I don"t like horror movies. there I said. I really don't, I know that to enjoy a movie/comic/book we have to have a certain os suspension of disbelief. Thing is, horror movies are bad, whether they be intentional or unintenional. There's an emphesis of poorly written characters, killers with god mode activated, or a group of guidos who live in New Jersey. There usually isn't really enything in a horror movie that I feel I should invest in. Now, I may say that but there are some horror movies that do things right. Instead of making dumb characters, they make interesting ones. The creature or person is what's the mystery and instead of showing them murder everyone in an easy fashion; it instead focus' the characters trying to stop it/them from striking. Look at Romero's Zombie films, yes you see the undead and them killing people or turning people; but the movies are more about the main characters trying to survive. It focus' on human nature under stress. The zombies add menace and gore when they show up but the real point of zombie movies are humans coping with their world bruning down; holding onto what they can to keep on going for another day. Some of us brave through it, others crumble and make weak excuses to rob, steal and murder others. That's the charm.
That's an aspect I loved about John Charpenter's The Thing. It was about a shape shifting alien that went on a bloody rampage when discovered, it had amazing effects and really good acting. There was tenstion and mystery. It was more of a who done it as opposed to "I have a machete! Blondes having sex! Murder!" End scene, rinse repeat. No, The Thing was straight up atmosphereic; that was it, it was all about the characters coping with an alien on the loose and worst yet; one of them could be replaced by it. It was as simple as that.
Course, leave it to modern hollywood to ham in on it. See, they have this wonderful idea that they need to remake or make prequesla dn sequels. Sometimes it works (Tron: Legacy) and other times it's . . . .well, not so much. The 2011 Thing is one such instant. They decided that a prequel was in order. So this movie focus' on the norwiegin camp base that was utterly destroyed by the time the cast from the first movie came out. Seriously. The characters go to the camp to investigate and find everyone dead, demolished and half assimilated. Yeah, they made a sequel focusing on that. It's like the Star Wars prequels. We know what happens. we know how it's going to play out. We have the who, what, where, when and how. 4, 5,and 6 gave us the pieces. The only way it could have been a surprise is if the prequel focused on something we weren't expecting. Like if I made a prequel to The Godfather and it was about a chef trying to save the mushroom kingdom from intergalatic spiders. All he had was a batch of exploding cakes and had to ride a velocorapter who also happens to be a unicorn. See? You didn't expect that, it would be the perfect prequel.
So how is the prequel The Thing? Well, exactly what you would expect from a movie made in today's standard. There's CGI everywhere, plotholes and the subtley from the first movie is gone. GONE! that's what the made the 82 movie so good. Instead, if any body forgets to flush, the creature bursts out and kills somebody. It's like the Bayformer movies, the charm is gone, the story is gone and it's one big CGI douche fest. The lead, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (or as I'll refer to her from now on as Ramona Flowers), tries her best but this is a story that didn't need to be told. Or if it had to be, would have been done right. See, it's a Norwiegian base so Ramona is flwon in by the lead Norwiegian scientist FROM AMERICA! Keep in mind the movie still takes place in 1982. See, the saving grace of this movie is that they didn;t want to piss over the original and I respect that.
It's not like George Lucas, they looked at what John Carpenter did and tried to stick to that. Unfortunatly, everything is CGI and while the orginial played around with keeping the creature in the shadows. See, you only saw small glimpses of The Thing and it made it interesting. Same with the Alien movies, oh we saw the whole thing but only in quick flashes. It created tension, it showed something menacing and would cause a panic. Here? It shows up with a boom and doesn't stop. Seriously, they find it in the ice and put in a room where it can't thaw out. There's no heat source, nothing. By all means it should still be hibernating so guess what? FUCK LOGIC! This thing erupts out of the ice and just goes nuts. In all face splitting CGI Lady Gaga on a normal day glory. And from there it's a stroke fest for regular horror fans. With explosions and loud bangs in every scene. While the original slowed down so the characters could breathe before shit hit the fan in the last half; here? I leave my respects to the countless gas stations that had to be blown up. I know they wanted to leave the bas in the state that Kurt Russel found it in the original but a helicopter crash? That wasn't in the original.
One other big problem that arises from this movie t\is that in the end, the alien tries to escape using it's ship. And it gets blown up. Blown. Up. Like Michael Bay blown up, Ronald Emmerick blown up. Death Star blown up. Course there it is, intact in the original. So I take by what I said about them not wanting to piss over the original. They George Lucas'ed this bitch. Then of course, Ramona gets away and they try to leave ambiguity as to whether it;s her or not. Which doesn;t make sense. If she did get away, why didn;t Kurt Russel's character MacCready, didn;t see any tracks leaving the base? I know it's sequel bait but for christs sake we don;t need it. Not everything needs a sequel (Watchmen). Hell not everything needs to be made period (Highlander 2). I mean good god, Hollywood needs to make new ideas. Hell I came up with one about a velocorapter riding chef. It wouldn;t be oscar worthy but they don't matter. In fact they shouldn't matter but that's a rant for another day.
This movie? A lazy story, alright acting and the mystery gone. In it's place is CGI, things blowing up and somewhere John W. Cambell jr is spinning in his grave so fast; electrical friction is supplying third world countries with enough energy to last through forever.
The Thing 2011 gets 3.5 bass beats over the end credits out 10. They slao want to remake Highlander, with the woman who wrote the Twilight movies. Not Stephanie Meyer, I don;t have her name right now but thse's writing it. She also wrote the first three seasons of Dexter. . . .I don;t know how to feel about that.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Fantasic Year End Review Journey - 2011
Another year down and another step twoards in a procrastinating direction. I may not have updated as much as I wanted do but that was due to work, a cold and Old Republic.
This year was a turning point for me, I learned to get back up on my feet and keep trucking. I just not have to set my self a proper work scheduale. With that let's move onto my year end review. No TV in this one as I didn't watch any, although Gundam Unicorn would have won as there isn't anything on right now with such an amazing attention to detail, in animation and characters. I'm still listening to the soundtrack. Speaking of, I didn;t do music this year as well. Everything sucked, from Justin Beieber to whatever is the rap flavor of the month. So this year it's just movies, music and comic books. I had a semi busy emotional year okay? I had to deal with gungans for christs sake. GUNGANS!
With that out of the way, let's start this disaster off with movies.
The Dark Knight Rises/Nolan's Bat franchise:
Oh Christopher Nolan. Welcome back, it seems I can't rant about you enough eh? I know a lot fo people like you and I may be seen as some from of attractive hipster for not liking you like i used to but you. See, I've noticed that Nolan grounds his movies and doesn't let it go as it should, a comic book is only as real as it's main character. I know I know, Batman is a step away from being the most realistic character ever but that's not what I'm talking about. See, he got Batman wrong on so many levels. I don;t care if Joker just slaps some make up on, or if Ra's Al Ghul had body doubles. No no it's that the whole premise is wrong. Batman has always been a dark and twisted road of one man's psyche.
Bruce Wayne suffered a loss, a huge one. He had one bad day. That right there sums up the whole Batman mythos. A bad day. Not being a symbol, not being a legend. Course it's too simple for those "poets" so Nolan pulled crap out his ass, tried to make Bruce Wayne relatable, an everyman. In the Dark Knight he wanted to quit to get married. Married! Great Caesers beard, that's not the Batman I know. He's dark, twisted and tormented. Driven by his parents death but in TDK, Nolan wants us to believe he just got over that. Why? Cause he let Ra's die? In the comics he confronted Joe Chill, the actual murderer of his parents, reveals his face and Chill runs outside only to be gunned down by mob enforcers that were looking for him. And you know what? Bruce was still tormented by his parents death. Now I know some people might be telling me to relax, that movies based on a show, comic, book, worlds greatest bowel movement won;t be like it's source 100 percent. I'm fine with that in most cases. As long as the source material is respected( thumbs up at you Marvel, heart you. Except for Spider-Man starring Pleasent Ville and man thing Kristin Dust).
Nolan took themes from Year One and Killing Joke and just, well made a two hour philosophy movie. The Batman I know would have beat up Joker, tracked down Dent and offered to help him. Expose the Jokers plan and how it affected Dent, punch some useless goons and then race back to the bat cave to pound some Catwoman. Awww no character development? Blasphemy!! Fuck off with that, it's Batman, he lost his parents. Don;t get much character development than that. I may be called a comic book purist but honestly, Harry Potter and Watchmen were faithful adaptations, hell, even those Twilight movies are true to there roots.
So why can't DC get a clue? Marvel did, they took elements from the Ultimate and 616 universes; but the characters stayed true to their comic book counterparts. Steve Rogers is a nice guy, Tony Stark is an egotist, Thor is a badass and Bruce Banner has anger problems. It's not that hard, not with the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne hasn't been Batman for 8 years. Well that's already a red streak. That was faster than I thought. I already don;t like this movie. Bane is moving against Gotham for some reason and Catwoman wasn't even in it. Just Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale in a rip off scene from Batman Returns. Classy! And now a stadium just collapsed on itself. HOLY SHIT! That was a good effect. Oh good now we're back to more talking. Bruce Wayne's going to die. I call it. The whole trailer was just "The legend is over" "Batman is what Gotham needs even if the man is broken" You wouldn't get any more sutble if Nolan edited himself within every scene and just started shouting "Bruce Wayne's going to die!"
A fucking Bond villian was more subtle than this. If bruce makes it the end of this movie, I'll make it my film of 2012. I swear I will cause that's a brilliant twist. Course then the whole "Legend is ending" would just be hype. Like oh hey, Heath ledger died so The Dark Knight is the greatest movie of all time. I know Heath did a good job but his role doesn't make a whole damn movie when you have an ensamble cast! If people only pick Heath's role as the Joker as something that sticks with them and not Bale's Batman. You fucked up.
Wow this turned into one huge nerd rant. Listen, I like Nolan's other films; like Momento, brilliant movie but when it comes to a movie that needs to rely on some sort of suspension of disbelief such as batman and that paprika rip off Incpetion, He fails, he wants a realistic movie? Make a straight up cops and robbers movie, make a movie about corperate spies. Something realistic. Next thing you know he'll make a Naruto movie about a group modern assasssin's and the main character is just called a demon fox, talking for two hours about what humanity means with a pedo with a snake fetish. . . . .Mother of god that sounds better than actual Naruto.
The Dark Knight Rises and the whole Nolan Bat franchise gets .5 batarangs that weren't thrown out of 10. I'm more annoyed with these so called Bat fans, these internet poets. I know a movie has to have some substance but having characters talk about philosphy for two hours does not make substance. That's just filler. At least in Shakepeares plays SOMETHING happened between the talking.
Green Lantern - 2.5/10
- Proves my comic point. Respect the source material. This movie? So did it wrong. what could have been DC's Star Wars turned into DC's CGI shit storm. . . .so basically the prequels. In fact, that's this movies new name. Ryan Reynolds vs The Intergalatic Poo Monster. Cause that sure as hell wasn't Pharalax. From the cheap CGI, shoddy editing, and lackluster action; this movie fails on so many accounts. Save your money, go watch Thor.
Thor - 8.5/10
- Speaking of! This is how you almost get it right, course Marvel looses some points for not putting Thor INTO the body of Donald Blake. That's the orginal story, but what we get at it's core is a good presentation. Performances all around are well done but the Stand out are Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki. They have the characters down pat. Throw in Anthony fucking Hopkins as Odin and Kenneth Brahgah as a diector that knows what he's doing when it comes to Norse legends and you have a good movie. Oh and Natalie Portman is hot. Just saying. And that after credits scene. . . .what does it mean?
Captain America - 9/10
- Kay nevermind everything is explained. This follows the Thor formula of pulling from the source and perfects it. this is a pure Captain America movie. Chris Evens embodies the out to do good Steve Rogers and Hayley Atwell is amazingly hot as Peggy Carter. And Tommy Lee Jones is well. . . .Tommy Lee Jones just as a US General. And Hugo Weaving, damn man you are a good actor. I hate the Red Skull but you played him perfectly. Now that everything is all lined up for The Avengers movie I can't wait. Did I mention that the director Joe Johnson also directed The Rockateer? Go watch that movie too.
Breaking Dawn - .1/10
- Yeeees I went to see it. I got dragged so a friend wouldn't feel bad. It gets a .1 in score because there was one scene I liked. The wedding scene just because all the characters seemed happy. Then the dramaz begins! Pretty much the whole movie, she gets knocked up by a corpse. LOGIC!
Transformers Dark of the Moon - 6/10
- Really Michael Bay? You killed of Ironhide again? A pretty much made the same movie three times now. The Decepticons are up to something, the Autobots despite having global resources and freedom to roam it's Sam who solves everything. Again. And Optimus has to beat the shit out of everyone. Again. Douche jokes, Shia panicking and no more Megean Fox. What a mixed blessing.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 5.5/10
- Not a lot of shadowy games really. More explosions, more bromance humor and a phsycic battle as the climax. Yeah, in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Pretty much the same preformances from Downey and Jude, Rachel McAdams is quickly swept under the rug.
Tin Tin - 9.5/10
- What a refreshing movie, it doesn't try to be "complex", "dark" or "gritty". It's a straight up action movie, it's a straight up adventure that rings tro to the original. Tin Tin is a journalist, travels around with his dog Snowy and his friend Captain Haddock. that's it, a simple formula for an awesome movie. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis do an amazing job as the leads and Daniel Craig is very sinister as the villian. All around good movie, can't wait for a sequel.
So that's it for movie, my movie of the year is Tin Tin. It attracts the child in me. It's pure fun, with a charming story and characters that are fun to watch. The animation is amazing, even if Jamie Bell comes off as a creepily real Tin Tin sometimes. Also no love interest. That's a plus.
Comic Books
DC Relaunch: The New 52.
I loved 52. It's without a doubt the only good thing DC has done in recent years. Final Crisis was very quickly undone by itself, same with Batman RIP. All the Green Lantern storylines didn't have any real impact, even though they were pretty decent blockbusters. Honestly after Blackest Night Geoff Johns started sucking. Now after the lackluster Flashpoint that had a puss out deus ex machina ending, we are now focusing on a whole new universe. Howdy doo well let's see what's new!
. . .Nothing! Absolutly nothing! DC has stated that everything that's happened in the DC universe, still happened; just in the span of 5 years. Oh good, cause that's what long time running established iconic characters needed! Cliff notes! They've grazed over characters histories, all they're really doing new is the begginnings of characters. Oh, Bruce Wayne still lost his parents but did you know that Superman just showed up one day wearing jeans and an S tshirt? Or that Wonder Woman is a n00b again? Or that Hal Jordan can no longer get it up unless he has his Green Lantern ring on him? Or that Starefire is now a sex crazed bitchy and detached person now? Cause I thought she USED to be opposite of that, you know. . . .considering the whole falling in love with Dick grayson and stuff. Characters aren't married anymore and I know DC is going to try and convince us that Superman and Wonder Woman NEED to be together ASAP! Considering that they keep cramming that down our throats all the other times.
So what's good about the relaunch? Would you believe Batman? Yeah, his titles. All 4 of them are pretty good, hell even the Batgirl and Nightwing runs are amazing. Everything else? It's all hit and miss. Action Comics is meh while the actual Superman book is pretty decent. Geoff Johns should not be writing Wonder Woman, he gets Green Lantern but not her. He's also writing Justice League which is decent, I still don;t know why Superman would act irrational and attack Hal Jordan and Batman in the first issue instead of asking them what was going with the attacks around the world when. . . .wait. . . Superman and Batman are in the same scene? Fuck! Whenever Batman is around Superman he gets amnesia and forgets that he's actually smarter than Bats! Good to know DC still has it's incosistent writing.
The art veries too, from amazingly drawn to just flat out lazy. Like I said all the Batman themed books are really well done in all departments. Jim Lee is drawing Justice League which is a big plus in my books. I can't say that much more on the art. The awful ones I barely glanced at. Oh wait! Did I mention Sinestro is a Green lantern again? Cause somehow the Gaurdians convinced him by just mentioning his planet. Yes, because. . . .yes. Just fucking yes. The last time I saw this many plot holes I was still trying to understand Heroes. Oh and Catwoman rapes Batman. You read that right. Gotham's Dark Knight lets Catwoamn mount him and he tell her to stop, and she keeps going. Stay classy DC! Your movies suck (except for Watchmen), you piss over your fans UND! Your write your characters out of their personalities every other issue.
DC's relaunch get 3.5 rewitten multiverse stories out of 10. Just wait, DC will try to reboot itself again in a matter of weeks. Hell, every big DC event apperently affects the mutliverse. Also DC, I know Batman is popular but you have other heroes. Spider-Man is Marvels most popular superhero but Marvel acknowledges it's other heroes. Like Iron Man, Ms Marvel, the X-Men, The Avengers, ect. So seriously DC, up the quality of writing on your other titles or just name your company 'Batman Comics'.
Fear Itself - 7/10
- Okay sooo Matt Fraction. I like this story but seriously; you have bad pacing, and weird story turn points. You killed off Thor again man, he came back not just three years ago. Course this being mainstream Marvel they already replaced him with a jerk. The whole Tony Stark chugging a bottle of champagne to appease to Odin, really goes nowhere. There was a huge build up that it might restart his drinkin' games. Yeah he chugs it and like a champ, shrugs it off. way to go nowhere at mach 5 there Matt. Oh and Steve Rogers has taken up the mantle from Bucky who died. So that's two people to try and reset the status quo? Oh Marvel. CUT THAT SHIT OUT!
Flashpoint - 4.5/10
- Take Barry Allen, The Flash and set him in a time shattering new universe where he remember the main DC universe. He has no powers, Thomas Wayne is Batman as Bruce was killed with his Motherand the Amazons and Atantlians are attacking the mainland. On top of that, if Barry Allen does find a way to return to his universe he'll shatter the multiverse and rewrite everything. Sounds exciting right? Well nothing happens, the Amazon/Atantlis storyline is rug swept, Thomas Wayne was introduced as a straight up killer but is nothing more than an alchoholic, and Barry Allens return just makes a new universe that is the new 52. He returns to the main universe with no reprocussions and gives a message to Bruce from his alternate universe Dad. That's it.
Death of Spider-man - 5.5/10
- I'm mixed about this, I really am. On a plus side, Mark Bagely's art is phenominal, Brian Micheal Bendis penned a story showing how much of an amazing person Ultimate Peter Parker is and then kills him. Dafuq?! Yeah, Bendis killed off a 16 year old kid. Oh everyone was upset that a half black, half espanic was replacing him; but I actually like Miles Morales. He's already his own character. . . .well kinda. He has a lot of peter Parker traits aside from his parent issues. He doesn't really have an Uncle Ben and his da is a bit of a jerk. I don't mind this, I'm upset that for no reason, a 16 year old kid died. Oh he beat the shit out of Norman 'Goblin sex' Osborn; with a truck! Still, he loses points for making the Ultimate version of the Avengers pissing on him after he pretty much covered their asses, and then he gets killed. Kudos Bendis, you kill children.
Spider-Island - 9/10
- Dan Slott. I love you. Not sinbce J. Michael Stranzynski have I enjoyed Spider-Man this much. He knows how to write him, he can balanced humor and suspense and stay true to the characters. The art is amazing and lively and the colors are bright and amazing (heh pun). The story deals with the Jackal showing up and giving ordinary citizens spider powers. he's doing this for the spider queen so she can have an army of spider knights. Oh yeah, the people start mutating into human spiders that she can control, so Spidey has a short amount of time left before this infestiation covers New York and then the world! (insert imperial march). It's a really gripping story and the line from Spidey "Just watch, I'm going to do it! I'm going to save them!. . . .I'm going to save everyone!" Still sends chills down my spine, this whole story was a huge love letter to Spider-Man, New York now respects him and everything is set on track. His twin/clone Kaine is revived and helps him, only to become the new Scarlet Spider. Not all is well, Madame Web leaves Spider-Man with a warning; he will suffer a loss unlike any other. Until then though, Spider-Man can enjoy being the worlds greatest superhero!
My comic of the year is obviously Spider-Island. After the mess DC has created with the reboot, I wouldn't be surprised if the first DC even of 2012 is another universe reboot. Marvel on the other hand is pushing itself forward, and I like that. Spider-Island is a love letter to the underdog. It's finally giving Spidey the break he deserves that writers think he doesn't need. bull! He goes through more than the average superhero, so he needs a kit kat every once in a while. Dan Slott, I love you and I hope you stick around for a few more years.
Video Games
First Person Shooters:
. . .Really Activision? Really EA? Must you be content with hyping up your products only to deliver half a game? For full price? I may not have been excited for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 but they had the respect for a 40 dollor price tag. Modern Warefare 3 and Battlefield 3 are multiplayer games only. That's all they are, a game for multiplayer only. The single player protions are atrocious. Oh the story in BF 3 is a lot better than MW 3, but it's still only 3 hours. In a world where tech has unlimited prowess, short games should only exsist as indie games on Steam of the PSN for 3 dollars. Not 60 plus for half a game. People feed into it though, MW3 and BF3 has sold millions and that makes me a sad panda.
The games don't really challenge the player, sure Battlefield has realism going for it, but it doesn't really play out in the single player. The mechanics are only pure gold on the multiplayer. Meanwhile, a thousand miles away; MW3 has thrown realism out and created a series of exploding gas stations that would make Michael Bay blush. CoD4 had realism going for it, it showed a story that could be happening at this very second along with real world repricussions. MW2 had Russia invading America. Undetected. Oh sure, they tried to explain that Russia had stolen cryptic data to compromise the US's radar systems. But what about Canada? France? Britian? They didn't notice huge carriers overhead, moving over the ocean? And call an emergency meeting of the UN? No? Fuck.
Like I said, the games don;t challenge us anymore. No obstacles, no weight to every thing around you. All you do is fire from the hip and yell at campers. Course in a real war, camping is exactly what you do! But hey, if everyone is content with playing shameless money grabs and waste time on 12 years olds. Then boy is Call of Duty for you. Mostly PC gamers play Battlefield but I still think that game is lacking. Th multiplayer is fun, but if the single player campaign is a forgettable experiance. It's nothing new. Russia are the bad guys. Again. Hey, you know the cold war is over right? You can pick PMC's and oh I dunno, North Korea as your enemy. How about a FPS where you realize that Bobby Kotick is a douche and go blow up Activison? And as a final boss, you have to fight Michael bay on an exploding planet. Revenge of the Fallen? Revenge of my Fist mother fucker.
All FPS' are doing nowaday are trying to wage a dick size contest with eachother. It's sad really, video games are an interactive medium and all we get with war games are 'Americaaaaaa Fuck yeah!". This is why I love Deus Ex so much.
Modern FPS' get 2.5 dick contests out of 10. I miss the days of Doom and Duke Nukem. As childish and gory as they were, they still had more thought put into them than "We need realism!" "Simple controls!" "I have a small dick!". It's sad that DNF was the shit game it was, otherwise we would have seen a return to form that wasn't what Bulletstorm turned out to be.
- Duke Nukem Forver - 1.5/10
- Hahahaha you're serious? You sent us this shit? This crap? I can see why there was an emphesis on that turd in the beginning of the game. This game tried too hard to be other shooters rather than being it's own thing. Take note, don;t try to appeal to the mainstream, becausehat you can actually do. That's why indie games turn out to be a diamond in the rough. This is just lazy. 12 years? It took 12 years for this. I'd rather watch The Dark Knight for a day straight.
Batman Arkham City - 7.5/10
- I love this game. Mostly for it's gameplay and side missions. Rocksteady really dropped the ball on the story. I know sequels have to be cranked up but 11 is too much. The took The Dark Knight approach and tried to do too much in such a short amount of time. The Penguin segement was padding, Two-Face didn't need to be in the game and the whole "Jokers going to die' storyline felt tacked on. I followed this game from first announcement and what was hinted at was a psycological battle between Hugo Strange and Batman. Pure and simple. What we got was a convoluted mess of a story with good gameplay. That's the saving grace of this game. that and Kevin Conroy's Batmand and Mark Hamill's Joker. Catwoman was hot but really didn't add anything to the game other than a different gameplay style. Her story was completely spereate and we never understood what she was trying to do in Arkham City. They layed hints for a third and final Batman game, but I'll take it with a grain of salt. Arkham Asylum was and still is the BEST Batman game.
Spider-Man: Edge of Time - 8/10
- I love Dc and Marvel, course I lean more towards Marvel because I like their characters a bit more. Don't get me wrong, the DC characters all stand for a great message; but at the end of the day I can relate to the Marvel Universe. There's positives and negatives in both comic industries, like how Arkham City dropped the ball, Edge of Time only stumbled a little. The game is bigger but it's still a bit linear. The combat is more fluid and the wall crawling camera is fixed. reviewers don;t talk about that. Sure the game is short but the graphics are more detailed, yes you only play as two Spider-Men but the combat is more varied. The leads, Josh keaton and Chistopher Daniel Barnes, are phenominal as Amazing and 2099 respectavly. With each improvment, the next Spider-Man game should be crystal perfection then.
Skyrim - 9.5/10
This game is beautiful. It's combat is polished, the envirments are big and the characters look so much better. The story is immersive and expansive, it's also a shade of gray. Skyrim is torn apart by civil war, you are the dragonborn; the only person who can permanitly kill a dragon. Which is good cause they've come back to stick their fire dick in everyone's flammable cereal. The game comes to life and sucks you in. It took me a month before I could move onto something else. And I;m still not done the game. Damn you Bethesda, damn you for showing us that a single player game is still worth it. I love you for that but I hate you for making me lose so much free time. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU!!!!
Infamous 2 - 9.6/10
- This is it. This is how you make a superhero sandbox. This is also how you make a sequel. Yes you have to expand on what the first one had, but you don't cram in too much. Infamous 2 didn't lose it's focus. It was still Cole's story to the end. The combat was improved upon, the powers made bigger and the soundtrack. Oh my god this soundtrack. It's so beautiful and heart felt. It really tells the tale of a hero. Or villian, depending on which side you took; but Sucker Punch has stated that the true story is the good side. So take what you will from it. Cole and Zeke's friendship is repaired and you know what? Zeke was the real star of this game cause man, when the world was going to hell he still stuck with you through thick and thin. Everything about this game worked, just wished it was a touch longer. The ending(s) are tragic and horrific in their own sense, just like the story. Don't miss this one.
Uncharted 3 - 9/10
- Good gravy on my toast. Naughty Dog you guys rock so much it causes boats to tip over. This thrid outing with Drake has twists, turns, explosions and a giant desert. The set pieces are amazing and the acting is phenominal. I know some people are tired of Nolan North. But not me, the man can act. Sully is fleshed out and Elaine . . . .doesn't really do much. She isn't useless, but she's more of a cameo in this game than the last. The only let down is the reveal at the end. there isn't one really. The mysterious mcguffin is never really explained other than it can do stuff. You have to play the game to find otu what that is. The controls are smoothed out and there's an emphesis on close combat. Which is good because shooting in this game is sluggish. In 2 it was smoothed out but here? They went back to the first game. You can smooth it out, but why they took a step back when they took five steps forward is beyond me.
Gears of War 3 - 6.5/10
- Lazy graphics, lazy story. More of the same gameplay. What I mean by lazy story? It's all a cliche. Just think of every war movie you've seen and put what happens in those movies, in this game. Everything is revealed and it's lackluster. Like Epic gave up, which isn't surprising cause Cliffy B is an idiot. The game was still fun but at it's core, it's forgettable. Which at the end of the day, sums up the whole franchise.
Fable 3 - 2.5/10
-Really? I'm glad I didn;t spend money on this. I burrowed it from a friend. then we both set it on fire. We needed to cleasne the earth of this shit. Peter last name I can;t spell. You're games have been bland. Fable 1 was alright, Fable 2 was just an expansion (Oh hai Call of Duty) and this? Good god. Movies and Games are being puked over. Everyone's just going in for a cash grab. Thank god for Uncharted, Infamous and Skyrim. Those games had developers that took their time and look what happened. Good games.
Sonic Generations - 9/10
- First Colors, now this. It's a HUGE love letter to Sonic and all the fans that stuck by. The gameplay from Colors makes a return 9minu the wisps system) and you get to play as classic Sonic too! There's something for everyone new and old. The graphics are amazing, the running is smoothed out once more, the remixes kick ass and the story is adorable. If you went the year without playing this, shame on you. Sonic is back in gold form and you owe it to your shildhood to play this.
Zelda: Skyward Sword - 9.5/10
- The other thing setting this game back is the motion controls, yes it's clever that the enemy catches on your movements; but that's because the motion controls are gimmicky. Which best describes the wii. The world is alive and amazingly designed. Zelda is an actual character you care about, and you can even flesh out Link through dialogue choices. thank god it's no Other M. Link is all hero and that's it. It's powerful yet simple and holds true to the zelda mythos. I can;t wait to see the next one, don;t makes us wait too long nintendo! Just drop the motion controls. Gimmicky piece of shit.
My Game of the Year? Everyone picked Skyrim but I'm picking Skyward Sword. Once you get past the motion controls, there really is an amazing and artistic fleshed out world. With high stakes and characters we can actually care about, Skyrim came a little short because even though you had a huge world in it. You were still alone, it makes your character epic but when other people are activly helping you (like The Blades) that's a bad sign.
So that's it. Another year down, another to go. I'm still working on a bunch of stuff and getting myself back on track. I wish you all the best and hopefully, I won;t rage quit once I see The Dark Knight Rises. Hopefully being the keyword. then again, Spider-man and the Avengers are this year. Ahhh Nerdism, my anit-drug. Well peace out mortals, and don't let me catch you on my property again! You know who you are!
This year was a turning point for me, I learned to get back up on my feet and keep trucking. I just not have to set my self a proper work scheduale. With that let's move onto my year end review. No TV in this one as I didn't watch any, although Gundam Unicorn would have won as there isn't anything on right now with such an amazing attention to detail, in animation and characters. I'm still listening to the soundtrack. Speaking of, I didn;t do music this year as well. Everything sucked, from Justin Beieber to whatever is the rap flavor of the month. So this year it's just movies, music and comic books. I had a semi busy emotional year okay? I had to deal with gungans for christs sake. GUNGANS!
With that out of the way, let's start this disaster off with movies.
The Dark Knight Rises/Nolan's Bat franchise:
Oh Christopher Nolan. Welcome back, it seems I can't rant about you enough eh? I know a lot fo people like you and I may be seen as some from of attractive hipster for not liking you like i used to but you. See, I've noticed that Nolan grounds his movies and doesn't let it go as it should, a comic book is only as real as it's main character. I know I know, Batman is a step away from being the most realistic character ever but that's not what I'm talking about. See, he got Batman wrong on so many levels. I don;t care if Joker just slaps some make up on, or if Ra's Al Ghul had body doubles. No no it's that the whole premise is wrong. Batman has always been a dark and twisted road of one man's psyche.
Bruce Wayne suffered a loss, a huge one. He had one bad day. That right there sums up the whole Batman mythos. A bad day. Not being a symbol, not being a legend. Course it's too simple for those "poets" so Nolan pulled crap out his ass, tried to make Bruce Wayne relatable, an everyman. In the Dark Knight he wanted to quit to get married. Married! Great Caesers beard, that's not the Batman I know. He's dark, twisted and tormented. Driven by his parents death but in TDK, Nolan wants us to believe he just got over that. Why? Cause he let Ra's die? In the comics he confronted Joe Chill, the actual murderer of his parents, reveals his face and Chill runs outside only to be gunned down by mob enforcers that were looking for him. And you know what? Bruce was still tormented by his parents death. Now I know some people might be telling me to relax, that movies based on a show, comic, book, worlds greatest bowel movement won;t be like it's source 100 percent. I'm fine with that in most cases. As long as the source material is respected( thumbs up at you Marvel, heart you. Except for Spider-Man starring Pleasent Ville and man thing Kristin Dust).
Nolan took themes from Year One and Killing Joke and just, well made a two hour philosophy movie. The Batman I know would have beat up Joker, tracked down Dent and offered to help him. Expose the Jokers plan and how it affected Dent, punch some useless goons and then race back to the bat cave to pound some Catwoman. Awww no character development? Blasphemy!! Fuck off with that, it's Batman, he lost his parents. Don;t get much character development than that. I may be called a comic book purist but honestly, Harry Potter and Watchmen were faithful adaptations, hell, even those Twilight movies are true to there roots.
So why can't DC get a clue? Marvel did, they took elements from the Ultimate and 616 universes; but the characters stayed true to their comic book counterparts. Steve Rogers is a nice guy, Tony Stark is an egotist, Thor is a badass and Bruce Banner has anger problems. It's not that hard, not with the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne hasn't been Batman for 8 years. Well that's already a red streak. That was faster than I thought. I already don;t like this movie. Bane is moving against Gotham for some reason and Catwoman wasn't even in it. Just Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale in a rip off scene from Batman Returns. Classy! And now a stadium just collapsed on itself. HOLY SHIT! That was a good effect. Oh good now we're back to more talking. Bruce Wayne's going to die. I call it. The whole trailer was just "The legend is over" "Batman is what Gotham needs even if the man is broken" You wouldn't get any more sutble if Nolan edited himself within every scene and just started shouting "Bruce Wayne's going to die!"
A fucking Bond villian was more subtle than this. If bruce makes it the end of this movie, I'll make it my film of 2012. I swear I will cause that's a brilliant twist. Course then the whole "Legend is ending" would just be hype. Like oh hey, Heath ledger died so The Dark Knight is the greatest movie of all time. I know Heath did a good job but his role doesn't make a whole damn movie when you have an ensamble cast! If people only pick Heath's role as the Joker as something that sticks with them and not Bale's Batman. You fucked up.
Wow this turned into one huge nerd rant. Listen, I like Nolan's other films; like Momento, brilliant movie but when it comes to a movie that needs to rely on some sort of suspension of disbelief such as batman and that paprika rip off Incpetion, He fails, he wants a realistic movie? Make a straight up cops and robbers movie, make a movie about corperate spies. Something realistic. Next thing you know he'll make a Naruto movie about a group modern assasssin's and the main character is just called a demon fox, talking for two hours about what humanity means with a pedo with a snake fetish. . . . .Mother of god that sounds better than actual Naruto.
The Dark Knight Rises and the whole Nolan Bat franchise gets .5 batarangs that weren't thrown out of 10. I'm more annoyed with these so called Bat fans, these internet poets. I know a movie has to have some substance but having characters talk about philosphy for two hours does not make substance. That's just filler. At least in Shakepeares plays SOMETHING happened between the talking.
Green Lantern - 2.5/10
- Proves my comic point. Respect the source material. This movie? So did it wrong. what could have been DC's Star Wars turned into DC's CGI shit storm. . . .so basically the prequels. In fact, that's this movies new name. Ryan Reynolds vs The Intergalatic Poo Monster. Cause that sure as hell wasn't Pharalax. From the cheap CGI, shoddy editing, and lackluster action; this movie fails on so many accounts. Save your money, go watch Thor.
Thor - 8.5/10
- Speaking of! This is how you almost get it right, course Marvel looses some points for not putting Thor INTO the body of Donald Blake. That's the orginal story, but what we get at it's core is a good presentation. Performances all around are well done but the Stand out are Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki. They have the characters down pat. Throw in Anthony fucking Hopkins as Odin and Kenneth Brahgah as a diector that knows what he's doing when it comes to Norse legends and you have a good movie. Oh and Natalie Portman is hot. Just saying. And that after credits scene. . . .what does it mean?
Captain America - 9/10
- Kay nevermind everything is explained. This follows the Thor formula of pulling from the source and perfects it. this is a pure Captain America movie. Chris Evens embodies the out to do good Steve Rogers and Hayley Atwell is amazingly hot as Peggy Carter. And Tommy Lee Jones is well. . . .Tommy Lee Jones just as a US General. And Hugo Weaving, damn man you are a good actor. I hate the Red Skull but you played him perfectly. Now that everything is all lined up for The Avengers movie I can't wait. Did I mention that the director Joe Johnson also directed The Rockateer? Go watch that movie too.
Breaking Dawn - .1/10
- Yeeees I went to see it. I got dragged so a friend wouldn't feel bad. It gets a .1 in score because there was one scene I liked. The wedding scene just because all the characters seemed happy. Then the dramaz begins! Pretty much the whole movie, she gets knocked up by a corpse. LOGIC!
Transformers Dark of the Moon - 6/10
- Really Michael Bay? You killed of Ironhide again? A pretty much made the same movie three times now. The Decepticons are up to something, the Autobots despite having global resources and freedom to roam it's Sam who solves everything. Again. And Optimus has to beat the shit out of everyone. Again. Douche jokes, Shia panicking and no more Megean Fox. What a mixed blessing.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 5.5/10
- Not a lot of shadowy games really. More explosions, more bromance humor and a phsycic battle as the climax. Yeah, in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Pretty much the same preformances from Downey and Jude, Rachel McAdams is quickly swept under the rug.
Tin Tin - 9.5/10
- What a refreshing movie, it doesn't try to be "complex", "dark" or "gritty". It's a straight up action movie, it's a straight up adventure that rings tro to the original. Tin Tin is a journalist, travels around with his dog Snowy and his friend Captain Haddock. that's it, a simple formula for an awesome movie. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis do an amazing job as the leads and Daniel Craig is very sinister as the villian. All around good movie, can't wait for a sequel.
So that's it for movie, my movie of the year is Tin Tin. It attracts the child in me. It's pure fun, with a charming story and characters that are fun to watch. The animation is amazing, even if Jamie Bell comes off as a creepily real Tin Tin sometimes. Also no love interest. That's a plus.
Comic Books
DC Relaunch: The New 52.
I loved 52. It's without a doubt the only good thing DC has done in recent years. Final Crisis was very quickly undone by itself, same with Batman RIP. All the Green Lantern storylines didn't have any real impact, even though they were pretty decent blockbusters. Honestly after Blackest Night Geoff Johns started sucking. Now after the lackluster Flashpoint that had a puss out deus ex machina ending, we are now focusing on a whole new universe. Howdy doo well let's see what's new!
. . .Nothing! Absolutly nothing! DC has stated that everything that's happened in the DC universe, still happened; just in the span of 5 years. Oh good, cause that's what long time running established iconic characters needed! Cliff notes! They've grazed over characters histories, all they're really doing new is the begginnings of characters. Oh, Bruce Wayne still lost his parents but did you know that Superman just showed up one day wearing jeans and an S tshirt? Or that Wonder Woman is a n00b again? Or that Hal Jordan can no longer get it up unless he has his Green Lantern ring on him? Or that Starefire is now a sex crazed bitchy and detached person now? Cause I thought she USED to be opposite of that, you know. . . .considering the whole falling in love with Dick grayson and stuff. Characters aren't married anymore and I know DC is going to try and convince us that Superman and Wonder Woman NEED to be together ASAP! Considering that they keep cramming that down our throats all the other times.
So what's good about the relaunch? Would you believe Batman? Yeah, his titles. All 4 of them are pretty good, hell even the Batgirl and Nightwing runs are amazing. Everything else? It's all hit and miss. Action Comics is meh while the actual Superman book is pretty decent. Geoff Johns should not be writing Wonder Woman, he gets Green Lantern but not her. He's also writing Justice League which is decent, I still don;t know why Superman would act irrational and attack Hal Jordan and Batman in the first issue instead of asking them what was going with the attacks around the world when. . . .wait. . . Superman and Batman are in the same scene? Fuck! Whenever Batman is around Superman he gets amnesia and forgets that he's actually smarter than Bats! Good to know DC still has it's incosistent writing.
The art veries too, from amazingly drawn to just flat out lazy. Like I said all the Batman themed books are really well done in all departments. Jim Lee is drawing Justice League which is a big plus in my books. I can't say that much more on the art. The awful ones I barely glanced at. Oh wait! Did I mention Sinestro is a Green lantern again? Cause somehow the Gaurdians convinced him by just mentioning his planet. Yes, because. . . .yes. Just fucking yes. The last time I saw this many plot holes I was still trying to understand Heroes. Oh and Catwoman rapes Batman. You read that right. Gotham's Dark Knight lets Catwoamn mount him and he tell her to stop, and she keeps going. Stay classy DC! Your movies suck (except for Watchmen), you piss over your fans UND! Your write your characters out of their personalities every other issue.
DC's relaunch get 3.5 rewitten multiverse stories out of 10. Just wait, DC will try to reboot itself again in a matter of weeks. Hell, every big DC event apperently affects the mutliverse. Also DC, I know Batman is popular but you have other heroes. Spider-Man is Marvels most popular superhero but Marvel acknowledges it's other heroes. Like Iron Man, Ms Marvel, the X-Men, The Avengers, ect. So seriously DC, up the quality of writing on your other titles or just name your company 'Batman Comics'.
Fear Itself - 7/10
- Okay sooo Matt Fraction. I like this story but seriously; you have bad pacing, and weird story turn points. You killed off Thor again man, he came back not just three years ago. Course this being mainstream Marvel they already replaced him with a jerk. The whole Tony Stark chugging a bottle of champagne to appease to Odin, really goes nowhere. There was a huge build up that it might restart his drinkin' games. Yeah he chugs it and like a champ, shrugs it off. way to go nowhere at mach 5 there Matt. Oh and Steve Rogers has taken up the mantle from Bucky who died. So that's two people to try and reset the status quo? Oh Marvel. CUT THAT SHIT OUT!
Flashpoint - 4.5/10
- Take Barry Allen, The Flash and set him in a time shattering new universe where he remember the main DC universe. He has no powers, Thomas Wayne is Batman as Bruce was killed with his Motherand the Amazons and Atantlians are attacking the mainland. On top of that, if Barry Allen does find a way to return to his universe he'll shatter the multiverse and rewrite everything. Sounds exciting right? Well nothing happens, the Amazon/Atantlis storyline is rug swept, Thomas Wayne was introduced as a straight up killer but is nothing more than an alchoholic, and Barry Allens return just makes a new universe that is the new 52. He returns to the main universe with no reprocussions and gives a message to Bruce from his alternate universe Dad. That's it.
Death of Spider-man - 5.5/10
- I'm mixed about this, I really am. On a plus side, Mark Bagely's art is phenominal, Brian Micheal Bendis penned a story showing how much of an amazing person Ultimate Peter Parker is and then kills him. Dafuq?! Yeah, Bendis killed off a 16 year old kid. Oh everyone was upset that a half black, half espanic was replacing him; but I actually like Miles Morales. He's already his own character. . . .well kinda. He has a lot of peter Parker traits aside from his parent issues. He doesn't really have an Uncle Ben and his da is a bit of a jerk. I don't mind this, I'm upset that for no reason, a 16 year old kid died. Oh he beat the shit out of Norman 'Goblin sex' Osborn; with a truck! Still, he loses points for making the Ultimate version of the Avengers pissing on him after he pretty much covered their asses, and then he gets killed. Kudos Bendis, you kill children.
Spider-Island - 9/10
- Dan Slott. I love you. Not sinbce J. Michael Stranzynski have I enjoyed Spider-Man this much. He knows how to write him, he can balanced humor and suspense and stay true to the characters. The art is amazing and lively and the colors are bright and amazing (heh pun). The story deals with the Jackal showing up and giving ordinary citizens spider powers. he's doing this for the spider queen so she can have an army of spider knights. Oh yeah, the people start mutating into human spiders that she can control, so Spidey has a short amount of time left before this infestiation covers New York and then the world! (insert imperial march). It's a really gripping story and the line from Spidey "Just watch, I'm going to do it! I'm going to save them!. . . .I'm going to save everyone!" Still sends chills down my spine, this whole story was a huge love letter to Spider-Man, New York now respects him and everything is set on track. His twin/clone Kaine is revived and helps him, only to become the new Scarlet Spider. Not all is well, Madame Web leaves Spider-Man with a warning; he will suffer a loss unlike any other. Until then though, Spider-Man can enjoy being the worlds greatest superhero!
My comic of the year is obviously Spider-Island. After the mess DC has created with the reboot, I wouldn't be surprised if the first DC even of 2012 is another universe reboot. Marvel on the other hand is pushing itself forward, and I like that. Spider-Island is a love letter to the underdog. It's finally giving Spidey the break he deserves that writers think he doesn't need. bull! He goes through more than the average superhero, so he needs a kit kat every once in a while. Dan Slott, I love you and I hope you stick around for a few more years.
Video Games
First Person Shooters:
. . .Really Activision? Really EA? Must you be content with hyping up your products only to deliver half a game? For full price? I may not have been excited for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 but they had the respect for a 40 dollor price tag. Modern Warefare 3 and Battlefield 3 are multiplayer games only. That's all they are, a game for multiplayer only. The single player protions are atrocious. Oh the story in BF 3 is a lot better than MW 3, but it's still only 3 hours. In a world where tech has unlimited prowess, short games should only exsist as indie games on Steam of the PSN for 3 dollars. Not 60 plus for half a game. People feed into it though, MW3 and BF3 has sold millions and that makes me a sad panda.
The games don't really challenge the player, sure Battlefield has realism going for it, but it doesn't really play out in the single player. The mechanics are only pure gold on the multiplayer. Meanwhile, a thousand miles away; MW3 has thrown realism out and created a series of exploding gas stations that would make Michael Bay blush. CoD4 had realism going for it, it showed a story that could be happening at this very second along with real world repricussions. MW2 had Russia invading America. Undetected. Oh sure, they tried to explain that Russia had stolen cryptic data to compromise the US's radar systems. But what about Canada? France? Britian? They didn't notice huge carriers overhead, moving over the ocean? And call an emergency meeting of the UN? No? Fuck.
Like I said, the games don;t challenge us anymore. No obstacles, no weight to every thing around you. All you do is fire from the hip and yell at campers. Course in a real war, camping is exactly what you do! But hey, if everyone is content with playing shameless money grabs and waste time on 12 years olds. Then boy is Call of Duty for you. Mostly PC gamers play Battlefield but I still think that game is lacking. Th multiplayer is fun, but if the single player campaign is a forgettable experiance. It's nothing new. Russia are the bad guys. Again. Hey, you know the cold war is over right? You can pick PMC's and oh I dunno, North Korea as your enemy. How about a FPS where you realize that Bobby Kotick is a douche and go blow up Activison? And as a final boss, you have to fight Michael bay on an exploding planet. Revenge of the Fallen? Revenge of my Fist mother fucker.
All FPS' are doing nowaday are trying to wage a dick size contest with eachother. It's sad really, video games are an interactive medium and all we get with war games are 'Americaaaaaa Fuck yeah!". This is why I love Deus Ex so much.
Modern FPS' get 2.5 dick contests out of 10. I miss the days of Doom and Duke Nukem. As childish and gory as they were, they still had more thought put into them than "We need realism!" "Simple controls!" "I have a small dick!". It's sad that DNF was the shit game it was, otherwise we would have seen a return to form that wasn't what Bulletstorm turned out to be.
- Duke Nukem Forver - 1.5/10
- Hahahaha you're serious? You sent us this shit? This crap? I can see why there was an emphesis on that turd in the beginning of the game. This game tried too hard to be other shooters rather than being it's own thing. Take note, don;t try to appeal to the mainstream, becausehat you can actually do. That's why indie games turn out to be a diamond in the rough. This is just lazy. 12 years? It took 12 years for this. I'd rather watch The Dark Knight for a day straight.
Batman Arkham City - 7.5/10
- I love this game. Mostly for it's gameplay and side missions. Rocksteady really dropped the ball on the story. I know sequels have to be cranked up but 11 is too much. The took The Dark Knight approach and tried to do too much in such a short amount of time. The Penguin segement was padding, Two-Face didn't need to be in the game and the whole "Jokers going to die' storyline felt tacked on. I followed this game from first announcement and what was hinted at was a psycological battle between Hugo Strange and Batman. Pure and simple. What we got was a convoluted mess of a story with good gameplay. That's the saving grace of this game. that and Kevin Conroy's Batmand and Mark Hamill's Joker. Catwoman was hot but really didn't add anything to the game other than a different gameplay style. Her story was completely spereate and we never understood what she was trying to do in Arkham City. They layed hints for a third and final Batman game, but I'll take it with a grain of salt. Arkham Asylum was and still is the BEST Batman game.
Spider-Man: Edge of Time - 8/10
- I love Dc and Marvel, course I lean more towards Marvel because I like their characters a bit more. Don't get me wrong, the DC characters all stand for a great message; but at the end of the day I can relate to the Marvel Universe. There's positives and negatives in both comic industries, like how Arkham City dropped the ball, Edge of Time only stumbled a little. The game is bigger but it's still a bit linear. The combat is more fluid and the wall crawling camera is fixed. reviewers don;t talk about that. Sure the game is short but the graphics are more detailed, yes you only play as two Spider-Men but the combat is more varied. The leads, Josh keaton and Chistopher Daniel Barnes, are phenominal as Amazing and 2099 respectavly. With each improvment, the next Spider-Man game should be crystal perfection then.
Skyrim - 9.5/10
This game is beautiful. It's combat is polished, the envirments are big and the characters look so much better. The story is immersive and expansive, it's also a shade of gray. Skyrim is torn apart by civil war, you are the dragonborn; the only person who can permanitly kill a dragon. Which is good cause they've come back to stick their fire dick in everyone's flammable cereal. The game comes to life and sucks you in. It took me a month before I could move onto something else. And I;m still not done the game. Damn you Bethesda, damn you for showing us that a single player game is still worth it. I love you for that but I hate you for making me lose so much free time. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU!!!!
Infamous 2 - 9.6/10
- This is it. This is how you make a superhero sandbox. This is also how you make a sequel. Yes you have to expand on what the first one had, but you don't cram in too much. Infamous 2 didn't lose it's focus. It was still Cole's story to the end. The combat was improved upon, the powers made bigger and the soundtrack. Oh my god this soundtrack. It's so beautiful and heart felt. It really tells the tale of a hero. Or villian, depending on which side you took; but Sucker Punch has stated that the true story is the good side. So take what you will from it. Cole and Zeke's friendship is repaired and you know what? Zeke was the real star of this game cause man, when the world was going to hell he still stuck with you through thick and thin. Everything about this game worked, just wished it was a touch longer. The ending(s) are tragic and horrific in their own sense, just like the story. Don't miss this one.
Uncharted 3 - 9/10
- Good gravy on my toast. Naughty Dog you guys rock so much it causes boats to tip over. This thrid outing with Drake has twists, turns, explosions and a giant desert. The set pieces are amazing and the acting is phenominal. I know some people are tired of Nolan North. But not me, the man can act. Sully is fleshed out and Elaine . . . .doesn't really do much. She isn't useless, but she's more of a cameo in this game than the last. The only let down is the reveal at the end. there isn't one really. The mysterious mcguffin is never really explained other than it can do stuff. You have to play the game to find otu what that is. The controls are smoothed out and there's an emphesis on close combat. Which is good because shooting in this game is sluggish. In 2 it was smoothed out but here? They went back to the first game. You can smooth it out, but why they took a step back when they took five steps forward is beyond me.
Gears of War 3 - 6.5/10
- Lazy graphics, lazy story. More of the same gameplay. What I mean by lazy story? It's all a cliche. Just think of every war movie you've seen and put what happens in those movies, in this game. Everything is revealed and it's lackluster. Like Epic gave up, which isn't surprising cause Cliffy B is an idiot. The game was still fun but at it's core, it's forgettable. Which at the end of the day, sums up the whole franchise.
Fable 3 - 2.5/10
-Really? I'm glad I didn;t spend money on this. I burrowed it from a friend. then we both set it on fire. We needed to cleasne the earth of this shit. Peter last name I can;t spell. You're games have been bland. Fable 1 was alright, Fable 2 was just an expansion (Oh hai Call of Duty) and this? Good god. Movies and Games are being puked over. Everyone's just going in for a cash grab. Thank god for Uncharted, Infamous and Skyrim. Those games had developers that took their time and look what happened. Good games.
Sonic Generations - 9/10
- First Colors, now this. It's a HUGE love letter to Sonic and all the fans that stuck by. The gameplay from Colors makes a return 9minu the wisps system) and you get to play as classic Sonic too! There's something for everyone new and old. The graphics are amazing, the running is smoothed out once more, the remixes kick ass and the story is adorable. If you went the year without playing this, shame on you. Sonic is back in gold form and you owe it to your shildhood to play this.
Zelda: Skyward Sword - 9.5/10
- The other thing setting this game back is the motion controls, yes it's clever that the enemy catches on your movements; but that's because the motion controls are gimmicky. Which best describes the wii. The world is alive and amazingly designed. Zelda is an actual character you care about, and you can even flesh out Link through dialogue choices. thank god it's no Other M. Link is all hero and that's it. It's powerful yet simple and holds true to the zelda mythos. I can;t wait to see the next one, don;t makes us wait too long nintendo! Just drop the motion controls. Gimmicky piece of shit.
My Game of the Year? Everyone picked Skyrim but I'm picking Skyward Sword. Once you get past the motion controls, there really is an amazing and artistic fleshed out world. With high stakes and characters we can actually care about, Skyrim came a little short because even though you had a huge world in it. You were still alone, it makes your character epic but when other people are activly helping you (like The Blades) that's a bad sign.
So that's it. Another year down, another to go. I'm still working on a bunch of stuff and getting myself back on track. I wish you all the best and hopefully, I won;t rage quit once I see The Dark Knight Rises. Hopefully being the keyword. then again, Spider-man and the Avengers are this year. Ahhh Nerdism, my anit-drug. Well peace out mortals, and don't let me catch you on my property again! You know who you are!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
This Evil is no longer a Resident, as it missed the rent - Resident Evil 4 and 5 review
This is late due to Dark Souls, Spider-Man EoT and Batman: AC. Those reviews to follow. Promise :D
I love the Resident Evil series. From it's off beat humor, to it's ridiculous but still contained story. I mean c'mon, a virus that acts like a skin disease and then, AND THEN! You turn into a zombie. Would the wonders of head and shoulders never cease. See, even the gamecube remake still had that far out style when it came to dialogue; but it had atmosphere and style. It still stayed that way for 2, 3 and even the horrendous side stories that Capcom has washed itself free of.
I'M LOOKING AT YOU RESIDENT EVIL GAIDEN!
Course, the title is a give away at how the series has never taken itself seriously. Resident Evil? There's nothing evil about what's going on, Umbrella fudged up, that's all. The zombies as well as the other creatures are animalistic, we don't yell at dogs for being hunters. My god! He's sniffing! THE EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLLL!! Yeah uh huh, no way. It states that the subjects are becoming basic and animalistic, that isn't evil. See, I always prefered the actual name, the original japanese name. It's simply: Biohazard. Yes, that's it; it refers to what is happening in the game with one word AND IT MAKES SENSE.
NOW! I'm done talking about the inital back story and why the engrish name sucks so let's move onto my favorite introduction of the series. Biohazard 4. Seee, Biohazard 2 always had a special place in my manly heart; it had a better story, better emotion and better characters than the first game. Leon and Claire had more flair and personality than Chris and Jill, which is a shame because I love Jill. Chris. . . . we'll get to him.
So I was excited to hear that Biohazard 4 would have Leon in the lead and start the mythos fresh. Which is good, because not only is Leon my favorite lead male charcter of the franchise but there's only so much Wesker Zombie bull I can stomach. maybe the rest of you can, but I have a strict diet of fresh, exciting, pony and Olivia Wilde. So when I heard they weren't zombies anymore, at least not in the flesh eating way, I was estatic. The game didn't disapoint. It had reworked mechanics, with an over the shoulder view, you can actually arm; rather than having muscle jerks that made you either aim straight up or straight down. Ah yes, the important gun training of aiming perfectly horizontal. It saved my life in the gulf.
It was this game that gave birth to games like Dead Space, course the only thing missing was the aim and move but DS did add that but this was years before. You know what though? This game after so many years still holds up. It's still fun and fresh and it doesn't take itself so seriously, with Leon bitching out a midget. It has charm and a fun rewarding upgrade system that doesn't hold you back from going balls out. It's also 15 plus hours, I know people on the leader boards have complete this game in under an hour, but seriously; there are only so many ways people can snap.
It's voice acting is good and tight, playing a long with the charm. It's a cheesy b movie and that's how Biohazard started, that's it's roots. It's cheesy but that's it's charm. It's light hearted which is great contrast to everything happening around you. It's gross and creepy, there are hardly pop out scares; it's more so about atmosphere and how unnatural everything is. The 'people' are more in the sense of classic voodoo zombies, in which it was either normal people or corpses brought to life through magic as loyal servants. It's so out of place, that it's effective. Then to lighten the mood, the characters say something eye rolling cheesy and that's great. It shows that this game has confidence. I have to give props to Shinji Mikami, he's looking to make a game that follows the route of entertaining rather than being a drab course of repetitivness that most games fall into. It's entertaining from beginning to end, the mechanics are still solid to this day and prove to still rival most third person shooters. Course, they don't have a cover system mechanic which is godly because most third person shooters turn into a Gears rip off unless they put more focus on something other than that (l <3 You Uncharted).
Biohazad 4 is straight up fun and it deserves every penny, it's still stands true to today and brought a fresh spin on the long lasting horror survival series that was solely needed. It brought in characters easily memorable, From Leon and Ada, to Luis and even Ashley who wasn;t as annoying as I remember. It's cheesy charm shall stand the test of time.
Biohzard 4 gets 10 right hands coming off out of 10.
Now for Biohazard 5 take everything from 4, downgrade the upgrade system, add a broken AI companion, faster mechanics that don't really help, a cover system because the t-plagas have guns in the last half and add a lame symbalistic story about partners and try to keep a serious face when it boils down to "I need to help my partner. . . . .as opposed to the rest of Africa." Seriously, that's the vibe I got. Fuck the world as long as I got a hot sidekick. Our protagonist ladies and gentlemen! Remember when I said we'd get to Chris? Well, bust out the steroids and settle down children cause here he is. A bland, single focused excuse for a character. He had more personality in RE 1 UND Code Veronica, but here? they try to set up this survivors guilt story that doesn' go anywhere. Tied to his partner Sheva, NOW she has no story to follow so she's bareble. Too bad her AI is shit, I want ammo? Nope, she steals it from me. I want those healing Herbs? Nope, she five fingered discount those mo fo's. Capcom claimed non racism BUT Sheva is stealing everything from me, the eff Capcom?! Let's not even get started on the spear throwing tribesmen that show up later.
Like I stated, everything here is a watered down version of Biohazard 4. The mechnics are the same, they just smooth out the movement. You can;t aim and shoot and Dead Space was released a YEAR EARLIER! I would forgive it if it was before DS but noooooooo, a year later we get Biohazard 4.1. We even get a cover mechanic because Capcom thought it would be best to try and make the series a Gears rip off, with the 'zombies' picking up ak-47's and shooting at you. I wanted puzzles, yes 4 boosted a lot of action but there were a lot of slow down times where you had to solve puzzles, back track and solve more puzzles then clear a room like a boss. Here, it's just press A to shoot and barrel roll through that wall to advance. The mechanics are polished but not upgraded, the inventory is 9 squares that you can't expand. You're stuck with the same 9 squares and they fill up quite quickly. And unlike 4, the body armor you unlock later take up a space of you inventory. WHAT?! That shouldn't happen, like at all.
The story tries too hard to take itself seriously, the characters are bland and have no clear motives. I know Wesker was obssessed with beating Death but he never had world domination motives. Chris is only there for Jill and Sheva keeps repeating "We're partners" like she has verbal diarreha. They tried to copy the film franchise and they failed. The 3DS game, Revelations, is going back to horror survival and that's what the series is. 4 brought in more action but you still had to react to survive. 5 was just straight up action, even the El Gigante makes an apperence in 5 but all you do is hide in a humvee and shoot your mini guns at it's dick. No flipping around, stunning it and then climbing up on it to show who's the boss. All the intrigue is gone, all the puzzles are gone; in favor for a straight up action game. Even Chris went from normal looking to Gears looking.
Biohazard 5 gets 1 racial image out of 10.
Shinji Mikami left Capcom shortly after completeing 4, so I don;t expect a very good sequel to 4 for a very long time. Revelations looks promising but it was made by the same team responsable for 5 so we'll see.
I love the Resident Evil series. From it's off beat humor, to it's ridiculous but still contained story. I mean c'mon, a virus that acts like a skin disease and then, AND THEN! You turn into a zombie. Would the wonders of head and shoulders never cease. See, even the gamecube remake still had that far out style when it came to dialogue; but it had atmosphere and style. It still stayed that way for 2, 3 and even the horrendous side stories that Capcom has washed itself free of.
I'M LOOKING AT YOU RESIDENT EVIL GAIDEN!
Course, the title is a give away at how the series has never taken itself seriously. Resident Evil? There's nothing evil about what's going on, Umbrella fudged up, that's all. The zombies as well as the other creatures are animalistic, we don't yell at dogs for being hunters. My god! He's sniffing! THE EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLLL!! Yeah uh huh, no way. It states that the subjects are becoming basic and animalistic, that isn't evil. See, I always prefered the actual name, the original japanese name. It's simply: Biohazard. Yes, that's it; it refers to what is happening in the game with one word AND IT MAKES SENSE.
NOW! I'm done talking about the inital back story and why the engrish name sucks so let's move onto my favorite introduction of the series. Biohazard 4. Seee, Biohazard 2 always had a special place in my manly heart; it had a better story, better emotion and better characters than the first game. Leon and Claire had more flair and personality than Chris and Jill, which is a shame because I love Jill. Chris. . . . we'll get to him.
So I was excited to hear that Biohazard 4 would have Leon in the lead and start the mythos fresh. Which is good, because not only is Leon my favorite lead male charcter of the franchise but there's only so much Wesker Zombie bull I can stomach. maybe the rest of you can, but I have a strict diet of fresh, exciting, pony and Olivia Wilde. So when I heard they weren't zombies anymore, at least not in the flesh eating way, I was estatic. The game didn't disapoint. It had reworked mechanics, with an over the shoulder view, you can actually arm; rather than having muscle jerks that made you either aim straight up or straight down. Ah yes, the important gun training of aiming perfectly horizontal. It saved my life in the gulf.
It was this game that gave birth to games like Dead Space, course the only thing missing was the aim and move but DS did add that but this was years before. You know what though? This game after so many years still holds up. It's still fun and fresh and it doesn't take itself so seriously, with Leon bitching out a midget. It has charm and a fun rewarding upgrade system that doesn't hold you back from going balls out. It's also 15 plus hours, I know people on the leader boards have complete this game in under an hour, but seriously; there are only so many ways people can snap.
It's voice acting is good and tight, playing a long with the charm. It's a cheesy b movie and that's how Biohazard started, that's it's roots. It's cheesy but that's it's charm. It's light hearted which is great contrast to everything happening around you. It's gross and creepy, there are hardly pop out scares; it's more so about atmosphere and how unnatural everything is. The 'people' are more in the sense of classic voodoo zombies, in which it was either normal people or corpses brought to life through magic as loyal servants. It's so out of place, that it's effective. Then to lighten the mood, the characters say something eye rolling cheesy and that's great. It shows that this game has confidence. I have to give props to Shinji Mikami, he's looking to make a game that follows the route of entertaining rather than being a drab course of repetitivness that most games fall into. It's entertaining from beginning to end, the mechanics are still solid to this day and prove to still rival most third person shooters. Course, they don't have a cover system mechanic which is godly because most third person shooters turn into a Gears rip off unless they put more focus on something other than that (l <3 You Uncharted).
Biohazad 4 is straight up fun and it deserves every penny, it's still stands true to today and brought a fresh spin on the long lasting horror survival series that was solely needed. It brought in characters easily memorable, From Leon and Ada, to Luis and even Ashley who wasn;t as annoying as I remember. It's cheesy charm shall stand the test of time.
Biohzard 4 gets 10 right hands coming off out of 10.
Now for Biohazard 5 take everything from 4, downgrade the upgrade system, add a broken AI companion, faster mechanics that don't really help, a cover system because the t-plagas have guns in the last half and add a lame symbalistic story about partners and try to keep a serious face when it boils down to "I need to help my partner. . . . .as opposed to the rest of Africa." Seriously, that's the vibe I got. Fuck the world as long as I got a hot sidekick. Our protagonist ladies and gentlemen! Remember when I said we'd get to Chris? Well, bust out the steroids and settle down children cause here he is. A bland, single focused excuse for a character. He had more personality in RE 1 UND Code Veronica, but here? they try to set up this survivors guilt story that doesn' go anywhere. Tied to his partner Sheva, NOW she has no story to follow so she's bareble. Too bad her AI is shit, I want ammo? Nope, she steals it from me. I want those healing Herbs? Nope, she five fingered discount those mo fo's. Capcom claimed non racism BUT Sheva is stealing everything from me, the eff Capcom?! Let's not even get started on the spear throwing tribesmen that show up later.
Like I stated, everything here is a watered down version of Biohazard 4. The mechnics are the same, they just smooth out the movement. You can;t aim and shoot and Dead Space was released a YEAR EARLIER! I would forgive it if it was before DS but noooooooo, a year later we get Biohazard 4.1. We even get a cover mechanic because Capcom thought it would be best to try and make the series a Gears rip off, with the 'zombies' picking up ak-47's and shooting at you. I wanted puzzles, yes 4 boosted a lot of action but there were a lot of slow down times where you had to solve puzzles, back track and solve more puzzles then clear a room like a boss. Here, it's just press A to shoot and barrel roll through that wall to advance. The mechanics are polished but not upgraded, the inventory is 9 squares that you can't expand. You're stuck with the same 9 squares and they fill up quite quickly. And unlike 4, the body armor you unlock later take up a space of you inventory. WHAT?! That shouldn't happen, like at all.
The story tries too hard to take itself seriously, the characters are bland and have no clear motives. I know Wesker was obssessed with beating Death but he never had world domination motives. Chris is only there for Jill and Sheva keeps repeating "We're partners" like she has verbal diarreha. They tried to copy the film franchise and they failed. The 3DS game, Revelations, is going back to horror survival and that's what the series is. 4 brought in more action but you still had to react to survive. 5 was just straight up action, even the El Gigante makes an apperence in 5 but all you do is hide in a humvee and shoot your mini guns at it's dick. No flipping around, stunning it and then climbing up on it to show who's the boss. All the intrigue is gone, all the puzzles are gone; in favor for a straight up action game. Even Chris went from normal looking to Gears looking.
Biohazard 5 gets 1 racial image out of 10.
Shinji Mikami left Capcom shortly after completeing 4, so I don;t expect a very good sequel to 4 for a very long time. Revelations looks promising but it was made by the same team responsable for 5 so we'll see.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
This friday
A review is coming, just thought I'd put that out there. It's going to be a retro review. Haha puns are fun! It's really going to adress a problem I have with a current game series. No no that series, that one is coming though. Oh boy is it coming. Right now I might make a vlog rant about fixing Dead Island, that game has been on my mind since I put up my review. . . . . . actually I might as well make it a two parter and include the review coming.
Stay Tuned Mortals!
Stay Tuned Mortals!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Capcom you FOOLS!!
So after re playing Resident Evil 4 after a 3 year hiatus from it I just have one thing to sya to you capcom. What the frig happened with Resident Evil 5?
You had an amazing game, mostly thanks to Shinji Mikami. Then you gave to the guy whose produced the series since the first one and he somehow craps it up. Then you get super racist and have a horrible inventory system that's actuallt eight steps backwards from 4. Instead of having this huge build up of suspense, it plays out like a bad action movie. As opposed to a bad horror movie. UND! You made Wesker exactly like Saddler. Soasn;t he working with Saddler from the shadows? You didn't have to go and copy paste 4 and give a plus 1. That's all 5 is: 4.1. With a steriod junky instead of Leon. Sheva is alright. . . .in the cutscenes. Her AI couldn;t pickle a sandwhich even if she went to the pickle barrel.
Thank you capcom, for killing Megaman and ruining Resident Evil.
I swear if Revelations isn;t a proper sequel to 4 then I shall rage, bitch and publically deny capcom but seceretly still give them money. Hey I have high hopes for DmC
You had an amazing game, mostly thanks to Shinji Mikami. Then you gave to the guy whose produced the series since the first one and he somehow craps it up. Then you get super racist and have a horrible inventory system that's actuallt eight steps backwards from 4. Instead of having this huge build up of suspense, it plays out like a bad action movie. As opposed to a bad horror movie. UND! You made Wesker exactly like Saddler. Soasn;t he working with Saddler from the shadows? You didn't have to go and copy paste 4 and give a plus 1. That's all 5 is: 4.1. With a steriod junky instead of Leon. Sheva is alright. . . .in the cutscenes. Her AI couldn;t pickle a sandwhich even if she went to the pickle barrel.
Thank you capcom, for killing Megaman and ruining Resident Evil.
I swear if Revelations isn;t a proper sequel to 4 then I shall rage, bitch and publically deny capcom but seceretly still give them money. Hey I have high hopes for DmC
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Zombies Can't Swim - Dead Island Review
I know this is late shut up, I have a life you know. Complied of low expectations and video games, movies and comics.
So Dead Island. Yeah, remember that gripping, tragic slow motion, traveling backwards but also forwards trailer released earlier this year? Okay good, now forget all about it because ironically, it has nothing to do with Dead Island.
Oh it's all about being on an Island during a Zombie outbreak and there is weapon durability, but there is no emotional gripping sequences, no personal effect, no choice and no sense of hit detection. I'll get back to that one afterwards. What is in the game is a fun game with no staying power and more glitches than an MTV program.
You pick one of four super humans, who are not only immune to the zombie infection but also have disjointed bodies and know how to move around with half there skin missing. Seriously, the animations YOUR character have are horrible. When you see other characters animations, they're fine but just stare at your shadow and do some movements. Breathtaking ballerina actions shall follow. Speaking of physical glitches and wanky imflatible flailing tube man movements. Let's reel it back to that good old hit detection for a minute.
Why? I mean I know it's a Zombie apocolypse in a Hawaii knock off, lack of Elvis aside. So I know you have to have a feeling of bleakness but that's an emotion. AN EMOTION. When you physically stack the arms against you and a zombie can summon the force to hit, but your arm length plus a GOD DAMN MACHETE can't even scratch a Zombie unless you're close enough for a singing duet. I mean, c'mon that's just pathetic. It's almost like the developers saw that really good trailer, thought it would be nice and tried somewhere to put that atmosphere in the game. I stress the word tried, it's completely hit and miss. A hit would have been not saving a survivor in time and having no choice but to put down someone who up until a minute ago had your back. Or becoming a dick and stranding people just so you can get your can of dirty beans. There is no choice, meaning there is no atmosphere. It's like all the glitches are the developers attempt to create some form of continuity with the trailer. Making it seem like lousy hit detection is stacked against you is a lame excuse to cover your own ass. I'm lazy too you know, but if I'm going to type or do something I make sure I do the best damn job.
That brings me to my next point. If you want to make an RPG you need to have choice, MMO's are a lazy man's RPG. You only get to create or chose a character and then go a long for the ride. A true RPG gives you choice, whether it be a small tiny bit of it or a huge chunk. The impression the initial trailer gave was that you could shape the outcome of events. You either help as much as you can, damn people for those tasty beans or stay where you are and stock the place and turn into a lair so badass, Blofield would blush. No, you can't. You have to quest so hard that Gandalf would be impressed, you have to do fetch quests, escort missions and navigate through sewers. This isn;t a zombie apocolypse RPG, it's Borderlands.
And that right there is my biggest problem. I paid 60 bucks for a game I've played before. There's a good game under here but the developers never let it shine through. They even gave the characters amazing back stories that we never get fleshed out, nor does it seem to give the characters a personal arc to go through and grow; and if they dide, you just lose some money. That's it, it's not like Outbreak where you turn into a zombie and have to hunt down your friends. Nope, you just have to pay to get out of puragtory and pass go. There's no personal connection to the story, the characters all start off in them same room after having an existential interacting with whatever character you picked and that's it. That's the story, it's like DOA without the tits. There is nothing here other than quest, the only time the game was truly fun was with a friend, but that was because you could make fun of everything that you both came across.
60 bucks for an incomplete, glitchy co-op focused game is 50 dollors too much. The sad thing is, this game took 5 years to develop. I should know, I watched this game like a hawk as soon as I heard about it. Development started in 2006, with a 2008 release date. Then bam, we get this game. This makes me a sad panda. They pulled a DNF, they did nothing to help make the game polish and shine. Instead we gan a crappy fetch quest, with stat abilities. Oh it's a fun game, but it's nothing of what was promised and by the time you get to the second and third act, the glitches become so apparent that whatever fun you could have had with it drains away.
My verdict? wait for thise one. Techland are developing patches that are coming out as I type this, even if there is no personal, emotional and bleak story. The gameplay will be fixed and that should help give it some form of staying power.
Dead Island gets 2.5 swings and a miss out of 5
So Dead Island. Yeah, remember that gripping, tragic slow motion, traveling backwards but also forwards trailer released earlier this year? Okay good, now forget all about it because ironically, it has nothing to do with Dead Island.
Oh it's all about being on an Island during a Zombie outbreak and there is weapon durability, but there is no emotional gripping sequences, no personal effect, no choice and no sense of hit detection. I'll get back to that one afterwards. What is in the game is a fun game with no staying power and more glitches than an MTV program.
You pick one of four super humans, who are not only immune to the zombie infection but also have disjointed bodies and know how to move around with half there skin missing. Seriously, the animations YOUR character have are horrible. When you see other characters animations, they're fine but just stare at your shadow and do some movements. Breathtaking ballerina actions shall follow. Speaking of physical glitches and wanky imflatible flailing tube man movements. Let's reel it back to that good old hit detection for a minute.
Why? I mean I know it's a Zombie apocolypse in a Hawaii knock off, lack of Elvis aside. So I know you have to have a feeling of bleakness but that's an emotion. AN EMOTION. When you physically stack the arms against you and a zombie can summon the force to hit, but your arm length plus a GOD DAMN MACHETE can't even scratch a Zombie unless you're close enough for a singing duet. I mean, c'mon that's just pathetic. It's almost like the developers saw that really good trailer, thought it would be nice and tried somewhere to put that atmosphere in the game. I stress the word tried, it's completely hit and miss. A hit would have been not saving a survivor in time and having no choice but to put down someone who up until a minute ago had your back. Or becoming a dick and stranding people just so you can get your can of dirty beans. There is no choice, meaning there is no atmosphere. It's like all the glitches are the developers attempt to create some form of continuity with the trailer. Making it seem like lousy hit detection is stacked against you is a lame excuse to cover your own ass. I'm lazy too you know, but if I'm going to type or do something I make sure I do the best damn job.
That brings me to my next point. If you want to make an RPG you need to have choice, MMO's are a lazy man's RPG. You only get to create or chose a character and then go a long for the ride. A true RPG gives you choice, whether it be a small tiny bit of it or a huge chunk. The impression the initial trailer gave was that you could shape the outcome of events. You either help as much as you can, damn people for those tasty beans or stay where you are and stock the place and turn into a lair so badass, Blofield would blush. No, you can't. You have to quest so hard that Gandalf would be impressed, you have to do fetch quests, escort missions and navigate through sewers. This isn;t a zombie apocolypse RPG, it's Borderlands.
And that right there is my biggest problem. I paid 60 bucks for a game I've played before. There's a good game under here but the developers never let it shine through. They even gave the characters amazing back stories that we never get fleshed out, nor does it seem to give the characters a personal arc to go through and grow; and if they dide, you just lose some money. That's it, it's not like Outbreak where you turn into a zombie and have to hunt down your friends. Nope, you just have to pay to get out of puragtory and pass go. There's no personal connection to the story, the characters all start off in them same room after having an existential interacting with whatever character you picked and that's it. That's the story, it's like DOA without the tits. There is nothing here other than quest, the only time the game was truly fun was with a friend, but that was because you could make fun of everything that you both came across.
60 bucks for an incomplete, glitchy co-op focused game is 50 dollors too much. The sad thing is, this game took 5 years to develop. I should know, I watched this game like a hawk as soon as I heard about it. Development started in 2006, with a 2008 release date. Then bam, we get this game. This makes me a sad panda. They pulled a DNF, they did nothing to help make the game polish and shine. Instead we gan a crappy fetch quest, with stat abilities. Oh it's a fun game, but it's nothing of what was promised and by the time you get to the second and third act, the glitches become so apparent that whatever fun you could have had with it drains away.
My verdict? wait for thise one. Techland are developing patches that are coming out as I type this, even if there is no personal, emotional and bleak story. The gameplay will be fixed and that should help give it some form of staying power.
Dead Island gets 2.5 swings and a miss out of 5
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Fan Expo and beyond
I went to Fan Expo 2011, it was fun but I can;t really go into much depth as all I did was walk around as Altair from Assassin's Creed and got picture raped. Constantly, oh it was fun and I got to smiles on a lot of people. I also killed like, 37 people. It was fake of course. OR WAS IT?!
I didn't meet any celebrities this year but me and my new super friend, Jordan got to stare at Elvira's ummm lovley personalities. I missed out on a huge lobby fight because I was busy along with Jordan to help an almost naked dude find his friends. Mission accomplished by the way.
Now for updates, I will try to update every friday. Try is the key word. I have a bad case of lazy I'm trying to shake off and sitting around waiting for it to lift won;t do you any good. So I set a limit, find something to talk about (comics, movies, games, music) and type it out. I'm actually trying to do a Twilight retrosepct just because I want to analyze the series and find out why it's so popular. Of course, it depends on my devotion, I'm not too thrilled by this as I have read the books before. A very long time ago mind you, so it's a haze but I remember wanting to watch Bram Stoker's Dracula to cleanse myself. I'm working on a Ghostbusters outfit that I hope to get profile pictures done around my area. Cause I'm an artistic fag and that's just how I roll, one thing for sure will happen is a 3DS review and a Shin Megami Tensei review because Final Fantasy has failed me ever since 10. 12 was tolerable, and I don;t care what anyone says, Vaan was a good character. Just keep in mind, he's NOT the main character. That's Basch's job, go read the development for FF XII and be enlightened. I'll review that too.
Bottom line, I'll be more active. Oh, and that big announcement I made before Fan Expo? It's a planned ARG and it ties in with my Ghostbuster outfit. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out what I'm talking about.
Peace out Mortals!
I didn't meet any celebrities this year but me and my new super friend, Jordan got to stare at Elvira's ummm lovley personalities. I missed out on a huge lobby fight because I was busy along with Jordan to help an almost naked dude find his friends. Mission accomplished by the way.
Now for updates, I will try to update every friday. Try is the key word. I have a bad case of lazy I'm trying to shake off and sitting around waiting for it to lift won;t do you any good. So I set a limit, find something to talk about (comics, movies, games, music) and type it out. I'm actually trying to do a Twilight retrosepct just because I want to analyze the series and find out why it's so popular. Of course, it depends on my devotion, I'm not too thrilled by this as I have read the books before. A very long time ago mind you, so it's a haze but I remember wanting to watch Bram Stoker's Dracula to cleanse myself. I'm working on a Ghostbusters outfit that I hope to get profile pictures done around my area. Cause I'm an artistic fag and that's just how I roll, one thing for sure will happen is a 3DS review and a Shin Megami Tensei review because Final Fantasy has failed me ever since 10. 12 was tolerable, and I don;t care what anyone says, Vaan was a good character. Just keep in mind, he's NOT the main character. That's Basch's job, go read the development for FF XII and be enlightened. I'll review that too.
Bottom line, I'll be more active. Oh, and that big announcement I made before Fan Expo? It's a planned ARG and it ties in with my Ghostbuster outfit. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out what I'm talking about.
Peace out Mortals!
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