Thursday, June 19, 2008

Metal Gear Solid 4... Thoughts After First Run

Overall: An excellent game, probably the best in the series. My finishing time was 26 hours. Apparently to get the best finishing time, you need to complete the game in 5 hours or less! Not happening any time in my future.

Pros: Beautiful graphics, great new gameplay elements such as the Mk II, Octocamo, decent boss fights.

Cons: Story hard to figure out for newcomers, Less gameplay towards the end of the game, cutscenes can get very long.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Metal Gear Solid 4

...is being played right now. Please leave a message after the beep.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Movie Mania

I've been seeing a lot of movies lately. Here are some brief spoiler-free reviews and comments.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Not a bad movie, but not up to the level of the previous Indiana Jones films. Harrison Ford looked old. Possibly the best of the 10+ year sequels that I can think of (Star Wars Episode 1, Terminator 3, Rocky Balboa, Live Free or Die Hard, Clerks 2).

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanimo Bay - Not as charming as the first installment, but still with some amusing scenes. I've gone nearly 30 years watching major Hollywood theatricals, and seen a guy's junk in about 1 of those movies (Kevin Bacon - Wild Things). But suddenly in the last three months there's been male junk randomly in a bunch of films I've seen - Dewey Cox, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Sex and the City and this film. What's with the sudden spotlight "down there?"

Clerks 2 - This movie really shows how my tastes in films have changed. I think if I had seen this ten years ago, I would have loved it. But now it just comes off as somewhat immature. For some reason my interest in Kevin Smith has declined significantly over the last few years. This one has some of the same geek-oriented banter, but Randall, who I once really liked, now seems just sort of immature and self-loathing to a point where I can't stand it.

Semi-Pro - Have you seen Anchorman, Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights? Then you've seen this film. Will Ferrell plays the same sort of character he's been playing, and while it's a funny character, there's a sort of empty sense from this one. Kind of like I've seen this movie before.

National Treasure 2 - While watching this movie, I forgot that I had laughed out loud when I originally saw the trailer. There are a huge number of moments where I just rolled my eyes and groaned. It made me really appreciate the Indiana Jones franchise. Also, the film seems to pick up a lot of character threads from the first movie, which was a nice touch - if I had actually remembered who any of the characters were.

Lars and the Real Girl
- I didn't expect to like this one, but it was a nice film with Ryan Gosling playing this isolated young man who buys a doll and treats her like a real person. Kind of strange, and a bit touching. Lacked something at the very end.

Rocky Balboa
- Sort of like an update of the original Rocky for the 2000's and the 50+ crowd. They say that in sequels people want to see the original movie, but with new circumstances. This one - it's just like the original only he's old, and it's more like a collection of loose scenes. Also, I don't watch much boxing, but in the final fight there are a lot of punches thrown. In the boxing I've seen, it's mostly boring and just grappling. I prefer the Hollywood version.