OK so onto part 2 of the Die Hard posts, and this is of course all about Die Hard 2: Die Harder (as it was known at the time), but to be honest it just sounds stupid if you ask me, Die Hard 2 on its own is better really, which it is better known as. So here we go...
The film starts on Christmas Eve 1990, where John
McClane (Bruce Willis) is waiting at Washington Dulles International
airport for his wife's flight to come in. McClane while waiting in the
airport bar notices two men, who appear to be wearing army fatigues and
carry parcels. McClane follows the men to the baggage area, where he
confronts them, and they pull a gun on him, in the enusing gunfight,
McClane kills one of the men, while the other gets away. McClane after
the incident speaks with the police captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis
Franz) who dismisses his request to close off the baggage area and
investigate further, as he thinks it was just a punk stealing luggage,
McClane is then escorted out Lorenzo's office. After this McClane
manages to borrow a fingerprint press and lifts prints off the dead
man's hands, and calls up his fellow police officer Al Powell (Reggie
VelJohnson again) and faxes a copy of the man's prints to check out who
he is. Al soon calls McClane back and informs him that the man was a
former army sergeant who apparently died two years ago. McClane then
goes to the chief of the airport tower's operations, Trudeau, with his
findings, but at that point the airport runway lights all start to go
off. It is soon revealed the airport has been taken over by a terrorist
group lead by an ex special forces Colonel, Colonel Stuart (William
Sadler) who wish to use the airport for their own means, so that they
can intercept a plane carrying the drug lord General Ramon Esperanza
(Franco Nero), who has been brought to the US to stand trial for drug
trafficking charges.
With the terrorists now in control
of the airport tower systems, all communications to the planes have
been cut off, which leaves the planes in the air, unable to land, which
includes Holly's plane. And a botched attempt by Lorenzo's SWAT team
and the airport tower's director of communications Barnes (Art Evans) to
re-establish comms with the planes, ends with all the team killed by
Stuart's men in an ambush, but McClane at the last moment steps in saves
Barnes, and shoots Stuart's team. This enrages Colonel Stuart who then
recalibrates the instrument landing system, and pretends to be the
tower chief, and causes one of the planes to crash into the ground,
killing 230 people onboard. McClane realises he must do something to
stop the terrorists and try to ensure that his wife's plane will be able
to land, and Trudeau tells him his wife's plane will soon run out of
fuel. Meanwhile on Holly's plane, she suffers the misfortune of having
to share the same aisle as Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton), the sleazy
news reporter from the first film, who protests that he is put near
Holly, as he filed a restraining order against her for assaulting him
(at the end of the first film again).
McClane with
Barnes help soon locates the terrorists hideout, which is an old church,
and by then a Special Forces platoon is brought in to help try and
resolve the terrorist situation, lead by Major Grant (John Amos).
Colonel Stuart and his men soon evacuate the church when the Special
forces team arrive, a firefight ensues, and McClane chases after Stuart
on snowmobiles, but Stuart gets away. McClane having taken one of
Stuart's machine guns soon realises that the ammo they used was actually
blanks, and it dawns on him that the Major Grant and his team are
working together with Stuart. McClane goes back to Lorenzo and after
failing to convince him that Grant is in cahoots with Stuart, he fires
the machine gun loaded with blanks at him. Lorenzo then sends out all
his police units to go after Stuart and Grant's men, and McClane catches
up with the pesky news reporter Samantha Coleman (Sheila McCarthy) who
has been bothering everyone throughout the movie, to get a ride in her
news chopper, in order to stop Stuart and Grant's men from leaving on a
plane. McClane soon with help of the ride, jumps on the plane before it
takes off and a final fight ensues with the terrorists.
It
has to be said for me anyway, that Die Hard 2 is the weakest of the
films in the franchise, however that's not to say it isn't enjoyable, it
is, but in comparison to the other films in the series, it falls short
of the mark a little. The problem mainly stems with the script and
characters, particularly the bad guys who are really get the worst
dialogue, and are basically like something out of a comic book. Colonel
Stuart's character in particular makes for a pretty bland villain, who
lacks the charm, wit or humour that Hans Gruber had. And Stuart's
suborindate baddies are all very much the same, and they get some bog
standard dialogue such as "I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass!". There is
also generally too much hackneyed dialogue between the police officers
such as Lorenzo to Major Grant, as Grant says : "Make sure no one get's
past us", Lorenzo says "You got it!". Lorenzo even gets one of the
cheesiest lines of all time, when McClane confronts him toward the end
and they realise what they must do, "Its time to kick ass!". Oh yeah
sure. Again I think the writers of the Die Hard series have a thing for
making the police look like idiots.
Performance wise
things aren't too bad here, but the film suffers again from poorly
realised characters, particularly Colonel Stuart, played William
Sadler. Sadler himself is an excellent actor, as an example he stood
out very well in The Shawshank Redemption, playing a colourful part of a
prison inmate, but here he is just playing a cardboard cut-out villain,
delivering loaded threats without any real sense of menace. Other
supporting cast members however are better, such as Dennis Franz, who
plays he Airport police chief, who is quite amusing in his part, playing
the police chief, as very stubborn and has no interest in listening to
McClane, and is more concerned about the traffic going through his
airport than anything else. John Amos is also fine as Major Grant, the
Special Forces unit leader, and he plays him with an expected sense of
machismo, although he too does get some cringeworthy dialogue,
especially the line where McClane says to him "I guess you're not such
an asshole after all", to which Grant replies "No, you were right, I'm
just your kind of asshole". God.
The regular
cast however do very well in their respective roles, with Bruce Willis,
once again playing John McClane to perfection, or as much to perfection
as he can expect. In Die Hard 2 we get more wise cracking from McClane,
but Bruce also throws in some deft little touches where he shows
McClane's vulnerability. The scene in particular after the terrorists
crash the plane, McClane sadly moves through the wreckage afterwards and
picks up a singed doll, and later sits silently in the airport tower,
lamenting how he failed to help the people on the plane. However now
and then McClane's dialogue is a bit trite as well, especially then line
near the end where he says "My God, John, what the fuck are you doing
on the wing of this plane????". Bonnie Bedelia is certainly not
forgotten about here, and she too provides some of the film's fun
moments, especially where she has to sit and listen to the arrogant
sleazy Dick Thornburg, and she says to him "if you wish to sit this
close to me, could you consider changing aftershave, and a stronger
mouth wash would be nice". Another fun scene Bonnie has with Richard
Atherton is where as Dick Thornburg, broadcasts his propoganda about the
airport takeover by the terrorists from the airplane toilet and says
"If this should be my final broadcast", Bonnie eventually comes into the
toilet and tasers him and says "Amen to that! Dick!".
Action
wise though Die Hard 2, has plenty of fine set-pieces and Renny Harlin
does a good job with the action scenes, and overall he does a pretty
good job at picking up the pace of the franchise where it left off.
Michael Kamen also contributes another fine score to the film, building
on the original score and adding some extra passages, as composers tend
to do in sequels! Track wise, Let it Snow is used once more, but an
additional fine choice is Sebilius's Finlandia, which is used really
well at the end where planes come in to land, once the whole situation
has been "dealt" with.
So there you go, that's the Die
Hard 2 analysis over with, its not a bad action film by any means, but
it has to be said with its bland baddies and hackneyed dialogue, its not
the best in the series by a longshot, but its worth a watch once in a
while.
So let's cue Part 3.....
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Die Hard Part 1: Yipppeee ki-yay mother f*****!!
Right time for a quick bit of blog post "shifting" which I will call it, as it seems a bit silly to keep calling it robbery, as all I'm trying to do is shift most of the reviews from other blog onto this one (OK so there is a bit of laziness involved in this somewhere!). So I've decided to add my reviews of the Die Hard franchise films, which certainly deserve a place here, so I will start with Die Hard 1, or just Die Hard.
The film starts with New York police officer, John McClane (Bruce Willis) arriving in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to meet up with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) who has a very prominent job working for the Nakatomi corporation. McClane soon meets up with Holly at her work, and is greeted by her boss Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta) who arranged his ride in, in a company limo. Pretty soon however, a group men in cars and a truck pull into the plaza, two of the men in the car, Karl (Alexander Gudonov) and Theo (Clarence Gilyard) enter the building and shoot the security guard on the front desk. Theo locks down the building using the computers in the security office, and the other men enter the building from the parking lot in the basement of the building, who are terrorists lead by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) who soon take the workers at the officer party hostage. Hans once having identified Takagi takes him upstairs to the boardroom where he asks for the code to their vault as he wants to enter the vault to steal $640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds. Takagi however refuses to cooperate and Gruber shoots him, leaving Theo to try and hack the locks and break into the vault.
At this point McClane has managed to sneak away from the terrorists and listens in on Hans conversation with Takagi. McClane then sets off a fire alarm which attracts the attention of Hans, who sends one of his men to investigation, who soon finds McClane, they fight and in the ensuing struggle, the terrorist is killed. McClane then takes the terrorist's gun and checks his pockets to find he has a phoney ID and a CB radio. The terrorist however is revealed to be the brother of Hans main henchman, Karl, who is furious at news of his death. McClane runs up to the roof where he uses his radio to call the police, who respond to his call, but don't believe his call is for real. By then Karl and his men engage McClane in a gunfight on the roof, which McClane narrowly escapes and makes his way back into the building, via the elevator shafts. The police dispatchers however send an off duty officer, Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) to investigate the Plaza, on arriving he speaks with one of the terrorists, who has assumed the role of the security guard, and reassures nothing is up. During this point, McClane having re-entered the boardroom, and after a gunfight with some of the terrorists, with McClane killing them, takes one of the bodies and dumps it out the window onto Powell's car to get his full attention and the LAPD's.
Pretty soon the police arrive on the scene and try to take control of the situation by sending their SWAT team into the building, however Gruber's men shoot and maim the team members who try to make their way in the front door. The SWAT team also try to send in a reinforced vehicle (RV) to the building, which the terrorists destroy with rockets. McClane outraged retaliates by using some of the C4 he found from one of the terrorists, and throws it down the lift shaft, which kills the two terrorists, James and Alexander. During all this McClane keeps in contact with Powell by radio, and gives him an assumed name to protect his identity. However one of the execs at the party Ellis (Hart Bochner), a cocky negotiator for the company, in attempt to end the seige, gives McClane's real name away to the Gruber, and tries to reason with McClane to give himself up, but McClane refuses, and pleads with Ellis to tell them he isn't McClane's friend, however Gruber shoots Ellis. After the debacale with the SWAT team, the FBI are sent in to try and mop up the situation, lead by special agents Johnson (Robert Davi) and Johnson (Grand L. Bush) who arranged to cut the building's power and go in with armed choppers to take out the terrorists, who they have agreed to meet with on the roof, allegedly with choppers for transport.
Gruber however has planned a double cross to blow the roof. McClane soon enough finds C4 in the floors above wired to blow, and Karl finds him and they engage an intense fight, which McClane finally escapes from after hanging Karl up in chains. McClane gets to the roof, where the hostages have been sent to and gets them to go back down, which prompts Hans to blow the roof. McClane dives off the roof with a firehose attached to his waist, he manages to smash back into an office floor below. McClane makes his way back upstairs to the 30th floor where Hans now holds Holly hostage, and the two men have the final showdown.
Die Hard is without a doubt one of the best action movies of the 1980s and it signalled the start of Bruce Willis's film career. John McTiernan, who directed the excellent Arnie action flick Predator, does a terrific job here in keeping up the suspense, and brilliantly stages some great action scenes, that include McClane's fight with Karl, and the famous scene where he jumps off the roof, with a fire hose attached round his waist. Although admittedly it is a rather silly way for McClane to try and get off the roof, surely he could have just ran back down the stairs and tried to stay out of sight from the terrorists. However Die Hard is about all things proposterous, and what it does very well, is take an average joe like McClane and turns him into a hero in an impossible situation. Of course as the Die Hard films progressed the situations got even more and more ridiculous, right up until Die Hard 4.0 where McClane faces off a Harrier jet plane, as you do! McTiernan also uses the sets very well and the building to utilise the cat and mouse chase between McClane and the terrorists, and there some really well stage gunfights, especially in the roof scenes and the scene in the office where Gruber and Karl shoot out the office windows to force McClane to walk on the glass. The Fox Plaza building of course also doubles as the Nakatomi Plaza building, although I doubt they used it to blow the roof and blast out the windows!
In terms of performances, Die Hard has a pretty strong cast, and Bruce Willis is perfect for the role of John McClane, a wise-cracking cop, who is very down to earth and quite likeable and has plenty of lines we can all remember such as "Yippe ki-yay motherfucker!" and "I'm not the one that just got butt-fucked on national TV, Dwayne!" and "welcome to the party, pal!!". Although at the start of the film I have to say Willis's take on McClane is somewhat cold, as he refuses to engage in conversation the limo drive Argyle (De'Voreaux White). However as things progress McClane really emerges and becomes the affable character that he remained in the rest of the franchise. Alan Rickman is just great as the Hans Gruber, a quintessentially smooth, suave, intellectual villain who as Holly says at one point in the film is no more than a common thief. Rickman gets his fair share of the best dialogue in the film and plays Gruber with a dry wit and a cold calculating persona.
The supporting cast are also very good, with Reginald VelJohnson playing the desk jockey cop Al Powell, as a decent cop who got off the street after making the mistake of shooting a kid in the past. Bonnie Bedelia too is very good as McClane's wife, Holly, a headstrong woman, and she keeps a cool head during the seige, and she gets one of the funniest moments in the film where she punches the sleazy news reporter Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton) on TV at the end! Paul Gleason is also quite amusing as Dwayne T. Robinson, the deputy chief of police, who despite his authority, is pretty incompetent in the film, and he gets one of the all time best lines in the film, when the FBI chopper is blown up, "Holy Christ! Looks like we're gonna need more FBI guys I guess!". And finally Alexandar Gudonov is quite effective as the steely cold henchman, Karl, and he too gets some good lines, when he argues with Hans for example about killing McClane, Hans says "We do not alter the plan!", and Karl replies "And if he alters it?????".
Although if there is one critcism that can be levelled at Die Hard is its depiction of the police in the film, as they are pretty much all potrayed as idiots, except McClane and Powell. The SWAT team in particularly make the silly decision to go in to the Nakatomi building, despite the drastic repercusions they will face if they do, and did face when the terrorists retaliated. And one of the more amusing scenes shows the dim-witted qualities of Dwayne Robinson, when Gruber contacts him with his list of "demands" which are to release political prisoners, such as the Asian Dawn, and Robinson carries on following it up, despite the fact Gruber is just bluffing them to keep them away. And the FBI aren't much brighter as they use as Powell describes "the universal terrorist playbook and play it step by step" in cutting the building's power, which lets the terrorist access the vault to get their money. But again it is an action movie and the writers are poking fun at law enforcement as they have a tendacy to do.
And finally here's a bit on the score written by Michael Kamen, which is very good and has plenty of fine dramatic passages, Kamen of course went on to score the 2nd and 3rd films as well, before he sadly passed away in 2003. However if you listen closely near the end, you can hear a passage that was nicked from James Horner's score for Aliens, which was apparently left in by the studio as a temp track (according to the ol Wikipedia). The other tracks in the film are also pretty memorably used, especially Beethoven's 9th Symphony when the terrorists finally crack into the vault and raid it, and of course "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!" at the end.
Rrrrright well that's my analysis of Die Hard over with and it remains one of my favourite action films. Die Hard 2 will soon follow.....
The film starts with New York police officer, John McClane (Bruce Willis) arriving in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to meet up with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) who has a very prominent job working for the Nakatomi corporation. McClane soon meets up with Holly at her work, and is greeted by her boss Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta) who arranged his ride in, in a company limo. Pretty soon however, a group men in cars and a truck pull into the plaza, two of the men in the car, Karl (Alexander Gudonov) and Theo (Clarence Gilyard) enter the building and shoot the security guard on the front desk. Theo locks down the building using the computers in the security office, and the other men enter the building from the parking lot in the basement of the building, who are terrorists lead by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) who soon take the workers at the officer party hostage. Hans once having identified Takagi takes him upstairs to the boardroom where he asks for the code to their vault as he wants to enter the vault to steal $640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds. Takagi however refuses to cooperate and Gruber shoots him, leaving Theo to try and hack the locks and break into the vault.
At this point McClane has managed to sneak away from the terrorists and listens in on Hans conversation with Takagi. McClane then sets off a fire alarm which attracts the attention of Hans, who sends one of his men to investigation, who soon finds McClane, they fight and in the ensuing struggle, the terrorist is killed. McClane then takes the terrorist's gun and checks his pockets to find he has a phoney ID and a CB radio. The terrorist however is revealed to be the brother of Hans main henchman, Karl, who is furious at news of his death. McClane runs up to the roof where he uses his radio to call the police, who respond to his call, but don't believe his call is for real. By then Karl and his men engage McClane in a gunfight on the roof, which McClane narrowly escapes and makes his way back into the building, via the elevator shafts. The police dispatchers however send an off duty officer, Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) to investigate the Plaza, on arriving he speaks with one of the terrorists, who has assumed the role of the security guard, and reassures nothing is up. During this point, McClane having re-entered the boardroom, and after a gunfight with some of the terrorists, with McClane killing them, takes one of the bodies and dumps it out the window onto Powell's car to get his full attention and the LAPD's.
Pretty soon the police arrive on the scene and try to take control of the situation by sending their SWAT team into the building, however Gruber's men shoot and maim the team members who try to make their way in the front door. The SWAT team also try to send in a reinforced vehicle (RV) to the building, which the terrorists destroy with rockets. McClane outraged retaliates by using some of the C4 he found from one of the terrorists, and throws it down the lift shaft, which kills the two terrorists, James and Alexander. During all this McClane keeps in contact with Powell by radio, and gives him an assumed name to protect his identity. However one of the execs at the party Ellis (Hart Bochner), a cocky negotiator for the company, in attempt to end the seige, gives McClane's real name away to the Gruber, and tries to reason with McClane to give himself up, but McClane refuses, and pleads with Ellis to tell them he isn't McClane's friend, however Gruber shoots Ellis. After the debacale with the SWAT team, the FBI are sent in to try and mop up the situation, lead by special agents Johnson (Robert Davi) and Johnson (Grand L. Bush) who arranged to cut the building's power and go in with armed choppers to take out the terrorists, who they have agreed to meet with on the roof, allegedly with choppers for transport.
Gruber however has planned a double cross to blow the roof. McClane soon enough finds C4 in the floors above wired to blow, and Karl finds him and they engage an intense fight, which McClane finally escapes from after hanging Karl up in chains. McClane gets to the roof, where the hostages have been sent to and gets them to go back down, which prompts Hans to blow the roof. McClane dives off the roof with a firehose attached to his waist, he manages to smash back into an office floor below. McClane makes his way back upstairs to the 30th floor where Hans now holds Holly hostage, and the two men have the final showdown.
Die Hard is without a doubt one of the best action movies of the 1980s and it signalled the start of Bruce Willis's film career. John McTiernan, who directed the excellent Arnie action flick Predator, does a terrific job here in keeping up the suspense, and brilliantly stages some great action scenes, that include McClane's fight with Karl, and the famous scene where he jumps off the roof, with a fire hose attached round his waist. Although admittedly it is a rather silly way for McClane to try and get off the roof, surely he could have just ran back down the stairs and tried to stay out of sight from the terrorists. However Die Hard is about all things proposterous, and what it does very well, is take an average joe like McClane and turns him into a hero in an impossible situation. Of course as the Die Hard films progressed the situations got even more and more ridiculous, right up until Die Hard 4.0 where McClane faces off a Harrier jet plane, as you do! McTiernan also uses the sets very well and the building to utilise the cat and mouse chase between McClane and the terrorists, and there some really well stage gunfights, especially in the roof scenes and the scene in the office where Gruber and Karl shoot out the office windows to force McClane to walk on the glass. The Fox Plaza building of course also doubles as the Nakatomi Plaza building, although I doubt they used it to blow the roof and blast out the windows!
In terms of performances, Die Hard has a pretty strong cast, and Bruce Willis is perfect for the role of John McClane, a wise-cracking cop, who is very down to earth and quite likeable and has plenty of lines we can all remember such as "Yippe ki-yay motherfucker!" and "I'm not the one that just got butt-fucked on national TV, Dwayne!" and "welcome to the party, pal!!". Although at the start of the film I have to say Willis's take on McClane is somewhat cold, as he refuses to engage in conversation the limo drive Argyle (De'Voreaux White). However as things progress McClane really emerges and becomes the affable character that he remained in the rest of the franchise. Alan Rickman is just great as the Hans Gruber, a quintessentially smooth, suave, intellectual villain who as Holly says at one point in the film is no more than a common thief. Rickman gets his fair share of the best dialogue in the film and plays Gruber with a dry wit and a cold calculating persona.
The supporting cast are also very good, with Reginald VelJohnson playing the desk jockey cop Al Powell, as a decent cop who got off the street after making the mistake of shooting a kid in the past. Bonnie Bedelia too is very good as McClane's wife, Holly, a headstrong woman, and she keeps a cool head during the seige, and she gets one of the funniest moments in the film where she punches the sleazy news reporter Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton) on TV at the end! Paul Gleason is also quite amusing as Dwayne T. Robinson, the deputy chief of police, who despite his authority, is pretty incompetent in the film, and he gets one of the all time best lines in the film, when the FBI chopper is blown up, "Holy Christ! Looks like we're gonna need more FBI guys I guess!". And finally Alexandar Gudonov is quite effective as the steely cold henchman, Karl, and he too gets some good lines, when he argues with Hans for example about killing McClane, Hans says "We do not alter the plan!", and Karl replies "And if he alters it?????".
Although if there is one critcism that can be levelled at Die Hard is its depiction of the police in the film, as they are pretty much all potrayed as idiots, except McClane and Powell. The SWAT team in particularly make the silly decision to go in to the Nakatomi building, despite the drastic repercusions they will face if they do, and did face when the terrorists retaliated. And one of the more amusing scenes shows the dim-witted qualities of Dwayne Robinson, when Gruber contacts him with his list of "demands" which are to release political prisoners, such as the Asian Dawn, and Robinson carries on following it up, despite the fact Gruber is just bluffing them to keep them away. And the FBI aren't much brighter as they use as Powell describes "the universal terrorist playbook and play it step by step" in cutting the building's power, which lets the terrorist access the vault to get their money. But again it is an action movie and the writers are poking fun at law enforcement as they have a tendacy to do.
And finally here's a bit on the score written by Michael Kamen, which is very good and has plenty of fine dramatic passages, Kamen of course went on to score the 2nd and 3rd films as well, before he sadly passed away in 2003. However if you listen closely near the end, you can hear a passage that was nicked from James Horner's score for Aliens, which was apparently left in by the studio as a temp track (according to the ol Wikipedia). The other tracks in the film are also pretty memorably used, especially Beethoven's 9th Symphony when the terrorists finally crack into the vault and raid it, and of course "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!" at the end.
Rrrrright well that's my analysis of Die Hard over with and it remains one of my favourite action films. Die Hard 2 will soon follow.....
Thursday, 11 April 2013
The Hobbit's unexpected journey
OK its been a while since reviewed a new film (or newer shall we say) and so having just watched the DVD I thought I would look at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is the first of a three part adaptation of J.R. Tolkein's novel, The Hobbit. So let's shall we look have it.
Right well its a pretty long and involved plot so in a continuing effort to keep plot summaries DOWN in length on this blog, I shall keep it fairly short. So the film begins with the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) who is approaching his 111th birthday, who decides to write down the full story of the adventure he had 60 years ago. The film then goes back 60 years ago when Bilbo was a younger man (played by Martin Freeman) who one day is paid a visit by the great wizard, Gandalf the grey (Ian McKellen) who asks him if he would like to come on a journey with him, but Bilbo turns him down. Later that night a whole host of dwarves turn up on Bilbo's doorstep and go in, under the impression Bilbo had invited them, and soon enough Gandalf turns up as well, as Bilbo realises he had been tricked by the wizard. The point of the meeting is soon revealed that Gandalf wants to recruit Bilbo on their journey to find the Lonley mountain, which is said to be the last known dwarf kingdom, to which the leader of the dwarf party, Thorin (Richard Armitage) has a key and a map to help guide them there. Bilbo initially turns down their invitation to come as their "burglar" as he put off by the fair chance of his not surviving their quest, however the next morning he changes his mind and catches up with Gandalf and the band of dwarves. And from here this is where the long and very dangerous journey begins....
It probably has to be said that The Hobbit would be a tough one to follow up after the tremendous efforts Peter Jackson put into making the Lord of the rings trilogy, which were in great films in their own right, however The Hobbit stacks up pretty well. Although it has to be said as it is just a single book (at a mere 310 pages), its seems a bit unusual that Peter Jackson would want to make a whole trilogy out of it, but I guess with his strengths as a storyteller he can find ways to pad things out in an entertaining way. Admittedly the film is a bit of a slow burner at the start, but once the adventure gets under way it becomes a really entertaining film, with plenty of great moments of action, humour, drama and fun. It also sees the reprise of several of the characters that we have seen in LOTR, apart from Bilbo and Gandalf, there is also Saruman the white (played once again by Christopher Lee), Lord Elron (Hugo Weaving) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) as well as Frodo Baggins (once again played by Elijah Wood who doesn't look all that different!).
In regards to the performances they are all pretty good here, and Martin Freeman in the role as Bilbo Baggins is very good, and he bears reasonable resemblance to Ian Holm, and physically he was the perfect choice for the role. Sir Ian McKellen is once again great as Gandalf, and he carries a fair amount of the film, especially in terms of the narrative as he delivers alot of the film's exposition, and as before he plays Gandalf with a nice sense of humour, stubborness, bravery and slight fragility. Richard Armitage also gives a fine performance as Thorin, the grandson of the late dwarf king, King Thror, and for some reason his voice resembles that of Gerard Butler's (in fact at first I thought it was him!). Sylvester McCoy is excellent as the eccentric wizard, Radagast the Brown, who lives in the woods with animals and also plays a small but key part in the film where he fights with a nercomancer, that corrupts the forrests with dark magic. And then there is Andy Serkis and his contribution to the film as Gollum, as he once again does a great job in his vocal work and physical work as the tormented, twisted and pitiful creature, who's mind and body has been taken over by the ring. And finally I will mention the band of dwarves and as there are 13 of them, I will only mention one or two, such as James Nesbitt, who gives a nice performance, as Bofur, as a genial dwarf. And then there is Ken Stott as Balin (replete with a large white beard!) who provides some of the film's funny lines, such as when the dwarves reach Rivendell and Lord Elrond looks at the elvish swords the dwarves had found in the troll cave, and Bilbo is about to show them his sword and Balin says "I wouldn't show them that if I were you, its more like an envelope opener!".
The film itself also has several entertaining sequences, and the film for me started to get going when Gandalf, the dwarves and Bilbo stumble across a trio of trolls, who have stolen a couple of their ponies for dinner, and they very nearly get added to the menu too, as the dwarves are pit on a giant spit! The scene where Gandalf meet with Elrdond and Galadriel is good as well as we see the re-introduction of Saruman the white, the leader of wizard's order, and its strange to see him in a good context as opposed to a bad one, since the story takes places many years before the events of LOTR, and it also makes you wonder even then he was playing a double role as good wiz bad wiz. The action scene where Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves fight off the orc leader, Azog and his hoard of orc soldiers is also pretty good as are the scene where the group try to escape the goblin caves, prior to facing Azog. But for me the best scene in the film is where Bilbo encounters Gollum in the lower goblin caves, and they challenge each other to answer some riddles, and if Bilbo wins Gollum will show him the way out, and if Gollum wins "then we eats Baggins whole!" to which Bilbo replies "fair enough!".
Direction wise Peter Jackson overall has once again done a really good job here, and although it lacks pace in the first hour or so, it really picks up well as it goes along, and again he shows a great understanding of Tolkein's works. Technically speaking the film also looks great and while there is perhaps a somewhat over reliance on CGI in the film, the CGI that is used is actually quite good, although perhaps the three squabbling trolls do look a bit naff in comparison to the other computer based characters, and the fact they all talk in cockney is a bit silly. And finally I'll mention the film's music score by Howard Shore, which is excellent and it echoes some of the themes from LOTR, but he also adds plenty of new passages which are good.
So that's it for my look at the Hobbit's unexpected journey, which is overall a very entertaining film, albeit a little bit lengthy and it does take a while to get going, but once you get there it becomes an enjoyable watching experience, and it bodes well for the forthcoming second part in the Hobbit trilogy.
And that's all for now.
Right well its a pretty long and involved plot so in a continuing effort to keep plot summaries DOWN in length on this blog, I shall keep it fairly short. So the film begins with the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) who is approaching his 111th birthday, who decides to write down the full story of the adventure he had 60 years ago. The film then goes back 60 years ago when Bilbo was a younger man (played by Martin Freeman) who one day is paid a visit by the great wizard, Gandalf the grey (Ian McKellen) who asks him if he would like to come on a journey with him, but Bilbo turns him down. Later that night a whole host of dwarves turn up on Bilbo's doorstep and go in, under the impression Bilbo had invited them, and soon enough Gandalf turns up as well, as Bilbo realises he had been tricked by the wizard. The point of the meeting is soon revealed that Gandalf wants to recruit Bilbo on their journey to find the Lonley mountain, which is said to be the last known dwarf kingdom, to which the leader of the dwarf party, Thorin (Richard Armitage) has a key and a map to help guide them there. Bilbo initially turns down their invitation to come as their "burglar" as he put off by the fair chance of his not surviving their quest, however the next morning he changes his mind and catches up with Gandalf and the band of dwarves. And from here this is where the long and very dangerous journey begins....
It probably has to be said that The Hobbit would be a tough one to follow up after the tremendous efforts Peter Jackson put into making the Lord of the rings trilogy, which were in great films in their own right, however The Hobbit stacks up pretty well. Although it has to be said as it is just a single book (at a mere 310 pages), its seems a bit unusual that Peter Jackson would want to make a whole trilogy out of it, but I guess with his strengths as a storyteller he can find ways to pad things out in an entertaining way. Admittedly the film is a bit of a slow burner at the start, but once the adventure gets under way it becomes a really entertaining film, with plenty of great moments of action, humour, drama and fun. It also sees the reprise of several of the characters that we have seen in LOTR, apart from Bilbo and Gandalf, there is also Saruman the white (played once again by Christopher Lee), Lord Elron (Hugo Weaving) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) as well as Frodo Baggins (once again played by Elijah Wood who doesn't look all that different!).
In regards to the performances they are all pretty good here, and Martin Freeman in the role as Bilbo Baggins is very good, and he bears reasonable resemblance to Ian Holm, and physically he was the perfect choice for the role. Sir Ian McKellen is once again great as Gandalf, and he carries a fair amount of the film, especially in terms of the narrative as he delivers alot of the film's exposition, and as before he plays Gandalf with a nice sense of humour, stubborness, bravery and slight fragility. Richard Armitage also gives a fine performance as Thorin, the grandson of the late dwarf king, King Thror, and for some reason his voice resembles that of Gerard Butler's (in fact at first I thought it was him!). Sylvester McCoy is excellent as the eccentric wizard, Radagast the Brown, who lives in the woods with animals and also plays a small but key part in the film where he fights with a nercomancer, that corrupts the forrests with dark magic. And then there is Andy Serkis and his contribution to the film as Gollum, as he once again does a great job in his vocal work and physical work as the tormented, twisted and pitiful creature, who's mind and body has been taken over by the ring. And finally I will mention the band of dwarves and as there are 13 of them, I will only mention one or two, such as James Nesbitt, who gives a nice performance, as Bofur, as a genial dwarf. And then there is Ken Stott as Balin (replete with a large white beard!) who provides some of the film's funny lines, such as when the dwarves reach Rivendell and Lord Elrond looks at the elvish swords the dwarves had found in the troll cave, and Bilbo is about to show them his sword and Balin says "I wouldn't show them that if I were you, its more like an envelope opener!".
The film itself also has several entertaining sequences, and the film for me started to get going when Gandalf, the dwarves and Bilbo stumble across a trio of trolls, who have stolen a couple of their ponies for dinner, and they very nearly get added to the menu too, as the dwarves are pit on a giant spit! The scene where Gandalf meet with Elrdond and Galadriel is good as well as we see the re-introduction of Saruman the white, the leader of wizard's order, and its strange to see him in a good context as opposed to a bad one, since the story takes places many years before the events of LOTR, and it also makes you wonder even then he was playing a double role as good wiz bad wiz. The action scene where Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves fight off the orc leader, Azog and his hoard of orc soldiers is also pretty good as are the scene where the group try to escape the goblin caves, prior to facing Azog. But for me the best scene in the film is where Bilbo encounters Gollum in the lower goblin caves, and they challenge each other to answer some riddles, and if Bilbo wins Gollum will show him the way out, and if Gollum wins "then we eats Baggins whole!" to which Bilbo replies "fair enough!".
Direction wise Peter Jackson overall has once again done a really good job here, and although it lacks pace in the first hour or so, it really picks up well as it goes along, and again he shows a great understanding of Tolkein's works. Technically speaking the film also looks great and while there is perhaps a somewhat over reliance on CGI in the film, the CGI that is used is actually quite good, although perhaps the three squabbling trolls do look a bit naff in comparison to the other computer based characters, and the fact they all talk in cockney is a bit silly. And finally I'll mention the film's music score by Howard Shore, which is excellent and it echoes some of the themes from LOTR, but he also adds plenty of new passages which are good.
So that's it for my look at the Hobbit's unexpected journey, which is overall a very entertaining film, albeit a little bit lengthy and it does take a while to get going, but once you get there it becomes an enjoyable watching experience, and it bodes well for the forthcoming second part in the Hobbit trilogy.
And that's all for now.
Monday, 8 April 2013
Every dalek has its day
OK blog robbery time again, as I've pinched this post from my other blog, which is about another Doctor Who story, The Day of the Daleks, from Jon Pertwee's era, which was broadcast all the way back in 1972.
Day of the Daleks is definitely of Jon Pertwee's strongest stories in his time as the Doctor, as it has some very well written scripts and despite the fact there are clearly only three daleks in the whole story doesn't really detract from its quality in the other areas of the show. The plot deals with an attempt being made on the life of a peace delegate Sir Reginald Styles who is attacked by a guerilla who quickly vanishes before he can kill him. As a result UNIT get involved (the Brig et al) and the Doctor and Jo as they try to get to the bottom of who and what was behind the assassination attempt. The Doctor and Jo soon discover that the daleks are the masterminds behind the whole lot and the guerillas who went back through time were trying to stop a future war which erupted as a result of Styles allegely luring the world leaders to a mansion where he killed them in an explosion. So the Doctor and Jo get tangled up in the mess and are transported to the 22nd century on Earth where the daleks now rule the Earth and are intent on ensuring their version of events stays the same.
The story definitely has some very good standout moments especially the scene where the Doctor has it out with the Earth controller (the excellent Aubrey Woods) and asks "who really rules this planet of yours??!" and the scene where the Doctor discovers the truth behind the war and the future with the guerillas. There are also some fun little moments, my favourite of course being when one of the guerillas enters Styles house where he attacks the Doctor who uses his venusian karate to disable him, with wine glass in hand, he takes a sip of wine after! The Doctor also got one of the best lines of the story as well when he says to Styles "try and use your intelligence, man, even if you are a politician!!".
The weaker side of the story is of course the somewhat poorly directed action scenes with the Ogrons, who despite their impressive makeup moved way too slowly to provide any major threat, as anyone could outrun them, especially in the last battle scene where the ponder slowly toward Auderly house (the peace conference setting). The pacing of the daleks movement also is pretty sluggish, but then again they only had three working daleks back then. The dalek voices at the time were also a bit of a disappointment as the voice actors spoke their lines too slowly as it came out even more staccato then usual "do----you----have-----the-----space---time---co---or--di--nates??" gives you an idea of that problem. Despite that though the story definitely has a lot going for it and the plot and quality of scripts definitely make up for any shortcomings of the story. Although I still cringe at Katy Manning's faux cry for help in the scene where the Doctor and Jo create a diversion so they can escape with Jo screaming "aghhh help me!!" but I like the Doctor's line after Jo smashes the Ogron over the head with a plastic wine glass, "pity that was rather a good vintage!".
Coming onto the Special Edition DVD version of Day of the Daleks, it is essentially the same version except with a few extra added effects and tidied up vocal fluffs from some of the actors. But the main part of the new version is of course Nicholas Briggs re-dubbing of the dalek voices, which is definitely an improvement on the original actors voices. Nicholas definitely provides more pace and hysteria to the daleks voices, although perhaps he does add a little too much sarcasm into their voices, as his voice always seems to go up on the end of lines such as "you may goooooooo!". It just sounds a bit out of place in those moments, but overall he does a fine job on improving one of the story's less impressive aspects.
Another aspect of the special edition that has been altered slightly is the scene where the Doctor appears to murder an ogron in cold blood with a disintegrator gun, this time round they have added in the old "Greedo shoots first" principal, with the ogron firing first at the Doctor who in turn shoots the baddie. They also added in the Doctor shooting another ogron inside Styles house just before he leaves and shoots up the next one. It does in some way make the Doctor seem a bit more moralistic in that he is killing the ogrons out of self defence, and I guess it does make up for what appears to be a very out of character moment for the Doctor. Although if you look at other stories you see the Doctor is put in position where he does have to directly kill his enemies, such as pushing Magnus Greel into the distillation chamber in the Talons of Weng Chiang, or killing the Cyber Leader in Earthshock with Adric's golden badge and then with a cybergun (OK a bit of nerdy referencing there!).
In regards to the DVD's extras it has also a fine documentary about the story detailing how it was made, etc, and it also features a documentary on the special edition where we see that they actually used new actors to potray some of the UNIT soldiers being killed by the Daleks or Ogrons. We also see Nicholas Briggs delivering his lines into a mic with fine hysteria, as well as how they did the special effects for the new explosions, the background of the future factory, and the video screen effects. Overall the special edition is actually pretty good and doesn't in anyway detract from the original story. We also get the second part of the UNIT family documentary which is really good as the actors from the Pertwee era, such as Richard Franklin, Katy Manning, Nick Courtney and John Levine all reminisce on their times on the show, and there is also a rather poignant moment with John Levine nearly in tears describing everyone's upset at Roger Delgado's untimely death and departure from the show.
So that's it for my look at Day of the Daleks, which is one of the most solid and entertaining stories of the Pertwee era.
And that's it for now old chap.
Day of the Daleks is definitely of Jon Pertwee's strongest stories in his time as the Doctor, as it has some very well written scripts and despite the fact there are clearly only three daleks in the whole story doesn't really detract from its quality in the other areas of the show. The plot deals with an attempt being made on the life of a peace delegate Sir Reginald Styles who is attacked by a guerilla who quickly vanishes before he can kill him. As a result UNIT get involved (the Brig et al) and the Doctor and Jo as they try to get to the bottom of who and what was behind the assassination attempt. The Doctor and Jo soon discover that the daleks are the masterminds behind the whole lot and the guerillas who went back through time were trying to stop a future war which erupted as a result of Styles allegely luring the world leaders to a mansion where he killed them in an explosion. So the Doctor and Jo get tangled up in the mess and are transported to the 22nd century on Earth where the daleks now rule the Earth and are intent on ensuring their version of events stays the same.
The story definitely has some very good standout moments especially the scene where the Doctor has it out with the Earth controller (the excellent Aubrey Woods) and asks "who really rules this planet of yours??!" and the scene where the Doctor discovers the truth behind the war and the future with the guerillas. There are also some fun little moments, my favourite of course being when one of the guerillas enters Styles house where he attacks the Doctor who uses his venusian karate to disable him, with wine glass in hand, he takes a sip of wine after! The Doctor also got one of the best lines of the story as well when he says to Styles "try and use your intelligence, man, even if you are a politician!!".
The weaker side of the story is of course the somewhat poorly directed action scenes with the Ogrons, who despite their impressive makeup moved way too slowly to provide any major threat, as anyone could outrun them, especially in the last battle scene where the ponder slowly toward Auderly house (the peace conference setting). The pacing of the daleks movement also is pretty sluggish, but then again they only had three working daleks back then. The dalek voices at the time were also a bit of a disappointment as the voice actors spoke their lines too slowly as it came out even more staccato then usual "do----you----have-----the-----space---time---co---or--di--nates??" gives you an idea of that problem. Despite that though the story definitely has a lot going for it and the plot and quality of scripts definitely make up for any shortcomings of the story. Although I still cringe at Katy Manning's faux cry for help in the scene where the Doctor and Jo create a diversion so they can escape with Jo screaming "aghhh help me!!" but I like the Doctor's line after Jo smashes the Ogron over the head with a plastic wine glass, "pity that was rather a good vintage!".
Coming onto the Special Edition DVD version of Day of the Daleks, it is essentially the same version except with a few extra added effects and tidied up vocal fluffs from some of the actors. But the main part of the new version is of course Nicholas Briggs re-dubbing of the dalek voices, which is definitely an improvement on the original actors voices. Nicholas definitely provides more pace and hysteria to the daleks voices, although perhaps he does add a little too much sarcasm into their voices, as his voice always seems to go up on the end of lines such as "you may goooooooo!". It just sounds a bit out of place in those moments, but overall he does a fine job on improving one of the story's less impressive aspects.
Another aspect of the special edition that has been altered slightly is the scene where the Doctor appears to murder an ogron in cold blood with a disintegrator gun, this time round they have added in the old "Greedo shoots first" principal, with the ogron firing first at the Doctor who in turn shoots the baddie. They also added in the Doctor shooting another ogron inside Styles house just before he leaves and shoots up the next one. It does in some way make the Doctor seem a bit more moralistic in that he is killing the ogrons out of self defence, and I guess it does make up for what appears to be a very out of character moment for the Doctor. Although if you look at other stories you see the Doctor is put in position where he does have to directly kill his enemies, such as pushing Magnus Greel into the distillation chamber in the Talons of Weng Chiang, or killing the Cyber Leader in Earthshock with Adric's golden badge and then with a cybergun (OK a bit of nerdy referencing there!).
In regards to the DVD's extras it has also a fine documentary about the story detailing how it was made, etc, and it also features a documentary on the special edition where we see that they actually used new actors to potray some of the UNIT soldiers being killed by the Daleks or Ogrons. We also see Nicholas Briggs delivering his lines into a mic with fine hysteria, as well as how they did the special effects for the new explosions, the background of the future factory, and the video screen effects. Overall the special edition is actually pretty good and doesn't in anyway detract from the original story. We also get the second part of the UNIT family documentary which is really good as the actors from the Pertwee era, such as Richard Franklin, Katy Manning, Nick Courtney and John Levine all reminisce on their times on the show, and there is also a rather poignant moment with John Levine nearly in tears describing everyone's upset at Roger Delgado's untimely death and departure from the show.
So that's it for my look at Day of the Daleks, which is one of the most solid and entertaining stories of the Pertwee era.
And that's it for now old chap.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Bioshock to infinity
OK time for a game review and I've opted to go for the newly released Bioshock game: Bioshock Infinite, which is the 3rd game in the series, and so far it has gained much critical acclaim for its graphics, presentation, gameplay and above story. But what do I think of it???? Well you can read on and find out....
Right to start with just a bit of the plot (and don't worry it is only just a bit) as it really is quite convoluted, but the game is set in 1912, and its main protagonist, Brooker (voiced by Troy Baker) is hired by the Lutece twins to find a girl, and on return they tell Brooker "give us the girl and wipe away the debt". Broker travels to a floating city in the clouds called Columbia, where the girl is believed to be found. In the city Broker goes unnoticed by the public until notices he has the initials "AD" branded on his hand, which is the sign of a false prophet that could bring the end to the city of Columbia, which is run by the main anatognist of the story, Comstock (voiced by Kiff VandenHeuvel). After this Brooker is forced to fight his way to the tower where the girl, Elizabeth (voiced by Courtnee Draper) is held captive. Elizabeth is an intelligent (not to mention hot!) and creative girl, who has an uncanny ability to rip open tears that are located all over the city, which can lead into other dimensions. Brooker escapes with Elizabeth from the tower, however they are attacked by a large robotic bird, called Songbird, who is both Elizabeth's friend and warden. Brooker and Elizabeth manage to eventually elude Songbird, and Brooker tells to Elizabeth that they could take a trip to Paris, a city that Elizabeth has always wanted to see. However once they manage to steal an airship, Brooker plots in a course to take them to New York, in order to return her to the Lutece twins, but Elizabeth angily knocks him out. But their airship is soon captured by a gang leader of the Vox Populi, Daisy Fitzroy (voiced by Kimberley Brooks) who says they will return control of the airship to them, only if they find a shipment of weapons from the slums of Columbia. Elizabeth reluctantly agrees to go with Brooker to find the weapons, which takes them on a dangerous journey into the city, where there are some terrible truths that lie ahead...
It has to be said that while Bioshock Infinite has garnered a great deal of critical acclaim on it release, I happened to think the praise has been a bit overhyped, and while it is a pretty good game, I would hardly describe it as a masterpiece. The main problem with Bioshock Infinite for me is that the plot is just a bit too complex to follow, and by the end you are left well and truly baffled by it all. The characters however are really well drawn out, and Brooker, who starts off pretty much as a mercenary looking to "wipe away his debt" by finding Elizbaeth, soon turns around into a more sympathetic character, as the story progresses, he becomes more her protector than her bounty hunter. Elizabeth is also a good character, as a bright, intelligent (and yes hot) girl, who longs to escape from her prison tower and from Columbia to find life away from the city in the clouds, and her ability to open dimensional tears in the fabric of city plays a crucial part as the game progresses.
Gameplay wise, Bioshock Infinite does have alot going for it, as its combat system is pretty simplistic, and as before its very similiar, and there a big variety of weapons, such as pistols, machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, carbine rifles, and miniguns. And in a similar fashion, the game features vigors, which are the same as the plasmids from the first two games, in which Brooker gains special powers, such as telekinesis, electric shocks, fire, and animal control (such as a flock of crows). And throughout the game, Brooker can access upgrades for his weapons and vigors from different vending machines, as for his weapons you can increase the firepower and ammo capacity, and the vigors you can increase the intensity of the attacks. In a new feature of the game, Brooker also can use a grapple hook, which he uses to jump onto skyrails all around the city, on which he can also dismount onto a chosen area. Elizabeth in addition to her ability to manipulate dimensional tears around the city, can also use lockpicks to break into different areas in Columbia, and during combat she also helps Brooker by locating, ammo and salts (which helps charge up Brooker's vigor energy) when is supply is running out.
In terms of the graphics the game looks visually stunning, as the huge environment of Columbia is very impressive, and the character models, while not exactly realistic, do look really good. Voice acting wise the game is also top notch, and the two main characters, Brooker and Elizabeth, voiced by Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper are both excellent, as they drive most of the story and have the most dialogue throughout. And its also refreshing to see in the game there isn't an overt reliance on bad language, and there are no f-words to be found (call me old fashioned but I quite like that! ;-)). The soundtrack is also very good, and features some old fashioned tracks to fit in with the period setting from artists such as Duke Ellington, Charles Kaye & his orchestra, Billy Murray, Eddie Cantor, and some classical tracks from Chopin and Wagner, and the original soundtrack is also excellent.
However as I said the game while on the whole its pretty good (pretty prettay good as Larry David might say!) it does have a few flaws. The main one for me is the plot, which I already mentioned is very complex, and takes quite a few twists and turns, and by the end you are left more confused that anything else. I was actually quite disappointed in the ending (which I won't give away don't worry!) especially as I had read on Gamespot's review website it was amazing, but it left me underwhelmed. Gameplay wise there are also one or two niggles, such as Brooker's ability to only hold two weapons at one time, as in the previous games you could hold a variety of weapons at once. But here you are only given the option to hold two guns at once, so rather than allowing to store a third weapon, you need to drop one to pick up another in its place if you want to change over, which is annoying. I also thought some of the vigors aren't so great, such as the flock of crows and the bucking Bronco, both of which are limited in their ability or appeal in usage.
The game also introduces a rather uncomfortable aspect of racism, which also gained some controversy in the press, and there is a scene near the start of the game where Brooker is forced to choose between hitting a black man and a white woman with a rock, who are tied up and brought out infront of a crowd, or the crowd leader. But I guess it is just a reflection on the racial attitudes of the period, however this did raise some controversy with right wing groups in America as they felt it was "anti-white", and this isn't the first time racial attitudes in gaming has arisen and most likely not the last. And as games grow more sophisticated in terms of storytelling and real life themes, there will always be some groups out there that will take offence or umbrage at these themes, and it just shows how far we've come from the simplistic days of Pac Man, Manic Miner and Space Invaders.
So that its for my review of Bioshock Infinite, which is an entertaining first person shooter, which brings much to enjoy to the gaming table, but for me its not quite the masterpeice its been hyped to be, but I guess it all boils down to personal preference. However it does have some fine gameplay, terrific graphics and voice acting, and if you liked the previous Bioshock games, then you will find plenty to enjoy here as well.
And on that note (or chord) I will leave it just there.
Right to start with just a bit of the plot (and don't worry it is only just a bit) as it really is quite convoluted, but the game is set in 1912, and its main protagonist, Brooker (voiced by Troy Baker) is hired by the Lutece twins to find a girl, and on return they tell Brooker "give us the girl and wipe away the debt". Broker travels to a floating city in the clouds called Columbia, where the girl is believed to be found. In the city Broker goes unnoticed by the public until notices he has the initials "AD" branded on his hand, which is the sign of a false prophet that could bring the end to the city of Columbia, which is run by the main anatognist of the story, Comstock (voiced by Kiff VandenHeuvel). After this Brooker is forced to fight his way to the tower where the girl, Elizabeth (voiced by Courtnee Draper) is held captive. Elizabeth is an intelligent (not to mention hot!) and creative girl, who has an uncanny ability to rip open tears that are located all over the city, which can lead into other dimensions. Brooker escapes with Elizabeth from the tower, however they are attacked by a large robotic bird, called Songbird, who is both Elizabeth's friend and warden. Brooker and Elizabeth manage to eventually elude Songbird, and Brooker tells to Elizabeth that they could take a trip to Paris, a city that Elizabeth has always wanted to see. However once they manage to steal an airship, Brooker plots in a course to take them to New York, in order to return her to the Lutece twins, but Elizabeth angily knocks him out. But their airship is soon captured by a gang leader of the Vox Populi, Daisy Fitzroy (voiced by Kimberley Brooks) who says they will return control of the airship to them, only if they find a shipment of weapons from the slums of Columbia. Elizabeth reluctantly agrees to go with Brooker to find the weapons, which takes them on a dangerous journey into the city, where there are some terrible truths that lie ahead...
It has to be said that while Bioshock Infinite has garnered a great deal of critical acclaim on it release, I happened to think the praise has been a bit overhyped, and while it is a pretty good game, I would hardly describe it as a masterpiece. The main problem with Bioshock Infinite for me is that the plot is just a bit too complex to follow, and by the end you are left well and truly baffled by it all. The characters however are really well drawn out, and Brooker, who starts off pretty much as a mercenary looking to "wipe away his debt" by finding Elizbaeth, soon turns around into a more sympathetic character, as the story progresses, he becomes more her protector than her bounty hunter. Elizabeth is also a good character, as a bright, intelligent (and yes hot) girl, who longs to escape from her prison tower and from Columbia to find life away from the city in the clouds, and her ability to open dimensional tears in the fabric of city plays a crucial part as the game progresses.
Gameplay wise, Bioshock Infinite does have alot going for it, as its combat system is pretty simplistic, and as before its very similiar, and there a big variety of weapons, such as pistols, machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, carbine rifles, and miniguns. And in a similar fashion, the game features vigors, which are the same as the plasmids from the first two games, in which Brooker gains special powers, such as telekinesis, electric shocks, fire, and animal control (such as a flock of crows). And throughout the game, Brooker can access upgrades for his weapons and vigors from different vending machines, as for his weapons you can increase the firepower and ammo capacity, and the vigors you can increase the intensity of the attacks. In a new feature of the game, Brooker also can use a grapple hook, which he uses to jump onto skyrails all around the city, on which he can also dismount onto a chosen area. Elizabeth in addition to her ability to manipulate dimensional tears around the city, can also use lockpicks to break into different areas in Columbia, and during combat she also helps Brooker by locating, ammo and salts (which helps charge up Brooker's vigor energy) when is supply is running out.
In terms of the graphics the game looks visually stunning, as the huge environment of Columbia is very impressive, and the character models, while not exactly realistic, do look really good. Voice acting wise the game is also top notch, and the two main characters, Brooker and Elizabeth, voiced by Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper are both excellent, as they drive most of the story and have the most dialogue throughout. And its also refreshing to see in the game there isn't an overt reliance on bad language, and there are no f-words to be found (call me old fashioned but I quite like that! ;-)). The soundtrack is also very good, and features some old fashioned tracks to fit in with the period setting from artists such as Duke Ellington, Charles Kaye & his orchestra, Billy Murray, Eddie Cantor, and some classical tracks from Chopin and Wagner, and the original soundtrack is also excellent.
However as I said the game while on the whole its pretty good (pretty prettay good as Larry David might say!) it does have a few flaws. The main one for me is the plot, which I already mentioned is very complex, and takes quite a few twists and turns, and by the end you are left more confused that anything else. I was actually quite disappointed in the ending (which I won't give away don't worry!) especially as I had read on Gamespot's review website it was amazing, but it left me underwhelmed. Gameplay wise there are also one or two niggles, such as Brooker's ability to only hold two weapons at one time, as in the previous games you could hold a variety of weapons at once. But here you are only given the option to hold two guns at once, so rather than allowing to store a third weapon, you need to drop one to pick up another in its place if you want to change over, which is annoying. I also thought some of the vigors aren't so great, such as the flock of crows and the bucking Bronco, both of which are limited in their ability or appeal in usage.
The game also introduces a rather uncomfortable aspect of racism, which also gained some controversy in the press, and there is a scene near the start of the game where Brooker is forced to choose between hitting a black man and a white woman with a rock, who are tied up and brought out infront of a crowd, or the crowd leader. But I guess it is just a reflection on the racial attitudes of the period, however this did raise some controversy with right wing groups in America as they felt it was "anti-white", and this isn't the first time racial attitudes in gaming has arisen and most likely not the last. And as games grow more sophisticated in terms of storytelling and real life themes, there will always be some groups out there that will take offence or umbrage at these themes, and it just shows how far we've come from the simplistic days of Pac Man, Manic Miner and Space Invaders.
So that its for my review of Bioshock Infinite, which is an entertaining first person shooter, which brings much to enjoy to the gaming table, but for me its not quite the masterpeice its been hyped to be, but I guess it all boils down to personal preference. However it does have some fine gameplay, terrific graphics and voice acting, and if you liked the previous Bioshock games, then you will find plenty to enjoy here as well.
And on that note (or chord) I will leave it just there.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
The Day Today: news from telly to belly
OK so just for a change its time for a review on a classic TV show, so I've opted for The Day Today, the critically acclaimed pardoy of news and current affairs programmes, starring Chris Morris as Christopher Morris (no time wasted for a made up name) who is the newsreader of the programme. The cast also play multiple roles in the show, as the cast features Steve Coogan, Patrick Marber, Doon Mackichan, David Scheider and Rebecca Front. So while its not really possible to do a plot synopsis of the show I can give it a rough general overview, so let's look at it.
Well the show's format is of course six 30 minute episodes, in which the news is brought to you by Chris Morris and his team. Morris's delivery is akin to that of Jeremy Paxman as he is quite aggressive and confrontational with the people he interviews. One of my many favourite scenes from the show features in the first episode where he interviews a woman who is organising a jam festival, and she so far has only raised £1,500. Morris then responds in disgust "£1,500???! That's a pathetic amount of money! You could raise more money by auctioning dogs! How dare you come on my show, I think you've only done this to make yourself look important. You could make more money begging on the street, looking twice as ugly as you are, which is very ugly indeed!". Morris also even goes as far as to start a war between Hong Kong and Australia as two of their countries representatives are on his show and he disagrees with them both, and urges their nations to go to war. Morris also bullies and coerces his news team as well, such as the inept Peter O'Hanraha-harahan (Patrick Marber) and one of their funniests scene come when Peter let's a man he is interviewing escape, just when he has uncovered a scandal, and Morris yells "Peter, you've lost the news!".
Morris also starts the show with the headlines and follows them up with them with phrases such as "these are the headlines, happy now?" and "now fact me till I fart!" and "these are the headlines, dear God I wish they weren't!" and "this is the news!" and my personal fav "Hello, sir!". And also worthy of note regarding Morris in the show, is the final scene of each episode when the credits roll and the lights dim on the studio floor, each week we see Morris do something bizarre such as lie on the foor in a crucifix type position, take off a wig to reveal he has long blonde hair, and also injecting heroin into his arm!
The show's other characters are also very funny and most notably it features Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) as a sports news reader, who Morris starts off bullying and by the end of the last episode he gives him a kiss! Partridge is pretty inept in his job, and his commentary on sports is priceless, especially in the first episode when he commentates on football "That was a goal! Shit! The man must have a foot like a traction engine!". Also when he is at horse races you see Alan comment on some of the things going around outside, such as watching kids playing about "ahh some kids playing around, let's hope that tomfoolery doesn't turn into bling ugly violence!". The scene where he goes into the shower room and he interviews a femal horsejumper who get's undressed, and he grows increasingly comfortable as she does, he finishes the interview by looking at the camera awkwardly and says "Patricia Barfits, a lady".
The other characters also feature Collaterlie Sisters, played Doon MacKichan, whom Morris appears to have an open hatred for, as after he introduces her on one occassion you hear him say "take her off my screen I don't want to see her face!". Collaterlie presents the business news, and talks in jargon, when talking about the currency markets and the stock exchange, and show uses terms such as "the financial arse" and "the currency cat" and "currency kidney". Peter O'Hanraha-harahan is funny as he is a very inept economics correspondent, and in one scene he claims to have had a conversation with a German minister over a economic deal, in German, and he keeps saying how the minister claims "he's not too happy, but he had to go along with it". Morris quickly exposes that Peter has no knowledge of the language and proceeds to humiliate him and says "Peter you are lying in a news grave. What does it say on your tombstone?" and Peter feebly replies "News!".
Then there is Barbara Wintergreen (Rebecca Front) as the American news correspondent, who reports on a couple of stories such as a mass murderer, Chapman Baxter (played by Marber) who wishes to die like Elvis, going on an electrocuted toilet, eating hamburgers and after reaching a certain weight, he will be fried. Barbara after signing off always give sultry looks at the camera, and uses puns throughout her broadcasts. Sylvester Stuart (Schneider) is the weatherman, who we only see his head as a graphic, which moves over the weatherboard, and he uses strange metaphors when delivering his report such as describing gloomy weather as "a bit like waking up next to a corpse". And one of my favourite characters is Ted Maul (played by Morris) who is a middle aged reporter who covers the more hard hitting stories, and he speaks in an exaggerated manner, and his funniest scene is where he reports on horses that stampede the London underground, and how "in 1970 in came the crackers, a team of men sent down into the tunnels who killed the horses with hammers!". And finally another amusing character who appears briefly in the show is Jacques Liverot, a pretentious French philosopher, who makes silly statements such as "an old man stands naked in front of a mirror eating soup. He is a fool" and "What is a gay?" and my favourite is "a man driving sees God in his car, he crashes".
Of some of the many hilarious new items on the show, here are some of my favourites, starting with the terrorist dogs in London, who are packed with explosives, and cause chaos on the streets. In the report Eugene Fraxby (great name, also played by Morris) states how a policeman killed a dog in the ensuing chaos and some pedestrians who got in the way, "three people and one dog dead from guns, being old they would have died soon anyway, but the dog was cut to ribbons in its prime". Another one is the psuedo documentary show "Its your blood" where Morris gives supposed real life accounts of near disasters that were narrowly avoided, and the story features Morris (with a great hairdo!) reporting with a helcopter in the background. Morris says "helicopters with great blades that cut the air, air that's easy to slice, like human beings!". Another news item is one that takes place at a local swimming pool, where the middle aged security guards talks about the safety of the pool over the years, "in 1976 no one died, 1977 no one died, 1978 no one edied, 1979 no one died, in 1980 someone died, in 1981 no one died... I mean could go on!".
There is also an MTV parody station called RokTV, with Morris dressed up as a female presenter called Susie Bapswent (and he passes more than a resemblance to Sandra Bernhard in that one!) and talks about the latest that's going in the music world. The funniest story on RokTV is on the American rapper, Fur-Q, who executes people live during his stage shows, but he insists "you can't kill everybody, because then there would be no one left to respect". Yet another funny item is "Attitudes" which is a BBC2 documentary which examines the changing attitudes of British television over the years, starting from the 50s onward, in which we see the last televised British hanging. Also we see during the 60s, a British television presenter who is being given oral sex by a "groupie" and afterwards he says "he had an intense feeling of joy, which has now been replaced with a sense of disappointment and dispair". Also in this item it talks about bad language on TV and one of the first shows to use it which is a soap opera, a la Coronation Street, with a man and one exchanging words "tarra you great big hairy cock!" and the man says "tarra ya shitter!".
The Day Today also features a funny weekly segment called "Speak your brains" where Morris goes onto the streets and interviews people, and one person he interviews is a man, who he asks about soul reversal and has he experienced it and the men says yes, and Morris asks how does it feel, to which the man replies "not very nice!". Morris also interviews another man on the street where he tries to get him to unwittingily plug the Day Today, and eventually get's him to say "I can't think of any day that wouldn't involve the day today!". In another vox pop street interview Morris get's a member of the public to read from a piece of paper which reads "do this our I will run it up your fugde tunnels!" and another one where he asks the man to repeat the words "mudda fakkas" and just once more for the camera "mudda fakkas!". The voice overs in the show are also quite funny and nonsensical, and feature daft slogans such as "news felch!" or "news from telly to belly" or "swinging the wasps off the apple of truth" and "news, because fact into doubt won't go!".
Perhaps for me the less successful part of the show is the inclusion of its in-show soap opera "The Bureau" which takes place at a currency exchange office, where the workers all argue with one another and their boss (Coogan) bullies one of them, played by Marber, because he's gay, and its suggested he's having a romance with another (played by Front). It feels to me like it was tacked onto the show and it does kind of take away from the otherwise great flow it has.
But apart from that the Day Today was a great satire and a terrific television series, which brought Chris Morris into the limelight, as well as his co-stars such as Steve Coogan, as well establishing its producer and co-wrtier Armando Iannucci as one of the great comedy minds in the UK. Its format would later on be similarly revised into a pseudo docuemntary series by Morris in Brass Eye, which was far more controversial, but it all started here with The Day Today, which remains one of the freshest and funniest television satires of its time.
And on that note I will see goodbye for now!
Well the show's format is of course six 30 minute episodes, in which the news is brought to you by Chris Morris and his team. Morris's delivery is akin to that of Jeremy Paxman as he is quite aggressive and confrontational with the people he interviews. One of my many favourite scenes from the show features in the first episode where he interviews a woman who is organising a jam festival, and she so far has only raised £1,500. Morris then responds in disgust "£1,500???! That's a pathetic amount of money! You could raise more money by auctioning dogs! How dare you come on my show, I think you've only done this to make yourself look important. You could make more money begging on the street, looking twice as ugly as you are, which is very ugly indeed!". Morris also even goes as far as to start a war between Hong Kong and Australia as two of their countries representatives are on his show and he disagrees with them both, and urges their nations to go to war. Morris also bullies and coerces his news team as well, such as the inept Peter O'Hanraha-harahan (Patrick Marber) and one of their funniests scene come when Peter let's a man he is interviewing escape, just when he has uncovered a scandal, and Morris yells "Peter, you've lost the news!".
Morris also starts the show with the headlines and follows them up with them with phrases such as "these are the headlines, happy now?" and "now fact me till I fart!" and "these are the headlines, dear God I wish they weren't!" and "this is the news!" and my personal fav "Hello, sir!". And also worthy of note regarding Morris in the show, is the final scene of each episode when the credits roll and the lights dim on the studio floor, each week we see Morris do something bizarre such as lie on the foor in a crucifix type position, take off a wig to reveal he has long blonde hair, and also injecting heroin into his arm!
The show's other characters are also very funny and most notably it features Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) as a sports news reader, who Morris starts off bullying and by the end of the last episode he gives him a kiss! Partridge is pretty inept in his job, and his commentary on sports is priceless, especially in the first episode when he commentates on football "That was a goal! Shit! The man must have a foot like a traction engine!". Also when he is at horse races you see Alan comment on some of the things going around outside, such as watching kids playing about "ahh some kids playing around, let's hope that tomfoolery doesn't turn into bling ugly violence!". The scene where he goes into the shower room and he interviews a femal horsejumper who get's undressed, and he grows increasingly comfortable as she does, he finishes the interview by looking at the camera awkwardly and says "Patricia Barfits, a lady".
The other characters also feature Collaterlie Sisters, played Doon MacKichan, whom Morris appears to have an open hatred for, as after he introduces her on one occassion you hear him say "take her off my screen I don't want to see her face!". Collaterlie presents the business news, and talks in jargon, when talking about the currency markets and the stock exchange, and show uses terms such as "the financial arse" and "the currency cat" and "currency kidney". Peter O'Hanraha-harahan is funny as he is a very inept economics correspondent, and in one scene he claims to have had a conversation with a German minister over a economic deal, in German, and he keeps saying how the minister claims "he's not too happy, but he had to go along with it". Morris quickly exposes that Peter has no knowledge of the language and proceeds to humiliate him and says "Peter you are lying in a news grave. What does it say on your tombstone?" and Peter feebly replies "News!".
Then there is Barbara Wintergreen (Rebecca Front) as the American news correspondent, who reports on a couple of stories such as a mass murderer, Chapman Baxter (played by Marber) who wishes to die like Elvis, going on an electrocuted toilet, eating hamburgers and after reaching a certain weight, he will be fried. Barbara after signing off always give sultry looks at the camera, and uses puns throughout her broadcasts. Sylvester Stuart (Schneider) is the weatherman, who we only see his head as a graphic, which moves over the weatherboard, and he uses strange metaphors when delivering his report such as describing gloomy weather as "a bit like waking up next to a corpse". And one of my favourite characters is Ted Maul (played by Morris) who is a middle aged reporter who covers the more hard hitting stories, and he speaks in an exaggerated manner, and his funniest scene is where he reports on horses that stampede the London underground, and how "in 1970 in came the crackers, a team of men sent down into the tunnels who killed the horses with hammers!". And finally another amusing character who appears briefly in the show is Jacques Liverot, a pretentious French philosopher, who makes silly statements such as "an old man stands naked in front of a mirror eating soup. He is a fool" and "What is a gay?" and my favourite is "a man driving sees God in his car, he crashes".
Of some of the many hilarious new items on the show, here are some of my favourites, starting with the terrorist dogs in London, who are packed with explosives, and cause chaos on the streets. In the report Eugene Fraxby (great name, also played by Morris) states how a policeman killed a dog in the ensuing chaos and some pedestrians who got in the way, "three people and one dog dead from guns, being old they would have died soon anyway, but the dog was cut to ribbons in its prime". Another one is the psuedo documentary show "Its your blood" where Morris gives supposed real life accounts of near disasters that were narrowly avoided, and the story features Morris (with a great hairdo!) reporting with a helcopter in the background. Morris says "helicopters with great blades that cut the air, air that's easy to slice, like human beings!". Another news item is one that takes place at a local swimming pool, where the middle aged security guards talks about the safety of the pool over the years, "in 1976 no one died, 1977 no one died, 1978 no one edied, 1979 no one died, in 1980 someone died, in 1981 no one died... I mean could go on!".
There is also an MTV parody station called RokTV, with Morris dressed up as a female presenter called Susie Bapswent (and he passes more than a resemblance to Sandra Bernhard in that one!) and talks about the latest that's going in the music world. The funniest story on RokTV is on the American rapper, Fur-Q, who executes people live during his stage shows, but he insists "you can't kill everybody, because then there would be no one left to respect". Yet another funny item is "Attitudes" which is a BBC2 documentary which examines the changing attitudes of British television over the years, starting from the 50s onward, in which we see the last televised British hanging. Also we see during the 60s, a British television presenter who is being given oral sex by a "groupie" and afterwards he says "he had an intense feeling of joy, which has now been replaced with a sense of disappointment and dispair". Also in this item it talks about bad language on TV and one of the first shows to use it which is a soap opera, a la Coronation Street, with a man and one exchanging words "tarra you great big hairy cock!" and the man says "tarra ya shitter!".
The Day Today also features a funny weekly segment called "Speak your brains" where Morris goes onto the streets and interviews people, and one person he interviews is a man, who he asks about soul reversal and has he experienced it and the men says yes, and Morris asks how does it feel, to which the man replies "not very nice!". Morris also interviews another man on the street where he tries to get him to unwittingily plug the Day Today, and eventually get's him to say "I can't think of any day that wouldn't involve the day today!". In another vox pop street interview Morris get's a member of the public to read from a piece of paper which reads "do this our I will run it up your fugde tunnels!" and another one where he asks the man to repeat the words "mudda fakkas" and just once more for the camera "mudda fakkas!". The voice overs in the show are also quite funny and nonsensical, and feature daft slogans such as "news felch!" or "news from telly to belly" or "swinging the wasps off the apple of truth" and "news, because fact into doubt won't go!".
Perhaps for me the less successful part of the show is the inclusion of its in-show soap opera "The Bureau" which takes place at a currency exchange office, where the workers all argue with one another and their boss (Coogan) bullies one of them, played by Marber, because he's gay, and its suggested he's having a romance with another (played by Front). It feels to me like it was tacked onto the show and it does kind of take away from the otherwise great flow it has.
But apart from that the Day Today was a great satire and a terrific television series, which brought Chris Morris into the limelight, as well as his co-stars such as Steve Coogan, as well establishing its producer and co-wrtier Armando Iannucci as one of the great comedy minds in the UK. Its format would later on be similarly revised into a pseudo docuemntary series by Morris in Brass Eye, which was far more controversial, but it all started here with The Day Today, which remains one of the freshest and funniest television satires of its time.
And on that note I will see goodbye for now!
Sunday, 24 March 2013
DmC: Dante returns
OK just for a change I'm going to do a review of a video game, so I've gone for the revamp of one of my favourite series of games, Devil May Cry, the reboot of the series is called DmC Devil May Cry, which features the demon hunter, Dante, as a younger man, who in the past has always spouted that goth like white hairdo, but this time round he's got dark hair (funny eh). Anyway let's get on with it....
So a bit about the plot (don't worry this won't be that long!) as the story is set in Limbo city, a modern day city which is secretly controlled by powerful demons, where the demons live in a parallel version called Limbo. Dante lives in the city, but he's not the demon hunter we know him to be at this stage, but at this point he leads a sleazy life, having picked up two girls in nightclub the night before and taking them back to his trailer to have sex with them. The next morning Dante is awoken by a knock on his trailer door, and he opens it to find a girl, Kat, who is a psychic who warns him that the "demon hunter" is after him. With Kat's help, who puts into Dante limbo, through her psychic powers, Dante retrieves his guns and his sword and defeats the Hunter. After this Kat takes Dante to meet her boss, a man named Vergil, who runs a rouge group called "The Order". Vergil tells Dante that he is very important to them and with his help he can bring down the demons. Vergil then takes Dante to an old abandoned mansion where he says he will learn of his family, and Dante discovers his repressed memories (as the demons have brainwashed Dante the other population of Limbo city) of his father, Sparda, and his mother, Eva, and it is revealed that Vergil is Dante's brother. Dante also learns that his father was a demon, and his two children could eventually grow up to destroy the demon king, Mundus. Mundus afraid of this reality attacks Sparda's family, killing Eva, and banishing Sparda. After learning these truths Dante agrees to help Vergil in bringing down Mundus and ending his regime, and this is where the real fun begins....
DmC Devil May Cry is a great reboot of the series, and it sees Dante as younger man, who is still cocky in nature, and starts off the game leading his sleazy drinking and womanising lifestyle, but as the game progresses he grows and matures as a man, and accepting his responsibilities. Dante also has dark brown hair instead of famous goth like white hair that we have seen in the previous games, and there is a funny moment in the game early on when he fights the demon hunter in Limbo, a white wig lands on his head, and he looks and smiles saying "not in a million years!" throwing the wig off.
But if Devil May Cry has always been about one thing, and that is the gameplay, which is top notch here, and the control system is great and very ease to use. In the usual standard of the game, Dante starts off with a set level of skills and health, and weapons, his sword and his two guns, Ebony and Ivory, but as the game progress he picks new guns and swords. In addition to this Dante can also learn new combos and moves for his weapons and there is a large variety of them, as Dante picks up points for pulling off different combos, and as he does he gains more upgrades to unlock new moves.
Also Dante has a new feature in his combat system as he has a Demon and Angel aspect, and he picks up different weapons, which can be attributed to either the demon and angel settings, this also corresponds to some of the baddies in the game, as some of them can be attacked by one or the other, whereas others are impervious to one and not the other. In the demon and angel states, Dante can also use them to navigate platforms, as in angel mode, he can use a whip to pull himself towards ledges and blocks, whereas with the demon mode he can use his whip to pull enemies toward to pull attacks. And of course there is the old demon trigger, which allows Dante to go into demon state, where he can pull off more powerful attacks on the demons, and he can also regenerate his health bar in doing so. Difficulty wise, DmC is actually not too bad, as it has just about the right level of difficulty, its easier than Devil May Cry 3 for sure, which was ridiculously tough, but here you could say it ranges from easy to medium level, and Dante will die a few times during combat, but the game is very managable to complete.
Graphics wise in keeping with the terrific visuals from the previous games, DmC looks superb here with some stunning environments, and a rather creative colour scheme for the Limbo world. Perhaps at times the colour scheme can get a bit too frantic in its movement, especially in the level where Dante fights against Lilith, Munud's mistress, and we see bright orange to dark blue, with weird sine wave patterns fluctuating wildly in the background, as well the boss scene where he fights the news demon broadcaster BoB Barbas. The character models are also superb, with Dante almost at times looking lifelike in certain moments of the game, and the demons are all really quite imaginitively bizzare in design. Voice acting wise the game is also excellent as the actors, although I don't know who any of them are all put in fine performances.
In terms of the game's flaws, it doesn't have too many, but there are one or two niggles, firstly Dante's demon trigger state is quite annoying, as when he goes into the demon mode, enemies fly up into the air, which makes it difficult for him to attack them as he has to keep jumping into the air to do it, and it limits the amount strikes that Dante can manage. The demon trigger also could last a bit longer than it does, as again with the limited time he has, he can't successfully pulled that many hits. Also visually while the game looks amazing, the background visuals as I already mentioned, can get a bit flashy and distracting and they aren't for anyone with photosensitive epilepsy for sure. However they aren't too bad and they are nowhere near as bad as Max Payne 3 was far worse for flash and blurry graphics. Also on the odd occassion the camera angles can get a little annoying but thankfully not too often, but every now and the camera angle forces you to move Dante in another direction, rather than freely keeping moving forward with camera going straight ahead. I also had a niggle about the amount of demon souls Dante obtains when he kills baddies or completes secret missions as they seem a bit too small, and it can take a long time for you to pick up enough to buy new items.
And this brings me onto another flaw which is aimed at the series in general, and that is the inflation factor in the cost of buying new items, as when say you buy one large vital star (to restore Dante's health) the price goes up automatically for when you buy it again next time. It just seems unfair that it happens, as you could use 800 points for one devil trigger recharge, and about 1500 to buy it the next time! And one final point is the profanity in the game, while not excessive, sees the continuing trend in modern games, where they feel they have to add in more swearing to make the games that bit more gritty and realistic, but as its a fantasy based series, then it feels like its not too necessary, as its only within the last 5-10 years they have started doing this, so while the b or the s word is fine, the f word all the time seems just a bit unecessary (or perhaps I'm just being old fashioned! ;-)).
However putting that all aside DmC is a really good and entertaining game, which sees the series brought back in style, and there is alot to commend it, with its varied combat system, upgrades and stunning visuals. And if you are a fan of hack and slash games or the previous installments, then this is well worth checking out.
And with that I shall leave it there.
So a bit about the plot (don't worry this won't be that long!) as the story is set in Limbo city, a modern day city which is secretly controlled by powerful demons, where the demons live in a parallel version called Limbo. Dante lives in the city, but he's not the demon hunter we know him to be at this stage, but at this point he leads a sleazy life, having picked up two girls in nightclub the night before and taking them back to his trailer to have sex with them. The next morning Dante is awoken by a knock on his trailer door, and he opens it to find a girl, Kat, who is a psychic who warns him that the "demon hunter" is after him. With Kat's help, who puts into Dante limbo, through her psychic powers, Dante retrieves his guns and his sword and defeats the Hunter. After this Kat takes Dante to meet her boss, a man named Vergil, who runs a rouge group called "The Order". Vergil tells Dante that he is very important to them and with his help he can bring down the demons. Vergil then takes Dante to an old abandoned mansion where he says he will learn of his family, and Dante discovers his repressed memories (as the demons have brainwashed Dante the other population of Limbo city) of his father, Sparda, and his mother, Eva, and it is revealed that Vergil is Dante's brother. Dante also learns that his father was a demon, and his two children could eventually grow up to destroy the demon king, Mundus. Mundus afraid of this reality attacks Sparda's family, killing Eva, and banishing Sparda. After learning these truths Dante agrees to help Vergil in bringing down Mundus and ending his regime, and this is where the real fun begins....
DmC Devil May Cry is a great reboot of the series, and it sees Dante as younger man, who is still cocky in nature, and starts off the game leading his sleazy drinking and womanising lifestyle, but as the game progresses he grows and matures as a man, and accepting his responsibilities. Dante also has dark brown hair instead of famous goth like white hair that we have seen in the previous games, and there is a funny moment in the game early on when he fights the demon hunter in Limbo, a white wig lands on his head, and he looks and smiles saying "not in a million years!" throwing the wig off.
But if Devil May Cry has always been about one thing, and that is the gameplay, which is top notch here, and the control system is great and very ease to use. In the usual standard of the game, Dante starts off with a set level of skills and health, and weapons, his sword and his two guns, Ebony and Ivory, but as the game progress he picks new guns and swords. In addition to this Dante can also learn new combos and moves for his weapons and there is a large variety of them, as Dante picks up points for pulling off different combos, and as he does he gains more upgrades to unlock new moves.
Also Dante has a new feature in his combat system as he has a Demon and Angel aspect, and he picks up different weapons, which can be attributed to either the demon and angel settings, this also corresponds to some of the baddies in the game, as some of them can be attacked by one or the other, whereas others are impervious to one and not the other. In the demon and angel states, Dante can also use them to navigate platforms, as in angel mode, he can use a whip to pull himself towards ledges and blocks, whereas with the demon mode he can use his whip to pull enemies toward to pull attacks. And of course there is the old demon trigger, which allows Dante to go into demon state, where he can pull off more powerful attacks on the demons, and he can also regenerate his health bar in doing so. Difficulty wise, DmC is actually not too bad, as it has just about the right level of difficulty, its easier than Devil May Cry 3 for sure, which was ridiculously tough, but here you could say it ranges from easy to medium level, and Dante will die a few times during combat, but the game is very managable to complete.
Graphics wise in keeping with the terrific visuals from the previous games, DmC looks superb here with some stunning environments, and a rather creative colour scheme for the Limbo world. Perhaps at times the colour scheme can get a bit too frantic in its movement, especially in the level where Dante fights against Lilith, Munud's mistress, and we see bright orange to dark blue, with weird sine wave patterns fluctuating wildly in the background, as well the boss scene where he fights the news demon broadcaster BoB Barbas. The character models are also superb, with Dante almost at times looking lifelike in certain moments of the game, and the demons are all really quite imaginitively bizzare in design. Voice acting wise the game is also excellent as the actors, although I don't know who any of them are all put in fine performances.
In terms of the game's flaws, it doesn't have too many, but there are one or two niggles, firstly Dante's demon trigger state is quite annoying, as when he goes into the demon mode, enemies fly up into the air, which makes it difficult for him to attack them as he has to keep jumping into the air to do it, and it limits the amount strikes that Dante can manage. The demon trigger also could last a bit longer than it does, as again with the limited time he has, he can't successfully pulled that many hits. Also visually while the game looks amazing, the background visuals as I already mentioned, can get a bit flashy and distracting and they aren't for anyone with photosensitive epilepsy for sure. However they aren't too bad and they are nowhere near as bad as Max Payne 3 was far worse for flash and blurry graphics. Also on the odd occassion the camera angles can get a little annoying but thankfully not too often, but every now and the camera angle forces you to move Dante in another direction, rather than freely keeping moving forward with camera going straight ahead. I also had a niggle about the amount of demon souls Dante obtains when he kills baddies or completes secret missions as they seem a bit too small, and it can take a long time for you to pick up enough to buy new items.
And this brings me onto another flaw which is aimed at the series in general, and that is the inflation factor in the cost of buying new items, as when say you buy one large vital star (to restore Dante's health) the price goes up automatically for when you buy it again next time. It just seems unfair that it happens, as you could use 800 points for one devil trigger recharge, and about 1500 to buy it the next time! And one final point is the profanity in the game, while not excessive, sees the continuing trend in modern games, where they feel they have to add in more swearing to make the games that bit more gritty and realistic, but as its a fantasy based series, then it feels like its not too necessary, as its only within the last 5-10 years they have started doing this, so while the b or the s word is fine, the f word all the time seems just a bit unecessary (or perhaps I'm just being old fashioned! ;-)).
However putting that all aside DmC is a really good and entertaining game, which sees the series brought back in style, and there is alot to commend it, with its varied combat system, upgrades and stunning visuals. And if you are a fan of hack and slash games or the previous installments, then this is well worth checking out.
And with that I shall leave it there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)