Mentat Musings

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

2012-01-29T17:47:00.000-08:00

As with, I believe, most of the rest of the world, I was turned on to R&G Are Dead through the brilliant film with Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss. A philosophical romp through existentialism with bits of Shakespeare thrown in? Rock on. Unfortunately, it wasn't until years later when my old high school put on a production that I actually got to see what it was like on an actual stage. Fast forward again and I finally get to see it as a professional mainstage show at the Bathhouse Theater, and while my love for the play was strengthened, I have to say the show itself left me a little...underwhelmed.

For those not in the know, R&G Are Dead is a play by Tom Stoppard about the two aforementioned characters in Hamlet seemingly stuck in an existence where they have no idea what's going on, only vague recollections of why they're there, and are constantly just waiting for something to happen. And in the meantime, they philosophize. Hamlet and the other members of Elsinore drop by from time to time to shift the action, but leave R&G more or less helpless in their search for meaning. There are also some very significant interactions with the troupe of actors, often putting into question just what kind of reality they, and we the audience, are in. It's frenetically paced and definitely worthy of more than one viewing, as the first time you'll probably be just as lost in the ramblings as the two main characters. However, every time after reveals such wonderful little snippets of text and subtext that make it enjoyable each and every time.

The real problem with R&G Are Dead is that not only is it a play of many words with abstract interpretations, it's also fairly hard to find variation in simply because everything has to be so tight. Compound that with the fact that it's a really long play, and you start to realize how hard it can be to stage while still adding your own spin to it. And unfortunately, it's a problem that simply wasn't addressed here. Yes, both of the lead roles were played by women, but otherwise there was simply nothing distinguishing about the show to set it apart. Don't get me wrong, it was still a good performance, but coming from a place where I've already seen the show on film and on stage, there simply wasn't that much different for it to stand up.

Part of it came down to 2/3 of the leads, and part of it was, alas, directorial. Before I launch into that, however, I do need to give the appropriate round of applause to Angela DiMarco, who did manage to make the character of Rosencrantz her own and did a superb job. But in this play a great Rosencrantz is nothing without a great Guildernstern as a bouncing board, and Alyssa Keene to me failed to find her character. Ros and Guild are basically mirror opposites of each other. Ros is fairly care-free, simple in mind, and happy to just go with the flow. Guild, on the other hand, is a rational thinker, constantly trying to apply rules and reason to the inconsistencies around them while trying his damnedest to keep a hold on where he is and what has happened. Keene's performance certainly held that irrational conviction to rationality, but lacked the stability, the...gravitas if you will, to balance out and provide counterpoint to Ros. As for the arguable third lead, the leader of the Players, Heather Hawkins simply fell flat because she played it like it was any other part she's played (though she has certainly had some brilliant performances before). She played it rationally, but the Player is anything but rational. The lines given are so full of bravado, mixed with control and manipulation of R&G, but Hawkins' tone and personality were anything but. There was a kind of quiet control to her, but it just didn't fit. She never made me believe she had "been there before, and knew which way the wind blows."

However, as I said, the other half of the faults I found in the play lie with the direction of the dear Shana Bestock. There were repeated and frankly incomprehensible instances of upstaging here. Both the Player and Guild had some powerful lines and speeches that were spoken to the back wall where most of their impact was lost because of the staging. I was also disappointed to see some of my favorite moments happen and then seemingly disappear without a second thought because the pacing was kept so fast. In such a play where words and timing are essential, it must be remembered that sometimes the pauses between words are just as important as the words themselves. But here there was little room to breathe, and the focus seemed to be on finishing the play in two hours and getting through all those words instead of playing with the words and subtleties.

As much as I rag on it, it was still a good performance. It's very easy to completely mess this show up, and despite my complaints they still managed to make it comprehensible (which is a feat in itself) and fun to watch. It just seemed to be lacking the spark it needed to truly make it shine.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead gets a 7/10.

Coriolanus

2012-01-21T21:57:00.000-08:00

It's always amusing to me how obscure plays tend to have their seasons where suddenly everyone decides to produce the same one. This year it's Coriolanus, with both Seattle Shakespeare's play and the movie with Ralph Fiennes. I haven't seen the movie (yet), so just to ease confusion, this review is for the play.

As one of Shakespeare's more obscure shows, the plot probably needs some clarification. Rome is in conflict. On the outside they face the armies of the Volscians, but inside the people are revolting after enduring famine and taxes while the rich have nothing but surfeit (sound familiar?). They place most of the blame on a Roman general named Caius Martius. He's the best soldier in the army, has quite the temper, and thrives for battle especially against his greatest enemy Tullus Aufidius of the Volscians. Upon hearing their complaints he basically shuts them all up by being intimidating and saying they don't deserve corn if they don't fight in the war. However, he quickly hears of battle abroad, and upon single-handedly destroying the town of Corioles and going right from there to fight and defeat Aufidius in the field despite his injuries, he returns to Rome and is given the honorary name of Coriolanus. Convinced by his mother that he should run for consul, he is soon embroiled in politics that do not suit his prideful and angry nature. Forced to turn to the people of Rome and "mildly" ask for their voice, he instead balks under the absurdity of having to show his scars to them and beg people who he essentially considers base cowards for their consent to be consul. Spurred by his insolence, and by two tribunes of the people (Brutus and Sicinius) who do not want Coriolanus with their power, the people revolt and take back their word, and banish Coriolanus for his traitorous slander against the people and the consuls. In vengeance, Coriolanus seeks out Aufidius and begs to join his army and help them sack Rome. Seemingly putting his hate aside, Aufidius gives Coriolanus half his troops for the purpose. Wreaking havoc across the land, word soon spreads of the joined forces, and the people's consuls are rebuked for banishing him. In one final effort they send all of Coriolanus' former friends to try to get him to change his mind, but he hears none of them. It is only when his mother, wife and son come to call that he finally relents, and on advice of his mother, brokers peace. But...this is a tragedy after all. Upon settling the peace and returning to the Volscian capital, Aufidius confronts him and calls him traitor for failing to grasp Rome and giving up their advantage because his mother told him to, and then slays him, seemingly leading the way for war once again.

It's a brutal, violent, and highly political story, and it's really a shame it isn't produced more. However, it is still obvious why it isn't. The character of Coriolanus is really unsympathetic, and so you don't really feel bad when his throat is cut. Also, in the style of its main character almost all emotional or "human" moments that you find in most of Shakes' other tragedies are pushed to the side or severely limited. He's a wonderfully conflicted and tortured character, especially around his mother, but there are almost no soliloquies or internal monologues going on here. As the tribunes say about him, "His heart's his mouth: What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent". What this essentially leads to is a play disconnected from all but fury. It's as if we the audience are Coriolanus' wife: emotional, searching for his heart, and doing all we can to stave off such blatant anger. But the play responds as Coriolanus does, holding us for brief moments, but otherwise losing itself in its passion.

I muse over all this because despite my lack of emotional connection to the play, I still enjoyed it. The actors were all exceptional, especially Mike Dooly back in fine form as Aufidius after a mediocre turn as Theseus in Midsummer. David Drummond in the title role was also a prime example of how to take a part that's mostly shouting and find the levels and complexity in it. The real star of the show, however, was Therese Diekhans as Coriolanus' mother Volumnia, who displayed some wonderful mastery of manipulation alongside an absolutely unwavering conviction in her beliefs. A mother of Sparta if ever there was one.

It's just fascinating for me to look back on this play, trying to gauge my reaction to it, realizing that it was a wonderfully performed play with a beautiful set with these highly detailed paintings on the pillars and constantly shifting boards on wheels and hinges sharing the color theme, and perfect sound design. However, despite getting my adrenaline pumping...there wasn't really anything that seemed to stick, as it were. There was a lot of rage, a lot of panic, a lot of high emotion...but it's like watching a giant flame that impresses you with how bright and hot it is only to burn out all the quicker and leave nothing but the memory of how bright it was.

I'm having trouble putting this into words, but what can I say, the play left me a little torn. By no means was it bad, and you should all go see it while you can, but while the performance was wonderful and asked for my emotional involvement, the play itself rejected it and asked me to simply marvel at this legend of a man who was great...and terrible. In the end...I think the performance won out.

Coriolanus gets a 9/10.

Skyrim

2012-01-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

Well I've played an undisclosed but inordinate amount of hours playing, it's probably time I actually sit back and review this puppy. And by puppy I mean massive RPG. Practically the same thing right?

Before I proceed to heap inordinate amounts of praise on this game (because yes, like the rest of the world I really liked it), let's get some history out of the way. Back in the dinosaur years around 1996 a little game called Daggerfall came out, also known as Elder Scrolls 2. Knowing almost nothing about games besides whatever my friends were playing (and a couple Star Wars games like Dark Forces that I had), Daggerfall caught my eye from the bargain bin and I decided I was going to try to expand my gaming horizon. And boy did it expand. I mean, by swishing your mouse in a certain direction, your sword swung in that direction. It was the greatest gaming innovation I had ever experienced. Sure the whole fantasy world and hard to decipher story was interesting and all, but come on. It was basically the predecessor to the Wii.

But as with all games Daggerfall eventually fell from the list of games I played and was practically forgotten when I finally got around to playing Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. But Morrowind was not so quick to fade. Oh no. Despite the fact that the entire game was basically swamps and a mountain, I played the crap out of it. I loved every bit. The story, the locations, the immersiveness of it. Especially the Bloodmoon expansion, which provided a nice change of scenery along with a very early glimpse of what Skyrim would be like. Sure it had its issues, but it was still one hell of a game.

So anticipations were high for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. And don't get me wrong, I still logged countless hours on it, but I enjoyed Morrowind more. To me, Oblivion got rid of a lot of the great things from Morrowind and didn't add enough improvements to make up for it. By all accounts it was a more well designed game, but the main story especially left me wanting as it focused more on helping someone else save the world than it was about you. I will also never really get over the zooming in on those godawful facial textures during dialogue.

Now Skyrim comes along, and starts promising to fix every problem with the past games. Better, more varied combat. Hand-crafted dungeons instead of the repetitive randomly generated caves. A better game engine with prettier graphics and fewer bugs. A new and improved leveling system with perks. And DRAGONS, which have been clamored for from the beginning. It promised us the most immersive RPG to date. Did it deliver?

It's fair to say that you all know by now it lived up to those expectations and more. I easily throw my hat in with the crowd that calls Skyrim one of the, if not the, best games ever made. So why should you keep paying attention? Because I still have some major gripes with this game that don't just boil down to "OMG IT'S SO BUGGY" as everybody else who gives the game a negative review seems to say. First off, maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones, but for me Skyrim plays like a dream. Sure there are some menu issues and the occasional follower glitch, but for the most part I have no issues with bugs. Instead, what I have issues with are what people should be having issues with, and that's the actual gameplay.

For those who are still unfamiliar with what Skyrim is all about, you are placed in the shoes of the last Dragonborn, an individual blessed by the gods that has the power to use the language of dragons (in the form of "shouts") and can absorb the souls of dragons to gain their power and make sure they can't be resurrected. However, you only discover this after waking up riding in the back of a carriage, arrested and on the way to execution after having been found near the border with a group of rebels and their leader, Ulfric Stormcloak, and being saved from execution by the timely intervention of a giant dragon out of legend burning down the town. After hunting down that dragon and getting some vengeance, you absorb its soul and learn that you are the Dovahkin/Dragonborn. From there, you're basically free to roam about the world, or continue to discover where the dragons have come from, and why you've been sent to stop them. You can also take sides in the civil war between the Imperials who are trying to maintain their hold on Skyrim, and the Stormcloaks who are trying to reclaim their homeland.

There are of course many other quests and things to do in Skyrim, like joining any or all of the 4 guilds: The Companions (Fighter's Guild), the College of Winterhold (Mages Guild), the Thieves Guild, or the infamous Dark Brotherhood (assassins). You can also aim to become Thane of the major cities, a mostly honorary title that simply involves helping out the townsfolk and owning a home. And then there are the literally infinite number of miscellaneous and radiant quests you can pick up, which are usually more simple quests (kill a bandit leader, slay a dragon, etc.) that lead you to areas of the map you might not have explored yet. It's a big game, with no shortage of things to find or do, just like its predecessors (though even more so as you can get endless amounts of quests).

There are, however, many things which make Skyrim much different from its predecessors. The first is combat. This time around you can dual-wield weapons, spells, or both for a giant variety in how to approach each encounter. It rewards experimentation, but also allows for you to face any fight in the way that simply feels right to you. Enjoy just rushing in and hitting everything that moves? Two handed weapons. Prefer more strategic fights? Switch up between holding a shield and sword and maybe toss some spells. It's a very fluid system (with fun Fallout 3 style finishing moves thrown in) that provides a great deal of versatility and replayability.

The second, and my vastly favorite improvement, is the leveling system. In the previous titles the idea behind leveling was that you would get better at the skills you used, and those in turn would help you level your basic stats like Strength, Dexterity, etc. However, it really failed in practice simply because the way the math worked you had to be really careful which skills you increased during each level if you wanted to maximize your results. This was especially disastrous in Oblivion as the enemies leveled with you, so if you weren't managing your leveling well, suddenly you were facing normal bandits wearing glass armor and weren't really prepared for that. In Skyrim, however, they simply did away with attributes altogether. And the amazing thing is, by throwing away what has been such a staple of most RPGs for years and years, it actually accomplished what the series has been trying to accomplish all these years. You get better at the skills you use, you can use perks to add bonuses to those skills, and it's all amazingly intuitive and easy to manage. You stop worrying about what you're doing and just play how you want to play, and you're rewarded for playing that way.

However, there are definitely some changes I'm not happy about. Spellcrafting is gone. I understand it broke a good deal of the previous games (especially the well loved levitation spell in Morrowind), but not being able to make my flamethrower hands more powerful except with perks is a little frustrating. Skyrim is a game that begs you to experiment with it, and so to not provide it with the spells makes me sad. Another change seems to be a drastic reduction in enemy types. Going by the wikis, there are about 30 different types in Skyrim while there are 46 in Oblivion and 49 in Morrowind. Most of the time in Skyrim you will either be battling a wolf, a bear, a bandit/vampire, or a draugr (undead). Less often but still frequent are spiders, trolls, and dragons. It just felt really repetitive. In a game where you're expecting people to log hundreds of hours of time in a game world, you'd think you'd want a greater variety of enemies, not drastically fewer. You would also want more region-specific enemies than "snow" and "not snow". There are like 9 different climates in this game. More than the flowers should change.

Another enemy gripe I have is actually one of the selling points of the game: dragons. They were made out to be these epic battles between man and beast where each dragon reacted differently to the location and situation. In reality, each dragon fight plays out exactly the same. It spams you with either fire or ice breath from the sky, then when you hurt it enough with ranged attacks or when it lands you run up and hack away at it until it falls. Sure, the first time you do it it feels pretty epic, having to run around and try to lure the dragon to the ground, escape its breath, and dodge its bites and tail swipes at you. But that's the first time. Second time, still feels pretty epic, but it plays out the same way. By the third time, I was looking for something different to happen. By the fourth, I was a little bored. And from the fifth onward the only reason I would fight a dragon would be if I had to either from a quest or from it randomly attacking. It became a chore instead of an epic experience, and fighting a dragon should never seem like a chore. There are, I think, two reasons it devolved. One, each dragon fights the same. You'll come across several different types and levels of dragons, some more challenging than the others, but each one goes through the same exact pattern. Two, there are simply too many, which ties into the shouting system.

I love the shouts. I think they're a lot of fun. Each one is essentially a power that lets you do things like breathe fire, or slow time, or disarm foes, and each shout has three words of power associated with it which can be discovered through various "word walls" scattered around the map. There are 20 shouts in all, some of which are simply given to you through the main quest, but for all the others once you learn the word from the word wall you need to spend a dragon soul (collected by beating a dragon) to actually use it. So say that you learn 4 shouts from the story that you don't need to spend souls on (I think it's 4...), that leaves you with 48 dragons you need to kill to fully level up your shouts. Even if I'm remembering incorrectly and give some allowance, you have to kill at least 40 dragons. Even if you don't care about leveling up your shouts, the point is they had that in mind when designing how many dragons to put in the game, so you'll be seeing a fair share whether you want to or not. So if you're hopping into Skyrim for the dragons, be forewarned, they're really not as cool as they should be simply because it seems like they're treated as just another type of creature inhabiting these lands and not the epic mini-boss battles they were made out to be. In fact, by treating all dragons the same, even the final boss (a dragon) comes across as just another dragon battle where you just hack away until it dies.

The main stories in general suffered a bit in this game. While the dragon storyline has some interesting history and twists in it, the final battle kind of ruins it all (though the awesome scene after helps). And as for the civil war, forget any interesting politics or policies, you choose a side, capture a couple forts for that side by defeating a certain number of random troops that continually spawn until you win, and then capture the opponent's main city in the same way and force them to surrender. Add to that that both sides are basically assholes with little reason to choose their side but plenty of reason to fight against them and you get a storyline with little to no investment in the outcome, especially because the big determinant of the war (how Skyrim will fare against the elven Aldmeri Dominion) won't be addressed until some future point (one would assume in DLC). It basically boils down to "Hooray we won!" and no answer to the question of "Now what?"

"But Zach," you may be thinking, "if you hated the main storylines and the dragons, which is what the game is essentially sold on, how can you still call it one of the best games ever made?" The answer is simple. In Skyrim, it's all in the details.

The laurels of this game essentially rest on all the extra stuff around. What about all those handcrafted dungeons? Well...most of them unfortunately still look pretty similar to each other. The good news, however, is that the ones they decided would matter to the story or other big quests (read: the ones they paid attention to and didn't just crap out in 5 minutes) are AMAZING and tons of fun to explore. How about radiant questing? Wish there was more variety than "Kill bandit leader/dragon/giant at [insert location here]" but it does its job to facilitate you exploring new regions and finding new and interesting things. And as for all those new and interesting things scattered throughout the world? Main reason for playing this game. They obviously spent the greatest amount of their time simply fleshing out the world environment and adding all sorts of hidden treasures around. I spent probably around 100 hours with my first character and I still didn't discover every location. Mind you I didn't specifically try to, but there was so much else to occupy my time I didn't have to either. Despite the fact that Skyrim is technically smaller in landmass than Oblivion, it feels much much larger because more care went into crafting it.

I know this is a long review, with a lot to take in, and there's still a great deal I didn't cover, so I'll try to sum up here:

The Good:
-The world is very well crafted, as are the dungeons they actually spent time on.
-Tons of new things to discover/explore
-It all just looks so...damn...pretty
-Combat is versatile, with no wrong way to play
-The guild quests (especially the Dark Brotherhood) are tons of fun
-The leveling system is the best and most accessible it has ever been.
-100 hours will fly by and you'll still have more to do
-Despite the fact that there isn't any spellcrafting, spells are still a ton of fun to play with. I literally giggled with delight when I got a spell that summoned an exploding dog made of fire.

The meh:
-Radiant questing is repetitive but serves the goal of getting you to explore
-Fast travel is useful to have, but gets too easy to just skip to your goal and focus on the arrow on your compass instead of the world around you
-Enchanting, smithing and alchemy. Just kind of blah. Wish there were more interesting effects.
-Perks. Sure they make you better, but there's nothing that interesting to them besides one where you can behead people with a power attack. Wish they had included some perks for fun like in Fallout.
-The dragon storyline. There are some fun twists and turns and interesting history behind it, but the final battle being the same as all your other dragon battles kind of ruins it.
-Shouts. There are too many to know what to do with (especially as using one requires a recharge time before you can use another), but most of them are really fun to use.
-The Guardian Stones scattered around the map provide some neat abilities that can vary up how you play, but some are obviously much better than the others and you'll probably find yourself sticking to only one or two.

The bad:
-The civil war storyline. Boring from both sides (haven't finished the Imperial side yet, but for the most part it has been the exact same as the Stormcloaks side), especially because each side only has one good reason to fight for them but plenty of reasons to fight against them.
-Followers. Useful as mules, but their highly repetitive dialogue, tendency to step in front of your sword swing, and inability to follow you over an edge can make them major annoyances.
-Dragons. Epic the first time, boring the rest since they all fight exactly the same way and you will encounter a lot of them. They become annoyances and chores to fight instead of epic enemies.
-Fights in general can get pretty repetitive and boring as there are much fewer enemy types this time around.
-No spellcrafting. Grr.
-Every potion weighs .5, instead of the scaled weights they've had previously where the weight depended on the ingredients used to make it. This makes carrying a wide variety of potions as I like to do much more unfeasible.

Overall this may sound like a fairly negative review, which honestly I kind of wanted to slant it towards as it's all to easy to come from playing this game and simply say "OH MY GOD IT'S JUST SO AWESOME." To me, without a doubt it is the best Elder Scrolls game, and one of the best games ever made. That doesn't mean it doesn't still have its problems, but to be honest, a good deal of the problems I have will probably be adjusted or fixed with mods once the Creation Kit is released. Oh, and this is all not to mention the fact that it appears the entire continent of Tamriel has been built into this game, which means the modders (if not Bethesda themselves) can start incorporating both Oblivion and Morrowind into this game, as well as all the other countries that haven't yet been explored. Which means this game will never end. And frankly, I'm okay with that. If they would've tried the same thing with Oblivion, I don't know if I would've been as happy simply because to me Skyrim fixes the one thing I've always had trouble with, and that is the leveling system. So who knows, maybe we'll finally get what Elder Scrolls fans have always dreamed of...an entire continent to roam.

Until then, I'm more than happy to stay in Skyrim and explore every last nook and cranny.

Skyrim gets a 10/10.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

2011-12-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Let's recap. The Assassin's Creed franchise started out with what many would consider a flawed masterpiece. It was groundbreaking in many ways, mainly in its story, but it just wasn't that fun to play. Then we hear it's going to be a trilogy, and Assassin's Creed 2 comes out, vastly improving on the original but still with some flaws. But oh no, now a trilogy is no longer good enough. Now the dollar signs are flashing in Ubisoft's eyes and soon the word "franchise" starts rolling off their tongues. And they figure, "Man, everybody loved Ezio so much more than Altair...let's just give them more Ezio!" And so we get Brotherhood, an improvement in many ways, but also a drawback in that it was essentially the missing Rome of 2 bloated up into its own game. Then once more the heads gathered together and they said "Okay...people still love Ezio, but there's nothing more to build off of. However, we still have one more year until 2012, which is the big important year in the game. So how about we make one more game, tidy up some questions so we don't have to spend that much time in the 3rd game talking about it, and call it good?" And thus we get Revelations.

You may get a sense at this point that I am not having the greatest positive reaction to this game, and you'd be right. Here's the thing. Two years were spent between Assassin's Creed 1 and 2, and the improvement was incredible. Now we're getting yearly iterations (not even counting the portable titles in-between) and the improvements are, shall we say, not as groundbreaking. Yes, the combat's a bit more fluid. Yes, the freerunning feels tighter and more responsive. Sure, the graphics are a little better. But in almost every other way the series fails to improve, or tries to innovate and ends up slitting its own throat. And you can't help but get the feeling that if they had playtested these ideas for another year, we'd be looking at a much better product. Not only that, but while the saying runs true with many games, I think it especially fits here: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." The wonderful thing about Assassin's Creed is how unique it is in its story and locations. Keep throwing the same thing at us year after year, however, and that uniqueness starts looking pretty stale.

So it is with Revelations. But Revelations doesn't just make the mistake of being almost identical to its predecessors. Oh no. It makes the mistake in that where it's different, it sucks.

SPOILERS HERE ON OUT. Ye be warned.

First things first. We start off right at the end of Brotherhood, where Desmond is trapped in a coma inside the Animus after falling to the power of the Apple and killing Lucy. His psyche is broken, just as Subject 16 was, between his own memory and his ancestors. Rebecca has loaded him into a basic program hidden deep in the Animus called the "Black Room". It appears as a small island with gateways to other memories, to help his mind start to sort itself out. But there's a catch. After unlocking all of 16's secrets in Brotherhood you discover that 16's consciousness has been kept in the Animus as well, and he's waiting for you on this island, obviously there to help, but in a mentally imbalanced kind of way. He basically reveals that in order for Desmond to regain consciousness, he has to finish reliving both Ezio and Altair's memories until they have nothing left to show him. But he has to be careful, as if the Animus catches on to him leaving the black room it will at best pull him back, and at worst, treat him as a virus and try to delete him. On top of that, there are 5 gateways unlocked by finding animus fragments in Ezio's memory that reveal more of Desmond's backstory through...very interesting ways (more on that later). Basically it's all one big setup to wrap up Altair and Ezio's storylines and reveal a bit more of Desmond and 16's pasts.

Ezio starts off in Masayaf, the location of the first game, tracking down the lost secrets of Altair. However, it has fallen into decline and is now controlled by Templars. Barely escaping, Ezio learns of the existence of a library in the keep that possibly holds a great weapon, and which can only be opened with 5 keys. The Templars have one, and the rest were hidden by Niccolo Polo, Marco Polo's father, in Constantinople. But in an Inception-like turn, each key turns out to hold the memories of Altair, and so during these sequences you're essentially playing as Desmond playing as Ezio playing as Altair. They tell the story of Altair's rule and fall and eventual return as leader of the assassins, and finish up his story quite nicely. Back in Constantinople, between retrieving keys Ezio gets caught up in a civil war between two brothers looking to claim the sultanship for their own, and of course discovers one is a Templar and does everything he can to stop him. You can probably guess the rest. Ezio routs the Templars, finds the keys, opens the library, learns a secret, and shares everything he has left to share with Desmond so Desmond can wake up.

As for Desmond's past, these five...challenges? are unlike anything else in the series. They most closely resemble 16's puzzles, but only in that they're segmented chunks of story you unlock sequentially by finding things on the map. In short, they're first person sequences where you hop on various geometric shapes and can place your own either bars or ramps to further progress your way through the level. Sometimes there are blocks of data you can't touch, sometimes there are areas where you can't place blocks, sometimes there are areas where your blocks will drift in a certain direction...Basically they're platforming-ish puzzles, each revealing more of the story of Desmond's journey from the Farm to New York to Abstergo. Don't make sense? I don't blame you. If you tried explaining that to me I'd go "What the fuck are you on about?" Just...google an image or something cause that's the only way you'll see.

Now, I have a lot of problems with this game and I'm going to try my best to dole out some good with bad, but here's where the bad begins. So, in both 2 and Brotherhood, collecting things in the world got you big reveals. Sure there's 100 feathers to collect, but there's a nice reward for doing it! Now there's only 10 feathers, and all you get is an achievement, but there's 100 flags and a handy cape for those! In Revelations...they do the reverse. There's 100 Animus fragments, and 10 memoir pages. 30 fragments opens up all 5 Desmond memories. After 50 you can see all of them on your map. And at 100...a trophy. That's it. A bronze trophy. It practically spits in your face, especially as there are 2 OPEN DOORWAYS past the 5 you unlock. But apparently those are just there to get your hopes up. The pages, however, net you the best armor in the game. What. You can imagine my rage when I spent all this time tracking the damn things down, only to have just the trophy pop up saying "Congratulations for wasting your time!" It was an especial insult because the Desmond sequences were very interesting, despite how weird they were, and I wanted more of them and more about Desmond. So fuck you too Ubisoft.

As for the rest of the game, it plays almost exactly like Brotherhood. There are two touted innovations this time around, however: the hookblade and bombs. The hookblade adds a little bit to your climbing reach and makes things speedier, as well as letting you zipline across the rooftops. Technically it can be used in combat too but the difference is mostly cosmetic (except for the ability to counter-steal, where you block an opponent's attack and steal their gold at the same time). Bombs come in three groups: lethal, tactical, and diversion. Lethal ones kill, tactical hinder your enemies in some way (smoke bombs, caltrops), and diversionary draw guards' attention somewhere else. You can technically craft like 300 different types of bombs depending on the shell used, the explosive radius, and the effect type, but pretty early on you'll realize maybe only 2 or 3 combinations for each type really matter. Overall I found them a welcome addition, as they added some variety to how to get through each encounter, but for the most part I would often completely forget about using them unless the game forced me to, which it would do very, very often. I understand you want people to use this new mechanic you put a lot of time into, but forcing them to play a mission where bombs are the only way to get full synch? Especially the only epic mission in the game, namely the one they showed off for E3? Not cool.

Speaking of, I honestly didn't have that much of a problem with the full synch requirements for missions in Brotherhood. Sure, they were often quite a lot of trouble and could limit how to play a mission or made a mission seemingly impossible (I'm looking at you, "don't get hit" tank mission), but most of the time they simply seemed to fit with being a better assassin. Like don't lose too much health, kill only your target, don't be detected, etc. In Revelations things feel wholly different. Technically many of the requirements remain the same, but somehow this time they feel more arbitrary and harder to accomplish. The "don't use blades" E3 level and "kill 6 guards from a haystack" when only 1 guard patrols around a haystack level are the most egregious examples, but some levels "don't be detected" or "don't lose any health" are practically game-killers in how often you have to replay it to get it right (if you're a perfectionist like me and want that 100% sync). And of course, all you have to look forward to with that 100% is a goddamned trophy, and of course getting rid of the feeling like you failed that mission because you didn't play it the way they told you to.

Also revamped and nearly game-breaking is the notoriety system, Borgia towers (now Assassin's Dens) and economy. And yes, they do all tie together. Each Den plays out just like a Borgia tower. You kill a captain, climb to the top of the tower, light the beacon, and it's yours. It also allows you to renovate nearby shops. However, this time, if your notoriety gets too high the Templars can launch an assault on your den, which propels you into the Den Defense minigame, which is the worst idea they've ever come up with. Essentially it's a tower defense game where you set up different types of units on the rooftops and barricades in the street while waves of Templars come by and tear it all down in an attempt to wreck your den. This...minigame...is so bad...there are no words. Most of it appears to be luck. And the worst part is, if you lose, the tower just goes back to Templar control, and it's actually usually faster to just forfeit the minigame and then reclaim the tower than it is to play the minigame. As for notoriety, the best I can say is that they listened to fans and got rid of the stupid posters. On the other side, they made it so that renovating a shop or buying a landmark bumps up your notoriety by 25%. Killing a guard doesn't even do that. It's fractional compared to that. And sure, there are no more posters, but now bribing heralds only takes away 25% (and they're less abundant), and killing officials takes away 50% but they hardly ever pop up. Oh, and capturing a den automatically makes you notorious. But it's the punishing you for renovating that makes me cringe. Essentially for every shop you renovate you have to find a herald, unless you like playing the godawful den defense game, which brings the whole system to a crawl. Not only that, but gold is less abundant overall. All those treasure chests now only contain bomb ingredients for the most part.

This also ties in to the slightly reworked assassin recruits and Mediterranean Defense, where you send your recruits to other cities to spread Assassin influence. This time each mission reduces Templar influence at that city, and you also have the option to try and reclaim the city. If you do, the city brings in bomb ingredients and gold for you. However, your own influence also decreases over time, and if it reaches 0 you have to reclaim it again. Missions earn your assassins xp, and once they reach level 10 they can be promoted to the head of one of your dens. If they reach level 15 they become master assassins and the den they protect can no longer be targeted for den defense. However, it takes quite a lot of time, and it's pretty boring, so I only had 2 master assassins by the time the main story ended.

What this all goes to show is that Revelations suffers from the same problem that plagued Brotherhood. There's simply too much to do. Between worrying about den defense, gaining your assassins xp, renovating, finding heralds, trying to complete faction challenges, searching for fragments and pages, yadayadayada you're left with hours worth of tedious things to do far after the story is over. In Brotherhood I put it up to a simple misjudgement in wanting to include everything to make the game seem longer. In Revelations there is no excuse. This time they knew it was padding around a main story that, while it lives up to its name in theory (sure it reveals things, but they're not very interesting revelations) is pretty bare otherwise. The civil war storyline is pure filler with nothing interesting to it. Ezio's search for the truth Altair left behind has its strong points, but falters in others. And worst of all, Ezio's relationship with his future wife, which could have provided the emotional center this game needed to make any sort of impact, is almost completely skipped over or is simply told to us in Ezio's narration.

Here's the thing. Revelations is not a bad game per se. It's still an Assassin's Creed game, and that core gameplay and interesting story that keep this series so fascinating is still there. But as I did with Uncharted 3, I have to look at this game in the light of its predecessors. Because we have to face facts here. Anything good in Revelations came from the last games. Almost everything new that it adds either nearly breaks the experience or makes little difference overall. If I hadn't played the other, better games, I probably would've given this an 8 or 8.5. But as it goes...

Assassin's Creed Revelations gets a 7/10.

Uncharted 3

2011-11-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

Naughty Dog, the makers of the Uncharted series, were both fortunate and unfortunate in the making of Uncharted 2. They were fortunate in that they redefined the action-adventure game and created an amazing masterpiece that was basically what Indiana Jones 4 should have been. They were unfortunate in that they then had to follow that up with the end to a trilogy that had to top its predecessor, and let's face it, more often than not when a series has an incredible second entry the third tends to fall short. Unfortunately, Uncharted 3 falls right into that category, never escaping the shadow of 2.

This makes me sad, especially because in any other case, Uncharted 3 would easily be a 10/10. The graphics are amazing, the story is interesting if a little muddled or forgotten at times, combat is tight and responsive (especially the revamped hand-to-hand mechanics), and there are some set pieces here that stand out even above 2. But here's the thing. You can feel, throughout the entire design of this thing, that they needed more time. The set pieces that stand out the most are actually the most removed from the story. If they hadn't been in there, you wouldn't have noticed because they're literally just little side trips. The story itself often feels rushed, and is about yet another lost city that holds some secret power that if released to the world would mean devastation. And you have to run from hordes of spiders like 5 different times because...well...they never really tell you why there are massive amounts of spiders scattered all over the world in these caves. Not even a "well they must be protecting the secret of the city!" They're just there, I assume, in an attempt to spice things up a bit and add some urgency to certain levels.

And to counter-point that, you can really tell what they worked hard on and had time to fully flesh out. The boat level, if you've seen the previews, is the standout. It shows off what it takes to top Uncharted 2. The dynamic shifting of the waves and water, the tilting of the boat, the many many options they give you for how to approach each fight, all of it works together and makes something magical. The story also starts to shine when we start to finally get some background on Drake. Where he grew up, how he met Sully, and why things are so strained with the wonderful villain Marlowe. The reason the Uncharted series rises above so many others is not just because of its amazing set pieces and gameplay, it's also the heart put into the characters. Uncharted manages to capture humor in a way few others have, and the characters seem all the more real and fleshed out. So when Uncharted 3 teases with those glimpses of character it makes it all the more disappointing when most of the game focuses on simply getting these characters through the action. Yes, it has some wonderful moments, and I for one am happy about where they ended with it, I just wish they had gone deeper into the story as it seemed they really wanted to.

Multiplayer is back. Now, I never played 2's multiplayer but heard it was fairly innovative and something different to the traditional genre, and 3 seems pretty much the same. It truly innovates with things like a 2 sequence map where one team is on trucks trying to board a plane while it's taking off, and then once it does things shift into a more traditional area with buildings. However, it's not different enough to really make it anything special. Sure it's a fun-ish way to pass the time, but if you're a multiplayer gamer (I am not) there are definitely better offerings out there for you. Sure it's nice to be able to climb all over the place and shoot while hanging and things like that, but most of the time it still just boils down to find cover, shoot enemy, find new cover.

I hate harping on the game like this, because as I said, it's an amazing game and if you own a PS3 you owe it to yourself to play it (especially if you didn't play 2). But under the shadow of 2, Uncharted 3 just seems like a rehash that excels in some places and falls short in most others. And I really can't help but get the feeling that this is an 80% finished game. Yes, it plays like 100%, but something tells me that if they had another year to work out the storyline and add the same level of quality they put into the boat and burning manor set pieces, this could have been what we all wanted it to be. But for now...

Uncharted 3 gets a 9/10.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

2011-11-13T18:32:00.001-08:00

The initial rumblings I heard about Seattle Shakes' new production of Midsummer had me very confused. Often, one piece of news would make me think it was going to be amazing, and the next would make me question that. First, it was going to be at the Intiman. Awesome. Next, Lysander was being changed to a girl (Lysandra) to further highlight the forbidden nature of his/her love to Hermia. Bad. They'll be taking a darker spin on the play. Awesome! That darker spin apparently includes rather questionable junky looking costumes. Bad. They cast some of my favorite Seattle actors in all the lead roles, including their best physical comedian Chris Ensweiler as Puck. Rock on. The entire cast of lovers are unknowns. Questionable...but could surprise.

So the moment finally came, and I got to see the show closing night. Which side won out? As expected, it was a mix, though not for the reasons I was expecting.

First up, the lovers. For once this production actually did something interesting with Theseus and Hippolyta, choosing to actually show how much she dislikes him instead of glossing it over as most others do. Unfortunately, despite her amazing name, Qadriyyah Shabazz didn't quite seem up to the task of presenting the nuance needed to really sink it home. It really needed to be understood that in order to gain her approval Theseus would have to approve of Hermia and Lysandra, and it just didn't read. Mike Dooly as Theseus, a Seattle Shakes constant (he played Horatio last year), did well with what he had, though he too lacked the subtlety to really make clear whether Theseus actually approved the relationship or just said he did in front of her father Egeus.

However, let it be said that they are a small part of the play, and I pay particular attention to them having once played Theseus.

As for the main 4 lovers (Lysandra, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena), the show was stolen by the exquisitely mournful and pathetic Helena as portrayed by Terri Weagant. With just her walking on stage to the sight of Lysandra and Hermia, she took control of the audience and demanded laughter and pity, and retained that control whenever she was on. Demetrius I started out not liking, but got to like more and more as the actor seemed to loosen up throughout the show. The switch of Lysander to Lysandra actually didn't make much of a difference to me, though honestly that's the problem I had with it. First, it didn't add to the show except to make one line about "men's oaths" a bit funnier, and it didn't really detract from the show either except to make Puck's mistake about applying the flower juice to her eyes really confusing since he took her for a man...but she wasn't made up like a man or referred to in any way as man-like throughout the show. So the crux of the issue for me is this: if it's not going to aid or hurt the show in any significant way, what's the point? Sure I guess there's some gender morality issue you're trying to flirt with here, but it's not doing it in any significant or impactful way. It also didn't help that the women playing Lysandra and Hermia just weren't that great. Not bad, just not great.

The mechanicals/fools were another story entirely. I am in love with Todd Jefferson Moore. He consistently does an amazing job in whatever show he's in, whether it be the slapstick stylings of Dogberry in Much Ado or the sinister slyness of Richard III, and as Bottom things are no different. I shall even go as far as to say he is the greatest Bottom I have ever seen, and his supporting cast no less. The play within a play, Pyramus and Thisbe, is I think widely considered the funniest part of Midsummer. Well this, my friends, this was by far the funniest one of them all. Every comedic moment was hit, the timing was perfect, the embellishments made were hilarious all around, hell even the side comments from the lovers which can turn real nasty real quick were tempered in their comedy. One specific moment I'm thinking of came with a throwaway quip from Demetrius which after he realizes the actors have heard he quickly turns behind him to the audience and goes "SHHH!" The only gripe I had with the fools was their entrance music, which was such a departure from everything else that it screamed at the audience "GET READY, HERE COMES THE FUNNY ONES".

But now I come to the part I dread reviewing the most. The part I was most excited for. The fairies. They had almost everything going for them to make me like them. Three top Seattle actors in the main roles: Reginald Andre Jackson as Oberon, Amy Thone as Titania, and Chris Ensweiler as Puck. A darker spin that's traditionally skimmed over or ignored altogether. In short, despite the photos I saw of the rather questionable costume choices, I was still highly excited to see what they did here...which is probably why it was all the more disappointing to get what they gave me. Instead of a forest we were given a swamp, where the creatures within are all those things that make weird noises. Basically, this "darker spin" only amounted to a literally darker set, and instead of the fairies being joyful and obnoxious, were stereotypically weird and creepy...and obnoxious. Puck especially was the disappointment of the show. He kept making this weird whiny noise that made him sound more like a demon than a goblin, and every exit he made he assumed a kind of almost Vaudevillian "I'm about to run off!" pose before he, well, ran off. And somehow, despite casting their best physical comedian in the role, there was almost no physicality to Puck besides crouching and swaying. He finally got to shine when he took control of the lovers and tossed them around the stage into their final places, because for once he was getting to have fun, and we finally got to see what Chris Ensweiler does best when given control of the stage. But otherwise the performance was an overacted mess. The entire fairy cast (save one, I'll get to her in a second) and fairy theme seemed to suffer from the same flaw. There's a saying that goes "Don't act. Be." Well they all acted, instead of being. They tried pushing "I'm a scary weird creature!" instead of actually being scary weird creatures. I got the feeling a lot of this was directorial intervention, so I have to lay some blame here on Sheila Daniels, which makes me sad as I've loved her work in the past (Electra, Pericles, Macbeth). It just seemed like Oberon was from some African tribe, Titania was a dryad, and Puck was from some other mythology. Nothing meshed together. It you're going to go for a tribal/more primal feel, stick to a tribe.

Now, there was one exception to the rule: Kacey Shiflet, a senior at Seattle U, who played Cobweb. A throwaway role by any measure, Cobweb is one of the miscellaneous fairies that tend on Titania. Yet somehow, with almost no lines and limited stage presence, Kacey was the only one up there who managed to convey what I assume the director was trying to go for. Her entire physicality, her mannerisms, her voice, everything about her was this dark fairy. And by the end of the show she had me convinced of something I really never would've thought I would think...that she should've been Puck. So kudos to her.

Overall, the play was good. The mechanicals were amazing, the lovers had their moments of greatness, and despite how much I didn't like them the fairies weren't bad per se, just out of place. Though I won't forgive whoever it was that decided it was a good idea to end the play with Puck still being hissy and weird and then making his weird noise and pose after the last line. Left quite a sour taste in my mouth. Nonetheless, for the most part the rest of the play made up for the unfortunate choices made with the fairies. I just really wish all of them had latched on to what the surprise of the show Kacey Shiflet was doing and gotten rid of all the stupid goddamn noises.

A Midsummer Night's Dream gets a 7.5/10 (8.5 without the fairies).

Ico and Shadow of the Colussus Collection

2011-11-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

It may have been a little while since I've updated and I may or may not have been watching movies and playing games in the meantime that I probably should've reviewed. But let's leave that to the past shall we? Unlike these next two games, which have been resurrected from the bygone days of the PS2 in full HD graphics and 3D if you're one of the few who own a 3DTV.

Sony's been doing a lot of dredging up the classics recently, with their first venture being the very successful God of War 1+2 remakes. So it's only natural that the trend continue, and we get two artful masterpieces in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, redone as they should've been seen.

Now, I never played Ico though I heard a great deal about it, and I enjoyed Shadow though it seemed a little repetitive and lacking for my tastes. So how's the transition into HD? It's beautiful to a fault. Allow me to explain.

It's been 10 years since the release of Ico, and 5 since Shadow. That may not seem like a long time to most, but in game years every couple years brings about a giant shift in graphics and improved gameplay experiences. Every couple years we get better and better games. So to drag these games back from the depths, you're also dragging back old design.

Both games are astonishingly beautiful. The HD update works perfectly, and the old lag problems in Shadow from the strain it put on the PS2 are gone. It basically plays how it was meant to play. Unfortunately, with this amazing graphical quality you start to instinctively expect more modern gameplay as well, and this is where the collection went wrong. By doing a straight port with better graphics, the glaring camera and pathfinding issues in Ico, and the awkward horse maneuvering and glitchy jumps in Shadow seem all the more prominent. We gamers could forgive those kinds of issues back in the day. Not anymore.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Ico tells the story of a boy with horns brought to a prison, who miraculously manages to escape his cell and find a fellow captive named Yorda who speaks a strange language he can't understand. You spend the game dragging Yorda around by the hand, trying to solve puzzles while avoiding/fighting these shadow creatures that keep trying to drag her back (for purposes later revealed), and figure out how to escape the prison. It's basically one long escort mission, though it's a miracle that it somehow never feels too tedious. What's key in Ico is the story, which though it says little, speaks volumes. It's quite a journey Ico and Yorda share, however short it may be (I finished it in 6 hours, though there's a trophy to complete it in 2). Somehow even though they never understand what each other are saying, there's an inexplicable and unbreakable bond forged between them that drives the story forward and makes the entire game a joy to play even if you want to punch Yorda in the face sometimes for her poor pathfinding.

Shadow is the spiritual successor (if not prequel) to Ico. This time we step into the shoes of a mysterious man who has traveled to a forbidden land where a demon named Dormin is held captive, in order to try and get Dormin to bring his girlfriend back from the dead after she was sacrificed for some reason. Dormin agrees to help, in exchange for you traveling across the lands and killing 16 Colossi, personifications of the 16 statues keeping Dormin trapped. Joining you on your adventure is your trusty horse Agro, who while mostly serving as a fast form of transportation across the rather large game world, is also invaluable in defeating certain colossi. Where Shadow falls for me is that it feels like a story driven game, but there's little to no story throughout. Mostly it's "Your next target is this colossi. Go kill it." Then you find it with the help of your sword, which if you hold it up in the light points you in the right direction (and reveals weak spots on colossi), figure out the particular puzzle for each colossi that gets you its weak spots so you can kill it, kill it, and then get transported back to the main shrine to receive your next target. Other than that, you get very small snippets of story about every 4 colossi (girlfriend is looking better, wanderer is looking worse, there are some people after you, they've arrived) but most of the story happens in the beginning and end, and it just seems a bit lacking.

The game world is pretty damn large, but there's nothing to do in it and no reason to explore it. There are save points scattered all over the map but only a few are actually important (being near colossi), and you can also collect fruit from trees to increase your health and collect tails from glowing lizards to increase your stamina, but each one has such a minimal effect that it's easier to just kill the colossi to get the upgrades, and even then it apparently takes 3 to 4 complete playthroughs to max them out. The battles with the Colossi can be quite epic, but can also feel repetitive as some designs are used for more than one colossus, and in the end each one comes down to "Find weak spot, stab weak spot, hold on for dear life as it tries to shake you off, then stab again. Repeat until dead."

This all isn't to say Shadow is a bad game. As with any work of art, the experience is all in the eye of the beholder. Others praise Shadow for its lack of things in the world because it adds to the sense of solitude, really makes it feel like an ancient land you're not supposed to be in, etc. It's just in my experience, I got bored with it. But it is hard to deny how gorgeous this game is with the updated graphics. Sometimes you will just want to stop and stare around at this fallen yet majestic land.

So overall I enjoyed Ico more than Shadow. A deeper story and more varied gameplay overcomes its quirky camera and relics of bad design. Is it worth it to get the collection versus the two on their own if you own a PS2, or even have the games already? Honestly, I would say yes. You can tell that while the actual gameplay issues weren't fixed, they put a lot of effort into making these games look stunningly beautiful, and the way they were originally meant to be seen. Plus you get some free themes and several behind the scenes videos (that I admittedly haven't watched yet). On that note...

Ico gets a 9/10.
Shadow of the Colossus gets a 6/10.
The Collection gets an 8/10, as it's greater than the average of its parts.

Somewhere

2011-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Sofia Coppola. I even enjoyed the more criticized Marie Antionette. So when I finished watching Somewhere, knowing next to nothing about it when I started except that it was a Focus feature, which I almost universally enjoy, and that it was supposed to be good, I was shocked to see her name come up as the director. Why? Because Somewhere is about as slow, uninteresting, and pretentious as a movie can be. Apparently many considered it a work of art, which I could agree with, as all art is subjective and some can find volumes of meaning where others see just a solid black block. Unfortunately, I fall into the latter category this time.

The basic story follows relatively successful actor Johnny Marco as he...well...does very little. He drives his expensive car, he goes to press conferences, he sits around and looks at the wall, and he bangs any readily available girl (of which there's always at least one). A small twist comes in when his ex-wife tells him she's leaving for a while and so he needs to take care of their daughter for a while and make sure she gets to summer camp. Meanwhile he has an awards show in Italy he has to attend, and so he brings her along. You might think this means there's a story here about redemption, about finding himself, about the bonding of father and daughter. It's somewhere in there (pun intended), but it's so lost among the dreariness and overly long shots that beg the audience to find meaning in them despite their emptiness that nothing makes an impact. And maybe that's the point, maybe we're all supposed to feel a complete lack of emotion just as Johnny does, but personally I found the whole thing more tedious and boring than soul-searching or thought-provoking.

The only good part of this movie was the fascinating look at the role of his daughter, played with surprising depth and expression by Elle Fanning. At once she seems completely oblivious to the life her father lives, but then the moment changes and we see just how concerned she is for him. She also delicately treads the line between living in the luxury surrounding her and trying to be normal as one. One of the most poignant parts of the movie comes when she phones room service to bring her the ingredients for a meal that she then makes for him. It doesn't sound like much, but the way the movie shows the ease with which she lives with this contrast is stunning.

So yes, there are some interesting moments, mostly revolving around the daughter, and the movie certainly has some points to make and things to say. It's just all drowned out by the absurdly slow pace and pretentiously artistic loooooong shots.

Somewhere gets a 4/10.

Crysis 2

2011-07-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

What better way to celebrate FINALLY getting a new, awesome graphics card than to tackle the graphical powerhouse that is Crysis 2? The original Crysis was a major benchmark when it first came out, making only the best and most expensive systems able to play it at max settings, and Crysis 2 looked to do no less. So I installed the new card, booted things up, and went....

"Oooooooooooooooooooooo, preeeeeeeeeeeetty."

For those unfamiliar, the original Crysis put you in the shoes of Nomad, part of a team of soldiers equipped with nanosuits sent to a tropical island to stop the North Koreans from taking hold. Your nanosuit offered you boosted powers depending on the mode you selected: strength, speed, armor, or stealth. However, each mode drained your suit's power supply which, if it got to 0, would leave you without powers until it recharged. And with that, much like its spiritual predecessor FarCry, you're left to explore a fairly open world, dealing with North Koreans and the mysterious alien menace that popped up there as well.

Crysis 2 picks up a while after the first game, where the aliens are invading everywhere, spreading a deadly plague. This time around you take the role of Alcatraz, an ordinary marine sent as part of a team via submarine into New York to find Dr. Gould as he may have info on how to defeat the aliens. But things go wrong quick, the sub is destroyed, and soon you're hauling yourself to shore to find a guy in a nanosuit taking down the dropship that destroyed your sub. We soon learn that this is Prophet, the leader of the team from the first game. Having been infected with the virus, Prophet gives his suit to you and kills himself so that the suit bonds to you completely. However, it turns out that other people were looking for Prophet as well and don't realize you're not him, including Dr. Gould. After an encounter with the new and improved aliens on your way to Gould, the suit starts reacting to the alien genetics and starts synthesizing a cure to the plague. From there it's a long long road through hundreds of aliens and military forces that want the suit reclaimed, buying time until the suit can process the DNA and release a counteragent that could not only help cure the plague, but defeat the aliens as well. Personally, I don't expect much story in my FPS, so the barebones one they put in here which mainly consists of "DO THIS THING BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS!" might put others off, but I found it entertaining.

Gameplay is a bit different this time around, in a good way. Instead of having 4 separate modes, speed and strength are integrated into things like running, jumping, and kicking cars, while armor and stealth still get their own toggled mode along with an infrared "nanovision". The open world is also gone in favor of more directed, mission-oriented gameplay, but the areas you're given are nonetheless still quite large, and never feel limiting. You're also once again given plenty of weapons to play with, each with slight modifications like scopes and grenade launchers.

So here's the thing. Crysis 2 is by far a much more enjoyable game than the first. The loss of the open world is actually a big benefit, as the action is much more fluid, the set pieces are all the bigger, and the story gets a big boost as well. And for most of the game, I was happily firing away at everything that moved while admiring the variety of environments they were able to achieve (considering you never leave New York) and generally basking in the glow of some very impressive graphics and gameplay. But the problem doesn't come in any of the parts, it comes in that eventually Crysis 2 runs out of steam in terms of enemy variety and mission type. Much like my problem with Resistance, Crysis seems to hope that for an ending, a lack of enemy variety will be made up for by simply throwing a lot of them at you. It's disappointing to realize at the end that the final battle you just had was very similar to and not much harder than previous battles with the exact same enemies.

Still, in every other department Crysis 2 shines. The gameplay is dynamic and fluid, with repeated playthroughs of sections (due to death) playing out differently enough each time to keep things interesting. On top of that, depending on your playstyle, you can focus suit upgrades on armor, stealth or strength which varies up the experience even more. My personal style of hit-and-run stealth was perfectly complemented and made battles tactical and very fun. The environments are astonishingly different and make it feel like an open world even though it's not. Oh, and did I mention that it's gorgeous. All this together makes Crysis 2 one of the best FPSs I've played.

Crysis 2 gets a 9/10.

E3 2011: Nintendo

2011-06-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

All of the hype this E3 has been surrounding Nintendo's announcement that they will be unveiling a new console, and that it will be playable on the show floor. Is it a new Wii? With HD? Is it more in line with the Gamecube/a hardcoreish console? Is it something completely new and different that sounds cool but no one will ever really know what to do with like the Wii? Stay tuned for the answer.

I personally came into it having been thoroughly wowed last year by Nintendo at E3, only to find that most of their greatly hyped releases only stirred a kind of "meh" response. And worst of all, the 3DS' no glasses 3D turned out to not really work. I tried it out with Pilotwings Resort at Best Buy and could tell just how much that thing was straining my eyes, and how finicky the effect was if you didn't hold your head and the controller in exactly the same position the entire time. Sure it's still a nice vamped up DS, but it disappointed. So with the announcement of a new console, I'm back to being wary. But on to the actual show...

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Zelda, an entire orchestra played the new theme song to Skyward Sword alongside a compilation video of all the past Zelda titles. Then Miyamoto, who created Zelda, came out and had some fun asking the orchestra to play some classic tunes, like those going along with opening a treasure chest and solving a puzzle. Miyamoto is adorable in how enthused he is about the entire thing. But then we get to the important part: the games. In celebration of the 25th year, there will be a new Zelda game for each platform. Link's Awakening is relaunching on the e-store on the DS, Ocarina of Time 3D for the 3DS (which has a bunch of new features like hint movies for first time players, or the mirror Master Quest mode for the hardcore), the 4 player co-op Four Swords game as a free download for DS, and of course, Skyward Sword for the Wii. And the orchestra is there as a taste of the 25th anniversary orchestral concert which will be touring around the world, and yes, there will be a CD.

So after that big self-pat on the back, and some more orchestral music, they mention what we're all here for...the new console. They acknowledge that the Wii essentially expanded their player base, but wasn't for everyone. Well, with this new console they have two words for you: "deeper" and "wider"..............by which they mean deeper gameplay experiences for the hardcore and even wider appeal than the Wii of course, what were you thinking? But of course, this is just a teaser for showing it off later in the conference..........the console, that is. Until then...

All your favorite franchises are coming to 3DS. Mario Kart, Starfox, Super Mario, Kid Icarus, and Luigi's Mansion. Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo America, then comes out and says some very interesting things. And I think it perfectly explains Nintendo's philosophy, and why they keep releasing the same games over and over again. He goes into a speech about how "We hear you. You want what you've always wanted. But you also want something new." How we like the comfortable, but want the buzz of the new. And how those may be contradictions, but they can do it. Then we get trailers for all of the above games, explaining how yes, each is familiar, but each has some new 3D tricks that make it new, essentially. Mario Kart just adds 3D, Starfox will have tilt control (bad idea, since the 3D effect is so centered around holding the controller in this "sweet spot") along with real-time video of you and the other 3 players you play against in multiplayer, Super Mario focuses on 3D platforming, Kid Icarus will have playing cards you can fight with using the 3DS camera and AR (augmented reality), and Luigi's Mansion 2 will have some kind of 3D integration (hard to tell from the trailer). It's essentially everything we've seen before, just with 3D. So essentially, expect what you've always expected from Nintendo...more of the same.

But thank goodness there's third parties interested in the 3DS, as they show trailers for Resident Evil: Mercenaries, Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympic Games, Ace Combat, Tetris, Cave Story 3D, Resident Evil: Revelations, Driver: Renegade, Pac-Man and Galaga: Dimensions, Tekken 3D, and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D......wait, let me look at that list again.....Really? Really? These are titles you want to showcase? I understand the other blockbuster titles you were listing off last year may not be ready yet, but...looking at that list and the trailers that went along with them...let's just say I'm not jumping out of my seat to grab a 3DS. I'm barely even lifting a finger.

They even bring out added 3D and AR functionality for Pokemon Black and White with an advanced pokedex, but apparently the pokedex can only be filled with special codes and trading with friends, etc., not through the actual game. WTF Nintendo.

Well at least they're moving right on to the new console. And here it is...the WiiU. U, for uuuuuuuuuh, what? When it first came out, the name "Wii" was meant to symbolize "we", all of us playing together. Apparently now the U is in there to symbolize how yes, it's still about us all playing together, but now it's also about a better experience for "you" as well. Apparently it's also "unique", "unifying" and even "utopian". How does it accomplish this? Well, I'm going to put aside the next 30 minutes of confusing, ambiguous, and hype-filled presentation to just present what I've learned from not only this conference, but added details that were released later that cleared up some unanswered questions.

The WiiU, despite appearances, is in fact an entirely new console, but with a very special controller. It will output full 1080p hi-def video, uses some kind of disc (as yet unspecified), and will use a Wii sensor bar to be fully backwards compatible with all Wii games. But while details on the console itself remain vague, the controller was up front and center to define what the new WiiU experience is going to be. This thing is the size of an iPad or tablet, with a 6" touchscreen on the front, a front-facing camera, two analog sticks, shoulder buttons, your standard 4 button a/b/x/y, a microphone, gyroscope, accelerometer, and speakers. In essence, think of it as a tablet mashed with a standard controller.

The application of said controller to gaming comes in many forms, with Nintendo I think hoping as they did with the Wii that third party developers will look at this new tech and think of really cool things to do with it. Currently, though, they had several tech-like demonstrations to show off. There were essentially three different configurations of how it could be used: as a simple controller for the game on the TV, in combination with the TV, or alone. The most impressive thing it can do is take any Wii U game playing on your TV, and transfer it straight to the controller so you can keep playing if someone else wants to use the TV. It can also be used in conjunction with the TV, allowing things like your inventory to just be on the controller screen instead of taking up space on the big screen, or even allowing interactivity where you can do something like shoot throwing stars by sliding your hand across the touchscreen towards the TV screen. Another possible interesting application is to use it as a window into the game, allowing you to look all around you with the controller, exploring your living room as if it were the game world. Apparently in one demo on the floor you had to use the controller to look around the room to stop incoming arrows from hitting you that you otherwise wouldn't be able to see.

But as I always say, impressive/innovative tech means nothing without the games to support it, and Nintendo delivered quite a shocker on this one. While their own first-party titles were typical/uninteresting, the very first third party title they announced was Darksiders 2, showing that they've finally expanded into the mature market. But the real surprise came when after that they started flashing up other titles like Batman: Arkham City and they have EA's CEO talking about bringing Battlefield 3 over. So finally, Nintendo is getting the same games that the hardcore consoles are getting. To what degree those titles will use the Wii U tech is uncertain, especially as the console isn't coming until late next year, after most of these titles will launch for the other platforms. Still, it's nice to see that Nintendo is finally stepping up to the plate with some hardcore titles and getting the support they so desperately need.

But here's the real question, and I think it's pretty clear from Sony's response what the answer is: is this a next gen console, or is it simply gen 1.5...or even just stepping into this gen? Sony was quite clear in their response that they were not worried about the Wii U, and that it won't be hampering or hastening their plans to release their next console sometime around 2014. Especially because...they're already getting that tech covered with the Vita. With the Transfarring system coming to Metal Gear games, and the cross functionality shown off with Ruin, it's already clear that the greatest feature of Wii U, namely being able to continue playing on the controller when the TV is occupied, is already being taken care of by the Vita. And it's not a big stretch to see it doing the other stuff as well. It might take a version 2.0 to get the right wireless tech in it, but frankly it's not that big a leap, and with a 5" screen, you're not getting that much less screen for a much more wieldy thing to hold in your hands. For once, Nintendo's brand new innovation...doesn't appear to be all that brand new. Time will tell, especially in what Sony decides to do with the Vita, and as we get more details about everything the Wii U will do closer to its release next year, but Nintendo might find themselves once again woefully behind the times in a much shorter period of time than they expected.

E3 2011: Sony

2011-06-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Before the PSN network outage, E3 looked to belong to Sony this year. Then, Sony mistakenly declared war on hackers, and lost. For a month, there was no online. They lost money, the second-party companies that use PSN lost money, and everyone was just generally pissed off. So instead, Sony walks into E3 humble, and with a big elephant in the room.

And they dealt with it wonderfully. Right off the bat the CEO comes out, and gives a long, very heartfelt apology to everyone (except the press, who he says "You're welcome" to). It felt sincere, was just long enough to not feel like a throwaway, but was just short enough not to distract from the line-up of awesome they had in store. So bravo, Sony.

Of course, after that, what better way to start the show than with Uncharted 3. If you played Uncharted 2, you remember the train section. Well get ready to have that blown away by by the boat section they showed off. Dynamically shifting with the waves, a bit of stealth, lots of action...Uncharted 2 set a bar for action adventure games, and this looks to surpass it. Waiting with bated breath for November 1st.

Blockbuster #2: Resistance 3. So far Insomniac had only shown off a section on a boat, which looked...well, it didn't sell me. This section, an ambush on a dropship, looked much more intense, using more of the cool gadgets and weapons expected from an Insomniac game. Unlike the rest of the world, I didn't enjoy the first Resistance game, and I haven't played the second, so I'm keeping my reservations about the third, but there's no doubt that for FPS fans, Resistance 3 is going to stay true to its traditions of gritty, high action combat with innovative tech. But to top it all off, they announced a new PS Move bundle, which will come with Resistance 3, the PS Eye, a Move controller, a navigation controller, and the sharpshooter peripheral, all for only $150. So if you're ever going to get Move, this will be the way to do it.

Sony has been pushing the 3D train along whether people want it or not, possibly (okay, definitely) because they also sell the 3D TVs. Both Uncharted and Resistance will have 3D, but then they also announce that the God of War Origins collection (the 2 PSP games remastered for PS3) AND the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus collection will both be coming this September, and both will be fully playable in 3D. But all this 3D doesn't really matter if a TV is going to cost you a ridiculous amount of money right? So they introduce a PS branded 24" 3DTV, with a special tech that allows two players to see two distinct images on the same TV set instead of having to do split screen, AND the 3D glasses are going to be less expensive. So what does all this actually come to? The TV, a pair of glasses, and HDMI cable, and Resistance 3...$500. Glasses alone...$70. While I still wince at the glasses price, taking into account the cost of Resistance and the glasses, that makes the TV cost only about $370, which is a steal. Though, it also seems to me that if you really want to spend the money on a 3DTV, you're going to want more than 24". Still, at least Sony has caught on to the fact that if you really want 3D to take off, you're going to need to make it more affordable.

From 3D we move to...the Move. The first title they show is NBA 2K12, where using the Move you can easily just point and click at the person you want to pass to, or while on defense click the guy you want to block. Now, the thing about it is it looks like you can pretty much let the game play itself, as Kobe Bryant shows when he comes up on stage and seems to not really play the game at all (watch the cursor on screen). Plus it's a sports game so I already don't care.

Next up is Medieval Moves: Dead Man's Quest. From the same makers as Sports Champions, this quirky title looks to do away with an inventory system while still allowing you access to three weapons: sword and shield, bow and arrow, and throwing stars. Depending on the motion you make, that's the weapon you use, and the switch is really quite seamless. It seems a game that would work much better with two Move controllers, but they only showcased one. Still, it looks to be a fun use of Move, and it's coming this Fall.

Trailer for Infamous 2 that reminds me I need to review it...heehee. Whoops. But there's also the announcement that later this year they will be adding Move functionality to both Infamous 2 and adding more Move functionality to LittleBigPlanet 2.

Trailer for Starhawk, which while it was a little unclear about what the gameplay will be like, has received nothing but good buzz from its showing on the show floor. A mix of ground combat, air combat, and some kind of system where new units/equipment is dropped from space? Sounds cool to me.

Teaser for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Never did play the originals or get the Sly collection, though I've heard nothing but good stuff about it. Time to get the collection?

Now here's something I don't know what to make of. Dust 514 is going to be an extension of EVE Online, a massive space MMO, but it's going to be exclusive to PS3 and focus on ground combat. Yet, it will still link somehow with EVE. Not only that, but it will have Move support, a space in Home, and will extend to the NGP (yes, it finally gets a name, more on that in a bit). Guess we have to wait until Spring 2012 to see what it's all about.

Get your saliva glands ready, it's Bioshock Infinite. Only a trailer, but still, the more I see of this game the more I NEED IT. But then Ken Levine, head of Irrational Games steps up. And he looks kind of nervous. And then he starts talking about how he did this interview a while ago doubting motion control and how he said some disparaging things about the Move. And all I could think was Gabe Newell last year announcing he was wrong about Sony and how the PS3 version of Portal 2 would be the best one. So Ken keeps going and says Sony heard the interview, and sent him a Move and talked with him about it and basically said "Just try it." And he did, and he liked it. So Bioshock Infinite will have Move support. And if that isn't a reason to get it I don't know what is. Then to top it all off, he says there's another Bioshock game that has been mulling around in his head for a long time and it's still in the very early stages, but it finally found a home...on the NGP. Oh, and after that, the PS3 version of Infinite will also have a free copy of the original Bioshock. On the same disc. Good....god. It's like Christmas came early.

Brief mention of an exclusive game mode for Saint's Row the Third coming November 15th.

Here's something interesting, a co-op third person shooter based on the next Star Trek film that actually looks good? And it's fully compatible with Move, and will have a phaser peripheral. And it comes with a prequel exclusive to PSN. Rock on.

Some exclusive offers from EA: race down Mt. Fuji in SSX, 7 additional supercars for Need for Speed: The Run, Battlefield 1943 for free and on the same disc as Battlefield 3, along with other unmentioned support for the NGP.

Speaking of, it's finally time! Well, first an odd and very vague announcement about Playstation Suite, which will allow PS certified Android smartphones access to the "playstation experience". What this means is anyone's guess, especially since they talked about it as people using it to get a taste of Playstation which will bring them running to the PS3.

Now it's time! The NGP is officially called...the PS Vita. Front and back touchscreens, dual analog sticks, front and back cameras, a multitouch 5" OLED screen, and six-axis. This thing is a freakin powerhouse. Then they mention a 3G version with an exclusive contract with the nation's fastest network...and you can tell everyone is wondering who the hell they think that is...and then they say it. The bad word. AT&T. And there's an audible groan throughout the audience. After all the complaints about AT&T with the iPhone, how Sony could turn to them and not expect backlash is beyond me. Oh well, moving on they're finally introducing cross-game chat which PSN users have been complaining about not having (since it's on Xbox) for a while now, along with something they're calling Near, which sounds like a way to connect with other PS Vita users near you.

But new tech means nothing without good games to go with it. So what do they roll out but Uncharted: Golden Abyss. And...wow. Just wow. The graphics are easily as good as the first Uncharted. Then on top of that, the touch screen controls not only look somewhat useful and interesting, but in case you don't care for them they're also completely optional. Whaaaaat.

Next up is Ruin, a top-down action RPG that looked an awful lot like Torchlight/Diablo. However, there's apparently this system whereby during the course of the game you create your own lair that rivals you encounter on PSN can attack, and you can attack theirs as well to earn better loot. Sounds interesting, as long as it's implemented well. But then the real kicker comes in that you can seamlessly transfer between playing on the Vita and playing on the PS3. Just save your game to the Cloud, load it on PS3, and there you go. I certainly won't complain about a portable Diablo clone I can also play at home.

ModNation Racers is back with a Vita specific version that allows you to craft a track in much less time using the touch screen. By touching the back you can add mountains, by touching the front you can draw the line of the track, add jumps and banks with a flick of your finger, and even create dents and lakes in the scenery just by pressing on an area. Again, racing games and creating tracks aren't really my thing, but I can certainly see the appeal, especially as all 2 million tracks and cars from the previous versions will be available from day 1.

Also no big surprise, Little Big Planet is coming to Vita, also with new functionality and sharing between it and the PS3 (at least in costumes, that's all they showed in the trailer).

Street Fighter X Tekken will have a PS Vita version, which really isn't surprising considering Street Fighter came to the 3DS. What is surprising is that Cole from Infamous will be in the game, which is awesome, and a short demo showed the graphics to easily be up to par for a PS3 Street Fighter title, despite still being in like alpha phase.

But now comes the important part. The price. There are two models, one just WiFi, and the other WiFi+3G. WiFi only will be *drum roll*....$249. WiFi+3G will be $299. This is frankly shocking, as not only is it the same price as the, sorry, technologically inferior 3DS, but it's also the same price that the PSP launched at. Now, it's arguable the PSP launched at a far too high price, but it's now just as easily arguable that the Vita is launching at a low price point considering all the tech inside. I've never owned a handheld before, but the Vita is making a strong case for being the first. Great launch titles, impressive tech, connectivity with PS3, and a stomachable price point means this thing is going to sell like hotcakes.

Sony looks to be coming out of this E3 stronger than ever, with a great showing in terms of blockbuster games, new Move support, and the PS Vita. Despite the PSN outage, Sony's rolling on, and looking to wow everyone. Well done.

E3 2011: Ubisoft

2011-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

Ubisoft has a special place in my heart for their E3 conferences. They're all very French, and as such come up with some ideas that don't necessarily translate well, but you can at least tell they were trying really hard to be funny. Last year they had Joel McHale and laser tag. This year...

Well this year they start off letting us know that this is their 25th year, and good on 'em. The CEO comes out, thanks everyone for their support, and introduces the man behind the very first game they ever released, Rayman, to show off Rayman: Origins. But, being French, it wasn't just enough to have him come on stage. He appeared, looked around and commented that it was a wonderful theater, and said they could perform Shakespeare. So he gets on one knee, lifts his arms and says "Tell me Yves, after 25 years...Ubi, or not Ubi?" and Yves responds "Ubi of course!" They hug, laugh, and the audience laughs awkwardly with them. Oh the French.

Anyways, Rayman: Origins. This was introduced last year and looked very impressive, and the demo maintained that feeling. The levels they showed were fast paced, very colorful, kinda crazy, and looked like a whole lot of fun. To think that only 5 people made this game is frankly astounding.

And then they introduce our host for the evening....Mr. Caffeine. I'm not kidding. This douchebag looking fellow shows up on stage with that stereotypically bad stand-up comic personality, introduces himself as Ubisoft's own Mr. Caffeine (for the past 8 years) and proceeds to try really hard to be funny while fully admitting to things like drumming up his own applause and not being afraid of a couple dick jokes. *sigh* To seal the deal he even brought out a Charlie Sheen joke nearly right off the bat. Alright, moving on.

For Driver: San Francisco all we get is a trailer, which highlights literally nothing about this game that would set it apart from any other game besides "It's set in the 70s! Drive retro cars!" Knowing all the interesting things about it that they showed off last year, this was a bit of a disappointment.

To make up for it, they show off an amazing demo of Farcry 3. Seamlessly integrating cutscene with gameplay, this continuation of the franchise looks to return to its roots with a vibrant jungle, big open world, and a main villain who leaks that creepy, quiet kind of insanity. Add some impressive graphics on top of it all and you've got a game to beat.

Next up is a new Brothers In Arms game from Gearbox (same people behind Borderlands). While Brothers In Arms has typically been about realism in WW2, this time they're taking a different tack. Introducing the Furious Four, a band of Inglorious Basterds-like fellows who each have their own unique style of ripping Nazis to shreds. All we got is a trailer, and based on what I saw I'm not going to hold my breath, but who knows, this could be a surprise.

Some familiar faces in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson show up on screen to talk about the Tintin video game which will tie in to the movie. Frankly, it seemed like all the features those two were impressed with were already standard in most video games. Frankly, with the poor track record of movie-based video games, I saw nothing that would change that.

Apparently this is also the 10th anniversary of the Ghost Recon franchise, which means it's time to finally get a look at Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Is it me, or has this game changed from last year? Last year the gameplay we saw looked very scripted, and while it still looked interesting and fun, it also looked a bit straightforward. This is a new beast, with dynamic team combat, running and gunning, and some big action pieces. I wasn't that interested in this game last year, and while I still don't really think it's a game for me, I was wholly impressed by what they showed off here. And then after the demo they announce something VERY impressive, Ghost Recon Online, where it looks like you'll have access to the multiplayer portion of Ghost Recon ...for free. And if you have Future Soldier the two will tie together somehow, probably in stats and unlockables, etc. Still, that's quite an announcement, and free can't be beat.

Next up they roll out Maniaplanet once more to talk about Trackmania 2, a game where you build your own cars and tracks like ModNation Racers, but with much more realistic visuals and style. And that style is pretty. Easily ranking with the top racing games this generation. Personally, I just can't wait until they extend it to Questmania, where you can make your own RPGs. Unfortunately, they first have to roll out Trackmania 2 and Shootmania, their FPS builder. DAMN YOU.

Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking. Uses Kinect to bring the Rabbids into your home. Nuff said.

Just Dance 3. You might have guessed, it looks just like the others. Except this time they got celebrities like Katy Perry to play it in a commercial.

Rocksmith. A game dedicated to teaching you Guitar. Not an added pro mode like in rock band where you could maybe learn guitar from it, this is meant to teach you guitar. And, it works with any electric guitar. *sigh* Time to go guitar shopping.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved stunned me last year with its impressive use of Kinect, and the sequel looks to do more of the same. No actual footage was shown, but the first was a resounding success and I'm sure this will be no different.

FINALLY, Assassin's Creed: Revelations. The unexpected, by me anyway, finale to Ezio's trilogy. Here I was thinking Brotherhood was just wrapping up the loose ends of 2, and it turns out it's part two of its own trilogy. I'm not going to complain, especially with how freaking impressive Revelations looks. Showing off the new Hookblade, the ability to make hundreds of types of bombs, and the giant action set piece of using Greek fire (an old school flamethrower) to take down an armada/blockade and then sail casually away was jaw-dropping. And with the promise to wrap up and answer all the questions from not only Ezio, but Altair's storyline as well leaves me salivating until this drops November 15th.

E3 2011: EA

2011-06-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

EA knows what we want. We want us some Mass Effect 3. Right away. We want a trailer showing the Earth devastated, attacked by hundreds of Reapers. And then we want a demo, where Shepard takes on a Reaper. From behind a mounted turret. And then they tell us we have to wait until March 6th, 2012. WHYYYY.

Then they VERY briefly talked about their new Steam-like download service called Origin, and kept talking about all the games integrated with it throughout the show, but neglected to really say anything about the service. I haven't checked it out myself yet, but from what I can tell they're essentially trying to compete with Steam, just with EA titles. Good luck guys.

Need for Speed: The Run will take you in a race across the country, something called autolog keeps track of all of your and your friends' stats, and there will be out of car action sequences for the first time. The demo looked fine, though to me it seemed like any other racing game, just with some quicktime events for those out of car moments. But then again, I'm not a racing fan.

Star Wars The Old Republic is taking far too long to get here. They've made a lot of promises for an MMO, especially while looking like many other MMOs in terms of gameplay. So this guy comes out and essentially says "We're working really hard on it, I'm not going to try to convince you to play it, just play it and enjoy it." At which point I figure we'll get some sort of demo of somebody playing it....nope. Literally just a compilation/rehash of all of their brilliant but still just CG trailers.

Then they start pumping in smoke over the screen, which is showing a giant mountain, and excitement is building and everyone wonders what the hell is going on and then they show...SSX. Much like my reaction to Twisted Metal last year, SSX has been around for a long time, and despite how excited everyone sounds for it, I really just don't care. I swear they nearly wet themselves talking about how they used data from NASA so you can snowboard down actual mountains. Ah well.

Oop, here's EA Sports again, time for another map. Takeaway from the next 10 minutes: FIFA 11 was massively popular, FIFA 12 is better and will also be massively popular, football players like money to show up at a conference, and Madden 12 will also be massively popular.

Oh no. Oh no no. The Sims is coming to facebook. Because more people needed to be addicted to facebook. Farmville was bad enough. And now the Sims? Oh dear god.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sounds like it should be one of the best games ever made. Designed by Morrowind and Oblivion designer Ken Rolston, with artistic direction from Todd McFarlane, and a story by acclaimed author R.A. Salvatore, this game could come from out of nowhere and take the RPG crown...if it weren't for Skyrim of course. But still, I remain a little skeptical from what I've seen of the gameplay. It's not that it looks bad, it just doesn't look like anything new. In fact it kind of reminded me of Fable in many ways. So, we'll see.

Then Insomniac comes out, makers of Ratchet and Clank and Resistance, and announces the multiplatform Overstrike, about a team of 4 misfits with a bunch of cool tech and weapons at their disposal causing as much havoc as possible. No gameplay, but the trailer made it look fun (if a bit of a slant on Borderlands' style).

Battlefield 3 seems to have been capturing everyone's attention since gameplay footage was released and promised one of the best looking games this generation thanks to the Frostbite 2 engine. Is there enough here to take the crown from Call of Duty? It certainly looks that way. Destructable environments, sweeping vistas, tight mechanics, all the elements are there for a great game. And to add icing to the cake, while Activision just announced a new service for hardcore Call of Duty players that does special stat tracking and other things I cared nothing about that will cost some unannounced monthly payment, Battlefield is going to be offering what sounds like the exact same features for absolutely free. And with that they launch into the demo...and it's surprisingly underwhelming. It's a loooong, very drawn out tank battle. And while it shows off the graphical impressiveness quite wonderfully, it leaves something to be desired gameplay-wise. Still, no doubt this will be a big contender, especially coming out before Call of Duty on October 25th.

And that's EA!

E3 2011: Microsoft

2011-06-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delay! I fell behind a bit in my writing and let most of E3 pass me by, but I am back, the conferences are over, and it's time to review the crap out of them starting with good ol' Microsoft.

Now, coming into E3, Microsoft had some leery eyes pointed at it for the seemingly complete lack of console exclusives besides Gears of War 3 while Sony is pumping them out left and right. Add that to some apparently not-as-good-as-they-were-hoping Kinect sales and you get an E3 where Microsoft really needs to hit it out of the park to prove they can compete this year.

So the conference starts, and BAM, right out of the gate we get a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 demo. In the mission they showed you're underwater, part of a team assigned to place mines on a submarine. You heard me right. You put mines on a submarine to make it surface. Then, you infiltrate it, kill everyone aboard, steal some launch codes, launch the missiles, escape the sub to a raft that you drive through explosions and warships all around you and into a waiting aircraft transport that as it lifts off shows you all the destruction happening to Prime Destroyable American City #1, New York. Call of Duty is often compared to a Michael Bay movie, and I think the demo showed why there's good reason for that. Now, the thing to remember with Modern Warfare 3 is that while the company who made it is still called Infinity Ward, who made the first two, due to legal disagreements most of the original staff of Infinity Ward is gone and has regrouped as Respawn. Will this make any difference to how well it sells? Oh god no. Will it make any difference to how it plays and if it carries that special something of the first two? We'll have to wait and see until November 8th.

Next up, the Tomb Raider reboot. Now, this game has been hyped as "grittier" and "darker" and all those adjectives commercial people use to try to make you think a game is cool or better than it really is. So, I have been skeptical. Then they started the demo...and I was frankly blown away. She starts the demo having been captured on this mysterious island, hanging upside down and bound in this almost cocoon. Swinging back and forth she catches another nearby cocoon on fire, and consequently hers, which releases her into the pit below where her side says hello to a pointy stick. Impaled, bleeding and broken, she has to escape from her pursuers through crumbling caves in stunning graphical quality. Apparently this was the first of many games to be unfortunately misrepresented by their demo, as a great deal of the action in the demo was quick-time event based whereas the longer form of the demo available on the show floor showed off a great deal more of actual combat and puzzle solving. And considering I was impressed with so little, this has definitely become a title to watch when it drops in Fall 2012.

Then EA Sports takes the stage and I take a quick snooze. I don't get sports games. I don't understand how a company can put out these yearly iterations of practically the exact same game with a few tweaks but overall the exact same experience, and that people BUY THEM. EN MASSE. Anyways, they did at least bring up the first mention of Kinect, saying that Tiger Woods, Madden, Fifa, and an unannounced title would all support Kinect. Thankfully, this is where the sports talking ends. He then branched out into non-sports titles like The Sims 3 Pets and Family Game Night 4 which will also support Kinect, as well as one little title a few people are excited for...

Mass Effect 3. Here's the thing. They showed off two features of how Kinect will integrate into the game, and neither were very impressive. First, you can choose your dialogue options by directly saying them. However, the thing about Mass Effect's conversation wheel is that the snippet on the wheel is not what is actually said. So basically you say one thing out loud, and then Shepard says something completely different on screen. It...doesn't work. Then, something with at least possible interesting applications, you can speak to your squad members during battle to tell them to do things. "Garrus, move up. Liara, singularity." And so forth. But once again, the thing about doing that is, it's a lot easier to push a button. Yes, it may give you the feeling of being more in the game, but would you really rather spend the extra time talking in the heat of battle? Sure it only takes like a second longer to say something than to press a button, but I am just skeptical of how this function can actually improve the game. In terms of the non-Kinect stuff however, this game looks fabulous. I mean, you finally get to see a Krogan female. Rock. On.

Next up, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, specifically the Gunsmith system. Boasting over 20 million different combinations of parts, you can customize weapons in game exactly the way you want them. By spreading your hands apart, you open up the gun into its different components, and by putting your hands back together you close everything up again. You can also use voice commands for quick access to specific parts. It all looks very Minority Report, which is to say, cooooool. You can even test out the weapons, though the stance you use is very odd (similar to drawing the gun from your back like a sword, and then holding your left hand like you're about to eat something from the invisible fork you're holding while your right hand is clenched and flashes open to fire the gun...just look it up). It seems that Ubisoft, out of everyone, seems to understand that the coolest thing about Kinect is the user interface, not the gameplay mechanics. And then at the end it's announced that all future Tom Clancy titles will support Kinect.

Then they start talking about how Kinect will start working with everything on the Xbox (including a new partnership with Youtube). They unfortunately start slipping into the odd rehearsed quality they had last year here, as to demonstrate how this works, they bring a woman on stage who literally only says things like "Xbox, video" to show how you can now scroll over to the video tab with your voice. Everyone with me now, "Oooooooooooo." At least, I assume that's what they wanted us to say. Instead, it's more like "Oh.....okay." The real kicker is that they're bringing live TV to Xbox this fall. How this will actually work, and why Comcast or DirectTV aren't throwing a hissy fit, is a mystery.

A bunch of new interactivity stuff with UFC fights. Woot.

Here's where the eyes rise, people, as everything from this point is Xbox exclusive...

And they show Gears of War 3. *sigh* And bring out cast member Ice-T to play the demo with the head of Epic, Cliff Bleszinski. The demo is awesome, of course, as they take on a giant sea creature and its small exploding minions. And as a surprise that it sure sounded like no one really cared about, Ice-T's old band Body Count is reuniting to do a song to celebrate the return of Horde mode. Look for Gears on September 20th.

That mysterious game last year which was a partnership with Crytek, makers of Crysis, formerly known as Codename: Kingdoms, is now known as Ryse. It looks to be a brutal first person hack and slash set in Rome, where Kinect reads your body movements and allows you to not just use a sword and shield but also headbutt and kick. No indication of a release date, but this looks to be the first actually mature game just for Kinect. Hopefully it pays off, cause Kinect sure needs more like it.

With this being the 10th anniversary of the first Halo, they've fully remastered the campaign and several old multiplayer maps and are rereleasing it on November 15th. Fanboys rejoice.

Forza Motorsport 4 will have voice and headtracking integration with Kinect, and showed a lot of things that I know and care nothing about as someone who knows nothing about cars. But for all you racing fans out there, it's coming October 11th.

Aw, it's Peter Molyneux. I look forward to when he takes the stage because he always comes out with something really cool and awe-inspiring, only to completely disappoint people when the game actually comes out. He's mostly known for Fable, but he's also the guy behind Milo, who if you haven't seen just look up Project Natal (the pre-release name of Kinect) and Milo and be amazed. Unfortunately, the project was scrapped for wholly unknown reasons. So what new disappointment are you bringing this year? It's called Fable: The Journey, and it's part 2 in games that were made to look bad by their demos. In the demo, the game appears to be on-rails, while you swing your hands about in different ways to create spells to launch at goblins. It looked...well...kind of boring. But then Molyneux came out later and essentially said it's not on rails at all, they just decided to do that for the demo. Of course, it would be nice to know how movement is going to work then, but it appears we'll all have to wait and see.

Now here's a shocker. Minecraft. Not only is it coming to Xbox, it will be Xbox exclusive AND feature Kinect support. Want to know more? Too bad! That's all they'll say.

The Kinect train rolls on with Disneyland Adventures, which apparently recreates the entire Disneyland theme park and integrates various Kinect based minigames into it. And since it's a kids Kinect game, that's right, it's time for awkward overly rehearsed creepy kids demo time! They start off with a flight with Peter Pan where you hold out your arms like an airplane and then tilt back and forth randomly (at least it looked random) to try and get coins. Then a mad trip through Alice in Wonderland that ends with an oh so awkward "Fist bump!" Please, dear god Microsoft, stop with the child actors. It looks stupid, overly rehearsed, and utterly unrealistic. It's not even funny. It's just plain bad. But you can look forward to exploring Disneyland this holiday.

But if you really want some repetitive and random arm swinging, look no further than Kinect Star Wars! Seriously, apparently this is part three of the demo did disservice to the game in the same way as Fable (looked on rails but isn't), but I honestly doubt the game could be much better than what they showed. Here's the problem with any swordfighting game where you don't actually have a sword. You're going to hack and slash in any direction and really just kind of hope for the best. And that's exactly what this was. All that guy did on stage was swing his arm back and forth while his character on screen obediently carved through each enemy. Oh he could lean and the character would dodge to the side or even over an opponent to take them by surprise, or lean forward to charge to the nearest foe, but all he did was haphazardly swing his arm. It just looked so boring and made such poor use of Kinect. Plus it was the Clone Wars, with graphics/design from I believe the cartoon, which just made it all look BAD. GRRRR.

Then dear Tim Schafer, maker of such whimsical games as Brutal Legend, Costume Quest and Stacked, brings out his family friendly Kinect game Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster. Which really, if anyone is going to make a good Sesame Street game, it's this man, and....oh god damn it they're back. As Schafer says, "Unleash the simulated family. Very life-like." Anyways, ignoring the complete awkwardness that follows from a grown man and young boy pretending to be father and son very very poorly, the gameplay appears to be nothing new to Kinect, but there is something magical about playing along with Elmo and Cookie Monster that could at least make this game acceptable.

It's obvious at this point that in lieu of having any hardcore exclusives besides Gears, Microsoft is pushing Kinect as hard as they possibly can. Thankfully, at just the right time they bring out what could possibly be their greatest announcement: Kinect Fun Labs (though please change the name). Essentially up until now there have been some really interesting possibilities with new and creative uses for the Kinect hardware, but they've all only been accessible through a PC. So Microsoft created Fun Labs to allow all that innovation to come straight from the Xbox. They showed off things like people scanning, where you can instantly create an avatar that looks just like you, finger tracking, where you can draw a 3D image and look at it at different angles using head tracking, and object capture where you can take literally any object, scan it with Kinect and use it in game. And that's just what they thought of. I'm sure this will open up a gigantic window of innovation and I can't wait to see what comes of it, especially as it released that day.

Kinect Sports 2. Everybody yawn with me.

Dance Central was the surprise hit of Kinect, and Dance Central 2 looks to continue the trend with a campaign mode, seamless multiplayer dancing, and voice support. And not only that, but all tracks from the first game can be imported into 2. Looks to be a must have for Kinect owners.

And then, one last "surprise", Remember last year how I said that they said Halo Reach was going to be the last Halo game, just as they said Halo 3 was going to be the last Halo game? Remember how I was skeptical? Well guess what. One year later and they show a CG trailer for Halo 4, which is not only a new Halo game but will be the start of a new trilogy. That's right Microsoft, drain that cash cow dry cause all that money just taste so goooood.

Overall I think Microsoft once again fell a little flat this year. With no big exclusive titles to throw out there they had to try and throw a lot of excitement behind their other forms of entertainment, namely Kinect and everything else besides games that Xbox does. And sadly it didn't work. Fun Labs could easily show a lot of promise, and secures Microsoft against the piracy Sony has had to deal with by bringing in the modder/hacker community instead of shutting them out. And if you're a young child, there are games such as Disneyland Adventures and Once Upon A Monster to look forward to. But for everyone else, Microsoft's ending claim that this year they would become the best selling console worldwide sounds a bit of a stretch.

E3 2011: Konami

2011-06-03T10:26:00.001-07:00

WOOOO E3! Time once again to look at the year to come in games, and what we can look forward to. Kicking things off before E3 even starts is Konami with a video compiling interviews with various designers about the projects they're working on. So let's get started!

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3DS
Personally I could never really get into the Metal Gear series. I played and enjoyed Sons of Liberty, but when I moved on to Snake Eater I just got bored with the gameplay and completely lost in the story. However, for those who do enjoy some tactical stealth with everyone's favorite box hide and go seek champion, Snake Eater 3DS looks to incorporate some interesting, though not necessarily wise, features. The best, and easiest, decision was to put inventory on the bottom screen, allowing quick changing of items. A fun, though not necessarily useful new tool is the ability to take pictures with the 3DS camera and then incorporate that into Snake's camouflage. And finally, easily the worst decision, the incorporation of the gyro sensor so that you have to tilt the 3DS while Snake is doing something like crossing a bridge to make sure he doesn't fall off. Didn't we go through this with sixaxis, people? Especially incorporated into the 3DS where even a slight tilting of the screen can ruin the 3D effect. Still, no doubt fans of the series will enjoy another foray into the shoes of Snake despite, or even possibly because of, these new features.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
I don't follow soccer and hate the idea of yearly iterations of sports games rehashing the same old formula. But for you soccer fans out there, they've improved enemy AI, focused more heavily on not just the ball holders' movement but the movement of the rest of the team as well, and refined the mechanics of doing special moves like feint plays. Woot.

NeverDead
This new IP starts with a very simple premise: you cannot die. You face big horrible monsters and can get smashed to pieces, but then you simply roll your head around, collecting your body parts back until you kill the thing. Well where are the stakes if you can't die? Sounds a bit boring right? Well apparently the game is actually more centered around how you use your body parts once detached to defeat the enemy (or I'm guessing solve the puzzle) at hand. Also, I lost count of how many times the guy said this was "new". They're banking on originality and innovation, but I'm waiting to see whether this game will bring something new and fun, or simply new.

Silent Hill series
In an interesting turn the focus shifts to the upcoming movie Silent Hill Revelations, with the director talking about how he was inspired by the games. Drawing from Silent Hill 3, let's hope this movie turns out better than the rather average first one.

Brief statement about how they're releasing the Silent Hill Collection, Silent Hill 2 and 3 in HD.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories will be a new title exclusively for the Next Generation Portable (NGP) from Sony. I really hope Sony chooses a better name soon cause NGP just ain't cutting it.

Silent Hill Downpour is coming out soon and from the trailer looks...pretty impressive actually. Creepy environments, lots of misshapen baddies hiding in shadows, and a convict with a mysterious past as the lead. What more could you ask for?

Kojima Productions
The man behind Metal Gear Solid releases a rather hilarious video of this guy interviewing him about why he wouldn't be at E3 this year. After taking a voice activated elevator that had sounds of moving trains and cows as they traveled, and which identified the random guy as an unknown demon entity before Kojima cleared him, random guy and Kojima sit down and a video within the video starts to play of these masked men from another game company try to interrogate a janitor as to what the big E3 reveal this year is going to be. After Psycho Turkey, an obvious homage to the weird Metal Gear villains, uses his "nanobots" to read the mind of the janitor, a video within the video within the video starts to play and reveals that Kojima is introducing a new service called Transfarring wherein you can essentially transfer your saves from certain games (the first being Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker) from your PS3 to your PSP and vice versa so you can continue to play at any time on either system. Also introduced is the Metal Gear Solid HD collection, which will include MGS 2, 3 and Peace Walker (which won't be like the Sony barebones PSP remasters, it will have trophies and is being fully remastered), and the Zone of the Enders HD collection as well. And in a surprise move, both collections are coming the 360 as well as the PS3.

But Kojima wasn't done there. He lays out his master plan, which is to use Transfarring not just between PSP and PS3, but eventually to step it up to PS2 games on PS3 and NGP, and in the final phase, being able to play PS3 games on the NGP and vice versa. Personally, if he does end up doing that and Sony doesn't adopt it or a version of it for all games, a lot of people including myself are going to be very upset. Go for the kill Kojima!

And he does. He reveals that he's developed a new engine called the Fox engine, which is being used in the new game he's developing that he can't talk about, and that it will be multiplatform and hopes it will become the new standard engine for other developers. It certainly did look very pretty.

And that does it for Konami! A couple interesting titles, several remasters, and a few blows to Sony's midsection from Kojima. All in all, shouldn't be a bad year for them.

L.A. Noire

2011-05-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

L.A. Noire is a strange beast to me. Made by Rockstar, the people behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, one goes into it expecting a certain type of gameplay. Even hearing reviews beforehand about just how different this game was from anything else out there, the graphics and underlying mechanics of GTA and Red Dead are still there and unfortunately set up some expectations about how this game's going to run. There's a weekly vidcast on g4tv.com called Feedback, and one of the panelists explained where Noire fits in Rockstar's canon perfectly. She said that essentially GTA is all about the action at the cost of story. Red Dead was a nice mixture of story and action, but still focused mostly on the action. Noire throws all of its weight behind the story, and while there's still action, it's highly de-emphasized. Does Noire suffer because of it? Yes and no.

The problem with Noire, is that it's much like Heavy Rain in that there is no other game you can really compare it to. The experience is entirely unique. You play as Cole Phelps, a hero returned from the war who starts as a beat cop in the LAPD. After making a name for yourself in some introductory cases, you start getting promoted up the ladder, taking on different desks in departments like traffic, homicide and vice. Most of your cases are unrelated to each other, or at least appear so at first, which gives the game an almost serialized feel, especially as each case has essentially the same underlying structure to it. You hear about a suspicious death from your captain, make your way to the crime scene, search the area for clues, use those clues to find and interrogate suspects, and based on what you find, close the case. It's odd, because I feel that in any other game, this repetitiveness would've been a major downside, but it Noire, it honestly never felt repetitive. Each case brought new clues, new suspicions, new suspects that taxed your lie detection skills in ever varying ways.

Yet it also leaves me feeling confused because while the cases themselves didn't feel repetitive, I couldn't help notice their repetitive nature due to Cole's overarching storyline being, as I felt, rather non-cohesive. Yes, it was there, and going back and replaying cases especially I can start to see how present it was, but I couldn't help but feel during the course of the game that I was just moving from one case to another without moving the more important story forward. In fact it almost felt like there were three or four different storylines that didn't mesh together all too well. There's the beginning, with Cole starting to shine and make a name for himself. Then there's the Black Dahlia cases. Then there's a mass conspiracy involving real estate. And through it all, something to do with morphine and Cole's old war buddies. It's a vast web of interconnections that's hard to keep track of, especially with how little focus it receives until the very end.

And maybe that's my problem. I'm so used to stories beating me over the head with exposition and explaining exactly what's going on, that when a story like this comes along that doesn't connect all the dots nicely for you and asks to do some thinking and connecting for yourself, I get a little lost. While the game is very forgiving and does some hand-holding if you mess up an interrogation or make some mistake along the way, it isn't afraid to drop that hand when it comes to actually piecing everything together. Whether that's a downside for the game, or just for my mental capacity I can't really tell.

As for the game itself and how it plays, that too is an entirely different animal. As I said with the formula, you get a case and are told to go investigate somewhere. You drive there, get briefed on the situation by the coroner or the first man on the scene, and then start hunting for clues. You do this by walking around the scene, looking very carefully for anything suspicious, or just walking randomly until your controller vibrates, telling you you've found something to investigate. Sometimes it's just a piece of junk you quickly discard, other times it's a clue you have to rotate in your hand until you see something important, and sometimes it's a dead body whose head you need to turn to get a better look at the rope marks around their neck. Investigation music plays until you've found everything important, at which time you go searching for suspects or question witnesses. And here's the most important part of L.A. Noire: the questioning.

You see, Rockstar spent years making this game, and it wouldn't have been possible without some astoundingly impressive motion capture tech that captures the performance of each and every actor with remarkable precision. Because, in these interrogations, you ask the suspect a question. They give a response. Then, based on their facial expressions, movements, tics, etc. you have to decide whether to believe them, doubt them, or call them out on a lie based on evidence you collected. These sessions are by far the most interesting, and often most difficult, parts of the game. Unfortunately, they're not always difficult in a good way. Most of the time it's fairly obvious when you should be doubting someone, when they're telling the truth, or if you have evidence that would contradict what they just said. And even if it's not, you gain special Intuition points throughout the game that allow you to remove one of the wrong responses to give, or to ask the community which answer you should choose. However, even with those, sometimes it is frustratingly difficult to try and tell which way the game is asking you to go, especially in determining whether to doubt someone or which piece of evidence you have would catch them in their lie. After letting someone get away with 0 questions answered correctly I had to look up why I had done so poorly, and found that at least one reason were sometimes the suspect would give an answer and I thought calling lie on them was trying to call them out on one thing, but if you actually pressed the button Cole would try to call him out on something else. It was always related, but not necessarily the same thing. I just have to harp on this because if you're going to make this, especially this, the number one important feature of your game, it better be damn near perfect. And while it was pretty solid for most of the game, those odd turnabouts in logic stood out all the more and removed me from the experience.

I suppose this is really where all my complaints come down to: the experience. I honestly think it rather unfortunate that this was a Rockstar game. Or at least, that its underpinnings are much like GTA and Red Dead, because it then invites comparison that it frankly can't live up to, or even simply chooses not to. The world of Noire is gigantic. It's recreated, as they say, 90% faithfully to the L.A. of 1947. But there is nothing to do in this world. There are landmarks to find, cars to unlock, and random street cases (essentially small action-oriented cases) to respond to, but none of them give any good reason to really explore or take an interest in this world that was so masterfully crafted. In GTA and Red Dead they used the space well, but here it feels like it goes to waste. The action in GTA and Red Dead is often intense, and quite fun, while the action in Noire feels short, recycled, a little boring and even simply out of place. And for a game that placed all its emphasis on story, I couldn't help but feel that while it handled its case by case stories better than any of the missions in GTA or Red Dead, Red Dead trounced Noire in the overarching story department. I have to say, without spoiling anything, the Noire let me down with its ending. I feel it didn't build to any worthwhile conclusion and left me wondering why the game wasn't still going in the same way Red Dead continued.

What I'm trying to say with all of this is that by having those constant points of reference, I was constantly being drawn out of the experience I believe Rockstar actually wanted me to have. When it hits its mark, L.A. Noire is easily one of the most interesting and completely engrossing games ever made. The actors are all wonderful, the music sets the tone perfectly, and you start to see the big picture unfolding in front of you and feel like it's a personal accomplishment, that you, master detective, were able to figure out what it all means. But then it reminds you that it's a game. You walk aimlessly around rooms pressing x whenever your controller vibrates instead of carefully searching for something that stands out. You soak up bullets and regenerate while two shots takes out practically any enemy. Every car you drive feels like you're steering an awkward turtle. On top of all that it's a game in a lineage of games that it really shouldn't have anything to do with yet can't help but invite comparison to for the features that it lacks.

Now, I know I've leveled a lot of criticism at this game, but only because it's received so much god-like praise everywhere else. Yes, this is by far one of the most innovative and interesting games ever made, and if you're a fan of film noir and detective stories then this game will have you salivating from the get go. You'll also likely enjoy it more if you haven't played Red Dead or GTA as it will be a completely new experience. Then again, you may like it more even if you have played them just for how different it is. If there's one thing I'm sure about with L.A. Noire, it's that some will love it, some will hate it, and some like myself will find themselves uncomfortably sandwiched in-between praising it for its genius and criticizing it for not having all the elements of a game we've come to expect and enjoy. By no means do I consider this a bad game, but I have to be honest about my personal experience with it and say that unlike others I don't consider it to be one of the best games ever made. As I've said before in other reviews, to me, it doesn't matter how original or interesting you are, if you don't have the gameplay to back it up then it doesn't matter. And while L.A. Noire is harder to judge on gameplay since there's nothing like it out there, I simply came away feeling that it could've been more.

L.A. Noire gets an 8.5/10.

Merry Wives of Windsor

2011-05-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

Merry Wives holds a special place in my heart, especially seeing it performed at Seattle Shakespeare, as it was the second play I ever performed in, and it was on that stage. So admittedly, I go into it with some prejudices about what characters should be like and how funny it should be, and so if it doesn't live up to those expectations I'm going to be a bit disappointed. How did this one stack up?

There's an interesting history to Merry Wives. As the legend goes, it was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth after she greatly enjoyed the character of Falstaff in Henry IV and hated his death in Henry V. In short, she wanted to see Falstaff in love, and wanted the play ready in two weeks for a party she was having at Windsor castle. So Shakespeare obliged, and whipped out a comedy more about Falstaff in lust than love, with a Falstaff that is leagues different from the original. Still, Merry Wives proves to be one of his funniest comedies, I believe, for its spectacular supporting cast of comic relief and its ripe opportunities for slapstick/physical comedy.

The story itself is centered around Falstaff, now old, fat and out of money, scheming for a way to earn his fortunes back. He quickly learns of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, two married women of the town who control their husbands' substantial purses. He devises that he shall woo the both of them, and by extension come by their money. Sending an identical love letter to each, the two wives, being great friends, quickly discover his treachery and devise ways to be revenged on him including a bit with a laundry basket, a humiliating costume, and a final public prank in the forest. In the midst of this, the jealous Master Ford disguises himself to get in Falstaff's favor and essentially tries to catch his wife in the act of adultery (with a thousand "horn" jokes along the way indicating a cuckold). To the side are all of the comic relief characters, including the Welsh priest and French doctor, each with butchered English and accents written into the script, the gossip Mistress Quickly, the magnanimous Host of the Garter Inn who can't seem to go a sentence without calling someone "bullyrook", and a side plot involving three suitors each vying for the hand of Master Page's daughter Anne. Everything is of course resolved in the end, marriages are saved, the right suitor is picked, and everybody walks away happy...except for Falstaff.

Seattle Shakes decided to take this one old school, riding on the theme of performing in front of the queen, with period costumes and I believe an uncut script. A portrait of the queen hung above the stage, every so often producing a cuckoo from it's mouth to indicate the hour of day and provide some unexpected comedy, especially with Master Ford. But there was one problem with how far they rode this theme, just as it was a problem with Threepenny Opera. Every so often the actors would stop whatever they were doing to acknowledge noise offstage, in this case they would bow to what sounded like a flurry of horses and trumpets indicating the queen's passage. In Threepenny it was sirens and looking scared, with no payoff at the end. Here, there's a wonderfully brief payoff in the forest where the queen makes a cameo, but I still can't really excuse breaking up the action so frequently for a joke that, while funny, only lasted like 30 seconds. You want to do that kind of thing you do it twice, maybe three times, and you do it at the beginning of the show and right after intermission starts, not in the middle of a scene where all it does is distract.

Anyways, the actors themselves were all wonderful, though I often felt the supporting cast wasn't nearly as funny as they should have been. I couldn't pinpoint why, until the french doctor started coming in looking more and more accidentally self-injured every scene and realized, none of them really found their proper shtick except for the judge, who even though his physical-exertion-followed-by-back-kink routine was completely telegraphed each time still managed to amuse. The french doctor also had his wonderful moments of ridiculousness, especially after he started coming in injured, but others like the plain accented Welsh priest, the hit-and-mostly-miss high voiced Slender, and all of Falstaff's subordinates never really hit their mark. Each actor seemed to almost be doing their own thing, so bits like the fight between the two english abusers, the doctor and the priest, which should have been a complete murdering of language instead came across as a slapstick scuffle without the actual slapstick. Honestly I felt the only person who consistently hit their mark in both character and comedy was John Patrick Lowrie as Falstaff. Master and Mistress Ford were wonderful with their character, but sometimes missed on the comedy. Mistress Page often sacrificed character for the sake of comedy (her greatest consistent offense was breaking into an almost Oprah persona), and Master Page had a wonderful character with no comedy at all.

This all isn't to say the play wasn't good, or funny. It kept a consistently funny tone and pace throughout, but with a bit more order to the chaos, a bit more cohesiveness, this could've been a great production. Instead, it comes off more as a good, but average, comedy that simply missed its marks by a hair.

Merry Wives of Windsor gets an 8/10.

Heavenly Sword

2011-05-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

From the same people who made Enslaved, Heavenly Sword came out way back in the day near the launch of the PS3 and was touted as being a great example of how beautiful PS3 games could be. Otherwise it was mainly derided as a God of War clone, but any hack and slash with quick time events would be. Being a forebear to Enslaved, I was interested in seeing just how they compared. And it turns out, they're pretty much the same. Interesting premise, interesting story, not so great gameplay/execution.

For most of Heavenly Sword you take the role of Nariko (voiced by Anna Torv of Fringe), a vaguely asian girl with long flowing red hair that is constantly clipping through everything (aka passing through objects or her own body). She comes from a vaguely asian village and tribe that is in possession of the Heavenly Sword, a legendary weapon said to have come from heaven to defeat evil, but it comes with the curse that any who use it will eventually be killed by it. The evil King Bohan (Andy Serkis) seeks the sword for his own and so is hunting the last remnants of the tribe until he gets it. We join Nariko in the middle of the final battle, using the Heavenly Sword to cut a giant path through Bohan's army, but to no avail. The sword takes her life. Lamenting this, she talks to the sword in a kind of purgatory area that serves as a mission select screen and recalls the events of the past 5 days that led up to her death.

Very interesting, right? Unfortunately it feels like the story itself never really progresses after that. Nariko gets the sword, has to save her people, loses the sword, gets it back, defends her people some more, masters the sword and then dies. There are hints to a sequel at the end, but really, it more felt like it was just leaving things open ended enough that it could become a series if they wanted it to. Instead, what matters in this game are the characters. While Nariko and her father come across as mostly bland and a little stereotypical, Kai, the wispy slightly addled child who plays "twing twang" (aka shooting enemies in the face with arrows) who you also play as is wonderfully quirky and just crazy enough to be fun to watch instead of annoying. But the real stars of the show here are the bad guys, because all of them are so completely ridiculous in their own wonderful way. King Bohan flies between rage and malevolent humor in a wildly unpredictable way. The Flying Fox is such a stereotypical bad kung fu movie villain it's hilarious. Whiptail, a woman with snakelike features, is like a Hollywood actress that was rejected from the big time and so has agreed to a B movie monster flick. And Roach, the giant fat slightly deformed son of Bohan, is delightfully pathetic in almost every way and can manage to wring the most sympathy from you except for Kai. All are wonderful in their own completely overacted and overdramatic fashion.

But what about the game itself? As we saw with Enslaved, a great premise and story means little if you don't have the gameplay to support it. And sure enough, it seems the trend started with this game.

The combat itself is actually based around an interesting concept. You have three "stances". Your normal stance is a speed stance, where your blows and combos are based around doing normal amounts of damage at a fast pace. Press L1, and you go into your range stance, where your attacks do little damage, but cover a wide area. Press R1, and you go into your power stance, where your blows do great damage but are much slower and easier for enemies to interrupt. There are combos for each stance, some of which can break your enemy's guard if they're blocking and knock them to the ground where you can insta-kill them with the press of a button. However, the trick is that enemies also use the different stances (except for range), and you automatically block attacks, but only when you are blocking in the same stance that they're hitting you with. So they glow blue to indicate a fast stance, orange for power, and red for unblockable. In the latter case, you have to evade by flicking the right analog stick.

Here's the problem though. The game's mechanics and response times aren't fitted to the style of combat they're trying to get you to learn. Evading is a joke, as when you evade your character doesn't even move far enough to get a sword's distance away. Range stance quickly becomes useless as every goddamn enemy blocks every freakin attack. While you keep learning new combos for each stance, there's never any incentive to try them out as you quickly discover which combos break an enemy's defense the fastest so you can insta-kill them on the ground and then spam that combo. As practically every battle consists of you fighting like 10 enemies at a time, and enemies attack you randomly, it becomes nearly impossible to finish a combo without getting hit. Several enemies switch stances mid-attack, meaning you need to switch stances to block, but the period of time between them turning from blue to orange and hitting you is so fast that even if you hit the shoulder button on time you can still get hit just from delayed response times, meaning you essentially need to learn what that opponent's lead up to an orange attack looks like. But as each enemy has several different combos/attacks that vary randomly, and each one looks quite similar, especially when there's a crowd around you and it's nearly impossible to see the lead-up, battles becomes more tedious than intelligent. I'm sure if you took the time to master the combat, learn all the combos, memorize enemy patterns, etc. that combat would flow like no one's business and you'd kick ass like it feels you should be able to. But for most players that is simply not going to be the case. Basically it's too unforgiving in its own rules and consequences, which makes combat frustrating instead of fun.

Now, being a near-launch title, before they figured out that trying to manipulate a game using six-axis was a bad bad idea, there was a heavy emphasis on six-axis controls, especially when playing as Kai. Essentially, you shoot an arrow, and if you hold down the shoot button you can guide that arrow in slow-mo to your target using six-axis. And maybe I just suck at six-axis, but these sections were some of the most frustrating parts of the game, especially when Kai has no standard attack button, but must plant herself, enter aiming mode, and then shoot to attack the crowd of enemies running at her. When it works right, it works wonderfully and satisfies that part of any gamer that giggles when you carefully aim an arrow into someone's head. But for the most part these sections seem more tacked on to exploit what was then new tech.

I think what Ninja Theory, the developer behind these games, needs to do is just come up with the stories. Get the idea, get the voice actors, get the beautiful graphics down (for an almost launch title the graphics are still pretty stunning), and then hire another team for the actual gameplay. Heavenly Sword would've been such an amazing game if it had the fluidity of God of War's controls. If there's one thing God of War did right, it was making the combat feel fun, visceral, and supremely satisfying whether you were mashing buttons or really taking the time to learn the technique. Heavenly Sword certainly was going in the right direction with what they were trying to accomplish, they just didn't allow for the finesse that the system they instituted required.

In the end, colorful characters and an interesting premise can't save a stale story and a broken combat system, especially in a hack and slash. With any luck, they'll hand the sequel over to the God of War folks and we'll get a truly awesome game. But until then...

Heavenly Sword gets a 6/10.

Portal 2

2011-04-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

WHOOPS. Just realized that I have a draft of this review saved, but never actually posted it. Better late than never right?

The first Portal was easily one of my favorite games. The brilliant mixture of puzzles and humor never got old despite multiple playthroughs, and despite how short it was (if you know what you're doing you can finish it in half an hour), it also felt like just the right amount of time to be in this mad world of mind-bending physics and homicidal computers. It was short, but oh was it sweet. So after last year's E3 conference when Gabe Newell came out and said "Not only is Portal 2 coming, it's going to be awesome, and the PS3 version is going to be the awesomest," I could not have been more excited. They were promising a longer adventure, a separate but integrated co-op campaign, the introduction of tons of new puzzle elements, and of course the return of our favorite calmly insane AI GlaDOS. So did it live up to expectations?

You bet your ass it did. Portal 2 is easily one of the most intellectually stimulating, well crafted, and hilarious games ever released. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard throughout a game.

Portal 2 picks up maaaany years after the events of the first game. In the funniest tutorial ever made, you wake up in a basic room from induced hibernation with a voice over an intercom telling you to do things like look up at the ceiling as exercise, walk over to and stare at a portrait to be intellectually stimulated, and then go back to sleep. Years later you awake once more to find the room looking quite dilapidated, with a panicked voice at your door. You open it up only to find Wheatley, an AI core that looks like a blue eyeball who is promising to help you escape. Before you know it, you find your trusty portal gun, and through a series of errors by Wheatley, wake dear GlaDOS back up again, who promises to test you for the rest of your life. That is, until she takes up a hobby...like reanimating dead tissue. From there, I dare not reveal any more, as the secrets hidden deep in the Aperture Science facility are all too wonderful not to discover on your own.

As for the gameplay, if you've played the first Portal, you'll breeze through the first few puzzles and find yourself quite at home. But it isn't long before GlaDOS starts throwing in lasers, light bridges, aerial faith plates, and many other new inventions that make the puzzle side of things all the more interesting. Now, I know that I, like many others, was quite perplexed looking at trailers for Portal 2 and wondering just how in the hell we were going to be expected to solve these ridiculous puzzles with all these new inventions. But here's the thing. While Portal 2 has many things going for it, possibly its greatest achievement is its level design and progression. Early puzzles are easy enough to get you understanding the new mechanics while still being challenging, while later puzzles make you use that training to your full advantage yet never seem so challenging that you can't eventually figure out what to do. And once you do, and start pulling off some quite awesome stunts, the satisfaction of completing that puzzle is great. Basically, it's never too easy, but it's never too hard either. It finds the perfect balance throughout. And despite the first Portal being short and that seeming to be the right length for it, the longer campaign here constantly switches things up enough to remain interesting throughout and paradoxically once again, seems to be the perfect length for what it is.

Of course, this is all helped by the fact that humor remains a central component throughout. Wheatley is a wonderful new addition, as is the brash voice recordings of J. K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, founder of Aperture. Between the gleeful menace of GlaDOS, the wild panic of Wheatley, and the gruff Americanism of Cave, there's a lot of comedy to be found here, and Portal 2 takes every opportunity to use it.

Now, I haven't touched co-op yet, but am more than excited to get my hands on it as the story of robots Atlas and P-Body very obviously ties in strongly with the main campaign but provides a new perspective.

In short, and I know this may be trite, but...this was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

Portal 2 gets a 10/10.

Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions

2011-04-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure, for the first time, I have not finished this game and probably will not. I got it through Blockbuster online from their free trial, played through what appeared to be about 2/3rds of it, didn't care for it, and sent it on its way so I can move on to other games before the trial expires. But on with the review!

Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions essentially takes the concept that Spider Man is fighting Mysterio and accidentally shatters this tablet that contains unimaginable power, so Madame Web shows up and explains that the pieces have exploded into other dimensions and need to be recovered and reunited before they fall into the wrong hands. From there you take on the role of Spider Man in the Amazing, Ultimate, Noir, and 2099 dimensions, recovering pieces of the tablet and fighting your way through various versions of famous villains and their thugs.

None of that make sense? Then this isn't your game. This is a game celebrating all things comics, and all things Spider Man. You know that's the case when the first words you hear are Stan Lee calling on us "True Believers!" to see what nefarious plot Mysterio is hatching this time. It's an absolute hoot, and his narration throughout remains one of the best parts of the game. The other way you can tell this is for fans is that there is little to no backstory for anyone. Sure there are little bios you can unlock and read, but really, when you're battling Kraven and Hammerhead and Hobgoblin and even Electro for goodness' sake, each with special moves and ways of defeating them, who cares about backstory?

So while there's a lot of fan service, and the narration and voice acting/dialogue are great, what about the actual game? Well, that's where things start to fall apart.

Each Spider Man has special abilities. Amazing has a lot of web based attacks, Ultimate is in the black suit and as such does massive damage in a wide radius, 2099 is all about speed and skydiving, and Noir is focused on stealth. Of these, I found Noir to easily be the most fun. It could be because it copied nearly everything from Batman Arkham Asylum, but introducing an element of strategy to a game that was otherwise about mashing buttons at least brought something interesting to the table. Yes, you gain experience from defeating enemies and hunting down spider tokens to spend on better moves and such, but it never really feels like you're doing anything new or interesting or all that useful. Most of the time you end up just swinging off light attacks while trying to dodge the massive amount of bullets and bats coming your way. Of course there are enemies who force you to use certain moves to defeat them, but most of the time I found myself just wading through the hordes of enemies, dodging and mashing square. So when the Noir levels came along I actually felt excited because it meant my thumb got a rest. However, they do mess up quite a bit in that there are distinctly stealth, and distinctly fighting portions. In stealth, if you get spotted, unless you retreat you die, even if it's just one guy. In the fighting sections, you may be weaker than the other spider men, but you can still hold your own against a big horde. This disconnect was substantial, and lessened the experience for me.

As for the others, Amazing and Ultimate blended together for me, and while 2099's style was flashy and interesting, the skydiving sections were a bore and almost impossible to get through without crashing into something due to the sheer amount of indecipherable-from-the-bright-background stuff that comes flying your way. Web swinging was handled fairly well, though it often gets taken away from you in favor of zip lining to certain highlighted spots (Sandman battle), but the problem with that is there's no way of locking onto them, and if you move the camera even slightly you could end up somewhere completely different from where you wanted to go. In one section as Ultimate, there are hundreds of one hit kill enemies coming at you, some of whom perch on lampposts and shoot at you, and the best way to deal with them is to zip up there and knock them off, but it gets nearly impossible when there's more than one place to zip to around as you can't take the time to line up exactly where you want to go and so end up on top of a train instead of the lamppost.

What this really comes down to is the fact that the controls simply don't have the level of precision required of them to make web swinging and fighting feel fun. Instead, they just provide frustration.

The boss battles throw in some great variation, most playing out almost as a puzzle. But then they included this gimmick where you pull into first person mode and punch the crap out of their face with the analog sticks while avoiding their retaliatory strikes, and it really felt like nothing less than a tacked on gimmick. It was stupid, and should've been left out.

Nonetheless, I also think this game wasn't really aimed at me. I got the very clear sense that this is a game for kids. Kids who will enjoy wading through countless enemies that don't require much skill to defeat, who can figure out the simple boss fight puzzles (and if not there's always a handy pop-up from Madame Web), and who would love nothing more than to see villains get punched in the face up close. It seems like the perfect game for them. But having played the more mature and well put together Batman Arkham Asylum, which this game is very similar to in terms of gameplay, I just can't play this with the thought that it could've been better. It's not bad, it just wasn't good.

Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions gets a 5/10

Sucker Punch

2011-04-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

Frankly, after the credits rolled, I had to just kind of sit back and wonder why critics seem to have such vindictive hate for this movie. Sucker Punch is by no means good. The plot is incoherent, the acting is sub-par, the dialogue is laughably bad, and it's an all around mess of a movie. Even the giant action sequences which should be Zack Snyder's (300, Watchmen) forte were fairly repetitive and boring despite being filled with giant samurais, zombie nazis, dragons and mechs (all in slow-motion). But a lot of the criticism seems to go beyond those flaws and focuses on what seemed to make a lot of people angry: its treatment of women. And that's what I don't get.

It seems the biggest complaint is that the entire movie is a bunch of scantily clad women going around kicking ass and being sexy, and yet tries to disguise itself as female empowerment when those women are faced with several rape-like encounters and get revenge. While I certainly can't disagree that the main point of seeing this film (not the main point of the movie) is to watch a bunch of hot girls fight samurais, nazis and mechs, I think those saying this film has anything to do with female empowerment or the guise of such are completely wrong. But perhaps I should explain the movie first.

Sucker Punch follows the story of Babydoll, a childish looking woman who, trying to protect her sister from being raped by her evil stepdad, accidentally shoots her sister instead of the dad. She is then sent to an insane asylum, where the stepdad bribes Blue, one of the orderlies, to have Babydoll lobotomized in 5 days time. Fast forward and Babydoll is sitting in the chair, about to be lobotomized, and then retreats into a fantasy world where she is a newly arrived girl at a Moulin Rouge-esque establishment run by Blue (now a mobster). Forced to dance, she retreats yet again into another reality where she is given a samurai sword and a gun by a wise man, who tells her that her fight is just beginning, and in order to win she must find 5 items: a map, fire, a knife, a key, and a 5th mysterious item only she can find that will be a "deep sacrifice and a perfect victory". He then pushes her outside and tells her to defend herself from 3 gigantic samurai. After the battle, she blinks and returns to the brothel where everyone is extremely impressed by her performance. Realizing that a "high roller" is coming in 5 days to buy her virginity, she engages the help of 4 other dancers to grab the items she needs so that they can all escape. For each item, Babydoll dances for the man carrying the item, entrancing them while the other girls steal what they need. And during each dance we are once again transported into another reality where Babydoll and the girls fight something ridiculous and try to complete a mission that mirrors what they're doing in the brothel.

Understand? Probably not, but that's okay because it doesn't really make much sense in the whole context of the movie either. Basically, think of it like a bad Inception rip off where there's reality, the brothel one level deeper, and the action sequences one level below that. Oh, and all the while they're dressed in semi-revealing clothing. I am honestly surprised anyone in this day and age can point to the costumes in Sucker Punch and say "Oh THAT is degrading to women." Really? Tops that show a little cleavage and bottoms that show off some thigh? By today's standards they're relatively modest.

And as for the whole female empowerment issue, Sucker Punch is very obviously aware of itself throughout the entire movie. It is very obviously a narrative not meant to be taken seriously or literally. It's so filled with empty metaphor and symbology that nothing in it really represents anything at all. The near rapes and subsequent revenges are not meant to be about women being strong and fighting back. I'm sure there are better examples, but do you look at Kill Bill and think "female empowerment"? NO. The rapes are simply illustrative of the whole "this place is hell" theme, while the fighting back follows the "I need to escape" line. As a perfect example, right at the beginning when Babydoll first retreats into the brothel reality as she's about to be lobotomized, we suddenly see her place taken by Sweet Pea, who berates the director because her performance is supposed to titillate and she gets the whole innocent sweet schoolgirl thing but lobotomized vegetable isn't sexy. I just feel that in a movie so completely aware of what it is, that pokes fun at itself for being so ridiculous, you can't help but laugh at all those critics who didn't look past the surface layer and see that the movie was poking fun at them too.

So is Sucker Punch good? No. Even the over the top action sequences which could excuse a bad script, plot, and acting are simply not as fun as they should be. But is it that bad either? No. Despite all the misguided hate against it, it's just another muddled action flick that has a possibly interesting story/message to tell but is too bogged down in its own symbolism to tell it.

Sucker Punch gets a 4/10.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

2011-04-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

For months now I've been hearing critics praising Enslaved all over the place, saying that despite its practical commercial failure it really does need to be played. So I wondered, why wasn't it selling? What was holding people back? Well, the same thing that held me back when I found it out: while reviewers absolutely loved the story, concept, and environments, the gameplay itself wasn't so great. Which always made me think it would be more worth a rental than owning it. So now Blockbuster comes along, going out of business, and offers a month free of their mail service. Turns out Enslaved is available, so I finally got to sit down with this title. Sure enough, it was worth a rental...but no more.

Enslaved is loosely based on Journey to the West, the old Chinese story. Alas, the only thing I know about Journey to the West is that it involves the mythical Monkey who uses a staff that can extend. And, well, that's who you play in Enslaved. Instead of taking place hundreds of years ago, however, Enslaved sets itself hundreds of years in the future where humanity appears to be on the brink of extinction due to a giant war long ago. Despite the war being over and most of New York and other areas being reclaimed by vegetation, deadly machines still remain, hellbent on killing anything that makes noise or moves. What humans that do remain appear to either be the mysterious slavers, or the people they capture. Monkey begins as one of those prisoners trapped aboard a ship, until a woman breaks free and causes the ship to explode around her. In the resulting chaos Monkey escapes his cell, and rushes desperately to find an escape pod, only to find himself on the outside of the last one as the woman hits "eject". One big crash later and you awake, only to find that that the woman, Trip, has fixed a slave headband to you which she has hacked so that you are forced to obey her commands. Disobey, and experience unbearable pain. And if she dies for any reason, you die. She explains she needs to get back home 300 miles away, and she can't do it alone. So either you help her and be freed when you get there, or you die. From there, it's a literal odyssey through the now jungles of New York fighting off deadly mechs and trying to help Trip reach home and get revenge against the slavers who captured you both.

As expected, the story starts with a fascinating premise and only goes upwards from there. This is undoubtedly especially due to the significant input from Andy Serkis (Gollum, for those who don't recognize the name) towards the story, motion capture, and theatrical elements. The story, separated into 15 chapters, really does feel like it was well thought out and plays like a novel. There may not be many twists and turns, but the simple story (well, simple until the end) it tells is so well developed that it never feels dull or uninteresting. Monkey and Trip's characters feel very grounded in reality despite being essentially a mythical creature and a girl who can hack dragonflies to spot mines. And in a game that is essentially one long escort mission, that's very important.

Where Enslaved falls down is in the gameplay. What it does, it does spectacularly. Each enemy has specific moves that let you know when best to attack it, when to block, and when to get the hell out of the way. Some enemies even have special abilities Monkey can use once he knocks down their health enough, like turning into a walking bomb or yielding up a gun arm that Monkey can then use to strafe enemies to bits. The end result are fights that feel highly strategic and almost puzzle-like, forcing you to think very intelligently about each move you make lest you quickly end up dead. The problem is that the mechanics behind those battles can be very clunky, making some battles endlessly frustrating as Monkey refuses to block or decides to start attacking the ground instead of the enemy next to that ground. Also, the "upgrades" you purchase throughout the game (health/regen, general attacks, ranged attacks, and shield) honestly don't feel like they make a big difference especially in the later game. I kept wanting some kind of staff upgrade that made my strikes more powerful, but alas, no such luck. While this does maintain the sense that Monkey is by no means an all powerful fighter, it also means there's a lack of that need to feel like you are getting at least better at killing the increasingly difficult waves of enemies coming at you.

And then there's the platforming, by far the weakest link of the game. You jump between platforms, across gaps, up crumbling handholds, etc. by simply indicating your direction with the thumbstick and pressing X. What becomes frustrating is that this means Monkey will only jump to certain spots from certain spots, and otherwise will stumble or just shake his head and do nothing. However, you begin to realize the reason for this when you get to use the "Cloud", a hoverboard that ignores that, allowing you to roam pretty much anywhere and over anything, but also meaning you must time your jumps. The Cloud gave me some major headaches with its piss poor controls, extreme sensitivity (touch the thumbstick and expect to jet across the screen), and frustrating trial-and-error chase sections.

Basically, Enslaved is best summarized by the fact that a great deal of the development seems to have come from film people. The story, environments, pacing, and set pieces are amazing and always feel different and exhilarating. The problem is the gameplay behind it isn't nearly as good. Most of it feels like it just needed more tweaking/time in development, so hopefully the obviously planned sequel will happen, those issues will be addressed, and we'll get one of the best games ever made. Until then, what we've got is an enjoyable ride that's certainly worthwhile, but not more than that.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West gets a 7.5/10

Tron Legacy

2011-04-03T21:51:00.001-07:00

On a whim tonight I stopped by the Crest, and the movie that just so happened to be playing soonest was Tron. So I figured what the hell, if I'm going to see a movie on the big screen it might as well be that. Like many, I believe, I've never seen the original, but like the style of the visuals and the idea of a computerized reality. So I went in with a blank slate, not expecting much of anything. And what did I get in return? A surprisingly enjoyable movie. Not necessarily good, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The premise of Tron Legacy is essentially that an electronics genius named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) created an electronic world in the 1980s and created two programs to help him make it perfect. One, a mirror image of himself named Clu, and the other a badass named Tron. One day, he promises his son Sam that he's going to show him the Grid, the world he's created, but the morning after Kevin has disappeared, leading to speculation that he's either dead or has retired from running his massive corporation Encom. 20 years later and Sam is the major shareholder of Encom but only invests enough interest in it to play a prank on the evil corporate board members every year. Then, the one man loyal to Kevin's vision for the company meets with Sam, informs him he got a mysterious page from Kevin's old office at the arcade, and hands him the keys. Sam investigates, only to stumble upon his dad's office hidden behind an old Tron arcade stand, and accidentally ends up digitizing himself into the Grid. Trouble ensues, he finds his dad, and there's a race against time to reach a portal in the middle of enemy territory back to the real world. It's not exactly predictable, but it's certainly close to it.

Here's the thing. The story is not exactly easy to follow, and there's a great deal of feeling like "This part would be awesome in the video game". Nonetheless, there's something that kept me watching. I was always interested to see what happened next despite the fact that nothing interesting really happened, or if it did it was very predictable. Yet somehow, for some reason, I enjoyed it. It may have been just the really pretty to look at style, the fancy fights, or the fact that it simply didn't take too much to sit back and enjoy the ride. There were always some distractions, like integrating Daft Punk unnecessarily or Jeff Bridges constantly channeling his inner Dude from the Big Lebowski, but for the most part the movie just kind of goes down easy, offers no big complaints, and easily sets up for a sequel.

It's a popcorn movie in every sense of the word, and doesn't try to be anything more than that. And if you're willing to just let all the flashy stuff fly by your eyes and take everything with a grain of salt, Tron Legacy can actually be a pretty enjoyable experience.

Tron Legacy gets a 7/10.

The Threepenny Opera

2011-03-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

First things first, I'm going to feel especially bad about this review because The Threepenny Opera happens to be the final show for Stephanie Shine as artistic director. It came as quite a shock to me that she was leaving, and I'll be sad to see her go considering she essentially started my acting career. Which is why this review is going to be a little painful.

The only exposure I had had to Threepenny was from a video of Alan Cummings and Cyndi Lauper at the Tony Awards singing The Ballad of the Pimp, and it was awesome. A passionate yet deeply troubled love story. Still, I knew that that one little sample wasn't enough to really know what to expect, so I came into Seattle Shakes' production with a fairly blank slate.

After the first of three acts, I tried to convince myself that it was such a bad show because the script itself was poorly written. There seemed to be almost no continuity between what they were saying and the songs that seemed to suddenly sprout from nowhere. Why are we in the middle of this ramshackle wedding and suddenly the bride launches into this looong solemn song about a black freighter that has absolutely no relevance to what was happening? I had also become extremely disappointed in one of my favorite Seattle actors, John Bogar, for presenting a Mack the Knife that seemed entirely one dimensional. And that one dimension, as my girlfriend and I said to each other at the same time, was "smarm". We start off the play with this number about Mack the Knife and how he smiles like a shark and keeps his blade hidden, and have a beautiful moment where the song stops and he casually walks through the crowd whistling, conveying that perfect sense of tension. And then the rest of the show we get a Mack who no one seems to be all that afraid of and who himself conveys more this sense of trying to look dangerous without really being so. The whole first act left me feeling confused, disappointed, and wondering why the hell anyone would think the script was worth putting on.

Then the end of the second act came and I understood. Yes, there were several problems with the translation that Seattle Shakes decided to use, but no excuse could be made for...I am sorry Stephanie...the absolutely terrible direction given to those actors. I was shocked and dismayed to see elementary blocking and elementary blocking mistakes everywhere. I swear I've never seen so much upstaging, and even self-upstaging, in a single production before. I couldn't comprehend how a director could watch these completely different characters and archetypes try to interact on stage and fail to mesh in a substantial way and not step in and try to, you know, direct them. Say things like, "Police Chief, tone it down a notch," or make the actors ask questions like "Mack, do you really love him, or are you trying to manipulate him into letting you free, and if so, why should he believe you?" It came down to the face that no one was making any interesting choices with their characters. The only two to stand out in that regard were Jenny, a prostitute and Mack's former lover, and Lucy, the chief's daughter and one of Mack's wives. They at least tried to convey their own important story and took their characters seriously. The rest of them performed like they were in a farce, and by the end of the third act I knew why.

Because Stephanie Shine had no idea what to do with a musical. It was the first ever musical for Seattle Shakespeare, and it showed. There were certainly some wonderful dramatic moments that if it had been a normal play, would've shone brightly. But when they're surrounded by the mess they were put in, they simply become glimpses of what this show could have been. It was especially interesting seeing this show after listening to William Shatner at Comicon explain the difference between comedy and drama, and how there's really very little difference. In comedy you need to take yourself just as seriously as if you're in a drama. And that, that is what this show was missing. It tried to be a comedy. It tried to be funny. And it's not. Yes, there are some funny moments, but it seemed to me that most of the humor of this show should've been found in the more dramatic moments.

And speaking of dramatic moments...oh my god the ending. So, the pre-show sets up and it presents to us this very cabaret-like setting where the actors start getting up one by one and singing some songs in German. However, every so often there are these sirens or loud noises and the actors stop whatever they're doing to look offstage. Then, this happens throughout the show. Fair enough. I get it. You're building to some kind of meta ending. Fine. Then the surprise ending of the actual play where SPOILER IF YOU CARE Mack ends up being saved from hanging by a deus ex machina messenger who tells him the queen has pardoned him and made him a baron. END SPOILER Then of course they talk about how things don't always end this way and how it could be a lot worse, and sure enough, the noise offstage rears its head and I'm just like "Okay, here come the Nazis to fulfill the promise that not all endings are happy." And then...nothing. No reveal. They seemed to cut the final song a little short or something and then walked off into the shadows. A "dramatic moment" with no relevance or meaning. And personally, I think it fit the theme of this production wonderfully. It presents itself like a farce, has some staged dramatic moments that are emotionally effective due to standard theater conditioning but carry no weight to them, and build things up only to let them fizzle out. And much like the very end, this production will likely fade into the shadows where it belongs.

I'm sorry to be so harsh to this show, but just about everything from the staging to the acting to the directing to the bad translation to the "choreography" if you can call it that, all fell completely flat.

Thankfully, coming from learning about viewpoints from Chekhov In Love I can tell you that a large part of the reason it sucked were because the actors were constantly in a dead zone of spatial relations, the entire show and everyone's movements were at the exact same tempo, and any repetition was forced and wholly unconvincing (especially this weird lunging posture both Mack and Jenny adopted during the Ballad of the Pimp). Basically, there was no dynamism. There was no pop, no pow. Nothing to give this play any energy to work with.

I've also just happened to be watching a bootleg capture of Alan Cummings and Cyndi Lauper's Threepenny on youtube, and while I have problems with that one too (Cummings' Mack is almost too angry/dangerous, needs a bit more of that smarm mixed in) it at the very least treats itself like what it is, a penny dreadful, and has some wonderful dynamics. It's also fascinating to watch how completely different several of the characters are between productions. Probably the most striking so far has been that Seattle Shakes' Mrs. Peachum was crotchety, a sloppy drunk, and more resembles the Thenardiers of Les Mis. On Broadway, however, Mrs. Peachum is an uptight businesswoman, proper but easily vexed. It's uncanny.

Anyways, the overall point is that it seems to me Threepenny is already a tough musical to work with, and it by no means should've been Seattle Shakes' first. And even then they should've hired an actual musical choreographer and director to take over this one. Now, I do have to say, most of the rest of the audience actually seemed to really love it. I don't understand why. Maybe it's just that I come from a theater background and so I recognize bad direction, lazy acting, and upstaging up the wazoo, but what I watched was a mess of theater that could and should have been much better.

The Threepenny Opera gets a 4/10.

Killzone 3

2011-03-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

So of course, since they decided to release on the same day, everyone is trying to compare Killzone 3 to Bulletstorm and say which is the better game and so on and so forth.

Time to jump on the bandwagon.

The history of Killzone as a franchise is actually really interesting to me. The first one came out on the PS2 without much pizazz. It seemed like any other first person shooter, didn't really have anything going for it. Then buzz about the PS3 started to circulate, and in steps Killzone 2 with a mind-blowing in game cutscene that had graphics way beyond what anyone had experienced at the time. Of course, then there were delays and delays and by the time it finally came out, everyone else had caught up and the graphics only seemed very well done instead of crap your pants awesome. And sure enough, the gameplay seemed like any other first person shooter, just with a leaden sense to your movement and firing that seemed to add realism/weight to what you did. So now Killzone 3 starts getting hyped and all of a sudden it's being treated like this behemoth of the PS3 exclusive lineup with 3D, Move support, a robust multiplayer system and of course jetpacks. Now, I cannot speak to the 3D or Move features since I don't have the money for either, so alas, most of Killzone's novel improvements are lost on me (as I suspect are they on most people). Nonetheless, does this third and probably not final Killzone game live up to the hype? Yes and no.

Stack it up against Killzone 2, and the improvements are enormous. Shooting seems more fluid, movements still carry that leaden sense but not in a restrictive way, the story pacing is solid, enemy AI is responsive and often deadly, and oh yeah, the jetpack is pretty awesome. However, it also falls into a lot of the traps of stereotypical story based first person shooters. Yes, there are some great action set pieces, but they seem almost tacked on, like your standard on-rails sequences or moments that screamed "HEY LOOK AT THIS BIG THING, BE IMPRESSED AND THEN KILL IT!" or "THIS IS INTENSE BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF ENEMIES FIRING AT YOU! RIGHT? RIGHT?!?" In short, the moments didn't stand out. Most of the game came down to just shooting literally hundreds (there are achievements for killing 500, 1000 and 1500 Helghast...I hit over 500) of Helghast in the head over and over again. Now, I do have to give them credit that the environments were spectacular and it never felt like I was retreading an old area, and that the pacing was strong enough that an area never outlasted its welcome. Yet, much like the story itself, they all still kind of blended together.

So then we come back to Bulletstorm, because it's almost the complete antithesis to Killzone 3. Bulletstorm's AI is terrible, Killzone's is great. Bulletstorm's set pieces are amazing and memorable, Killzone's are good but easily forgotten. Bulletstorm has big bulky men shouting at each other for comedic effect, Killzone uses it for dramatic. Bulletstorm has lush, vibrant jungle environments with very distinct areas, Killzone has beautifully detailed urban and snow-covered environments (and one jungle section) that while they stand out in their beauty, don't stand out otherwise. What it all comes down to is, surprisingly for me, Bulletstorm is the better game. Or rather, it's the game I want more games to be like. Killzone 3 is the perfect example of a high-end FPS that provides a very solid and enjoyable experience, but also unfortunately just seems to be a variation on the mold all other FPSs adhere to.

The point is this. Killzone 3 is a fun game. The multiplayer, as little as I've experienced of it, also appears to be doing some innovating that looks pretty interesting (I'm just not good enough and so get my ass handed to me regularly). Its main problem is that it just doesn't stand out as anything more than a high quality shooter. Good on the Killzone franchise for becoming a big name from humble beginnings, but once you've faced this same problem three games in a row...maybe it's time for something else to come along and take the exclusive crown.

Killzone 3 gets a 7/10.

The King's Speech

2011-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well the Oscars are over, and King's Speech took home Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. I guess it's time I watched it.

Set amongst the backdrop of a 1930s Britain slowly accelerating toward WWII, the story follows Prince Albert (Colin Firth), second son to King George V. Albert unfortunately has a serious stuttering problem, and as such ends up humiliating and disgracing himself at any public speaking event. To remedy the problem he seeks the help of several speech pathologists, all of whom fail, until he finally gives up. His wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) however, still wants to try, and as a last resort meets with Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a man she found in the classifieds. With much reluctance Albert is introduced to Lionel, whose therapy seems to border more on the psychological than on speech, which is very off putting to the rigid sensibilities of this monarch-to-be. Still, in an experiment where Lionel forces Albert to listen to loud music while reciting Shakespeare so he can't hear himself talk, Albert eventually listens to the playback of himself talking, and realizes he didn't stutter at all. Thus begins a long friendship and journey through hardship to eventually arrive at the most important speech of all, a 9 minute speech broadcast to all of Britain's territories on the declaration of war with Germany.

It's an often brilliant and very poignant story, but the real measure of this film is in its actors. Colin Firth is easily deserving of his Oscar, doing as the best actors do and portraying so much while saying so little. And thank god Geoffrey Rush is back in a big name drama to remind us all how great of an actor he is. You could almost tell it was painful for him to try to act Shakespeare badly. And while unfortunately she gets very little to say or do, Bonham Carter is wonderful as always. Put them all together and you get a powerhouse of acting that is hard to beat.

Now, I've mixed feelings on the direction. There were some shots that were absolutely stunning and looked like they were ripped from an art gallery, but there were also, especially in the first meeting between Albert and Lionel, some very oddly placed shots that distracted from the scene rather than enhance it. It seemed a bit too...pretentiously artsy. Trying to be interesting. Most of the movie flowed smoothly and the direction seemed seamless, but those couple weird shots, and the odd lingering moment at the end, seemed out of place. Basically I'm saying David Fincher should've won. That is all.

The only thing that kind of irks me about The King's Speech is that yes, it's a wonderful movie with a great story, script and actors. It also feels like every other wonderful period acting piece. There's nothing to complain about, it just didn't feel fresh. It didn't bring something new to the table. Again, this isn't to bash it in any way, it still deserves to be seen, I'm just sad the Social Network didn't get it.

The King's Speech gets a 10/10.

Bulletstorm

2011-02-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-03T21:58:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Ponyo

2011-01-29T23:12:00.000-08:00

I would just like to take this moment to deride Netflix for providing an endless source of old movies I always meant to watch but then completely forgot about and putting them right at my fingertips. Moving on...

As with practically the entire planet, I'm a big fan of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Let's face it, he's probably the best maker and teller of fairy tales around today. So it should come as absolutely no surprise that Ponyo easily stands up with the rest of his amazing work, despite having almost none of the seriousness/drama of his more popular works. So why is it just as good? Because it's so damn CUTE, and sometimes it's good to have stories that are just plain happy.

Ponyo tells the story of a tiny fish with a humanish face and red hair escaping from her controlling formerly human father only to get caught in a glass bottle and washed up on shore. She is saved by a young boy named Sosuke, who breaks open the glass, cutting himself in the process. But Ponyo quickly licks the cut, and it heals. Sosuke decides to take Ponyo with him in a small bucket, and takes care of her as best he can. However, her father comes looking for her, and eventually sends his Muk-like wave creatures to take her from Sosuke and bring her back home. Both Sosuke and Ponyo are devastated, and Ponyo tells her father she loves Sosuke and wants to be human like him. So, she struggles real hard and starts turning into a human. But her father, with the help of some special magic elixirs, stops the process and makes her sleep. However, when she awakes she regrows her arms and legs and escapes, breaking into her father's very special elixir which releases the power of the sea, unleashing a tsunami made of giant water fish and flooding most of the town in her search to find Sosuke. Thankfully they are reunited soon enough, and are quite in love. However, Sosuke's mom left to check on the elderly women at the home she works at, and it's up to Ponyo and Sosuke to find her and make sure she's okay. Of course, it isn't simple, and it's soon revealed that there's much more at stake.

First things first, the animation is BEAUTIFUL as always, but I'm sure dealing with so many water effects was not easy and my hat is off to them for pulling off such amazing detail.

And I don't really know what else to say. The story and characters are unbearably cute, hell, even the theme song is adorable. Everything else is just style, which if you've seen Miyazaki before will be instantly familiar in its look, magical leanings, and high quality. The only thing I could fault it for is that it doesn't carry the emotional resonance of his other works and has a fairly simple plot without much conflict, but I think the film itself more just seems to resonate with its main protagonists who don't care that the moon is about to crash into the earth because love and fun is all that matters.

So in short, what Ponyo lacks in depth it makes up for in adorableness and amazing animation. It may not be perfect, but it'll certainly put a smile on your face.

Ponyo gets a 9/10.

World's Greatest Dad

2011-01-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

Thank god people give Robin Williams dramatic roles. You know the last at least somewhat respectable comedy he did (as a lead)? Or was at least memorable? Patch Adams in 1998. You know what dramas he's given us since then? One Hour Photo, Insomnia, The Final Cut, Man of the Year, and now World's Greatest Dad. Sure, several of those movies weren't necessarily great, but Williams did such an outstanding job in them that you have to wonder why he doesn't just stick to them from now on.

But has Williams finally found the right fit? Has he finally given an outstanding performance in a movie that was just as good? Honestly, I'm a little torn on this one, so we'll see if I've decided by the end of the review.

The movie follows Lance Clayton (Williams), father of a possible sociopath obsessed with porn named Andrew (Daryl Sabara from Spy Kids) who absolutely hates him. Lance writes novels, but has never been published. He teaches poetry at his son's high school, but the enrollment is so low it's close to being pulled. He's dating one of the other teachers named Claire (Alexie Gilmore), but they have to keep their relationship a secret being two teachers, and every time they're supposed to go out she always seems busy. On top of that, there's another teacher at the school named Mike (Henry Simmons) who seems to have all of the success and popularity that Lance dreams of, and even seems to be enamored of Claire. In short, life kind of sucks for him.

Then tragedy strikes when his son dies in a rather embarrassing way. To at least try and do the right thing, Lance makes it look like Andrew wrote a suicide note and then hung himself. Eventually Lance returns to work, but word of this rather eloquent suicide note has spread, and soon a copy is in the school newspaper. Suddenly the entire school is completely infatuated with their own idea or version of this kid who they never really knew, making Lance as popular as he always wanted to be.

From there things spiral as Lance feeds the flame, giving out little lies time and again to try and keep up this facade that his son was a good person, while also reaping the benefits for himself to get his writing out there. The entire movie is really one big satire on the nature of popularity, especially after death, while also struggling with the moral principles behind what happens when a big lie turns out to help a lot more than it hurts. The entire philosophy behind this film is absolutely brilliant, and is tackled in a very new and different way from any other film I've seen. So what's got me caught up?

The acting. Besides Robin Williams, and surprisingly Daryl Sabara, all of the performances felt very stilted and kind of out of place. Claire was almost cartoony in her ditziness as the wishy washy girlfriend, the rival teacher's performance started out great as the popular great guy but suddenly became overly forced when that changed, and Andrew's one and only friend was very quiet and delivered all of his lines in an almost wooden manner. The various students of the school also just felt like complete caricatures/stereotypes, and while the goth girl at least reveled in that the others just felt a little forced, and frankly poorly written.

On the other hand...I could be completely missing the point. It could be that the roles were meant to be that way as part of the message this film was delivering, which I wouldn't be surprised about. Nonetheless, there's a very fine line between satirizing a stupid character, and just having a stupid character.

That being said, honestly, to me it doesn't matter either way because the rest of the movie makes up for any acting discrepancies. Hell, just Robin Williams' performance makes up for it. The transformations Lance goes through are subtle to say the least, but Williams handles it deftly, letting the most minor changes in his facial expression do the acting for him. I honestly don't know how he did it so well, but there's a point where he finally decides that what's happening is not right, and you can tell from the slightest change in his smile right when it happens. There's no special dialogue, there's no music change, nothing to point out that the film just hit it's final act, except for him. It's a masterful performance that just points out how badly he needs a new agent who will steer him away from things like RV and License to Wed and get him the really solid dramatic roles.

But Williams is really just a great actor delivering a great performance in a great movie that dares to look at some very unconventional themes in a very unique way. It deals intelligently with both its humor and its drama, and the sometimes uncomfortable mix of the two. It brings to the table people who are neither good nor evil, but who constantly deal with both in themselves and others. In short, I made up my mind. It has its problems, but I think Williams finally did find a great movie.

World's Greatest Dad gets a 9/10.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2011-01-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

I was very sad when this movie finally came out after, all the buzz surrounding it and it being Heath Ledger's final movie, because it seemed to open with no fanfare and disappear just as quietly. But now it's on Netflix and I finally get the chance to see Terry Gilliam's latest work. And having seen it, I unfortunately understand why everyone kind of just quietly let it go.

As simply as I can manage it, the story is about a man named Dr. Parnassus who made a deal with the devil to gain eternal life thousands of years ago. Dr. Parnassus has the extraordinary ability to manipulate minds and let people see inside their imaginations. He forms a little circus act with a young man named Anton, the crass midget Percy, and his daughter Valentina in order to try to lure people into a mirror and give them a choice between either good or evil. If they choose evil, their soul goes to the devil. If good, their soul is freed. But there's something the good doctor is hiding. According to his deal with the devil, any child of his belongs to the devil when they turn 16. Coincidentally, it's only a week until Valentina's 16th birthday, and now Parnassus has to find a way to try to save her.

Enter a mysterious man (Heath Ledger) they find hanging under a bridge who survived by means of a pipe lodged in his throat. With no memory of who he is or why he was hung, the man stays with the company and tries to help them in their endeavor by luring in women with his attractiveness essentially. Meanwhile, as the day draws closer, the devil appears to Parnassus and makes a wager. Valentina will stay with whoever claims 5 souls first. And from then on...it's the madcap world known as Gilliamland. Not that the rest of it isn't Gilliam, it just gets real crazy from then on.

Of course, much was made about the fact that Ledger died halfway through the making of this movie, meaning other actors stepped in to take his place in certain parts, namely Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Surprisingly, they fit in quite well, as they only appear when Ledger's character enters the Imaginarium with other people, taking on the appearance of what people want him to look like. Basically, it's already so weird that the shifting faces make perfect sense, and the stand-ins do a great job of mimicking Ledger's actions and mannerisms.

As for the rest, I honestly don't really know what to say about it. If you've seen Gilliam's work before, you pretty much know exactly what you're getting into. A weird setting with a weird plot, some weird direction (Ledger constantly stroking Valentina's face looked very weird and very contrived) and a lot of very weird visuals. The actors are good enough (besides the often awkward Vern Troyer), but it doesn't really matter because they're not the focus, they're just delivering the vision put in front of them. And as with, unfortunately, most of Gilliam's work, that vision is so distorted and almost incomprehensible that it isn't so much entertaining or good as head-scratching.

Now, it certainly is interesting, and it's watchable enough, but in the end it just felt like this odd take on a battle between good and evil didn't have a point. It was just an interesting journey with a lot of fantastical images. I did come away with a somewhat positive feeling about it, but also wishing it had been something more...substantial.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus gets a 5/10.

Dead Space 2

2011-01-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I literally just finished Dead Space 2, and my first impression is simply...holy shit.

We rejoin Isaac Clarke 3 years after the events of the original Dead Space. He has awoken in the psychiatric ward of a place known as The Sprawl, a gigantic city located on one of Saturn's moons, with no memory of how he got there or why he's in a straitjacket. However, we soon find out. After Isaac's encounter with the red Marker, his sanity has, shall we say, slipped a bit. It implanted something into his mind, and now he sees visions of his lost love Nicole (among other terrifying things). And then before you can finish saying "Hey, I think this guy is the guy from Dead Space Ignition," he's getting impaled by an Infector and turning into a necromorph before your eyes. You're then left to run IN A STRAITJACKET through halls with necros popping up all around you, forcing you to wonder what the hell is going on while also desperately trying to escape and cursing whenever you take a wrong turn. Once you finally escape your jacket and get your trusty kinesis, stasis, and plasma cutter (all in amazingly creative ways), the rest is a long trek through the Sprawl, unraveling the mystery of why you're there, why the necros have returned (Hint: there's another Marker), and what in the hell your visions are trying to tell you.

Honestly, to me the story was a little weak this time around. It was nice finally hearing Isaac talk, but he didn't seem to have interesting things to say, it just kind of made the dialogue easier. There's one rather predictable twist towards the beginning, one completely unforeseen twist in the middle that was surprisingly almost blink and you miss it, and an ending that is...odd, and doesn't make much sense especially in terms of the first game's ending and what Markers are supposed to be/do. The problem with playing a game from an insane protagonist's point of view (and for part of the game with an insane companion) while in this already somewhat confusing universe is that everything then becomes even more confusing. I'm sure that to the dedicated who can parse out all the various audio logs, text pieces, and messages from the Marker/Nicole (which were almost indecipherable to me due to the massive audio distortion they layer on top of it) there is a plot here that makes sense, but for everyone else it's a little hard to follow.

On the other hand, how much does the story matter in a survival horror game like this? Well...not that much. What really matters here are the scares, the monsters, and the action, and Dead Space 2 excels on all three fronts.

The scares. Everyone, including myself in a small way, was a little worried when they started showing off early videos of the game and we saw these wide open areas. After all, practically all of the original Dead Space took place in narrow corridors, constantly imbuing that sense that something dangerous is never very far away. Will the danger and scariness decrease in a more open space? HELL NO. Just because you can sometimes see them coming from farther away doesn't reduce the tension one bit. In fact, sometimes it can even lead to scarier situations because you know exactly what's headed for you and just how screwed you are. A great deal of this is also thanks to...

The monsters. Not only do all the originals make their return, but now you also get the disgusting and resilient Puker, the terrifying necro children called the Pack, the slow but deadly explosive necro babies called Crawlers, and the stealthy rhino-like Stalkers. Each requires different tactics to deal with, and adds their own little spice of terror. And Dead Space 2 has no qualms about throwing all different types at you, forcing you to really think on your feet and manage your weapons and health effectively. The only qualm I have is with one specific monster which returns from the first game. The regenerator. The one that can't die. In the first one you at least eventually get to kill it by burning it into ashes with a ship's engines, but it was still more annoying than anything. So along comes a more bug-like version here in the very final chapters, which chases you from when you first encounter it until essentially the end of the game. I understand you want the final section to be really intense, and feel the urge to push players forward in an anxious way towards the end, but an unkillable enemy who follows you into every room is not the way to do it. Instead of a desperate fight to the finish it became a marathon, where I was spamming stasis every moment I wasn't running. However, other than that one mistaken return, every other monster and encounter just plain works in both their difficulty and scariness.

The action. One thing the first Dead Space excelled at were its action-oriented set pieces. They carried all the explosions and tension of a Hollywood movie, while still remaining interesting and completely distinct from each other. Does 2 do better? Yes and no. With a greater variety of area types to explore in the Sprawl, there is also greater variety for these chunks of action, and Dead Space 2 makes some wonderful use of them. For example, the very first sequence running from necros while in a straitjacket, or an absolutely amazing sequence involving a tram and hanging upside down. So why do I also say "no"? Because there simply aren't enough of them. Every couple chapters in the first one saw either a big boss battle or a big action sequence. In this they just felt few and far between. Admittedly, the full levels felt much more replete than in the first, and each had their own special sequences, but the real big jaw-dropping events just seemed to be missing. Nonetheless, everything else did feel like it improved on the original.

Other mentionable pluses: the IMMENSELY improved zero-g sections, rechargeable stasis, the javelin gun (didn't try the other new ones), the very welcome improvement to punching and stomping, and the fun trip into a very familiar place.

It's hard comparing this sequel to its predecessor because it improves upon it in so many ways, but it also lags in others. On top of that, a great deal of the surprise of the setting, how different necros attack/react, and even of some of the "traps" (necro body on the ground, better bet it's still living) is gone because, well, we've seen it all before. Still, it's one hell of a game with plenty of tricks up its sleeve. And this is all not to mention the multiplayer (mostly since I haven't played it yet), or the inclusion of Dead Space Extraction (since I don't have the Move).

In short, if you enjoyed the first game, the sequel more than does it justice. If you're new to the universe, you've got one hell of a ride in store for yourself.

Dead Space 2 gets a 9.5/10.

Black Swan

2011-01-24T18:52:00.000-08:00

Where to even begin...

It just seems to me that Darren Aronofsky lives in a very very bad place inside his mind. The man behind Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler is back with his first horror flick. Confused? Thought this was a trippy ballet movie? Well you're wrong. This is straight up suspenseful, psychotic horror.

Natalie Portman takes the lead as the ballerina Nina, who despite being amazingly technically proficient hasn't yet had the chance to shine. But now, the aging star of the stage Beth (Winona Ryder) is being forcefully retired and the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake is up for grabs. The director (Vincent Cassel) adds a little twist to the show, however, to make it interesting. The pure white swan and her evil twin the black swan will be played by the same ballerina. Nina, under the overly protective and caring eye of her mother, is perfect as the frigid white swan, but cannot loosen up to give the director the black swan he desires. Enter Mila Kunis as Lily, a younger dancer who embodies the black swan perfectly in her attitude and less technical style. Basically, the film mirrors the play, as you might expect. However, there's one thing which keeps you from knowing whether it is actually reflecting the play, or if it's merely pretending to: madness.

Nina goes through frequent psychotic breaks, hallucinating things that aren't there, and often entire events which she later discovers didn't happen. But possibly the most disturbing is that most of her visions involve such wonderful things as peeling her own skin off. Not to mention, the visions happen just often enough to keep you completely on edge along with Nina, never quite knowing what is real and what is insanity.

Most movies, or even just directors, have problems with starting at such a high level of suspense that there's simply nowhere to build. Black Swan does not have that problem. The high anxiety ratchets up real quick, and yet, it manages to remain completely suspenseful and horrifying until the last minute when you finally get your release.

A great deal of this comes from the very tight direction from Aronofsky, but a great deal of the due must also be paid to Portman, who brings us along with her on every single emotional up and down and all around. Kunis is also wonderful as Lily, easily treading the line between the seemingly clueless not-a-care-in-the-world ballerina and the seemingly dark and dangerous girl luring Nina into the depths. Barbara Hershey is almost the most terrifying of them all as Nina's mother, who will go to any lengths to make sure that her little daughter stays an innocent child for the rest of her life.

The only problem I had with this film was the ending, which I won't spoil, but it seemed such a lackluster way to end such a highly intense final half hour. It just seemed a bit obvious, but as I've looked back on it (and as will probably continue in future viewings) I've begun to appreciate it more.

One thing's for certain, Black Swan is one hell of a film. Its style and suspense keep you hooked from the very beginning, and likely won't let go even after the end.

Black Swan gets a 9.5/10

Exit Through the Gift Shop

2011-01-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

I never really understood the street art movement, nor why it had suddenly exploded in popularity when this man named Banksy suddenly started making news for his works. So I never got around to watching his film, which I thought was detailing the street art movement, despite the good reviews because I frankly wasn't that interested. However, I finally sat down to watch it, and was very pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

While Banksy directed and produced the film, most of the footage and story comes from Thierry Guetta, a most likely insane man who practically films every thing he can every moment he can. The adventure begins when Thierry discovers his cousin in France is actually the street artist Invader, who pastes blocks in the forms of different kinds of space invaders up all over the city. Thierry decides the opportunity is too good to be missed and follows Invader, filming him as he posts his art and even helping out a little. Soon enough he's being introduced to others in the field, including Shepard Fairey in L.A., who he decides to follow instead of returning to France. On the pretense of making a documentary on street art, Shepard allows Thierry to follow him around and learn the tricks of the trade. Eventually word reaches Thierry of the famous and highly anonymous Banksy. Asking everyone he could, everyone he had met, he tries to get a hold of Banksy, but to no avail. Eventually, however, Banksy calls Shepard up in need of an extra man, and Shepard gives him Thierry.

From then on, I dare not spoil what happens lest I ruin the wonderful surprises this movie holds for you. This movie is, and yet is not, a documentary about street art. Instead, it's more about the making of a documentary about street art, and the highly interesting story of Thierry and his influence on both the art and artists around him.

I couldn't help but think throughout that this movie was one big setup. That it was all a lie, a moral hidden in a fake documentary. And yet, to me it doesn't really matter if it's true or not because the story it tells is so wonderfully philosophical that the questions it raises go far beyond the need to know if it's real or not. This movie is funny, deep, a little crazy, and all sorts of fun, and it makes a subject that I really cared nothing about into one I am anxious to see the progress of.

Applause must be given to whoever sorted through the thousands upon thousands of hours of footage Thierry recorded to find the jewels they show here. I'm sure it was no meager feat, and the final product ended up looking wonderful and very well crafted. But the story they culled from it is even more impressive.

This movie surprised me in a great many ways with its humor, its style, and especially its willingness to look at the world of art in a completely new way, even to the point of questioning whether its very subject matter was art. Frankly, I was blown away, and recommend this film highly to anyone.

Exit Through the Gift Shop gets a 10/10.

An Education

2011-01-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

I was intrigued by this title back in 2009, especially after it garnered such high praise and received three Oscar nominations including best picture. Well I finally got around to watching it and have to say that I was...underwhelmed.

The film takes place in early 1960s London, where 16 year old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is being kept firmly to the tracks towards Oxford by her very forceful father (Alfred Molina) and sympathetic but stern teachers. Yet while she studies hard and has a very nice disposition, it also becomes apparent quite quickly that this is not the life she wants to lead.

In steps David (Peter Sarsgaard), a 30-something year old who innocently drives up to her in the rain, offering to protect her cello in the car while she walks alongside. Soon enough she's charmed off her feet and climbs in herself, thus beginning a long saga of a rather creepy romance. He wines her, dines her, takes her out to parties with another 30-something couple, and even whisks her off to Paris and buys her everything she wants. But of course, David is not without his dark side, namely in his business dealings, but despite it all Jenny still loves him and gives up everything to be his.

Before I start deriding I do have to say that Mulligan and Sarsgaard are really wonderful in their respective roles. Mulligan carries a fierceness to her that shirks the role of the stereotypical young lady in love and gives a great deal of maturity and depth to a character that frankly probably shouldn't have it. Sarsgaard, for some reason, always creeps me out. Whether it's because he just normally goes after these kind of roles where he's not what he seems, or just because of the way he looks and talks, I don't know. But that creepiness works perfectly as this older man who very obviously has secrets and whom this young girl should very obviously not be with.

But that is also part of this movie's downfall. An Education makes itself out to be like a comedy/romance/coming of age story. Unfortunately, the story this movie actually tells is far from the genres is tries to fit into. Every scene that in a normal romance would be just fine carried this creepy quality to it that I just couldn't put aside, nor should the movie have tried to either. Perhaps it was just trying to emulate or explain how things were back in the day, but especially with what is revealed about David it's as if the movie is trying to fool us, just as Jenny and her family are fooled, into thinking that we're watching Pride and Prejudice.

Oh god, and her family. Poor Alfred Molina starts as the stereotypically brutish, stern 50s-era father who cares absolutely nothing for women's opinions, and then turns into a blubbering bashful idiot every time David is around. The pure lack of any concern over Jenny dating or marrying this much older man, and of her dropping out of school to do so, shows a remarkable lack of character continuity on the writer's part, especially when at the end he finally softens up to Jenny. The poor mother comes off even worse, being the absolutely stereotypical 50s repressed housewife who never talks and cleans until midnight but feels bad about it. They seemed almost cartoonish sometimes in how they were written.

So then I looked up the source of the story. It's from an autobiographical essay by a British journalist. And then it hit me. Of course they seem weirdly inconsistent and stereotypical. They're based on what a 16 year old girl thought of them at the time. Though I am surprised that now that she's older she didn't look back and think they must not have really been like that.

Maybe I'm getting it all wrong, and David really was just an amazingly smooth talker who could get what he wanted out of anyone, but in this movie it all just feels too unreal and inconsistent.

And then there's the ending. Shame on the screenwriter for that ending. SHAME. Those last five minutes honestly ruined the movie. I suppose it was meant to be a nice little tie-off where we see that life does go on and things end on at least a little bit of a happy note. But boy did it just go wrong. We go from this very dramatic scene where everything has fallen apart, to this weird, wholly unsatisfying little snippet where everything is okay now and she got into Oxford after all and she met other boys. The end. It takes whatever this movie was working toward and just throws it down an unfinished drain. It really feels like the screenwriter just ran out of time and decided to tack this thing on the end.

In short, An Education stands to its name, as it's a film to learn from. It takes all the things going for it, great costumes, a great setting, great actors, etc. and then shoves this screenplay onto them (which was nominated for an Oscar unbelievably) which takes the entirely wrong approach to its subject. It's almost maddening because one little thing could have fixed a lot of the problems I had: make it from Jenny's point of view. Then all the character discrepancies, all the complete ignorance, all the oddities of this movie would've made sense because we're only getting one character's view of the situation.

Yet despite my railing against it, I did actually enjoy the movie for the most part. Despite my frustrations, it was still, on the whole, a good film. It's just the odd choices made in the screenplay that mar it from actually being worthy of the Oscar nods it received (besides Mulligan's, she deserved that one).

An Education gets a 6.5/10.

The Tourist

2011-01-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

Alright, time for yet another long string of movies I've watched but neglected to review. The marathon begins with...The Tourist.

Upon seeing the first trailer for this film I practically immediately dismissed it as just another Hollywood action flick where you put two hot people together and hope there's money to be made. However, then I saw that Johnny Depp was nominated at the Golden Globes for it and thought, what the hell, they must have seen something good right?

Well, let's just say I'm never trusting the Golden Globes again.

Admittedly, yes, Depp is good. He's his normal wonderful acting self. Jolie is also perfectly fine as the mysterious ingenue as she really doesn't have to do anything but stand around looking sultry, which she does just by existing. And despite a vapid storyline and poor dialogue, she and Depp still manage to stir up some chemistry. Unfortunately, that's about where the good parts end. Oh, and Venice is beautiful, and beautifully shot.

The rest is your stereotypical humdrum action flick with some funny moments, some romantic moments, and a lot of guns. There's technically a twist at the end, though you'll guess it very easily.

In short (since I've still got several movies to go and The Tourist doesn't really deserve more than passing mention), while it certainly isn't a good movie, it certainly isn't bad either. It just runs par for the course.

The Tourist gets a 5/10.

The Social Network

2011-01-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

My catching up on all the movies garnering Oscar buzz this year began with one of the forerunners, The Social Network. And let me say, the praise is well deserved.

The movie is set during the hearing for the lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg from, on one side, his former friend Eduardo Saverin, and on the other, the highly athletic Winklevoss twins and their business partner who gave Zuckerberg the idea that lead to facebook in the hopes he'd help them set it up. Instead he took it and ran with it. Yet, despite technically taking place during the hearing, most of the movie focuses on the past and each person's recollections.

There are two things, I think, which set this movie apart from the herd. First, they are able to merge what's happening now and the memories of the past in such an amazingly fluid way that the story never falters in its pace or ceases to surprise. The second is that despite a story that in other hands would probably come across boring (after all a great deal of it is litigation and typing on computers), the tension and interest in where the story is going to go next never stops. Really it all comes down to the rather surprisingly fast pace and tone of the movie, for which credit must be given to the director David Fincher.

But of course a director can only do so much without a good cast, but they certainly don't fail him here. Jessee Eisenberg's constant awkward and sarcastic nature as Zuckerberg is always interesting to watch, and the tension he carries as a character is really reflective of the tension that keeps this movie constantly interesting. Andrew Garfield is wonderful as the betrayed best friend trying to navigate his way through the constantly shifting waters around Zuckerberg. And as much as I love Justin Timberlake on SNL and have the utmost faith in his acting abilities, even I was surprised by his brilliant turn as the shifty devil Sean Parker who founded Napster and leads Zuckerberg morally astray (though also into billions and billions of dollars).

This movie is at turns a tight suspenseful drama, comedy, romance, and satire, and it succeeds at each. I could probably keep singing its praises all over the place (including the rather different but wholly welcome musical score), but I have to wrap it up. So, in the end The Social Network is a masterful piece of acting, directing, screenwriting, and just about everything else. It grabs you from the very first confusion swirled scene until the last click of the mouse at the end and never lets go.

The Social Network gets a 10/10.

The Mist

2011-01-12T22:31:00.001-08:00

GAH I FORGOT ANOTHER ONE.

Okay, The Mist. Based off a Stephen King book The Mist is actually quite surprising in that the supernatural oddities are there pretty much from the get-go and are completely visible. This turns it from the normal kind of supernatural thriller King is used to producing into a movie with an almost survival horror bent to it. Does that make it better?

The Mist takes place in a small town where before you can say "uh oh" a mass of mist is rolling down the mountainside from the general direction of an army base, trapping a father, son, and his neighbor along with several others inside a grocery store. They then proceed to discover just what kind of threat they're dealing with, both on the outside, and eventually inside as well from a woman preaching about the end of days.

The cast are really all surprisingly good, especially Marcia Gay Harden as the religious zealot. While there are some stars here (including the man now immortalized as Starkiller in The Force Unleashed video games), you really get the sense that this is an ensemble cast in an ensemble setting and they all make each other look good as any ensemble should.

The creatures themselves are really cool looking, though they also ratchet up the suspense as it seems like each new encounter brings with it a new and terrifying creature. Each person's foray into the mist keeps you on the edge of your toes, just like everyone in that store.

Yet with all that being said, the story itself seemed a little unremarkable to me. The whole thing, while effective, still felt like it was lacking a little originality. It felt like any other suspenseful monster movie. People stick together to survive, bad things happen, and there is an inevitable trip into danger to try and get supplies that goes predictably wrong. There's a kind of "twist" that is a big no brainer (SPOILER It's all a military experiment that went wrong, DUH. END SPOILER) .

However, this movie deserves to be watched just for the ending. It doesn't really matter if you watch the rest of the film. You can get by on knowing that monsters attack, a lot of people die, and there's pretty much no hope of living for anyone. The ending, though...the ending needs to be seen. It is one of the most original and completely horrifying endings to a movie I think I've ever seen. It strikes deep, and it strikes hard. It takes a surprisingly bold move that I believe most movies would shy away from, and that's all I'm going to say about it except WATCH IT.

The Mist as a whole may not have much originality going for it, but the tight acting and highly unconventional ending make it a very worthwhile view.

The Mist gets an 8/10 (the ending bumped it by a point).

Paranormal Activity 2

2011-01-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

So my bad, I actually watched this movie several weeks ago and then completely forgot to write anything down about it. Which unfortunately means I'll be going off of what I remember from when I viewed it, which while I think I can still provide a good analysis, it may not be as good as when it was fresh in my head. Nonetheless...

We quickly learn that this sequel is actually a prequel, following the story of the sister of the main girl from the first one, her husband, her daughter, her little baby, and their dog. The beginning actually starts off rather confusingly as we get from a very quick transition with almost no explanation that we've suddenly jumped forward a couple weeks that their house was broken into, thus necessitating a security system that watches over the house. From that point on most of the scary footage comes from those cameras, with snippets of handheld in-between.

As in the first one, weird things start happening on a low level. The pool cleaner mysteriously ends up out of the pool each morning, seemingly on its own. There are thumps in the night. And then as time goes on and the family starts getting more and more freaked out, scarier and scarier crap keeps happening. Oddly enough though, I thought it started out much more strongly than the first, which was almost to its detriment as from that point on they had to try and get scarier than that. And while at some points they certainly managed it, it was odd to start the foray into madness with such a big event.

Underneath all the hubbub, however, are some rather interesting revelations about why the things that happened in the first movie happened and why this demon is terrorizing them all. I won't spoil anything here, because I think this was worth viewing, but the ending in particular I thought was a really great ending. It's unexpected, different, and yet totally makes sense within the context of the story they've presented. In the first one there was the infamous change from the kinda boring but very interesting original ending to the Spielberg scary as hell but really cliche ending (a change they're sticking with in this one), neither of which really felt right. The second, however, hits it right on the head.

In terms of the rest of the production, the actors are once again average though certainly good at acting scared, the choppiness we get in the timeline from one handicam shot to the next is a little jarring and makes it hard to keep up with what's going on, and the scares themselves while bigger are not necessarily better. That isn't to say it wasn't scary, it just wasn't as effective as the first one since for this one you basically know you're going to hear footsteps in the night and watch people get dragged. And yet, I liked it better than the first, particularly because it made up for those faults by having an actually interesting story, and an ending that just plain worked.

Basically, this sequel/prequel retained many of the problems of the first, yet also improved upon it. From where this one ended I doubt there will be a third, but who knows, maybe they'll finally strike the right balance between small, unpredictable scares that build tension and big scares that can only have a big impact for a short period of time. The first favored the small at the expense of the large except for the end, while the second favored the big at the expense of those small moments that really hammer in the suspense. I suppose it's a balance that all good horror must find, and the second did better at it than the first, but still had its share of problems. In the end...

Paranormal Activity 2 gets a 7.5/10

Every Little Step

2011-01-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

Despite an inherent love for musicals, I haven't really been around them. I've seen a couple performed, and watched a couple movie adaptations, but I've never been in one or exposed to more than the most popular ones like Phantom and Les Mis. So having received the recommendation from my more musically inclined girlfriend I turned on Every Little Step, a documentary about the casting of the revival of A Chorus Line, which is a musical that I had never heard of nor heard songs from. Thankfully, however, I am an actor, and this is an actor's movie.

A Chorus Line is the rather brilliant brainchild of Michael Bennett, who sat down with several fellow Broadway actors for 12 hours, talking about what it was like to be in showbusiness. He then took those stories and turned it into a musical about a bunch of actors auditioning for a Broadway show. So Every Little Step then chronicles the stories of some of the 3,000 people who showed up to audition for the revival, making it a documentary about a bunch of actors auditioning for a show about a bunch of actors auditioning for a show. Very meta.

Frankly it's a fascinating process, and the movie captures it very well. You see these rooms filled with dancers who all get turned away, then another roomful where you can see who is on their game and who just doesn't have it. Even towards the very end to watch these people who have put their livelihoods on the line for this job go so far, only to fall after 8 MONTHS of waiting. It's intense.

The only problem I have is that I wanted more. It felt like it all went by so quickly, and some final people ended up in that cast that were barely even mentioned. At the final callback there were still about 10 people we knew nothing about. I understand it would take a long time to do each and every person's story, and some of them might not have an interesting story to tell, but I would've gladly stuck around for another 30 minutes of material (it runs 1.5 hours). I know this is one of those situations where you just have to make some sacrifices so that the movie can still tell a story and end in a reasonable amount of time, but damn it, it was so interesting I couldn't help but feel the lack of depth.

For any actors or those who are involved in theater, this is a brilliant movie to see as you feel like you can really understand what these people are going through which makes the emotional impact strike all the harder. For everyone else, it's a rarely seen and very interesting look into just what it takes to make it to Broadway. In any case, it's a worthwhile view.

Every Little Step gets a 9/10.

The Road

2011-01-11T16:56:00.001-08:00

This movie has me torn. On one hand I found the setting of an America devastated by some kind of massive destructive event, leaving the last remnants of humanity to wander a dead world absolutely fascinating. The struggle to survive turning most into cannibals, with only a few keeping the fire of their humanity alive. On the other hand, I feel like the story never made a point, besides saying things are bleak. We follow around this father and son as they go south towards the ocean, bad things happen along the way, and they both grapple with what it means to be the good guys in a bad world. Every single shot looks stark and gray, practically every location is burned or broken down, and by the end you're just left sitting there thinking "Well that was depressing."

Basically it makes me want to go and read the book, because I can tell there's something beneath this drudge of grayness that is actually an interesting story. Unfortunately, instead of exploring the depths of morality and metaphor littered throughout, the movie just takes us along on this very slow paced journey where they're either running/hiding from cannibals, walking/scavenging/sleeping, or showing how the father is pretty much a failure. He preaches about carrying the fire, being the good guy, yet when the opportunity presents itself he always looks out only for himself while his son tries desperately to make him change his mind. And that's the movie. Running, resting, scavenging, and morality. There's certainly a message to be found in it, a deeper resonance the movie was trying to achieve, but unfortunately it just came off dull. And then there's the ending...

SPOILER ALERT...I really couldn't understand the point of the ending. We've just spent almost 2 hours with this father and son, with the father trying the entire time to teach what he can. His dying request is that the son be cautious, and voila the first person he comes across, who instills no confidence whatsoever, he almost immediately trusts. Not only that, but he admits to there being others with him. And then, he admits that they've been following him the entire time. But...then it turns out to be okay. It's actually a family. It's the good guys they were searching for. Possibly. It just seemed like a very odd ending, to immediately forget his father's wishes but don't worry it's okay they're actually nice. I guess the fire lives on? END SPOILERS

To me it just felt like despite the good acting and interesting direction, what fell flat was simply the screenplay itself. It turned what could've been a fascinating philosophical study amid the backdrop of this strange alternate reality into an odd, slightly muddled post-apocalyptic journey movie where the journey didn't really have a solid beginning or end. With any luck I'll get to reading the book, and will hopefully have a much better impression.

The Road gets a 5/10.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

2011-01-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

The title really says it all. Do I even need to provide a review? Much like movies such as "Piranha" or "Anaconda" you pretty much know exactly what you're signing up for when you press play. However, there's something special about Killer Klowns that I think at least deserves some words written about it.

The concept of Killer Klowns is rather simple. Aliens who just happen to look like clowns, use cotton candy and popcorn as weapons, and whose spaceship is coincidentally shaped like a circus tent, land for an unknown reason in this small town and proceed to capture or kill every single person there in clown-like fashion. There's your stereotypical hero, maiden, powerful ally (cop), supposed comic relief (ice cream brothers), and stick-in-the-mud who doesn't believe a damn thing until he's dead (other cop), all with acting skills developed at whatever place casting directors went to for every actor from every bad horror movie made in the 80s (the mall?). So after stumbling on the big secret that this circus tent, which mysteriously appeared in the woods right where a meteor they watched fall should've crashed down, is actually a spaceship filled with deadly klowns, our heroes spend the movie running from death and trying to warn everyone before they all get turned into cotton candy cocoons.

If you really need it...SPOILER ALERT...everyone but the kinda hero, maiden in distress, powerfully ally and supposed comic relief end up dead. Somehow during the entire movie, the cop is the only one who figured out how to kill the klowns (shoot their noses off), and is able to kill the big boss klown, subsequently blowing up their ship and killing any other possible survivors from the town. Miraculously, he survives the explosion by locking himself in the klown car, and the comic relief escapes the previous explosion they were in AND the destruction of the ship by hiding in their ice cream truck's freezer. The cavalry, in the form of police from a neighboring town, show up just in time to see the ship explode. And just as the movie ends, with our heroes asking if it's finally all over, they get pied in the face, setting up a sequel if they ever chose to do one. END SPOILERS

It's ridiculous. It's all pure and utter failure in pretty much every sense. The acting, direction, script, sets, just about damn near everything is just plain BAD. The only redeeming thing is that the klowns were at some points pretty darn scary looking. So why even give this film a mention?

Because it was funny. It was damn funny. It was all just so ridiculous that I couldn't help but enjoy it. If it hadn't been filmed in the same period as, and thus been one of, all of those terrible 80s horror films I would've said it was a wonderful spoof. You just have to think that they knew they were making a terrible terrible film and so they had fun with it. But almost better is to think that they were taking themselves absolutely seriously, just because it makes their predicament all the funnier.

Killer Klowns is by no means a good movie, and I'm sure many would not have as fun a time with it as I had. Still, if you've got several people over and have fun supplying additional commentary while a movie is going then this is a great way to waste an hour and 20 minutes.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space gets a 4/10.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

2011-01-03T16:06:00.001-08:00

In case you couldn't tell from reading the rest of this blog I'm a big video game nerd. And while I didn't really grow up with the arcade era that Scott Pilgrim hearkens back to, it doesn't mean I can't completely and utterly fall in love with this movie.

Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year old bass player in a band called the Sex Bob-Ombs, who have never known the taste of success despite a lot of heart. He starts out dating a high-schooler named Knives Chau, despite the constant flack he gets from his friends. However, one day he has a dream about a mysterious woman on roller skates, then sees her in real life at a party, learns her name is Ramona Flowers, and immediately falls for her despite her complete lack of interest in him. Yet despite that she still starts to hang out with Scott and the romance begins to bloom. But before you know it, the shit hits the fan as juggling both Knives and Ramona, Scott learns that in order to keep dating Ramona he has to battle and defeat her 7 evil exes, most of whom are conveniently in town for the battle of the bands.

What follows is brightly colored, flashy, absolutely over-the-top and more than fun. Often Scott unwittingly ends up in these battles to the death while trying to manage the ups and downs of dating Ramona or breaking up with Knives or just trying to live his day to day life. I don't even really know how to explain it, but this movie manages to strike the perfect balance between romantic comedy, action movie, and homage to the arcade. The first evil ex shatters into a thousand coins when Scott defeats him, which Scott then picks up and realizes he can use for bus money. The whole tone of the movie has this kind of hyper-surreal feel to it, and somehow it all just works really well.

Michael Cera is his usual nerdy nice self, which is fine since it just works so perfectly for the character. Really every actor and actress really hits their mark, but the stars of this show are the evil exes. Besides the twins who we literally hear nothing from, they are all hilarious. From the very first fireball throwing, demon hipster chick summoning ex all the way down to the always wonderful Jason Schwartzman as the leader of the exes, every single one stole their scenes. It was just so obvious that they themselves were having a great time that it was impossible not to enjoy it right along with them.

The only problem I have with Scott Pilgrim is that it's so flashy, fun and fast paced that it kind of forgets to have substance under it. I went through the entire movie loving every eccentric bite sized scene, but left it feeling a little hungry for more, especially after the kind of cliche ending. **SPOILER ALERT** Of course I understand why Scott ends up with Ramona. After all it's like Knives says, he's spent all this time fighting for her he should go get her. Yet, I also felt like they really pinpointed in the final battle how Scott and Knives were right for each other and Ramona was maybe not the right choice for him. Personally I just think it would've been a much more compelling ending to let Ramona go. **END SPOILER**

Scott Pilgrim is basically the epitome of style over substance, and yet the style that's there is so unique, interesting and FUN that I can't really fault it that. One thing's for sure; I'll definitely be going back and watching this one again and again.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World gets a 9/10.

The Human Centipede

2011-01-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

Watching this travesty of a film I couldn't help but be reminded of the first time I watched Hostel, years after its release. When it first came out, everyone was thoroughly disgusted and grossed out by the completely over-the-top gore, violence, and nudity, marking it as probably the best example at that time of the "torture porn" genre. I vowed never to see it since there really was no need. Then, one day, in a moment of weakness I figured what the hell and I watched it. Honestly, I didn't find it to be so bad. Maybe I'm just jaded or immune to graphic violence in movies these days but the rather obviously fake torture in Hostel didn't effect me. And while the plot of the movie was reeeally stupid, I still couldn't help hating myself for actually enjoying the kind of Grindhouse sentimentality this movie held.

So sure enough, years later another movie comes out trying to top all others as the most disgusting movie ever released. However, unlike Hostel, the Human Centipede falls flat in just about every way, including the gross out factor. Once you've heard what the Human Centipede is actually about, you've pretty much already gotten through the worst of it. In some ways, hearing about and imagining it is actually far worse than what they actually show. Though there are still certainly some very cringe worthy moments.

So yes, it was disgusting. But frankly, it's no worse than Saw or Hostel or any other entry in the torture porn genre. It certainly has a different concept to it which makes it more revolting, but I was actually shocked when I realized that the bandages covering the really disgusting parts of the centipede weren't going away. I really expected them to go that far from what I had heard, but thankfully it spared us the really gruesome bits.

As to the rest of the movie beyond its shock value, there's really nothing there. Dieter Laser is genuinely terrifying as the doctor, and the asian man at the front has his moments (though most are surprisingly humorous). But the two "actresses" really do seem like they were just hired out of a porno, along with the cops. The story itself is expectedly very poorly written, with very bad dialogue, many many so bad it's funny moments, and enough head-desk moments to give you a concussion without a desk.

In short, there is nothing redeeming about this movie besides Dieter Laser, and that's only because he has one of the most terrifying faces I've ever seen on a person. If your own sensibilities didn't tell you already to stay far far away from this movie, and you're even a little curious about seeing it, just walk away. This movie is all about the shock value, and if you already know what it's about, then the shock is gone.

The Human Centipede gets a 1/10.

Dead Space Ignition

2010-12-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

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.

A slew of demos

2010-12-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

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.

Fallout: New Vegas

2010-12-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

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.

Neuromancer

2010-12-12T13:15:00.001-08:00

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.

2011 is going to take all of our money

2010-12-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Pillars of the Earth (miniseries)

2010-12-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

2010-12-03T22:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Wittenburg

2010-12-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

2010-12-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Hamlet

2010-11-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Tractor Beams

2010-10-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

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

Red Dead Redemption revisited

2010-10-30T12:35:00.001-07:00

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.

Darksiders

2010-10-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

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.

Get Him To The Greek

2010-10-23T22:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (movie)

2010-10-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

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.

Red Dead Redemption

2010-10-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

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.

My Fair Lady

2010-10-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

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.

The Weather Man

2010-10-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Inception

2010-10-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

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.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer Beta

2010-09-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Agora

2010-09-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

2010-09-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

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.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2010-08-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Date Night

2010-08-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

At first glance, it would be easy to dislike Date Night. It follows an almost classic recipe of taking two funny actors, putting them together, put them through some unlikely yet ultimately funny hijinks and throw in some funny celebrity cameos and improvised humor to spice. It's a tried and true formula that for the most part creates semi-enjoyable flicks worth nothing more than a cursory glance. Date Night, however, has three things those other films do not: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, and the completely natural chemistry they share on screen.

Most of the plot of Date Night can be completely ignored. All it is is a prime opportunity for Carell and Fey to work their comedic (and dramatic) acting chops alongside the also wonderful James Franco, Mila Kunis, and an always shirtless Mark Wahlberg (not to mention a brief but hilariously creepy scene from William Fichtner). However, for what it's worth, Carell and Fey are a boring old married couple with an average family life who after hearing their good friends are getting a divorce decide to spice up their normal date night by going out somewhere fancy. They show up at a famous sushi place without a reservation, and in a moment of inspiration decide to steal someone else's reservation who didn't show. Soon enough, trouble in the form of two large men walk in, bring them out back, and threaten to kill them unless they return a flash drive that belonged to their boss. Trying to explain that they're not who these guys think they are get them nowhere, and soon this boring married couple is off on the adventure of their lives to find this flash drive so they can get back to their kids. Hilarity ensues.

As you might expect from Carell and Fey, a lot of the humor feels improvised, which at some points brings out classic gems and at other times falls a little flat. Also, the more the movie drifts from the relationship between them, the less funny it gets. Sure a creepy/silly striptease scene is funny for what it is, but the moment leading up to it where they're trying to pump each other up is far more funny because it's grounded in this couple's relationship. That being said, the movie really shines when they start having fun with each other in the completely ridiculous situations (as opposed to the only mildly ridiculous I suppose) like the entire car chase scene and their completely ineffectual threats against the brilliance of James Franco and Mila Kunis. When the craziness is at its max is when you can tell they're really enjoying themselves, and so by extension so do we.

But interestingly enough what truly stands out are the serious moments that Carell and Fey share as a couple. First off, Date Night does a wonderful job balancing the absurdity of their situation with their reality as an average married couple way out of their league. But second, the loving moments between them are so genuine that I almost wish they had just made a movie of that, because while it certainly was a wonderful and funny movie, those moments are by far what stood out and elevated this above the traditional recipe. I honestly hope these two get together again for a more dramatic movie because there's something there that just...works.

Until then, Date Night is an above average comedy thanks to its stars, but since it is somewhat limited by that recipe, parts of it still taste a little stale. It is still worth the viewing, but hopefully it will stand as more of an early effort from the classics to come.

Date Night gets an 8/10.

Neverwhere

2010-08-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Neil Gaiman is an amazing man. My first exposure to his writing came from the wholly confusing yet still enjoyable American Gods, which was mostly confusing because I had no idea who Gaiman was or how he wrote. Since then I've only seen glimpses of his work through the movies of Coraline and Stardust, and so I figured it was about time I picked up his very first novel, Neverwhere.

Set against the background of modern day London, we follow the trials of Richard Mayhew, an average man with average goals and an average life, which all of a sudden gets completely turned around when a mysterious girl named Door, who has been running from the deadly Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, comes out from a wall in front of him and collapses bleeding on the street. Despite complaints from his fiancee to just leave the girl, his compassion gets the better of him and he scoops up the girl and brings her back to his house to help her recover. While trying to reveal as little as possible, Door brings him on a quest through London Below, a mystical and very dangerous place consisting of London's sewers and so much more. She finds her friends, and leaves Richard confused and baffled back in his apartment.

But something has changed. Suddenly, no one notices Richard anymore. He can get their attention for a second or two, but they go right back to ignoring him soon after. He has become part of London Below, a helpless man who dropped through the cracks, and must find a way back to his old life while trying to survive the dangers that lurk below.

It's a delightfully creative premise, and Gaiman never fails to add his own flair to every location, every character, and every sentence in this book. By all accounts, I shouldn't consider this one of the best books I've read. The plot, while creative, when boiled down is a very simple and traditional quest plot. There is relatively little character development. The ending is rather easy to foresee and even a little cliche. And yet, I loved every single page. Where this book shines is not in those basic elements, it's in the pure unadulterated creativity, style and voice of Gaiman shining through. Gaiman's descriptions can turn a small shadow into one of the most terrifying things you could imagine. His quirky humor is littered throughout the book as well, helping to alleviate what otherwise would've been some almost unbearably depressing scenes. Toss in a smattering of Matrix/Inception like philosophy and you get a simple story with some amazingly complex undertones. However, where Gaiman's strength lies is in his characters, from the calm violence of Mr. Croup to the noble sliminess of the Marquis to the dark depths of London Below itself. While none of them really develop in the course of the story, each is already so rich as a character that they don't need to.

Gaiman has somehow managed to take a story that in other hands would've been thrown away and turned it into one of the best pieces of fiction I've read. I don't care about the simple plot. I don't care about the cliche ending. Neverwhere is by and far one of the best examples of something being more than the sum of its parts.

Neverwhere gets a 10/10.