The Wolverine: A Nice Surprise

I have purposely been shielding myself from reviews and insights on The Wolverine because the hype machine really got me pumped for the last Wolverine film, and I've never been more disappointed in a Marvel movie than I was with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, (The video game though was actually quite good.) 

On a scale of Spider-Man 3 (lowest) to Avengers (highest),  X-Men Origins: Wolverine got a Superman Returns. The Wolverine on the other hand gets a cushy place between Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man. And that's a good thing.

That said, The Wolverine was a breathe of fresh air in the tumultuous wave-like quality of the X-Men movies that plummeted with X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine but started an upward climb with X-Men First Class, (a movie in which Wolverine's cameo was a bright spot in an already good film.)

The Wolverine is basically a character study in "what's next for the hero?"

After the events of X-Men 3, Wolverine deals with the repercussions of being the hero and (spoiler alert) killing Jean Grey who had given into the Phoenix Force, becoming the X-Men's worst villain to date.

The movie opens with Wolverine dreaming and remembering the past; reliving actions taken during WWII, where he saved the life of a Japanese soldier. Decades later this soldier goes on to become a very powerful technology magnate and summons Wolverine to his deathbed in Japan. He tells Wolverine that his "curse" of healing and never aging can be transferred and that he wants to be the recipient. Wolverine declines, but regardless, his healing factor is ultimately compromised. From there Wolverine begins his adventures in Japan, wounded and pissed.

There is so much lore from the comics that my inner (mostly outer) geek was thrilled to see so much of the lore. Wolverine is described as a ronin; a master-less samurai. Somewhat romanticized in Japan and it's a perfect description. He's lonely, deadly, emotionally wounded, and drop dead fucking sexy, all elements from the comics that make his character so well beloved.

The lack of being faithful to the books has always been my biggest complaint with comic movies. The stories are there, they are already written. The writers who do the adapting should have an easy job, but they still needlessly change things (ie: the terrible characterization of Deadpool, Superman having a son, Rogue dating Iceman, Spider-Man's "organic" web-shooters, nipples on the Bat-suit, etc.)

There are still some changes made in The Wolverine, but not anything detrimental. In fact it's a short list: Wolverine has a very long Japanese history and speaks Japanese in the comics whereas in the movie he does not. Mariko has a step-brother (Keniuchio Harada) whom in the comics is the mutant, Silver Samurai. He is not in the movie, and they write around him using other family members for story elements. Ultimately Silver Samurai (as seen in the trailer) is an eight foot tall robot in the film.

Favorite Parts of the Movie, (though the whole film was quite enjoyable):

• Anything with Rila Fukushima as the red haired Japanese beauty, Yukio. Her character feels so honest and she simply elevates every scene she's in. 
• I love that the people at Fox and the overseers over the X-men franchise save their single use of "Fuck" in their PG-13 movies for Wolverine himself to say. It makes him that much more bad-ass, singling him out that way. 
• BONECLAWS!
• (Bit of a spoiler here) Jean Grey has a thru-line, not just a quick cameo. Her memory is Wolverine's mental reminder that he's put so many people in the ground and he continues to walk the earth. Jean Grey = Survivor's guilt

As a comic fan, (or as a good movie fan) I definitely recommend The Wolverine.

Also, stay through the credits. It's a Marvel movie and you don't want to miss who shows up, and for that matter why they show up.

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my love for the product/company. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

This is the End - When a 'Super Bad' Tornado Meets a 'Knocked Up' Volcano

The wife and I were lucky enough to get early passes to see the early screening of This is the End thanks to Gofobo. The staff presenting the picture was extra emphatic on keeping a lid on all the deep dark secrets, so while we were waiting in line to see the flick, security alerted us that we needed to take all electronics out to our cars to prevent anyone recording any bit of the movie.

For a movie about the end of the world, taking away cell phones is a good way to get people empathizing with the characters.

Before the movie started, we were told, "If any of you have somehow smuggled your cell phones in past security through any orifices, go ahead and keep them there because our security team has night vision goggles. And if you found that comment offensive, you should leave now because there is much, much worse in the actual movie."

So before I continue with this review, I'll go ahead and say that if you've seen Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, Super Bad, or Your Highness and found them offensive, you should go ahead and skip this movie. And maybe all other movies, because you have a bad taste in movies.

Since the audience took a blood oath not to spill the movie secrets (especially the super awesome secret amazing ending) this might be the first review at The Amazing Spider-Matt that is fairly spoiler free!

At it's core, This is the End is about friendship.

It's about how friends grow apart, and the difficulties of trying to hold onto the past and still changing yourself for the future. It's about survival, forgiveness, sacrifice and loyalty.

And it's about dicks and balls and weed and a lot of masturbation jokes.

The movie starts with Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon) returning to Los Angeles after a hiatus to visit long-time friend, Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), the two planning to have a weekend together. Plans are thrown out of whack when Seth decides to take Jay to James Franco's (Spider-Man Trilogy) housewarming party. There they meet up with the rest of the main cast: Craig Robinson (Hot Tub Time Machine), Jonah Hill (Super Bad), and Danny McBride (Your Highness). It's at this party that some of the funniest moments in the whole movie take place. The majority of the cast play versions of themselves and that's where a lot of the really good humor is.

Probably one of the funniest scenes in the movie is when Michael Cera (Arrested Development) - his movie self being a coke-fiend - asks Christopher Mintz-Plasse (aka McLovin) if his coke smells bad, blowing a handful of it into his face. In fact, any scene in the movie with Michael Cera is golden.

Midway through the party the end of the world hits the Hollywood Hills and after a mass decimation of most of the party goers, the new and old friends board up James Franco's house and try to survive Armaggedon and each other.

Great Moments in the Movie:

• Awesome celebrity cameos and casting choices, not the least of which is Emma Watson (Harry Potter Franchise) playing a bad ass Apocalypse fighting version of herself.
• I loved Hot Tub Time Machine, and Craig Robinson was one of my favorite actors in that. Getting to see him again in a movie was great. 
• The wife hates him, but I love Danny McBride. He can take a level of offensiveness higher than anyone else. He's pure guy humor. Danny McBride is kind of how dudes like to smell things and say, "Oh my god, this smells horrible. Here smell this." That's what Danny McBride is. That awful smell that you want to share with your friends.
• What happens when a group of actors get bored during the rapture? They make homemade sequels to their own movies of course. Hilarity ensues.

The movie reminded me of all the other great comedy movies I love. It even has a decent Clerks vibe thanks to Jay Baruchel who really comes across as having a "not even supposed to be there today" attitude. 

This is the End will be a definite see again in the theaters and Blu ray purchase if only for the expectations for some damn good Line-o-Ramas and Outtakes. Honestly, there are so many parts of the movie that I want to share but shouldn't. Because you should just go see it yourself. And then come back here and talk about it in the comments. 

This is the End officially comes to theaters June 12th.

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. Gofobo provided free tickets for the masses (and not for this review) and the purpose of this review is based solely on my love for the product/company. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company.

Sigh, I Miss Marcus : Gears of War Judgement Review

I apologize if you find my title misleading as I found Gears of War: Judgement to be a good game and by no means hated any of the game, something I can't say about Gears 1-3. This is because GoW:J has no vehicle levels, levels that bogged down on the original with bad controls and were a bitch to get past on insane (the hardest difficulty.) This game feels built from the ground up but with characters we are familiar with but didn't spend a large amount of time with.

The Characters

The first thing you'll notice is the ages of everyone's favorite smart-ass Baird, and the Thrashball legend Cole. You do have two other members to the team, kilo squad, they are: Paduk, a combatant from the pendulum war, a war prior to the locust emergence, he fought against the COG. Then there is Sophia Hendrik, a cadet in an elite group amongst the COG called Onyx guards, they are tasked with providing security for COG leadership and and similar to MPs. She's a bit of a slut. Unfortunately the only time Marcus is in this game is three to four lines of voice-over.

The Controls

You'll notice as well that the controller layout has been changed, the Y button switches weapons now and the left bumper is now a quick throw on grenades which no longer can be equipped or "stuck" to a enemy with the B button but will stick to an opponent when thrown, but not on a bounce. Also, medical healing grenades have been added. Lastly if you have a boom shield you can keep your equipped weapon, be it a shotgun or lancer.

The Gameplay

Gears of War: Judgement is in essence an arcade style 3rd person shooter, a departure from the straight forward shooter vibe or the originals. The sections in each chapter are short mostly containing 1 to 2 firefights with small to large groups of enemies with varying enemy types to fight. This sounds simple, and it can be, or you can add challenge by accepting a level modifier in the form of a declassified mission.

Declassified missions come for the story being based around Lieutenant Baird's war trial. As you start the game you are shown that Baird and the rest of kilo squad are on trial for their actions during a skirmish with the locust, an alien species that came up from the ground of the planet Sera, that the game series takes place on. Judgment is told as testimony from each member or kilo squad's perspective. Apparently some of the testimony is classified and by choosing to play it you get to see how it "really" happened. These can be varying chores like playing the level with low visibility, playing a mission with weak weapons or low ammo, or protecting a random item from damage. Declassifying is offered as a way to add story that you wouldn't get otherwise, in actuality it adds a sentence or two of dialog specifically about the task at hand and skipping them does not cause you to miss anything.

The reason I called the game an arcade shooter is that the game is similar do the developer's previous game Bulletstorm, in that kills and actions are scored and you gain stars for completing kills and earning ribbons. These stars are earned faster once you declassify a mission as they always add difficulty. Well, this and the fact that each level is so damn short. Each chapter contains 5 to 8 levels or sections and each one is a different person's testimony but forwards the story.

Among the story and declassified missions are collectibles. COG tags, to be exact, while I hate collectables being in EVERY game, these are a mainstay of the Gears of War games. In this game there is only one per level which is down quite a bit from previous entries in the series, but still hold no importance to the story.

The Story

As far as the story goes you play as Lieutenant Baird, whom you meet as Private Baird in the initial trilogy and this is a prequel to those, so what happened to cause the demotion. Well, that's what this game is about. Baird is in a city called Halvo Bay and finds it to be under siege by a Locust commander called Karn, the same locust who has laid waste to entire cities and is known by one of Baird's squad mates, Paduk, as death and destruction incarnate. Braid decides to use a weapon that is called a light mass missile, it is very destructive and centralized, but it is meant to be used on a larger target and to ultimately save move lives than those of Halvo Bay. Hence the hearing.

I won't ruin the story for you as it is good and has tons of Baird's sarcastic humor. It's dark and gritty and has a lot of good ideas and it delivers on most of them. The best part of which is Aftermath. Aftermath is a follow up to the story of Judgement that you unlock by earning stars in Judgement story and takes place during a section of Gears of War 3. Marcus Fenix tasks Baird with locating a boat for an attack. This section was the closest to the Gears franchise, longer missions, no stars or declassification, just straight gears action.

The Rest

Multiplayer in Judgement is similar to previous games with a few changes. There is now a Free For All mode and Overrun, which is a mode that has replaced Horde. Free For All is self explanatory, no teams everyone fights everyone. Overrun is similar to horde in that its COG vs Locust but now both sides are human players and now there is a damageable objective. You have three waves where as Locust you attempt to destroy an emergence hole plug for two waves and a generator providing power to. . . Something the COG need. As the COG it is your job to defend these objectives, all of which is done with a time limit.

Gears of War: Judgement is executed quite well and tells a story worth seeing. Is it great? No not really, Gears 3 is the best of he series. But, the game is good. My favorite character of the whole series has been Baird and I appreciate the fan service in getting a Baird centric game. The game is definitely worth a buy, just in that its not the same formulaic crap for other shooters, like the terrible Call of Duty franchise.

Well that's all from me on Gears of War: Judgement. Feel free to comment or question below, or look for me in multiplayer under Amzngspidermatt.

-ASM out.

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

I Wish All Archers Looked Like This: Tomb Raider Review

I'm not going to censor myself in any means so I'm just putting out there now that this review may have some spoilers, I will be talking about several different points in the game. But I am a human being so the ending will not be covered. 

--- 

Tomb Raider starts with a ship wreck, (not the stupid, G-rated, drawn out kind from Life of Pi) ), but a very quick vessel torn in half kind that gets you in the right place to raid some fucking tombs. Literally opening movie is Lara on a ship broken in half and Lara leaping toward this old guy named Roth who drops her ass into the sea. Lara wakes up on a beach and sees a small group of survivors from the ship. She begins to yell out to them, and gets cold cocked and passes out. Great start. I seriously was already riveted to the couch.

Lara wakes up in wrapped in a canvas upside-down hanging in a cave. To escape she has to shift her wake to swing into a corpse - that must have woken up in this same state quite a long time ago - into a fire and then back into her to light her canvas bag on fire to escape. Getting set on fire isn't the worst of her worries either (especially this early) because as she falls she lands on up-ended rebar that stabs completely thru her and I'm shocked she doesn't have a pierced liver to boot. This ain't your daddy's Lara though, by the end of the game, not including all the horrible ways she can die, she's stabbed, shot, pierced, scraped up and knocked out repeatedly. She may be a super hero.

Playing this Tomb Raider - for me - seemed like coming home again. I had the original game on Sega Saturn and other than her having triangle boobs I had no issues with the game. At the time there felt like there was nothing like it. I saw myself as exploring and learning with her. I got the same feeling again, granted there are lot of people/survivors that you are in contact with almost constantly, suffering along with Lara. I felt her need to survive and the pain was she put through.

Once you get Lara out of the cave of death, she finds a bow on another dead guy dangling upside down and you get a tutorial on shooting. Another video establishes that Lara is cold and hungry, so you start hunting the deer and rabbits in the area. There is no cold or hungry bar, so there there isn't a goal in hunting other than you get XP per kill and search of the corpse. With skills you learn thru the XP you can begin to earn salvage from the kills as well.0Ssalvage is used to upgrade your tools and weapons in the single player story. The weapons include a handgun, rifle, bow and arrows, and a shotgun. There is  a rock climbing axe that can be used to open tough doors, climb craggy rocks, slide down ropes and thru skills can become quite a formidable weapon as well.

Thru a video camera Lara finds, we see some backstory. The boat, The Endurance carried: an archeologist, Dr. Whitman, who is concerned more of striking it rich than anything else. Roth, an ex-marine treasure hunter, who is a family friend of the Croft's. Sam a friend and classmate of Lara's and filmer of the expedition and others who are made up of film crew and a bitch mechanic. The video shows us that the expedition is searching for the lost island of Yamatai, somewhere on the coast of Japan, and Dr. Whitman wants to continue the search in the same place everyone else already has. Lara's idea is to search elsewhere, which does lead them to Yamatai, but caused quite a lot of death and destruction. All of which Lara blames herself for, honestly I do feel that it is her fault, but that doesn't stop me from loving this game.

Tomb Raider does have its share of tense moments, not really scares, it tries its hand at some humor with having Lara say things like "I bloody HATE tombs!" While the humor is a pass the suspense is great and the shock value of watching the horrific ways that Lara is killed is in itself shocking, Tomb Raider succeeds on soooo many levels. The brutality that Lara must deal with both within herself and what she faces with the strange cult that inhabits Yamitai.

The cult is lead by a fanatic named Mathias, and he leads a large group of heavily armed thugs, carrying weapons ranging from dual machetes to Molotov cocktails to machine guns to dynamite. The cult is after Lara's friend Sam for some sort of ritual that will bring back the queen of Yamatai, Himiko.

For the first time in a long time this game has something lacking in a lot of games, good enemy AI. They run and hide, they flank, they destroy your cover, great stuff. There are some dumb moves where they hide behind flammable cover (only after you get flaming arrows) and will leap unto ropes that slide down to in front of you, one shot with any weapon drops them from the rope ride, to their death. Eventually the enemies vary further into Japanese soldiers in ancient samurai garb, katanas and all.

So all this said, I have told people I know (and I don't throw this around a lot) I have named this game the best game of the year so far.

Pros: Great graphics, horrifically brutal deaths for Lara, good story, and great AI.

Cons: Hunger bit not really fleshed out, collectables (every fucking game has collectables now, I can't just arrow down some deer and crows, I gotta hunt for eggs and relics and diary pages, shit I'm sick of hide and seek shit in action games) and press for the game, the developers have gone to the press and stated there will be tons of dock but no plans for story, I like multiplayer in games but charging 5, 10, 15 bucks for a different place to kill some fuckers I don't know or care about isn't worth it for me. I love story, why not have more.

In Summation: Tomb Raider is the game to beat for game of the year in 2013. Unfortunately it came out early in the year and with some stiff competition. I will be covering those new games as the are released and as I am able to play I will be covering them here.

- Your friendly neighborhood ASM

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

Super Hyped Irreparable Trash, An Aliens: Colonial Marines Reveiw

Heh, I made the title spell S.H.I.T.

It's funny because the game is terrible. 

I have a confession to make, I love all things Alien, even Alien 4. I've played many of the Alien games in the past even those of the Vs Predator variety and have been immediately in like with them.

Be aware gentle reader, I have full game spoilers in this review and I do share the ending. Not now. Near the end of the review. You have been warned.

At first this was the case with A:CM. I really wanted to play this game and I had seen tons of photo references I liked; the throwback design of the text in the game that looks like the text first seen in the opening scenes of the early movies aboard the Nostromo and Solaco.

Immediately after the aforementioned text showed on a blank black screen the game opens into a in game movie that stops, stutters and shakes so bad I turned my system off, loaded the game to my hard drive, and started it again. No change.

"Well ASM," I said to myself, "maybe the playable stuff is better."  As soon as I started moving I saw screen tearing and sighed. A little further in I started to see that everything in the background looked like it wasn't fully rendered. Things like projections on the wall, generators on the floor look smeared and undefined, words on them are muddy blobs.

Then I saw. . . The aliens.

Good god, the aliens.

Honestly they are hard to talk about and not be sad. Yes, only one word of the three words in the title is Aliens, but they should have been the focus. Right away I'll tell you that the story is bullshit. It's a shame, but it's far and away shockingly bad. Badly acted, poorly written, and filled with characters that aren't built in anyway, and animated poorly to boot.

Lance Henriksen is voicing Bishop in it, I will give the game this one allowance and only this one, Lance Henriksen. I digress, the aliens in A:CM are laughable. The aliens continuously walk directly in front of your fire, and whilst walking out in the open will randomly just stand the fuck up on their back legs and do a sideways walking shuffle that is odd looking to say the least. These murderous beasts will kill npcs in one strike but when they face off against you are found lacking, one burst of fire will destroy them and their acid blood might as well be saliva. It effects you for mere seconds and makes it so that your always-replenishing-health doesn't replenish for those few seconds. In fact there is an achievement around blasting an alien close range with a shotgun specifically to get acid on you. Seriously these puppies are defanged.

Now basically your story is random set pieces that they throw the characters into but honestly this could be any licensed game with the bare bones story they provided. Level one is catching up with the story before you get to the Solaco and see the bottom half of Bishop with the white blood everywhere, just the mess left from the movie Aliens. You play a character named Winter, not that it matters. You are mostly teamed with a big guy named Oneal and run from place to place fighting aliens. There is a girl named Bella who in the first level tells you she had a face hugger on her when she woke up in a random room, the player knows what her eventual end will be but they have her throughout more the half the game. Again no development of the character, death means nothing but she dies.

Now you don't just fight aliens you fight enemies that are part of the Weyland-Yutani corporation and they don't like you fucking around with the aliens. There is a ton of fighting these guys too, and they have the smarts to hide behind cover when they are being shot at and actually are sometimes a challenge. Your overpowered weapons and room crossing shotgun blasts will make short work of any enemy so the last few levels just becomes quantity over quality. It is eventually revealed that somewhere in the base the WY folks are harboring a queen in their base and trying to monetize her. Of course she breaks loose and you have to fight her.

I am going to give a quick list of the 11 levels of the game as too what you do in each level.

1. Tutorial you see aliens and learn to shoot guns
2. Bullshit
3. Weyland-Yutani blow up the Sulaco
4. On planet, Hadley's Hope where much of Aliens movie takes place
5. Water level where you've been de-gunned and now have to sneak past new explodey aliens. Seriously. In a shoot-em-up game there is a for no reason stealth level. Honestly this level is quite nerve racking, and with an Alien game the whole thing should've been this level but with just a few guns and low ammo.
6. Bullshit
7. Bullshit
8. Bullshit
9. Poorly rendered bullshit
10. Duckshit, it's like bullshit, but looser
11. End boss fight in which you end the level with 0 kills

The end level boss fight is the worst offender of the game. In this boss fight you don't fight the boss. You are in a hangar where you have crashed a ship. The captain has been pinned in the pilots seat and everyone else has found a way to fuck off and leave you alone. You then find out that the queen is in there with you. You can shoot at her to get her attention but mostly she goes from empty box to empty box that litter the hangar looking to hurt you. During this time you are to activate switches that are on opposite sides of a track with a shoving wall aimed specifically at the hole your crashed ship left. Guess what you do. The queen literally stops searching for you and runs and stands in the center of the track as soon and you activate all 4 four switches. You have one final toggle that launches her towards the hole. At which point she saves herself from falling but the trapped, and now dying captain activates the ship and commits suicide/murders the queen to end the game, stealing your kill.

I beat this game without going out of the way to collect anything and ended with 30 of 50 achievements. I need to be very clear: I hated every last thing about this game. It is not worth the 60 dollars to buy. Use the purchase to get Borderlands 2 if you haven't already.

So that's it for Aliens: Colonial Marines.

If there is a review you would like to see, let me know I the comments below.

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

I Swear It's Not Anything Like Twilight! A Warm Bodies Review

Here's your friendly spoiler warning!  Slight spoilers ahead. No endings just some early plot points.

---

I wanted to start with a positive statement about the movie just to spur you on a little further for the review: Warm Bodies is nothing at all like Twilight. 

Now I was worried when I sat down to watch and the theatre went dark - signaling to the guy two rows ahead of me to turn his phone the fuck off or to at least set it to vibrate and stop playing angry birds. He was a bit slow on the uptake and 18 minutes into the movie he finally caught on that he didn't just pay 8 dollars to rent a comfy chair, but there was indeed shit happening on the screen in front of him. I found myself feeling worried again when the new age hipster music prevalent in the Twilight movies (yes I have seen them, no I am not a woman or gay, but I am married, so I might as well be) began to play and I did sort of jokingly try to walk out when I saw the logo for the studio that foisted the Twilight saga upon us, Summit.

Warm Bodies is first and foremost a zombie movie. I know as a people we have had zombies as the lead dog of pop culture for a while now, so a "different" approach to the same thing is refreshing now and again. Warm Bodies suffers from poor advertising, so much so that it has been described to me as a different movie, each time someone has told me about it. I've heard "Twilight with zombies", a "RomZomCom" (WTF izzat?) and a "zombie love story", and none of these is really true with exception to maybe RomZomCom because that isn't a thing.

The movie opens with a zombie narrating his zombie life explaining the important facts we'll need for the story.

• Firstly there is no recollection of your earlier life once you're a zombie, although the main character, played by Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, X-Men:First Class) does remember that his name starts with an "R" but that's all. 
• Second, they do have relationships and conversations, which are mostly inarticulate grunts with one or two words, showcased with R's friendship with another zombie, M played by Rob Corddry (Old School, Hot Tub Time Machine.) 
• Third, there exists a subspecies to the zombie, an endgame if you will, that the zombies refer to as, "Bonies," which is a state that a zombie will get into where it gets so apathetic/bored or can't get the food to have the energy (it's not really FLESHED out in the movie, pun intended) to go on so they just start to peel their flesh away until nothing but a bones and like a primer layer. As you can imagine this makes them quite irritable and they will go after and eat anything with a pulse. 
• Lastly, R is a huge hoarder, he's picked out an airplane at the airport his group of zombies hangs out in, and he's filled it with bits and baubles, including a record collection.

The human interaction starts when a group of teens are released from their compound to search for medical supplies. The scavengers are led by the daughter of the compound leader, Julie played by Teresa Palmer (I am Number Four) and her boyfriend Perry played by Dave Franco (James Franco's Mom's womb.) The humans are set upon by R's entourage and here we learn that zombies like human's brains because as they eat them they get that human's memories, also they do it for self preservation in that if the destroy the human brain the human can't become a zombie too. We see this first hand as R kills Perry and eats the shit out of his brains. After a flashback of the dead early into the movie Perry's, R sees Julie newly defenseless and rather than feeding on her he decides to save her. He smears some goo from a gunshot he received on her face and leads her to his plane at the epicenter of the of the zombie horde.

R's heart begins to beat again and he starts to speak in full sentences the more he hangs out with Julie and he lies to her about needing to lay low in the plane for a few days, to spend time with her. Julie gets some insight into zombie non-life, and sees first hand that maybe zombies aren't so bad. There are a few throw away scenes of R learning to sort of drive and Bonies sniffing around.

Some of the better lines are given to some of the background characters with Corddry getting to drop the movie's only f-bomb. As time goes on you can see the development of each character, both as people and zombie. Granted it's built on lies and eating the brain of her boyfriend, but watching the relationship build between R and Julie is actually quite heart-warming.

There are quite a few twists along the way and much more to the story that I don't want to give away due to respect of the movie, and really a desire for others to see and enjoy it. This movie is certainly worth the money and the time, I completely recommend it.

If you get to see it or have seen it already, let me know how you feel about it!

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

Starry Starry Knight: Black Knight Sword Review

I was incredibly excited to see that Grashopper Manufacture, Inc. and Suda51 was releasing a new game called Black Knight Sword, and even more so that it was being released to Xbox Live Arcade. If there's anything I love more than movies it's video games and above video games it's the ability to buy a game and play it without putting on pants.
I had been in a funk with video games lately only playing full retail games, which have several pros and cons. As far as the main pro for a retail game is the (sometimes) high production value on a retail game tends to be higher as there is more money put into development, the con is that this cost is passed directly to the consumer with most new retail games coming out in the $60 dollar range. The reason behind my retail funk is that most retail games aren't normally a pick-up-and-play affair, meaning any time you play you have to carve out a decent chunk of time to play. This is where XBL arcade games are great, sometimes I only have 10 or fifteen minutes to kill and these games are built with this in mind.

Now as for Black Knight Sword, it was released during the holidays, December 12th on Xbox, and while I had heard about it I didn't have the funds or the time to get it. This led to this week when I downloaded the demo (another great feature for  XBL arcade) and within the first 5 minutes I knew I needed to get the full game. Not exactly a breaking the bank occurrence as it was 800 Microsoft points (about $10.) I have always had a high opinion of Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. and have been a day one purchaser of their previous games, like the criminally underrated Lollipop Chainsaw, and Shadows of the Damned (the only game I've seen with an achievement with the word "Fuckin' " in the title) and knew I would not be let down.

The game starts with the tale of a beautiful princess whom is equal part beautiful and ruthless. In the same land as the princess there lives a sword spirit that opposes the princess. The sword spirit imbues your character with the powers of the black knight sword. You begin playing as a corpse hanging from a noose in an empty hotel room, falling from the noose and obtaining the sword and the black knight armor and powers, which leads you into a tutorial for movements and attacks. The controls are quite basic, a multi-directional attack, right trigger attacks with sword spirit and you unlock the use of magic with the "Y" button later.

The star of this game however is not the controls but the art. The game is done in the style of a paper puppet show. This game looks like the marriage and then odd baby of Castlevania and Monty Python art. With complete honesty when I mention something is like Castlevania it is high praise indeed as Symphony of the Night is my favorite game of all time.

Along with the paper art puppetry things are quite odd in this world too. The only real world enemies are wolves that you only see a few times, everything else is deformed and hideous, most enemies are brown wrinkled heads with appendages. Bosses are normally deformed animals like an enormous wolf with the head of what looks like Miyamoto-San (head honcho of Nintendo) wearing an eye patch, or an enormous spider wearing a gas mask and an abdomen made of a face that spits out smaller flying faces. Far and away the kookiest level has to be a level where you fight a 30 foot tall chicken. After defeating the chicken your character jumps on it and you play a flying(?) mission, akin to Galaxia shooting lasers and collecting powerups to battle an onion shaped head. During this level my wife walked into the room and stood bewildered and stunned (a condition I have deemed "Suda-Ed") by the crazy kookiness that is what I expect from Suda51 and Grasshopper. When she looked at me weirded into silence I looked back and said "Gotta love Japan."

The only downfalls I could find in the game was that one the story is almost nonexistent, with small stories being told along the way in rhyme but with nothing really connecting everything together. Second, the character you play as is silent, all previous efforts by Suda and Grasshopper have had great characters with funny personalities, and the silent black knight is devoid of this. Lastly, death makes you start the entire level over again making the last level a trudge, I got wiped out twice at the last boss and had play the massive last level again. These things are mere blemishes on a well made kooky game and should not stop you from playing. This game is a must buy, so go download it and have a great . . . Knight.

---

Disclosure: This review is sponsored by Grasshopper. I received free product for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own and no further monetary compensation was received.

Lollipop Chainsaw: A test you can use to see if other people are worth talking to

This post was originally hosted at cheshirecatart by the great artist Devin Kraft. The review was originally posted back when the game was first released and I wanted to post it here now that I have my own blog. 

---

The game starts with young Juliet Starling narrating to the player about how today is her birthday. She introduces us to people we'll see throughout the game; her sisters Cordelia and Rosalind, her mom (who,we are told is the reason that Juliet and her sisters wear their vaginas proudly) her dad, and her boyfriend Nick.

Juliet explains, in a series of photos and shower scenes, that her family is different from Nick's because they are zombie hunters. Nick is very early on bitten by a zombie and before he himself turns, Juliet decapitates him. With magic she is able to keep his head alive and attached to her waist band. Nick serves as comic relief (in an already comical game) and in several different situations can be used as a weapon against the zombie hordes. Her weapons, along with Nick's are upgraded by the cast of the game giving Juliet presents for her birthday.

The prologue exists mostly to introduce us to combat and the tone of the game.

The combat is simple:

• Strong chainsaw attack
• Pom Pom Attack (which serves to dizzy zombies for a beheading hit)
• Low chainsaw attack which de-feets  zombies (get it?!?)
• Dodge

Note: Beheading zombies results in rainbows and sparkles spraying from the neck stump.

As you progress thru the game you earn zombie medals in gold and platinum which you can use at the game store. Gold variety buys upgrades to either her base stats or for combo moves. Platinum medals buy costumes, in-game music and conceptual art.

The aforementioned tone is decidedly adult and at the same time juvenile but always funny. From a class mate that was rescued from a zombie horde randomly proclaiming his favorite president to be Warren G. Harding to the perverted Sensei Morikawa repeatedly falling face first into Juliet's cleavage. Although some humor is just funny without being rude or offensive, one of my favorite exchanges is in the first level between Juliet and Nick, it goes:

Juliet: I need to find Morikawa Sensei.

Nick: Who?

Juliet: Morikawa Sensei! He's my sensei.

Nick: You mean like a teacher?

Juliet: I didn't know you speak Japanese Nick!? (she then proceeds to speak in Japanese for a minute or so)

Nick: I don't know Japanese, just that one word.

Juliet: Oh Nick, your simple innocence is one of the reasons I love you! You're like a kitten. A kitten that doesn't speak Japanese!

The story does feel like it's being purposely perverse (in a very good way), like a lot of the comedic R rated movies coming out lately, it's reaching for that "hard R," or in this case a "hard M." It's in line with other Suda51 games, being unapologetically weird, with cursing and gorey fighting and has random uses of the words "dick" and "fuck" aplenty. Lollipop Chainsaw also contains one of my favorite mini games in which you drive a combine thru a field of zombies.

Leading up to the release of the game James Gunn (director of Dawn of the Dead and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy) was brought on and his addition helps to make a zombie masterpiece.
 
Graphically the game isn't out to win any awards, but it serves it's purpose. Their are several mediums used in the design of the game. Most of the game is done in a third person camera style, but has comic panels for level score and menus, as well as very flat 2-D transitions in levels that look a lot like moving paper similar to South Park but not crappy. Whenever a new character is introduced we are given a bio in comic book format, that gives us attributes and a list of "Likes" (things like badminton and shooting are clumped together with things like masturbation and wanting to meet Justin Bieber and then add his skull to the person's collection).

There do seem to be controversies around the game already about it being degrading, offensive, sexist, and weird. My argument to that is, "Isn't that what makes it fun?" Which is what it really breaks down to folks. The reason we play video games is to have fun. Why should we take a game like this seriously when it clearly doesn't take it's self seriously. Yes the game is short. There is replay value and not just for achievement hunters but for the great dialogue and all the many things that you miss the first time around.

In closing I do not believe in number scoring (because numbers are arbitrary), I will only recommend that you buy this game and love it for what it is. Always pay for the things you like so that the people making them can continue to do so.

Also, do yourself a favor and turn on the subtitles, you'll be glad you did.

Original Artwork by Devin Kraft

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

Weekend at Preppers: ZombiU Review

Being dissatisfied and disgruntled at the sub-par yet highly praised and completely overrated  Dishonored I decided a foray back to the Wii U was in order. I decided on ZombiU created by Ubisoft who has put out some of my favorite games, which normally get pretty decent reviews. ZombiU isn't one of those games. I was completely surprised by this as I had been following the game since E3 last year and even with a market saturated in zombie games (zombies are the new WWII of gaming) I was really stoked to play it. This was the fact so much so that I had decided that ZombiU would be a day one purchase along with the Wii U. However I started reading up on the game, as I try to do before purchasing any game, because while the responsibilities don't last as long I akin games to puppies and study a game as I would any breed before I give it a forever home I my collection,  and was amazed to see the game being blackballed by quite a few publications, e or otherwise, and was getting low scores.

ZombiU opens in a world already changed and ravaged by a virus that has infected a majority of the population and you play as a survivor against the odds. In the opening we are given an FMV that shows some of the disease's effetcson humanity both physically and psychologically. Your survivor is contacted by a voice that is coming thru speakers on a street and you see you are being watched by cameras as well. You're tasked with running to survive, this shows you some of the basics of movement and action buttons. Also, if you are slow to catch on, this shows another game mechanic, permanent death. Yes, in this survival horror game it is possible to not survive.

Assuming you live you're led, over intercom, to a safe house setup by the a man identifying himself as "Prepper." Prepper spent his past days prepping for the apocalypse following advise of a man named John Dee, who was an advisor to the queen who accurately predicted the zombie apocalypse. Prepper sets you up with a device he made called the "Prepper Pad." The Prepper Pad is a virtual stand in for the Wii U game pad. The pad shows you a map of your area, has a radar that you ping living/undead creatures to avoid zombie ass nibbles, and a scanner that you hold up to scan your area for item and infected as well. Also later the scanner is your scope for any weapons with a zoom.  The pad is essential to the game and survival, it solves riddles,  reveals hidden codes and gets updated throughout the story.

From here you become Prepper's lackey, but for the greater good of surviving. He send you to areas to gather supplies, ammo, weapons and food, and ultimately get saved. You're first mission is very basic and leads you to getting essentials for the game. You are tasked with finding the last guy Prepper tried to help who is stuck in a security window and has been zombified.  He had a handgun and a cricket bat as well as a backpack they have dubbed a B.O.B. or bug out bag that stores all the things you find to survive. This also serves to teach you how to defend yourself against zombies, which is to savagely beat them to death with a cricket bat, which comes with feelings of satisfaction as their heads pop in a bloody mess. Unfortunately, as you soon learn this is the only defenseless zombie that cannot hurt you.

The graphics do seem a bit dated, while still THIS generation,  there is some blocky textures. The colors are dulled hues, browns and grays, all but blood and explosions anyway, but who fucking cares?! It's a survival horror game the dull colors mask zombies, makes them harder to see,which serves the game well. There is tons of darkness and you have a sole rechargeable flash light that stands in the way of complete and utter blackness. You are alone, there is the voice that comes across the pad now and again of Prepper but the color and the environment really do help to help that feeling of desolation.

This game is a definite buy. It's been out just long enough that you shouldn't have to  pay the $60 price tag anymore. This game is for anyone who likes their games difficult, misses Resident Evil 1 or 2's feeling of horror, and fans of zombies. This game is completely and utterly,first and foremost, survival horror, it never forgets that so neither should you. 

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

Dishonored Review: Thar She BLOWS

I have been playing a lot of Wii U lately and remembered the stack of new games that ended up in a pile due to the yearly deluge of games in November. I had seen a lot of really great reviews for Dishonored and decided to throw it in the 360 and have the blast that was being promised by these reviews. I was immediately impressed by the beauty of the game and the wealth of colors. The art design is a bit cartoony but not to the level of say Borderlands. The game is billed as stealth FPS with a plethora of choices of how to accomplish your missions, but you only get rewarded for the low kill stealth approach.

Dishonored is quick to establish your role as a soldier/ personal guard to the queen named Corvo. You are in a sort of steampunk world that runs off of whale oil rather than steam (so whalepunk?) You are coming back from a secret mission that the amazingly rendered NPCs  tell you went well. You are brought before the queen and go through litany of dialogue which essentially breaks down to establish that Corvo likes the queen,  Corvo likes her daughter the princess, the queen and the princess both like Corvo a lot. This conversation is eventually broken up by an attack of ninja-esque assassins who kill the queen and kidnap the princess and knocking you semi unconscious, awake enough to hear that you are now being setup for the queens murder and the kidnapping. 

You wake up in a prison and have to break out. From here the game takes a huge dip and never really recovers. The prison and proceeding sewers are an extended tutorial, which teaches you how to kill and the basics of your weapons. All of which you are penalized for using through the rest of the game. When you eventually get out of the sewers a boatsman is waiting for you to paddle you to the resistance, a group of NPC quest givers that somehow know of the betrayal perpetrated against you and they want to help.

Everyone knows who Corvo is so they give you a creepy ass mask that is meant to hide your identity. This is all well and good but almost no one else in the game wears masks, so why do you not stand out from the crowd in the mask?  The mask is a mechanic that sets you up with features that are standard for an FPS game (scopes for zooming in for long shots) and you get super powers (more like ok powers that seemed borrowed from Jedi knight barring the lame rat command power) that help you along as well, this is where I feel the game falls apart. To earn abilities you have to spend runes that you find thought the game. A good deal of these are in areas where if you are going for the best "low chaos" ending that it's better to skip them. 

As a bit of an achievement hunter I found it really hard to get achievements as they all revolve around limits. Things like no kills after the tutorial level, or beating the game with only the ability upgrades that you get thru playing the story. The worst offender is to not be discovered. The reason I think it's bad is this is a FPS with no way to change the camera, so there is no way to exit a hallway or door and be 100% sure no one can see you. This game has a high frustration factor and there is no way to play in a way where you're not seen and have fun. Please don't get me wrong I love stealth games having a long love affair with Tenchu and Splinter Cell, but in those games I felt like the game was designed around stealth rather than having the stealth option thrust upon you in a world that was open and rife with people that really needed to be killed. I have seen other games that reward players for a kill free play through but I don't see how being limited is fun. For me the point of gaming is entertainment and escapism, this gets interrupted too often by achievements used as stretch goals rather than enhancing the fun. 

Ultimately I played the game I wanted to play and just killed as I went, slowed time and commanded rats. I had fun, still had to reset here and there, had to listen to and read odd stories about whale oil, but playing this way reduced the game down to between 10-20 even with collecting items. In fact I noticed once I stopped caring about being seen the missions are all quite short.

Honestly I don't feel this game is worth the still $60 price tag on it, maybe wait on it for a lower price or try to rent, it may be something you can beat in one sitting but definitely too short for the cash. In my honest opinion Assassin's Creed 3 is a way better use of your funds.

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

We did not NintendoLand, NintendoLand-ed on us

I have been gaming literally almost as long as I remember . I remember a Christmas morning waking up and finding a Fivel Mousekawits stuffed animal under the tree and then blank then my dad setting up an Atari in a thunderstorm. I don't have that cool memory of unwrapping the Nintendo that my parents got a few short years later. I do have a memory of my tiny hands plugging the wires into the wall behind what was loosely called an "entertainment center" which consisted of a blocky TV and a VCR that we used to tape movies off of basic cable. I sat mesmerized waiting for my brother's Mario to die so I could have my turn (4 years old and I was able to establish a complicated structure that most non-gamers will ever understand, called "You died, my turn")

I recently purchased the Wii U and let the waves of nostalgia wash over me like I was Dionysus and Link and Mario were wine. I had purchased the Deluxe set which has black finish and comes with a copy of NintendoLand. NintendoLand is a game that at first I had written off as filler, as I was really paying the extra $50 for the quadruple storage space and didn't care too much about whatever else came with it. I soon realized that this was folly. 

NintendoLand, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, is a mini-game collection loosely connected together with an overworld built as an amusement park. There are several different things minigames that are fun and have their own unique art style to them as well. The Legend of Zelda: Battlequest attraction was my instant favorite. The person with the gamepad plays as an archer and if you have others join you they play as swordsmen and you fight varying enemies all the while on a "rail" so forward moment is done for you. The art style of the attraction is that of a patchwork quilt, with different looking materials making up the backgrounds, enemies and clothing. It also seems that you are miniatures due to zippers that run along pathways that in scale are quite large.

The game itself was a blast but it caused something I never thought would ever happen, my wife who hasn't played a video game, under her own volition since Donkey Kong Country (1994) would play the game with me and ask to play! At one point I actually found her looking up strategies and looking for help on IGN. So for me this is the game that saved my marriage (only a slight exaggeration.) 

My second favorite is Balloon Trip Breeze, a game that has you glide along with balloons keeping you afloat, which in turn are kept up by wind, which you control by swiping the stylus on the gamepad. While this sounds complicated it is actually quite easy and takes seconds to learn. The difficulty comes in with obstacles that pop one of your balloons, that when they get to zero you fall and die. There is also the threat of instant death if you go to low and a giant fish pops out of the water below and eats you whole. There are other balloon travelers that are your enemies and you have to pop their balloons before they pop yours. The whole game is a single player affair, and actually does get quite difficult quite fast.   

All in all there are more games that are fun, either alone or with friends, than not. NintendoLand for me is a buy, either separately at $60 of sorta for free with the deluxe Wii U and certainly cheaper than having divorce papers drawn up. 

---

Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company.