instead of being of royal blood was adopted into the royal family as a kid when the king stumbled upon him in the market doing some crazy acrobatics to outrun some guards. Why? Because he was being brave or something like that, or the all around cop out in this movie "IT WAS HIS DESTINY". Anyways, fast forward several years and the Persians decide to storm the holy city of Alamut based on suspicions that they are giving weapons to the enemies of Persia. The recalcitrant princess of the city (Gemma Arterton) sends a man with a precious dagger to try and escape the city, but Dastan intercepts him and takes the dagger, which has a strange kind of sand in the handle. Then the king is suddenly killed by a set of poisoned robes with Dastan presented as a gift, though they were from his eldest brother, and soon Dastan is running for his life with the princess who helped him escape, unraveling the conspiracy behind the king's death and the mysteries of the sands.
The plot may be completely different, but thankfully a lot of the personality of the game and its characters remains. There's a lot of high flying acrobatics, antagonizing remarks between the princess and the prince, and even a welcome addition in the eccentricities of a Sheik played by Alfred Molina. Unfortunately Ben Kingsley, as he always seems to be in these kinds of movies, is woefully underused as they spend most of the movie hiding the fact that he's the main villain and then barely letting him do anything but look uncomfortable around some deadly assassins once he is revealed.
Still, the action is over the top and quite entertaining, with several likable and other likable enough characters to keep the movie afloat. For the most part it's very much a standard Hollywood action flick, and I just couldn't help shake the feeling that it was a lot like Pirates of the Carribean (which makes sense considering it's a Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney production) without Jack Sparrow. Gyllenhaal is quite likable as the Prince, but he's not a standout. Basically all the elements of the movie all work together fine (besides some indifferent supporting cast performances), but there's nothing that pushes it beyond into something great. It's certainly better than most crap, especially video game based crap, that rolls out of Hollywood, but not by much.
Price of Persia: The Sands of Time movie gets a 7/10.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Red Dead Redemption
I don't think I'm even anywhere close to finishing this game, but I wanted to give some first impressions since I think it may take me literally forever to get through everything Rockstar has put in front of me.
The first thing to know about RDR is that while it is technically a sequel to Red Dead Revolver, a last gen game that garnered mixed reviews, you don't need to have played the first one to understand what's going on here. The plot is pretty simple from the start. You play as John Marsden, a bounty hunter traveling to New Austin in the early 1900s, hired by the government to go after one of his former outlaw compatriots Bill Williamson. Bill has taken refuge in a fort with a gang and when John comes knocking, giving Bill one last chance for them to work things out non-violently, Bill shoots John and leaves him for dead. Thankfully he's rescued by Bonnie MacFarlane, a woman who owns a nearby ranch, and is nursed back to health. From then on, you're free to roam the rather expansive world and slowly gather allies and enough heavy artillery to take out Bill. At least, that's part one.
There is TONS to do in the desert wilds of New Austin. Whether it be tracking down bandits from wanted posters, completing challenges like killing 5 coyotes with a knife before one injures you, collecting various costumes that grant you special benefits, raiding gang hideouts or even just stopping to escort a lady back to town on your horse, you will never be at a lack for something to do. Of course, coming from the makers of Grand Theft Auto this game is very similar to those titles, but there's just something quite different and satisfying about the way this game plays as compared to the GTA series that makes it stand out above the rest. Rockstar pretty much nailed the feeling of wandering out through the old west, making your own way to survive whether it be through good deeds or being a complete bastard.
Also in the tradition of GTA the characters you encounter are always interesting and fun to listen to. Quite a bit of this game is spent traveling between locations on your horse, often with someone else, and while it can take several minutes to reach a destination, it's never boring because the characters always have something funny or interesting to say. Even if it's a bandit leader that you've hogtied and thrown on the back of your horse. Each and every character is unique and interesting in their own way, which is quite an accomplishment considering just how many you come across.
But what about when you're traveling those long distances alone? Well first off there is the option to spend a little cash to ride stagecoaches between various towns (and there's a quick travel option I haven't tried yet), but most of the time I find myself actually riding those long distances because somehow, despite almost every location just being desert with a few different terrain features, every location has a different feel to it and all are pretty to look at and fun to travel through. There are also often so many random encounters along the way to wherever you're going that I at least don't feel like I want to miss out on.
As for combat, which you will be in for most of the game, it's really well balanced. For players like myself who aren't really good at shooting where I need to, they've included a very forgiving auto-aim feature as well as the signature "dead eye" shooting mechanic where you can slow down time, pick your targets, and then fire. Of course, it's regulated by a meter which refills quite slowly unless you want to spend the money on items that replenish it, so you do have to be careful in your use of it, but it still makes combat much more bearable than it might be otherwise. The other nice thing is that the saving/checkpoint system is forgiving enough that if you do end up dying you usually only have a short ways to go to get back to where you were. Ammo is also fairly plentiful so you needn't worry about wasting bullets (unless you want to improve your score on a particular mission).
The story missions are also filled with fun, though sometimes frustrating, fights that are often really heart-pounding. Oh, and as for never finishing this game, your assault on the fort where Bill Williamson is took me several hours to get to (along with doing side missions and playing poker), and once it was over I realized they were about to take me to the second half of the map (Mexico) and that those hours I just spent were only the first part of what will most likely be a very long epic journey.
RDR is one hell of a game that I look forward to thoroughly enjoying for the next year as I finish the single player and try to check out the also expansive multiplayer. And for all those like myself who thought GTA IV was a step down, or just never really got into GTA and are wondering if this game is worth it, the answer is yes. At the very least rent it, because I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone, but at the same time it's an amazing experience that everyone should at least give a try. The only real complaints I have against it are that some of the side missions you take (like follwing a dog around town until it spots trouble) are a little tedious, and the world is almost too expansive for it's own good. However, those slights aside, it's easily one of the best games I've played recently.
Red Dead Redemption gets a 9.5/10.
The first thing to know about RDR is that while it is technically a sequel to Red Dead Revolver, a last gen game that garnered mixed reviews, you don't need to have played the first one to understand what's going on here. The plot is pretty simple from the start. You play as John Marsden, a bounty hunter traveling to New Austin in the early 1900s, hired by the government to go after one of his former outlaw compatriots Bill Williamson. Bill has taken refuge in a fort with a gang and when John comes knocking, giving Bill one last chance for them to work things out non-violently, Bill shoots John and leaves him for dead. Thankfully he's rescued by Bonnie MacFarlane, a woman who owns a nearby ranch, and is nursed back to health. From then on, you're free to roam the rather expansive world and slowly gather allies and enough heavy artillery to take out Bill. At least, that's part one.
There is TONS to do in the desert wilds of New Austin. Whether it be tracking down bandits from wanted posters, completing challenges like killing 5 coyotes with a knife before one injures you, collecting various costumes that grant you special benefits, raiding gang hideouts or even just stopping to escort a lady back to town on your horse, you will never be at a lack for something to do. Of course, coming from the makers of Grand Theft Auto this game is very similar to those titles, but there's just something quite different and satisfying about the way this game plays as compared to the GTA series that makes it stand out above the rest. Rockstar pretty much nailed the feeling of wandering out through the old west, making your own way to survive whether it be through good deeds or being a complete bastard.
Also in the tradition of GTA the characters you encounter are always interesting and fun to listen to. Quite a bit of this game is spent traveling between locations on your horse, often with someone else, and while it can take several minutes to reach a destination, it's never boring because the characters always have something funny or interesting to say. Even if it's a bandit leader that you've hogtied and thrown on the back of your horse. Each and every character is unique and interesting in their own way, which is quite an accomplishment considering just how many you come across.
But what about when you're traveling those long distances alone? Well first off there is the option to spend a little cash to ride stagecoaches between various towns (and there's a quick travel option I haven't tried yet), but most of the time I find myself actually riding those long distances because somehow, despite almost every location just being desert with a few different terrain features, every location has a different feel to it and all are pretty to look at and fun to travel through. There are also often so many random encounters along the way to wherever you're going that I at least don't feel like I want to miss out on.
As for combat, which you will be in for most of the game, it's really well balanced. For players like myself who aren't really good at shooting where I need to, they've included a very forgiving auto-aim feature as well as the signature "dead eye" shooting mechanic where you can slow down time, pick your targets, and then fire. Of course, it's regulated by a meter which refills quite slowly unless you want to spend the money on items that replenish it, so you do have to be careful in your use of it, but it still makes combat much more bearable than it might be otherwise. The other nice thing is that the saving/checkpoint system is forgiving enough that if you do end up dying you usually only have a short ways to go to get back to where you were. Ammo is also fairly plentiful so you needn't worry about wasting bullets (unless you want to improve your score on a particular mission).
The story missions are also filled with fun, though sometimes frustrating, fights that are often really heart-pounding. Oh, and as for never finishing this game, your assault on the fort where Bill Williamson is took me several hours to get to (along with doing side missions and playing poker), and once it was over I realized they were about to take me to the second half of the map (Mexico) and that those hours I just spent were only the first part of what will most likely be a very long epic journey.
RDR is one hell of a game that I look forward to thoroughly enjoying for the next year as I finish the single player and try to check out the also expansive multiplayer. And for all those like myself who thought GTA IV was a step down, or just never really got into GTA and are wondering if this game is worth it, the answer is yes. At the very least rent it, because I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone, but at the same time it's an amazing experience that everyone should at least give a try. The only real complaints I have against it are that some of the side missions you take (like follwing a dog around town until it spots trouble) are a little tedious, and the world is almost too expansive for it's own good. However, those slights aside, it's easily one of the best games I've played recently.
Red Dead Redemption gets a 9.5/10.
My Fair Lady
The long process of catching Zach up on movies he completely missed as a child has begun with My Fair Lady (and will most likely be continued with Mary Poppins soon).
First off, I swear to god Natalie Portman is the illegitamate love child of Audrey Hepburn. It's just...uncanny how much they look alike sometimes. Anyways, the movie.
For those who aren't in the know and like me have long heard of My Fair Lady but never seen it, the story centers around a lowly flowergirl named Eliza Doolittle whose completely lower-class accent attracts the attention of Professor Henry Higgins, who studies phonetics (the sounds of speech). In passing conversation with a man who turns out to be Colonel Pickering, an expert on Indian dialects, he reveals his philosophy that given 6 months to teach her how to speak proper english she could pass for a lady at the Embassy Ball. He then quickly forgets and leaves her in the street talking to Pickering, but the idea seems to have stuck with Eliza. Soon enough, she seeks out Higgins and Pickering and a bet is struck that if Higgins can turn her into a lady by the Embassy Ball, Pickering will pay for all of the costs of keeping her. From then on she's under the strict and uncompromising tutelage of Higgins, who will stop at nothing to turn her into a true lady.
While the film follows a rather predictable trajectory (except the ending, which seems unjustified in terms of the character arcs, and was apparently different from the original play) it's nothing but a joy to watch. Rex Harrison is perfect as the almost completely unfeeling, stubborn, and rather ignorant Higgins, and both he and Hepburn share a wonderful irascibility with each other. Hepburn also carries the role of Eliza very well, transforming from the loud mouthed flower girl who wore her heart on her sleeve to the lady whose emotions are only betrayed by the sadness or joy in her eyes.
Also, every time I watch this kind of essentially filmed stage musical I just have to wonder...where did these films go? Why have we had nothing like them recently? The only close things we've had are movies like Rent, Chicago, and Phantom which are much more Hollywood movies than the big obviously fake sets with big choruses like we see in filmed musicals like My Fair Lady. I just think it's high time someone at least tried to bring something like that back.
Anyways, there's a reason My Fair Lady won 8 academy awards. It has one of the most brilliantly comical scenes I think I've seen (the subdued excitement at the racetrack) with some great actors giving great performances and singing (even if it wasn't them actually singing)/ sing-talking some really fun songs. The only gripe I have with it was that they didn't really justify the ending, but that's a small complaint in the face of such a great film.
My Fair Lady gets a 10/10.
First off, I swear to god Natalie Portman is the illegitamate love child of Audrey Hepburn. It's just...uncanny how much they look alike sometimes. Anyways, the movie.
For those who aren't in the know and like me have long heard of My Fair Lady but never seen it, the story centers around a lowly flowergirl named Eliza Doolittle whose completely lower-class accent attracts the attention of Professor Henry Higgins, who studies phonetics (the sounds of speech). In passing conversation with a man who turns out to be Colonel Pickering, an expert on Indian dialects, he reveals his philosophy that given 6 months to teach her how to speak proper english she could pass for a lady at the Embassy Ball. He then quickly forgets and leaves her in the street talking to Pickering, but the idea seems to have stuck with Eliza. Soon enough, she seeks out Higgins and Pickering and a bet is struck that if Higgins can turn her into a lady by the Embassy Ball, Pickering will pay for all of the costs of keeping her. From then on she's under the strict and uncompromising tutelage of Higgins, who will stop at nothing to turn her into a true lady.
While the film follows a rather predictable trajectory (except the ending, which seems unjustified in terms of the character arcs, and was apparently different from the original play) it's nothing but a joy to watch. Rex Harrison is perfect as the almost completely unfeeling, stubborn, and rather ignorant Higgins, and both he and Hepburn share a wonderful irascibility with each other. Hepburn also carries the role of Eliza very well, transforming from the loud mouthed flower girl who wore her heart on her sleeve to the lady whose emotions are only betrayed by the sadness or joy in her eyes.
Also, every time I watch this kind of essentially filmed stage musical I just have to wonder...where did these films go? Why have we had nothing like them recently? The only close things we've had are movies like Rent, Chicago, and Phantom which are much more Hollywood movies than the big obviously fake sets with big choruses like we see in filmed musicals like My Fair Lady. I just think it's high time someone at least tried to bring something like that back.
Anyways, there's a reason My Fair Lady won 8 academy awards. It has one of the most brilliantly comical scenes I think I've seen (the subdued excitement at the racetrack) with some great actors giving great performances and singing (even if it wasn't them actually singing)/ sing-talking some really fun songs. The only gripe I have with it was that they didn't really justify the ending, but that's a small complaint in the face of such a great film.
My Fair Lady gets a 10/10.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Weather Man
This little seen, little known gem showed up on a list of such movies that I stumbled upon, and I figured I should give it a whirl as it would be a refreshing change to see Nicolas Cage in something good.
And I don't know if I would call Weather Man good per say. It's more of an interesting character study than anything.
Nick Cage plays David Spritz, a local weather man who makes a decent living doing very little. Despite his good work status, he has trouble relating to his two children and ex-wife, who is seeing another man. David struggles against the want to have his family together again and his overwhleming depression and anger over his situation. His daughter has taken up smoking and is bullied over her weight, while his son is clueless to the very obvious advances of his pedophile counselor. Add to that that his father, played by poor Michael Caine who is very obviously struggling with an American accent, is a prize winning author who is very straightforward about his dislike of how David handles his children's issues. David is also assaulted quite regularly by people driving by in cars and throwing fast food at him. To deal with his problems he takes up archery, which becomes his only escape from reality.
And that's pretty much the movie. His dad is diagnosed with lymphoma and given little time to live, and he struggles with the decision to move to New York and take a job with a profile morning show with a very high pay raise or to try and stay with his kids and mend things. Most of the rest of the movie is philosophical pondering through voice over narration by Cage, and some awkward situations where he can't keep his anger in check.
That's why I can't really say it was good, because while there's a lot he struggles with, there's actually very little that happens in terms of plot/story development. Yet it wasn't bad either, as the situations he found himself in were quite funny and/or dramatic. It was just...blase, like the main character. It plodded along, not really sure of where it was going except that the final destination wasn't going to be happy, but along the way there were some potent moments.
So being better than bad but worse than great...
The Weather Man gets a 7/10.
And I don't know if I would call Weather Man good per say. It's more of an interesting character study than anything.
Nick Cage plays David Spritz, a local weather man who makes a decent living doing very little. Despite his good work status, he has trouble relating to his two children and ex-wife, who is seeing another man. David struggles against the want to have his family together again and his overwhleming depression and anger over his situation. His daughter has taken up smoking and is bullied over her weight, while his son is clueless to the very obvious advances of his pedophile counselor. Add to that that his father, played by poor Michael Caine who is very obviously struggling with an American accent, is a prize winning author who is very straightforward about his dislike of how David handles his children's issues. David is also assaulted quite regularly by people driving by in cars and throwing fast food at him. To deal with his problems he takes up archery, which becomes his only escape from reality.
And that's pretty much the movie. His dad is diagnosed with lymphoma and given little time to live, and he struggles with the decision to move to New York and take a job with a profile morning show with a very high pay raise or to try and stay with his kids and mend things. Most of the rest of the movie is philosophical pondering through voice over narration by Cage, and some awkward situations where he can't keep his anger in check.
That's why I can't really say it was good, because while there's a lot he struggles with, there's actually very little that happens in terms of plot/story development. Yet it wasn't bad either, as the situations he found himself in were quite funny and/or dramatic. It was just...blase, like the main character. It plodded along, not really sure of where it was going except that the final destination wasn't going to be happy, but along the way there were some potent moments.
So being better than bad but worse than great...
The Weather Man gets a 7/10.
Inception
Whoops, don't know how I let this review slip by when I first saw it, but having seen it again it's fresh on my mind and time to spit this out.
As my dad remarked when the credits rolled, "That was like watching the Matrix for the first time." And boy is he right, if the feeling you got from watching the Matrix for the first time was "THAT WAS AWESOME".
Inception takes us into a kind of parallel reality where people's dreams can be infiltrated and searched for precious information by skilled professionals. We start the movie with Leo Dicaprio washed up on shore, unconscious, being prodded by a military person with a large temple looking structure in the distance. He is brought before a very old Ken Watanabe, who seems to remember him from a distant past. Skip backwards in time and enter Cobb (Leo) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), two professionals who we quickly learn have infiltrated the mind of a now much younger Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe) under the pretense that they are actually trying to help him fortify his dreams against intruders. Yet despite the sudden youth of Saito, Cobb looks the same age...
From that point on, it's hard to say anything without ruining the whole experience of the movie. Saito catches Cobb in the dream and reveals it was a test, and asks him instead of extracting an idea from his target to plant one, a process known as inception. Arthur says it can't be done, but Cobb seems to think otherwise. Soon Cobb is gathering together a team of professionals, each with their own specialization, to put together an amazingly complex plan to plant the smallest seed of an idea in Robert Fischer's (Cilian Murphy) mind: break up your father's company.
Think of it like Ocean's 11 meets the Matrix with a dash of James Bond. Once the action gets rolling and reality gets so twisted that you forget where the dream ends and where reality begins, you just have to stare in wonder as all of it passes before your eyes. Inception uses the concept that 5 minutes in the real world can mean an hour or more in dream time, which leads to its masterpiece when you begin to realize that the last half of the movie actually takes place within something like 10 seconds.
It's literally impossible to know or understand everything that happens in Inception, and I like it that way. It remains just as amorphous, as simple and as complex as a dream itself. By the end it doesn't matter what is a dream and what isn't, what matters is the journey that has happened along the way. And that journey is carried by such a strong cast on all sides (especially the amazingly creepy Marion Cotillard) that you can't help but be swept up right along with them. It's an amazingly complex and creative film, and deserves to be seen by everyone.
Inception gets a 10/10.
As my dad remarked when the credits rolled, "That was like watching the Matrix for the first time." And boy is he right, if the feeling you got from watching the Matrix for the first time was "THAT WAS AWESOME".
Inception takes us into a kind of parallel reality where people's dreams can be infiltrated and searched for precious information by skilled professionals. We start the movie with Leo Dicaprio washed up on shore, unconscious, being prodded by a military person with a large temple looking structure in the distance. He is brought before a very old Ken Watanabe, who seems to remember him from a distant past. Skip backwards in time and enter Cobb (Leo) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), two professionals who we quickly learn have infiltrated the mind of a now much younger Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe) under the pretense that they are actually trying to help him fortify his dreams against intruders. Yet despite the sudden youth of Saito, Cobb looks the same age...
From that point on, it's hard to say anything without ruining the whole experience of the movie. Saito catches Cobb in the dream and reveals it was a test, and asks him instead of extracting an idea from his target to plant one, a process known as inception. Arthur says it can't be done, but Cobb seems to think otherwise. Soon Cobb is gathering together a team of professionals, each with their own specialization, to put together an amazingly complex plan to plant the smallest seed of an idea in Robert Fischer's (Cilian Murphy) mind: break up your father's company.
Think of it like Ocean's 11 meets the Matrix with a dash of James Bond. Once the action gets rolling and reality gets so twisted that you forget where the dream ends and where reality begins, you just have to stare in wonder as all of it passes before your eyes. Inception uses the concept that 5 minutes in the real world can mean an hour or more in dream time, which leads to its masterpiece when you begin to realize that the last half of the movie actually takes place within something like 10 seconds.
It's literally impossible to know or understand everything that happens in Inception, and I like it that way. It remains just as amorphous, as simple and as complex as a dream itself. By the end it doesn't matter what is a dream and what isn't, what matters is the journey that has happened along the way. And that journey is carried by such a strong cast on all sides (especially the amazingly creepy Marion Cotillard) that you can't help but be swept up right along with them. It's an amazingly complex and creative film, and deserves to be seen by everyone.
Inception gets a 10/10.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer Beta
To all those waiting to see what it's like out there, I decided to give my first impressions on the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer beta which just released today exclusively for the PS3.
First, some minor SPOILERS. At the beginning of Assassin's Creed 2 we saw row upon row of animus chambers at Abstergo, but had no idea why they were there. Well, as you might have guessed, it appears the Templars got the same idea as the assassins with Desmond and are training their followers to be fighters using the Animus' bleeding effect. And this multiplayer, it seems, is that training. END SPOILERS.
Entering a public match is basically the only option they give you at this point (though both ranked and private matches are there, just inaccessible), so jumping on in you are able to select one of several different types of killers. Unfortunately, at this point it doesn't appear to make much of any difference which one you choose, and if you don't choose quickly then you're either forced into one as the other players (up to 8 I believe) takes the rest, or the timer counts down and auto-chooses for you. All those commercials implying that each class had their own special ability at least so far is a lie. Instead, as you make kills you gain points which help you progress in levels, and about every two levels you unlock something, whether it be a special ability, a perk, a kill/loss streak bonus, or even just the ability to have more than one profile.
The only match style available is called Wanted, where you are given a player to assassinate while another player is hunting after you. You are given your target's type of killer, as well as a blue slice of a radar pie which gets bigger as you approach your target. Once you're in view of the target, a little notice tells you that if you run or do something in high profile for long enough, the target will notice you and be told to escape. There are various doors and obstacles throughout the map to help whoever is fleeing, and if you break line of sight you can hide somewhere until the counter ticks down and your pursuer fails to find you. Also, even if you do catch them, it's worth less points than killing them while incognito. You get points for killing people in certain ways (from a ledge, from a hiding spot, etc.) . So while you're locating your target, the objective is to remain indistinct from the crowd so that whoever is pursuing you has as hard a time as possible picking you out. You get points for escaping from a chase, or even something like tricking your pursuer into killing a civilian instead of you. Still, judging from the scoreboards at the end of matches, your hunter will find you. Often. The real trick is to go for those big point kills so you can stay ahead. At least, that's my strategy, I'm sure other people will have other ways to do it.
To help you along the way, you're given some special abilities. The early ones include being able to temporarily shapeshift into another type so your pursuer can't recognize you, or being able to sprint at an increased speed for a short time. Use wisely though, they have a long (shapeshifting is 1 min, haven't tried speed yet) recharge time which makes a big difference in a 10 minute match. Eventually you also earn bonuses for a kill streak (extra 100 points per target after 3), and a loss streak (radar is extra sensitive after you die 3 times in a row). So far I can see the rewards up to level 20, and even though there are levels after that it appears they won't be available in the beta (but who knows, I'm still just level 6).
But what you really came to know is...is it fun? Is it worth it? And the answer is...yes.
This mode is almost excessively simple in its premise and play quality, but there's something really fun about tracking your target through a crowd while also trying to stand out as little as possible. Then when you get close there's the more high risk options for extra rewards, like waiting 3 seconds with the kill button above their heads before committing the act. It gets your blood pumping every time you do something out of the ordinary and have to decide to either run for it or hope that isn't your hunter walking straight towards you. More often than not you'll be caught completely unawares by your hunter, but thankfully you respawn so quickly that it's more funny than irritating that they got you.
The point is, it's addictively simple. It's easy to jump right into, easy to have fun with, and easy enough to leave behind if you get tired of it. Of course, being so simple it does lack that extra oomph that would make it really spectacular (aka different and balanced character abilities instead of just different skins), but if you're looking for a fun, new take on multiplayer then you can't go wrong.
If there's more that I find out, or they make improvements before launch, I'll make sure to update things. However, so far...
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer beta gets a 7.5/10.
First, some minor SPOILERS. At the beginning of Assassin's Creed 2 we saw row upon row of animus chambers at Abstergo, but had no idea why they were there. Well, as you might have guessed, it appears the Templars got the same idea as the assassins with Desmond and are training their followers to be fighters using the Animus' bleeding effect. And this multiplayer, it seems, is that training. END SPOILERS.
Entering a public match is basically the only option they give you at this point (though both ranked and private matches are there, just inaccessible), so jumping on in you are able to select one of several different types of killers. Unfortunately, at this point it doesn't appear to make much of any difference which one you choose, and if you don't choose quickly then you're either forced into one as the other players (up to 8 I believe) takes the rest, or the timer counts down and auto-chooses for you. All those commercials implying that each class had their own special ability at least so far is a lie. Instead, as you make kills you gain points which help you progress in levels, and about every two levels you unlock something, whether it be a special ability, a perk, a kill/loss streak bonus, or even just the ability to have more than one profile.
The only match style available is called Wanted, where you are given a player to assassinate while another player is hunting after you. You are given your target's type of killer, as well as a blue slice of a radar pie which gets bigger as you approach your target. Once you're in view of the target, a little notice tells you that if you run or do something in high profile for long enough, the target will notice you and be told to escape. There are various doors and obstacles throughout the map to help whoever is fleeing, and if you break line of sight you can hide somewhere until the counter ticks down and your pursuer fails to find you. Also, even if you do catch them, it's worth less points than killing them while incognito. You get points for killing people in certain ways (from a ledge, from a hiding spot, etc.) . So while you're locating your target, the objective is to remain indistinct from the crowd so that whoever is pursuing you has as hard a time as possible picking you out. You get points for escaping from a chase, or even something like tricking your pursuer into killing a civilian instead of you. Still, judging from the scoreboards at the end of matches, your hunter will find you. Often. The real trick is to go for those big point kills so you can stay ahead. At least, that's my strategy, I'm sure other people will have other ways to do it.
To help you along the way, you're given some special abilities. The early ones include being able to temporarily shapeshift into another type so your pursuer can't recognize you, or being able to sprint at an increased speed for a short time. Use wisely though, they have a long (shapeshifting is 1 min, haven't tried speed yet) recharge time which makes a big difference in a 10 minute match. Eventually you also earn bonuses for a kill streak (extra 100 points per target after 3), and a loss streak (radar is extra sensitive after you die 3 times in a row). So far I can see the rewards up to level 20, and even though there are levels after that it appears they won't be available in the beta (but who knows, I'm still just level 6).
But what you really came to know is...is it fun? Is it worth it? And the answer is...yes.
This mode is almost excessively simple in its premise and play quality, but there's something really fun about tracking your target through a crowd while also trying to stand out as little as possible. Then when you get close there's the more high risk options for extra rewards, like waiting 3 seconds with the kill button above their heads before committing the act. It gets your blood pumping every time you do something out of the ordinary and have to decide to either run for it or hope that isn't your hunter walking straight towards you. More often than not you'll be caught completely unawares by your hunter, but thankfully you respawn so quickly that it's more funny than irritating that they got you.
The point is, it's addictively simple. It's easy to jump right into, easy to have fun with, and easy enough to leave behind if you get tired of it. Of course, being so simple it does lack that extra oomph that would make it really spectacular (aka different and balanced character abilities instead of just different skins), but if you're looking for a fun, new take on multiplayer then you can't go wrong.
If there's more that I find out, or they make improvements before launch, I'll make sure to update things. However, so far...
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer beta gets a 7.5/10.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Agora
I came into this film knowing very little about it. All I knew was that it had Rachel Weisz as an astronomer in Alexandria dealing with the politics of the day. It looked like a solid drama so I went and saw it. I should've known it was a bad sign when before the movie even begins they put up the Cannes logo...along with "screened out of competition." So instead of a tight drama what I got was Rachel Weisz whining "I wish I could figure out how the planets move around the sun!" for two hours while Christians get angry first with the pagans and then with the Jews and kill lots and lots of people.
Anyways, to the movie. Weisz is indeed an astronomer in Alexandria in the 4th century, working as a philosopher/teacher to a bunch of young men. One of her students, Orestes, is madly in love with her despite her indifference to love. The rest of her students completely adore her, and one of her slaves is madly in love with her too. She teaches them about how it's possible that the Earth isn't the center of the universe and the sun is in fact the center, but the theories don't really work because the planets move in circles and that makes the math go wonky.
With their "main" characters introduced the direction quickly shifts towards what is obviously what the director is more interested in: the Christians. The pagans who run Alexandria are facing humiliation at the hands of Christians who perform "miracles" like walking through fire. To teach them a lesson, the pagans decide to kill a bunch of them (including women and children). The Christians get angry, fight back, and the pagans suddenly realize that there are Christians everywhere. They shut themselves up in the library and the Romans come in and halt everything. Post is sent to Constantine (the first Christian emperor) who returns word that the Christians are to be let in to the library. They sack it. Hypatia and Orestes run for it while her slave stays behind because he's been converted during this whole mess.
Fast forward several years. Orestes is now a roman prefect, another of her students is a Christian bishop, and her slave is part of the warrior class of Christians. She still wants to figure out how the planets work. The Jews kill some Christians. The Christians kill a lot more Jews. A radical bishop says the bible says that women shouldn't be teachers. In this critical moment Hypatia discovers by looking at a cone made up of curves that has been in front of her for years that the earth travels in an ellipse around the sun. Orestes goes through EMOTIONAL TURMOIL before betraying Hypatia and giving her to the Christians. Her former slave still loves her and manages through some heavy EMOTIONAL TURMOIL to kill her by suffocating her before she's stoned so it doesn't hurt.
And then to top it all off, that whole "this is a true story thing" is hilariously spoiled at the end when the "this is what happened to the characters after the movie ends" titles reveal that none of Hypatia's works survived and all that's known about her is she worked with curves or somesuch, meaning that pretty much the "true story" you just witnessed was MADE UP. Yes, the library was sacked by Christians, and Hypatia did exist, but that whole character arc she had about discovering the true motion of the planets hundreds of years before anyone else is actually completely worthless because it didn't happen.
It was all just so BORING. The characters were completely one-dimensional despite the best efforts of the actors involved, the tirade against how Christians are bad and don't follow what the Bible says, and the attempt to relate it to modern day, is extremely blatant, the forced EMOTIONAL TURMOIL from damn near everyone is a classic example of shoving something in your face and saying "SEE ISN'T THIS SAD?" instead of making it actually sad, and the story itself is just so damn inconsequential that there's never any reason to care about what's going on besides the casual interest one might get from watching a random documentary on the History Channel.
The film just felt like the director constantly waddled between focusing on what he felt was the boring but necessary story of Hypatia and the story he really wanted to tell about the big battles between Christians and everyone else. And even then it was just a bunch of angry people running around stabbing each other and random gore, without any sense of drama like most any other movie with battles.
In short, there's just very little reason to care about anything in this movie. It tries so hard to be meaningful and dramatic (oh, I forgot to mention all the ISN'T THIS MEANINGFUL shots of the earth among the stars) that it ends up just being boring. So unless you want a brief, only slightly accurate portrayal of what was going on in 4th century Egypt, there's little need to see this movie.
Agora gets a 4.5/10.
Anyways, to the movie. Weisz is indeed an astronomer in Alexandria in the 4th century, working as a philosopher/teacher to a bunch of young men. One of her students, Orestes, is madly in love with her despite her indifference to love. The rest of her students completely adore her, and one of her slaves is madly in love with her too. She teaches them about how it's possible that the Earth isn't the center of the universe and the sun is in fact the center, but the theories don't really work because the planets move in circles and that makes the math go wonky.
With their "main" characters introduced the direction quickly shifts towards what is obviously what the director is more interested in: the Christians. The pagans who run Alexandria are facing humiliation at the hands of Christians who perform "miracles" like walking through fire. To teach them a lesson, the pagans decide to kill a bunch of them (including women and children). The Christians get angry, fight back, and the pagans suddenly realize that there are Christians everywhere. They shut themselves up in the library and the Romans come in and halt everything. Post is sent to Constantine (the first Christian emperor) who returns word that the Christians are to be let in to the library. They sack it. Hypatia and Orestes run for it while her slave stays behind because he's been converted during this whole mess.
Fast forward several years. Orestes is now a roman prefect, another of her students is a Christian bishop, and her slave is part of the warrior class of Christians. She still wants to figure out how the planets work. The Jews kill some Christians. The Christians kill a lot more Jews. A radical bishop says the bible says that women shouldn't be teachers. In this critical moment Hypatia discovers by looking at a cone made up of curves that has been in front of her for years that the earth travels in an ellipse around the sun. Orestes goes through EMOTIONAL TURMOIL before betraying Hypatia and giving her to the Christians. Her former slave still loves her and manages through some heavy EMOTIONAL TURMOIL to kill her by suffocating her before she's stoned so it doesn't hurt.
And then to top it all off, that whole "this is a true story thing" is hilariously spoiled at the end when the "this is what happened to the characters after the movie ends" titles reveal that none of Hypatia's works survived and all that's known about her is she worked with curves or somesuch, meaning that pretty much the "true story" you just witnessed was MADE UP. Yes, the library was sacked by Christians, and Hypatia did exist, but that whole character arc she had about discovering the true motion of the planets hundreds of years before anyone else is actually completely worthless because it didn't happen.
It was all just so BORING. The characters were completely one-dimensional despite the best efforts of the actors involved, the tirade against how Christians are bad and don't follow what the Bible says, and the attempt to relate it to modern day, is extremely blatant, the forced EMOTIONAL TURMOIL from damn near everyone is a classic example of shoving something in your face and saying "SEE ISN'T THIS SAD?" instead of making it actually sad, and the story itself is just so damn inconsequential that there's never any reason to care about what's going on besides the casual interest one might get from watching a random documentary on the History Channel.
The film just felt like the director constantly waddled between focusing on what he felt was the boring but necessary story of Hypatia and the story he really wanted to tell about the big battles between Christians and everyone else. And even then it was just a bunch of angry people running around stabbing each other and random gore, without any sense of drama like most any other movie with battles.
In short, there's just very little reason to care about anything in this movie. It tries so hard to be meaningful and dramatic (oh, I forgot to mention all the ISN'T THIS MEANINGFUL shots of the earth among the stars) that it ends up just being boring. So unless you want a brief, only slightly accurate portrayal of what was going on in 4th century Egypt, there's little need to see this movie.
Agora gets a 4.5/10.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
As someone who has never ingested copious amounts of illegal substances, and most likely never will, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas seems like the closest thing to it that I'm going to get. Trailing the early 70s life and career of Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing takes us on a wild whirldwind where reality and fantasy are constantly intermingled and you're never quite sure what's going to happen from one moment to the next.
To me, this movie was like the manic response to the depressed Requiem For A Dream. Whereas Requiem told an utterly depressing story about how awful drugs are, Fear and Loathing still says drugs are bad but a lot of crazy shit will happen in the meantime. While Requiem makes you cry, Fear and Loathing makes you laugh. The narrative quite effectively mirrors its drugged up narrator, who jumps around from place to place and time to time without ever really landing on solid ground. There are a few moments of lucidity which are obviously just there to give the realization of just how much craziness actually happened, and all you can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all until it sinks in that his life was actually like this.
Johnny Depp does a phenomenal job as Thompson, and it's quite interesting as you can clearly see some early physical hints towards Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp glides along gleefully, savoring every chance to get just a little bit crazier. However, the true star of this show is Benicio del Toro as Dr. Gonzo, Thompson's "lawyer" and sidekick. That man can look extremely menacing with a knife, and was a very convincing druggie who consistently rolled more towards the dangerous side of being high. A welcome surprise also came from all the various celebrity cameos in this movie. It feels like every single scene they brought in someone famous to do something funny and then leave.
The only real problem with this film is that in all the hubbub it pretty much fails to tell a story. It's a great experience, but when there's the emotional farewell between Thompson and Dr. Gonzo at the end it feels more out of place than anything. As far as I could tell the story was supposed to be that this reporter and his lawyer journeyed out to Las Vegas for a story, got high and into lots of crazy hijinks, and then parted ways until another assignment came up. It felt more like a snapshot of this guy's life, with no real beginning and no real conclusion, and as such the point of it all kind of gets lost. And then, Terry Gilliam's name rolls down the screen as director at the credits and it all makes sense.
However, it's worth seeing just for that experience. Even without a coherent story, Gilliam is in his element throwing every single crazy thing he can at you and bringing you along for the ride into another reality, another time. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas gets an 8.5/10.
To me, this movie was like the manic response to the depressed Requiem For A Dream. Whereas Requiem told an utterly depressing story about how awful drugs are, Fear and Loathing still says drugs are bad but a lot of crazy shit will happen in the meantime. While Requiem makes you cry, Fear and Loathing makes you laugh. The narrative quite effectively mirrors its drugged up narrator, who jumps around from place to place and time to time without ever really landing on solid ground. There are a few moments of lucidity which are obviously just there to give the realization of just how much craziness actually happened, and all you can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all until it sinks in that his life was actually like this.
Johnny Depp does a phenomenal job as Thompson, and it's quite interesting as you can clearly see some early physical hints towards Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp glides along gleefully, savoring every chance to get just a little bit crazier. However, the true star of this show is Benicio del Toro as Dr. Gonzo, Thompson's "lawyer" and sidekick. That man can look extremely menacing with a knife, and was a very convincing druggie who consistently rolled more towards the dangerous side of being high. A welcome surprise also came from all the various celebrity cameos in this movie. It feels like every single scene they brought in someone famous to do something funny and then leave.
The only real problem with this film is that in all the hubbub it pretty much fails to tell a story. It's a great experience, but when there's the emotional farewell between Thompson and Dr. Gonzo at the end it feels more out of place than anything. As far as I could tell the story was supposed to be that this reporter and his lawyer journeyed out to Las Vegas for a story, got high and into lots of crazy hijinks, and then parted ways until another assignment came up. It felt more like a snapshot of this guy's life, with no real beginning and no real conclusion, and as such the point of it all kind of gets lost. And then, Terry Gilliam's name rolls down the screen as director at the credits and it all makes sense.
However, it's worth seeing just for that experience. Even without a coherent story, Gilliam is in his element throwing every single crazy thing he can at you and bringing you along for the ride into another reality, another time. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas gets an 8.5/10.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
It's hard for me to explain exactly why I didn't like this movie. The direction is tight, the performances are very well done (especially from Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth, the girl of the title), and there are plenty of twists and turns. And yet...
I believe the main problem for me was the story. From the get-go we are introduced to Lisbeth and Mikael Blomkvist, leading completely separate lives. Lisbeth is a young gothic looking reporter who works for a newspaper getting important scoops for them. Mikael is a high profile journalist who has been sentenced to jail for making false accusations about a high up businessman. Both their personalities are set up quite well, but what's immediately lacking is a reason to care about these people. We are simply following them around as they go about their mundane activities. Even when Mikael gets a mysterious call from the Vanger Group to investigate a case before he goes to jail, it just seems like an almost cliched plot point instead of a big mystery. And when Lisbeth goes through some nearly unwatchable scenes with her new guardian, the gruesomeness of it feels tacked on and unnecessary. When the two inevitably meet, their chemistry is quite charming and brings a much needed boost to the dragging plot. Then the actual mystery kicks into gear, which for the most part consists of Mikael looking through files, long transposed shots of photographs, and Lisbeth being a no nonsense hardass while still seeming quite vulnerable.
It's such a stereotypical mystery that not only is almost every single twist and turn forseeable (it's not actually the first OR second person you thought was guilty? Shocking!), but even when they're not it just doesn't feel like it carries any meaning to it. Maybe I'm just so used to Law and Order or almost any other crime drama on TV these days that I'm used to this entire plot being boiled down into one episode. **SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT** A disgraced journalist is hired by an old man from wealthy company to look into the disappearance of his daughter 40 years ago. He agrees to it as he has nothing to lose. He meets a quirky girl with rare insight who helps him on the case. They travel together gathering clues. Through many twists they eventually solve the case just in time to save one of them from getting killed. The journalist helps get his job back with the girl's help, who then leaves mysteriously but is shown to be doing just fine in the end. **END SPOILERS**
Not only are the plot points so unabashedly familiar and dry that you know the end of the movie from the beginning, but there's a gaping bit of development left out that would've made the film 10 times more entertaining. The relationship between all of the family members (who are all suspects) living together on this island is barely addressed, and each member is instead only used to shed a little detail on one clue/detail in the case before disappearing. So much more could've been done with them (and maybe it was in the book?). Also, the tracking of the clues is dull and boring as they go to a location, say "Yep, just what we thought," and then head back.
In short, just like the mystery involved this plot feels about 40 years too old and is a mystery that should've just stayed in the past. The direction, acting, and even dialogue are all tight, but the story being told is simply one I really could've cared less about.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo gets a 6.5/10.
I believe the main problem for me was the story. From the get-go we are introduced to Lisbeth and Mikael Blomkvist, leading completely separate lives. Lisbeth is a young gothic looking reporter who works for a newspaper getting important scoops for them. Mikael is a high profile journalist who has been sentenced to jail for making false accusations about a high up businessman. Both their personalities are set up quite well, but what's immediately lacking is a reason to care about these people. We are simply following them around as they go about their mundane activities. Even when Mikael gets a mysterious call from the Vanger Group to investigate a case before he goes to jail, it just seems like an almost cliched plot point instead of a big mystery. And when Lisbeth goes through some nearly unwatchable scenes with her new guardian, the gruesomeness of it feels tacked on and unnecessary. When the two inevitably meet, their chemistry is quite charming and brings a much needed boost to the dragging plot. Then the actual mystery kicks into gear, which for the most part consists of Mikael looking through files, long transposed shots of photographs, and Lisbeth being a no nonsense hardass while still seeming quite vulnerable.
It's such a stereotypical mystery that not only is almost every single twist and turn forseeable (it's not actually the first OR second person you thought was guilty? Shocking!), but even when they're not it just doesn't feel like it carries any meaning to it. Maybe I'm just so used to Law and Order or almost any other crime drama on TV these days that I'm used to this entire plot being boiled down into one episode. **SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT** A disgraced journalist is hired by an old man from wealthy company to look into the disappearance of his daughter 40 years ago. He agrees to it as he has nothing to lose. He meets a quirky girl with rare insight who helps him on the case. They travel together gathering clues. Through many twists they eventually solve the case just in time to save one of them from getting killed. The journalist helps get his job back with the girl's help, who then leaves mysteriously but is shown to be doing just fine in the end. **END SPOILERS**
Not only are the plot points so unabashedly familiar and dry that you know the end of the movie from the beginning, but there's a gaping bit of development left out that would've made the film 10 times more entertaining. The relationship between all of the family members (who are all suspects) living together on this island is barely addressed, and each member is instead only used to shed a little detail on one clue/detail in the case before disappearing. So much more could've been done with them (and maybe it was in the book?). Also, the tracking of the clues is dull and boring as they go to a location, say "Yep, just what we thought," and then head back.
In short, just like the mystery involved this plot feels about 40 years too old and is a mystery that should've just stayed in the past. The direction, acting, and even dialogue are all tight, but the story being told is simply one I really could've cared less about.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo gets a 6.5/10.
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