Star Trek Into Darkness(2013)

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch

Directed By: J.J. Abrams

(Relatively Spoiler Free)

Warning: I was always a Star Wars kid. I was aware of Star Trek growing up, but the concept didn’t really appeal to me until 2009, when the reboot shot into theaters. Fast paced with a great plot and cast, it was everything that I wanted from the Star Wars prequels but didn’t get. Once the credits rolled, I was so eager for another adventure that I went back and watched a handful of the films and a large chunk of the original series and Next Generation (thank you Netflix). But that still wasn’t enough. I was dying to see what else J.J. Abrams had planned for Kirk and his crew. After four long years, the wait is finally over.

Star Trek Into Darkness wastes no time getting back into the groove of its predecessor. From the opening moments we see the entire Enterprise crew on a mission to study a developing race on a jungle planet. Of course, things go awry when they interfere with the planet’s volcano, exposing their ship to the native inhabitants, who mistake the spacecraft for a god after witnessing it rise from the ocean.  This break from the “prime directive” puts James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Quinto) into hot water with Starfleet yet again, demoting one and stationing the other on a separate vessel. However, after an attack from within from the mysterious John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), Kirk and Spock are placed back on board the Enterprise with one mission: find Harrison and blast him out of existence.

Yes, this mission goes against Starfleet protocols, and many of the crew have varying feelings about the mission. Simon Pegg’s Scotty has an excellent scene where he argues with his captain over the morals of their mission, and the always logical Spock is at odds with his best bro many times throughout the film. The overlying not so subtle message behind the film is “how far should one be willing to go for justice?”, and leads to some great moments in the film, of which there are plenty. The action scenes, while probably infuriating for Trek purists, are a blast, and easily upstage the ones we saw last time with Kirk and Co.

The cast is in top form here, even if some of them get the short end of the stick screen appearance wise. Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) have maybe twenty minutes of screen time combined, and I really wanted more of Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), my favorite of the crew. Even though he only gets to spout off a few one liners, they’re still great and some of the best parts of the film. Uhura’s (Zoe Saldana) profile has risen since the past film, and she gets to kick some ass in the finale of the film too.

Our newcomers to the cast are Alice Eve as Carol Markus, Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus, and  Benedict Cumberbatch as our mystery villain, John Harrison. Of the three, Cumberbatch is easily the stand out. His performance exceeded my expectations, which were already high. My hopes that the Sherlock star will gain a higher following after this film will most likely be realized, as I’m sure his agent is fielding calls for villainous roles to keep him busy for the next few years. Cumberbatch is calm, cool, and extremely menacing in a performance that will stay with you for quite awhile after the credits roll. No one can do righteous fury as well as he does.

Into Darkness does have a few problems, specifically when it comes to balancing the amount of characters it has. I mentioned it before, but there were some that get pushed aside for the sake of the  story, including Alice Eve’s character. The conclusion to the film is a little rushed, but the moments leading up to it are fantastic. Abrams’ makes some nods to a very well-known installment in the franchise which is causing a lot of debate amongst viewers.  I, for one, thought it was a cool acknowledgement of the past of the franchise that put an interesting twist on this new, alternate reality. Some things may play out similarly, out of sequence, or not at all.

Longtime Trek fans are pretty split on their opinions with this film (just like the previous one). Many feel that this doesn’t feel like the Star Trek they’ve followed for much of their lives. While I can certainly see where they’re coming from, I’ve loved this new take on the franchise, and it’s done the impossible: gotten me to care about Star Trek in all of its forms.  My views on the film are coming from the place of a Trek newbie, one who has only a base understanding of the world and characters.  While purists may scoff at Abrams turning the franchise into “just another Sci-Fi action flick”, I admire him for taking something that many had written off and turned in not one, but two stellar films.

Star Trek Into Darkness is bittersweet. J.J. Abrams has jumped ship to his preferred Star franchise,(the one ends with Wars), and the future of the franchise is up in the air. While I’m in the same position as I was four years ago, I’m now more cautious about the third installment.

But at least I know that Episode 7  is in good hands.

Verdict: 5 proton torpedoes out of 5

MOVIE REVIEW!!!

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Sir Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce

Directed by: Shane Black

Any film being released after The Avengers was going to face an uphill battle. Luckily for us, Tony Stark has never been one to worry about following anyone’s act. Finally facing off with his main villain The Mandarin, Iron Man 3 is not only the first film after Earth’s Mightiest Heroes took over the box office, but also the start of Marvel Studio’s “phase two” films.  So, as the start of the next block of films that will include Captain America: The Winter Solider, Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians Of The Galaxy, does Iron Man 3 start strong out of the gate, or are we in for a rocky road to Avengers 2?

Well, I can say this: it’s great, even with the weird plot twist that has already divided Iron Man fans right down the middle.

Taking place after the events of The Avengers, Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) latest adventure finds him still coming to terms from the events of the New York City attack that brought the team together. He can’t sleep; instead doing everything he can to keep himself busy. When he starts having panic attacks, his closest allies, including now girlfriend Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow) and James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), start to take notice of his moods and worry about him. Not only that, but he also has to deal with Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) moving in on Stark Industries with his controversial Extremis project, a biological computer component that amps up disabled and injured citizens, but with a side effect that causes them to become insanely powerful cyborg hybrids.  But, when a terrorist named The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) starts attacking points in the United States, Tony has to take notice, especially when Happy Hogan (Jon Farvreau) is caught in the blast.

Iron Man 3 crams a lot of plot into its reels, and at two and a half hours it definitely strains, especially in the middle act of the film. However, there’s more action in this film than in the previous two solo Stark adventures. There’s plenty of things to keep viewers interested, but there’s that twist I mentioned that I have…. mixed feelings about.

It’s hard to explain it here, especially with this being relatively spoiler free, but its a divisive twist that I’m sure you’ve probably heard some sort of news about it. Even if you don’t know the specifics of it, you probably know who or what it revolves around. I myself found it to be pretty disappointing at first, but then pretty hilarious as it went on. I should’ve probably prefaced this with the fact that I’m a casual Iron Man fan and only really started regularly reading him after the first movie, so my opinion on this particular twist will most definitely differ from a die hard shell head fan.

Outside of the twist, I found the rest of the film to be very enjoyable. Director Shane Black, who previously helmed Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, does an excellent job balancing the humor and action one expects from an Iron Man film, though there are times where it seems like the film goes too far into the broad comedy area.

However, all things are washed away in the action packed finale, which more than makes up for the lack of concluding action in the previous Iron Man films. I myself found this third installment of the Tony Stark saga to be better than Iron Man 2, but not as good as the first time we met Tony Stark.  Still, at this point, if you’ve seen everything other Marvel Studio film, you’re going to see this one too. As long as you’re not too beholden to some aspects of the Iron Man character, you’ll have a good time.

Final Verdict:

Four and half repulsor blasts out of Five

ALSO:

It seems like it should be a well-known fact at this point, but there’s an after credits stinger that I found to be a lot of fun. So, even if you’re ready to bolt or the large soda you chugged halfway through the movie is hitting you, make sure you stick it out. It’s well worth it.

Wow. It’s FINALLY here. I’ve been waiting for four years almost to the day to cram new rock into my earholes from my favourite band, HIM. Their latest effort, TEARS ON TAPE, is an out and out fantastic tour through time that borrows a bit from everything the band has previously recorded and rolls into one supremely coherent and fun sounding record. The band has obviously learned something each time they’ve released a new record and this one almost feels like the culmination of a lifetime of experimentation. It’s very clear right from the beginning that the frontman and chief songwriter, Ville Valo, was drawing influences from a multitude of other artists and previous work but none of the sounds seem “ripped off” even the slightest bit. Everything that the band does seems new and different somehow and I was delighted to discover a wide range of musical influences that were in a constant state of flux as the record progressed.

I will not say that this is my all time favourite HIM record (that honour goes to 2004′s DARK LIGHT) but TEARS ON TAPE is extremely well put together. The opening song (after a short instrumental prelude) is also one of their first singles, “All Lips Go Blue,” does a really good job taking the listener back to the beginning. The fast deep driving guitar reminds me a lot of some of the work on RAZORBLADE ROMANCE. There’s very clearly an influx of Billy Idol involved here as some of Valo’s lyrics feel a BIT 80′s pop/rock but certainly not in a bad way. Let’s face it: who doesn’t love a little “Rebel Yell” on their drive home after a long day? The guitar layering is particularly strong througout the entire record which allows the band to play up sounds from keyboardist Emerson Burton and bassist Migé Amour in a way we haven’t heard since DARK LIGHT or even before in DEEP SHADOWS AND BRILLIANT HIGHLIGHTS.

I think my favourite aspect of this album, though, has to be the variety of sounds we get while still keeping with a coherent record. One song you might have a particularly strong Black Sabbath-esque guitar sound and the next you might have a softer, almost acoustic, Neil Diamond riff. Valo makes frequent use of instrumental interludes over the course of this record to tie everything together. What’s interesting about this is, unlike many other records, it doesn’t make the record feel disjointed. On the contrary, the interludes fit right into the overall “story” of the record as a whole. Of late, the only other band I can think of that has been successful with this on any level is Sixx:A.M. and frankly theirs served a somewhat different purpose.

I’ve yet to meet a HIM song that I honestly don’t care for but there WAS a few problems with this record. First of all on the song “Drawn and Quartered,” the mixing seems a bit off. Throughout the entire song, there’s a weird gurgling effect that makes everything sound like it’s coming from under water. I thought for a minute that it might have been caused by a side-effect of listening on vinyl record (already, several of the songs had skipped) but when I played it back via an internet link, it seemed to do the same thing. The same holds true for the ordering of the tracks. Earlier, I said that the album is sort of a HIM retrospective but it doesn’t go in order. It starts off with sounds from early records like RAZORBLADE ROMANCE but shortly skips to SCREAMWORKS and goes back to LOVE METAL towards the end of the record. That’s certainly not a bad thing considering that most of the time when I’m listening to HIM, it comes up on iTunes random and all the songs are REALLY well composed but listening to the record as a coherent whole is a bit jarring when the songs don’t line up the way you want them to. On the whole, TEARS ON TAPE is an excellent example of how HIM works as a band and how enjoyable their recordings are. I’m excited to see more from HIM in the future and we’ll catch up with them on tour soon! I give this album 4 heartagrams out of 5 and I’m off to go give it another listen!

The newest episode of the Laser Time podcast network’s “Cape Crisis” comic book podcast just made me feel really old. Their topic of discussion was the 2003 Ben Affleck starring Daredevil, which as of this past Valentine’s Day is a decade old. Instantly I started to reflect on where I was when that film came out. To give you an idea, I was currently in Driver’s Ed when I saw the film with my dad and brother. In fact, if memory serves, I probably drove them all to the movie so I could get the driving practice in. Not only did this make me feel incredibly old, but it also made me realize that after thinking about it, Daredevil isn’t really all that bad. Sure, there are some ridiculously cartoony moments (like the playground sparring match between Matt Murdock and Elektra), but I really like Michael Clark Duncan’s Kingpin and Colin Farrell’s Bullseye. Hell, to be completely honest, I don’t mind Affleck as Daredevil either.

Perhaps it’s because there’s been a huge amount of comic book movies since ol’ hornhead hit the silver screen that my feelings towards the film have changed. Daredevil was one of the first comic book movies, right on the heels of Singer’s first X-Men film and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. While it can be argued that it was the first one to fail with fans, I think it should also be noted that it’s not as bad as it’s perceived to be, especially when you compare it to the cinematic outings that came after it, like Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and *shudder* Jonah Hex. Yeah, it’s not great, and the soundtrack is pretty god awful, but there’s a lot of cool moments in the film, and for the first time it made me understand Daredevil’s powers.  Plus, I thought a lot of the fight scenes were well done and pretty, the exception being the aforemented goofy playground fight with matt Murdock and Elektra.

Mark Stephen Johnson’s film (which was his first and best film) easily sits with other underrated comic book movies like Constantine, The Rocketeer, and Spawn. Sure, a lot of these take liberties with the source material (Constantine especially), but these films really don’t deserve the hate that they get.  Setting up Elektra for her own (terrible) movie was probably it’s biggest offense, as it cuts out a really interesting subplot where Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson have to defend a man whom Murdock knows is guilty. Thankfully, this sequence was re-inserted into the director’s cut DVD, which is required viewing for haters of the film. If you watch that and can’t at least see that it’s an improvement over the theatrical cut, then the movie’s not for you.

Marvel recently got the film rights to Daredevil back from Fox, and it’s my hope that they can spin him into his own successful franchise, or even take him to the TV screen. If Arrow can be a monster hit, then there’s no reason why Daredevil can’t be. Half the shows on television are already law dramas, why not make one stand out and have the lawyer also fight crime? If not then, you could have Matt Murdock show up on S.H.I.E.L.D. as a character’s lawyer, or even in one of the cinematic outings. How awesome would it be to have Banner hulk out and be put on trial, and Murdock walks in as his defense lawyer? While I admit I’m new to the Daredevil bandwagon (I only just read the Bendis and Brubaker runs this year), he’s a character that deserves a bigger spotlight, and sure, a better movie. But give the old one a spin, and compare it to some of the terrible movies I mentioned earlier. Maybe you’ll see that you were a little too hard on it when you first saw it.

This holiday season, Funcom’s latest MMO, The Secret World finally went subscription-free, which inspired me to check it out. Admittedly, I needed very little encouragement. I played during the Beta and during a free weekend a while back and I was already sold on the concept- I just couldn’t justify paying the monthly fees. I was actually going to spring for the lifetime subscription package when it first came out- but in spite of my enthusiasm for the title I knew that the cost of the lifetime subscription package was equivalent to about 2 years worth of subscription fees, and I absolutely did not expect the game to last even a year on the pay-to-play model.

Lo’ and behold, less than a year later their publisher has dropped the monthly fees. Now, that $260 that pre-order customers spent on lifetime subscriptions buys you a few special privelages every month. Worth it? Maybe if you’ve got the cash to throw away. There are plenty of things that make me glad I didn’t drop all that money during the pre-order. For example, there are still a lot of strange, highly visible glitches that ought to have been worked out at launch, or at least before the first expansion pack. Weapons sometimes disappear from the player’s hands or from their back. Characters in cut-scenes sometimes fail to animate or jump into the T pose for no reason. They’re the kind of bugs that should have been worked out in Beta.

Having said that, I want to make it clear that I absolutely love this game and am incredibly excited to be able to play it for free. While the cinematic main quests do not all have the branching dialog and multiple endings that the quests in The Old Republic do, the style of storytelling achieves the same thing: I feel involved in the world as I play.

I think that this is one element of MMO design that will stick around far into the future. Just as in The Old Republic, there is a central story to each area you explore, complete with cinematic cut scenes to get you immersed in what you are doing. Compared to TOR, TSW has fewer cut scenes, reserving these for main-quest intros. Turning in a quest will rarely, if ever, earn you a cut-scene, and most side quests get you a few lines of spoken dialog and a bit of text that goes into more detail about the specifics of your mission.

Don’t knock the side-quests, though: while they obviously don’t have the same budget as the side-quests in The Old Republic, they manage to be some of the most compelling experiences in the game. My favorite, a class of quests called “Investigation” quests, challenge the player to puzzle out clues in order to complete quest objectives. This has thus far involved a range of activities from guessing someone’s password using a set of clues to locating a treasure by converting the duration of a dead npc’s favorite songs into geographical coordinates. Many of them make me feel like I’m playing an adventure game- which isn’t surprising as the creative director was a lead designer for The Longest Journey and other popular games in the “Modern Adventure” genre. They really make you think of the game as existing within a world, as something more than just your stats and your level. Most of these side quests are found as you explore the world, which makes the player feel like they are being rewarded for their exploration.

TSW also boasts the only escort quest I have ever enjoyed. The girl you are escorting essentially acts as a voice in your ear. I don’t even know if she even takes damage, but she doesn’t set off traps and I never ran into a situation where she was wounded and needed my help. She did, however, provide useful information and a little bit of background chatter. Compare this to any other escort quest ever and it looks like shiny gold. Furthermore the quest was optional, skippable and totally easy to abandon on a whim if you feel like it. It also had what I’m pretty sure was a moral choice at the end of it. I’ll get back to you on that.

Finally, the skill wheel is something worth mentioning in any review of The Secret World. Modern MMOs like to force the player into a single class, and then give them several options to define their role within that class. TSW uses a different approach, where you are allowed to equip any weapon in the game, at which point you can use abilities associated with that weapon – if you have unlocked them (which is done through leveling by completing quests and killing monsters). Interestingly, you can have up to two weapons equipped at any given time, but you are limited in the number of active and passive abilities you can have equipped at once, so equipping two weapons forces you to mix and match between them. Passive abilities, however, may not always require you to have their associated weapon equipped which makes for some interesting opportunities. Basic skills are easy to unlock, while advanced skills take a lot more work. You could easily achieve basic mastery of all the low level skills for each weapon set, but you will have to play through several quests in a row in order to save up enough for the advanced skills. Ability Points (earned as you gain XP) are used to purchase skills and are universal- if I gain AP using my shotgun, I don’t have to spend it on shotgun skills. This means that if I decide to branch out into a new type of weapon later in the game, I do not have to re-play the starting levels to do so, as if I were starting my character over from scratch.

If you got anything from this review, it should be that TSW is worth checking out. You still have to pay $30 for the base game, but it is worth the price of admission.

Okay, I’ll be honest, while I LOVED the Lord of the Rings film trilogy when it first came out, I hadn’t, until recently at the request of my lovely girlfriend, watched it in almost six years following my first experience with Clerks II. Kevin Smith summarized the trilogy so well (albeit vicariously through Jeff Anderson), that I felt no desire to watch them again. For AGES I would arrive at my DVD shelf, pull the disk off the shelf and stare at it for upwards of half-an-hour before ultimately replacing it and grabbing Star Wars instead. That all changed following the announcement of The Hobbit as a prequel series. That’s not to say I wasn’t a bit put off by certain parts of the announcement. For example WHY THE HELL does it need to be any more than ONE film? Frankly, I think that’s a question that we’re all asking ourselves right about now and HOPEFULLY, this review will help shed some light on what MIGHT be something of an answer.

For any who aren’t aware, ‘The Hobbit’ is a fantasy tale from J. R. R. Tolkien now adapted for cinema by the same man responsible for adapting Tolkien’s longer ‘Lord of the Rings’ work a few years ago, Mr. Peter Jackson. The story follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman of BBC’s ‘The Office’) as he tags along behind Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and a gaggle of dwarfs as they quest to reclaim their home from the villainous dragon Smaug (voice of Benedict Cumberbatch). ‘The Hobbit’ was no small undertaking as Jackson and Wingnut Films have elected to split the one book into THREE films and include material from much of Tolkien’s lesser known works. Owing in part, I’m sure, to the fact that much of this work was published by Tolkien’s son after the elder Tolkien’s death, it has sparked no small amount of controversy amongst ‘Rings’ die-hards, myself included. In short, Jackson has proven, once again, that he is up to the challenge and is determined to surprise even the hardest skeptic. So let’s get into it, shall we?

With ‘Rings,’ I was, as I am with most films, able to pick out some points that I am not particularly pleased with considering today’s standards. I know. It’s been the better part of a decade since the trilogy first presented itself to us and technology has come quite a surprising distance. Regardless, looking at films even like ‘The Hunger Games’ it’s pretty easy to illustrate where ‘Rings’ fell short in terms of CGI. I was happy to see that much of these problems had been addressed in ‘The Hobbit.’ Most prominently in my mind was Gollum (Andy Serkis reprising his role from the original trilogy). Although he plays a VERY small role in the general overall story this time around, I noticed that he actually looked somewhat natural in his environment this time. There was no unnatural halo around any of the CGI characters this time and it all felt to fit together much better.

My biggest fear when I heard that they were making ‘The Hobbit’ though was not the art. Frankly, I think I’d still have given the film high visual marks even if they hadn’t changed a thing from the first go-around. My dad puts it best: “The Hobbit was originally written as a bedtime story. An adventure. It’s not a war story. ‘Lord of the Rings’ came after and caused a subsequent rewrite to the original source material.” He’s right. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the original text for ‘The Hobbit’ as a children’s story. Intended to be read to children in hospital. The ring wasn’t originally supposed to have any significance other than to make protagonist, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), invisible. Peter Jackson did such a fantastic job on ‘Rings’ with the epic battle sequences and whatnot that I was, justifiably I believe, nervous that he would try to turn the film into that as well. Now here’s where we get into why the films are being split into three parts. Dwarfs. I’ve been a fan of the Dwarfs ever since I first read ‘The Hobbit’ in fourth grade. My favourite was always whomever was telling a story at any given time. Much of the personality of the Dwarfs is illustrated through their love of storytelling. Is it necessary? Not at all. If I’d been in charge of cutting scenes, the film could have been done as a one-shot. But at this point, following especially Jackson’s botched attempt at remaking ‘King Kong’ we should be well aware of his absurd fascination with detail. Each event not covered by the original text, is illustrated through a story from one character or another. And there’s loads of information to cover. They only really touch on the events to come (that we’ve already seen) once or twice but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the foreshadowing. These references and conversations (many of which can be found in ‘The Book of Lost Tales’) add length to the film but not in a way that makes it unbearable. It just adds content and something that most casual fans wouldn’t get.

Okay, so it’s not another ‘Rings’ movie. It’s MUCH lighter in spirit. Sure there are some unnerving scenes. A couple battles (again told through Dwarf stories) and some pretty tense exchanges between Bilbo and Gollum. But that’s great. Jackson really shows off his filmmaking chops here in his ability to recognize a shift in tone and capture it just as well. In the end, yes, it’s just a fourth film of “a bunch of people walking to a flipping volcano” (or mountain in this case) but everything is just so much FUN! There’s no underlying terror to contend with. Honestly, it just feels good to be back in New Zeland and watching a bunch of familiar faces banter with each other once again. Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, and Hugo Weaving are just a few of the LotR alums who return and all fit in splendidly. I was impressed and once again, I have to give the IMAX people kudos for actually making 3D work. So how was it? I’m sure Jon will have something to add once he gets around to seeing it but I’m going to give it four hairy feet out of five. Not perfect, but REALLY close. You’ll get excited, you’ll laugh, you’ll almost DEFINITELY cry. Go see it. Seriously. You won’t regret a minute.

This past weekend, a few of us here at ALD got ourselves involved in the FireFall public beta. Our overall impression was that FireFall is an enjoyable, action packed MMOFPS that manages to create exciting game play while maintaining accessability for new players.

Unlike its main competitor, Planetside 2, it does not pit you against your fellow players as part of the core gameplay. The majority of the game focuses on PVE, and includes a healthy selection of quests to play through, as well as a more open-world inspired “take-and-hold” challenge where players fight against a hostile alien force to claim outposts. The focus on PVE really makes FireFall more forgiving for new players. The combat controls are not complex either, which also makes the game more accessible. Having said that, the game offers a PVP mode that we frankly weren’t inclined to try out. We were just having too much fun.

The game uses classes, but one of the features we really liked is that it allows the player to purchase access to multiple classes on the same character by collecting a mineral called Crystite. This mineral can be used to purchase new suits, which can be equipped to alter your character’s base abilities, effectively changing your class. When you gain experience, it goes into a pool for that specific suit. Unlike Planetside 2, those points aren’t shared in a general pool- points you earn while wearing one suit can not be used to improve another suit. This keeps you from farming experience in a maxed out suit and spending it on a new one. Ultimately that was probably a good decision, and adds a level of replayability to the game – without requiring you to create a whole new character every time you want to try out a new class.

So far, a number of the classes feel like they have a distinct role (which is good!) but others, such as the Juggernaut, feel somewhat contradictory and don’t exactly fit anywhere. For example, the Juggernaut’s “Turret Mode” locks your character in place but lets you deal extra damage. Unfortunately, it makes you a stationary target in a game where movement is very important, and the Juggernaut doesn’t have the health to survive long that way.

The quests in FireFall left something to be desired in the Weekend Beta. It was difficult to figure out what to do once the initial quest was over. Interestingly, after that weekend beta things got considerably better. It may be that the weekend beta was limited to the starting quest. The story isn’t particularly compelling as far as we’ve played, but the voice acting is well done and quest objectives are pretty clear and easy to decipher.

The only real trouble we had was with the menu interface. It is extremely unintuitive, and could probably benefit from being replaced with a radial menu of some sort. I haven’t yet had a chance to rant about my irrational hatred for radial menus as of yet, but let’s just say that if I’m suggesting replacing a UI with radial menus then there’s something severely wrong with that UI. Honestly, the interface they’ve designed would be great if it were all connected. I should be able to open up a main menu (say by hitting the escape key?) and navigate to any other game menu from there. The fact that I can’t was infuriating. Hotkeys should be an option, not a requirement. I shouldn’t have to memorize them to get where I’m going and the fact that I did have to do that drove me bonkers.

Overall, I’d say this game is absolutely worth checking out. It’s got enough action packed entertainment to keep you playing for hours and is well worth investigating. Expect more news when the game launches (launch date TBD).

Skyfall (2012)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw

Directed By: Sam Mendes

Bond is back! After what felt like a lifetime ago, Skyfall brings James Bond back to the big screen in a big way, crafting one of the best Bond films in the Brit spy’s history, and easily the best Bond of the Craig era. Yes, even better than Casino Royale.
I’ll try to keep this one SPOILER FREE where I can, or at least give you guys a head’s up before I get too into the nity gritty.

Following a botched mission, James Bond(Daniel Craig) is presumed dead. Of course, when he hears of a terrorist attack on MI6 headquarters, he reappears to help M (Judi Dench) and his fellow agents track down Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), cyberterroist with ties to M’s past. What follows are spectacular action set pieces, awesome nods to the cinematic history of  James Bond, and phenomenal performances throughout the film.
I would be remiss to no highlight Javier Bardem’s turn as Silva. He’s not only the best Bond villain, but one of the best villains in the history of cinema. This performance is so good that it really makes the movie, and he doesn’t even show up for the first hour of the movie! Silva is creepy, frightening, hilarious, intriguing, and intimidating all at once, and Bardem completely gives the role his all. His introduction is one of the film highlights of the year, and will easily be imitated for years to come.

Daniel Craig is no slouch as Bond either. Its great to see him back playing the character, and Craig seems to be having the most fun he’s had as Bond with this film. Between the fight scenes, chase sequences, and dramatic moments, Craig deftly handles everything the movie asks of him, including some great scenes involving Bond’s back story, something that hasn’t really been covered in any previous 007 films.
Skyfall also reintroduces viewers to Q, Bond’s long time gadget guy who was absent from the previous Craig films. Instead of an eldery statesman though, Q is now a young gadget geek played by Ben Whishaw. I didn’t really know what to expect from him, but the scenes he shares with Craig are great, and will remind long time Bond fans of the glory days of Desmond Llewelyn chastising Sean Connery/Roger Moore/ Pierce Brosnan. Other new comers include Naomie Harris as a fellow MI6 agent and Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory, a liaison for the Prime Minister brought in to help assist with the terror attacks in London.

Sam Mendes does a fantastic job behind the camera. Directing a Bond film is no easy task, even when you don’t take into account that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the character.  Mendes balances the action and quieter moments deftly, and has in turn crafted one of the best 007 adventures to ever be seen on the screen. There have been many comparisons between this and The Dark Knight, which is apt. However, Skyfall never copies Nolan’s masterpiece, however, it’s very clearly inspired by it.

Bond travels to only two locations in the entire film, and much of the rest takes place in London, a welcome change to the established “Bond formula”.  In fact, Skyfall takes much of the tried and true Bond tropes and shakes them up. There are a lot of new changes that occur in this film, but they all end up with a Bond that’s very similar to the one we know and love. Perhaps that’s why this film is so well done: it celebrates the long heritage of this character, yet creates a whole new starting point as well. Welcome back Mr. Bond. Let’s hope your next assignment doesn’t keep you away too long.

Verdict:

Five Vodka Martinis out of Five

There’s way too much awesome stuff that’s coming our way in the next few months. With the amount of movies, comic books, video games, and television available to us, how is one to know what exactly is worth our anticipation and what should be ignored?

Well fear not, cause I’m here to help you sort out the cool from the crap! Let’s start off with some moviefilms that are just around the corner:

MOVIES:

Skyfall

Sure, there’s a glutton of movies coming our way in the next few months, but none of them hold a candle to Skyfall. It’s been four years since Quantum Of Solace, which is far too long for Bond to be out of the spotlight. Yes, this is the 23^rd James Bond film, but there’s a strange sense of epic finality in all of the promotional material I’ve seen. Add the fact that the cast includes new comers Ralph Fiennes and Javier Bardem as the villain, and my expectations are sky-high for this installment of the Daniel Craig 007 films. Then again, I did have high expectations for Quantum as well, but early buzz has been saying that this is not only the best Bond of the Craig films, but also in the ENTIRE SERIES.

Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino movies are an event, plain and simple. There’s no more unique figure in the world of cinema, and with Django Unchained, he’s setting his sights on the spaghetti western. Christoph Waltz is back (as a good guy this time), and Jamie Foxx looks like he could get a big career revive from this film. I’ve been salivating over the previews to this film, but there is one catch: how can I sneak away on Christmas day to go see it?

COMICS:

Batman: Death of the Family

Yes, it’s already technically started, but November and December will see the latest Batman mega-event kick into overdrive, as the Joker’s return to Gotham takes over nearly every Bat-related title.  While this is an obvious sales gimmick for the titles that don’t do Batman numbers, there are sure to be some awesome character moments within them. Especially when you consider the history Joker has with characters like Batgirl and Jason Todd, whom both have their own books that will be under the “Death Of the Family” banner. While it’s obvious that Joker won’t kill off Batman, my money is that someone will come out of this damaged or killed, and that person…Tim Drake.  He’s the only former Robin without his own solo title, and Teen Titans has enough cast members to survive without him.

Marvel NOW!

By and large, I think the Marvel NOW! event is really just an excuse to put new creators on books and slap #1’s on some titles to make a quick buck. However, there are a handful of NOW! titles that I am looking forward to, first and foremost being Deadpool. Written by comedians Brian Posehn and Gary Duggan, and featuring art by the awesome Tony Moore, the new Merc With A Mouth series will feature Deadpool going up against zombie presidents. If you need any more than that then there’s something wrong with you.  Rick Remender and John Romita, Jr. will be handling Captain America, which looks to bring Cap into the realm of sci-fi craziness, and Remender’s other title, Uncanny Avengers, has already gotten off to a promising start.

VIDEO GAMES:

Assassin’s Creed 3

Confession time: I’ve only played one and a half Assassin’s Creed games. I know, I know, but there are so many games and unfortunately very little time. However, I’m making it a point to pick this guy up for the setting. Taking place during the American Revolution, the game follows Desmond under the guise of his ancestor Connor Kenway, a half-English, half-Native American whose home is attacked by British soldiers. Along the way, Kenway will meet many historical figures from the era, but the real draw for me is the game play. I was intrigued by the game when it was first announced, but when I saw the footage rolling on G4 I knew this was a must play. Running on tree tops, engaging in naval battles, and walking through colonial Boston and New York City all look amazing, and already there’s talk of this game being the game of 2012.

Halo 4
The last “Halo” game I played was Halo 3. In fact, to be completely honest, I forgot this game was even coming out this year, let alone in November. This obvious sales juggernaut will be sweeping up your time, your friends’ time, and possibly even your significant other’s time. The plot sees Master Chief going up against an entirely new race of creatures, who span back to the creation of the Halo rings themselves.  It’ll be interesting to see if 343 Industries can live up to the juggernaut that Bungie created.

It’s hard believe it was 2009 last time we had a brand new Borderlands game to play. Three years may not seem like such a long wait for a sequel, but in a business like the video game industry, where franchises like Call of Duty and Assassins Creed are released on an annual basis, it comes as a welcome surprise when developers take more than twelve months to put out a sequel. Even though it was only officially announced last August, it was always a sure bet that we would get a return trip to the planet Pandora (no, nit the one from Avatar). Borderlands 2 picks up directly where the last game left off, in the western/steam-punk planet Pandora. The planet has been given an extensive makeover however, both in technical ans storytelling terms. One of the biggest problems with the first Borderlands was its lack of variety I the landscape. Pandora certainly had western influences but that was about it, with gameplay mostly confined to dusty fields and canyons, save for the occasional indoor factory. While Borderlands 2 does still retain most of those tumbleweeds, Pandora is a much bigger place than it was three years ago. At only about three hours in there is already more location variety than there was in the entirety of the first Borderlands, with icy tundras and lush caverns, matched with it’s unique art style Borderlands 2 is easily one of the best looking games you’ll play all year. The visuals aren’t the only aspect of Borderlands that has gotten major overhaul though. Anyone who played the first Borderlands would tell the story was BORDERline non-existent (see what I did there?). The first game had something to do with a mysterious vault and four bounty hunters (the four playable characters) were in search of. In Borderlands 2, the effects of the vault having been opened aren’t so much problem, its more who has taken credit for it. A mysterious man known only as “Handsome Jack” has reaped the benefits of the vault, and along with the Hyperion corporation holds a steel grip over the planet. It’s up to four new vault hunters, along with the characters from the previous game in cameo appearances, to put a stop to the tyranny. If any of this sounds heavy-handed it is easily outweighed by the games great, bizarre, and sometimes very dark sense of humor. Claptrap, the comic-relief robot sidekick from the first Borderlands has a bigger presence here, as his sense of humor seems to have been kicked up a notch as well. The robot doesn’t get all the punchlines though. It seems every person living on Pandora has aspirations to be a stand up comedian, including the main villain, who has some of the best lines in the game. If this sounds like a criticism it certainly isn’t, as its a welcome change of pace from all of the overly serious first person shooters that plague store shelves.

The fact that most of the changes are cosmetic are a testament to how great the core gameplay already was in the first Borderlands. While there are certainly tweaks here and there and the vehicle controls have received a much needed tune up, the FPS/RPG hybrid gameplay is just as satisfying and addictive as it always has been. Much like the first game, Borderlands 2 is a breath of fresh air in a crowded genre. Blending solid gameplay that is just as fun from the beginning of the game to the rest of the 20+ hours of side missions and a hilarious, warped sense of humor that is unseen in other games of its caliber. Borderlands 2 is easily a must buy. When you have character named “Loggins” who gives you a side mission that is a direct reference to the volleyball scene in Top Gun, you know you have a winner on your hands.