So my video card is broken. Overheats when I play anything even slightly visually intensive after about 15 minutes, scales that all the way up to like an hour when I play something not visually intensive. Interestingly, I can get two hours or so if I'm playing a game released 11 years ago. Which brings me to Deus Ex! Called by some the greatest game of all time, Deus Ex is a distopian future action game centering around conspiracy theories. This is also a game where the developers forgot to paint the WTC into the skybox of New York, (in the year 2000, mind) and then handwaved it away by saying terrorists blew it up. That's not a joke, that actually happened. So basically what I'm getting at is that the developers of this game are psychic, and we should pay attention to this since it's actually our future.
I picked Deus Ex up during the steam sale this summer for $2.50 figuring I'd get to it eventually, since I had heard very good things about it. I've been busy, what with school starting, so over the past month I've put in an hour here and there into Deus Ex, since my video card can't play anything made within the last five years without crashing. So around a month ago I downloaded it, I installed it, I loaded it up, I hit new game, and then I closed the game and downloaded a texture pack.
Deus Ex puts you in the shoes of [Insert name here], but that doesn't matter, because the game will call you J.C. Denton no matter what you put in as your name. It's kind of amusing if you, like I did, put in "J.C. Denton" as your real name, assuming it would come up at some point, only to have such golden messages pop up as "Wow, it's going to take a lot of getting used to calling you by your code name J.C..." J.C. Denton, as the game will inform you is your name now, is a spy working for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, or UNATCO, in the far flung future of 2052. A plague is sweeping the U.S., Paris is under martial law, Hong Kong seems to be run by various gangs and shut down completely, and your first day on the job, you've got to go save innocent people from terrorists inside the (now decapitated) statue of liberty.
The story is probably where this game shines the best today. The world it creates is filled with detail. The story is gripping, feels as high quality as a good spy film, and is filled with twists and turns that are unexpected. Even in today's day and age where game stories have come quite far, it still holds up to the story of a lot of modern games, with only a few personal favorites surpassing it, in my opinion.
Another plus for the game, is that it's the oldest game I know of that is fully voice acted, which is a plus. Pretty high quality audio too. As for the voice acting itself, it ranges from passable, to... Well it was 2000. It's forgivable. The only voice actor I found to be exceptional was the voice actor of the character Bob Page, who I honestly thought was voiced by John De Lancie until going to look it up just now. Seriously. He sounds like Q.
Another place the story shines is in the conversation system, which feels like a precursor to games like KOTOR, or Mass Effect. Plus, the big choice at the end of the game, which leads to which ending you get, is actually one of the best choices I've seen in a game. Without getting too spoilery, you're given three options, each of with has serious downsides.
In fact, Deus Ex feels like the precursor to a lot of modern games. Deus Ex stealth system feels like it probably helped inspire games like Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham Asylum, in that the stealth actually involves watching guard patterns and walking quietly behind people, instead of leveling up a skill, ala Fallout 3.
If stealth isn't your thing though, there's always another option. You can either go head on and take people down, or go via stealth, or take a long way around where you might not run into many people. There's usually three or four given answers to every scenario, making most builds viable within the game for every situation.
Speaking of builds, I like the game's skill system. As you complete goals, you gain points, which can be spent to upgrade various skills. These range from things like weapon classes, to lockpicking, to computer skill, to swimming. How you build your character will greatly effect how you play this game.
Since Denton is a prototype for a new type of machine augmentation in Deus Ex, there are various upgrades which you can gather throughout the game, granting you special abilities, all tied to a power meter. While some of these are very useful, at times I wished there were alternative passive augmentations, since the active augmentations weren't all that appealing. Again though, this was made in 2000, so a lot of forgiveness can be granted.
It's also a pretty good length game. I clocked in on my playthrough at 23 hours, which is still considered a fairly decent length for an RPG today.
Unfortunately, at times, the gameplay in Deus Ex does show it's age to a point where it becomes difficult to forgive it. For one thing, balance is pretty awful. The tranquilizer dart, for example is supposed to let you do a stealth, non-lethal takedowns. While it does this, it also only does it after several moments of the guard running in circles like a madman alerting all nearby guards that something is wrong with him, and that you are nearby. But the most ridiculous thing is the dragon sword. About halfway through the game you get a weapon called the Dragon Sword (read: lightsaber) which is so ridiculously overpowered that you may as well simply throw all your other weapons away, because this thing kills people in one to two hits. Except robots. You need grenades to take those down.
By far though, the worst THING in this game, is INVENTORY TETRIS. For those not in the know, inventory tetris is a terrible, TERRIBLE inventory managment system, where you have a certain number of slots, and different items take up a larger number of slots, in a specific arrangement, which makes you spend time that SHOULD BE SPENT shooting terrorists/shadowy government agents, arranging your inventory. It's not fun. It's not a good system. It was a bad system then, it's a bad system now. If you think that there is any reason inventory tetris should exist, you are wrong. If you want to make me only carry so many weapons, fine make me equip or drop weapons. If you want me to only carry so much, fine, give me slots ala WoW, or weight ala the Elder Scrolls. ...I'm getting ahead of myself though, I still plan on playing the new Deus Ex game, and from what I hear THAT has inventory tetris, which is, as far as I'm concerned, a SIN in 2011. But I'll get to that, at some point.
So, bottom line, is Deus Ex still a fun game 11 years later? Absolutely. I had fun with it, and I'm glad I played through it, even though it's not required playing for Human Revolution, since that's a prequel. Deus Ex might show it's age here and there, but it's still a very good game, and considering that you can get it for $10 on Steam, and it won't take any fiddling with to get working, I would give it a recommendation in a heartbeat. Buy this game if: You want to check out where a lot of the systems used in modern RPGs got their start, or you just want to play through a darn good distopian espionage story.
Don't buy this game if: A game that does show it's age somewhat too often is enough to turn you off. Also: INVENTORY TETRIS UGH.
The Beaver is a psychological thriller/horror film directed by Jodie Foster. I don't care if the trailer looks like a quirky drama, this crap is messed up. I don't CARE if Jodie Foster calls it a comedy-drama, this crap is MESSED UP. But is it any good? And just what makes me feel that this film can be seen along the lines of something out of a Stephen King novel?
Let me back up a bit, back to when I was seeing Source Code with a friend. One of the trailers in front of it was for the above film, ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnd I laughed hysterically for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't believe they were seriously making a drama about THAT premise. And the dialogue was so silly! "I'M THE BEAVER AND I'M HERE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE." Really movie? Really? It looked like Oscar Bait, plain and simple, along the lines of such terrible, terrible films as Seven Pounds. Still, I was informed by people who actually knew what they were talking about that the movie was supposed to be quite good according to test audiences, so although I was skeptical, I kept an interest in the film, and kept tabs on it.
After release, the film grossed under a million dollars, produced on a budget of $21 million, and had a very brief run in theaters, although it was critically acclaimed. Even though the film had star power, since it stars Mel Gibson as the main character, Walter Black (we'll get there in a moment) and Jodie Foster as his wife (who also directed the film) not even the star power was enough to draw in an audience. Jodie Foster stated that she thought it was because the film was a "comedy-drama" and that audiences didn't know what to feel. Well let me solve that problem for you: You should feel utter horror.
You see, as I said above, the trailers, and likely the filmmakers, would have you believe that The Beaver is intended to be the story of a depressed man. While that's true, the trailer is misleading, because this film is NOT merely a drama. I'm fairly certain that this film was directed, written, and acted as a dark, disturbing horror film about a man's slow descent into utter madness, and then got a quirky indie/alternative soundtrack and was recut at the last second. It's the only explanation I can manage.
I say that, but even that doesn't sit right. The film doesn't even feel like it's been recut. This film is terrifying! It starts off oddly, as Walter, suffering from chronic depression, begins to use, as I'm sure you know by now, a puppet of a Beaver to cope. At first this is funny, but that fades quickly, and before too long I started worrying that the film would end with Walter wearing a suit of human skin.
You probably think I'm exaggerating, but I swear, this movie is dark. And not only in the way I thought it would be, with Walter struggling with depression, but some of the scenes with the Beaver in it are downright eerie.
But the film isn't all bad. Even the things I've said above aren't "bad" per say, just bizarre. And I actually did like the movie. The acting is good all around, and the dialogue largely feels realistic and sincere.
Actually what were probably my favorite parts of the movie, oddly enough, were the scenes having to do with the sub plot about Walter's son Porter. The sub plot, a romance between Porter and a girl at his school, was pretty typical teenage romantic plot fair, but something about it felt very sincere, and I thought the two characters had good chemistry. It feels so vastly different from the rest of the movie though, it almost seems like two films got squished together.
So should you see this movie? ...Yeah! Go for it! This film is good! It's... Bizarrely dark, more than a little disturbing, and kind of make you confused to watch because you don't know whether to laugh or cry (as I said, I settled in the middle in UTTER HORROR), but it's still a film worth seeing, that I would definitely give a recommendation.
And on that note I'm going to go NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.
Hello. So, readers of my blog (yes, both of you) will probably know that I do a lot of reviews on here. You can find them all here. I thought, since it's one of the main things I do on here, I might as well spend a little time talking about my review philosophy, and a certain fallacy I think a lot of reviews, professional or otherwise, fall into.
The fallacy is, in short, the thought that the only point behind a review is to inform the reader of your own opinion of the film/book/whatever, something which I feel is only partly true.
I can hear the disagreements already.
Let me explain my point a little bit; While it's inarguable that reviews are subjective and opinion based, and in fact all personal taste is subjective, and there's no "right or wrong" taste (unless you like Twilight, obviously) informing the audience of your personal opinion should only be half of the point of the review. You see, there are two main reasons why anyone would read a review. People who have seen the film you're reviewing (or played the game, or read the book, and so on) want to see if they agree with your opinion of it, or hear alternative viewpoints and criticisms or compliments toward the work being reviewed. The second, and more obvious point, is simply to decide whether it is worth the money to buy the film/book/game/etc. And the review should, as such, attempt to inform both of these audiences equally.
Let's pretend for a moment that you want to write a review of a movie you just saw. Now, this hypothetical movie is the latest summer action blockbuster, and it's been being hyped for months. The trailers look interesting, and you decide to go buy a ticket to see it opening day. You sit down for two hours, and think it's the greatest film you've ever seen. You decide that you're going to go home and write a review of it on your blog, and post it for all your friends. (This is beginning to become uncomfortably familiar to me.) You sit down and write your post. In the review, you write about how it's the greatest film you've ever seen, and how it's changed your perceptions of how good a movie can be. You insist that everyone reading the review go see it immediately. However, you neglect to mention in your review that, while the action and effects were, in fact, the best ever seen in a movie, the acting and writing were awful. After all, though you know this is true and wouldn't argue otherwise, you didn't care about the plot and felt the action held up the film on it's own, thus making the plot, characters, and lame sex jokes in every scene (it's a Michael Bay film) irrelevant to your review.
Now suppose one of your friends, who for the sake of the argument doesn't like action films and instead only likes movies with intelligently written characters, reads your review and decides to see the movie you loved so much. He walks out of the theater instead feeling outraged at how terrible he thought the film was.
Now obviously, he wasn't the right audience for the film. Unfortunately, because of your review simply using broad language and not explaining what was good and bad about the film, he's going to feel cheated and not trust your reviews again. Maybe he'll even feel lied to. Obviously this isn't the best way to go around writing a review.
Now of course, if you loved the film for the action, that's your prerogative, and you have every right to tell people that on your blog. But a better way to about it would probably be to tell the audience, instead of simply that the movie was the greatest you've ever seen in your life, that the acting and writing weren't that great, but that you felt the unparalleled special effects and action scenes more than held up the film on it's own. Not only will you sound more intelligent in the end, but you'll end up pleasing your readers more, and will let people know whether they'll like the film, not just whether you did.
And this can go for any kind of review, of course. For example, Angry Joe, a reviewer of both video games and movies whom I have a lot of respect for, gave Mortal Kombat* a 9/10, but after watching his review, I know it's not a game I'd never be any interested in. It's a fighting game, a genre I'm not too interested in because I simply don't like it that much outside of Smash Bros.
That's what I try to do in my reviews, and that's my review philosophy. I try not only to tell my opinion of a game or movie, but inform my reader of why they may or may not like something. A game I really liked, and I still play quite a lot a whole year later, Beat Hazard, is currently sitting at a score of merely 70 on Metacritic, so obviously most reviewers weren't as in love with the game as I was. (Sidenote: The problem with the menus being laggy I mention in that review was patched almost a year ago, and Beat Hazard is still a phenomenal game in my opinion, though like I said, the flashing lights can be headache inducing.)
Now I may not always succeed in trying to bring through why you may like or dislike a game, and going back to some of my older reviews it's downright embarrassing, but I'm always trying, and back when I did some of those older reviews like Beat Hazard, I was still trying to find my identity as a blogger. Heck, I still am trying to find my identity as a blogger.
In fact, something most people will probably notice is that in my reviews I don't use a "rating score" at all, and even more importantly, in my video game reviews I end each one with a "Buy this game if:" and "Don't buy this game if:" quote. That's because, simply put, I don't believe in arbitrary review scores. Here, let me elaborate a bit. I just pulled three random issues of Game Informer out of my stack of 10 years worth of them. Let me pick three reviews real quick.
There you go. Those 3 games, according to the review score, are exactly equal. Wii Fit, Mirror's Edge, and Nail'd are all games worth exactly an 8/10 score according to Game Informer. (I know a lot of people have problems with Game Informer. Shut up. I'm making a point.)
My problem with review scores, in case I haven't made it apparent yet, is that it's impossible to tell anything about a game from a number alone. I mean really, what do we know about these games from a review score alone. We know, apparently, that they're all games worth an 8/10. That's it.
Now, looking more carefully at each game, what we actually know about them is that one is a first person platformer, one is a glorified yoga mat, and one is a racer of some kind, I don't know, I'd never heard of Nail'd before, and it's not really relevant. The point is that these are very different games, and putting the number "8" on each of them is virtually useless. What does "8" mean? The magazine describes it as
"Very good. Innovative, but perhaps not the right choice for everyone. This score indicates that there are many good things to be had, but arguably so."
In other words, an 8 means "READ THE REVIEW!"
I just don't see the point in applying arbitrary numbers to a review. The scores are just a more professional way to give people a TL;DR ("Too Long; Didn't Read") without actually saying anything. They're essentially the exact opposite of what I was just saying about explaining the merits and problems with the film/book/game.
Now I get most review scores are meant to accompany the review itself. Most reviewers would claim that a review score isn't meant to replace the review itself, and instead should be read in context with the rest of the review. You know my answer? Well if you're supposed to have read the review, shouldn't you know how good or bad you thought the movie/game was anyways, without the review score? Either 1, you're being lazy and don't want to write too much or too passionately about what you really thought, or 2, your review score is completely and utterly redundant. Neither are a good answer to why the review score should be around. That's why I don't use them, and that's why I don't like them. I know I've given Ebert a hard time on this blog before, but I did like the "Thumbs up, thumbs down" review mechanic, and I still have respect for him as a critic when he's in his element.
The only thing I will say is that it is nice to be able to tell at a glance whether a review on Metacritic is positive or negative, so that when I'm judging whether or not to buy a game I can go to Metacritic and pick both positive and negative reviews to get a fair assessment of what the good parts or bad parts of a game are. The problem with that, however, is that most people don't USE Metacritic for that, and instead only take one look at the metascore, and either buy or dismiss the game based on that alone, which ties back in to what I said before. Reviews should be about helping people decide whether or not to buy the game. I'm sure many people have been angry that they got a game they really didn't like because it had a high metascore, simply because it was a critical darling, and I'm sure many people have missed real gems that they would have loved (like Beat Hazard) because they have a lowly score of 70.
Another point that frustrates me with game reviews specifically is the inflation in game review scores. I'm not going to go too in depth with that point because the Extra Credits guys already tackled that topic, and they put it more eloquently than I ever could, not to mention the fact that I'd just parrot what they say, but the short version is this:
As it is now, there's a huge inflation with game review scores, to the point where an 8/10 score among game reviewers is typically an average to mediocre game, instead of a 5/10 which would make sense. As such games at 80/100 on Metacritic are to be taken with a grain of salt (Oh, and keep this in mind and read that Game Informer review quote again. They're one of the biggest offenders of this.) and anything below that is generally a pretty poor game, equivalent to only a 2/5 movie score or below. There's even a Trope about how stupid it is that 8.8 is considered a lukewarm review. The end result, obviously, is that instead of having the range from 5-10 to review games that are above average, you only get from 8-10. The result is a lot of scores of, well, 8.8 or such. It's stupid. (Note: If you want a review absolutely not guilty of this, who actually uses review scores better than anyone else I've ever seen, Angry Joe is awesome with this.)
The end result is that, when I go to look for reviews I know of a few critics whom I generally find informative, like Giant Bomb, Angry Joe, or, if he's done a review of it, Totalbiscuit, and listen to their comments, ignoring the metascore entirely. (Unless, like I said before, I was looking for various opinions on a game.)
So yeah. That's basically a really long blog post about my review philosophy. I hope it's been informative and has helped people understand my reviews better.
*Note: Obviously I'm not responsible for any content such as language or blood seen in the review I linked to. It's for an M rated game, the review will have blood in it, and the reviewer doesn't have as tame a mouth as I do.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the classic Planet of the Apes film series. Unlike the last film, this one is not a direct remake of Planet of the Apes and, more importantly, didn't cast an untalented idiot as the main character... Seriously, who though Marky Mark was a suitable replacement for Charlton Heston? Really?
...But I digress. What's important is that Humans are Idiots-- Sorry, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is meant, if successful, to launch a new film series, hopefully reviving the franchise, and again, most importantly, keeping Mark Hackberg as far away as possible from it.
Since it's virtually impossible to say anything about this film without spoiling the classic 1968 film (which if you haven't seen yet YOU SHOULD) please refer to the following videos to get caught up on the original film.
So as you can see... Sorry what? Oh, ok. Folks, I've been told one of those isn't actually a clip from Planet of the Apes, I apologize for confusion. Anyways, in a nutshell, the titular planet of the apes, is in fact Earth.
Basically, Humans blew up the Earth, Apes became intelligent and took over. It's a great film. Go see it.
But have you ever found yourself wondering, "Hmm, I wonder what happened? I wonder exactly how the apes overthrew humanity?" No? Me either. That's why I went into this film highly skeptical. I liked the ambiguity of the original Apes movies. It let you use a bit of imagination to figure out what happened. But Hollywood decided we needed answers, and that they would be given to us in the form of James Franco trying to cure Alzheimer's.
So was I right? Is Rise a failure, or a victory? Does the franchise deserve to be relaunched, or should we hold on tightly to our 1968 Heston films, or can we finally say the Apes franchise is ready? It's been ten whole years since the Marky Mark disaster, after all. (Actually, I didn't mind that movie except for Marky Mark. Oh and also the ending. And the... Rest... Of the movie-- Ok yeah it was terrible.)
Well, I was actually pleasantly surprised by Rise. The film begins with James Franco (Harry from the Spider-Man films) playing a scientist attempting to cure Alzheimer's with a modified virus called ALZ-112. He gives several different variants to Chimps before finding one that works (ALZ-112) that repairs brain cells using the power of SCIENCE. Basically, it's a smart virus. (I can only assume it was also being developed to counter the STUPID VIRUS that spread to all of humanity prior to the film, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)
In short, the day Franco is showing it to the people who will get the drug to the public, the chimp with the ALZ-112, Bright Eyes, goes ballistic and rampages through the building before being shot. All the chimps have to be put down, and Franco's life long work is, in short, over and done with.
...OR IS IT?!
Well obviously not, or it'd be a pretty short film. No! It turns out that Bright Eyes went ballistic because it was protecting it's newborn baby Chimp, Gollum. I mean Caesar.
And thus begins the ~2 hour film. Yeah, that was all the opening.
Actually, while we're on that subject, let me just say the pacing of this movie is really good. It has that perfect balance of both keeping the story active, and yet never going too fast as to make it seem rushed. It gives each of the characters enough time to be developed as characters. Even Caesar seems really developed by the end of the film, and you understand his motivations.
I was also very pleasantly surprised by James Franco's acting. I mean, not to diss the Spider-Man films, or him in those films, but uh... His acting was a bit...
Hammy? And let's not forget his unbelievable Oscar performance this year, where he basically stood next to Anne Hathaway being Anne Hathaway and was, erm... Boring.
Luckily, none of that came through in this. He seemed likeable, and realistic. Stupid, but realistic.
So yeah, good cast, and good acting all around. I really enjoyed the acting, and all of the characters are really likeable, except the villain, but that's intentional.
Speaking of transitions, CGI! The CGI in this film is great! Absolutely great! Perhaps not uncanny valley escaping, but really good! The amount of emotion the apes all get across is unbelievable. In fact, by far the best scenes of the movie involve all ape characters, partly because of just how incredibly good the CGI is, and partly because the writing for those scenes is really good.
In fact, the writing for this is the best kind of prequel writing (except for the stupidity of the humans), because this is the same kind of prequel that KOTOR is, for example. In fact, the film works the fact that it's set so long before the first film into the plot really well. Since it's so undefined what happened during this film, it actually keep you guessing how it'll end. (Hint: There are some apes involved.) In fact it even works some absolutely brilliant references to the Charlton Heston films (which Wikipedia says this is not, actually, in the same canon as, and that at some point if this film does well enough, we'll see a remake of the '68 film) both obvious that almost everyone will get, and a few that are hidden in the background. In fact I almost want to see the film again just to catch all the shout-outs, and when you can say you want to see a movie again so soon after watching it, I'd say the film is a success.
In fact, I can even see, very easily, there being another Rise film between this film and the remake of the '68 film. In fact, the way this film ends almost requires it, since let's just say it leaves a few... BIG... Things... Unexplained. I'd almost be angry if I didn't think they were planning to do Rise 2 before the full remake.
So was the film unnecessary? Well, surprisingly, I'm going to say no. What I didn't realize, actually until writing this review, was that this is not in the same canon as the Heston films, and they ARE planning on getting to remaking the Heston film. So you know what? I actually like that they went a different route. It's a lot more creative than the typical route of rebooting a franchise with a remake. In fact, this movie has the most in common with Batman Begins, in that it's telling the origin story before getting to the real story. And you know what? It works. It really works. This was a good movie, maybe even a great movie. It was the origin story we didn't know we wanted. And I'd give it a recommendation in a heartbeat.
In fact, I really only have one issue with the film. You may notice that I've been subtly alluding to a certain lack of intelligence on the part of the human characters.
Basically, every. Single. Human. Character. In the film. Is. A. Moron. All of them. James Franco? Yep. McKay? Yeah, him too. Malfoy? Oh heck yeah. James Franco's girlfriend? Yep. The entire U.S. Military? Well, they didn't show up for the titular rising, so yeah, I'll count them too. It would seem every human being forgot either A. That they had guns, or B. How to use guns. And it shows. And it's painful.
The human aspects of this film is just watching one moronic mistake after another, that in the end forcefully pushes the movie toward a climax. Now I know that sounds harsh, but understand, I really did like the film. A lot. And you should definitely see it if you're looking to see a movie any time soon. It's a good one to see in theaters. But the human characters are IDIOTS. All of them. I saw this with a group of friends, and right as the credits roll I turn to them and say "You know what I don't get?" And one of them responds "Why Humans suddenly turned into idiots?"
It hurts me to say this without giving examples, but unfortunately most the examples are very spoilery, other than the gun thing. And honestly, that's not even the half of it.
Still, as I said, I liked the movie a lot, and the stupidity of the human race isn't enough to ruin it, not by a long shot. They won over me, one of the biggest skeptics of the film, and I can now safely say that I'm looking forward to any future sequels to Rise.
Oh, and one more thing. I don't know if this movie was meant to be in 3D and those plans fell through, or if it's only getting a limited 3D run, but there are a few shots that seemed like they were going for a 3D effect that... Wasn't there, in my theater at least. Bizzare.
So it's over. Harry Potter 8, aka Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Now, something that I may or may not have mentioned on here before is that I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter books. I love them. My dad read the first 4 to me when I was too young to read a huge novel, and I devoured the rest within days of them being released. They are, undoubtedly, my absolute favorite books in the whole wide world. I wouldn't say they're the best books ever written, but as far as sheer enjoyment I got out of them, the books are my favorites. Ever. They, in a nutshell, were my childhood. They changed who I am. I wouldn't have half my love of literature if it weren't for those books.
The movies however, I'm not quite as attached to. Mind you, I still like the movies a whole heck of a lot, but they weren't a defining part of my childhood like the books were. So, since we're now on the shockingly high number of 8 total films, let me give you a brief run down of how I liked the last 7.
Sorcerer's Stone - Loved it Chamber of Secrets - Loved it Prisoner of Azkaban - Liked it, but not quite as much as the first two. Goblet of Fire - Still good, but probably the weakest of the films. Order of the Pheonix - Fairly good. Half-Blood Prince - Loved it. Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 - Absolutely loved it. Virtually the perfect adaptation.
So, now with the final film coming (at least until Rowling decides she needs a bigger money pit) there would be large shoes to fill. Book seven was my favorite book in the series because it took place outside of Hogwarts and showed us the rest of the wizarding world, plus it still ended in a satisfactory way for everyone.
I went to a midnight release of Harry Potter 8, since there was no way I was letting my favorite books in the whole wide world's movie series end any other way. So how did the film series end? A high note? A low point? Somewhere in the middle?
That. Was. Awesome.
Seriously, what a perfect way to end the films. A near-perfect adaptation of the books. It was great! I'm not surprised, since the last film was absolutely great, but this one was a great adaptation of the series.
The film stayed true to the books, though it did stray slightly at a few moments. The only slight variations I noticed (keep in mind I haven't read the 7th book since it came out, so I'm slightly sketchy on some details) were that they neglected to clarify why exactly Voldemort chose some of the Horcruxs he did. However, that's understandable as they only had two hours to fill.
The movie is mostly action, as it's based nearly exclusively on the final battle from the last book. It never feels too actiony though, and knows just when to give the audience a chance to breathe, without giving them enough time to quite fully catch their breath. I'm reminded of The Dark Knight, another film which is paced similarly, being almost entirely action, but still having a great plot. The action is great! The effects are great! Virtually every scene is a sheer joy to watch!
All of the actors brought their A-Game. The actor who plays Neville Longbottom, Matthew Lewis, has proven to me that Rowling could easily write a whole book that was book seven as written from Neville's perspective. He was a lot of fun to watch, and reminds the audience that really, Neville is just as much one of the heroes of those books as anyone else, and a true Gryffindor at heart. Luna, Hermione, McGonagol, they were all great. Daniel Radcliffe was good as ever as Harry Potter, and Ralph Fiennes was really rather frightening as Voldemort. Another real gem, perhaps even the best performance in the film (certainly the one that got the closest to bringing me to tears) was Alan Rickman as Snape. Those who have read the books will know that Snape has a very interesting moment in this film, and Rickman portrayed it perfectly.
It's probably the darkest of the films, which is fitting considering it's based on the darkest book in the series.
It was the best kind of adaptation, the kind that makes it feel like the movie is coming to life in front of your eyes. Mind you, the books are still, and will always be, better than the movies, but this is probably the best film in the entire series.
Bottom line, if you're a Potter fan you've probably already seen this movie. If you aren't a Potter fan, you can probably still get a lot of enjoyment from seeing the nonstop action this film brings.
So this isn't going to be a proper review because I'll be honest: I haven't beaten Bioshock 2. I got what I think is about halfway through the game, and I just stopped playing. In fact, I only recently finished playing the original Bioshock.
Now, the original Bioshock is a great game. It had some issues, but is remembered for a fantastic, absolutely phenomenal ending that was really a deconstruction of the nature of games themselves, and then continuing for about three more hours of crap, because having an unhappy ending would be bad. Alternatively, if you're the kind of twitch-reflex Call of Duty fanboy who doesn't care about a fascinating deconstruction of the very nature of games themselves, it had Big Daddies.
The game took place on one of the best settings ever in video gaming, the city of Rapture, an underwater utopia turned underwater distopia. It contained a lot of interesting aspects, and entire discussions could be had about the first game alone, and have been. Is it a cautionary tale of the need for morals? Is it a warning that man should not play God? Is it just a haunting tale of an underwater city? Would the city have been doomed without the discovery of Adam, or was Adam itself what led to the downfall? Interesting conversations could be had about any of these.
In addition, the game had good, albeit perhaps not great, gameplay. Except the hacking, that sucked. But the introduction of Plasmids, which could essentially rewrite the human body to do anything led to some interesting mechanics. My favorite, although not the most useful, was the one that let you shoot bees at people.
So why would a sequel to this beloved game be bad? Well there's a few reasons. First of all, Rapture as a set piece was more effective as you explored and learned about the history of the city. It was a brilliant example of how games can be art, and how games can offer a different storytelling experience than a film can. Once you already know the history of the city, it loses a lot of effect. While the city is still beautiful and haunting, you've already experienced it, and it becomes a more familiar place. One of the greatest things about discovering Rapture is just how alien it is, just like the oceans below us can, at times, seem alien.
In addition to this, the story of Bioshock was rapped up beautifully in Bioshock. And then the game decided to keep going for about three hours- Ok, sorry, that's not what this is about and if I talk about why the game should have ended at the big "Would you kindly" scene, this post will be about something different. The point is, Bioshock had a great story. That story was told in Bioshock.
So a sequel to Bioshock was always going to be tricky, they ran the risk of shoving another tale into a setting that had already been explored. And in truth, that's exactly what they did. While the story in Bioshock 2 isn't bad, per say, nothing carries the same emotional, or philosophical weight. For one thing, this one paints the church in a negative light. Now, I could tolerate that, except it kind of goes against everything the first one was about. Now, I don't claim Bioshock had some sort of religious message, that would be foolish, but one possible interpretation, in fact something that's essentially said within the game, is that a society where every man fends only for himself and not for some form of greater good, is doomed to fail. Say what you will about religion, it's all about serving a higher power and doing the correct moral thing.
In addition to this, the characters introduced in Bioshock 2 (or what I've played of it) all seemed forced into the setting. Rapture had fallen, and almost everyone was dead by the beginning of Bioshock, and the survivors had turned the city into a warzone. With Bioshock 2 taking place ten years later, I find it hard to believe that the splicers would have survived another ten years fighting and killing each other constantly in a city that was falling apart. Plus, all the new characters seemed forgettable. I remember the characters from Bioshock one, even the minor ones. The deranged surgeon who likened himself to Picasso. The artist who had you hunt down and kill certain individuals on Rapture to use pictures of their corpses in his sickening art gallery. These characters are haunting, and sickening, and stay with you long after. I don't think any of the characters in Bioshock 2 had any of the same weight.
Now, the game isn't all bad. In fact, in pretty much every gameplay aspect, it's an improvement. The guns are all bigger and better and actually pretty fun to use, and the ability to have both a plasmid and a gun out at the same time is huge. But in a way, the guns are very telling of one of the games faults. Bigger and better syndrome. It just had to be bigger and better. Instead of a submachine gun, you get a machine gun. Instead of a pistol, you get a rivet gun. Instead of a wrench, you get a giant drill.
But none of these things are Bioshock 2's main problem. Bioshock 2's main problem is the protagonist, Alpha.
One of the most memorable aspects of Bioshock was the Big Daddies. The Big Daddies were giant monsters who usually wouldn't attack unless provoked, who guided the Little Sisters around Rapture as they collected Adam from the many dead bodies. They were scary. They felt big and heavy, with giant diving helmets, making loud noise and shaking the very ground as they walked near. You couldn't reason with one, you had no idea what they were thinking, they couldn't speak, only make bizarre grunts, and they didn't seem human. They felt more like an extension of the city itself. Not human, not even really beasts. You didn't have any idea what was going through their heads, if they could even think. They were one of the aspects that made Rapture seem the most alien.
Then Bioshock 2 made you one.
Suddenly, they lost all that effect. They felt human. If you were one of them, albeit a prototype one, then they were just as reasonable as you. Sure, for all intents and purpose they function the same as they do in the first game, but they feel different, knowing they can be reasonable. They aren't the same force of nature they were in the first game, they're just people. In a way, perhaps some may find that more disturbing, but they weren't really disturbing in the first game, just alien. The Little Sisters, now those were disturbing in the first game, but the Big Daddies? Not really.
Now, admittedly I haven't gotten far enough into the game to know what the Big Sisters are exactly (though I have my suspicions), but they aren't really scary either. Sure, they're deadly, but if the Big Daddies are just people they lose a lot of effect, and the Big Sisters probably are as well.
I mean, we knew from the first game Big Daddies were once humans, but I assumed they underwent some sort of brainwashing- In fact, I'm fairly sure there were audio logs confirming that they did.
Now then. I've said my piece on Bioshock 2, let's talk about Bioshock Infinite.
Ok, Bioshock Infinite, for those not in the know, is the new Bioshock game. It's a Gaiden Game in every sense. Now, let me start off here by saying I am cautiously optimistic about Bioshock Infinite. I'm not completely sold on the game yet, for reasons I'll go into in a moment, but it does have a really cool setting, art style, and it looks like it does some very cool things.
The game is going to take place on the floating city of Columbia. It's set about 30 years earlier than Bioshock, and it has nothing to do with Rapture, other than that apparently Rapture will someday be built in this universe. Columbia was built as a wonder of the world by the U.S.A., before it went rogue and started a war with China or Russia or something, at which point the U.S. denied any affiliation with it, saying it had gone rogue. Since then, Columbia has become a sort of bogeyman, floating around and attacking cities, hard to destroy with the technology of 1910, but very strong itself.
The setting is very steampunk, and the game looks cool aesthetically. It contains "Tonics" instead of "Plasmids" and features time manipulation as a main mechanic. The main character, as opposed to Bioshock or Bioshock 2, is not a silent protagonist, but a man fighting to survive on Columbia which seems to be experiencing a Rapture-style fall.
Now at first you might say, "Hey! Why wouldn't you love this to death? The game looks awesome and it addresses all the complaints you raised about the first game, even introducing new psuedo-cyborgs called Handymen instead of Big Daddies! The new setting will provide you a new interesting locale to explore, and a new story to enjoy featuring what seem like two great new characters named Booker DeWitt, a name that sounds like it came out of a 1940's detective serial, and Elizabeth, a name which is a name." To which I would, naturally, reply "Right you are theoretical yet very well informed person who is addressing my skepticism of the game. Now would you kindly tell me why the game is called Bioshock?"
It takes place years before Rapture was built, has nothing to do with any of the characters from Bioshock or Bioshock 2, takes place in the sky instead of in the ocean, features new villains, monsters, powers, characters, and gameplay mechanics, and according to some inside sources may even TAKE PLACE OUTSIDE THE BIOSHOCK TIMELINE ENTIRELY. WHY IS THIS NOT A NEW FRANCHISE CALLED COLUMBIA? I mean sure, I'd be calling it a Bioshock clone if it were a new franchise entirely, but there's nothing wrong with being a Bioshock clone! Some of my best friends are Bioshock clones, although admittedly they have the advantage of containing Batman. (Note: That's not quite fair, Arkham Asylum is more like Splinter Cell with a Bioshock skin pasted on, and then a Batman paint job.)
The idea of a Bioshock like game taking place in a steampunk city in the skies isn't a bad one at all. In fact, like I said, the game looks gorgeous. There's like a robot dragon on a giant floating city, for crying out loud, how can that not be cool? But it just doesn't seem like this game has anything to do with Bioshock itself.
I really do think Bioshock Infinite looks like a lot of fun, and they are doing some interesting things with the mechanics, like having Elizabeth be with you the whole time, mind you if they mess that up at all this game will be awful, and we all know how easy it is to mess up escort missions since there hasn't been a good escort mission in the history of gaming. Ok, Half-Life 2's Episodes, but being put up next to a Valve game for comparison means you have some pretty big shoes to fill!
There's nothing wrong with Gaiden Games (games which, though set in the universe of one game, are their own stories with little interaction outside of reference to the main series), I mean fans of this blog will know how big a fan of Portal I am, and that's a Gaiden Game to Half-Life, but the best Gaiden Games feature new settings that fit in flawlessly to the main universe. I have no difficulty believing Aperture Labs exist within the world of Half-Life, nor that the Combine were kept out by GLaDOS. I have no problem accepting it when Cave Johnson rants about Black Mesa stealing Aperture's experiments. But part of the point of Bioshock was that it seemed like the world outside Rapture was just like our own, with the exception of, well, Rapture existing. If Columbia existed and these Tonics which rewrote your genome already existed, why was finding Adam and creating Plasmids a big deal in the first place? And if it's true that this doesn't even take place in the same universe as Bioshock, then I ask again, why is it called "Bioshock" Infinite? It seems like a cash in to me, that's all.
This would quite possibly be the game I'm look forward to the most if I didn't have a feeling of dread that Infinite is simply going to be either another game that retcons the original Bioshock in a way which quite simply makes it less good, or it's going to be something completely different that shoves in a cameo from the main Bioshock world using the time manipulation powers. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised at all, since we already know that at certain points Booker and Elizabeth get pulled through portals to different time periods like the 1980's, if at one point you get pulled onto Rapture for five minutes, fight a Big Daddy, and then get flung back to Columbia and act like nothing happened.
I wouldn't be surprised, but that's not to say I wouldn't be angry.
I'm just going to start the review off with this; I know Jim Carrey is a very polarizing actor. You either love him, or you hate him. Personally, I'm of the camp that loves him. My third favorite film (behind The Dark Knight and The Nightmare Before Christmas) is The Truman Show. I love Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, The Mask, The Majestic, and I even find his less enjoyable films like Yes Man enjoyable. Heck, I even liked him in the awful film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, though honestly it was a poor choice to cast him in that role along with many other poor choices made in that film.
So basically what I'm saying is that I'm a fan of Jim Carrey. He's probably in my top five favorite actors for The Truman Show and The Majestic alone. I know he overacts and plays up the slapstick humor, and I honestly wish he'd make more dramatic films, but he's Jim Carrey, and I just can't make myself dislike him.
So, now that I've spoken about the leading man, let's talk about the movie, shall we? Mr. Popper's Penguins is- Ok, let's stop right here. You know exactly what this movie is already. It's a Jim Carrey movie!
The movie begins with Mr. Popper, played by Jim Carrey, obviously, being the dad from Liar Liar. Over the course of the film, Bruce gains the mystical powers of Morgan Freeman, and proceeds to use them to create wacky hijinks involving a mystical mask that calls upon the powers of Count Olaf to bring shame to a popular series of surprisingly well written and hilarious books.
Ok, seriously, I'll stop. Jim Carrey starts off the film as a divorced businessman with two kids who can't stand him. Then through the magical powers of plot convenience, Jim Carrey ends up with 6 CGI penguins who do various adorable things throughout the movie. Except for all those stupid toilet jokes. Those aren't funny or adorable.
I actually enjoyed this film quite a lot, but like I said, I like Jim Carrey. If you're a fan of Jim Carrey, like I am, you'll probably find something to enjoy in this movie. He's slapstick, over the top, and as much like a real-life cartoon character as any comedic Jim Carrey role. He's good in it, but make no mistake, he is being Jim Carrey. If you do not like Jim Carrey, you will not like this film.
What I didn't expect is that there were actually several things in this movie I liked outside of Carrey. In fact, my favorite gag in the entire film is his assistant Pipi, who proclaims perilously p-filled prose about Popper and his preposterously perfect penguins. My favorite moment in the entire film involves her in the last few minutes.
The penguins themselves actually look really nice. You can tell they're CGI, but they're very nice looking CGI. The acting from the entire cast ranges from good (Madeline Carroll, his daughter, who is also in another film I'm quite fond of, Swing Vote) to passable (his son, Maxwell Perry Cotton, seems a bit stale at times) and there are some gags that actually had me laughing pretty hard. Oh! Also the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent from the Marvel movies is in this film. And he's great in it, but only because I kept thinking of him as the same character, and that the job as a zookeeper he has in this film is just what he does on weekends.
I also thought the wardrobe for Jim Carrey, having him wear a tux for a large portion of the film, was a nice touch.
But let's talk about what I didn't like about the film as well. It's a kids film, and while it's a very well done kids film, there's nothing here you haven't seen before. A lot of the charm in this movie comes from the penguins, but of course it requires a LOT of suspension of disbelief for any of the penguin's gags to actually register. Not to mention the idea that a guy could just keep penguins in his apartment and not get caught.
Jim Carrey also attempts to coin yet another catchphrase here, "Yeahbsolutely." It's exactly as irritating as you might imagine.
I'm actually going to get a bit spoilery here to talk about the films biggest flaw, so if you really think this film is going to contain any surprises for you, skip the next paragraph.
About 2/3rds of the way into the film a disaster strikes the penguins. Mr. Popper tries his hardest to protect them, to the point where he obviously sacrifices not only his job, and his status, but quite clearly his health. Unable to prevent disaster, Mr. Popper doubts his ability to take care of the penguins. Thus, he gives them to the zoo where they will actually be taken care of. He honestly thinks he's doing the right thing, and to me it came across as a really heartfelt scene. The movie then makes it apparent that we're supposed to be disappointed in him for this. Sorry, but no.
Alright, no more spoilers.
Other than that one major flaw, the film is enjoyable. If you like Jim Carrey, you'll find this enjoyable at the very least. If you don't, you'll probably want to steer clear of Mr. Popper, and his penguins.
Readers of my blog will remember my reviews of Assassin's Creed, and Assassin's Creed 2. In short, Assassin's Creed is a game worth playing, despite manyflaws, and Assassin's Creed 2 is a game that, while probably a better game objectively (all the systems worked better in AC2) it was, to me at least, a less enjoyable experience. Still a game worth playing though. Also, it had a brilliant ending.
Now, folks, let me tell you, it is time for much rejoicing, for while Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2 were both sort-of-good games, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a GREAT game. This is by far the best Assassin's Creed experience thus far, and it blows the other two out of the water.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is sort of an "Assassin's Creed 2.5" if you will. It picks up directly where the second game left off, and honestly, if you don't play it you WILL be confused jumping into the inevitable Assassin's Creed 3. It puts you, once again, back in the shoes of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the renaissance assassin who you were put in the shoes of in Assassin's Creed 2. The game literally begins exactly where the second game left off, with Ezio *spoilers for the ending of AC2* walking out of the vault, bewildered by the mysterious message left for Desmond. Victorious over the pope however, he goes back to his home, and relaxes in a segment where you help the various townspeople with mundane problems.
And then, it naturally all goes wrong. He is renaissance Batman, after all.
In short, the son of the pope who you DIDN'T murder at the end of AC2 (which was dumb, Ezio has no problem killing hundreds of guards who likely just work to feed themselves and their families, but finally when he meets the evil pope he doesn't kill him? What?! Bah, I digress, that's a problem with the second game, not this one.) Cesare Borgia, blows up the city, and takes the Apple of Eden from you.
Cue going back to Desmond, and finding out the reason why you're still reliving Ezio's memories, to find out where exactly the Apple of Eden ended up. Of course to do that you have to relive the memories leading UP to that point because if you don't the polarity of the power couplings could be reversed causing a temporal anomaly which would leak vast quantities of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey radiation into the stargates which would then... You get the idea. It's a cheap excuse why we're playing a full game not just 15 minutes of one, but it works nonetheless.
The plot of this game, like most aspects of this game, is FAR superior to the other two. You'll remember one of my main complaints about AC2 was that you didn't become an Assassin until the last hour or so of the game. In this, you're already an Assassin at the beginning, and it shows.
However, another problem I had with the story of the second game was that it was CONFUSING! Half the time I didn't understand how the people I was killing were related to the overarching conspiracy, and was really just killing them because the mission told me to.
This game however, has a central story with definite first, second, and third acts. It has one central villain (Cesare), and it's coherent. Whereas the second game lacked any kind of focus and just felt as though the story were aimlessly wandering, Brotherhood has a story that pulls you in, and keeps you interested.
That said, Assassin's Creed is becoming my new Lost. Each game thus far has had an infuriating cliffhanger ending that leaves you scratching your head going "What just happened?!"
In any case, the game plays almost identically to Assassin's Creed 2, but every aspect of it has been polished to the point of near perfection. The combat is actually entertaining, the missions are tons more fun due to a new system of bonus objectives you don't HAVE to complete. For example, some missions have you get into a heavily guarded area, but the bonus objective is to do it without killing anyone.
The result is the perfect balance between being a stealth game, like Assassin's Creed SHOULD be, and still allowing you to muscle your way through large portions of it, like in AC2.
There are also loads of optional missions in this game, similarly to AC2, but they don't suck this time. There are Courtesan missions which follow their own storyline, missions to kill Templars, and missions reliving the past, introducing you to Ezio's first love Cristina.
The biggest change to the single player game though is a system where you rescue citizens and then teach them to become assassins, who can help you in combat, or go on missions of their own to get you money, among other things. As you teach them they gain levels and become more powerful, before finally become Assassin's themselves.
Overall, the game is a blast to play, and is definitely better in every way than the past two installments. It's the game the first Assassin's Creed should have been.
However, the biggest new addition to the series is multiplayer. In the multiplayer, you play templars who are in a training programs to learn to be assassins.
The object of the multiplayer is to assassinate your assigned target, while being pursued yourself by someone else. Assassinations earn you points, and the person with the most points after 10 minutes wins. However, the map is populated with NPC's who look like each of the players, and thus you have to learn to act like an NPC to fool other players into thinking you're an NPC, while figuring out (given only their general location via a compass) which one of the many people who look like your target are actually your target.
The multiplayer is a LOT of fun to play, although it seems nearly impossible to find a game anymore, due to lots of players having quite playing by now. It takes a good 5-10 minutes sometimes.
Buy this game if: You enjoyed the first two Assassin's Creed, or thought there was potential for a good game in them. Don't buy this game if: You really didn't think there was any way you could have liked the first two Assassin's Creeds.
Let's take a trip back in time about 11 years, shall we? The year was 1999. Clinton was president, the twin towers were still standing tall, Buffy still had 4 seasons to give us, and a little cartoon called Superman: The Animated Series was in it's prime. Superman: TAS was the second series in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), with the first being Batman: The Animated Series, considered one of the best cartoons of all time, with good reason.
However, executives had decided that, due to the success of both Animated Series, and the TV Show Buffy (Who was still in High School at that point), that they needed a new, more kid friendly "Batman In High School" series, to follow up Superman: TAS with. But the creators of the classic shows weren't about to make some watered down "Batman Babies!" show, no, instead they gave us a cartoon called Batman Beyond.
Now, arguably they failed at making a more kid friendly version of Batman: TAS or Superman: TAS. In fact, if anything, it was darker and edgier than either of those shows. But it was incredibly AWESOME.
The series took place years in the future, after Bruce Wayne has hung up the cape, and Gotham has once again become a crime run city. New gangs, such as the "Jokerz" (who model themselves after the Joker) run around the city causing chaos, and corruption is rampant. That's when a new Batman, Terry McGinnis steps up and, working with Bruce Wayne, becomes the new Batman.
The show was excellently executed, giving Terry his own, new rogues gallery instead of just cashing in on the old enemies, while still paying their dues to the original Batman with episodes centering around old foes like Mr. Freeze, Bane, and the absolute pinnacle of the series, the feature length film, "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker", which in all honesty can hold it's own against any Batman film, and still be respectable.
I loved Batman Beyond. I was very young when it was on, but I remember loving every minute of it. I've even been watching the first season recently, and it holds up very well. (You can find it streaming here, but the episodes are out of order. A list of the episodes can be found here.)
The show was cancelled in 2001, and was succeeded by Justice League unlimited, along with Static Shock, both of which featured crossover episodes with Batman Beyond. In Static Shock, Static goes to the future, and rescues his future self, with the help of Terry. JLU featured an episode called "Epilogue" which finally gave the show the finale it deserved. I won't spoil that episode for you, but track it down if you get a chance.
Terry was a very different character from Bruce Wayne, but one who I felt, if given his due, could be just as compelling. Unfortunately, since the DCAU as a whole has been ended, and a new Animated Universe has begun, it seemed that Batman Beyond was dead for good.
Until, that is, last year, when a mini-series called "Hush Beyond" ran. 6-Issues. I didn't really start collecting comics until early this year, so I never read those. Until now that is, as I purchased the trade paperback for "Hush Beyond" collecting all 6 issues.
The mini-series itself was, thankfully, very popular, and actually ended up getting an ongoing series going, which started last January. IT. IS. AWESOME. I've gotten all 4 issues that have been released (the 5th is currently being mailed to me) and I've loved every second of them. I may review those at a later date, but for now, let me give you all my impressions of the mini-series "Hush Beyond".
"Hush", for those not familiar with Batman lore, especially recent Batman lore, is a villain who first showed up in Batman comics in 2003. He's really Thomas Elliot, childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, and super successful surgeon. I haven't read any of the Hush storylines from the Batman comics personally, so I'll explain his motivations as best I can, but for a better description, you may want to just go ahead and read the wikipedia article on him.
Tom Elliot was, like Bruce, a childhood billionaire, and a friend to him. Unlike Bruce, however, he hated his parents. A lot. As in, he cut the brakes on his parents car and tried to kill them both. He only actually managed to kill his Father though, since his Mother was saved by Bruce's Father, Dr. Thomas Wayne.
A lot of stuff, none of which is really essential to understanding today's topic, happens, and Tom Elliot (surgeon extraordinaire) unites with Edward Nigma (The Riddler...) to kill Bruce Wayne, under the persona "Hush".
Eventually, he figures out Bruce Wayne is Batman, things happen, he's evil, yada yada yada, all of Hush's plots involved other supervillains in some capacity, we're moving on.
In "Hush Beyond" someone, Tom Elliot supposedly being dead, has taken up the mantle of Hush once more, tracking down and killing old Batman villians such as The Mad Hatter, or Calendar Man.
In short, this is a bad thing. After all, all these years later, a lot of these villains either did their time and went straight, or are still in mental hospitals. Hush, however, seems to be sending a message to Bruce Wayne, and makes very sure that Terry knows that Hush thinks of him as an "Imposter".
The mini-series takes a much darker tone than the series had, including bloody sequences, some fairly brutal murders, and it's very clear that this is aimed at those of us who, like me, were kids when they saw the series, and are now teenagers (or adults). The end result is excellent.
The mini-series, much like the show used to do, excellently blends new and old Batman mythos, including appearances by Cadmus, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and even a new Catwoman.
The art is very nice, looking as good as any Batman comic on the market right now. The characters are fleshed out well, and it really feels like the writers knew, and loved, the characters as much as I did.
My only complaint, however, is that the last two issues are where the story falls a little flat for me. Without revealing TOO MUCH, let's just say Hush's identity is revealed, not because of Terry's detective skills, but because Hush chooses to out himself. That's just lame. Terry has taken up the mantle of Batman, world's greatest detective. I would have LOVED to see him use his detective skills he's picked up from Bruce over years of working with him, to figure out who Hush was BEFORE Hush unveiled himself. Unfortunately, that never happens.
Also, the identity of Hush itself felt a little bit anti-climactic to me personally, although your mileage may vary on that.
The action is great, the story is great, I absolutely LOVE the fact that they've introduced a new Catwoman (and I can't wait for her to reappear in the ongoing comic, as I'm sure she will) and overall, I'm glad I spent my $15 on the TPB. Could it have been better? Sure. Was it good? Oh heck yeah.
Seeing where all these characters who we never did see in the show are, even bit characters like Calendar Man, is awesome.
Now, I know I gave a lot of backstory at the beginning of this post, so I'm sure a lot of you are wondering, "Can I buy this without any knowledge of the Batman universe?". To that I'd say... Sure. It's actually a very good introduction to the Batman Beyond world. Everything you DO need to know is explained within the context of the story, even small things like who Dick Grayson was (which I'm sure most people know.) and even who Hush himself was.
So I'd say that if you're looking for a quality graphic novel, "Hush Beyond" is definitely worth your time and money. It may not be perfect, but it's a great way to start Terry McGinnis' comic career off.
Anyone who's ever read this blog before probably knows I'm quitefond of Portal. As in, it's my favorite game ever made. I consider it a masterpiece in every respect, the puzzles were hard and mind bending, and the humor was pitch perfect, never failing to deliver laughs. Needless to say, when a full length sequel was announced, 3 times longer than the short original game, with a separate Co-Op campaign, I was a bit excited. As in, I've been looking forward to this game for AGES.
But now that I've played it, did I love it? Did I hate it? Did it take the masterpiece that was Portal, and make it better, or did it fail to impress, simply rehashing the previous games triumphs? Read on to find out as I tell you just what I thought of Portal 2.
Portal 2, as if you didn't already know, is the latest game from Valve, and as I said is the follow up to the surprise hit of 2007's The Orange Box, Portal. When Portal first came, very few people knew what to expect from it. It was being developed mostly by a new team Valve hired on after seeing their student project "Narbacular Drop" and saying, "Hey, we want you to make a longer version of this."
They bundled it together with Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2, both long awaited sequels, in a bundle known as The Orange Box. When many people bought The Orange Box, they didn't expect Portal to be anything more than a little bonus they got with the other two games, but while Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 are both fantastic games (among my favorites, in fact) Portal ended up being considered by many people, myself included, the best game in the pack.
The game set you in a deserted laboratory controlled by a sinister A.I. GLaDOS, using a "Portal Gun" which let you shoot two portals, which linked to each other. The result was mind bending puzzles, and some of the darkest humor and possibly the most memorable villain, in all of gaming. Lines about murdering your best friend (a box), baking you into a cake, and of course the meme-tastic song "Still Alive" led to the game being warmly received by all.
Of course, a sequel was needed. The original game was only 3 hours long.
Story
Portal 2 takes place several centuries after the original Portal. Your character, Chell, has been in stasis for the past several hundred years, and is awoken by a personality sphere named Wheatley, one of the many which awoke at the end of the first Portal, telling you that the Enrichment Center's nuclear reactor is about to meltdown, killing you (and him) and that you need to escape together. You run around, go through some tutorial stages, and end up in GLaDOS's chamber. She's off. You go down to her central core looking for an escape pod, or some route of escape to turn on. This goes as well as you might expect. Of course, GLaDOS wakes up, and sends you straight back to testing.
There are a few new characters, Wheatley being one of them, who really add something to the game. Don't get me wrong, Ellen McLain reprises her role as GLaDOS and does an absolutely phenomenal job, but each of the new characters add hours of laughs, and a plot with some twists I genuinely didn't see coming. The plot is absolutely great, and the dialogue is just as good as it was in the first game. You'll be laughing hysterically throughout the entire game. I promise that. My family watched me play through large portions of the game, and said it was a blast to watch me play it, because of how well written it was, and how darn funny it was.
Again, it only ties in loosely to the Half-Life universe, but the connections are there (including an Easter Egg about a certain ship...) and are quite fun when you do catch them. Really though, Portal 2 focuses on being it's own thing. It's not Half-Life 2: Episode 3 like some (stupid) people seemed to be expecting. G-Man isn't in it. The Combine isn't in it. Gordon Freeman isn't in it.
Instead, the game focuses on building up the world of Aperture Science, and it does this spectacularly. One thing I remember hearing in the Dev Commentary for the original Portal was that they tried to convey in the escape portions that the facility was designed to reassemble itself at GLaDOS will, using pistons and panels to change around test chambers in whatever way she wished. This was something I never thought was all that well expanded upon in the first game, and I never would have known they intended that if I hadn't done the Dev Commentary. However, Portal 2 shows this, and the absolutely massive scale of the Aperture Science facility beautifully from the very first moment of the game. You can tell how the rooms fit together, and the very opening of the game gives you a shot of the inside of the facility, making it obvious it's bigger than you ever would have expected in the first game.
This also changes the atmosphere of the game. Not that the way the original game felt was bad in any way, the original Portal is still a masterpiece of game design in every aspect, but this game really felt like they cemented what the world of Aperture science was. The Half-Life series is a straight up drama, and Portal 2 is more of a black comedy, something which made itself apparent in the dialogue of the first game, and something which becomes apparent in every aspect of Portal 2, including the atmosphere.
The graphics, though still running on the Source engine first released with Half-Life 2 in 2004, have been refined a LOT from Portal, and look absolutely great in this game.
Something which is either an improvement or a step back, depending on your opinion, is that unlike in the first game, where Chell was essentially a mask for the player, she feels more like a character, and an aspect of the Portal universe, in this one. She's still silent, make no mistake, but unlike in the first one where she was silent because she was nothing more than a mask, in this she feels more like your standard silent protagonist, much like Gordon Freeman, or Link.
There are more references to her being mute, and many, MANY, references to her being female, unlike the first game where the only reference to her was the Curiosity Sphere saying "OOOH YOU'RE THE LADY FROM THE TEST!", other than that, there were no references to her being female, and it felt more like GLaDOS was talking to YOU than to CHELL. In this, it feels like the characters are talking to Chell first, you second.
In my personal opinion, it's not really a drawback of the game... But I will admit I do prefer the "mask" approach they took in the first one. I can't say it's poorly executed, it isn't, and it does work very very well in this game, I just liked the approach in the first game more. It's not a flaw, and the story still works excellently though.
But, of course, what would Portal be without, well, Portals? So I'm sure many of you are asking how well the gameplay measures up.
Gameplay
I remember hearing in an interview, I think it was from E3 last year, that the Dev team wanted to make the same leap of introducing gameplay unlike anything you'd ever seen like they had in Portal, in Portal 2. That they were introducing many new concepts besides just the Portal Gun (which, again, is the only "weapon" you have in the entire game).
So really, Portal was about using the Portal Gun to solve problems. Portal 2 is about using the Portal Gun to influence other elements in the level, to solve problems. There are many new game mechanics, such as tractor beams, which can travel through Portals to influence the levels. All of the new mechanics (There are a lot) introduce entirely new ways to view the levels, and include mind warping new possibilities.
The Portal mechanic has been noticeably improved too. In the first game, unless you hit a Portal head on, you would get stuck. If you even clipped the edges a little bit, you'd get stuck, and would probably die. I never had that problem in this game, and it's much easier to actually travel through Portals.
Of note, is that they took out a lot of the twitch aspect of Portal solving puzzles in this one. Now it's more about setting your portals up correctly BEFORE going through them, than it is to shoot one off while in midair. There is still the occasional puzzle that requires to shoot off a Portal while flying through midair, but they are few and far between.
There are also fewer places to put your Portals now. It's more like the end of the first game, while you were escaping, where there were only a few spots to place Portals, and the trick was to figure out how to use those precious few spots to achieve your goal. The resulting difficulty isn't necessarily any harder or any easier, it just plays differently.
The difficulty itself is pretty much on par with the original Portal. The puzzles aren't really hard, but they all require thinking differently than you normally would, and if you aren't "thinking with portals" you'll be stuck. There are still many points where you'll find yourself boggling, wondering if the puzzle is even possible or if the game is somehow glitching, only to remember that one technique you were taught earlier in the game, and propelling yourself to victory.
This game, just like the first, is very good at preparing you for more difficult challenges. Every puzzle seems to teach you new concepts you'll need to remember for later puzzles. In a way, just like the first, most of the game is a tutorial.
That said, I would still recommend against jumping straight into Portal 2. If you haven't, you should most definitely still play Portal before Portal 2, because the original is a masterpiece of storytelling within games, will set up the story for the second one for you, is only about 3 hours long, and will ensure you're already "thinking with portals" when you try Portal 2 out, a skill which will come in handy.
I got the PS3 version of the game, which includes a free PC/Mac Steam copy. As such, I played through the entire game on both PS3 and PC, and the controls worked perfectly on both. I never found myself struggling to make a shot on the PS3, but I never felt the puzzles were dumbed down on PC.
Something I've heard a lot of complaint about is that there are frequent load screens. This is true, there is a load screen after pretty much every puzzle. Honestly though, the load screens are very short, and I prefer load screens to the intrusive "LOADING..." message that popped up in old Valve games. Also, the frequent load screens help the game run on even lower end machines.
I hear some people claim the PC version is just a console port. This is stupid. Completely and utterly stupid. The only evidence for this at ALL is that when you save, the save message says "Please don't turn off your console..." on the PC, as opposed to saying "Please don't turn off your PS3..." on the PS3.
Even if it were a console port (which it isn't) it wouldn't matter. The PC version plays perfectly. The controls work. There's no other way to say it, the game controls very well on both PS3 and PC.
One thing I do wish they had included is advanced chambers, like the first game had, but they seemed to favor including achievements in the standard chambers, which require going through them differently to get. Still, a level editor will be included soon, so I'm sure some extremely difficult maps will come out of that.
Co-Op
One of the biggest and most exciting aspects of Portal 2 was the announcement that the game would contain a co-op mode, where you and a friend control two "Co-Op Bots" nicknamed Atlas and P-Body.
The story in the Co-Op mode is very thin, and is really only there as a sequel hook for Portal 3, taking place after the end of Portal 2's single player campaign. GLaDOS taunts the two of you, as you solve tests spread over 5 chapters, involving the use of all those new features included in the game, all the while using up to 4 portals (each of you with two of them, obviously).
The Co-Op levels are fun, and some of the GLaDOS quotes are pretty funny, but this is probably where most of my complaints for the game come in. Don't get me wrong, the Co-Op for this game, which probably took about 5 hours to complete, was very fun, but I would have liked to see some more challenging puzzles, especially toward the end. Even the very last puzzle only took me and my co-op partner around 15 minutes to figure out and complete. Maybe that's because I had already finished the entire single played campaign, and was already "thinking with portals" but only a few of the tests seemed all that difficult, and we breezed through the others, unlike the single player where there were some pretty brutal puzzles toward the end.
Hopefully Valve will either allow custom co-op maps when the level editor is released (PC only, and it's not out yet, even for single player, though it is announced) or will release some more difficult co-op levels in future updates for the game. Or both. Both would be nice.
Oh, and in case you've heard people saying that there's already $80 of DLC? That's only a half truth. Much like the Mann-Conomy in TF2, there's an item shop in Portal 2. Everything in it is purely cosmetic and is in no way required, isn't even available on the console versions of the game, and though it's true there is around $80 worth of cosmetic purchases, there's a bundle for only $30 of all of them, should you choose to buy them all. I ignored the item shop, only equipping my Mann Co. hat which was carried over from TF2 (there are 6 items which are carried over, IIRC) and an achievement item I got later on. It really doesn't matter, if you like item shops, hurrah! If not, ignore it, like I did.
Length
The single player campaign for Portal 2 took me around 9 hours to complete. The Co-Op campaign took me around 5-6 hours.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Make no mistake, this is not a long game. Compared to a lot of games out there for the same $50 pricetag, you're not going to play this for as much time. You could buy Fallout: New Vegas for that price, probably even less by now, and easily get a 100 hours of gameplay, instead of around 14-20. This would be completely understandable.
That said, the quality of those 14 hours is extremely high. This is a worthy addition to the Portal series, and just as good as Portal, my favorite game of all time.
Also, there are a lot of Easter Eggs and achievements hidden in the game you won't get on your first try, which will warrant a second play through, as well as a developer commentary which will warrant yet another playthrough. A level editor is also coming out soon, so I'm sure we'll see great maps coming out of that.
This game is short, but it's very good. You should, at some point, play this game. The only real question here is if you should buy it now, at the $50 price tag, or wait until the price drops. Honestly, it just depends on how much of a diehard Portal fan you are. Me? I regret nothing. Portal 2 was brilliant, and I am absolutely pleased with my day one purchase. But then again, I have 60 hours logged on the original Portal, a 3-4 hour game. I've played through it so many times, I've got each puzzle memorized, and I will likely do the same with Portal 2. For me, a day one purchase was a good choice. For others, waiting for the inevitable Steam Sale 6 months from now would probably be a good choice. Knowing Valve, it'll be $20 by Christmas.
Music
Real quick, before closing out this review, I'd like to mention the music of the game. The soundtrack is AMAZING, and I would definitely buy it in a heartbeat if Valve were to release it as an OST. Not just the closing song, penned by JoCo himself, just like Still Alive (I won't post it here though, it describes in detail the plot of Portal 2 and is extremely spoilery) but just the background music, or songs like "Robots FTW" the piece of music which plays over the Co-Op end credits. It's spoiler free, by the way.
Buy This Game If: Like I said above, you really should buy this game, it's really just more a matter of WHEN you should buy it.
Don't Buy This Game If: You're a stupid moron? Seriously. Buy this game. Play it. Eventually. *This review was based on around 19-20 hours of play, including one playthrough of the single player on PS3, one playthrough of the single player on PC, and one playthrough of the Co-Op, also on PC. Portal 2 is rated E10+ for fantasy violence and mild language*
Pop quiz: Who remembers Quantum Leap? The TV series? About jumping into other people's bodies? It was a good show.
Pop quiz number 2: Who remembers Groundhog Day? Y'know, the one with Bill Murray? Everyone reading this? Good, because if you hadn't seen it yet I would have to say GO RENT IT RIGHT NOW.
Well, imagine what would happen if you took one part Groundhog Day, and one part Quantum Leap, threw in a bomb on a train, and scaled back the reliving down from a day, into only 8 minutes. You would get Source Code.
Source Code is the second film by British director Duncan Jones. His other film is the 2009 film, Moon. I went into Source Code with very high expectations because HIS LAST FILM WAS MOON! Seriously! If you haven't heard of this incredibly low budget but high quality sci-fi film, go look it up. It was one of the best films of 2009, perhaps even THE best film of 2009.
In fact, it was so praised, and did so well (considering it hardly got a release. Seriously, only a few theaters for a month or so, and then DVD.) that they gave Duncan Jones a much much bigger budget for his first widely released movie Source Code!
So when I heard about it? I was psyched. I LOVED Moon, and the idea of a big budget film made by Duncan Jones? I couldn't have been more optimistic. I heard the plot, and the first thing I said was "This idea would be stupid, if I didn't have complete faith in Duncan Jones." I'm not kidding. This guy could have made the Twilight movies awesome if he were directing them.
So as I walked into the theater, I went in with the highest expectations. Was I disappointed? Well, I'm pleased to say that I was not.
The central plot of Source Code centers around Captain Colter Stevens, (played by Jake Gyllenhaal who's only other film I've seen is Prince of Persia which for the record, I liked.) waking up on a train, only to find he's not himself. Literally. He's someone else. Well a woman named Christina (played by Michelle Monaghan) is talking to him on a train, and naturally he is just a bit disoriented. So he gets up, searches the train, and promptly gets blown up.
After getting blown up, he awakens in a small capsule with a woman through a video screen informing him that his mission is to continue reliving the same 8 minutes until he can ID the bomber. He's told that he's in a sort of memory of the past, and that he cannot change anything, no matter how hard he tries, he can only find information on the bomber, before he strikes again.
And so he relives the same 8 minutes. And that's the plot of the film. It's better than it sounds, really.
I was slightly concerned that the idea of reliving the same 8 minutes for an entire 90 minute film could get tedious, but it's excellently done to where each time is interesting enough, because of how he interacts with it, to keep your attention.
Not to mention the fact that both of the leads do very good acting jobs here. Seriously. They have great chemistry with each other, and even though we only have 8 minutes with Christina every time, you feel like you know who she is, without having her pushed in your face by the end of the film. In fact, you feel that way about a lot of the passengers, many of whom aren't even given names.
It's a thriller, and it provides those thrills, while still keeping the characters interesting. Like any good thriller, it keeps you guessing about who the bomber is. Is it this guy? Is it this next guy? Was it guy one all along?! You'll keep guessing until it's revealed at the end.
Unfortunately there is a small problem. You see, once we finally do get explanations... They're based on some really bad science. The entire third act is plagued with plot holes, and the ending, while good, makes very little sense.
But if you're able to push aside some quirky plot holes in the third act, and just accept that this is what happened, it's an excellent film, and definitely worth seeing. I went in with high expectations, and Duncan Jones did not disappoint.
In fact, Duncan Jones film career is already tremendously better than his father's film career after only two films! Who was his father you ask?
Anyways, as I was saying, Source Code is a very good film. It's not quite as good as Moon, mainly because of the plot holes in the 3rd act, but it's still a great sci-fi action thriller, and it's definitely worth seeing.
