Ant-Man is now just an Ant. Although it is done.
May post a new game review tomorrow, but it will be for another old PS3 Title: Valkyria Chronicles.
Monday 4 July 2011
I have a blog? What?
Oh my god, been forever since I last posted... Been trying to relax a bit.
Ant-Man is now just an Ant. Although it is done.
May post a new game review tomorrow, but it will be for another old PS3 Title: Valkyria Chronicles.
Ant-Man is now just an Ant. Although it is done.
May post a new game review tomorrow, but it will be for another old PS3 Title: Valkyria Chronicles.
Sunday 5 June 2011
Day 2.
Redid the Human Part, was unhappy with how the first one turned out. This will do for now, hopefully will fix any problems when UV Mapping and Turbosmoothing.
Saturday 4 June 2011
Day 1.
Alot of work done today. Basic Design drawn up and one 3D Model almost completed. Will probably complete it tomorrow.
Screenshots of Model.
This is Tyramatt, Day 1 over.
Screenshots of Model.
This is Tyramatt, Day 1 over.
Return from Hiatus and New Project
For some reason my Google account froze me out of my blogspot from my last blog post to today, so that was fun.
Also this marks the start of my new project which is my first attempt to make a unity game! I will attempt to update this blog daily and will be working on the project daily. No promises that the blog updates will happen, but I am making it a challenge for myself to work on this every day.
Today there will be 3D Modelling done, but otherwise I have most of the basic game design down.
This begins, Day 1.
This is Tyramatt, Day 1 End.
Also this marks the start of my new project which is my first attempt to make a unity game! I will attempt to update this blog daily and will be working on the project daily. No promises that the blog updates will happen, but I am making it a challenge for myself to work on this every day.
Today there will be 3D Modelling done, but otherwise I have most of the basic game design down.
This begins, Day 1.
This is Tyramatt, Day 1 End.
Monday 23 May 2011
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Review
*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE MINOR SPOILERS ***
Let me just start by saying that I hate Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. They acted out of the characters that had been established in Curse of the Black Pearl and while some may say that was chracter development for their characters, I refuse to believe that. It happened a bit quick. Just saying.
So when I heard that Knightly and Bloom were leaving the series I was happy lets say. I just wanted to see who was going to replace Knightly as the leading lady. They couldn't have made a choice that made me more happy. While I cannot dismiss the thoughts from my mind that they were trying to appeal to more of a male audience, Penelope Cruz was great in this film. Perfect for the role, I can't think of a better actress to play the character that had been written. It also helps that she is actually spanish.
There have been alot of negative reviews for this film and to be honest I can't really see why this film has the damning reviews it has. It picks up where the ending of At Worlds End left off where Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is looking for the fountain of youth. We get a minority of the side characters back, but thankfully not all as I think that film was bloated with comic relief., from At Worlds End in the form of Gibbs becoming a more main character and Captain Barbosa still alive and kicking as a new Anti-Hero to go against Jack.
This film also has Blackbeard in it. With a twist of him being a weird kind of sorcerer who can make voodoo dolls and put ships in bottles. Strange.. But not a wasted opportunity.
I won't divulge many more of the details of the film, but all i'm going to say is that Jack makes an appearance more than once. I'll let you take that as you want.
It is a good film. I can understand what people are saying with "Jack Should not be the main character" and "It puts too much on the character" but I think this is a good film. Possibly better than Curse of the Black Pearl, which is my favourite of the series so far.
Pirates 4 gets a 9/10 on the Tyramatt Film Scale.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Let me just start by saying that I hate Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. They acted out of the characters that had been established in Curse of the Black Pearl and while some may say that was chracter development for their characters, I refuse to believe that. It happened a bit quick. Just saying.
So when I heard that Knightly and Bloom were leaving the series I was happy lets say. I just wanted to see who was going to replace Knightly as the leading lady. They couldn't have made a choice that made me more happy. While I cannot dismiss the thoughts from my mind that they were trying to appeal to more of a male audience, Penelope Cruz was great in this film. Perfect for the role, I can't think of a better actress to play the character that had been written. It also helps that she is actually spanish.
There have been alot of negative reviews for this film and to be honest I can't really see why this film has the damning reviews it has. It picks up where the ending of At Worlds End left off where Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is looking for the fountain of youth. We get a minority of the side characters back, but thankfully not all as I think that film was bloated with comic relief., from At Worlds End in the form of Gibbs becoming a more main character and Captain Barbosa still alive and kicking as a new Anti-Hero to go against Jack.
This film also has Blackbeard in it. With a twist of him being a weird kind of sorcerer who can make voodoo dolls and put ships in bottles. Strange.. But not a wasted opportunity.
I won't divulge many more of the details of the film, but all i'm going to say is that Jack makes an appearance more than once. I'll let you take that as you want.
It is a good film. I can understand what people are saying with "Jack Should not be the main character" and "It puts too much on the character" but I think this is a good film. Possibly better than Curse of the Black Pearl, which is my favourite of the series so far.
Pirates 4 gets a 9/10 on the Tyramatt Film Scale.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Saturday 21 May 2011
Four Loko - Lemonade and Fruit Punch
Thats right! Time for another double feature! You know, that thing I did once last christmas?
Lemonade is basically Lemonade. It is probably the most predictable of all of the ones I have had and actually tastes really nice. It tastes a bit of malt, but thats to be expected by this point.
Fruit Punch could not be further away from this. It is very, very rough. Although when I was drinking it, it started to grow on me quite a bit. I wonder if this is just the fact that it is alcohol and my judgement was clouded, or if the flavour was actually starting to grow on me... I let some of my friends have some and it came up about 50% like, 50% hate. A strange case indeed.
This is Tyramatt, and I won't be drinking for a while after this.
Lemonade is basically Lemonade. It is probably the most predictable of all of the ones I have had and actually tastes really nice. It tastes a bit of malt, but thats to be expected by this point.
Fruit Punch could not be further away from this. It is very, very rough. Although when I was drinking it, it started to grow on me quite a bit. I wonder if this is just the fact that it is alcohol and my judgement was clouded, or if the flavour was actually starting to grow on me... I let some of my friends have some and it came up about 50% like, 50% hate. A strange case indeed.
This is Tyramatt, and I won't be drinking for a while after this.
Wednesday 11 May 2011
Four Loko - Loko Uva Review
What the? What flavour is Loko Uva? I hope at least its better than the watermelon flavour...
Its really good. Seriously. Its purple and looks like wine, tastes like red grapes. Very, very nice. I thought it was wine at some point, but some further investigation revealed that this is still malt liquor... It hides it very well!
Next on the drinking list, Four Loko Lemonade!
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Its really good. Seriously. Its purple and looks like wine, tastes like red grapes. Very, very nice. I thought it was wine at some point, but some further investigation revealed that this is still malt liquor... It hides it very well!
Next on the drinking list, Four Loko Lemonade!
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Saturday 7 May 2011
Four Loko - Watermelon Review
Well, I love watermelon, and I have never tasted anything watermelon flavoured that I didn't like... So why does this taste terrible to me!
It just tastes like Malt... Thats about it. But the thing is its really deceaving! Its pink like any watermelon drink would be, and smells like watermelon but this could no be father from the truth!
I thought this would be my favourite flavour, but now it seems that all bets are off... I hope that the next flavour I try tastes slightly better...
Next Up is Four Loko - Loko Uva?
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
It just tastes like Malt... Thats about it. But the thing is its really deceaving! Its pink like any watermelon drink would be, and smells like watermelon but this could no be father from the truth!
I thought this would be my favourite flavour, but now it seems that all bets are off... I hope that the next flavour I try tastes slightly better...
Next Up is Four Loko - Loko Uva?
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Friday 6 May 2011
Tyramatt Reviews - Four Loko?
Yeah. So I bought a load of this drink called Four Loko back from Las Vegas (Thats where I was for the past week, and didn't update because of the amount of coursework I had going on...), and I thought to fluff up my blog a bit I would review this strange conconction.
Its basically Energy Drink, but its 12% alcohol!
First review coming up soon.
This is Tyramatt, slightly drunk at the minute.
Its basically Energy Drink, but its 12% alcohol!
First review coming up soon.
This is Tyramatt, slightly drunk at the minute.
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Sucker Punch Review
Woah. Just woah. This is exactly what I needed after watching Battle: Los Angeles.
I'm just going to come out and say it, Zack Snyder can do little wrong in my books. I am one of the people who loved 300 so much he almost bought a spartan shield to hang up on the wall. I also loved his adaptation of Watchmen, lack of giant squid monsters aside, and it sits on my Top 10 list of Best Movies i've ever seen. Although he seems to be in love with the slow motion effect, Mr. Snyder is one of the best directors of the now in my eyes, although I didn't know that Sucker Punch was one of his movies until I had been sitting down in the cinema for about 20 minutes when one of my friends told me.
Why did I know nothing about this film then? Because nowadays I tend to try as hard as I can to ignore reviews until I have seen the film. Mainly because of the possibility of spoilers, but also because no matter how much you take away from a review, you are still influenced by it in some way. Whether you take almost 100% of their opinion, and when you see the film you agree with them in every way, or you try and stand firm and take away as little of their opinion as possible, you are still being influenced. Not because you are taking away any of their opinion, but you may subconsciously be trying to distance yourself from it and will do your best to disagree with them. Either way I go with film reviewers, I normally go one of the two.
Sucker Punch is about a girl, almost perfectly portrayed by Emily Browning, who gets committed to an insane asylum by her father after she witnesses her sister getting killed. We find out that in five days she will be "Fixed" and she regresses into a dreamlike state where she and the other girls at the asylum go to try and get away from the dreary environment that the asylum brings. Also the Asylum is very blue. Just saying.
In this dreamworld the main girl and four others make a plan to escape the Asylum equivalent, where they must obtain four items as well as one mystery item. They get these items by stealing from various people, and these scenes are symbolised by sequences where the girls go into a war action dream state to get something symbolising the item. Thats all you need to know.
This is one of the best films I have seen in a good long while. Does it make it onto my top 5 list? Unfortunatly no. But it does make it onto my Top 10. Better or worse than Watchmen? Its hard to say, but I believe that when this film comes out on DVD I will be watching Sucker Punch more. Its not much better than Watchmen and sits probably at number 7, with Watchmen at number 8. Congratulations Zack Snyder for getting two films onto my Top 10 favourite films list.
Don't believe the flak this film has been getting, go watch it. Best film I have seen since Black Swan back in January.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
I'm just going to come out and say it, Zack Snyder can do little wrong in my books. I am one of the people who loved 300 so much he almost bought a spartan shield to hang up on the wall. I also loved his adaptation of Watchmen, lack of giant squid monsters aside, and it sits on my Top 10 list of Best Movies i've ever seen. Although he seems to be in love with the slow motion effect, Mr. Snyder is one of the best directors of the now in my eyes, although I didn't know that Sucker Punch was one of his movies until I had been sitting down in the cinema for about 20 minutes when one of my friends told me.
Why did I know nothing about this film then? Because nowadays I tend to try as hard as I can to ignore reviews until I have seen the film. Mainly because of the possibility of spoilers, but also because no matter how much you take away from a review, you are still influenced by it in some way. Whether you take almost 100% of their opinion, and when you see the film you agree with them in every way, or you try and stand firm and take away as little of their opinion as possible, you are still being influenced. Not because you are taking away any of their opinion, but you may subconsciously be trying to distance yourself from it and will do your best to disagree with them. Either way I go with film reviewers, I normally go one of the two.
Sucker Punch is about a girl, almost perfectly portrayed by Emily Browning, who gets committed to an insane asylum by her father after she witnesses her sister getting killed. We find out that in five days she will be "Fixed" and she regresses into a dreamlike state where she and the other girls at the asylum go to try and get away from the dreary environment that the asylum brings. Also the Asylum is very blue. Just saying.
In this dreamworld the main girl and four others make a plan to escape the Asylum equivalent, where they must obtain four items as well as one mystery item. They get these items by stealing from various people, and these scenes are symbolised by sequences where the girls go into a war action dream state to get something symbolising the item. Thats all you need to know.
This is one of the best films I have seen in a good long while. Does it make it onto my top 5 list? Unfortunatly no. But it does make it onto my Top 10. Better or worse than Watchmen? Its hard to say, but I believe that when this film comes out on DVD I will be watching Sucker Punch more. Its not much better than Watchmen and sits probably at number 7, with Watchmen at number 8. Congratulations Zack Snyder for getting two films onto my Top 10 favourite films list.
Don't believe the flak this film has been getting, go watch it. Best film I have seen since Black Swan back in January.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Friday 25 March 2011
Battle: Los Angeles Review
This film. Seriously. This film. This was a painful one.
Battle: Los Angeles is one of those films that creates a divide. You know, the sort of divides that on release day leave half the target audience completely oblivious and the other half really overhyped for it? One of those. The basic plot is this. Alien's invade earth and this leads to us following a squadron leader that is just one day away from retirement (No. Seriously) and his squad of american troops that are sent into Los Angeles to save some survivors from a police station.
I was one of the people who didn't have any expectations for this film and the basic concept of the film was explained to me when we were waiting for the film to start. I went into this film with an open mind, and it really did fail to impress.
Lets start with my initial thoughts on the plot. OK, theres a squadron leader with a dark past. Ooh. Original. Oh god and whats with this plot? This is just so boring! How did they make an alien invasion film boring! And whats with this shaky camera angle... Oh god I feel sick.
Lets hope that the squadron troops can bring this back to help me to care about what happens to these characte-- Oh no, just mostly stock troop characters with different levels of patrionism. That was a letdown, hard to enjoy a film when I don't care what happens to the characters.
So the plot was uninteresting, predictable and mostly stock, and the characters were mostly jackasses when they weren't overacting or being overly patriotic. Oh well maybe the aliens can bring it back here, because if we have interesting invading forces then maybe the film's fight scenes will be bette-- Oh for gods sake. Humainoid aliens, and stock designed vehicles. This is just getting ridiculous. We need new designs for alien ships people. Even though the film "Monsters" had awful movie reviews, it at least had earth being invaded by giant octopus aliens. That was at least original.
So, bad writing, stock characters, stock aliens, and just so you know it has a stock conclusion as well. I seriously believe that this an attempt to sell a movie on the premise of explosions alone. I really can't recommend this film with a straight face, but I guess if I had to it would be people who just want to see things blow up. That's if you can't wait for Independance Day 2. I'm not kidding. IMDB it.
For everyone else I would say if you want an intelligent and also clever film about aliens that will actually let you care about the main characters, watch District 9. It was my favourite film of 2009, and it is still in my top 10.
Avoid Battle: Los Angeles. In an upcoming review I will look at Battle of Los Angeles!
Wait. What?
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Battle: Los Angeles is one of those films that creates a divide. You know, the sort of divides that on release day leave half the target audience completely oblivious and the other half really overhyped for it? One of those. The basic plot is this. Alien's invade earth and this leads to us following a squadron leader that is just one day away from retirement (No. Seriously) and his squad of american troops that are sent into Los Angeles to save some survivors from a police station.
I was one of the people who didn't have any expectations for this film and the basic concept of the film was explained to me when we were waiting for the film to start. I went into this film with an open mind, and it really did fail to impress.
Lets start with my initial thoughts on the plot. OK, theres a squadron leader with a dark past. Ooh. Original. Oh god and whats with this plot? This is just so boring! How did they make an alien invasion film boring! And whats with this shaky camera angle... Oh god I feel sick.
Lets hope that the squadron troops can bring this back to help me to care about what happens to these characte-- Oh no, just mostly stock troop characters with different levels of patrionism. That was a letdown, hard to enjoy a film when I don't care what happens to the characters.
So the plot was uninteresting, predictable and mostly stock, and the characters were mostly jackasses when they weren't overacting or being overly patriotic. Oh well maybe the aliens can bring it back here, because if we have interesting invading forces then maybe the film's fight scenes will be bette-- Oh for gods sake. Humainoid aliens, and stock designed vehicles. This is just getting ridiculous. We need new designs for alien ships people. Even though the film "Monsters" had awful movie reviews, it at least had earth being invaded by giant octopus aliens. That was at least original.
So, bad writing, stock characters, stock aliens, and just so you know it has a stock conclusion as well. I seriously believe that this an attempt to sell a movie on the premise of explosions alone. I really can't recommend this film with a straight face, but I guess if I had to it would be people who just want to see things blow up. That's if you can't wait for Independance Day 2. I'm not kidding. IMDB it.
For everyone else I would say if you want an intelligent and also clever film about aliens that will actually let you care about the main characters, watch District 9. It was my favourite film of 2009, and it is still in my top 10.
Avoid Battle: Los Angeles. In an upcoming review I will look at Battle of Los Angeles!
Wait. What?
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Tuesday 15 March 2011
Saw 6 and 7 Review
So now that i've seen what should be the last two in the Saw Series I love so much I can review them properly and give them the attention that they deserve.
As a devote Saw fan I tried to get into the mood when I went into Saw 6. This was not hard considering the opening trap. I'm trying to keep these vaguely spoiler free so I won't mention any of the details. Like Saw films 3, 4, and 5 before it, Saw 6 focuses its attention on one person's life wrongdoings and trys to teach a genuine lesson to him. The bullseye this time is on a head of an insurance company who won't insure people unless his team proves that it will give a tidy profit back.
In a flashback John Kramer (Jigsaw) meets him and they become somewhat of acqaintances. John learns of what the head of the insurance company does to conduct his business after he joins up for life insurance concerning his cancer that is slowly killing him. In another flashback we find the reason for him needed to be tested was that after John found a possibility for a cure for his cancer with a doctor in Norway, and the head of the company decided that if he went there it would not be profitable for the company. Therefore he threatens to cut John's insurance off if he goes there. John leaves the company of his own accord and tells the head that he doesn't value human life as he should.
The head of the company goes through many trials to try and get him to value human life such as my favourite which was a valued member of his team and his secretary who he has very little contact with are about to be pulled off a platform and be hung by the neck until dead by barbed wire. Both have their hands bound, and cannot move off their platforms to get away as they will hang wherever they go. The member of his team is a only child with both parents dead and no family to speak of, so if he was to die he would not be missed. The secretary who should be of less value to the company, who the head also denied life insurance to, has a large family and would definatly be missed. He can only pick one of them and has sixty seconds to do so. I'll let you assume what happens for yourselves.
The sixth film in the Saw series also serves as a return of John Kramer's wife Jill in what could be called a lead role. A majority of the shots show Jill and the new Jigsaw working together somewhat to organise the events of the sixth film as described in John Kramer's will. The ending also has a good conclusion and gets around to what I have wanted to see since the start of Saw 5. The new Jigsaw in a trap to see if he is worthy of being Jigsaw.
Lets now talk about Saw 7 or Saw 3D as it was know at the cinemas. I watched the film in 2D just so you know as 3D makes me feel slightly sick after a while. Saw 7 is one of my favourite films in the series. It brings actors back from all of the films to form what is one of my favourite scenes in any film now, where they have formed a "Jigsaw Survivor Support Group". It is truly great to see these actors portray their roles again with the injuries that they sustained in their traps. It gives a feeling of conclusion with "Yes. People do survive these traps" and "They do have to sacrifice something to survive". We also see Doctor Gordon return as a cynical member of this support group who scoffs at one woman's remarks about how wrong Jigsaw was to put her in a trap. It is great to see Doctor Gordon back in the series and after so long since we last saw him. If you don't know who i'm talking about, and *SPOILERS*, he is the man who cut his foot off as the end of the original Saw. He is back with a prosthetic foot, and a cane that just fits the character so well.
This really is going to feel like i'm repeating myself here, but I will perservere. Saw 7 follows what seems to be the established trend and focuses on one man and people surrounding him. The testee here is Bobby, a Jigsaw survivor. You may wonder if this is like what happened to Amanda in the Saw game where she was brought back to be tested again because she didn't learn from her test in the first film and went back to the drugs. This is not the case. Bobby has never been tested by Jigsaw and has cashed in a fake story by writing a book and now is a published author. John Kramer goes to get a copy of his book signed by Bobby and comments on how his day will come sooner that he thinks.
This film is not only about Bobby however, we also see the police attend some of the other traps that we see in this film and through a series of events they find out too late that the new Jigsaw is trying to get to John's wife Jill for his revenge of the ending of Saw 6.
*THIS IS GOING TO BE THE MOST SPOILERIFIC I WILL EVER GET SO STOP READING NOW IF YOU WILL EVER WANT TO WATCH ANY OF THE SAW FILMS* The ending of Saw 7 is my favourite ending of all of the Saw films and is definatly in my top 10 endings of all time. The new Jigsaw leaves the police station after putting Jill in a reverse beartrap, the first operational trap that Jigsaw ever made by the way, and watched her die. Just a quick thing here, this is not what John Kramer would have wanted. Not because it was his wife, but because there was no way out. This has been a massive mistep by the series since the original Jigsaw died at the end of Saw 3. After leaving he gets assaulted by three people wearing Jigsaw robes and the iconic pig masks. One of them takes off his mask and it is Doctor Gordon... It turns out that after he escaped his trap, he sealed off his open leg wound on a hot pipe and Jigsaw found him after he left the bathroom in the first film, taking him to a room and getting him healthy again. After telling the good Doctor "You have what it takes to survive", Gordon joins him as what could be conveyed as a "Secret Apprentice".
It turns out that a envelope that we see Jill putting into someone's letterbox in Saw 6 that we all disregarded as useless and all forgot about swiftly, was meant for Doctor Gordon. It contained a tape that was John's final request to him. "Protect Jill". Now that the new Jigsaw had killed Jill, it was his time to strike. After knocking out the new Jigsaw and a scene change, we find ourselves in the bathroom from the first film with the new Jigsaw chained at the foot to a pipe, and with the decaying corpses of everyone who has died in that room up to this point. He immiediatly reaches for a hacksaw in the middle of the room, but Doctor Gordan kicks it out of the room saying "Not this time". Gordon then turns to leave the room and turns off the lights, all the time the new Jigsaw shouting "What the fuck are you doing!". Gordon then turns back to say the words I have been waiting the whole film to hear and make the ending of the films that much more. Gordon is about to shut the wall/door to this bathroom leaving him to die and says "Game Over".
This really does symbolise the end of the Saw Franchise. The have ended on a very high note, although the producers have said that if it does well at the box office they would make another one. I would really like them to leave it here, but as we saw from the Friday the 13th films somethings just won't end as long as people keep watching them.
Saw has been declared more than once as the most sucessful horror franchise of all time. All I can say is that it is one of my favourite film series ever made. So do either of these films take over as my favorite film or least favourite? Well one of them.
Favorite Saw Film: Tie between Saw 3 and Saw 7
Least Favourite: Still Saw 2. I like it, just the other films are better.
As a devote Saw fan I tried to get into the mood when I went into Saw 6. This was not hard considering the opening trap. I'm trying to keep these vaguely spoiler free so I won't mention any of the details. Like Saw films 3, 4, and 5 before it, Saw 6 focuses its attention on one person's life wrongdoings and trys to teach a genuine lesson to him. The bullseye this time is on a head of an insurance company who won't insure people unless his team proves that it will give a tidy profit back.
In a flashback John Kramer (Jigsaw) meets him and they become somewhat of acqaintances. John learns of what the head of the insurance company does to conduct his business after he joins up for life insurance concerning his cancer that is slowly killing him. In another flashback we find the reason for him needed to be tested was that after John found a possibility for a cure for his cancer with a doctor in Norway, and the head of the company decided that if he went there it would not be profitable for the company. Therefore he threatens to cut John's insurance off if he goes there. John leaves the company of his own accord and tells the head that he doesn't value human life as he should.
The head of the company goes through many trials to try and get him to value human life such as my favourite which was a valued member of his team and his secretary who he has very little contact with are about to be pulled off a platform and be hung by the neck until dead by barbed wire. Both have their hands bound, and cannot move off their platforms to get away as they will hang wherever they go. The member of his team is a only child with both parents dead and no family to speak of, so if he was to die he would not be missed. The secretary who should be of less value to the company, who the head also denied life insurance to, has a large family and would definatly be missed. He can only pick one of them and has sixty seconds to do so. I'll let you assume what happens for yourselves.
The sixth film in the Saw series also serves as a return of John Kramer's wife Jill in what could be called a lead role. A majority of the shots show Jill and the new Jigsaw working together somewhat to organise the events of the sixth film as described in John Kramer's will. The ending also has a good conclusion and gets around to what I have wanted to see since the start of Saw 5. The new Jigsaw in a trap to see if he is worthy of being Jigsaw.
Lets now talk about Saw 7 or Saw 3D as it was know at the cinemas. I watched the film in 2D just so you know as 3D makes me feel slightly sick after a while. Saw 7 is one of my favourite films in the series. It brings actors back from all of the films to form what is one of my favourite scenes in any film now, where they have formed a "Jigsaw Survivor Support Group". It is truly great to see these actors portray their roles again with the injuries that they sustained in their traps. It gives a feeling of conclusion with "Yes. People do survive these traps" and "They do have to sacrifice something to survive". We also see Doctor Gordon return as a cynical member of this support group who scoffs at one woman's remarks about how wrong Jigsaw was to put her in a trap. It is great to see Doctor Gordon back in the series and after so long since we last saw him. If you don't know who i'm talking about, and *SPOILERS*, he is the man who cut his foot off as the end of the original Saw. He is back with a prosthetic foot, and a cane that just fits the character so well.
This really is going to feel like i'm repeating myself here, but I will perservere. Saw 7 follows what seems to be the established trend and focuses on one man and people surrounding him. The testee here is Bobby, a Jigsaw survivor. You may wonder if this is like what happened to Amanda in the Saw game where she was brought back to be tested again because she didn't learn from her test in the first film and went back to the drugs. This is not the case. Bobby has never been tested by Jigsaw and has cashed in a fake story by writing a book and now is a published author. John Kramer goes to get a copy of his book signed by Bobby and comments on how his day will come sooner that he thinks.
This film is not only about Bobby however, we also see the police attend some of the other traps that we see in this film and through a series of events they find out too late that the new Jigsaw is trying to get to John's wife Jill for his revenge of the ending of Saw 6.
*THIS IS GOING TO BE THE MOST SPOILERIFIC I WILL EVER GET SO STOP READING NOW IF YOU WILL EVER WANT TO WATCH ANY OF THE SAW FILMS* The ending of Saw 7 is my favourite ending of all of the Saw films and is definatly in my top 10 endings of all time. The new Jigsaw leaves the police station after putting Jill in a reverse beartrap, the first operational trap that Jigsaw ever made by the way, and watched her die. Just a quick thing here, this is not what John Kramer would have wanted. Not because it was his wife, but because there was no way out. This has been a massive mistep by the series since the original Jigsaw died at the end of Saw 3. After leaving he gets assaulted by three people wearing Jigsaw robes and the iconic pig masks. One of them takes off his mask and it is Doctor Gordon... It turns out that after he escaped his trap, he sealed off his open leg wound on a hot pipe and Jigsaw found him after he left the bathroom in the first film, taking him to a room and getting him healthy again. After telling the good Doctor "You have what it takes to survive", Gordon joins him as what could be conveyed as a "Secret Apprentice".
It turns out that a envelope that we see Jill putting into someone's letterbox in Saw 6 that we all disregarded as useless and all forgot about swiftly, was meant for Doctor Gordon. It contained a tape that was John's final request to him. "Protect Jill". Now that the new Jigsaw had killed Jill, it was his time to strike. After knocking out the new Jigsaw and a scene change, we find ourselves in the bathroom from the first film with the new Jigsaw chained at the foot to a pipe, and with the decaying corpses of everyone who has died in that room up to this point. He immiediatly reaches for a hacksaw in the middle of the room, but Doctor Gordan kicks it out of the room saying "Not this time". Gordon then turns to leave the room and turns off the lights, all the time the new Jigsaw shouting "What the fuck are you doing!". Gordon then turns back to say the words I have been waiting the whole film to hear and make the ending of the films that much more. Gordon is about to shut the wall/door to this bathroom leaving him to die and says "Game Over".
This really does symbolise the end of the Saw Franchise. The have ended on a very high note, although the producers have said that if it does well at the box office they would make another one. I would really like them to leave it here, but as we saw from the Friday the 13th films somethings just won't end as long as people keep watching them.
Saw has been declared more than once as the most sucessful horror franchise of all time. All I can say is that it is one of my favourite film series ever made. So do either of these films take over as my favorite film or least favourite? Well one of them.
Favorite Saw Film: Tie between Saw 3 and Saw 7
Least Favourite: Still Saw 2. I like it, just the other films are better.
Monday 14 March 2011
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Review
This is going to be a quick one as I haven't got much to say about this. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is the kind of fighting game where you have a large arena to use. I don't play very many fighting games as I suck at them but I prefer this playstyle to having a 2D side view.
The fighting ultimatly works, being able to choose what Ninjutsu you want your character to use and what your two support characters use. This means that you can put more thought into your team and what strategy you use can be crucial to your victory.
The campaign mode follows the anime up to the Sasuke retrival arc. Does this mean no filler? Well yes. In a sense. To progress through the story missions you must first earn enough experience to play them. These filler missions can be incredibly tedious and most of them can feel like a chore at times. This is the story mode's biggest downfall.
With a sequel already out that I will have to give a look in at some point, I will end it here. So what can I say for sure? Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is good as a fighting game that you can bring out now and again to fight your friends at. Do not however, play this game just to recreate your experiences with the anime. You WILL be disappointed.
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm gets a 6/10.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
The fighting ultimatly works, being able to choose what Ninjutsu you want your character to use and what your two support characters use. This means that you can put more thought into your team and what strategy you use can be crucial to your victory.
The campaign mode follows the anime up to the Sasuke retrival arc. Does this mean no filler? Well yes. In a sense. To progress through the story missions you must first earn enough experience to play them. These filler missions can be incredibly tedious and most of them can feel like a chore at times. This is the story mode's biggest downfall.
With a sequel already out that I will have to give a look in at some point, I will end it here. So what can I say for sure? Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is good as a fighting game that you can bring out now and again to fight your friends at. Do not however, play this game just to recreate your experiences with the anime. You WILL be disappointed.
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm gets a 6/10.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Truly inFamous - inFamous Review
As I watch the end credits I wonder what now? Do I play it through again but take all the good decisions? Of course not! Why would I want to play through this game again and do all the decisions that I would not want to take!
inFamous is a sandbox game with a moral choice system. I am really not a fan of moral choices in games when they are classed as good and evil. I always wonder why your decisions can't be decided by what the player thinks is the right thing to do for whatever reason. But that is a rant for another day. We are here to talk about inFamous.
I'm not sure if it is just my copy of the game, but I found alot of glitches in this game from not being able to climb on certain ledges, to sliding off flat surfaces. This was very strange at one point when I slid off a platform while trying to snipe...
inFamous is a fun sandbox game. Just a shame that the over the top complicated controls bring it down. You have a number of various attacks that take advantage of the main character's electricity powers, but possibly too many as I only really relied on the basic blast and grenade powers.
Lets talk about the main character, Cole. Cole is one of the blankest slates I have ever seen in a main character. I got the impression from him that he has done nothing with his powers until the start of the game. This really did stick with me and whenever I remembered it, I was taken out of the experience quickly. While the decisions that you make change how Cole acts and looks, there really isn't too much customisation that you can do in this game. You have to be all good or all evil to get the most stylish looks anyway.
Overall, inFamous is a game well worth picking up even if it is just to get yourself in the mood for its sequel and while it can be missed, you would get some fun out of it. 7/10
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
inFamous is a sandbox game with a moral choice system. I am really not a fan of moral choices in games when they are classed as good and evil. I always wonder why your decisions can't be decided by what the player thinks is the right thing to do for whatever reason. But that is a rant for another day. We are here to talk about inFamous.
I'm not sure if it is just my copy of the game, but I found alot of glitches in this game from not being able to climb on certain ledges, to sliding off flat surfaces. This was very strange at one point when I slid off a platform while trying to snipe...
inFamous is a fun sandbox game. Just a shame that the over the top complicated controls bring it down. You have a number of various attacks that take advantage of the main character's electricity powers, but possibly too many as I only really relied on the basic blast and grenade powers.
Lets talk about the main character, Cole. Cole is one of the blankest slates I have ever seen in a main character. I got the impression from him that he has done nothing with his powers until the start of the game. This really did stick with me and whenever I remembered it, I was taken out of the experience quickly. While the decisions that you make change how Cole acts and looks, there really isn't too much customisation that you can do in this game. You have to be all good or all evil to get the most stylish looks anyway.
Overall, inFamous is a game well worth picking up even if it is just to get yourself in the mood for its sequel and while it can be missed, you would get some fun out of it. 7/10
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
Tank for RTS
So recently I have been working on a tank for a RTS game that my friend is programming. So here it is as a placeholder until I complete another game to review.
Tuesday 1 March 2011
Spiderman: Shattered Worries - Spiderman Shattered Dimensions Review
When I saw that this game had only 13 levels, the initial worries started to hit me. How long is this game? Is it just the kind of game where you fight a boss in a level and thats it? Is it a top score beating game? When I booted up the first level though, all of these worries were immediatly gone when I saw that there were in fact 13 levels that took me about 30-45 minutes each to beat. The gameplay was great, fast-paced action oriented in three of the spiderman worlds, while Spiderman Noir focuses more on a stealth approach where you can pick off your enemies one by one.
When I started up the tutorial mission I was also blind-sided by the voice of Stan Lee. He narrates the cutscenes, but he doesn't do more than that. It would have been nice for this game to have introduced a new villain, possibly voiced by Stan Lee, but we stick with established Spiderman Villian Mysterio for the main bad guy here. We also have 12 other villains from the alternate Spiderman dimensions.
The missions are split through the four universes of Amazing Spiderman, Ultimate Spiderman, Spiderman 2099, and Spiderman Noir. As mentioned, Spiderman Noir is the only universe with a different style of gameplay and that only applies half the time. Spiderman 2099 has the power to slow down time for strategic combat and to avoid projectiles, and Ultimate Spiderman has the power of rage which increases attack power for a short time and make it so he does not get pushed back. It seems that Amazing Spiderman only has the power of being the first character we meet.
The gameplay is great in both the stealth and action parts, the graphics are very cartoonish and have a good sense of comic book art. What lets this game down is the repetitiveness of this otherwise very good game. While in certain levels the base enemies are reflective of the villian we are fighting in the chapter, in what must be half of the levels we are subject to the same three tiers of henchmen: Small, Medium, Large. Its like ordering a coffee.
Another thing that can let this game down is the ability to get swarmed quite easily from the enemies on screen. You can easily lose track of where you are aiming as well as where your Spiderman is at the time. There is a lockon, but it simply doesn't work as well as the developer thinks it does. You could be getting your face punched in by a guy in front of you, while your Spiderman is locked onto a guy across the room.
On a final note, my least favourite world was the Amazing Spiderman world. I know its the original, but the game didn't really sell it to me that well. On the complete opposite hand however Spiderman Noir really did present itself best with the very dark outlook on everything, including the reimagining of the Vulture as a canibal. The Vulture was my favourite character from the 1990s Spiderman cartoon and this just seems like a great fit for him. The bottom line of this is that I really want to read Spiderman Noir. Maybe i'm looking through the goggles of nostalgia this time, but it was quite a good cartoon.
Overall, Spiderman Noir suceeds in many ways, but fails in quite a few as well. I really cant give this game anything other than a 7/10. Worth getting for comic fans, as well as fans of open level beat 'em ups.
When I started up the tutorial mission I was also blind-sided by the voice of Stan Lee. He narrates the cutscenes, but he doesn't do more than that. It would have been nice for this game to have introduced a new villain, possibly voiced by Stan Lee, but we stick with established Spiderman Villian Mysterio for the main bad guy here. We also have 12 other villains from the alternate Spiderman dimensions.
The missions are split through the four universes of Amazing Spiderman, Ultimate Spiderman, Spiderman 2099, and Spiderman Noir. As mentioned, Spiderman Noir is the only universe with a different style of gameplay and that only applies half the time. Spiderman 2099 has the power to slow down time for strategic combat and to avoid projectiles, and Ultimate Spiderman has the power of rage which increases attack power for a short time and make it so he does not get pushed back. It seems that Amazing Spiderman only has the power of being the first character we meet.
The gameplay is great in both the stealth and action parts, the graphics are very cartoonish and have a good sense of comic book art. What lets this game down is the repetitiveness of this otherwise very good game. While in certain levels the base enemies are reflective of the villian we are fighting in the chapter, in what must be half of the levels we are subject to the same three tiers of henchmen: Small, Medium, Large. Its like ordering a coffee.
Another thing that can let this game down is the ability to get swarmed quite easily from the enemies on screen. You can easily lose track of where you are aiming as well as where your Spiderman is at the time. There is a lockon, but it simply doesn't work as well as the developer thinks it does. You could be getting your face punched in by a guy in front of you, while your Spiderman is locked onto a guy across the room.
On a final note, my least favourite world was the Amazing Spiderman world. I know its the original, but the game didn't really sell it to me that well. On the complete opposite hand however Spiderman Noir really did present itself best with the very dark outlook on everything, including the reimagining of the Vulture as a canibal. The Vulture was my favourite character from the 1990s Spiderman cartoon and this just seems like a great fit for him. The bottom line of this is that I really want to read Spiderman Noir. Maybe i'm looking through the goggles of nostalgia this time, but it was quite a good cartoon.
Overall, Spiderman Noir suceeds in many ways, but fails in quite a few as well. I really cant give this game anything other than a 7/10. Worth getting for comic fans, as well as fans of open level beat 'em ups.
Thursday 24 February 2011
Good of War 3 - God of War 3 Review
So we conclude the God of War trilogy with this. God of War 3 is a rollercoaster of ups and downs. I am a big fan of Greek Mythology and Santa Monica have done a great job here once again. Staying true to many of mythological theories while not shoving it down your neck. That is what I wanted, and that is what I recieved.
God of War 3's gameplay is exactly what I expected. Completely unchanged from God of War 2. Why fix what isn't broke right? The Story does grind on me at points with the way that you go around the world from event to event. I did some calculations and according to the way I mapped this out, one of the rooms in theory could not exist. I'm not going to say which one, but if you look hard enough you will find it.
This is going to be a short review, and heres why. God of War 3 is a great game. I am not going to debate that. The problem is it is just not that rememborable. I can remember certain parts of the game, especially the ending, but overall it is not a game I am able to remember all that well.
Overall, God of War 3 gets a very solid 8/10.
This is Tyramatt, wanting a copy of Spiderman Noir.
God of War 3's gameplay is exactly what I expected. Completely unchanged from God of War 2. Why fix what isn't broke right? The Story does grind on me at points with the way that you go around the world from event to event. I did some calculations and according to the way I mapped this out, one of the rooms in theory could not exist. I'm not going to say which one, but if you look hard enough you will find it.
This is going to be a short review, and heres why. God of War 3 is a great game. I am not going to debate that. The problem is it is just not that rememborable. I can remember certain parts of the game, especially the ending, but overall it is not a game I am able to remember all that well.
Overall, God of War 3 gets a very solid 8/10.
This is Tyramatt, wanting a copy of Spiderman Noir.
Tuesday 22 February 2011
I "Saw" what you did there! - Saw: The Videogame Review
I've already gone into detail of the Saw films, and why I like them so lets talk about the first installment of the videogame series. Saw: The Videogame, actually i'm going to refer to it as Saw from now on, is set between movies one and two. Saw is a puzzle, pseudo-survival horror game, where the puzzles can repeat themselves, but there is always a big one at the end of the level to look forward to.
It follows a character from the first film that we do not get an explanation of what happened to them in the second one and is quickly forgotten about. While it is interesting to see an established character in this game without the fear of maybe having to kill him off considering this is a different medium and not everyone will see it, it is strange to not throw us in with a new character that we can get to know instead. To fans of the film series this makes sense, but to people picking up the game who haven't seen the films the film references do not make as much sense.
You play as Detective Tapp, as he wakes up in an asylum and must go through several real time hours of traps to try and discover who the Jigsaw Killer really is and bring him to justice for his crimes. What we get is a journey of discovery as more light is shed on the detective's backstory, his cohorts, and the consequences of his actions. We also get a origin story for a Saw 2 character in here which solves one of the major plot holes in Saw 2, but also raises many more.
The way the game plays is very clumbsy. This is a short game and it seems to pad out its playtime by making you restart areas as you didn't see that tripwire shotgun trap until it was too late. The game quickly tries to solve this gameplay mechanic of different traps that you can disarm and rearm though by adding in way too many checkpoints. In a chapter that could take you just under half an hour to complete if you were going fast, fifteen checkpoints is too much.
This is a very linear game, but I would have preferred more exploration in it. Does this mean that it is not fun? Of course not! I loved it through and through, although at certain points I was confused as to what I was supposed to be doing. The big end of level puzzles were a very much welcome asset, although one of them towards the end of the game was a bit underwhelming. I remember my thought process "A snap minigame, seriously?". It wasn't really snap, but it was close enough for me to call it that and people to know what I was talking about. This game also has multiple endings. I bet you didn't expect that. I didn't.
What makes this game fun is to see what will happen next. Zombie Games have done a wonderful job creating an atmosphere in which you will be jump scared at least once. Jump scares are of course not the best type of scares but its Saw, i'll take what I can get.
What really kills this game in my opinion are two things. The combat and the trophies/achievements. Lets talk about the combat first. There are a variety of weapons available to use which you will learn are basically divided into light and heavy weapons. The game doesn't admit this, but it is very prominent. The combat itself is a mess though. You hold down R2 to go into combat mode, and then press X for a light attack and square for a heavy attack. What kills me as well, figuratively of course, is the fact that there is little difference between the speed that these attacks go at and I was killed several times while trying to hit people with a table leg while they punched me to death. While your fists do less damage, they are by far the most useful multipurpose weapon. There are instakill weapons such as the syringe and the scissors, but these are one use and not worth it.
Just going to talk briefly about the achievements/trophies here. I have played through the game from start to finish, seen both of the endings, and I am sitting here with 88% of the achievements. If you are not going to put fufilling achievements in your games, don't bother. This in my opinion is not even excused by this being a very linear game. Even Dead Space 2 had achievements for experimenting with the tools at your disposal and that was a linear game, rather than having an achievement for the end of every chapter and significant event, and one for first kill with every weapon. I know that trophies on the PS3 had not been around that long when this game came out, but you really shouldn't have bothered and put more work into the combat. Seriously guys.
I really shouldn't talk about this game forever, so i'll end it here. I know alot of people will be very skeptical about this game as the film series it is based on doesn't have the same following as other popular film brands. Basically if you forget that its a Saw game, it is a good puzzle solving game with gore thrown in.
Overall, 7/10. Considered giving it an 8, but something seemed to stop me. May have been the endings.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
It follows a character from the first film that we do not get an explanation of what happened to them in the second one and is quickly forgotten about. While it is interesting to see an established character in this game without the fear of maybe having to kill him off considering this is a different medium and not everyone will see it, it is strange to not throw us in with a new character that we can get to know instead. To fans of the film series this makes sense, but to people picking up the game who haven't seen the films the film references do not make as much sense.
You play as Detective Tapp, as he wakes up in an asylum and must go through several real time hours of traps to try and discover who the Jigsaw Killer really is and bring him to justice for his crimes. What we get is a journey of discovery as more light is shed on the detective's backstory, his cohorts, and the consequences of his actions. We also get a origin story for a Saw 2 character in here which solves one of the major plot holes in Saw 2, but also raises many more.
The way the game plays is very clumbsy. This is a short game and it seems to pad out its playtime by making you restart areas as you didn't see that tripwire shotgun trap until it was too late. The game quickly tries to solve this gameplay mechanic of different traps that you can disarm and rearm though by adding in way too many checkpoints. In a chapter that could take you just under half an hour to complete if you were going fast, fifteen checkpoints is too much.
This is a very linear game, but I would have preferred more exploration in it. Does this mean that it is not fun? Of course not! I loved it through and through, although at certain points I was confused as to what I was supposed to be doing. The big end of level puzzles were a very much welcome asset, although one of them towards the end of the game was a bit underwhelming. I remember my thought process "A snap minigame, seriously?". It wasn't really snap, but it was close enough for me to call it that and people to know what I was talking about. This game also has multiple endings. I bet you didn't expect that. I didn't.
What makes this game fun is to see what will happen next. Zombie Games have done a wonderful job creating an atmosphere in which you will be jump scared at least once. Jump scares are of course not the best type of scares but its Saw, i'll take what I can get.
What really kills this game in my opinion are two things. The combat and the trophies/achievements. Lets talk about the combat first. There are a variety of weapons available to use which you will learn are basically divided into light and heavy weapons. The game doesn't admit this, but it is very prominent. The combat itself is a mess though. You hold down R2 to go into combat mode, and then press X for a light attack and square for a heavy attack. What kills me as well, figuratively of course, is the fact that there is little difference between the speed that these attacks go at and I was killed several times while trying to hit people with a table leg while they punched me to death. While your fists do less damage, they are by far the most useful multipurpose weapon. There are instakill weapons such as the syringe and the scissors, but these are one use and not worth it.
Just going to talk briefly about the achievements/trophies here. I have played through the game from start to finish, seen both of the endings, and I am sitting here with 88% of the achievements. If you are not going to put fufilling achievements in your games, don't bother. This in my opinion is not even excused by this being a very linear game. Even Dead Space 2 had achievements for experimenting with the tools at your disposal and that was a linear game, rather than having an achievement for the end of every chapter and significant event, and one for first kill with every weapon. I know that trophies on the PS3 had not been around that long when this game came out, but you really shouldn't have bothered and put more work into the combat. Seriously guys.
I really shouldn't talk about this game forever, so i'll end it here. I know alot of people will be very skeptical about this game as the film series it is based on doesn't have the same following as other popular film brands. Basically if you forget that its a Saw game, it is a good puzzle solving game with gore thrown in.
Overall, 7/10. Considered giving it an 8, but something seemed to stop me. May have been the endings.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Saturday 19 February 2011
Opinion in Words - Why I love the Saw Series
Its been a while hasn't it. Oh well, now we can go back to me ranting about something I like for a change. So lets talk about the Saw franchise.
The original Saw movie came out in 2004, an adaptation of a original australian nine and a half minute short from 2003. Since then we have had a grand total of six sequels, being Saw 2 to Saw 6 and Saw 3D or Saw 7. The bottom line of this plot is there is a man refered to as the "Jigsaw Killer", who kidnaps people that he believes have squandered the gift of life through the poor decisions they have made. These people are then put in "traps" that are designed for them to have to sacrifice something of themselves in order to escape. This is normally something physical of themselves such as having to break your own arm to escape a trap, but can also be something like having to cut a key out of someones stomach.
When I saw the first Saw film I was intrigued by the baseline of how far are you willing to go to survive? If you waste your life by knowingly making bad decisions, how much are you willing to sacrifice to save it. The first film centred on just two characters, and we get exposition from flashbacks and from the angle of the police force. We never learn much about the Jigsaw Killer and this works, at least for this installment. The ending is very well done, with one of the trapped people accepting the trap and then a twist ending that really took me off edge. They really play something off, and then it comes back to be really important in the ending.
This is not a history of Saw, so i'll briefly touch apon the sequels. I hate Saw 2. In my opinion it is the worst one of the sequels, trying to put the same atmosphere that your had in the first film where you only had two people in a room, both not being able to trust each other, but in a house where you have seven main characters. This gives you too much to try and care about, and you know that some of these characters are just here to demonstrate the traps. It did set up an apprentice for the Jigsaw Killer though, and that was the only thing that I found interesting about this film. The idea that the title of Jigsaw Killer could be passed around as if it was some sort of holy crusade would keep me interested for now.
*Minor Spoilers* Saw 3 and Saw 4 run alongside each other timewise. Saw 3 focused more on the story of the killer, and just one person going through multiple people's traps in a house that he had the chance to save them from. This centered around a man whose son had been run over and this time the trapped victims were people who could have brought the driver of the car to justice, as well as the driver himself. It is in this film that I believe that the movie series gets into it's stride. It is however the same movie that we lose our Jigsaw Killer, as well as the apprentice that was built up from Saw 2. This was a bold move, and Saw 4 would of course have to do something good to get this series back on track.
Saw 4 on the other hand followed a different route of basically stalling for time and shadowed the timeline of the third movie, but with more exposition and different traps going on at the same time. It follows another man, a cop this time, saving people from traps but this time while trying to catch the Jigsaw Killer. It was in this film that one of my favourite lines was mentioned, "Have you learnt anything?". Throughout the film Jigsaw has been mentioning that he got his partner killed by forcefully entering a room because he thought he was doing the right thing. How does the film end you ask? Well he enters a locked room forcefully because he thinks its the right thing to do and ends up setting off three peoples traps at once. Well done. He gets killed as well, and we are left with another cop that we have been following through the movie finding the house from Saw 3, and having to shoot the man from Saw 3 because he was pointing a gun at the cop. There is a twist at the end of this one, but I won't spoil that. Basically Jigsaw has another apprentice.
Saw 5 is the last one I have seen in the movie series thus far. I own Saw 6 on dvd, but have not gotten around to watching it yet. I was worried that Saw 5 was going to be a rehash of Saw 2, with there being five main characters, but this time the characters were all connected in their "bad deed". The film does seem to only exist to give more exposition on why the original Jigsaw Killer started and what his apprentice is doing now to clear up any loose ends. The major mistep of this film was putting less emphasis on the cunningness and uniqueness of the traps. In most of the films up to this point, the traps have been adapted to each individual's mistakes. In this film, not so much. Jigsaw doesn't even give many of his voice overs that his gives normally. The end of this film is great and shows off that some people are too willing to sacrifice and that some other people just cannot learn to trust.
Right. Down to why I love this series as I do. It is mainly because it can show off the best and worst of humanity. The worst being the people who are being trapped because it can show how they would not even consider changing their lifestyles unless this happened. Very few people escape their traps, but if their will to survive was that strong, they would need to repent a.k.a. make a sacrifice. To me at least it is also an interesting psychological experiment into the human mind. Jigsaw does not truly believe that he is killing people, he is merely testing their will. If they die, its due to them not him. He is not ignorant though in the way that he tests people. He explains to them what they have to do to escape, and shows them why they are being tested in the first place. Sometimes the people who are being tested call out to him for mercy, but they are not going to get it because in a certain way this is a mercy. Jigsaw is giving them a chance to save themselves and maybe they will take this as a life lesson.
Another thing I love this the traps. I have a very technical mind, and I just love seeing the mechanics not only behind the physical aspects of the trap, but the mental as well. In one of the better parts of Saw 2 a woman sees an antidote to the poison they have been given in a glass box hanging from the ceiling. She puts both her arms in the arm holes, and doesn't even think for a second that anything could go wrong. When she has put her arms through there are a circle of razor blades going up in a twisted motion that prevent her arms from coming back out. This really does teach you to look before you leap.
One of the best traps of the series in my opinion was from the opening scene from Saw 4. There are two men. One with mouth sewn shut, the other with eyes sewn shut. The downside to this is we don't get any voice over from Jigsaw, but back to the trap. They are both chained to a device that will pull the chain in until they have both been choked to death. The keys to each of their collars are on the other person's neck. Of course without the ability to communicate, the blind man panics and the mute person decided to kill him before ripping the stitches out. I believe this showed how lack of communication and ability to work together to survive killed that man, not Jigsaw.
There have also been two games for this film series, the first of which I am playing through at the moment. So that can wait for another day, as can its sequel Saw 2: Flesh and Blood.
So thats why I love the Saw series so much. I hope you have enjoyed this little rant on one of my favourite film series, and just so you know I will give a little exposition in footnotes.
Favourite Saw Film: Saw 3
Least Favourite: Saw 2
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
The original Saw movie came out in 2004, an adaptation of a original australian nine and a half minute short from 2003. Since then we have had a grand total of six sequels, being Saw 2 to Saw 6 and Saw 3D or Saw 7. The bottom line of this plot is there is a man refered to as the "Jigsaw Killer", who kidnaps people that he believes have squandered the gift of life through the poor decisions they have made. These people are then put in "traps" that are designed for them to have to sacrifice something of themselves in order to escape. This is normally something physical of themselves such as having to break your own arm to escape a trap, but can also be something like having to cut a key out of someones stomach.
When I saw the first Saw film I was intrigued by the baseline of how far are you willing to go to survive? If you waste your life by knowingly making bad decisions, how much are you willing to sacrifice to save it. The first film centred on just two characters, and we get exposition from flashbacks and from the angle of the police force. We never learn much about the Jigsaw Killer and this works, at least for this installment. The ending is very well done, with one of the trapped people accepting the trap and then a twist ending that really took me off edge. They really play something off, and then it comes back to be really important in the ending.
This is not a history of Saw, so i'll briefly touch apon the sequels. I hate Saw 2. In my opinion it is the worst one of the sequels, trying to put the same atmosphere that your had in the first film where you only had two people in a room, both not being able to trust each other, but in a house where you have seven main characters. This gives you too much to try and care about, and you know that some of these characters are just here to demonstrate the traps. It did set up an apprentice for the Jigsaw Killer though, and that was the only thing that I found interesting about this film. The idea that the title of Jigsaw Killer could be passed around as if it was some sort of holy crusade would keep me interested for now.
*Minor Spoilers* Saw 3 and Saw 4 run alongside each other timewise. Saw 3 focused more on the story of the killer, and just one person going through multiple people's traps in a house that he had the chance to save them from. This centered around a man whose son had been run over and this time the trapped victims were people who could have brought the driver of the car to justice, as well as the driver himself. It is in this film that I believe that the movie series gets into it's stride. It is however the same movie that we lose our Jigsaw Killer, as well as the apprentice that was built up from Saw 2. This was a bold move, and Saw 4 would of course have to do something good to get this series back on track.
Saw 4 on the other hand followed a different route of basically stalling for time and shadowed the timeline of the third movie, but with more exposition and different traps going on at the same time. It follows another man, a cop this time, saving people from traps but this time while trying to catch the Jigsaw Killer. It was in this film that one of my favourite lines was mentioned, "Have you learnt anything?". Throughout the film Jigsaw has been mentioning that he got his partner killed by forcefully entering a room because he thought he was doing the right thing. How does the film end you ask? Well he enters a locked room forcefully because he thinks its the right thing to do and ends up setting off three peoples traps at once. Well done. He gets killed as well, and we are left with another cop that we have been following through the movie finding the house from Saw 3, and having to shoot the man from Saw 3 because he was pointing a gun at the cop. There is a twist at the end of this one, but I won't spoil that. Basically Jigsaw has another apprentice.
Saw 5 is the last one I have seen in the movie series thus far. I own Saw 6 on dvd, but have not gotten around to watching it yet. I was worried that Saw 5 was going to be a rehash of Saw 2, with there being five main characters, but this time the characters were all connected in their "bad deed". The film does seem to only exist to give more exposition on why the original Jigsaw Killer started and what his apprentice is doing now to clear up any loose ends. The major mistep of this film was putting less emphasis on the cunningness and uniqueness of the traps. In most of the films up to this point, the traps have been adapted to each individual's mistakes. In this film, not so much. Jigsaw doesn't even give many of his voice overs that his gives normally. The end of this film is great and shows off that some people are too willing to sacrifice and that some other people just cannot learn to trust.
Right. Down to why I love this series as I do. It is mainly because it can show off the best and worst of humanity. The worst being the people who are being trapped because it can show how they would not even consider changing their lifestyles unless this happened. Very few people escape their traps, but if their will to survive was that strong, they would need to repent a.k.a. make a sacrifice. To me at least it is also an interesting psychological experiment into the human mind. Jigsaw does not truly believe that he is killing people, he is merely testing their will. If they die, its due to them not him. He is not ignorant though in the way that he tests people. He explains to them what they have to do to escape, and shows them why they are being tested in the first place. Sometimes the people who are being tested call out to him for mercy, but they are not going to get it because in a certain way this is a mercy. Jigsaw is giving them a chance to save themselves and maybe they will take this as a life lesson.
Another thing I love this the traps. I have a very technical mind, and I just love seeing the mechanics not only behind the physical aspects of the trap, but the mental as well. In one of the better parts of Saw 2 a woman sees an antidote to the poison they have been given in a glass box hanging from the ceiling. She puts both her arms in the arm holes, and doesn't even think for a second that anything could go wrong. When she has put her arms through there are a circle of razor blades going up in a twisted motion that prevent her arms from coming back out. This really does teach you to look before you leap.
One of the best traps of the series in my opinion was from the opening scene from Saw 4. There are two men. One with mouth sewn shut, the other with eyes sewn shut. The downside to this is we don't get any voice over from Jigsaw, but back to the trap. They are both chained to a device that will pull the chain in until they have both been choked to death. The keys to each of their collars are on the other person's neck. Of course without the ability to communicate, the blind man panics and the mute person decided to kill him before ripping the stitches out. I believe this showed how lack of communication and ability to work together to survive killed that man, not Jigsaw.
There have also been two games for this film series, the first of which I am playing through at the moment. So that can wait for another day, as can its sequel Saw 2: Flesh and Blood.
So thats why I love the Saw series so much. I hope you have enjoyed this little rant on one of my favourite film series, and just so you know I will give a little exposition in footnotes.
Favourite Saw Film: Saw 3
Least Favourite: Saw 2
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Friday 18 February 2011
Late to the Party - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review
This game is great at telling a story. Why is the single player only six hours long! You can't just add special ops missions and then call it a day. But i'm here to talk about the single player as always.
Basically Russia invades America. Thats about it. I can't really say much more than that. This is a very short campaign and I was very disappointed that it was so. Does this mean that it was not fun? Of course not. The multiplayer more than excuses it, but I prefer the singleplayer experience.
This is the shortest game review I will ever probably do. Basically 7/10 on the single player campaign, but an essential for online play.
This is Tyramatt, and these timed pipe puzzles in Saw will be the death of me. Theres a joke in there somewhere, try and find it.
Basically Russia invades America. Thats about it. I can't really say much more than that. This is a very short campaign and I was very disappointed that it was so. Does this mean that it was not fun? Of course not. The multiplayer more than excuses it, but I prefer the singleplayer experience.
This is the shortest game review I will ever probably do. Basically 7/10 on the single player campaign, but an essential for online play.
This is Tyramatt, and these timed pipe puzzles in Saw will be the death of me. Theres a joke in there somewhere, try and find it.
Thursday 17 February 2011
Bored-of-Lands: Borderlands Review
I normally wait a day or say before writing these reviews after finishing a game, just so that I can let the whole experience lie and sink in. In Borderlands case, I just want to get it over and done with. Borderlands sells itself as a RPS, which is a Role-Playing-Shooter apparently, and while they have the shooter part down, the role playing part leaves alot to be desired. There are alot of guns. Believe me, there are more than enough guns for every person in the UK to meet up and have a firefight. So it is a shooter. The roleplaying is just whittled down however to training the gun type that you want by using one of the different types of guns, and choosing what gun and shield you want equipped. Thats it.
My problem with this is that it is selling itself too well as a role-playing game, and it really isn't. You cannot change what your person looks like, there is little to no control over your character's athestics whatsoever. This is not role-playing. It is a glorified open-world shooter. Another point is the massive glitches this game has. I am unsure whether it is just the PS3 version that gets this, but on more than one occassion towards the end I got massive lag and loot weapons started floating all over the place.
Borderlands is set on the planet Pandora and you play one of four mercenaries who have come to roam the wasteland and find a vault. I first thought when I heard of this concept that it was the polar opposite to Fallout 3, where you are in the vault and get out onto the wasteland. There are a few variations on the missions, but the point stays the same. Go into a new part of wasteland and shoot monsters and bandits. Thats the majority of the missons, apart from a couple that I won't mention for spoiler reasons.
There is a large supply of main characters, but I won't talk about them because there are too many to count on both hands. Instead I will use this section to talk about game in general. Borderlands is one of the most disappointing games I have ever played. Little to no story apart from "The Vault has much treasure! You want it!", it really did not live up to my expectations of an alien world with wonderous creatures to kill. Maybe I just went into it with the wrong mindset, but when I saw just regular humans who were apparently prisoners I gave a huge sigh. The gameplay is at the complete opposite though and carried me through most of this game. Like I said in my vanquish review, the gameplay makes up for the story, but why should it have to?
Right. Now to talk about the ending. Just a warning *MASSIVE SPOILERS THAT DON@T REALLY FIT IN WITH THE GAME*. A person opens the vault and a huge Cthulu-esque creature comes out. You then have to kill it as this is the final boss of the Vault storyline. This was fine example of bad game design choice. I stood just out of its reach and shot it for about 3 minutes. It went down, and although it was able to push me off the edge of a cliff, I returned with full health and shield. The end boss however did not get back any of its health. This was the most boring and generic end boss I have ever fought.
Overall, Borderlands is not the best experience I have ever had, and maybe the downloadable content does bring it back. But i'm not wasting any more time on this game than I have to.
Borderlands. 6/10. That is all.
This is Tyramatt, going back to solve puzzles in Saw: The Videogame.
My problem with this is that it is selling itself too well as a role-playing game, and it really isn't. You cannot change what your person looks like, there is little to no control over your character's athestics whatsoever. This is not role-playing. It is a glorified open-world shooter. Another point is the massive glitches this game has. I am unsure whether it is just the PS3 version that gets this, but on more than one occassion towards the end I got massive lag and loot weapons started floating all over the place.
Borderlands is set on the planet Pandora and you play one of four mercenaries who have come to roam the wasteland and find a vault. I first thought when I heard of this concept that it was the polar opposite to Fallout 3, where you are in the vault and get out onto the wasteland. There are a few variations on the missions, but the point stays the same. Go into a new part of wasteland and shoot monsters and bandits. Thats the majority of the missons, apart from a couple that I won't mention for spoiler reasons.
There is a large supply of main characters, but I won't talk about them because there are too many to count on both hands. Instead I will use this section to talk about game in general. Borderlands is one of the most disappointing games I have ever played. Little to no story apart from "The Vault has much treasure! You want it!", it really did not live up to my expectations of an alien world with wonderous creatures to kill. Maybe I just went into it with the wrong mindset, but when I saw just regular humans who were apparently prisoners I gave a huge sigh. The gameplay is at the complete opposite though and carried me through most of this game. Like I said in my vanquish review, the gameplay makes up for the story, but why should it have to?
Right. Now to talk about the ending. Just a warning *MASSIVE SPOILERS THAT DON@T REALLY FIT IN WITH THE GAME*. A person opens the vault and a huge Cthulu-esque creature comes out. You then have to kill it as this is the final boss of the Vault storyline. This was fine example of bad game design choice. I stood just out of its reach and shot it for about 3 minutes. It went down, and although it was able to push me off the edge of a cliff, I returned with full health and shield. The end boss however did not get back any of its health. This was the most boring and generic end boss I have ever fought.
Overall, Borderlands is not the best experience I have ever had, and maybe the downloadable content does bring it back. But i'm not wasting any more time on this game than I have to.
Borderlands. 6/10. That is all.
This is Tyramatt, going back to solve puzzles in Saw: The Videogame.
Friday 11 February 2011
Castlevania: Lords of Somewhat Cool Things - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Review
Castlevania. A game series that I have never played before, but i've heard alot about it. From what I have heard from many sources Dracula has been a mainstake of this series, no pun intended. This game does not have dracula in it. I was slightly disappointed. He gets name-dropped at the end, but he doesn't properly appear in his full glory as with the other games. So with that out of the way, lets talk about the game.
You control Gabriel Belmont, and I have no idea how he ties to the rest of the Belmonts before anyone says anything. He has a dead wife, and to bring her back he must defeat the three lords of shadow to gain their power and bring his wife back to life. That has NEVER been a bad idea in any situation before has it. He is part of a brotherhood of which the only other person we see is voiced by Patrick Stewart. Although as I said when I first saw him, "Patrick Stewart does not a good game make". The game is littered with puzzles, upgrades and trials that you can replay levels to get more from them, which is good. Especially on the PS3 version as you don't have to swap discs.
You can't ignore the gameplay in this game. It is very God of War-esqe, with a bit of Shadow of the Collosus like platforming sections on the three times you need to do it. The quicktime events are what kill me though. Castlevania: LOS uses alot of quick time events. More than I have seen in any other game. You can't relax during the cinematics, which look very good by the way, because without any indication it could change to a quicktime event that results in instant death. This happened on more than one occasion to me.
One thing that really bothered me about this was what the three lords of shadow were. We have Werewolves which I expected, Vampires which I again expected, and Necromancers? I didn't really see that coming. I know there probably wasn't a huge list that they could have had, but I wouldn't have had that as my first choice. What bothered me more about this concept is when you fight the Lord of Shadow for the Necromancers as well. I didn't really expect Death to show up, because he has never been mentioned before, and isn't mentioned again after this.
The worst thing I found in this game was the Chubacabra sections. A few times in the game, normally in a inconvient location, a Chubacabra will appear and take away all your magic and relics. You then have to find it and kill it to get them back. This is just trivial and a cheap way to add a couple more minutes of play time to a chapter. It just comes off as annoying.
Just a warning. Chapter 12, the final chapter is a lot like the ending cinematic to Enslaved: Odyssey To The West. I say this because it really does come out of nowhere, is not led up to or have any significance on what has happened up to this point, and has little to no bearing on the plot past this point as well. Overall this game was very average for most of the experience, until I got to the post-credits cutscene where it really won me on side, but you will hear no spoilers from me on that.
Lets talk about the characters starting with Gabriel. I really don't like Gabriel for many reasons. The first thing I noticed was that most of the game he just looks bored, even in the opening fight where he is killing waves of werewolves. Even when a horse appears in front of him and talks, his facial expression doesn't change. The same look of boredom makes when he expresses emotion better by contrast, but why couldn't he have been slightly more emotional all the time? The fact that he has a scottish accent also bothers me. But I can't really complain about that when the first time you meet the god Pan, I couldn't figure out his accent. I thought it was russian but I just don't know.
Gabriel is the only what I would call "Main Character", but there are some supporting cast members who I prefer in some cases to Gabriel for one reason or another. Zobek, Patrick Stewarts character, is likeable and narrates most of the story. Obviously getting as much as possible out of what Patrick Stewart is most recognisable for. His voice. Zobek doesn't do much in the story, just tells the player whats he thinks at the start of the chapter. His actions can get a bit questionable at points, but it never gets old. Gabriel's dead wife Maria plays a very small role in this game, despite the fact that she is the one who is trying to be resurrected. She is a very uninteresting character, but with the next character is gets interesting again.
Pan is my favourite character in this game. He is described as one of the last of the "Old Gods", and it shows. He is portrayed as a beastman, who can turn into a horse, or giant eagle when he feels like it. Likewise he only seems to help Gabriel when he feels like it. I love him for that. Just the general attitude of "I will help you in your quest. When I am in a good mood. Also when it is convient for me and I happen to be in the area."
Overall, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a very average game with some good parts and a good final ending. I highly doubt it will be the best game you will ever play, but if you can get it new for about £20 like I did it's worth every penny. Overall verdict 6/10.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
You control Gabriel Belmont, and I have no idea how he ties to the rest of the Belmonts before anyone says anything. He has a dead wife, and to bring her back he must defeat the three lords of shadow to gain their power and bring his wife back to life. That has NEVER been a bad idea in any situation before has it. He is part of a brotherhood of which the only other person we see is voiced by Patrick Stewart. Although as I said when I first saw him, "Patrick Stewart does not a good game make". The game is littered with puzzles, upgrades and trials that you can replay levels to get more from them, which is good. Especially on the PS3 version as you don't have to swap discs.
You can't ignore the gameplay in this game. It is very God of War-esqe, with a bit of Shadow of the Collosus like platforming sections on the three times you need to do it. The quicktime events are what kill me though. Castlevania: LOS uses alot of quick time events. More than I have seen in any other game. You can't relax during the cinematics, which look very good by the way, because without any indication it could change to a quicktime event that results in instant death. This happened on more than one occasion to me.
One thing that really bothered me about this was what the three lords of shadow were. We have Werewolves which I expected, Vampires which I again expected, and Necromancers? I didn't really see that coming. I know there probably wasn't a huge list that they could have had, but I wouldn't have had that as my first choice. What bothered me more about this concept is when you fight the Lord of Shadow for the Necromancers as well. I didn't really expect Death to show up, because he has never been mentioned before, and isn't mentioned again after this.
The worst thing I found in this game was the Chubacabra sections. A few times in the game, normally in a inconvient location, a Chubacabra will appear and take away all your magic and relics. You then have to find it and kill it to get them back. This is just trivial and a cheap way to add a couple more minutes of play time to a chapter. It just comes off as annoying.
Just a warning. Chapter 12, the final chapter is a lot like the ending cinematic to Enslaved: Odyssey To The West. I say this because it really does come out of nowhere, is not led up to or have any significance on what has happened up to this point, and has little to no bearing on the plot past this point as well. Overall this game was very average for most of the experience, until I got to the post-credits cutscene where it really won me on side, but you will hear no spoilers from me on that.
Lets talk about the characters starting with Gabriel. I really don't like Gabriel for many reasons. The first thing I noticed was that most of the game he just looks bored, even in the opening fight where he is killing waves of werewolves. Even when a horse appears in front of him and talks, his facial expression doesn't change. The same look of boredom makes when he expresses emotion better by contrast, but why couldn't he have been slightly more emotional all the time? The fact that he has a scottish accent also bothers me. But I can't really complain about that when the first time you meet the god Pan, I couldn't figure out his accent. I thought it was russian but I just don't know.
Gabriel is the only what I would call "Main Character", but there are some supporting cast members who I prefer in some cases to Gabriel for one reason or another. Zobek, Patrick Stewarts character, is likeable and narrates most of the story. Obviously getting as much as possible out of what Patrick Stewart is most recognisable for. His voice. Zobek doesn't do much in the story, just tells the player whats he thinks at the start of the chapter. His actions can get a bit questionable at points, but it never gets old. Gabriel's dead wife Maria plays a very small role in this game, despite the fact that she is the one who is trying to be resurrected. She is a very uninteresting character, but with the next character is gets interesting again.
Pan is my favourite character in this game. He is described as one of the last of the "Old Gods", and it shows. He is portrayed as a beastman, who can turn into a horse, or giant eagle when he feels like it. Likewise he only seems to help Gabriel when he feels like it. I love him for that. Just the general attitude of "I will help you in your quest. When I am in a good mood. Also when it is convient for me and I happen to be in the area."
Overall, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a very average game with some good parts and a good final ending. I highly doubt it will be the best game you will ever play, but if you can get it new for about £20 like I did it's worth every penny. Overall verdict 6/10.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Monday 7 February 2011
Dead Scary 2 - A Dead Space 2 Review
Dead Space 2 is a game that I never thought would be made, and when it was first announced I was very skeptical. In addition to this the prospect of Isaac talking and interacting with NPCs was not pleasing to me and Dead Space 2 had to do alot to break my expectations of this game. Dead Space 2 delievered.
What I recieved was a survival action horror game where ammo is scarce and most things, both Necromorph and Human, are trying to kill you. They all have their own agendas however, not all the humans want to eat your flesh... Dead Space 2 starts off with Isaac in a hospital on the space colony on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It appears that Isaac is still not over his wife's sudden departure from this world, as her ghost won't leave him alone. Necromorphs appear in the hospital that Isaac is in and as he flees for his life, starts a tale of horror, betrayal and survival that will take Isaac from the intensive care unit to the very place where it all began.
A cast of new minor and major characters are introduced, although most of them are killed off as soon as they appear, but I won't spoil these for you. I know that they are trying to convey a feeling of a big city with alot of residents, but without the ability to tell whether the character you just met is a main character that you are supposed to get attached to or to start waving goodbye to them now. The ending is very good, not as good as the original but very conclusive, while keeping it open for sequels that I will now be looking forward to.
Dead Space 2 is one of the best sequels I have played in a good long while. While it does not surpass the original in terms of quality, it not only adds to the original story but sets up for its own story as well. Using this it distances itself from the original without completly ignoring it and changing vital information *cough* Highlander 2: The Quickening *cough*.
Dead Space 2 gets a very well deserved 8/10 and is the best game I have played so far this year. With just 10 months left, let us see if something else can impress.
This is Tyramatt, and something else probably will impress more.
What I recieved was a survival action horror game where ammo is scarce and most things, both Necromorph and Human, are trying to kill you. They all have their own agendas however, not all the humans want to eat your flesh... Dead Space 2 starts off with Isaac in a hospital on the space colony on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It appears that Isaac is still not over his wife's sudden departure from this world, as her ghost won't leave him alone. Necromorphs appear in the hospital that Isaac is in and as he flees for his life, starts a tale of horror, betrayal and survival that will take Isaac from the intensive care unit to the very place where it all began.
A cast of new minor and major characters are introduced, although most of them are killed off as soon as they appear, but I won't spoil these for you. I know that they are trying to convey a feeling of a big city with alot of residents, but without the ability to tell whether the character you just met is a main character that you are supposed to get attached to or to start waving goodbye to them now. The ending is very good, not as good as the original but very conclusive, while keeping it open for sequels that I will now be looking forward to.
Dead Space 2 is one of the best sequels I have played in a good long while. While it does not surpass the original in terms of quality, it not only adds to the original story but sets up for its own story as well. Using this it distances itself from the original without completly ignoring it and changing vital information *cough* Highlander 2: The Quickening *cough*.
Dead Space 2 gets a very well deserved 8/10 and is the best game I have played so far this year. With just 10 months left, let us see if something else can impress.
This is Tyramatt, and something else probably will impress more.
Thursday 3 February 2011
A Look Back - Dead Space
So I just completed Dead Space 2. It was a good game, but i'm going to let it sink in before I talk about it. Lets talk about the first Dead Space for now. Just so you know there will be no spoilers in this review.
Dead Space was the first game I completed on the PS3, after attempting to play Mirror's Edge and Resistance 2 and failing miserably. I loved it. It was mainly full of jump scares, but I would definatly class it as action-horror if that makes any sense. Isaac Clarke is our character here and he goes on a routine mission to fix a minor communications bug. Being a engineer by trade Isaac travels there with two other companions, but this it turns out is no routine mission.
Bottom line is the whole crew is dead and have mutated into creatures that have been since dubbed Necromorphs. The basis of the game is to get off the star cracker space ship Ishimura alive. What follows is a journey of discovery, frights, and thrills that will keep you coming back for more and more. Theres also a sub-plot about Isaac looking for his wife, who may still be alive, but we are not going to talk about that.
Lets talk about Isaac Clarke now. He is a very strong main character in this game because he never talksand you never see his face, and you can make of that what you will. It was originally speculated that he could be a robot, but you just don't know until you play. This made Dead Space unique in its own way as while there are other main characters in games that don't talk e.g. Link in legend of Zelda, and other where you don't see their faces, there are few games that encorperate these things and have a main cast of six people.
Dead Space is one of my favourite games of this console generation and possibly even in my top 10 games. Although now the Dead Space series will be in the top 10. If they do a hollywood movie, please let it be good...
Im going back to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow now, so do with that what you will, but expect the Dead Space 2 review before long.
This is Tyramatt, in a Dead Space craze.
Dead Space was the first game I completed on the PS3, after attempting to play Mirror's Edge and Resistance 2 and failing miserably. I loved it. It was mainly full of jump scares, but I would definatly class it as action-horror if that makes any sense. Isaac Clarke is our character here and he goes on a routine mission to fix a minor communications bug. Being a engineer by trade Isaac travels there with two other companions, but this it turns out is no routine mission.
Bottom line is the whole crew is dead and have mutated into creatures that have been since dubbed Necromorphs. The basis of the game is to get off the star cracker space ship Ishimura alive. What follows is a journey of discovery, frights, and thrills that will keep you coming back for more and more. Theres also a sub-plot about Isaac looking for his wife, who may still be alive, but we are not going to talk about that.
Lets talk about Isaac Clarke now. He is a very strong main character in this game because he never talksand you never see his face, and you can make of that what you will. It was originally speculated that he could be a robot, but you just don't know until you play. This made Dead Space unique in its own way as while there are other main characters in games that don't talk e.g. Link in legend of Zelda, and other where you don't see their faces, there are few games that encorperate these things and have a main cast of six people.
Dead Space is one of my favourite games of this console generation and possibly even in my top 10 games. Although now the Dead Space series will be in the top 10. If they do a hollywood movie, please let it be good...
Im going back to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow now, so do with that what you will, but expect the Dead Space 2 review before long.
This is Tyramatt, in a Dead Space craze.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
A Look Ahead - Febuary In Games
Happy February everyone! Since Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is taking so long to complete and Dead Space 2 is too fun to stop playing, I thought I would take this chance to look ahead to some of the games that are getting to see the light of day this month.
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation
I still haven't completed the ninth installment but I am still looking forward to playing this remake of the sixth installment in this game series when it comes out. Release: 14th February 2011
Bulletstorm
Its hard to ignore this game, with the demo now being out and all. I know alot of people are looking forward to this, but i'm not one of them. I like the concept, I understand how it is different to other games, but I will not be picking this game up on release. I'm a bit sick of first person shooters at the minute. Release: 22nd February
Killzone 3
If you own a Playstation 3, you will be lucky to not have heard of Killzone 3. I have had this shoved down my throat quite alot not only from the Playstation blog, but from the store, and other internet sources. This game cannot possibly match the hype that it has earned itself. Killzone 3, considering I didnt like Killzone 2 that much you have alot of work to do. Release: 22nd February.
So overall, not really the groundbreaking month. We may still be getting out of the whole "Early year is an easy time to dump shit games on" period of the year.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow will have to wait just a little longer, Dead Space 2 calls...
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation
I still haven't completed the ninth installment but I am still looking forward to playing this remake of the sixth installment in this game series when it comes out. Release: 14th February 2011
Bulletstorm
Its hard to ignore this game, with the demo now being out and all. I know alot of people are looking forward to this, but i'm not one of them. I like the concept, I understand how it is different to other games, but I will not be picking this game up on release. I'm a bit sick of first person shooters at the minute. Release: 22nd February
Killzone 3
If you own a Playstation 3, you will be lucky to not have heard of Killzone 3. I have had this shoved down my throat quite alot not only from the Playstation blog, but from the store, and other internet sources. This game cannot possibly match the hype that it has earned itself. Killzone 3, considering I didnt like Killzone 2 that much you have alot of work to do. Release: 22nd February.
So overall, not really the groundbreaking month. We may still be getting out of the whole "Early year is an easy time to dump shit games on" period of the year.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow will have to wait just a little longer, Dead Space 2 calls...
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Friday 21 January 2011
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West Review
Its 2011 now! Can I please stop playing bad standalone 2010 games?
Well thats a bad way to start a review isn't it. Enslaved is a game by Ninja Theory, the same people who made heavenly sword, a game so short I completed it in 3 hours in a speedrun. Enslaved seems to take the worst from both of these games in my opinion, with its short length and the female character that I hate with every fibre of my being since she first opened her mouth.
There are only three major characters in this game, and I only really liked Pigsy, which is in effect the comic relief. Unfortunatly he comes in about three quarters of the way through the game, which is a shame as this makes me think that this character was introduced too late to make a difference and he was meant to have a bigger part in the game. I feel no attachment to either of the other two only characters in the game, "Monkey" who the player controls, and "Trip" who is possibly the worst female character I have ever played with as a escort character. The basic plot is that Trip needs to be taken back to her village, so puts a explosive headband on Monkey so that he will help her. I'll go into what I think of the story later, but believe me it gets bad.
The combat is great. It works, although a bit slow to react at some occassions, and some of the upgrades simply are not worth the money that you spend on them. All you need to know is that for the most part, the combat is near perfect.
The story on the other hand, is a huge mess. One second they are going to a village to check on a character's father, which was well organised if uninteresting, but then in quick succession they learn of a super mech, and go to "the Pyramid" to do.... something. There is almost no story in the narrativeafter the first half, and this is just wasted potential. No matter how good your combat is you can't just tell us that these characters are doing something now and its good. When you get to the pyramid as well there is one of the scenes that I think is the most I have ever seen for wasted potential.
*SPOILERS* You get to the pyramid, and you find out that all of the slaves have been put in virtual reality powered by one man's memory of the old world. He created this to give people a chance to live out their lives in the virtual world and it to be easy, rather than rebuilding the current world and it being hard. Monkey sees the perfect world, and Trip decides to kill the man powering the whole thing. This is just wasted potential. You could have had this scene go so many other ways. Lets just look at one of the ways you could have ended it, from a perspective if we eliminate any labels of good or evil. Trip goes to murder the guy, Monkey gets a choice to either stop her, or let her do it. If he stops her they go to live in the perfect world and live out their remaining days, and if he lets her kill the guy, they help to rebuild the lost civilisations. What we got however was a ending where Trip kills the guy and makes a bad cutscene even worse by saying "Did I do the right thing?". We never get a response from Monkey, or any closure as then the credits start.
What happened to the mechs?! Was that guy controlling them? Did he create them? How did he create them?! How does he control them! So many unanswered questions!
I paid just under £20 for this game, and I do think that I got my money's worth from this game. The thing is now though as we come out of the sales, this is how much this game is worth. If I had paid anything more than this for it, I would feel ripped off.
Overall, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West gets a competant score of 6/10, with the alrightness of the first half and combat, balancing out the ending that I thought was horrendous.
Lets hope that Castlevania: Lord's of Shadow can impress.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Well thats a bad way to start a review isn't it. Enslaved is a game by Ninja Theory, the same people who made heavenly sword, a game so short I completed it in 3 hours in a speedrun. Enslaved seems to take the worst from both of these games in my opinion, with its short length and the female character that I hate with every fibre of my being since she first opened her mouth.
There are only three major characters in this game, and I only really liked Pigsy, which is in effect the comic relief. Unfortunatly he comes in about three quarters of the way through the game, which is a shame as this makes me think that this character was introduced too late to make a difference and he was meant to have a bigger part in the game. I feel no attachment to either of the other two only characters in the game, "Monkey" who the player controls, and "Trip" who is possibly the worst female character I have ever played with as a escort character. The basic plot is that Trip needs to be taken back to her village, so puts a explosive headband on Monkey so that he will help her. I'll go into what I think of the story later, but believe me it gets bad.
The combat is great. It works, although a bit slow to react at some occassions, and some of the upgrades simply are not worth the money that you spend on them. All you need to know is that for the most part, the combat is near perfect.
The story on the other hand, is a huge mess. One second they are going to a village to check on a character's father, which was well organised if uninteresting, but then in quick succession they learn of a super mech, and go to "the Pyramid" to do.... something. There is almost no story in the narrativeafter the first half, and this is just wasted potential. No matter how good your combat is you can't just tell us that these characters are doing something now and its good. When you get to the pyramid as well there is one of the scenes that I think is the most I have ever seen for wasted potential.
*SPOILERS* You get to the pyramid, and you find out that all of the slaves have been put in virtual reality powered by one man's memory of the old world. He created this to give people a chance to live out their lives in the virtual world and it to be easy, rather than rebuilding the current world and it being hard. Monkey sees the perfect world, and Trip decides to kill the man powering the whole thing. This is just wasted potential. You could have had this scene go so many other ways. Lets just look at one of the ways you could have ended it, from a perspective if we eliminate any labels of good or evil. Trip goes to murder the guy, Monkey gets a choice to either stop her, or let her do it. If he stops her they go to live in the perfect world and live out their remaining days, and if he lets her kill the guy, they help to rebuild the lost civilisations. What we got however was a ending where Trip kills the guy and makes a bad cutscene even worse by saying "Did I do the right thing?". We never get a response from Monkey, or any closure as then the credits start.
What happened to the mechs?! Was that guy controlling them? Did he create them? How did he create them?! How does he control them! So many unanswered questions!
I paid just under £20 for this game, and I do think that I got my money's worth from this game. The thing is now though as we come out of the sales, this is how much this game is worth. If I had paid anything more than this for it, I would feel ripped off.
Overall, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West gets a competant score of 6/10, with the alrightness of the first half and combat, balancing out the ending that I thought was horrendous.
Lets hope that Castlevania: Lord's of Shadow can impress.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Mirror's Edge + A bit of a 2010 Rant
Mirror's Edge was a game that I got free with my ps3 back when I purchased it back in 2008. I hated it then, and was actually unable to finish it as I just couldn't bring myself to play it through til the end. So now three years have passed and I am older and wiser, so lets see if I can get through this game the second round.
Mirror's Edge is a "groundbreaking" first person free running game, where everything is the colours of the flag of Denmark. A bit of blue sneaks its way in there as well, and green on trees but I digress. You take control of "Faith", which I joked was aptly named as many people had faith in the game being good after the demo, who is a member of the runners. The Runners are basically your framing element for the narrative of this game, but all you need to know is that the police don't like you. You uncover a conspiracy and have to find out the real culprit of a crime, while roaming the city tops and viewing the wonderful scener-- AHH!! MY EYES!!
Sorry about that, just got a bit blinded there by the excessive bloom that this game offers off it's shiny white buildings. My main problem with Mirror's Edge is that the story is rubbish. I have almost no drive to uncover this crime, or to save the framed suspect. This is partially due to Faith being a very unlikeable character, and partially due to the strange decision to have anime-style cutscenes. I understand that they were trying something different, but it just comes off to me as out of place. The controls are unimpressive and the combat is clunky and interesting. What really kills this game from a control perspective is when you try to jump from a hanging edge or a pipe, and Faith slowly turns to see where to jump to. This really hinders a game from the first person, and in a firefight, it is crippling to gameplay.
I paid £3.50 for this game and I still feel that this was too much. At times Mirror's Edge felt like a chore. I had fun at points, but these very quickly fell back into the metaphorical gravy that is bad gameplay choices, bad level direction, and huge glitches at points that can leave you hovering in midair and having to restart from the last checkpoint. Just so you know this happened at least 20 times.
Overall, Mirror's Edge, an experiment, lets hope they do better next time. Whenever that is. 4/10.
Now a bit of a rant about 2010. Now 2010 to me was a very disappointing year for gaming. We had some good sequels to some otherwise alright games, see Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2, but we also had some sequels that just didn't live up to the original, see Bioshock 2. What I want to say here though is that this could have been a good year for gaming. Its just that we have had too many good years already. In my opinion 2007, 2008, and 2009 were good years for gaming. 2010 will not be remembered as a good year for gaming, and thats because it was a very, very, mediocre year. It started off strong, but the ending was weak. The sooner we forget about this, the better.
Just for the record, I am still working through the 2010 games that I wanted to play but didn't, so 2010 could still score some points with me, but this is my defining arguement.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Mirror's Edge is a "groundbreaking" first person free running game, where everything is the colours of the flag of Denmark. A bit of blue sneaks its way in there as well, and green on trees but I digress. You take control of "Faith", which I joked was aptly named as many people had faith in the game being good after the demo, who is a member of the runners. The Runners are basically your framing element for the narrative of this game, but all you need to know is that the police don't like you. You uncover a conspiracy and have to find out the real culprit of a crime, while roaming the city tops and viewing the wonderful scener-- AHH!! MY EYES!!
Sorry about that, just got a bit blinded there by the excessive bloom that this game offers off it's shiny white buildings. My main problem with Mirror's Edge is that the story is rubbish. I have almost no drive to uncover this crime, or to save the framed suspect. This is partially due to Faith being a very unlikeable character, and partially due to the strange decision to have anime-style cutscenes. I understand that they were trying something different, but it just comes off to me as out of place. The controls are unimpressive and the combat is clunky and interesting. What really kills this game from a control perspective is when you try to jump from a hanging edge or a pipe, and Faith slowly turns to see where to jump to. This really hinders a game from the first person, and in a firefight, it is crippling to gameplay.
I paid £3.50 for this game and I still feel that this was too much. At times Mirror's Edge felt like a chore. I had fun at points, but these very quickly fell back into the metaphorical gravy that is bad gameplay choices, bad level direction, and huge glitches at points that can leave you hovering in midair and having to restart from the last checkpoint. Just so you know this happened at least 20 times.
Overall, Mirror's Edge, an experiment, lets hope they do better next time. Whenever that is. 4/10.
Now a bit of a rant about 2010. Now 2010 to me was a very disappointing year for gaming. We had some good sequels to some otherwise alright games, see Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2, but we also had some sequels that just didn't live up to the original, see Bioshock 2. What I want to say here though is that this could have been a good year for gaming. Its just that we have had too many good years already. In my opinion 2007, 2008, and 2009 were good years for gaming. 2010 will not be remembered as a good year for gaming, and thats because it was a very, very, mediocre year. It started off strong, but the ending was weak. The sooner we forget about this, the better.
Just for the record, I am still working through the 2010 games that I wanted to play but didn't, so 2010 could still score some points with me, but this is my defining arguement.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Tuesday 11 January 2011
Game Quickie: Call of Duty 4: Modernish Warfare
Just a short thing here, this is only concerning the single player of this game. I only care about the story! On this, it falls flat. Most of the very short campaign I had little to no idea of the overarching plot.
You jump from the perspective of many soliders during the "Modern" conflict, and i'm sure you all know about this by now. There really is no point me reviewing this is there? Everyone and their dog has already played this game. You already know if you like it or not, and its not like my opinion of the single player is going to change your opinion of the multiplayer.
Huh. Seems this has turned into a games quickie. Best change the title. Will do that now.
Basically, Call of Duty 4 is alright, story is bad, hopefully black ops is better.
Next Up, Mirror's Edge!
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
You jump from the perspective of many soliders during the "Modern" conflict, and i'm sure you all know about this by now. There really is no point me reviewing this is there? Everyone and their dog has already played this game. You already know if you like it or not, and its not like my opinion of the single player is going to change your opinion of the multiplayer.
Huh. Seems this has turned into a games quickie. Best change the title. Will do that now.
Basically, Call of Duty 4 is alright, story is bad, hopefully black ops is better.
Next Up, Mirror's Edge!
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Game Quickie - Vanquish
Vanquish is a brilliant example of how graphics can blend seamlessly into gameplay to create a fun, fast-paced experience, that is sure to keep you glued to the screen for hours on end. The problem with it is that the story is lacking, so if you like story in your game this is not for you. The story is not very well explained and the whole story in general feels like it has been latched onto the game to surround the parts of the game that had already been done. Once again, if you think story is the most important thing in a game, avoid this one.
For those more interested in the gameplay and graphics the control is fluid to the standard of perfection. The graphics also assist with creating the cyber city scenery that everyone wants to see in a near-distant future.
You take control of Sam Gideon as he retaliates against a Russian assault from a W.M.D that fires a laser that destroys San Francisco. What follows can be up to ten hours of gameplay depending on difficulty setting, all encompassed in the space colony just outside of the earth’s orbit. The game also keeps a running total of your score throughout the missions which add to the replayability factor as you try to beat your last playthrough score.
This is one of Platinum Games’ best games yet, and with outstanding titles such as Bayonetta and Madworld in its previous line-up, it towers above these and more.
Bottom line, 3/10 Story, 8/10 everything else. You make the call.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
Tuesday 4 January 2011
2011 Double Review - Fallout: New Vegas + Bear
Happy 2011 Mighty Spaceman from the Future! So, its been a while. But now we are out of the Christmas period I thought we could do with some new reviews here on gamesJunction so here they are.
The first thing I wanted to talk about was Fallout: New Vegas. There has been alot of flak around this game because of the numerous bugs, the game crashing constantly, and the fact that it was on an "outdated" engine. I have now completed the main story from one of the factions, as well as a number of sidequests, and I have to say these do not stop it from being a good game. I know people are going to disagree with me when I say this but I think it is better than Fallout 3. It may have a smaller map, but there are were alot better with their space management this time around. More towns, more sidequest trails, and more of an overarching plot than Fallout 3 had. If I had to summarise my experience in one word it would be "fast". The plot moves as quickly as you want it to, but some of the sidequests can be completed by either talking down to people or by shooting them in the head. This is not a bad thing as they are trying to cater to many playstyles of different players, but if I have a short time avaliable to play, I am going to go for the shorter option. The good thing about this game though is that it always keeps you guessing. For example, do I help the super mutants who only want to be left alone and gain infamy amongst the people I am trying to help already, or do I kill them and gain the infamy amongst the super mutants? It is also about the risk versus reward in these kind of scenarios. If I help everyone, I might get more or less. You just don't know. So to end this part of the review, Fallout: New Vegas, not as bad as you might have heard, good game, 7/10.
So to move onto a movie that I bought a while ago and never got around to watching until last week. Bear. This is by far one of the most entertaining movies I have ever watched. It is so unbelievably ludicrus, that it flys high above everyones expectations. I will now summarise the plot. Some people get a flat tyre and crash into a forest. They replace the tyre and decide to camp out for the night in the forest despite the fact that they don't know where they are. A bear appears, and then walks off. As the bear walks off, one of the guys shoots it eight times for some reason and the bear doesn't even notice until the seventh one. Bear dies, its mate comes to seek revenge. What follows is the most fun I have ever had taking the piss out of something. Let me just list the more stupid parts of the film:
Well those are the first reviews of 2011, so heres hoping that this year brings us more reviews, and joy all around.
This is Tyramatt, hoping that Dead to Rights doesn't get a sequel this year.
The first thing I wanted to talk about was Fallout: New Vegas. There has been alot of flak around this game because of the numerous bugs, the game crashing constantly, and the fact that it was on an "outdated" engine. I have now completed the main story from one of the factions, as well as a number of sidequests, and I have to say these do not stop it from being a good game. I know people are going to disagree with me when I say this but I think it is better than Fallout 3. It may have a smaller map, but there are were alot better with their space management this time around. More towns, more sidequest trails, and more of an overarching plot than Fallout 3 had. If I had to summarise my experience in one word it would be "fast". The plot moves as quickly as you want it to, but some of the sidequests can be completed by either talking down to people or by shooting them in the head. This is not a bad thing as they are trying to cater to many playstyles of different players, but if I have a short time avaliable to play, I am going to go for the shorter option. The good thing about this game though is that it always keeps you guessing. For example, do I help the super mutants who only want to be left alone and gain infamy amongst the people I am trying to help already, or do I kill them and gain the infamy amongst the super mutants? It is also about the risk versus reward in these kind of scenarios. If I help everyone, I might get more or less. You just don't know. So to end this part of the review, Fallout: New Vegas, not as bad as you might have heard, good game, 7/10.
So to move onto a movie that I bought a while ago and never got around to watching until last week. Bear. This is by far one of the most entertaining movies I have ever watched. It is so unbelievably ludicrus, that it flys high above everyones expectations. I will now summarise the plot. Some people get a flat tyre and crash into a forest. They replace the tyre and decide to camp out for the night in the forest despite the fact that they don't know where they are. A bear appears, and then walks off. As the bear walks off, one of the guys shoots it eight times for some reason and the bear doesn't even notice until the seventh one. Bear dies, its mate comes to seek revenge. What follows is the most fun I have ever had taking the piss out of something. Let me just list the more stupid parts of the film:
- A bear tips a fully stocked people carrier on its side
- The four skinny people tip it back over
- The Bear has a flashback to what happened eight or nine seconds ago
- The Bear tips the people carrier over again, but on its back this time.
- A guy leaves to go to a lodge nearby that he hasn't ever mentioned up to this point
- Two of the skinny people tip the people carrier over FROM ITS BACK.
- The guy comes back from the lodge and says that they are all dead, probably from the ONE BEAR THATS ATTACKING THEM.
Well those are the first reviews of 2011, so heres hoping that this year brings us more reviews, and joy all around.
This is Tyramatt, hoping that Dead to Rights doesn't get a sequel this year.
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