• 13May 13

  OH MY GOD - Prometheus

  I know I am very behind the times with this movie, but I finally managed to watch it last night and what the hell was it all about?

  Well, actually, let me rephrase that.  I know what it was about, so I don't need plot explanations, however... WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

  This movie annoyed me, not least because of the pedigree of talent involved in it.  Premiere Sci Fi Director?  Check.  Enormoulsy talented cast? Check.  Big budget special effects?  Check? Cleverly written script? Che...no wait.

  The first third (maybe) was pretty good, Fassbender alone on the ship captured the isolation of space perfectly, but it all seemed to go to shiiiii when the crew woke up.  MY GOD THE CREW!  I cannot entertain such a crushingly STUPID bunch of people and they are supposed to be scientists.  The brightest of the bright.

  I am pretty sure all of this has been said ad infinitum by others more adept at critiquing movies, however I would like to point out some exasperating plot holes:  (SPOILERS AHEAD)

  1:  The map guy.  The guy with the little drones that go off and map an area, also equipped with high tech GPS, gets lost!  Really?

  2:  The biologist guy, brought along on the journey to help with the discovery of our supposed progenitors is scared of a 2000 year old corpse, and yet is happy to entertain, and get stupidly close to a sentient worm thing THAT HAS ACID FOR BLOOD!

  3:  The ridiculous connection between Wayland and Charlize's character that just wasn't explored.

  4:  Why, oh WHY, if the moon our hapless crew landed on was a site for WMD did our supposed progenitors provide various maps to the location?  I mean, seriously, the whole premise about the Engineers wanting to wipe humanity out after creating it is around the idea that each progeny secretly wants to kill their father.  The Engineers it seems, were trying to do that before we could get around to it, so WHY LEAVE A MAP TO EXPOSE THE PLAN?

  5:  Don't even get me started on the running vertically from a falling ship when running horizontally would have been signigicantly more effective.

  6:  Alien pregnancy?  Really?  That is just f**king lazy.

  7:  Noomi Rapace perfectly able to rappel from and climb in to a beleagured escape pod with very recent lower abdominal surgery, but struggles to run and perform otherwise fairly straight-forward activities.  I have had a c-section, and I can assure you even sitting up is excrutiatingly painful, let alone hulking the inanimate Fassbender down a 10ft drop.

  8:  What were the Engineer crew running from in the holographic impression that Fassbender manages to uncover? It just wasn't explained.

  I find the whole thing just inexplicable.  Alien is an incredible movie, in my opinion.  Perfect blend of science fiction, horror and drama, Prometheus is just crap.  What happened? 

  Has anyone seen an extended Director's cut?  I ask because some of the narrative leaps suggest to me that there was an awful lot of editing, so many scenes didn't make sense.

   

  • Posted May 13, 2013 1:48 am GMT
  • Category: Movies
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 8May 13

  I bought an indie game

  I purchased an Indie game from the XBLIG marketplace the other day for the hefty price of 80pts.  

   

  I know that I am probably behind the times a little bit on the indie game scene, however indulge me.  For those that have been following me for a little while it won't surprise you to find out that the game that got my hard earned 80pts was a little voxel game called Xenominer... Yup that is correct... a Minecraft type game!  (Pokecharm, look away now LOL)

  At 80pts I thought that it was worth a punt and after playing the demo it seemed much more than just a Minecraft clone in space.  Yes there are elements that are similar, however it seems pretty deep.

  You have crash landed on a strange moon orbiting what looks like a huge gas giant.  You are injured, no-one else has survived.  You have an AI companion called DAI-SE (Daisy) who guides you and helps you to understand what you need to do to survive.  You need oxygen, & you need processing power.  When the sun rises you must be underground as your suit cannot withstand the radiation.

  Much like Minecraft then the purpose of the game is to mine for materials and upgrade your equipment.  You need to upgrade your oxygen tanks so that they can hold more air, upgrade your suit so that it can withstand more radiation, create health and rad packs to heal and elminate effects of radiation sickness.  To do this you have to give Daisy MOAR POWA!  

  There is alien tech on the planet with you and you have to figure out how to use it.  I have a little bot that can do stuff, if only I can decipher the alien language and start programming macros to make it build stuff for me.

  Reading the dev's blog it seems that they have a few more updates planned for the game.  Recently they have introduced MP whereby you can enter another person's world and work co-operatively with them to build your survival base, and there are plans to introduce hostile mobs, alien species, weapons etc.

  If you enjoy Minecraft (and I honestly LOVE Minecraft) I would recommend you checking this game out.  It is really very interesting, and 80pts is a STEAL.

  Check out the launch trailer from a few months back...

   

   

  • Posted May 8, 2013 6:04 am GMT
  • Category: Games
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 7May 13

  From Dust - impressions

  I picked up From Dust the other day in the sale.  It was a complete impulse buy and one that I did have a little bit of buyer's remorse over when I started playing it.

  I recall playing the demo when it first came out and toying with purchasing it, but then thinking better of it.  My feeling was that it would annoy me, as the controls seemed a little fiddly and I found the micromanagement even in the early levels a little difficult.

  

  It helps that it is a very pretty game

  Well, I finished the story mode at the weekend and I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed it.  There is something reallyquite lovely about the game, perhaps it is the spirituality to the game which, I found to be very soothing.  I haven't ever played a "God" game before, so this was a new experience for me.  Moulding and shaping a world using powerful tools such as molten lava is surprisingly satisfying, however despite the power that you wield as the player, the game serves up a brutal reminder of just how fragile we are in the face of the awesome powers of nature.  

  

  You need to be quick to protect from Tsunami

  
  

  In later levels the maps become increasingly more difficult and can be quite stressful trying to shepherd your charges to safety through a gauntlet of ferocious tidal waves and exploding volcanoes, however with the exception of the penultimate map I didn't once get frustrated with it.  

  The story seemed like a decent length with 14 "maps" to solve, each with some bonus objectives to achieve, like spreading vegetation across 100% of the map, and additional knowledge stones to locate.  There are also some challenge modes to complete on the game, although I am not entirely sure I will do all of them as it seems detracts a little bit from the feeling that the story mode gave me.  All in all a very successful purchase.

  • Posted May 7, 2013 2:09 am GMT
  • Category: Other
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts »