PlayStation 4 Review: Doom

2004’s Doom 3 was a shooter that focused on survival, pitting the player against hordes of monsters in a progressive environment where opening fire isn’t always the best path to success. It’s a great game, but it’s not a Doom game. Classic Doom is about run-and-gun action, where one brutally clears a map of foes and triumphantly moves to the next area to repeat the process – armed now with cooler weapons and faced with demonic enemies that are harder to put down than the ones that came before. It’s simple fun, providing a constant adrenaline rush and non-stop carnage.

It’s this type of gameplay that has given the shooters from developer iD Software their identity, but recent releases seemed to signal the end of the formula. That is, until now.

Review: Mad Max

'Mad Max' used me up like a bloodbag and, much like the false promises of the warlords, Valhalla wasn't waiting when everything finally faded to black.

If you’re like me, an open-world game set in the universe of George Miller’s Mad Max has always been on your wishlist. It’s a setting ripe with possibilities for great gameplay: The Big Nothing, a barrier of sand, encapsulates an isolated enclave where the last remnants of humanity struggle to survive against the harsh elements of the post-apocalyptic landscape – including the maniacal warlords hellbent on conquest. We haven’t seen Max on a console since the NES, but finally his true sandbox title has arrived. And now that it’s here, I’m sad to report the experience feels devoid of life, but ironically not because it takes place in a desolate wasteland. There is fun to be had, and the game faithfully creates the look and feel of the movies; however, Mad Max falls short in capturing the depth and immersion that make its source materials beloved classics.

Xbox 360 Review: Alien: Isolation from Creative Assembly Delivers Genuine Scares

'Alien: Isolation' sets the foundation for what a proper game in the series should look like.

After last year's abysmal Aliens: Colonial Marines, the prospect of playing yet another title based on the famous film franchise filled me with dread. Thankfully, Alien: Isolation makes it clear out of the gate that this isn’t some action-based shooter that makes poor use of the license, but instead a tried-and-true homage to the original Ridley Scott classic, complete with a slick retro vibe and a gloomy, foreboding atmosphere that conjures the spirit of the timeless science fiction-horror masterpiece.

Fans who have been waiting to see Alien translated into a proper videogame finally have what they've they been looking for: A fun game that delivers the tense thrills and cheesy fun of the original movie. While not without its flaws and frustrations, Isolation's adherence to classic survival-horror mechanics and its dark cyberpunk setting make it a must-play for anyone craving some effective Xenomorph scares.

Movie Reivew: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Loosely based on the Chris Claremont comic arc of the same name, X-Men: Days of Future Past opens in a dark dystopian future, where a war with robotic soldiers -- called "sentinels" -- has left the mutant population devastated and helpless to fight back. On the run and fighting for their survival, the remaining mutants of the world have only one plan left: Send one of their own back in time, in hopes of stopping this bleak future from ever happening.

It’s an almost ironic plot, considering how truly horrible some of the X-Men film entries have been. Those who were hoping this outing would act as reboot for the dying franchise can rest easy: X-Men: Days of Future Past is not only the hands-down best film in the series, it may very well be the best comic book adaptation of all time.

Instant Reaction: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

I remember leaving the theatre after seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and I turned to my  

girlfriend at the time to ask her what she thought of the movie. She shrugged, and we continued our walk in silence, secretly reflecting on what we had just witnessed. After another minute of walking, the tension inside her boiled over and she let her feelings fly: “That movie is so beautiful that it makes me mad", she said, with genuine passion in her voice. "It’s so bad, but I’m so moved by it that I have to love it." She looked seriously distressed, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Tears were almost in her eyes as she recalled some of the film’s greatest moments; like the opening scene that sees a pirate boy hanged, or an astonishing ship battle in a whirlpool that left her in a state of awe. I share her sentiment completely; there’s so much to dislike about this film in terms of story, plot, and Johnny Depp antics. But when you focus on the score, the photography, and the truly fantastic special effects, it’s difficult not to lose yourself in the spectacle.

Once I was hooked in by the overwhelming quality of the score and visuals, I couldn’t help but love the characters and the witty dialogue. Further, once I began to let loose my rational inhibitions and let the film wash over me, the crazy antics, such as a marriage conducted during a sword fight, began to reveal their uniquely cinematic charm.

At World’s End strikes me on a purely visceral level and compels me to love it, even though the logical side of my brain can't stand it. And its successful in its mission, forcing me into its world despite my resistance. Even seven years after its release, I find myself still watching it and enjoying it. You could say it’s a guilty pleasure of mine, yet I feel no guilt nor shame for loving it. It’s a technical masterpiece, one that's truly awesome to be behold.

Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley

Movie Review: The LEGO Movie (2014)

 

My fear going into The LEGO Movie was that it would be an obvious 90 minute ad for the brand, sacrificing a chance to create a truly unique stop-animation feature. Strangely enough, my fears were partially realized. It is true that the movie is little more than a glorified advertisement, yet everything about it is so charmingly wonderful that I can’t help but love it, even if it’s trying to sell me a product. With incredible animation, a hilariously anarchic tone, and a surprisingly smart story, The LEGO Movie is a huge win. It intelligently blurs the line between art and commerce, forcing me to rethink the way I view advertising, which apparently can be a legitimate form of expression. This is the first great film of 2014, not to mention one of the best animated features in upwards of a decade.

Instant Reaction: Drive (2011)

Drive is one of those movies that is slow from start to finish, and it's proud of that stylistic choice. Despite its shallow, simple story about a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver and falls in love with his oblivious neighbor, the film delivers some genuine emotion, thanks to the effectively quiet romance between co-stars Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

But it’s more than just the acting that hooked me. When contrasted with the slow pacing and the moody soundtrack, the moments of abrupt graphic violence are so shocking that they carve a spot for themselves in your memory with little effort, culminating in an effective work of visual poetry. This is a movie that's all style -- and that's a compliment, because it works. My brain has trouble reconciling how a film like Drive can be so methodical, yet hit home on a purely visceral level. I can’t get it out of my head.

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, and Bryan Cranston

Xbox 360 Review: Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW

Adventure Time is one of the most creative, ingenious, and completely awesome cartoons to ever grace television. Considering that, it may come as a shock to hear that this video game adaptation, Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW, is anything but. All of the charm and crazy, random humor from the cartoon is absent, and instead gamers are delivered a repetitive, boring dungeon crawler with so little charm that you wonder if the title was meant to be ironic. Why the hell does this game have me exploring dungeon after dungeon, completing inane quests and doing the same thing over and over again? Honestly, I don’t know.

PlayStation 3 Review: Beyond Two Souls

When the game is hitting all the right notes, "Beyond Two Souls" is wonderfully imperfect and will leave you mesmerized by its quality animation, beautiful soundtrack, and unique twist on the coming-of-age drama. 

If I had written this review a third of the way into Quantic Dream’s Beyond Two Souls, I would have poured my emotion onto the page, urging everyone to play it immediately or risk missing out on one of the most moving works of art to grace this console generation. Regrettably, my positive reaction has cooled some after finishing the game, which turned out to have a serious identity problem long before its final act. At some point Beyond Two Souls, which is at times a wonderful, human story full of great characters, falls into a mess of Hollywood pulp and convention, desperately trying to make sense of its own unnecessarily complex narrative. And for a game like this, which functions as more of an interactive movie than a traditional video game, a story and characters means everything.

PlayStation 3 Review: The Last of Us

The opening scene of The Last of Us drew me in immediately. Playing as a young girl, I felt terror when I woke up alone, exploring a dark house, calling out to my father and getting no response. The newspaper on the sink talked about a new virus spreading quickly, the symptoms of which seemed to be aggression and violent tendencies. It was then that I heard a noise downstairs. If I wanted to progress, I had to go investigate. Pushing the stick forward, I felt like I was walking to my own doom.

The opening grabs you tight and doesn’t let go, but somehow the game manages to become even more compelling as it progresses. Despite a narrative that, on the surface, appears to be riddled with horror clichés, somehow The Last of Us manages to dodge your expectations unceremoniously, becoming more brutal and depressing with every moment that passes by.

The story in The Last of Us works because the characters work. The Last of Us is – for lack of a better term – a character drama, in the same vein as The Walking Dead or Stephen King’s The Mist. Yes, it’s a generic horror setting. But it works because the characters feel so deep, raw, and real. Joel, Ellie, and the supporting cast are as interesting as any characters you’ll find on television, and the superb voice acting is largely to thank for that.

Xbox 360 Review: Fast & Furious: Showdown

Fast and Furious: Showdown begins with you driving a car through a lifeless city, smashing into every other vehicle you see without any repercussions whatsoever. When the cops show up, you begin flipping them with your … car-flipper device, all the while continuing to race through city streets that feel increasingly confining. At some arbitrary point, the screen will display the phrase “Busted,” meaning you have failed your mission. Now confusion sets in. What the hell did you do wrong?

I was able to complete the mission on my second try (without making any changes), and then I was rewarded with some horrendous cinematics featuring talent-less D-list actors, all doing their best to mimic the character’s from the movie, with absolutely no success. It is then that things just continued to spiral downhill without ever letting up, and I began to realize that playing this game was a terrible mistake.

Wii Review - The Croods: Prehistoric Party!

Imagine you’re a developer who has just been tasked with turning a kid’s movie into a video game. You don’t have a whole lot of budget to work with, and you’re likely on some crazy time constraint to get the game finished in time for the film’s release. This is undoubtedly a daunting task; so I never go into a game like The Croods: Prehistoric Party! expecting something brilliant.

But if I could sit down with all the developers of these Wii titles based on animated films, I’d have one question to ask them: Why the hell does it always have to be a mini-game collection?

Ice Age, Madagascar, Toy Story — just to name a few – have all been morphed into mini-game collections, and none of them are particularly good. I will give The Croods some credit for at least attempting to clone one of the greatest mini-game titles of all time, Mario Party – though the end result has substantially less variety and depth.

The Croods distributes its various mini-games in a board game format, similar to what we have seen in the popular Nintendo title. The only difference is that Prehistoric Party! is embarrassingly slow, looks terrible, and doesn’t even scratch the surface of attempting to be creative.

A typical playthrough begins by you walking across a barren landscape that is supposed to act as some sort of menu. The world turns into a board game after you aimlessly move to some arbitrary point, with other locations serving as galleries for in-game content. From there you and your friends will select a Crood, and begin very slowly rolling dice, watching the cube bounce awkwardly off the environment until, finally, your character moves the appropriate amount of spaces – after making some funny quip about their roll, of course.

Xbox 360 Review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

After the final boss lay dead before my feet, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that no videogame has ever given me before. My hands were gripping the controller so tight that there was actually some pain in my fingers – a reminder of the well-timed parries and attacks that made my time with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance a success. 

This is not the stealth-action game that fans of the series are used to. Instead, Rising is a fast-paced, sword-slashing actioner from beginning to end, one that is more of a parody of the Metal Gear franchise than a legitimate entry. Yet, as one of the biggest fans of Metal Gear on the planet, I absolutely loved it.

Nintendo Wii Review: Wreck-It Ralph

A word of warning before you play Wreck-It Ralph for the Nintendo Wii: If you haven’t seen the movie yet, stay away from this game, because the film’s ending will be blown for you in the opening segment. However, if you have seen the Disney movie, stay even further away from this videogame version of Wreck-It Ralph, because it’ll taint your pleasant opinion of the characters forever. It’s obvious that this was intended to be little more than a quick cash-in, since the entire game will take you under two hours to finish – and that may be the only good thing about it.

For the most part, Wreck-it Ralph can be defined as a platformer, with a little bit of action mixed in for seemingly no reason. Had we been given a simple clone of some classic game in the genre, that would have been a much better idea. Going in, I expected this to be the Wreck-It Ralph game featured in the movie. Instead what we get to play is strange and lacks any discernible focus whatsoever.

XBLA Review: Double Dragon Neon

I was excited to finally get my hands on Double Dragon Neon, a game that I thought would bring back great memories from the old days of my youth. However, after playing Neon for only a few minutes, I realized that those memories may not have been as great as I thought. Double Dragon Neon isn’t a bad brawler game. But, I will suggest the brawler genre as a whole that needs some serious reimagining.

A couple months ago a friend and I sat down to play Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis Collection. I remembered really enjoying the game as a kid, but this time I wasn’t having any fun while playing. For me, Streets of Rage simply didn’t withstand the test of time.

Brawler videogames come out of an era when you would do much of your gaming in arcades, feeding quarters into a machine with some friends. The ability to play on the same screen with a buddy, working together to conquer mutual enemies, was much of the appeal of the brawler genre. Fast forward to present day, and none of that is really all that appealing -- we’re used to it.

So, what else does the Neon offer besides multiplayer functionality? Well, not much. You roam around a small game area, punching enemies in the face, and occasionally there will be a terrain hazard or new foe to change up the action.

Nintendo Wii Review: Ice Age: Continental Drift - Arctic Games

After only one hour of playing Ice Age: Continental Drift – Arctic Games for the Nintendo Wii, I was confident that I had experienced enough of the game to write this review. Before you accuse me of being the laziest critic in history, I’d like to present an important piece of evidence in my defense: Arctic Games contains only 10 mini-games, and each of them will take you only a couple of minutes to play. The result is a completely forgettable experience with so little content that it’s not even worth a rental, let alone a purchase.

Yes, these 10 mini-games come packaged in three different flavors: Story Mode, Tournament, and Free Play. Sadly, each mode is essentially the same. All three game modes contain the exact same mini-games, with the only change being how you gain access to them.

Xbox 360 Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

If you haven’t seen the Amazing Spider-Man movie yet, you should see it before you play this game. I promise to keep this review as spoiler free as possible; however, The Amazing Spider-Man videogame serves as a sequel of sorts to the film, taking place right where the movie left off.

Oscorp Labs has been busy using Dr. Connors’ research to create human and animal hybrids. When the beasts escape from the lab, Spider-Man breaks the former Lizard from his cell, and the two begin working to undo the evil deeds of Oscorp -- before all of Manhattan becomes overrun with creatures.

The story here isn’t necessarily great, but having an original story is a nice change from the typical movie tie-in game, which usually just presents some half-assed version of the film’s narrative. The Amazing Spider-Man is also different from your typical movie tie-in game because, to my surprise, it’s actually pretty good. It may not be the best game you’ll play in the action genre, but it’s certainly fun enough to be worth your valuable time. 

Movie Review: Men in Black 3 (2012)

When I arrived at the theater to see Men in Black 3, memories of the first film were at the forefront of my mind. However, I can't remember much about the second film at all. Where the first movie was a clever mix of action and comedy, the second film was just a collection of silly moments, none of which are funny enough to be very memorable.

I'm sad to say that the third film is no different. Men in Black 3 seems like one outrageous moment after another, connected by a story that is less than interesting.

A space villain, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), has broken out of prison and seeks vengeance against his arresting officer, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Boris travels back in time and kills a younger Agent K (Josh Brolin), which dooms all of mankind to a destruction by alien warships.

If you're confused, I apologize. I'm doing my very best to describe the plot as accurately as possible.

Will Smith reprises his role as Agent J, who also travels back in time to thwart Boris' plan. This whole time travel gimmick seems like a decent way to write Tommy Lee Jones out of the movie, since most of the film will feature Will Smith partnered up with Josh Brolin. It's rather strange to see Jones receive top billing; his screen time is quite limited.

Why Changing the Mass Effect 3 Ending Would Be Bad for Video Games

"With its compelling cinematic setting, the Mass Effect series stands as an example of how video games can be great works of art. Changing the ending only reinforces the beliefs of video game naysayers, who insist that games are nothing more than mindless entertainment." 

I'll start by speaking frankly: video games are not respected as an art medium. There's no doubt that gaming is on the rise; sales continue to break records year after year. Yet, video games still aren't getting the same recognition from the mainstream as other forms of media entertainment.

I use the word "entertainment" because I think that's how video games are viewed by a lot of people, particularly the older generations. Still, I don't think that gamers can solely blame crotchety old folks for being closed-minded to the medium. It's up to gamers of all ages to prove to non-believers that video games have evolved since the arcade era and are no longer just mindless distractions.

For every game that is made just for fun, there is another game that focuses on creative art direction. For every game with no story, there's another with a compelling narrative, filled with rich characters and themes. Video games are just as much of an art medium as film, music, and literature -- we just have to prove it. The first way to accomplish this is for the gamers themselves to treat video games as art, and not just view them as a commercial product. Yes, I think video game consumers share a huge chunk of the blame.

Recently a petition addressed to BioWare arrived in my inbox. The petition called for a new ending to Mass Effect 3, citing outrage over the game's actual ending. While I wasn't completely satisfied with the Mass Effect 3 ending, I didn't for a second consider signing such an asinine petition.