Review: Dead Space
Dead Space
A repair crew visits a damaged mining ship in orbit around a planet that has yielded more than just pure mineral goodness; now the repair crew need to fight off the crazed and mutated remains of the mining ship’s personnel and escape back into space and home.
Dead Space plays about the same as every other Over the shoulder third person horror game. Aiming is fairly good, scares are plentiful and the Graphics are above par. Some notable game play mechanics issues that I found annoying, no jump. Fire was not always fire, it was sometimes “flail” at air, requiring you to remember that the right mouse mutton needed to be pressed … OH DAMN I’M BEING EATEN AGAIN!!!!.
Never mind that you can’t run & shoot at the same time. The game just punished you for having the gun out, you walked extra slow if you brandished any weapon larger than the empty gloves, but ran fine if you just “carried” the weapon. I spent the majority of this game cursing or panicking, it was high school all over again. Whether it was running down halls praying that nothing would pop out or frantically trying to get the damn gun to fire (which never seemed to work if I didn’t keep it at “the ready” before a fight. Did I mention that I kept the gun “ready” for more than 5 hours in the game?
I took to launching mines into every room I entered, but that made no difference, as the monsters were often non there until I saw them. Let me state that again, if I couldn’t see the monster, it often wasn’t there. Which means I could shoot a mine into a room, have it explode, then run face first into the monster behind the door that wasn’t there until I saw it.
Perhaps if Issac ran through the whole game with his eyes closed, there would have been no monsters at all!
My rating: stars
I’m being overly critical, of course.
I played the game in small bursts; letting my heart rate slow to a near attack between firefights and enclosed space battles with small crowds of dessicated infants with serious worm issues. It wasn’t a “dark” game, which was refreshing, as many horror games hide the monsters in the dark and rely on them jumping out to get you (Doom 3, and so on). Dead Space scared you by letting you know the monsters were coming well in advance and that there was nothing you would be able to do to stop them, save gird your loins and find a solid wall to stand against or a long open space to run through.
The dismemberment mechanic worked fairly well, but beyond the really touch monsters, I was able to bludgeon or stomp most of them to death with minimal effort; which happened more than I would have liked. Also, I don’t think I killed a single human in the game. Which was a crime, as more than one human character needed to be dismembered by my line gun. C’est La Vie.
I played the Game on my Core Duo, on Windows Xp Sp3 with an Nvidia 8500GT video card and 2 gigs of ram. I turned off bloom, blur, motion blur, advanced lighting and shadows and played it at 1440×900. I don’t think I suffered one slowdown or hiccup in game play. Not one. It was solidly beautiful and fluid throughout, even without added dressing.
As for the plot, there were some fairly severe inconsistencies introduced; not the least of which was the Marker itself. I won’t stray into spoiler town, but I will state this,
Review: Step Brothers
Step Brothers
John C. Reily and Will Ferrell play the Man-Boy roles they may have been waiting their entire careers for as two spoiled and pampered manchildren of Single parents, they are faced with losing their status as the sole focus of their respective parent’s attention and fend for themselves.
An uneven and sometimes hilarious comedy. That is the single best thing one can say about this movie. Both Actors do exactly what you expect of them and 60% of the good laughs are in the trailer. I actually stopped watching the movie at points; cringing at the craven way the two men behaved. There are some notably funny moments, but the package as a whole is flawed. I’d recommend watching this as a rental or borrow it from your friend who buys all of Will Ferrell’s movies without question.
My rating: stars
Criticism aside, there is one scene in the movie that literally brought me to coughing racks of tears, I was laughing so hard. Imagine the massive fight between Neo and Agent Smith but 100 times more brutal and with school-aged children in the role of the massive crowd. Now imagine Will Ferrel swinging a small child as a weapon.
That one scene almost redeemed this movie to a solid 4.0. almost.
Review: Crossed #1
Crossed Issue One Preview, originally uploaded by Kevin Wardrop.
I’ve read a number of “Horror” comics, and more than my share of Zombie Comics in my day. I don’t think that I’ve ever really turned a page and then immediately wanted to skip what I’m seeing so quickly until I saw the Climax of this Comic.
It’s a real achievement for a Writer and Artist to come together and create something that shocks as effectively as the best horror movie. Better still if one can be equally repulsed at the same time. This Comic is truly horrifying and frightening.
Frightening like crowds of flesh hungry Peckerwoods with permanent viagra hard-ons and shrieking harridan meth-head women.
Frightening like the total breakdown of society into Paunchy Nerds and Wiry Speed freaks with Knives and dangerous libidos.
Not to mention the fact that a Nuclear Bomb has gone off in the Geographical Neighborhood.
Not To Mention that society has broken down.
You can Check out Crossed at your local Comic Store and if they don’t have it, check out Avatar Press
Story by Garth Ennis, Art by Jacen Burrows
You can check out more of my photographs at: Flickr
Review: Meet Dave
Meet Dave
Eddie Murphy plays the dual role of “this generations greatest captain” and “the ship itself” in this Sci-Fi comedy about a crew of 3 inch tall aliens in persuit of a secret weapon designed to steal all of the Salt Water on earth.
Much has been made of how bad “Meet Dave” is, and like “Norbit” before it, most of the problems people have with it can be traced to the easy familiarity of the movie and not to any other quantitive problem. It’s trite and lazy; the plot is obvious and cookie-cutter easy. Aliens come to Earth and take on the attributes of humans, some get into rap, some go crazy and the ostensibly toughest guy on board is a flaming stereotype. Sigh, yawn, seen it before. There are no surprises here. The guy with a stick up his butt goes crazy, takes over the ship an alienates the “kid”. Yawn.
My rating: stars
The fish out of water story has been done to death, even by Eddie Murphy himself. This movie might even be best described as a family-friendly “Coming to America” with Arsenio Hall replaced with Gabrielle Union. It’s pretty much the same movie. Eddie Murphy’s character tries to blend in with the Humans, fails, falls for a local girl and finds love. It’s the same basic movie, without James Earl Jones and Sexual Chocolate.
Once again, we have a long-time movie comedian going back to the well for more of the same, hoping to win over his core audience, only to find out that his core audience has grown tired of his work and moved on to dirtier pastures. When Eddie Murphy tried to go back to dirtier roots (Norbit) they weren’t interested in that either. Which is a shame, because like Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru”, “Meet Dave” isn’t a bad comedy. I laughed at the predictable jokes and liked the ending. Yes, I saw it all coming when I saw the poster, but it didn’t make the ride any worse.
Audiences will go on the same Roller Coaster over and over again, hit the same drops and loops over and over and keep going back, why don’t they do the same for movies by established celebreties? They see the same stories over and over, the same themes. It’s not to say that “Meet Dave” is great, but it wasn’t as bad as one would have imagined. Eddie Murphy was funny, the relationship with the kid was “hearwarming” and the plot was straightforward. What more can one say about a family-friendly movie?
Review: Gone, Baby, Gone
Gone Baby Gone
Patrick Kenzie has two kinds of friends, Cops and Scum, but don’t hold that against him, he’s probably the best detective in the North East. When a frantic aunt calls him to find her missing niece, Patrick finds he has to choose between happiness and honor; a catch 22 that leaves his life in broken bits.
My rating: stars
Before I get into this I want to call out a specific actor; as I have loved him in EVERYTHING I’ve seen him in:
Edi Gathegi who plays “Cheese” in Gone, Baby, one, “Big Love” in House and the totally memorable Haitian Cab Driver in Crank. I really expect and hope to see more from him, as he has the kind of mournful or threatening or easy going presence that a young actor could only hope to put forth. He’s great here and deserves some recognition as a strong supporting character.
It’s a fine thing to spend some time breaking on Ben Affleck, that he’s uncooth, that he’s a hack, that he has it way better than you and he doesn’t deserve it. I used to agree with this line of reasoning, Affleck always seemed to be the smarmy asshole and I truly hated him for it. Of course, that was because he was a good actor. When Ben wants to play a sympathetic lead or best friend, he becomes likeable and pleasant. When he’s a leading man, cocky and sure, he is. I think Ben Affleck is a fine actor and it’s about time we all just accepted that he is both talented and not just lucky. “Gone Baby Gone” pretty much proves it.
GBG does more for Casey Affleck in terms of acting, but considering that Bog Brother Bed is the director, it goes to show that the Afflecks have got talent in spades.
Casey Affleck plays Patrick Kenzie; a boston boy and detective in the mold of a streetwise Harry D’amour or John Constantine; a magus of the street without the magic. He works the streets, associating with cops and killers; knowing that the only thing of value he has is his self-respect. Honorable to a fault, Kenzie is forced to turn on his friends and tear down pillars of the humanity at the cost of his own happiness in his quest for closure. Faced with moral choices he makes difficult decisions, perhaps in a quest for redemption after he (in his own words) murders a guilty man.
Casey plays Patrick Kenzie with ease; he is almost lazy in his approach, but it betrays a cunning mind behind the eyes (always looking around, always looking at the angles). The character never seems put on, never a costume, Patrick and Casey are inseperable and while some scenes may have looked emotionless, it was entirely in character; honor over happiness as I stated before.
I was reminded, constantly, of 8MM while I watched this, the situation was very similiar (where Casey plays the role Joaquin Phoenix did in 8MM). I kept looking for “The Machine” moment in the movie, and when it came down, I was on the edge of my seat, nearly calling for it to happen. When I realized that nothing was resolved, I applauded the movie. Gone Baby Gone kept me on an emotional edge for the last hour, constantly hoping for a “happy” outcome; which never really came.
Now, the action was violent and shocking, there was at least one shooting that made me shout out “Oh My God, they shot him” I was absorbed at that point and I don’t think I blinked again until the end of the movie. It is that powerful.
All of this dances around the specifics of the story, which I have tried to conciously avoid; as I want you to fully enjoy this movie. It’s a worthwhile movie, certainly something I am going to watch again.
As for Ben, Affleck, you’da bomb in “Gone baby Gone” yo
LifeStream
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Full Day over, stumped by a copy/paste error in the afternoon
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New blog post: For Rememberance Sake and SSH in the Future http://tinyurl.com/6g2zbm
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HTOP is the Shizz, that is all.
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New blog post: Racist of the Week: Sad Bastard BNP Member http://tinyurl.com/5kcsdt
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I had to use a MAN page to resolve a question and consult Kernel notes to verify something, truly this is a golden nerdy age.
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Good Morning, took ages to get going today, hopefully the flywheel is up to speed now.
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On the phone praying to the Insurance Gods and listening to the same 4 songs over and over again...and again
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On the phone praying to the Insurane Gods and listening to the same 4 songs over and over again...
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My Question is: Will Jello Biafra be okay with Obama "Not" walking to his inauguration? The constant threats hove got to considered.
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Tragic and Entertaining - Tradgetaining http://tinyurl.com/5l75gl
