Bulletstorm

When news of Bulletstorm was first released, I was VERY excited. A humorous FPS that pokes fun at its own genre while also putting a large and very imaginative spin on earning experience for killing with skill? Count me in. Then the demo came out, showcasing the "Echo" mode, in which you play through a small part of the game, racking up as many points as possible to compete against friends doing the same. I was...unimpressed The skillshot system didn't seem to promote the endless possibilities for kills that had been promised, the enemy AI only seemed to have the directive to run and chop, and the level design seemed less than spectacular. Still, the shooting mechanics were very solid, and once I started getting a better sense of how to use the skillshot system in combination between guns, I was suddenly having a lot more fun. And now, I've played through the entire game and can say that the experience I had with the demo is fairly representative of how I enjoyed the game.

Not that the story matters in the slightest, but you play the part of Grayson Hunt, a former black ops soldier that was part of a secret government cell called Dead Echo. Believing those they killed deserved it, they slaughtered hundreds, until one mission where they discover that these supposed bad guys are actually civilians and political rivals to the mad General Sarrano. Fast forward several years, and now Grayson has stumbled onto Sarrano's massive battleship and decides to take revenge once and for all and try to take it down with his comparatively meager ship. Needless to say, they don't succeed, and end up crash landing on the planet below, a tropical paradise now populated by legions of mutated madmen, carnivorous plant life, and Godzilla. Yet all hope is not lost, Sarrano's cruiser took enough damage that it has crashed as well, and now it's up to Grayson and his sidekick Ishi (who is wrestling with a computer construct trying to control his mind after he was nearly killed and had to be rebuilt with robot parts) to traverse the planet and try to find Sarrano. From there, the story just kind of dissolves into one reason or another to keep moving through hordes of enemies that get increasingly tougher as you go. But does that matter? Nope.

The true heart of Bulletstorm is in its playfulness. There are some wonderful set pieces scattered throughout that vary up the gameplay and just have to make you laugh (including a laser shooting dinosaur section that was possibly the best part of the game). The dialogue is unfortunately, to me at least, unimaginatively crass, though they still get some zingers in there. For example, at one point where all hope seems lost, you get rescued and Grayson shouts "Deus Ex Machina!" However, most of it is just swearing up the wazoo, as if they were trying really hard to be funny, which unfortunately just makes it stupid. Add to that that often the story oddly enough tries to take itself seriously, when really the best parts come when they just let go of that and have fun. But of course, the real source of playfulness comes from the "kill with skill" gameplay.

Basically you are given a variety of guns throughout the game, and can hold three at a time. Each gun comes with several different types of skillshots, both for its normal fire and for a limited "charged" fire that adds a special effect. On top of that are general and story-related skillshots. And then of course there are shots related to kicking, sliding, and your penultimate leash which you can use to lasso enemies or objects to you. Add them all together and you get 135 different ways to dispatch your enemies. And several of those can be used in combination to rack up even more points. They range from shots like Fireworks, where you charge up your flare gun and shoot an enemy into the sky with it, making them explode up above, to the more tyrannical Mercy where you shoot an enemy in the balls, causing him to clutch them and fall to his knees, whereupon you kick in his head and end his pain. Thankfully you can always pause the game to look at all the different shots available to you and how to achieve them, as well as which you have accomplished and which you have yet to do, fostering this sense of playfulness in constantly wanting to try out new shots in different situations and watch the results.

Unfortunately I feel the way the points you gain are used is kind of wasted. Basically the points act as your currency, and allow you to buy ammo/charged shots or upgrade your weapons' ammo/charge capacity. That's it. No other bells or whistles. These points you keep trying so hard to accrue only serve to allow you to make sure you can keep shooting. It was a bit of a letdown given how much creativity went into the rest of the weapons. It's also surprising given...

The multiplayer. I haven't spent much time with the Anarchy mode, which is your traditional face wave after wave of enemies, but in-between each wave you can spend your points not only on the weapons but also on upgrading your own Power, Speed, or Defenses. Maybe it's just the RPGer in me that wants more things to upgrade, but would it really have taken that much more to add those to the single player? It just seems odd. Anyways, from what I've seen of this mode it can be a lot of fun, though during the first match I played it was almost impossible to find where the enemies were. By the time I got there my teammates had already killed them, and it's a very small map. However, as the waves progressed we started working together more and getting some really fun kills. Point is, while it's not bringing anything particularly new, what it does it does well. And I'm sure the future will bring even more modes lest the game go stale very quickly.

Overall, I feel my impression of Bulletstorm is much how it wanted to be taken. It's fun, explosion filled, and is good for several laughs, but in the end it's lacking that indescribable oomph that would turn it from a play-when-bored game to a play-constantly-and-repeatedly game. I think they're counting on the thousands of variations of skillshots to make the game replayable, but it just isn't quite enough. Still, it's a promising start for what is most likely another trilogy in the works.

Bulletstorm gets an 8/10.

Chekhov In Love/Viewpoints/100th post WOOOOOO

First off, a hearty pat on the back to myself for 100 posts. I started this blog November last year because I felt compelled to write and review on pretty much everything in my life without being confined to writing facebook notes and trying to tag people, or picking out small smatterings of sentences for the Movies app. And now, here I am, 100 posts later, having sometimes forgotten/lost track of what I've seen or want to mention, but for the most part staying committed to putting my thoughts on paper...metaphorically speaking. And with that, the 100th post is dedicated to *drum roll*......

Chekhov In Love. An acting experiment in three parts. What better than an underdog to steal the glory?

Unfortunately, to explain what Chekhov In Love is, you have to explain an acting technique known as Viewpoints, which is most famous for everyone's complete inability to explain what it is in words. Essentially it is an exercise focusing on several ways of playing with both movement and voice. For example, from what I've experienced, tempo and repetition are some big ones. You play with physical tempo by going from slow motion to full speed or somewhere in-between, or the complete opposite, or even just staying one tempo for the entire set. Repetition in movement can mean anything from two people sharing the same floor pattern to repeating a gesture in a new area or a new way. One of my favorite examples of this in Chekhov In Love was a hand...formation for lack of a better word that started as a simple resting position on a window but turned into a graceful caress of a cheek. So essentially each actor is playing with any of the many physical or vocal viewpoints at any time.

The show essentially centers around 6 actors, who each have a monologue from a Chekhov play (with various editing tweaks) that focuses on love. In the first part, each actor performs his or her monologue while the other actors are on stage performing a repeated movement in very slow motion. In the second, the audience gets to pick which actors will be paired together, as well as where on stage they will be paired, from a hat, and each pair then turns their monologues into a dialogue that's never the same on any night. Sound interesting? Well that's not even the best part. All chaos breaks loose as in the third part the actors are all put on stage at the same time and the monologues become an ensemble piece.

Now, I knew practically nothing of viewpoints besides what my deal girlfriend Amanda, who is in the show, had told me, and with viewpoints being what it is most of what she said was completely lost on me. However, I also had the fortune of getting to see a rehearsal for the first section, which gave me a MUCH better idea of what in the world she had been talking about all this time. So when I finally saw the performance on both Sunday and Monday I was at least mostly prepared for what I would be seeing, which I suppose biases my opinion somewhat. Nonetheless, before I go on I want to say one thing.

Chekhov In Love is one of the most beautiful, fascinating, and completely engrossing things I have ever seen. From the very first moment you walk in and find all six actors pacing the stage in slow motion, mimicking the movements they perform in the first section only to discover later what all those movements were meant for, until the final words of the ensemble piece are spoken, there is a kind of...je ne sais quois, a special something that hangs in the air. It's the feeling you get when you really connect with a great piece of theater, except what produces it here are just how deeply the actors connect to each other, which makes us connect all the more to them. It's the knowledge that whether a scene was good or not as good, it was still something special that won't be repeated again. Something that arose spontaneously from actors listening intently to each other and delivering pieces of a monologue that can vary with just the slightest difference in tone, or even by shortening a line by one word and using that remaining word to respond back in a completely unique way. This entire show is designed around carrying an intensity, whether it be dramatic or humorous, that is impossible to explain, but just as impossible not to feel.

Much like love.

I honestly could just continue heaping praise on this show while trying to sort out exactly the right words to say, but what it comes down to is this: everyone deserves to see this show. Especially the actors among us who live for the moments in theater that make up practically every part of this show. So go reserve your tickets now, cause they're selling out fast and it's a smallish space. I can't help but think of Seattle Shakes' recent Hamlet, and how it was so good I wanted to just keep going back and seeing it again and again and recommending it to everyone I knew. Well, Chekhov In Love makes me feel the same way. So do yourself a favor, and if you're in the area travel up to Bellingham this weekend and go see one of the grandest experiments you'll see.

Personally, I can only hope this experiment is the dawn of a new type of show.

Chekhov In Love gets a 10/10.

Humans and Light

I knew there was a reason that study with the worms was sticking with me. Turns out, it's becoming a trend.

Scientists are now using a similar combination of gene therapy and light flashes to activate a bundle of neurons in the hypothalamus that is in charge of aggression and mating impulses. Essentially, they were able to turn on the neurons for aggression and watch the mouse devastate whatever was put in front of it, or go from that straight into having sex with whatever was put in front of it. Interestingly enough, however, it appears to be much harder to get mice to back away from sex to be aggressive. Now, while you can excite those areas, you can also turn them off, meaning no sexual or aggressive impulses. Solution for murderous inmates and sex offenders?

The kind of scarier thing about this one from the worms is that it's a much shorter step from mice to men than it is from worms. So...light influencing behavior...you might just want to keep your eyes closed from now on.

Worms and light

I found this nifty little experiment a while ago, but it's been sticking in my mind so I wanted to write a little about it and bring the rather shocking results to everyone's attention.

Scientists have discovered a way to make a transparent worm called C. elegans move and feel however they want it to, by simply shining some lights at it. They were able to genetically modify a worm to have two light receptive proteins embedded in its neurons. Thus, by simply shining light on specific neurons, they could turn them off and on and cause the worm to react as it normally would were those neurons firing on their own. This includes making it move as if it's being touched in one spot, paralyzing it, or even making it LAY EGGS. In short, they can make it do whatever the hell they want it to do.

Now, it's a big step from 302 neurons to the 100 billion we have, and a big step from transparent to not for that matter, but the implications for being able to control neurons through light is more than just a little scary to me.

However, there is a humorous side to the story. The technique is called "control locomotion and behavior in real time" or CoLBeRT, after Stephen Colbert because he "manipulates the neurocircuits of millions of Americans daily using only the light from their monitors." Touché, Harvard.

Some videos here: http://www.kurzweilai.net/an-optogenetic-technique-for-neuroscience-that-uses-lasers-to-manipulate-neurocircuits-in-moving-animals

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

I should not have enjoyed this movie nearly as much as I did. The plot is ridiculously silly, the characters are way too over-the-top to the point of annoying, and almost every joke is a simple one-liner. And yet, I dare say I enjoyed it more than Toy Story 3 (which, now that I remember, I never did a review for...*sigh*). No, it doesn't have nearly as much depth in its plot or characterizations, and it might not even be fair to compare the two, but Cloudy provided so much fun and entertainment that it was impossible not to enjoy it.

Set in the podunk town of Swallow Falls, formerly famous for its sardines before people realized they were gross, Cloudy follows the story of mad scientist/inventor Flint Lockwood who fails at just about everything he tries. Despite doing his best to try and impress everyone with his amazing inventions, he has come to be hated by everyone for his spectacular mishaps. However, that's all to change when he invents an incomprehensibly acronymed device (Flint Lockwood's Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator...or FLDSMDFR for short) which can create any kind of food by pouring water into the top of it. While the town is celebrating its reopening as a sardine amusement park, being reported on by up and coming weather intern Sam Sparks, Flint sneaks over to the power plant, hooks his machine up...and it bursts away into the sky with much color and fanfare, looking to be just one more failed invention. That is, until hamburgers start falling from the sky. Flint revels in his discovery, taking requests from townsfolk and sending it via antenna to the FLDSMDFR in the sky which is sucking up the moisture in clouds to make its food. But of course, there's a slight worry as the machine also produces more and more radiation the more food it makes, which causes some unintended side effects that soon have Flint and Sam (and the grown up former child hero of the town clinging desperately to them) scurrying to save not only Swallow Falls...but the world.

It's a pretty silly plot. And the characters themselves are even more silly. The former child hero, forgotten when Flint makes his discovery, is so stupid and voiced so stupidly by Andy Samberg that he just comes across as, well, stupid instead of funny. The cop too, played by Mr. T barely has anything funny to say, he just literally bounces around everywhere acting tough (though I will admit the sequence running away from the tidal wave of food is hilarious). Even the two main characters, Flint and Sam, are more awkwardly funny than anything. The only truly funny character? Steve, the monkey that has a special device on his head that speaks his thoughts. He only ever says one word at a time, but he steals this movie every time he appears.

So where in the world do I even begin to get the impression that I enjoyed it more than Toy Story 3? Because it never took itself seriously. Every single line, every animation, every dumb character pokes fun at themselves so well that you feel like you're laughing with the movie instead of at it. The animators and scriptwriters obviously had so much fun making it that that sense of fun permeates through every fiber of this film. It doesn't really matter that the plot and characterizations are shallow because it's all so entertaining and fast paced you never stop to notice. And most of the jokes along the way may be simple one-liners, but they're hilarious one-liners, and that's what matters.

In short, Cloudy surprised me. It delivered a steady stream of laughs in what really should've been a lackluster title. It's fun, crazy, and one hell of a good time.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs gets a 9/10.

Love and Other Drugs

Another "Well it was nominated at the Golden Globes..." pick. Did they get it right this time? Well, since they only picked it for best actor and actress in Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, I'd say they were at least close. Unfortunately, they also put this movie in the comedy or musical category. It is neither. And while I haven't seen all of the performances they nominated in the best actor/actress drama category, I honestly don't think either Gyllenhaal or Hathaway's performance would've necessarily stood out. They were good, Hathaway especially, but not necessarily the top of the pack.

Love and Other Drugs feels like it should be based on a true story. Not because it's so believable it has to be true or something like that, but because it tries to pull in so many different facets of these two people's lives that it often feels like they're summarizing these snapshots of a long relationship and had to pick and choose the most interesting bits. It doesn't really flow together as a coherent story. It's almost like it's trying to be completely separate genres of movies at different times. At first it treats itself like a screwball comedy, then shifts into a moral piece on the evils of the pharmaceutical industry, then into a mature (read "nudity filled") rom-com, then into an almost satire on popularity/quick fame and the rise of Viagra, then finally into a stock sickness related romantic drama until the end. It has a lot of trouble deciding what it wants to be, and as such fails at really being anything coherent.

By far the only saving grace of this movie was that it had two masters at its helm at least trying to steer it in a semblance of a good direction. Gyllenhaal deftly handles the many many changes thrown at his character, going from cocky class clown to suave lover to the unbearably stereotypical (by no fault of his) stock male who loves and supports the woman in her sickness despite some rough patches that substitute as "conflict" in these kinds of movies. Basically, he does the best with what he's given. Hathaway, on the other hand, is at least given a somewhat consistent character despite being completely inconsistent in revealing the effects of her sickness (again, more a fault of the script's). As such, she shines more, and is easily the best part of the movie. It's a brilliant performance unfortunately wasted on such a mediocre film. It may not even be her best performance to date, but it stands out all the more against the backdrop of crap she's given.

And oh yeah, the big deal about this film was its handling of nudity, which was actually kind of refreshing. Most movies these days use it for its shock value once or twice, or to be "edgy" somehow, but Love and Other Drugs gives us enough of it that eventually the surprise and edge wears off and it's just...normal. It fits. They would be naked and not caring about covering up in this situation so that's just how they show it. Though to be fair, who can not appreciate more of those two naked?

There is a good movie somewhere in here. You've got two very good, very attractive leads that have good chemistry together putting out good performances. You've got clashing genres, but pick any of those out and stick with them and you just might have something. Besides the stereotypical sickness related romantic drama. No more of those need to be made. You've got an interesting premise with this pharma rep falling for a Parkinson's patient, but you have to actually invest screen time in that dynamic or do something original with it to make it work.

In short, Love and Other Drugs seems to have all the right puzzle pieces, it just puts them together in the wrong order or tries to mash two pieces together that just plain don't work that way. Hathaway is pretty much the only reason to give this movie a look, as her performance is wonderful but ultimately overshadowed by the confused mediocrity it's surrounded by.

Love and Other Drugs gets a 6.5/10.