Do you all have your Advent calendars?
Ugh, I was actually woken up by work today (true, only at 11am lol) but I had to go through early, in fact I got there about 45mins after they called, walking. Hope they appreciate it!
But "ugh" because aaall day was spent *cleaning*. I was literally trying to do what 3-4 people would be doing in the space of 6 hours. Clean the Xbox360 pod, clean the PS3 pod, clean the PSP pod, clean the signage over all of said consoles' games, clean the shelves - taking them off the wall and cleaning the wall too. Clean the floor, check all of the games are all the same depth on the shelves, change any PS2 games to blue boxes if they weren't, make sure there are *only* green boxes in the 360 shelves, only blue in the PS2, and only black when it comes to flattening out the PS2 bigger boxes games.
Oh and sell stuff :P
I never got around to the PS3, but I did aaaaall of the 360, PS2, Blu-Ray movies and PSP. God it wasn't pleasant; my usually casual demeanour was being tested here. The reason for it all? A visit on Wednesday by the 4th highest person in the management of Toys R Us as a corporation.
Still, I managed to sell 3-4 DSs, 360 and a keyboard while all this was happening.
I better have tomorrow off!
I take back what I said last post, Halo 3 is good fun :P just *very* different from Team Fortress 2. I was in party chat, but I heard the other team somehow, saying "Hmm, that Vessero dude isn't that good"... promptly followed by me killing him 3 times in a row in a variety of entertaining ways :D
I was the best in our team, I had a reputation to keep ;)
Now for films and games! There are some big reviews here!
Films of November (god it's December already!)
Quantum of Solace
Oh god, heavy review first!
Okay... in a nutshell it is Casino Royale part 2; it literally takes off the minute we had left Casino Royale, which some people can't actually remember (but don't worry, Quantum is a full hour shorter than CR!) and throughout the film, it is a chase sequence that doesn't particularly stop for breath!
It is good, but not as good as Casino Royale in my personal opinion, it felt broken in several places... more exposition would have been nice, and characterisation of any sort relating to Ms Fields would have been nice, instead she is uncompelling and barely registers as a blip on the radar... let alone a "Bond girl".
Plot wise, it is quite simplistic with a vengful Bond doing a License to Kill on us once again (but without the awesome tanker chases) it feels short as it is short, and there is a massive plot development that I was waiting and waiting to happen... but it didn't, which was a little disappointing.
Not sure if it will make my top 10 (which is the shocker!) even though Daniel Craig proves again he is one of the best Bond's we have had. The film feels like it is borrowing from the Bourne trilogy a little too much... which I guess can't be helped in this age of film.
Oh... and the opening? Meh. The song wasn't terribly interesting, and the graphics were dull... Dull!? How can this be? Well... Casino Royale had one of the best openings... possibly the best Bond opening... this was dry (har har, desert, get it)
Blood Simple
With the Coen Brother's Burn Before Reading releasing I rented some of their earlier films. Blood Simple is a thriller which gauges itself as an 18... but I feel in our desensitised time it would be a 15 now. It certainly was compelling, rotating around a love triangle with an unlikely but vicious hired hitman. Coen films are always a little... odd, and their earlier films are full of messages and visuals.
Fans of the Coen's should watch.
A Room with a View
Err, well I can defend myself and say that my mum gave me this to watch :P It starts off in Florence, which is why I wanted to see it. It was very good to see the place again in film (and looking so empty, that must have been a production task) but... as a film... ugh... women's films.. they are all so similar. Woman falls in love with rugged questionable bloke, but ends up marrying some stiff with her mother's approval, she breaks up and lives happily with the guy she actually had feelings for. The end.
Lol
Diary of the Dead
Ooohh dear. What do we have here? George A. Romero and a zombie film, sounds okay. Shame this is one of the worst examples of "first person perspective, wobbly camera, amateur recording, all-the-godforsaken-rage-in-film-at-the-moment" type of film. What is it with these films?? I saw Max Payne (see below) and there was a trailer for "Quarantine"... my head sunk only my fist as soon as it was all "Oooohhh, you're looking through the camera, you are there!" scares... and the usual "night vision" nonsense..
Diary of the Dead has some of the worst acting I've ever seen, and for a film were you are one of the people with them, you should feel an attachment to them. Romero is no stranger to making lovable, interesting characters, see Dawn of the Dead. What happened here?? All it involves is a bunch of idiot film makers saying "Why do you have the camera still on? Turn it off!" over, and over again. "Do you have anything to say, to people watching?" ..... "No."...
This is inspiring.
True, there are messages in there like all Romero films,debating the current trend of social evils. Shame these are sledge-hammered into the dialogue, or shamelessly tagged on the end of the film (literally)
Bad move Romero, not only did Cloverfield steamroller you, it wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't. At least I associated with those characters; I couldn't stand them, but at least I associated with them!
The Devil's Backbone
Similar with the Coen Brothers, I wanted to look back at the filmography of Guillermo Del Toro (I SPELT IT RIGHT!) and Devil's Backbone in all cases, is a precursor to his Pan's Labyrinth. It is almost the same plot with very similar characters, only set at an orphanage in the middle of the desert at the end of the Spanish civil war. It is a ghost story, revolving around a mysterious bomb that landed in the centre of the town but didn't detonate.
It has Del Toro visuals everywhere, which of course is a feast for the eyes, especially for fans of Pan's Labyrinth. It is a good horror film, unlike most American horrors...
Max Payne
God, how many times have I wrote this review and failed? Let's start with the fact Max Payne is one of the games I have played to death (then resurrected it and played it to death again!) so I have the entire story imprinted on my brain.
But, I must admit, after a lot of debate my brain came to the conclusion this is one of the best game adaptations it has ever seen. It is so good in fact, I wonder if game adaptations are actually necessary.
This was the main problem as I watched it. It was perfect in many ways, it even had Roscoe Street station at the beginning! (that's up there with Starscream flying away at the end of Transformers............... well...... not quite that awesome............... (god that was awesome))
I found myself questioning the fact that wouldn't I rather be playing the game again, rather than watching it played out exactly the same way but without my personal input?
In the end I must view it as a film.. and as a film I have to say it is incredibly shallow. Even if I didn't know exactly what each character was going to do... I saw through it. The guy who is Max's friend, even though he does nothing to help, nooooothing... it highly (bloody obviously) dubious. Also, one thing I cannot shake even if it is quite geeky of me, the drug Valkyr is not blue! It is green! And you don't DRINK it! I was cringing as everyone, gangsters, hookers, cultists were gulping down the stuff like a shot of slushie! The graffiti is true to the game; V for Valkyr with a syringe. So a 15 rated film can blast away bad guys (and good guys) but can't have syringes being used?
Oh... and bullet time was wasted. Yes... I said it. The bullet time here was subpar; really just used for the sake of it, not because it suited the situation. The bit in the trailer though (in the office block) was awesome.
Also, Mark Wahlberg did well as Max Payne, even though the character's backstory was skewed from the original game concept... for the worst.
Worth seeing as it is the best games adaptation yet (final note on this.. the actress playing Nicole Horn, scarily accurate! A little.... too accurate!)
Hitman
I KNEW this Timothy Olyphont person looked too "nice" to be Agent 47! I knew it. I've not even played the game (but I've seen pictures! hehe) but he definitely was.
Asides from that, this is another good game-to-film translation. Character plot borrows from Bourne... again, making it not terribly original (again) but it does have something of a mindless enjoyment factor that I wasn't expecting. I was expecting it to be absolutely dire.
The City of Lost Children
Ah ha, thank you Nomi for getting this to my attention :) I'd forgotten who had directed this... until a few minutes in I went "This feels like Delicatessen! The other famous film from the oddball mind of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. (who also caused Alien Resurrection... and that mistake makes a lot more sense now)
The film is full of wonderful, dark imagery which is right up there with Del Toro's unique style. Very steampunk, bronze and greens, reds and blacks, all terribly artistic and composed. The plot is suitably bizarre yet greatly enjoyable (much like Delicatessen) while yes Nomi, Ron Perlman does do a very good French accent, even if he does only say things in deliberate broken French lol
It could be on my top ten, but there have been so many now, it will certainly be in my notables!
Holes
I was a little reluctant to watch anything this day, but Holes was an enjoyable romp from Disney that didn't insult my intelligence or drive me nuts. In fact it was endearing and got me giving it full attention. It wasn't a moral-soaked fairytale, it was as gritty as a children's film can get; misbehaving children sent off into the middle of a dried out lake to dig holes as a lesson in dicipline (or is it?)
The acting from Jon Voight and Sigorney Weaver are very effective and really quite dark, while a young Shia LeBeouf isn't running around shouting "No" at window-washer poles pretending to be giant robots!
Better than expected, just an enjoyable, innocent flick.
Shrek the Third
Hurk... at least the babies weren't in it until the end...
I really wish I could leave the review at that. I remember when Shrek came out, Dreamworks said "Oh yea, we can make 3 more films, we might even go for 6!" oh god please don't.
Shrek 2 was more enjoyable than the first I thought, mainly because of Puss in Boots, but this film was dragging from the get go. I saw all of the jokes before they happened, the gags were shallow and insulting, while it certainly didn't feel like a third installment of a trilogy (you know... epic and conclusive?). The humour depressed me because it reminded me of how Wallace and Gromit were destroyed with Curse of the Wererabbit, Shrek the Third scrapes the barrel of old jokes, and throws in Eric Idle and John Cleese, but even the old Python's couldn't save this wreck.
There aren't half as many in-jokes with fairytales as the previous two... the film swings heavily into King Arthur stories (while not being epic...?...) while Puss in Boots was hardly even used!
Just shows that franchises (certainly ones that think direct accociation with Pop Idol is a good idea) will fall heavily off a cliff if they try and make lightning strike twice.
Games of November (deep breath)
No More Heroes (Wii)
Wooooo! The nonsense!
Suda51 got my attention of course with their sleeper hit Killer 7 (with help of Tommy's understanding of what games appeal to me) and now the long awaited second game has arrived.
The long..... long await... god... this game has been something of a Holy Grail for me. First was the news, 2 weeks before its release, that Europe and Japan would be getting a censored version; no blood, less violence and no language! This was in the event of Manhunt 2... but still... I was furious. (and bemused at America of all places getting the violent, blood-soaked version)
I couldn't imagine it... Suda51's weirdness needs these elements! So I found the American copy on Ebay, with a Freeloader, after 6 months of not updating my Wii since it's release. I put it in, it worked ! But..... it didn't! My TV was lame! So... some more months later, I bought my HD TV... and Woooo, it worked! I was so goddamn happy.
The game itself, after all the trouble, did waver in and out of my favour. Suda51 have gone for a open-world setup and it is a little dodgey; your bike will collide with cars with absolutely no reaction except to stop, you will glitch against walls, the handing is dreadful, while all of the shops available are utterly pointless.
The story though, is suitably Suda51, though not as epicly spine-chilling as Killer 7. Given the objective is to become the number 1 assassin by killing the other ten in ascending order, you can imagine it is a linear game. It is.... sort of.
As you progress you must earn money by doing a variety of mini games set in the city of Santa Destroy, these range from mowing lawns to rescuing cats, from filling cars with gasoline to minesweeping (all using the Wiimote functionality of course) and then there are assassination missions; you versus 20 to 100 enemies.
While these tasks are quite tedious, the actual "Rank Battles" are Suda51 in full force; dark, twisted, oddball and larger than life. A psychotic blonde girl in a frilly pink dress with a baseball bat, homerun batting gimps at you? Sounds about right!
It is flawed, but it is very entertaining in the way only Suda51 can do. Especially the end... I wasn't expecting that!
Left 4 Dead demo (360)
Hahahhahah.
Aw, it is so much amusement. I better get the full game this year, otherwise a demo will be in my top ten games :D
Mirror's Edge demo (360)
This game has me interested I must admit. The demo is only the tutorial and the start of the game, but it was a very appealing concept to me; running, leaping and climbing over skyscaper rooftops all in first person perspective. You don't use weapons (unless necessary) and have to disarm or dive around enemies.
I admit I was a little disconcerted by the way the perspective worked with these dramatic, fluid movements, but it certainly got adrenaline pumping, while having surprisingly simple controls.
I may rent this some day.
Dead Space demo (360)
Really couldn't gauge much from this demo... as I died and that's about all that happens! Gives you a quick screen of controls then plunges you into what must be the 3rd circle of interstellar hell. I had no idea what to do.
But... it was very good looking (for a dank, Doom-esk, shadowy, industrial, desaturated game) and the Resident Evil 4 "over-the-shoulder" perspective works well, but not as much as I enjoyed the interactive maps and menu systems, which actually appear in-game next to you in real time. I think I just played with that rather than actually tried to kill anything.
Poor demo, but I'm sure the game is impressive.
Now I have to try and not play Perfect World... or Halo 3.... or Team Fortress 2 (again)... or.....
Gah, I am totally going to.
But "ugh" because aaall day was spent *cleaning*. I was literally trying to do what 3-4 people would be doing in the space of 6 hours. Clean the Xbox360 pod, clean the PS3 pod, clean the PSP pod, clean the signage over all of said consoles' games, clean the shelves - taking them off the wall and cleaning the wall too. Clean the floor, check all of the games are all the same depth on the shelves, change any PS2 games to blue boxes if they weren't, make sure there are *only* green boxes in the 360 shelves, only blue in the PS2, and only black when it comes to flattening out the PS2 bigger boxes games.
Oh and sell stuff :P
I never got around to the PS3, but I did aaaaall of the 360, PS2, Blu-Ray movies and PSP. God it wasn't pleasant; my usually casual demeanour was being tested here. The reason for it all? A visit on Wednesday by the 4th highest person in the management of Toys R Us as a corporation.
Still, I managed to sell 3-4 DSs, 360 and a keyboard while all this was happening.
I better have tomorrow off!
I take back what I said last post, Halo 3 is good fun :P just *very* different from Team Fortress 2. I was in party chat, but I heard the other team somehow, saying "Hmm, that Vessero dude isn't that good"... promptly followed by me killing him 3 times in a row in a variety of entertaining ways :D
I was the best in our team, I had a reputation to keep ;)
Now for films and games! There are some big reviews here!
Films of November (god it's December already!)
Quantum of Solace
Oh god, heavy review first!
Okay... in a nutshell it is Casino Royale part 2; it literally takes off the minute we had left Casino Royale, which some people can't actually remember (but don't worry, Quantum is a full hour shorter than CR!) and throughout the film, it is a chase sequence that doesn't particularly stop for breath!
It is good, but not as good as Casino Royale in my personal opinion, it felt broken in several places... more exposition would have been nice, and characterisation of any sort relating to Ms Fields would have been nice, instead she is uncompelling and barely registers as a blip on the radar... let alone a "Bond girl".
Plot wise, it is quite simplistic with a vengful Bond doing a License to Kill on us once again (but without the awesome tanker chases) it feels short as it is short, and there is a massive plot development that I was waiting and waiting to happen... but it didn't, which was a little disappointing.
Not sure if it will make my top 10 (which is the shocker!) even though Daniel Craig proves again he is one of the best Bond's we have had. The film feels like it is borrowing from the Bourne trilogy a little too much... which I guess can't be helped in this age of film.
Oh... and the opening? Meh. The song wasn't terribly interesting, and the graphics were dull... Dull!? How can this be? Well... Casino Royale had one of the best openings... possibly the best Bond opening... this was dry (har har, desert, get it)
Blood Simple
With the Coen Brother's Burn Before Reading releasing I rented some of their earlier films. Blood Simple is a thriller which gauges itself as an 18... but I feel in our desensitised time it would be a 15 now. It certainly was compelling, rotating around a love triangle with an unlikely but vicious hired hitman. Coen films are always a little... odd, and their earlier films are full of messages and visuals.
Fans of the Coen's should watch.
A Room with a View
Err, well I can defend myself and say that my mum gave me this to watch :P It starts off in Florence, which is why I wanted to see it. It was very good to see the place again in film (and looking so empty, that must have been a production task) but... as a film... ugh... women's films.. they are all so similar. Woman falls in love with rugged questionable bloke, but ends up marrying some stiff with her mother's approval, she breaks up and lives happily with the guy she actually had feelings for. The end.
Lol
Diary of the Dead
Ooohh dear. What do we have here? George A. Romero and a zombie film, sounds okay. Shame this is one of the worst examples of "first person perspective, wobbly camera, amateur recording, all-the-godforsaken-rage-in-film-at-the-moment" type of film. What is it with these films?? I saw Max Payne (see below) and there was a trailer for "Quarantine"... my head sunk only my fist as soon as it was all "Oooohhh, you're looking through the camera, you are there!" scares... and the usual "night vision" nonsense..
Diary of the Dead has some of the worst acting I've ever seen, and for a film were you are one of the people with them, you should feel an attachment to them. Romero is no stranger to making lovable, interesting characters, see Dawn of the Dead. What happened here?? All it involves is a bunch of idiot film makers saying "Why do you have the camera still on? Turn it off!" over, and over again. "Do you have anything to say, to people watching?" ..... "No."...
This is inspiring.
True, there are messages in there like all Romero films,debating the current trend of social evils. Shame these are sledge-hammered into the dialogue, or shamelessly tagged on the end of the film (literally)
Bad move Romero, not only did Cloverfield steamroller you, it wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't. At least I associated with those characters; I couldn't stand them, but at least I associated with them!
The Devil's Backbone
Similar with the Coen Brothers, I wanted to look back at the filmography of Guillermo Del Toro (I SPELT IT RIGHT!) and Devil's Backbone in all cases, is a precursor to his Pan's Labyrinth. It is almost the same plot with very similar characters, only set at an orphanage in the middle of the desert at the end of the Spanish civil war. It is a ghost story, revolving around a mysterious bomb that landed in the centre of the town but didn't detonate.
It has Del Toro visuals everywhere, which of course is a feast for the eyes, especially for fans of Pan's Labyrinth. It is a good horror film, unlike most American horrors...
Max Payne
God, how many times have I wrote this review and failed? Let's start with the fact Max Payne is one of the games I have played to death (then resurrected it and played it to death again!) so I have the entire story imprinted on my brain.
But, I must admit, after a lot of debate my brain came to the conclusion this is one of the best game adaptations it has ever seen. It is so good in fact, I wonder if game adaptations are actually necessary.
This was the main problem as I watched it. It was perfect in many ways, it even had Roscoe Street station at the beginning! (that's up there with Starscream flying away at the end of Transformers............... well...... not quite that awesome............... (god that was awesome))
I found myself questioning the fact that wouldn't I rather be playing the game again, rather than watching it played out exactly the same way but without my personal input?
In the end I must view it as a film.. and as a film I have to say it is incredibly shallow. Even if I didn't know exactly what each character was going to do... I saw through it. The guy who is Max's friend, even though he does nothing to help, nooooothing... it highly (bloody obviously) dubious. Also, one thing I cannot shake even if it is quite geeky of me, the drug Valkyr is not blue! It is green! And you don't DRINK it! I was cringing as everyone, gangsters, hookers, cultists were gulping down the stuff like a shot of slushie! The graffiti is true to the game; V for Valkyr with a syringe. So a 15 rated film can blast away bad guys (and good guys) but can't have syringes being used?
Oh... and bullet time was wasted. Yes... I said it. The bullet time here was subpar; really just used for the sake of it, not because it suited the situation. The bit in the trailer though (in the office block) was awesome.
Also, Mark Wahlberg did well as Max Payne, even though the character's backstory was skewed from the original game concept... for the worst.
Worth seeing as it is the best games adaptation yet (final note on this.. the actress playing Nicole Horn, scarily accurate! A little.... too accurate!)
Hitman
I KNEW this Timothy Olyphont person looked too "nice" to be Agent 47! I knew it. I've not even played the game (but I've seen pictures! hehe) but he definitely was.
Asides from that, this is another good game-to-film translation. Character plot borrows from Bourne... again, making it not terribly original (again) but it does have something of a mindless enjoyment factor that I wasn't expecting. I was expecting it to be absolutely dire.
The City of Lost Children
Ah ha, thank you Nomi for getting this to my attention :) I'd forgotten who had directed this... until a few minutes in I went "This feels like Delicatessen! The other famous film from the oddball mind of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. (who also caused Alien Resurrection... and that mistake makes a lot more sense now)
The film is full of wonderful, dark imagery which is right up there with Del Toro's unique style. Very steampunk, bronze and greens, reds and blacks, all terribly artistic and composed. The plot is suitably bizarre yet greatly enjoyable (much like Delicatessen) while yes Nomi, Ron Perlman does do a very good French accent, even if he does only say things in deliberate broken French lol
It could be on my top ten, but there have been so many now, it will certainly be in my notables!
Holes
I was a little reluctant to watch anything this day, but Holes was an enjoyable romp from Disney that didn't insult my intelligence or drive me nuts. In fact it was endearing and got me giving it full attention. It wasn't a moral-soaked fairytale, it was as gritty as a children's film can get; misbehaving children sent off into the middle of a dried out lake to dig holes as a lesson in dicipline (or is it?)
The acting from Jon Voight and Sigorney Weaver are very effective and really quite dark, while a young Shia LeBeouf isn't running around shouting "No" at window-washer poles pretending to be giant robots!
Better than expected, just an enjoyable, innocent flick.
Shrek the Third
Hurk... at least the babies weren't in it until the end...
I really wish I could leave the review at that. I remember when Shrek came out, Dreamworks said "Oh yea, we can make 3 more films, we might even go for 6!" oh god please don't.
Shrek 2 was more enjoyable than the first I thought, mainly because of Puss in Boots, but this film was dragging from the get go. I saw all of the jokes before they happened, the gags were shallow and insulting, while it certainly didn't feel like a third installment of a trilogy (you know... epic and conclusive?). The humour depressed me because it reminded me of how Wallace and Gromit were destroyed with Curse of the Wererabbit, Shrek the Third scrapes the barrel of old jokes, and throws in Eric Idle and John Cleese, but even the old Python's couldn't save this wreck.
There aren't half as many in-jokes with fairytales as the previous two... the film swings heavily into King Arthur stories (while not being epic...?...) while Puss in Boots was hardly even used!
Just shows that franchises (certainly ones that think direct accociation with Pop Idol is a good idea) will fall heavily off a cliff if they try and make lightning strike twice.
Games of November (deep breath)
No More Heroes (Wii)
Wooooo! The nonsense!
Suda51 got my attention of course with their sleeper hit Killer 7 (with help of Tommy's understanding of what games appeal to me) and now the long awaited second game has arrived.
The long..... long await... god... this game has been something of a Holy Grail for me. First was the news, 2 weeks before its release, that Europe and Japan would be getting a censored version; no blood, less violence and no language! This was in the event of Manhunt 2... but still... I was furious. (and bemused at America of all places getting the violent, blood-soaked version)
I couldn't imagine it... Suda51's weirdness needs these elements! So I found the American copy on Ebay, with a Freeloader, after 6 months of not updating my Wii since it's release. I put it in, it worked ! But..... it didn't! My TV was lame! So... some more months later, I bought my HD TV... and Woooo, it worked! I was so goddamn happy.
The game itself, after all the trouble, did waver in and out of my favour. Suda51 have gone for a open-world setup and it is a little dodgey; your bike will collide with cars with absolutely no reaction except to stop, you will glitch against walls, the handing is dreadful, while all of the shops available are utterly pointless.
The story though, is suitably Suda51, though not as epicly spine-chilling as Killer 7. Given the objective is to become the number 1 assassin by killing the other ten in ascending order, you can imagine it is a linear game. It is.... sort of.
As you progress you must earn money by doing a variety of mini games set in the city of Santa Destroy, these range from mowing lawns to rescuing cats, from filling cars with gasoline to minesweeping (all using the Wiimote functionality of course) and then there are assassination missions; you versus 20 to 100 enemies.
While these tasks are quite tedious, the actual "Rank Battles" are Suda51 in full force; dark, twisted, oddball and larger than life. A psychotic blonde girl in a frilly pink dress with a baseball bat, homerun batting gimps at you? Sounds about right!
It is flawed, but it is very entertaining in the way only Suda51 can do. Especially the end... I wasn't expecting that!
Left 4 Dead demo (360)
Hahahhahah.
Aw, it is so much amusement. I better get the full game this year, otherwise a demo will be in my top ten games :D
Mirror's Edge demo (360)
This game has me interested I must admit. The demo is only the tutorial and the start of the game, but it was a very appealing concept to me; running, leaping and climbing over skyscaper rooftops all in first person perspective. You don't use weapons (unless necessary) and have to disarm or dive around enemies.
I admit I was a little disconcerted by the way the perspective worked with these dramatic, fluid movements, but it certainly got adrenaline pumping, while having surprisingly simple controls.
I may rent this some day.
Dead Space demo (360)
Really couldn't gauge much from this demo... as I died and that's about all that happens! Gives you a quick screen of controls then plunges you into what must be the 3rd circle of interstellar hell. I had no idea what to do.
But... it was very good looking (for a dank, Doom-esk, shadowy, industrial, desaturated game) and the Resident Evil 4 "over-the-shoulder" perspective works well, but not as much as I enjoyed the interactive maps and menu systems, which actually appear in-game next to you in real time. I think I just played with that rather than actually tried to kill anything.
Poor demo, but I'm sure the game is impressive.
Now I have to try and not play Perfect World... or Halo 3.... or Team Fortress 2 (again)... or.....
Gah, I am totally going to.