Western Games are hard to get right, this is the fist one I've bought, but from reviews I've read, I know that only a few good ones have been made. Fortunately, Call of Juarez is in the minority.
Like many good western stories, the tale starts during the civil war. The plot follows three brothers, two playable, gunslinging, badass, fighters, and a priest that is constantly whining. The two brothers you can play as are Ray and Thomas McCall, and the youngest and dumbest is William. In order to rebuild their lives after the war, the three go on a quest to find the legendary gold of Juarez.
My favorite part about Call of Juarez was the weapons, they got it right, not infinite ammo pistoles, but six-shots that took three hours to reload, and this may seem like a bad thing, but you can avoid it very easily by buying better guns. These better guns have acceptable reload speeds and still capture the wild west combat style. Another cool aspect of the combat was the cover system, instead of having to press a button to super glue yourself to a wall, you just ran up beside it, and peaked over/around. It felt very natural, and did not slow you down at all.
One interesting thing that I have taken a neutral standpoint on is the fact that before each level, you can choose to play as Ray or Thomas. Ray can kick down doors, wield two pistoles at once, and throw dynamite. Thomas can use a lasso, clime any object higher than the curb (unlike ray) and can wield knives and a bow. I don't know which one sounds better to you, but I only played as Ray three times in the whole game, twice because the game didn't give me a choice, and once because I couldn't pass one level as Thomas, but every other level was just as easy with Thomas.
One thing I disliked was William, he is the wimpiest brother, and spends the entire game narrating and praying. (sometimes at the same time) William does move the plot along until the end of the game, but before then, he is dead weight on the gameplay, and the plot. He is also a christ analogy, which is the stupidest thing to put in a video game, besides silent protagonists. The one thing I hated about Call of Juarez was how there was no Co-op mode. In every level except for two and a half, you are fighting alongside your brother as a CPU. The game was built for Co-op.
Unfortunately, Call of Juarez is rated M for language, and suggestive themes, so it can't be marketed to anyone below fourteen. Also, the two cool characters have no values beyond family, so they are mean to women, and kill enough people to fill Arlington cemetery twice. I give it 7/10
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Fretless Bass reviews: Inception
The other day, I decided that if I didn't see Inception and find out what the heck the spinning hallway was I would have to be demoted to asking my friends what it was about, and neither one of them gets out very much.
So I saw it, and it blew my mind! (no pun intended)
The movie follows Dominick Cobb, a man with a really strange talent, preforming corporate espionage by putting a subject to sleep, entering his dream, and stealing his secrets while inside. Usually, he and his team steal people's ideas, but in exchange for a chance to go back to America (where he is wanted) to see his kids again, Cobb agrees to preform inception, which is to give someone an idea without them knowing you gave it to them, a process that has been called impossible.
The thing about dreams is, during them, you can do anything, but you find out in this movie that if you mess with dream physics too much, the subject's subconscious projections will kill you. When I found out about that, I said, "What the heck? What's the point of going into a dream if you can't create images of your jerk classmates and have them stand in their underwear in front of congress?" or in this case, create a gun big enough to blow up all of your problems. That was my only problem with the premise, but besides that, I really liked the idea of dream sharing.
Cobb's internal conflict (Internal conflict always drives the plot) is the guilt over his dead wife, and the really cool thing is that in the dream wold, the character's internal conflicts become projections in the dream world, so Cobb's internal conflict becomes a physical entity, in the form of his dead wife screwing up all his missions in the dream world.
My favorite part of the movie was when due to inner ear function in the dream world, a hallway started spinning around while two guys were fighting in it, and it made some fight-scene history! This fight scene is better than the one in Spider-man 2 when they were on the train!
My final review of Inception, this is the best movie of the summer so far, and you should see it twice if you want to fully grasp it in all it's glory. 8/10.
So I saw it, and it blew my mind! (no pun intended)
The movie follows Dominick Cobb, a man with a really strange talent, preforming corporate espionage by putting a subject to sleep, entering his dream, and stealing his secrets while inside. Usually, he and his team steal people's ideas, but in exchange for a chance to go back to America (where he is wanted) to see his kids again, Cobb agrees to preform inception, which is to give someone an idea without them knowing you gave it to them, a process that has been called impossible.
The thing about dreams is, during them, you can do anything, but you find out in this movie that if you mess with dream physics too much, the subject's subconscious projections will kill you. When I found out about that, I said, "What the heck? What's the point of going into a dream if you can't create images of your jerk classmates and have them stand in their underwear in front of congress?" or in this case, create a gun big enough to blow up all of your problems. That was my only problem with the premise, but besides that, I really liked the idea of dream sharing.
Cobb's internal conflict (Internal conflict always drives the plot) is the guilt over his dead wife, and the really cool thing is that in the dream wold, the character's internal conflicts become projections in the dream world, so Cobb's internal conflict becomes a physical entity, in the form of his dead wife screwing up all his missions in the dream world.
My favorite part of the movie was when due to inner ear function in the dream world, a hallway started spinning around while two guys were fighting in it, and it made some fight-scene history! This fight scene is better than the one in Spider-man 2 when they were on the train!
My final review of Inception, this is the best movie of the summer so far, and you should see it twice if you want to fully grasp it in all it's glory. 8/10.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The problem with comedies
After watching/essentially hitting my face with a hammer over and over/writing a review of grown ups, I came to a conclusion about comedies.
Think back to every comedy movie you've ever seen. How many were good movies? I'm not saying funny, it's hard to screw that up, but how many would you actually watch again? Not many. That's because of one word, Messages.
In today's movie industry, for some reason, everyone writing a comedy movie thinks they need to somehow put a message in the film that will make everyone who watches it a better person. Well I have two points for you. One: Making movies is not a good way to make the world a better place, go join the peace corps so I never have to watch your movies again. Two: People don't go to comedy's to learn about how they should call up their estranged daughter, they go to laugh at fart and sex jokes!
My point is, with most comedies, they message seems to be something thy just injected into the plot with a syringe. Like grown ups, many of these painfully injected morals are inconsistent, one minuet, they are telling you to be honest with your spouse, next, they tell you to screw your romantic night out with her and hang with your buddies.
I'm going to name and explain three movies that got it right. The Hangover, because it had no message, this is what all comedies should be like, don't try and teach us anything, hurl the jokes at light speed. Next, Caddy Shack, It's message was consistent, Danny trying to figure out what to do with his life, it was funny, and the message didn't change in every scene as in Grown Ups. Finally, Cool Runnings, The message was about never giving up and trying to accomplish your dreams, and although the genre of the movie changes from a comedy to a sports drama halfway through, you don't mind, because you care so much about the characters and their struggle.
So I hope someone with a lot of power in the movie industry reads this, because I just told him/her how to fix comedy.
Think back to every comedy movie you've ever seen. How many were good movies? I'm not saying funny, it's hard to screw that up, but how many would you actually watch again? Not many. That's because of one word, Messages.
In today's movie industry, for some reason, everyone writing a comedy movie thinks they need to somehow put a message in the film that will make everyone who watches it a better person. Well I have two points for you. One: Making movies is not a good way to make the world a better place, go join the peace corps so I never have to watch your movies again. Two: People don't go to comedy's to learn about how they should call up their estranged daughter, they go to laugh at fart and sex jokes!
My point is, with most comedies, they message seems to be something thy just injected into the plot with a syringe. Like grown ups, many of these painfully injected morals are inconsistent, one minuet, they are telling you to be honest with your spouse, next, they tell you to screw your romantic night out with her and hang with your buddies.
I'm going to name and explain three movies that got it right. The Hangover, because it had no message, this is what all comedies should be like, don't try and teach us anything, hurl the jokes at light speed. Next, Caddy Shack, It's message was consistent, Danny trying to figure out what to do with his life, it was funny, and the message didn't change in every scene as in Grown Ups. Finally, Cool Runnings, The message was about never giving up and trying to accomplish your dreams, and although the genre of the movie changes from a comedy to a sports drama halfway through, you don't mind, because you care so much about the characters and their struggle.
So I hope someone with a lot of power in the movie industry reads this, because I just told him/her how to fix comedy.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
the Fretless Bass reviews: Grown ups
Grown Ups was nothing special. As with most comedies, it was funny, it delivered cheap laughs for cheap, well, not cheap because the tickets were ten &!@#^&* dollars!
Lets start with the parts of it I DID like, There were too many Saturday Night Live alumni to count, and they didn't kill anyone.
Notice how that was a very short list. The only kind of humor in the movie was a bunch of guys cracking insults, and getting shot with arrows. They made fun of old and ugly people too much, and every child in the movie was a total ass. If all that wasn't enough, someone said, "hey, let's try and put a message in this thing to get some character development!" Well, there was one part at the beginning where I thought the message was to try your hardest, then, three quarters of the way in, they fully stop the plot, and have a talk about how love involves some anger as well. It didn't even make sense!
Now you may have noticed that I didn't put an overview of the plot up, well because of the lack of a message and no character development, all I can tell you is that a bunch of friends get together after their former coach dies.
I only said Grown Ups was "nothing special" because it was funny, I would have said it was bad if it wasn't funny. So, at the end, Grown Ups lacks anything beyond wise-cracking humor and I would call it a rental, don't waste your money in a movie theater for this one.
Lets start with the parts of it I DID like, There were too many Saturday Night Live alumni to count, and they didn't kill anyone.
Notice how that was a very short list. The only kind of humor in the movie was a bunch of guys cracking insults, and getting shot with arrows. They made fun of old and ugly people too much, and every child in the movie was a total ass. If all that wasn't enough, someone said, "hey, let's try and put a message in this thing to get some character development!" Well, there was one part at the beginning where I thought the message was to try your hardest, then, three quarters of the way in, they fully stop the plot, and have a talk about how love involves some anger as well. It didn't even make sense!
Now you may have noticed that I didn't put an overview of the plot up, well because of the lack of a message and no character development, all I can tell you is that a bunch of friends get together after their former coach dies.
I only said Grown Ups was "nothing special" because it was funny, I would have said it was bad if it wasn't funny. So, at the end, Grown Ups lacks anything beyond wise-cracking humor and I would call it a rental, don't waste your money in a movie theater for this one.
the Fretless Bass reviews: Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth
When I first picked up Blood Oath, I was skeptical because I thought the name was completely unimaginative. I guessed that the name Blood Oath had been used in books, movies, and video games scores of times. Well I looked it up, there are about twenty.
Blood Oath follows young Zach Barrows, a White House employee who gets stuck in a job protecting America from "the other side" (anything Stephen King has written about) with a vampire that is bound to do the President's will. The vampire is named Cade. The book was good, It's strong point was the plot, which was the kind that made you want to scream for a sequel and kept you turning the pages (even though I wouldn't call it a page turner). It delivered story telling at its best.
However, Christopher Farnsworth used some very clichéd devices. Zach is a newcomer to working with the President's vampire, so he has to get it all explained to him (and the reader). This is a writer's escape route; if a writer resorts to making the main character a newcomer to the process that is central to the plot, it means, they aren't imaginative enough to explain it in some other way. Also, there's a character named Griff, and he is the veteran, who has been working with Cade since the seventies, and as soon as the I found out that Zach was replacing him so he could retire, I knew he was going to die in some painful way, and he did. Now, you may be saying, "Mickey! Quit ruining the story for us," but honestly, that is the most predictable event in any book I have ever read...... ever. So it's not really a spoiler, it's an idiot test, if you didn't guess it, you're the biggest moron I've ever met, and I know some dumb people.
At the end of the day, Blood Oath is a very good read, but it would be better suited as a screenplay, which makes sense because Christopher Farnsworth is a screenplay writer. I look forward to the Blood Oath movie.
Blood Oath follows young Zach Barrows, a White House employee who gets stuck in a job protecting America from "the other side" (anything Stephen King has written about) with a vampire that is bound to do the President's will. The vampire is named Cade. The book was good, It's strong point was the plot, which was the kind that made you want to scream for a sequel and kept you turning the pages (even though I wouldn't call it a page turner). It delivered story telling at its best.
However, Christopher Farnsworth used some very clichéd devices. Zach is a newcomer to working with the President's vampire, so he has to get it all explained to him (and the reader). This is a writer's escape route; if a writer resorts to making the main character a newcomer to the process that is central to the plot, it means, they aren't imaginative enough to explain it in some other way. Also, there's a character named Griff, and he is the veteran, who has been working with Cade since the seventies, and as soon as the I found out that Zach was replacing him so he could retire, I knew he was going to die in some painful way, and he did. Now, you may be saying, "Mickey! Quit ruining the story for us," but honestly, that is the most predictable event in any book I have ever read...... ever. So it's not really a spoiler, it's an idiot test, if you didn't guess it, you're the biggest moron I've ever met, and I know some dumb people.
At the end of the day, Blood Oath is a very good read, but it would be better suited as a screenplay, which makes sense because Christopher Farnsworth is a screenplay writer. I look forward to the Blood Oath movie.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
the Fretless Bass reviews: Batman: Arkham Asylum.
I want to start off by saying, I love Batman. He is easily my favorite DC superhero, and defiantly in my top ten list. When I first heard of Arkham Asylum, I was excited, because it was getting good reviews, so here's mine.
First, I like stealth games, I'm just hardwired that way. But Batman isn't really a stealth game. Instead of hiding from your enemies, you sit on top of gargoyles and watch them move about the room like they know what they are doing with your special forensic vision googles that let you see: through walls, your enemies teal skeletons, and their heart rates. It even isolates which enemies are armed. So the question is, why would you ever not take this mode off? I'll tell you, the artwork and landscape are really good, if you leave the forensic vision on, it's like giving an entire development department the finger. So you can see through walls and no-one can find you on the gargoyles, so your not performing stealth missions, the game calls it predator, and rightly named, as one thing you notice when you play the game is that you are picking the order in which you want to take out the guards. Because of this, I would have called it not predator, but God. You can also through as many baterangs as you want. This is great, because baterangs make great distractions for the AI that is about as helpless as kitten in a dingo enclosure. Seriously, the AI in this game is among the dumbest you will ever come across in gaming. The ads made a big deal about how the AI notices the bodies of the other guards, but they only do it because the Joker tells them there's a man down on the speakers. After that, they always say the same thing "What happened?-What do we do?-shut up and find the bat!-Batman? can you hear me? show yourself!" Speaking of finding bodies, one of my favorite things to do in the game was to drop down on a thug from a gargoyle and hang him upside down by a string, then it's like a Predator came through the room, minus the skinned bodies. The combat is flowing and beautiful, they linked all the attacks to one button, which is nice, because mashing one button is what I usually do anyway. But for only one button, you have a startling amount of control of Batman while he is fighting. Another really cool thing you can do in combat is glide kicking guards, this is where you glide down to a guard and kick him in the head, reducing his brains into a gelatin. (not really, Batman has a moral compass, so he only knocks guards out, you never kill anyone in this game.) Next, detective mode, You can trace people around the Asylum by following the alcohol in his breath or traces of their tobacco, etc. The last thing I really liked was the gadgets you could use. You have an unlimited amount of uses of each of these gadgets and you are free to use any one of them at any time. Most of these gadgets are used for crossing road blocks around the asylum like fragile walls and electric barriers, but unlike most other gadget games, you don't only use each gadget once a level for the same reason over and over again. In Arkham Asylum, most of the gadgets have practical uses in the predator levels. Take, for instance, my favorite gadget, the explosive gel, normally, it is used to break down walls by spraying it on a surface, then detonating it, but if a guard is nearby when the wall explodes, he is knocked out, this is a technique I found myself using whenever possible because you could get yourself miles away from the scene, with a good vantage point for your next target. I also liked to spray the gel on top of ladders. (you fill in the blank.) The only difficulty with the gadgets was that you had to select one at a time, so when I have a giant mutant running at me full speed, instead of throwing a baterang at his head, I found myself trying to defeat him by smacking him with a cryptographic sequencer.
The list of things I don't like is short, but valid. First, the game is supposed to be part horror, but is't not scary at all, the most scary part is when you are walking around the sewers on wooden planks and Killer Croc jumps up at random times, and then you dismiss him with a single baterang. Second, as I already mentioned, the AI is stupid, third, sometimes, you need to fight genetically altered thugs that have the mass of an elephant and a desire to kill that is stronger than the Hulk. So when you fight them, you beat them by, (not kidding) side-stepping their charge so they slam into a wall. That's only been used in games about forty billion times! Fourth, whenever I wanted to get somewhere really fast, I pushed the analog stick forward as hard as I could and I found Batman strolling along like this was his morning constitutional. I'm reasonably sure this was to let the player know that Batman wasn't afraid at all, but having to hold the X button to run is a hassle, Look, if you want to walk, push the analog stick halfway forward, then the X button can be used for it's real purpose in life, jumping.
Batman Arkham Asylum is one of the best games ever made and I would recommend it to anyone over the age of eleven. I give it a 9/10.
First, I like stealth games, I'm just hardwired that way. But Batman isn't really a stealth game. Instead of hiding from your enemies, you sit on top of gargoyles and watch them move about the room like they know what they are doing with your special forensic vision googles that let you see: through walls, your enemies teal skeletons, and their heart rates. It even isolates which enemies are armed. So the question is, why would you ever not take this mode off? I'll tell you, the artwork and landscape are really good, if you leave the forensic vision on, it's like giving an entire development department the finger. So you can see through walls and no-one can find you on the gargoyles, so your not performing stealth missions, the game calls it predator, and rightly named, as one thing you notice when you play the game is that you are picking the order in which you want to take out the guards. Because of this, I would have called it not predator, but God. You can also through as many baterangs as you want. This is great, because baterangs make great distractions for the AI that is about as helpless as kitten in a dingo enclosure. Seriously, the AI in this game is among the dumbest you will ever come across in gaming. The ads made a big deal about how the AI notices the bodies of the other guards, but they only do it because the Joker tells them there's a man down on the speakers. After that, they always say the same thing "What happened?-What do we do?-shut up and find the bat!-Batman? can you hear me? show yourself!" Speaking of finding bodies, one of my favorite things to do in the game was to drop down on a thug from a gargoyle and hang him upside down by a string, then it's like a Predator came through the room, minus the skinned bodies. The combat is flowing and beautiful, they linked all the attacks to one button, which is nice, because mashing one button is what I usually do anyway. But for only one button, you have a startling amount of control of Batman while he is fighting. Another really cool thing you can do in combat is glide kicking guards, this is where you glide down to a guard and kick him in the head, reducing his brains into a gelatin. (not really, Batman has a moral compass, so he only knocks guards out, you never kill anyone in this game.) Next, detective mode, You can trace people around the Asylum by following the alcohol in his breath or traces of their tobacco, etc. The last thing I really liked was the gadgets you could use. You have an unlimited amount of uses of each of these gadgets and you are free to use any one of them at any time. Most of these gadgets are used for crossing road blocks around the asylum like fragile walls and electric barriers, but unlike most other gadget games, you don't only use each gadget once a level for the same reason over and over again. In Arkham Asylum, most of the gadgets have practical uses in the predator levels. Take, for instance, my favorite gadget, the explosive gel, normally, it is used to break down walls by spraying it on a surface, then detonating it, but if a guard is nearby when the wall explodes, he is knocked out, this is a technique I found myself using whenever possible because you could get yourself miles away from the scene, with a good vantage point for your next target. I also liked to spray the gel on top of ladders. (you fill in the blank.) The only difficulty with the gadgets was that you had to select one at a time, so when I have a giant mutant running at me full speed, instead of throwing a baterang at his head, I found myself trying to defeat him by smacking him with a cryptographic sequencer.
The list of things I don't like is short, but valid. First, the game is supposed to be part horror, but is't not scary at all, the most scary part is when you are walking around the sewers on wooden planks and Killer Croc jumps up at random times, and then you dismiss him with a single baterang. Second, as I already mentioned, the AI is stupid, third, sometimes, you need to fight genetically altered thugs that have the mass of an elephant and a desire to kill that is stronger than the Hulk. So when you fight them, you beat them by, (not kidding) side-stepping their charge so they slam into a wall. That's only been used in games about forty billion times! Fourth, whenever I wanted to get somewhere really fast, I pushed the analog stick forward as hard as I could and I found Batman strolling along like this was his morning constitutional. I'm reasonably sure this was to let the player know that Batman wasn't afraid at all, but having to hold the X button to run is a hassle, Look, if you want to walk, push the analog stick halfway forward, then the X button can be used for it's real purpose in life, jumping.
Batman Arkham Asylum is one of the best games ever made and I would recommend it to anyone over the age of eleven. I give it a 9/10.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)