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
Saturday, October 30, 2010
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.
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