All posts in “Reviews”

Post-Christmas and presents!

Posted 20 years ago · 4 Comments

The best evening of the year is over, as always, now you're supposed to feel guilty about all the disgusting things you've been filling yourself with the last month. Well, that's what you're supposed to, you could also just enjoy all your presents, bring up the extra case of Coca Colas from the basement and continue stuffing your growing, belching gut. Anyway, that's what I'm gonna do. ALL HAIL THE SPIRIT OF GEEKNESS!

Call of Duty 3, Madden NFL 07.

Thanks to Play.com I didn't receive Call of Duty 3 and Madden NFL 07 in time of christmas. Should be here soon.

Resident Evil 4.

I've been playing Resident Evil 4 for a while, I'm a big fan of the series, and RE 4 is not really what I would call a Resident Evil game (mainly because you collect money and buy stuff from freaky-looking guys in alleys, and the zombies often come running at you in big crowds, not really scary), but it's still a lot of fun. The graphics are decent, and the interactive cutscenes are great.

Metroid Prime.

Haven't been able to play this alot, got around to kill the first boss and it's very entertaining so far, I love the way the interface looks like it's actually a part of the inside of the helmet.

Guitar Hero 2.

Sooo addictive, I'm on medium difficulty now, a lot more fun than easy, which is just dull.

The Ultimates vol 1.

Not as good as Astonishing X-Men (the only comic I can compare it with, because I'm a comics-newbie), probably primarily because of the missing Whedon-humor in The Ultimates. It's still very entertaining though, nice story, intriguing characters, interesting dialogue, including the cool punchlines.

Preacher – Gone to Texas.

Fascinating on so many levels it's hard to explain. The story is extremely far out, vampires, angels, serial-killers, stuff like that, but it just fits so well together it all seems believable. Extremely violent, a lot of gore, and of course, foul language, but hey, I'm a guy, my neanderthal-like brain loves those sort of things.

So, how is Wii?

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: wii · Comments Off

It's great, worth the wait, that's for sure, I'm actually having a hard time sitting in front of the pc, because I just want to pick up the Wiimote and keep playing. I've been playing a lot of Wii Sports and Wii Play with my brother, probably the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had, it's just hilarious, and you really get worked up because you feel like a part of the game in a way no other game systems can make you feel. Now I understand why all those televisions have been smashed by controllers, you do start sweating, and you most definetly swing the Wiimote around like an imbecile, because swinging the racket/bat/bowling ball/golf club as hard as humanly possible is just more fun.

I didn't feel like playing Twilight Princess until late last night, and I've been playing it for three or four hours today, and I'm really looking forward to playing it some more. The intro movie had pretty bad graphics, and I've been a bit worried about this, but the game is actually stunningly beautiful. The amount of details is incredible, just walking into a house is exciting: you will see the small rooms stuffed with paintings, furniture, fireplaces, sculptures, carpets, tableware, food, pots, plants, etc, and that's one of the most positive things about this game – the atmosphere. The fog in the swamps and forests, the darkness in the caves, the Silent Hill-like feeling in the dark twilight-world, they all make this game even better. I love the animations aswell, it's very smooth and looks cool, for example going to a full stop from running will make Link skid a little, and so will Epona when you make her stop. It's hard to explain, most games using the third-person perspective has this, but it's never looked so good before. A thing that's been discussed a lot is the lack of voices in the game, and while it seems to be a tradition not to use voices in Zelda games, it would've been nice in Twilight Princess. You meet this little creature, Midna, and it uses a lot of sounds, and that makes it feel like the character has more depth to it.

I also got Rayman Raving Rabbids today, it's more or less 75 mini games that'll make you use the Wiimote and nunchuk in all sorts of ways, and so far, it's pretty fun. Those manic anthropomorphic bunnies are hilarious.

Casino Royale

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: daniel craig, james bond · Comments Off

This entry includes spoilers.

As expected (after seeing tons of reviews) I was positively surprised by Daniel Craig's performance as Bond. He can actually act, although he still looks too much as a brute to be James Bond, in my opinion. Unfortunately you don't see any depth in the Le Chiffre character, we all know Mads Mikkelsen is a fine actor, but he's not allowed to use his talent until his last scene. At the credits you know as much about Le Chiffre as you would by watching the trailer, too bad. He'd also have been a great villain all the way to the end, but in a pretty anticlimatic scene he's suddenly shot. Also, Eva Green is a great Bond babe, she can act and she looks gorgeus.

Over all the movie was pretty predictable, you know Casino Royale will shape the James Bond character into what he is in the other movies, therefore you know Vesper Lynd will either betray him or die (turns out she does both). The movie also has some irritating moments in which Bond makes some stupid rookie mistakes: watching the man in the airport even though it's obvious he's standing in front of mirrors, let's the black guy see the ear piece when making out with Vesper, etc. They are pretty easy to ignore, but stuff like that tend to bother me. Also, the whole "Bond-spotting-Chiffre's-tell" part at the poker table was just stupid. Every proffesional poker player would spot something like that, and the fact that a player like Le Chiffre can't even keep a straight face is just too unlikely. Some of these things may have been in the novel as well, but that doesn't change the fact that they're ridiculous.

I've been seeing all the positive reviews the last weeks, and I agree that it is one of the best Bond movies in a long time, but that's not exactly an astonishing accomplishment. Everything since Goldeneye has sucked. And what the hell is all this crap with Daniel Craig being the best Bond ever, he is not even remotely close to what Sean Connery pulled off. Still a good movie though, probably 7 or 8 out of 10, I'll have to think a bit more about that.

Also, no proper Bond vs. villain fights what so ever, and it's not that this movie hasn't got plenty of villains.

God of War completed

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: playstation 2 · Comments Off

I did expect a lot when I bought God of War last friday, it's been praised everywhere, by magazines and everyone I know who's tried it, and now also by me. It rocks! By far one of the best action games I have ever played, it just has everything you could ever expect. An exciting story, cool combos, that are surprisingly easy to administer and use, fast-paced action, very Prince of Persia-like, just taken to a higher level, challenging puzzles, interesting traps, variating monsters and most importantly the minigames! These small interventions create a whole new layer in the gameplay, it's more challenging and a lot more fun, when you succesfully turn and twist the analog stick while Kratos, the main character, jumps around like an insane acrobat with the two monstrous swords, slashing and slicing the poor beasts to smithereens. And then we have the gore, every slash makes the blood spurt, and Kratos' finishing moves are just crazy; ripping off heads, tearing bodies in halves with his bare hands, and impaling creatures with their own swords are just a small selection of the bloodbath you will encounter when playing God of War. The graphics are some of the best I have ever seen on PlayStation 2, also in the cutscenes, which the game has plenty of.

If you don't own God of War go buy it, now. If you don't have a PlayStation 2, go buy one of those aswell. Yes, it is worth it. Now I'm off to the extensive extra material.

Heroes

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: heroes · Comments Off

Minor spoilers ahead.

Until recently I was only watching one tv-show regulary; the third season of Lost. Now I've stumbled upon another one, called Heroes. It's about a group of people who discover they have super powers, one can heal her wounds in seconds, another can bend time and space, a third can fly, etc. The show is a continuity-hell, mostly when following this Japanese guy, Hiro, the one who can bend time and space. It's also got a lot of plot errors, that are supposed to look coincidental but are too unrealistic to be convincing. Still, Heroes is actually a lot of fun, it's about super heroes, and that more or less says it all. What you may call super villains have already been revealed, so I'm really looking forward to some exciting battles when all the heroes, hopefully, gang up.

[update]

I just finished watching the latest episode, no. 6, and I'm so hooked! As mentioned Heroes has some continuity and plot flaws, but I don't care. Especially one scene stands out in my mind at the moment, the Japanese time/space guy (picture) comes back from the future all suited up with a katana and everything, being all cool and slick (he's a bit of a geek in the present), which means they'll probably all join up together and create a Justice League/X-Men/<random superhero group>-like gang in the future, and I can't explain how much I'm looking forward to that. Also…

… this guy is hilarous.

Heroes on Wikipedia.