Darksiders: Review
Darksiders rose from obscure rumors to scarce previews to one of the most anticipated games of 2010. Darksiders launched as one of the first titles of 2010 (literally on the first release day of the year) and out of the box promised to be one of the biggest games of the year. Anticipation was high for the game, and so were expectations. Launching simultaneously on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 the game stood to bring a much needed breath of fresh air into a market dominated for all of 2009 by first person shooters (the late release of Uncharted 2 aside). The Xbox in particular was in serious need of a solid action adventure game, undeniably one of the systems weak points. Darksiders promised an action adventure game unlike anything this generation of gaming had seen (despite it’s apparent similarities to games of past). I’m not going to waste the time tell you, Darksiders delivers.
Anyone who has ever played a Legend of Zelda game will of course notice the similarities in the overall game layout, what with the dungeons and puzzle solving items and a few other more than obvious similarities. The combat is less Zelda though, and more God of War, though in my opinion much more satisfying. Indeed Darksiders could be written off as a hodgepodge of characteristics of some of the industry’s most beloved franchises and titles. Aside from the God of War and Legend of Zelda inspirations, there are traces of Panzer Dragoon, Prince of Persia, and even Fable present in the game. But Darksiders houses just as much creativity and ingenuity as it does heavy influences. This game is not a clone, a port, or a carbon copy of anything else ever on the market before it. Yes, it is absolutely impossible to play this game and not feel these similarities, but why is this a bad thing? Sure some elitists reviewers and message board fan boys have done nothing but criticize the game for a ‘lack of originality’ but these are the same people that continually cry and whine about nothing for a lack of anything better to do. I for one am impressed with what this game has to offer. It’s taken what is the best of some of the greatest games of all time, and seamlessly blended them together into one hell of a game.
The story behind Darksiders is one based on the book of Revelations, and the coming apocalypse, though some of the more classical religious themes and characters are replaced by a new and more original story and cast. You play as the Horseman War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. When war breaks out between Heaven and Hell on earth (the Third Kingdom) you arrive, presumably summoned, to do your job of punishing the wicked and creating a new balance between the two remaining kingdoms. But something has apparently gone wrong. War begins to slowly lose his powers, and the other Horsemen are nowhere to be found. After a very impressive opening cinematic, and a beautifully presented opening act, War finds out that he has been manipulated and betrayed. Found guilty by the powers that be of jumping the gun and destroying the balance of the Three Kingdoms, War pleads to be sent back to Earth to expose the truth and regain his honor, and hopefully the balance. And at this point you’re on your own to hack and slash your way through the legions of hell on what remains of Earth.
The story is one that could have easily gone either way with the quality of the writing and voice acting. Fortunately developer Vigil took such things seriously. The game is well written and features an impressive and very solid voice cast (and yes, Mark Hamill is part of said cast, and does an absolutely wonderful job). The story is also spectacularly brought to life by a beautiful presentation. Never has post-apocalyptic ruin looked so good. Many times I’ve found myself simply looking around at the landscape in admiration. The music in Darksiders is also pretty awesome, though unfortunately there isn’t enough of it. While wandering the world frequently there is no score present. And while the sound of the game is fine, the lack of a score can lead to an empty feeling, especially while you’re wandering around for some time looking for the key to a puzzle. Of course being one of the last few remaining things on a planet would be incredibly empty and lonely, so maybe this was done intentionally.
The game play of Darksiders is fantastic. The combat system is one that can be as simple as you want (simply mashing X until everything is dead) or as complex (switching from weapon to weapon and mixing in different powers and equipment items for the highest combos). War, though striped of his powers at the beginning, soon begins to build an impressive collection of attacks, weapons, combat equipment, and ‘wrath’ powers. All of which can be upgraded and customized by purchasing new combos, leveling up your weapons, and finding new augmentations for them. Though simple and repetitive on the surface, there is a depth and enjoyment that can be found in Darksiders’ combat I’ve yet to experience in similar games. Being one of the Horsemen, of course you do eventually gain access to your steed. The summoning of this beast is impressive visually, and the mechanics of horseback combat and travel could stand to be adopted by say, a future Zelda game.
While it is indeed Epic, Darksiders is not going to have the amount of game play of a Borderlands of Fallout. The core of the game can be completed in about 12 hours or so, if you spend no time exploring and speed through the dungeons. I expect about 15-20 hours a play through for people who want to take their time, enjoy the game, and find all the collectables. There are plenty of hidden treasures to find on your way to that 100% complete achievement/trophy.
My expectations for this game were quite high, and had been for a while. I am happy to say they were exceeded. At this point I have no complaints worth mentioning, and am very impressed. This is, in my eyes, an instant contender for game of the year, and a much needed vacation from the Halos and Call of Dutys. I expect this to be remembered fondly though out this generation of gaming, and if the franchise continues, well beyond that. Darksiders is a must play.
POW!Comics Reviews
I am now a contributing writer/editor for Pow!Comics, a new blog dedicated solely to comic book reviews.
You can find us at: http://www.powcomics.wordpress.com
I hope to see you there.
-Vlaz
Halo Wars Review
Ensemble’s hotly anticipated console RTS Halo Wars is finally upon us. And we are all asking the same thing: can an RTS work on a console? Breathe a sigh of relief when I tell you, yes. And not only does the game work, it works well. There is one other big question surrounding this game, how does the Halo franchise work when put in the hands of someone other than Bungie? Incredibly well.
Halo Wars takes place 20 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, meaning all new characters and settings, which is far from a bad thing. Ensemble creates a wonderful story that hooked me more than either Halo or Halo 2. You start on Harvest, with the Humans and Covenant still fighting over the planet. Anyone who has delved into the Halo lore is going to love this game for showing you some of the things it does (don’t worry, no spoilers here). And people new to Halo, or who never really got that into the story, will love how accusable the history of the universe is made. As if a grade A original story weren’t enough, a Halo Timeline can be found in the extras menu, with key historic points in time to be viewed once you find them (represented by black boxes) in the Campaign maps.
Game play wise Halo Wars is quite an accomplishment. Many have tried, and failed, to successfully bring a Real Time Strategy game to home consoles. Of course, almost all of these games have been ports of PC games, and of course trying to compress a keyboard’s worth of controls to the ten or so buttons a console has is not going to work. Ensemble took the only logical step and built Halo Wars from the ground up specifically for the Xbox 360 controller. While this results in a more simplified RTS than genre fans might be used to, it in no way produces a shallow or empty game.
For Halo fans the big draw to Halo Wars will be the campaign for it’s story and what it adds to the Halo Universe. For RTS fans, the main draw is going to be the online multiplayer, which works flawlessly. You have the choice of 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 game types for either offline (with AI) or online play. The game also supports system link, if anyone still does that. As I said, the online play comes off near perfect. Match making is quick and pairing opponents by talent level results in fair fights, usually. Gamers have the option of 6 different leaders to choose to play as, all with their own unique abilities and units. The end result is variety, as rarely will two games ever go the same way. With a good selection of maps, and I’m sure more to come, multiplayer seems to be able to provide an endless amount of play time.
Final word on Halo Wars is that it is worth the $60, both for Halo Fans, and RTS fans alike. Anyone who has been dying for an RTS on the Xbox has finally gotten exactly what they wanted. Although the campaign is a bit short, it was still very enjoyable, and I have no doubts I’ll play through it again. Did I mention that the campaign is Co-op? Online multiplayer is amazing and very fulfilling. The game looks and sounds absolutely amazing, and the cut scenes are some of the prettiest I have ever seen. Ensemble really could not have ‘ended’ on a higher note.
Watchmen Review
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Well the most anticipated movie since The Dark Knight hits theaters today. And everyone is on the edge of their seats to see if Hollywood can pull off 4 (Iron Man, Hulk, The Dark Knight) successful comic book movies in a row. Although that raises the question of does Watchmen even qualify as a comic book…but that’s another show. So to answer the question before you all die of anticipation: Yes.
Zack Snyder seems to have an incredible talent for adapting still art into motion. However you feel about the quality of 300 as a film, you cannot deny that Snyder did what no one else had been able to do when making a comic based film, he made the move look and feel like the literature. Snyder accomplishes the same thing in Watchmen. Never for a minute do you doubt that you are seeing the world of Watchmen come to life before your eyes. The characters and costumes and environments are lifted beautifully right from the pages of Dave Gibbons’ amazing art. The writing in the film is word for word lifted from the novel throughout most of the movie. Even though some lines have been moved around or given to different characters, there is hardly a moment of dialogue in the film that you won’t remember Alan Moore having written. Visually the film is incredible. Aside from recreating perfectly the alternate 1985 New York City, the characters look remarkably identical to their original incantations. Notable differences include Silk Spectre II and Ozymandis. I really don’t think anyone is going to complain about the recreation of Ozy’s costume, lets be honest. And Silk Spectre’s change was an understandable one. Rorschach looks absolutely amazing, and the work done with his mask in the film is perfect. The film is absolutely beautiful. The colors and textures of the environments really work to serve as a visual representation of the current in film emotion. The bright colorful scenes are as vivid as possible, and the dark cold foreboding sets are as terrifying as any haunted summer camp.
Tyler Bates reunites with Snyder to provide one more incredible score. Though thinking back I really can’t think of a score that Bates did that was not amazing. But what really got me was not the original score, but how well the licensed music was used. Song’s like All Along The Watchtower not only fit in with the movies time but serve as a great narrative to what is happening on screen.
One of the largest problems with comic adaptations is finding the right people for the right roles (See: Ben Affleck in Daredevil, Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3, Nick Cage in Ghostrider, George Clooney in Batman And Robin) and amazingly enough every role was casted perfectly. Billy Crudup’s voice for Dr. Manhattan was perfect, depicting the absolute lack of feeling and caring and emotion that makes me hate the character so much. Jeffery Dean Morgan’s performance as The Comedian actually made me change my opinion as to who my favorite character in Watchmen is. I could keep going, but I would literally be naming the entire cast one at a time. Take my word, that every actor gives an amazing performance and brings the characters to life in ways that even the greatest optimist could not have predicted.
My one complaint with the film comes in it’s length. Clocking in around 2 and a half hours, naturally the movie drags at some points. Not that the story was ever really uninteresting, but there were a few times where I found myself actually bored with the movie, and just wanting it to end. This is not a movie for the casual film goer, or someone who just enjoys comic book movies. This film is for Watchmen fans. Not that it is impossible for someone who has not read the novel to enjoy it, but it will be very overwhelming for someone with no previous knowledge of the story.
Oh, and there is a lot of male nudity. Not something that really bothers me in films, but this time round enough really was enough. Credit to the filmmakers for not shying away from it, but really. But a small issue.
The final word is that this movie was great. The more I think about it the more I enjoyed it. Yes it is long, yes it tends to drag on in parts. But there is so much to look at and see that it is very easy to get lost in the film. And it is hard to ignore a film full of great performances. I am very glad this movie finally got made, I think right now was the perfect time for it. Watchmen is a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Lost – This Place Is Death (5.05) Review
(Spoilers if you have not seen this episode)
Ben Screwed Up. But more on that later.
This Place Is Death once again set a very dark and serious tone for season 5, and I still like it. We pick up where we left off last week, with Jin having recently been fished out of the water by Danielle’s research team. Finally, in the greatest fan service ever, we get to see almost all of her story. Almost as interesting as her history being reveled, is seeing how much of it actually matches up with what she told the losties in season 1. A lot of things didn’t match up with what she told Sayid and the others, but I am willing to accept that 16 years in solitary on a crazy island will make you forget exactly how things happened. Question; what the hell happened to Montand’s arm? Answer; Smokey. Yes, finally, our wonderful, vicious, brutal Lost smoke monster makes his return. When the group notices that one of Danielle’s research pals Nadine is suddenly missing, they go back to find her. Suddenly a tree explodes out of the ground, Nadine’s dead body falls from the sky, and the smoke monster is back. It quickly sets it’s sights on Montand, who is draged by the leg (in very similar fashion to how Locke was draged into that hole) towards an opening in the ground near a wall covered in hieroglyphs. As the others try to hold Montand up, while Smokey is pulling him down, his arm is ripped off him, and he is taken into the dark. It was an intense scene that was all about those damn fan’s and their annoying commitment to all of Lost’s little mysteries. Hahaha. I can only hope that the four toes statue is answered in similar fashion. Ok. So onward. Montand’s arm gets ripped off and he is pulled into a dark hole, then suddenly, and in a very strangly calm way, he calls for help. Robert (Danielle’s husband/baby daddy) and the others decide to go in after him, despite Danielle’s objections. Robert convinces Danielle that they need to go in after Montand and save him, Danielle agrees. Then Jin steps in, and stops Danielle from going down with the rest of the team, for the sake of the baby. It was here that I realized how much I love the idea that one of the Ocianic Survivors was on the island when Danielle was. For some reason to me it makes everything involving her so much more interesting. And Jin just proves once again to be a complete bad ass and shows how much the island has changed him. When Danielle’s team went back to search for Nadine he could have bailed and gone to look for his camp and Sun like he wanted. But instead he stayed and helped, knowing that out of all of them he had the best knowledge of the island. Go Jin. You rock.
So, Robert and the rest (except Danielle) go down the rabbit hole, and Jin experiences his first time flash (going to assume he was unconscious for all the others). This was the first flash of the episode and I noticed that it seemed a lot more violent than all the others. Jin was clearly in pain, and (though this may have just been a decision made by a different director) there were some different effects added to make the whole experience look a lot more intense. The sky clears and Jin looks around, having no idea what happened. Taking a step he kicks something,and looks down to see Montand’s decayed arm. Ok, Jin you just traveld to the future, what are you going to do next? Run into the jungle of course. Heading towards a pillar of black smoke he sees near the beach (for a brief second I thought he was going to wander into the events of Exodus) he stumbles upon a beach camp. Quickly he finds the bodies of the last two men from the research team, apparently dead from up close encounters with Danielle’s bullets. Jin then stumbles across Danielle and Robert yelling with guns pointing at each other. Danielle is telling Robert that she knows he is infected, that just like the others he was replaced by the monster when they went into the hole (or what I am pretty sure is one of the Cerberus Vents). Robert argues that it is not a monster, just a security system guarding the temple.
Pause for a moment. Yes, the Temple. I can only assume that this is THE Temple that Ben sent the rest of his people to. That he called the last safe place on the island. That he sent Danielle, Alex, and Karl to. Finally it seems we have seen the temple. From what Robert said, and the way he was defending it, I also think maybe he and the others made multiple trips to the temple. Maybe they discovered something there…Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Anyway. Back to the action.
So thanks to season 1 we all know how this argument ends, Robert tries to shoot Danielle, but she had removed the fiering pin from his gun. She looks horrified that the man who had just said he loved her and didnt want anything to happen to her or the baby just tried to shoot her. So, BLAM, Danielle shoots Robert. Jin lets out a bit of a startled yell at this, alerting Danielle to his sudden reappearance. “You, you disappeared” she yells at him as she opens fire. Jin runs away as the sky lights up again. Immediately he hears a gun cock behind him and a voice tell him to turn around. Oh happy day, it’s not a crazy french person, it’s Sawyer and company! Finally reunited with his friends Jin of course asks where Sun is. Sawyer makes a humorous attempt to explain to Jin that every time the sky lights up they travel through time, but Jin is more concerned with why Locke wants to bring Sun back to the island. Standing in front of Miles and Charlotte Jin asks for translation. In a hilarious moment, Sawyer looks at Miles and says “You heard him, get to translatin”. “He’s Korean, I’m from Encino” Miles responds. Haha. Oh it was glorious. So Charlotte, with her yet to be explained fluent Korean, explains to Jin everything that is going on. As they continue their trek to the Orchid, Jin makes it known that he does not want Sun brought back, but Locke continues to tell him that they all have to come back.
Then it happens. Well, ok not quite like that. But it starts. Two (or was it 3?) rapid back to back time jumps and everyone is in bad shape. Nosebleeds all around (except for Daniel, Jin, and Locke…curious) and Charlotte is in really bad shape. She is down, nose bleeds, and suffering form mental time jumps like Minkowski. Things are looking bad for Charlotte. The group decides that they much keep moving because things are really starting to get bad. Daniel decides to stay with Charlotte, and the others take off for the Orchid. But not before Charlotte can tell Jin not to let Sun come back, because “this place is death: (her words). And when the question is raised of what if they get to the Orchid at a time before it existed, Charlotte says to look for it by the well.
So Daniel is left alone to watch the woman he loves die. Things are getting pretty serious on Lost. In her final moments Charlotte reveals the only interesting thing about her character, she has been here before. Where? The island. Charlotte finally reveals what so many of us have thought, that she was born on the island. Her parents were members of the Dharma Initiative until one day when they had to leave. Her and her mother left to live in England, but her Father had to stay behind. She says that whenever she would mention the island, her Mother would tell her it wasn’t real, and that she made it up. So Charlotte became and anthropologist to dedicate her life to finding the island. Once again on Lost, things come full circle. Charlotte then says she just remembered something. When her and her mother left, a strange man who scared her as a child, told her she had to never come back to the island, or she would die. She then looks at Daniel and says “Dan, I think that man was you.” BAM! That was Lost punching you in the face with WTF power. Haha, sorry. Ok. So Dan told child Charlotte to never come back tot he island or she would die…I’ll come back to this later.
Locke, Sawyer, Jin, Miles, and Juliet arrive at the Orchid. Juliet makes a comment about how lucky they are to be in a time when the Orchid is still there (looks to me like they were far into the future by the looks of the green house), and immediately a time flash to the distant past when the Orchid is not there. “You just had to say something”. Good to know we are getting some of Sawyer’s old sarcastic attitude back.
Locke quickly discovers the location of the well and prepares to descend the rope down into the dark unkown. A brief interlude with Jin results in Locke promising not to search Sun out and bring her back to the island, but making no promises that she won’t search him out. Jin gives Locke his wedding ring and tells him to tell Sun that Jin’s dead body washed up on shore and they buried him.As Locke climbs down the well, the sky begins to light up, and the island time jumps again. Locke falls, hits the ground, and suffers a pretty sever broken leg. He looks around the darkness, trying to figure out where he is or how he gets off the island. I’m sure at this point Locke is really wondering what exactly his plan was, and then, footsteps.
A shadowy figure entres, lights a lantern (the exact same one from Jacob’s Cabin) and Christina Shepard makes his way over to Locke. I would just like to say that i think Christian is one of the most interesting characters on the show, even is his alive off island form. John Terry is an amzing actor and has been responsible for some fo the best scenes in Lost. Ok, end rant. Christian tells Locke that HE was supposed to move the island, not Ben. Two things come to mind at this revelation. Firstly, that if Locke had moved the island, maybe the bad things wouldn’t have happened, and maybe the Ocianic 6 need to come back for a reason other than to stop the time jumps. 2nd, Ben kinda screwed up. I think he honestly thought he had to move the island, and didn’t do it to screw Locke over. I think it was widely believed that it was Locke’s destiny to lead the others and guard the island and replace Ben. Now it seems that Locke’s destiny was simply to save the island, and was never meant to replace Ben. Interesting. Christian also tells Locke that his need to die is a sacrifice. I was called back to the way Locke so calmly explained that Boone was a sacrifice the island had demanded and never seemed really shaken up by his death. Christian seemed to feel the same way about Locke’s impending death.
Locke turns the wheel.
Meanwhile off island things are slowly getting interesting. It seems that Ben is close to getting everyone together, as Sayid, Jack, Aaron, Kate, and Sun are all at the pier together. With Sun holding a gun to his head, Ben tells her that he can prove that Jin is still alive, but she needs to go with him to the woman who will help them all get back to the island. When Kate hears that the plan is to go back to the island, she takes Aaron and leaves. I hate Kate. God I hate Kate. Sayid also leaves. Ben convinces Jack and Sun to go with him to see ‘the woman’ who I think we all knew was Eloise Hawking. Along the ride Sun and Jack discuss shooting Ben, leading to one of the most interesting scenes of Ben, fomr a character standpoint. Ben pulls the van over, and yells at the two of them that if they had any idea what he had done to keep them and their friends safe, they would never stop thanking him. Interesting. What exactly has been done to protect them? And who or what is he protecting them from? It was interesting to see Ben show some emotion and general frustration. It is clear that he knows exactly what is at stake if they don’t all get back to the island, even if he hasn’t told the O6 yet. When the 3 of them arrive at Hawking’s church, Desmond walks up, having just arrived in LA. Asking what they are doing there, Ben replies with “the same thing you are.”
“You’re looking for Faraday’s Mother too?”
I KNEW IT! Eloise Hawking is finally shown to be Daniel’s mother (interesting that he named his rats after his mother) as Sun, Jack, Ben and Desmond enter the church. Hawking tells Ben that he needed to bring all of them, and she seems totally unsurprised that Desmond has found his way back to her. “Lets get started” she says, to close the episode.
This Place Is Death was a totally amazing episode, and that makes 5 in a row for season 5. The writers are definitely showing that they are giving all the answers, and laying it all out on the table. We got Danielle’s back story. We saw (part of ) the Temple. We got a little more info on Smokey. We saw Locke leave the island. We found out that Charlotte was born on the island. We found that that Hawking is Faraday’s Mother. The information is just pouring out of this season, it’s almost hard to keep track of it all. I was in love with this show before Season 5 began, but now I am just totally and utterly blown away by it. I cannot wait until next week.
Resident Evil Degeneration Review
I think it’s been over stated by now that I am a huge Resident Evil fan. So after the 3 horrible attempts at live action film (not even the lovely Mila Jovovich could save those crapfests) the idea of a full length CGI Resident Evil movie, made by Capcom nonetheless, was unbearably exciting. In the hands of anyone else I would have expected a terrible production, but with Capcom handling things, I was pretty certain the movie would not disappoint. And I was right.
This movie is awesome. Really. Amazing awesome. First lets start with the story, without getting into too much detail and giving too much away. Degeneration takes place one year after Resident Evil 4. Clair Redfield is working with TerraSave, an organization focused on aiding in recovery from biological attacks and disasters. Their main campaign is against WilPharma Corporation, that seems to be responsible for human testing of the T-Virus, which has fallen into the hands of terrorists and the black market since the fall of Umbrella Corporation. Senator Ron Davis is at the forefront of supporting WilPharma, and has a shady past of his own, including being in on the decision to nuke Raccoon City. Claire finds herself at the same airport as the Senator, right when a t-virus outbreak occurs. Believing it to be another terrorist attack, the government acts sending in a top special agent to handle things; Leon S. Kennedy. Leon, still on a mission to discover the remnants of Umbrella, of course comes in to save the day. The story progresses through a deep running conspiracy both within WilPharma, and outside of it. Leon and Claire are reunited once again and do battle against the infected zombies, eventually uncovering the conspiracy, including the return of the G-virus. I really don’t want to tell much more of the story than that, as it really is a great one and I don’t want to spoil it.
Resident Evil Degeneration is a pure CGI film, based on some Motion Capture. The movie looks incredible. Absolutely amazing. The animation is beautiful. There are some scenes, particularly those involving the G-virus mutation, that look horrifyingly real. This is definitely some of the best CGI to date. The camera direction is even more amazing. The directors really went out of their way to give the camera life and make you feel like you are watching a live action movie adding camera shakes and grand sweeping shots. I was really blown away. The voice acting is top notch, with Paul Mercier returning to voice Leon, which is a great treat for continuity concerned fans like myself. The sound and music are also amazing. As is pretty standard with Resident Evil.
I really wish that Degeneration was the next Resident Evil game, as the story was immensely more interesting than what I’ve seen from Resident Evil 5 so far. I really hope that Capcom makes one or two more full length features like this, to fill in some more gaps in the Resident Evil saga. Perhaps one based around what Wesker has been up to since the fall of Umbrella…though hopefully Resident Evil 5 will give us some of that information. Or even more interesting, maybe a film solely about Umbrella Corp, from the begging to the end, kind of like Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles was supposed to be.
Anyway, bottom line. Whether you are a fan of Resident Evil, or just a fan of zombie flicks in general, or just a fan of CG animation, this movie is a must see. I was totally amazed and completely impressed. A great, great, must see. I have no complaints about it, totally honest. Watch it. Find out for yourself. I know this movie got some negative feedback from some other reviews, but I never really got a good reason why, and I am curious. So let me know why, if you didnt like it.
Resident Evil 5 Demo Review / Early Impressions of RE5
Resident Evil 5 is probably one of the most anticipated games since Halo 3. Personally I’ve been waiting for it since the day I finished resident Evil 4 way back in early 2005. With the huge leaps and bounds RE4 made, Capcom has had gamers waiting in sever anticipation to see what kind of changes would be made to the next game in the beloved franchise.
The very first detail to emerge in the first teaser trailer than leaked years back was that Chris Redfield had returned to the world of Resident Evil. The next thing everyone noticed was that the game seemed to take place in the day time. A first for the series. Well ok, to be fair a very small portion of Resident Evil 4 took place in the day time, but not like it does in RE5.
Of course the biggest piece of news regarding Resident Evil 5 is that it is entirely Co-op. Well gamers of the modern generation (the generation that screams for Co-op in every game no matter how inappropriate…more on this later) rejoiced at this announcement, hardcore Resident Evil fans like myself remained hesitant. Resident Evil is a long standing Survival Horror franchise, and revolutionized the genre by making horror in games on a level not conceived as possible. My biggest problem with the Co-op announcement was in the issue of Resident Evil being a horror game. I just don’t see how you can put yourself in a moment where you are on the edge of your seat and jumping at shadows when your buddy is yammering on the other end of your headset. Resident Evil was the game you played locked in your bedroom by yourself with all the lights out. It is a franchise that has redefined the idea of immersion in a game. Now I don’t mean to say that co-op games don’t possess the ability to draw a player into the story and into the moment. Gears of War (and GoW2) are perfect examples of this. But even at their best, co-op games suffer from the fact that no matter how hard you try to get into a game, if you are playing with your buddy, there are going to be distractions that keep you from getting into a game on the level you would while playing the game on your own. My view on the concept of Resident Evil going co-op, along with the game taking place outside in the day light, makes me very fearful that the franchise is making a big step away from the survival horror genre, and a big leap into the action shooter category. And that makes me very unhappy. There are certain names, certain franchises that you go to for certain things. When I want to play a fun easy quick in and out platformer, I play Mario, when I want a basic shooter I play Halo. You get the picture. Resident Evil, like Silent Hill, is a guaranteed horror experience. Capcom’s decision to change their game plan this late in the franchise seems like a risky move to me. It seems like something that will alienate a lot of hardcore Resident Evil fans and drive them from the franchise. Of course at the same time, building a one of a kind 3rd person action shooter will draw a lot of new fans. I just wonder if Capcom is trying too hard to gain new fans and customers, and are not worried enough about losing the old ones.
But now is a time when co-op faste paced action games are what the majority of gamers ask for these days. And we really won’t know how Resident Evil 5 plays out until March 13th. That being said, lets get into my few impressions from the xbox live demo.
The game play is almost identical to that of RE4. Which I don’t think is a bad thing, as the game play in Resident Evil 4 was a solid as one can hope for. Strangely enough I still think it plays the best on the Game Cube controller, but maybe that is just me. Level design is pretty much what you would expect after playing Resident Evil 4 and seeing the trailers. Levels consist of a pretty basic design, with your main path laid out pretty obviously, and some shacks and whatnot spread around to explore and use for cover. Ammo is dropped and picked up in the same manner it was in RE4. Kill and enemy, and usually there is a box of ammo for either you or your buddy to take.
The co-op partner in this case is a woman named Sheva. So far she has done nothing but annoy me, and I hope she has a use and purpose in the game other than being the other person. It is Resident Evil, so I expect she will have a rather well drawn and interesting back story. I hope. The AI intelligence is not the best and smartest, but not the worst. Think of something in between Army of Two, and Left 4 Dead. Sheva will heal you, and will call for help, and will help you. However she’ll waste a lot of ammo, use med kits (sorry green herbs) when your health really is not that low, she won’t run from enemies, and tends to take the longest routs possible when following you. Of course you can choose to limit some of her wastefulness by picking up all the ammo and health yourself, but then you have to keep an eye on how much she has and supply her with things when she gets low. The amount of commands you can give to Sheva are pretty limited too, consisting mostly of the ‘stay’ and ‘follow’ commands you could give to Ashley in Resident Evil 4. Then again, you could just play co-op, and get around all of this. I wonder if Capcom chose to make the AI less than they could have to encourage people to play co-op. That would be annoying. But not impossible.
Visually the game is great, though Resident Evil has always been at the forefront of the visual experience. The characters are well built, and animations run smooth. There seems to be a slightly larger variation in the appearance of the hostiles than there was in Resident Evil 4. Though you will still find yourself fighting against a set of twins from time to time.
The enemies sound (voice wise) pretty identical to Resident Evil 4, and a few times had me wondering if they just recycled the same sound files. They attack you in the same manner too, running at you in hordes and trying to circle your position. Really nothing new here, disappointingly. Also I have to say, that these guys, the hostile opposition, are very not scary. They don’t look like zombies (ok they aren’t supposed to be zombies), they look like normal people with red eyes. That, coupled with fighting them out in the open in the afternoon…really not scary at all. Actually felt very tepid and uninspired. I know that with RE4 we stopped fighting zombies, but possessed monks with crazy monsters coming out of their heads are much more frightening than random bear foot people in t-shirts. Please Capcom, bring back Zombies. Zombies are inherently scary. The very idea of a dead person coming back to life and trying to kill you is terrifying. And even the slow shambling walk and incoherent moan of a zombie can chill you much more easily than some random guy on the street screaming loudly and running at you. Please, I beg of you, give me zombies. ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!
To be honest, based on this demo and this demo alone, I am tempted to call Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 4.2. But I hope that that turns out to be an unfair assessment. Of course the game will ultimately play out very differently I am sure, hopefully with some new innovations and experiences. And the story looks promising to expose some of the franchies’ long time secrets. I just really hope that the Demo presents the very beginning of a game that takes huge leaps very quickly.
I am of course going to hold back until I get my hands on the retail make before I pass final judgement of any kind. But based on what I have seen, I am fearful that Resident Evil 5 will deliver a very boring and standard issue 3rd person shooter experience. And given the time the studio has been working on this game, and the name that it holds, that will be a huge disappointment.
Here is to crossing your fingers.
Lost – The Little Prince (5.04) Review
Well for some reason I haven’t written a single word on Season 5 of Lost yet…but I will. Wait, I am right now! What I mean is I’ll get to the first 3 episodes later. So, lets talk about episode 4, The Little Prince.
As a rule, I tend to dread Kate centric episodes. I think she is the least interesting character on the show, and have since season 1. I really never gave a damn about what she did, and as her whole story slowly unfolded over the next 3 years, well lets put it this way, I would have taken a couple more episodes about Niki and Palo over Kate bitching about ‘taco night’. But none of that really matters now because honestly, can we really even call any of these season 5 episodes ‘centric’? They all pretty much cover everything that is going on with everyone at the same time. And I love it. Anyway.
The Little Prince picks up where Jughead left off, with Charlotte bloody and unconscious and our losties trying to figure out where/when they are and what they need to do. Locke decides that he needs to go back to the Orchid and do whatever it was Ben did to get off the island. I’m curious to see how this plays out. Locke know she needs to get off island to bring the Oceanic 6 back, and knows Ben got off the island via the Orchid. But Ben moving the island is what screwed everything up and caused the time jumps, at least as far as we know. So if Locke moves the island, maybe it will fix the time jumps and the O6 won’t need to come back after all. Who knows. Anyway. I got way off topic.
So Charlotte comes to, rather anti-climatically and the group moves on, the plan being to get back to the beach and use the Zodiac to get closer to the Orchid faster. Along the way Miles starts to get a nosebleed. He confides in Dan, who says he doesn’t know exactly why the temporal displacement is happening to some people, and not to others. His theory, which agrees with many fan theories online right now, is that it has something to do with how long a person has been on the island. Miles’ response is along the lines of him having only gotten to the island, to which Dan replies “Are you sure about that?” Hmm…very interesting. Gives some support to the theories of Miles being the son of Dr. Pierre Chang.
So the big issue with this episode, for me, going into it was the teaser from last week. We say the light from the Swan, and we had heard Swayer say he saw Kate. So when Locke walks outof the jungle and looks up to see the light from Dues Ex Machina, I expected something big to happen. Maybe the group would march forward and see Locke. Maybe we would see a previously unknown conversation of past Locke and future Locke. Something. Some kind of revelation. But no. Locke lies, says he doesn’t know what the light is (though he later confides in Sawyer) and insists that they keep moving. A moment later we hear screaming, and having watched season 1, it is obvious that it is Claire giving birth to Aaron. Swayer runs forward and see Kate delivering the baby. Again, expecting something, anything…but no. he just watches until another flash of light occurs. Really the only disappointment so far this season, is what seems to me like a huge wasted opportunity here. I thought the writers could really have done something to shock us all, instead they just showed us things we had already seen. But the great thing about time travel, is that there is no such thing as a wasted opportunity. Lucky us.
When the losties arrive at the beach camp, not only do they find that it actually exists, but it seems to have been ransacked. None of the other survivors are around, leading me once again to wonder what exactly happened to Rose and Bernard, and how are they dealing with all this time travel. Makes me think either these characters have been removed from the story in a very uncharacteristic way of Lost, or they are going to become much more important than I ever though.
So with the camp in partial ruins and the zodiac mysteriously missing, Locke and company need a new way to get to the Orchid. This is when, for me, the coolest part of the episode takes place. The group discovers two wooden canoes on the beach and assume they belong to whoever ransacked the camp and took the zodiac. Miles discovers a water bottle in one, proving that the canoes are not that old. Sawyer investigates the bottle, noting the name Ajira. Juliet, the source of wisdom that she is, tells the others that Ajira is an airline that flies in the Asian Pacific. To me this screams Oceanic 6. Just my thought. But I think the group of survivors and the Oceanic 6 just missed each other here. But hey, that’s just me.
Anyway, they take the canoe and begin to paddle their way around the island. Along their journey they find themselves under fire. The other canoe from the camp seems to have followed them and it’s passengers are now opening fire on our survivors. Juliet returns fire, and shoots…someone. The scene was done is very typical Lost fashion, carefully not showing us who the people in the second canoe were. This does nothing but make me believe that someone important got shot…Good job Juliet. Another timely time flash occurs, propelling Juliet and the rest safely out of harms way and directly into a storm. Once on land Sawyer and Juliet share a moment, and it seems that Juliet has a bad habit of falling for every man on this island…well except for Ben of course.Juliet also gets a minor nosebleed, and it seems that everyone is going to find themselves subject to temporal displacement soon. I hope Dan can figure out what is up before someone dies…The group heads off towards the orchid, stopping only a moment to ponder over some fresh wreckage…that appears to be in french…
Meanwhile off island things are more interesting in than in the past, but still not as interesting as the on island events. Kate is on a quest to find out who is after Aaron. Her great plan is to follow the lawyer to his private meeting with the client who is supposedly after the blood samples.
Also meanwhile, Jack receives a phone call of Hurley, just to let Jack know that he is safe in jail. Good job Hugo, way to make everything more difficult. Ben arrives at the hospital, just in time for Sayid to be attacked by a mysterious assassin, who conveniently has Kate’s address in his pocket. With Sayid, Jack and Ben all reunited, and Kate in apparent danger, the three of them split up agreeing to meet at the pier once they finsih what they need to do. Jack of course goes after Kate, while Sayid and Ben go for Hurley. Kate’s adventure, with Jack in tow, lead them to a motel where the lawyer in question has a secret meeting with the person after Aaron…Claire’s mom. The plot thickens. Jack goes in to speak with Ms. Littleton and find out why she wants the child. And then it turns out that she has no idea what Jack is talking about and that she is in town to collect money from a lawsuit against Oceanic airlines. What a let down. I had really hoped that Claire’s mom was involved, because the only other option was the obvious ‘Ben went after Aaron to scare Kate into running so she would be easier to get to come back to the island’ scenario. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what was going on. So as the episode draws to a close we find ourselves at the pier with Kate facing off against Sayid, Ben and Jack, all on the verge of telling her that they need to go back. Nearby is Sun, with Aaron in the back seat. She has her gun, and clearly intends to shoot Ben. I have a feeling she’ll wind up shooting someone else. Also, I think Sun’s little mission to kill Ben is horribly bland and really pointless. She has no way of knowing that Ben was partially responsible for the freighter blowing up, therefore has no way of linking him to Jin’s death. Oh well.
And then the show gets back to being Lost. The final 5 minutes are really what this episode is all about. Set in the ocean, a small group of people floating in a raft. All of them men, one of them a young woman. All speaking french. Finally, it seems, we are going to get the long awaited back story of Danielle Russeau. But it wouldn’t be that simple and easy would it, no of course not, this is Lost after all. While adrift at sea these shipwrecked folk see a man afloat at sea. They manage to pull him aboard their life raft. Jin lives. Of course I am sure that few people believed him to really be dead, it was nice of the writers to not bring him back right away and make us question whether or not he was still alive. So dawn breaks as Jin awakens to find himself on the beach with some random Europeans. The young woman, who is soon revealed to be pregnant, asks him who he is and gives him some water. “Jin. Nice to meet you, I’m Danielle. Danielle Rousseau.” BOOM. End episode.
All in all I think it was a good episode, though not the best of the season. Obviously the big reveal is that Jin is alive and all the time travelers on the island are in 1988. I hope that we have enough time before they jump again to find out how Montond losses that damn arm, and how Robert and the rest die. It will be nice to finally get Danielle’s story after 5 years of waiting. Most of the Oceanic 6 have been reunited, sort of, and it seems we are getting closer and closer to their return. It seems now, that this will happen well before the season finale, as I had originally though. The hi light for me was the Ajira Airways water bottle. I can’t see how that is anything but the return of the Oceanic 6.
The Little Prince was not a earth shattering episode, but it was far from a bad piece of tv albeit a little slow starting. At this point in the show I really don’t think we are going to have too many wasted moments or bad episodes.
I apologize for the rambling mess that this review is. It is late, and I havn’t quite gotten back into the rythem of writting these things yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to do better next week.
The Office – Stress Relief Review
Well a bold move by NBC seemed to have paid off really well. There was no new episode of The Office this last Thursday. Instead they followed the Super Bowl with a one hour episode advertised as being full of guest stars. Not being one for big guest stars, I was a little worried. Fortunately these guests (Jack Black, Cloris Leachmen, and Jessica Alba) were confined to an in show movie. But more on that later.
The basis of the episode was Michael finally realizing that he is the main cause of stress for all of his employees. Of course it’s not as simple as someone walking up and telling him. Dwight, as safety officer, decides that real life experience is the best way to teach his fellow Dunder Mifflin-ites (like that? I just made it up) how to survive a fire in the office. During the chaos Angela and a cat create one of the funniest moments ever on the show, that literally had me laughing out loud (the first of many times this happened this episode). The ensuing panic causes Stanley to suffer a heart attack. Of course once Dwight exposes himself as the mastermind behind the whole thing, he is quickly reprimanded for his actions and is called to New York for a serious hearing with CFO David Wallace. It was interesting to finally see someone penalized for their ridiculous antics in the office. The scene at Dunder Mifflin Headquarters is absolutely hilarious. The end result is Dwight having to issue a public apology and have it signed off by all of his co workers. Of course his apology is as devoid of emotion and sincerity as humanly possibly, meaning that no one wants to sign off on it. This keeps Dwight busy for the rest of the episode, trying to come up with ways to trick people into signing off on his apology.
Michael on the other hand, tries to relax all of his employees, thinking that Dwight is the reason for all of their stress. Of course Michael is the reason for everyone’s stress at work, and the truth finally comes out during a guided meditation (that I am pretty sure reveals Michael’s hidden drug use). Michael decides that the reason everyone is stressed around him is not because of his complete incompetence, but because his employees don’t have the courage to say what they really think of him, leading to one of his best/worst ideas ever; The Roast of Michael Scott.
Meanwhile Jim and Pam are dealing with the issue of Pam’s parents going through the begging stages of a separation. Pam’s Dad is staying with her and Jim, resulting in Mr. Beasley talking with Jim about the issue more than Pam. When he makes it known that he plans on separating from his wife (my writing would be a lot more clear if these characters had names) causing Pam to think that Jim said something to encourage her Father to split with her Mom. Jim of course freaks out from this, as does Pam. I was worried that they were going to add more Pam and Jim relationship issues. Something I am pretty sick of. While all of this is going on, Pam and Jim spend their free time at the office watching a pirated movie with Andy. The movie stars Jack Black, Jessica Alba, and Cloris Leechman. This is where the guest stars come in, these brief glimpses of the movie. While watching the movie, Pam and Jim make comments to each other regarding Pam’s parents issues, causing Andy to think that the pair are incredibly deep, and see and understand things in movies that he could never understand. Once again Ed Helms proves to me that he is one of the best actors on the show, and that his character is one of the funniest. His small parts in the background of the bigger story are hilarious as Andy becomes more frustrated that he doesn’t see what Jim and Pam do, and more impressed with them for seeing it.
The Main event of the episode though is, of course, the actual roast of Michael. Everyone is hilarious in this scene. Angelia comes out in full force, Oscar rants in Spanish (“I consider myself a good person, but I am going to try to make him cry” he tells the camera), Pam makes fun of Michael’s….manhood, and Andy performs an absolutely amazing song. Even Dwight lashes out at Michael when he calls Dwight an idiot. Jim, sadly, actually was the least amusing. I think somewhere inside him he still feels for Michael, and knows he (generally) has the best intentions at heart.
Overall the episode was one of the funniest in a long while. It had me laughing out loud again and again. If anyone thought The Office was losing it in the last few seasons, episodes like this remind us of what the show is all about. I hope the writers keep it up.
Deadspace
In 1979 the movie Alien showed us one thing; Space is scary. 29 years later, Deadspace shows up to tell us that, well, no not really. Deadspace shows up promising to bring new life to the nonexistent survival horror genre. Fans like myself rejoiced at the prospect of a new exciting property to scare the hell out of us. Sadly when I thought I’d be playing the next big thing in the Horror game genre, I found myself playing a very repetitive and bland action title.
Deadspace puts you in the gravity boots of Isaac Clarke, an engineer on the USG Kellion. You along with the rest of the crew, which apparently consists of only two other people, are on a mission to respond to a distress call from the UGS Ishimura, a large mining vessel. It also appears that Isaac’s love Nichole is on the derelict ship, though no real back story to this, or any of the other characters is ever given. When you arrive on the Ishimua, it becomes very obvious very quickly that something horrible has happened. The crew and the ship have been infected and taken over by Necromorphs, and alien life form that kills you, then reanimates your dead corpse into horrific monstrosities. The plot slowly advances as you and the others begin to figure out the pieces to what happened. Missing parts of the story are told via logs that you collect, very similar to Bioshock. These logs come in audio, video, and text format, with the text being almost worthless as the letters are too small to read. Not that this really matters though, as the story is very bland and generic, taken from any Sci-fi alien infestation conspiracy movie.
Of course a mediocre story can be overlooked if the game excels in game play features. Sadly Deadspace didn’t really deliver here either. Deadspace is played in typical 3rd person view, only with the character all the way to the left of the screen. This becomes a problem in a lot of battle scenarios, as your health is displayed on Isaac’s back, and the camera tends to move so that your view of the health gage is blocked. Of course your health being displayed on the characters back does sever the purpose to eliminate the standard HUD, and the game does this very well, allowing for a deep level of realism and immersion.
Isaac has an arsenal of 6 different guns that can be unlocked and purchased throughout the game, which is really pointless as the first one you get is the best, and can carry you through to the end. Deadspace tries to set its self apart from other ‘shoot the monster in the head’ games by eliminating the head shot. The game does this by instead making it so that you have to dismember your enemies. See necromorphs are too tough to succumb to a regular old headshot. Only but slicing off all of their limbs can you inflict enough damage on them to kill them. It’s a cool new idea that quickly becomes as simple as shooting a zombie in the head. The game features about 5 different enemies, not counting bosses, all of which are killed in the exact same way. And all of which use the same attack strategies. It seems the developers forgo that enemy AI can handle more than just the ‘run at the player and try to kill them’ command. Every time you enter combat from the first to the last time you fight the same enemies who attack you the same way and are killed by the same process. Combat becomes very redundant and after a level or too seems more like a chore than a pulse pounding fight for your life. Another very annoying thing is the amazing spawn ability the necromorphs have. You can kill everything in front of you, turn around to walk away, and two more enemies will spawn right where you were just standing. I hoped that at this point in game design we were past the magically appearing monsters. Guess not. The creature design of the necromorphs also seems horrible uninspired. They look like nothing more than Doom rejects, and there is hardly any difference in design from one creature to another. In fact two of the 5 bosses are just big masses of tissue with tentacles sticking out. Should you be unlucky enough to die at the hands of these beasties, you will either just fall over dead, perhaps with your head loped off, or you will have to suffer through a painfully long and unnecessarily bloody death scene. Generally these involve you being impaled on one of the creature’s blade arms, as they slowly hack off your limbs one by one, eventually decapitating you and slicing you in half. These death sequences are not cool, like Leon being chain sawed in Resident Evil 4, but just over the top and seem like they’d be more at home in Hostile 3 or Saw 6. And die you probably will, as health and ammo are horribly scarce. The game makes up for this by allowing you to buy ammo, but stores are generally located at the very begging of the level where you have no need for them. And as you inventory is terribly small, even after you upgrade your suite, you don’t usually have enough room to hold ammo for more than one gun at a time anyway.
The game does feature more than bland combat and walking down dark hallways. There is the occasional puzzle to be found. These however are even more disappointing than the combat you had to endure to get to them. They seem to serve no purpose but to waste time. And seeing as the game can be completed in less than 10 hours, they don’t even do that well. Seriously, the puzzles in Deadspace are not fun, they are not difficult, and they don’t even make you scratch your head for a moment. Except to wonder why you had to do them in the first place.
The game consist of 12 levels, spaced apart by a boss battle every 2 levels. The bosses are just as easy to beat as the normal enemies in the game, and generally take much longer than they should. By the time I beat the sixth level, yes half way through the game, I was ready to be done. Deadspace is supposed to be a survival horror game, but does more with merging horror and action shooters than even Resident Evil 4 did. What I mean is there is very little horror or survival in this game. It is really just a straight 3rd person action shooter. The developers tried to add some cheap slasher movie scares, but none of them pay off and you see them coming a mile away.
Deadspace also features many moments when you must entire either the vacuum of space, or a zero gravity room. The space vacuum moments are pretty cool, but the zero gravity rooms tend to be annoying. Camera angles get very confusing and finding your next objective is more of a pain than ever before. To ease that suffer though, Isaac has one more trick up his sleeve. By clicking in the right stick a blue light will project along the floor briefly in the direction you need to go. This is a great addition, as the in game map is totally useless.
Deadspace is not exactly a bad game, despite all of the above griping about it. The game is absolutely beautiful to look at. There are some moments on the ship when you can see out into space that really are breath taking. Isaac does have some cool tools to use as well. Kinesis is really as it sounds. It gives you the ability of telekinesis in the form of a gun. This is used to solve puzzles, and can also be used in combat. The best example of this is once you slice an arm blade off of an enemy, using the kinesis gun to throw it at another incoming monster. Isaac’s other cool tool is his Stasis gun. This is used to slow objects down, or even to freeze enemies in their tracks. While these offer some slight variation to the standard combat, it’s really not enough to make it spectacular. Where Deadspace really takes succeeds is in player immersion. As mentioned above, there is no HUD; everything is presented in game as part of the world. Also, all of your menu actions take place in real time, so healing or switching a weapon must be done strategically in battle; otherwise you open yourself up for attack.
Over all I was disappointed by Deadspace, though I think this might be partly due to the expectations I had for the game. Of course it is also due to the fact that Deadspace offers no challenge, is incredibly repetitive and losses its charm very quickly. There is possibility to expand the Deadspace universe with a sequel or two, and should EA choose to do so, hopefully they will think about expanding the game play over all. In closing, Deadspace is not amazing, but it’d not a terrible experience either. But if you are looking for a next-gen survival horror game, skip this one, and go play Silent Hill Homecoming.
The Final Stage 