Braid

 

This game goes great with room temperature red wine.

Well I can’t say that I ever called a game pretentious before. Nor had I ever questioned wether a 2d sprite could fail at intimacy. Braid is quite unique for these reasons. Yeah its artwork is misleading at first glance, somewhere between cartoony and painterly. All the while parroting the most familiar aspects of mario brothers right down to a cute dinosaur greeting you at a castle door to tell you your princess is in another castle. (and sometimes that you suck at life and should give up)

 

Damn I bet that's a metaphor.

However a very lonely score permeates the world and takes over any sense of happiness the visuals might imply. You collect puzzle pieces and do other blatantly video gamey things but all with a giant self awareness and dreamlike quality overlaying the experience. Every inch of the game is a well planned puzzle involving, timing, time manipulation of many kinds, and planning. The puzzle pieces you collect however and the narrative that unfolds in the form of deep thoughts in journals or maybe even as memories and dreams tell an unnerving tale.

The journey is a very personal one and abstract in nature. You don’t know whether the main protagonist Tim should get sympathy or scorn. The soundtrack and narrative give you hints but never fully disclose the details and you don’t know through who’s eyes you are getting the information for sure. If it is Tim’s personal reflections you hear then they may be deceptive. If it is a third party narration they may be missing information. Most games have stories that are beyond terrible. Gamers do not question a bad set up they generally just want to get into the physical challenge. Braid brings good character and narrative into the experience in a way that is unique to the medium. Everything works together to evoke Tim’s personal strife. Even when you are doing silly things like pulling levers and jumping on the heads of baddies there is a mental image of Tim’s life falling into the crapper.

The most depressing game ever?

In the end the game has extremely challenging and rewarding puzzles that the developers clearly want you to solve with no outside help. (they make this clear in their official strategy guide that basically calls you a lazy cheater  CHECK IT HERE  it’s actually kind of amusing.) The mood is one of a kind and the story might make you feel strange feelings you never felt while gaming before. Small game makers end up making another satisfying game.

Available on X-box Live and coming soon to PC and MAC.

Final Score : 9.0

Fallout 3 Review

 

This guy is nicer than me.

Every now and then you find out that you are a complete bastard. I tried, I really tried to do the right things, help people, and make the world a better place but in the end I was just another dick. Fallout 3 gives birth to you, literally, in a post apocalyptic Washington DC. (from what I can tell things haven’t changed too much.) With nothing but your wits you must wander the wasteland and try to survive. The people you encounter are barely getting by, some better than others, and you are going to have to work with some of them to survive. This means helping people and in the process screwing other people over and apparently I’m much better at the latter part.

For instance while traversing the desolate plaines  of death I came across an abandoned kid. Yeah he was kind of a punk but if you picked on him enough he would break down crying just because everyone he loved was eaten by giant fire breathing ants. So being early into my adventure I decided to avenge his families being cooked alive and get the lad some solace. (The mission was called THOSE!, a good rip off off THEM! an old sci fi ant movie, amusing yes) So i stomped the ant hive and found his fathers charred corpse and brought the kid the “good” news. Then after all that, he has the gumption to ask me to find him a home. So naturally I put an explosive collar around his neck and sold him into slavery for 500 bottle caps (which may be stronger than the dollar is right now, start saving).

I really tried to do what was right but I had enough problems of my own what with trying to buy a nuke-cola machine for my shack. I mean just because someone spends 20 minutes telling you how they lost everything does not mean you shouldn’t break into their home and steal their last box of Sugar Bombs. First off Sugar Bombs have a huge black market value secondly the lock to their house should have been upgraded to “very hard” not “easy” if they didn’t want me plundering the place.

 

Yep I'm gonna rob that shack. God help whoever is inside.

Thats right I rob the poor, murder the weak (but only after saving them first so I can get any rewards they might have, and to mess with them) and run errands for tyrants. I’ll pickpocket a hobo on the street and leave a hand grenade in his pocket for my own amusement. I’ll loot your house then sell your own stuff back to you at the highest price. I’ll fire a nuclear warhead into a small town right after I help save it from maraudering super mutants. I am a one man wrecking ball of atrocity.

 

I'd blame the radiation poisoning but I'm just a dick.

The wasteland is massive and inhabited by tons of people just waiting for you to screw them over. Sure the animation isn’t fantastic and there’s tons of game crashing errors while playing, but nothing will deter you from reloading the game to find a new low to sink to.

Well I suppose you could play through as a noble character and do nothing but good, but then you won’t be able to afford a giant heart shaped bed for your shack to bring hookers back to.

Final Score: 9.3

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie / Video

 

Great piece of stop motion work that perfectly accentuates the music. 

The video was done by Yuval and Merav Nathan. Check it.

Double Dragon Review

 

They even look like pussies on the box.

A dedicated team took it upon themselves to put an awesome new graphical shine on the original Double Dragon and release it back into the wild on Xbox Live. However this was like putting lipstick on a gorilla with cerebral palsy and enrolling it into a dance competition. The game opened fine enough with a musclebound Bono look alike punching Miss New Jersey in the stomach and running off with her like donkey kong. This of course makes you take up the roles of 2 homosexual stereotypes from the 80’s to save her pump wearing ass from danger. You would assume that this was the start of a kick ass side scrolling beat em up however the second you gain control your assumption is grabbed by the hair and kneed in the face repeatedly.

Bionic Bono and his thugs outside the "English Tear" ?

Playing this game in co-op mode was the equivalent of me and my friend taking the controllers and forcing them into each other’s eye sockets and then controlling the game by spraying each other with mace.  As we battled a clone army of guys with vests and no undershirts and musclebound cabbage patch dolls we were more likely to grab each other’s character and get stuck in a 14 minute long slap fight than actually make contact with the sassy street toughs who threatened us by repeatedly dropping pipes and whips at our feet. In order to defend yourself your fighter has the awesome abilities to punch his teamate in the face like a girl, kick through an enemy to no effect (unless it happens to strike your partner of course), to pick up and drop an assortment of useless weapons, and to run or jump randomly into pits despite hitting the opposite direction on the controller. The only saving grace of the game is that level one apparently turns into level 4 after you walk by 5 street toughs. After you kill your partner 78 more times or walk into an endless supply of pits on main street you will reach the epic finale. First you must battle a giant green musclebound cabbage patch man who is less tough than the standard clone you have fought on your way there. Finally you get to take down Bono and his loyal body guards. Unfortunately there are five of them which means the game slows down to a crawl and you can only kick your parter in the face once every six minutes while the bad guys aimlessly wander around dropping pipes and hopefully kill themselves for being in the game. If you mange to complete this game, which was coded and designed by nazi sadist game makers, and save the girl (without first dismantling your TV via flying chair) you get the awesome bonus of being able to fight each other just like you did all game. Only now you get the added bonus that you sassy flying kicks and punches are as effective on each other as they were the bad guys. Somehow complete this and get ready for a satisfying “Game Over” screen and a list of names of the people you now want to spend the rest of you life tracking down so you can you can grab them by the hair  and knee them for eternity.

 

Group hugs, accurate kicks, and random death will greet you at all turns.

Final Score – 0.0 

Top 15 Heist Movies

So I spent the last week playing a lot of Fallout 3 and in the process found myself obsessed with robbing, pick pocketing, and plotting to take everything that isn’t mine from other people. This made me think about what was so exciting about a well planned or even half assed robbery especially in movies. Here is the list of my favorite 15 movies where people steal in various ways.

15) Out of Sight - This movie oozes with style and sex appeal and shows George Clooney one smooth criminal. Great dialogue and a top notch soundtrack earned this one a spot on the list.

14) Small Time Crooks – Woody Allen leads a team of bumbling crooks on a bank job that doesn’t break any boundaries but is pretty damn funny. I still to this day quote the line between Woody Allen and Jon Luvitz. Allen – “Remember in the joint they called me the brain” Luvitz – “that was sarcastic” Allen – “it was?”

13) Inside Man – Clive Owen is 54 steps ahead of Denzel Washington and the rest of the law in this standard but clever bank job.

12) From Dusk Til Dawn 2 – Criminals and Vampires crash in this bloodbath of a bank robbery movie. Its over the top, ridiculous, and damn enjoyable. 

11) Dog Day Afternoon – Sometimes you rob a bank for a good cause. Even if that good cause is getting your gay love partner money for a sex change operation. So maybe it wasn’t such a noble cause. “Attica Attica!”

10) Oceans 11 – The remake is a showcase a perfectly drawn up plan and has some fun snappy moments that improve on the original. In the version starring Frank Sinatra they come up with the amazingly perfect plan to turn off the casino’s lights and just grab the money in the dark and 78 mins of just talking and drinking. 

9) The Lady Killers – The Coen Brothers bring in a remake of a decent old robbery flick and Tom Hanks nails a pretty goofy role as the head of the robbery.

8.) Sexy Beast – Ben Kingsly is a ridiculously aggressive recruiter of a safe cracker in this australian flick. Strange pacing but excellent movie with awesome characters.

7) No Country for Old Men – Sometimes you steal based on opportunity which leads into one of the best chase movies of all time. I will never look at an air tank the same way again.

6) Snatch – A cat and mouse crime epic. Super broad characters and some of the best indecipherable dialog ever. One line from this movie and now I see pigs used as a standard disposal method in all kinds of movies and shows.

5) Heat – The movie itself is pretty bland but the robbery scene that it climaxes with is one of the best ever on film.

4) Raising Arizona – (This is the third Coen Brothers movie on here) Well it starts with robbery of a baby and leads into pretty much ever kind of holdup and over the top crime situation possible.

3) Killing Zoe – A  bank robbery set in France that would make Quentin Tarantino proud. Blood drenched, aggressive, and full of outstanding characters and dialog. DEfinitely check out this one.

2) The Lookout – This one kind of snuck in and out of theaters. A brain damaged kid is exploited to rob the bank he works at. It is extremely well acted directed and realized. What could have been a much lighter fair ends up being a great character movie with complex layers. 

1) Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – The name describes it perfectly. This is the second Guy Ritchie movie on here but it is one I could watch over and over. The direction and dialog are perfect.

World of Goo Review

 

World of Goo by 2-D Boy

 

Independent game developers have been churning out some of the most interesting and enjoyable game experiences in recent time. Yeah sure there are plenty of blockbuster games that have devoured hours of my time but it is rare that they ooze with as much charm and passion as their indy counterparts. World of Goo is developer 2-D Boy’s first major release and it holds up against all of it’s multi million dollar counterparts.

Releasing originally on the Wii and on PC platforms the teams has been working around the clock to code out versions that for Mac and Linux users to enjoy as well. The game involves goo, little blobs of multicolored goo based blobs with eyes who are used by a major corporation as the primary ingredient to it’s line of products. They are cute little blobs with plenty of personality and it is up to you to use their inborn properties to build bridges and towers and all sorts of other ingenious physics based contraptions so they can be sucked up and exploited by the company via large tubes placed about the stages. All the puzzles involve physics in unique and clever ways and will make you laugh as much as they will prove to be a challenge. With over 40 stages and a competitive online component where you use all the extra goo balls you collect to build the tallest tower you can before it topples.

The look of the game is clean vector based and cartoony. There is a lot of charm in each stage and the animations are spot on.

The game controls are all drag and drop based and are intuitive with a mouse set up (I have played the game on a Mac) I imagine that the Wii mote would prove as satisfying of a control scheme. 

The learning curve and level progression is appropriate and they even allow you to skip around a bit if you find yourself stuck on any particular puzzle. The completion of each puzzle is satisfying and will have you wanting to best each stage. 

This game should be checked out if you want to play a very good and unique puzzle game for a cheap price. Everything is available in all formats as a digital download. 

2-D Boy’s site

Final Score – 8.6

 

You are so hot…

You are so hot that volcanos sacrifice themselves by jumping into you.

You are so hot, you make the Human Torch look like just The Human.

You are so hot, Mexicans keep trying to put you into a giant burrito.

You are so hot that on three separate occasions you have been mistaken for the Earth’s core.

You are so hot that it is illegal to stand next to you while holding fireworks.

You are so hot that we never get snow or rain we only get steam.

You are so hot that rolling ten sevens in a row is named after you.

You are so hot, Al Gore points in your general direction at all times angrily.

You are so hot you have to order all food raw so that it wont be burnt by the time you swallow it.

You are so hot that I’m going to have to leave you.

Top 10 Space Movies

Today’s list contains my ten favorite films in which human beings have been ejected into space via rocket ship to explore or just cause trouble.  

10) Apollo 13 – Tom Hanks sits in his own urine while trapped aboard a space ship. If you like your space movies to be based n true stories this is a good place to start.

9) Sunshine – Danny Boyle takes us on a trip into space to drop a nuclear warhead the size of Manhattan into the sun and manages to not make the experience as terribly retarded as it may sound. 

8.) Forbidden Planet – Leslie Nielson stars in this psychological space thriller from the 50’s and I refuse to make a reference to any Zucker comedy he was subsequently in no matter how tempting it may be.

7) The Empire Strikes Back – I really didn’t want to put a Star Wars movie in here but that would have been dishonesty for all the wrong reasons.

6) Dark City – I just ruined it for you.

5) Serenity – I hate Joss Whedon, I hate his fans, and I hate the series this was based on. I hate the fact that I liked this movie so much most of all.

4) The Right Stuff – Yeah it’s about trying really damn hard to get to go into space more than space travel but I’m giving it number 4 anyways.

3) The 5th Element – Any movie with Chris Tucker in it shouldn’t make any “Top” list at all but the Awesomeness of Gary Oldman cancels him out. 

2) Alien/Aliens tie – If you can tell me why one deserves a spot more than the other then I already don’t believe you. 

1) 2001 – Yeah pretty fucking predictable, but I didn’t have a good enough argument to give the top spot to Spaceballs.

Why Mexialt is terrible.

So apparently it has become a trend for mexican teens and 20 somethings in the southwest to take up a hodgepodge of trends from 9 years ago and blend them together for the k-mart special of club adventuring. The band Brokencyde does all the dirty work and kindly made a video that explains everything perfectly. They decided it was a good idea to blend together Linkin Park, Paul Wall, and Cher into a video that looks and sounds like a train filled to the rim with babies being derailed by crashing into 900 giraffes and a green screen. 

It looks like they took three random 15 year olds straight out of beating they were getting in the school yard and airdropped them onto a set with a bunch of shit they had never seen before in their lives and then decided to film it.

The lead singer thought he wouldn’t look like a jackass by spending most of his time between dry vomitting loudly and dancing awkwardly next to one of the most annoyed/ embarrased looking girls ever to grace a video.  Of course who wouldn’t be embarrased to accompany such fine lyricist as this “I walk into the club looking kind of sexy now. /I see these shorties in the corner, they started making out. /They pull their panties down, they take their pants off.” Really buddy ? Is that how it went down? Either these chicks were retarded and went out on the town with the superman look going or you have never even been to a fucking club. 

So while the lead singer decides to go between crying and singing about attempted date rape gone bad his back up posse shuffle around Range Rovers and gag themselves pretending to pull long drags on a bottle of 3 dollar booze. I mean I would like to see the checklist that they used to make this video. Ok a pile of random clothes from the sale racks at Hot Topic and Old Navy, Check. Fat 15 year old kid wearing a dew rag over his mouth, um Check. Guy blowing smoke rings, Check. Almost cool cars, Check. A bunch of awkward semi hot and fat chicks stumbling around and laughing during takes, Check. The worst fucking song ever, Check. Bad Grinding action, Check. Bad head banging action, Check. A whole bunch of big red beer pong cups, Check. This video had everything in it and they found a way to make all of it look as lame as possible. 

Lets close this with a few more choice lyrics. “Let’s get drunk tonight, baby we don’t have to fuck. /And bring your friend along, maybe we can have some fun.” If there’s no fucking going on this sounds like the opposite of fun. 

“I got these bitches all tipsy trying to sex me. /I know they want it, alcoholics are some sex freaks. ” Oh ok I see the plan your going to rape them after you get them drunk. Good thing to make a club anthem about.

“That hardcore shit will make you feel the toxic. /Fursachi, Rolex watches. /Bently coups with the 20’s droppin. /Convertible top, and the wheels spin. /I can taste that ice when my grill is in.” Wait, What? Who the hell is this part about? Funny that in the same song there is a part where they fake choke a girl and scream “Liar!” in her face while she tries not to laugh. 

Finnally he spills the beans and gives us the sad Emo conclusion that things weren’t like he said they were. “Oh baby why did you have to lie to me. /I can’t play no more games./So go baby go baby. /You don’t want me.”  I can’t imagine why not.

Deadwood Season 1

Well 2004 was a long time ago but a friend loaned me this series which I wasn’t interested in watching when it aired on HBO.  I had watched a couple episodes or parts of episodes but like many series this one is appreciated by watching from the start.

The premise at hand is as follows. Seth Bullock up and leaves his job as sherif of one community to go to deadwood, where prospectors are spending gold earnings left and right, a lawless town in hopes of restarting as a hardware store owner. He hangs up his tin badge never wanting to be the law again. Of course we know how that plot line always turns out. His character is a bit of an overacted Clint Eastwood type and stiff but not annoyingly so. 

Al Swearington is the saloon owner who runs the town with a vicious entrepreneurial spirit. He gives a tremendous varied performance in any scene in which he inhabits which thankfully is many. This mostly leads to horrific acts of violence against anyone who gets in his way. However his dialog is top notch and he isn’t just a black and white figure there are many moments where he reveals a multitudes of dimensions to his character and sometimes nears gaining sympathy whether with words or body language.

There is the usual cast of the Doc and town drunks and gunfighters abound. Each is layered and complex and played for laughs as much as drama. E.B. the Inn keeper / lapdog of Al seems half autistic and awkwardly uses an impressive vernacular while blatantly sinking his clammy mitts into everyone’s affairs. I could go on all day giving a breakdown of the multitude of characters. Most are excellent some are annoying but usually spot on.

The main direction of the plot was not always blatant as it seemed at first to be a mere rambling of subplots intertwining, however it builds to a satisfying conclusion as an introduction to Deadwood and sets a strong foundation for future season (or past seasons depending how you look at it)   

The Direction is excellent and the cinematography is good it’s a little clausterphobic at times as to the themes of this edge of the world out west. However this lends itself to the nature of the show. There are very few side trips or establishing shots that give a full scope of the open west where this occurs. The town is extremely small but you never have a true grasp on the scale of the community. Every room, building, and back alleyway have distinct personalities as well. Though it might be one small corner and alley where the chinese do business it might as well be a full bustling chinatown. The costumes are spot on and give support to everyone’s identities even if it just a suit coat with some extra worn out holes in the shoulder area. There really was some great thought process here as it’s not a western where everyone is identically suited up. These details go a long way to establishing the people of Deadwood. (however I guess they used modern saddles and not ones of the period which seems to be some people’s gripes. oh no.)

I am now dipping into season 2 and score the first season as follows. (this will be my standard for reviewing a breakdown of the parts I deem important then a final score which is not an average. Everything is scored on a 100 point scale using 1 – 10 and decimals exe 7.8 is pretty darn good but has some flaws)

Direction – 8.0 (respectable overall good work but nothing outstanding) 

Writing –    9.5 (usually excellent layered dialog abounds everything makes sense and is satisfying)

Acting –    7.8 (wide mix of characters some are spectacular some are annoying some are just poorly and heavy handedly acted, but overall very good)

Art Direction – 9.0 (this is the old west and standard themes apply but everything is detailed and given justice. The art direction only acts to make the each character, scene, and set piece stronger)

Title Sequence – 9.1 (dramatic appropriate, good typography, cut very well, defines the show as it shoud.)

Final Score – 9.3  (overall an enjoyable watch that left a smile on my face as much as it often had me feel bothered. I think they succeeded in realizing Deadwood and have me wanting to see where they go from here.)