I'm embarrassed to admit it, but when I bought this game, I didn't accurately read the label, and thought it was Modern Warfare 2. I am, however, not sorry I made that mistake, because Modern Warfare was the best FPS I have ever played.
I have one more thing to get off my chest, I'm sick of the usual way of reviewing things, so I'm going to devote the next two parts of the review to what Modern Warfare did right, and what it did wrong.
The following facts are everything that made me love Modern Warfare. The story mode wasn't pathetic. In most war games I have played, the developers focused most of their time on the multiplayer mode, and since I can't play online due to my pathetic internet service, I have been stuck with a story mode that measures up to banging your head against a wall every time somebody yelled "give me some covering fire!" or, "Tango down!" So the story mode is fun, it's long enough to satisfy, and short enough so it doesn't get aggravating. Second, you feel like you form a bond with some of the characters, that way, when one of them dies, you actually get mad, charge the enemy, and get yourself killed. Third and finally, the controls are simple, and you don't ever superglue yourself to a wall when you only want to take cover. In many shooters, you press a button to take cover, and your character promptly welds himself to the nearest wall. In Modern Warfare, you just crouch behind a box, or a chest high wall, or just stand behind a door, AND IT WORKS! It still doesn't hold a candle to the cover system in Call of Juarez, but it's better than the cover system in Uncharted, and Fracture. These two games represent both extremes in shooter cover. In Uncharted, when you take cover, you weld, duct tape, superglue, and tie yourself to a wall. In Fracture, there is no cover.
Now for what Modern Warfare did wrong. First, the main character, "Soap" MacTavish, is a silent protagonist. That alone would only be a minor offense, but then the game tries to get you to care about Soap, and you don't, I cared more about the support characters, because they had personalities. Second, I couldn't understand the plot. I said the story mode was fun in the previous paragraph, but I didn't say I knew what was going on. The ultimate goal was simple, you point the gun at terrorists, press R1, and the terrorists die, but the first few levels were a haze of bullets, Russians, and people talking about nuclear missiles that where on a boat? Or were they in mexico? No, I got it, they were being transported into new york by being smuggled with the circus.
So at the end of this review, If you haven't bought Modern Warfare, you should, and as soon as I can, I'm going to buy the sequel. This game is a gem among a field of bad FPS's, and No one can convince me otherwise. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go smack around an informant that was going to tell me about the release of Blues Brothers 3.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
the Fretless Bass reviews: The Town
I'm glad I saw The Town before I finished The Prince of Thieves, because now I can enjoy them both. Never read a book because it's movie is coming out, and if you do, see the movie before you finish the book, because most book-movies would be good as stand alone films, but don't hold a candle to the paper version, so they get crucified. If you see the movie first, you enjoy it, and then you read the book and like that too, everyone wins.
The Town did a lot of things right, Ben Affleck had a good Boston accent, it was filmed on-location, and they didn't overdo the violence. The thing I really liked about The Town is how they made a real effort to make the city a part of the film, which would result in locals liking it more. Being from the Boston area, I can tell you that they shot all the public-set scenes in Boston, because nowhere else in America are the streets so narrow.
Now to the meat of the review. The Town is about a career bank robber who falls in love with a woman he took hostage in one of his hold ups, and decides he wants to get out, which of course is not as easy to do as it sounds.
The thing that made me really like the film, along with the interlacing with the city itself, was how they made most of the characters in a moral gray zone. There's your main character Doug. He's a bank robber, but he has a heart of gold. Then you have your FBI agent that's hot on his tail, he's doing the right thing, but he is willing to do anything and everything to catch Doug. It shows us that crime and crime fighting aren't black and white.
Normally by this time I would be prepping to verbally assassinate the movie, but The Town only has one fatal flaw, it portrays Boston and Charlestown in a bad light. The movie refers to Boston as "the bank robbery capital of the world" which it is not. It also portrays Charlestown as a place where all the crime in New England is centered, I happen to know this is also not true. I have a family member who used to live in Charlestown, and whether you were in crimeville depended on if you were in the projects or not.
To sum up a review, I'm going to buy The Town on DVD, that's how much I liked it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go snuff some Cheerios.
The Town did a lot of things right, Ben Affleck had a good Boston accent, it was filmed on-location, and they didn't overdo the violence. The thing I really liked about The Town is how they made a real effort to make the city a part of the film, which would result in locals liking it more. Being from the Boston area, I can tell you that they shot all the public-set scenes in Boston, because nowhere else in America are the streets so narrow.
Now to the meat of the review. The Town is about a career bank robber who falls in love with a woman he took hostage in one of his hold ups, and decides he wants to get out, which of course is not as easy to do as it sounds.
The thing that made me really like the film, along with the interlacing with the city itself, was how they made most of the characters in a moral gray zone. There's your main character Doug. He's a bank robber, but he has a heart of gold. Then you have your FBI agent that's hot on his tail, he's doing the right thing, but he is willing to do anything and everything to catch Doug. It shows us that crime and crime fighting aren't black and white.
Normally by this time I would be prepping to verbally assassinate the movie, but The Town only has one fatal flaw, it portrays Boston and Charlestown in a bad light. The movie refers to Boston as "the bank robbery capital of the world" which it is not. It also portrays Charlestown as a place where all the crime in New England is centered, I happen to know this is also not true. I have a family member who used to live in Charlestown, and whether you were in crimeville depended on if you were in the projects or not.
To sum up a review, I'm going to buy The Town on DVD, that's how much I liked it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go snuff some Cheerios.
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Event will never be as good as 24 or Lost.
I have heard people saying that The Event will be the fusion of Lost and 24. Well it won't be, because that show was already made, it was called Flash Forward, and it had all the action of 24, and the plot of Lost, brilliantly mixed together.
The Event is good, it may even become a hit, but in my heart, it will never replace the show I know and loved, and then lost.
The one thing I really don't like about The Event is how the protagonist is always yelling "where is my girlfriend!?" That just sounds bad. Especially to people my age when the terms "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are used very casually. What I'm trying to say is that when people see the ad, they don't care as much as they would if he was yelling "I want my family back!" in a glorious Harrison Ford style. You care more when you actually watch the show and you find out he was going to propose to her.
My final grievance: the show is obviously trying too hard to be 24 and Lost, they have an honest, black president, rouge electro-magnetic busts, and lots of stubble.
Sorry, The Event, but you don't come close to any of the shows you wanted to mime. Who knows? I might be eating my words in a few months, and if I do, I'll be sure to pretend I had predicted it the whole time, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go mourn for my dead shame.
The Event is good, it may even become a hit, but in my heart, it will never replace the show I know and loved, and then lost.
The one thing I really don't like about The Event is how the protagonist is always yelling "where is my girlfriend!?" That just sounds bad. Especially to people my age when the terms "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are used very casually. What I'm trying to say is that when people see the ad, they don't care as much as they would if he was yelling "I want my family back!" in a glorious Harrison Ford style. You care more when you actually watch the show and you find out he was going to propose to her.
My final grievance: the show is obviously trying too hard to be 24 and Lost, they have an honest, black president, rouge electro-magnetic busts, and lots of stubble.
Sorry, The Event, but you don't come close to any of the shows you wanted to mime. Who knows? I might be eating my words in a few months, and if I do, I'll be sure to pretend I had predicted it the whole time, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go mourn for my dead shame.
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