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

DVD snobbery

I have a vast collection of DVD’s.

It’s probably pushing about 400 (I’m aware that depending on the type of person you are this may seem like a ridiculous amount or hardly a ‘vast’ collection at all, but to me, it’s pretty freaking big). But despite having a lot of them, I’m astoundingly snobby when it comes to my collection.

For example, today I was browsing in a shop selling a lot of DVD’s. I had an interest in some of them, seeing as they were 2 for £10. However, there was a problem. These particular DVD’s were discontinued stock from a rental store that had gone out of business. And as such most of the DVD’s had the words RENTAL COPY on both the front and the spine of the case.

And therefore, I would never, ever buy it.

I know that the disc is probably fine and that there would probably not be any problems with the actual movie, but because of those two little words it will never grace my collection. It’s the same reason that back in the day where some bloke down the market had cheap knock off DVD’s that I was loathe to buy them.

To my eyes, it makes it look cheap. I take pride in my DVD collection. It’s nerdy, I know, but I can’t help it. The movies I own and the condition they’re in are a reflection on me. Of the 400 odd I own, all (or at the very least, 99% of them) are in perfect condition, just as they were the day they were bought. Beautiful, pristine, and official. I think ‘official’ is the most important word. Maybe it’s just me being a proper snob, but I can’t stand anything I own being less than perfect, or cheap looking. And for that reason I could never have a rental copy or a copied DVD adorning my beautiful shelf. Anyone else this particular about the collections? Or am I just that sad?

On a similar DVD shelf related note, I saw something else today that I’m surprised hasn’t been done before. It was a boxset for all the Saw movies that have been released on DVD so far, which is you’ve been following the series is 6 movies (not that many are following it; while the first Saw was truly brilliant, the sequels have become a convoluted mess, solely existing to find disgusting ways to kill people, although I do commend it’s committal to weaving an intricate back story that does actually adhere to rigorous continuity). But this boxset was different, and what drew my eye to it was the fact that on the front it had a sticker saying that this boxset had a space for the as yet unreleased (supposed) final chapter in the Saw franchise; Saw 3D.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saw-1-6-Box-Set-DVD/dp/B003YUBZ84/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297436794&sr=8-1

Such a simple idea, but one that I have not seen before in my years of DVD buying. And I think more franchises should adopt this new packaging revolution, as it would rid us of the horrible decision of whether to put a new addition (usually a fourth movie in a series) next to the already released boxset, or in the with the normal alphabetically organised single DVD’s. It’s a dilemma we all face. However, as I tried to come up with an example of my own for this, the only one I could come up with was Indiana Jones. But it gets a pass as the fourth one was made like 20 years after Last Crusade. And also, I try and bury Crystal Skull in with the others so as to try and wipe it from my memory. I’m sure there are more examples; I just can’t think of any right now.

So, if you’re in charge of a movie and think there may be sequels down the line, release your DVD with some extra space for a possible trilogy. And if you trilogy never happens, at least you’ve given us an extra place to hide our dirty movies.

Ta
JC

My Gaming History Part 1

Let me be honest here for a little while: if someone put a gun to my head and told me I could only enjoy one of these things for the rest of my life, out of gaming, film and TV, I reckon I would pick gaming.

Actually, that’s a lie. I’d pick TV.

But my point is I love gaming. I mean really love it. Have done since I was a small child. And I think I’m really the generation that ‘gets’ gaming the most; the 24-35 age bracket. People in this age bracket (also, bear in mind that I’m slightly uncomfortable grouping myself with people over 30. I’m still young, me. I go to all the cool parties) grew up with gaming. And I don’t mean they had every console that was released, though they did. I mean gaming has grown up alongside these people, as well as vice versa. In fact I’m probably on the outskirts of the ‘grew up with gaming’ stage. My first console was a ZX Spectrum, and it was terrific, but there were consoles before that. I can’t really offer an opinion on them. It would appear that while not there for gaming at its infancy, I was certainly there for the awkward first steps and teething stage, or the third generation of consoles to give it its proper name.

Anyway, to the mighty Spectrum. And it was mighty. In that there were so many pieces of kit to actually play the bugger. The massive power unit, the tape player you needed as the games for it came on cassettes (!) and the keyboard. The lovely ergonomic, streamlined, rubber keyed keyboard. It was a thing of beauty, and looked exactly like the type of keyboard used in underground Russian bunkers to launch nuclear missiles, except this had a little rainbow bit in the bottom right corner. It was cool. It’s still in my house somewhere, probably tucked away in a box in the roof space, gathering dust but still looking cool, and all pleased with itself.



The Spectrum itself was a time consuming console, mainly because it took so long to actually load up a game that when you eventually started playing you daren’t stop. Imagine dial up internet, but one that took about 15 minutes to connect and you’re almost there. Although you were treated to a nice display of multicoloured loading screens, that probably caused many a child to go into convulsions. But once it started, oh baby, were you ever treated to a wide variety of games. A wide variety of startlingly similar games with different skins, but it was still immense. The game I believe was the first I ever truly loved was an absolute gem. Jason’s Gem to be precise. You controlled a little space ship thing that had to manoeuvre through dangerous terrain, and you could either blast your way through it or carefully navigate your way around it. Blasting through was fun and got the job done but skilfully mastering the course was much more satisfying. It was simple, but I loved it. It was kind of like Space Invaders but in reverse. You were the invader, moving ever downwards to reach your goal. Come to think of it, maybe Jason was an evil overlord conquering every world he came to. They didn’t put that on the box though.

Anyway, the other game I loved on the ZX was R-Type. And if you’ve never played R-Type before, I take pity on your soul. I’m not even going to bother reviewing it, because everyone should know how good it is. As was indicative of this era of gaming, and for a while after too, the covers for the games were so awesome that the game couldn’t possibly live up to them. R-Type broke the tradition however, as it more than lived up to its bad ass cover.



After the glorious Spectrum days came the 16 BIT days. Twice the power, twice the awesomeness, twice the price probably; almost too much for this 7 year old boy to comprehend. My brain nearly exploded from sheer excitement. I still remember coming down on Christmas morning 1992 at 4AM, opening the door to the living room, and seeing the outline of a Sega Mega Drive box lit by the street lights outside, with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 sitting in front of it. I remember kneeling down beside it and practically salivating over it as my sister was next to me doing the same with a Polly Pocket dream village (or whatever) box. I remember loving the fact that Santa (yes, Santa) had bought me this. I also remember waiting for another 5 hours before I could actually play the blasted thing. Stupid parents, not waking up at the same time as me.

Anyway, the Mega Drive era was where I really fell in love with gaming. Sonic was the coolest video game character of all time (and still is) and was the perfect mascot for the faster, better, stronger Mega Drive. Sega does what Nintendon’t. Too bloody right.



First of all, the console itself, as it was a thing of beauty, with 16 BIT emblazoned on the front as if it’s screaming at you “That’s right, motherf*cker. I’ve got 16 BIT worth of power, and I’m going to remind you of just how f*cking awesome I am every time you look at me. 16 BIT FTW! Look at this grate on the side of me; it’s not to cool me down, it’s to warm you motherf*ckers up. Also, I’m all streamlined and sh*t. Screw your SNES, it looks like a grey box full of sh*t. I’m all rounded and smooth, and jet black and sexy.” Or is that just me that thinks that?

The controller was also a gorgeous little (big) thing. Unlike the SNES controller which was just a rectangle, that caused indentations in your hands during moments of intense gaming, the Mega Drive controller fit perfectly in your hands. It didn’t matter that the buttons A B and C did the same thing in most games, it looked sexy.



Up down left right A start, anyone?

And then there were the games. I’ll not go into in depth reviews of them all, because we’d be here all day. I’ll just name a few of my favourites: obviously all of the Sonics (special mention goes to Sonic and Knuckles onto which you could put other Sonic games and play as Knuckles; class. The SNES didn’t have that now, did it?); Mickey Mouse in the Castle of Illusion; Tiny Toon Adventures; Columns; Shinobi; Golden Axe; Italia 90 (the birds eye view footballing game); PGA 94; Fifa 96 (in which you were guaranteed a goal by running up the right flank and shooting from about 25 yards out) and of course the mighty Streets of Rage. All amazing.



And who doesn’t miss the days where if a game didn’t work, for whatever reason, all you had to do was rip out the cartridge, blow on it, slam in back in, and Bob’s your mother’s brother.

Also, back in the 16 BIT days, games were hard. I mean, really hard. You started off with three lives, and if you lost them, barring any continues you may have had, that was it. GAME OVER. Tough shit, basically. I remember reaching the part 3 of the Labyrinth Zone in the original Sonic the Hedgehog (Labyrinth Zone was the Aztec-y looking one that filled with water), following Robotnik up a shaft (oh-er!) in which arrows and badniks were making things more difficult. I had died a lot of times already and was on my last life. No continues left. This was it. I had hit him 7 times, 8 being the number of times that you had to hit one of the good doctor’s inventions before it blew up (Serious design flaw, that). I hit him the eighth time, he began to explode, but I wasn’t celebrating. Mainly because on my descent from hitting the underside of Robotnik’s wee hovercraft thing, I had hit a fucking protruding spike and died. Died my last life. No continues. GAME OVER. I could have cried. Games were hard back then, yo.

I loved my Mega Drive. I played until my eyes began to turn square, from both the amount of time playing it, as well as the fact that every game used REALLY BRIGHT COLOURS. I take pride however, that I never ended up looking like those kids on GamesMaster, who appeared to be in a vegetative state, only surfacing from in front of their TV’s to ask Patrick Moore how to get the best time on Super Happy Fun Time Racer 4.



[Wee sidenote here, but how awesome was GamesMaster? I often wish there was a show like it these days. Patrick Moore could probably still do it, despite him being about 406 years old]

But then my Mega Drive broke. I was inconsolable (pun semi intended). For a long while I had nothing to play games on. It was a dark time.

Then…the Playstation came along.

And that’s when everything changed...

With its demo disc and a T-Rex simulator which was simultaneously brilliant and pointless, the Playstation heralded a new age of gaming. An age where gaming suddenly got serious.

And it got serious in three dimensions.

More game history next time, folks.

Toodle pip

JC

Life, the Multiverse and Everything.

So, I finished watching the first series of Fringe a while back and have just started the second. It’s a great show. Yes, it does come off as a bit of an X-Files clone, using science instead of the paranormal, but that’s not to say it’s not good at what it does.



People heads explode, there’s a grotesque monster every now and again, the central trio are all brilliant in their roles, John Noble especially as the brilliant but mental Walter Bishop. It’s fairly disgusting most of the time and there’s even a character whose function is somewhat of a Where’s Wally game (The Observer*; if you watch the show, you’ll know what I’m on about).



* The Observer not only appears on Fringe itself, but has been sighted at certain real life events (only in the US, natch) like football games and in the audience of American Idol. Now that’s viral marketing. Also, I’m fairly certain I saw him one night as I was heading home from Donaghadee but that’s another story entirely.




The first season was mainly monster of the week fare, as most fantasy shows are when they first start out (Smallville, Supernatural, Buffy, even Lost to an extent; you know the type of show I mean, one where in every pre-title sequence somebody gets killed or something weird happens). But towards the end of its inaugural year, Fringe started to delve into the idea of alternate universes. The main character, Olivia, travelled to an alternate universe where the Twin Towers are still standing to meet the elusive William Bell, played by Leonard Nimoy who’s been doing his fair bit of universe hopping, between this and Star Trek. And from the two episodes I’ve watched of the second season, it appears as if most of this season will be dedicated to this type of story.

And I can’t wait.

I love the notion of the multiverse. It’s such an interesting concept; that there are an infinite number of universes in which things are drastically or minutely different to the universe we currently inhabit. Who wouldn’t love that? Lost dabbled in this alternate universe thing in its final season (unfortunately, although it did provide emotional closure to the series, it dropped the ball in terms of offering answers, and looking back was a real cop out in any episode but the finale) but Fringe embraces it with all it’s geek heart.



So far, we’ve only seen one alternate universe in Fringe, and I think that’s all we’re going to, as I imagine any more than that would get a little confusing (see DC Comics many different “Earth’s” if you want proof. Don’t even think about starting 52 or Infinite Crisis. It’s freaking impenetrable; I tried reading it once and had no clue about what was going on. I asked a big DC fan, and when he mentioned that there were many different variations of Earth, and that characters who may been dead in the core universe may not be dead in another but are somehow affected by events in the origi….oh no, I’ve gone cross eyed.), but it got me thinking about which other universes I’d like to visit.

The universe where there are actual superheroes; the universe where everyone is a Gerry Anderson puppet; the universe where dogs are humans and humans are dogs; the universe where people walk on their hands; the booblehead universe [note: that was a typo, but I like booblehead better than bobblehead so it’s staying]; the universe without shrimp; the universe with nothing but shrimp; the universe where that fucking Go Compare advert, Two and a Half Men and The X Factor don’t exist; the universe where the word ‘universe’ doesn’t exist (which would have made this blog really hard). Personally I’d like a universe where hay fever didn’t exist, that would be awesome.

Oh, and obviously there’s the Rosario Dawson universe.



I freaking love the multiverse, you may have noticed. I mean, I watched Sliders FFS. And it was terrible.

So, what do you all think?

JC