DMC: Devil May Cry review

    I was a big fan of the original Devil May Cry series, though not the actual gameplay. Sadly, until recently, I was a fully Xbox fanboy and only was able to watch the game as well as read the spin-offs. DMC was an opportunity to play the franchise with a new continuity, a rebooted timeline, and a re-imagined Dante. So what do I think? Above-average! Fun but not spectacular! Worth the money!

    Yeah, none of my thoughts on the game are fit for putting on box art. DMC: Devil May Cry is a game that I will probably replay, which puts it above Thief but it's also something that strikes me as a good ways away from greatness. The funny thing is, with a few tweaks, I think this game could have been one of my favorite titles this year. As is, I feel DMC is just an inferior sibling to the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance title.

Dante's new image is...controversial to say the least.

     The premise is Dante is the half-angel, half-demon offspring of the demon general Sparda and his wife Eva. Living in a trailer on a Coney Island pier, which is questionable from all sorts of angles, Dante lives in a world where demons secretly run society, lead by the Satan-analog Mundus, who rules the world through debt.

    Much of DMC's plotline is taken from the cult-classic They Live, starring Roddy Piper and Keith David, replacing aliens with demons. Billboards contain subliminal messages which tell humanity to reproduce, get fat, and obey whatever the demons tell them. Mundus spikes the world's most popular soft drinks with demonic ooze and the planet's equivalent of Fox News is run by a demon version of Bill O'Reilly. There's also a nightclub which recruits celebrities to become demon collaborators. The latter I find all too plausible *rimshot*.

    Dante is uninterested in all of this, content to spend his life drinking away his nonexistent sorrows and getting laid with a bevy of beautiful women. I'm not exaggerating that last part as the game desires so much to make Dante appear "cool" and "extreme" that the first thing we see our hero do is have a threesome with two Victoria Secret Angel-costumed women. The latter does lead to a humorous scene where Dante answers the door to witch assistant, Kat, wearing nothing but a smile.

Limbo is full of interesting visual designs.

     The plot proceeds to, of course, move to Dante slaughtering demons as they finally track him down for extermination. As the seeming last remaining Nephilim, they just won't leave our hero alone and thus twenty-levels of demon slaying action occurs. The mysterious Order, led by Vergil (Dante's brother to anyone with even passing familiarity with the franchise), recruits our hero to kill the bad guys.

    If the storyline sounds complex, it isn't, but is definitely more in-depth than the previous games. Literally, the first plot of the game can be summarized as, "Dante is told to go to a spooky mansion and kill the Devil." Which, props for audacity, but I find this sordid tale of revenge and social-revolution to be more entertaining.

The gameplay is quite fun.

     I also like the actors with the villains being appropriately loathsome and the "heroes" being a complicated mess of hero, anti-hero, and villain protagonist. The fact Dante's love interest for this game is named the same as my wife amused me to no end as well. I hope, somehow, Kat manages to find her way into future installments of the franchise (though this isn't likely unless Ninja Theory regains the contract for the games).

    The gameplay is fun, fast, and relatively easy to learn. I disliked the excessive platforming in the game but given you can continue forever from more or less the point you died, it's not really something that hurts too much. The Bosses are sometimes too easy but the game has no end of exciting mooks and mid-bosses to handle the games between.

    The replay value of DMC is where your money's worth is going to be found, though. While it's fun playing through the game, the New Game+ option of doing the missions with all of your new weapons and abilities is awesome.    

8.5/10

Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker review

 
    Metal Gear is one of my favorite video game franchises. I played the original Metal Gear on my Nintendo and tried to keep up with the series as it progressed from console to console. It hasn’t always been easy, being the die-hard Xbox fanboy that I am, but I managed. Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker, though, is an odd entry into the franchise and one I want to give my opinion on despite the fact it only recently became available on Xbox via the Metal Gear HD collection.

    It should be noted the game was originally available on the Playstation Portable and is an adaptation rather than a work meant for home consoles.The premise of Peacewalker is that John a.k.a Naked Snake a.k.a Big Boss has left the service of the United States government after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3.

    While this game chronologically taking place after the events of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, only one rather dismissive line references its events and I’m comfortable saying they’re either non-canon or simply irrelevant to the larger saga as a whole. Big Boss is currently the head of a massive mercenary organization called the Militaires Sans Frontières or “Army without Borders.”

The graphics are quite good despite being a port from a handheld.

    The implications being that he’s sort of running his own version of the A-team, doing good work for nations without military power. Big Boss’ good-guy status is almost immediately called into question when he accepts a job from the KGB, though, in order to investigate the possibility of his slain mentor (The Boss) still being alive.

    Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker has a dismissive attitude to the Cold War’s moral element, highlighting how both superpowers treated other nations as pawns to be used and discarded at a whim. American players, in particular, will probably be surprised by the sympathetic attitude given to Panama’s Sandinista movement. Assuming they’ve even heard of it. 

    In 2014, the Cold War is a distant memory to America’s youth and more than a few subtleties of the conflict are going to be relayed by games like this rather than personal experience. With a game series so focused on ideas like memes and information control, it’s interesting to realize a lot of our perspective will be shaped by folk like Kojima who care enough to weigh in on events. The game even throws in positive commentary on revolutionary, Che Guevara, who is like most lionized historical figures in that he possessed elements of both a hero and a monster.

The codecs, as always, are the primary source of character development.

    Big Boss is explicitly compared to him and I find this an appropriate comparison. Peacewalker also highlights an element of both Che and Big Boss in both men became more legend than reality as time passed. Big Boss in Peacewalker is a man, not a god, but his men elevate him to the status of demigod by the end while his enemies want to make him the avatar of evil worldwide.

    While no great sympathizer to Soviet-style communism, I appreciated the uncompromising treatment of how US foreign policy and imperialism affected Latin America in this game. I’ll discuss it further in “The Social Satire of Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker.”

    Really, the politics are the most intriguing part of the game with issues like deterrence and the role of military forces in achieving peace discussed at length. It’s what moves this game from a disposable storyline like Portable Ops into the realm of high art like Metal Gear Solid 2 (my favorite of the franchise).

    The characters are delightfully quirky with Paz, Doctor Strangelove (yes, like the movie), and Kaz Miller being quite entertaining. The villain Hot Coldman, as indicated by his unfortunate name, is a cartoonish caricature of the CIA but no more so than Colonel Volgin was of Soviet-style military officers. The KGB doesn’t come off much better, either.

The cutscenes are in a beautiful B&W style.

    Still, outside of Spec Ops: The Line, I can’t think of a nastier portrayal of the US foreign intelligence agency. Depending on where one sits on the political spectrum, this may be a bonus or a negative as far as you are concerned. The gameplay is the area where Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker becomes troubled and this is obviously the result of being a port.

    Really, I think they should have made this game as Metal Gear Solid 5 and the world would have been better off as a result. There’s over a hundred and twenty missions, usually taking about fifteen minutes each, but crippled by the fact the original game is meant to be played as a co-op campaign. What do I mean by this? Well, the simple fact that one of the first bosses is an Armored Troop Vehicle (ATV) and is meant to be fought by two or three Big Bosses.

    When it’s fought by a single Big Boss, the battle becomes almost impossible as there’s no way to sneak past the thing or blow it up with heavier weapons which aren’t available yet. What should be a fun run and gun with buddies becomes damn near impossible cherry-tapping while dozens of smaller soldiers swarm around you. The fact that Big Boss must restart his missions from area one in multi-area missions is also immensely frustrating. If the game had started you from the area of where you died or given you heavy weapons to counter the bosses when playing singular, my gaming experience would have been much more enjoyable.

    Unfortunately, it didn’t and my advice to gamers is to find someone to play with for bosses or it will never be any fun. The Mother Base system is one of the more intriguing elements to come out of the game and a way of rewarding the style of gameplay the developers desire. Big Boss wants to recruit the disenfranchised soldiers of his enemies to his private army so he's encouraged to not kill them. If you don't, you win them over to your cause and can use them to build up your forces on an offshore oil rig. Once I got the hang of getting soldiers carried away by helicopter, it proved quite entertaining.

     In conclusion, Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker is a worthy addition to the franchise. Unfortunately, it is marred by the changes from a port to a console. Given so much else of the game is AAA, I find myself unable to forgive the format problems. With a bit of jimminying, this could have been one of the all-time greats.

    8/10

Batman: Year One (animated movie) review

    As a general rule, I believe that adaptation is a matter of being sufficiently skilled with the medium and having a good story. I believe good stories transcend their method of delivery and what makes a good movie might make a good video game. You just need to put the right amount of effort into it.

    Batman: Year One proves me wrong. The comic version is justifiably believed to be one of the best Batman stories of all time. It helped create the modern gritty Batman and is still entertaining to read. Unfortunately, the animated Batman: Year One is one of the most joyless experiences of my life.

    This isn't a failure of the animators, scripting, or voice actors. You would be hard pressed to find a more faithful adaptation of Frank Miller's work outside of Sin City. There's a few minor tweaks here and there but very few I'd disagree with. If my only complaint in changes is that I think Bruce Wayne's girlfriend in a single scene shouldn't be a paid escort, then you've done a reasonably good job of adapting something.

Bizarre as it sounds, this still image from the movie is more powerful than the scene it's in.

    It's just this is such an amazingly dull story. When read on the page, Gotham City is a gritty metropolis (small M) on the verge of collapse. James Gordon's arrival is akin to a good man getting misjudged at Heaven's gates and dumped in Hell. Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham City is a comedy of trial and error with the Batman not yet understanding how to strike fear in the hearts of criminals.

    The animated version shows all of the same scenes from the comic but, somehow, my mind generates a far more evocative mood than the filmmakers. Part of this is the passage of time is nebulous in comics while more distinct in movies. James Gordon and Batman struggle for months to achieve their potential but it feels like only a couple of weeks in the film.

    If there's a voice acting mistake, I'd say it was the fact everyone sounds so subdued. You can put whatever sort of emotional inflection into James Gordon and Batman's voices in the comic but here, they seem absurdly calm no matter what the situation. Even the iconic dinner scene where Batman confronts the Falcone family and their cronies seems like Batman is half-assing it.

Sorry Bruce, maybe you can honor your parents next time.

    This scene, in particular, stands out because it's the moment where Batman utilizes theatricality and deception for the first time in a big way. It's the equivalent of the moment in Batman Begins where he ties Falcone to a spotlight in order to make a makeshift Bat signal. Its iconic in comics history and, here, it's over in a flash and we barely get to register it. This is a time when Batman should be terrifying people.

    The length of the movie is also a problem. Even adapting every single element of the comic, this still only brings the story to roughly an hour. The addition of a fifteen minute Catwoman short only brings the movie to about an hour and fifteen minutes so I can't say I'm particularly impressed.

    There's good parts to the movie. I loved the depiction of Sarah Essen and felt the movie managed to capture the art style of the comic, already very stylized, well enough. The famous action sequence with the SWAT team worked well enough, though I felt the bat attack could have been done better. It's damning with faint praise as the only thing I can say is the movie's high points were "okay."

    What did I think of the Catwoman short? I can't say I was particularly impressed there either. The short highlights the treatment of women in comics by actually having Catwoman perform as a stripper in-costume and no one notice. Unfortunately, this is not irony. It's just Catwoman being treated as a sex object. I don't mind sexy Catwoman but it's problematic when that's all there is to the character.

    In short, Batman: Year One is just not worth the money. If you want to enjoy the story I recommend you purchase the original graphic novel. The movie is just an inferior retelling of a story which rightfully remains one of the best comics ever.

4/10

Buy at Amazon.com

Infamous 2: Festival of Blood

    There is a very rare video game which cannot be improved by the addition of vampires and the Infamous series is no exception. After the emotionally exhausting ending of Infamous 2, I was interested in a story which was slightly less serious and more focused on entertainment than drama. Festival of Blood seemed to take these two concepts to heart and is a delightful superhero meets vampire story. I, honestly, have almost no complaints about it and recommend anyone who liked Infamous 2 to pick up this DLC.

Cole gains new abilities as a vampire, including the ability to see the veins of his victims.

    The premise of Festival of Blood is Cole's sidekick Zeke, is attempting to pick up a woman in a bar and decides to do so by telling her a story about his friend Cole. Cole uncovers the tomb of New Marais most famous supernatural figure, Bloody Mary, and is promptly bitten. According to the Infamous rules of vampirism, this means that Cole will become a vampire under her control by sunrise. Until then, Cole is a free vampire who can wage war against Bloody Mary's minions and hopefully track down a method of destroying her.

    It's a simple enough premise, one which doesn't have to be more complicated to be enjoyable. The player character has an immediate goal, one which generates drama, and that can be understood with a minimum of explanation. Economy of storytelling is something that too many games get wrong, making stories too simple or complex in turn. The fact the DLC is framed as an in-universe story also avoids any continuity issues gamers might have with the premise. Personally, I have no problem with the idea of vampires being the result of Conduit abilities. Without spoiling, I'll also say the framing device has one of the funniest endings in video game history (at least to me).

The comic book art cutscenes are as enjoyable as always--adding to the sense this is a dramatization of a superhero series.

    The character of Bloody Mary is a well-realized one with many audio diaries talking about her lengthy past, consisting of various crimes against humanity (and a few fun moments of karmic retribution like turning a slave ship's "cargo" into the undead before unleashing them on their captors). Her frequent taunts against Cole throughout the game make her a fun villain and one you welcome the eventual destruction thereof. I also enjoy the fact that she manages to be attractive without falling into the trap of being a complete sexpot like so many other alluring evil-doers. While Bloody Mary has an element of sex, she's not overwhelmed by it and this is far from the only element to her personality.

    Part of what I enjoyed about Festival of Blood is the karmic choices of the DLC actually have a gameplay effect. Cole can choose to feed on the prevalent citizens or stake the far more difficult vampires in order to "recharge" himself. The constant need for blood is something which stimulates the gameplay and forces Cole to choose to eat the innocent or hunt the Undead Most Dangerous GameTM. If you're committed to Cole being an exemplar, the game actually tests you and provides you with a challenge.

    Cole's "Blood Conduit" abilities are extremely fun to play, providing our hero with the power to fly by turning into a swam of bats. I also loved using the Barbed Cross, Cole's weapon for destroying the undead and a reference to Castlevania's classic whip. The harpies and vampire enemies are also a welcome change against the monsters and militia of the main game. In a way, I regret these abilities and the storyline weren't a part of the main game since the weirdness of this DLC was the major thing I felt was absent from the second game.

Bloody Mary is the star of this story and one of Infamous' best characters.

    The gameplay, itself, is not that different from Infamous 2. While there's some fun sidequests to be had in the DLC, like rescuing prisoners, it occasionally drags in places if you want to collect all of the audio files. It's my recommendation for players to focus primarily on the main story and go through it. The side-activities and collectibles just aren't worth it. Even Bloody Mary's audio logs, which are often entertaining, get to be a little repetitive after awhile.

    In conclusion, Festival of Blood is a great addition to the Infamous universe and I wouldn't be upset to see more vampires in the setting. Sadly, I don't see that as happening. The setting seems to be getting less wacky as opposed to more so, which I think is a mistake. This DLC improves on Infamous 2, though, and I heartily recommend it.

9/10

Infamous 2 review

    Infamous 2 is the next part of my, well, three review series retrospecting the series before giving my thoughts on Infamous: Second Son. I'm a little late in reviewing this but I wanted to make sure my playthrough was done before I moved on--even if it meant I had to hold off on playing the newer release.

    Infamous 2 is the follow-up to the adventures of Cole McGrath, superhero/villain of Empire City. Having successfully defeated mad scientist Kessler in the previous game, Cole was warned of the coming Beast. Infamous 2 wastes no time in introducing this superpowerful being which promptly hands Cole McGrath his ass.

    Cole proceeds to head to the city of New Marais in a desperate attempt to find a scientific solution to the Beast where brute force failed. The game nicely keeps a timer, showing how close the Beast is to New Marais and how much time our hero has before the destruction of everything he knows. I particularly liked the design of the Beast who manages to combine your typical image of the Devil with something akin to Godzilla meets a Lava God.

The monsters are a high point of the series.

    The game has a nice early post-apocalyptic feel with the implication the United States government has fallen to the Beast's wrath. This event, like the quarantine of the first game, helps explain why Cole is desperately needed to keep order. Much like Empire City was a superheroic adaptation of 9/11, so is Infamous 2 a treatment of Hurricane Katrina. The Metropolis-esque redoing of New Orleans successfully replicates the feel of the real-life city while also making it fictional enough that the potential destruction you wreck isn't too offensive.

Gameplay is fun, fast-paced, and flashy--which is how I like it.

    The gameplay is only minorly tweaked with the addition of a melee weapon for Cole and expansions on his existing abilities. There's a few changes I didn't much care for like the absence of charging for traveling power lines but, overall, fans of Infamous will be able to adapt to the sequel without trouble.

    The storyline is capable of being followed by those who haven't played Infamous but I recommend against this, considering that a major revelation towards the end of the game has no emotional resonance if you didn't play the first game. Likewise, the Beast's appearance is apocalyptic but Cole's emotional agony only make sense if you understand all of the build-up to him.

The New Orleans-esque architecture provides a nice contrast to Empire City.

    Unfortunately, the non-Beast related plotlines in the game feel almost like filler. The bad guy until the arrival of the Diablo-esque entity is a stereotypical racist Southern gentleman (only with super-science and hatred for Conduits instead of blacks). It's a bit like facing Anton Arcane from the Swamp Thing cartoon or television series only not as fun.

    I can't say I'm too fond of the enemy groups either with one being a fairly stereotypical group of ice-themed group of mercenaries and the other being straight-up monsters. Neither they, nor the main villain's militia, possess the kind of appeal as the Reapers or First Sons. I was very disappointed in this action. The absence of the crypto-fascist United States government from the first game is also absent, replaced with the perky and helpful Agent Kuo.

New Marais is beautifully rendered and pretty close to how its real-life counterpart feels.

    The Karma system of the series is incarnated this time by two new characters: Nyx and Kuo. While I welcome any new capable female characters to the series, I've got to say that styling them as the embodiments of good and evil doesn't really please me. Worse, treating the ethnic New Orleans black woman as the avatar of darkness came off as offensive to me. I would have preferred both women get treated as actual characters than philosophical representations.

Did I mention I loved the Beast? Because I really do.

    The ending of Infamous 2, however, is where the game really shines. While I only played through the game as a hero, I have to say I was touched by its handling of a genuinely hard choice. There were elements I didn't approve of and the ending was way too happy for the set-up but it was one of the few video game endings I'd say approached genuine art. Youtube showed me the "evil" ending and I think it was just as enjoyable--which surprised me.

    In conclusion, I liked it but didn't really think it approached the level of its predecessors. I'm a big fan of conspiracy-style stories and that element was drastically toned down. The enemies aren't nearly as varied this time around and the Militia as a Conduit hate-group is far less interesting than than previous offerings. Indeed, they feel like filler until the Beast arrives. I recommend getting this game as a ending to Cole MacGrath's story but suggest players lower their expectations a bit. I expect some to be offended rather than moved by the ending.

8/10

Infamous review

    Before I begin, I should point out something. The game is technically inFamous, which aside from being bad spelling is actually a way of illustrating the game's duality. The lower-case "in" is meant to show that being an evil bastard is entirely optional. Therefore, the game could also be called Famous and be correct.

    With that useless factoid out of the way, I'll address a game which I felt was one of the first truly original superhero properties made for video games. I know this is a crap statement because Mario, Samus, Link, and the Belmont clan are all superheroes of one stripe or another. Hell, give Mario a feather and he'll sprout a cape to deal with the armies of evil better than anyone but Supes himself.

    However, Infamous is a game where you take on the tropes of a comic book hero/villain and run wild. Cole MacGrath, shaven-headed Caucasian male like so many other video game heroes, is hit by a plot Maguffin which gives him superpowers. It also destroys most of a thinly-disguised analog for New York City (Empire City), and creates the sort of anarchy where a superhero might prove useful.

The travel around the city is fascinating to look at as well as fun to do.

    What strikes me about Infamous is, really, why haven't more games ripped it off? There are more Assassins' Creed knock-offs than I can count and Batman: Arkham Asylum is the go-to source for a thousand plagiarists. Strangely, though, there's not that many games where you have the option of creating your own superhero before sending him on quest to clean up the city. You'd think gamers would eat this up with a spoon.

    I have decided this is a lack of confidence in the game's material. Infamous is a spectacular video game but a great deal of time is spent developing its so-called "Karma system" where you can choose to be an upstanding hero who everyone loves or an evil bastard who slaughters his way around the city. This is a bit like Web of Shadows where the game offers an evil option for playing Spiderman.

    Spiderman.

The sense of power you get from being Cole is a major key to the game's success.

    Are game developers so conditioned to believe the worst of gamers they assume we all want to play sociopathic nihilists who tear up the city? Well, okay, given the success of Grand Theft Auto this isn't an entirely unreasonable assumption but it strikes me as strange the only other original properties for superheroes I can think of are Saints Row IV, Crackdown, and Prototype. All three of which you are assumed to be playing an unrepentant psychopath.
   
    Really, it's a testament to this game's writers they manage to create a coherent narrative for the protagonist even when he's apparently the sort of guy who can simultaneously want to help or kill everyone. Naturally, I gravitated to a more heroic personality type and got a warm fuzzy feeling in the cockles of my heart as I repaired the city one generator at a time.

    I think part of why this game is so memorable is that it strikes a careful balance between believability and comic book zaniness. The game has a grim and serious tone for most of its story, deliberately invoking 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina parallels but in a respectful way. It also throws in gonzo elements like a trash golem, secret societies, villains from a place which would be spoiling to mention, and general weirdness which only happens in Marvel or DC.

    The thing is, the latter are treated perfectly seriously and lack any tongue-in-cheek to their presentation. When a giant robot made of junk and powered by the rage of a deranged psychic attacks you, that's actually kind of scary.

The use of pre-rendered comic book cutscenes is more enjoyable than anywhere but Max Payne.

    So, kudos developers, you've reconstructed the comic book.

    The gameplay of Infamous is fun, too. Cole MacGrath's powers lie somewhere in the spectrum between Electro and Magneto so you're simultaneously vulnerable but capable of doing spectacular things. There's enough variety in gameplay that you'll spend hours fully mastering your powers and getting a sense for everything there is to do with them. This will include healing, restraining, killing, psychometry, riding power lines, and God knows what else.

    Did I have any complaints? Yeah, I did. Of the games' seven or so characters, there's three women. One is the obligatory love-interest, one is a psychotic femme fatale in love with you, and the other is a FBI agent who turns out to be completely evil. This wouldn't bother me so much if not for the love-interest invoking SEVERAL comic book tropes I'm less than fond of. It says something I much preferred Zeke and he's a stereotypical Southern Elvis-wannabe. Okay, actually, that sounds awesome so I'll just say I wish Trish had a personality which wasn't equivalent to that or a wet dishrag.

    So, in conclusion, if you still have a Playstation 3, you should pick up your copy of Infamous and probably its sequel.

10/10

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

    The thing about The Hobbit was, when I first read it, I thought it was a parody. Admittedly, I was about seven-years-old and had been introduced to the world of J.R.R Tolkien by a certain Rankin and Bass cartoon on Nickelodeon. The premise was a stuffy middle-aged guy completely lacking in traditional heroic qualities, a bunch of cowardly dwarves more bluster than substance, and a wizard manipulating them to kill a dragon. A dragon who, spoiler alert, isn't killed by any of them.

    Eventually, J.R.R Tolkien wrote the more traditionally heroic Lord of the Rings. Even then, the actual heroes were an upper-class English gent and his gardener who never so much as throw a punch in the series. Now, Peter Jackson was able to successfully ignore the irrelevance of the Battle of Helms Deep, Battle of Gondor, and other conflicts in order to present the idea of badass elves fighting alongside a scruffy ranger (with hobbits occasionally showing up).

    That's harder to do in The Hobbit.

Let's see a show of hands here. Who is here just for the dragon?

    The Desolation of Smaug confirms what the first movie irritated me so much about--that we were going to completely sacrifice characterization for spectacle. The dwarves are more heroic, Bilbo Baggins has his transformation into action hero in Act I, and there's a never-ending supply of orcs for them to fight because we have to pad these movies about somehow.

    I don't hate TH:TDOS. I'm more inclined to accept its flaws and treat it as an action movie inspired by The Hobbit than a straight adaptation. Really, I think of it as a rollercoaster ride. There's even an actionized barrel-trip that I think would make an excellent attraction at Disneyland. The spectacle drowns out everything resembling characterization and it moves at a brisk pace, preventing you from thinking about it too much.

    I even liked the additional character of Tauriel as I'd prefer them to throw in a smoking hot elf (recently freed from her exile on Lost's island) than continue to pretend Thorin Oakenshield is some Aragon-esque Paragon in direct contradiction to his book presentation. Her character adds to Legolas' own paper-thin characterization from the previous three movies. Ever wonder why the prince of the Mirkwood elves was so eager to get the hell out of there and go on a suicide mission to Mordor? You won't after you meet his father. Denying your son some alone time with the only eligible elf-maid this side of Rivendale?

    Not cool, dude.

Gandalf versus Sauron. It should be far-far more awesome than it is. Note: Not Sauron in the picture. Thank Eru.

    I also salute the movies' reunion of the BBC's Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch giving an amazing performance as Smaug. I had to turn my brain off during the fight scene since the amount of gold would devalue the metal to less than the worth of gravel but it was pretty to look at. It might even improve on J.R.R Tolkien in the fact the dwarves of this movie actually have something resembling a coherent dragonslaying plan.

    The element I'm most disappointed in is, ironically, the newly depicted Rise of Sauron. I was actually hoping for much more from this because we have the Necromancer readying his armies, rebuilding his fortress, and summoning all the corrupted Morgoth-worshiping races of men to his side. What do we get? A bunch of orcs around a ruin with a glowing eye that creates psychadelic effects.

    Color me disappointed.

    So, I'm glad I went to see this movie and will certainly go see the end of the trilogy. Did I get my money's worth? Yes, but it's not what I wanted. However, when you can't love the movie you want, love the one you own on DVD. Even if it is the kind of derivative "good guys vs. bad guys, resolving things with the power of violence" which hundreds of authors reduced Tolkien to with their pastiches. I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't own hundreds of those in addition to JRR's work.

7/10

Thief (2014) review

   Thief is a difficult game to review because it's often fun but it's also bugged as hell with a weak storyline. Thief strikes me as a game which needed about six months to a year more added to its development cycle. They could have added a Fast Travel system, more characters to interact with, and padded out some of the problems with the derivative seeming plot.

    As a fan of the original Thief series, I was pleased to see this franchise getting rebooted but I was worried it wasn't going to seem as original or fresh after the release of Dishonored by Bethesda. Dishonored was, effectively, a steampunk version of Thief only with the main character serving as an assassin rather than a thief. Also, the main character of Dishonored possessed incredibly fun supernatural powers absent from Thief. This is, unfortunately, true.

Moody atmospheric gameplay with a dull story.

    The premise is the main character, Garrett, suffers an accident which seemingly kills his former apprentice and knocks him into a coma for a year. When he awakes, he finds his city (named, "The City") devastated by plague and a class war having begun between the rich and poor. Garrett must rebuild his looted headquarters, investigate the mystery of the plague, and steal everything not nailed down (and a few objects which are).

    Fans of the original Thief will note a number of things are conspicuous by their absence. The previous games were defined by their conflict between the eco-terrorist Pagans, the steam-tech obsessed Hammerites, and the morally neutral Keepers. All three factions are absent here and the weird thing is there's no reason they have to be. The Hammerites are the equivalent of the Catholic Church so they should be a background element, Garrett is a former Keeper so you'd think they'd come up in conversation, and the Pagans strike me as a group which would love to take down the new game's main villain.

    I'm not the sort of individual who wants to see original series beholden to their roots but this is a bit like doing a Star Wars movie without the Rebellion, Empire, or Jedi. Yes, theoretically, you could do it but why would you want to? Even if you want to add to the setting, you should at least acknowledge what's come before. The fact what they added, the class-conflict and plague, was already covered by Dishonored kind of undermines things. There's only so many stories to tell but you have to tell them differently. It doesn't help that Garrett doesn't really have any reason to become involved in the struggle between the two sides either.

This is your archenemy. Err, kinda.

    Even the more interesting characters are troublesome. Garrett's apprentice, Erin, is the motivator for a large number of his actions throughout the game. Thief seems confused about whether Erin is a psychopath who Garrett pushed away because of his violence, a girl he's in love with, his surrogate daughter, or any combination thereof. This would normally be a multifaceted character but we don't get to spend enough time with her to understand what sort of feelings our protagonist has for his lost companion.

    I'd like to say the City, itself, makes up for it but it's as confusing as the characters. While it's perpetually night and moody, giving the place a somber Medieval Noir feel, the place doesn't exactly feel very lively. Most of the areas in the city are blocked off until you pass certain storylines in the game and the sense of free-roaming which would have made this game more interesting is severely hurt.

Erin is awesome but barely present.

    It doesn't help there's a million doors in the City but only a handful of them lead to places you can break into. I wouldn't mind this if there was anything worth stealing in the majority of the locations. Garrett steals spoons, magnifying glasses, bells, scissors, and other items which make him feel like a petty thief as opposed to a master one. I'd have appreciated the game more if Garrett had about half of the loot and double the value. The fact you seem to be robbing impoverished citizens half of the time doesn't make your character feel much like a badass either.

    The gameplay helps make up for these heavy flaws. Garrett is an entertaining character to play, giving you a sense of profound power as you stealthily move from one location to another. The addition of a set of fingertips removing every bit of loot you lay your hands on, gives a sense of accomplishment to every little theft (even if there's too much "trash loot" as mentioned above). I even loved the addition of Garrett's "knock-out" cutscenes lifted from Deus Ex: Human Revolutions.

    The missions for Thief are really where the majority of the fun happens. Breaking into a slaughterhouse which has been re-purposed into a crematorium, sneaking into a brothel built into the remains of a Keeper (?) ruin,  and even the smaller missions like robbing a jewelry store are all very fun. If there had been a better storyline to tie all of these missions together, I think Thief would have been a modern-day classic. Unfortunately, they don't.

Stealing is, appropriately, the only fun part of the game.

    The City is too depopulated to be a living entity, the missions are too far apart, and gameplay gets frustrating when you want it to be enjoyable. It took me several hours to figure out there was an experience point system beyond buying better equipment. I also found the Focus system to be frustrating as I would have preferred it to cost nothing and only illuminate items of interest or actually be of use beyond serving as a time-saver.

     The characters are boring too, with none of the big personalities of the original Thief games. Erin is probably the most interesting character aside from Garrett and she doesn't have a role for the majority of the game. There's also a Darth Vader-esque guy in the Thieftaker General who I think we're supposed to be archenemies with but the guy is just too petty to really care about. I feel like the Thieves Guild quest from Skyrim was a much better Thief game than this was--not the least because Stephen Russell did the voice acting for Mercer Frey.

Garrett will be deaf from living here.

   In a very real way, the game's sense of authenticity can be summarized by the central hub area. Garrett lives in the clock tower of a church, which he uses as his Batcave. The thing is, no one in their right mind would do this. How would you sleep? Why would you live there? Garrett is not a vigilante superhero, he's a guy who steals money to pay his rent and presumably live it up between missions. It looks cool, don't get me wrong, but shouldn't Garrett have a pad more akin to the Boss from Saint's Row? You know, stripper poles, elf-maids, or whatnot? It would have made the point of being a thief feel more authentic.

    In conclusion, Thief is fun in spite of itself but I felt almost no desire to actually play the adventures and I realized halfway through the game I didn't care. U didn't care about the characters, the plot, or what was happening. This is, simply put, an extremely disappointing game. If you want a real sequel to the original Thief franchise, you should play Dishonored instead.

4.0/10

Justice League: War review

    Where Wonder Woman is a twit and the Justice League kills a lot of people. That's my summary of the movie. I'm usually quite forgiving of big dumb brainless comic book action movies. It's just I'm not quite as used to them being this dumb and this brainless. Justice League: War is a movie that can justifiably said to be little more than an excuse for its action sequences. Even Under the Red Hood, which was a movie that contained a great deal of action, managed to convey a lot more nuance and characterization than this mindless fluff. Except, it's offensive mindless fluff.
 

    The Justice League, Earth's REAL Mightiest Heroes, are gathered together to face forces which they cannot alone. To millions of children across the globe, and many more adults who were once children, they are paragons of moral virtue. Whether religious, patriotic, philosophical, or not--they helped us form our moral centers. What would Batman do? Well, for starters Batman doesn't kill. Batman protects the innocent. Batman wears a cool cape and uses nifty gadgets while doing so. These are not particularly deep concepts but they are enough to get your average eight-year-old thinking about right and wrong.

    Justice League: War's heroes are some of the most negative incarnations of the franchise's heroes I've seen outside of Earth-3. They're arrogant, violent, rude, quick to anger, and jerks to one another. That's not even bringing the epic number of dismemberings, bisectings, and decapitations they do against Darkseid's Parademons. Back when I was a kid, they'd have the decency to make them robots.

How do we defeat Darkseid? I know, stab him!

    Then there's how our heroes treat Darkseid. The heroes beat him within an inch of his life, blind him with metal objects, and brutalize him for twenty-minutes. Now, I'm no friend to the Lord of Apokolips but I question who is getting their money's worth by the Flash driving a crowbar into his eye. We also have Superman kill. Yes, it's under mind-control but it's a thinking (albeit evil) being. Batman also threatens to slit a man's throat. Seriously. Batman.


    You might say I'm spoiling the movie with this but I don't think so. Instead, I'm making a point to warn people about what sort of animated film this is. There's an alien invasion and its resolved by beating a bunch of guys for a long time. The End. Secret Origins, a Justice League cartoon with a similar premise, managed to throw in at least a passing bit of social commentary. It also showed our heroes rescuing the future Martian Manhunter from imprisonment as well as the camaraderie that would make them all friends. This Justice League flat-out hates each other.

Darkseid has no personality.

    Really, I can't deny it. I loathed this movie. I'm not one to protect the children--I saw more R-rated movies at age thirteen than I had any other kind of movies before. I do, however, hate when darker and edgier is confused for good. However, Justice League: War made the JLA feel like the Authority. Not the entertaining one either, more like the mean-ass caricature they later became.

    Don't watch this movie, get the original Justice League cartoon if you want to watch something decent. This is just basically the lamest collection of fight scenes I've seen in a DC animated movie ever. I say that fully knowing it will permanently brand me as the Comic Book Guy.

0/10

Batman: Arkham Origins: Initiation review

    Batman: Arkham Origins had a somewhat unfinished feel. In addition to the many bugs, there was also the fact some quests ended abruptly, even if the storyline implied the game was building up to something bigger. One of the more disappointing quests was the one relating to Lady Shiva. Despite being touted as the world's best martial artist in-universe and without, Lady Shiva was nothing more than a re-skinned female ninja and martial artist. Batman said they hadn't seen the last of her but, well, they had.

    At least in Origins.

    The Initiation DLC promises a rematch against Lady Shiva as well as insight into Bruce Wayne's early days of training. Unfortunately, this promising extra is little more than a series of Challenge Rooms followed by a Boss fight. The story, such as it is, is little more than a series of cut-scenes of Bruce's ninja master talking about how worthless the future Batman is before trying to get him killed.

    The premise of the DLC is Bruce Wayne has gone to a remote mountaintop monastery in order to learn the ways of the ninja. Master Kirigi is insulting to Bruce throughout the campaign, saying he doesn't respect the latter's refusal to kill and showing a racist disregard for him throughout. Bruce, himself, never speaks during the DLC but just stands there respectfully the entire time.

If only the DLC was half-as-good as this picture.

    The enemies in Initiation are mostly re-skinned members of the original ones from Origins. The missions, themselves, are just harder variants of the kinds you find there as well. You must sneak around these enemies and take them out silently. You must defeat this entire group all by yourself. Even the final battle against Lady Shiva is nothing special and is rudely interrupted by the presence of other enemies.

   Another complaint about the DLC is that it's actually difficult to find. It's not located on the main menu but the challenge maps and it took me awhile to track it down. The skins for Bruce Wayne as a trainee and a ninja are useful but I'm not sure I'm going to get much use out of them.

    In conclusion, Initiation is not worth buying. The Challenge Rooms aren't even that fun and the final boss fight with Lady Shiva takes forever to get to. Save your money and play around in the Challenge Rooms the game provides for free.

4/10

Batman: Arkham Origins review

    Batman is one of the greatest fictional characters of all time and I am allowed to say this because, as a blogger, I can make unsubstantiated statements that I claim to be absolutes (he is, though). Thus, Batman can be many things: violent, anti-social, heroic, crusading, angst-ridden, driven, and even funny.   

    Never boring.

    Origins, the third installment of the popular Arkham Asylum series, is a driven by desire to capitalize on the previous installment's success. A shameless product of corporate desire for profit overriding artistic sensibilities. I'm not actually against that as long as it produces something but it didn't here.

   At all.

   Arkham City was a top contender for Charles Phipps'  Best Game of All Time. I say that as an unmitigated Batman fanboy and by no means an unbiased judge. Origins builds on Arkham City's engine, map, and even storytelling engine to create itself.

    The results are, unfortunately, underwhelming.

Deathstroke's appearance was most welcome.

    Arkham Origins is by no means a bad game, but this is damning with faint praise. So Okay, It's AverageTM (thank you, TV tropes) would be a good description of how I feel about it. After the tremendous success of Arkham City, Montreal game developers were always going to have a tough act to follow. Still, I think they could have done better as the haste in which this game was pumped out and it's myriad flaws show everywhere.

    The premise of Arkham Origins is little known Batman villain, Black Mask, has placed a staggering 50 million dollar bounty on our heroes head. This is considered ludicrous by Gotham City's criminals given Batman has only been operating two years in Gotham City and is considered an urban legend by most. Eight of the world's greatest assassins choose to respond along with every crook and corrupt cop in Gotham (the latter of which compromises all of them but James Gordon).

    The first problem with Arkham Origins is this premise isn't bad but it's lacking punch. In Arkham Asylum, Batman must rescue Commissioner Gordon. This is a personal motivation and works fine. In Arkham City, there's the layers upon layers of mystery to figuring out Hugo Strange's plot. As Alfred rightly points out, Batman could just stay at home and avoid this mess entirely. Batman retorts the villains are likely to hold Gotham City citizens hostage in order to draw him out, which is great but one which takes awhile to get put into effect.

The use of lesser-known villains is a welcome treat.

    There's also a twist with this premise I won't spoil but proves to be wholly unnecessary. The character of Black Mask suffers because of this twist as does the narrative. I understand Black Mask's not as popular as other Batman villains but the game could have waited to dump him in favor of Bane and a certain other famous Arkham alumni (whose still alive in the period this story is set).

    The next problem is Gotham City feels rather lifeless. I understand it's impractical to try and replicate a modern city of millions and the excuse of both a massive crime wave as well as an epic snowstorm make a reasonable excuse for why only criminals are on the streets. Still, I would have appreciated the level designers throwing in some acknowledgement Gotham City is inhabited. Have there been citizens traveling the streets who need to be rescued, lights on in buildings, and maybe the occasional scarred witness to the Batman's activities.

    Travel time is a problem in Gotham City as well. The game world is open from the very beginning, which is usually a plus, but the leaping from rooftop to rooftop in order to cross across the massive islands gets tedious after awhile. The fast travel system cuts down this frustration but it, honestly, feels like cheating. I would have preferred the game to open up the islands of Gotham one by one to make things feels tighter.

Gotham City during wintertime is quite the treat.

    Then there's the fact the game is bugged. Not so bugged as to make it unplayable, at least on my Xbox 360 but enough to be noticeable. Criminals get stuck in walls, the frame rate drops when you're traveling too fast, and I actually had to go back into a room to finish a boss fight because I thought it was over. These moments were rare but obvious enough to make me think this game was rushed out the door without sufficient testing.

    I have a few more irritations to the game but nothing really concrete. These things don't overwhelm the good in the game, which is mostly carried over from Arkham City but they are certainly notable. So what are the good points of Arkham Origins? The things which stand out as original compared to Arkham City?
   
    The first thing is Gotham City is gorgeous. The environments recycled from Arkham City are altered for their heyday and the dilapidated urban wasteland of the previous game is re-envisioned as a thriving urban metropolis.   The new environments are equally entertaining, showing a Gotham City which is in its height of economic prosperity but still an Art Deco nightmare containing a corruption impossible to extirpate.

    The Boss Battles of Arkham Origins are a massive improvement over Arkham City's own. Missing from the previous games is the appeal of a Gotham City super-crook showing up and Batman beating the crap out of him. In Arkham City, you have to sneak up on Deadshot and take him out in one blow.  In Arkham Origins, you have to beat the crap out of Deadshot numerous times before he finally takes a hostage. THEN you have to take him out in one blow.

    There's also the fact battling Deathstroke is like fighting a katana-wielding Captain America, nearly impossible for our hero to defeat and totally awesome. Bane, never used well by these games, is combined with his movie characterization to be the Joker's equal.   

Black Mask is an intimidating guy. Too bad his role is usurped fairly early on.

      I also give the game props for excellent voice-acting. Despite the absence of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, both Batman and the Joker are still recognizable. Bruce being younger and angrier makes the story's character progression more interesting.

      There's even a Breaking Bad reference where Batman explains to Alfred that, no, Gotham's criminals do not knock on his door--he knocks on theirs (the actual line is far more badass, however). It's also wonderfully subverted when someone, I won't say who, most definitely does knock on the Batman's door.

    In conclusion, Arkham Origins is a game which could have been so much better if it had been edited and tweaked as well as properly play-tested. There's flashes of genius in the game like the absolutely breathtaking Joker level in the Gotham City hotel.

      Unfortunately, these are interspersed with long boring periods of grappling around the empty city. Weirdly, I felt like Spiderman since I was doing so much of it. Batman: Arkham Origins is a disappointing game but it's still decent and worth a look at.

7.5/10

Buy at Amazon.com

The Amazing Spiderman review

    Warning - nonsensical Spiderman ramblings incomprehensible to the regular reader ahead.

    The Amazing Spiderman A.K.A Spiderman Begins. When we saw the trailer for this dark and angsty upgrade to Peter Parker's life, we all knew it was an attempt to cash-in on the popularity of Bruce Wayne's latest re-invention. The popular Sam Raimi trilogy had crashed and burned with it's third installment and, God Help Me, I was glad to it arrived D.O.A. I never much cared for Sam Raimi's version of Peter Parker and found its success to be inexplicable. I say this as a fan who wallpapered his room in poly-bagged issues of Spiderman from the Hobgoblin to Clone Saga.

    The Amazing Spiderman is a movie who suffers less from being based on Batman Begins than, say, the Man of Steel because Spiderman has always been the weird hybrid of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Peter Parker as an angst driven teen suffering from the weight of both his guilt and anger is, actually, pretty close to the interpretation of the character I grew up with. Well, not the teen part, because god forbid superheroes ever mature but, really, the whole thing where Peter Parker becomes an obsessively revenge-driven Emo type who listens to Linkin Park in Spiderman 3 was so dissonant for me because--well, THAT IS PART OF PETER PARKER'S THING.

    Spiderman *is* anger, guilt, and revenge-driven under all his cavalier four-color exterior. He remembers the "with great power comes great responsibility" thing because, dammit, that cheese-ball saying is one of the few things he has to remember his dead Uncle by. The jokes are just a means of deflecting from his existential angst. Indeed, that's another reason why Peter Parker is a teenager since that sort of brooding would be ridiculous in an adult.

    Sorry Bruce.

    The Amazing Spiderman does a lot of things right which the previous trilogy did not. Peter Parker's love of science, his social awkwardness being a bigger issue than any 1960s nerd stereotypes, and the fact Peter actually quips while in the damn suit. Sally Field may be an awful visual choice for Aunt May but I believed her when she wondered why her surrogate son was coming home at odd hours of the night with signs of getting the crap beaten out of him.

    Admittedly, I had to wonder who was beating up Spiderman before the Lizard was created but I understood what the story was trying to convey. Aunt May is trying to deal with her son doing things she doesn't understand and is unwilling to talk about. Peter Parker is THE teenaged superhero, existing above all the rest since Robin and others were conceived as cash-in adolescents. Hell, he was doing this sort of "monsters as a metaphor for high school" thing long before Buffy the Vampire Slayer made it trendy.

    The premise is a familiar one. Peter Parker, guy who would be a magnet to the ladies in high school if not for his personality and geeky hobbies (he IS a wish-fulfillment character after all), is struggling with life. Cue Radioactive Spider. Peter Parker loses his uncle soon after due to a tragic event which leaves him feeling questionable guilt. Doubly questionable in this film since I'd argue it was Uncle Ben's fault for trying to stop a feeling suspect over a couple of hundred bucks. There's some mad science, monster creation, and ultimately a lesson in great power coming with great something or other.

    In short, a adequately-told Spiderman tale. There's nothing overwhelmingly original about this premise, it's extremely derivative in fact, but you don't expect twists when retelling Romeo and Juliet. Andrew Garfield plays a man who, for whatever reason, never quite got the socialization thing. It's doubly frustrating because, unlike Toby Maguire's Spiderman, the audience senses he's THIS close to being cool. Life is the handsome Byronic poet was consumed with angst but ruined it by talking about his favorite X-men characters.

    I also don't agree with detractors who Doctor Kurt Conners being a surrogate father figure to Peter Parker is a re-hashed idea since this, combined with MAD SCIENCE, has always been Doctor Conner's thing. I even approve of the removal of Connor's family since it makes the act where he saves Peter in the end all the more touching. This version of Doctor Conners has only his research to keep him going and the prospect of a new arm is only secondary to SCIENCE! Shameless sequel bait or not, I also want to see this movie franchise's version of Norman Osbourne.

    As for Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy? I find her and Kirsten Dunt's Mary Jane to be interchangeable except for the former being able to do math. Still, if an attractive smart girl showed me attention in high school--you'd bet I'd think we were the love story of our age. Besides, at the end we also have them united in tragedy so there's that. Plus, well, she's Emma Stone and in the fight between two gorgeous but inexplicably short women, I have to choose Emma Stone. Maybe in future installments of the Spiderman series we can have Hayden Panettiere play Betty Brant.

    In short, I heartily recommend The Amazing Spiderman. It's a far from perfect movie but it is one of the more underrated offerings of Fox superhero movies. I look forward to seeing more of Garfield's Spiderman and hope the series makes it to trilogy status.

7/10