Nerd Rating

Tag: Reviews

  • Review: Dishonored

    Fun? Yes. Satisfying….Mostly.

    One of the most wanted games coming out of this year’s E3 was easily [amazon_link id=”B005C2D2MO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dishonored[/amazon_link]. With its unique blend of artistic styles (think steampunk meets Half-Life) and first person stealth play it was easy to see why it won so many “best of E3” awards. Now the game is finally here. Can it live up to a lot of the lofty expectations put upon it?

    The answer is: mostly.

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    Dishonored thrusts you in the role of Corvo Attano, who is the Lord Protector for the Empress of the city of Dunwall. He has returned home from a crucial mission when assassins appear and kill the Empress and abduct her daughter Emily. You are taken into custody thought to be the murderer and in the jail is where your adventure begins.

    A note from a friend with the key to your cell makes its way to you and after you escape you are brought to The Hound Pits bar where you meet the people who released you. They are part of a small movement who realize you are innocent and that there is treachery in the city of Dunwall. The bar will be your main hub from where you will be given missions and begin to search for Emily and try and take the city back.

    The city of Dunwall isn’t really an open world experience but the amount that you get to traverse on any given mission is sizable. There is no denying the detail and beauty in the old Victorian style. Buildings range from the ornate to the completely desolate depending on what part of the city you happen to be in but it never truly feels alive like the first time you walked around Rapture in Bioshock which you can’t help but compare this game to when you are playing.

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    “Blinking” is so in these days.

    Corvo’s ability to traverse Dunwall effectively and use either stealth or straight forward attacks is fun because of the sheer amount of unlockables in his inventory. Your main weapon of choice is a sword but much like the previously mentioned Bioshock you have the ability to dual wield a host of different abilities. Pistols, crossbows with sleep darts or incendiary arrows or you other magical abilities are use with your left hand. One negative is that you are given two different ways to access your abilities: the “quick” pull up with the d-pad and the ability wheel which pauses gameplay and lets you choose among all of your special attacks. The problem comes in the middle of combat when you need more than four options on the d-pad to quickly pull up because whenever you decide to use something not on your quick list the pausing of gameplay takes away from the free-flowing feel of combat.

    Your main magical use will most likely be the “blink” ability which is a quick teleport that can be upgraded to go over greater distances. You will need to use blink effectively if you want to hop from rooftop to rooftop or escape from a group of enemies effectively. For the most part it works as it is supposed to but sometimes you will be left not hopping onto ledges as you need to and if you are in the middle of combat it can be a little annoying. It does feel really good to get the jump on an enemy by blinking right in front of them and burying your knife in their throat though.

    The way you gain new abilities is by finding runes and bone charms throughout the city. The runes can be used to upgrade your abilities like slowing time, possessing animal or man and even releasing an infected rat swarm to devour an opponent. Likewise bone charms are used to add perks to your game such as health and mana increases, enemy grenades not exploding for longer or ammo pickups being more frequent. Now you are not just blindly wandering around levels in search for these items you are given a mystical heart that shows you how far away these enchantments are.

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    Let’s create some chaos.

    The story in Dishonored is not bad but a little on the weak side. After a good beginning it really becomes a bit bogged down with characters that are not ever really fleshed out so when we should feel a sense of caring for fallen people or betrayal by others I was only listening to understand the next mission. It is a shame really because the game sets up itself well enough with you wanting to rescue the Empress’s daughter but by the time a big event in the game happens (which anyone worth their salt can see coming a few missions before) you are not focused wholly on the story anymore. Maybe I was detached too early or expecting more out of it.

    Arkane has done a good job with cause and effect in the game. Determined on how you conduct yourself during the game you will be treated differently by NPC’s and have alternate endings. You can choose to go through the game by straight up knifing and exploding anyone you find or you can go the exact opposite route and play the entirety of the game without killing a soul. At the end of each mission you are given a rundown of your effectiveness and given a high or low chaos rating which goes towards how your game will play out. I tried to get a good mix going of both but soon realized that I just like stabbing people too much and went straight high chaos. Dishonored encourages multiple playthroughs with how the city is affected by your actions which is a fresh approach. High chaos will see the city become more overrun with infected plague rats and weepers (infected humans that serve as a “zombie” type character) as well as the number of guards will be increased. Fans of games like Thief or early Splinter Cell’s will most certainly want to take the extra time and go complete stealth for the lower guard totals and clean hands achievement. You will need to keep your chaos rating under 20% to get a low ranking.

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    [amazon_link id=”B005C2D2MO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dishonored[/amazon_link] is an ambitious title. There is no denying that. Arkane has attempted to fuse the best of many classic games like Thief, Half-Life, Splinter Cell and Bioshock into one package. For the most part they have succeeded. The game is aesthetically beautiful but never feels truly like its own entity like Rapture. I enjoyed my time with Dishonored thoroughly but never really attached myself to the story that I was hoping would be stronger than it was. It is refreshing in places but does not reach the heights that I was hoping it could. You can not go wrong picking this up if you are a fan of any of the previously mentioned games just keep your expectations in check. You may believe it is a game of the year candidate like many reviewers have said but as for me it was a very good game that tripped up in a few places.

     

    NERD RATING- 8/10

  • Review: Little Big Planet PS Vita

    Can Sack Boy Save The Vita?

    It has been a rough summer for Vita owners. After the system’s initial launch there has not been much to be truly excited about. The games have been on a slow trickle out to retail with Gravity Rush being a small bright spot. There are only so many PS Minis and AR titles one can download before thinking that your cool piece of handheld technology is becoming a $250 paperweight.

    But there is a change coming and it began with the (early) release of Little Big Planet PS Vita as well as Sony giving the system some practical uses (PSOne classics, Cross-Buy) and a fall lineup that is shaping up to be better than expected. But right now, this is Sack Boy’s system.

    Little Big Planet PS Vita had me wondering if Tarsier could take over for Media Molecule and not only bring a complete LBP experience to Sony’s handheld but make use of all the Vita’s bells and whistles to change the way you play the series. Quite simply, the answer is a resounding yes.

    If you are familiar with the Little Big Planet series then initially you are not in for many surprises. You will be introduced to our hero Sack Boy and taken to the comfort of your world hub, known as your Pod. Here you will choose between three worlds of adventures. The first being the games story mode, the second is the community creations world where you download all of the weird (sometimes really weird) levels made by other Vita players and the third being your world of your own wonderful creativity.

    When beginning the story mode there is a comforting voice at the beginning, that of Stephen Fry which returns to give Sack Boy a new journey. Now trying to explain a Little Big Planet story is like explaining War and Peace to a five year old, there are some things you just don’t try to put into words. Like all other stories in the series it is perfectly understandable if you are in a constant state of….let’s say consciousness. (This site would never endorse illegal smoking) Sack Boy’s journey begins with a tutorial that will introduce players to all of our hero’s skills including all the new uses of the touch screens, both front and rear, as well as jumping and grappling. In no time you will be swinging and pad bouncing around like an old pro.

    Community Is King

    The level design in Little Big Planet is second to none and that is before you even leave the story mode to explore the creative community. Here is where you will find creations from all other LBP players all over the world. The best part about this is discovering what people can create with just a mind for creation and a lot (A LOT) of time on their hands. Levels range from the truly remarkable to the downright frustrating especially when you fight through a level and see that the creator really made no way to beat it. Annoying? Yes, but the beauty is in looking around and discovering the truly amazing levels of creativity that even puts some real game makers to shame.

    One of the best features to the entire game is the Memorizer. With this you can actually save inside someone’s user created level. This essentially means that people around the world can make entire games, not just one off levels. Imagine if someone wanted to make a LBP version of Gears of War. There are almost limitless possibilities with the use of this tool and really does make the game almost never ending.

    Now on the opposite side of playing other people’s levels is the level creator itself. Now I will just go ahead and tell you that this is one part of the game that I am not in love with but that is not to game’s detriment, it is to my lack of time to truly sit down and create the levels that are swimming in my head. Some of the menus are a little difficult to navigate through and place items exactly how you want them but as I said I lack the patience as some people to really delve into the nuts and bolts and focus all my energy on it. I have created a few basic levels involving jump gaps and grappling but when I think about the amount of time it took me to create them against some of the community levels I have played it staggers my mind to imagine how much time was spent crafting those levels. Again, that is not the game’s fault but my own feeble brain.

    If you have played through any of the first two Little Big Planet’s on Playstation 3 and own a Vita then this should be an instant buy for you. I would even recommend buying the system to get your fix for LBP. It is really that good. While the story mode is a little on the short side that does not affect the game at all with its robust and seemingly never ending user created content that should keep the game fresh and playable for months and maybe years to come.

    Nerd Rating- 9/10

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  • Review: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 (Blu-Ray)

    Can This Animated Film Stay Faithful To Frank Miller’s Legendary Work?

    To say that adapting The Dark Knight Returns is a daunting task may be an understatement. Frank Miller’s 1986 classic is considered by most to be one of the greatest Batman graphic novels (along with Miller’s own Batman: Year One and Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke) ever published. DC Animated has already adapted Year One and did a good job of it but The Dark Knight Returns is a different beast. The “futuristic” dystopian feel of a Gotham fallen back into a state of hopelessness ten years removed from the last sighting of Batman has such an identity in the comic as well as involving a group of Batman’s and DC’s most iconic figures you begin to think that this could become a lost endeavor before you begin to watch.

    The movie opens just as the comic does with Bruce Wayne involved in a horrific wreck while racing F-1 cars in Gotham and right off the bat I am thrown off by the lack of internal monologue. It plays such a huge role in Miller’s work that it will take a few minutes to get past the exclusion of it especially if you know a lot of the source material by heart. But after a few minutes you become involved with the story that you know so well that it becomes an afterthought.

    As Commissioner Gordon prepares for his retirement, Gotham is being overrun with a string of murders, rapes, kidnappings and robberies by a gang known as the Mutants. Their leader broadcasts their hatred for the law and that the will kill Gordon and take the city. Thankfully for the purists the Mutant gang’s weird speech type has been left in tact as well as their distinct look.

    The smartest thing that DC did was to split this feature into two parts. The story is such a large event that it would have felt bastardized trying to fit it into 75 minutes. Even with two parts there is still so much story to digest in part one. Harvey Dent’s release from Arkham with a new face and new lease on life that doesn’t last that long, Carrie Kelly taking it upon herself to pick up the mantle of Robin and prove herself to the returning Batman, all of the interspersed news coverage showing the political and cultural overtones of Batman and what he represents to society and the caped crusader’s pair of fights with the hulking Mutant leader. It is all handled well in the movie with a few slight changes to the story that are subtle and only will be noticed by avid fans but none of them really had me cursing at the screen yelling ” YOU RUINED IT!”

    The animation is on par with every other DC release over the past few years. It’s mostly clean looking but sometimes feels like a little more care could have been given to it. I was excited to see what they could do with the look of Gotham considering the source material but was left feeling disappointed when it looked like a mostly bland city instead of the dirty, neon filled streets from Klaus Janson’s art style. The look of the characters is mostly intact with the only noticable difference being how young The Joker looks when you finally see him full frame at the end of the movie.

    The voice cast is good, not great. Gordon’s light undertone voice takes a few minutes to get used to but Carrie and the Mutant leader are pretty close to how I imagined when reading the graphic novel. Robocop himself Peter Weller has the opportunity to voice Batman and it is a mixed bag. During some scenes he seems to just be reading lines as Peter Weller, with no inflection or emotion at all but then will deliver one of the classic lines from the story and have you thinking “so that’s why they hired him”. Don’t worry Kevin Conroy, you still have nothing to worry about.

    A few minutes into the movie I was beginning to wonder if this movie could attain the lofty goals it set for itself by taking on such a beloved and legendary work. But the more I watched, the more I became engrossed in the story that I have read time and time again and by the time Batman gives his “This isn’t a mud pit. It’s a operating table” line near the end of the movie I was sold that despite a few missteps the animated department at DC took a chance and it paid off with a good feature that does have me looking forward to the second part.

    Well that and wanting to see an old Batman completely kick the s*** out of Superman.

    Nerd Rating: 8/10

     

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  • Review: Dredd

    Karl Urban Brings New Life To The Man Of The Law

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    First off let’s go ahead and get the blasphemy out of the way. I liked Sylvester Stallone’s Judge Dredd. It is a guilty pleasure for me. Like Demolition Man or Cobra, it was a big dumb action movie that promised a lot of explosions and Stallone overacting and it’s exactly what you got. It doesn’t apologize for it’s shallowness and it really doesn’t need to for an action movie. Now that we have that out of the way how does the 2012 version stand up to the mostly reviled 1995 flick? Dredd takes it’s predecessor out back and judges it guilty then puts one clean in the head.

    The judges are the police force in Mega City One, a massive concrete jungle with a population of almost a billion people. After a brief introduction to Judge Dredd complete with motorcycle chase and harsh judgment of a trio of criminals, Dredd is called back to the Hall of Justice where he is given a rookie to give his assessment on in the field. But this rookie is unlike any others because she is a psychic and despite being on the low end of testing is believed to be worth a badge because of her abilities. The two go to investigate a murder call at Peachtrees which is a “megablock”, a huge building that houses thousands of people and here is where you spend the rest of the movie.

    Dredd Hard?

    Peachtrees is under control of Ma Ma, a woman who controls the manufacturing of the newest hit drug on the street known as Slow-Mo. Not wanting to let the judges leave nice and quietly Ma Ma has the building locked down and sends all of her men hunting after them. One of the reasons Dredd works is that it keeps the action confined to enclosed spaces. In essence, it goes Die Hard with the action. Dredd and his partner are on a track to mow through every criminal from floor one all the way to two hundred. If this movie had tried to be a spawling sci-fi, futuristic epic it would have lost some of it’s appeal.

    I think I would define the shootouts in the film as beautifully gory. Blood flows freely and often complete with exploding heads and visceral slow motion bullet piercings. It easily earns it’s R rating and some folks may find it gratuitous but I felt it holds true to the character’s comic roots. Anything less would have seemed like a cop out by the film makers and thankfully there were no compromises made.

    One problem many had with the Stallone version was he spent half the movie sans helmet in an attempt to humanize Judge Dredd. Karl Urban had gone on record while they were filming that you would never and should never see Dredd without his headwear and they have stuck to their guns here. All you see is a black visor and Urban’s grisled mug scowling the whole movie. Urban, over the past ten years has carved a niche by taking over roles and making them completely his. From Eomer in The Lord of the Rings to his amazing turn as Dr. McCoy in Star Trek and even to lesser extent as “Reaper” in Doom and now with Dredd Urban keeps adding to his bada** character profile. Hearing him say “I am the law” should put a devilish smile on any fans face.

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    Olivia Thirlby plays Dredd’s rookie psychic partner Anderson with an emotional strength that shows a few cracks but never breaks and Lena Headey is almost unrecognizable as the scarred up drug queen Ma Ma. Past that the rest of the cast should be filed under gun fodder, simply there for our twisted viewing pleasure.

    Dredd is a dirty, bloody and borderline NC-17 violent movie that keeps the spirit of the almost 40 year old character alive and well. Fans of the character, comics in general and utter gruesome violence should go and see this. And see it quickly.

    Nerd Rating- 8.5/10

  • Review: New Super Mario Bros. 2

    It really is quite amazing to think that in Mario’s long and illustrious history that a game like New Super Mario Bros. 2 has never been released. Making coin collecting the focal point of the game has taken the old premise and added a good turn of OCD coin looting to the mix and rewards players that want to go out of their way to find secret levels, find every star coin and spend every last second they have on a level trying to attain all the little gold pieces possible.

    Ok here is the obligatory Mario plot synopsis. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The Princess is chilling in her castle when the Koopalings come along and kidnap her and take her to Bowser’s big bad castle. So first off, Bowser has become too lazy to kidnap her himself and also has anyone ever thought about who the Koopalings mom was? I mean Bowser has kidnapped the Princess a lot. Now that I have taken Mario to a deep, dark place that you will never forget let’s move on!

    One thing that the Mario franchise has never been lazy on is level design and that does not change here. You will be platforming your way through nine levels which include the normal environments of desert, water, snow and fire as well as three special worlds of the mushroom, flower and star variety. Now while the environments may not change the actual level design is all sorts of Mario goodness. As a lifelong Mario player I still found myself cursing at certain ghost houses or castles filled with rotating buzzsaws….those effing buzzsaws. But that is part of what makes the game endearing. You may want to throw your 3DS occasionally but you keep going onward because as weird as it sounds, the frustration is part of the fun.

    The new twist with New Super Mario Bros. 2 is that for the first time ever the game keeps up with your cumulative coin totals. Now that may seem like a simple change but you are given new powers and new game types to ensure that you will be collecting long after you have beaten the game. Special golden fireballs allow you to destroy any enemy you hit with them on screen and add extra coins for doing it. Special gold rings turn enemies gold and assign coin totals to each one killed. Stomp on a Koopa and hit his shell into enemies and watch your coin total balloon. Not to mention all the P blocks to find for blue coinage and each level truly has it’s own chance to be a banking bonanza.

    Another new addition to the game is coin rush mode. These are three randomly selected levels from different parts of the game which have you speed running through them to see how many coins you can collect. You start off with 99 seconds and have to take off and try and use all your skills and memorization of the past levels to keep the money coming. Now it’s not quite as rushed as you may think because there are random clocks to find to add to your timer but if you don’t pay attention fully to what’s going on you will quickly be staring at zeroes on the clock. This mode is where a majority of my coinage has come from because you can really get on a roll and get a great count for the three levels and for every flag you hit the top of at the end, your coin total doubles. And when you have your Streetpass on it will automatically send out your high scores and receive them from other players so there will always be a challenge out there for you.

    One thing that I could pick out to complain about would be the lack of any kind of 3D look to the game. It is colorful and very vibrant but it had no use at all in 3D mode. When I would set it on any kind of 3D the background would move back but become so smudged looking that it was almost ugly. This is definitely one to play with the 3D turned off unless you like beautiful levels marred by background that appear through dirty film.

    Nitpicking aside this game is a good, not great addition to the Mario family. Completely replayable and while it doesn’t break much new ground with enemies or environments it should be applauded for attempting something new that works for this as a handheld title.

    42,000 coins and counting. What is your total so far?

     

    NERD RATING- 8/10

     

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  • Review: The Dark Knight Rises

     

    Let’s just go ahead and answer everyone’s question right up front. Is The Dark Knight Rises better than The Dark Knight? No it is not. But that in no way is a negative judgment against Christopher Nolan’s last Batman adventure. Not a lot could top The Dark Knight. It was a force of nature four years ago and still is today upon repeated viewings, so if you go into the theater expecting a better movie you may leave a little disappointed. What you will get is a long, ambitious epic that puts a perfect cap on Nolan’s Bat trilogy.

     

    It has been eight long years since Harvey Dent went a bit on the crazy side and tried to kill Jim Gordon’s family while Batman took the fall for the fallout so that the city could hold up Dent as their savior and use his death to pass an act that has cleaned up the city. With major crime effectively under control Bruce Wayne has retired from being the Caped Crusader to become a recluse who nurses his battle wounds and lives in regret over the death of his love, Rachel Dawes.

     

    But like with any hero Bruce cannot escape his need (or want) for Gotham to have the Batman again. When he is robbed by a lovely cat burglar named Selina Kyle, played very capably by the scene chewing Anne Hathaway, he begins to slowly come out of his shell eventually getting back into the cape and cowl despite his butler Alfred’s insistence that he should stay away.

     

    As happenstance would have it, the return of Batman comes about at the same time a new big bad known as Bane is setting his master plan in motion to take over Gotham and complete Ra’s Al Ghul’s vision. Bane is viciously played by Tom Hardy who is not as scene stealing as Heath Ledger’s Joker but is much more of a physical threat to Batman. This is one thing that helped the movie immensely. While Batman Begins had Ra’s and Scarecrow and The Dark Knight has the Clown Prince of Crime, none really seemed like Batman’s physical superior. That is not the case here. Bane is a physical specimen and much more dangerously is just as smart as he is strong.  If you are read up on Bane’s history in the Bat universe then you know basically what is coming about halfway through the movie but the event is still powerful and brutal.

     

    I really had no problem understanding Hardy’s unique voice during the movie. With stories floating around since last December about his performance being lost in the muffled voice behind the mask I had a few concerns going in but it looks like Nolan did heed advice and clear up Bane’s dialogue which is great because Hardy’s nuanced performance adds so much to the story. It’s not just the voice (which yes does sound like Goldfinger) but the emotions he is able to convey with his eyes and body motions that complete the character.

     

    Now don’t get me wrong the movie is not without flaws. But most of them are so small that they don’t merit mentioning but one that I do want to mention is Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon. He has plenty to do in this movie but after having him be such an integral part of The Dark Knight he does seem to get lost in the shuffle of the massive story and the number of characters that are given screen time. Oldman is still wonderful in his scenes but Gordon had much more of a meaningful role in The Dark Knight.

     

    Everyone else on the roster has brought their A-game as you would expect. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake does not seem like a thrown in character. Much of the first half of the movie is from his perspective yet it feels completely at home in the Nolan Bat-verse. Morgan Freeman is his usual witty self and Michael Caine puts an exclamation point on the statement that he his the best version of Alfred ever, comics or film. Seriously, dude had me tearing up in two scenes. In a Batman movie.

     

    This is a big, robust movie that is like most of Nolan’s work. It gets so big with so much at stake that you feel that it may collapse on itself but in the hands of a great director it transcends just being another Batman story and speaks on many levels including political unrest, the loss of hope and how anyone can become more than a man.

     

    Where The Dark Knight felt as a stand alone movie this feels like a companion piece to Batman Begins while also bridging every character from all three films. It succeeds in bringing to a close the greatest super hero trilogy ever and avoids the pitfalls of most third films (see Godfather, Spider-Man) by giving a true emotional payoff for the characters that we have been investing ourselves in since the summer of 2005.

     

    When I look back I would probably say that The Avengers is still the greatest comic book movie ever made but The Dark Knight Rises may be the better movie.

     

    NERD RATING- 9/10