Film Review: TTS: Eclipse

Following on from the spectacular non-event that was New Moon – which, as far as I can remember, just featured Kristen Stewert sobbing in the corner for a couple of hours while Taylor Lautner injected his biceps with minced beef crying “Do you love me now” – the latest instalment in the bafflingly popular Twilight series, Eclipse, reared its chiselled, sparkling and forever sulking head in cinemas a few weeks ago, and with me having this weird, almost masochistic urge to toddle along and sit through two hours of this emotionally undead (geddit?) garbage every time it comes out, I just had to get in on the fun.

It’s some time after the “surprise” proposal ending of New Moon – at least I’m assuming it was a surprise ending because of the way the girls sitting in front of me gasped, but it’s just as possible they’d spent the film building up to a climax and the close up of Robert Pattinson tipped them over the edge – and everything is pretty much where we left it. Bella and Edward aren’t married, since Bella won’t marry a vampire (common sense prevails?) until he turns her into a vampire (maybe not then), but that hasn’t stopped Edward popping the question over and over again, although fortunately he stops just short of a full-on Mrs Doyle impersonation. Jacob is still hanging around too, probably shirtless, and is still a bit miffed about whatever happened in the last film. So the whole love story thing hasn’t gotten any more interesting than it already wasn’t, but at least now there’s a decent sub-plot with some real vampires kicking off down the road.

One of the underdeveloped “proper” vampires Victoria (the ginger one from the first film), and she’s got a bit of a grudge against Bella; their respective vampire boyfriends had a bit of a scrap and Victoria’s ended up a bit dead. So, after spending the last film plotting somewhere, she’s now building an army of unborn vampires to help get her revenge. Which almost sounds cool, but as it turns out there are six children in the army and they’re led by someone called Riley who looks like he fell out of a failed boy band. Still, as non-threatening as the army is, they do help drive Eclipse forward at a decent pace, something that New Moon totally lacked.

With the vampiric Mickey Mouse Club fast approaching, the Forks vampire and werewolf clans are forced to come together to protect Bella. Given the long, bloody history between them you’d be forgiven for expecting a tense couple of scenes, but everything is a bit unintentionally hilarious. The Cullen clan are quite camp at the best of times, so when one of them starts strutting around in front of the bemused looking werewolves pretending to be a drill instructor it’s a little difficult to keep a straight face. On the plus side the resulting action sequences aren’t half bad; they are a bit too much like those ridiculously homo-erotic Olympic events where men is testes-smothering leotards flip around on a mat, but there’s a surprisingly satisfying amount of neck snapping going on. So there’s half a thumbs-up for that.

Probably the most interesting part of Eclipse, though, doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual plot, or either of the other films’ plots for that matter. Until now the focus has very much been on Bella, Edward and occasionally Jacob, none of whom are particularly deep, complicated or even interesting characters, so it’s a refreshing change when some of the minor characters grasp the limelight for a couple of minutes and reveal their much darker pasts. There’s not always much relevance in it – one of Edwards sisters barely has a line for most of the film but still gets a few minutes of flashbacks detailing how she killed some guy once – but it gives some of the characters a depth that so far the series has been without.

It’s a shame, then, that these characters are inevitably pushed to the side when Bella swans (ba dum) her way onto the screen with Edward and Jacob in tow. In fairness they do seem to have developed a little more personality since the last romantic tug-of-war and even go as far as to force a smile and crack a joke every now and then, but for the most part they’re still painfully dull characters, which is only emphasised by Stewert, Pattinson and Lautner’s perpetually uninterested performances. But I guess it’s not all bad; Taylor clearly hasn’t let up on the fitness regime in-between filming. You’d have to be as flaccid as boiled celery not to feel a little twinge in your drawers when you look at him, from the neck down at least.

All things considered Eclipse, while still lumped with the same flaws of the previous films, is still the high point of the series so far. The action scenes are rather stylish, there’s a willing self-mocking that I’ve carefully avoided mentioning because it’s not possible to poke fun at, and the pacing is, er, existent. Whether it actually qualifies as a half decent film is still debatable; unless you’re a thirteen year old girl in that weird transitional phase where you’ve started playing horsey on the arm of the living room sofa. Then it’s awesome.

2/5: The best instalment so far, but the series’ flaws show no signs of fading. There’s a glimmer of promise in the Twilight universe, but so long as it’s overshadowed by the eternally predictable romantic mush that’s all it will ever be.

Can someone buy the flabby members of the Wolf Pack shirts of the next film? Or at very least give them some Creatine. Their appearance next to Taylor makes me feel genuinely sad for them.

Film Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Over the summer we often have a couple of games based on cinema’s mega blockbusters, and more often than not these turn out... well... not particularly well. Nine times out of ten they’re lame cash-ins by unsuccessful branches of big developers who are trying to prove they’re still worth something. Now Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (loosely based on the 2003 video game) has gone the other way and has - despite having a decent director, producer and cast - turned out in a similarly lame way.

The Prince of Persia in question is a weirdly British street urchin who is adopted by the king of Persia for throwing an apple at a guards head and running away. Fast forward some twenty years and he’s become the weirdly British Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) who, during a not-really-epic battle in the sacred city of Alamut, comes across the Dagger of Time. Various events unfold – the big one being that Dastan is framed for his father’s murder – and he ends up on the run with the Princess of Alamut, Tamina (Gemma Arteton), where he accidentally triggers the dagger’s magical, time-reversing power. A few more things happen (there’s an unnecessary trip to the ostrich races and a funny (annoying) man in a turban complains about taxes) and, after the bad guy is “revealed” as Dastan’s nefarious-looking Uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), he decides to help Tamina take the dagger back to where it belongs; although not without some more unnecessary stuff padding out the story in-between.

It’s this superfluous padding out that brings Prince of Persia down; the core story is simple enough, as a summer blockbuster should be, but too many sub-plots and minor characters are brought in and they just get in the way. Because of this the relationship between the leads, Dastan and Tamina, never gets properly fleshed out, and Dastan’s relationship with his brothers is barely even touched on. Really, the only relationship that seems to have any depth is the one between the man in a turban and someone who follows him around throwing knives; and chances are you won’t remember their names ten minutes after the film has ended.

Still, maybe that’s a bit of a blessing in disguise, because what little we do see of the Prince beyond his running, jumping, flipping and sword-swinging talents suggests that he ticks every irritating Disney-hero box possible without bursting into song every fifteen minutes. Almost every utterance is dripping with cringe-worthy smarm. Even when one of the characters dies and he’s confronted by someone grieving their loss by asking him if they’d told him the recently deceased’s story, he bluntly replies “Yes, you have” and walks away. He’s utterly unlikable and Gyllenhaaal’s lazy performance, which is essentially him strutting and smirking in-between dispensing his smug one-liners (complete with a grating British accent throughout), doesn’t help matters.

Although it’s probably unfair to merely highlight Gyllenhaaaal’s character and performance because, in truth, very few of the characters stand out. Arteton occasionally tries with Tamina and sometimes there is a genuine spunk about her, but this is inconsistent with the typical damsel-in-distress role she usually ends up playing when some big nasty men show up. She looks quite nice, though. Dastan’s princely brothers have an annoying habit of swapping sides every half an hour without any obvious reason and they’re performed with the same dodgy accents that Gyllenhaaaaal adopted, and Ben Kingsley’s Nizam just seems a little bored. The only character that actually seems to be enjoying himself is Alfred Molina’s Sheik Amar (the aforementioned man in a turban), and so most of the films humour does end up coming from him – although for the most part it’s a slightly weird, perhaps more adult humour (there’s a strong suggestion that he has sex with an ostrich) that will go over the head of most of the 12A/PG-13 audience.

Since the humour is maybe a little misjudged and none of the characters are particularly fun or likable, Prince of Persia’s action had to compensate – which it does, if only a little. The few free-running sequences are suitably slick and stylishly filmed (there’s a rather smart, video-game inspired angle to some of the shots that should press the right buttons with the game’s fans) and the fight sequences, though a little uninspired, are similarly well done. But everything is littered with pointless and jagged slow-motion that is laughably bad, that makes what is otherwise quite a good-looking film seem cheap and lazy.

All things considered, then, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time doesn’t do much right. The story takes needless detours all over the place, the characters are hard to like and, subsequently, care about, and perfectly good action scenes are spoiled with over-used and stuttering slow-motion effects. Sure, there are some fairly cool camera angles every now and then, but that’s all that sets Prince of Persia apart from the most mediocre of summer blockbusters.

2/5: Although there are brief flashes of style, this is a poorly-written mess of a film that further hinders itself with over-use of poor slow-motion effects.

Still, it could have been worse. There could have been a hilariously unsubtle metaphor for the Gulf War in the first fifteen minutes. Oh.

Blowing away the dust

No, come back, I've got a decent reason this time!

I finally moved out with the missus in February (a couple of days after the ME2 review was posted) and in the last two months it's been pretty difficult to get down to writing anything; we've only got one laptop and no real workspace, unless a fairly small and cluttered coffee table counts.

But in two weeks (my birthday ^_^ all presents to 61 Coode House Millsands, thank you) I should be able to get the office completely sorted - I'm getting a wireless card and an office chair for my birthday. A really comfy one, with a high back and leather. God I feel old.

Unfortunately, I'm not paying for rent, tax, food, phone, internet (sort of), TV liscence and bills on top of that, to the tune of many many pounds a month, so I can't afford to do nearly as many game or film reviews as I used to. You know, about a year ago when people still read this. I'll still do a couple a month, depending on what's out, but I suspect this place will end up being crowded out by TV reviews, because they're sort-of free.

Anyway, I've got a couple planned. Both Glee and Skins have finished recently, so series reviews of them are probably in order (I wonder how many synonynms I can find for "inconsistent"), and I've recently picked up the new Pokemon games so they'll be due a ball-licking. And I keep meaning to watch that Creek thing on iPlayer, so that'll get done if I can force myself to stay up past midnight and stream it without worrying about bandwidth usage (being grown up sucks, yo).

So that's pretty much it, another long-winded post to tell you that I'm back now. Possibly. You never know, I'm a bit fickle.

Game Review: Mass Effect 2

Following on from the massively (although perhaps not entirely deservedly) successful Mass Effect, Bioware's latest RPG epic Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves just over a week ago; only to start another debate about whether or not it was too early to start handing out Game Of The Year ribbons. It probably is - let's not forget there's Final Fantasy XIII just over the horizon - but with it's hugely improved combat, awesome scale and superb story-telling, Mass Effect 2 will be a genuine contender for any Game Of The Year awards.

You'll reprise the role of Commander Shepard (you can port him straight from saves of the first game, if they're still lingering at the back of your hard drive) who, after a rather good opening cutscene, promptly dies, only to be brought back by the pro-human Cerberus organisation (a smart way of keeping continuity despite the skills overhaul). It's then off into the big wide Milky Way to investigate why human colonies are mysteriously disappearing and discover another ancient, hidden threat to the galaxy, all the while building a team of soldiers, researchers and a couple of psychopaths to stand with you in the final, suicidal mission. On paper, then, it doesn't look much different to the first Mass Effect, but Bioware have done just about everything possible to make Mass Effect 2 bigger and better in every aspect.

Now you'll be taking orders from the "Illusive Man", voiced by Martin Sheen. Martin flipping Sheen. It's almost worth a GOTY nomination just because of him.

Back in the first Mass Effect the galaxy we were given to explore was a let down almost as colossal as the game's ambition; it turned out to have precious few planets we could interact with - all but three being practically identical - and reams and reams of text containing the imaginary facts and history of imaginary planets and solar systems, which undermined the supposed "epic scale" that Bioware had promised. This time round, though, the galaxy's scale feels genuinely huge; there are more solar systems to explore with new space stations and cities (before there was only the Citadel), each planet you can travel to looks and feels different to the others, and the planets you can't land on can still be scanned for materials - which can be used to research upgrades - or signals that lead to hidden missions. It's just awesome, the perfect staging ground for any RPG epic, where you can spend hours exploring and barely scratch the surface.

The role-playing itself hasn't seen significant a change, but it has been refined. There are still the same starting classes - Soldier, Adept, Engineer and everything in-between - but there are now fewer starting skills per class (six instead of eight), including a unique, class-specific skill (for example; the Infiltrator can now become invisible). It almost sounds like a step backwards, but each skill now has two branches - let's say you want to level up an enhanced ammo power; you can either choose the branch that allows your entire party to use enhanced weapons, or just have significantly more powerful ammo for a single character. With this system you can build your character and the other party members in specific ways, so that you can not only bring the ideal team to every mission. Plus it helps create brilliant replay value.

Why isn't this slimming version available in Dragon Age?

As with other RPGs, you'll gain experience and level up by completing missions, and Mass Effect 2's are just excellent. It would have been easy, with the huge galactic scope, for some of the missions in Mass Effect 2 to fade into the background, and feel like little more than mini-excursions for easy cash and quick experience - that's certainly how it was in the first game - but now that just isn't the case. Almost every mission takes you somewhere different, whether it's simply another part of a space station or a whole new world, giving Mass Effect 2 a diversity that most other RPGs just don't have. Thanks largely to flowing cutscenes and the fully-scripted conversations (pretty much every other RPG has you play as Silent Bob's sword-wielding cousin), every mission feels relevant, as if the decisions you make during it could have a proper impact in the galaxy that will come back to hug or haunt you in the next instalment. There's even a chance to go back and read messages from people you've helped in past missions, giving you a sense of personal involvement that is rarely accomplished in games.

But, Mass Effect 2's most improved aspect is the combat. While it's predecessor was let down by the terrible friendly and enemy AI and having to stop the game every five seconds to use abilities via a fiddly radial menu, Mass Effect 2 has none of those problems. The enemy AI is much more advanced; it will try and outflank you, spread out if you're using area effect powers, and even help power up enemies that are in a better position to take you down. Friendlies are much simpler to command - each of your active team is allocated a button on the directional-pad, just tap left or right and they'll move to cover, attack a target or use their power. There are even three hot-keys for your personal powers, which is probably all you'll need now that you only start with six skill trees. All this comes together with a decent, if not a little rudimentary, cover system to create a surprisingly good third-person shooter that is perfectly complimented by the role-playing element.

The new combat system means that playing with Biotics is much smoother. And infinitely more devastating.

The music is still superb and the graphics no longer suffer from the hideous texture pop of the first game, so all things considered there are very few downsides. But Mass Effect 2 isn't perfect; the story - while being one of the better-told video game stories - is still quite short for an RPG, possibly shorter than the first game was, which is a shame considering just how much they have to play with. Obviously with so much else to be getting on with it's not a massive issue - you'll easily be able to get a good 20+ hours out of it without diving in too deep - but it still feels rushed, and could have probably done with one or two more sub-plots to flesh things out that little bit more.

But don't let that nitpick put you off, because everything else about Mass Effect 2 is just fantastic. It's a prime example of great video-game storytelling with incredible scope, solid combat and huge replay potential. Game Of The Year? That remains to be seen, but it's definitely a worthy contender and an absolute must-play for sci-fi, shooter and RPG fans alike.

9/10

...the sex scene was better in the first game, though. We don't even see side-boob now. Bloody spoil sports.

Game Review: Dark Void

We've been on the virtual front lines enough in the last few years to know what makes a good shooter and what makes a bad one, but it seems some developers are still struggling to figure it all out. Cue Capcom's latest failed experiment, Dark Void, a weird Gears Of War and Iron Man hybrid that somehow manages to do almost everything that's been done a thousand times totally wrong.

After being greeted by a half-dramatic title menu where a flying, steel Dark Void logo flies over what can only be described as a blue neon vagina, things kick off when pilot Will Grey (voiced by Nolan "One Voice For Every Hero" North) crashes his plane in the Bermuda Triangle, which turns out to be overrun by aliens called "The Watchers". Typical. Fortunately, Will stumbles across a gun and, hiding behind some conveniently placed rocks, gets to shooting.

The loading screens look gash

Unfortunately, the shooting is arguably the worst thing about Dark Void (apart from Nolan North, of course). Don't get me wrong, the cover and shoot gameplay works well enough (it would probably be more surprising if it didn't), but because of the weapons and AI it's incredibly dull. When the cover system works in games - Gears of War is the obvious example - it's because the enemy is smart enough to try and flank or expose you. There's none of that here; the enemy is quite happy sitting behind a column or tree trunk or park bench or whatever, popping in and out of cover until you've loaded it with bullets from one of your unimaginative weapons or smacked it around enough - which is basically done by hammering the melee button in the hope that you happen to initiate the attack quicker than the target, watching Will perform the attack from a slightly more cinematic angle (at which point you're unable to control him, so there's every chance that he could finish the attack only to find a grenade at your feet), then rinsing and repeating a few times until the alien falls over. Almost every ground-based shoot-out plays out this way, making the Dark Void experience utterly forgettable.

Wait, is that a flying Geth? Is there anything this game hasn't pinched?

This chug along in this manner for a while until Will meets up with a group of humans known simply as "The Survivors", who quickly hand him Dark Void's party piece: the jetpack. It starts of with fairly basic hovering - which is pretty nifty, and spices up the shoot-outs for a few minutes - but quickly becomes used for proper flight, allowing you to quickly take off from the ground and join in the dogfights. It could have been good but the jetpack doesn't handle particularly well. Standard flying is easy enough, but pulling off any kind of manoeuvre is a faff - you have to hold down one of the analogue sticks then flick both of them in a certain direction, which is way too much fuss when five UFOs are bearing down on your exhausts - and aiming is wild, making it almost impossible to target enemies and, consequently, making the dogfights more frustrating than fun.

Annoyingly, with the jetpack comes the introduction of a ridiculous amount of quick-time events. Pretty much anything that isn't simply hitting a Watcher in the face comes with a quick time event, and some of them are far to drawn out. Hijacking an enemy spaceship is the worst of them, because chances are you'll have to do that quite a lot what with the aiming is so bloody finicky. Normally quick time events have you press buttons in a certain order while something cinematic goes on in the background (see Uncharted 2/The Force Unleashed), which is fairly naff in itself, but hijacking in Dark Void is even worse. You don't press different buttons, you just hold down one and watch as Will pulls away at a sheet of metal. Pulls very, very slowly. You'll actually be sat there for a good thirty seconds, holding down one button while nothing really happens. Someone genuinely thought this was a good idea. You wouldn't even want them stacking the shelves at Gamestation.

Even at full boost, the pointlessly massive environments take far too much time to explore

As stand alone elements the combat and flight simulator are pretty poor, so it's no surprise that things don't get any better when they're combined. Dark Void's jetpack allows for a virtual cover system - let's say you're using the jetpack to climb a rock-face with a enemies at the top; you can use your jetpack to boost up the side of the cliff, grabbing on to protruding ledges and, while hanging from them, use them as cover as you make your way up. It's a novelty at first, but it still has all the problems that the regular horizontal gameplay does - except now you get a few particularly stupid enemies hiding on the wrong side of cover.


It's a shame really, as Dark Void should have been so much better. With the cover system shooting, the jetpack and the seamless transition between the two, it could have ended up as a decent game. But it's marred with poor gameplay decisions - namely the quick-time events - and lazy development, resulting in a drab, repetitive experience that you'll forget about five minutes after picking up a different game. To sum it all up: Dark Avoid.

...I'm sorry.

4/10

I'm sorry for the first caption as well...

Reviews Coming Soon:
Glee (Series review)
Being Human (Series review)
Mass Effect 2 (Game review)
MAG (Game review)

Game Review: Bayonetta

Coming from the same minds that founded the revolutionary Devil May Cry series, you’d expect the same stylish, brutal and blisteringly paced hack-and-slashing from Bayonetta that has made Capcom’s series so popular. What you probably weren’t anticipating were the slick slow-time mechanics, impossibly brutal finishing moves and perception-buggering visuals that make Bayonetta an early contender for action game of the year.

The gist of it (because any expansion on a gist would probably make both our heads hurt) is that Bayonetta is a witch, who spends her life killing angels to stop them dragging her down to hell. That’s all you need to know really. There’s a never-realised romantic sub-plot in there somewhere and something vague happened 500 years ago which apparently explains everything, but all that generally takes a back seat to inverse smiting. Which is fine, because that’s bloody good fun.

Bayonetta’s combat is, like most good games, easy to grasp but harder to master. It’s simple really; X shoots, Y punches, B kicks, and you string these together for damaging combos. It’s highly accessible; anybody could pick up a pad and immediately start beating the hell (heaven?) out of a few angels, and look fairly stylish while they’re at it. But then there’s that extra level of depth for more hardcore hack-and-slashers: last-minute dodges that slow down time, obscenely brutal torture attacks and a wide variety of weapons (including trombones and a snake whip) that can make Bayonetta a diverse, blisteringly paced and beautifully stylish experience that – at least until God Of War 3 comes out later this year – is unparalleled on the current generation.

Something tells me that the developers are having a bit of a dry spell.

As usual with this sort of game, there are regular boss fights throughout Bayonetta. They’re suitably challenging without completely spiking the difficulty curve, which is great, but more importantly they’re some of the weirdest bosses ever conceived. I mean, the first one is a giant, flying upside-down cherub face with dragons for ears. How could you not have fun killing that? After each boss you’re treated to a visually stunning “Climax” (did I mention the shameless sexual overtones? Only the Japanese), where Bayonetta’s hair (seriously) passes through the dimensions and becomes all kinds of giant creatures, fists, or whatever to finish off the enemy. Sure, it doesn’t really make any sense, but it’s so visually satisfying you probably won’t care. The only slight downside is that you will end up fighting the same bosses a few times, although these appear as toned-down versions to gradually raise the difficulty curve before tougher bosses later in the game, so their cameos are forgiveable.

Yes, that is a giant gargoyle face with a massive tongue tipped with a smiling, crowned cherub. Yes, it does have massive tentacles. I'll have one of what Hideki Kamiya is having, please.

Just in case there was any chance that the combat could become tedious (yeah right) Bayonetta spices things up the with a couple of phenomenally fast, arcade-y vehicle sections, which put you on the back of motorbikes and, er, a missile, as well as a mini-game between missions where you shoot enemies for extra points. These sections really help mix up the gameplay, making Bayonetta a surprisingly diverse and a constantly fun experience that is impossible to get bored of during the first playthrough.

The gameplay will probably draw all the expected comparisons; Devil May Cry, God of War, Ninja Gaiden and the like. But it’s the environments the separates Bayonetta from these games, giving the combat and platforming an entire new dimension that relentlessly buggers your perception – think Mario Galaxy, but with a super-powered receptionist in spandex. Running along walls to escape a lava flow, following a winding path that ends up with you standing up-side down, a hundred feet in the air facing the ground where you were just fighting, and jumping across giant chasms onto a revolving island are just a couple of examples of how Bayonetta plays with the dimensions, and it’s this completely different perspective that raises it above other games of its type.

And now she's running up a wall, dodging falling rocks while killing various flying things. There isn't much they haven't thought of, is there?

So Bayonetta, while making absolutely no sense whatsoever, is an absolutely superb game, raising the bar for all games of its type with its awesome, fluid combat and stunning worlds, and is probably as close to perfect as these games have ever come, experimenting with concepts and making them work so well with proven excellent gameplay. And with the ending leaving things open for a sequel, hopefully it’ll be around again in a few years as another incredible example of the hack-and-slash sub-genre. Frankly, it’s a must-rent for anyone who has ever enjoyed a hack-and-slasher. Chances are it’ll blow you away.

10/10

If you're still not convinced, the game ends with you kicking God across the solar system into the sun, then shooting up it's charred corpse. Best. Ending. Ever.

Reviews coming soon:
Glee (Series Review)
Being Human (Series Review)
Dark Void

Mass Effect 2