Films and Games of October
Hi everyone, I am falling behind! What with it being the 4th of November and still no film/game reviews :S
Also I have my Nanowrimo thingy started... falling behind too, wrote over 2000 words yesterday, need to write another 2000 words at least today =S I'm fortunate enough that this idea has legs... I changed what idea I was going with after Nanowrimo started; the first one just wouldn't have covered 50,000 words. Within: Confinement was 55,000 words and that took me 3 years! =SS
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/556248
Yes I am behind, yes I haven't put up any info. I'll get around to it! :P
So I feel like I'm going to be plenty occupied... what with work asking me to take more shifts (I'm putting my foot down now) because they are dumb and hiring the wrong people. Also Boogey-Ground effectively up and running again (as it has been for the last month or two) meaning I should be working on more environmental stuff for that. Not to mention my original book I was writing! :P
And Borderlands...
Films of October
The Shipping News
I have to start the month with a slow film eh?
This is a very sentimental film about a quite backward man played by Kevin Spacey, who lives an incredibly shut out life with virtually nothing to his name. When a woman falls into his life for the first time he thinks it is true love, but after they have a child together she ditches him, leaving him to become a helpless single father.
The story develops as he finds out about himself and his ansestory with a move to Ireland, becoming a reporter for a local paper, begins as a bumbling basket case until one of his random stories sparks enthusiasm in the community.
It is a moving film about acceptance and finding one's place in the world, I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting.
Bleach: Fade to Black
I think everyone has already said what needs to be said here! To be honest... Fade to Black felt quite unoriginal, but one could easily say Bleach is not out there to be original! More or less mimicing the Soul Society arc, Ichigo Kurosaki must rescue Rukia once again from perious angst connected to her (very much forgotten!) past.
All the favourites are there... mostly... yes Kon is there... but given Rukia has virtually no credibility but through entirely made up backstory for the sake of angst... we cannot feel sorry for her. Instead we just want her to shut up! Mass amensia forces friends into foe, to temporarily restore Soul Society's epic battles. This does provide some witty dialogue here and there.
The battle sequences though, especially the end finale, felt a little copy-pasted from the second movie Diamond Dust, which remains a favourite of mine. The animation however is crisp, clean and full of movement and does capture our characters at their very best.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D
I figured I should go see a 3D film before Cameron's Avatar arrives, to gauge the first steps of 3D development. To get this aspect out of the way first... the 3D here was flawed (as it appeared to be with previous Ice Age 3 and G-Force) and I can explain why. 3D should only be used for certain parts of the film. Yes that sounds gimmicky, but that is what 3D is! Having every single frame in 3D makes it look clunky; seeing a rope from the distance stretch out towards me.... only to be cut off at the bottom of the screen for example... isn't 3D! Having characters cut off at the shoulders, a glaringly obvious edge-of-screen clearly visible, doesn't look good! I am however greatly pleased that Pixar's UP has restricted the 3D to only to shots that need it.. otherwise it appears 2D.
As for the story of Cloudy, I enjoyed it. It was good fun and quite original! Seeing a tornado of spagetti or a massive pancake and syrup falling from the sky, was new to me! Recommended.......... in 2D.
Pandorum
Eeep. This isn't the sort of film to see all alone in a dark cinema. Having now played the sci-fi computer game Dead Space I can safely say Pandorum is its movie adaptation! Which is no bad thing. I'd rather have two unique but similar stories, than one story adapted badly.
We are greeted unpleasantly to the reanimation of our lead character from one of the most unpleasant stasis chambers in recent memory, only for him to find his memory clouded and the space ship seemingly abandoned and out of power. He meets up with Dennis Quaid's character, a commander, who promptly gets to the command deck and leads our hero to restart the ship and find out what's going on.
Unfortunately... the ship is teeming with brutal, savage monsters bent on carving their victims apart with blades and blowtorches.
Quite the usual piece of sci-fi horror, but it had me quite ridged for the entire time! Great production value too.
Velvet Goldmine
Yes... suggested viewing by a friend... and a month later I still don't know what I think! Hehe. Alright, a film set in 1970s Britain we see the events through the birth and death of glam rock, primarily through the life, sexual antics and idolisation of the greatest glam rock singer Brian Slade. The idoling comes from Christian Bale's character, whose desire to be like his idol in glam rock's dying days provides stark and unpleasant realisations for him, especially when he, as a journalist a decade later, he must look back into his past and uncover the disappearance of Brian Slade.
A film well executed and puts you into the time and the place, while perhaps Eddie Izzard's best film role, while Bale is fairly convincing. Crazy, crazy music videos too!
Only downside was that I didn't find the characterisation entirely compelling... at least I didn't feel sympathetic when lives became so marred and ruined by the lust for greed and fame. Perhaps we aren't supposed to.
UP
Quite possibly the best film of the year. Once again Pixar provides with absolute stellar animation and rendering while keeping their stories to the absolute minimum! At first I was skeptical, like with Wall-E, how can a clearly awesome sketch of an old man refusing a boy scout's help over and over evolve into a feature film without ruining the simplicity?
By perhaps being completely bonkers? Well that's not entirely true. While we love seeing an old man singlehandedly escaping life's troubles by flying his house away with thousands of balloons, Pixar does ask us to believe in a legion of talking dogs! The able henchmen of our lead hero's childhood idol. Yet, it works!
There is a heavy dose of sentimental value throughout however, which does equal out the craziness, making UP a very heartfelt and moving family piece. Don't miss this movie for the world!
Zombieland
This makes no sense. I like to think I know my films... but everyone seems to love this film.. while I despise it! 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes?? Best cameo in a film in recent years!? What!? People apparently don't want to spoil the "awesome" middle part... but given that is the very section I had MOST problems with... I am going to tell you about it. Read on if you want.
We start out with a socially inept geek who is quoted as being a World of Warcraft player, right off the bat. (I wonder if the masses instantly related and therefore they love the film) Whose lack of social skills proves he is perfect for dealing with the zombie apocolypse that befalls the world.
He meets up with Woody Harrelson's character who, for the most part, was the best bit of this film. A loopy gun-toting individual hell bent on finding a stash of Twinkies. This is mad-cap humour, therefore its the only bit that worked.
They then promptly meet two sisters, who both play the tired "badass girl" role and continue to dupe the two guys.
But let's get to the worst part of this movie. Since everyone is dead, they go to Beverly Hills (best houses to crash in for free? Makes sense) only to find.... Bill Murray.
Bill Murray... as himself. We are then accosted by the unfunny montage of literal "OMG Bill Murray is awesome!!" dialogue while he himself just stands looking thoroughly pleased. Then a load of "Hey Ghostbusters was an awesome film!!" Then Bill Murray dies and they dump his body.
I'm sorry what? HOW is that funny? I don't want to be lifted clear from my immersion for someone to rant hysterically about an actor playing himself! Hollywood, please stop blowing yourself, it wasn't clever in Ocean's Twelve it certainly isn't now. Know what they should have done? Have Bill Murray as a zombie, then you could have had some witty gags about our heroes meeting him... except not because they have to kill him!
As for the rest of the film... for all the "clever, witty zombie killings" promised from the trailer... I felt it was sorely lacking. The end battle was just shooting them all.... because that's original? At least crush the zombies under the fairground rides (don't have them waiting patiently at a safe distance) or run them over with cars a lot, something!
For a film that would go so far to have a zany Twinkie fetish, it was nowhere near as crazy or clever as I was expecting.
Bonnie and Clyde
Well after that review I'm tired now!
Bonnie and Clyde, two petty thieves who want to become big time robbers, meet up by chance and seek fame and fortune by the most reckless means necessary. The two characters develop nicely; lowly thefts develop into greater and greater crimes and before long they find themselves way over their heads. They give up and ignore the most simple things in life such as family, bringing about a stirring middle section to the film were Bonnie discovers how deep she has fallen, but cannot hope to get out again.
An edgy film to be sure, full of witty comic moments yet fueled by reckless foolishness which ultimately drives towards an inevitable (and horribly blunt) finale. If you don't mind older films and enjoyed the visuals of Public Enemies, give this a try.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
I had to see this film! So much news all over it that I could not afford to miss it in the cinema. In a nutshell, this film should not exist; Terry Gilliam seems to have the most rotten luck of any director as his main star and good friend Heath Ledger died during production.
While it is easy to go on about this element, I was surprised to find that it didn't make this a bad movie. Quite the contrary, Gilliam is perhaps the only one with a style crazy and imaginative enough to pull out a film from this unfortunate event. Imaginarium is one of the most unique visual films of the year; naturally borrowing heavily from Monty Python's Flying Circus visuals.
Heath Ledger's absence is not black and white as his scenes are spliced throughout, while Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell carry the character's "alter egos" extremely effectively. Very much recommended as a unique experience.
Games of October
totally not getting any of Nanowrimo done today.... =(
Fallout 3
I don't know if I'm falling hard on Bethesda Software... but their recent games really aren't gripping me like Morrowind: Elder Scrolls did. Sure I did just tear through the story here and avoided branching out on the smaller quests... but when I got my first look on the destroyed, bleak and grey post-apocolypse landscape... I had no desire to explore it. It was all flat... all dead and all grey.
The story was quite interesting however, I did feel the need to complete it. Though when Liam Neeson's character inevitably dies midway... I did lose a lot of my enthusiasm. Starting out as a newborn baby was something clever though, even if I just wanted to run off into places the game didn't want me to go! Which reminds me... I encountered far too many invisible walls. For a game about free roaming and tackling the environment, I was quite restricted. I wanted to flank my enemies by climbing over a very easy looking pile of rubble... but nooooo, I have to take them on head first.
Overall, not bad... but just a bit too dead in the visuals.
Wii Sports Resort
Only got to play this for about 10 minutes! As such I didn't really get a feeling of the Motion Plus... I'm sure it was better, but I didn't get the impression that swinging a sword around was much different to swinging a baseball bat in Wii Sports. Also the Motion Plus packs are a real fiddle to get in and out of those stupid rubber covers the Wiimotes apparently need.
I don't know... it didn't impress me that much, not like the Wii Fit did. I'm just waiting for Nintendo to make the Wiimotes more streamlined than they are currently... more than a few things wrong with them.
Gears of War 2
I hate to say it... but Gears has actually matured since last time! This game was actually enjoyable for me. Gears 1 was painfully annoying and repetitive, but the sequel provided some pretty awesome spectacle and visuals!
While the story continues to be rather stupid and contrived, and the humans are still all massive meat pies, seeing entire cities collapse into the ground is quite frankly awesome. Much more interesting and unique vehicle sections are a plus, while a common "Rookie" NPC character provided some realism (I liked him) and the visuals didn't feel quite so incredibly GREY as before. They are still grey... but there's a lot more to them now.
Overall, I was quite impressed. Probably won't buy it still... but made me appreciate what the Gears series has to offer.
Borderlands
Well, it is hard to review this as I am still playing and it is still developing, plus it is multiplayer heavy, but Borderlands is my next best thing without being sucked helplessly into an MMORPG machine!
As the trailers say, it is an FPS and an RPG, free roaming environments and combat intense. Intense as in brutal. You really have to be in a party to play this game as the enemies become increasingly hard to kill, in greater numbers and respawn faster.
Obviously, I picked the Hunter class, so I could snipe! I can safely say that Borderlands targetting and hit box mechanics are much, much better than most FPS. You actually have to lead your targets to score hits, while the further distance you are shooting, it becomes increasingly harder. Not to mention weapons without scopes force you to look down the barrel, making for a clever blurred/focused vision effect on your targets.
The RPG levelling aspect is much like any other points system, each time you level you spend a point on improving a certain class skill in certain class tiers. The weapons however took a while to appreciate; "a bazillion guns" the trailer boasted. I thought it meant you could modify your weapons, making for millions of combinations. What you really get are different classes of weapon with different effects and stats. Bit of a bummer... but since then I have found shotguns that fire literal rockets, and sniper rifles that shoot acid.
Overall, a good big time waster with some witty dialogue and pretty cel-shaded visuals :P
Dead Space
Christ would this review session end already!
Like I said in my Pandorum film review, that film is this game! You play as Issac Clark, an engineer in a repair team sent to a drifting space ship that had sent a distress signal. Before long, you are alone as your commander reaches the command deck to lead you through the maze-like levels of the ship to restore power.
However... the crew (and the ship!) are slowly transforming into hideous, multi-limbed monsters! While the game is quite standard in genre, it does have a pretty creepy effect on you. It boasts some nice ideas such as a third-person perspective and his hud appears in front of him... not in front of you. This does however require an HDTV and even then... the map is a little hard to understand at times.
I am enjoying it, the anti-gravity sections and parts of the ship exposed to the vaccum of space are both very intense (reminds me of DOOM 3's Mars outer atmosphere sections) and claustrophobic. Not sure if I will get to complete it though... it grips me but not that much it seems.
God it is past 6pm already! =( my day off.... it is gone! I did go see 9 though, which was pretty cool!
Also I have my Nanowrimo thingy started... falling behind too, wrote over 2000 words yesterday, need to write another 2000 words at least today =S I'm fortunate enough that this idea has legs... I changed what idea I was going with after Nanowrimo started; the first one just wouldn't have covered 50,000 words. Within: Confinement was 55,000 words and that took me 3 years! =SS
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/556248
Yes I am behind, yes I haven't put up any info. I'll get around to it! :P
So I feel like I'm going to be plenty occupied... what with work asking me to take more shifts (I'm putting my foot down now) because they are dumb and hiring the wrong people. Also Boogey-Ground effectively up and running again (as it has been for the last month or two) meaning I should be working on more environmental stuff for that. Not to mention my original book I was writing! :P
And Borderlands...
Films of October
The Shipping News
I have to start the month with a slow film eh?
This is a very sentimental film about a quite backward man played by Kevin Spacey, who lives an incredibly shut out life with virtually nothing to his name. When a woman falls into his life for the first time he thinks it is true love, but after they have a child together she ditches him, leaving him to become a helpless single father.
The story develops as he finds out about himself and his ansestory with a move to Ireland, becoming a reporter for a local paper, begins as a bumbling basket case until one of his random stories sparks enthusiasm in the community.
It is a moving film about acceptance and finding one's place in the world, I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting.
Bleach: Fade to Black
I think everyone has already said what needs to be said here! To be honest... Fade to Black felt quite unoriginal, but one could easily say Bleach is not out there to be original! More or less mimicing the Soul Society arc, Ichigo Kurosaki must rescue Rukia once again from perious angst connected to her (very much forgotten!) past.
All the favourites are there... mostly... yes Kon is there... but given Rukia has virtually no credibility but through entirely made up backstory for the sake of angst... we cannot feel sorry for her. Instead we just want her to shut up! Mass amensia forces friends into foe, to temporarily restore Soul Society's epic battles. This does provide some witty dialogue here and there.
The battle sequences though, especially the end finale, felt a little copy-pasted from the second movie Diamond Dust, which remains a favourite of mine. The animation however is crisp, clean and full of movement and does capture our characters at their very best.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D
I figured I should go see a 3D film before Cameron's Avatar arrives, to gauge the first steps of 3D development. To get this aspect out of the way first... the 3D here was flawed (as it appeared to be with previous Ice Age 3 and G-Force) and I can explain why. 3D should only be used for certain parts of the film. Yes that sounds gimmicky, but that is what 3D is! Having every single frame in 3D makes it look clunky; seeing a rope from the distance stretch out towards me.... only to be cut off at the bottom of the screen for example... isn't 3D! Having characters cut off at the shoulders, a glaringly obvious edge-of-screen clearly visible, doesn't look good! I am however greatly pleased that Pixar's UP has restricted the 3D to only to shots that need it.. otherwise it appears 2D.
As for the story of Cloudy, I enjoyed it. It was good fun and quite original! Seeing a tornado of spagetti or a massive pancake and syrup falling from the sky, was new to me! Recommended.......... in 2D.
Pandorum
Eeep. This isn't the sort of film to see all alone in a dark cinema. Having now played the sci-fi computer game Dead Space I can safely say Pandorum is its movie adaptation! Which is no bad thing. I'd rather have two unique but similar stories, than one story adapted badly.
We are greeted unpleasantly to the reanimation of our lead character from one of the most unpleasant stasis chambers in recent memory, only for him to find his memory clouded and the space ship seemingly abandoned and out of power. He meets up with Dennis Quaid's character, a commander, who promptly gets to the command deck and leads our hero to restart the ship and find out what's going on.
Unfortunately... the ship is teeming with brutal, savage monsters bent on carving their victims apart with blades and blowtorches.
Quite the usual piece of sci-fi horror, but it had me quite ridged for the entire time! Great production value too.
Velvet Goldmine
Yes... suggested viewing by a friend... and a month later I still don't know what I think! Hehe. Alright, a film set in 1970s Britain we see the events through the birth and death of glam rock, primarily through the life, sexual antics and idolisation of the greatest glam rock singer Brian Slade. The idoling comes from Christian Bale's character, whose desire to be like his idol in glam rock's dying days provides stark and unpleasant realisations for him, especially when he, as a journalist a decade later, he must look back into his past and uncover the disappearance of Brian Slade.
A film well executed and puts you into the time and the place, while perhaps Eddie Izzard's best film role, while Bale is fairly convincing. Crazy, crazy music videos too!
Only downside was that I didn't find the characterisation entirely compelling... at least I didn't feel sympathetic when lives became so marred and ruined by the lust for greed and fame. Perhaps we aren't supposed to.
UP
Quite possibly the best film of the year. Once again Pixar provides with absolute stellar animation and rendering while keeping their stories to the absolute minimum! At first I was skeptical, like with Wall-E, how can a clearly awesome sketch of an old man refusing a boy scout's help over and over evolve into a feature film without ruining the simplicity?
By perhaps being completely bonkers? Well that's not entirely true. While we love seeing an old man singlehandedly escaping life's troubles by flying his house away with thousands of balloons, Pixar does ask us to believe in a legion of talking dogs! The able henchmen of our lead hero's childhood idol. Yet, it works!
There is a heavy dose of sentimental value throughout however, which does equal out the craziness, making UP a very heartfelt and moving family piece. Don't miss this movie for the world!
Zombieland
This makes no sense. I like to think I know my films... but everyone seems to love this film.. while I despise it! 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes?? Best cameo in a film in recent years!? What!? People apparently don't want to spoil the "awesome" middle part... but given that is the very section I had MOST problems with... I am going to tell you about it. Read on if you want.
We start out with a socially inept geek who is quoted as being a World of Warcraft player, right off the bat. (I wonder if the masses instantly related and therefore they love the film) Whose lack of social skills proves he is perfect for dealing with the zombie apocolypse that befalls the world.
He meets up with Woody Harrelson's character who, for the most part, was the best bit of this film. A loopy gun-toting individual hell bent on finding a stash of Twinkies. This is mad-cap humour, therefore its the only bit that worked.
They then promptly meet two sisters, who both play the tired "badass girl" role and continue to dupe the two guys.
But let's get to the worst part of this movie. Since everyone is dead, they go to Beverly Hills (best houses to crash in for free? Makes sense) only to find.... Bill Murray.
Bill Murray... as himself. We are then accosted by the unfunny montage of literal "OMG Bill Murray is awesome!!" dialogue while he himself just stands looking thoroughly pleased. Then a load of "Hey Ghostbusters was an awesome film!!" Then Bill Murray dies and they dump his body.
I'm sorry what? HOW is that funny? I don't want to be lifted clear from my immersion for someone to rant hysterically about an actor playing himself! Hollywood, please stop blowing yourself, it wasn't clever in Ocean's Twelve it certainly isn't now. Know what they should have done? Have Bill Murray as a zombie, then you could have had some witty gags about our heroes meeting him... except not because they have to kill him!
As for the rest of the film... for all the "clever, witty zombie killings" promised from the trailer... I felt it was sorely lacking. The end battle was just shooting them all.... because that's original? At least crush the zombies under the fairground rides (don't have them waiting patiently at a safe distance) or run them over with cars a lot, something!
For a film that would go so far to have a zany Twinkie fetish, it was nowhere near as crazy or clever as I was expecting.
Bonnie and Clyde
Well after that review I'm tired now!
Bonnie and Clyde, two petty thieves who want to become big time robbers, meet up by chance and seek fame and fortune by the most reckless means necessary. The two characters develop nicely; lowly thefts develop into greater and greater crimes and before long they find themselves way over their heads. They give up and ignore the most simple things in life such as family, bringing about a stirring middle section to the film were Bonnie discovers how deep she has fallen, but cannot hope to get out again.
An edgy film to be sure, full of witty comic moments yet fueled by reckless foolishness which ultimately drives towards an inevitable (and horribly blunt) finale. If you don't mind older films and enjoyed the visuals of Public Enemies, give this a try.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
I had to see this film! So much news all over it that I could not afford to miss it in the cinema. In a nutshell, this film should not exist; Terry Gilliam seems to have the most rotten luck of any director as his main star and good friend Heath Ledger died during production.
While it is easy to go on about this element, I was surprised to find that it didn't make this a bad movie. Quite the contrary, Gilliam is perhaps the only one with a style crazy and imaginative enough to pull out a film from this unfortunate event. Imaginarium is one of the most unique visual films of the year; naturally borrowing heavily from Monty Python's Flying Circus visuals.
Heath Ledger's absence is not black and white as his scenes are spliced throughout, while Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell carry the character's "alter egos" extremely effectively. Very much recommended as a unique experience.
Games of October
totally not getting any of Nanowrimo done today.... =(
Fallout 3
I don't know if I'm falling hard on Bethesda Software... but their recent games really aren't gripping me like Morrowind: Elder Scrolls did. Sure I did just tear through the story here and avoided branching out on the smaller quests... but when I got my first look on the destroyed, bleak and grey post-apocolypse landscape... I had no desire to explore it. It was all flat... all dead and all grey.
The story was quite interesting however, I did feel the need to complete it. Though when Liam Neeson's character inevitably dies midway... I did lose a lot of my enthusiasm. Starting out as a newborn baby was something clever though, even if I just wanted to run off into places the game didn't want me to go! Which reminds me... I encountered far too many invisible walls. For a game about free roaming and tackling the environment, I was quite restricted. I wanted to flank my enemies by climbing over a very easy looking pile of rubble... but nooooo, I have to take them on head first.
Overall, not bad... but just a bit too dead in the visuals.
Wii Sports Resort
Only got to play this for about 10 minutes! As such I didn't really get a feeling of the Motion Plus... I'm sure it was better, but I didn't get the impression that swinging a sword around was much different to swinging a baseball bat in Wii Sports. Also the Motion Plus packs are a real fiddle to get in and out of those stupid rubber covers the Wiimotes apparently need.
I don't know... it didn't impress me that much, not like the Wii Fit did. I'm just waiting for Nintendo to make the Wiimotes more streamlined than they are currently... more than a few things wrong with them.
Gears of War 2
I hate to say it... but Gears has actually matured since last time! This game was actually enjoyable for me. Gears 1 was painfully annoying and repetitive, but the sequel provided some pretty awesome spectacle and visuals!
While the story continues to be rather stupid and contrived, and the humans are still all massive meat pies, seeing entire cities collapse into the ground is quite frankly awesome. Much more interesting and unique vehicle sections are a plus, while a common "Rookie" NPC character provided some realism (I liked him) and the visuals didn't feel quite so incredibly GREY as before. They are still grey... but there's a lot more to them now.
Overall, I was quite impressed. Probably won't buy it still... but made me appreciate what the Gears series has to offer.
Borderlands
Well, it is hard to review this as I am still playing and it is still developing, plus it is multiplayer heavy, but Borderlands is my next best thing without being sucked helplessly into an MMORPG machine!
As the trailers say, it is an FPS and an RPG, free roaming environments and combat intense. Intense as in brutal. You really have to be in a party to play this game as the enemies become increasingly hard to kill, in greater numbers and respawn faster.
Obviously, I picked the Hunter class, so I could snipe! I can safely say that Borderlands targetting and hit box mechanics are much, much better than most FPS. You actually have to lead your targets to score hits, while the further distance you are shooting, it becomes increasingly harder. Not to mention weapons without scopes force you to look down the barrel, making for a clever blurred/focused vision effect on your targets.
The RPG levelling aspect is much like any other points system, each time you level you spend a point on improving a certain class skill in certain class tiers. The weapons however took a while to appreciate; "a bazillion guns" the trailer boasted. I thought it meant you could modify your weapons, making for millions of combinations. What you really get are different classes of weapon with different effects and stats. Bit of a bummer... but since then I have found shotguns that fire literal rockets, and sniper rifles that shoot acid.
Overall, a good big time waster with some witty dialogue and pretty cel-shaded visuals :P
Dead Space
Christ would this review session end already!
Like I said in my Pandorum film review, that film is this game! You play as Issac Clark, an engineer in a repair team sent to a drifting space ship that had sent a distress signal. Before long, you are alone as your commander reaches the command deck to lead you through the maze-like levels of the ship to restore power.
However... the crew (and the ship!) are slowly transforming into hideous, multi-limbed monsters! While the game is quite standard in genre, it does have a pretty creepy effect on you. It boasts some nice ideas such as a third-person perspective and his hud appears in front of him... not in front of you. This does however require an HDTV and even then... the map is a little hard to understand at times.
I am enjoying it, the anti-gravity sections and parts of the ship exposed to the vaccum of space are both very intense (reminds me of DOOM 3's Mars outer atmosphere sections) and claustrophobic. Not sure if I will get to complete it though... it grips me but not that much it seems.
God it is past 6pm already! =( my day off.... it is gone! I did go see 9 though, which was pretty cool!