No cake, but plenty of combustible lemons.

As much as I wanted Portal 2, I had a few fears that it would just be a longer version of the original. It kind of is, but it’s also so much more. Is it a fantastic game? No question, it’s sublime. Is it better than the original? Well, no. But it’s every bit as good as it.

And luckily, the first Portal was fucking fantastic.



FULL SPOILERS FOR PORTAL 2 TO FOLLOW SO DON’T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED IT


The chambers themselves, the meat and potatoes of the game, are works of evil genius, just as before. After getting you used to the mechanics again (which are the same as the first game, obviously) the difficulty ratchets up considerably. But never unfairly. Never did I feel as if the solution was out of reach, it was just my own stupidity preventing me from proceeding. And there is no greater joy than working out exactly what you’re supposed to do, and working through it in clockwork fashion. The new additions to the game, such as the propulsion gels, light bridges, launch pads and excursion funnels change the way you solve the puzzles dramatically. Where the first game’s hardest puzzles were solved by jumping through portal at high speeds, causing you to fling out the other portal to reach previously unreachable areas (or as GLaDOS puts it “speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.”), in the second game, these types of puzzles are the easiest. The first time you reach a puzzle that uses all four of the new elements, sometimes with a bunch of turrets thrown in for good measure, you’re likely to curl up into the foetal position on the floor and sob for a bit.

Of course, you’ll get stuck. A lot. But you’ll also kick yourself for not working out how to solve it sooner.

A lot.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

When was the last time a game made you laugh? I mean really laugh. Chances are one never has. Chuckle maybe, but full on guffaw. None. I must have laughed out loud dozens of times playing Portal 2, and it’s mainly due to the characters of Wheatley and Cave Johnson. GlaDOS is still in the humour mix, but these new characters really steal the show. There was a point about halfway through the game where I actually had to stop I was laughing so much. One word: lemons. And Wheatley, first of all as your friend and then as the main antagonist is never anything less than hilarious. In addition to my earlier question, when was the last time you were able to quote a game? Again, chances are never. Off the top of my head I can reel of half a dozen great quotes.

One of my favourites being this one from Stephen Merchant’s Wheatley: Ooh. It's dark down here isn't it? They say that the old caretaker of this place went absolutely crazy. Chopped up his entire staff... of robots - all of them robots - they say at night you can still here the screams... of their replicas. All of them functionally indistinguishable from the originals... no memory of the incident... nobody knows what they're screaming about. Ab-solutely terrifying. Though obviously not paranormal in any meaningful way.

And all of Cave Johnson’s quotes were gold: All these science spheres are made of asbestos by the way, keeps out the rats. Let us know if you feel a shortness of breath, a persistent dry cough or your heart stopping, because that's not part of the test - that's asbestos.

And once you know that the voice is that of J K Simmons, you can’t get him out of your head. If you don’t know who I mean firstly, shame on you, and secondly, imagine the editor from the Spiderman movies. Cause that’s who he is.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Also, the world of Portal is expanded so much in the sequel. We get into the bowels of the facility and a whole load of backstory is provided through the announcements over the tannoy. It’s not integral to complete the game, but it fleshes out the world in a way the original never did. If the original was a puzzle game with an implied story (if you cared to follow the cryptic ramblings of GLaDOS), the second is a puzzle game with an actual plot. And is all the better for it. Not to spoil anything, but the game has a good few twists and turns, as well as some emotional investment in characters that you never see, as well as one that you do. I defy you not to laugh and also go “awwww” at the very last post credits line.

The locations including the test chambers, the old Aperture facility, and the test chambers again but under Wheatley’s control are all stunningly realised and beautiful to look at. Especially impressive when you consider that this game is working off an engine that a few years old already.

The best thing about Portal 2 is unquestionably its desire to not pander to any sort of convention or conformity. Valve could have capitalised on their success by selling out, and throwing in a whole bunch of new features to entice new gamers. They didn’t, and more credit to them. It sticks to the same formula as the first, and never feels as if it’s been dumbed down to appeal to the masses now that it is a full game in it’s own right and not just part of a games package (like the Orange Box).

So to finish, if you want a game that tests your grey matter, has a great story, will make you laugh, make you want to tear you hair out, provide a satisfying difficulty curve, challenge you to think in abstract ways, with a great voice cast, sound design, level design, which looks great and provides a completely satisfying ending, with a fantastic credits song that rivals the original’s “Still Alive,” and with a very high replay value then get Portal 2.

Now.

And I haven’t even started talking about the co-op.

The only downside is that it’s so good, you’ll not want to put it down, and will finish it quickly. But when that’s the only criticism you can come up with, you may just have the game of the year in your hands.

5 stars.

X-Men: First Class review

I’ll admit to being a big fan of the X franchise, despite the last two entries being less than good, but I still was quite excited about this new one. Mostly because the two main big players behind it were also behind last years awesome Kick Ass: Matthew Vaughn and Jane (well, hellooooo nurse!) Goldman.

Being a reboot/prequel of sorts the movie has to introduce us to characters we’ve already met, just younger. Once we get the perfunctory really young versions of the characters out of the way and meet the ones we’ll be spending the next two hours with, the reintroductions are done with such flair that it’s impossible not to smile. James McAvoy is brilliant as a young Xavier who hasn’t yet realised his calling, instead using his mutant abilities to pick up women in bars. His bond with a young Mystique (his ‘sister’) is also one of the more touching aspects of the movie.

And then there’s Fassbender; taking on the role of Magneto, originally played, perfectly, by Sir Ian McKellen can’t have been easy but his introduction is nothing short of genius. Attempting to hunt down the Nazi who killed his mother, by tracking down his lieutenants he exudes a charm and menace that’s by turns funny and chilling, and always intense. I could have cheered his dispatching of the three Germans in the bar (*). These Charles and Erik scenes are intercut giving us a sense of just how different these two men are before they meet each other, and it works brilliantly as the juxtaposition between the happy Charles scenes and the angst-y Erik scenes highlights and strengthens the eventual decisions they make later on.

(*) someone pointed out to me that the scene in the German bar (down to the camera angles and the lighting) looks uncannily like those Stella Artois ads. It’s something I haven’t been able to get out of my head since, because it’s right.

Once the plot kicks in, the film never really lets up. This is both a good thing and a bad thing; it’s good because the pace never slows at all, so you don’t ever get bored. It’s bad because, even at just over 2 hours, it makes the film feel a little rushed, with certain characters getting the short shrift. Criminally, Sebastian Shaw is one of these characters. His villain wants to destroy mankind because…um, he’s the villain. He’s not really given any sort of reason for wanting to do so, which is a shame because Kevin Bacon delivers a great performance, all self assured and cocky. In fact, that’s my only major gripe with First Class, the lack of a decent bad guy. I enjoyed the Bond-ian lairs and 60’s vibe that it all had, and yes I understand that the main focus of the movie was establishing the relationship between Charles and Erik, as well as introducing us to the new kids, but not at the expense of a menacing bad guy with a good motive. The other disappointing thing for me was the underuse of Emma Frost. She doesn’t really do much except for look really really really good (as do all the women in the movie, seriously), and I know she’s the Ice Queen and all but the actress must have interpreted cold and unfeeling, as dead eyed and one note. She doesn’t so much turn to diamond as she does wood.

However, I can forgive that all because all the other parts of the movie were so damn fun. From subtle nerd shout outs, to full blown crowd pleasing moments (including the finest swear-y cameo you’re going to see this year, which I’ll not spoil) it’s a pure joy from start to finish. Even the two montages aren’t the tedious bore that they normally are, rather they showcase the new mutants (the first class of the title) powers in a way that would take far too long to do otherwise, and in a very fun way too.

Speaking of the new characters; some are great, some are utterly superfluous. Starting with the great; Beast and Mystique, both characters we’ve seen before but here they are given new layers. Mystique’s arc in this film is really the same as Rogue’s in the original three but done better in my opinion, as you can see why she sides with Magneto come the end, despite loving Charles as her brother. Her mantra ‘mutant and proud,’ and the persuasion from Erik to not disguise herself in human form but rather be blue all the time is a neat little touch (and also leads to another brilliant blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo); it’s foreshadowing without it becoming clunky. Beast’s arc is sort of the same but in reverse, and Nicolas Hoult’s performance is the best in the movie, behind McAvoy and Fassbender. And that’s coming from someone who normally hates him in all his roles, About a Boy aside. However, most of the other first class aren’t really there for anything other than to show off some (admittedly cool) superpowers. Angel is a waste, Havok is cool but doesn’t have much to do, and Banshee was probably my favourite of all the new students and his flight was probably the most smile inducing part of the whole thing for me. I don’t even know who the tornado-from-his-hands guy was.

Then we have the action. It’s bigger than any previous X-Men movie to date, and it doesn’t disappoint. Magneto raising the submarine from the water is a truly fantastic looking moment. The fight with Havok, Banshee and Azazel is brilliant, with Azazel bamf-ing all over the place. The attack on the X-lab is brilliant and showcases some awesome effects. In fact every single character gets a moment to shine, aside from maybe Charles whose sole ability is to put his two fingers to his temple and read your mind (although his magic trick line is very very funny).

The climax to Erik’s arc in the movie with him killing Sebastian Shaw was perhaps the most comic book-y scene I’ve ever seen. Charles is reading Shaw’s mind from a distance just as Erik is slowly moving a coin through his brain (the same coin that Shaw told Erik to move with his mind back when he killed his mother, and couldn’t) and the camera pans across the side of Shaw’s head and Charles’ head. I’m not explaining it very well, but it’s a great scene, and is a showcase of just how confidently directed the whole movie is. It effortlessly takes its globetrotting, Cold War skirting, 60’s vibe in its stride and there’s not a misstep throughout the whole two hours.

I read that this is going to be the first movie in a new trilogy, which is great news, but it leads to my other complaint about this movie. Once it ends you could go straight into X-Men no problem: we have Magneto now seemingly bad, with Mystique on his side. We have Charles, paralysed, in his wheelchair. And we’re living in the mansion. Obviously there is room for more First Class movies, but I always envisioned them taking a bit longer with Erik turn to the dark side. To have him there after one movie seems rushed, and also it negates the beginning of X Men: The Last Stand, in which Erik and Charles (still with the use of his legs) are still friends. Although I don’t mind ignoring X3 too much [perhaps a holdover/resentment from Vaughn and Singer for being ousted from that movie back in 2006] it does pretty much give the fingers to continuity.

Last annoying thing, I promise. They did have some awful lines towards the end, specifically with Moira (hellooooo, Rose Byrne) coming up with the name “X-Men” as well as Charles saying ‘I’ll probably be going bald soon.’ It’s annoying, and seems like it’s trying to desperately remind the audience that they are watching an X-Men movie and just felt forced and unnecessary.

In summary, I am a bit biased as I’ve loved the X-Men for many many years now, and despite some very minor grievances, I loved this movie. It’s not the best X-movie, that’s still X-Men 2, but for me it comes a very close second. A great start to the summer season.

4 stars.

Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides review

I have to apologise. I'm waaaaaaaaay behind on my reviews and I'll try and rectify that as soon as possible. I have been seeing the movies, just haven't written any reviews.
Anyway, I've also decided that instead of marks out of ten, I'm going to employ a star rating system, out of 5. Mainly because I feel giving a film 2 stars is better than giving it 4/10. 2 stra suggests that's there's at least something that's not awful about it while 4 out of ten makes it seem like it's terrible beyond all recognition. Just go with me on it. Ta.

And now, my review:

Now usually the 4th film in a franchise is awful, and I’m happy to report that with On Stranger Tides that particular tradition is…alive and well.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. It’s not awful, but it’s just not very good.

At all.

Back in 2003 (!?) when the original Pirates came out, it was a breath of fresh air. An exciting, funny, run-around caper, with a hilarious character in the middle of a whole ton of action, with some supernatural elements thrown in the mix as well. It was light, frothy and fun.

With the success of the film, and the popularity of Cap’n Jack, some sequels were knocked out. These were…less successful. Although not in terms of money, they made loads, but as actual films they weren’t up to much. But at least they still had a story. An overly complex story for what once was something almost throwaway. However, the plot if you chose to follow it did make sense, and at least carried the characters through to the satisfying conclusion.

And all three of the movies had some absolutely great action sequences.

Pirates 4 is an absolutes mess of a film. It’s not exciting, you care about literally none of the characters and there’s only one action scene that’s any good.

Firstly, Jack is searching for the fountain of youth because…well, I don’t really know. Ok, he’s a pirate and that’s what he does but its not exactly great motivation for the character, and doesn’t provide us with any reason to want him to get it. Blackbeard wants it because he’s going to die otherwise (apparently down to a prophecy about a one legged man, which is the only information we’re given as to why he wants it) but he’s such a boring character that you don’t care either way. The Spanish king (?) wants it for reasons unknown, or just reasons I couldn’t be arsed remembering. Barbossa (back again for no real reason) is now working for the Crown and he’s trying to kill Blackbeard. Penelope Cruz is only there to create a bit of tension between her and Jack, and be Spanish. She only manages one of these things.

And there’s the ‘central’ couple, a missionary and a mermaid (don’t ask) who are supposed to be this movies Will’n’Liz, but they serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. I mean, literally, the mermaid does nothing but advance the plot in one scene, yet is in the movie for most of its second half. And the missionary is only there to fall in love with the mermaid, die, which causes the mermaid to cry, which is the reason why she’s in the movie in the first place, as they need a mermaid’s tears to make the fountain of youth work (again, don’t ask). And they have a few scenes together in which we’re meant to care, but end up bored.

Loose ends are everywhere in this installment. Blackbeard has some sort of supernatural voodoo control over his ship. We’re never told why. His crewmen are all zombified. We’re never told why. The human crewmembers fight against the English and Spanish armies for Blackbeard despite the fact that he enslaved them. That doesn’t make any sense. The mermaid who seconds earlier was attacking the missionary saves his life, and then falls in love with him. Although I’ll be damned if I know why.

At least in the previous installments we were told why such things were going on, almost to a fault really. Davy Jones had a back-story that was cool and tragic. Will and Elizabeth had a believable romance. Jack was always out for his own survival (mostly). In this, stuff just happens and they seem not to be worried about it making any kind of sense, just so long as Jack Sparrow’s there to make a funny joke.

Except…

It’s just not funny. Not the character, he still is, but only whenever he’s given something funny to say. Just having him there, mincing about the place isn’t enough. It’s been said that the first three movies were movies that just happened to have Jack in them, adding something different to the mix; they weren’t about Jack as such, but he was there anyway. Putting him as the focal point of the fourth movie doesn’t work. It works when there’s stuff happening around Jack, not when he’s the reason why it’s happening. And because he’s there in every scene he’s often just being serious (or as serious as that character can be) and doesn’t provide the comic relief he did in the previous films.

Still, at least some stellar action sequences might help. Pity there aren’t any. There are action sequences but they’re so staged and clinical that there’s no excitement to be drawn from them. Action-by-numbers if you will. Only one sequence feels fresh, and that’s the mermaid attack. It’s genuinely scary, and pretty exciting. Shame that the rest of the action sequences are dull and rote.

So, overall I didn’t like it very much. Which was disappointing as I can see they tried to make a more streamlined Pirates movie after the epic trilogy that preceded it, but they just about failed in every aspect.

Still, it’ll make enough money for Pirates 5 to already be in production.

2 stars.

Scream 4: Scream Harder

After nearly failing in my great experiment only a month after starting it, on Friday I went to see a movie I had no huge desire to see in the cinema, but did just so I didn’t let everyone who counting on me down. I even took a half day to go see it.

You’re welcome!

Anyway, the movie was Scream 4. Or Scre4m if you like.

Now, I don’t often watch scary movies at the cinema, the last was probably The Ring way back when; I prefer to watch them in the comfort of my own home, as I find they’re scarier that way. Saying that though I still haven’t seen a scary film in the cinema since The Ring, as Scre4m wasn’t really scary at all. A few (well, two) good jump scares but if you know the conventions of these types of movies there are no real surprises at all, as you know when the scares will be coming from a mile off.

The first Scream prided itself on being all post-modern and knowing; the characters being aware that they themselves were living out a horror movie. The tagline for Scre4m was “New decade, new rules” but the only new rule was that they follow the exact same template laid out by every slasher movie since Scream, and pretend that they were being all ironic by name dropping a few supposedly ‘lesser’ horror franchises. The only new thing this movie did isn’t really new at all. That the killer be filming his kills isn’t exactly a new idea, and if once again they thought they were being ironic by homaging recent movies (as Scream is supposed to be ‘real life’) they weren’t; they were just plagiarising them, and passing it off as one of there new rules.

And it still used the old several-characters-leave-the-room-in-different-directions-and-then-somebody-dies cliché. If it really was trying to do something different, have one of the killers be someone only slightly related to the plot, like in Scream 2.

There’s one part of the movie that really annoyed me though. There’s a point at the end where there’s slight relief (but only if you don’t know the conventions) and you think everything’s safe, but it’s all ruined by a shot of one of the characters holding the killers knife by his/her side. It’s like a two second shot in which you can clearly see the knife, which ruins any surprise the scene might have had otherwise. So when he/she kills the other person, you’re not shocked.

[SPOILERS ARE COMING NOW, SO DON’T READ IF YOU MIGHT WATCH THE MOVIE IN THE FUTURE]

(highlight to read them, at your peril)






I thought the ending of the movie was a total cop out though. They had set it up for a great one, and then it felt as though they changed it at the last second to make it a little more audience friendly. The killer (Jill) has pretty much got away with everything; she’s killed Sidney, and set herself up to be the sole survivor of the massacre after pinning it on her ex boyfriend (who she also killed). She’s in hospital, and thinks she’s got away with it, and then Sidney wakes up. And then the movie ends just like all the others. If they had some real balls, they’d have ended the movie with Jill getting away and becoming famous like Sidney for surviving all these murders like she wanted to. But no, she gets found out, killed by Sidney and the movie contains no surprises at all.

Or if they had some real balls they’d have made Monica from Friends the killer,. And revealed that the events of the first movie had been her idea as well. Although that might have needed a major retcon.







[SPOILERS OVER]

Having laid all those negatives on you, you’d think I didn’t like the movie at all. I did. I thought it was a lot of fun. It’s not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a good way to spend 2 hours. And it was quite refreshing to see a horror movie in which there was an honest to God serial killer, instead of it being ghosts, or vampires, or anything supernatural. And to not be in 3D.

And the opening of Scre4m was very very clever. That the first victims were actually part of the film with in a film series, and then the viewers watching that movie, Stab 6, weren’t the first victims of Scre4m but were actually actors in the opening of Stab 7, and then cutting to ‘real life’ was actually pretty funny, and the only example of it being even a little postmodern. I didn’t explain that very well I know, but if you’ve seen it, it’ll make sense.

Overall, it gets five out of ten.

Cheers
JC

And also, remember how everyone went on about Hayden Panettiere and how gorgeous she was when Heroes started? Well, I’d forgotten about her after giving up on Heroes after the first season but upon seeing her again in Scre4m, I can confirm that she is still gorgeous. And is the best character in the movie by a long way.

The Great Experiment

Right, I have decided that I don’t go to the cinema enough; at least not enough to consider myself an avid movie watcher. Something I once prided myself upon. So to remedy this, I have devised a plan that I will go to the cinema AT LEAST once a week. Doesn’t matter what’s on, I’ll just pick the best of what’s on that particular week and go see it. Or something I really want to see.

This could result in me seeing utter tripe (likely), or discovering a gem of a film I wouldn’t necessarily watched otherwise (less likely, but I’m an optimist). Also though, because I am now married and will be dragging Jenny along to films that she might not want to see at all, occasionally I shall let the choice of film be hers. Hopefully that won’t backfire horribly.

In my first week of my experiment, I went to see two, count ‘em, TWO films: Source Code and Your Highness. Here are the reviews:

Source Code is the new film from Moon director Duncan Jones. I really liked Moon, the whole tone of it and understated direction were superb and it deserved all the plaudits it got. Source Code is a bigger budget version with similar(-ish) themes.

The plot involves not time travel, but time reassignment, as marine Jake Gyllenhal relives the last 8 minutes of a train passengers life and tries to find a bomb and bomber on said train, in order to avoid any further catastrophe in the present. If that sounds confusing, the best comparison I can think of is Quantum Leap with a bit of Groundhog Day thrown in.

All the usual time travel clichés are present and correct, but there’s a pleasing mystery that runs throughout the whole movie. And the bits out of the memory, in the pod in which Jake’s characters is plugged into the Source Code (well, sort of), are just as compelling. This isn’t a great review as I can’t really go into too much detail without spoiling it for you, but I’d highly recommend you see it.

The cast are all top notch (aside from Jeffrey Wright’s almost pantomime performance), the central mystery propels the movie forward without ever becoming boring, it zips along at a cracking pace (I think it’s only about 80 minutes long), and there’s a cute little voice cameo that fits in with something I said above.

Although the ending bothered me. It doesn’t sit right with the established rules of the Source Code and seems a bit too much of a Hollywood happy ending, but it certainly didn’t spoil the movie or anything like that.

A solid 8 out of 10.


Now, I find Danny McBride pretty funny, which is lucky because if I didn’t, this movie would probably be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Your Highness is a medieval comedy, in the vein of 80’s fantasy epics like Legend or Krull, but where those movies were family friendly, Your Highness has boobs and swearing.

Nothing wrong with that, but if you’re making a comedy at the very least you have to have some great gags. Your Highness had a few, but nothing that had me full on laughing like an idiot. Yes, the many variations on the word ‘fuck’ are funny a few times, but when that turns into your safety net to cover up the lack of actual jokes, you’re in trouble. Don’t get me wrong, it is funny, but not consistently. At times it seems to think it’s an actual serious movie, and there are spells with no laughs at all, which for a comedy is a crime.




Also, because it’s common knowledge that it was filmed in Northern Ireland, it’s a little distracting as you’re constantly looking for places you recognise. Next time I’m at the Giant’s Causeway I’ll be looking for a dead, dickless Minotaur.

Anyway, it’s good for a few laughs, but don’t go expecting a comedy classic.

5 out of 10.

Update: I’ve seen another TWO movies. Oh. Em. Gee.

First up, Fast and Furious 5: Rio Heist. Which is a stupid title and they should have stuck with Fast Five which was much better.

Now I wasn’t a fan of the Fast and Furious franchise at all. People told me I should watch it when the first one came out in 2001, and I tried to, but I got bored about half an hour in and switched it off. I’m not a big car movie person, and this movie was all about cars and nothing else.

Not so with Fast Five. Yes, while fast cars are involved, it’s more of a heist movie that just happens to involve fast cars. It also involves brawls, foot chases, gunfights and The Rock laying the smack down all over the show. Now, I love The Rock. And think he’s great in these sorts of movies, so instantly my interest for this installment was peaked when I heard he was in it. He just the perfect guy for this type of movie, and oddly lends it a weird sort of credibility.





As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s mad as a bag of spanners and defies all laws of physics, especially in the final chase involving two cars dragging a tonne weight bank vault through the streets of Rio, and has one of the least charismatic leads I’ve ever seen in Vin Diesel (who speaks and looks like he’s ‘special’) but if you switch your brain off (much like Vin) it’s a fun way to spend two hours.

Also, there’s a scene at the end that sets up a sequel, which I’m presuming will be called Speedy Six.

A stupidly enjoyable 7 out of 10.

Onto Thor.

It was always going to be tricky translating Thor to the big screen, especially now that the Marvel movies are all interconnected, in preparation for the upcoming Avengers. So, we’re supposed to believe that Thor (a Norse god) lives in the same universe as Iron Man? Well, yes. And for the most part, it works. As long as you don’t think about it too much.

Anyway, on to Odin-son itself. Much has been written about how Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearean background gave the Asgard scenes real gravitas and believability, and I’d have to agree. What could have descended into a sub-Flash Gordon farce, actually feels real and despite the grand setting (Asgard looks amazing) is wholly convincing. However, the slightly Shakespearean theme of a jealous brother is a little too simple for my liking. I would have liked Loki to have had a little more motive than just jealousy.

The main problems I have with the movie are the time frame and the setting. It all seems to take place over a weekend and there are literally only three locations in the whole thing: Asgard, the small town where Natalie Portman lives, and the crater caused by Mjolnir, where SHIELD put up a research station. I never felt as though there was anything massive at stake, and Thor’s exile was what? Two days? And he fell in love and became worthy of Mjolnir again in that time. Please.

Despite these problems, and the overly simplistic plot, I thought Chris Hemsworth was great as Thor. The trailers had me a bit worried, but he plays him brilliantly, in both the Asgard scenes and the fish out of water scenes when he arrives on Earth. He gets some good laughs, as well as a few more dramatic bits, like his argument with his father just before his exile.

The action is ok. Not great, but ok. The fight with the Ice Giants at the start is exceptional, and the scene at the SHIELD base is fine. But the fight with The Destroyer sucks, as does his fight with Loki, the climax of which is Thor demolishing a rainbow bridge. Seriously.

I might be being a bit harsh, not knowing of any Thor comic lore before seeing this, but it was still a pretty good origin story.

6 out of 10.

The experiment continues...

...with what, I don't know yet.

The 'Star Destroyer' Moment

Right, here’s a question for you all. What would you consider (y)our generation’s Star Destroyer moment?

In case you don’t know, a ‘Star Destroyer’ moment is the defining moment of your young film-going life. You often hear of people saying that the opening shot of Star Wars, with Tantive IV being chased by a massive, seemingly never-ending doom bringer, or a Star Destroyer, was the defining moment of their cinematic childhood. So, what was ours? [I say ‘ours’ because I’m speaking for my generation. People who are currently 25/26/27.]

For me, it has to be this:

I was 8 when Jurassic Park came out, and it’s the first movie I can remember seeing in the cinema that wasn’t animated. And is still one of my favourites. I reckon it’s easily top 10 of all time for me. And this scene is something special. We’d seen the brachiosaurus grazing earlier, we’d seen what a raptor can do to a cow, but this was different. This was up close and personal. It’s tense; it’s exciting; real fingernail biting, edge of your seat stuff. And still is today, nearly 20 years later. There’s a reason it’s the most iconic part of the movie.

The build up is perfect. It’s been parodied so many times now, but the ripples in the glasses of water ramps up the tension to near unbearable levels. The leg of the goat landing on top of the Jeep. The bars of the electrified fence snapping off as the Rex pulls on them. Remember, we haven’t actually seen a dinosaur yet, aside from friendly ones, so we’re already anticipating something special. But also something scary. And it delivers. What makes it so good is the fact that unlike today where the T Rex would be CG, this thing looks real. I mean really real. I mean, ‘Steven Spielberg travelled back in time and brought a dinosaur back to the present and taught it to act’ real. Never once do you believe that this is not a real dinosaur. It’s there, its flesh and blood. And it will kill you. Stan Winston is a fricking genius. And again, nearly 20 years later, the effect hasn’t aged one bit.

There’s one bit in particular, where the T Rex moves its head into the light coming from the torch, and its eye dilates. That’s attention to detail. A tiny thing that you might not notice on first (or even second or third) viewing, but a small touch that makes it all the more believable.

Anyway, that’s my Star Destroyer moment? Anyone care to add theirs?

JC

My Gaming History Part 2: The Playstation and Beyond

Perhaps the most famous of all the initial games on the Playstation was Tomb Raider. An absolutely fantastic game, where you went looking for treasure and killed many different endangered or once-thought-extinct species as well as a few monsters along the way, while a British woman foiled you at every turn, then got killed at the end by you. After turning into some weird ass giant skeleton monster thing, if memory serves. It was an immersive game too, and I still remember most of the entire first level. Bats; arrows shooting out at you from the walls; being attacked by three tigers and shooting them in the face; trying to stand in the right place so the heroine, Lara Croft, somehow managed to move a gigantic stone block with her bare hands (and even more impressively, pull it backwards in some cases); swimming underwater and frantically trying to come up for air before I spazzed out and drowned. All good clean fun. At the time, it was gaming at its best. And still looks rather impressive today, despite everything being blocks and at right angles to everything else, and the puzzles are probably still bastard hard in places.

And yes, I tried the cheat to get Lara naked. Show me any 11 year old boy who didn’t, and I will call him a liar to his face. At that age, we were all after a glimpse of the pixellated, oddly triangle shaped boobs. Although, looking at the current Lara, I would probably still do it now.

Weird thing was that almost all of the games on the Playstation were single player. There wasn’t really any kind of multiplayer experience yet. Well, unless you had an N64 and a copy of GoldenEye, but it didn’t (and boy, didn’t the bastard N64 owners constantly tell you how good it was?). You went into school and talked to your friends about what point of a certain game you were on (well, I did anyway) because you were all playing what’s now become known as ‘the campaign’ as that’s really all there was. That was the game.

Perhaps the best single player experience was the Metal Gear Solid. An absolute masterpiece of a game, which was more cinematic than any other game had been previously. An espionage game that actually rewarded, hell, demanded stealthy play, it was an altogether different beast. Sneaking around military bases; working out the patrols of the guards so you could slip past or take them out; stuffing them in lockers so other guards wouldn’t see the bodies; going apeshit when you got discovered; tapping buttons so you could withstand torture and save Meryl; listening to interminably long cut scenes that didn’t make a huge amount of sense (but more so than MGS’ subsequent sequels). It was immense. Perhaps the height of its cleverness was its use of the Dual Shock controller when fighting Psycho Mantis (“Ohmigawd, he’s making my controller move, with his miiiiiiiiiiiiiind.”) and the fact that a clue to getting the right frequency on your Codec was on the back of the game box. Genius.


Altogether now: “Snake? Snake? Snnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!!!!”

But my favourite game on the Playstation (and possible favourite game ever) has to Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. A 2D side scrolling game with a wicked sense of humour, some brain melting puzzle elements and a dash of the old ultra violence. Genuinely difficult, wildly inventive and containing some of the best cut scenes of its day, it often makes me wish I still had my trusty old Playstation. Gaming at it’s finest.

And it was bloody funny too.

(sidenote: I’ve just looked online and apparently they’re making an HD remake of said game. Sold!)

The great thing about the Playstation for me was that it was the first console I owned that had the capability to save games. Before with the Mega Drive, if you wanted to complete a game, you had to do it in one sitting, which meant you had a higher chance of ending up like the aforementioned kids on Gamesmaster, with the square eyes, dribbling out of the corners of their mouths. Now, you could get, say, a third of the way into the game, save it, and come back to it later. Simple, but genius. I tell you, kids these days don’t know they’re born.

Unlike my Mega Drive, my Playstation never broke. It just got usurped, by the shiner, slimmer, sexier Playstation 2. The PS2 was a thing of beauty (you could stand it on its side FFS), and it came along just as DVD’s were getting really popular, although if you played a DVD on it, after a while the picture and sound went out of sync. But that didn’t matter because it was an exciting time in gaming. A time where these things were more than just consoles, they became entertainment centres.


I can’t really remember a lot of games that I played on the PS2 aside from the behemoth that was GTA Vice City. I remember that taking up a lot of my time.

And also, there was the only great movie tie in there has ever been; Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It was basically a hack and slash through the locales from the first two movies, (Weathertop, Moria, Amon Hen, culminating in a stupidly exciting battle at Helms Deep) but it looked and played magnificently. I remember manys a night (and manys a missed lecture) furiously button bashing to get through that final level, kicking the orc’s ladders and then stabbing them in the face with my sword; getting my level 10 power up as Legolas and pwning orcs like you wouldn’t believe, getting the sword of Isildur and taking the Uruk Hai to school as Aragorn. Gimli, however, was a crap character to play as. The equivalent of the kid with the skateboard in Streets of Rage 2, and nobody wanted to be him.

I mean, really, you alwats picked Axel, didn't you?

However, this stage in my gaming life was where things got kind of serious, and the fun left. Which is kind of indicative of a lot of games in this era; an era where everything seemed to take itself very seriously. Perhaps it was me. I’d grown up a bit and the wonder of games had worn off and now I was seeing them for what they were. Staggeringly similar, especially as I was still playing only the campaign really.

But soon, all that changed.

And it was all thanks to a guy called Master Chief.

I’ll not go into specifics about how Halo: Combat Evolved revolutionised what we’ve now come to know as the modern FPS (you can find that elsewhere, and also because I don’t think it did; it just got lucky). I do, however, think it made multiplayer gaming what it is today. Now I didn’t have an Xbox when it first came out. I was still playing Fifa on my trusty PS2 and loving it. But my good friend flipmofoxx got one, and bundled along with the console was a copy of Halo. And then something strange happened…other people also had these new fangled Xboxes. And copies of Halo. And system link cables. And then without warning, we were sitting in our uni kitchen, with 8 TV’s, 8 Xboxes and there were 8 of us shooting, grenading and mêléeing each other in Blood Gulch.

It. Was. Amazing.


For me, the original Xbox really is where multiplayer gaming took off again, not just paving the way for the eventual online gaming which is now commonplace, but more the social aspect of it that had been missing since the days of Mario Kart.

And it’s where I fell in love with gaming again, after the slightly cold days of the PS2. Although, once I did get my ‘box I didn’t have Xbox Live on it, but I did have a system link cable, and a friend within cable length distance who also had an Xbox. Flipmo and I played many a game via this lovely cable and it’s really where my love of gaming with others started. It didn’t matter that the console was the size of a chest of drawers, or that the controller was humongous. The thing played like the beast it was. Oh, and I had a crystal one. Don’t remember why, although it was probably cheaper.



Notable games on the Xbox, aside from the Halos were Burnout – a ludicrously fast racing (or rather, crashing) game involving retina searing speeds and stupidly entertaining crashes, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory which is to this day my favourite co-op game I have ever played, and of course, both of the Star Wars Battlefront games. There are many more but I’d bore you if I went on.


And then we come to today. And in my home, with my wife, at the ripe old age of 26 I’m still as big a fan of games as I ever was. My Xbox 360 is possibly the console I’ve owned the longest and shows no sign of getting boring any time soon, and I’m showing no sign of giving it up.

To summarise, I love gaming.

In case you hadn’t worked that out already.

Cheers

JC