2007 review

Generally, each year, I tend to try to figure out my 3 favourite films and 3 favourite games of the year and highlight these.

So here goes. Starting with…

Films

Not a very good year film while in my opinion. I can honestly say that I have not seen many outstanding films at the cinema this year. Most of the films mentioned below are actually films which were released in earlier years that I have only just caught up on DVD. Anyway, here are my 3 favourite films of the year, followed by a list of notable films (both good and very bad).

Films of the year:

Pan’s Labyrinth

An incredible film, both beautiful and moving. What is especially special about this film is that come the ending, it can be interpreted in 2 very different ways. I will not spoil it for those who have not seen it, but I will say that it can be interpreted either optimistically or pessimistically. I unfortunately, saw the ending scene in a pessimistic light – which makes the ending absolutely soul destroying. I cannot recommend it enough. It also occurs to me that for last 3 years, my favourite films for each year have been foreign language films… What does that tell you about the state of Hollywood?



Inland Empire

Not a film for everyone’s tastes.
This just shows that Lynch is still a great creative force. This is not a film that is meant to be fully understood (but I will give someone a medal if they can explain it to me), instead this is a film that needs to be experienced. It is shocking, disturbing funny and most of all, utterly bizarre.






Ratatouille

Why oh why can a film about a Rat bring a lump to my throat, when near the end of the film, the main character (Remy) cooks an exceptionally fine meal for a food critic? It’s because it’s a Pixar film. Quite frankly there is no studio, or director in Hollywood today that can match them for storytelling and also consistency. Roll on WALL-E next year (which I think looks incredible btw).






Notable mentions:

Children of Men
Very almost made it into my top 3. What is slightly annoying, is that I had a fantastic idea for a potential novel – called Children of Lazarus (honest) which was incredibly similar to the plot of Children of Men. Unfortunately I never got around to writing it, so Children of Men beat me to the punch. I don’t mind though, as it is an excellent film.

Irreversible
A French film which uses a very similar plot mechanic as Memento (namely the film is told backwards in segments). This film is notable this year, however, because it is by far the most depressing film I have ever seen.
Certainly not a film to watch unless you want to feel utterly depressed for the remainder of the day!

Baise-Moi
Another French film. I will not waste my breath too long on this, other to say that this is simply a pile of steaming excrement. I honestly could not conceive of a worse film. All I will say is that do not watch this film ever, not even out of curiosity (as I did), it really is bad beyond words.

Beowulf 3D
Showed me that a full feature length film can work admirably in 3D. Whilst at times the affect can be used as a gimmick, it can also add to the experience no end. The initial attack by Grendal to the strobeing ghostly flickering light of the drinking hall, really was simply awe inspiring.

Little Miss Sunshine
It should have won Best Picture over the Departed… There I’ve said it.

Games

Overall it’s been a great year for the average gamer. There seems to have been truly great games released on all formats (although obviously I have not been able to play the 360 titles – damn you Bioshock for not going multiplatform). The PS2 continued to have great titles in its twilight years, the PS3 has had less titles, but a few gems. The Wii game front was a little barren earlier on in the year, but the latter half of the year brought some great titles – from Nintendo of course.

Games of the Year:

Final Fantasy XII

I love Final Fantasy games, but even I must admit that there was need for change. Final Fantasy X, whilst good, was not as VII to IX and I never go to play Final Fantasy XI – being online only. Final Fantasy XII reinvented the Final Fantasy system in such a fantastic way, simplifying many things, but at the same time adding a level of planning and complexity. It also featured many memorable, likeable characters (Balthier in particular, who I hated at first, but absolutely loved by the end of the game).
Roll on Final Fantasy XIII (soon – pretty please)




Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations

The first 2 games were great (although 1 was better than 2), but this final chapter is just perfect.
It takes all the loose threads from the first 2 games and knits them together into 5 fantastic cases which tie everything up perfectly. Although getting to the end of these cases was no easy feat – there were so many twists and turns in the story. There is really nothing to beat the feeling you get, however, when you know that a case is finally turning in your favour



Super Mario Galaxy

Okay – so I’ve only had it for a few days and I’m only around 14 stars in, but all the same… :)
No other game has put a smile on my face to such a degree as Super Mario Galaxy – it’s pure gaming nirvana, nothing more, nothing less.
Now I am amongst the few who really enjoyed Super Mario Sunshine, but even I can admit that it wasn’t nearly as good as the classic Mario 64. It has been said before, but I can say that I agree entirely that Super Mario Galaxy really is a true sequel to Mario 64.
An absolute highlight to the gaming year.



Notable mentions:

Resistance: Fall of Man
The game I played on the PS3 and also my first real experience of online gaming (I had only dabbled a little before). The single player game was okay – but not spectacular, but it was the multiplayer where the fun was. To this date, no other PS3 games has run as flawlessly and has had as many community and online options as Resistance (even the online only Warhawk), and that’s saying something for a launch game.

Call of Duty 4
Very almost made it into my top 3. The single player game is like the best adrenalin filled action film that you have ever seen mixed with an absurd level of atmosphere and graphical sheen. Then in addition to that, there is the multiplayer, which bring RPG like levelling up into the world of FPS. It slower and more realistic approach also makes it a very different game than the likes of Resistance.
Best game so far for the PS3 (and it’s a multiplatform title)

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Takes the classic Zelda formula and wraps it perfectly around the unique capabilities of control scheme of the DS.
The fact that it is a Zelda game immediately endears it to me, however, this is Zelda reinvented for the portable casual gaming world and it works beautifully. There are a few niggles – namely I hate having to redo the damn Phantom temple time and time again under a time limit, but there are also some extremely good points – the omission of fairies in bottles, which has made previous Zelda games too easy.
Overall an excellent game.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Although I have enjoyed the first two Metroid Prime games and was looking forward to the next instalment, Metroid Prime 3 has always been about the control scheme. A couple of games have tried using the Wiimote for a FPS game in the past and failed, to the baton was then passed onto Retro to perfect he technique and they did just that. It also helps that the game is fantastic fun and not as stupidly difficult as the first 2 games. Plus it’s art design is fantastic and looks great compared to other HD games even in standard definition.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

No Fairytale for you!

Seriously... What is wrong with the world.

I have just read that BBC Radio 1, in their infinate wisdom, have decided to ban certain words fromthe classic Christmas song "Fairytime in New York" by the Pogues.

Read here

And it has taken them how long to read this decision? Only 20 Damn years!

For Christ sake (pun intended) this is one of the rare few Christmas songs that I actually like. How dumb can you get... The damn faggots!

TDK

It's here....

The Dark Knight Trailer...

Why so serious?

;)

In other new - completed Metroid Prime 3 over the weekend - one hell of a good game!

London, films, Bay and SF4

Well, our trip to London didn’t go quite as smoothly as we’d hoped. Well to be quite frank, it seemed to be one problem after another.

The whole reason for the trip was so that Roz could go and watch Mika live in concert (I must stress again, that I was not going to see this – I was just accompanying her to the venue). So the biggest disappointment of the trip was when we arrived at the venue, only to find out that it had been cancelled due to illness (Mika that is). However, that was not the only hitch or quirk during the trip… These are the others that spring to mind:

- Elliot got another case of tonsillitis just prior or our trip and whilst we were away he managed to be sick in Roz’s parents bed.
- Guernsey Customs getting anal with us about the style of clear plastic bag in which we had stored out liquid medication. Apparently it has to be resealable… naturally ours was, but it didn’t match their exact specifications.
- I messed up the cinema times and as such, missed Beowulf at the IMAX (got to see it at the Vue instead).
- There were numerous delays and cancellations on the Tube, at one point making a 20 minute trip take 2-3 times longer.
- A passenger with us on the Tube decided to have a hissy fit after hearing an announcement, and whilst swearing profusely, he decided it would be fun to take his aggravation out by kicking the side of the tube train several times.
- Just prior to entering the departure lounge at Gatwick, the airport was evacuated due to a fire alarm, thus making the queues to re-enter departures frankly ridiculous.

Anyway… onto the films.

Films watched:
Beowulf

CGI nearly nakedness in action fantasy 3D fun fest.
7.5/10

Ratatouille

Pixar can do no wrong. Charming, fantastic, engaging and moving.
9/10

Watching Beowulf was my first experience of watching a full feature length film completely in 3D. I have in the past seen the likes of Terminator 3D and Bugs Life 3D in Universal Studio’s and Disney. I have to say that at first, I found watching the film a little off putting and almost wished I could watch it normally, but after the first 15 minutes I got used to it. I think it clicked with me when Grendel first attacks, which looked simply brilliant and damn frightening in 3D.

The film does suffer a lot from shots that have been purposefully framed for 3D (namely someone pointing their spear at the screen etc) and to be honest, the 3D effect tended to look best when it was used subtlety, or alternatively during action scenes. The finale, with the dragon was also nothing short of spectacular in 3D.

I do not like Michael Bay, I do not like Michael Bay’s films (with the exception of The Rock). However, I must admit that Michael Bay has for the first time (to my knowledge) spoken some sense in public about the HD format war. Something which I also have suspected for some time…

Microsoft conspiracy ahoy!

Finally, the first screenshot of Street Fighter 4 ha popped online… It looks pretty damn sweet!

Xbox live vs PSN – round 2

Remember my previous Xbox live vs PSN post…

Well just to add fuel to the fire, it would seem that Microsoft is doing it’s very best to get rid of the freeloaders who are just on an Xbox live silver membership.

Now normally on the silver member hip you are not permitted to play online (that’ll cost you), but previously you could access the same demo’s and other content available on the marketplace. Now however, silver members will have to wait a week longer than gold members to access the same free services:

Read here:

Now, this seems to me that Microsoft are treating those people who currently use Xbox live for free (but without online play) like second class citizens. In reality, they are just trying to get silver members to sign up to a gold account, therefore increasing their revenues by a further £39.99 per year from these users. After all, how dare they have access to these services for free!

By my reckoning, PSN access is still a great bargain!

Also, I forgot to add last time – that with Microsoft, if you want to connect wirelessly to your internet – it will cost you a further £59.99, for the wireless bridge! Now last time I checked, you buy stand wireless PC cards for less than £15.00. That’s a bit of a difference…

BTW I’m back from London – will likely blog about my London experiences in the next few days.

Clockwork Orange

I’ve just watched my recently purchased copy of A Clockwork Orange on Blu-ray and… Oh my does it look sweet in HD.

What amuses me is that the first time that I watched A Clockwork Orange, in the days when it was still banned in the UK, it was a less than official copy of somewhat terrible quality. So much so that you could only just see the film through high level of static. All the same, it quickly became one of my favourite films. It’s comparing my initial viewing, to now seeing the film in HD that strikes a cord with me.

Assassin vs. Drake, MP3 and Playstation Eye

I was recently in a quandary as to which game to ask as a Chrimbo present from my parents. This was between either Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Roz should hopefully be getting me Super Mario Galaxy, which without needing to be said, holds priority over just about everything else in the universe at present). Both games look like they have heaps of potential, but after reading various reviews and preview for both games (as well as read personal opinions on forums), the decision was made for me… It’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

The most striking impression that I get after reading reviews and personal opinions of Unchartered, is that the game is just pure unadulterated fun. Assassin’s Creed seems to be somewhat of a flawed gem of game, whilst Uncharted is just pure entertainment. I must confess that it is reading the personal opinions on forums that has most sold the game to me. Anyway, Uncharted it is. I’ll look forward to playing this come Christmas.

Metroid Prime 3 is hard – damn hard. Then again, I shouldn’t have expected anything less after both Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The final 3 bosses of the original Metroid Prime had me ripping my hair out. Also the final 2 bosses of Metroid Prime 2 were also swear inducing hard. Unfortunately, by my estimate, I’m only approximately a third of the way through Metroid Prime 3 and already the bosses have given me some difficulties. The last boss encounter took me 5 attempts (the last of which took me approximately 30 minutes to eventually kill it and only then by the skin of my teeth). I dread to think how hard it’s going to be near the end. I think the thing that adds to the difficulty is that in order to defeat some bosses you need to purposefully corrupt your PED suit, which in turn drains an energy tank. As such, it s a careful balancing act between burning your health to deal heavy damage, ensuring that the corruption doesn’t overload and staying alive!

I got my Playstation Eye through the post yesterday. I purchased it mainly for the advanced mic attached to it, because I got sick and tired of always having to recharge my Bluetooth headset. Also, I often play games with headphones on (so as not to wake Elliot), and wearing my Bluetooth headset under my headphones was less than comfortable. So now I can listen to conversations through my headphones and use my Playstation Eye as my mic.

I have managed to have a quick go of Trials of Topaq with the Eye and must confess that it was actually quite fun. It’s a bit like marble madness, but the ground on which the ball rolls is the image shown by the eye and any moving elements in that image raises the tiles on the ground. As such, you need to move your arms and body around to push the ball along its path. It’s certainly an inventive use of the Eye and I look forward to showing it to Elliot to see what he thinks :)

Joker

The picture below is fromthe upcoming issue of Empire magazine.

It has to be said that Heath Ledger is looking pretty damn awesume as the Joker. I can't wait for the first tue trailer for The Dark Knight, which is due to hit sometime in December.

XBL vs PSN

I think that Microsoft have taken a long hard look at Sony’s general arrogance and have said we can do better than that… you call that arrogance, this is arrogance.

I’m referring to the comments made by Robbie Bach of Microsoft who has recently stated the following in regard to Xbox Live and the PSN:

"It's fair to say that Xbox Live is clearly head and shoulders above anything anyone else has tried to do. We don't have competition."

He goes on to say what Sony offers shouldn't even be called a service.

Link HERE

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that XBL does offer a better service than the PSN, but to state that XBL has no competition is frankly ridiculous. Especially when you take the following into account:

* XBL has been out approximately 5 years and the PSN only 1 year. Both are evolving over time and initially XBL was a pretty stripped down version of what it is today.

* PSN is free! I cannot state this enough. If I had a Xbox I would resent having to pay to have the privilege to play online – hell I never needed to pay on my PC. What’s more, the cost mounts up over the course of a consoles life. The RRP for 1 years Live membership is £39.99, over the course of say 5 years of a consoles lifespan, this comes to £199.95. Hell you could buy yourself a whole second console with this much (a Wii of course). There is no way in hell that I would pay this to play online.

* Home is due to launch early next year and if you’re into the community aspects of online services, this does so much more than what is currently on offer on XBL.

* So far as I understand it, the majority of the PSN games run on dedicated servers, while to play XBL games, the Xbox is used as the server. The result of this is that if you are playing against someone over long distances, the game experience can suffer from lag

Anyway… rant over.

Talking of the PSN, I was pleased to not that the first DLC offering for Rock band are due to go online on the US store this Thursday. They are as follows:

Band add-on content

Metallica pack 1 ($5.49)
"...And Justice For All" ($1.99)
"Blackened" ($1.99)
"Ride The Lightning" ($1.99)

Queen's of the Stone Age pack 1 ($5.49)
"3's & 7's" ($1.99)
"Little Sister" ($1.99)
"Sick, Sick, Sick" ($1.99)

The Police pack ($5.49)
"Can't Stand Losing You" ($1.99)
"Roxanne" ($1.99)
"Synchronicity II" ($1.99)

"Bang a Gong" - T. Rex cover ($1.99)
"Cherry Bomb" - The Runaways cover ($1.99)
"Fortunate Son" - Creedance Clearwater Revival cover ($1.99)
"Joker and the Thief" - Wolfmother ($1.99)
"Juke Box Hero" - Foreigner cover ($1.99)
"My Sharona" - The Knack cover ($1.99)

This seems like a good initial selection and only hope that this continues and is similar when the game is launched next year in Europe.

Also on a side note, I completed the single player game on Call of Duty 4 last night. It may have been a short game (6-7 hours), but it was a very intense experience and I’m looking forward to playing through again on a higher difficultly level. This is always a good indicator for a good game in my opinion. Also, I’m sure that online multiplayer will keep me busy for some time…

Now I just need to get past that damn hard boss on Metroid Prime 3!

Inland Empire and Kiki

Film watched:
Inland Empire

Breathtaking. Lynch at his best – but… what the hell happened?

8/10

Elliot sat down with me today and watch Kiki’s Delivery Service, a fantastic anime film from Hayao MIYAZAKI (Spirited Away, Princess Mononke etc). What made it special was that Elliot almost never watches films, and seeing as it is one of my passions, it was really nice to sit along side him as we watched it.

Roz and I have tried to limit Elliot’s contact with TV (and definitely the cinema), but I hope in future as he grows older that we can share some more fantastic films

Playstation R&D with the Eye.

I stumbled across this blog entry on the US Playstation Blog which shows what there R&D department are currently doing with the Playstation Eye.

I must admit I'm pretty impressed - they could seriously use some of these elements to make fantastic games that could be user designed by players, in a similiar fashion to Little Big Planet, but with very limited work on the part of the user.

I especially like the last video. The game reminds me of the Wiiplay tank game, but the program seems to effortlessly scan just about anything to be used as a tank - and also the level is user designed. Very impressive.

Anyway, link HERE.

Games, games and games

I’ve got tons of stuff to blog about and should have written earlier, but haven’t had the inclination…

Anyway, this is the brief abridged version…

New games

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime 3

Got both of these for my birthday a few days ago. They are both brilliant examples of how a perfect control scheme can help to make a perfect game. Metroid nails FPS controls for Wii effortlessly and as such, adds to the emersion of an already excellent sequel. This is still very much a Metroid game, and as such, it is very similar to the first 2 games, but this is by no means a bad thing, as the first 2 were also amazing games. Zelda on the other hand, perfectly adapts Zelda games for the DS. It uses a control scheme which is similar in some way to Animal Crossing on the DS to control Link and this works perfectly. At first I found it a little odd that you didn’t use any buttons on the DS at all, but have since got used to it. I’m not too far into the game, but have just got the boomerang and I have to say, that this put a huge smile on my face. I have always loved the boomerang in Zelda games, but being able to draw the path of the boomerang in Phantom Hourglass is simply sublime :)

Call of Duty 4

I also picked this up for the PS3 as a little present to myself a couple of days after my birthday. It has to be said that this is by far the most graphically stunning game I have seen on any system to date. On a technical level it is pretty impressive, but it is the sense of immersion which really drives this game. It has the most impressive opening level I have ever seen in a game, it really is pretty staggering.

Online is also great fun, not an arcade shooter like Resistance, but a more realistic FPS experience, and probably better for it. I also love the way that as you level up online, you can create your own classes, assign perks and improve your weapons, a definite incentive to keep on playing.

Overall, during the last few days I’ve been in gaming nirvana, which of course, is a very good thing.

What’s more, only 5 more days until Super Mario Galaxy is out! Of course, I’ll have to wait until Christmas to play it, but I’m sure it will be worth the wait and I have plenty to keep my occupied in the meanwhile.

Also, I thought I’d post this picture.

Elliot did this using pins and wooden pieces on a board, it is meant to be a picture of me… I was rather impressed by it :)

Halloween, Heroes and stuff

Well it was Halloween last night, and as is traditional for me, I settled down to watch a horror film last night. My film of choice this year was Night of the Living Dead, as classis a horror film as you could possibly find. I had intended to make a Dead marathon out of it and also watch Dawn of the Dead, but I have been feeling a little run down of late, so instead headed to bed with Cell to read.

I asked Elliot yesterday whether they did anything at school to do with Halloween to which he replied “no”. Not a thing, nada. Now, as a kid (and also as a grownup) I loved Halloween and yet it seems that everyone these days seem to be trying to suppress the celebration. Whilst I can understand that unsupervised trick-or-treating these days is probably a bad idea, this however, does not mean that Halloween shouldn’t be celebrated in other ways. Roz pointed out that she thought that other parents of children might disapprove. Well, sod them. I don’t particularly approve of celebrating the torture and brutal execution of heretics, but that has never stopped Easter! (Okay maybe this also celebrates the “resurrection” as well, but as I think that’s bullsh*t, I choose to ignore that).

I have to say that I’m very disappointed that the terrestrial TV channels available to us here in the UK, don’t make a special effort to celebrate Halloween. You would think that it would be the perfect opportunity to screen classic films during the evening and into the early hours of the morning, but instead we just get the normal old crap.

Of course, an exception to “the normal old crap” on TV last night was Heroes. This was the episode “Company Man” and in my humble opinion has been the best episode so far. My only complaint with Heroes in that they have too many main characters and as a result most episodes loose any focus by flitting back and forth between these characters. It could be said that Lost is similar in that it has a large cast of characters, but with Lost, each episode is firmly focused on a particular character – so escapes the pitfalls of Heroes. This episode of Heroes was different, it focused on the Bennett family throughout and was extremely effective and touching. It’s just a shame that it looks like Mr Bennett will be effectively leaving the show following this, as he was one of my favourite characters.

Other news:

It looks like a demo for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune will be upon the PSN next Thursday – I’m looking forward to trying this out as it looks very promising from all that I’ve seen of it so far.

Joss Wheadon (Buffy/Angel/Firefly) will be returning to TV with a new project called Dollshouse. What’s more, it’s due to star and be produced by Eliza Dushku. There is more info on this on the Empire website here, but it sounds very promising.

Plus, they have a hot picture of Eliza on the site, which I couldn’t resist but post here:

Fish

I bought a Bio-orb fish tank the other day, and we now own goldfish... 1 for each member of my family.

My fish is gold and white and is called "Dennis"

Roz's is all black and is called "Sylvia"

Elliot's is multicoloured and is called "Pam".