The Best Six Films of 2012 (So Far) In No Particular Order

While, thus far, this year's video game releases have left something to be desired (if purely for the lack of ANYTHING COMING OUT), this year has been absolutely phenomenal for films, particularly genre films. In fact, I can't remember a year with so many astoundingly good films... Ever. 2012 may not have produced the best genre films ever (though I do believe some of these will be considered among such in years to come), but it's certainly produced a lot of really, really good ones.

So I thought I'd share six of the best movies to come out this year so far. These are all great movies, definitely worth your time. These are in no particular order here, though I will tell you that I'm absolutely torn apart trying to decided which among three of them is my favorite film of the year. Without further ado, six films from 2012 you should make time to see.

Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph began to get a whole lot of buzz earlier this year when the first trailer came out for it, and revealed that not only was the plot pretty unique (the villain of an old arcade game deciding he wants to be the hero for once, and "game jumping" to find somewhere he can be), but that there were literally dozens of cameos from real, actual video game characters.

Well as it turns out, Wreck-It Ralph is every bit the love letter to gaming that people had hoped it would be, but not for the reasons they thought it would. While the cameos are there, and very well used for the most part, the reason the film works as well as it does is because of the attention to detail it pays, and the way it really gets video games in a way Hollywood never has before.

From the absolutely gorgeous pixel art featured in places, to the way the music sounds like video game music, to the way it mirrors video games in dozens of other ways even down to things like camera angles, or the way they actually got Buckner & Garcia of "Pacman Fever" fame to write a Wreck-It Ralph theme, to the way the characters look different depending on what kind of game they're from, to literally dozens of other things I can't even begin to describe, this movie works in every way it needs to. 

While there are a couple of jokes that didn't land, especially from Sarah Silverman's character Vannelope (LOOKIN' AT YOU "HERO'S DOODIE"!), for the most part Wreck-It Ralph is a fun, funny, great film. Every gamer should see it, people who don't like games should see it anyway, for a legitimately good film.

Paranorman

Paranorman is a PG comedy version of The Sixth Sense. I am not kidding. Norman, the main character, is a boy who sees ghosts. Unlike Haley Joel Osment's emotionally scarred character however, Norman is pretty ok with this.

From Laika Animation, Paranorman is a stop-motion animated film, and honestly, that's all you had to say to get me excited for it, because seriously, I love me some weirdly dark stop-motion kids films, as evidenced by the fact that The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my two favorite films. Beyond the exceptional animation, however, there's also a fantastic, really interesting story in the film. Each character is bizzare in their own delightful way, and while it bugged me that Norman's powers are kind of forgotten for the second half of the film, when you've got satirical take downs of small-town american's chasing after bumbling zombies in the second half of the film, it's impossible not to love it. There's a few surprising twists in the story I don't want to spoil, but suffice it to say that the movie is, again, well worth your time.

Chronicle

Holy telekinetic superpowers Batman, this is a dark film! Chronicle is a found footage movie about three teenagers who get superpowers. I'm pretty sure that sentence just sounded like the worst thing ever to a sizable portion of the world, so let me clarify. Chronicle is a found footage movie that's super well written, uses the found footage format extremely well, and has teenagers who are likeable, or at least sympathetic, even when they're objectively terrible people.

The main character of the film, Andrew, is an outcast, emotionally (and at times physically) abused kid, who has no friends, and videotapes everything that happens to him (it works in this case, trust me) except for his cousin (and fellow main character) Matt, and even that's more out of pity. When Matt invites him to a party, the two of them, plus another friend of Matt's, Steve, discover a cave which leads to a bizarre thing which gives each of them telekinesis.

What follows is basically a story about what a group of teenagers would actually do if they got super powers, which is to say, totally abuse them. It's also an incredible character study into the mind of an emotionally unstable teenager, and the kind of person who could eventually grow up to be a serial killer. Sound like fun?

Seriously, even if you're turned off by the idea of another found footage movie, this one uses it a lot more intelligently than anything else I've ever seen (it's heavily implied that someone is putting together footage from hundreds of cameras after the events of the movie, perhaps as a sequel hook), and is a great film. Plus it has an insane third act which I won't spoil for you (though the above movie poster pretty much does). If you're in for a dark, tragic tale, but an extremely well written and directed one, Chronicle will not let you down.

The Avengers

Oh come on. It's The Avengers. Of course it's on here, it's a fantastic film, and pretty much everyone saw it, judging by the box office. But yes, needless to say, The Avengers is very very very very very very very good film, and unlike anything that's ever come before. Marvel's ambitious project hasn't produced a bad movie yet, and this is probably the best one yet. Despite a simplistic plot, The Avengers did everything it needed to do, namely let us see all our favorite Marvel heroes (that they still have the movie rights to, that is) up on screen together, playing off of each other. The perfect casting made each of the characters feel exactly how they needed to, it had the king of ensemble casts writing and directing it, Joss Whedon, and the end result is one of the best comic book adaptations ever put to film. Go see it if you haven't already, it's very very very very very very very good.

The Dark Knight Rises

I already wrote quite a bit about this movie, so I'll keep this brief. The Dark Knight Rises is a good film. It is not as good as The Dark Knight. Some people would have you believe this means it is a bad film. Those people are crazy, because if not being as good as The Dark Knight makes you a bad film, then there are no good films other than The Dark Knight.

The Cabin In The Woods

Oh man. Oh man oh man. The Cabin In The Woods is a very difficult movie to write about, because the more I tell you about it, the worse it becomes. Suffice it to say that Cabin In The Woods' advertising was extremely misleading. On the surface it seems to be the most stereotypical slasher film in the world, a group of archetypal characters (The Jock, The Bad Girl, The Stoner, and so on) go to a cabin in the woods for the weekend, and horrible things begin happening. But then you start watching it, and you realize there's something more going on, significantly so. 

If you've read anything about the film, you probably already know at least the first twist upon that plot (which, for the record, is FILLED WITH THEM), but if you don't, I encourage you to go into the film as blind as possible. The unexpected places that the film goes will surprise you in ways you would never expect... Plus, when I said Chronicle had a crazy third act, that was nothing compared to this movie. This movie has one of the most insane, and wonderful third acts in film history. You MUST see this film for just that if nothing else, if you have any love for horror movies, slasher movies, or just monster movies in general.

TV Review - Beauty and the Beast Pilot

Beauty and the Beast is one of the most bizarre comedy of errors that I've ever seen. The show is not strictly based on the classic fairy tale, as one might think (especially with the rise of fairy tales stories seen recently with Once Upon a Time, Grimm, and multiple Snow White films), but on the 80's TV Series which ran for three seasons and gained a cult following.

The original series was a re-imagining of the classic fairy tale (before re-imaginings of classic fairy tales were a thing) which set it in 1980's New York. The titular "Beast" and "Beauty" were Vincent, a mysterious cat-person who lived within, and protected, a secret underground society underneath New York, and Catherine, a District Attorney. I'll admit that I'm not super familiar with the original material, having seen only a few episodes, and having a general understanding of what the show is about, but it has a fair number of fans, both from when the series originally aired, and who have learned of the show post-internet. Also it had Ron Perlman playing Vincent, and how can you not love that?



I'm not even sure whether to make a Fallout or a Hellboy reference here. That's how awesome Ron Perlman is. So c'mon.

The point is, it was a charming show where Vincent would help people, and there was romance between Catherine and Vincent, and it was pretty good, from what I've seen of it at least. I'm sorry if I can't provide deep insight into the nuances of the original show here, but that's because I just don't know that much about it.

Fortunately, I don't need to understand the nuances of the original series to identify the many flaws with the new series. The new series features  Smallville's Kristen Kreuk playing Catherine, and Jay Ryan of, uhm, stuff, as Vincent.

No, that's not the wrong picture. Those are our leads. You may notice something. BEAST IS KIND OF NOT UGLY.

Let me be clear, while this is one of the issues with this pilot, it is not the only one (or even the primary one). But yes, it is a huge issue to have the character of "Beast" look like... A guy.

So the "hook" for this is that Catherine is in school to become a lawyer (Fandom nod?) when she is witness to her mother's murder. The killers chase her into the forest, but she is saved by a mysterious beast.

Years later she's become a cop, and after a series of killings based off the works of a famous author, seeks him out to try and get in the head of-- Wait, no, sorry, that's the wrong show. Years later, Catherine has become a cop, and is forced to work with her eccentric mathemetician brother who-- No, wait, sorry, that's not right either.

The point I'm getting at is that Catherine becomes the lead in a pretty terrible procedural cop drama, and I say that as someone who really likes well done procedural cop dramas (Castle is one of my favorite shows on the air right now). After a dead body surfaces with DNA belonging to a dead doctor/soldier (by the way, there's an absolutely terrible piece of exposition about Vincent's motivation where you find out he lost his brother in the Twin Towers, OH GOD WON'T YOU FEEL SOMETHING FOR OUR POORLY WRITTEN CHARACTER?!), it leads her to discover Vincent, living not in a spectacular underground society, but in a warehouse with an Xbox and a nerdy roommate. Are you in awe?

As you may have picked up, this is really an in-name-only adaptation, which, aside from some similar character names, has nothing to do with the original show. Vincent here is only in beast form (which still has him look like a guy, but with some veins on his face, so scary) when his adrenaline kicks in, and now Vincent, who as it turns out faked his death, tries to help people from the shadows, while he searches for a cure to his condition.

Let me restate that. This is a show about a man who faked his death after a science experiment gone wrong gives him a condition which gives him super strength, but also causes him to lose control of himself, when his adrenaline kicks in (say, from getting too angry, or hurt), and who tries to help people without drawing too much attention to himself, while simultaneously searching for a cure.



That's right, this show has more in common with The Incredible Hulk than it does with Beauty and the Beast.

This show is a series of baffling choices, and I don't see it lasting more than a season. It shall not be missed.

TV Review - Revolution Pilot

Revolution is a new TV Series from Executive Producer J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), created by Eric Kripke (Supernatural), the show runner. Now, given that I loved Lost, and really enjoy Supernatural (despite itself, at times) I was rather excited for this show to debut. Now I've sat down and watched the pilot and... I didn't really like it. At all.

The plot of the show is, one day, out of the blue, all electricity on Earth stops working. Anything powered by electricity, computers, planes, cars, lights, all of modern technology and modern society is rendered useless. The show is then set 15 years later, where society has fallen apart and only begun to rebuild itself through small forms of chaotic governments, militias, who strong arm honest people into paying them taxes, and war with each other.

Now, if at any moment that sounded interesting at all, I hate to break it to you, but it's really not. The first mistake this pilot makes is by skipping over the most interesting thing it has going for it-- The world falling apart. By skipping forward 15 years we miss the most interesting aspect of the premise, which is seeing how the world would react. By the point our plot is set, the world has mostly reformed into something new, and seeing all of that happening would be a million times more interesting than simply seeing the reactions.

The next problem with this pilot is that it's incredibly predictable. I could accurately predict everything that was going to happen five to ten minutes before it did. Predicting who's going to die at the end of a scene before the scene begins, who a character really is as soon as he's introduced (as someone else), predicting that one character isn't who he seems as soon as we meet him... The result is a tedious slog of an episode. The only thing I didn't expect was one twist at the end, which admittedly was well executed, and will probably make me come back for more.

Another problem this pilot has is the characters, if you can even call them that. "Archetypes" is probably a more descriptive term. You have the brother, the love interest, the nerdy guy, the dad's new girlfriend, the bad guy (oh, and on a positive note, the actor who's playing the bad guy of the episode does and excellent job, he also plays the Mirror in Once Upon a Time), the scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold, and of course, not-Katniss.

Because the characters are so archetypal, you don't care about them in any way. It's a pitfall you run into in any pilot, but I want to be clear here, it's certainly possible to introduce characters in a pilot and make you care about what happens to them. Supernatural, for example, Kripke's other show, introduced, in the first episode, the two brothers, and managed to make them feel like more than just archetypes. You learned immediately how these brothers got pulled into the world of the hunters. You learned about how they were raised, how they hadn't spoken much recently, how Sam and his father had a falling out, how Dean always stuck with his dad... I don't consider Supernatural to have the best first season out there (or, indeed, even a very good first season), but you definitely cared about the two characters enough to have reason to care whether they lived or died. And when Sam's girlfriend dies at the end of the first episode, you care.

In this, however, I couldn't care less about what happens to anyone. They introduce so many characters, so quickly, that you don't understand who any of them are. That's likely a problem that can be fixed over time, by fleshing out the characters over a season, but even Flash Forward, gave us more details in the pilot about it's characters than this did. I didn't remember drunk-cop's name, but I could tell you at least one thing about his backstory (that he was an alcoholic). I don't remember lesbian-cop's name, but I could tell you at least one character trait (that she was a closeted lesbian). Instead, this one introduces not-Katniss to the viewer, but doesn't really tell us anything about her. Her entire character, thus far at least, is that we know she doesn't like dad's new girlfriend and we know she's protective of her brother. Ok. This is not enough to build a character upon. These are not personality traits, in anything but the broadest of strokes.

I don't think I can describe how boring this pilot is. Since I don't care about any of the characters, it shrugs off the mystery until the very end of the episode, and the plot is so predictable that I knew what was going to happen ten minutes before it happened, I just found the whole thing tedious. All that was left was the look of the episode and... Yeah, I guess it looked pretty good. You know. If you like watching Life After People. But then that raises the question, why aren't you just watching Life After People?

The actual disaster aftermath, and societies regrouping, is nothing I haven't seen before... You know, what, let me be honest. I don't think I liked this, because I've seen this done infinitely better before. I've played Fallout. I like Fallout. I even love some Fallout. I'll give Revolution a few more episodes, and I hope that it'll get better, I honestly do, but so far, I just want a Nuka-Break TV Series.

#yearofthebow

A Story From My Time With "Amnesia: The Dark Descent"

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a scary game. I don't know if it's quite as scary as some of the reaction videos would have you believe, but it's pretty darn scary (Strong language, but hilarity, behind that link). I've been slowly slogging my way through it, because I hate myself I guess, but I had an experience that I thought I would share. I was only about an hour and a half to two hours into the game when it happened, but if you really want to go into the game totally spoiler free (and I'll be very vague with specifics either way) you may not want to read any further on.

I stood in Castle Brannenburg, my heart beating. I knew only that I needed to get a key to progress further. I stood in a small room, one that I knew contained the key somewhere. As this was Amnesia, my heart was pumping, and I was trying to get the key, and get out of the small cramped room. I ran through the door to the room, and saw some drawers, and two standalone closest. As I trembled through the room, I threw open the drawers, knocking several to the floor in my haste. No key. I searched around the drawers, under them, and finally decided to check one of the closets. As I threw open the doors, I heard the door to the adjacent room suddenly, and, after my heart skipped a beat, I threw the contents of the closet to the ground, and jumped in, as it was the only place to hide.

I heard the beast enter the room. As I heard its agonizing groans, I sat, still and silent, in the closet. Petrified to even breathe, though rationally I knew it would have no impact. Its footsteps were my only hint as to the location of the corporeal death which sat outside the thin wooden doors.

Step. Step. Step. I heard it walk to the dresser, and knock some of what sat on it to the ground.

Step. Step. Step. It walked to the other closet. Crunch. It tore it open. I held my breath.

Step. Step. Step. It walked to a painting on the wall. Whack. It knocked the painting off.

After this came a long silence, during which I dared not even move. It was still there, it had to be. But where was it? My heart was beating like a drum.

Finally, after what felt like ages, I heard it again. Step. Step. Step. It was headed toward the door. It was leaving. It had to be. Just a moment more.

Step. Step. Step. It was still by the door.

Step. Step. Step. Something was wrong. It wasn't getting any further away. Why wasn't it getting further away?

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

Had I done something wrong? Was the creature never to leave? Was hiding in this closet a mistake, one which the game would punish me by forcing me to meet my own fate of my own volition? Surely I couldn't wait here much longer, the insanity would cripple me before too long, making sure I had no way of escaping.

Step. Step. Step. I finally built up the courage to peek out of my safe, dark corner. I had decided to make a break for it if I could. I grabbed the door, and pushed it open just a crack.

The creature had bugged out and gotten stuck on one of the drawers I threw to the ground. 

I crept out of the closet, pulled the drawer out from under it's feet, and it ran to the door without giving me a second look. Mood ruined. I hit save and quit.

And that's the story of quite possibly the funniest moment anyone has had while playing Amnesia.

Movie Review - The Dark Knight Rises

*This review is spoiler-free. The only things I will mention specifically are things seen in the trailer.*

People who have followed this blog will know that I think Christopher Nolan's Batman films are absolutely wonderful, and that The Dark Knight holds as one of my favorite films ever made. Both films had absolutely perfect casting, great direction, and great screenplays backing them, and the way the second film never gave you a moment to rest, and managed to have a running time of nearly three hours which never seemed padded even for a moment was one of the biggest achievements in comic book filmmaking.

So naturally I was very excited for The Dark Knight Rises, the epic conclusion to Nolan's trilogy. Does it stand up to the other two films, or does The Dark Knight Rises fall (HAH! COMEDY!) under the weight of it's predecessors?

The Dark Knight Rises is a very, very good movie. If you take nothing else away from this review, then at the very least take that away. The action is great, the cinematography is great, it continues the trend of perfect casting, it tries to tell an original Batman story, while at the same time taking loads of inspiration, and even plot points, from some of the best Batman comics ever written. For the most part, this movie succeeds in the same way Batman Begins and The Dark Knight did, in that it takes the characters, and places them in a grim and gritty, realistic setting.

The cast of this is absolutely phenomenal, just like the other two. Anne Hathaway is, without a doubt, the best Catwoman ever seen on screen, and I don't think she could have possibly done a better job to portray the character. Is she as memorable as the Joker from the last film? No, but that's nearly impossible. Her performance is every bit as good as Liam Neeson's R'as Al Ghul, Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow, or Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face, all of which are great, great roles. 

Tom Hardy's Bane is more difficult to judge, partly because the character takes more liberties from the comics than any other character in the franchise to date, and partly because Hardy is confined to be wearing a muzzle throughout the entire film, but at the end of the day, he did a great job in the role, and the character always feels like a presence. Even when he isn't doing anything, you just feel like Hardy is standing there, with unbelievable strength being constrained. Bane also comes across as intelligent, an important aspect to making the character a legitimate threat to Batman, and not just another brute, though the complete removal of venom from his backstory seemed to betray the character a bit. At the end of the day, some may view this as one of the best parts of the movie, and others may view it as an in-name-only version of a villain who's only notable for breaking Batman's back that one time, it depends on your view of the character, I suspect, but personally I liked this version. (I should mention that I had a ton of trouble understanding what the character was saying in my theater, but I've spoken with people from other showings and it sounds like that might have been an audio problem on my end.)

The problems The Dark Knight Rises face, however, and what holds this back from reaching the levels of greatness the second film had, are an unfortunate pacing in the first half, and several gaping and obvious plot holes. Now, I won't list them specifically here, but there were four or five things throughout the movie that just irked me, and either felt like they betrayed a character, or outright made no sense. One of the great things about The Dark Knight is that, as I said above, while it was nearly a three hour film, it never felt padded, and every scene felt essential to the experience as a whole. This movie doesn't have that, even though it's longer than The Dark Knight was. The first half just feels like it takes it's time to get going, and spends a lot of time setting up the events of the second half through a convoluted plot which, while it makes for a great action scene, leads to one of the movie's biggest plot holes by the end, which a screenwriter could have solved very easily, and either cut out a half hour of the film, or given different motivation to the action scene that time filled, or even given Catwoman more screen time and development, something that would not have gone unrewarded, as her scenes are some of the best in the film.

That said, around halfway into this movie, when things start going nuts, things start going nuts, and when Batman fans like myself realize exactly what story arc the second half of the film is borrowing from, their probably going to get very excited. The entire second half of this movie is incredible, and a great ride, provided you can ignore some of the plot holes and sloppy character derailment which it took to get that far. Bane manages to be genuinely chilling at moments, especially in the second half, and if you're willing to look past a few irks, this is easily one of the best movies of the year, giving The Avengers a run for it's money. 

As it is, while The Dark Knight Rises doesn't manage to match Nolan's previous film, an unrealistically high bar, it still manages to thrill and entertain, and I can't imagine a much more perfect ending to the series. You should absolutely see this movie, make no mistake.

5 Reasons "Majora" Is An Internet Project You Should Be Watching

Hello readers! (Yes, both of you!) Sorry for my long absence! It's been quite a while since my last post. 5 Months! College really caught up with me, and I haven't had a moment to spare. Luckily it's summer now, and I'll have quite a lot more spare time! I'll likely start blogging more regularly now, and I thought, what better way to start than by talking about something I really, really like? And it's a list! You're the internet, you love lists! So, "What's 'Majora'?" I hear you ask? Well dear reader, to put it simply, Majora is awesome. Majora (the site can be found here) is a project being worked on by a youtube user by the name of MBulteau13. It is an opera, set to the music of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, an N64 video game released in 1999. There are currently 4 Demos and a few instrumentals out, with promise of more to come. But why is it worth your time? Well, allow me to list five reasons.

1 - It's Based on Majora's Mask!

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is, in my opinion, probably the best Zelda game. (Though it's tough for me to pick between that and Wind Waker, I admit most of the reasons I like Wind Waker have more to do with the visuals, and soundtrack, while Majora's Mask has the better gameplay, set pieces, and probably is just a stronger game overall.) For those unfamiliar with the game, after the events of Ocarina of Time, Link goes to search for his fairy, Navi, in the Lost Woods, only to be attacked by a sprite-like creature called Skull Kid, who, using the powers of an ancient mask (Majora's mask, to be precise), turns Link into a plant-like creature called a Deku Scrub. Link then follows to him to an alternate dimension known as Termina, where Skull Kid has used the power of Majora's mask to begin pulling the moon toward Termina, which it will crash into in three days. Using the power of magical masks, and the Ocarina of Time, Link manages to keep repeating those same three days over and over again until he can find a way to stop Skull Kid. Basically, it's Groundhog Day, but even MORE awesome. If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend giving it a shot. If you have a Wii it's available for around ten bucks on the virtual console, and there's rumors (and I stress that they are just rumors) of a 3DS remake being in the works.

The game is a fantastic example of game design that still holds up extremely well today. The entire game has an eerie feel to it, and a constant feeling of dread, as you slowly see the moon get closer and closer to Termina. The entire world is in a terrible state, and it's certainly the creepiest of the Zelda games. Using this setting of fear and dread as the setting for an opera is, to put it simply, inspired. 

The game also already has an excellent soundtrack, as all Zelda games do, so the fact that the opera is all set to music from the game is equally brilliant.

2 - It's Still Doing It's Own Thing

While it is based on Majora's Mask, it doesn't appear that it's going to be a rehash either. According to the creator Majora takes place in a world where Link, the main character the game, never came to Termina. It instead centers around Kafei, a minor character from the game, involved in one of the biggest and best side-quests ever featured in a Zelda game. Shortly before his wedding, the mask which would have been used in the wedding ceremony was stolen from Kafei by the thief Sakon. In this version of the story, Kafei will set out across Termina, similarly to how Link did, in search of Sakon to get his mask back. In the original Majora's Mask, Kafei had also been turned into a child by Skull Kid, but I'm unclear if that part will be kept in Majora.

Needless to say, the parts about the moon falling will still be in effect. The story of Kafei and his love Anju is a very sad and powerful one in the original game, as they are only able to reunite, if Link even does everything correctly, moments before the impact. Whether their tragic story will be as, well, tragic, here remains to be seen.

Needless to say, you shouldn't need to be a fan of the series, or even to be familiar with the game, to appreciate this opera.

3 - It Still Seems to Really *Get* Majora's Mask

But I should stress that every indication so far is that this still hits all the same notes of Majora's Mask, from the big epic ones, like an enormous royal execution, to the small, sincere ones, like a little girl singing for her sick father, to the frantic, to the frightening... Sometimes switching as rapidly as the game did. There's something about Majora's Mask that's just constantly unsettling, and that feeling is one of the greatest things about it. Even in times when you have no reason to believe something sinister is going on, there's a general uneasiness that keeps you on your toes, in large part due to the giant moon literally staring you down the entire time.

Oh yeah. Did I mention that the moon has a face? The moon has a face.

While Majora has yet to show us the moon (the demos have all been fairly simple) the demos also still seem to manage to get that same feeling across. From the frantic desperation of the Mayor in the first demo, to the sinister nature of Sakon in the second, to the... Well, watch the third for yourself.

Being both charming and innocent on the surface, yet discomforting at the same time due to something lying just beneath is not an easy thing to manage. The game managed it consistently, and was all the better for it, and Majora has so far shown that it can do the same.

4 - It Might Actually Make It

Let's be honest folks, this sort of internet project, time and time again, has shown to be a lot more likely to fail than to succeed. It wouldn't have been shocking to see this post one instrumental, put up one blog post and then never go active again. 

But that's not what happened. Over the past couple months, four demos have gone up, and the progress bar on the side has constantly gone up. There have been 10 Q&A's posted on the site since the first demo went up. This project doesn't just seem like wild ambition, they could actually go somewhere. Everyone working on it thus far seems dedicated, at least from an outsiders point of view. I would love nothing more than to see this actually come to fruition, and get fully made. Everything that's come out so far has been great, and there's no sign of it stopping yet.

5 - It's Really, Really Good

Above all though, the reason you should keep an eye on Majora is that what's been released so far has been phenomenal. I shouldn't have to tell you that, I've posted all the demos by this point. Each demo released so far has not just fit the game well, and not just been a great idea on paper, it's been a lot of fun to listen to. The lyrics flow extremely well. The music sounds great, and what changes they've made (such as speeding it up from the original in demo one) have worked perfectly. I've been checking the blog daily to see if the new demo was out yet. I've listened to all of the demos multiple times by now, I've enjoyed every second, and I'm guessing I'm not alone. 

If you hadn't heard of Majora before, I hope these reasons have convinced you to keep an eye on it. I know I'll continue watching the project with great interest.

A Brief Critique of Dead Space 2 (So Far)

(Short post tonight, just sharing some thoughts I've had about Dead Space 2 whilst playing it.)

So I played some more Dead Space 2 today. I stopped at the beginning of chapter 5. While I find the fact that the villains are essentially scientologists hilarious, I'm still a bit underwhelmed by it in places. It startles, sure, but I don't think the first act has had enough pacing to really be "scary." So far the whole game seems to be "Go down hallway. Lights flicker. Cat scare. Real monster. Ahhh." And there's not really anything wrong with that formula, it's become so common for a lot of good reasons, but when you keep reusing it over and over, it stops being very effective.

Not to sound like any more of a Valve fanboy than I already do, but the reason something like Ravenholm manages to genuinely scare, is because it manages to make you paranoid. The scariest parts of Ravenholm are not the points you're fighting the headcrab zombies, they're the points where you aren't. The points where you hear the moaning, or skittering, or maybe it was just the fire crackling, or maybe it was a headcrab and oh god there's a corpse there is it really dead or is it a zombie I could shoot it but I'm low on ammo and don't want to waste it and OH MY GOD HEADCRAB FLANKING ME WHYYYYY...

Erm, you get the idea. In Dead Space 2 (keep in mind all of these comments are restricted to the second game, as I've yet to play the first), you get plenty of ammo, and due to a very predictable routine in every few rooms, it's just... Not scary. And I mean, I'm one of the easiest people in the world to scare, I have very low horror tolerance, if I'm not scared by something branded "horror," then something is very wrong with it.

As it is, it seems to be putting a lot of the set pieces you would see in something actually scary, (a nursery, a dark room, a hospital, etc.) but because of the way it's done it's just so blatantly manipulative that, most of the time, it only makes me laugh.

Not to mention a lot of the game seems to reeeeeally want to be BioShock in a lot of places, and it's just... Not anywhere near that good. (I'd still put it over BioShock 2 though...)

But I do like the game, the zero grav stuff, what little I've come across at least, seems interesting, the game has a good visual design to it, the monsters are cool looking (although I am confused as to how a "virus" literally FUSES BODIES TOGETHER) and the way the interface is integrated is a stroke of brilliance. I might do a full review of it here eventually, as I think it's pretty alright for an action game.

Oh, and little kid zombies? Really? I'd say you're "trying too hard," but that would be like calling the Titanic a "small boating accident." *facepalm*