**Updated 11/11 with fix for the mirrored video from the previous embed. Plus a neat little title!
So you may or may not have heard that Microsoft is putting out a new controller for the Xbox 360 on November 9th. It’s got a nice silver finish and has newly contoured joysticks and a magical transforming d-pad that will help you pull of shourykens a lot better.
I got my hands on one last week and have put together a mini-review video below.
TL;DW – It’s a nice improvement and worth the money if you were planning on getting a new controller or need one with a good d-pad. It’s not a ZOMG BUY THIS NOW purchase, but you won’t want to go back to the old one once you’ve gotten it.
A hallmark of a good movie is that feeling of wanting to go home and googling everything you can about it because it was that riveting that you want to learn more stuff about it. The Social Network is definitely one of those films. Before we get into some informative articles for you to read, though, humor me for a quick review on the movie.
I went into the movie expecting it to be a dramatized film with a loose basis on actual events. In other words, I expected to see more untruths than truths. You know what? I’m glad I wasn’t an expert historian on Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg because I might have had fits trying to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. Don’t go in trying to be that guy. Aaron Sorkin’s script flows naturally and is entirely believable within the context of the film.
Sorkin does a great job of making the viewer feel smart and involved with the events leading up to the creation of Facebook. You could know nothing about technology and still feel like you have an insider’s view in Silicon Valley. I’m no accomplished server administrator or web developer, but even I know what Emacs or Apache servers are used for. You won’t see any techno-babble in this film that’s on the level of 24‘s “Chloe! Open up a socket!”
As for the directing and acting? Well, I’m pretty sure David Fincher has reached Christopher Nolan status for me in that I will see any of his films no questions asked. Did you remember that the dude directed not only Fight Club and Se7en, but also The Game, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Zodiac? Not a stinker among them. Jesse Eisenberg establishes that he possesses far more acting range than Michael Cera. Justin Timberlake did his job in his portrayal of a fairly one-dimesional Sean Parker. Andrew Garfield did his part in incepting us with feelings of sympathy for his role as betrayed partner, Eduardo Saverin. I imagine we won’t have trouble getting along with his Peter Parker role in the upcoming Spider-Man franchise reboot.
I’m sure many of you have seen The Social Network by now, but if you haven’t, I heartily recommend you do so. It’s a great film, fun yet intellectually engaging as well. Your post-movie dinner conversation will be fun, I guarantee it.
Now, let’s say you’ve just seen the movie and you want to know more about everything that went down. Here’s some extracurricular reading material to satisfy your cravings:
The New Yorker’s profile on Mark Zuckerberg. It may have been done with the intention of “deflecting the negative portrayal” of the movie, but honestly I saw a lot of parallels. He’s clearly a hard worker, though.
Vanity Fair’s Sean Parker profile. This is a must read piece on one of Silicon Valley’s brightest people. If it’s one thing the film disappointed on, it’s the one dimensional portrayal of Sean Parker as a greedy, manipulative party animal. He’s so much more.
Trent Reznor’s interview with KCRW’s Jason Bentley. One of the best parts of the movie is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s soundtrack. It’s got that sense of technological unease that fits the film to a T.
Slashfilm’s film FAQ. Some questions you may have for the film after watching it are answered here. Plus, a picture of Mark Zuckerberg’s real life girlfriend!
Even though I’ve yet to visit Shibuya, its name will always have a positive mental association in my head with visions of bright neon colors, modern architecture, large crowds of fashionably modern people, and upbeat music. Yes, my mental picture of Shibuya is comprised entirely of the arcade/karaoke scenes from the movie Lost In Translation and the general eccentric awesomeness of the Nintendo DS game, The World Ends With You, but so what? It works for me.
Nevertheless, that positive vibe got me interested in a recently released iPhone game unsurprisingly titled Shibuya. It’s a puzzle game inspired by the aesthetics of the real-life place in Tokyo. Think Tetris meets your favorite color matching game with some delicious special sauce that you haven’t quite tasted before. Oh, and it was also named a finalist of Penny Arcade’s PAX 10 indie games.
It’s got the “easy to learn; hard to master” learning curve going for it. Plus, developer Never Center has structured game progression utilizing achievements in a manner I can get behind. You can ignore the achievements completely if you just want a quick game. But if you’re a goal-oriented person like me, you’ll appreciate the bite-sized checklists of achievements to accomplish. Basically, there are 11 “levels” in the game broken up into groups of 4 achievements. Complete the current 4 achievements and you’ll get the next set of achievements. These can range from surviving Endless mode for a certain amount of time or for completing a 2 minute Quickplay game on a certain difficulty level. It’s simple, but effective way to motivate players to play an otherwise endless puzzle game.
“How do I play this wonderful game?” you may ask. Well, you know what they say about pictures and videos and words.
Here’s the president of Never Center explaining how the game is played:
Let’s get one thing out of the way first. The worst Metroid game is better than 90% of all the single player action-adventure games out there. The sense of discovery, progress, and frenetic action that you get from playing a Metroid game offers a feeling of fulfillment that few other gaming franchises can.
That being said, Metroid: Other M is definitely one of the weaker entries in the series. (Metroid Prime Pinball nonwithstanding)
It’s a little odd because Other M looks and smells like a Metroid game, but somethings a bit off with it. Perhaps part of it is the game’s focus on “storytelling and character development.” It’s the first Metroid game to utilize CGI cutscenes and voice acting heavily. And I do mean heavily. Some of these scenes clock in upwards of ten minutes.
Now, the length of the cutscenes isn’t so much the problem as the content. As the story was unfolding, I couldn’t help but feel like it was as awkwardly written and campy as Resident Evil. For example, one of the introductory movies explained at length why everyone in Samus’s old military unit gave the “thumbs up” sign after hearing mission orders. Then, in an incredibly melodramatic fashion, we got a very solemn monologue voiced by Samus as to why she gave the “thumbs down” sign instead as a symbol of independence.
At least, that’s the gist of what I remembered. Frankly, the entire thing played out to me as “blah blah thumbs up blah blah thumbs down.” I welcome engaging storylines and characters in my games, but Other M just reeked of B-Movie quality/self-aggrandizing-Japanese-Video-Game-Director-aspires-to-write-best-space-epic-ever. As I played through the game, I found myself pitying the poor localization dude who had to translate pages and pages of melodrama into English without making it into a complete joke. He tried his best, but putting frosting over poop is still poop.
That’s not to say the cinematics were shoddily presented; they actually look quite amazing for a 480p Wii title. The voice acting is also well done, with Samus sounding exactly like how I had imagined her. However, this leads to another problem, which is her characterization.
Other than some hints dropped here and there (she’s a girl!), the character of Samus has largely been left up to the imagination for the last 24 years. I’d wager that many people would consider her a badass no-nonsense bounty hunter who leans towards the side of angels, if anything. Making Samus’s past the focus of Other M‘s story ends up weakens the character because it pulls back the curtain to reveal one person’s interpretation of her (the director who thinks he’s a better storyteller than he actually is). She comes off as petulant, juvenile, needy, and emotionally inferior to her male counterparts. Instead of feeling like I was playing as an unfathomably hot Boba Fett, I began to feel like I was babysitting a needy girl who’s in way over her head. Not cool.
As for the actual game itself, the best thing I can say about it is that it kept my full attention (well, other than the cutscenes) throughout the 8 or so hours it took to complete. It’s a Metroid game so there’s thrilling shoot outs, timed escapes, tricky platforming, and creepy atmospheres. While some purists may cry foul at the forcefed waypoint directions, I did appreciate their purpose in keeping the game moving along at a nice pace. Rare was the case in which I was genuinely stuck.
However, the most egregious offense on Nintendo/Team Ninja’s part was shoehorning in a hybrid 1st person mode into the game. I’m talking about the gameplay mechanic where you have to constantly flip the Wiimote from a horizontal position in your hands to a position where you’re pointing and aiming at the screen.
In three words: It. Doesn’t. Work.
Not only is this motion awkward, it must be done in the middle of frenetic action moments! So you’re not only performing a complicated motion with your hands, you have to shift from a 3rd person view to a first person view on screen where you’re completely rooted! I don’t know about you, but this took a heavy cognitive toll on my brain. It wasn’t so much the concept of swapping back and forth, but the frustration I felt in having to run around an enemy, stop, flip the controller, get the aiming reticles right, and press the right button. More often than not, by the time I got the complex series of motions done, I had lost my opportunity to damage the boss’s weak point or had to reposition because enemies had caught up to my rooted position. It may have sounded like a good idea in the brainstorming session, but I can’t believe that this got through any sort of hands on testing.
It may sound like I’ve spent the last 900 or so words just blasting Metroid: Other M on its faults, but understand that it comes from the viewpoint of a series fan. The game is still worth playing if you’re into the series; just dont expect something on par with Super Metroid or Metroid Prime. If you’re a newcomer to the franchise, you could do a lot worse than Other M, but I strongly recommend you play the aforementioned first as a better showcase of what a Metroid game is really capable of in both 2d and 3d. Playing through either one of those games should leave you with the feeling that you’ve experienced some of the best titles the medium has ever produced.
If there had to be one title to act as the envoy for the video games industry in 2010 it would have to be Starcraft 2.
You’d be hard pressed to find any other game appeals to everyone from the 30 minutes a day casual player all the way up to the professional Korean player making seven figures with an entourage of bodyguards and female groupies.
There’s three audiences that I think should run out and give this game a shot:
Tower defense game junkies (whether it’s on your phone, iPad, computer, or console)
People who already enjoy real time strategy games (How can you like RTS games and not at least give Starcraft 2 a shot? That’s like saying I like action movies, but I refuse to watch Inception.)
Professional Starcraft players. (though I think those don’t really need to read this review)
Starcraft 2 is an interesting game because it’s one that’s physically impossible to play on any current console. It doesn’t mean that the game is that complex, it just means that it’s a genre that’s best controlled with a mouse and keyboard due to the nature of the tasks needed to be done. The game will run on almost any modern computer, Mac or PC alike, so chances are if you own a computer made within the last few years, you can play it.
Multiplayer-focused games are a tough animal to “review” since the experiences are so intertwined with the playerbases. At the same time, you can usually tell within the first 30 minutes or so if a game is going to be fun for you or not.
I had a chance to spend a couple of hours with Monday Night Combat today and I’m here to tell you it’s something worth looking into.
In a nutshell, Monday Night Combat is a 3rd person class-based multiplayer action game. You can choose to be one of various classes (such as a sniper, support, assassin etc.), each of which has its own unique powers, weapons, and playstyle. Additionally, anyone can build or upgrade turrets around the map. Think Team Fortress 2 meets <insert your favorite tower defense game here>. There’s two modes of play: Blitz and Crossfire.
I think the my days of having the patience to sit through a 40 hour video game are through.
It took me almost 5 months to put in the 45 hours needed to finish Final Fantasy 13, with a lot of it feeling like an obligation to my sometimes misguided principle to always finish what i start. That’s not to say there weren’t some great moments in the experience, but by and large everything the Final Fantasy franchise stands for has become stale.
Final Fantasy 13 tries so very hard to advance the aging Japanese RPG genre and actually does succeed in doing so on some levels. I, for one, am actually glad they got rid of towns in this game. When you boil it down, the only thing towns are good for are a) buying items and equipment and b) fulfilling a required plot/character interaction in order to advance the storyline. Getting rid of them streamlines the gameplay. It’s much more convenient to be able to buy items at any save point instead of hunting for several buildings in a town to complete your shopping list.
They say that the 21st century belongs to the geeks. If that’s the case, then Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World may just be the film of the century.
Sound absurd? Maybe. But at the very least, this action-romance-comedy is the quintessential film of the geek generation.
Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) once described this movie as a cross between Say Anything and Kill Bill. It may sound ridiculous, but it’s an apt description for this deliciously fun movie based on Brian Lee O’Malley’s six volume graphic novel series.
Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim, a 22 year old Toronto slacker who is currently “in-between jobs.” He’s the bassist of a band with his friends and they have aspirations of signing a record label contract and making it big. On the personal front, Scott’s recently started dating high-schooler, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), as his way of rebounding from a heart-wrenching breakup he had just gone through. Scott meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), at a party and is immediately smitten by her. Unfortunately, Ramona comes with some heavy baggage in the form of “seven evil exes” which Scott must defeat in battle if he is to date her.
Sounds like a reasonable premise for a movie, right? If you can buy into that, you’re going to love this film. (If not, well, you’ll probably feel like this fuddy duddy did.)
What Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World does best is encapsulate all the things I liked about my childhood into one very nostalgic and fun film. References to video games, comic books, television, music, and pop culture naturally pepper the film throughout without seeming forced. Co-Screenwriter Michael Bacall explains the film’s secret in handling references as “…trying to make it punctuation as opposed to prose.”
Did I love every single one of the references the movie makes? Of course not. I didn’t particularly care for the pseudo Dance Dance Revolution-ninja game Scott and Knives play together, but it was a necessary plot device in the film to show a visceral video game rather than a couch/controller based one. There’s also a much ballyhooed Seinfeld reference that I didn’t LOL at personally, but I did respect the fact that they got the rights to Jonathan Wolff’s theme music from the show while also shooting the scene like an authentic Seinfeld scene.
That’s the key here – authenticity. See, the internet generation can smell a phony a mile away. A lot of the drek Hollywood has put out in the last decade reeks of cashing in (Gamer, anyone?) on what studio executives perceive as the “geek culture.”
One of the reasons why Scott Pilgrim works is because it’s crafted by geeks (Brian Lee O’Malley and Edgar Wright) who grew up with the very same things the film refers to. These people have played those video games, read those comics, watched those television shows, and listened to those bands. They just happen to be accomplished writers and filmmakers with the means and creativity to share highlights from their formative years.
Most of the video game references are general enough that people who aren’t avid video game players will enjoy them. Do you get the concept of receiving points for defeating an enemy? Ok, how about the concept of landing multiple punches in a row on an enemy constituting a “combo”? Not so obscure, right? Now, let’s take it a step further. What if defeating an enemy turns them into a bunch of coins that fall to the floor? I hope you see where the film goes with this.
For people who have played a lot of video games in their childhood, boy are you in for a treat. It starts with a smirk or maybe even a chuckle at the opening Universal logo ditty rendered completely in 8-bit sounds. Your ears will perk up when you hear the “finding a secret” sound from Zelda in the opening scene. You may even fist pump when the ethereal “choose your Zelda file” music plays during an early dream sequence. By the time you hear the announcer from Tekken exclaim “KO!” as Scott defeats the first evil Ex you’ll undoubtedly have a shit-eating grin on your face.
My personal favorite, though, was a scene in which Scott tries to deflect attention away from his girl issues by exclaiming to his band, “Hey guys, I learned the bass line from Final Fantasy II!” He then proceeds to play the battle theme from Final Fantasy II on his bass guitar!
Edgar Wright earns +999 geek credibility!
While Scott Pilgrim Vs The World’s video game references may receive the lion’s share of attention, music also plays a huge role in the film as well. Besides the core love story, the film is also about Scott’s band, Sex Bob-Omb (+200 points if you can name that reference), as it progresses through multiple battle-of-the-bands competitions in its quest to receive a lucrative label deal.
Sex Bob-Omb’s music is actually done by Beck and he hasn’t sounded this lo-fi and raw since 1994′s “Loser.” There’s no shortage of actual musical talent standing in for the other in-film “bands” either. Members of Broken Social Scene play Crash and the Boys’ music while Canadian indie rockers Metric stand in for the heavenly Clash at Demonhead. To top it all off, renowned producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead’s “sixth member”) composes an 8-bit infused punk score for the film.
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice Scott Pilgrim wearing different band T-shirts throughout the film. Plumtree and The Smashing Pumpkins (with the apropos “SP” logo) come to mind. Hell, there’s even a Tragically Hip acknowledgement in the movie! (The movie is set in Canada, after all)
The film itself is a fantastic concert of grin-inducing visual and audio effects, endearing acting, and witty repartee. Edgar Wright’s previous two films have shown that he’s a master of quick edits, scene transitions, and comedic timing. These skills allow him take Scott Pilgrim’s visual panache to dizzying heights.
It may sound trite at this point to declare that a movie is like a comic book brought to life, but it’s truly appropriate for this film. This movie is like a comic book brought to life.
Seriously, no other film this side of Sin City has come this close to imagining what a comic book would look like with live on-screen characters. Verbs and phrases in stylized lettering slickly animate onto the screen when the action calls for it. Multiple split screens capture character reactions, evoking images of split comic panels. Scenes quickly cut from one to another seamlessly, giving the feeling of hurriedly flipping to find out what’s on the next page. The film’s style is just as much of a star as any of the actors and will quite probably be the focus of word-of-mouth buzz.
image courtesy of entertainment weekly
Scott Pilgrim’s cast is a veritable who’s who of a new generation of talented Hollywood actors. Many will talk about Kieran Culkin stealing the show as Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace, and deservedly so. His grounded wisdom and comedic chops would make even a straight man want to sleep in the same bed with him. Ellen Wong is an adorable manga character come to life as Knives Chau. It’s hard to imagine that this is her film debut, as she nails every scene she’s in.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a confident and cool Ramona Flowers – I just wish there was more time to fall in love with her. The film clocks in at just about 2 hours, but between squeezing in 7 epic fight scenes and establishing Scott’s world, there’s not much time for Ramona’s character to breathe and develop fully. Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mark Webber, Alison Pill, and Johnny Webber round out Scott’s group of friends and they all lend their own charm to the film.
On the dark side of the room, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, and Jason Schwartzman delight in tormenting our precious little Scott Pilgrim. Evans in particular is memorable as an over the top skateboarder/movie star whose voice can be only described as Gob Bluth mixed with Christian Bale’s Batman. Even “unknown” actor, Satya Bhabha, has an epic Bollywood-meets-mystical-internet-humor fight scene as Ramona’s first “Evil Ex,” Matthew Patel.
I realize that the Michael Cera backlash is out in full force, but please don’t let whatever feelings you may have on him stop you from seeing this film. His performance is decidedly Ceran, but he does do the Scott Pilgrim character justice. If you want to, you can even talk yourself into believing that Cera has increased his acting range to include nerd-rage and almost-asshole.
Plus, if you’re an Arrested Development fan you won’t want to miss the George Michael/Ann reunion during the film. Yes, Mae Whitman is in this movie and no, she’s not quite as…homely.
I’m 28 years old. I’ve seen movies in the past that I could partly relate to as a portrait of a generation. Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything comes to mind as a particular highlight. I just wasn’t born in the right era to call it my own.
With Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, my generation finally has its Say Anything. That is, if Lloyd Dobler could wield a flaming sword and inflict a 64-hit air combo on Diane’s dad.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World opens in US theaters on August 13th.
It wasn’t due to deficient game playing skills on my part or any bugs or faults with the game’s programming. No, I had a tough time playing through Limbo because I was genuinely unsettled by the hauntingly melancholy game atmosphere with its grainy black and white visuals and sparse, yet disturbing ambient sounds and audio cues.
You may think I’m talking about a new survival horror game, but I’m not. Limbo is a 2D platforming puzzle game.
“How is this possible?” you may ask. Just watch this short trailer:
I found it appropriate that the protagonist of the game is a young boy because a lot of what disturbed me in Limbo scared me as a child. I have a ghastly fear of spiders, insects, and man eating plants that crystallized in my youth somewhere between the piranha plants in Super Mario Bros. and the insects in Daikatana.
Death in Limbo is also an infinitely more powerful on screen event because it is happening to a little boy. My first death happened via running into a bear trap on the ground. The trap chomped my boy into an aerial concerto of bloody body parts which then collapsed limply to the ground. It quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to be playing Rayman.
One particular scene early in the game has you walk by a white butterfly on the ground who flies off towards a tree that is clearly harboring a giant black spider lurking in the branches above. I must have spent a good five minutes sitting in my chair, paralyzed. I saw no obvious route around the tree, yet there was no fucking way I wanted to walk under three giant spider legs. Given that the game had established a precedent for grisly deaths by that point, I especially did not want to see what this spider was going to do to the little boy.
Eventually, I excruciatingly faced my fears and found a way past the spider situation. The game may “just” be in black and white, but the realistic animations of the boy and the world combine with the game’s desolate atmosphere to create a completely immersive experience.
Who are you? Why are you here? Where are you?
These are questions Danish developer Playdead want you to wonder about while playing through Limbo. And they did, in fact, linger in the back of my mind throughout the game’s first half, especially with the appearance of other humanoids (dead and alive). However, as the game progressed, I found myself caring less and less about these things and just focusing on what my next destination was and how to reach it. In other words, gameplay became the driving motivational force, not the search for greater meaning in the story.
A word about the gameplay: much of it is based on a “die first, figure out why after you respawn” paradigm. During your first playthrough you should expect to die often and die unexpectedly. This may sound like a frustrating nightmare, but for the most part isn’t, because there are bountiful checkpoints that place you close to your place of death. However, there are a couple of places in the game where I repeatedly yelled “Come on!” at my screen because I could not discern a certain goal and the death checkpoint forced me to play through a previous section before I could take a crack at it again.
Comparisons to Jonathan Blow’s breakthrough “indie” game, Braid, are bound to pop up due to both games belonging to a similar genre. I’ll take a shot at declaring a “winner” by saying that Limbo doesn’t quite reach Braid from both a gameplay and narrative standpoint. Overall, Limbo’s puzzles aren’t as elegantly designed as Braid’s. Many of the more difficult ones require precision timing and button pressing dexterity to solve problems, rather than imaginative and cereberal solutions. That’s not to say Limbo is poorly designed – there are some wonderfully devious puzzles that give a real sense of fulfillment once you figure them out. It just doesn’t feel as naturally rewarding as Braid did.
Braid’s narrative benefited from the use of prose in its introductory and ending sequences. These words really tugged at me emotionally and provided context for the story it was trying to get across. Limbo, on the other hand, does not have one word of text within the game. It relies solely on its greatest strength, its visual and audio atmosphere, to convey its message. Limbo starts off strong in this regard, but the sense of uneasy wonderment slowly peters out until the ending is reached. It’s an ending which I feel tries to capture the same level of existential meaningfulness as Braid, but ultimately falls short.
Having said all of this, Limbo still comes highly recommended if you enjoy playing puzzle platformers and/or delight in immersive and unique art styles. It’s unquestionably the best downloadable game I have played in 2010 thus far. Just be warned if you have qualms about viewing gruesome child deaths or have fear of giant insects.
One final tip: Don’t read the game’s description on Xbox Live Marketplace if you can avoid doing so. I think the game’s ultimate meaning is far more interesting and thought provoking were I not to have read the short premise on the description. For me, it was a throwaway fact that served to only narrow the possibilities of the game’s conclusion.
Limbo costs 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) as a downloadable title from the Xbox Live Marketplace. There is a trial version that encompasses the first two game chapters.
When a gyroscope was announced as one of the new features of the iPhone 4 a few weeks ago, I was admittedly a bit nonplussed. After all, didn’t we already have tilt gaming on the iPhone?
Like the Wii Motion Plus, all it took was some hands on gameplay experience before I “got” it.
Eliminate: Gun Range is a simple shooting gallery game that requires the iPhone 4. (supposedly a 3GS version is on the way) You’ll earn credits by hitting a certain target number threshold on a given range scenario. Credits can then be used to unlock more guns and challenge levels to play. The game itself not very original, but the method of control is.
Aiming in Gun Range utilizes the iPhone 4′s gyroscope to present a 1:1 movement to graphics representation on the screen ratio. Think about how fluid the screen display is when you use the camera app to take a picture. Now imagine that smooth display in a game. That’s basically how Gun Range feels. The graphics are also very nice, taking advantage of the Retina Display, but the star of this show is the control scheme.
It’s almost more of a tech demo than a fleshed out game, but there’s enough entertainment in this $0.99 package that it’s worth keeping around to play even after you’re done showing off your new iPhone 4 to your friends. I can’t wait to see where this leads iPhone game developers. If nothing else, we’ll have a great way of aiming in iPhone first person shooters.
