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Saturday 20 August 2011

Game of Thrones - Series 1 Review


I'm not normally into this sort of thing, but there's been so much buzz about this show around the internet, I had to give it a watch.

To be as brief as possible, Game of Thrones is a 10 episode series based on the first in a series of books by George R. R. Martin, and as the title suggests, it's about the political plotting and head-severing vilolence involved in winning the throne of Westeros from the grasp of competing houses. I haven't read the books, but the majority of this first series is rooted in a real-world sort of fantasy, reminiscent of our own medieval ages, with only glimmers of high-fantasy shining through. I have reason to believe this might change significantly for season 2, as a number of our fantasy genre expectations will be more fully addressed.

So what did I think of it? Well, it's great, if a bit slow moving for a first season, but no doubt this is due to loyalty to the source material. The entire series plays out like an extended introduction to the events that will follow in season 2 (an adaptation of the second book), so tension building, political plotting, character development and story setup is the main emphasis here. Don't expect any huge battles this time around.
As someone who hasn't read the books, I found there was enough information for me to quickly pick up on who was who, and what was going on without it being overtly thrust in my face. I've no doubt though, that for readers of the books, this is Game of Thrones Lite with simplified characters and significantly less depth.
It genuinely took me by surprise on a number of occasions aswell, as the narrative moved in a completely different direction than expected. This was nice and one of the most notable things about this series for me, and also a true reason I'm glad I hadn't read the book first.
It's also very obvious this is a HBO series, coming from the same producers as TV's Rome. The violence is quite strong in places, and the creators certainly aren't shy of sex and nudity. It earns its 18 rating well, and it gets bonus points for being a TV show geared for adults, and not pandering to the lucrative teen market.




Game of Thrones is well worth watching, and I know this because I'm now considering reading the books myself before the second season arrives. A true fantasy epic suited well to the episodic TV format, the series is a good start to something that could be even greater with further developments in season 2, and a higher budget with which to bring the fantasy world to life.

A Game of Thrones prequel real time strategy game, based on the books, is on its way for PC also, which I might just pick up on release. Well done Game of Thrones for managing to kick off a big fantasy franchise that isn't in any way related to Lord of the Rings.


A Game of Thrones: Genesis on PC

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Retrospective - Call of Duty

This multiplayer map was copied almost identically from the real-life location of Carentan, Normandy. That's dedication.

Back in the day, when the Call of Duty franchise was based on the Quake 3 engine, there were no perks or weapon modifications, no ridiculous far fetched Russian world invasions, no online ranking or prestiges, and the series was most definitely rooted in the meticulously recreated reality of World War 2. No matter how addictive or widely selling the current Modern Warfare entries of the franchise are, I miss World War 2. I miss having a bash at taking down the Third Reich single handedly, and the gritty atmosphere of a digitally-rendered occupied Europe.


MOH: Allied Assault - defining the genre
Sometime during the creation of blockbuster movie Saving Private Ryan (1998), Steven Spielberg decided the Second World War would make a pretty cool video game, and if kids were going to be playing games and shooting at things, they should be learning something aswell. His concept was for an action game based on the war with the Nazis, and he set about directing and producing the first Medal of Honor (we English spell it Honour btw) with his own company Dreamworks Interactive. The game was a huge hit on the original Playstation and spawned numerous sequels, including Medal of Honor: Underground, which follows the movements of resistance operatives fighting the Germans in occupied Europe, and the particularly successful PC based Medal of Honor: Allied Assault by game developer 2015, which closely mirrors entire sequences from the aforementioned Spielberg movie. Still under the guidance of Spielberg, it featured groundbreaking gameplay which allowed the player to storm the beaches of Normandy, and became the template for every WW2 shooter to follow.


Call of Duty - clearly using the Allied Assault template
While the Medal of Honor series branched out further, spawning titles for various platforms and delving into the Pacific conflicts, members of the Allied Assault development team at 2015 went on to establish the Infinity Ward studio. Their objective was to continue developing their previous concepts under the Call of Duty name, in an environment where they would have more creative freedom.

The first Call of Duty game from Infinity Ward, released in 2003, plays like a very refined and more realistic version of Allied Assault. It deservedly won numerous Game of the Year awards, and made quite an impact on me as a gamer. I'd been a massive fan of Allied Assault, and to find Call of Duty had improved on such a flawlessly entertaining game was mindblowing. It doesn't matter how many COD or MOH games I've played since, I just can't forget some of the incredibly convincing and atmospheric moments in that game. And as I watch the evolution of the Call of Duty franchise - from the graphically superior but mostly underwhelming sequel Call of Duty 2, to the Zombie Survival modes and Michael Bay-like destruction in Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 - I wonder what Mr. Spielberg thinks of the latest iterations of the gaming series he helped create back in the late 90s?

Pegasus Bridge - the finest level of the single player campaign
Maybe I'm overly nostalgic, but I genuinely think Call of Duty is the best game in the series, and superior to anything else in the genre. The game features a campaign that flows effortlessly from start to finish. It's one of the only games I've restarted immediately after completion and gone for a second consecutive playthrough - the number of times I've played through the campaign far exceeds any other game.

The multiplayer features the best range of maps the series has ever seen - particular highlights being the wide open hedgerows and fields of Bocage, the trenches and open country of Brecourt, and the narrow town streets of Carentan. The maps are wide open and so well designed, that the developer seems to reskin and revisit atleast one of these maps with every subsequent Call of Duty game.

The game atmosphere is pitch perfect, capturing the unique feel established in Allied Assault and refining it to perfection. Music by Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Super 8) is possibly the best written for a video game, being every bit as good as the music heard in any Hollywood production. The music underscores the key moments of the game for full dramatic impact, rather than take a redundant ambient role which would have been the more obvious and less exciting route for a composer to take on a game like this. Dynamic and high-profile scores from composers such as Joel Goldsmith, Graeme Revell, Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer have since become a staple of the Call of Duty franchise.

Call of Duty was created back in a time when Infinity Ward was free to make whichever game it wanted to, and as a newly formed company they really had something to prove to the gaming community. They were trying to make the definitive WW2 action game, and the first time round they succeeded. While Gray Matter Studios handled the United Offensive add-on (the last time Call of Duty saw a full expansion pack if I remember), Infinity Ward worked on Call of Duty 2, in which we received a nice new graphics engine developed in-house by IW. The visuals were a huge upgrade from the first game, but there was just something missing from this installment in terms of the feel of the overall package. Notably, the best maps in the multiplayer here were the re-textured ones from the first Call of Duty.

With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, IW delivered the goods again with a modern era campaign that felt convincingly real, but didn't resort to the action movie cliches that would later blight the series. The game here uses an even more advanced Infinity Ward Proprietary Engine that made the series look better than ever. I enjoy COD4 immensely, and would happily rate it as a close contender for best Call of Duty game, but regardless of how highly many other people rate it, I still prefer the ironsights and bayonets of the classic Call of Duty to the laser targeting and chopper strikes of the newer games.


Call of Duty 4 - the sniper level
Call of Duty1 and 4 have something in common - they're rooted in reality. They both strive to achieve a convincing approach to their depiction of warfare, and this feel of authenticity adds to the gameplay experience in spades. Anything beyond Call of Duty 4 brings far fetched ideas such as Russians (most overused modern era villains) trying to take over the world (again), resulting in American forces fighting them off in downtown burger bars and on the front lawn of the ruined White House. I couldn't stomach this, and the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 looks about as over the top and fantastical as a real-world shooter can get, responding to the demands of the competition by trying to make each subsequent game bigger and more explosive.

It seems that these days, Infinity Ward is merely part of the Activion money-machine which involves routinely releasing a new Call of Duty game every year, juggling the load between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. The newest entries in the COD series feel manufactured and created out of contractual obligation, wheras the original Call of Duty feels like a game with some real heart behind it.

There was a point when the games market was so overcrowded with World War era shooters that gamers everywhere cried out for something new, and they got the Modern Warfare games, modern era Battlefield games and the Medal of Honor reboot (developed by Danger Close, a reformed division of Spielberg's Dreamworks Interactive). Now it feels like the same is happening all over again, and I'm genuinely getting tired of the hi-tech contemporary action games that are flooding the market as every developer takes a crack at being the best. Right now, I'd really quite like to see somebody go back to basics and make a WW2 shooter that ups the ante again, and does it better and more convincingly than ever before.

Modern Warfare 3 - Michael Bay would be proud
In late 2010, Activision fired key members of Infinity Ward for apparent 'insubordination,' and as a result 46 members of the key development team upped and left for undisclosed reasons, all but disbanding the company that had been designing our favourite military shooter for 7 years. This has caused Activision to contract developer Sledgehammer Games to co-develop Modern Warfare 3 alongside the remainder of the Infinity Ward team. For this reason, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the Call of Duty franchise. The key ingredients which made it so successful are slowly being watered down to a rag-tag Activision team, and the not so talented Treyarch.
As far as I'm concered, Infinity Ward is no longer the games developer it used to be, but merely a name printed on the cover of a game to help Activision convince us to buy it.

For anyone who hasn't played the game before, the original Call of Duty is highly recommended and is also available to download from the Xbox Live Arcade. For those fixated on cutting edge graphics, perks, weapon attachments and killstreaks, the game may seem primitive in comparison to what's available now. For me, Call of Duty is the definitive title in the history of WW2 action games, and a striking effort from a group of developers who had been working to perfect the formula for many years. It's a classic bit of gaming which is in many ways superior to the subsequent efforts in the genre.




Music from the Pegaus Bridge level by Michael Giacchino - the most memorable section
of the game and possibly one of my all time favourite gaming moments.


Interestingly, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX developer Z-Axis was working on a Call of Duty game between 2007 - 2009 when it was cancelled by Activision. Call of Duty: Devils Brigade would have been set entirely in Italy during World War 2, and would have been Call of Duty 4 had Activision seen the project through to completion. By this point though, the World War 2 setting had become overused and stale due to such an overabundance of WW2 games on the market, so Activision returned to Infinity Ward and decided to move the game setting to present day. Below are screenshots of the Devils Brigade in development.





Friday 12 August 2011

Most Wanted List

I never pretend to be one of these 'professional' type gamers who spend most of their waking hours immersed in some virtual world somewhere. I am purely the hobbyist, spending a few hours on the weekend getting my kicks by shooting some 12 year olds on Battlefield or causing wanton free-roaming destruction. But like anyone remotely interested in gaming, I have a checklist of all the upcoming titles I want to play, and here it is.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
I can honestly say I never finished the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. From what I've heard, it was one of the longest offline RPGs to play through, and take the add-on content into account and I would probably still be struggling to see the light of day if i'd persevered. But here comes Skyrim, and despite the knowledge that I'll have to fully sacrifice my social life for even the slimmest chance of seeing this new game through to completion, I'm still going to buy it. Stunning updated open-world graphics, lots of ideas carried across from the successful Fallout 3 (which is Bethesda's best game) improved dual wielding combat, more immersive dialogue sections and free-roaming dragons. What's not to like?

 

Aliens Colonial Marines
This game has been delayed almost as long as Duke Nukem Forever (also published by Gearbox) and look how badly that turned out. Although I'm not holding out much hope for this game actually delivering the goods, it's still on my most anticipated list. Touted as the 'true' sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, and bringing back all the things we loved so much about that film - like pulse rifles, drop ships, hard-ass marines and lots and lots of blue tinted lighting - this game will be a nostalgic and terrifying trip. If it's not crap.



Battlefield 3
Battlefield Bad Comany 2 has occupied the majority of my casual gaming time for the last year. And that's right, I havn't been playing Call of Duty. Infact, Call of Duty is nowhere to be seen on this list at all. Strange you say? In my personal opinion, Call of Duty was one of the finest shooter franchises out there, but now it's become uninspired and formulaic, and the campaigns are ripping off Michael Bay movies, which is a very low level of creativity in anyone's eyes. The upcoming Battlefield 3 has a shiny new graphics and destruction engine, and it gets my vote purely because this franchise is still trying to perfect the modern military shooter and is pushing itself in new directions and not rehashing the exact same game structure to cash in on the naivety of the masses.









Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect (1) was a brilliant concept well executed, but it was still far more linear than it needed to be. It also suffered from a number of sections that caused my Xbox 360 to drop to about 5 frames per second (buggy parts of game coding i guess) and failed to sustain my attention long enough to see it through to completion. So I waited a year before picking up the sequel, and regretted the delay immediately. ME2 is everything I wanted the first game to be - epic narrative, free roaming space RPG, improved shooter controls and dialogue - and most importantly, the game depicts an original sci-fi universe that stands wholly on its own this time round.



Batman: Arkham City
Arkham Asylum was clearly the best Batman game ever to hit the market, and I admire it for following its own interpretation of the material rather than pursue the movie rights. It was a bit like Assassin's Creed, a bit like Splinter Cell, and a bit like the much loved saturday morning cartoon, with Mark Hamill returning to ham it up as the Joker. This time we're off the narrow confines of the Asylum, and in full free-roam mode in Gotham City.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Although the preview videos and trailers for this have done nothing to convince me it will be the blockbuster they say it will be, it's still on my list purely for being a sci-fi cyberpunk 'Bladerunner' type action game. And being a sequel to Deus Ex certainly does help. If all fails, I'll find it in the bargain bin in 6 months and make my own judgments.

Gears of War 3
Although Gears 2 hasn't entered my Xbox in over a year, this game will be a definite purchase. What other console title has local split-screen campaign, horde, and deathmatch to play at a party? (I mean a real party, where real people come to your house and talk to other real people). On that note, the lack of local co-op multiplayer games on console is infuriating. They must forget we like to share the sofa sometimes.

Dead Island
With any luck this will be everything Left 4 Dead should have been - co-op zombie slaying on an open world island with vehicles, weapons which consist of anything and everything, and nice visuals. The screenshot below isn't from a cutscene. It's an ingame screenshot, and it looks great.


Far Cry 3
Maybe I should save myself the pain and stop hoping this will be any good? But it's returning to the jungle, and the jungle is where this franchise belongs.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Super 8 - Review

I'd waited so long for this film to come out in the UK, I'd almost forgotten about it until tonight. I've avoided just about every bit of spoilerish material on this one in an attempt to go into a film for once with very little idea of what I'm about to see. And man, was it worth it.

Super 8 is such an amazing mashup of ideas and themes from 80s sci-fi adventure movies and youth oriented films like Stand By Me, E.T and Close Encounters. But never once is it overtly plaguristic. There is definitely an original vision here - albeit a very nostalgic one. I've glimpsed other reviews stating that the film was disappointing when compared to the films of Spielberg in his prime, but honestly, I couldn't really say much negative about this film at all. I also think it's unfair to compare this so lazily to Spielberg movies, as this is definitely something new, but clearly delivered by a filmmaker who is as fond of those 80s movies as I am.

The story wasn't exactly ingenius, but it was driven by a bunch of genuine characters that took the focus away from technicalities and let us enjoy a truly character driven film. The banter and sweary dialogue between them was very realistic, as was the humour. I don't think i've seen a buddy movie this well written for a very long time. It makes me wonder if it's movies of the 80s we've been missing from our screens so badly, or purely movies of this quality that have been absent from our cinemas for so long.

Effects were almost flawless, but were hardly the centrepiece of this one. There were a few real eye opening moments in there, and a good balance of CG and practical effects that kept the visuals from being distracting, which is how it should be.

The music was another success from Giacchino, writing a score that complimented but didn't overwhelm the film. It was memorable music for certain, but not overtly in your face. Sure, this is no John Williams score, but as i've pointed out, anyone going in expecting that should go and rent a Spielberg movie.

I could really write so much here. Super 8 pushed all the right buttons for me. This will be a definite Bluray purchase, and I'm adding it to my list of top movies (see the blog navigation bar) as we speak. I know this film won't please everyone, but when the credits rolled, I knew immediately I'd found the movie i'd been looking for since...well, the 80s, and it'll take something genuinely impressive to beat it this year.

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger - Review


I've always thought Captain America could make a pretty awesome movie. Something about a comic book character who fights for justice, but does it by bashing Nazis over the head with a big shield that doubles as a massive frisbee. Cool concept, and like I'd hoped, the Nazi bashing in this film was thoroughly enjoyable to watch and brought back that 'raiders' feeling I got so many years ago watching Harrison Ford plug evil nazis in the face. This aspect of the film was great fun, as was the casting of Chris Evans as the Cap' and Tommy Lee Jones in a role perfectly tailored for him. Hugo Weaving as Red Skull was pretty cool, even if his accent was a bit dodgy most of the time.

The computer effects on this one were a mixed bag. The effects used to join Chris Evans' face onto a scrawny body were achieved seamlessly, yet the action sequences looked too 'cut and paste' for my liking, where it was too obvious when digital characters had been added to scenes.

There were far too many hammy moments in this for me to genuinely say I thought it was a great film. Too much family-friendly romancing with the predictable and convenient love interest played by Hayley Atwell.
Maybe it wasn't awkward, but just implausible. One minute Steve Rogers meets military agent lady, next minute he's carrying round a picture of her into battle. He's supposed to be 'ard, he's Captain America, yet he comes across as falling for the first woman he sees. Just didn't feel right, especially crammed into the tight timeframe.

When I think about it, I put this down to the generally shallow characterisation throughout the film. None of the characters were particularly well developed, so when they went about dramatic actions in the story, you couldn't really empathise with them or understand their motivations. The script itself may be to blame, or the uninspired direction of Joe 'Jurassic Park 3' Johnston, but all in all I had a hard time feeling anything much for any of the characters, and when the action kicked off, my excitement levels dipped before they reached anything substantial - primarily because the characters were too 'cardboard cutout' to care much about.
But hey, this is a Marvel film, and perhaps Batman Begins and the Dark Knight have spoiled me too much by causing me to expect some real character development in a comic book movie.

But to be fair, if someone said to me name the best aspect of the film, I'd say the ending was nicely set up and moved the character into modern times in a natural and fitting way. I know i said I disliked the love interest sidestory, and it was cringeworthy, but it did set up the ending nicely. The film didn't have the cheesy gung-ho ending I was expecting it to have, but instead a rather down-beat ending that put a refreshing spin on the whole thing, and that was a nice surprise. It heightened my opinion of the film right at the end.

Captain America wasn't as awesome as the movie I was hoping to see, but it was still enjoyable as a non-too-serious adventure flick, and the ending did leave me looking forward to Joss Whedon's 'The Avengers,' so it served its purpose well.

Monday 1 August 2011

3D Cinema



This won't be an article where I attempt to criticise the incorrect use of 3D in movies, or how it's damaging the artistic process of film-making. Instead this will be my own perspective on the current 3D craze, and how I feel about the technology.

To be honest I can't directly criticise the effectiveness of 3D, simply because I can't see 3D at all. When I went to the first overhyped and mass marketed 3D film, Avatar, I sat there with my big stereoscopic glasses on and waited for something to jump out at me. Nothing. It was like watching a movie wearing heavy sunglasses, and absolutely no 3D.

I was curious as to whether it was a unique problem, so I began asking opticians and browsing the Internet for further information. It seems that in America alone, nearly 15% of their total population can't see 3D correctly, and a substantial number of those people can't see the 3D images at all. And you don't even need to have a previous history of eye problems to miss out on the experience of 3D.
It's down to something called binocular vision, where the brain can only process the image from one eye at a time, therefore unable to join the dual images from both eyes together to form the 3D image. It's the same as those eye puzzles you get in books sometimes, where you stare at the image long enough and you see a teacup (or something) form out of the two images. I can't see those either, as the principle is exactly the same as 3D.
Apparently, hundreds of people with no history of eye problems are discovering this condition now after failing to correctly see a 3D film. So why does hardly anyone know about this? Well the answer is simple. That 15% of US population represents the minority, and as long as the film distributors can convince the majority of viewers to invest in a more expensive 3D ticket, they don't really care.

As this condition can not be remedied, I wonder how many other people out there suffer from a simultaneous love of film and lack of 3D vision, who are also wondering if the future of cinema and home entertainment will cater for them aswell as everyone else.

Personally, I think 3D will die out once the next big technical revolution comes along in film. 3D rears its head whenever the film industry is trying to boost ticket sales and prices to compete with piracy and home markets. I genuinely hope it dies out, because for me, it's a huge change in the way entertainment is perceived that I can't experience, and I can only hope that it's just a fad that finds its niche market, and doesn't ignore us 2D viewers and leave us by the wayside.