Friday, July 6, 2012
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Dragon Age 2
I just finished playing Dragon Age 2 on my computer, and now that my 22 hour stint is over, I can safely say another minute of my time won't be wasted on this game.
Dragon Age: Origins has become one of my favorite fantasy RPGs of all time. Playing it reminded me of some of my other favorite games like Dungeon Siege or Baldur's Gate. It was downright amazing. Sure, there could've been a few improvements, as with any game. The combat seemed slow at times, there weren't any stamina potions, and sometimes it was simply too hard. It was just so damned expansive and fun that the small faults could be easily ignored, so it's one of the best RPGs ever. Now, Dragon Age 2 has come to save the day and fix the problems with the first game, and by god did they try.
Plot
__________
Dragon Age 2 is set during the events of Ferelden's blight from the first game. The hero, Hawke, lives in Lothering when Darkspawn start wrecking up the place. He and his family escape, making their way to Kirkwall. They come in as refugees and have to climb the tower of success, lest they always live in the slums, or with their uncle. The game takes place through a decade split into three separate acts, but you wouldn't notice if the cut scenes that tell you what you're doing in the meantime didn't exist.
Dragon Age 2, like Mass Effect 2, pushes the save game transfer aspect quite a bit. In Mass Effect 2, choices you made in Mass Effect 1 played a huge part in many encounters, and there were multiple allusions to past decisions you made. Here however, you play an entirely different character, so most of your choices don't really crop up in the story. Even when they do, they just go over your head and you don't notice or care about them. They did find a way to shoehorn you into a meeting with a character from the first game though. I'm pretty sure it did nothing for the plot too, so I suppose Bioware was just doing some fanservice.
The blight takes a backseat this time in the plot, in that it never really presents much of a problem besides causing you to move into Kirkwall. Darkspawn never threaten anything in the game, and you often don't see them. The blight is talked about every now and then, but it doesn't affect you after 5 minutes of playing the game.
The game's first failing in my mind, is that it decided to have some contrived plot point, which removed one of my characters for the entire game after the first act. One of my best characters too. I never got to play them again after that until the last battle. It sucked.
The second failing is that the game doesn't have a plot at all. It felt like all you were doing, the whole entire game, was side quests. I was waiting for a huge conflict to start, to give me a sense of what I will have to achieve in this game. It took 18 hours to pass until I figured out what they were leading up to. In Dragon Age: Origins there was the blight. You had to kill the leader of it, the Archdemon. You knew what the goal was from the beginning, so everything felt like it was done for a reason. All you were doing was working towards something. Helping the Dalish and Mages to get their support, saving Arl Eamon. You knew why you had to do the things you did. To fight the Darkspawn and kill the Archdemon. What about Dragon Age 2 though? There's no clear goal in this game. What is it all leading up to? Nothing. It doesn't lead up to anything. There is no straight road, no major plot. The first two acts feel like they could've been DLC for Origins, and it's not up until the third act that the major plot development happens. I didn't see it coming, and yet, I didn't care. I didn't feel what the game wanted me to feel.
After all was said and done, what could you do now? What was the epilogue? Nothing! Same thing happened after the end of Origins. All you could do was just stand in camp and wait for DLC to be released so you could leave. Why? What if I want to go walking around a bit? Can't do it. What if I wanted to beat up the gangs at night in Kirkwall? Nope. It seems a bit nit picky, but I don't see why they restrict you to the Estate in DA2 or the Camp in Origins.
Now that I'm done clamoring on about the stupid plot, or lack thereof, let's get on to the more game side of things.
Gameplay
__________
Right click to attack, move with WASD, and use spells by clicking on them or pressing a number. Sounds simple enough. The cool down times for everything is amazingly retarded though. 30 second cool down for a health potion? Really? As opposed to the last game, there's only one type of health potion, so you can't cheat by using a lesser health potion, and then a greater health potion, so you needn't worry about potion cool down messing you completely up. No more of that. One potion every 30 seconds. You can cast heal though! Oh wait, too bad it's a 40 sec cool down. What the hell happened? Group heal is all but gone too. Only one mage, Anders, can do it now. It used to be that all your mages could cast it. It's only Anders now though. Screw that guy. He's like Aeris without the whole dying part. To make you even more mad, you have to active a sustained spell, in which you can't cast any offensive magic, before you can cast group heal, or revive. So there's a 2 or 3 second window in which the starting animation for Pancea, the sustained spell, has to be finished until you can cast group heal. Then you have to deactivate it to attack with an offensive spell. In the time it takes to start up, you could be killed, which happened to me too often.
Maps are another weird thing that's happened to this game. I'm not sure about Origins, because it was never a problem, but maps go away once you leave the area in Dragon Age 2. In the game, you, no joke, revisit the same places hundreds of time. Each place is recycled for different quests, and each time, your map is blank until you explore the area. That's fine if the place was new, but you've been there HUNDREDS OF TIMES. Why take it away? The level design makes everything confusing, especially on the Wounded Coast, so you need the map to know where you're going. Since the map is reset each time you go there, you always get lost. It's really annoying.
Also new in this game, you can't use any armor you pick up for your companions. You can't mix and match stuff. You have to buy specific armor, or find a set on their 'companion quest'. There's only 5 upgrades to their armor, which really feels like the game is strangling me. It feels very restrictive, and is a huge setback. I like freedom, it's nice, but this game doesn't seem to agree.
Odd glitches would happen with the game too, like my characters would stop attacking the enemy and just idly stand by me with their weapons sheathed while I'm getting raped by a bunch of spiders. I figure that the glitches in the game will be resolved in later patches, but they were infuriating when they happened to me.
Graphics
__________
How the game looks at its best, I don't know. My good graphics card got blown up a month ago, so I couldn't run it in DirectX 11, but I can run it in DirectX 10 right? Nope! Only DX9 or DX11. Shit. So I could only keep it on medium, because high and very high is reserved for DX11 cards for some reason. So, I can't talk about how crap the graphics are, but I can talk about other graphical things.
Animations this time around actually became a lot more fluid and are really improved. Something that I do enjoy about this game is the fighting animations. It does feel smooth and faster paced than the last game. Mages would just slightly shake their staff at a problem in Origins, but here they actually do some kind of spinning/shoving their stick in the ground move. It looks decent enough and is indeed an improvement on the previous game. They did change a few things I was disappointed at, like making the spell 'Winter's Grasp' a projectile, rather than an instant attack it used to be. Now you have to wait a second or two for it to hit and freeze them, but uh, let's not get into gameplay again.
The text in this game is surprisingly one of the things that really makes me mad.
I'll admit, it looks interesting for awhile, but when you realize that all the text in this game looks like this or worse, it really makes me mad. Who thought it would be a good idea? Seriously? Some amateur came up with the design of the game, because everything just fails so hard.
And the User Interface, oh god the UI, I don't know where to start with it. Look at these pictures. Ignoring the graphics of the actual game, which UI looks better?
Origins:
DA2:
Sure, the change may have made it more functional, for consoles, but all the nice artwork that was present in Origins, the old medieval look, is just gone now. All the icons just look too futuristic to be in Dragon Age. The health and stamina/mana bars change size now as you upgrade it. Good, that's something that I can agree was stupid in Origins. Too bad it's just one improvement under a whole dump truck of failures.
I won't go on anymore about this game. I'm just so disappointed and sad. I truly felt that it had potential after the first one. Sadly, this just reeks of laziness.
Dragon Age: Origins has become one of my favorite fantasy RPGs of all time. Playing it reminded me of some of my other favorite games like Dungeon Siege or Baldur's Gate. It was downright amazing. Sure, there could've been a few improvements, as with any game. The combat seemed slow at times, there weren't any stamina potions, and sometimes it was simply too hard. It was just so damned expansive and fun that the small faults could be easily ignored, so it's one of the best RPGs ever. Now, Dragon Age 2 has come to save the day and fix the problems with the first game, and by god did they try.
Plot
__________
Dragon Age 2 is set during the events of Ferelden's blight from the first game. The hero, Hawke, lives in Lothering when Darkspawn start wrecking up the place. He and his family escape, making their way to Kirkwall. They come in as refugees and have to climb the tower of success, lest they always live in the slums, or with their uncle. The game takes place through a decade split into three separate acts, but you wouldn't notice if the cut scenes that tell you what you're doing in the meantime didn't exist.
Dragon Age 2, like Mass Effect 2, pushes the save game transfer aspect quite a bit. In Mass Effect 2, choices you made in Mass Effect 1 played a huge part in many encounters, and there were multiple allusions to past decisions you made. Here however, you play an entirely different character, so most of your choices don't really crop up in the story. Even when they do, they just go over your head and you don't notice or care about them. They did find a way to shoehorn you into a meeting with a character from the first game though. I'm pretty sure it did nothing for the plot too, so I suppose Bioware was just doing some fanservice.
The blight takes a backseat this time in the plot, in that it never really presents much of a problem besides causing you to move into Kirkwall. Darkspawn never threaten anything in the game, and you often don't see them. The blight is talked about every now and then, but it doesn't affect you after 5 minutes of playing the game.
The game's first failing in my mind, is that it decided to have some contrived plot point, which removed one of my characters for the entire game after the first act. One of my best characters too. I never got to play them again after that until the last battle. It sucked.
The second failing is that the game doesn't have a plot at all. It felt like all you were doing, the whole entire game, was side quests. I was waiting for a huge conflict to start, to give me a sense of what I will have to achieve in this game. It took 18 hours to pass until I figured out what they were leading up to. In Dragon Age: Origins there was the blight. You had to kill the leader of it, the Archdemon. You knew what the goal was from the beginning, so everything felt like it was done for a reason. All you were doing was working towards something. Helping the Dalish and Mages to get their support, saving Arl Eamon. You knew why you had to do the things you did. To fight the Darkspawn and kill the Archdemon. What about Dragon Age 2 though? There's no clear goal in this game. What is it all leading up to? Nothing. It doesn't lead up to anything. There is no straight road, no major plot. The first two acts feel like they could've been DLC for Origins, and it's not up until the third act that the major plot development happens. I didn't see it coming, and yet, I didn't care. I didn't feel what the game wanted me to feel.
After all was said and done, what could you do now? What was the epilogue? Nothing! Same thing happened after the end of Origins. All you could do was just stand in camp and wait for DLC to be released so you could leave. Why? What if I want to go walking around a bit? Can't do it. What if I wanted to beat up the gangs at night in Kirkwall? Nope. It seems a bit nit picky, but I don't see why they restrict you to the Estate in DA2 or the Camp in Origins.
Now that I'm done clamoring on about the stupid plot, or lack thereof, let's get on to the more game side of things.
Gameplay
__________
Right click to attack, move with WASD, and use spells by clicking on them or pressing a number. Sounds simple enough. The cool down times for everything is amazingly retarded though. 30 second cool down for a health potion? Really? As opposed to the last game, there's only one type of health potion, so you can't cheat by using a lesser health potion, and then a greater health potion, so you needn't worry about potion cool down messing you completely up. No more of that. One potion every 30 seconds. You can cast heal though! Oh wait, too bad it's a 40 sec cool down. What the hell happened? Group heal is all but gone too. Only one mage, Anders, can do it now. It used to be that all your mages could cast it. It's only Anders now though. Screw that guy. He's like Aeris without the whole dying part. To make you even more mad, you have to active a sustained spell, in which you can't cast any offensive magic, before you can cast group heal, or revive. So there's a 2 or 3 second window in which the starting animation for Pancea, the sustained spell, has to be finished until you can cast group heal. Then you have to deactivate it to attack with an offensive spell. In the time it takes to start up, you could be killed, which happened to me too often.
Maps are another weird thing that's happened to this game. I'm not sure about Origins, because it was never a problem, but maps go away once you leave the area in Dragon Age 2. In the game, you, no joke, revisit the same places hundreds of time. Each place is recycled for different quests, and each time, your map is blank until you explore the area. That's fine if the place was new, but you've been there HUNDREDS OF TIMES. Why take it away? The level design makes everything confusing, especially on the Wounded Coast, so you need the map to know where you're going. Since the map is reset each time you go there, you always get lost. It's really annoying.
Also new in this game, you can't use any armor you pick up for your companions. You can't mix and match stuff. You have to buy specific armor, or find a set on their 'companion quest'. There's only 5 upgrades to their armor, which really feels like the game is strangling me. It feels very restrictive, and is a huge setback. I like freedom, it's nice, but this game doesn't seem to agree.
Odd glitches would happen with the game too, like my characters would stop attacking the enemy and just idly stand by me with their weapons sheathed while I'm getting raped by a bunch of spiders. I figure that the glitches in the game will be resolved in later patches, but they were infuriating when they happened to me.
Graphics
__________
How the game looks at its best, I don't know. My good graphics card got blown up a month ago, so I couldn't run it in DirectX 11, but I can run it in DirectX 10 right? Nope! Only DX9 or DX11. Shit. So I could only keep it on medium, because high and very high is reserved for DX11 cards for some reason. So, I can't talk about how crap the graphics are, but I can talk about other graphical things.
Animations this time around actually became a lot more fluid and are really improved. Something that I do enjoy about this game is the fighting animations. It does feel smooth and faster paced than the last game. Mages would just slightly shake their staff at a problem in Origins, but here they actually do some kind of spinning/shoving their stick in the ground move. It looks decent enough and is indeed an improvement on the previous game. They did change a few things I was disappointed at, like making the spell 'Winter's Grasp' a projectile, rather than an instant attack it used to be. Now you have to wait a second or two for it to hit and freeze them, but uh, let's not get into gameplay again.
The text in this game is surprisingly one of the things that really makes me mad.
I'll admit, it looks interesting for awhile, but when you realize that all the text in this game looks like this or worse, it really makes me mad. Who thought it would be a good idea? Seriously? Some amateur came up with the design of the game, because everything just fails so hard.
And the User Interface, oh god the UI, I don't know where to start with it. Look at these pictures. Ignoring the graphics of the actual game, which UI looks better?
Origins:
DA2:
Sure, the change may have made it more functional, for consoles, but all the nice artwork that was present in Origins, the old medieval look, is just gone now. All the icons just look too futuristic to be in Dragon Age. The health and stamina/mana bars change size now as you upgrade it. Good, that's something that I can agree was stupid in Origins. Too bad it's just one improvement under a whole dump truck of failures.
I won't go on anymore about this game. I'm just so disappointed and sad. I truly felt that it had potential after the first one. Sadly, this just reeks of laziness.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Aliens V.S. Predator
"Wowie!" My friend says a few weeks ago. "You know what would be a great game to play online?"
"I don't care" I say.
"A game that came out a year ago, and is made mainly for consoles!" He responds.
"I'll only play it if you gift me it." Thinking I out smarted him.
"Alright!" He says.
"Ugh."
Aliens V.S. Predator is a game made by Rebellion Developments, who are known to gamers from their many AvP knock-off games. Outside of that, the only games I recognize of note worthiness is the "Gun" PSP port and "Rogue Warrior", which is a horrible start.
In AvP, you play as an Alien, a Predator, or a Marine, during the same plot events. The Marine Spaceship "Marlowe" has been shot down by an unknown species, and it has fallen onto a planet where Humans are discovering ancient Predator ruins and experimenting on Aliens. Predators are pissed off that the Marines are screwing around on one of their hunting grounds, Aliens are pissed off because their Queen is being held captive on the Marlowe, and the Marines are pissing on themselves in the corner.
Now, I love Alien and all of their sequels, and I love Predator and.. well, its sequel was shit. The movie Aliens V.S. Predator did a Freddy V.S. Jason sort of thing where two otherwise good franchises cancel each other out when paired together. I hated AvP, and I wasn't really looking forward to this game, as hinted by my discourse with my friend. The concept sounds great on paper! Different game play elements for each species. The sneaky Alien, waiting to pounce on its prey. The violent Predator, able to cloak, fight head on, and use ranged weapons. The Marine, ready to find the auto-target gun and piss off the Predators and Aliens.
Each campaign has the same major plot easily summed up with the question: "The Marlowe is down, what does this mean to me?". For the Aliens, that means they're going to try and rescue their Queen. For the Marines, it means he wants to go save his buddies. For the Predators, they just want to blow up the cadavers of their comrades. Fuck saving people I suppose.
The Alien campaign starts off interesting enough (Which I won't spoil because it is a unique way to start off a campaign), and then proceeds to fall flat on its face. It isn't that bad but it gets stupidly hard. As an Alien, the biggest advantage you have is staying in the dark and creeping around, which barely works. All the NPC Marines seem to have infrared vision, because no matter where you are, they're probably going to see you. I was sneaking around in a vent at one point, and I emerged out of it into the darkness of the ceiling. Just then, a Marine, on the total opposite side of this huge hangar, saw me out of the corner of his eye and proceeded to blast my ass and various other parts of my body off of me and back into the vent I was still crawling out of. That is bullshit. There were no lights around me. I was on the ceiling. He was on the other side of the room, on the ground. He didn't have the auto-target gun. I was doing everything right and he just used his telescopic vision to locate and kill me in a matter of seconds. I had quite a few moments like that, and it is just totally stupid.
On to the Marine campaign.
The Marine campaign is Doom 3. That's all I need to say. It's Doom 3. The environment, the weapons. It's Doom 3. They try to be creepy with all the darkness, but it isn't. It's Doom 3. Was Doom 3 scary? Of course not. It had those surprise scare moments, but that doesn't make it scary. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is scary. This is just people going "BOO!"
And finally the Predator campaign.
The Predator campaign has you running around killing Aliens and getting destroyed by Marines. I don't know why these Marines kick the ass off all the other species. I can't do that against my friend online. He can't either. You know how easy it was for Arnold and everyone else to spot the Predator in its movie? Of course not! It wasn't easy. I have no idea why it's so easy for everyone here! These guys can spot you out of no where. Even your little plasma gun thing runs out amazingly fast, so don't count on that. Proximity mines? Ha! The whole campaign is just hard and really retarded.
But how is the multiplayer? I would like to know too! I sat on my ass for 20 minutes, searching for a game. You know what I came up with? One game. Two people in it. This isn't a multiplayer experience, and I don't think we'll ever see one come out of this on the PC. It just feels like a console port, and I won't be surprised if it is. I played with my friend and the game was horribly unbalanced. I kicked his ass so many times with the Predator no matter what class he was, and he did the same thing when he was Predator. Is this why nobody is playing multiplayer? It might just be.
This game is just stupid. Plain fucking dumb. It has a fun concept, yes, but it fails on all levels. The NPCs are idiotically difficult, the auto-aim gun is way over powered for online play, and the online play isn't even there anymore.
Want to play the game? Play Thief, Shadow Warrior, and Doom 3.
"A game that came out a year ago, and is made mainly for consoles!" He responds.
"I'll only play it if you gift me it." Thinking I out smarted him.
"Alright!" He says.
"Ugh."
Aliens V.S. Predator is a game made by Rebellion Developments, who are known to gamers from their many AvP knock-off games. Outside of that, the only games I recognize of note worthiness is the "Gun" PSP port and "Rogue Warrior", which is a horrible start.
In AvP, you play as an Alien, a Predator, or a Marine, during the same plot events. The Marine Spaceship "Marlowe" has been shot down by an unknown species, and it has fallen onto a planet where Humans are discovering ancient Predator ruins and experimenting on Aliens. Predators are pissed off that the Marines are screwing around on one of their hunting grounds, Aliens are pissed off because their Queen is being held captive on the Marlowe, and the Marines are pissing on themselves in the corner.
Now, I love Alien and all of their sequels, and I love Predator and.. well, its sequel was shit. The movie Aliens V.S. Predator did a Freddy V.S. Jason sort of thing where two otherwise good franchises cancel each other out when paired together. I hated AvP, and I wasn't really looking forward to this game, as hinted by my discourse with my friend. The concept sounds great on paper! Different game play elements for each species. The sneaky Alien, waiting to pounce on its prey. The violent Predator, able to cloak, fight head on, and use ranged weapons. The Marine, ready to find the auto-target gun and piss off the Predators and Aliens.
Each campaign has the same major plot easily summed up with the question: "The Marlowe is down, what does this mean to me?". For the Aliens, that means they're going to try and rescue their Queen. For the Marines, it means he wants to go save his buddies. For the Predators, they just want to blow up the cadavers of their comrades. Fuck saving people I suppose.
The Alien campaign starts off interesting enough (Which I won't spoil because it is a unique way to start off a campaign), and then proceeds to fall flat on its face. It isn't that bad but it gets stupidly hard. As an Alien, the biggest advantage you have is staying in the dark and creeping around, which barely works. All the NPC Marines seem to have infrared vision, because no matter where you are, they're probably going to see you. I was sneaking around in a vent at one point, and I emerged out of it into the darkness of the ceiling. Just then, a Marine, on the total opposite side of this huge hangar, saw me out of the corner of his eye and proceeded to blast my ass and various other parts of my body off of me and back into the vent I was still crawling out of. That is bullshit. There were no lights around me. I was on the ceiling. He was on the other side of the room, on the ground. He didn't have the auto-target gun. I was doing everything right and he just used his telescopic vision to locate and kill me in a matter of seconds. I had quite a few moments like that, and it is just totally stupid.
On to the Marine campaign.
The Marine campaign is Doom 3. That's all I need to say. It's Doom 3. The environment, the weapons. It's Doom 3. They try to be creepy with all the darkness, but it isn't. It's Doom 3. Was Doom 3 scary? Of course not. It had those surprise scare moments, but that doesn't make it scary. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is scary. This is just people going "BOO!"
And finally the Predator campaign.
The Predator campaign has you running around killing Aliens and getting destroyed by Marines. I don't know why these Marines kick the ass off all the other species. I can't do that against my friend online. He can't either. You know how easy it was for Arnold and everyone else to spot the Predator in its movie? Of course not! It wasn't easy. I have no idea why it's so easy for everyone here! These guys can spot you out of no where. Even your little plasma gun thing runs out amazingly fast, so don't count on that. Proximity mines? Ha! The whole campaign is just hard and really retarded.
But how is the multiplayer? I would like to know too! I sat on my ass for 20 minutes, searching for a game. You know what I came up with? One game. Two people in it. This isn't a multiplayer experience, and I don't think we'll ever see one come out of this on the PC. It just feels like a console port, and I won't be surprised if it is. I played with my friend and the game was horribly unbalanced. I kicked his ass so many times with the Predator no matter what class he was, and he did the same thing when he was Predator. Is this why nobody is playing multiplayer? It might just be.
This game is just stupid. Plain fucking dumb. It has a fun concept, yes, but it fails on all levels. The NPCs are idiotically difficult, the auto-aim gun is way over powered for online play, and the online play isn't even there anymore.
Want to play the game? Play Thief, Shadow Warrior, and Doom 3.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Dead Rising 2
Since I haven't updated my site in a long time (Apparently I've tried, because I have like 10 posts that are drafts which will never see the light of day), and I want to get back into reviewing things, there's going to be a wave of reviews coming. To start it off, I'll review a game that I played a lot over the past two months.
Capcom has finally made their sequel to Dead Rising, a game where you screw around killing zombies in a mall, with the game Dead Rising 2, a game where you screw around killing zombies in a casino.
Dead Rising was a great game. Being able to run around and create mass genocide with things you found laying around a mall is amazing. Me and my friend played it for so many hours (until one of us decided to kick the console while I was playing it so it scratched the fucking shit out of the game and caused it to be unplayable back in 2007 and since then the only fucking part I can play is the beginning, taking pictures of zombies, and it pisses me off to no fucking extent.) just killing zombies and ignoring the case timer running out. There were a few things that made me mad about it, and it is by no means a perfect game. The aiming was shit, case timers would go way too fast, and some of the bosses were just plain hacking. I was hoping that they would fix those problems. Well, suffice to say, they didn't, but I'm not disappointed.
Dead Rising 2 picks up five years after the zombie outbreak in Willamette from the first game in the series. Since then, people decided to get rid of their new zombie friends by making 'Terror Is Reality', a game show that has people killing zombies in various ways for cash. Unless you want to trudge through the derelict 'Terror is Reality' multiplayer mode to see them all, you're only going to see the main event, Slicecycles. This is where we meet our protagonists, Chuck Greene, and his daughter, Katey Greene, who has to take the zombie-ism suppressant Zombrex, lest she wants to reenact a scene from Quarantine. Our hero is trying to win the cash prize from the show to keep Katey from biting his face off, when in a surprising twist, another outbreak occurs! Our protagonist heroically hauls his ass to the nearest panic room with Katey, who still needs her Zombrex, so it's up to Chucke Greene to go get her some.
Capcom has made a great sequel with this. Out the window is picture taking for upgrade points, and now, you just kill zombies with weapons you glued together. The weapons you combine together a lot of the time don't make any sense, and are made solely for the spectacle of seeing it, and with that comes very very strange combinations you won't think of. As an example, would you think to combine a tennis racket and a tiki torch? I didn't until I got the combo card. I barely ever got combo cards anyway. The only ones I would get were from leveling up or the occasional one from an escort mission. I only got two from posters, and even those I could barely make half the time. All the combos I made I found online, or within the combination room itself. All the combo rooms have a few things kind of hinting what you should make. Like, a bow and some dynamite right outside its door. Well, we all know what that is from. Rambo! Of course, with a bow, you have to shoot it, so we come back to our old friend aiming.
Although the aiming does feel a little bit better, as I can tell from my memories of the first game (Which I would play, but oh no, it had to go and get fucking destroyed), the problem with the bosses is still present. The game is a bit more merciful with its sharp stick and doesn't shove it up your ass as fast this time because the main cases are generally easy if you have any idea of what to do. The side mission bosses are where the game just likes to twist and push that stick until it's coming out of your ears. I understand why they're hard, don't get me wrong, but I felt there should've been more boss battles I've could've done on my first play through. I tried a lot of them, the Chef, the Pink Chainsaw guy, and I couldn't beat any of them on my first time around. The only ones I could beat were the ones to get Zombrex or the actual main case bosses. I like a good challenge, but you just have no inventory space to cope with the low health you'll have fighting the side bosses.
Although it may seem I'm complaining a lot, I really like this game. They pulled a Terminator 2 on us. It may not be that much more creative than the first, as most of the game takes place in a mall (Oh, I'm sorry, a 'plaza'), but it still feels new and different, especially with the introduction of vehicles. Just don't expect to be driving them because you'll never get the money to buy them without playing online, which nobody does.
Now that Dead Rising 2 is out and about, we can look forward to the new DLC, Case: West. Will it be Back to the Future 3 or will it be Matrix: Revolutions?
Capcom has finally made their sequel to Dead Rising, a game where you screw around killing zombies in a mall, with the game Dead Rising 2, a game where you screw around killing zombies in a casino.
Dead Rising was a great game. Being able to run around and create mass genocide with things you found laying around a mall is amazing. Me and my friend played it for so many hours (until one of us decided to kick the console while I was playing it so it scratched the fucking shit out of the game and caused it to be unplayable back in 2007 and since then the only fucking part I can play is the beginning, taking pictures of zombies, and it pisses me off to no fucking extent.) just killing zombies and ignoring the case timer running out. There were a few things that made me mad about it, and it is by no means a perfect game. The aiming was shit, case timers would go way too fast, and some of the bosses were just plain hacking. I was hoping that they would fix those problems. Well, suffice to say, they didn't, but I'm not disappointed.
Dead Rising 2 picks up five years after the zombie outbreak in Willamette from the first game in the series. Since then, people decided to get rid of their new zombie friends by making 'Terror Is Reality', a game show that has people killing zombies in various ways for cash. Unless you want to trudge through the derelict 'Terror is Reality' multiplayer mode to see them all, you're only going to see the main event, Slicecycles. This is where we meet our protagonists, Chuck Greene, and his daughter, Katey Greene, who has to take the zombie-ism suppressant Zombrex, lest she wants to reenact a scene from Quarantine. Our hero is trying to win the cash prize from the show to keep Katey from biting his face off, when in a surprising twist, another outbreak occurs! Our protagonist heroically hauls his ass to the nearest panic room with Katey, who still needs her Zombrex, so it's up to Chucke Greene to go get her some.
Capcom has made a great sequel with this. Out the window is picture taking for upgrade points, and now, you just kill zombies with weapons you glued together. The weapons you combine together a lot of the time don't make any sense, and are made solely for the spectacle of seeing it, and with that comes very very strange combinations you won't think of. As an example, would you think to combine a tennis racket and a tiki torch? I didn't until I got the combo card. I barely ever got combo cards anyway. The only ones I would get were from leveling up or the occasional one from an escort mission. I only got two from posters, and even those I could barely make half the time. All the combos I made I found online, or within the combination room itself. All the combo rooms have a few things kind of hinting what you should make. Like, a bow and some dynamite right outside its door. Well, we all know what that is from. Rambo! Of course, with a bow, you have to shoot it, so we come back to our old friend aiming.
Although the aiming does feel a little bit better, as I can tell from my memories of the first game (Which I would play, but oh no, it had to go and get fucking destroyed), the problem with the bosses is still present. The game is a bit more merciful with its sharp stick and doesn't shove it up your ass as fast this time because the main cases are generally easy if you have any idea of what to do. The side mission bosses are where the game just likes to twist and push that stick until it's coming out of your ears. I understand why they're hard, don't get me wrong, but I felt there should've been more boss battles I've could've done on my first play through. I tried a lot of them, the Chef, the Pink Chainsaw guy, and I couldn't beat any of them on my first time around. The only ones I could beat were the ones to get Zombrex or the actual main case bosses. I like a good challenge, but you just have no inventory space to cope with the low health you'll have fighting the side bosses.
Although it may seem I'm complaining a lot, I really like this game. They pulled a Terminator 2 on us. It may not be that much more creative than the first, as most of the game takes place in a mall (Oh, I'm sorry, a 'plaza'), but it still feels new and different, especially with the introduction of vehicles. Just don't expect to be driving them because you'll never get the money to buy them without playing online, which nobody does.
Now that Dead Rising 2 is out and about, we can look forward to the new DLC, Case: West. Will it be Back to the Future 3 or will it be Matrix: Revolutions?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Back in 2006, Battlefield 2 was one of the greatest games I had ever played. It still is. Since then though, I haven't played another Battlefield. All of my friends were buying this game and professing how amazing it is.
Battlefield 2 had it all. Helicopters, jets, tanks, and jeeps all were amazing. I made sure to get a $50 dollar logitech flying stick just so I could fly everything properly. I had way too much fun with it. There were a few problems with it though, especially around the beginning of it's release. The load times were shit with the parsing game info. The MEC loading theme became what I believe to be the sound of purgatory. Sadly though, a lot of new gamers never played Battlefield 2, but I won't rant about that again. I stopped playing it around the time that my computer started having its first issues back in late 2007. I never bought any other Battlefield games up until Bad Company 2. No idea why. Just didn't. I started playing the 360 more around 2007 too, so Halo 2 and 3 were taking up a lot of my time and I forgot about BF2.
All of my best friends on Steam were playing Bad Company 2. They were saying it is really amazing, and that I should get it. After they peaked my interest, I bought it. I made sure to play it right away, maybe play single player with some bots first, but wait, Campaign? They finally jumped on the Campaign bandwagon and strayed from the 'single player means multiplayer maps except with bots'. That's not that bad. They seem to rip off Call of Duty 4 and 6 though. Their loading screens are basically Google Earth with a filter over them. I don't mind though, Call of Duty was a good game. The game started and I ran into my first problem. No prone. Okay, the fuck? Whatever, I guess they'll just add it in after because it was way too much work for them. I mean, okay, there are many games that are great without prone, but this is one of those games you expect to have prone in them. I have a high tolerance for shit for the Battlefield series so I just took it in stride. I fucked off to the multiplayer because the singleplayer campaign is pretty much boring and way too fucking hard (though I hate saying that). I started up the server browser with it being way too retarded and not loading anything, so I tried to do the play now but that was still fucked up and it kept making me try to join already full servers. After about 20 minutes of trying to get into a server, I finally joined one that my friend was in. No idea what happened to the jets, but you know, take it all in stride. The gameplay right now is about average. No idea why you die when the UAV you're controlling dies [EDIT: Upon further review, I was just getting sniped by some fag, but I hadn't tried the UAV too much because the respawn time for it is like 10 minutes], but whatever. I know BF2 started out really bugged, but I thought that they would actually try their best to fix their previous problems. Like, releasing a game really REALLY bugged was a problem. I mean, holy shit, I can barely play anything and yet all the servers are full. Even the servers that aren't full give me an error saying they're full.
This game broke my joyful stride through my memories of Battlefield and it'll be a while until I can run this part of town again. I know it can get better. I know it will, but right now this is what it is: shit. It really does suck. It just resembles an old franchise trying to stay, as the kids this days would say, hip. I say fuck the Campaign mode and fuck you cutting corners for it. I want a multiplayer experience from the Battlefield franchise. This hasn't given it to me yet.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
R.U.S.E. Beta
A few weeks ago, the R.U.S.E. Beta opened up to everyone on Steam. Knowing nothing about it, I decided to jump right into it.
R.U.S.E. (and I have no idea what R.U.S.E. is an acronym for) is an RTS game set in WW2. In the same vein of EndWar, R.U.S.E. tries to add a new spin on the RTS genre. R.U.S.E.'s big spin on the genre is the ability and emphasis on tricking your opponent. In R.U.S.E. you have the power to fool your opponent with ruse cards. You get two at the start of each round and another about every 5 minutes. You can do things like hide your base, or your troops, or send fake units to attack them. That's all fine and dandy but Ruse also sets their maps on a war room board in a different environment. Sometimes it's a bombed out building, other times it's an actual war room. They say they did this because now they can have bigger maps than other RTS games. I'm not too sure about that, but it is interesting to zoom out and see what the war room looks like for a few seconds until you start to realize the enemy is sending a shitload of paratroopers to take over your base.
RTS games aren't my thing, but I can tell that this isn't that special.
Since it's beta, there's not too much that I can be truly mad at the people for, because it isn't done. Sure, the whole ruse thing is neat, it just isn't that new or amazing. Tricking your opponent has been a tactic in RTS games for a while now. Building a bunch of Black Hands or something to go attack your opponents teammate while you send the actual army of tanks and shit has been my tactic for a while. Sure it hasn't worked. Apparently my idea of an army of tanks would be like 20 of the lowest ranked tanks, but still. It's an average RTS game, but by opening the beta to everyone on Steam, they reached out to the crowd of people who never play RTS games, and they're going to get them to play and buy.
Tricky.
Tricky.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Army of Two: The 40th Day
A long time ago, when Army of Two first came out, I decided to play through it with my brother. After about 4 levels, we forgot about it until a few days after The 40th Day came out. It was a fun game. Just a bit annoying and stupid. Now, The 40th Day decided that annoying the fuck out of us was an integral part of the game and decided to amplify it to the extreme.
You know, I love co-op games. Making on the spot plans with a buddy is awesome. That's why I enjoy tactical multiplayer games. What ever happened to those days? These games are going down the shitter because people feel the need to make them overly complicated. The basics are basics because they were simple and good. Now, things like split screening seem to be so fucking hard to do. Resident Evil 5 decided to fall into this category of shit split screening. Their idea of a split screen meant that they shouldn't just have it split off in the middle with both people having widescreen top and bottom respectively. No, they thought it'd be a good idea to make it widescreen, but be fucking broken off from each other and have huge black bars on the sides of each of the screens. One takes the top right and another takes the bottom left. The fuck is their problem? Couldn't find a place for the radar? Fuck you, put the radar on each one of the people's screens and have it where you cut out everything when you made it retarded.
Army of Two: The 40th Day decided that they loved the idea of failure even more than just making the game annoying. No, they had to make it so that it's hard to see too. The Split Screen is vertical. VERTICAL. Are you fucking kidding me? I have to make it 4:3 in SD to get widescreen. I don't give a shit about your 'vertical elements', at least give me the option to make it widescreen in HD. Assholes. Do you know why 16:9 is better? It's a physical reason. Have you looked at how human's eyes are placed? They're placed horizontally. Our main field of view is left to right, not up and down. You should notice how it's easier to look left to right than up and down.
Anyway, AoT:40D is just as annoying as the first one was, just this time they made it so that it's hard to see though. I've barely played the game because it pisses me off so much.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Call of Duty: World at War
The other day I bought 'Call of Duty: World at War' for Nazi Zombies. The regular game is pretty good but I've played wayyy too many WW2 games. Seems as though a lot of people who play this haven't.
I tend to hate all of these gamers who are new to FPS games. It's not that they suck, or that they only play them on consoles (which can also make me mad), but it's because they are so annoying. These FPS game noobs always think that they are awesome, and they've played a lot of FPS games. These people played Halo 2 as their first game and think that they've played a lot of FPS games since then should be slapped. I was saddened when I was talking to my friend who was just born a year or two after me to call himself a 'hardcore' gamer. He says his favorite genre is shooters and his first game was Halo. He only plays on consoles, and he's never even played the classic games that define today's shooters. He hasn't played any of the Dooms, Duke Nukems, Quakes, Medal of Honors, early Call of Duty, Counter Strikes, Half-Lifes, Battlefields, Serious Sams, etc. If it's a 3D FPS, and you can't iron sight aim with it, he hasn't played it. He thinks that he's a 'hardcore' gamer just because he dedicates 12 hours a week to gaming. Fuck him. I play a lot longer each week than he does in a month. He thinks he's a 'hardcore' gamer because he's been playing games since Halo. Fuck him. I've played games since Duke Nukem 3D came out. I've played Star Wars: Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, Dooms, Serious Sams 1 and 2, Battlefield 2, Quakes, Counter-Strike: Source, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the first Medal of Honor, and many many others. Still, he calls himself 'hardcore'. I don't even consider myself 'hardcore'. I just call myself a gamer.
Anyway, World at War is pretty good. At least Nazi Zombies is. I've played like 3/4s of the way through of the Single Player though. Still, I think that it is pretty good, and that Treyarch made something half decent that nobody else had done. At least with Nazi Zombies. There's only so much WW2 you can do. I think it's been long enough for another Omaha Beach level. Mohaa had a Omaha beach level ripped straight from Saving Private Ryan and it was bad ass.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Brutal Legend and Overlord 2
I played Brutal Legend and Overlord 2 a while back but I never reviewed them so I figured I have nothing else to do so I might as well look over them again and give you some of my thoughts on the games.
Brutal Legend is the latest installment from the crazy awesome dudes down at Double Fine. Their last game was Psychonauts, which came out of the blue and was awesome. I don't think I ever finished it though...
Anyway, Brutal Legend follows the adventure of Eddie Riggs who is voiced by Jack Black. Eddie Riggs is a roadie for a band. He builds things, repairs guitars, and makes everyone else look good while staying out of the limelight. Eddie is killed when he saved one of the idiots in the band. He then is transported to the land of Heavy Metal...
Brutal Legend is an amazingly good game. It follows the same art as Psychonauts, meaning that everyone looks a bit cartoonish and full of hyperboles. The plot has weird areas which are kind of spoilers I suppose, so I can't really talk about them. The game does rank up as one of my favorites ever. Brutal Legend does begin to fail very VERY hard when you have to do RTS elements. They are really difficult and the controls are awkward on consoles. That aspect of the game reminds me of something else too...
Overlord 2 is in many aspects related to Brutal Legend. They both have an RTS element, though Brutal Legend doesn't use it as much as Overlord 2 does.
In Overlord 2, you're some dude who was almost lynched as a kid for being incredibly awesome. He became evil and is now attempting to take over the world.
I haven't played Overlord 2 in quite some time but what I do remember of it I remember fondly. Towards the end of me playing it, it got really boring and repetitive. Probably hard too but if I say that it'll seem like I really suck at games. Anyway, Overlord 2 is fairly fun. I was disappointed that you (as in the human.. thing) didn't do much in the game. I love slashing people up with the sword. It also pads the game with a lot of useless additions. You can add decorations to your underground fortress of doom, but there's no point.You can revive some minons you lost, but there is also no point to it. The underground place is way too complicated and way too huge. It takes long to do anything there. Oh well. I think I liked it though.
Anyway, those are my reviews.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Book of Eli
Well I'm back to making reviews I suppose. The first review of 2010 shall be "The Book of Eli".
The book of Eli is a film based in a Fallout 3-esque apocalyptic future. Denzel Washington is a Lone Wanderer traveling west across the lawless and barren wasteland of the USA. He's been traveling 30 or so years reading a book over and over every day. He's run into many traps and foes along his travels and has become very adept at detecting where people are hiding.
Gary Oldman is a leader of a town who is looking for the 'twinkie' of his childhood as Woody Harrelson did in Zombieland. A book that is very near and dear to him. He hires goons to kill and loot travelers to find the book. He discovers that the Lone Wanderer has it and he will do anything to get his hands on it. The Wanderer will have none of that though, and will protect the book at all costs.
The movie is pretty good in my opinion. Sure, a lot could have been better. It felt a bit empty and boring at parts, but I still enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of Fallout 3, which I'm sure some of the writers have played. Denzel Washington even mentions "I Fought the Good Fight" at one part.
I can see how many people didn't like this movie. I didn't think it was a major masterpiece but it was a good movie. Sure, the plot was a bit... thin. They could have done more with the plot and actually said why everyone nuked each other. I'm sure the writers could only think of Fallout plot points, so they didn't say more about how they survived.
It was good though. I'd go see it if I were you.
I also have to mention how stupid the poster is. Why did they have to shove that comingsoon.com right out there? It destroys the look and feel of it. Whatever.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Game
I am extremely mad and bored right now so here's a review.
I got the game for Harry Potter and the blah blah blah two days ago and I just finished it yesterday.
It was shit, but what can you expect from something like this? The movie wasn't based around action. It was based around humor and potion making. That sounds really fun doesn't it? They made a lot of shit up for this game, and I think it could of really improved if they didn't confine themselves to only the movie. Didn't they know there is a book on this? They pulled so many random fights and Quidditch matches out of their ass it's retarded. The Quidditch matches are basically fly through rings and at some arbitrary time you'll get the snitch. You don't even control the flying. It's like a throwback to those shitty FMV Sega CD games. You could seriously just leave the character in one place and you'd be fine. Besides when you're going through those fucking goal loops. They did that like once in the entire series and you're doing it 20 times. The fucked up part of all of this is that Ginny is as good of a seeker as Harry. I thought Harry was supposed to be some prodigy at this or something. And during the liquid luck sequence you can't even control your character. The whole game is really boring. Even the action. All you'll do is just mash on the stupify button and strafe around the enemy hoping that the barrage of 5000 stupifies you're shooting at them kills them first. Ignoring all of that, the other retarded thing you have to do here is potion making. God I hate potion making. The game couldn't even keep up with my mouse turning skills when you have to mix the shit, and since when is liquid death pink? Fuck this game. It is shit.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday. Yes, I saw this movie on opening day. Not only did I see it on opening day, I watched some of it on the second day. I saw this movie at 10:30 pm. I hadn't even planned to see it at 10:30. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. My mom was looking at movie times for some movies and I was like, hey, we should go see Harry Potter right now! She was a bit reluctant, and my brother had to take a shower and stuff before going out. So we had to get ready in 10 mins because it takes 20 minutes to get to the theater. By the time we left it was already 10:05 so we knew if there were a lot of people there we would get a shit seat, or maybe no seat at all. Even when we were driving, there were a bunch of slow people and even a little bit of traffic so we couldn't get there any less than 10:30.
Well when we got there the car parking lot was packed and we knew we'd get some really bad seats. We got in and some fat dude who totally looked like a pedophile was on the verge of legally harassing this one <21 year old cashier chick. I suppose that's why they're behind glass. Anyway, we got our tickets, and avoided the popcorn and drinks until we got our seats. We walked into the theater and what do you know, 2 empty rows of 4 seats on the right side of the theater. My brother got the first row, while I got the second row with my mom. So she went to get popcorn, and I was happy now that I avoided all of those 10 year old fucks who would be driving me crazy.
The movie started and every got really really quiet. No one made a sound, besides some laughter, throughout the entire movie. Good moviegoers seem to come at 10:30 showings :\
The movie starts, Harry gets curb stomped and survives with only a broken nose, and everything is pretty good. The movies ends and I'm like: "What?"
Nothing was accomplished. The only things that were accomplished are Dumbledore's death, learning about some objects, realizing that Voldermort may have been evil as a child, and to witness the fall of Michael Gambon's career. Even though that nothing was really accomplished, it was still the best Harry Potter. Maybe the Goblet of Fire was a bit better, but this one was dark funny and with the few action moments it had, it was really good. I actually can't wait to see it again.
I didn't feel any of the hype other people had for this movie, I just wanted to see something at 10:30 pm. I had no expectations, and I think I only saw the last movie once, so I was ready for anything. Halfway through the movie, I was pleasantly surprised to see myself enjoying it.
I've never read the books but for a film that makes a book to movie translation, you shouldn't have to. The reason a movie is made that is based on a book is to tell the story of a book to people who are too lazy to read. The Harry Potter series is a fine example of what a book to movie translation should be.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Public Enemies
Just got back from watching Public Enemies at the theater. Decent movie, though I did notice a few plot errors. Since Public Enemies is set in 1933 or something so I can't be too sure on certain plot errors but I'll still point them out. Please ignore those if I'm wrong.
Public Enemies is directed by Michael Mann with top actors Johnny Depp and Christain Bale up to bat. Johnny Depp did a well performance, but Christain Bale sucked. Hard. As it is a movie set in 1933, you know you have to have an accent. Johnny Depp's accent is sort of believeable, but Christian Bale's is pretty bad. I swear, at times he sounded like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted. His performance was definitely underpar. I'm starting to get the feeling, as with everyone else, that Christain Bale, as dedicated as he may be to his movies, isn't that well of an actor. It's the same kind of feeling when you see Dane Cook for the first time, and think he's not all that bad, but soon realise that his jokes are all the same. For some reason, Bale's characters seems to always end up as someone with a retarded voice.
This movie had some obvious flaws. Like when they were sneaking away, they stopped at a red light, and they were getting really apprehensive at the people eying them. When the light turned green, they turned right. Couldn't they have turned right on red? There were no other cars around. It was a bit strange, but I'm not too sure on the road laws of the 1930's so I can't say for sure.
Public Enemies isn't really an action movie. The action scenes they did have weren't amazing or anything. This is more of a movie about the drama of a criminal's rise and fall to power. Kind of like Scarface, but worse. Public Enemies, as good as some people say it may be, is pretty average. Yeah, it's better than most of the stuff that's come out so far, but that's only because this is the year the fallout from the WGA strike hits us. If this came out any other year, this wouldn't have the scores it has now. I wouldn't spend money to see it again, but if you're into movies for the plot and see actions as a good secondary element, then you'll like this. If not, you'll probably not like it as much.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
So I just got back from seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and I have to say, it's very, very, mediocre. I have a lot to say about it so I figured I should make two reviews for two classes of people. This review is the shorter, spoiler free review. My next review of this movie will contain spoilers and be longer. It'll take me about a day to do, so don't expect it tomorrow or the next day. I have stuff to do tomorrow! Anyway, on to the review but first, the prologue.
I got there about 20 minutes before the film started and it was already pretty packed. I got a seat on the end of the row, right next to the stairs, so I had to use my awesome ability of contortion multiple times throughout the movie while people shimmy past. Kids were sitting in front of me. They were really annoying. Before the movie even began, they started chanting "Transformers" and everyone went oddly quiet. Their dad was like shh, nobody else is chanting. It was pretty funny. 8 year olds definitively enjoyed the movie. Out of their screams of laughter and other things, they made their view clear.
The movie starts off in 17,000 BC, showing some tribesmen chasing a tiger across the plains of... I suppose it's Egypt. They come across some robots with some huge cannon type thing and the bots start killing them. Then it cuts to Shanghai where some Decepticons were detected and a secret task force called NEST is coming to take down the robots. What does NEST stand for? I dunno, just roll with it. They use the Autobots to take down the Decepticons in the area and all is fine and dandy until Optimus Prime is given a warning about some dude named the Fallen.
Meanwhile, Sam Whitwickey, played by Shia Lebeowolf, is going off to college to learn about technology and astronomy. His mom is all crying and being annoying (which some people in the theatre misinterpreted as being humourous) and wishing he wouldn't go. He finds a piece of the all-spark in his jacket pocket and it beams the location of something that is unknown at this time into his head. He starts seeing weird symbols which'll help find the unknown item. He says goodbye to his parents and his girlfriend, which he promises not to blow off once he gets into college, and of course he'd never do that right? So he heads off to college and meets with his 3 roomies, 2 of which only have like 5 lines. The other one is godly annoying and unnecessary for the plot. Speaking of which, a lot of people and events are unnecessary for the plot. Those two dogs humping each other is really retarded, going to college is unnecessary. Even the humans are unnecessary.
A Transformers movie should be about Transformers, and not about human drama. I don't care about the seductive poses of Super Hot Megan Fox, I want to see stuff getting blown up. Who cares about love interests, this should be a movie about robots fighting robots and humans getting intertwined in the conflict. Everything they could of done correctly they failed horribly on. You can't pick out and name Decepticons, they're all gray and the same exact model. There is way too much Star Trek shaky camera, and you can't tell what is going on during the battles. The sad thing is this movie is so horrible, yet theaters are packed with people who are going to see it. I like to review movies, so I wanted to see this movie for the sole purpose of hating it. I really hated it. I'd barely consider renting the thing let alone buying the dvd. You should probably avoid this movie until the DVD comes out.
I'll explain all these plot failures and retarded themes in a lot more in detail in my spoiler review.
Stay tuned!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
[PROTOTYPE]
So I just finished my 11 hour game streak of playing [Prototype] and I have to say it was pretty good. I had no idea what to expect going in and it turned out to raise my expectations for good sandbox games.
[Prototype] is a game that centers around Alex Mercer, a person who has strange powers and amnesia. He lives in New York City where a virus is beginning to take over and the military has come to put a stop to it. The plot is really good at times and it could be a fairly interesting movie if done correctly. Alas, it's not without retarded errors, but I'll leave criticizing plots to movie reviews.
The gameplay is really fluent and everything flows together. You could be flipping off of a building and start gliding and it'll seem really realistic. The superpowers this dude has reminds me of The Thing mixed with Venom from the spider man comics and the T-1000 from Terminator 2. It's a very tasty mix if I do say so myself. His voice is pretty strange though. At times he sounds like George Clooney and then switches to Hayden Christensen. It's really weird. It's like, he sounds cool, then he sounds like a faggot who likes to destroy franchises though he can be fairly good like in that Jumper movie which I enjoyed despite the negative reviews it has gotten.
By the way, don't read too much into the Wikipedia article, like the character biographies, because it gives a lot away. Seems as though they don't use the spoilers ahead warning anymore.
I recommend this game to you if you're into that sandbox type superhero game. If you seem to stray away from those kind of games I can safely say that it's a lot better than that Superman Returns sandbox superhero game, so don't worry.
A weird thing about this game though is that I didn't really care for the Sandbox part. I never did anything other than do the main missions, and I still got to unlock all of the upgrades with the points from them. I like the choice, but I never chose to dick around. I usually do though with GTA and Spiderman 2. I guess I didn't with this game because whenever you try to kill people, you're going to get shot at so much and be annoyed by those APCs and strike teams.
I really liked it though, you should check it out.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Taken
Since Taken is coming out on DVD in the USA... sometime (I saw it in a commercial) I suppose I'll give you my review.
Taken stars LiamNelson Neeson, that dude who talked for your father in Fallout 3. To be fair, Liam Neeson is a pretty good actor. I liked him as Henry Ducard in Batman Begins and he was good in Schindler's List. In Taken, I thought he was pretty good as a neurotic father.
So to sum up what I'm going to say, Taken is pretty good. See it if and when you can. Okay, on to the review. Spoilers ahead too.
Taken is a good action movie. It has a dark vibe to it, and it has a pretty simplistic storyline. I don't think it's anything new, though. Some dude takes your daughter and you have to go retrieve her. Sweet! The less there is of a story, the more time there is for action!
While Taken is a good movie, it still has flaws. One thing that is very prominent is the misogynistic script and characters. The women in this movie are idiots. They're always being retarded. The wife is being way too nonchalant about her daughter going to Europe to follow a band around with a few cousins and her horny blonde friend. Yeah, nothing can go wrong. I guess you're not supposed to like the characters, but damn, I was happy in ways when I saw the blonde chick dead that one should talk to their therapist about. The blonde chick was way too stupid to be living anyway. Yes, have sex with the French stranger that you just met at the taxi.
Benzaie probably liked this movie.
The plot is definitely shattered beyond repair. I didn't know half of the supporting characters from the movie or care to pay attention to who they were. Even after I watched it a second time, things still didn't clear up for me. I never did figure out who that one dude who Liam used to work with was or how he got evil.
Meh.
Taken stars Liam
So to sum up what I'm going to say, Taken is pretty good. See it if and when you can. Okay, on to the review. Spoilers ahead too.
Taken is a good action movie. It has a dark vibe to it, and it has a pretty simplistic storyline. I don't think it's anything new, though. Some dude takes your daughter and you have to go retrieve her. Sweet! The less there is of a story, the more time there is for action!
While Taken is a good movie, it still has flaws. One thing that is very prominent is the misogynistic script and characters. The women in this movie are idiots. They're always being retarded. The wife is being way too nonchalant about her daughter going to Europe to follow a band around with a few cousins and her horny blonde friend. Yeah, nothing can go wrong. I guess you're not supposed to like the characters, but damn, I was happy in ways when I saw the blonde chick dead that one should talk to their therapist about. The blonde chick was way too stupid to be living anyway. Yes, have sex with the French stranger that you just met at the taxi.
Benzaie probably liked this movie.
The plot is definitely shattered beyond repair. I didn't know half of the supporting characters from the movie or care to pay attention to who they were. Even after I watched it a second time, things still didn't clear up for me. I never did figure out who that one dude who Liam used to work with was or how he got evil.
Meh.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Watchmen Game
So I got the Watchmen: The End is Nigh the other day and I've been playing it a bit.
The game is based on the comic and movie Watchmen. For the record, I liked the movie. I haven't read all of the comic, but from what I've read they seemed to have stayed fairly loyal to the comic. I can't say for sure, but I did enjoy the movie. I was never really a comic reading kind of person, but I like looking at the details of a lot of comic superhero's lives. The movie was good, and looks as though they didn't leave out anything totally integral to getting the feel of the comic. Ahh, but you're reading this for the game review, not the movie review.
The Watchmen game details the events leading up to the movie and comic with our heroes Rorschach and Niteowl. The game is better than some of the movie tie-in games I've played. That's not saying much though, believe me, it's really boring. It's your basic beat 'em up game with a storyline. The game's foundation parts are mostly fine though. The controls are fine, the camera is a bit awkward at times, the combos are neat, but the Prince of Persia fighting system flaw is found in the game. They try to implement special little combo cutaway things. You know like when you do a successful attack thing in Assassin's Creed and it does that camera change and shows blood going everywhere, every time? Yeah, that's basically it. The game is okay to say the least. If you have some money to blow on a game that you'll play for like an hour and a half to 2 hours, go for it. I just got bored after playing with it for 30 minutes.
Star Trek Movie Review and a Nostalgic look on my past experiences with Star Trek
I watched the new Star Trek movie yesterday, and being a fan (not an insane fan though) I was compelled to do a review. Now if you're reading this and haven't seen the movie, don't. You'll go in with a tainted mindset and you'll ruin your experience of the movie. Draw your own conclusions and then read this review. If you really want to, you can read the first part. There aren't any spoilers.
I remember the first time I saw Star Trek. It was a episode of Voyager, and oddly enough, the last episode. With it being the last episode and all, I didn't know what was going on, but it had cool effects and things getting blown up, so I thought it couldn't be that bad. From then on, I sporadically watched Voyager, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Enterprise, only really liking Voyager and TNG. Deep Space 9 was too boring for me, and Enterprise had that bullshit intro that scared me into hiding under my bed at night. It wasn't until a few years ago that I noticed what channel the Original Series was being shown on. I watched most of TOS, but only enjoyed a few episodes. It had the quality of a B-Movie and it was a bit dated for my tastes. The episodes I liked are the stereotypical episodes you'd think a fan would like, such as the episodes with the Tribbles, the City on the Edge of Forever, that one where Kirk fights Spock, and Space Seed. I thought those had good plots and were executed pretty nicely.
My god, we're going to need a lot more flat Ginger Ale to tackle this many sore throats!
After the TV shows, where else can you go instead of watching the movies?
The Star Trek movies I watched were all around good, with Insurrection probably being the worst. I never saw any of the movies before Generations, maybe snippets of Wrath of Khan, but generally none of the movies with the original cast. I suppose I was spared that saddening death scene of Spock, and the horrors of the Final Frontier, but I should buy those movies and check them out some time.
Ahh, but who cares about all of that. Lets get on to the review. Spoilers are probably ahead by the way.
So I thought it was pretty good. I agree with most of the reviews I've looked at so far, seeing how people could love or hate it. I liked it. I don't think it was the best Star Trek, but it was really good. The casting was great and the acting was too.
Spock Reincarnate omgomgogmomgomgomg!!1!
While the movie was good in my eyes, I noticed a bunch of people who felt betrayed by J.J. for some reason. Some of them said that they destroyed the character of Kirk, and the other people, and I try to explain that the Kirk from the movie is the Kirk in the alternate reality who grew up without his dad, so it's not the representation of Kirk from the Original Series timeline. I then can't look at them anymore because their skin is so bright, I've temporarily gone blind. Die hard fans of the Star Trek series never like any new Star Trek movies anyway. Maybe because the new movies always try to appeal to a wider audience, and attempt to trap more people in the web of virginity that is Star Trek.
Though the movie was good, there were some strange things that I don't think can be overlooked.
Firstly, what was up with that mining ship. Were people too lazy to build at least a ladder? There is nothing bridging the gap between the two platforms. Who would build a ship like that?! I know the Romulans are crazy, but come on.
What about Uhura? Wasn't she a slut? Just for the record, I'm not insulting the actor that portrayed Uhura, just the character's backstory. There were like 2 scenes that I remember where Uhura professed her love for Spock, and acted retarded. Also, I know Spock was young and angsty, but when he went into those fits of rage, I wanted to go slap the screenwriters. Also, was I the only one who thought Spock was about to split that Vulcan bully's skull open? Everyone looked like they were about to get their throats cut if they so happened to cross him.
I thought the Plot was a bit bland, though I do love time traveling concepts. The "Red Matter" was unexplained and convienent. It seemed like a "don't ask don't tell" relationship. Who was that Green Chick that Kirk was doing? Why was Kirk promoted so fast? Why show that truth telling bug thing if we never saw it in action? Why do you leave us with so many questions?
Works in mysterious ways.
Though it did have flaws, Star Trek did shine at times. Karl Urban was awesome as McCoy, Simon Pegg was funny as usual, and the comic relief was pretty good too. I found it especially hilarious when they were diving to the drill, and that red shirt didn't pull his chute. I was wondering who he was, and when he died I remember that he had a red suit. I found it pretty funny that they put that in there. I did find it disappointing that they couldn't find a place to have some cameos of the surviving cast though.
Still, Star Trek was a good movie, and I'd check it out if I were you.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Crank: High Voltage
So yesterday I saw two mediocre movies with my Dad before he had to head off to Korea today for like 7 months, and we had a pretty fun time. Since there was nothing else out to watch, we went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Crank: High Voltage. So lets start off this review with Crank: High Voltage.
I'll try to not spoil anything that's not blatantly obvious.
The first thing I don't understand about this movie is how he survived the fall from the first movie. They even ask how he survived in the movie and the girlfriend was just like, he's Chev Chelios! Fucking nice explanation you idiot. So he gets picked up and his heart is replaced by a temporary one that needs electric stimulation to keep pumping blood. Another retarded thing about this movie is he's awake when they take out his heart. I mean, Christ, can he defy the laws of reality anymore?! He even has the mask over his mouth and face. That's pretty retarded. So he beats people up and he goes to get his heart back. Shit hits the fan and his battery pack is destroyed and he needs electric stimulation from other sources, like cars, power boxes, friction, stuff like that. So he beats people up and copies a lot of the things from the first Crank. I won't give away what he copies but all of the parts that were new and interesting in the first one have their special value destroyed in this one. It wasn't as good as the first one, but if you have nothing else to do then you can go watch it. All in all, I like it. It is a funny movie that doesn't take itself seriously. There aren't too many movies that can be called Action-Comedy, but it can take the medal for it. I just think that it changed too suddenly from a serious action movie to a comedy.
I'll try to not spoil anything that's not blatantly obvious.
The first thing I don't understand about this movie is how he survived the fall from the first movie. They even ask how he survived in the movie and the girlfriend was just like, he's Chev Chelios! Fucking nice explanation you idiot. So he gets picked up and his heart is replaced by a temporary one that needs electric stimulation to keep pumping blood. Another retarded thing about this movie is he's awake when they take out his heart. I mean, Christ, can he defy the laws of reality anymore?! He even has the mask over his mouth and face. That's pretty retarded. So he beats people up and he goes to get his heart back. Shit hits the fan and his battery pack is destroyed and he needs electric stimulation from other sources, like cars, power boxes, friction, stuff like that. So he beats people up and copies a lot of the things from the first Crank. I won't give away what he copies but all of the parts that were new and interesting in the first one have their special value destroyed in this one. It wasn't as good as the first one, but if you have nothing else to do then you can go watch it. All in all, I like it. It is a funny movie that doesn't take itself seriously. There aren't too many movies that can be called Action-Comedy, but it can take the medal for it. I just think that it changed too suddenly from a serious action movie to a comedy.
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