• 27Jul 07

  Comic-Con 2007

  Comic-Con 2007

  Today I had the pleasure of attending Comic-Con 2007 and at the show I got to get my hands on a few games and see some footage from a few movies. There were other things that I could mention relating to my experiences but I think the following are the most interesting. The following games and movies will be touched on in order.

  Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)

  Zack and Wiki: Search for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)

  Clive Barker's Jericho (360)

  Shoot 'Em Up

  Be Kind Rewind

  Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

  After waiting in line for a while I was able to get my hands on a demo of Uncharted for the PS3. The very first thing I noticed was how long it took me to get used to the controls. Part of it must be the fact that I haven't really played any shooter games recently, but it felt a little loose while running around. The gun usage was well executed but I could never quite figure out how to aim while staying behind cover. I had to either blind fire while crouched or stand up and aim more accurately. The health system was pretty much your standard regenerating health that seemed like it would make the game too easy but it was still quite easy to die when I got overwhelmed. I was most impressed by the graphics in the game although I had to stand a bit too close while I was actually playing. I love the way the game uses a lot of color and keeps the bloom to a minimum. I am certainly a lot more interested by the game than I was before I got my hands on the demo.

  Zack and Wiki: The Search for Barbaros' Treasure

  Zack and Wiki has been one of my most anticipated third party Wii titles for a while now and I was very excited when I got my hands on the Wii Remote to play it. The first thing that stood out to me was the game's design. It isn't obvious at first glance but the game is completely point and click and controls almost as if you were playing an adventure game on the PC. You pretty much have a pointer you can use to interact with your environment and solve puzzles. The game looked nice but once again I was pretty much tethered to the television so I wasn't able to take in its complete beauty while playing it.

  Clive Barker's Jericho

  Jericho is kind of like a squad based painkiller. Unlike most squad based games, each character I was able to use felt completely different, making it instantly obvious the benefits to using each character. One of my characters had a semi-automatic pistol in her right hand and a katana in her left hand. One other had a sniper rifle while the other had a huge gatling gun. I didn't get much use out of the character using the gatling gun though because it takes a while to get spinning and isn't very accurate. While I am a little disappointed to see yet another game using the regenerative health system that has become all to common now days, the setting of the game was nice and the combat satisfying. I can't wait until I can play it in a dark room so I can take in all the atmosphere the game has to offer.

  While the game demos were each out on the show floor in a situation where only one person can play at a time, the impressions from the following three movies was from a presentation from New Line Cinema in a massive hall that can seat hundreds of people.

  Shoot 'Em Up

  I was very excited at the possibility of seeing Clive Owen and the director of Shoot 'Em Up at the event and I could hardly contain my excitement when their event kicked off. For those of you who just want the word on if the movie delivers or not, let me say that the movie footage I was shown was 100 times better than anything shown in the trailers. I will try to describe the footage as best I can but be warned, the following passages contain spoilers for the action sequences which really could make the movie less enjoyable for a first viewing.

  WARNING ACTION SEQUENCE SPOILERS

  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

  The first clip I was shown starts out with Clive Owen's character, Mr. Smith, sitting on a bench on a dark street while eating a carrot. A pregnant lady in a yellow dress runs by him screaming for help followed by a man who comes squealing around the corner and right into Mr. Smith's car. The man gets out of his car and follows the lady inside an abandoned building and shows Mr. Smith his gun as a form of a threat. Compelled to save the woman from this situation, Mr. Smith follows her inside and takes down her pursuer. Soon afterwards, a bunch of men come through the door at the far end of the building to stop Mr. Smith. Smith sees a tank of oil and shoots it, causing a pool of oil to form underneath it. He takes a running start and slides into the oil slick, causing him to slide across the room at an alarming rate, shooting the men behind him as he goes. When he finally reaches stops sliding, he gets up and runs forward. He then proceeds to kick down the two les of a table that are closest to him, run up the table, and through two windows and into a pile of trash. Right after landing, he unloads multiple shots into all the remaining men.

  In another clip I was shown, Mr. Smith is confronted with a ton of enemies all racing up a spiral staircase towards him. He strings up a guy he just killed and sends him down the middle of the stairs. He then grabs the rope and slides down the entire length of the stairs, while shooting in a circle, killing all the men.

  Finally the third clip showed Mr. Smith in a car chase scene that was too badass to describe.

  END SUPER CRAZY ACTION SCENE SPOILERS

  NO MORE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

  There were a few questions from the audience after we saw all the clips but most of the answers were pretty much what I expected. I did find it interesting that they mentioned that in the scenes when they needed a crying baby, they would purposely not feed the baby on time to make sure he was crying.

  Be Kind Rewind

  After the Shoot 'Em Up footage was over, New Line introduced a trailer for a new Jack Black movie. I watched the trailer with low expectations because I am not exactly a fan of Jack Black but I was quite amused. In the trailer we see that Jack Black's character and a friend own a video rental business and they are running into some trouble. The customers are coming back with the videos that they rented complaining that they don't see any picture. Jack Black's character, Jerry, then walks into the door and makes some hand motions in front of the TV, causing it to react as if someone had put a magnet in front of it. His character's colleague immediately realizes that Jerry must have demagnetized all the tapes himself. To solve the problem and keep their cash flowing, the pair decide to film their own versions of many of their favorite films to a great result. I thought it was especially funny that during part of the preview, some FBI agents come in and want to arrest the pair for copyright infringement and Jerry just says that they couldn't see it because they erased it.

  If you are interested in reading some of my other comments on current movies, music, and video games, come on over to www.marvel-ous.com where I review under the handle Sirusjr. Also, if you sign up for our forums you will be able to win sword thanks to our partners at King of Swords.

  • Posted Jul 27, 2007 11:12 pm GMT
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• 18Jan 07

  Fire Emblem

  I have officially been addicted to fire emblem.  I already knew that i was a freak and an addict for all things SRPG, at least the ones where i could stop and level up in between levels.  Whats that you say?  i cant do that here?  I also lose my dudes forever if they die?!! are you insane man!!??
  
  Well i got Fire Emblem: Path of Radience from gamestop at one of those crazy after christmas sales that usually suck and rarely have any good deals.  Having been meaning to pick it up eventually when a price drop would happen to come around, I jumped at the oppurtunity to get a fire emblem game for a mere 10$. 
  
  Thankfully, to ease my worry and jitteryness a bit, this one came with an easy mode so i could get eased into the crazyness that is fire emblem.  Little did i know that the hardcore fans were mad at all the crazy insecure people like myself begging for an easy mode because in giving us the easy mode, we lost the INSANE mode that they so longed to throw their controllers in frustration over. 
  
  Well I started up the game and after getting used to the whole weapon triangle thingy that i had recently been introduced to in Yggdra Union (gba SRPG localized by Atlus), i found the game to be, well, easy.  Yes a game on easy is easy what a concept!  The easy part?  beating the levels within the goals.  The hard part?  doing so without losing anyone to that dreaded permadeath. 
  
  The interesting part here was that retrying these levels over and over again didn't frustrate me the way i had thought it would.  No, it had me addicted and wanting for more!  I had finally found a game where retrying a level didn't make me as mad as i can get over a Castlevania boss because, as some people have told me, i suck at those damn castlevania games. 
  
  The difference here, and this is very key here, was that i could see how i was understanding the behavior of the enemy better and better with each attempt.  Each time I would get that much closer to the perfect victory and it felt good!  Now, I am not even done yet with this awesomely fun gamecube game and I already set out to aquire the GBA fire emblem games as well to satisfy my hunger for Fire Emblem. 
  
  • Posted Jan 18, 2007 1:07 am GMT
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• 1Jan 06

  Syriana, A film that is thought provoking if nothing else.

  As with many movies recently, i decided to watch syriana for a couple reasons.  Firstly, the trailer it had was something that didnt really say much about the movie and at the same time told you the basic point of the movie.  Second, the reviews have been very positive, something that can give me reason to watch a movie as long as its not something that looks completely pointless or stupid. 
  
  Syriana is not a movie for everyone, especially those who go to the movies to see fast action sequences and explosions although it does have a few nice explosions i must say.  The movie works on the basic premise of greed for oil or as the trailer says "what is the price of oil?". 
  
  As many of you might have heard, the majority of the world's oil that is left is in the middle east.  The movie Syriana takes that information and then weaves an intricate tale showing all sides of a single conflict over one little part of the oil market. 
  
  The movie starts out showing many different stories from different perspectives.  It starts with a man Bill who works for the CIA on part of his mission in an unnamed arab kingdom.  Through his mission at the beginning, the threads are sewn for possible terrorist acts as one of the missiles that he is selling becomes lost. 
  
  Throughout other portions of the movie, we also see the perspectives of lawyers working for two different oil companies that are trying to merge after a smaller company wins a bid the larger company wants.  The movie also shows us the side of one of the heirs to the unnamed arab country and one of the workers who got laid off as a result of a winning chinese bid for another contract. 
  
  The movie does not tell you all that much detail on many of the subjects it looks at and instead assumes that the audience has some knowledge of the events.  I found myself a little confused with some of the things going on but in the end i was able to get a basic understanding of the events that were taking place in the movie. 
  
  While i didnt exactly enjoy the movie in the same manner as i would enjoy the ride through action movies like the recent Peter Jackson's King Kong, i found it a thought provoking view of the world of big oil companies and something that anyone with an interest in oil or buisness should deffinately check out.
  
  Overall i give it a 8/10 and it would have maybe been a little better if there was some option or way for getting more information from the movie's web site or something before watching the movie so i could have a better understanding of the transactions i was whitnessing.
  
  
  • Posted Jan 1, 2006 8:35 pm GMT
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