Besides being the bane of bare feet everywhere, LEGO’s have been a part of our upbringing for over 60 years. Few companies can claim that the height of their popularity began in their second half-century, but with each new franchise Lego associates itself with, they close the cultural and age divide of their fans. This has become apparent in the fact that I was at a video game store buying Lego Batman 2 next to a mother buying it for her child or how I try to justify paying $150 for a Lego Hobbit set being (almost) in my mid-30’s.
Now the inevitable has happened; a full-length movie based on the blocks themselves. The reigns were given to Phil Lord and Christopher Miller who have made a niche for themselves in two very different franchises (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs & 21 Jump Street). They have expertly combined these two vastly different types of comedy and created a very special thing: a movie that is as good to watch as an adult as it is a kid.
The LEGO Movie follows everyman, Emmet (Chris Pratt), a construction worker who gets up, goes to work, buys overpriced coffee, watches the same show as everyone else and basically conforms to the life society has told him to live. The social commentary in the first ten minutes is palpable even through the laughter. It is just the beginning of self-awareness you will watch for 100 minutes.
After work one day Emmet notices a woman snooping around the construction site and as he follows her he accidentally happens upon the Piece of Resistance. It becomes fused to Emmet and he is taken to be interrogated by Bad Cop (Liam Neeson). Soon, the woman, Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), comes to his rescue and takes Emmet to see Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) who pronounces Emmet to be the “special”. The one to take the Piece of Resistance and stop Lord Business (Will Ferrell) from unleashing the mysterious “Kragle” destroying the LEGO world as they know it.
Only problem being that Emmet is not a master builder, meaning his ideas appear to be pretty much useless.
Emmet, Wyldstyle and Vitruvius make their way to a secret meeting of master builders including Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Shaquille O’Neal, Michelangelo (the artist), Michelangelo (the Ninja Turtle), Gandalf and Dumbledore to name a few.
Side note: Morgan Freeman’s dialogue with Gandalf and Dumbledore is worth the price of admission alone.
Emmet is scorned for not being the “special” and has to prove to everyone that if they all work together, they can defeat Lord Business. Their journey is a frantic one as they are continually being hunted by Bad Cop over various LEGO sets that give a good history lesson to the little plastic blocks. All the while Emmet pines for the affection of Wyldstyle who is currently dating Batman (Will Arnett), who even writes a song for his girlfriend about being an orphan and dark.
Speaking of Batman’s love song; The LEGO Movie’s soundtrack is expertly handled by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, who has also done the music to multiple Wes Anderson films as well as Nickelodeon’s Rugrats. The film’s theme song “Everything is Awesome” (written by Shawn Patterson) plays a prominent role throughout. Tegan and Sara teamed up with The Lonely Island (yes, from Jizz in my Pants) to sing what is perhaps the greatest song ever performed in human history. I oversell, but seriously, try and have a bad day listening to this.
The voice casting is as close to perfect as you can get. You already know that Morgan Freeman will be awesome because…Morgan Freeman. We also get the likes of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in a nice bit of back and forth as Superman and Green Lantern, giving fans of 21 Jump Street some fun fan service, Alison Brie, Charlie Day (who goes full-on Sunny in one scene), Will Forte and Nick Offerman. We even get Anthony Daniels and “Sweet” Billy Dee Williams as C-3PO and Lando for God’s sake!
Second side note: Liam Neeson’s Good Cop voice will haunt my dreams forever.
Even as The LEGO movie winds down with an epic battle it does something unexpected; it hits you right in the feels. I will not give anything away, but it is sufficient to say, when it is revealed what is in the abyss and the movie reaches its climax, prepare for a gut punch that only an adult can feel. I almost had a Toy Story 3 moment…almost (don’t make me go there again).
I was expecting good things out of The LEGO Movie and even those expectations were far exceeded. It is increasingly funny the farther along the story goes and will make you feel what it was like to be a kid again, then brings you back to remind you that you are an adult, but it is still never too late to be special.
Everything is awesome, indeed (at least for 100 minutes).
Thank you Assassin’s Creed IV. I thought this franchise was beyond saving but you have shown me that there is life still left in the yearly (ugh) franchise. I had given up hope after Assassin’s Creed 3, which I never got close to finishing for the simple fact it was boring…as…hell. They were working with one of the most fascinating time periods ever and managed to muck it all up.
Not so here!
The team on AC IV have taken the central idea that occupies the mind of anyone that looks for more out of life; “what I wouldn’t give to be a pirate”. Seriously, who has not thought that? If you haven’t then you can start now…
I will wait.
Ships, booty (treasure), swordplay, booty (not treasure), sending people to Davy Jones’ locker. This is the tale of Edward Kenway, a man who leaves his wife to try and make a better life for them only to become one of the greatest pirates (and assassins) of his day. The story begins with Edward killing an assassin and taking his identity. He is a pirate after all. He is then sucked into the familiar war between the Templars and assassins that we all know so well by now in the AC series. I loved the fact that it was introduced in a new way by having Edward weasel his way into it by taking on someone else’s role all while in the search of a great life-changing treasure. One of the many changes that worked.
Soon after, Edward becomes captain of a ship, which he christens the Jackdaw, and you are off to sail around the massive world with an assortment of wonders awaiting you.
You can feel the effect of Far Cry 3 all over this game and not just by the looks of the locale. If the theory that Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed share the same world began on the Rook Islands in Far Cry 3, this idea is only furthered on the open seas of Assassin’s Creed 4. The crafting system has been brought over, albeit in not as big a way. You will go from location to location in search of deer, monkey, jaguar, etc. to further expand your abilities. You also have the ability to craft new outfits on top of the ones you can purchase. There is one that looks like Oliver Queen’s island outfit from Arrow…you know I had to go for it.
The naval battles in AC 3 seemed to be a testing ground for what is the biggest part of your pirate adventure. Sailing the open seas is so damn refreshing that I often found myself setting out in whatever direction just to see what trouble I could get into. The Jackdaw has its own set of upgrades that are required, not suggested, to survive life on the water..
At first it can be daunting to take on ships of a higher caliber but after making the right additions, you will own any ship that comes your way (except the fabled legendary ships). During every battle, when you have weakened an opponent, you have the choice to destroy them or board them and take their supplies. The bigger the ship, the more you must do to take it over. Where a level 17 may have you kill ten crew members, a level 36 Man O’ War will ask you to kill 20 crew and the captain as well as make your way to the top of the enemies mast and cut their flag free.
Combat has been made much more simple and has a certain Arkham series feel to it. It is your basic block and counter but I never felt overwhelmed when surrounded by enemies. It will be hard to go back to any previous AC game again after getting used to it.
Thankfully, one of the improved areas in AC IV is its story which is actually pretty easily followed even with all the time jumps, Templar and assassin history and trips to the present day for some first-person Abstergo action. Don’t let that last part scare you off. It is not near as intrusive or mind numbing like the Desmond parts of…well any past AC game. These segments do not last very long and if you get into them you will be given some hints about the possible future of the franchise (wild west AC? Hell yeah!).
The farther you travel into Edward’s story it becomes easy to say that he is the best protagonist this franchise has ever had. He is a fully fleshed out character whose goal is very clear even if his way of getting there is unique. He has more personality than all characters in previous entries combined. Maybe that comes from the freedom of the time period and profession the developers have used here. Either way, I would not mind more adventures with Edward even if we all know his ending.
There is so much more I could touch on about what this game holds. I spent over 40 hours sailing and boozing and assassinating and still have quite a bit to do. Whether it is using the diving bell to search for deep sea treasure, sneaking into enemy territory to loot warehouses for ship supplies or just finding random ships to pillage, you will never be left wanting. AC IV does fall into the traps of previous entries sometimes with way too many follow and eavesdrop missions but it does not change the fact that this is easily the best entry in the entire series. My favorite Assassin’s Creed (II) now, finally, seems obsolete.
That is a good thing. Let’s hope Ubisoft can keep the momentum going forward.
It certainly took long enough for Ron Burgundy and company to return to theaters. Nine years to be exact. When the original Anchorman released in 2004 it did moderate business at the box office but found cult-like status when it came home on DVD with 90 minutes worth of quotable lines as well as some of the most off-the-wall characters ever. It was kind of a big deal. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay kept trying to convince Paramount that audiences wanted a sequel and the studio would not listen then finally relented when Ferrell and McKay promised to make the movie on the cheap meaning they and stars Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell and Dave Koechner would do it at a discount.
Here we are! Nine years later and the Channel 4 News Team has entered the 80’s with less than stellar results. Champ owns a fried chicken restaurant that serves bats to save money calling them “chicken of the cave”, Brian is a successful kitten photographer and Brick…well, Brick’s dead. At least that is what he said giving his own eulogy at the gravesite.
Ron has fallen on harder times being fired from his anchor job by his idol and his wife Veronica has become the first ever female evening news anchor. This leaves them estranged with Ron’s son caught in the middle. He is soon offered a job at GNN, the first ever venture into 24 hour news. Ron loads the Burgundy-mobile and goes searching for his old team and convince them to come to New York with him and become the big thing in news again.
Needless to say if you thought events in the first movie got a little weird get ready, because that was nothing. As their fame grows so does Ron’s ego and he distances himself from the team while he begins a relationship with the news station’s African-American news director, which Ron can not stop mentioning. Black. He can’t stop saying black. Black….black.
The mighty soon falls as a tragic figure skating accident leaves Ron blind and living in a lighthouse alone. Even the team can not bring him out of his self-pity. Only Veronica and his son can do that as he learns to live with his lack of vision and raises a baby shark, called Doby, to adulthood. Those previous sentences should not surprise you in anyway knowing this is Anchorman.
The sheer number of co-stars and cameos is staggering in Anchorman 2. Brick finds love in a like soul played by Kristen Wiig and Ron’s idol is a certain Dr. Jones. Like the first Anchorman we are also treated to a giant news battle featuring Kanye West, Liam Neeson and the son of Dorothy Mantooth (she is a saint!).Those names are the tip of the iceberg in the fight for news supremacy. This was one recycled part of the first film that worked better than others. I could guess that the main cast ad-libbed a lot of the script because of director Adam McKay wanting to release a completely separate cut of the film with all-new jokes. I am all for that.
As for the movie as a whole, Anchorman 2 had me chuckling and laughing plenty but lacked the true tear-inducing humor that made the first a classic. I found Ron Burgundy’s return funny…yet something was still not there. Some of the jokes are laughable but nowhere near as quotable as the 2004 original. There is normally no way to catch lightning in a bottle twice, but even with that said, Anchorman 2 is funnier than most of the comedies I have seen in the past year. Just be sure to go in with tempered expectations, because while Anchorman 2 is funny, it can not equal your love of lamp.
If you have read one Ryse review you have read them all. The game has been the butt of many jokes since its debut at E3 this year as a showcase title for the Xbox One, most involving the use of quick-time events which made many people give up on the game months before the product was on the shelf. To those who refuse to even give the game a chance you are missing out on some beautiful graphics, Batman-style combat and blood, blood, blood. The story borders on vapid but I can not deny that I had a lot of fun with Ryse.
The story of Ryse focuses on Marius Titus, a soldier of Rome who sees his family murdered before him and is set off on a tale of revenge that is told through flashback as he explains his journey to Nero himself as Rome falls around them. Revenge stories, especially in this genre, are nothing new and any expectations of story depth like Mass Effect or The Last of Us should be hastily abandoned. You see the betrayals coming, the comrades falling and the sacrifice that will be made early on because it is Writing 101.
The shallowness of the story is taking nothing away from the performances of the actors, who are all solid in their roles. These were more than just simple voiceovers in Ryse with the actors facial expressions all motion captured and will amaze in places with the power of the Xbox One.
Graphically, Ryse: Son of Rome is a game that you pop in to show friends just what next-gen holds in the future. It is beyond beautiful. Even the most cynical of PC gamers will have to admit that it is a wonder to behold in places. Weapons gleam in the midst of combat and backdrops ranging from the glory of Rome to forests filled with rivers and waterfalls will have you stopping to pan the camera around to take in how lavish your surroundings are. I am tempted to play through the game again to see if there was some details that I missed.
The biggest reason I had an enjoyable time playing Ryse was its combat. There is no denying it was influenced by the Batman: Arkham series. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Ryse is showering Batman with roses. You attack with X and use your shield with the A and Y buttons. A is use to deflect attack (ala Arkham’s counter style) and Y is a shield bash you use to open up shielded enemies attacks. B is use for a barrel roll that you will be using. A lot. Pressing RB will make Marius use his focus mode which turns the screen yellow and allows him to go slash happy on any enemy in your path. It is helpful in crowds of enemies but is kind of a get out of jail free card when things get tough.
The combat flows seamlessly and helps with the games combo system that you use to gain back health, XP and focus while you are putting your enemies to the sword. At any time, in and out of fighting, you can hit a direction on the d-pad which distributes the points gained from combos to the three previously mentioned categories. The upgrade system has a lot of options but it is not as deep as it would appear to be. Once you unlock the games varied executions there is little else besides health, focus and damage upgrades which are spread across too many screens.
The infamous quick time events that many complained about are still in the game they have just been slightly reworked since the E3 presentation. During battle when you weaken an enemy an icon will appear over their head. You can choose to initiate the execution or continue your normal attacks until he dies. Hitting RT begins the different kill animations and instead of a button prompt over the head, the enemy will glow either blue or yellow telling whether you should hit X or Y. Here is the weird catch. It doesn’t matter if you hit the buttons or not, once you begin the execution it is going to happen. Hitting the correct button prompts adds to your combo and health/focus/XP gain. Most will find this asinine but I never let it bother me especially when it would give me extra hits on a long combo streak I had going.
Ryse does offer a different take on multiplayer. You and another person will be matched and team up to take on the dangers of the Coliseum. You won’t be stuck in an open arena rather an ever changing environment. Each stage changes to freshen up the proceedings including forests and multi-tiered areas. There is a meter at the top of the screen showing how entertained the audience is in your performance. You must execute often and use your environment to maim to keep the crowd cheering. You will be awarded gold for stage victories that you can use to purchase upgrades to weapons, armor and all the other good stuff a growing gladiator needs. I only played a few rounds and pretty much saw most of what there was to see and did not feel the need to keep going. After finishing the story it just felt like a grind when I had more games to play. Some may find it worthwhile but it was nothing special to me even though it retained the same fun combat.
The complaints about Ryse are understandable depending on what you were expecting. I went in wanting a hack and slash adventure that didn’t overstay its welcome. A fun time waster that showed off what the Xbox One could do visually. That is exactly what I got. The story only took me about seven hours to complete which was just the right amount of time. Combat is fun an fluid and even though it is repetitive I never wanted to stop cutting off limbs or bashing faces with my shield. The story is on the weak side but you should really just channel your inner testosterone and enjoy the mayhem. The best way I can describe Ryse is that it is beautiful Roman murder porn.
Thor was Marvel’s biggest gamble when it released in 2011. Movie audiences had accepted Iron Man but would they connect with a superhero steeped in mythology and magic? Luckily Thor was a hit thanks to good casting, Kenneth Branagh’s direction and knowing that the film was one of the lead-ins to The Avengers. Now comes the tricky part; making the character’s continuing story interesting.
Thor: The Dark World takes place two years after Thor and one year after The Avengers with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) doing her scientist thing and following spatial anomalies in hopes of tracking down her god with the perfect abs. This leads to her finding a weapon called the Aether which binds itself to her and reawakens Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), a Dark Elf who needs it to cover the nine realms in eternal darkness. You know, comic book stuff.
When Malekith attacks Asgard and kills one of their own it is all hands on deck to bring him down. The only difference is that Thor and Odin’s plans are exact opposites with Odin acting like the young, war-hungry Thor from the first film letting vengeance guide him and Thor wants to lead Malekith far away from Asgard to spare as many lives as possible. I liked this twist in roles that shows exactly how Thor has embraced his role and matured.
One large plus that the Thor franchise has over any other Marvel movie is that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is going to be involved. He once again steals the movie as the fallen prince who tried to take over Earth. He spends his days locked in a dungeon prison until Thor has no choice but to break him out to show him a secret path out of Asgard. As with everything involving the character there are many illusions and lots of subterfuge involved and some of it you will not see coming, even though you know Loki has something planned out.
Thor: The Dark World benefits from its director, Alan Taylor. One of the regular directors for Game of Thrones, the show’s influence can be seen and felt all during the movie. From Asgardian forces in battle to how the city looks during celebrations and also with the clothing that is less royalty and more cloaks of Westeros. Branagh used his Shakespeare background in the first movie to the best of his ability and Taylor does the same with his use of realism in a fantasy setting.
With Loki taking up the grey area between good and evil Malekith is enough of a presence to keep the proceedings moving forward. He is not a legendary villain like Red Skull but he is a constant threat even if his character and motivation is a bit by the numbers.
The secondary cast have plenty of time to contribute. This could have easily been Thor & Loki’s Excellent Adventure but the script gives each character at least one or two times to shine. Sif and the Warriors Two (I say two because Hogun is helping his home world to begin the movie) are just as loyal to Thor as ever even to bring treason on themselves. I like how they are already planting seeds for the third Thor with Sif’s apparent feelings for Thor and her obvious wonder at why he loves a mortal. Zachary Levi takes over the role of Fandral (which he was cast for in the first movie but had to decline due to his schedule) and is charming as hell. Idris Elba as Heimdall once again proves that he is amazing in everything and even Rene Russo’s Frigga gets a chance to show off more than a glimpse of being a badass for a nice change of pace.
I am here to tell you that reports of Thor: The Dark World’s mediocrity are exaggerated. Now that we know these characters we get a chance to see them further fleshed out including the parts that could have easily been left by the wayside. Where Iron Man has Tony Stark’s personality and Captain America has his never-ending belief in doing good to push their roles forward, Thor relies on family ties and they are explored and exploited in good ways in Thor: The Dark World and it does it while setting up Thor 3, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers: Age of Ultron at the same time. By the hammer of Thor indeed.
Long story short; there won’t be a Batman: Arkham Origins review. At least not anytime soon. This is due to the fact that I was twelve hours into the latest game in the series when I got a corrupted data message. The only solution? Delete my save and start anew.
I went online and read story after story of 360 owners who had experienced the same issue. Some had restarted the game two, three and even four times and at certain points their data became corrupted again. As of this writing the 360 version is the only one that seems to have this problem although the PS3 version is having frame rate issues. It looks like the Wii U and PC versions are the best of the bunch.
The only news from WB Montreal is that they are “investigating the issue” which is company speak for “oh shit, we missed something. Find it and patch it”. Now if you know me personally you know how much this hurts me. As the tattoos on my body and shelves of Batman action figures (not toys dammit) and statues can attest I am a bit of a Dark Knight freak. So the fact that this happened stings worse.
Why not just start over and play through the game? I can hear some of you saying. This is a multi-part answer. It will lead into my early impressions of the game which were…meh. The game looked beautiful and the voice acting was top notch. Roger Craig Smith was a good place holder for Kevin Conroy and Troy Baker sounds so much like Mark Hamill it is uncanny. There was something just a bit off about it. While keeping the same combat and control scheme of the previous two Arkham games, the timing seemed different and led to a lot of frustrating fights.
I have played through Asylum five time and City three. I even played through both of them before Origins came out to make sure I had my timing down correctly and to acclimate myself with the controls again. In both previous games, I had no problem with big groups of thugs even while playing on hard. Playing Origins on normal difficulty (for the sake of review) I regularly found myself almost dying in groups of six or seven guys. The counter system, while technically the same as Rocksteady’s games was not reading all the counters I was doing. With a game that requires multiple counters in a row to keep combat flowing you need the game to be able to react to them. I was regularly getting annoyed at the combat in a series where combat is the best thing.
Also, while this is our first opportunity in the series to play in an actual open version of Gotham City, it feels decidedly vacant. I understand the story permits this with it being Christmas Eve and people are asked to stay in there homes because of the danger. So it is just you and thugs galore to occupy the city. I know Gotham City is a dangerous place but damn. If my apartment building had two snipers, two knife-wielding psychos and a guy with a baseball bat I would be calling Two Men and Truck…now. I am still looking for that first true Gotham City experience. I want Spider-Man 2 except with Batman. Bustling streets and patrons. Random robberies to stop. Driving the Batmobile around Gotham.
The second part of my reasoning for not starting the game again is I do not have the time to. Besides this site I have a full-time job and, despite what some people think, do not want to spend every waking moment in front of a television or computer screen. Maybe one day I will give Arkham Origins another chance or I may just wait for Rocksteady’s next installment that will be free of these problems. For now I have to get ready for the next-gen launches and even though I juuust said I can’t spend all my time with video games…I have to review WWE 2K14.
*Note- this is a review of the single-player story only.*
As I made my way down the road, heading back from one of the bars I owned after a shootout with some unruly customers, I felt the urge to go play some tennis. After twenty minutes of me showing off my old school Top Spin skills, I decided to head to the airport and see if there were any jumbo jets about to leave the runway. Luckily, there was one and I hijacked it and took a short trip around the city before jumping out and parachuting to safety as the plane was left to…well you know.
This is only a small percentage of what is available to do in Grand Theft Auto V. Rockstar has spent the last five years creating the most living open-world game ever. Almost a decade into this console cycle, it is amazing how much they have been able to fit into this one title. The state of San Andreas is sprawling with not just the city of Los Santos, which is a world unto itself with so many different areas of urban life it is mind boggling to think of the development that went into it, but also the surrounding areas that hold a military installation, rural towns where city life is nothing but a story and wide open spaces with forests, beaches, rivers and deserts that each hold their own secrets.
Let’s start off by saying that I did not like GTA IV. At all. I tried multiple times to play it but always found it tedious, repetitive and could never care enough about main character Niko Bellic to try and finish the story. With GTA V, it is like Rockstar heard nearly every complaint I had about IV and addressed it. But we will get to that later.
Photo courtesy geekspodcast.com
The biggest departure for the GTA series to date, Grand Theft Auto V ditches the single protagonist for three separate characters and I can easily say that I do not believe I could ever go back to a single character GTA story again. When the game opens up you are in the middle of a bank heist almost a decade in the past that quickly goes bad which serves as the setup for the main story.
In present day, you begin to play as Franklin, an ex-gangbanger that is looking to make more of his life besides doing petty drug deals and boosting cars. He wants the big score and to spend his time with a more “reputable” brand of criminal. He gets plenty of grief from his friends in the hood about trying to forget where he came from. You will spend the first hour or two as Franklin as a reintroduction of sorts to the GTA universe. Taking on simple repo missions which get you back into the swing of things.
Soon though you cross paths with the games second character, Michael, who is an ex- bank robber that is living the high life in an upscale house and by high life I mean he has plenty of money, a wife that is sleeping around, two kids that absolutely hate him and is completely miserable while he drinks his days away. He is the dichotomy to Franklin, telling him that the life Franklin desires doesn’t always lead to good things. He nevertheless takes Franklin under his wing to try and impart his unique knowledge.
The third part of this trinity of recklessness is Trevor. Michael’s “best friend” who thought he died in the bank heist years ago and discovers he is alive and well in Los Santos. The best way to describe Trevor is to imagine everything horrible you have ever wanted to say to someone, all the vile, disgusting things life would not let anyone get away with and Trevor is all of that wrap in a meth covered bow. He is one of the most intriguing and unflinching characters in video game history. His early missions involve taking on a biker gang, Chinese drug lords and the sort while trying to get his meth business into the big time. There are a few nods to Breaking Bad along the way as you are left wondering who was the basis for this madness.
Photo courtesy evilgmr.net
The sheer amount of things to do in Grand Theft Auto V will easily ensure you will lose at least 50 hours but the main part of the story revolves around pulling heists. You will case the location, decide which crew you want to bring along, decide your plan of attack and hopefully make off like bandits with a ton of cash. Some jobs are not all for your benefit. You will have to pull off death-defying kidnapping missions for the FIB (the game’s FBI) and infiltrating facilities in the name of “patriotism”. When things get hot and heavy you can quick swap between characters as needed. Believe me, you will need it. You can possibly get through the waves of cops using one character but the real fun and strategy comes in swapping on the fly. In one mission you will be Franklin holding down the cops with fire then you swap to Michael who has to find a new position and take on the cops that are flanking your rear. Swap to Trevor, who is waiting on a rooftop with a sniper rifle to bring down anyone that slips past Franklin or Michael and take on the incoming police helicopter. It is complete insanity in the best possible way.
Between missions you can swap to any of the characters on the fly. This leads to a lot of great random scenes which shows you that while you may be playing as Trevor; Michael and Franklin are off doing their own thing. Swapping to Franklin may find him leaving a strip club, Michael could be waking up from nightmares and Trevor…well let’s just say that swapping to Trevor is an experience. I would switch to Trevor just for the hell of it and I was never disappointed. Once, he was throwing a random person off of a bridge for some reason. Why? Hell if I know. That is between Trevor and the guy that is a stain on the pavement below.
As I mentioned before, Rockstar has fixed many issues that I have had with GTA games for a while. First off, the driving has been changed and feels much more natural. There is no random fishtailing unless you absolutely can not help it. Cars feel like they have weight to them and driving at fast speeds no longer feels like you are one wrong move away from utter destruction. It still can not match up with Sleeping Dogs in terms of almost flawless open-world car driving but it is leaps and bounds better than any other game in the series. Any car you own, buy or steal, can, of course, be upgraded at Los Santos Customs. Want a chrome paint job? Easy. New off-road tires or a Dukes of Hazzard horn? You got it. When you have the money, it is an easy way to waste time.
The cover system feels better also. You will still go to the wrong side of objects sometimes but not too much. Weapons are accessed through a weapon wheel instead of the archaic d-pad swapping. If you use the auto-aim feature it works very well though you may want to turn on the free-aim just to give you a challenge. Every weapon is fully upgradable and customizable including silencers, flashlights and different paint options. Body armor is also available at your local Ammu-Nation along with your complete lineup of weapons that range from rocket launchers to grenades and eve a parachute. You will use the parachute. If you are like me, you will use the parachute in many odd ways and the only explanation you need is that it is GTA.
Photo courtesy variety.com
How many times playing any GTA game have you died while almost completing a mission and been taken back to the very beginning, having to go back and watch the cutscene and do the entire…mission…over as your rage builds and you almost become as violent as the character you are playing? Enter mission checkpoints! It only took a decade but now you will not have to quell the monster within whenever you screw up. Hearty handshakes all around for progress!
Your cell phone will be your main hub for everything you need from your contacts you meet throughout the game to using the internet. Do not skip past searching on the internet. There are some side missions that are unlocked by searching certain words. Also, the game has a fully involved stock market which, if used smartly, can easily make you a billionaire so you can buy any of the property that your heart desires. Have an affinity for the cinema? Buy a movie theater as I did and enjoy free flicks. Every property will come with weekly income that is deposited into your bank account.
Rockstar has kept up with the times with their satirical humor also. They have always taken pop culture to task in every GTA game and this time is no different. You will see people whoring themselves out to get on the popular reality show Fame or Shame, a radio advertisement making fun of Fifty Shades of Grey (“I’ve always wanted a billionaire to piss on me.”) and, as usual, all of the sardonic radio DJ’s. There are 240 songs over 15 radio stations. That in itself is crazy. I can not tell you how many times I have had memorable moments while listening to Eddie Murphy’s Party All the Time or Don Johnson’s Heartbeat. Rock jumping while listening to Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River will never get old.
Photo courtesy playstationgang.com
The story is fun most of the time with Trevor, Michael and Franklin each having their own set of problems that intersect. Sometimes it can get a bit eye rolling when you try to look for logic in some of the story elements but it kind of like watching wrestling; if you are looking for logic, you won’t enjoy it.
Grand Theft Auto V was, reportedly, the most expensive game ever made. It shows with the intricate detail given to every aspect of this game. When you drive through the city of Los Santos, you will notice how not just homes but cars and people change when you head to different neighborhoods with distinct class differences. My girlfriend, who grew up in Las Vegas and California, kept commenting on how realistic the roads were set up. It truly is a living, breathing embodiment of west coast living.
I could continue to type about how many random things can be done in Grand Theft Auto V. If you have read this far then I applaud you for not just scrolling to the score. With the next generation kicking into full swing this winter, GTA V has given notice that there is still plenty of life left in your aging Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. With Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and now GTA V, we as gamers are in a renaissance of video gaming. While GTA V’s story is not on the same level as Infinite or TLOU, the sheer technical achievement that Rockstar has accomplished here can not be overlooked.
When we are desensitized to big games due to annual releases like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and the like, it makes GTA V all that much better. I am sure Rockstar could give us a watered down GTA every two years and rake in the money by the truckloads but that would cheapen the experience, both for us and them. GTA should be an experience. While I felt Rockstar tripped up a bit in IV, they have taken five years to craft and correct and the hours of your life you will lose to the game will be reward enough.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and try to fist fight a mountain lion.
It is through the pure love of the character, Richard B. Riddick, by actor Vin Diesel and writer/director David Twohy that this third film was even put to film. After 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick crashed very hard at the box office it was easy to think that the tales of the night seeing convict were at an end. Diesel and Twohy gathered up $38 million from various backers to help fund another movie, taking Riddick back to a smaller scale single story, instead of a bloated, world-saving adventure.
Good move, guys.
You may or may not remember that at the end of The Chronicles of Riddick he was assuming the throne of the Necromongers, having killed the Lord Marshal. If you don’t remember, just imagine the last fight at the end of David Lynch’s Dune with better special effects and Vin Diesel killing Sting and you should be good to go. Now, as leader, Riddick wants to go searching for his lost home world of Furya. Vaako (Karl Urban, in a brief appearance), gives Riddick a heading and when he reaches the planet he is betrayed by the Necromonger guards and left for dead on the wrong planet.
The first part of the movie is spent with Riddick doing his best Tom Hanks in Cast Away, getting back to his animal side and learning to survive in less than inviting conditions. Now where Hanks had to deal with learning to fish, make camp fires and talking to a ball with a face on it, Riddick has to reset a broken leg, domesticate a feral ocelot creature and fight against large reptilian creatures that hide in water and move across the planet with the rain.
When Riddick makes his way to an emergency beacon station and sends out a distress call, this calls two groups of mercenaries that are looking to collect on the bounty which is double if Riddick is brought back dead. This begins the Riddick fun of him beginning to take out guys one by one until they realize that they all have to work together to get off the planet as the rain comes and brings the creatures to their doorstep. Here is where it gets like Pitch Black with the game of survival and it works again because this is the Riddick character that everyone wants to see, not the destined leader of the Necromongers while saving a holy man’s family. He is a killer that occasionally does what he can for other people…provided they can help him in return.
The cast of mercenaries is mostly “who is that” and “I have seen them somewhere” except for the inclusion of ex-wrestler and recent Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista and Battlestar Galactica star and nerd goddess Katee Sackhoff, who I will go ahead and help out the movie’s box office right now, has her first nude scene. That sound you hear is a lot of BSG fans either getting in their car to go see the movie or hitting up Google at the same time.
Riddick is big, dumb action fun. You know, like 83% of Vin Diesel movies. The lines are eye-rolling and still illicit laughs even though you have something inside you asking “why the hell am I laughing?”. The action is good and is always a great thing to see Katee Sackhoff beat the shit out of people and that wasn’t even the movie I was paying to see. Diesel is clearly having fun playing Riddick again especially after the long wait between movies and how hard he had to work to get the movie off the ground. This is pure popcorn fare of the highest order and you will either have some fun watching Riddick chopping off heads and talking about going balls deep in someone or you will curse whoever asked you to go to the theater to see it.
For me, I had a good time with Riddick’s return and actually would not mind another flick with the character. Just remember to keep it small.
I know there are more than one of you wondering how a second Wolverine movie even got made considering the complete abomination that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine and you would be right to think that. The movie made money, but is universally reviled by most comic fans and let’s not even start on Deadpool fans. The simple answer is that Wolverine is the most bankable of all of the X-Men, so that is why director James Mangold was given the helm and the character has been given a second chance to make a first impression.
You would think the surprising part is the fact that there is another Wolverine movie given what I just said. That’s not the truth. The surprising part is that The Wolverine is actually really good.
Director James Mangold and screen writers Mark Bomback and Scott Frank have decided to take the character on a personal journey based on one of the greatest Wolverine stories ever written by the legendary Chris Claremont. Not only is Claremont’s Japanese epic the basis for The Wolverine, but there are plenty of nods to other historic stories in the Logan/X-Men universe including Fatal Attractions and Old Man Logan. When you notice these it becomes clear that some care was taken with the character this time instead of just having him wrestle The Blob, fight the shittiest Deadpool ever and deal with bad CGI.
The Wolverine takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand with Logan playing the part of mountain man recluse living his life as a Grizzly Adams look-a-like and deep in despair over having had killed his love, Jean Grey. There really is no reason to watch X-Men 3 to catch up (or any reason to watch it at all) because that is the only main part that connects to this movie. He is content to spend his days drinking whiskey and listening to the radio while dreams of Jean haunt him. A young Japanese woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks him down and requests that he come to Japan with her so that her employer, Yashida, be given the opportunity to say goodbye and thank Logan for saving his life in World War II when the bomb hit Nagasaki. Through some coaxing he boards a plane for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Meeting Yashida becomes more complicated than anticipated when he informs Logan that he has the ability to transfer his healing ability to another and can allow Logan to live a normal life. And yes, you guessed it, Yashida would like it transferred to him so he can keep on living. Needless to say Wolvie declines with a simple “you don’t want what I got”, but that is not quite good enough for the dying man and has his associate Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) implant a device in Logan that robs him of his ability to heal correctly. It is still too late for Yashida as he passes and control of his corporation passes not to his son, but his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). This puts a target on her back as the Yakuza try to kidnap her at her father’s funeral. Reluctantly, she allows Logan to help her flee and during their escape and hideout the two form a relationship. Eventually the Yakuza gets their tattooed, grubby mits on Mariko and Logan has to figure out a way to reverse what has been done to him and save his new found love.
Like I said, this isn’t On The Waterfront.
What The Wolverine manages to do well is pacing. The slow parts do not drag on for too long and the dialogue is believable for a action movie like this. It is always interesting, for me, to watch the Japanese culture clash with anything different. Of course, the different this time is a self-healing mutant with adamantium claws that calls everyone “bub” and it completely works. You can never adapt Claremont’s story perfectly and there is plenty to point out that has been altered, but the central heart of the story is still there.
The set pieces are handled well including a Yakuza shootout at a funeral which leads to a chase throughout the street of Tokyo and ends with a fight on top of a bullet train which you may have seen in the previews. As over the top as the train scene is, it is still handled with a deft hand. The fighting never really gets too over the top or for the lack of a better term, comic book-y, until the final moments of the movie and it is in the final 15 minutes of the film where the train doesn’t fly off the track, but it begins to wobble like someone put a penny on the rails.
The final showdown, while wrapping up the story, left a little to be desired when compared to all the good the story had set up in the first 90% of the film. Yes, there is a nine-foot tall robotic Silver Samurai and you have already decided whether you hate this decision or not. For me, I was not hot on the idea, but it received a pass from me because of a very guessable reason. I am not saying the end ruins the movie…far from it. It is just a decent end game to a very good movie.
The Wolverine has surprised me more than any other movie this summer. Going in with blinders on, not wanting to remember the horrors of X-Men Origins is the best way to view this. It is far and away better than its should-have-been aborted offspring. It also holds up on its own as a singular movie including Jackman’s best performance as Logan due to a much better script than he has ever had for the character. If this had been the first movie for Wolverine, we would be talking about what an amazing future the character has in his own set of movies, but with the stench of Origins hanging this feels like an apology to fans and a hope that maybe there is more in store for “The Ol’ Canucklehead”.
We are still a bit over a week away from the release of Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic adventure, [amazon_link id=”B007CM0K86″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Last of Us[/amazon_link], but today the first reviews began rolling out and it seems that the long desired game is living up to the massive hype. We will have our review ready for you as soon as we get our copy and undoubtedly lose ourselves in it. Until then, take a look at what other media sites are saying about The Last of Us.
“The Last of Us seamlessly intertwines satisfying, choice-based gameplay with a stellar narrative. It never slows down, it never lets up, and frankly, it never disappoints. It’s PlayStation 3’s best exclusive, and the entire experience, from start to finish, is remarkable”
“The Last of Us is a brutally realistic and often shocking depiction of a world in crisis, but is undeniably fun to play. It perfectly captures a civilization on the brink through its believable and hellish atmosphere. It represents one of the strongest console exclusives in a long time and is absolutely a must-have experience for mature PlayStation 3 gamers.”
“The relationship that grows between Ellie and Joel as they fight to protect one another is the most genuine I’ve ever seen, brought to life by superb writing and excellent performances. It’s more than a father-daughter archetype, more than an easy ploy to tug at the heartstrings. A deep love blooms between the two of them, tinged with a sadness that sometimes makes it difficult to bear.”
“In other words, as with so many post-apocalyptic stories before it—Hello, zombie clichés!—The Last of Us‘s fungal pandemic is really just table-setting for a much more intimate, human story. Like last year’s The Walking Dead game, this isn’t actually a tale of zombies and bandits and the end of the world. It’s a tale of loss and hope and friendship and family that just happens tofeature zombies and bandits and the end of the world. And it’s a fine, worthy tale, at that.”
“The Last of Us is a deeply felt, shockingly violent game that questions what we’re willing to sacrifice and, more disturbingly, what we’re willing to do to save the ones we love. The conclusion offers no easy answers. You won’t forget it.”
“The Last of Us is a bold work, especially for a developer recently known for strapping us into cinematic roller coasters. The Last of Us is not fun, at least not in the traditional sense, and that’s exactly why it’s so interesting.”
“There is more to The Last of Us than just combat and “emotional” story tropes. To touch on its setpiece moments, to detail its beautiful changes in pace, would be to spoil too much. It cannot be said enough, however, that Naughty Dog’s new best creation is complete, and when I saycomplete, I mean it to pay the highest of compliments. I do not want more from The Last of Us: I do not need more. As the last line was uttered and the credits ushered in the close, I was done. The Last of Us had achieved everything it needed to achieve in order to provide me with everything I wanted.”
” It achieves incredible emotional high points about as often as it bumps up against tired scenario design that doesn’t fit its world. Survival in the post-apocalypse requires compromise, but The Last of Us has given up something vital.”
