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.
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.
Hello, and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I'm trying something a little different today.
Folks, some of you may have heard of a new phenomenon sweeping the nation. And if people catch Bieber Fever, I have to reason that this new fascination should be dubbed the Black Plague.
I'm speaking of course of the pure unadulterated GENIUS that is Rebecca Black and her new single that's been rising up the charts, "Friday".
I know, I know, those of you familiar with the song are undoubtedly saying to yourselves right now, "Don't you usually review BAD songs?" Well, that is true, but people a song like "Friday" only comes along once a generation, and I can't let such an opportunity pass me by. Every generation has an artist that DEFINES them. The Beatles, for example. Rebecca Black is undoubtedly such an artist.
Without further ado, "Friday". I warn you, don't listen to it all at once. A genius work such as this only come along so often, and if you don't pace yourself it IS possible to overdose on such genius.
What can really be said about such a work of inspiration? I don't know if I can even begin to explain all the reasons why this song is phenomenal, but I suppose I should try.
Before I start speaking about the words doubtlessly straight from the lips of angels that are the lyrics, allow me to comment on a few other aspects of this song and video.
First, her voice. The monotone she sings in doubtlessly signifies the deep depression many people in America try to conceal. The fact that the heavy autotune can't change her voice's monotone clearly represents that though America tries to conceal their depression, no one can fully conceal it forever.
The video itself is also a work of genius which hasn't been seen outside of the post-90's era animation works of Don Bluth. For example, the obviously underage drivers of the automobile in the beginning of the video clearly represent how many people are not emotionally mature in today's world, though they are physically mature, and perhaps considers for a moment that perhaps a reworking of the system which gives licenses out should be re-examined? The flipbook effect partway through the video represents how weeks can quickly change into months, months into years, and years into decades. As Rebecca sings about Friday, she begs you to slow down and enjoy yourself before your life passes you by.
But the lyrics are what you've come from. Honestly, there's no way I can do justice to such a work of inspiration which I can only assume to be divine, but I can try.
We begin with a repetition of "Yeah" for around 10 seconds. Normally I don't like repetition in a song, but here it shows the uncontainable optimism Black holds for the song, and the day in front of her. It works.
"7 AM/Wakin' Up in the morning/Gotta be fresh/Gotta go downstairs"
Right off the bat Black hits us with the heavy stuff, as she sings of the start of her day. 7 AM. She awakens. Once more she puts on the mask of a happy individual. A fresh face, behind a truly withering soul. "Gotta go downstairs" likely refers to the descent from her dreams into the harshness of reality. Powerful stuff most songwriters would wait a few lines in to get to, but Black is uncompromising, hitting us with the tough statements from the beginning.
"Gotta have my bowl/Gotta have cereal"
Here Black challenges the social norms. As she's presented, in the morning, with a bowl filled with cereal she says "Gotta have cereal". Why must she have cereal? Who created the social norm of eating cereal in the morning? How are social norms created? What justifies them, any more than anything else? Had she put waffles in her bowl, would that have made her a madwoman?
"Tickin' on and on/Everybody's rushin'/Gotta get down to the bus stop/gotta catch my bus"
Here again, she comments on the way time passes all too quickly, and how you can't appreciate what you have until it's gone, unless you truly live for the moment, but how living for the moment is frowned upon, even prohibited, by our modern society. This is represented by the pressure of missing her bus, were she to take a moment and relax.
"I see my friends/Kickin' in the front seat/Sittin' in the back seat/Gotta make my mind up/Which seat can I take?"
Here, once again Black displays her grasp of society, and how we can turn even the most arbitrary of choices into acts of war. Were she to sit in the back, her friends in the front would be upset with her. Were she to sit in the front, her friends in the back would be upset with her. Truly this is a lose, lose situation for her. Which choice she makes is left up to the listener to decide. But in the end she asks the question "which seat CAN I take?". Indeed, which seat can any of us take in a society liable to take offense to us "taking the other seat" as it were.
"It's Friday/Friday/Gotta get down on Friday/Everybody is lookin' forward to the weekend (Weekend)" (x2)
Here too she comments on the way time passes us by, albeit in a different manner altogether. Here she comments on how we are always too occupied looking ahead to appreciate where we are NOW. The dramatic echo of "weekend" clearly symbolizes that truly we can never fully reach our goals and must be happy with how far we've gotten, while still not completely giving up on our goals either.
"Partyin'/Partyin/Yeah!"(x2) "Fun/Fun/Fun/Fun/Lookin' forward to the weekend"
Here too she elaborates on the above idea. While we may pretend to live in the moment, we are never fully appreciating what we have. While part of us may be "partyin'" and enjoying ourselves, part of us is still just as driven toward "the weekend" as ever. Perhaps even more so.
"7:45 we're drivin' on the highway/Cruisin' so fast/I want time to fly"
Here she states how some of us even dare to wish time away, hurried with getting to where we want to be, as though we had time to waste. How spend so much time wishing for the future, we can't pay attention to the present. Coveting what we will have, we can't be thankful for what we DO have.
"Fun, fun, think about fun/You know what it is"
Clearly this is intended not as a statement, but as a question to the listeners of the song. Think about fun. Do you really know what it is? Have you ever truly experienced nothing but fun? No stress to dilute it? Has it been so long since you dared to let loose you can't even REMEMBER what fun was like?
"I got this/You got this/My friend is by my right, AY!"
This puzzled me for quite some time. "My friend is by my right, AY". I couldn't think of what she was implying. Was she saying that it's important to keep friends close? Was she saying that true friends are those who would do anything for you, "right hand men" as it were? Finally it struck me. She's implying with this nothing to DO with what's on her right, but what's on her LEFT. The brilliance of this statement overwhelmed me. She's saying that there's two sides to every coin. To keep your right side safe, with the comfort of friends, you leave your left side vulnerable to your enemies attack. Harsh words, betrayal, all of these things come with life, just as do the benefits of it, such as friends, enjoyment, and even love.
"I got this/You got this/Now you know it!"
Here she tells us implicitly that the purpose of this song was to share her unparalleled wisdom. And we do thank her for it.
At this point she repeats the chorus, once again to emphasize the message she tries to get across with the song.
"Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday/Today is Friday, Friday/We, we, we so excited/We so excited/We gonna have a ball today"
Here she says that, while it's important to enjoy the moment, you must also remember the past. It may not always be pleasant, but it's important to look back at our mistakes, our "Thursdays" past, to learn from ourselves, moving on into the future.
At this point the song switches to a rapper. This man is obviously meant to signify a man who has followed Rebecca's advice, and begun to live more in the moment.
"R-B/Rebecca Black"
He begins with her name as though to say "Remember this name." And I'm sure that we shall remember her, such a tremendous breakthrough in music history.
"So chillin' in the front seat (In the front seat)/In the back seat (In the back seat)/I'm drivin'/Cruisin/Yeah, yeah"
This is what tells us that he clearly is living by her words. Backseat? Frontseat? It doesn't matter to him. He's just drivin'. Cruisin'.
"Fast lanes, switchin' lanes/Wit' a car up on my side (Woo!)/(C'mon)Passin' by is a school bus in front of me/Makes tick tock/Tick tock/Wanna scream" "
Here he sings more about the benefits of just enjoying yourself. A school bus passes him, and he laughs at the people inside stressing about the future.
"Check my time/It's friday/It's a weekend/We gonna have fun/C'mon, C'mon y'all!"
Here he closes out his rap saying that he's going to enjoy himself, and live his life for the now, not for the then. He begs us to do the same with our lives.
After this, she repeats the absolutely inspired chorus a bit more, and closes out the song. And thus is the end to a masterpiece we shall all hold in our hearts, and our minds for a long, long time.
With such a phenomenal song, it's no wonder so many people have begun to cover it. A quick youtube search shows parodies in many genres like Screamo, or Death Metal... But truly these imposters are just ripping off the immeasurable talent that is Rebecca Black, and her life changing work, "Friday".
I know with such inspired lyrics, I shall not soon forget the song, and I would hope neither would any of you. Happy April 1st everyone!
I can sum up everything you need to know about this film in one sentence.
Tom Cruise shoots two SMGs at once.
That's all you need to know. That sentence will tell you whether or not you will like this movie.
Knight and Day is a 2010 Action Comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. And GOD KNOWS Tom Cruise needs a good movie. His recent track record hasn't been spectacular. His last hit movie that could actually be called GOOD was... Well... War of the Worlds. And that was 5 years ago (from the time this movie was released).
Honestly the only thing that's really kept Tom Cruise relevant was his string of movies that were hyped and did... Moderately well. Not blockbusters, not flops.
Oh, and the fact that he went completely and totally insane, but that's beside the point.
So Knight and Day was being hyped. MAJORLY. I remember seeing tons of commercials, tons of posters, tons of interviews, tons of publicity EVERYWHERE for this movie... And then it was released and promptly fell off the radar in 30 seconds flat.
So why did this movie perform so poorly? Did it deserve its rapid death? Is it worth seeing?
...I honestly don't know why it did so poorly because I LOVED this movie.
Seriously. This movie is a blast to watch. It's over the top, cheesy, ridiculous, and AWESOME.
Cameron Diaz is the main character June Havens. (Fun Fact: Her character was so bland and cliche that I had to go wikipedia the character name. Yeah.) She is getting on a plane to head back home to her sisters wedding. At the airport she bumps into Roy Miller (Tom Cruise). On the plane they talk, she spills something, goes to the bathroom to clean it off her shirt...
Oh and then Tom Cruise is attacked and kills everyone else on the plane. And it's AWESOME. So then, in a totally over the top sequence he lands the plane in a field... After coasting over the ground for around a minute.
It's absolutely absurd and insane. Seriously, this movie has so many cliches, tropes, and cheesy over the top action sequences (Someone is stabbed in the chest, and then removes the knife and continues the fight sequence. No joke.) that you will either love this movie for what it is, or hate everything about it.
I'm serious. There are a lot of things to criticize here. Like I said, the characters aren't terribly interesting, and the plot is just silly but my gosh it's fun. That's it. It's just... Fun!
As for the acting... Well let's start with Cruise. I loved his performance in this movie. Not because it was his best performance of all time, but because you could TELL he was enjoying himself. Perhaps this is the movie he should continue making. Completely crazy ones, that is. His personality really shines through.
Cameron Diaz performance is ultimately rather forgettable. It's not BAD by any means, it didn't distract from the sheer insane fun that the movie provided, but she didn't seem to have the same energy Tom had. Or maybe that was drugs. I don't know. Could be either really.
Oh and Mark Blucas is in this, and I think this is the only thing (other than one episode of Castle) I've ever seen him in outside of Buffy. (He was Riley on Buffy, in case the name doesn't ring a bell.)
This is a movie that will make you laugh, both from funny jokes and just sheer absurdity. Whether it be landing a plane in a corn field, jumping from car to car on a moving freeway, or whatever else this movie throws at you, if you see this film wanting nothing more than an absolutely insane action-comedy, you'll most certainly enjoy this film. I did.
*Note: The following contains heavy spoilers for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I strongly suggest you see it first, before reading this post. The Three Act musical runs at about 45 mintues long, and can be found by dubious means on youtube, can be streamed on netflix, or purchased on iTunes or Amazon. It has not been rated, but would likely earn around a PG rating. It contains mild language and some crude humor.*
*Note 2: I don't actually think this was the intent behind the plot of Dr. Horrible, nor behind the characters within it. I merely offer it as an Alternate Character Interpretation.*
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. A fun, if ultimately... Strange... Musical.
I love Dr. Horrible. The characters, the actors, the songs, the humor, everything about this show is just FUN.
But recently, I was listening to "On The Rise" and I noticed something. It was if something clicked in my head ever so suddenly. Now, I don't know if Joss Whedon intended this, but... I find this amusing. This alternate character interpretation. Honestly, this is probably just me reading to much into it, but other people online seem to have similar theories to mine, I've found.
What is this theory? My theory is an alternate character interpretation of Dr. Horrible, which harshly changes the tone of the musical. What is this theory exactly? Well, this theory is that there is no Dr. Horrible. There is only Billy, a sad schizophrenic man who has created an alter ego, Dr. Horrible. By realizing this, it brings a strange new change.
Dr. Horrible
Let's start at the beginning. What is Dr. Horrible? Dr. Horrible, as I said, is Billy's alter ego, his second persona which he slips into, protected from the harsh realities of his sad world. You see, Billy (Neil Patrick Harris) is a schizophrenic. He doesn't have multiple personality disorder persay, but he does have an alternate persona, Dr. Horrible, which he is aware of. He sees the world not as it is, but as he imagines it to be. With heroes and villains, and superpowers and fantastical things happening everywhere.
However, Billy, while aware that he has multiple personas (persona? Personi? I don't know.), neither fully realizes, nor is fully oblivious to the nature of how he sees the world. Thus, unable to cope with the way he sees reality fully by himself, he creates his blog, able to vent the way he sees the world through this blog, on the internet. Thus, any scene of him speaking to the camera, is actually happening.
Now, let's start with laundry day.
"My Freeze Ray"
This is setting up the way he feels about Penny (played by Felicia Day) who he has noticed at the laundromat before. Now, in the context of the musical it's of course, simply setting things up, that he has a crush on her, but... What if it's more than just a simple crush? What if Billy is fixated with her. Stalking her, without her knowledge. He does say at one point that he knows her exact laundry schedule. Takes on a frightening new light doesn't it?
Overall though, the "Freeze Ray" concept, shows that at this point he's still mostly harmless. He's not fully sane, but he's also not dangerous. He doesn't want to kill people, he doesn't even really want to steal money (as evidenced by the intro "It's not about making money, it's about taking money!") he just wants Penny, and he wants more people to see the world as he sees it, chaotically.
Bad Horse and the Evil League of Evil
Bad Horse and Evil League of Evil serve two purposes. The first is to establish something that Billy must strive for. Billy wants to bring chaos to the world, as he views that, in his madness, as the only way to fix the world. To "cut off the head of the fish" as he says, bringing chaos to the world, so it can regrow stronger. "Joining the league" is his goal, his mile marker, for having reached this goal.
The other, is to establish that, while Billy considers himself "Evil" he still feels he's not totally gone. That he's still on the edge between evil, and good. He still feels that he can be saved from his evil, and thus his madness. His blog is one way of him trying to explain this to the world. Trying to establish that he still feels he can be redeemed.
Captain Hammer and "A Man's Gotta Do"
Immediately before "My Freeze Ray" Dr. Horrible is answering e-mails. He mentions Captain Hammer, who will of course, be extremely important to later on. However, what is important here, is that he calls Captain Hammer his "Nemesis". This establishes past history between the two of them. You see, I think Captain Hammer is a fabrication created by Billy's schizophrenia.
What if Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion... Wow, this cast is so good. My favorite actor, and my favorite actress in the same thing... Sigh... Ok back on topic.) was a jock who went to school with Billy? Always getting the girls, while Billy stood in the back of the class, a nerd, an outcast, and a loner. I doubt Hammer was even what would be called a bully. He was simply popular. And Billy hated him for that, enough that he wouldn't have forgotten about him, and would still consider Hammer his "Nemesis" after high school, and college.
Thus, "Captain Hammer" is not a real person, but a persona that Billy has created, representing everything that stands in his way. Everything he hates. Everything he views as wrong.
You see, Captain Hammer is a jerk in this. Comically so. And while I do think part of that is simply his personality, I also think a lot of it is Billy seeing Hammer how he wants to see Hammer. For example, while Hammer may have pushed him around a bit in school, I don't think he hated Billy. But I doubt that they have even seen each other in years. Not, at least, until "A Man's Gotta Do".
Billy is stealing a truck, likely one containing money, or something like it. He's being chased by the police, who he interprets as "Captain Hammer" viewing anyone who tries to stop him as his nemesis.
And then he sees Penny. Driving at high speeds, he almost hits Penny. He slows, almost caught by the police, but can't slow fast enough while pursued. He certainly would have hit her, if the real Hammer hadn't have been there. Just by crazy random happenstance, the actual Hammer pushes her out of the way.
He pushes her into the garbage, saving her life. And all Billy sees is the way he pushes them together, as he drives away, escaping the police, and slipping away quietly.
"On The Rise"
Billy is being torn up inside, after not only seeing Hammer (the real Hammer, for the rest of this I'll refer to the real Hammer as just "Hammer" while referring to Billy's imaginary nemesis as "Captain Hammer") for the first time in years, but pushing her and Penny together. He's in full on stalker mode now, as he shadows Penny and Hammer on their first date. I mean, tell me you don't get chills as you see him appear in the background at the shelter. He's insane. He's angry. And he's slowly becoming more dangerous.
The next day, he returns to his home, only to find the police there. They've found him, the thief who stole the weapons/money/whatever. They recognize him, and chase him, but he, once again, manages to slip away.
Again, in his mind, he sees it as Captain Hammer coming after him, attacking him, for using a "freeze ray" on the mayor. By this time he's realized that stealing things isn't enough chaos to bring to the world any more. There's only one thing he can do now. Only one thing, he views as "enough".
Notice the change in background from the first blog entry we see, to now. Implying he's relocated, perhaps after fleeing from the police.
In any case, he realizes now, that the only way to enter into the league (to bring chaos to those around him) is to kill. But at the same time, he struggles with the morality of killing. Remember, at this time, he's still harmless enough, never meaning to hurt anyone until now. "Story of a Girl"/"Brand New Day"
The next day he goes to the Laundromat, and actually manages to talk to Penny, who's of course unaware of his status as an outlaw. As he talks to her, she tells him about her date with Hammer. She also tells him about the homeless shelter Hammer is helping fund, being wealthy himself. (Perhaps he opened a large chain of hardware stores, making large sums of money. That would explain the "Hammer" persona Billy invented for him.) He's enraged by this, but hides it from her. She tells him a bit about her life, and how she really likes her new boyfriend, Hammer.
And then Hammer himself comes in. Billy tries to slip away ("OH LOOK AT MY WRIST! I gotta go!") but Hammer realizes that it's Billy, someone he once knew.
I don't know what he said here. Hammer, although I truly believe he liked Penny greatly at this point, must have said something to Billy. Perhaps it was a comment about how "hot" Penny was. I don't know exactly what, but whatever it was Billy found it disrespectful. This is represented by the "And these... Are not the Hammer" line... And the following line... Yeah. You know the one I'm talking about. In any case, this finally pushes Billy over the edge. Billy finally slips into his Dr. Horrible persona fully, both in real life, and on his blog, letting it sink in.
He's going to kill Hammer. Penny will understand why, he tells himself. She'll understand he's doing it because Hammer doesn't respect her. "So They Say"
The new homeless Shelter is featured on the news, and brings hope to many people, as Penny contemplates whether she may have found "the one". Note that the more obscene and absurd lines Hammer has in the 3rd act, as opposed to the less absurd (although still ridiculous) ones in the first and second act, are representative of Billy's descent into madness worsening, as he is now merging not only the personalities of himself and "Dr. Horrible", but of Hammer, and Captain Hammer.
Meanwhile, Billy/Dr. Horrible realizes that the opening of the homeless shelter is his opportunity. Hammer, funding it, will be giving a short speech at the opening. It will have a crowd, and it will be the perfect place for him to strike.
Moist (his roommate) tries to call him, worried about him, but Billy/Dr. Horrible ignores it. He manages to obtain a gun. And he heads to the crowd for the opening of the Homeless shelter.
"Everyone's A Hero"/"Slipping"
As Billy/Dr. Horrible watches the speech Hammer gives to the crowd. The ridiculous lines Captain Hammer is now saying have reached their peak, as Billy has now completely merged the persona's of Hammer and Captain Hammer. The lyrics of "Everyone's A Hero" represent both the merging of Hammer and Captain Hammer, and that Billy wonders, inside, if he's really past the point of no return. He isn't. But unfortunately, he's too fueled by anger and hate to leave the path he's on.
Dr. Horrible shoots Hammer. He tells no one to move as he walks around and monologues like a crazy man. He slowly walks toward Hammer. He looks around, not seeing Penny. She's hiding. She realizes what Dr. Horrible is about to do though, and runs up in front of Hammer before Billy kills him. This is what Captain Hammer standing now represents, is Penny's defense of Hammer. (Remember, Captain Hammer represents whatever gets in his way.) He now splits Penny into two Personas. Penny, and Captain Hammer. Penny is everything he loves. Captain Hammer is everything he hates.
Confused and angered, he shoots Penny (the real one).
Penny (both real, and the persona) die. Captain Hammer, however, lives, as now matter what he does, there will always be things to get in his way. Hammer too, lives (now needing severe therapy after seeing his old schoolmate kill his girlfriend, for trying to talk Dr. Horrible down.) "Everything You Ever"
After killing Penny, he does in fact cause a lot of fear and chaos. In his mind, "[His] victory's complete". Billy, seeing Penny dead, realizes what he's done, but of course blames it in his mind as Captain Hammer's doing. You see, the moment Penny resisted him, getting in his way, she became representative of Captain Hammer. Thus when Billy shot HER, it was really (in his mind) Captain Hammer shooting Penny. Captain Hammer killing Penny. Thus he collapses, and mourns her. In his mind he has now achieved it. He has now joined the Evil League of Evil, both because he became what he truly feels is the worst he could be, what he feels is truly "evil" and because he caused enough chaos to have reached his goal. He is now irredeemable, he feels, after having killed Penny.
The police come and arrest him, but he simply revels in his victory. He's taken to an insane asylum, being truly crazy. In his mind though, he's taken to the league, and parties with them, reveling in his achievement. He did it. He got everything he ever wanted. Now the nightmare's real. Now he is truly Dr. Horrible. In his mind, there is no longer a Billy, there is only Dr. Horrible, who is now represented in a red costume. And yet before the credits roll, for just one second, we see Dr. Horrible in his old costume, talking into the camera, on his blog, tears streaming down his face.
There is, perhaps, some ounce of humanity left in Dr. Horrible. Some trace of Billy.
Let me answer a question that I'm quite sure no one asked. I review and comment on a lot of movies, a lot of video games, a lot of TV shows, and I comment (albeit less frequently) on books and comics/graphic novels. That's really what makes up the majority of this blog. You may notice, and may (but probably don't) wonder why that list doesn't include music?
Simple... I'm really not qualified to talk about music. I... Really just don't get as passionate about music as I do about other mediums. It's not that I think it lesser, quite the contrary, I think music is a beautiful medium which, artistically, is every bit as great as books, films, or video games. (And yes I will put video games on par with the rest as an artistic medium.)
Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of music that I hate. I hate Justin Bieber, the untalented hack, I despise country music with very VERY few exceptions, and I don't like rap or R&B. It's just... Not my thing.
But I mean, you won't see me reviewing the latest hit single because of two main reasons.
1. I have absolutely no musical talent. Seriously. I don't play an instrument, my singing voice is... Well it's not ear bleedingly bad, but I'm not going to become a breakout music star any time soon. And I literally know next to nothing about how music is written.
2. I'm simply not qualified to talk about music because of my lack of knowledge on the subject. Now, with movies or film, I may have some... Different opinions than the majority, but I know what I'm talking about. I do reading, and I spend a LOT of my time watching films, or playing games. I know the terminology behind it. I understand game mechanics, and can identify storytelling tropes. I've listened to countless commentaries for films. I'm not the worlds greatest expert on these things, but I know what I'm talking about when it comes to storytelling, movies, games, special effects... That's not the case with music. I don't know that much about music. I don't listen to the radio, I don't pay ANY attention to what albums are being released and when, I don't know who the new big sensation is... In fact if you were to ask me to name any of the top twenty songs right now, I couldn't name a single one. I listen to music, sure, but... A pretty small selection.
I mean... I know who Lady Gaga is, I know who Ke$ha is, I unfortunately know who Justin Bieber is... But I don't own a single song released by any of them. Which, y'know, is probably not a bad thing in at least two of those cases. (I'll let you decide which two I'm talking about.)
That said, what do I like? Well, that's a tough question, because there's a lot of varying things I like, and they... Really aren't connected. But I suppose I should start with my very favorite band. Five Iron Frenzy
Five Iron Frenzy was a Christian Ska/Rock band which was formed in the late nineties and saw moderate, yet niche success until they broke up in 2004. I only actually learned about them a couple years ago, long after they had been broken up, and then of course immediately bought every CD they had ever released with the exception of a few live ones, because they were FREAKING AWESOME.
Seriously, this band could not be any better, their songs ranging from humorous songs like "The Untimely Death of Brad", (Created after a rumor of the death of one of the members of the band spread across the internet like wildfire. He was alive, for the record, and the rumor started after he missed a concert due to equipment malfunction or some such.) to "Blue Mix" a song which called out the hypocrisy in the Christian music industry, to straight Christian songs like "Far Far Away". Which, by the way, is also AWESOME, like pretty much every song they have.
Due to the nature of the band, with many songs being completely unrelated to their faith, they saw success, albeit only moderate, among both Christian and Secular audiences. Because they were awesome. Seriously. Go look them up. Now. Parodies. Lots and lots of parodies.
Ok, I LOVE parodies. If done right, they can be hilarious.
If done wrong, they can be awful of course... But if done right, they can be so good! JoCo
The man wrote Still Alive, Ikea, Dance Soterios Johnson, and Re: Your Brains. He's a freaking genius. Oh, and his 3 and a half minute song about a Vampire manages to convey a better, more interesting story, and create more interesting characters, than the entirety of the Twilight series.
He's a freaking. Genius. There is nothing more to be said about him. Go look up almost any of his songs, The Presidents, Skullcrusher Mountain, Mandlebrot Set (harsh language, just warning you), Chiron Beta Prime, any of the ones I mentioned above, Furry Ol' Lobster... They're great. Musicals
I covered musicals I love last year, but here's one more to add to the list. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. SERIOUSLY. BEST MUSICAL EPISODE EVER.
Probably my second favorite episode of the series, next to Hush. (Interestingly enough the one where there's hardly any speech at all.)
Pomplamoose
Pomplamoose I'm mainly mentioning here because of the style of their music videos, which I'll talk about in a moment. They're a group (two people) that mainly do covers of other songs, with some original work mixed in. The covers are great, but what is really interesting is the fact that the videos, instead of showing mostly random images, show the instruments being played, and the singer... Well... Singing...
Everything which is played in the song is at some point seen onscreen. It's very cool to see, and the music is good.
Of course there's a lot of other groups and such which I quite like, but this was just a small list of examples.
Fallout: New Vegas is a game created by Obsidian Entertainment. It's not, as you may think, by Bethesda Softworks, creators of Fallout 3, as they licensed it to Obsidian, a company which makes sequels for other companies. It was made as a... Well, it's not exactly a sequel to Fallout 3... In fact, from what I understand it's more of a "real" continuation of the story of Fallout 1 and 2 than Fallout 3 was. You see the original two Fallout games were set in California. There was a deep universe set up, many creatures and characters were introduced, and then in Fallout 3... All of them were scrapped. Well, ok, most of them.
You see, Fallout and Fallout 2 were set in the Core Region, which was most of California, with bits of Nevada included. 3 took place in the Capital Wasteland, the decimated ruins of Washington D.C. While Fallout 3 is fantastic, it included a mostly separated storyline from the rest of the series. Even the Super Mutants, a staple of the Fallout series, are different from the ones you encounter in 1 and 2.
Now, I haven't actually played Fallout or Fallout 2. However, from what I've heard, New Vegas is much closer a sequel (story wise) to Fallout and Fallout 2 than Fallout 3 was. In any case, as one might expect, Fallout: New Vegas takes place in (surprise!) VEGAS! ...Well, in and around Vegas, that is. New Vegas itself is such a small portion of the Mojave Wasteland, that the rest kind of dwarfs it.
Now, I'm in a unique position to talk about this game, as I actually used to live in Vegas. And I can tell you, they did extraordinarily well. For example, they easily could have gotten away with merely recreating the Strip, and calling it New Vegas, however they did not. They recreated VEGAS, and it's surroundings.
The Strip itself is, of course, there, as well as Fremont Street, which has now become "Freeside", the slums of New Vegas, accessible to anyone, not just those with lots of caps. In fact, it takes around 2000 caps just to get INTO New Vegas proper.
Outside of New Vegas though there's still a LOT of faithfully recreated landmarks. Redrock is still in the game, as are landmarks like Mt. Charleston, Lake Mead, The Hoover Dam... Heck, they've even got that huge soda bottle right off of the Strip, now though, instead of being Coke, it's "Sunset Sasparilla". And each famous landmark has a "Snowglobe" related to it, which can be picked up and sold to a certain eccentric person.
But a faithful recreation of Vegas does not, on it's own, a good game make. So, while the game is certainly a good recreation of Vegas, how is the gameplay, one might ask. Well let me put it this way: Did you like Fallout 3? Because this is... Reeeeeeally similar.
Seriously, at first glance, you may not even be able to tell the difference. You see, it's a first person shooter, like Fallout 3, it has various types of guns, various varieties of enemies, and of course V.A.T.S., the auto targeting system, makes a return from Fallout 3.
However, there are a number of changes which have been made to the gameplay. Most are minor enough that you wouldn't notice them at first glance, but do alter gameplay quite a bit. The first, and likely what many will find to be the most major, is the complete disappearance of the Big Guns skill from Fallout 3. Any weapons which were considered Big Guns have been transferred to other archetypes, for example, Miniguns have been folded into the Guns skill, Missile Launchers and the Fat-Man into the Explosives skill, Flamers have (somewhat strangely) become Energy Weapons... And so on. In place of the Big Guns skill is "Survival", a new skill which has two uses. It increases the health you gain from food (something which will come in quite handy, especially in Hardcore mode, which I'll get into later.) and it allows you to cook more recipes out of various gathered plants, similar to the way Alchemy worked in Oblivion.
An absolutely massive change is the fact that you now only get perks every even numbered level, instead of every level. Personally, though I did a complete playthrough of the game with no mods installed, on my second playthrough I've chosen to install a mod to allow me to get perks on every level once again.
Another large change is that many new types and variations of ammo have been introduced, not only with tons of new varieties, but also with Armor Piercing and Anti Personnel versions of each type. Also, many things which were common in Fallout 3, have become much more scarce in New Vegas, such as Frag Grenades. While Frag Grenades are more uncommon than they used to be new types of explosives have been introduced, such as Dynamite, which works similarly to Grenades, and C4, which can be placed and later detonated at a time of your choosing with a detonator.
Other small changes are things like, for example, the way Speech checks (and Barter checks, and Intelligence checks, and Perception checks, and Luck checks...) work. In Fallout 3, your odds of success would get higher the higher your speech skill was. In this, you either have enough points, or don't. You either have a 100% chance to succeed, or a 0% chance to. It will tell you what your speech skill should be, and if it's that high, great, if not, better find a new way to get what you're looking for. (Perhaps violence. Violence usually works well.)
However, while the gameplay is very similar, the games couldn't feel more different.
You see, the settings are radically different. The best way I can think of to put it is this:
Fallout 3 is a tale of urban survival. Fallout: New Vegas is a western.
You see, the Capital Wasteland was an area with no government. Complete and total chaos. Utter anarchy. It had been rocked by the nukes, and was still devastated, the air tinged green, and everything completely tainted by radiation.
The Mojave Wasteland, however, first of all, was not hit by the nukes directly. This shows as very few areas have radiation, and rads become pretty much a non-issue for most of the game, with a few exceptions. The Mojave Wasteland also has a government in the form of the New California Republic, but that "government" is very loose as you're at the complete border of their reach... Much like the 19th century American west. Thus, in many areas small settlements will rely completely on local law enforcement... Again, much like the setting of many classic western films. Almost every aspect of the game reflects this.
Heck, even the beginning of the game feels like the start of an old western movie, with your character, "The Courier" being shot in the head and left to die in a shallow grave.
The exceptions to the game having the feel of a western are mostly in the small area of The Strip and it's surroundings, which feel more like an old black and white mobster movie.
But make no mistake, New Vegas is a western. There are Cowboys (heck, there's a perk called "Cowboy"), tribes, vicious untamed wild creatures, outlaws and sheriffs. It's a western set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but a western nonetheless. This setting shines through, and works fantastically well.
Of course one of the most critically acclaimed features of Fallout 3 returns in the form of RADIO STATIONS! This time there are 3 radio stations which can be tuned into, one of which can only be tuned into if you're within a short distance of "Black Mountain".
The first, and the one you'll likely spend the most time listening to is "Radio New Vegas" hosted by Mr. New Vegas. This is the equivalent of GNR in Fallout 3. Mr. New Vegas himself is a smooth talking radio host, who though lacking the energy of "THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DOG!" is nonetheless a great host for the station. His smooth voice will announce many things, although in a sharp contrast to Three Dog, his news items rarely mention The Courier, although they will at time mention his accomplishments, if not directly.
The second station, accessible only when in close proximity to "Black Mountain" is "Black Mountain Radio". Playing across BMR is the talk show "Best Friend Tabitha" hosted by Rhonda, and Tabitha, an insane Nightkin. (Think crazier supermutants. Also, blue.) Best Friend Tabitha hosts various segments like "Know Your Mutant", which describes various mutants. It's pretty amusing, not gonna lie.
The third, a welcome addition, is "Mojave Music Radio" which is all music, all the time. No talk show at all.
The songs played on the station are, as with Fallout 3, 50's and 60's music, and great. Personally, I found the best two songs to be "Ain't That A Kick In the Head"...
And "Big Iron"...
... I told you it was a western. Personally, I usually don't like that kind of music, but here it really worked, fitting the theme really well, although the other country songs in this certainly took it overboard...
Ugh.
In any case, the radio stations are, again, a great addition.
The story of Fallout: New Vegas, I found to be absolutely amazing. I won't spoil too much of it for you, but it takes you all over the place, and I found it to be more compelling and interesting than that of Fallout 3, which I also really liked. The writing is superb, and even (especially, in fact) outside of the main storyline this game contains some of the GREATEST storytelling I've ever seen in a game. Heck, I could do a whole blog post on Vault 11 alone. (Foreshadowing!)
And in addition to the storyline itself, the various factions and companions you meet along the way also change the storyline, along with having storylines of their own, although the fact that you cannot continue after the ending (until the inevitable DLC to come in the future) is a weak point.
Speaking of companions, the companions have been VASTLY improved upon from Fallout 3. Now not only can you more easily command and heal them, you can change and improve their gear. And each of them, as I said, has their own storyline and quest you can do for them. There are various ones, you can have up to two (one humanoid, one non humanoid) at a time, and they vary from a sniper to a cyborg dog... And of course my personal favorite, Veronica, a Brotherhood of Steel scribe voiced by Felicia Day.
Oh yeah.
Their very powerful, and (unless in hardcore mode) they can't die, only fall unconscious.
Personally though, one of my favorite additions to the game is Hardcore Mode, and optional setting which makes the game harder. I spoke about it previously, and about what it does, but in short, it makes various changes to gameplay mechanics which make the game more difficult, and I'd argue more fun. You can find the specifics in the game or online, but since rads aren't much of an issue in this, I'd say turn it on just for the extra meters to watch alone.
Now, the big dark spot of this game, and honestly one of it's only flaws, is that it's absurdly buggy. I spoke of this previously too, and most of the MAJOR bugs have been fixed by now, but you may still want to wait a month or so from the time of writing to get it if you're debating still.
In short, Fallout: New Vegas is a fantastic game. Buy this game if: You like westerns, Fallout 3, RPGs, or great storytelling. Don't buy this game if: You're squeamish. Like Fallout 3, this game is ABSURDLY gory.
This review was based on my experiences after around 55 hours of play time. I completed one full playthrough of the game on hardcore mode where I capped at level 30 before finishing. I got the NCR ending, and was considered "Very Good" karma. My character specialized in sneak, guns (mainly pistols and revolvers), lockpicking, speech, and barter mainly. The companions I mainly used were Veronica (duh, Felicia Day, c'mon) and E-DE, occasionally switching out Veronica for Cass towards the end of my playthrough. I had achieved 29/50 Steam achievements upon completion.
Well the year is drawing to a close. And you know what that means? Every site on the internet is doing "of the year" awards. So why not join in the fun? I present to you, the first annual Wherein I Rant Awards.
Super Meat Boy is so good I can't even explain why it's so good. By all accounts it doesn't seem like it would be any good at all, at first glance. A game which prides itself on being unfairly difficult? Where's the fun in that? But it is. It's really fun. If you haven't played this game yet, you should.
Beat Hazard! This game is just FUN! You see, this game is Asteroids. Oh, did I mention that instead of blips you shoot visualized light set to the music of your choice? ANY MP3 WILL WORK! It's fantastic, fun, and will probably give you a seizure.
Poker Night at the Inventory is the pilot in the new "At the Inventory" series from Taletell games. It's set around a simple, yet ingenious premise. What do our favorite video game characters do in their spare time? The answer? Play lot and lots of Texas Hold 'Em apparently. For $4.99 you can get this game, 4 unlockable items in TF2, and hours of banter between the characters. It's great.
Braid gets tons of critical acclaim for it's difficult puzzles and "great storytelling" (I use quotes because that's a load of crap, in case you were wondering.) However P.B. Winterbottom is a game that has puzzle very similar to some of those in Braid, and I heard no praise for it. It's cheap, it's fun, it has a uniquely awesome visual style, as it looks like an old silent film, and you get to steal PIE. It's pretty darn awesome.
Alien Swarm is freaking amazing. It's a completely free title released by Valve on Steam (You must have at least one game purchased on Steam in order to be eligible though. Might I suggest Poker Night or VVVVVV?) which is a remake of an old mod released on the source engine. The campaign is nice enough, and there are a ton of weapons, making a fun survival game, but Valve took it to eleven and let
Minecraft is a game that popped up on EVERYONE'S radar this year. The game which is essentially the ultimate sandbox is supposedly quite good. It just entered Beta, and supposedly gets better every day. I wouldn't know. I'm too busy playing Minecraft Classic, the free (and AMAZING) version on the site.
P.B. Winterbottom, again is a game I heard NOTHING about until I purchased a copy on sale for 49 cents and played it. And that's disturbing since it's FREAKING AWESOME. You play P.B. Winterbottom, the dastardly pie thief. There are several things I like about this game, from the art style, as I said above, is that of an old black and white silent film, even applying film grain. The game also insults you and talks about what a horrible person you are, stealing pies. Anyways, you get time manipulation powers (sort of) and long story short, if you liked Braid, you'll like this. If you found Braid's terrible storytelling a barrier to entry, you'll love this as this is both funny and well done.
I didn't hear much press or fanfare for Worms Reloaded when it was released late last august, but it's a VERY good game. It's fun, it's funny, and... Well, it's pretty darn good! The reason this is the runner up is because I at least heard VALVE mention it when they gave you a free hat in TF2 for buying it when it released. Either way, it was pretty under the radar, and I liked it.
Movies
Most Touching Movie - Toy Story 3
OH COME ON YOU KNOW YOU SAW THIS AND ALMOST CRIED
Best Adaptation - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One was a fantastic way of showing off how you should adapt something. Stay true to the core of it, but understand that some things don't translate well between mediums. Also, cut out a lot of the camping scenes. Oh good grief the camping scenes.
Best Effects - Inception
BRHAAAAAAAAAAM! Inception, like it or hate it, had brilliant effects. Between the sheer beauty of seeing the city lift up on top of itself to the low grav fight scene, Inception's effects, CGI and otherwise, were awesome.
Best Animated Movie of the Year - Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is, quite simply, a great end to a trilogy. Most trilogies have a weak spot in them if you look. Star Wars had Return of the Jedi, and the Ewoks, Indiana Jones had Temple of Doom, and Toy Story had nothing. Now, while I still love me some Temple of Doom and Return of the Jedi, they were weaker films. The Toy Story films, all three of them, however, are fantastic. Keeping up that trend was enough to earn this my favorite animated film of the year.
Best Animated Movie of the Year Runner Up - Tangled
I praised this movie for every aspect of it in my full review, so if you have read that and are still wondering why this is so good... Uh... l2reading comprehension bro?
Worst
Worst Game of the Year - Chime
Ok, understand that this isn't really the worst game of the year, just the worst game I played this year. Chime is a rhythm game which might be fun if it had more than 5 freaking songs on it, but as it is, was just weak all around.
Worst Adaptation - Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lighting Thief
In contrast to HP7Pt.1 Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, took everything that was fun, witty, and charming about the book series, and threw them out the window in favor of a jive talkin' black sidekick. The main character is 16, not 12, which completely throw off the ENTIRE FREAKING POINT OF THE REMAINING 4 BOOKS, every character was changed extremely (for the worse) and worst of all Kronos is hardly mentioned. Luke's motivations are not only weaker for this, they're practically nonexistant. Not to mention the romance between Percy and Annabeth is resolved in the FIRST FREAKING FILM, instead of the FIFTH. It was a movie which might have been decent if it had been titled ANYTHING else.
Worst New TV Series of the Year - The Ev3nt
I saw one episode of "The Ev3nt" after looking forward to it for MONTHS. Let me explain how bad this show is. The first episode was the perfect storm of TERRIBLE. Terrible acting, terrible EDITING, and of course dialogue which sounded like this: "Mister President sir, should we do something about the... Event?" "Yes, we must keep the... Event a secret." "But sir, what if there's another... Event?" "Then we must be careful. We can't afford to let another... Event happen." "I don't like... Events, sir." "Neither do I. I don't think anyone likes... Events." "Except sir, perhaps... Event planners."
Worst Ending of the Year - Puzzle Agent Puzzle Agents is a game I got for a buck. I played it for around 4 hours. I really was enjoying it. It was like Professor Layton but... No, actually it was like Professor Layton. But that's a good thing! I had an interesting mystery surrounding a mysterious town... I was solving the puzzles... I was getting into it aaaaaaand....
Credits roll suddenly. What. Nothing answered, no resolution given to any characters... GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. WHY? HOW? WHO? Are the Gnomes aliens? Monsters? Was the one guy dead or alive?! WHY WAS I SUDDENLY AT A SPACESHIP FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME?!
I've yelled about this enough by now that it feels pretty redundant talking about this again, but let me sum up the idiotic statement that a man named Roger Ebert made. "Games can never be art." If you need any more information than that quote, click through and read my post. Seriously. Ebert had to make a public apology. That's how bad this was.
Most Depressing Thing This Year - Stupid People Are Stupid, Complete Monsters Are Complete Monsters, -100 Faith In Humanity
I've made it FAIRLY APPARENT over the last year, since I started this blog, that I'm a big fan of games. I view them as a budding art form, am a huge advocate for games as art, and fully advocate games being treated equally to film and books, instead of the double standard that's SO apparent in the industry right now. Unfortunately, it gets pretty discouraging some times. Especially when you hear about MORONS who do absolutely HORRIBLE and UNSPEAKABLE things. Example? A few weeks ago a Korean college student died after a 12 hour marathon gaming session where he did not eat, drink, or otherwise attend to normal bodily functions. I wish I could say that this was the least depressing story this year, but unfortunately, that's the bright and sunny, happy story for this post. Take for instance this monster who commited the UNSPEAKABLE act of killing her child and leaving him on the floor for two days as she played games.
As with every year there are MANYofthesestories, and no one of them can be called the "worst" as their all horrific in their own right. We have to keep in mind though that these people were obviously unstable before they began playing games, and the games are not at fault here. After all, the anti-games advocates hands aren't quite clean either. As was the case of the Korean boy killed in a Chinese "video games addiction reform boot camp".
Sigh. Stories like these keep making me lose faith in humanity
This is tough for me. I really do want to say this was the best game of the year. Fallout: New Vegas is a fantastic game all around. It's funny, fun, creative, and features some of the best examples of storytelling I've ever seen in a game. The gameplay is fun, and while it's essentially Fallout 3 set in Vegas, I actually like it a bit more.
Except for one thing. It's one of the buggiest games I've ever played. It absolutely should not have been released for another 3 months at least. I got it at the end of November, it had been out over a month, and it was still nearly unplayable. Random crashes, characters doing various bad things (like standing with their noses in the corner like they're in a time out) and clipping.
It's just... I can't say that it's ok for a game this buggy to be released. It's unacceptable. Game developers need to stop putting half broken games out there to be purchased. It's just not a finished game yet! The content is fantastic... When it works...
And that's what keeps me from calling it the best game of the year. That title goes to...
Another absolutely fantastic game. This is another landmark in game development. Mass Effect 2 is a great game. It has fantastic writing, fantastic characters, and is just all around fantastic. It's simply a wonderful game. Tali, Thane, Mordin... I could write entire articles on any of these characters, and why more game developers need to pay attention to their writing.
It would be very easy for Mass Effect 2 to fall victim to "middle child syndrome" as many games have, having neither a really good beginning, nor a really good ending, since it's simply a connector between the beginning of the trilogy, Mass Effect, and the smashing finale coming out next year (supposedly) Mass Effect 3. Instead though it starts by (spoiler alert I guess, although it happens in the first 5 minutes) BLOWING UP THE NORMANDY AND KILLING COMMANDER SHEPARD.
Not exactly a lackluster start. What follows is an EPIC story which took me around 30 hours to complete. And I loved every single minute of it. The characters are all fantastic, the gameplay is fantastic, and essentially they took everything that was bad about the first game, and fixed it. Then they made more fantastic characters like Thane, Legion, and Jack and... Well, it's just an AMAZING game! Seriously, if you haven't played this game yet, you're cheating yourself.
Best Movie of the Year Runner Up - Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is a great film. I spoke a bit about it above, but... It's really superb. I can't stress how good it is. I'm not sure if it's on DVD or not yet, but if it is and you haven't seen it, either go buy or rent it immediately. It's the perfect end to a great trilogy.
Best Movie of the Year - Inception Inception is the latest film by Christopher Nolan, creator of The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, among other things. It's a fantastic, albeit confusing at times, film with tremendous ambiguity and many possible interpretations. Again, if you haven't seen it yet, go do so immediately.
Most Inspiring Moment Of the Year - Brian Wood Gives His Life To Save His Family
If there was one moment that could inspire faith in humanity, in the face of all the tragedies I mentioned above, it would be the story of Brian Wood, the head developer of the game Company of Heroes, who gave his life to save that of his wife and unborn child.
If you didn't follow this story as details arose last September, here's the short version. Brian Wood and his pregnant wife, Erin Wood, were out for a drive one night. Unfortunately, so was 21-year old, Jordyn Weichert. Jordyn was out driving with a few of her friends, drunk and stoned, and decided to take off her sweater, while driving. She asked her friend, Samantha Bowling, to take the wheel for a moment as she did. As she did so, she drove head on into Brian and Erin.
Had it been a head on collision for both cars, Erin and Brian both would have died. At the last moment however, Brian made a split second decision, and swerved, a decision that would save the life of Erin and his unborn child, but cost him his own.
A noble, and inspiring story, to be sure. One which wasn't quite over just yet. You see, not long after, Erin went on The Today Show with her story. (Warning: If you aren't in tears yet, watching that video will cause you to be.)
As many people saw it, either through the TV, or via sites like Kotaku, one of the main news sites reporting on the story, a memorial fund was started for Brian which raised a lot of money for Erin and her child.
Millions of users from the internet, gamers, sent kind words and condolences to Erin. Something that, for the internet, is highly unusual. Something which Erin Wood would respond to shortly after.
" Hello.
My name is Erin Wood, and I wanted to send a request to please pass along my most sincere and heartfelt thanks to the gaming community for the overwhelming support provided to me in the past two weeks. I asked coworkers of Brian how I might best send my thanks, and they recommended sending them to Kotaku - hence this email. Any way you can help share this with the community would be much appreciated.
Brian always told me about how close-knit and wonderful the video game community was, but I had no idea until this tragedy just how special a group it really is. From all the articles and comments, to the emails and donations, I am simply stunned and so touched by the love, kindness, and generosity shown to me and my family. As everyone knows, the last 10 days have been the most difficult, dark days of my life. But this journey has been eased tremendously by the thoughts, prayers, and well wishes received from friends, family, and strangers living all over the world. It is so meaningful for me to hear about how his work and enthusiasm for the industry has touched others. Brian was completely and utterly devoted to the game industry, and was pretty much living his dream every day. He woke up every morning excited to be working in such a creative, demanding field. It was such a joy to be married to someone who was absolutely passionate about his professional life.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the compassion and support. It is so http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifappreciated, and has been a light to me in this impossible situation.
Warm wishes, Erin"
A tragedy, yet an inspiring moment to be sure. Happy New Years everyone.
UPDATE MARCH 29TH 2011: I wrote an addendum to this post, after rewatching several movies again. It can be found here.
