Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
February 16th, 2008 by cybrpunk
I remember when Valve first launched Steam with Half-Life 2. I remember what a cluster fuck that was as well. Sure things don’t always start off smooth, but the hoops you had to jump through to get the game you bought from the store was absolutely ridiculous. And that’s not even taking into consideration all the technical glitches that the system had in the face of the release of a major triple-A game title. Needless to say it only stayed installed on my PC for as long as it took me to finish Half-Life 2 and then it got removed without so much as an inkling of regret.
However, I recently purchased The Orange Box so I could finally get my hands on Team Fortress 2 and Portal. And since it’s Valve, that meant having Steam loaded back onto my system. As much as I wanted to play the games, I was not looking forward to having that back on my computer. Well, it’s installed and it’s actually not so bad now.
I’ve played through and finished Portal. If you like first-person shooters, original gameplay, warped humor and puzzles then you must play Portal if you haven’t already. Portal alone was worth the price of admission for me. Which is a good thing because out of the six games that come in The Orange Box [Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and the Asia region bonus of Counter-Strike 1.6] I was really only interested in Portal and Team Fortress 2. I’ve played more than my fair share of Counter-Strike in the past and I’ve already finished HL2. I may play Episodes 1 & 2 but I’ll probably end up holding out till Episode 3 is getting ready to release so I can just finish them all and complete the story.
But one nice thing about Steam now that its worked out all (?) of its old bugs is that its a nice way of checking out new games. Currently I’m downloading a demo for a new game called AudioSurf that just released yesterday. Take a look at the link for game info, but it’s an action game that deals with music and you can use any MP3 or other format of music file to play it. I’m not sure how that works, but if I like the demo, I may pay the $9.99 USD charge for the whole game and give a proper review of it. Considering my love of other games that are dependent on or revolve around music [Rez HD, Lumines Live, Guitar Hero 1,2 & 3] its very likely I’ll like this one though.
And remember: The cake is not a lie. You just aren’t allowed to have any.
January 31st, 2008 by cybrpunk
Muse and I watched the Will Ferrell movie Stranger than Fiction last night. Considering it didn’t do very well in theaters even though it had a great cast, I thought I’d put my two cents in for the DVD rental crowd. To sum it up quickly, if you’re looking for an original movie with a wonderful cast and some witty humor as well as some serious thought then you should run out and rent this movie.
For those of you who don’t like the grotesque quantity of Will Ferrell movies dealing with goofy parodies of sports or make-believe psuedo celebrities, this is the movie for you. Ferrell truly acts in this movie and though his quirky nature comes through from time to time, he’s playing a real person in this movie and he’s actually quite good at it. Truthfully, if he would make more movies like this instead of the make-a-quick-buck movies that are basically SNL skits gone wrong, I would have a hell of a lot more respect for him as an actor instead of just a fairly funny guy who does dumb movies.
The odd thing is how poorly this showed in theaters. The critics gave quite favorable reviews. Ferrell plays alongside Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah and Emma Thompson to great effect. And yet it made only a fraction of the box-office dollars that his other bizarre movies made. Don’t take me the wrong way, I enjoyed Talledega Nights and Anchorman but they pale incomparison to Stranger than Fiction now that I’ve seen Will Ferrell in a role that shows that he really can act and not just be loud and stupid.
Like I said, this is a truly original movie, so don’t expect anything typical. And pay attention. It’s not the most complicated plot, but there’s lots of little things you might miss if you don’t sit down and enjoy the movie. I highly recommend it and I hope some of you out there take a chance on it.
November 7th, 2007 by cybrpunk
At least it’s not crack but it’s close. I picked up a used copy of Crackdown for the XBox 360 just before I left for my trips for about $10USD. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to play it before I left but I could tell I would like it. Now that I’ve been back, it seems to be all I play now. I am completely addicted.
In case you are unfamiliar, you play as a cop in a city infested by three powerful gangs. The trick is that you are essentially a superhero cop that starts out powerful and continues to grow in strength, speed and skill the more you play. You can jump from rooftop to rooftop and shoot rockets into groups of gang members. You scale buildings to collect rewards and pick up cars and throw them at the bad guys. My favorite parts are kicking cars that gang members are trying to run me over with or jumping over a rooftop and dropping grenades or rockets on the gangs below me. It makes me giggle.
There’s also lots of pedestrians and civilian cars as well as the local police. Unfortunately, they are also quite shootable and explodable. If you kill a few innocents, the police will start hunting me down as well as the gangs. You pretty much just need to hide out for a while when that happens till they give up. The cops can’t really hurt you but hurting them will only make it worse.
It’s an open ended world and you can attack any of the gangs and their leaders at any point. You play as a good guy even though you kill hundreds of people and I truly feel like I’m playing a superhero in this game. It’s like being The Punisher but mixed with The Hulk but without the anger. And more giggling on my part.
If you have a XBox 360 and this sounds at all fun to you, head out and find a used copy and try it. Or at least go rent it for a weekend. It’s worth it.
August 9th, 2007 by cybrpunk
“Why the world doesn’t need a Superman” was probably the most correct statement in the movie Superman Returns as it completely summed up the movie experience. I know it’s been out for a while, but my movie experience has been severely hampered by moving away from St. Louis. So we just watched it last night. I was going to review it, but instead I’ll just post a conversation I had with Insomnic which kind of covers that and Facebook and X-Men 3. It started with a request he sent me to be my friend on Facebook. Why? I have no idea.
me: But I’m not on Facebook….
such a dumb name….
Insomnic: lol
it doesn’t matter… sign up or not
i’ve got it only to apease a friend
figured it couldn’t hurt
me: hmm….
* grumbles *
too early in the morning for social networking…
especially when I only seem to network with the same couple of people on each site
hehe
Insomnic: exactly
me: corr…. I put cybrpunk as my name and it tells me I have to use my full name… that IS my full name!
Insomnic: lol
it’s a little touchy… i’d skip it
me: Does this mean that Prince can’t use Facebook? or Madonna?
Insomnic: pownce is better
facebook… meh… it’s got lots of extra crap too
blog and pownce is good for me
me: hehe
grrr…
then why did you send me invite? HULK SMASH!
oh finally watched Superman Returns last night
Insomnic: heh
smash is right
me: wow… what a boring, badly paced, poorly edited movie
Insomnic: yeah
some bits I liked but… hopefully the next one will be better
me: I have no desire to see a next one after seeing that one
Insomnic: could be better… just like xmen3 was worse
me: there were a few funny lines (from Kevin Spacey) and a few cool effects (like the ripple in the plane as it stopped) but other than that it was lame
You didn’t like X-Men 3?
Insomnic: yeah.. the chick irritated me the most
xmen 3 changed the whole mythology and also some of the major characterisitcs… xavier especially
me: yeah she was annoying to no end. Lois Lane, intrepid annoyance
yeah but X3 was still a good action movie and the characters were still cool in that universe
Insomnic: xmen was a fun watch… but the director or whatever went away from the first two movies and the comic just a little too much
irritated me a bit… still a fun action movie - you’re right
me: yeah but to do the story right would take another 4 movies just for that story line
so I understood
at least it was still fun
Superman Returns was just boring
and 2.5 hours? WTF?
Insomnic: yeah… i can see that
August 1st, 2007 by cybrpunk
Last night Muse had rented Letters from Iwo Jima on DVD since it was $10 Tuesday at the local Movieland. I like $10 Tuesdays….
Anyway, we watched it last night while we dined on our fancy Macaroni & Cheese mixed with seasoned minced beef and a salad. This proved difficult since you have to look at your plate to scoop up the proper ratio of noodle to beef all the while you are missing dialog because it’s all subtitled. Unless of course you speak Japanese fluently. Then you can look at your plate and scoop to your heart’s content and still understand the dialog. But that’s not my point….
The movie itself is really good. If you like war dramas and you don’t mind subtitles then you will probably like this one. It is not a flat out action movie by any means and the pacing is somewhat slow at times. It shows the human side of “the enemy” and more importantly it shows why the Japanese lost the war. It seems it had nothing to do with the two atomic bombs that were dropped on them. They were doomed from the start because of their idealistic and outmoded ways of conducting war against a superior force. At times the scenes are somewhat frustrating or even laughable because of the stupid command decisions that are made throughout the movie. Even more sad is the representation that the Japanese pride in the way things “have always been done” got in the way of performing better than they did. Don’t get me wrong though, these scenes are great and in no way detract from the movie. They just do an excellent job of showing the futility of the battle and, ultimately, the war.
The story idea is great and the character development was equally well done. There were a few points where someone would die and we wouldn’t be entirely sure of who it was but that was more due to our inability to remember what similar dirty face matched up with which complicated Japanese name. The confusion usually only lasted a few moments on my part so it wasn’t hard to follow at all. Actually the movie is so well made and the pacing and drama is so spot-on, I was shocked to see that Clint Eastwood had directed this fully Japanese movie. He also produced the movie alongside Steven Speilberg. I didn’t know much about the movie going in to it and I would have sworn it was made by a classic Japanese film maker. I think that in itself speaks volumes for Eastwood’s talent.
May 11th, 2007 by cybrpunk
Last weekend I finally finished playing Titan Quest for the PC. I bought it because it was supposed to be the closest thing to a Diablo 3 game we’re likely to see for a long time. And it was. Mostly. But something about it just didn’t hold the same sense of… fun(?) as the Diablo series.
The basic formula is all correct. Tons of equipment drops off the creatures you defeat. Tons of money too. At the end of the game I ended up carrying 7.7 million gold with me. Which identifies one slight problem with the game. You will never want for money so anything you find that you want, you can afford it. And although the magic items and equipment that constantly drops is almost as numerous as the gold, you never seem to get what you need or what I thought I deserved.
Continue reading ‘Quest complete, then again…’
April 19th, 2002 by cybrpunk
I saw the movie
href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1807809591&cf=info" target="_blank">Changing Lanes on opening weekend with moderate expectations. Unfortunately it did not meet up with those expectations or those of the people who walked out of the theater over half way through it. The story is interesting but nothing new or innovative. The story is told but has nothing to do with the action movie clips that the TV previews have you believing it to be. The pace is actually very slow with very few action and humerous sequences. The acting was very good, but just not enough to keep the movie rolling.
April 9th, 2002 by cybrpunk
Watched the movie The Contender last night. It was fairly good and had a great ending. I provided the link for the synopsis because I’m not inspired to describe it myself.
Something I forgot to put in here before is that I finally read the book Dune by Frank Herbert. I’ve seen the David Lynch and the TV Miniseries movie versions and I must say that I was still very impressed with the book. There is so much detail in the book that you could never get out of either movie. I think the book was very well written. I know that most people have read this and I am way behind but I don’t care. Now I need to go watch that 3.5 hour version of the David Lynch adaptation that I got.
Oh and I’ve also been playing the PC Game
href="http://www.lucasarts.com/products/outcast/html/" target="_blank">Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. I played a little multi-player and some of the single player and it is a great game so far. The variet of weapons is interesting but pretty standard stuff for First-Person Shooters. It’s the Lightsaber that makes all the difference, though. No other FPS lets you wield a Lightsaber and use the Force to wipe out your enemies. If they did George Lucas would sue them, so I can understand.
March 25th, 2002 by cybrpunk
Wow, I actually saw two movies in the theater this weekend! I just don’t get to see them as often as I would like anymore….
Anyway, after seeing ‘Resident Evil’ on Friday I got to see ‘Blade 2′ on Saturday afternoon. Let me just say that Blade 2 did not dissappoint! I loved the first movie and had high expectations of this sequel. Luckily it was great throughout and I will definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD.
I also saw part of ‘Executive Decision’ on TV last night but missed the end. That was a pretty cool movie from what I saw. I’ll have to rent that one and see what happens.
Also watched ‘Ferris Buellers Day off’ again yesterday with my girlfriend. I love that movie. It just has to be one of the best ever….
March 23rd, 2002 by cybrpunk
Well, I had a mediocre level of expectation from the movie
href="http://residentevil.station.sony.com/" target="_blank">Resident Evil and it definitely exceeded those. Yoshi and I saw it earlier tonight and I was suitably impressed. It had just the right amount of shock, a bit of suspense and a healthy dose of violence. However there was a distinct lack of blood. There should have been buckets more in my opinion.
Anyway, if you are at all a fan of the survival horror games such as the Resident Evil games or a zombie horror movie buff, go see it! It is well worth it!
