Getting caught up with mini reviews

Things have been a little hectic lately, but even I was kind of surprised when I realized that I hadn't posted anything in two months. Did this mean I wasn't playing games or doing anything else worth reviewing? Nope... it just means that when I haven't been working, I've been trying to play games.

At this point, I feel like it'd be a waste of time to write full reviews for everything, but I'd like to at least give you my basic feelings in case you were actually counting on me for such reviews. So here goes...

GAMES

God of War III (PS3): If you've played God of War or GoWII, you should know by now what you're getting into. Not a lot has changed... you start of the game all bad ass, something happens to de-power you, you run around getting powered up for a final boss fight. Considering that the final boss fight that you're preparing for is the same final boss fight you were preparing for in GoWII, the whole setup feels a little contrived. Another thing I didn't care for was how most of the weapons you collect in the game are essentially variations on the chain blades you've been lugging around for the whole series. It's almost as if the developers have come to accept that we don't really care to use a sword when we've got knives attached to chains to swing around. Thing is, giving us more weapons attached to chains doesn't make us any more likely to use them instead of the one we've started with, so just to make sure we have to use the new weapons, the developers threw in obstacles and enemies that can only be overcome with one type of weapon. Despite these minor quibbles, God of War III is both visually impressive and the combat is as fun as it ever was. Final Score: A

Gundam Assault Survive (PSP): Essentially, GAS is a sequel to the well-regarded Gundam Battle series. The controls are the same, the game engine is the same, and the game is still divided into eras. As you might expect by now, another campaign era is added in the form of the next Gundam series in the UC timeline (F91, for those of you keeping score at home). A bit more surprising is the addition of campaigns for Gundam SEED and Gundam 00. Then there are a few minor changes to the game's formula. The most welcome change is that you don't have to pick a side for a campaign. Once you've created your pilots, you can play both the Federation and the Zeon sides of the 0079 campaign, for example. This makes it easier to unlock all the mobile suits on one save file. Another change I like is that you earn credits for doing missions, and the credits can be used to buy new units, buy special parts, or buy tune points. You no longer earn tune points for playing with a suit, so when you get a new one you can start tuning it right away. Less-liked changes are the fact that everything's been re-balanced. Most enemies take more shots to kill, even after you've tuned your mobile suits. Likewise, the most kick-ass suits are not the killing machines they were before. Getting new suits is a pain as well. You don't unlock suits, you unlock the ability to buy them. However, most mobile suits will need to be developed before you can buy them. For example, after you have the Zaku II S-type, you'll need to find or buy a part to equip on it, then buy the development plan for Char's Zaku II just to unlock the ability to buy Char's Zaku II. This can make unlocking many of the game's suits an expensive chore.

But the biggest change in the game, and one I'm on the fence over, is the addition of multi-map missions. The first missions in a campaign may only have one or two areas, but later missions in the game will have up to nine. Finishing a mission now isn't about simply completing an objective; you will have to try to control different areas and defend your ship while trying to complete an objective. Sometime an objective might be to destroy a certain mobile suit, but that mobile suit won't appear until conditions are met like destroying enemy ships or controlling certain areas. The result is that many missions are longer and less-suited toward the bite-size gameplay the PSP is best for, and there are fewer missions. Indeed, missions like the War in the Pocket mission in previous Gundam Battle games are now a number of areas in just one mission. So while the new tactical elements are a plus, the way it's implemented can often be a minus. If push came to shove, I'd have to say that Gundam Battle Universe is still the better game. Final Score: B-

Pokemon SoulSilver (DS): I admit to having a certain weakness for core Pokemon games. There's a part of my brain that likes collecting stuff (it's the same part that compelled me to find all the Riddler Challenges in Arkham Asylum, or to unlock all the costumes in a Dead or Alive game). And when you get down to it, Pokemon is a basic, but fun, turn-based JRPG. Back in the days of the Gameboy, I liked the original, and I thought that Gold/Silver/Crystal were better. In recent times, I've enjoyed the newer ones but always felt that they were a step down from Gold/Silver/Crystal. SoulSilver is basically a DS remake of Silver. While newer moves and secondary types have rebalanced the game since the days when the Gameboy Color was king, SoulSilver (or HeartGold, if you prefer) is still probably the best of the Pokemon games. Final Score: A-

Battlefield Bad Company 2: I enjoyed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare when it came out. When Modern Warfare 2 came out, it was a huge letdown. The characters in the game are unlikeable and possibly insane. The plot is convoluted and at times doesn't even make sense. Infinity Ward more or less jumped the shark, and I've pretty much lost any interest I had in the Call of Duty franchise. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the new modern-military FPS hotness. All of characters in Bad Company 2 have their own unique (if sometimes stereotypical) personalities. This makes for likeable characters, humorous dialogue, and the occasional dig at Modern Warfare. While the plot is a little ridiculous, you can actually follow it without going "WTF?!" after every mission. And the combat is pretty much what you can expect from modern FPSes. My only real complaint is the amount of smoke in the game. Grenades will kick up dirt, wood will splinter, brick will crumble, and buildings will collapse. All of it kicks up dirt and dust that obscures your vision, but never really seems to bother the enemy AI. If you like FPS games, you owe it to yourself to pick up BFBC2, as it's better than Modern Warfare 2 in pretty much every way. Final Score: A

Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360): Since the advent of Gran Turismo, racing games have been divided into two catagories. On the one hand, you've got your arcade racers, which range from Ridge Racer to Need for Speed to Burnout. On the realistic side, there's been a few games like TOCA Race Driver, but only Forza Motorsport ever really seemed to compete with Gran Turismo. The physics were better, and you didn't spend a ton of time screwing around in used 1989 Honda Civics. Forza 3 is hands down the best of the Forza series. Even though I thought Forza is better than Gran Turismo, Forza and Forza 2 were still too tedious for me to really get into. Forza 3 had me completely hooked, though. The career mode spans six seasons. Each season has a championship series, and you pass the time between championship events by racing in other evens. Different events will have you racing different cars in different classes. Forza 3 makes it easy to figure out what class you car is, and provides ways of automatically upgrading it to the top of one class without going over into the next one. For example, you might have a car that's an E class, and you might want to race it in a D-class event. You can choose to automatically take it up to D without accidentally going into C. As such, you don't spend too much time tuning, and you spend more of your time driving. The only (and I do mean only) complain I have about Forza 3 is that the game sometimes doesn't know when you've got too much of a good thing. Most races early in the game are two or three laps on a short track, but championship races in later seasons can be several laps on extremely long tracks. It's not uncommon for one race event to take a half-hour to complete. While it's sometimes fun to try to beat your best lap time on such a race, it can also be a little dull when you've actually lapped mos to of the competition and start to zone out. Final Score: A.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (Xbox 360): This was the first Silent Hill game I'd played since the original back on the first PlayStation. I remember really liking the first one, and I'd picked up Homecoming on clearance at a Best Buy. It's been sitting on my shelf for probably over a year now, unplayed. I decided to give it a whirl, and I'm actually sorry that I did. The game is complete rubbish, and it's really the fault of the combat system. People have complained that the combat in previous Silent Hill games have been the game's weakest points. In attempting to fix it, the developers actually made it worse. Homecoming is frustrating to the point of unplayable. Final Score: F.

Halo: ODST (Xbox 360): I have no clue why Halo is still so popular. Sure, the original was fun in its time. I didn't particularly care for Halo 2, but I could see people still being into it. But by the time Halo 3 came out, there were plenty of better FPS games, both for single-player and multi-player. I guess Bungie knows that the Halo fans will pretty much buy a sack full of turds if they put the Halo brand on it, and that's pretty much what they did with ODST. The gameplay, which has gotten worse with each new Halo game, is just awful in ODST, so I'm finding myself not caring about any of the characters. The story's kind of pointless, too, since by now most fans would know how Master Chief wins the war. The only positive thing I can say about ODST is that a lot of the voice cast are from Firefly (Nathan "Malcom" Fillion, Alan "Wash" Tudyk, and Adam "Jayne" Baldwin). Final Score: D-.

MOVIES:

Hot Tub Time Machine: Probably one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. What I really like about it is that it makes no excuses and attempts no explanations for how over-the-top ridiculous it really is. Final Score: A+

The Bounty Hunter: You'd think a movie about a bounty hunter trying to collect on a bounty that's on his ex-wife would be funny. The previews certainly make it look funny. But it's one of those movies where all the funny stuff is in the previous, and the rest of the movie is a predictable and dull romantic comedy. Final Score: D+

Clash of the Titans: It's a movie about a guy sets off on a quest to save a city from Hades. Not because he really cares about the city, mind you... mostly because he's pissed at Hades for killing his family. As he goes about his quest, he fights a lot of monsters. All-in-all, Clash of the Titans doesn't offer a lot in the way of plot or surprises, but watching a pissed-off dude fight monsters makes for a decent popcorn flick. Final Score: B

Iron Man 2: It picks up where the first one left off. Tony's dealing with being both the rock-star head of a huge corporation AND a superhero in the spotlight. Iron Man 2 is a little busy at times, though. We're dealing with the government wanting Stark to give them Iron Man, we're dealing with Ivan Vanko wanting revenge of Stark, we're dealing with Justin Hammer wanting his company to one-up Stark for military contracts, we're dealing with Stark's friendship with James Rhodes, we're dealing with Stark's daddy issues, and we're dealing Stark confronting his own mortality. It's all played brilliantly by the cast, but it feels rushed, especially the few brief fight scenes. It's a solid movie, just not as good as the first one. Final Score: A-.

G.I. Joe Review

In the 1990's, 70's nostalgia was all the rage. That's how we wound up with the return of bellbottoms and That 70's Show.

It was only natural, then, that the new millennium would bring with it a wave of 80's nostalgia. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got a new comic book, cartoon, and movie. He-Man got a new cartoon. The Thundercats and the Transformers both made a return to comic books. The Transformers even wound up a blockbuster movie. So, it's not a huge surprise that G.I. Joe also made it to the silver screen.

Now, I was pretty forgiving with the re-imagining of the Transformers. Optimus Prime was still the leader of the Autobots, who were still from Cybertron, and were still fighting the Deceptions, who were still being led by Megatron. And Prime still turned into a truck. Maybe the designs were a little unusual, but the basics were all in place. I enjoyed both movies, even though it seems most people didn't.

And so far, it seems most people aren't really liking G.I. Joe, either. I figured I'd give it a shot anyway, and I figured I'd probably enjoy it, since I wasn't as fervent a Joe fan as I was a Transformers fan anyway. As long as the basics were there, right?

Wrong.

G.I. Joe is still a team of "real American heroes," right? Nope. They're a world team now, with a headquarters in Egypt of all places.

Well, they still fight Cobra, right? Nope, despite the title, no one mentions Cobra until the very end of the movie.

Cobra or not, Cobra Commander is still the boss, right? No, Destro's the one calling the shots.

Destro's okay. He's a in a mask, right? Again, no. He's just some Scottish dude. He doesn't even go by Destro until the very end of the movie.

Well, the Baroness is still in the movie. She's still got that cool accent, right? No. Rather than being the sister of a baron (who's murder was falsely pinned on Snake Eyes), she's an American girl who happens to be married to some baron.

Did they get anything right? Snake Eyes is still cool, right? Kinda. Snake Eyes, and his bouts with Storm Shadow, are probably the only reason to watch this turd of a movie. And even then, the fights used jerky, too-close cameras similar to the fights in Transformers, and they molded a mouth onto Snake Eye's mask. A mouth!

Maybe these changes could be overlooked if the movie was a fun action movie in it's own right. But it fails at even that. The story, while seemingly simple on the surface, manages to drag on for an excruciating length. And the CGI battles that they fill the time with are just boring. You know you've got a dud on your hand when, during the middle of an action sequence two-thirds of the way through the movie, you're checking your watch and wondering if the movie's going to be over soon.

It's really hard to figure out who this movie was aimed at. People unfamiliar with the G.I. Joe story will likely find the movie's convoluted plot confusing and cheesy. Meanwhile, the movie's too far from the source material to please long-time G.I. Joe fans.

The Snake Eyes was cool (even with a mouth), Ripcord made me chuckle a few times, and Scarlett and the Baroness were hot. That's about all the praise I have for this crapfest. I recommend this movie to absolutely nobody, nowhere, under any circumstances.

Final Score: D

Mike Reviews The Watchmen

What do the following items have in common?

The Watchmen
From Hell
V For Vendetta
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Answer: they're all crappy movies based on the works of Alan Moore. And while I haven't read any of the comics they're based on, I'm not letting Moore off the hook for the movies; I did read his run on WildC.A.T.s back in the '90s, and Jim Lee's creation is, to this day, trying to recover from the garbage that Moore wrote into it in the name of making it more "relevant" and "thoughtful." If Alan Moore would shave, get a hair cut, and never write again, the world would be a more magical place.

Of course, I'm not reviewing Alan Moore. I'm supposed to be reviewing the Watchmen. So on to it.

In an alternate timeline, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union are running hot because the god-like Doctor Manhattan almost single-handedly won the the Vietnam war for the U.S, Nixon is on his fifth term as President, and costumed vigilantes are outlawed. The aforementioned Doctor Manhattan and former Watchman Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias are working on an alternative, unlimted energy source. Meanwhile, another former Watchman, the Comedian, is murdered. This leads the slightly psychotic Rorschach to try to reunite the old team on the suspicion that the killer might deliberately be targeting them. Sounds simple enough, right?

It could have been, if the plot wasn't so meandering. Perhaps you have room to write in a 12-issue comic book series that you don't on the silver screen, but the Watchmen just dragged on and on. The character of the Comedian is explored in a series of flashbacks other characters have of him, ultimately culminating in a revelation that may have served some point Moore was trying to make about human nature, but really drags what could have been a movie of a little more than an hour into a three hour nightmare, because aside from fleshing out the backstories of characters that you still don't give two craps about, it does NOTHING to advance the plot.

The movie had way too much of one other thing... glowing blue dicks. You see, Doctor Manhattan, one of the only two remotely interesting characters in the entire film, was turned into a blue god-like being during the cliche scientific experiment gone awry. He can teleport, he can see his past and future, and he can alter matter on a whim. Now, as time goes by, he becomes more and more out of touch with humanity, and Moore thought a great way to illustrate that in the comics would be to start him with a bunch of human habits that he would eventually lose, along with his clothing. Now, you see that tiny, almost understated package he was drawn with in the above picture? Doesn't work as well when you've got several inches of live action cock flopping around in a movie. Instead of noticing how he's given up wearing clothing as a sign of his deteriorating connection to humanity, you find yourself thinking, "Guy's got nearly unlimited power, so why can't he put some damn pants on"?

The other interesting character was Rorschach. Rorschach is interesting because he's a man who follows his own moral code unerringly, without concern for whether or not his moral code conflicts with societies. When the movie takes the time to explore the events in his life that shaped his character, you find yourself empathizing with him... which is apparently the opposite of what Moore wanted. To hairy, hippy Moore, Rorschach is simply supposed to represent the violent ultra right-winger.

Sadly, the movie spends a lot of time trying to explain to us who the other characters are, but sadly, despite their pivotal roles in the story, the movie completely fails to make any of them even remotely interesting.

Ultimately, I would have to read the comics that the movie is based on before I feel free to critic the story. But I feel qualified to tell you that if it was any good, it didn't translate to this train wreck of a film. A train wreck, I might add, with BLUE GLOWING DICKS.

Final Score: D

The Day the Earth Stood Still Review

Hollywood, completely void of original ideas, hops back on the remake train, this time all the way back to 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still. Aside from the title and the fact that both films are about an alien named Klaatu, though, there's very little in the way of similarity.

In the 1951 film, Klaatu arrives on Earth with a message that he insists upon sharing only when all the world's leaders come together to hear it. When the President's secretary informs him that he's asking for the impossible, that the leaders cannot agree on neutral meeting space, Klaatu escapes military custody, assumes the alias "Mr Carpenter," then sets about observing humans and looking for another way to get his message across. Long story short, he eventually gets together a gathering of the world's top scientists, and his message is basically that many advanced alien civilizations gave up war and violence, and established a force of robots with the authority to (ironically) destroy anyone who breaks the no-violence rule. Now that humanity had invented nuclear weapons, they would have to tread cautiously, or those robots might come and destroy the Earth.

After spending way too much time establishing some characters, the 2008 remake also eventually gets to a point where Klaatu comes to Earth. And, like the 1951 film, Klaatu escapes military custody. Unlike the 1951 film, though, it turns out that Klaatu is not the first of his kind on Earth, and indeed many spheres like the one he came in land all over the Earth. After meeting with another of his kind to hear his report, Klaatu decides to put his plan into effect... that is, to round up animals from all over, then destroy mankind. Why? Because apparently life-sustaining planets are rare, and humanity is trashing Earth. Get rid of humans, put the animals back, and everything will be just dandy as far as Klaatu is concerned.

I'd keep going, but I'd be spoiling the ending. Of course, that assumes you even still care, which I don't mind telling you you shouldn't. For a movie that's promoted with lots of images of GORT like it's going to be some kind of Independence Day popcorn action flick, the movie is just a dull vehicle for yet another left-wing Hollywood rant about how we're ruining the environment. Now, you could point out that the original film was also a point against the nuclear boogyman of the day, but with Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the people's minds and the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, a nuclear war was a very real, very imminent threat. Despite Hollywood's constant complaining, environmental issues aren't. The left was warning of another Ice Age in the 70's, then switched to the Greenhouse Effect (which became "Global Warming) when data showed global temperatures were on the rise, then they swapped Global Warming for Global Climate Change and tried to explain how warming could lead to cooling when it turned out that global temperatures are starting to decline. Whether you believe in Global Climate Change or not (I do), or whether you believe it's man-made or a natural phenomenon (I'm leaning toward natural causes), Hollywood's urgency on the matter just doesn't fit with my perception of the situation. "Green" has become a religion for Hollywood, and rather than a tale of caution like the original, the remake comes across as preachy. And boring. Very boring. The story doesn't make a lot of sense, and the best acting comes from Will Smith's 10-year old son (who's actually quite talented).

If you go to see a movie, make The Day the Earth Stood Still your last choice. Seriously. If there's really nothing else at the theater you want to see, flush you movie money down the toilet. You'll be more entertained watching it spin around in the bowl than you will be by this movie.

Final Score: D-

Mizuchi (Death Water)

Not to be confused with Dark Water, Mizuchi, aka Death Water, is another Japanese "horror" film. We're using the term "horror" lightly here; while the director (Kiyoshi Yamamoto) seems determined to shock the audience with some gory scenes, the scariest part of the movie is at the end, when you realized you just lost an hour and a half of your life watching it.

The plot goes something like this: some very thirsty people are committing suicide, usually after destroying their eyes in some way, or by jamming things through their eyes into their brains. Meanwhile, for reasons that aren't clear, reporter Kyoko Togakure visits a nursing home where she finds a dead man with a note that reads, "Death Water." She asks a professor about it, and he tells her a story about a fountain connected to the netherworld. Of course, this professor winds up committing suicide, and being a reporter, Kyoko decides to investigate his suicide, and the other similar cases. When she decides that something in the water is driving people to commit suicide, she enlists the aid of her ex-husband, who works at the water treatment plant. Although he doesn't find anything, he still wonders if it could be some new, undocumented disease. Kyoko, on the other hand, begins to think it something supernatural.

While you might think that your faucet becoming a link to the netherworld and dead spirits driving people to commit suicide could provide for some scares, the main fault of the movie seems to be that it never really explores the supernatural link. In fact, as the closing credits roll, the mystery remains unsolved. While the characters in the film do seem to be seeing some disturbing visions, the visions seem to be the result of insanity, not anything supernatural. And despite the gore and even the creepiness of some of the visions, you're ultimately left unfulfilled.

Final Score: D-

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