What a great fun game, especially the online whatsit! The basic premise is that you are a SEAL commander, charged with leading your team of 4 on a number of sorties against those nasty terrorists (who are planning world wide disruption and must be stopped). That’s the offline game anyway, but plug it in to the network adaptor, and it’s a whole different ball-park. You choose to be either a SEAL or a terrorist, on teams of up to 8 players a side, in what really amounts to a death-match. There are some extra hooks in the games – some of them the aim to is get to a bomb and blow up the opposition’s camp, in others you have to rescue/predent the rescue of hostages. However it mainly seems to come down to whichever team survives! The real magic of this game is the headset – yes you can talk to the other people on your team via a rather nifty headset!! Life is never quite the same after you’ve spent a couple of hours shouting “Tango, 3 ‘o’ clock” or “I’m going for the bomb”, or “hostle sighted in the temple” at your TV! The game is not perfect – The controls take some getting used to, and online it’s dead frustrating when you first start out and get killed within 5 seconds (this does get better with practice) not to mention the glitches and lag. The offline game is somehow a little unsatisfying too, although it is quite fun issuing commands to your team through the headset “Bravo, lead to charlie” “Team, fire at will”. That said this game is huge fun – and I’m queueing up to by SOCOM 2 already.
Update I’ve taken the plunge and got it from ebay – much better value at 15 or 20 quid. I was perhaps a bit harsh – the lack of proper flight-sim stuff does still rankle, but after a bit of practice with the controls and a lot of playing, I’m actually a bit of a fan now. Finished off the adventure mode, which is satisfying, and might one day get around to unlocking all the special craft…
I know I’m often at odds with other people about films, but I really don’t think the Matrix II deserves the slating it’s getting from the critics. At one point in the film I was a little bored, and thinking “get on with it”, but in the main I was right on the edge of my seat – even ducking at times!! I think it’s biggest problem is that it’s a sequel to the Matrix – and that’s an awful lot to live up to. That said, where “bullet time” was very in your face in the Matrix, here it’s so subtle you almost don’t notice it. At times I found the bullet time bits to be a necessary breathing space, like “phew – ok, so Neo is there with a pole, and so and so is there, and they’re coming up.. WOOOOAAA off again” The plot was a little weak (although in many ways the plot was never going to be the strong point), but there were some *great* characters (the twins are good, as is Merovingian, plus an old friend makes a great comeback(s)), and lots of unanswered questions to be resolved in III – plus an amazing ending.. much more like a two episode Star Trek ending then a film ending! “We couldn’t fit this into one film, so we’ve split it in two” type thing.. I can just see III starting “previously in the Matrix…” or something. So anyway, I hugely enjoyed it – I thought it was technically better than the orignal, although not as strong on the plot, and it suffers (ironically) from being a post-Matrix 1 film!
I’m told the official name for this sort of thing is a “blog” – I presume it’s short for “weblog” or something like that. I was talking to a friend over coffee yesterday, who got very excited when I mentioned I occasionally scrawl inanities on here, and promised to look, so I sort of feel obliged to put something up.
In other words, blame her! 🙂
But I did go and see The Matrix Reloaded yesterday, and I have to say that I think the critics are wrong in slating it. Sure it’s not going to win any oscars, but for me it really hit the spot. I could have done without some of the ‘real life’ zion scenes – for me they didn’t really add anything, and at times slowed the whole pace of the film down, but otherwise it rocked. I’ve written a more in depth review over there somewhere.
Surprising I haven’t done a review for Shanghai Noon, of which this film is the sequel, and is a film which I rate extremely highly! Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson star once again, this time the action is displaced to London, and Jackie is joined by his ‘sister’ (the highly watchable Fann Wong). There’s nothing really wrong with this film (although some of the ‘in jokes’ are laboured), but it also doesn’t hit the spot. Where Shanghai Noon succeeded, this somehow fails to capture the magic again. I wonder if Jackie is just getting a bit too old for this physical stuff – the fights and stunts just look choreographed, and I never once found myself ‘lost’ in the action; I could follow all the moves easily. Somehow the spontaneity was missing, and that’s a gret shame. Still, worth renting out from the video shop I’d reckon. Seen at Ster Century, Leeds.
From the makers of Jak and Daxter comes a game that’s just possibly even better! “Like J&D with guns” is how I’ve heard it described, and that’s not far off, but it doesn’t do it justice. Synopses and the storyline of the game are ubiquitous on the net, so I’ll only add my personal opinion. It rocks! I have played this, and played this, and played this. Straight after finishing it once I went back to the start and played it again (it lets you restart the game with all your guns and some special items). Perhaps I need to explain a little – as the game progress you get the chance to pick up or buy weapons, all of which have their specific strengths and weaknesses. My favourites are the suck cannon (which sucks in little enemies, and turns them into explosive projectiles) and the morph-o-ray (which turns the enemies in chickens?!?). But the gameplay again is pitched perfectly – perhaps a little easy for some, but I never found myself stuck for too long, even though some parts were quite challenging. All in all an awesome game, well worth getting hold of.
Very enjoyable film, although the friend who lent it to me led me to believe there was a romantic/emotional subtext involving a woman, which I spent the whole film looking for!!
An astonishingly violent film, but with highly compelling acting and screenplay, and the nice concept of ‘Gun-Kyoto’. Very heavily influenced by 1984, all emotions have been banned (this ban being implemented by the use of drugs), as have art, music, and so on, and it is the jobs of the clerics to enforce it. The clerics are highly trained martial artists, who have statistically analysed gun battles to work out the sequence of moves which minimises their chances of being shot while maximising their chances of shooting their opponents. It also apparantly extends to punching and the use of swords. My favorite part of the film is when our protagonist (a cleric who has escaped from the drugs) enters a room at the end to confront the arch-baddie. 15 clerics appear from being pillars bearing swords, the arch-baddie looks highly smug, and our protagonst dispatches all of them without breaking a sweat. The camera switches to the baddie as the last cleric falls, and his smug smile drifts into realisation that he’s in big trouble… So I did enjoy it, but it was essentially a film about violence (and bloody violence at that), which is never my favourite type of film.
This was a lovely concept (an monk who must protect a scroll for 60 years, and in return doesn’t age and recovers from any injury inflicted on him), strongly influenced by Jackie Chan, Crouching Tiger, and a bit of Matrix – but sadly heavily let down by the script and acting (in places). It’s a good fun film – the action is great (but more please!), and the main actors hold their own – James(!?!) King as Jade rocks, as does Seann William Scott. Chow Yun-Fat breezes through the physical stuff, but comes a bit unstuck with the english dialogue. The rest of the cast are actually pretty poor (although the Nazi dude does have a good screen presence), looking like actors from a 2 bit American soap. Oh yes, and the ‘twist’ at the end is not worth holding your breath for.
What a riveting year this has turned out to be, eh? Almost halfway through, and only one diary entry. Still, that’s probably good news for my PhD (only 19 weeks until submission day!). I start writing up properly next week, although I’ve still got quite a bit of research to do. Spoke to an old friend last night (the friendship is old, not the friend) – his daughter (I was at school with the guy, and he’s got a baby!!!) is being baptized on Sunday. We’re going down to see them, but still ended up chatting for hours on the phone. But it did bring to my attention that I’ve not done anything with this site for months. So I decided to have a little spring clean. I’ve mainly put up a few more reviews, and updated my ‘to see’ list. Actually that list is quite depressing – for every film I manage to knock off it, another 3 get added! Really must start going to the cinema more. Still excitements that are going on – just 5 or 6 weeks to the new Harry Potter book, I’ve been accepted for a conference in San Diego in August (my first international one!). House is coming along – bedroom and sitting room are all but finished, bathroom just needs tiling. Oh yes, and our ‘outdoors’ is completely finished – got a lovely patio now. Of course it’s rained non-stop since it was finished, but that was only to be expected. That’s enough for one day – better go and write these reviews.
