Monday 30 August 2010

My top gaming moments ever

Just thought I'd note down a run through of some of my favouriteas gaming moments of my life so far. Some of these are scripted moments that every pweson playing said game will experience, some of them are personal to myself. All of them are awesome.

The opening of Call of Duty 4.



I remember watching this as it's unskippable while you're playing, and thinking that it's pretty awesome. I also remember thinking that at some point the actual game would kick in and I would save the dude that lookes like he's going to be executed. Every time there was a point that I thought I would jump in, the cutscene just kept going, and going and going. Then the head terrorist guy raises his gun. I thought that maybe the game would jump back a bit and let me play. And then...it didn't. The president dude was dead. An audacious, powerful, unexpected opening to one of the best games I have ever played.

Staying with CoD 4: The nuke



Normally once the game takes over from you at the end of a level, this means everything will be ok. Not so here. Here, everything goes to hell. I do rmember an audible 'holy sh*t' when playing this for the first time. And as with the opening scene of CoD4 the aftermath of the nuke, as your soldier crawls about before finally dying, is undoubtedly powerful. These two scenes are more grand in scale than anything the sequel had to offer. Not saying MW2 is bad, just a bit overblown at times. This, while nothing original, had enough of an effect to truly hit home.

Red Dead Redemption, Arrival in Mexico



I've talked about this before, but it still is one of the finest, most breathtaking moments I have ever experiecened in all my gaming life. You get on your horse, start riding and the most perfect song starts up as you ride to your destination. I guess it depends on what you do once you get on you horse, but for me, I rode along the coast, watching the God rays burst through the clouds and glisten on the water below. May e that's a bit dramatic but it really is the perfect marriage of atmospherics, setting and music. It really is superb.

Halo: Combat Evolved, first appearance of the Flood.



People forget that while the enemies, The Flood, were stuffed into Halos 2 and 3, in the first one, no-one knew what they were. This cutscene terrified me seeing it for the first time. You don't expect to be scared playing Halo, but this was well creepy. Audiologs were commonplace in games were you could hear of weird stuff happening to charcters. This was the first one I can remember where you actually saw the menace before you yourself actually had to fight them. And that noise they make...ugh. Game over, man. Game over.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, end cut scene.



As a 7 year old kid, this was the height of awesome.

Star Wars Battlefront, Mace Windu gets ate.

Right, so me and my good pal flipmofoxx are playing Star Wars Battlefront in uni, our rooms are beside each other and we're playing via system link. It's awesome. Star Wars Battlefront is basically a game that throws rebels and imperials into battle with each other, whoever kills the most wins. And every so often a jedi or sith will appear to help your side out. On this game, in the Dune Sea of Tatooine, Mace Windu comes to the aid of the Republic. After destroying a couple of driods, someone throws a thermal detonator at him. Mace Windu goes flying through the air, towards the Sarlacc. The sarlacc grabs Mace who's still in mid air and swallows him whole. Flipmo and I both see this, deem it hilarious, and still talk about it to this day. FACT!


"Feed me"



Beating Gears of War 2 on Insane



Now, Gears of War 2 on insane isn't that hard really, it's more of a slog just to get through it, but damn if completing it wasn't the most satisfying gaming moment in a long while. Getting 150G's for doing it also didn't hurt. I'm sure Blind Dave will agree.

Every second of every Oddworld game ever



...but if you're looking for specifics, then the first Oddworld game there ever was, Abe's Oddysee gets my vote. Back on the Playstation it was the first game I ever actually bought with my own money. I remember playing it on a demo disc I got free with a magazine and knew that I had to have it when it came out. To this day I can still remember most of the opening narration to the first cut scene: "This is Rupture Farms. They say it's the biggest meat processing plant on Oddworld. I used to work here. Well, I was really a slave like all the others."



Watching that back, it still looks pretty impressive graphically and with it's mix of puzzles and humour, the game never got boring. Although it did get very very frustrating at certain parts near the end. I remember continually dying. If I could compare it to any more recent game, it would be Portal. Speaking of...

Still Alive - Portal



You really have to have played though the whole game to appreciate this song, but trust me, it was awesome.

The cake is a lie.

Monday 23 August 2010

Wolverine, Schmolverine

With the news that the sequel to Wolverine is getting started quite soon I thought I’d reflect of the first movie.



Before it came out I was properly excited about it. I loved the portrayal of Wolverine in the 3 X-Men movies (yes, even the third) and had high hopes for this one focusing solely on everyone’s favourite Canadian with claws. After seeing it in the cinema, I thought it was quite good. Nothing special but alright. Subsequent watches however have made me realise what an absolute turkey it really is. Everything after Logan leaves the team is utter tripe. Here’s why:

1. This is the prime offender for me. It’s an offhand line that if you don’t think about it, you can ignore it. But when Stryker is loading his gun with adamantium bullets he says this gem “They won’t kill him, but they will erase his memory” or something like that anyway. What? How can you possibly know that? It also contradicts the established rules of Wolverine. His body regenerates; I imagine the memory centre of his brain would too. It’s lazy, half assed and just plain bad writing; solely there to get Logan’s memory erased.

2. Wolverine in this movie is an absolute pussy. In the first X-Men movie and to a greater extent the second, we were lead to believe that Wolverine was the ultimate badass. Yet from his induction, along with Victor, (who constitutes another gripe of mine) he does nothing but question everything Team X are doing. Fair enough, but the Wolverine I wanted was someone who was trying to atone for horrible things he’d done. Not just trying to escape the people doing Very Bad Things. X2 made it seem like he and Stryker were a force to be reckoned with; this movie makes Stryker ineffectual, and Wolverine impotent.

3. This is more a continuity thing. Victor is Sabretooth. Sabretooth from X1. If they’re going for the same universe here, they could have given Logan another superpowered brother, instead of contradicting a movie that chronologically comes later. (Victor however is one of the saving graces of this movie)



4. While holding your dead lovers body, your emotions overcome you and you yell towards the heavens. F*ck. Right. Off. It’s awful, and the most embarrassing point in the whole movie.

5. The origin of the adamantium claws. There’s nothing wrong with it in the movie per se, but I really felt we got all the info we needed in X2. Did we really need to see Wolverine actually getting the claws? No, and as such this scene is utterly extraneous. As is the whole movie really.

6. Logan meeting Ma and Pa Kent. Which leads to the painful to watch ‘comedy’ destruction of the bathroom. Which brings me on to…

7. The FX on the claws. What, did you not have enough money to do them properly? The claws looked better in X1, nine years previous.

8. Characters in the movie, just for the sake of being there. For example, cool as his powers looked, Gambit was basically just a plot device to get Wolverine to where he needed to be. And also, it seemed a lot of characters were just thrown in because of how cool their powers looked, not that they served any real purpose. The only one who made any sort of impression was Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, who was only in it for 5minutes (if even).



9. Logan doesn’t even get anything cool to say or do. No “You’re a dick,” no “Grow those back.” However, there’s nothing as bad as “I’m the Juggernaught, bitch!” Actually, “I’m gonna cut your goddamn head off. See if that works” is pretty good.


10. Lack of any memorable action set piece, which is odd, considering there’s so many of them. Logan and Victor’s fight is probably the best, but it still looks like Superman v Superman. It should really be a knock down, drag out kind of thing. Like a boxing match, not a wire fu showcase. Same goes for their second fight in the alley. Logan versus the helicopter isn’t really exciting, as the outcome is never in doubt (Again, that’s something that could be said of the whole movie). Wolverine in the mansion in X2, full on Berserker rage is probably my favourite comic book movie moment. Nothing in this comes close, not involving Wolverine anyway. Deadpool’s sword swinging exit from the list is, admittedly, pretty awesome.

Hopefully the sequel can make up for the shortcomings of the first. I know I’ll still go and watch it regardless, but please, sort it out.

Friday 20 August 2010

Never give up, never surrender

Spoofs, they’re hard to do right. The Naked Gun did it well. Hot Shots did it even stupider, but still well. And of course, Airplane set the template.

But for every one of those you have an Epic Movie, or a Date Movie. Modern ‘spoofs’ that completely fail to hit the mark.

The last good spoof I feel that was wholly successful was Galaxy Quest. If you haven’t seen it, go and watch it now.

Ok, have you watched it yet? Good.



I first watched it ages ago back on VHS. I remember sitting down and watching it with everyone in my house. And we all loved it. It was on TV last night and even though I was knackered and it wasn’t over til about half 12, I watched the whole damn thing again anyway. It’s the story of a washed up bunch of actors from a cancelled sci-fi show, being mistaken by real aliens as real astronauts, and being brought into the middle of a battle between the Thermians and some evil dude called Sarris on an exact recreation of their ship from the TV show, which the Thermians believe to be ‘histoical documents.’ Mistaken identity is always good comic fodder, taking it into space multiplies it ten fold.

At its core, Galaxy Quest is a loving pastiche of both Star Trek, as well as the actors and fans of Star Trek. But it never looks down its nose at its clear inspiration. Tim Allen’s character is basically William Shatner taken to a comic extreme (I hope), and is the most obvious connection to Trek.



But the movie really is a fine ensemble of some fine comic actors. Or at least actors with a knack for comedy. It’s easily Tim Allen’s best live action role. Tony Shaloub gets a lot of laughs out of his character who doesn’t seem fazed by anything going on around him – “That was a hell of a thing.” Justin Long plays the nerdy kid with just the right level of nerd-dom and excitement. Sigourney Weaver purpose in the show within the movie was the eye candy and that’s more or less her role in the actual movie. But what eye candy she is. Surprising eye candy too. Daryl Mitchell playing the now adult child star of the series gets a lot of mileage from his out of his depth pilot. Alan Rickman, as the Shakespearean actor who feels this sci-fi guff is below him, steals every scene he in, as long as he’s not in it with Sam Rockwell, who just about walks off with the entire movie as Guy, Crewman No 6. Or the redshirt character, who’s convinced he’s going to be killed off to show the situation is serious. Every line he has is pure gold. I’ll single out the scene in which he’s first transported to the alien ship and just screams as a comic highlight. As well as the final shot of the movie, “…and introducing Guy Fleegman” always leaving me crying with laughter. If there’s a youtube clip of his best moments from the movie I’ll throw it up here.



Also, a special mention must go to Veronica Mars' dad himself, Enrico Colantoni for his endearing portrayal of Mathesar, the leader of the Thermians. Having to do that voice throughout the entire movie deserves some kind of award. Apparently it was his own idea as well.



The great thing about the movie is that it’s not just a set up for some great laughs. There is an actual plot to the movie, unlike the recent modern ‘spoofs’ which are just a collection of pop culture references thrown in for the forgetful and the stupid. And as well as having a decent plot it also embraces some elements of sci-fi itself. We’re not talking complicated stuff here, but it at least recognises that to be a sci-fi spoof you need more than some aliens thrown in. There are elements that they take seriousy(ish) with the Omega 13 device, and some not so serious (such as why would a spaceship have a bunch of stompy crushy things in the middle of it, other than the fact that it created peril in a TV episode of the show and as such the Thermians recreated it).

As well as the comedy and the science fiction, it’s got some damn good action in there too. The flight through the mine field in space being both a hilarious and exciting scene. As well as the reversal of it near the end being just about as exciting as any serious space set movie – “What you fail to realise is that my ship is dragging mines.”

So, to finish here’s a few of the best lines from said movie.

- “You broke the ship. You broke the bloody ship.”

- “Don’t open that. It's an alien planet. Is there air? You don’t know.”

- “By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged.”

Jason Nesmith: You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.
Guy Fleegman: I'm not? Then what's my last name?
Jason Nesmith: It's, uh, uh - -I don't know.
Guy Fleegman: Nobody knows. Do you know why? Because my character isn't important enough for a last name, because I'm gonna die five minutes in.

Brandon's Mom: Where are you going with those fireworks?
Brandon: Well, the Protector got super-accelerated coming out of the black hole, and it, like, nailed the atmosphere at Mach 15, which, you guys know, is pretty unstable, obviously, so we're gonna help Laredo guide it on the vox ultra-frequency carrier and use Roman candles for visual confirmation.
Brandon's Mom: Uh, all right, dinner's at seven.

[Reading a tactical display]
Guy Fleegman: Hey guys, there's a red-thingy moving toward the green-thingy.
Jason Nesmith: What?
Guy Fleegman: Red-thingy moving toward the green-thingy. I think we're the green-thingy.

Gwen DeMarco: Alex, where are you going?
Sir Alexander Dane: To see if there's a pub.

Go and watch it again.

You know you want to.

Monday 9 August 2010

The UFO: The Big Lebowski



Right, so, after being told for like the past ever to watch this movie, I finally got around to it last week. Somewhat controversially, I was underwhelmed, confused and worst of all, bored.

That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's not. I just don't think it's as good as everyone says. The charcters were great. I love The Dude's apathy and general easy going-ness throughout the whole movie, as well as the fact that the reason he gets messed up in this whole mess is because he wants a replacement rug (the previous one having been pissed on. Shame as it really tied the room together). He's cool, and instantly likable. I liked John Goodman's Walter Sobchak; the angry, bitter Vietnam vet, who turns everything into an argument.

And I liked the joke that all this stuff is going on around these two yet neither one of them gets too fazed by it all, as they really just want to get back to bowling.



I just didn't get engaged in the movie as there was no real point to it. Which yes, I get was actually the point of the movie, that there is no point, but without a beginning, middle and satisfying end, the whole thing felt kind of hollow to me, like the Coen's just decided to say "America's weird, y'all" and see if we bought into the joke. Also what was the point of Julianne Moore's character really?

I just thought that while the characters were rich and well written, the plot didn't do good service to them. You could do much funnier and cleverer things with the two main charcters, and Donnie (SHUT THE F*CK UP DONNIE!) than I felt was done here.

Maybe I'm missing something and I might change my mind on a rewatch but as it stands, I was quite disappointed. I was expecting something blackly comic in the vein of Fargo, but instead got a mystery movie, where the mystery didn't matter, but the journey to the reveal bored me.

Sorry.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Toy Story 3, or how I cried like a big man baby



Ok, before we get to the me gurning part, let me explain, I saw the original Toy Story when it came out in 95. I'm sure a lot of you did. I was 10. These characters were new and awesome, and most importantly, real. Yes, they were toys, but they really did leap off the screen and you wholly believed that they were coming to life anytime a person wasn't in the room. And I got teary eyed at the emotional bits.

I saw them again in 1999 for the sequel which was just as good if not better than the first. I myself was older and wiser, but still young enough to play with toys, and beleive in the magic of the movie. And get a bit teary eyed at the emotional bits.

Today, at the cynical old age of 25, I honestly did not expect to be taken in once again by this world. I figured I'd laugh at the jokes but the emotion wouldn't hit me as hard this time and I wouldn't get teary eyed at the emotional bits. I was wrong.

I grew up with these characters. I know that sounds like such a cliche, but it's true. So at a certain point in the third movie, the 'incinerator moment' as it'll no doubt be remembered til the end of time, when the charcters seem to accept their impending doom and agree to ride it out together, I lost it. There's a point where Buzz looks at Jessie and, if memory serves, shakes his head as if to say "There's no point, so let's just all die together" and all the remaining charcters, even Woody, join hands that I flipped. And even though my rational thinking brain knew that Pixar would never ever do this, every inch the toys moved closer to the fire, I started to think that they would. I honestly think this is the best scene in the movie, the trilogy. Hell, maybe the last five years. And when they did get saved at the last second (in a cute gag involving the Pizza Planet three eyed aliens and 'The Claw') I think the whole cinema's buttocks unclenched and they realised they hadn't been breathing for the best part of 3 minutes.



It's a standout sequence, and everything after it...well, if you didn't at least let a single solitary tear roll down your cheek then you're a f*cking robot. Andy giving his toys to Bonnie, but specifically Woody was pretty heartbreaking. But again if memory serves, Woody waves to Andy as he drives off (I think it's the last shot of the movie) and it slayed me again.

All I can say is I'm glad I had my 3D glasses on. Sob.

Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff. How funny was Toy Story 3? Answer: very. To me it seemed much more laugh out loud funny than the previous two, with a particular highlight for me being Mr Tortilla. And of course Spanish Buzz. And Ken and Barbie.



The set pieces also seemed a lot more dynamic in this than the first two. Of course computer animation has come a long way in the 11 years since TS2. The opening action scene was tremendous and allowed Pixar to go big, and they accomplished this with aplomb. However, the smaller and more intimate action beats were just as good. The whole prison break was superbly staged, never once getting boring or obvious. And the aforementioned scene at the dump was technically perfect, and incredibly exciting.

I think what Toy Story has that sets it apart from many other animations, is it's heart. You know, I'm all for cynisicm in kid's movies. You know, having jokes that the adults will get but will go over the kids heads, but if I had to choose I'd rather watch this than any of the Shreks.

So, one of animations finest franchises is now done (hopefully, another would ruin an otherwise perfect ending) and we all have to move on - the theme of the movie really - so thank you Toy Story 3. I'll be seeing you soon on DVD.

Monday 2 August 2010

My Great Unwatched Films Odyssey

Right, apparently I’m prided on being some sort of film buff. Apparently. But I haven’t watched films most people consider to be out and out classics. Or at least movies I really should have watched already in my 25 years on this earth. This is my attempt to rectify this.

First up, The Thing.



As it appears in countless scariest moments ever lists, I already knew of the big creature feature set pieces in the movie (head spider, stomach mouth) but what I didn’t know was really what the movie was about at all. Aside from, you know, a Thing. What struck me initially while watching it was the overwhelming oppressive feeling the film has, much like Alien. Although with The Thing a lot of it takes place in brightly lit environments, unlike Alien, yet it still feels bleak and inescapable.

Once the thing of the title starts to do its thing the film really hits its stride. I think one of the main strengths of the film is that the Thing of the title is an unseen menace. It imitates hosts and so we never see its true form. Is it an alien? A virus? Both?

"You've got to be f*cking kidding."

After the discovery of whatever the thing is, the film becomes a study in paranoia. As the Thing could be imitating any one of the crew of the outpost we are never sure who could turn at any moment. Where Alien had people fighting against something they could easily see, here all bets are off.

And it leads to one of the tensest scenes in the movie. The blood test. As Kurt Russell’s MacReady takes samples from all the remaining cast and performs a sort of scientific experiment on it. You really could cut the tension with a knife as each member is tested. In contrast to a lot of movie’s today, we, the audience also don’t know who if any of the characters are infected, so we’re just as on edge as they are. And because of that, this scene contains the biggest scare in the movie. I feel anyway. When MacReady tests one of the survivors blood and it jumps out of the Petri dish and forms a solid creature before landing on the floor.

Mistrust is basically the theme of the whole movie. And it’s best presented in the final scene between Childs and MacReady. After seemingly destroying the creature the movie skips to some time later, and we see Childs (who had disappeared earlier in the movie) and MacReady. Again, one of them could be the Thing imitating them. Or neither of them could be. The last line “Let’s just see what happens” is perhaps one of the greatest in film history. The film doesn't have a happy ending, more a downbeat nihilistic one. Ambiguity wins the day as such. A climax where everything gets resolved would not have felt right after the previous 2 hours of build up. And as such, the ending is perfect as well.

Also, I haven't even begun to mention the creature effects in this movie. It's stuff like this that reminds me why I hate CG (Until something like District 9 comes along and reminds me I love it too) but seeing as The Thing was made pre CGI, the practical effects, combined with some ingenious camera trickery, are nothing short of spectacular. Special mention goes to the head spider but perhaps the best and most disgusting effect is when the dog mutates. It's just plain nasty.



See?

Anyway, next on the UFO (that's Unwatched Films Odyssey), is The Big Lebowski.