| AION, Demon's Souls, and Final Fantasy XIII [gaming re/previews] |
[Oct. 6th, 2009|11:23 am] |
Heyo folks. This one's gonna be a doozy.
On AION:
I've tried it. It's nothing new.
Alright fine I'll go into more detail.
First of all, I have been playing AION through all of their closed and open beta events as well as their "Head-start" thing so that's almost two months of play time. I'll start off with the reason why everyone seems to think this game is so groundbreaking: flight.
Are you all being serious here? The ability to fly is groundbreaking in an MMO? Really? Where were you guys when the playable dragon race in Horizons happened? Flying mounts in WoW, WAR, and Vanguard ringing any bells perhaps? What about the flight power in CoX and Champions Online? Oh you're all saying that giving a character wings is groundbreaking. I get it. See playable dragons in Horizons please. Yeah, that's right. You're all retarded.
Flight is a gimmick. That's all it is. It sucked tons of people into other MMOs and it's doing the same thing for AION. By the way, in CoX, Champions Online, WoW, Vanguard, and WAR you can fly for unlimited amounts of time. How is limiting flight by only allowing it for a few seconds groundbreaking or improving on the flight designs in other MMOs? "It adds strategy because there's aerial combat!" you say, but you're wrong. You have to land and wait for your timer to recharge in between battles, which only serves to lengthen the time you spend grinding. Limiting the amount of time players can stay in the air is stupid. Developers limit things because they don't want players to perform certain actions in a game. Invisible walls are gaming limitation in one of its earliest forms. Timers are gaming limitation in the MMO form. Want to make a quest more "challenging" (read frustrating)? Add an arbitrary time limit! Want to prevent players from going places you don't want them to? Take away their ability to do so with invisible walls, limiting how much time they can spend flying, or taking away their ability to fly entirely! See where I'm going with this? Yes it's true that your flight timer gets longer as you level up, but it's still a gimmick that doesn't really add anything new to the game. Yes they offer some flying specific quests, but those are really no different from the quests on the ground. Point being? Flight is overrated and it's a dumb reason to praise this MMO.
Enough about flight. AION does look very pretty and polished, but that's about all it has going for it. The quests are the exact same generic "kill-X-number-of-critters-here" grind-fests or "take-this-item-to-that-NPC-down-the-street-because-I'm-too-busy-telling-other-adventurers-to-take-the-same-item-to-that-NPC-down-the-street" crap. (I'm totally trademarking that description, fyi) And I didn't really find any depth to the character classes I leveled to 20 except that Spiritmasters are broken good and Templars are helpless without a healer at later levels, as they should be. Crafting is overly casual and simple, which I think is a good thing, but that means it doesn't make me want to actually waste my time using it.
Did I try PvP? Yes, but I hated it. Why? I can't stand PvP usually and any "traditional" MMO that requires you to PvP in order to succeed is crap. PvP in MMOs basically boils down to whoever has the faster internet connection or better gear wins, which turns it into a pissing contest. "Oh look how big my e-penis is because I wasted all of my time getting the best PvP gear and bought a super-fast connection so I can slap lesser players around." AION doesn't require PvP, though, which is A+ in my book, but I figured I'd try it just to be a fair reviewer. Like WoW, AION PvP is essentially trying to mash all of your action keys faster than the players on the opposing team in hopes that server lag won't fuck your team over. There really was no strategy involved. None of my teammates discussed who on the opposing team to focus-fire on, where in the arena we should stand to maximize our damage output, or strategies to trap members of the opposing team. None of my teammates even talked at all outside of cursing the server or the other team even after I attempted to initiate strategic discussion. I tried it several times as well to see if I actually could get a team that would discuss strategy, but every try was pretty much identical save for the fact that we won some matches and we lost others.
As I said above, AION is pretty and polished and the lore and environments look stylish and cool... but again, it's all fairly typical Asian Epic Fantasy fare. One world has been split asunder, two factions are vying for control, a third faction rises up to destroy everything, and the first two factions stupidly continue to fight each other instead of teaming up to defeat this third threat to both of them. It's all very anime, but that's to be expected since the game came from Korea originally.
I'm hesitant to call AION a WoW clone because if I do that I would have to call WoW an Everquest or Ultima Online clone and to do that I would have to call Everquest and Ultima Online an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons clone (and I mean the tabletop, pen-and-paper AD&D game, not that crappy MMO one, kids). However, the AION interface is practically identical to WoW's. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because it's familiar and easy to use and you can jump right into it if you've played pretty much any MMO made within the last five years. But it only serves as a reminder of the dreaded grind that appears after reaching level 10.
So basically, AION really is just a typical, generic MMO that looks pretty, is well polished, and doesn't live up to this ridiculous hype that people have, for some reason, surrounded it with. The ability to temporarily fly is gimmicky and really isn't anything new. It's more of a step backwards from the unlimited flight of other MMOs. It's a shallow addition and doesn't offer much in the way of innovation or strategy. They could just as easily take flight out of the game and it would be largely unaffected. If you enjoy Asian grind-happy MMORPGs for some bizarre reason then you'll probably go nuts for AION like everyone else, but don't kid yourself into thinking that this is the next big thing for this genre because it's certainly a far, far cry from that. You can add all the garnish you want to Spam, but it will still be bland because it's Spam.
Now for something much, much more awesome:
So I got to try out Atlus's latest US port of Japanese cruelty, Demon's Souls, for the PS3 last weekend. Here is a trailer and some thoughts:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/clarity-trailer-demons-souls/44211
The kingdom of Boletaria is beset by horrible demons. Unleashed by a power-hungry king, the monsters have practically laid waste to the kingdom and now threaten to do the same to the entire world. You are an adventurer brought to Boletaria by promises of wealth and fame should you eradicate the demon menace. You are also the last one left alive and the world's only hope of true salvation. Let's get cracking.
First, Demon's Souls was developed by Sony's JAPAN studio, but the game looks more like a western RPG such as Diablo 2 or Oblivion complete with traditional looking medieval architecture, armor, and weapons. Second, the game's atmosphere is incredible. When I'm wandering through dark, neglected, corpse-filled catacombs, searching for treasure and demons to slay it actually creeps me out. It really does feel like I'm the last knight left alive in the kingdom. Well "alive" is really a relative term in this case because death in Demon's Souls is not a once in a lifetime occurrence and it happens very often. After all, you are only a normal knight with basic knowledge of some magic facing the entirety of the legions of hell. Death is hardly unexpected. Due to a certain mysterious Dark Lady who has immense magical power for some inexplicable reason, death is only a minor setback which strips you of some HP and your physical form, but leaves you still able to adventure with more striking power and the ability to mess with other players. I'm chalking her resurrection abilities up to convenient plot device, personally.
And that brings me to the truly innovative part of this game: the multiplayer. Now when people think of co-op in gaming terms there's usually a very clear picture of an experience in their minds. Demon's Souls tears that notion down and rebuilds a brilliant and sometimes frightening version of it. You see in this game, upon your death, you return to the world for more adventuring in a ghostly form. You can regain your body and any gear or souls that being murdered may have stripped from you by slaying a boss demon. However other, still alive players can summon you into their game world to help them fell a boss demon to recover your body and items as well. Also, when dead and adventuring around the game world in your ghostly form, you can use a certain item to forcibly invade any other player's game world in a bid to hunt and kill them to get your belongings back. This can happen to anyone who is connected to the internet with their PS3. Of course the player you're hunting will always be higher level than you so it's still pretty challenging to take them out and you need to be rather good at fighting to pull it off successfully.
Another really cool feature of Demon's Souls is the messaging system. Players can leave messages around dungeons with the purpose of helping, or intentionally misleading other players. Such as warning them of upcoming traps or lying about the locations of enemies. Also players who have died show up as stains of blood which you can use to watch how they met their fate in an effort to learn from it and avoid such a fate yourself.
This free-form multiplayer system is and example of the kind of innovation that the gaming industry needs in order to survive and move beyond the tired old stereotypes that currently pervade it. What really sets Demon's Souls apart from other RPGs on the market right now is the brilliance and unexpectedness of the multiplayer features. I highly recommend Demon's Souls for anyone who loves a challenge and who really digs dungeon exploration and demon slaying... and even some good old-fashioned player killing as well. Of course, you could always disconnect your PS3 from the internet, but the game is really supposed to be experienced while connected.
As an afterthought, people seem to be decrying the look of the player character in this game because the armor and weapons look "bland." To them I say, learn common sense. The player character is supposed to be a regular knight, not some God-gifted, monster summoning, ninja/samurai/mage/priest with a sword as big as his or her body and manga hair. Yes the game was designed by a Japanese studio, but I for one am grateful that I won't have to play as a six year old boy who looks and sounds like a girl and who can overcome everything stacked against him by "believing" hard enough. I'm glad that it's actually a challenge to kill zombies and ghouls in this game. It reminds me a lot of the "Nintendo hard" games of old and that gives me hope for the future.
In totally unrelated news, here's a new Final Fantasy XIII trailer.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-09-final-fantasy/57151
I must say the English voice acting is leaps and bounds beyond the crap that FFX and FFXII sported.
That is all.
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| The Tomb of the Dark Mummy Knight named Wall-E |
[Aug. 2nd, 2008|10:03 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Florida! | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | fans humming | ] |
That's right, I'm reviewing movies again. My scoring has changed along with every other reviewer on the planet. The highest score is a 4 now, thank you Roger Ebert. This one's gonna be a threefer because it heralds my triumphant return from wherever it is I've been lately. So here goes:
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
Ok let's start off with a really fresh one. To put it bluntly, this movie blows, but if you're expecting a mummy, a tomb, and a dragon then you may think it's passable. It's no wonder Rachel Weisz from the first two declined the role of Evelyn for this one because the writing in this film borders on the laughably silly. Brendan Frasier's acting was phoned in, Luke Ford just looks goofy, and Maria Bello, because of the terrible writing, was unfortunately not able to shine as she has in previous films like "Thank You For Smoking." The best performance in the film was Jet Li's, but he has so little to do or say that he's drowned out by everyone else's stupidity.
Enough about the technical stuff like acting and writing, let's get down to the really bad elements. First of all, in the world of The Mummy 3, someone must have turned the Looney Tunes setting up or something. Fireworks make a tram car explode, but the people inside are only lightly smoked; an avalanche is started with only one stick of dinamite taped to a single grenade; a punch from a creature capable of pulling the wings off of a plane sends a character into a stone wall and he is only unconcious for three minutes with a bloody nose; AND (my favorite) a bomb is thrown (yes thrown) from a plane, directly hitting a car that erupts in a firey explosion, but the two mortal villains in the car appear scenes later to stall the good guys with only minor burns and singed clothing. I seriously felt like I was watching Saturday morning television.
As a side note, I also thought it was dumb how characters were willing to believe in mummies, but scoffed at magic and the possibility of "normal" immortality.
Second: A good continuity editor would have done wonders for this flick. It probably wouldn't have saved it, but it would have been a lot better. The chinese general murdered in the begining of the film is drawn and quartered (an execution method only used in medieval Europe, by the way), yet he returns from the dead at the end of the movie only missing one arm. The female villian, who only has one line in the entire film, and her male counterpart only come back from the exploding truck at the end to stall the female heroes while they rush to help their lovers before dying horribly in a grinder-like machine without screams of pain.
Third: the visual effects are seriously underpar in comparison to the previous installments of the series and Jet Li's mummy doesn't ever do the now classic dislocated jaw scream that was so freaky in the other two films. The yetis were by far the best visual effect in the entire film.
So bottom line, if you're going in expecting horror, then don't go in. Just don't. Save yourself the time and go rent 1999's "The Mummy" or better yet, 1932's "The Mummy" starring Boris Karloff. There is no horror element in this film at all and everything is so comical it isn't even campy anymore. The best part was the yetis making the GOAL! motion as they soccer punted a chinese soldier over an anchient archway.
1 undead egyptian out of 4.
WALL-E
Alright the bad stuff first. I'm one of those people who geeks out over new films trying out elements of old films because I adore the classics. You know that guy who has a collection of five million DVDs; all but ten of which are in black and white; and he refuses to watch them with "todays audience" because they'll be ruined for him forever? That's me; I'm that guy. So I like silent flicks... usually. Wall-E is a film in which the silence isn't really silence. The robots do talk, albeit in a way that is difficult to understand most of the time, but they still talk. Unfortunately this make the entire beginning half of the film incredibly slow by today's standards. I loved it. The rest of the theater didn't.
Wall-E is an incredibly cute story about environmental preservation, but it does kind of hammer that notion home a bit too hard in some parts. Of what little writing there was in the film, it is pretty solid and the visuals are down right breathtaking at certain points and somewhat depressing in others. I would take kids to see it if I had some of my own or knew some that I wouldn't have to bait with candy. I encourage you to see it if you like what Pixar has done at all in the past.
Wall-E gets 3 fire extinguishers out of 4.
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT
Alright, here's my review:
Go see it. Go see it now! Why are you still here reading this? You should be in a theater waiting for this movie to start!
Ok but seriously, this film is great. I loved pretty much everything about this flick from the moment the first scene began. I'm a huge fan of the Joker so I came into The Dark Knight with a lot of aprehention. I had heard a lot about Ledger's performance including the fact that his creepiness made Michael Caine forget his lines. (Michael Caine! A guy with loads of acting experience!) But I wasn't completely sold on whether or not a creepy Joker would work. Well I can tell you now that it does and that every Joker from now until the end of time in movies should be this creepy.
I know that some parents were bitching about Ledger's Joker being too brutal, but hey, if you didn't happen to notice that The Dark Knight was supposed to be a DARK film then you should get your brain examined. The publicists only advertised it as a dark creepy flick as much as they freaking could.
You'll notice I said I liked "pretty much" everything about The Dark Knight. So what didn't I like about this film? Well it's long for starters; REALLY long. It's on the border of being a Lord of The Rings movie. BUT with all of that length, for some reason they couldn't slow it down slightly at all. Each scene leaps breathlessly to the next and while that does give the audience a feeling of things spiraling out of control, it provides little time to marvel at just how good the cinematography really is. I went back and watched it a second time and I had to FORCE myself to focus on how beautiful the Hong Kong vista is as Batman swoops over the city. I wish they could have held shots like that for a few more seconds at least before cannonballing into the next event.
And the other thing I didn't especially like about the film is what happens to Two Face. I mean he is kind of a big character in the comics so I fail to see why they had to kill him. Batman lets the Joker live, but lets Two Face fall to his death? That doesn't make much sense to me. Though I am reminded that Two Face is very obviously breathing in the last few scenes, so maybe they only pretended he was dead or something.
So hands down, Batman gets 4 batpods out of 4. The amazing very much outweighs the small nitpicking I mentioned above.
That's all for now,
-Tobascofish
PS: Johnny Depp as the Riddler and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin in The Dark Knight sequel would make me so very, very happy. |
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| Nintendo: Marketing Genius? |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|12:35 pm] |
I know I haven't posted in a very long time, but here's a doozy. The following is not completely my words, but a theory that I both agree with and disagree with on certain points.
So I have a theory. As many of you know, I'm a part of Facebook. I also own a Nintendo Wii. In the year that the console has been out, I have been less than satisfied with the Wii's online system.
However, as part of Facebook I've seen a lot of mesages regarding Wii Friend Codes. Standard Wii codes, codes for Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Wario Action Darts, Yoshi Watches Flow Charts... you name it and I've seen it.
And I thought about it for a bit, and realized something. You just don't see the same thing with Xbox Live Gamertags or PSN IDs, do you? They're efficient, smooth, easy to use. Peace o' cake.
It never really dawned on me until a few minutes ago. Could Nintendo's clumsy online interface have been intentionally crippled on purpose?
Every time you post your Wii Code online you're not just posting a gamer ID, you're effectively posting an advertisement for Nintendo. By Nintendo making the system less than user friendly they engineered it so you'd have to broadcast your own information. Every time you post a new game code you're putting Nintendo's name out there and broadcasting it every time you play a game. Nintendo's name keeps popping up over and over and over in the online arena.
They created a system that, in effect, gets every Wii gamer who wants to play online to advertise for Nintendo... every time they play online. It's the ultimate viral marketing. Make the consumer advertise for you without them realizing they're doing it.
Thus the Wii Code; the world's most effective advertisement; one for every major game you play; and putting Nintendo's name out there again, and Again, and again.
And is that... true genius or just the most convenient fuck-up in history?
Rebuttal:
Nintendo's core demographic is supposed to be the sort of people who would never even post that information online; people who don't use forums and livejournals and the like. The only people who are really ever going to see these "my Wii friend code is XYZ" are those who probably already have a pretty solid set of feelings one way or another about every system.
Seeing people repeatedly post a code for each game isn't really advertising, it's annoying, and if anything it dissuades people who are tech-savvy from getting the console. Would you rather be able to identify yourself by a name of your choice, or a different random 16-character number for every game you purchase?
I mean... making their online system an absolutely confusing nightmare for traditional gamers, young gamers, soccer moms, old gamers, and any other non-traditional gamers? Just so they can eek out a few more forum threads and blog posts with "friend code" in their titles? That's pretty far-fetched.
Not offering the features and services that the tech-savvy audience really wants, and instead babying the system with channels where you vote on your favorite Mii is hard to defend. I think they're trying so hard to appeal to the billions of people who didn't own a game system last generation, that they're just brushing off the majority of typical gamers, and they're certainly not going out of their way to cater to the forum-lurking type. |
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| Band MEME |
[Feb. 3rd, 2008|03:21 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | amused | ] |
SIG 310 - Life of Their Own
Future Shock - Will Help You Relax
Follow this meme and make cool albums for non-existent bands! I thought it was so cool that I did two. My first one is a lot better, though.
Here's how it works:
1) Go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random and look at the name of the article. That is the name of your band.
2) Next, go to www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 and check the last four
words of the very last quote. That is the name of your album.
3) Finally, head over to www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ and look at the third image. Whatever it is, that will be your album cover.
4) Muck all three up with your favorite photo-editing program and post the result. |
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| Don't let Facebook ruin your holidays! |
[Nov. 28th, 2007|11:30 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Dorm | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Beatles - Revolution | ] |
When you buy a book, movie, or gift online, do you want that information automatically shared with everyone you know?
Last week, the social networking site Facebook began doing just that. Private purchases made by Facebook users on other sites were posted on Facebook for people's co-workers, friends, and random acquaintances to see.1 Why? To benefit corporate advertisers.
Other sites are looking at Facebook's example to see if they can get away with similar privacy breaches. We need to draw a line in the sand—making clear that the wish lists of corporate advertisers must not come before the basic privacy rights of Internet users.
Can you urge Facebook to stop violating privacy rights? If you're on Facebook, join our Facebook group and invite your Facebook friends. If you're not on Facebook, you can sign our petition to Facebook.
You can join the Facebook group "Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3202&id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=5
Click here to sign the petition:
http://civ.moveon.org/facebookprivacy/?rc=fb_air&id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=6
This fight is about more than just Facebook users. Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate and could transform how we organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy. The question is, will corporate advertisers get to write the rules? Or will these new social networks protect our basic rights—including privacy?
Like our work together for Net Neutrality2, this is fundamentally about the future of the Internet as a public space.
Here's what some people wrote on the public Wall of our Facebook group:
"I made a purchase yesterday for my wife for Christmas...When my wife logged onto Facebook, there was an entry in her news feed that I had bought a ring from Overstock. It had a link to the ring and everything. Christmas ruined."—Sean L. from Massachusetts
"I saw my girlfriend bought an item i had been saying i wanted...so now part of my christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining christmas!"—Matthew H. from New York
"Facebook, are you kidding me? This is way out of bounds for a program I never opted into."—Matthew F. from Georgia3
By fighting back now—and getting lots of people to join the Facebook group and sign the petition—we can send a strong signal to Facebook and other sites that Internet privacy must be protected.
Facebook says its users can "opt out" of having their private purchases made public. But the link is easy to miss.4 And even if you do "opt out" for purchases on one site, it doesn't apply to purchases on other sites—you have to keep opting out site by site, week by week, month by month. The obvious solution is to switch to an "opt in" policy, like most other features on Facebook.
Sources:
1. Demonstration of new Facebook feature:
http://civ.moveon.org/facebookprivacy/beacon_demo.html?id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=7
"MoveOn Takes On Facebook," New York Times political blog, November 20, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3184&id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=8
2. "Top Ten Examples Of Grassroots Activism In The Net Neutrality Fight"
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/littleguy.html?id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=11
"Obama Promises To Reinstate Net Neutrality During First Year In Office—MoveOn Challenges Other Presidential Candidates To Pledge The Same," MoveOn.org Civic Action press release, October 29, 2007
http://civ.moveon.com/releases/071029netneutralityobama.html
3. Facebook group "Facebook, stop invading my privacy!"
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3178&id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=12
4. Demonstration of new Facebook feature:
http://civ.moveon.org/facebookprivacy/beacon_demo.html?id=11708-8291202-QZmMip&t=13
Facebook description of Beacon feature:
http://www.facebook.com/business/?beacon
5. You can also block the Beacon feature if you use Firefox by following these instructions: http://www.ideashower.com/blog/block-facebook-beacon/ |
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| O RLY? |
[Nov. 17th, 2007|03:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | DORM ROOM OF DOOM! | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Mika - Grace Kelly | ] |
Which Batman Villain Are You?
YA RLY! :D |
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| We just want to rokk! |
[Nov. 2nd, 2007|05:57 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | ROOM OF DOOOOOOOM! | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  energetic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Freezepop - Less Talk More Rokk | ] |
Who says the Keytar is dead?
So this video is tres awesome, yes no? |
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| ROFL! |
[Oct. 10th, 2007|12:59 pm] |
I can't believe Willie Nelson of all people made a song (never-mind the video!) about this... holee crap! XD |
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| Potter noooooooooooo! |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|02:25 pm] |
So... Harry Potter 7, huh? I didn't really care about this series until my mom and brother started reading it as if it was the cure to some outrageous disease. So here's my opinion on the last book.
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| LFG movie preview. AMAZING! |
[Aug. 10th, 2007|03:05 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | excited | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Slaughter Your World | ] |
My favorite character from LFG is going to have his own movie in 2008! Must watch!
I love Richard. (Yes that is his name. Don't knock it or he'll incinerate you.) |
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| Spider-Fuzz |
[May. 4th, 2007|02:41 pm] |
So it's been a while since I did a movie review so let's make this one a twofer. I'll do them in the order I saw them.
First: Hot Fuzz
Though the previews will lead you to think that Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop action flick, don't be taken by surprise if the first half of the movie really creeps you out. The Shaun of the Dead team come back in a blaze of glory with Hot Fuzz, showing off their talents as accomplished film makers with their knack for startling you and their competent story telling. However, the only reason I think that Shaun of the Dead was better than Hot Fuzz is the storyline itself. Where Shaun is about a love triangle between a man, his girlfriend, and his best friend; Fuzz is about two men who discover and eradicate corruption in a small town. In the end, the love story wins, folks, because audiences care more about love stories than anything else. It might have also helped Hot Fuzz's case if the film wasn't trying to parody every genre ever made. All in all, Hot Fuzz gets 4 shotguns out of 5.
Second: Spiderman 3
Oh boy... how do I begin this one? I think Sam Raimi must have been a bit annoyed with the producers of Spiderman because they basically pressured him into making the third film. Why else would he decide to so definitively end the franchise? Basically, the bottom line with this unfortunate film is that it doesn't measure up to the second one by any means. The problem with Spidey 3, is that there is too much going on. I understand that in the comics Spiderman fights up to six villains at once, but story arcs like that take time to complete. In this film, characters go from loving each other to hating each other so fast it makes it seem like they all have schizophrenia and even with an alien symbiote modifying their personalities it's still difficult to believe. Also it wasn't smart to bring Venom in so late in the film because we didn't really get to see him in action enough. My theory? They should have ditched one of the villains. Either take out the Sandman completely and make Venom appear earlier OR leave the Sandman in, have Parker kill him with the black suit and then get rid of it at the end of the film so you could set up Venom for a fourth film. That would solve all of the pacing problems the movie has and it would also make it shorter. Another problem I have with the film is that stupid strutting scene in the middle. Just take that shit out, please. There's really no point to that segment anyway and all it succeeds in doing is crotch-thrusting the theme of the movie in the audience's face. We're a lot less stupid than Hollywood seems to think we are and having a movie force something down your throat only makes it worse. Lastly, some of that cheesy dialog needs to go. When the film was trying to be serious, the audience was laughing because the lines were so retarded.
For all of the bad I am mentioning, however, there were good points as well. Topher Grace played an incredible Eddie Brock and the fight scenes were all very well done. In the end, this is a mediocre final piece of a trilogy that could have been a lot better if they hadn't tried to stuff so much into it. Spiderman 3 gets 3 web-shooters out of 5. |
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| Movie Soundtrack meme |
[Mar. 27th, 2007|04:24 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Room | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | complacent | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | ........ see the post. | ] |
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool..
Opening Credits
We Will Rock You by QUEEN
(rape.)
Waking Up
I'm Still Here by Vertical Horizon
(appropriate)
First Day At School
Midnight Radio by Hedwig and the Angry Inch
(oh... kay...)
Making Your New Best Friend
Dirty Mouth by Hot Hot Heat
(weird...)
Falling In Love
Goodbye Again by Vertical Horizon
(interesting, but still weird)
Breaking Up
Head Like a Hole by NIN
(Ok so that's scarily accurate.)
Prom
Out of Love by Five for Fighting
(nice.)
Graduation
All The Love In The World by NIN
(appropriate. I hated High School)
Life's Okay
Keeping the Faith by Billy Joel
(excellent.)
Death of a Close Friend
On Fire by Switchfoot
(Alright... another freakily appropriate one.)
Mental Breakdown
Infidel by Five For Fighting
(Interesting...)
Driving
The Circle of Life by Freedom Call
(Nice!)
Flashback
The Killburn High Road by Flogging Molly
(awesome!)
Getting Back Together
World by Five For Fighting
(another appropriate one)
Birth of Child
Bicycle Race by QUEEN
(... no comment)
Wedding Scene
Operator by Mixed Company
(O.o)
Car Accident
Wicked Little Town by Tommy Gnosis
Death Scene
Love Song by TERRA
(awwwwww...)
Funeral Song
The Rhythm of Life by Freedom Call
(sweet...)
End Credits
Hang On by TERRA
(Also very appropriate!) ^.^
And that's the soundtrack of my life. Awesome. |
|
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| It's all coming up steampunk... |
[Mar. 19th, 2007|06:38 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | The Void | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Hot Hot Heat - Dirty Mouth | ] |
The Everything Test There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all. Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too! Enjoy :-) | Personality | You are more logical than emotional, more concerned about others than concerned about self, more atheist than religious, more loner than dependent, more lazy than workaholic, more rebel than traditional, more engineering mind than artistic mind, more cynical than idealist, more leader than follower, and more extroverted than introverted.
As for specific personality traits, you are outgoing (100%), adventurous (92%), romantic (86%), intellectual (78%). | | | Stereotypes | | Punk Rock | 73% | | Old Geezer | 67% | | Geek | 65% | | | | Life Experience | | Sex | 69% | | Substances | 43% | | Travel | 41% | | Politics
Your political views would best be described as Socialist, whom you agree with around 94% of the time. | | Socioeconomic
Your attitude toward life best associates you with Working Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 84% less than the U.S. average.
| If your life was a movie, it would be rated R.
By the way, your hottness rank is 0%, hotter than 0% of other test takers. | TAKE THE TEST brought to you by thatsurveysite
On a completely different note...
This is the coolest mod ever.
http://www.steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml
 |
|
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 17th, 2007|12:15 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | The Void | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Vertical Horizon - Echo | ] |
If you've seen 85 or more of these you have no life or you're a film major.
(X) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(X) Grease
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean
(X) Boondock Saints
(X) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(X) Neverending Story
(X) Blazing Saddles
(X) Airplane
(X) Braveheart
Total: 9! Off to a great start. XD
(X) The Princess Bride
(X) AnchorMan: The Legend of Ron Burgandy
(X) Napoleon Dynamite
(X) Labyrinth
(X) Saw
(X) Saw II (and holy crap did it fucking suck!)
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
(X) Anger Management
(X) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
total: 17
(X) Scream
(X) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
(X) Scary Movie
(X) Scary Movie 2
(X) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
( ) American Pie
( ) American Pie 2
( ) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
Total: 22
(X) Harry Potter 1
(X) Harry Potter 2
(X) Harry Potter 3
(X) Harry Potter 4
(X) Resident Evil
(X) Resident Evil 2
(X) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
(X) The Village
(X) Lilo & Stitch
(X) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
(X) Signs
(X) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) White Chicks
( ) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
(X) I, Robot
(X) Roots
Total: 36
(X) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
(X) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
(X) Deep Impact
( ) KingPin
( ) Never Been Kissed
(X) Meet The Parents
(X) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
(X) King Kong
Total: 42
( ) A Cinderella Story
(X) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
(X) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
(X) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
(X) Halloween
(X) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
(X) Flubber
Total: 48
(X) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
(X) Chicago
(X) Ghost Ship
(X) From Hell
(X) Hellboy
(X) Secret Window
(X) I Am Sam
(X) The Whole Nine Yards
Total: 56
(X) The Day After Tomorrow
(X) Child's Play
(X) Child's Play 2
( ) Child's Play 3
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Seed of Chucky
(X) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
(X) Gothika
(X) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
(X) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
(X) The Grudge
(X) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
Total: 65
(X) Bad Boys 2
(X) Joy Ride
(X) Lucky Number Sleven
(X) Ocean's Eleven
(X) Ocean's Twelve
(X) Identity
( ) Lone Star
(X) Bedazzled
(X) Predator
(X) Predator II
( ) The Fog (Original)
(X) Ice Age
(X) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
Total: 76
(X) Independence Day
(X) Cujo
(X) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
(X) Christine
(X) ET
(X) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss's Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) Frailty
(X) War of the Worlds
(X) Rush Hour
(X) Rush Hour 2
Total: 85! GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLL!
(X) My Best Friend's Wedding
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She's All That
( ) Calendar Girls
(X) Sideways
(X) Mars Attacks
(X) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(X) Wizard of Oz
(X) Forrest Gump
(X) Big Trouble in Little China
(X) The Terminator
(X) The Terminator 2
(X) The Terminator 3
Total: 95
(X) X-Men
(X) X2
(X) X-Men 3
(X) Spider-Man
(X) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
(X) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
(X) Catch Me If You Can
(X) The Others
(X) Freaky Friday
(X) Reign of fire
( ) The Skulls
(X) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(X) Shrek
(X) Shrek 2
Total: 108
( ) Swimfan
(X) Miracle
(X) Old School
(X) The Notebook
(X) K-Pax
( ) Krippendorf's Tribe
(X) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
(X) The 40-year-old-virgin
Total: 114
I guess I must be a film major. :p |
|
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| Year Zero |
[Feb. 28th, 2007|07:20 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Oblivion | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | excited | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nine Inch Nails - My Violent Heart | ] |
The Presence
Viral marketing at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen. http://www.ninwiki.com |
|
|
| D&D Quizzes GO! |
[Jan. 25th, 2007|01:08 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Bizzaro's Alarm Clock | ] |
scored as Fighter. You are a fighter. Born to fight in combat and are skilled in all weaponry. You think before you fight sometimes but then you rely on strength and your skill a lot.
Fighter | | 96% | Wizard | | 88% | Ranger | | 71% | Rogue | | 71% | Bard | | 46% | Monk | | 38% | Barbarian | | 25% | Cleric | | 17% |
What D&D class are you?
created with QuizFarm.com
Yeah so fighter? I can live with that.
What is your d&d alignment?
You are a Dominator, Lawful Evil.Lawful evil characters dont care whom they hurt as long as they act within their code of conduct. They are comfortable within institutions that benefit them and are usually ambitious. They tend to view others strictly according to their places in the world and society, without respect for individuality. As a rule, they obey laws and follow rules, at least of their own institutions, if only because they rely on those laws and rules to protect them or help them advance. They are often suspicious of others and, because they frequently rely on loopholes themselves, extremely careful about making promises. They always keep their word of honor--technically--and respect honor and self-discipline. They may cheat whenever they can, but usually avoid direct lies. They may enjoy murder and torture, but they usually have a reason for doing it. They may take bribes. They will not betray a friend, unless a loophole allows them to. They are extremely selfish beings. Some lawful evil characters are committed to evil, like anti-crusaders spreading it as much as they can. These characters are usually called diabolical, like the devils they resemble. Mordred is an example of a lawful evil character. So is Tomas de Torquemada.
Take this quiz!
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Join
| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code
And as always... I get Lawful Evil. Awesome. ;) |
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