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Y2kk Update: - BioWare's / Microsoft's Jade Empire Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

... but despite how much I enjoyed Jade Empire in the end? I still walked away disappointed with a clenched fist when it was all said and done...

I mean, as a Canadian Chinese nerd, I'm always looking forward to video games that actually do my Chinese culture and heritage proud... Now, I may not even know my own country's history very well. But I do know what our people are like... And Shenmue II for the Dreamcast/Xbox really gave me hope that finally, maybe finally, Chinese culture could be fully represented in a video game without all that Chinese-wannabe crap found in movies like The Matrix and ridiculous shows like Firefly...

... I had high hopes for Jade Empire... and then I realized, the game was goddam made by Chinese-wannabes at BioWare...

I mean seriously! It's like those assholes just looked up a bunch of shit on the internet, watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Shit a dozen or so times, and shopped at fucking Hongcouver for a day or so as their Chinese research for this game... The atmosphere was just plain wrong in Jade Empire. I mean, for one thing, cities like the Imperial City were dangerously underpopulated!.. And they didn't even get the look of Chinese people right! Sure, they got our squinty, bad driving eyes in there alright, but the rest of the faces just paled in comparison to even how damn exact they looked in games like Shenmue II. It's like the idiots at BioWare couldn't tell the difference between a Chinese and Japanese bitch, or some crap like that. And any Chinese wannabe who spends a day at Hongcouver should've been able to figure that out...

There's lots of things that I think BioWare got wrong in their pathetic attempt at creating a genuine Chinese world... For one thing, except for all the ghosts (or even including the ghosts), all the enemies in this game seem like they were ripped right out of D20 Dungeons and Dragons books, and then given a semi-fresh coat of paint to somewhat resemble Chinese legends... Something just seemed wrong with the designs of the Elephant, Bull, and even the lowly Rat demons, and it's hard to place exactly how. It just seemed far too Westernized for me... And all the weird technological things that BioWare latched and leeched onto Chinese culture just felt off somehow as well. The DragonFly looked more like something Leonardo Da Vinci or the Renaissance would invent, and the flying Imperial Palace seemed ripped right out of BioWare's own Knights of the Old Republic game...

Hell, most of Jade Empire seemed somehow ripped right out of the company's first Star Wars RPG for the Xbox, actually...

It's ironic really, coming from the makers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic that is... Probably the biggest reason why the Chinese atmosphere felt just plain wrong in Jade Empire, was because of the horrible script and voice acting... While Knights of the Old Republic had some of the finest voice acting and dialogue I've ever witnessed in a game before (with Bastilla still being on the top of the list of hottest video game accents of all time...), Jade Empire had absolutely zero Chinese accents, and had absolutely zero Chinese authenticity in the script... I mean first of all, why the fuck did BioWare actually invent a fake Chinese language for the game? Even worse, without any Chinese accents whatsoever, the Tho Fan language sounded more like one out of Star Wars than anything I've ever heard from Asia... And really, BioWare just couldn't get past their Star Wars and D20 fanboyisms, could they? Their hokey dialogue about "open palm" and "closed fist" philosophies, tries to sound Chinese with all its comments about respect and loyalty. But just somehow, the way they worded it made it sound more like Native Americans talking about their past in Sonic the Hedgehog casinos or some crap like that...

... or hell's bells, even something as cheesy as the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi script...

... and yet that's what the Chinese atmosphere in Jade Empire really reminded me off... licking fucking balls...

And hell's bells, you couldn't even buy fucking bull balls for candy and food in the markets in this game!..

Jade Empire disappointed as a Cultural Revolution for Chinese gaming... and in a lot of other ways as well, which I'll get into later...

But one thing's for sure: Jade Empire is definitely still an addicting and fun RPG... even if it pales in the darkness of the Shadow of the Empire, that is...

In Knights of the Old Republic, I loved the combat due to the geek factor of light sabre battles. But thanks to all the D20 rules, if it wasn't for all the shiny laser lights, game combat would've really felt like a chore back then...

Jade Empire tried to fix this, and for the most part, they made the combat fun. With so many different styles of fighting to choose from, Harmonic Combos are just kick ass and amazingly fun to pull off... The arena battles in the Imperial Arena were definitely my favourite (aside from the god-awful loading times, that is), especially when characters like The Ravager would keep pissing me off by healing themselves with chi whenever he got a free second or two... Possibly the only enemies that I didn't enjoy fighting were Lost Spirits, thanks to their goddam annoying projectiles. But for every other character? It was just so goddam addicting to jump like a loon, take my Fortune's Favourite Long Sword, and slice their Imperial bastard heads clean off...

But alas, the combat in Jade Empire was far from perfect... It was fun, yes. But so damn shallow in the end... I mean literally, every single battle in the game can be beaten by just jumping behind the enemy, slicing them three times with the sword, then jumping again, rinse, and repeat. As long as you manage to stun the enemy with your somersaults, so that they can't pull off a wide area attack, then it's even easy to beat the last damn boss in the game without taking a single hit... The only time that I lost a battle in Jade Empire, was against the first Emperor. And that was only because I didn't realize at the time that he was a fucking Borg Cube clone, who kept adapting to whatever fighting styles I was using... And except for that one battle, there was never any need to develop all the countless different fighting styles you collect in the game...

In the end, I used Legendary Strike or White Demon for ghosts, and Fortune's Favourite for everything else... then there was a flock of seagulls and a gas shortage, but that's about it...

Jade Empire's fighting system was built with so much variety, and so many delicate intricacies... and yet it was all quite wasted in the end, thanks to the fact that none of it was necessary to even beat the game without trying...

Now, the boys at IGN loved Jade Empire, even claiming that their score of 9.9 was "underrating" the game. Then again, those psychos at Xbox IGN even loved Wreckless and Fable, so that ain't saying much from them then...

But part of me wonders whether those burnt out, bought out reviewers over there simply loved Jade Empire because of how damn short it was... I mean seriously! I wasn't even trying to speed through the game! Hell, I even wasted hours going in literal 360 circles, trying to find every single damn sidequest that I could...

... and yet I still beat the game on my first try in just 14 hours? And 11 hours the second time through?

Didn't Knights of the Old Republic take me 25 hours at least? 22 for the KOTOR sequel?

The game was definitely too short and too easy... I mean, you know something's wrong when it takes me 40 hours to beat Tales of Symphonia, and yet only a third of that to beat Jade Empire...

The good thing though, was that Jade Empire was fun. And lot of that had to do with the stellar overall polish and presentation...

First things first, thank God BioWare actually got some decent beta testers this time. While both KOTOR games were plagued with crippling bugs (though Obsidian is to blame for the latter), I only experienced two minor ones in Jade Empire... One was near the start, when a sidequest that I was doing literally disappeared on me until I reloaded an old save... And the other bug was more crippling. Near the end, when you're facing Doubt, the game wouldn't continue when I approached the pillar to end the scene. I promptly reloaded an old save however, and the game was back on its merry way... And while any visible bugs are an annoyance in a console game, at least I didn't have to restart my entire campaign, like some people were forced to with the Carth bug in the first Knights of the Old Republic...

Second, the graphics in the game are outstanding for an RPG. The backgrounds are full of lush and vibrant colours... and the framerate? While not stable at 30 fps like I was hoping, it was still worlds ahead of the 5 fps I'd occasionally see in either of the Star Wars RPGs. Hell, I don't think I ever saw Jade Empire dip below 20 fps in a battle, which is amazing considering the translucent effects on those ghosts... Now, I admit that I was not a fan of the look of any of the characters in the game. Sky looked like a retarded moron, Black Whirlwind looked like something out of a rejected Disney Cartoon, Dawn Star looked like Darth Maul to me, and dammit, I still think they should've named Radiant Zen Li as "Mi Wan Wang", or something kinky like that... But I will admit that these Western-bastardized Chinese characters, did at least match the beautiful landscapes of the Western-bastardized backdrops for the game. The Imperial, Infomercial City was simply gorgeous with all its Chinese lanterns... and while Tien's Landing wasn't nearly as impressive, even that area looked better than pretty much any RPG that BioWare has ever done before...

Loading times were awful, just like they were in KOTOR. I mean, when it takes you five minutes of loading time to complete a two minute sidequest, then you know something is wrong... But it was more bearable this time around than it was in KOTOR, thanks to some on-the-fly loading times in the huge, hub-like areas. And a lot of the little tweaks and dweaks that BioWare added as well definitely helped... Pressing B to shut Dawn Star the hell up whenever she made a random comment, definitely would've only been better if B stood for backhand bitch slap, or "flying dick, my ass", or some silly Chinese fortune cookie shit like that...

And yes, I will forever complain about the atrocious voice acting and dialogue in Jade Empire... But as for the rest of the sound effects in general? Well, I've always loved the sound of martial arts bitch slapping and the soft melancholy of Imperial soldier decapitations, so obviously I was in love with Jade Empire there... The real test for any epic RPG though is the music. And for the most part, I do have to admit that BioWare disappointed. Most areas (like the cannabis, Cannibal caves) were just boring in the soundtrack scale of things... But just like with Shenmue II, the music in the game really did end up growing like weed on me. There's still only two worthwhile songs in the whole game: the Jade Empire theme song, and the music in the Imperial City market square... but damn, even if those two tunes are Western-bastardized versions of Chinese music, they're still goddam music to my ears... The Jade Empire theme song may not be very hummable, but from time time to time, I still just rewatch the ending credits to the game, just to get a feel for the epic score of it all once more...

Now, I'm sure that Jade Empire will eventually get ported to the PC, like all BioWare RPGs do. But I must admit, that unlike KOTOR, Jade Empire definitely has the kind of feel in its design, that makes you really believe that it was specifically meant for consoles. In mostly a good way, I suppose... I mean, for one thing, BioWare simplified the item and armament systems, even to the point of almost removing them completely. I mean, except for stuff you build in Kang's Furnace, there is absolutely no item inventory system in this game whatsoever. And while some might welcome that simplicity, it sort of did make the RPG feel more shallow compared to its brethren in the end... You do get a ton of weapon styles to choose from. And you get do a ton of worthless gems for your amulet to empower you with... But I dunno. While simplicity allowed me to get more involved with the game than character management in the end, I'm not sure if that's exactly a good thing when it comes to an RPG... Jade Empire by far had a much more basic leveling up system than KOTOR had. And maybe if I wasn't so used to the old system, I'd like the new one then... not so right now, however...

But while Jade Empire once again seems to fail as an RPG, it still delivers a paralyzing palm blow as one of the funnest RPGs I've experienced in a long while... The controls are just perfect for an RPG on the Xbox. Switching fighting styles mid-combat is made ridiculously simple thanks to the D pad. And I never once got confused between the jump, attack, and block buttons in combat, as they were all mapped properly and intuitively to the buttons on the controller... The L and R focus-switching systems were a bit more awkward than they were in KOTOR (probably to save the programmer's some grief when it comes to bugs, like getting stuck in bad guys or walls). But they still worked perfectly as far as I'm concerned... And for the few times they didn't? Well, the ridiculously easy combat (possibly thanks to the controls) kept me from ever getting frustrated once in this game...

... the thing is, sometimes the fun factor just isn't enough to impress in a role playing game...

RPGs stress the role of the key word "role"... and without a strong plotline or characters, every RPG is doomed to failure...

... massive spoilers... for those who couldn't figure out the small hints I already gave to the story up above...

Okay, first of all... call me jaded if you will after playing the first Knights of the Old Republic, but I just knew there would be a big plot twist in the middle of the game or so...

And just from the facts that a) my Master Li was going all shifty eyed when I said, "I still think that's odd", when it came to the location of the Spirit Cave, and b) he willingly left all his students to die at his school... that either my Master was evil? Or he wasn't really my master anymore...

"... oh... wow... he's pulling a Kill Bill on me... how nice... and unexpected...

I'm sorry, but while the twist was good, I've seen too many martial arts movies with the same idea... and I've just become too perceptive to twists in games, ironically because of BioWare themselves, after missing every single fucking clue about the stunning twist in Knights of the Old Republic...

However, there were a bunch of little things about Dirge and the history of the Spirit Monks that I did find interesting... I never once thought that Master Li was really the original Death's Hand. And having the minor twist, that Death's Hand was actually the good guy in the game (and not the supreme bad guy) was more surprising to me, than having to whoop Master Li's ass in the end without getting hit once... Despite the predictability of the big ass story twist, I still found the sibling rivalry between the three royal brothers to be well thought out, and probably the strongest part of the story of the game overall...

I never once made a connection with "The Glorious Strategist" name and what was going on with my obvious fighting weakness. And after I was sent packing to the spirit realm, the plotline really started to knit tightly together... It was kind of a cool plan and all, pretending to be a nice martial arts teacher for 20 years, just so he could eventually rule the Empire with an iron closed fist when the time was right... Too bad he didn't have a decent strategy in the end, when I kicked his ass and took his name, without getting bloody hell hit once...

After the major cinematics that showed what really happened at Dirge, I was all pumped up for the "real game"... I mean, I had only visited two or three locations in Jade Empire thus far. And if KOTOR was any indication? The big twist in the game was simply a signal that the mere halfway point of the game had been reached... I was 10 hours into the game by then...

... and then... three or four hours later... just when the game was finally picking up?...

I mean, I finished every single frickin' sidequest that I could find... Yes, I know I must've left something behind, considering there's still two Kang mini-games that I have left to unlock... but still?...

And to be honest, except for the royal family feud, the rest of the characters in the game were pretty disappointing as well...

Black Whirlwind had a few decent stories, about killing his brother and family-in-laws at dinner. And Hou initially seemed interesting, with the stories about his bitchy, whipping wife and all... But as interesting as the core of both of these characters were, they were just too one-dimensional in the end for me. They never really changed during the storyline. They just kept talking about the same kinds of slightly amusing stories that they had all game long... until they ran out of stories to tell... And after KOTOR2? It was kinda disappointing, that you couldn't even affect the allegiances of these two characters one damn bit with all your dialogue choices...

Sky was just a fucking moron. Cam Clarke was given a role that could've been decent, as the Robin Hood of the story. Instead, he just whined so much about his lost daughter, that even my open palm character eventually decided to tell him to shut the fuck up. Too bad he never betrayed me to Death Hand's, because I personally would've enjoyed whooping his ass then and there... Kang was useless. His voice was just grating on the ears... And Wild Flower? Just like it's become cliche to use Drunken Boxing in a game (Hou, I'm looking at you...), it's become so damn cliche for Western developers or movie makers, to make the innocent looking girl into someone possessed by a demon. I really didn't care which of the two demons won inside of her... She was a useless fighter anyways, and she really had nothing interesting to say.

Sagacious Zu played the "conflicted, anti-hero" of the story, as he put it. More like Sagacious shit though... Too bad I never got to see his other movies that he mentioned, to really see him branch off into the non-conflicted, anti-hero kind of anti-type-casting kind of role... He was a useless character though. I wanted to affect his allegiances, so that maybe I could bring him back to the dark side of the force again. Instead, he chose to shut up on me, and he never even told me who was the child that he saved when Master Li's family was being slaughtered... although it's kinda obvious in the end just who that daughter was...

Dawn Star was just fucking ugly in this game though. She sounded like a porn star too, which she even makes mention of during the end credits... How IGN could ever find her sweet and hot, I will never understand. She looked like a Chinese Ho at best, to me. And I ain't just talking about last names here... I never got her to open up about her past, and figure out that she was Master Li's daughter. Although I did get her and Silk Fox to both fall for my closed first character at the same time... I'm just so disappointed in the end though. I binded Dawn Star to me, so why the hell couldn't I make her my sex slave? Goddammit, the only thing that consoled me in the end, was the fact that while my character was dead, Dawn Star and Silk Fox "consoled" each other...

And I'm so fucking pissed! First time through the game, I played as an open palmed Radiant Zen Li or something. Because, you know... I'm a horny geek who likes staring at her ass all day and all...

But goddammit! I was building up the sexual, lesbian tension with Silk Fox throughout the game, like I was always hoping I could with Bastilla back in KOTOR... And then I fucked up the "previous love" of your life question, and couldn't get Silk Fox to ever finger me again! WTF is wrong with you, BioWare! You made me goddam kiss Sky instead of Silk Fox in the end! I HATE YOU, BIOWARE!...

... and yet still, if only because of the outlandish Outlander, I still thought Jade Empire was pretty damn cool...

... end massive spoilers... although I'm sure nobody will ever read my spoiler warnings, or my Y2kk updates, per usual...

Jade Empire is definitely not one of the top RPGs of this generation of gaming. And not even one of BioWare's top RPGs really, despite their tiny portfolio of modern gaming... The game was too short, had a butchered storyline, had woefully written characters, was too damn easy in combat, had the worst loading times ever since KOTOR, and left me wanting so much more in the end... although the latter could be construed as something good, for a potential milked franchise at least...

The game was definitely no true follow-up to the majesty that was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic... hell, even to my Chinese ears, it still couldn't match their first Xbox RPG, even in terms of an epic musical score. Although I guess in retrospect, it is kinda hard to match wits with the Star Wars music we've all come to know and love, even for a hardcore Trekkie like me...

And yet? Jade Empire will still go down as one of my favourite games of the year at least, if only because of how damn addicting all the battles and sidequests ending up being, causing me to complete the game twice without ever really getting bored once... There were just so many little touches to Jade Empire, that kept giving me hope for the game and the potential franchise in the end...

I'm still laughing out loud when I just walked up to a common peasant, asked if she had her purse with her, and then snatched it like the lovable loser that I am... And I'm still smirking at the little 'bout that ensued, when as an open palm kind of guy, I just accidentally told Al Ling in Tien's Landing to have a death to a duel for her husband to be, only for her to end up killing him instead... Oh, it's just so fun to be evil in this game, maybe even more so than it was in either of the Star Wars RPGs...

Hell, there was even hot and horny lesbianism! And how the hell could I not love the game for that?...

The graphics are just jaw-dropping at times in this game. I dare you to take just one good look at the water effects in this game, and tell me with a straight face that this RPG isn't one of the most beautiful video gaming sights you've ever seen... The fighting styles were innovative. The enemies were inventive enough... And hell, I'm still trying to hum the theme song to Jade Empire as we speak. I can't hum worth a damn, but dammit, some songs are just hum-worthy...

Jade Empire was truly a solid game... that if only it wasn't a pure mockery of Chinese culture as I know it, I probably would've enjoyed it and respected it a hell of a lot more...

... if only the game didn't feel like a Matrix rip-off, Chinese wannabe kind of action film...

... and if only BioWare hadn't set the bar so damn high with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the first place?...

... then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have been disappointed with Jade Empire in the end...

I mean, Jade Empire is a great game. Definitely one of my favourites of the year so far, but...

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek Enterprise: In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2) Review (Spoilers...) -

Remember last week, how I said that the mirror universe Archer was an honourable man, who only wanted to strengthen the Empire?...

In typical Star Trek fashion, the follow-up to last week's outstanding In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 1) was just not as good as the original... The first half of In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2) was hampered by Manny Coto's piss poor obsession with the Gorn from the Original Series. And unfortunately for this episode, not only did the Gorn look awful in CG, but there was just no suspense whatever throughout the whole reptilian chase... The death by teeth from above was more 1960's cheesy than it was an old skool homage. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the facts that a) there were Red Shirts dead all along the Defiant hallways, and b) Malcolm Reed was the first crewman to fall, brightly wearing that red shirt of his and all, the thing is?... Partially because of the Gorn CG, the fight scenes in the Defiant 'Jeffrey Tubes' or whatever were just so damn lame and boring, that I even rolled my eyes at how obvious of a trap the abandoned communicator was... and I normally like popcorn fluff like that...

I guess poor Reed really bit into that role of a true red shirt then, eh?... What are the odds?...

There were a few things that the first half of the episode did get right though... The interrogation of T'Pol was tense, even though we knew she would survive. And I loved Archer's reaction to his school boy type of look, on that ancient looking monitor on the Defiant... The poor bastard not only couldn't take the fact that he was a wholesome goody two shoes on the other side of the mirror universe, but that the other Archer actually achieved fame and power, while Mirror Universe Archer was still stuck as a crappy, noname first officer. What are the odds?...

And Hoshi? Hot damn, this was her episode. Sure, I was disappointed that there really weren't any sex scenes with the ever hot and horny Hoshi in the first half of the episode (although in the second half, the darkness silhouette scene definitely gave some of my parts a rise for their money...). But her reactions to her alternate self were absolutely priceless... And was it me, or was this the second time that a ship from the future has mentioned Hoshi getting married? And yet she and Archer always seme to remain alone? Guess the shippers wouldn't be happy about that one...

But enough about the first half of the episode... Because what really counts as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that as soon as the Gorn was out of the way, this episode kicked all sorts of goddam ass...

Poor Tucker didn't get much to do, and I was going to complain that Mayweather was just as silent and useless in the mirror universe as he is in the real one, but... Damn, I didn't see that ending coming! I mean, I'm not normally a fan of surprise twist endings. But hot damn, would I ever bow, get on my knees, and eat out that ever hot and horny, Empress Hoshi Sato! This was Linda Park's episode, and it was just amazing how much she nailed her role. With 'nailed' being the key word here... Her sex scenes with Archer were scintillating. These two actors have had so much chemistry since they first met in Brazil in the Enterprise series premiere, and it's such a shame that the two never really developed anything on the show... I loved her little bitch fight with T'Pol. That savoury, seductive glint in her eyes of joy, when T'Pol decided to fight back, was just so alluring that it made me wish I was on the other end of a Hoshi Sato ass kicking. Too bad she got her ass kicked, just like every other time she fights on the show... And fucking golly gee whiz, I honestly swear that I did not see that ending coming! Hey, if I had to croak after having hot and steamy sex with Hoshi, I'd go out a happy man. As did Archer, I'm sure...

Only in the mirror universe, would the two most completely underutilized characters on the show, actually end up running the entire known galaxy... What are the odds?...

Mayweather didn't have many lines, but he definitely had the role of a stone cold mercenary down pat with his looks. And it was shocking that he didn't die or anything. You'd expect the black man wearing a red shirt to be the first to go, but no... Neither Reed nor Tucker got the screen or face time to ever make an impact like they did last episode. But Phlox was awarded the television time instead, and proved that deep down inside, he's still ever the lovable little Denubolan we've known for so long on the show... He confirmed for us what I've always known, but not every Trekkie believed - that the Mirror Universe started long before First Contact. I even laughed at his comment, that Shakespeare was just as grim and gory in both universes... Then the poor sap grew a heart or two, if only for the love of women (Soval looked pretty horny too... for a Vulcan...). You'd think somebody like him would put up a better fight against Phantom of the Opera Tucker. But hey, I guess Hoshi was counting on a little lovefest between her boys to throw Archer off guard or whatnot...

T'Pol didn't have nearly the impact that she did last episode, mainly because I much preferred her in her bare mid-riff Enterprise uniform than the god-awful 60's throwback from the Defiant... Still, I already mentioned the tension when Archer was threatening to throw her out of the airlock at the start. And Jolene Blalock definitely gave this episode some purpose, by being the one to plant the seeds of the United Federation of Planets in the mirror universe... She even makes quite a foreshadowing comment, that while it may take centuries, humanity will get what's coming to them. And while I did kinda hate the mirror universe episodes in Deep Space 9 (except for the one with the rebels building the Defiant), somehow T'Pol's foreshadowing made the Intendant Kira's reign seem a whole lot more... well?...

... dammit, couldn't they just get mirror universe Kira and Hoshi in the same damn room room, please? Manny Coto, make it happen!...

What Manny definitely did provide this episode, was a sequence of events that actually made the antiquated Defiant feel powerful and actually 23rd century feeling at times... While some props were just too old looking to stand the test of time (the huge monitor and the flashing console buttons, for example), there were just so many little things that definitely felt more nostalgic than they felt old... The sounds of the phasers and old school photon torpedoes were just music to the ears. And seeing a Constitution class starship kick the ass of an NX one, was definitely something that old school TOS fans have been waiting years for...

I was never a fan of the awful spandex-like uniforms of the Original Series. But they didn't look half bad on the crew this episode, if only because of the universal love for fallen red shirts... And even though he wasn't wearing red, poor Soval didn't know what hit him. Even if he didn't do much this episode, just all the little touches with his NX crew, right down to his own Mirror Universe goatee, really brought back the fondest memories of even Spock having the same kind of nonsensical nastiness on his chin... And hell, I think I even shed a tear at the return of Majel Roddenberry's voice as the Defiant's computer. It's little touches like that, that made In a Mirror, Darkly (Parts 1 and 2) into one of the absolute brightest shinest moments in the history of Trek...

Hell, even Archer did a damn fine role, as the good natured school boy turned emperor evil, by his vile jealousy of the real good natured school boy in the other universe... Scott Bakula just had amazing sexual chemistry with Hoshi (although obviously, I was staring at her the whole time, not him... yeah...). And his passion and bigotry against all alien species, was just such a fun throwback to the character's Vulcan-hating days back in season one... It was kinda odd how Hoshi was able to manipulate him into keeping Phlox on board. But then you remember, that our Archer never had a problem with Phlox in season one like he did with Vulcans... I mean, if you think about it, except for the whole "I'm going to conquer the universe" thing, Mirror Universe Archer really was almost exactly the same as our own. He had a disdain for admirals by the name of Garner, he was obsessed by the matter disruptor settings on weapons (as we got hints of last season), and we all know our good natured school boy has a thing for hot and horny Hoshi of both sides of the parallel universe rift...

... hell... I may have thought it was all so corny at first, but you know what really capped off such a fun and thrilling ride into the mirror universe of Trek?...

... the fact that our own Archer had crossed over, ironically as the little devil on his shoulder, whispering in his ear...

Y2kk Update: - Free Radical's / Electronic Arts' TimeSplitters 3: Future Perfect Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers...) -

I mean, I admit that I've thoroughly enjoyed Timesplitters 2 much more than I thought I would... It's single player mode was shallow, with 'floaty' controls that just paled in comparison to great first person shooters like Halo and even Perfect Dark... But thanks to family birthday parties with the Gamecube, Timesplitters 2 became a favourite of mine. With a large variety of actually interesting looking maps, with tons of bots for me and my cousins to team up against, TS2 was one of those few games that never got boring. It still ranks up there with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Kart Double Dash as probably my favourite multiplayer games of this generation of gaming...

... if only because of how sweet the secondary fire of the shotgun looks, when it wipes that smile off some smug monkey's face...

I picked up Timesplitters 3: Future Perfect for the Gamecube, in the hopes of rekindling that multiplayer magic that the Timesplitters series has best been known for... Sure, I suppose it's disappointing that there was absolutely no online capabilities built into the GC version of the game. And from what I hear, the GC version also has some sort of nasty music bug in multiplayer (although I for one haven't experienced it yet, I think)... But my cousins are most familiar with the GC controller. And hey, when it comes to parties, that little handle on the purple lunchbox kinda comes in handy. So I guess Timesplitters 3 for the Gamecube does as well...

Right off the bat, TS3 fixes a ton of complaints that I had with Timesplitters 2. Mainly the fact that without my memory card save, TS2 absolutely sucked for multiplayer... Completely unlike its predecessor, Timesplitters 3 actually has enough characters and stages unlocked by default to actually make it worth playing without killing yourself with the trials of the Arcade mode... I hated how I had to unlock almost half the stages in the game in TS2, and all the good characters (Robofish, Dinosaur, Gingerbread Man, etc...) by putting myself through hell to get all those gold arcade medals that I wanted... So thank God that Free Radical finally learned from their mistake, realized what made Goldeneye and Perfect Dark multiplayer such a success, and kept 80% of the game unlocked for anyone who bought the frickin' game in the first place... Sure, it gives me less incentive to play the arcade challenges. But considering how much I hated those time trials in the first place? Then I definitely gotta thank Free Radical for learning from their past mistake...

And multiplayer is definitely fun, I can assure you of that. Timesplitters 3 on the Gamecube has an improved framerate during 4 player mode, not to mention better overall stages and a much nicer cast of characters... The framerate wasn't the only thing drastically improved. While it doesn't quite stay at 60 fps all the time, I gotta admit that Timesplitters 3 has so much more of a cleaner graphical look than Timesplitters 2 had on the GC, that it's worth the slight performance hit at times for the extra detail in the carnage... Sound effects were overall overhauled as well, with everything sounding much less tinny and much more FPS 'realistic' than the prequel did. If I had any real one complaint about the new presentation of Future Perfect's multiplayer, it's the music... Maybe it's just the 'music bug' or something, but Timesplitters 3 just has a shitty soundtrack, even worse than the first two games had. And that's saying a hell of a lot...

Regardless, I'm sure multiplayer will definitely keep Timesplitters 3 right there up on my favourites list, just like TS2 did for so many years... But if there was one central thing that disappointed me most about its predecessor? It was definitely the single player campaign... And I guess it was nice of Free Radical to keep tradition, by repeating the same damn mistake yet again...

In multiplayer, when it's so frantic, I've never been that big of a fan of accuracy anyhew... But in single player? What the fuck is with the aiming in this game? And I know it ain't just the GC's C-stick, since TS2's controls sucked on the Xbox as well... Sniping is just piss poor in Future Perfect, not just because they use the tiny GC D-pad for zooming, but because the crosshair seems to 'float' past the exact area that you want to shoot at... And when it comes to automatics, it's not the recoil that bugs the hell out of me. It's the fact that completely unlike the Halo series, or any other modern first person shooter (aka - any Halo clone), the damn crosshair never stays stable. Instead, it always seems to 'float' across a region (or doesn't float... it's hard to tell these days...), and it ain't just from my piss poor accuracy as a FPS gamer... And while I should blame the GC controller more than Free Radical for this, I just can't stand the fact that they mapped the grenades to the tiny Z button. While I don't really know what would've been a better solution (since I needed the L button to act as the aim at times), I do know one thing...

Why the fuck did they remove grenades from the fucking Soviet automatics?... God...

There were two things that I loved about the weapons in Timesplitters 2: the grenades on the Soviet, and the double shot on the shotgun...

And guess the fuck what? Free Radical removed both of those from the game... hell, they removed all of the secondary fire functions in favour of Halo type grenade controls on the Xbox, I'm sure...

The thing is, the weapons in Future Perfect are now a mixed bag... On the one hand, they fixed up a ton of weapons. The plasma automatic now actually feels powerful, the dual sci-fi pistols are just awesome to wield, and I do love the reloading animation on the new Soviet gun... But then on the other hand, Free Radical fucked up some of the only things that made multiplayer gunslinging fun in the first place... The plasma automatic now just feels barren and 'normal' without sticky grenades. I can't stand using Soviets anymore without frag grenades of their own. I can't kill monkeys in one shot with the goddam shotgun anymore, since it's been weakened to hell and has the slowest reloading animation ever now... And yes, I know that hand grenades of all sorts were put into this game. But somehow, they just don't have the punch that they did when they were attached to your guns in TS2. They were the only things that made the single and multiplayer modes fun in the end for me in TS2, and guess the hell what?...

... Free Radical determined that it was time for the fun factor to split... just great...

And who the fuck wrote the single player plotline anyways?... While some moments were decent, thanks to the clever use of time loops and a very loopy character (having four Cortezes at once in a room was confusing at first, but eventually was definitely a cool thing to have), most of the single player campaign was just bogged down by either bad stage designs or atrociously boring enemies...

1924 was just plain boring. I don't know how or why, but using some made up automatic at the time against ancient robots, was just not my idea of fun... And who the fuck thought up the Resident Evil clone of 1994? The zombies were probably my only complaint about the Russian throwback stage in Timesplitters 2, and now Free Radical decided to make my worst fears become even more nauseating? WTF?... And while the Robot Wars in Future Perfect were much improved over their TS2 counterparts, it was still rather boring to take on mindless robots who just stand there as they fling rockets at you. I mean, hasn't Free Radical heard of circular strafing before? It does get boring after a while, you know...

But you know what really bugs me about the single player campaign? It's just that, for a few couple of stages, TS3 really did seem to show potential... We all loved the Goldeneye-throwback stages in TS2, didn't we? And the same goes for Timesplitters 3... The train stage with Harry Tipper in Future Perfect brought back some of the best memories of the train stage in Goldeneye. Sure, it wasn't the same, with floaty characters and floaty animations to go along with the floaty TS controls. But the core feeling was still there, along with one kickass battle against the helicopter... And the first stage in 2054 or whatever? It was absolutely an homage to the first stages of Perfect Dark, and I loved it. David Doak and his ol' Rare boys do their best work when they just concentrate on killing humans, and not on Haloesque aliens, goddam stupid zombies, or Half-Life mutant clones... It's just so frustrating to play through these two TS3 stages of theirs, realize how good they both are, and then realize that the motherfuckers at Free Radical refuse to make a 007 or Perfect Dark clone these days...

Instead, we get god-awful Resident Evil clones from them... which just can't satisfy, and just can't compare... Especially not after I've played through the god-like Resident Evil 4, at least...

I guess some things never change... The true strength of the Timesplitters series has always been its multiplayer, and Future Perfect definitely provides no exception. With vibrant graphical colours for true target contrast and sharpness, and near 60 fps framerates all the time, it makes four man teams with my cousins against eight or so monkey bots, into the same damn hellacious fun that I've experienced for years from Timesplitters 2... an experience you just can't get these days outside of nostalgia or the odd 16-man Halo LAN game or so...

I just wish EA could bitch slap some real sense into Free Radical or something, and force them to make a real single player campaign for once... They don't need to make something as serious as Goldeneye or Perfect Dark were (well, the first half of PD, at least). But at least try to make a plotline we care about... at least try to make stages that take themselves seriously rather than just looking like a poor man's splinter of the games they clone...

Timesplitters 3 may have been the unofficial end to the series, if the ending to the single player campaign was any true indication, but...

If only because of the multiplayer, and if only from all the cherished memories that Rare gave me back on the N64, I would still kill for another first person shooter from Free Radical...

... you know, like one that feels like it was actually made in the 21st century or something?...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Blank small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

I wanted Blank to be a clean slate for Smallville. I mean, the promo for it looked so damn good last week, and the episode actually had real potential consequences... Would Chloe end up forgetting everything she learned? Would Clark remember that Chloe learned of all his powers?...

... of course, both ideals fell flat by the end of the hour... and we were back to square one...

... the first half of Blank just had so much potential, and was actually great for the most part... but it's been the absolute story of the series, to end the damn episode with the ol' third person IvanF, slapping himself in the head yet again at the show's stupidity... because?... well...

"Clark loses all his memory... gets amnesia again... and Lana still acts like a complete bitch to him? WTF?!?..."

First, she breaks up with Jason over lies. I mean, sure we know that Jason is actually evil, so the breakup is warranted to the audience. But Lana doesn't know all that about him. Hell, she even stole the damn kryptonian stone right from under his nose, and yet she's the one who gets to act all high and mighty?... bitch slap right there... Then there was the Clark exchange at school. He has amnesia, yet he still loves her so much. And yet how does she act? She acts all disturbed, weirded out and bothered, unwilling to even patronize this new Clark with the thought of a second chance... bitch, bitch slap over there... And after she finally decides to make "this time" different, then how does she act to the returning Clark? Oh, she decides to shut the hell up and try to run away yet again... Sure, she's hurt by the fact that he doesn't remember his promise. But for crying out loud, he had fucking amnesia! He doesn't remember anything! He was essentially the Lana or Chloe of the week!... What, she would act the same towards a cripple or blind mind or something? Which are also two things that Clark has suffered through in the past, and yet Lana still acts like her bitchy self all the time...

Jason was utterly useless and evil this episode. I mean, I know that once a character is deemed evil by a previous episode, that he doesn't stay in the good characters' good graces for long. But being kicked out the very episode after? Kinda worthless spying, if you ask me... The Kent parents were nowhere to be found, although in the end, that probably did work out the best for Blank... Lionel was missing in action yet again as well, but Lex was there to pick up the pace. He didn't have many scenes, but I just loved how snivellish and conniving he was. Bringing the brain dead Clark to the caves was a nice touch, with all the small lies here and there... But why the hell did he take Clark's actual drawing at the end? Well, I hope that was a photocopy, otherwise Clark will put two and two together... and not do or figure out anything, except give one of his patented "oh shit" looks that he's infamous for now...

They should really rename the show, "Lois and Chloe: The New Adventures of Clark", or something along those lines. Because those two actresses really have been giving the show it's only bright spots of the season... Lois was great once again. The whole "amnesia again" thing was great, with a nice reminder of how she didn't even seem phased by Clark being naked in the season premiere or anything... She kinda even looked hurt when Clark claimed that he didn't seem to like Lois much. But just a bit... And at least Clark knows that Lois is somewhat trustworthy or not. Sure, we all knew what was going to happen when Lois saw the truth about Clark, in terms of the memory wipe and all. But she didn't even flinch an eye - hell, she didn't even really look surprised or anything... I just love that dynamic about Erica Durance's character. She's tough, sarcastic, dimwitted, yet trustworthy at the same time. And her chemistry with Clark is simply undeniable...

But this episode was all about Chloe, and this was definitely her best episode of the season... Now, I could've done without bad lines like "premature combustion", but I loved pretty much every scene of Clark rediscovering his powers. Imagining herself "on the other side of the conversation" when Clark bent a lead pipe without hesitation just seemed right somehow. And yeah, I laughed when Clark was too damn dumb to even run back to catch the motorcycle he missed... Chloe just had a vibrant energy in Blank, that almost made me wish Clark had stayed blank, just so we could keep this Chloe on the show. Instead of giving annoying oh shit looks like Clark always does, Ms. Sullivan somehow gave cute oh shit looks, whenever Lois was about to find out the truth or whatever... And the ending of the episode? Oh dead God, was Clark a moron. How many hints does Chloe have to drop with her boobs until Clark just tells her the goddam truth? Instead of just oh shit looks, his throat was actually getting dry this time. He looked like he was going to collapse and faint... And yet he still didn't trust her with the truth? You've got to be kidding me, right?...

... now there was a bitch slap if I ever saw one... but at least Chloe took it well... I think...

Now, like I said before, Tom Welling had amazing chemistry with Lois the whole way through Blank. But it was his scenes with Chloe that were absolutely most enjoyable this episode... The door scene, the metal pipe scene, and even Chloe's little whisper to stay on guard against Lex, were all so well done by both actors on the show, that it really made the first half of the episode into one that had potential for an IvanFian episode of the week... But then of course, as Clark began to gain confidence in his powers again, the show became its old, usual self of crappiness per usual. Lana reverted back to her bitchiness, Chloe was returned to her captured state of the week, and Clark went back to being a complete moron when it comes to reading people... It was kinda funny actually, how the tables were finally turned on Clark for once, and he got to play the role of the Lana or Chloe who loses their memory for the small Smallville week in review. But c'mon already... He wakes up in the middle of Summerholt, holding two huge pillars with his hands. And he still doesn't get the clue that maybe, just maybe, he did something with his superpowers in front of people while he was fucking clueless?...

Blank was still an above average episode, if only because of Chloe's eternal sunshine and Lois' spotless mind... Despite all my negativity, keep in my mind that I really did enjoy the first half of the episode for the most part... But as for Clark? He's neither a ray of sunshine, nor the smartest bloke on the block. He's just plain blank up there, and probably shooting blanks down below as well, but I digress...

Now, if only Smallville would get rid of Lana, and make every scene in the show about Clark being bewildered and confused by both Chloe and Lois all the time, then maybe I would give thumbs up to every episode left in the season. But until then?...

On the one hand, I appreciate how the film tries to be politically intelligent. The African liberator turned dictator, Zuwanie, is obviously meant to resemble the stories of Mugabe in the news... And for the news informed of the world out there, The Interpreter does definitely deliver on the references. From 9/11, to even the first movie footage ever from within the UN building, The Interpreter was definitely one of the best political thrillers I've seen in years...

Let's face facts - I'm a film moron, who prefers popcorn movies above all the rest... I'm the one who thought Jurassic Park 3 was way better than the first two in the series (although we should all agree that JP2 sucked ass...). I'm the one who somehow finds the trailer to XXX: State of the Union more interesting than A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (although my god-awful experiences with the first XXX will definitely keep me away from the sequel, thank God)...

The Interpreter definitely had a lot of popcorn moments itself, with basically the last third of the film providing all the action-oriented music that a thriller would ever need... But maybe it wasn't just the political backdrop of everything that pissed me off. Maybe it was just the fact that The Interpreter did set itself up as a Clue 'whodunnit' sort of story. And of course, once you figure out the answer to everything in your head? It just bugs you throughout the rest of the film, that the cast is too damn stupid to ever figure out the truth before the ending...

Throughout the film, I knew Nicole Kidman's character would end up being the villain at some point. I also knew she would turn out to be the good guy... although I was kinda hoping for a "The Three" situation here, since Nicole Kidman with glasses and an English accent definitely could be part of my threesome anyday...

In the end, I was both right and wrong... I knew (or thought) that her friends from Africa were setting up her for the inside job, of slowly telling her the facts about her brother's death until she finally snapped and did their assassination job for them... I knew that Silvia would have a smarter plan than just sniping at the guy from the interpreter balcony, so I was pulling my hair out at how slow Sean Penn was being with the whole airport chase and all... And from what Kuman-Kuman said, it was obvious that the whole thing was a 'con'. That line was simply read so loudly and distinctly, that a 'failed assassination attempt could legitimize even the worst tyrants of the world'... So I knew from that point on that Zuwanie was setting the whole thing up himself...

What I couldn't figure out, was how the two things were related... How was Kidman's real assassination attempt of Zuwanie, supposed to mix with the fake assassination attempt on Zuwanie?...

First came the fake assassination, and then Kidman stepped up to do her thing... That was about it.

... end spoilers... except for the spoilers I'll spoil later on, of course...

I admit that I did mostly enjoy myself throughout The Interpreter though. Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman definitely did have chemistry, even though it rolled my eyes everytime they talked on the phone like lovesick, kindred spirits, or held hands as if they were high school sweethearts... I knew they would never kiss, because any movie that tries to take itself seriously these days never gets the crazy girls and guys together in the end. But when Tobin admitted everything about his wife's death to Silvia, only for her to retort with some god-awful story of African vengeance rituals?... bah... it just wasn't my kind of thing...

But for every non-romantic scene, I thought the two worked well together... Although his lines were hokey, Penn did a good job of interrogating Silvia right off the bat, and Kidman did a great job of acting stressed yet 'inconclusively' lying through the whole film... I may have hated their phone conversation, but all the arguments between the two main characters about security and who's the suspect, did create a decent 'whodunnit' atmosphere for at least the first half of the movie... And the bus scene was thrilling, I'll admit that at least. I knew somebody was going to die, and I couldn't believe that Penn refused to tell his men that there were bombs made at the damn apartment... But the thrill of the moment was definitely there, if only because Kidman did a damn fine job, of acting like a pissy little school girl at Kuman-Kuman. That was definitely my favourite scene of the film...

There were very few laughs in The Interpreter. Though a ton of Kidman's lines about the ideals of interpretation ("wars have been started" and blah blah blah) were just so utterly nonsensical that they almost did make me laugh... But for a thriller, I still think The Interpreter was definitely above average. The way they got the sniper rifle into the UN building was rather inventive in my opinion, the NSA guy was obviously evil but he kept me on my heels by guessing who's side he's on, and hell, they even used New York traffic to its best advantage in the film... Who knew that little scooters could actually look threatening? I sure as hell didn't...

And c'mon, you had a ridiculously looking guy wearing a mask on the balcony! How the hell could you not enjoy a film with a ridiculous looking mask?...

I don't know... The Interpreter was a good film for the first half, when I didn't know what was really going on. But once you put one and one together, it just didn't have the kind of action or even the acting to make me want to see the film a second time... Sean penn did nail and pen in stone his role at times. But it just wasn't enough, when the story just wasn't strong enough... not for me, at least...

I've never been a fan of thrillers really, let alone political ones... But Sean Penn definitely did the most with his role, looking both lost and focused at the very same time somehow, as he should. And Kidman?... well, her acting still sucks. But her fake English accent was definitely delicious. And I've always had a thing for dumb blondes with glasses, so...

I'd probably still pick a popcorn movie over The Interpreter anyday. I've always hated movies with morals and political messages, afterall...

But the Interpreter was still a film definitely worth the money I spent on it...

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek Enterprise: In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 1) Review (Spoilers...) -

This has just got to be one of the worst goddam days in the history of my entire damn life...

... or one of the best really... maybe... the details of which I'll leave to my download site...

But I will say this at least. On the bright side of things, at least there was Enterprise...

Now, I must admit that I was definitely thrown off by In a Mirror, Darkly at first. I mean, a Mirror Universe episode? Except for the one where they built the Defiant in the DS9 Mirror Universe, I've never liked a MU episode before... so I guess it's ironic that I ended up loving the next Mirror Universe episode that had the name "Defiant" in it...

I just loved how much energy Coto and Sussman put into this episode... The opening flashback with the First Contact music was just brilliant. And Cochrane pulling out the shotgun has just got to be one of the funniest, most badass moments that Trek has ever done (First Contact 2: Hunting Season - "Applesauce, bitch!")... Coto even changed the starting credits, and mostly for the better. While I didn't like the reusing of footage from past "good guy" Enterprise episodes, I gotta admit that the sight of that familiar-looking ship blasting away at some lunar colony, has just got to be one of the coolest and most convincing shots the show has ever done...

Every character got a role to play in In a Mirror, Darkly (although some definitely more than others)... Mayweather certainly didn't get many lines. But he definitely stood out with his crew cut and his love of the term "aye, sir". I guess some things never change then... Major Reed was a blast. You could see hints of the real Reed everytime the Major would smile at the pain and misfortune of others, even perhaps smirking at the sight of the Enterprise getting blown up. Too bad we never got to see him in the torture chamber. He probably would've loved it... And Phlox? That's the thing about the good Mirror Universe episodes - some characters just end up acting exactly the same way they always do in our real universe, yet seem just so evil at the same exact time... Dr. Phlox definitely did enjoy his work a bit too much, torturing Archer for 10 hours and having no qualms about dissecting a Tholian in the Decon Chamber. And yet, except for the lack of conscience, Phlox pretty much acted exactly as he would in our universe. He was just as curious about the anatomies of things, and just as frank about everything on his mind...

Hoshi finally got to play the real hottie of the show. Now, she didn't look so great in the lingerie at the start. But damn, that bra of hers with sexual sweat glistening off her arms, was perhaps the hottest thing I've ever seen in Trek... Hell, she was even quite adorable in her bare midriff uniform. There was just something about her and her hair afterall, that just screamed to me "hottest FOB on the face of the planet"... Once again, she barely got to play the comm officer, only translating a bit of gibberish from the captured Tholian and all. But with that hair and those cheeks and that god-awesome waist of hers, Hoshi the hottie was absolutely the best queen bitch at manipulating both Captain Forrest and Commander Archer. Sure, she had no chemistry with Forrest, but Forrest certainly did seem to care for her... Archer on the other hand didn't seem to give a damn about anything but Hoshi's body. But damn, considering how fine she looked this episode?... I can't blame him...

Even in the mirror universe, T'Pol and Tucker bicker like an old married couple. Although in this universe, they threaten each other's lives after T'Pol mind-controls her boyfriend into spending four hours in the torture chamber. So yeah, pretty much an old couple then... Trip sure seemed different this episode, with the warped face and the crew cut and all. His voice was so different than normal as well, sounding more like a hardened Colonel than the old sweet engineer we've always known. Nice job... And he certainly had his way with women. T'Pol simply rolled his eyes at the Pon Farr statement, but you could tell - she still liked him in this universe. She just was more of a conniving bitch than she normally is, that's all... She played Archer like a fool and a fiddle quite well. She built up her appearance of loyalty by graciously accepting the first officer position. And then she truly did kick ass when she and two Vulcans stormed the Bastille like... well?... three really pissed off, Vulcan slaves I guess... And damn, was her wig (was it a wig?) this episode much nicer than her normal hair ever was. And a lot better than Ishta's ever looked on Stargate SG-1, even if both were rather similar in the end...

But besides Hoshi the Hottie, and maybe some T'Pol hair action along the way, the thing I enjoyed most from In a Mirror, Darkly, was definitely the dynamic between Captain Forrest and Commander Archer... The mirror universe Original Series episode was great for its time, simply because of all the backstabbing and power struggles going on with the Nazi like crew. While I doubt that shotgun Cochrane alone could've all made that happen in a century, Forrest and Archer this episode truly made humanity at its worst seem believable... I kinda found it ironic though. That our Archer would put people in an airlock, yet his evil counterpart refused to do the same on two occasions in this episode... Nevertheless, Archer truly was badass in the end. Giving himself up on the bridge unarmed after setting the encrypted autopilot, really showed what his character was all about. Not about power, but about personal glory and glory for his people... Which was exactly why his character was so believable, despite the unbelievability of his 'intelligence' of the captured USS Defiant. The Jonathan Archer of this universe, was just a mirror of the Jonathan Archer that we've always known (and knew a lot better after season 3). Long live the Empire. With an added crew cut and all...

But it wasn't just the acting that made In a Mirror, Darkly into such a memorable experience. It was really an nostalgic, orgasmic experience for any long time Trekkie, like Coto has been catering to all season long... The return of the Defiant rolled my eyes at first, after remembering how it got sucked into some sort of stupid vortex or something in the Original Series (and ended up in the MU, apparently). And sure, I can't stand all the blips and bleeps of the 60s-style bridge that Archer and his crew found themselves on. How the hell they wouldn't think that spandex or whatever uniforms were primitive, I'll never know... But damn, even if I couldn't stand the Original Series, I still have to admit that my eyes sort of teared up in nostalgic joy at the sight of those Constitution-class nacelles revving up with those rotating red lights. I'd be lying if I didn't say that the Tholian Web, no matter how bad its CG looked, was just a great reminder of what kind of brilliant ideas Roddenberry had back in his day... And hey, we even got a kickass battle out of it. With the cooler leak and all the sparks, it almost reminded me Yesterday's Enterprise. Or at least, the death of the actual Defiant in Deep Space 9...

... and Forrest got blown up... again... Some things definitely never do change...

Today was definitely one of the worst days to ever disgrace my entire goddam life in a very long time... I could've literally fucked up my last four months of school, at a cost of not only $7000, but the only pathetic remnants of my pride as well...

The episode may not have been perfect, with a lack of comedic lines or even decent CG effects for the bug-legged Tholian, but...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Spirit small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Y2kk Update: - LucasArts' Star Wars: Republic Commando Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

There was a time when I dreaded the release of every single Star Wars game out there, even as a Star Wars hater...

Regardless of what any of the critics say... The SNES Super Star Wars series sucked. The X-Wing and Tie Fighter series sucked. The Dark Forces and Jedi Knight series sucked. And I won't even bother mentioning the actually, really sucky Star Wars games made in the good ol' days...

But during this past generation of consoles or so? The Star Wars franchise has really started to find its niche... The Rogue Squadron series has definitely had its fair share of fine moments before exhausting itself out. And the Knights of the Old Republic games were both some of the best RPGs I've played in the past few years. Or in the case of the first KOTOR? Possibly one of the best RPGs I've ever played in my life...

So yeah, I wasn't very surprised when I first saw the trailer to LucasArts' Star Wars: Republic Commando at E3 last year, and saw that it was surprisingly good... The idea of having a 'squad as your weapon' was of course nothing new. But even as a Star Wars despiser over here, I've still gotta admit that I was frothing at the idea of gunning down and blazing through drodekas and clone troopers with those good ol' fashioned Star Wars blasters we've all come to love... The novelty geek factor was simply something I could not ignore...

The thing is, I'm both pleased and regretful of how the actual Republic Commando game turned out...

I mean, I can feel that if I hadn't played Brothers in Arms right beforehand, that I would've thought Republic Commando had a pretty good squad system... But after seeing Ubisoft's genius in controlling a squad of three? Then Republic Commando just seems like a pale imitation of what a squad shooter should be in the end...

In Republic Commando, why can't I tell my men to take cover where I want them to? I can't guide them into corners or anything, but rather only to giant floating silhouette blobs behind rocks and pillars, right in the line of fire... I can't tell them to really provide suppression fire, or to truly charge with guns blazing. Even if I set them to target a single super battle droid, my guys still just seem to sit around and wait to be shot... Normally, I'm not pissed at my AI guys staying idle. But why is it then, that when I'm staying idle in a room, just gathering ammo while I can, my own men rush into the next room all the time without fucking orders, and get themselves all killed in the following onslaught?...

Having a squad on your side ain't such a bad idea, as having a dedicated sniper on one end and a manned turret on the other, really does get the blood pumping once in a while... There was just so much potential with Republic Commando... and yet...

Is it just me, or does the feeling of wasted potential show up a lot when it comes to the name, "Star Wars"?...

It's not just the squad system that feels strangely inadequate, and dumbed down for the masses. First person combat itself feels hollow somehow, and sometimes it's hard to place why... One reason is obviously the controls. The Halo series has set the benchmark for me, for perfect x and y axis sensitivity with the S controller. But for some damn reason, no matter what I set it to, the sensitivity in Republic Commando was either too low or too high... it was skittish at best... Now, as for the rest of the controls, setting your squad to do stuff was dirt simple thanks to the A button. I loved getting them to breach through doors with charges and grenades, but...

Setting the A button to squad actions, somehow made the first person aspects of the shooting so much worse. Setting Y to the jump button somehow rendered it completely useless (a good thing I guess, since I goddam hate bunny hopping...). And having to hold down A to bring up squad commands was just so damn slow in the heat of action, that I ended up almost never using it in the end... The controls in Republic Commando tried to emulate Halo's to a T, yet came out so damn short in the end. Grenade tosses just didn't have the speed or accuracy that they addicted me to in Halo, and even the R trigger for firing just didn't feel right somehow... how exactly?... I wish I could pinpoint how... only the makers of Halo over at Bungie seem to know...

Combat itself was definitely tedious at times, for two main reasons really... The first reason was obvious the boring enemies you fight throughout the game. I mean, we all knew those silly droids were no more fun than Jar Jar from Episode I, and they certainly haven't proven themselves much more in Republic Commando either... There's only a select few types of enemies in the game, with basic droids and all those flying insect motherfuckers being the most annoying of the bunch. Why I can't take down the Elite insects with a single sniper shot to the head, I'll never know... Now, Super Battle Droids are decent to fight against when you have the grenade launcher. Drodekas with their shields do have a certain coolness factor, especially after you toss an ECD grenade at them. And General Grievious' personal guards do have nice shiny graphics when it comes to their blades, but...

Was it me, or do none of these enemies react to anything? You shoot them in the head with a blaster, and while you know some HP was taken off of their character model, you'd never know it from the way they were looking or acting. Except for your own squadmates, I've never seen any enemy seem injured, or even goddam flinch from anything but a shotgun bolt to the shoulder. There isn't any real physics in this game. And while I can forgive the lack of such for Drodekas and shields, it's really goddam annoying when a sniper bolt to the fucking head doesn't even jolt the Mercenary Elites back for a single second... The enemies basically just stand there as you do whatever dirty things you want to their bodies. Mercs just keep firing their worthless machine guns as you pick off each and every single member of their group. Trandosians just stand there as you flank them easily and tear them apart. And as long as you have a little cover, all you have to do is stand in one place and continually fire at Super Battle Droids to take those mechanical idiots out...

None of the enemies in Republic Commando are even the slightest bit intelligent, the slightest bit animated, or the slightest bit alive. Hell, they feel as wooden as the actors did in Star Wars: Episode II. And that's saying a hell of a lot...

But the second reason why combat just didn't feel right in Star Wars: Republic Commando, was because of the weapons itself... Now, don't get me wrong. I actually thought the blaster and sniper rifle were extremely well done. It's just that, those were the only two decent weapons in the game... The Elite beam weapon took forever to charge up, and I just hated the sound of that gnashing on its side... The Elite merc chain gun slowed me down, so thanks to its limited ammo, it was useless as well... The regular merc machine guns were worthless, since they caused almost no damage whatsoever... And even if I did enjoy the stock Clone Trooper blaster and sniper rifle, I somehow always had the damn problem of never finding ammo...

Maybe it's because I'm goddam colour blind or something, but I couldn't find ammo anywhere. After wasting 300 rounds on a single Super Battle Droid, I would look around for some clips and find none at all. I even ran out of ammo on the first damn stage, if you can believe that... So what did the game degenerate down to for me? Into a first person melee fest, that's what... Super Battle Droids? I would run up to them, knife them, back off as they swung and missed me, and then rinsed and repeated... Drodekas? I would just run up to them, never get hit as I stood right between their two guns, and knifed them to death before they could even hit me once... The General's personal guards? I just let them run right up to me, slashed them in the asses, let them jump away, and repeated the same damn process over and over and fucking over again...

This was the only way that I could conserve ammo at the start. And eventually I realized, IT WAS FUCKING EASIER TO MELEE THEIR ASSES than it was to shoot them. I took out every damn enemy with the knife instead of my gun by the time I got to the Republic ship... Hell, whenever I came upon one of those annoying Super Battle Droid dispensers, I would literally just camp in front of it while my squad set the charges, and meleed every fucking droid to death without ever taking a single hit... and what the fuck kind of first person shooter is that then?...

... obviously, Republic Commando wasn't exactly the perfect kind of Star Wars experience I was hoping for, even as a Star Wars detractor... but that's not to say that the game didn't have a ton of plus points as well...

Afterall, I said this game felt like it had a ton of potential, didn't I? There had to be a reason why...

Sure, the squad mechanics were too basic. My partners had zero AI, and the damn set-up silhouettes everywhere really took me out of the atmosphere of the game... But I did love breaching through doors. Now, I'll never know why it takes 20 seconds to set up a demolition charge, but watching things blow was definitely worth the wait in the end... I did love the fact that not only could I bring my squad back to life with Bacta, but they could revive me as well after I'm downed. I mean, while the shield system in Republic Commando was just a poor clone of Halo's (it just didn't feel right, somehow), I was still given the Halo-kind of braveness to charge headfirst into battle, thanks to knowing the fact that my squad could Organa bail me out if I ended up on the cold floor... And while some would complain that it made the game too easy, I liked how they put Bacta dispensers almost everywhere in the game. It kept it from ever getting frustrating, which was definitely one plus for me during this fucking frustrating week of university exams...

The graphics were absolutely beautiful in this game. Geonosis looked pretty damn perfect, with glowing skies and mountain ranges that almost look photorealistic at first glance. The captured Republic ship was a bit plain, but damn did it ever look sweet at the end, with dozens of droids rushing me all at once in the final battle... Republic Commando may not have been able to keep 60 fps for all scenes in the game, but the framerate was always high enough above 25 that I never once got motion sick, something that happens to me in almost all FPS these days... And the sound was pure bliss. Sure, the soundtrack felt stagnant at times, but how the hell could I argue against nostalgic Star Wars tunes at their finest?... My squadmates all had unique voices. Sure, it didn't make sense that clones would all have different voice actors, but at least it made each character more distinguishable in combat. Scorch and Sev both had their moments throughout the storyline, and I'm sure that other guy did too... whatever his name was...

And strangely, even though I've hated every single Star Wars movie since A New Hope, I did sort of want to play through Republic Commando just for the plotline itself... And while not much did happen in the game (there were only three main areas, essentially), I can't deny that the start of the game brought back the only good memories of the only decent parts of Episode II. And I can't deny the fact, that the ending of Republic Commando did give me a new hope when it comes to Episode III coming this summer... I mean, I can't really tell - was that really Yoda at the end, telling the Republic Commandos to fight against the clone invasion of Kashyyk? Or was that a fake hologram of Yoda, getting my squad prepped for the inevitable Jedi Order 66?... I don't really know. All I do know, is that the Empire music along with the sight of Star Destroyers in the air, definitely did make me want to see Episode III just a little bit more than I did before...

... still, while Republic Commando was truly a solid game, and definitely an above average first person shooter, I just can't get over the fact that throughout the entire game, you could literally feel the dark side of the force keeping it from its full potential... you could literally feel that this game could've been so much better, if only they had fixed the first person shooting combat and the squad based tactics...

I know it's weirdly ironic, being a game about cloned soldiers and all, but... Was it me, or did Republic Commando just feel at times like a poor man's clone of Halo? It had near identical Halo controls (as all FPS do these days), it had Halo shields, Halo-like weapons, and of course a HUD system closely mimicking that of Metroid Prime, the good ol' Halo killer from those early Gamecube days... And yet Republic Commando just can't reproduce the undeniable feel of Halo, that somehow makes that first person shooter a real cut above all the rest (despite Halo 2 butchering a lot of the weapon balance, but I digress...)...

Looking at the manual for this game, I see that George Lucas or LucasArts itself were the ones who made Star Wars: Republic Commando...

... well, in true George Lucas style then... he could've made this game great. But he only made it good...

... as he said for Empire Strikes Back... the film was made "better than it had to be"...

Enterprise returned from its long slumber as a lumbering giant. For better or worse, actually... Bound was not a bad episode by any means. But there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, that a ton of scenes did feel like a waste of time in the end...

Because let's face - I may love a good ol' seduction episode or two. Hell, I even loved Raijin from last season, thanks to all the lesbian sexcraft... And hell, Harbringer was on my plus list too, if only because of the sweet, sweet tits and ass dialogue between the ever horny T'Pol and Tucker back in that episode...

But Bound suffers from the same problem that most 'seduction' episodes do... THE WOMEN WERE ALL FUCKING UGLY!...

Yeah, it's somewhat believable that the men on the ship could become slaves to the Orions (sci-fi wise, at least), simply from all the alien pheromones. But geez, was it me, or did the two sisters in the back look like they were rejects from a bad motel porn video? And the sister up front?... well, she had nice legs, but where was the face? Give me a Stargate Atlantis hottie anyday of the week... at least then I'd be caught staring at the screen without any thoughts in my head whatsoever... sharing the screen time with the actors then, I see...

The Orion women weren't bad as actresses, but so many of their scenes just dragged on... The Kelby ones were mostly aggravating. It was obvious that he would be seduced, and it was obvious that the Orions had an evil scheme for him, as all super seductive women do on sci-fi. I mean, it was decent that the one week Chief Engineer had a bit of a rivalry going on with everyone's favourite Tucker. But did he really have to keep yelling out and reiterating the same basic lines of script over and over again throughout the entire episode?... And I don't know, but I just felt no passion or real seduction coming from the Orion women. They looked like they were mind controlling Reed rather than turning him on most of the time... The sex scene between Archer and the lead Orion sister was just flat out boring...

And where the fuck was my lesbian sexcraft? Hoshi was giggling like a schoolgirl after being sexed up last season, so where the fuck was my hot Hoshi action this year?...

... uggh... can't a man just get some sort of release after fucking up three straight exams instead of three hot girls?... fuck...

But really, overall Bound was definitely on the plus column of things... I mean, I've always been one of the few out there to get Star Trek's sense of whacked out humour. Hell, I even chuckled at A Night in Sickbay, which is counted as one of the worst Enterprise episodes ever made... So take it with a grain of salt when I say that I found Bound to be genuinely funny. I mean, just watching Malcolm gaze at the dancing Orions all night long with not a single thought anywhere above his abdomen, was probably one of his most memorable scenes all year... And yes, seeing those Orion women continually do some sort of wacky, alien synchronized dance did get to me. The sheer ridiculousness of it all definitely made me laugh...

... afterall, after an academic week like this one?... I sure as hell could go for some brainless comedy...

I was disappointed in Hoshi absolutely doing nothing to stop the evil Orion women. She made a small bitchy chirp on the bridge, but that was about it... But I was very impressed (sadly so) that Mayweather finally got his first memorable scene in months. I'm sure the female fans were giving thumbs up to his biceps, but meanwhile us men were actually relating to working out (or just doing something) to get women out of our heads. There was good, witty banter in that scene between him and Reed,, as strangely all gym scenes on Enterprise seem to turn out alright... Reed himself got a lot of action in Bound, both figuratively and literally. He sure got seduced by the dancing bitches quite easily, and I was more than amused from it... I found it completely dumbass of him to keep male MACOs guarding the Orions, but hey, whatever... And I don't know, but just the little things in this episode that he did (like his little whimper of 'no' to destroying that noname, weakass attacking spacecraft) made the episode seem to have a lot more of a natural flow to it than it would've otherwise...

Phlox was quite a trooper, seemingly saving the day with his medical treatments while hibernating for God knows what reason. Still, he didn't have many humourous lines or anything, but Billingsley always puts on a good show nonetheless... And Archer? Well, he was his usual self, doing his best Kirk impression by going after the Orion girls and all. On the one hand, he had a ton of bad scenes of being seduced and manipulated and all that crap that would've worked if only the Orions were actually hot... But on the other hand, Bakula did a good job of acting like a man who tried his best not to be seduced, but just couldn't resist. That is the kind of thing that male dreams are made of (or at least, mine... usually on the woman side though, but I digress...). And the nice contrast between him threatening the lead sister out of an airlock, then motioning to open the Cage for them (pun intended, for long time Trekkers...), definitely showed that the actor knew what he was doing...

But the real reason that I liked Bound, was the same reason why I loved Harbinger a year ago... because I don't know why... but I just can't seem to resist being seduced by the damn Trip and T'Pol relationship storyline...

I mean, seriously! Where's my masculinity? What the fuck is wrong with me?... I tried to roll my eyes when T'Pol just mentioned the daydream just out of nowhere, and yet I still felt so bad for her when Trip rolled his own eyes and brushed her off... I tried to cringe at the awful dialogue, when Trip was muttering to himself about pros and cons, after T'Pol tells him about the mental bond that now exists between the both of them. And yet still, no matter how hard I tried not to, I still chuckled at the poor look on Tucker's smitten face... And WTF? The ending of Bound was actually great to me? WTF?... Maybe it was just the surprise twist of the Orion females being in charge (which seemingly contradicts everything we've seen since The Original Series... unless the whole slave trade is one big rouse...), but dammit! My goddam heart was seriously melting as Tucker conned T'Pol into admitting her real feelings for him!... And that kiss? God, maybe I'm just extra horny from Spring or something, but I still goddam found that kiss between the two of them to be perfect. There's just so much chemistry between the two actors, that Tucker's little admission of the Enterprise transfer near the end really did make Bound feel like such a better episode than it really was...

Hell, the entire second half of the episode was pretty damn great. We got a decent battle with the Orions, and a huge twist (for long time Trekkies) when it came to the Syndicate... We had Trip and T'Pol working together once again, half of the time acting like jealous high school ex's, and the other half of the time acting like they were already married for years... And we even got a classic TOS moment in sickbay, with Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol somehow reminding me of all those times that Spock or Data tried to lamely make a joke...

Bound was a nice, light-hearted episode... once it got past all the goddam awful seduction parts with the fugly Orion whores...

And that's exactly what I needed. A little bit of fluff, and a little bit of hope...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Onyx small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Thirteen is not a lucky number... not today, and not for me at least... but, well...

Considering I just potentially failed yet another final exam? And considering I have another one tomorrow morning... and then another one the day after that?... then it probably ain't very wise for me, to be wasting my evenings writing noname updates that nobody will ever read, now is it?...

... then again, this is Smallville, right? And everybody knows that I just love Smallville oh so much, that I can't ever resist a small Smallville week in review... because?...

... and apparently, Lionel Luthor... actually has a good side?... WHAT THE FUCK?..."

... uggh... at times, watching Onyx was worse than failing my Computer Complexity course for the second straight time... well, almost at least...

Now, obviously this episode had some redeeming features. Namely, Michael Rosenbaum doing his usual thing... It's amazing just how different he made the three Lex's throughout the story. When he intended to, it was obvious who was the 'good' Lex, even to the point of him being so kind to his father that it was unnaturally creepy... And when he intended to, he was definitely the sinister Lex as well. His fight against Clark was a long time coming, and I just loved how evilish and 'heelish' (if you go by wrestling terms) he acted whenever he showed off that kryptonite ring of his... And when Lex was merged back into his old self? His acting really was impeccable... You could see him 'trying' to be nice, especially in trying to reconcile with Lana. And yet you can see the ulterior motives there too, all highlighted by that evil Lex hint of a smile he gave at the end of the episode... As the evil Lex said, Luthor has thought about killing Clark and his friends. He just never had the guts to do it... and I liked that line...

... well, mostly because I can kinda relate, but, um... let's never talk about that again, now shall we?...

... unless we're talking about every single other Smallville character out there... and maybe the writers for the show too, but I digress...

Martha and Jonathan weren't in the episode long enough for me to comment on. They did their part, getting shot in the kneecap and all (and not feeling pain, it seemed), and not going all bitchy afterwards at Clark for some odd reason (that has been their thing this season)... Lois Lane wasn't in the episode. I guess that was already the first fatal flaw with the Onyx formula... Jason was absent in action as well. Don't know where he went. But thanks to his temporary departure at least, that made Onyx feel quite like an old school Smallville episode... for better or worse...

First of all, Lana was a bitch yet again. Not as much of a bitch as normal, but her damn bulging eyes are just so damn annoying whenever she's unwilling to forgive someone (Lex in this case, near the end). And her goddam conversation with Clark, about guys keeping secrets? Sure, it had triple meaning now (Clark, Lex, and Jason), but goddam was that scene ever painful to watch. I slapped my head out of the sheer stupidity of their shared "oh shit" looks, something I haven't done since the last goddam Smallville episode might I add... And Chloe? Sure, I found her constant hints of knowing Clark's powers to be funny the first thousand times the writers fiddled with it. But goddam, was she ever bitchy in Onyx... The whole time they were in the lab, waiting for evil Lex to return, Chloe was just bitching at Clark about keeping secrets and being alone for eternity, as if her lines were ripped right from Lana's last season or some crap like that. And God, they turned cute, adorable Chloe into Lana 2: The Cheapquel! What the fuck?! I didn't think it was possible... but for once, I was actually glad when Chloe did shut up and just walked out the door... hopefully to do dirty things to Lois, but that's a story for another day...

Clark was both his usual clueless self this episode, and not half bad in Onyx either... The first half of the episode consisted of just plain awful conversations with Chloe and Lana about keeping secrets, and the duality of human nature and blah blah blah. All crap done to death during the first three seasons of Smallville... But the episode did start picking up around the time that Clark was stupid enough to cement his powers in front of evil Lex in the laboratory. After that, I must admit that no matter how comic book cliche it got ("Join me, and we'll conquer the world! BWAHAHA!"), I definitely did enjoy the Lex vs Clark confrontation in the Kent barn. Lex was being cocky as ever, looking good with the green bling bling and all. Clark was being his dumbass self yet again, ever so slowly choking Lex instead of using his super speed to knock him out or some crap like that... Still, like I said, their dialogue just had a familiar sense of nostalgia to it. I loved how Lex didn't even hesitate to use the gun on Mr. Kent... His god-awful line, "I am the villain of the story", had me rolling on the floor in laughter during commercials. But hey, at least the overall scene was great...

What was not great, was the extra hokey dialogue between the two Lex's in the basement... The Louis XIV stuff was alright. But there were just so many other lines that were just so downright cliche evil, that it even made Superman and Spiderman comics from the 60s feel fresh and post modern... I really didn't like the final battle between Clark and Lex either. I mean, I thought green kryptonite reflected Clark's heat vision? And black kryptonite, while a nice link to the start of the season, still feels so out of place in the Smallville world (especially the way it was created... regular heat? WTF?...)...

But my biggest complaint by far, has just got to be the travesty that they've done to John Glover's Lionel Luthor. I mean, gathering what we saw in Onyx, we can conclude that... WTF? Lionel Luthor was actually genuinely good for the past half year? WHAT THE FUCK?... I was hoping, ever so goddam hoping that the writers had an ingenious plan for Luthor senior, giving him a real cool ulterior motive to his charity crap that we never would've thought of as an audience... But in the end, he actually did turn good earlier in the season? That's it? And now he's back to being evil, still with no memory of ever being in Clark's body? WTF?... uggh... worst writing ever... but at least I can feel fortunate that we'll finally get the real Lionel Luthor back from this point on... or at least, I can hope...

Don't get me wrong - Onyx was more entertaining than I'm giving it frackin' flack for... Like I said, we finally got the Clark vs Lex confrontation we've been waiting years for, and I don't think it disappointed. Was a bit quick on the trigger though, but it didn't disappoint...

Of course, this episode did ruin a ton of characters, had a horribly cliche script, and once again merely cockteased us with Lex's eventual turn to the dark side of the force... Thirteen was not a lucky number for him, I'm afraid. But hey...

... at least the episode was good enough to get me off my ass from studying... and back on my ass to write this damn review...

... and considering my mad l337 procrastination skillz? That ain't saying much either...

... he and Repli-Carter can make a good Repli-Mrs-Robinson couple someday, I guess...

You see, during my late elementary school days when I actually read novels (instead of just pretending like I did), I picked up a well known Clive Cussler title known as Raise the Titanic... and realized just how goddam sucky writing and novels really are...

IT WAS BECAUSE OF CLIVE CUSSLER THAT I NEVER, EVAR WILLINGLY READ A NOVEL EVER AGAIN.

Well, that along with the fact that I'm too goddam lazy to ever really give a damn, but that's a story for another day...

Short story short, even though I thought Clive Cussler's writing style was even worse than Michael Crichton's, I still did like the base plotlines that he centered his stories around. Dirk Pitt was absolutely no James Bond, but the situations he got himself in certainly would've captivated a young mind like mine at the time was... if only Clive Cussler would learn how to goddam write...

Still, I always knew that Dirk Pitt novels would become a decent movie franchise one day...

Because after The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure made it big? It was only a matter of time before the carbon-Hans-Solo-copies and Indiana Jones adventure clones came roaring through the Hollywood doors...

Now, I'm not sure why they chose to adapt Sahara to the box office first. The Titanic is a much bigger name to go by (no pun intended...), so I was wondering why they didn't just start with that novel instead... until I learned they actually did make a Raise the Titanic film back in the 80s. Which now I've got to see, just to remind myself of just how bad the novel was in the first place...

The star of Reign of Fire and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (which I will sadly admit, I've willingly watched five times by now...) was completely not believable as the American version of James Bond that I envisioned from the novels... He's just such a goofy kind of actor, that it's literally impossible to take him seriously as a NUMA, ex-Navy Seal officer. And hell, even the soundtrack couldn't keep itself from cracking a smile... Because was it me, or did they intentionally play "Sweet Home, Alabama" in the background of a scene, just to remind the actor of all those god-awful romantic comedies from his past?...

The thing is though, he may have not been a decent Dirk Pitt, but Matthew McConaughey did make the movie enjoyable somehow... The makers of Sahara must've seen National Treasure a dozen times fold, and realized just why it was such a smash hit at the box office: because it never took itself too seriously. Not even once... And Matthew brought that to Sahara...

He was just a goofy guy, cracking smiles, and making the audience snicker at just how ridiculous all his miraculous escapes were in the film... I mean honestly, he took down a helicopter with an 150 year old cannonball? Why the fuck would an attack chopper ever take the same exact attack path THREE times in a row? Only McConaughey could actually make the scene sound reasonable... And c'mon already, Dirk Pitt can make a sandstorm wind sail out of the wreckage of a busted old plane? And before that, he could miraculously escape from being handcuffed to a jeep, by using a goddam gold coin to take apart the entire damn truck? WHAT THE FUCK?...

... and yet, it kinda worked... it was ridiculous as hell, but Matthew made it work...

The thing is, I was almost actually expecting dragons to be in Sahara. I mean, from every review I had read this morning, the critics made it sound like Sahara had a War of the Worlds going, with space monkeys from the center of the planet and the lost city of Atlantis or something (although I'm sure they're saving those for the next Dirk Pitt adventure... if they haven't been written already...)...

But when I watched Sahara this afternoon, things didn't seem so ridiculous to me. Like I said, the movie never really took itself too seriously. It knew it had goofy, cheesy villains, and played off the fact. It knew it had a horrendously whacked out storyline, that could only possibly sound decent inside a crazy man's head (I'm looking at you, Clive fucktard...)... Nevertheless, while watching the film, I never really once actually thought that the movie was nearly as ridiculous as all the critics were saying...

... at the start of the movie, we had a Confederate Ironclad ship from the American Civil War, just sailing off to Africa for no apparent reason whatsoever... and then one and half hours later, we had Matthew McConaughey fighting for Cruz's life on the top of a giant, solar powered, toxic waste incinerator in the middle of the Mali desert... and, yet..

... eh, whatever. Sure, I was disappointed that Dirk Pitt wasn't eaten by a giant flying dinosaur again or something. But I can wait for the inevitable sequel for that... Either way, no matter how ludicrous the plotline to Sahara was, there's no denying that I did enjoy the movie for what it was worth...

Penelope Cruz was just along for the ride. Literally. All she did was ride in a jeep and ride on a camel, and that's about it... But hey, at least she had some decent chemistry with her current real-life boyfriend (Matthew, for those who don't know). And how can I really complain about her, when they did that lovely, cliche 'nerd to hot chick' transformation with her over the course of the film?... She started out as a completely unconvincing nerd with glasses, and ended up wearing a tight ass, tiny tank top while captured by the evil, generic European bad guy in the end... And why was she just wearing a tiny tank top there? Who knows? And who cares? She looked fine with it, so why ask questions?...

... and then she moved onto the bikini... nice... too bad the movie ended before the nudity began, but I digress...

Surprisingly, Dirk had some actual comic relief with Steve Zahn playing Al, and William H. Macy playing the Admiral... Now, since Sahara is quite forgettable, I already forget quite a few of Zahn's lines. I do remember that he made me laugh though, as he was the only guy who was always hinting to the crowd at just how ridiculous every single scene in the movie turned out to be... William Macy didn't have a lot of time on screen, besides his talks with the CIA operative I guess. He wasn't really believable as the hard nosed Admiral that I remember from the novels either... but I loved his reaction to the "Panama" incident. And he turned out to be a welcomed addition to the cast in the end...

Sahara obviously isn't a world shattering, Oscar-worthy movie or anything. And hells bells, it ain't even as sophisticated as National Treasure was... at least that movie had a 'reasonable' plotline, and actually interesting history lessons in-between...

But Sahara did have kickass music. If there's really one reason to see Sahara, it's because modern day adventure films really seem to have a perfect track record for kickass soundtracks...

It had guns. Lots of guns... A boat chase with tons of bullets flying everywhere. And a whole bunch of armour piercing rounds from an attack chopper, going straight at the ol' Iron Clad (... don't ask)...

It had a completely ludicrous plotline that you'll be laughing at for hours. Really, what was Clive Cussler thinking?... An ironclad that leads to a desert? A desert that leads to a plague? A plague that leads to solar panels? And solar panels that lead to the end of the world? Say what?!?... But hey, it was fun while it lasted. A forgettable popcorn movie, but definitely one worth bringing the family to, just for shits and giggles...

Y2kk Update: - Ubisoft's Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

Ubisoft has definitely become one of the few powerhouses in the modern video gaming industry overnight... I don't even remember what they did before publishing Grandia II on the Dreamcast over here. All I know is, since then, Ubisoft has time and time again proven itself to be one of the premiere video game developers in the world to date...

... and yet?... and yet, there's always just something lacking in their games, preventing them from ever being considered great... from ever truly gaining high praise from me...

The Splinter Cell series was fun for the first hour of sniping or so, but really got repetitive and boring halfway through the first game, let alone the next two... The Prince of Persia series had a ton of great platforming potential. But all the damn bugs, and all the horrid combat prevented me from ever considering that game as one of my favourites... Beyond Good and Evil had some brilliant graphics and unique boss battles. But the characters were annoying, and the stages themselves were plagued by both bugs and tediousness... Ubisoft has made so many good games this generation of gaming, but nothing that I would ever consider to be great...

Now, I didn't even want to bother with this game at first. When I saw it used at my usual video game store, I just half scoffed at the fact that there would be yet another generic World War 2 first person shooter in my collection... I mean, Return to Castle Wolfenstein just had awful play mechanics on the Xbox. And both Call of Duty and the milked-as-hell Medal of Honor series, tried so damn hard to emulate Saving Private Ryan (even to the point of having the "blur vision" and bullet skews in the water), that both games just seemed like utter, cheap ass clones of Saving Ryan's Privates... with ass being quite the key word here...

I didn't want Brothers in Arms at first, because nothing about it seemed different than any other WW2 first person shooter before it...

... because somehow, just somehow... Brothers in Arms just feels better than every other World War 2 game before it...

There are obviously problems with the game, as Ubisoft rarely can ever get all of their programming efforts perfect... I experienced quite a few bugs the first time I played the game. Like once, I blew up an AA flak gun, only for its parts to start floating in the air afterwards... On some missions, my men would just disappear on me. I would never know where they went, even though they technically still showed up alive on my menu screen... And of course, as with all AI games, my men did get stuck on walls and stuff a lot of the time. It sure made them easy targets for the pickings, but at least it happened rarely enough that it barely ever bothered me in the game...

The one most glaring problem with Brothers in Arms, was obviously the AI... Some on the net have absolutely praised Hill 30 to the high hills, claiming that they've never had such intelligent squad members in a game before. And yet I just can't help but keep thinking, that my men are no more smarter than they were in Freedom Fighters... I've literally ripped the hair out of my head at how damn idiotic my men could be. Sure, most of the time they stay low and keep cover as I set waypoints for them to follow. But there are just some times, where they literally walk in front of a goddam MG42 and get themselves all blasted to hell in seconds. There are times when my Sherman tank would just follow me for no reason, right into an anti-tank weapon... When defending the farm, I told my guys to provide cover fire as I flanked a bunch of Germans. After I killed those Krauts, what did my men do? Instead of holding position, they just came running after me like little children in the Sound of Music, and got themselves all shot in the goddam heads by the next way of goddam Germans... uggh...

... and because I leave no man behind, I of course restarted from the last damn checkpoint... and then they'd die again... and then they'd die again... and so on, and so on...

That was both a plus and a minus for Brothers in Arms. Because I seriously cannot remember a single first person shooter game, that was ever this damn hard on just Normal difficulty... There were two parts in particular that I was screaming my ass off. One was the first time I took on a tank with a Panzershrek. I had no fucking clue that the Panzershrek ammo would regenerate itself, so I literally got myself killed at least a dozen damn times, wondering why the fuck the tank wouldn't go down after one anti-tank rocket... There was another stage, where I had to take over a warehouse guarded by two damn MG42s. Neither of my teams could provide cover fire for me properly, so I literally died more than a dozen times trying to sneak past that second MG42 alone... Hell, I don't even know why I was dying all the time. The first two times I crouched and hugged the wall, I somehow got sniped by that MG42 above my head. And yet after trying different tactics a half dozen times over, I finally tried the sneak and hug the wall method again... and it worked? WTF?!... did the game pull a Dante's Inferno on me, and just let me pass the damn stage or what?... I'll really never know, I guess...

The easiest parts (and fairest parts) of the game were definitely when you only had one team. The enemy rarely flanked me then, and usually didn't have a ton of MGs to mow me down with... But as soon as you have both fire and assault teams, and as soon as you get that goddam useless Stuart tank, the AI just goes all out on you, and they fucking murder you all the way to Hill 30... Brothers in Arms was definitely a most frustrating experience at times. But Ubisoft realized this, and helped stem the bleeding, and helped stop me from going prematurely bald, by healing my team and refilling my ammo after dying at the same checkpoint three or more times in a row. Sure, that didn't help me much on those two goddam situations I mentioned above, but at least it kept me sane for the rest of the game...

I mean seriously, I can't exactly place why or how, but Brothers in Arms was actually fun, unlike pretty much every other WW2 first person shooter out there... I can't begin to describe the coolness factor of getting your fire team to lay suppression fire from the front, move your assault team to the Kraut's left as a diversion, and then mow the motherfuckers down from their right flank with an MP44... The strategy in this game may be simple: suppress and flank pretty much works every single time. But damn, I gotta admit, it never does get repetitive... I can't exactly place my finger on how. But no matter how damn dumb my squadmates may be, I still can't get enough of fighting with eight damn men loyal to me and my cause... gave me a sense of purpose and duty somehow, actually...

Completely unlike any other WW2 shooter that came beforehand, instead of feeling like a cheap Saving Private Ryan knockoff, Brothers in Arms actually feels genuinely authentic. And it's almost impossible to place exactly why... What does it do differently from other WW2 games? I don't know... Is it the music, with its soft melancholy actually being sombre enough to never once throw me out of the experience?... It is the sound effects, with so many bullets whizzing by your head, and artillery strikes digging trenches for you, that it finally makes me feel proud that my Xbox has full Dolby Digital 5.1 sound?...

Or is it the graphics? Sure, some can complain about muddy and pixellated textures up close. But goddam, does everything just look beautifully authentic from far away... While the animation of your squad members isn't exactly the best, their faces are instantly recognizable, and extremely well done during real-time cutscenes... And as for the environments? Sure, the bushes and rocks look generic. But they're goddam bushes and rocks, for Christ's sakes... The water and mud alone in this game, were some of the best damn graphics I've ever seen in a first person shooter to date, on any console or PC... And just take a look at the architecture in the final French cities in the game. Hell, I think the art direction in Brothers in Arms turned out to be even more beautiful than the real cities of France, as I almost felt bad for all those beautifully crafted buildings as I was blowing them to shit with my bazooka... goddam French...

This game is both nitty gritty and gorey. But Ubisoft just found such a perfect balance between the two, that neither of them ever takes away from just how goddam authentic this game feels during the actual gameplay... goddam French underground...

Or was it the weapons?... The M1 Semi-Automatic Carbine was finally done justice, as the sheer accuracy and nostalgia of the iron sight, made the rifle into absolutely my favourite weapon in the game... The M1A1 Thompson was absolutely useless, but at least the MP40 and MP44 once again proved themselves to be great weapons while charging... The M1903 Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle was just so damn sweet whenever you got it, that I think I even shed a tear at just how damn powerful I felt while sniping motherfuckers right up the eye in the Cathedral... And while I was going to complain about the crappy Kar98, thanks to its crappy bolt action, I then checked a FAQ over at GameFAQs... and, umm... WTF? The K98 has a scope on it? I played through the game on both easy and normal difficulties already, and I never once noticed that the KAR had a scope on it? WTF?... well, if it does, then I guess even that weapon was pretty damn sweet. Hell, except for the pistols, every damn weapon in the game just had the kind of feel to them, that just didn't make the game feel authentic... it also made the game feel fun...

Now, Brothers in Arms like I said was not perfect... there were just too many frustrating moments to ever be considered a truly definitive, classical and epic experience of this generation of gaming... The AI of my teammates I already mentioned. But I can't really blame Ubisoft for that, since they pretty much created the best squad AI I've seen in a first person shooter to date... I can blame Ubisoft for a lot of the situations I was put in however, where they made the game a hell of a lot harder than it needed to be... I mean, when taking on three tanks at the end, where the fuck were my grenades? I had the jump on all of them, and yet I had no damn grenades the finish the job with? WTF?... And on so many stages, if only I had the M1903 Scoped Rifle in my hands, I could've wiped the floor with those damn Germans. And yet I was stuck with the crappy Thompson the whole time? Where the hell was my BAR at least?... at times, I had to let my own assault team get mowed down like grass, just to get a damn decent weapon at times...

And the plotline?... well... Sergeant Baker was just so goddam annoying, with his ever proverbial thoughts and praises, that it really took me out of the element of the game at times... Sure, some of his inner thoughts were decent, like noticing Leggatt slicing an egg like ham. Those are definitely things that a wartime soldier would write in his blog. If they had noname blogs back then, at least... But a lot of moments were overacted as well. Baker didn't seem to give a damn about his best friend's death (and why should he? Risner was a damn idiot for just sitting in his tank while Germans swarmed... plus, his damn Stuart tank getting blown up five times in that mission did piss me off, so I was happy when he was finally officially offed...), and yet Baker starts swearing over Allen 'n Garnett?... Death wasn't exactly handled very well in Brothers in Arms. Leggatt for example, looked like a stiff polygon as he made his last stand at Hill 30, which definitely ruined the authenticity of the scene to me... Not to mention the fact that the bastard had the worst sounding French I've ever heard in my life, but that's a story for another day...

But there were just so many good lines when Baker was silent... like the talk about 'saying hello' to the Germans for breakfast, or whether Batman could ever kick Superman's ass (pfft... as if... dumbass Leggatt)... And I loved - and I repeat again - I absolutely loved how the game came full circle at the end. It started with Leggatt's death, and it ended with Leggatt's death, which was definitely something that felt natural over the course of a 10 or 12 hour game... Some of the characters were useless jackasses. I never cared for Allen 'n Garnett, and Risola or whatever his name was, was a goddam chicken before he got blown up by everyone's favourite Stukas... But Mac had a lot of great lines. And you almost felt bad for Leggatt, the way the rest of the team blamed him for the deaths of three of Baker's Dozen...

I don't know how "true" the story behind Matt Baker and his 13 men actually was back in World War 2... but I'll tell you one thing...

... just like with Saving Private Ryan, the game just felt so damn authentic at times, that it actually makes you believe that the real Matt Baker gunned down hundreds of Germans by himself... and with the Baker's Dozen, of course... The game made the characters feel real. It made the war feel real. Hell, the siege of the Church was probably one of the most real-world war experiences that I've ever felt, in any game or movie, since Blackhawk Down or at least Saving Private Ryan... and considering how much I loved that movie? Then that's saying a hell of a lot...

.. I just know, that Ubisoft made for themselves on their first try, the absolute best World War 2 first person shooter I have ever played in my life...

And while it wasn't perfect, it was definitely still one of the best damn first person shooters I've played this entire generation of consoles, period...

Ubisoft has been rather hit or miss ever since it became a huge player in the video gaming forum... They screwed up the sequels to Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, and they never got to do the trilogy they wanted for Beyond Good and Evil... for good reason too, if you ask me...

But damn, am I ever glad that they've already started on a sequel to Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30.

Okay, I'll admit it... up to this day, I hadn't seen a single movie in theatres with any of my friends from university...

Because yeah, while I was all set to watch Frank Miller's Sin City at my tiny little, unknown $4 theatre in the boonies, my friends all opted to see the film as well as soon as I mentioned it this afternoon... So I decided to play along, fork over some extra cash, and we all saw the film together at Paramount Theatres in downtown Toronto...

And was it worth it? Those extra six dollars I spent, at least?... that's what a review is really all about, now ain't it?...

Yeah, I got suckered into seeing Sin City thanks to three empty promises: style, gore, and absolute hardcore nudity...

There was no real style to the film. It basically just stuck to its film noir presence the entire way through, and hardly ever highlighted objects and people with colour, the way all the advertisements for the film said it did... Make no mistake: I did get a real kick of seeing Jessica Alba stand out hard (definitely hard...) from the crowd, or seeing how kickass Clive Owen's ride looked all decked out in red. But really, besides these few moments of actual style with substance, the film was just downright painfully plain... or black and white, in this case at least...

Even the music felt monotonous. Sure, it normally flowed well with the film and its scenes, I suppose... but it never stood out, the way a great soundtrack tends to stick in your mind after a film, even after not noticing it once during the entire two hours... Hell, I can't even remember any distinct music from Sin City at all. It was all just damn film noir generic filler in the end...

Let me get this definitely straight: black and white, it matters not... Sin City may have been absolutely the damn goriest film I have ever seen in my entire damn life...

Hell, it even makes Kill Bill Vol 1 look as pansy-like as... well?... Kill Bill Vol 2, actually...

Every single damn scene in Sin City, had pretty much at least one head getting chopped off, or one hand being sliced off, or one of my favourites - a man with a gun cock in his head, getting sliced into a human "pez dispenser"...

It's just that, there was just so much damn pointless gore in the film, that I did definitely become desensitized to it. By the time the halfway point of the film arrived, I couldn't even muster up an eyebrow for whenever a guy got his ass blown up by a grenade or not... There's only so much violence that you can take before getting bored. After pedophiles and cannibals in just the first third of the film alone, somehow generic muscle bound villains in the second half just can't stir up any tension in me... but I'll get more into that a bit later on...

Dammit, I wanted so much more! Where's Jessica Alba in living colour when you need her?...

Sure, we got gratuitous, and very fortuitous nudity showings of both Jaime King and Carlo Gugino. There was just so much nudity from those two at the start, that it almost bordered on sheer ridiculousness, at just how downright gratuitous their nudity turned out to be... not that I'm complaining, mind you...

The thing about Sin City... is that just like all those old town hooker girls prancing about, the movie feels like such a goddam tease...

Mickey Rourke absolutely nailed his performance as Marv, and then some... Well, nailing Goldie for one thing was definitely a great way to start off the show. And the action scene with the cops after, was definitely giving me the kind of superhero goosebumps that only films like X-men and Spiderman have given me before... I loved the sheer ridiculousness of all his action scenes. I mean, the guy gets run over by a car a half dozen times, and all he cares about is a) popping some psycho pills, and b) how crappy modern cars look these days? WTF?... you gotta love the guy for his style... he has a thing for coats, afterall...

And unlike the rest of the film, the first of the three stories actually had substance. Or so it seemed... I absolutely loved Elijah Wood's character. His comic book glasses was absolutely the best use of "style" in the entire film (although Marv's bandages were decently done as well). I've never quite been sickened by a character in a movie before, but the thought of Elijah Wood eating Lucille's hand right in front of her, has got to be one of the sickest (and most wicked) images I have ever experienced in a film before... Elijah Wood nailed all his scenes. Seeing him just passively smiling there, as his human-eating dog gobbled up his entrails, was just somehow so damn sickening, that it actually felt good... He was a true villain, as far as I'm concerned. And as the short, evil, quite gay, jumping bad guy of the film, his past resume as a hobbit only helped to make his scenes that much more memorable... if only because of all the laughs...

Him and Mickey Rouke absolutely made the first third of the film into the most promising (and most teasing) forty-some minutes of film I've seen all year so far... I loved almost every single one of Marv's scenes. Torturing men by plowing their heads on asphalt (while driving), going to confession to off the priest, and seeing Jessica Alba in a damn fine white T-shirt, all made for a damn engrossing first chapter... Sure, there were pointless spots, like Lucille's death and maybe the anti-climatic encounter with the Cardinal... But how the hell could I possibly not love a chapter, where Marv at the end calls his executioners "pansies" for not being able to kill him on the first try?...

... but unfortunately, as soon as he faded away, that's when the film started slipping into obscurity and mediocrity as well...

Now, I have nothing against Clive Owen. I actually think he did a damn fine job in his role... I just think his role sucked in the second chapter of Sin City, that's all...

Hell, when the only thing you snicker at is his goddam "Lancelot" reference, then you know something just ain't right...

While the first third of the film felt fresh thanks to crooked cops, some fine action from Marv, and some damn fine nudity as well, the second half just felt like it lost way too much of the momentum that the film had going for it at that point... We started off with an absolutely atrociously lame acted scene, with Brittany Murphy (WTF?) trying to actually act serious with Benicio Del Toro. And when it came to Del Toro's "death" by sword, there was no real surprise or suspense to the scene. By that point, I had already become so desensitized to all the gore and slayings, that I just whimpered out an "eh" when people's skulls were literally being sliced in half...

... the action in Sin City was absolutely brutal... both in terms of gore, and eventual tediousness actually...

The second story of the film just didn't have any characters that I was interested in... Michael Clarke Duncan's Kingpin clone was really just a generic thug. And with Goldie/Wendy now missing in action, I didn't give a damn about any of the hookers left over, especially with Rosario Dawson overplaying the Gail role... She had absolutely no chemistry with Clive Owen. And all I could do was roll my eyes at just how much she overacted the scene where she gets off on offing a half dozen guys... And hell, even that soon-to-be-infamous car conversation between Clive Owen and Del Toro (the one scene directed by Quentin Tarantino) turned out to be a complete bore. We were all supposed to impressed by the gore factor of the spliced apart neck or something, but I just ended up yawning at the Kill Bill meaningless dialogue in the end...

Sure, the second story of the film had its moments. The arrow in the chest guy was funny for the first five seconds, and that Japanese girl was pretty damn hot...

But where the fuck was the nudity? You can never get enough nudity... Where were the clever villains? The grenade lover definitely does not count... Where was the protagonist that we actually cared for? Because let's face it - Dwight was just a poor man's Marv... And I guess I was just disappointed that besides Gail, there really were no real links to the first story in the film. Maybe Sin City will work better then as three separate chapters on the upcoming DVD, I don't know... all I do know, is that it really didn't seem like it worked in the film...

And dammit, I couldn't even enjoy Bruce Willis! Since when could I not enjoy a Bruce Willis role?...

... hell, I even almost cried during Armageddon... but let us never speak of that again...

The thing is, I loved the Hartigan part at the start of the film, when I wasn't bored of all the overbearing violence and all... Shooting Nick Stahl's nuts really had me laughing louder than anyone else in the theatre... Michael Madsen did an excellent job with the small role he was awarded... And probably for the only time in the film, the narrative actually worked when it came to his heart condition, as Bruce Willis really can own a scene whenever he wants to, even as just a keeling voice...

The thing is, his Nancy story just felt like such a boring, anti-climatic mess compared to the first story of the film, that I couldn't help but walk away from Sin City feeling disappointed in the end... Having Jessica Alba as a "19-year old" just didn't work. She definitely doesn't look like a 19-year old virgin (although I surely wish she was...)... And I just felt absolutely no chemistry between her and Bruce Willis, although I suppose that was the point...

I hated how damn green the Green Bastard turned out on screen. For every other piece of art and "style" in the film, it was all subtle. So why make the damn ugly, fat green guy so damn obvious? He took away from the rest of the film in the process... Not to mention the fact that, while I do appreciate a circular story now and again, I did get quite sick of all the repeated lines in Bruce Willis' second showdown with Nick Stahl... There was no big battle in the end. There was a knife stab, a ripping of the balls (again), and then a sacrifice for a young lady. And while that may all have sounded cool in a comic book, it just didn't work out on the silver screen. Not as far as I'm concerned, at least...

I mean, where the fuck was my naked Jessica Alba?... and seeing Bruce Willis in a cage for eight years, was not my idea of entertainment...

... two hours was just too damn long in the end for this film... I got bored of the action forty minutes in, and there really wasn't much substance after that... well, if you're not a graphic novel whore, at least...

Because you see, while the purists may all cull and cut off my balls for saying this, but... sometimes, a film can be too damn close to its source material for its own good...

Sin City was almost 100% authentic to its comic book roots. Hell, it even ripped off direct comic book bubble narratives for half of the film, or some sort of crap like that...

I know that the purists would all probably cheer and laud Robert Rodriquez for that. But seriously, dialogue that sounds great in your head, often just sounds too goddam ridiculous to bear when it comes to the actual ears...

Brittany Murphy repeating lines over and over again (and trying to actually act serious while doing so...) just didn't work... Jessica Alba, trying to sound like an 11 year old helpless girl again when it comes to "never screaming", just didn't work... Hell, even the opening scene with Josh Harnett had me rolling my eyes at the uber-cheesy dialogue, until the lovely sound of a gunshot wound lifted my spirits (and gave me a rise...), for the first third of the film at least...

You could tell that this film had so much potential. And from a strictly "original" point of view, Sin City will really stand out from pretty much every other film to be released this year. If that says anything at least...

... but really, was the film worth the $10 I spent this afternoon?... isn't that all that matters?...

When I left that Paramount Theatres today, muddled and befuddled with mixed feelings, I looked over to my friends who had followed me to the film... and they were all shaking their heads as well...

Y2kk Update: - Tecmo's Dead or Alive Ultimate Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers?... umm, no...) -

I mean, March 2005 was such a huge month for video games. The PSP was released (the first nail in Sony's coffin, if you ask me...), and so many damn fine games came out for every single system. God of War, Brothers in Arms, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and Timesplitters 3... they're all games that I want, to some extent... and they're all games that I could've gotten...

... and uggh! Goddammit, I can't believe I've been this damn busy the entire damn month... In a sense, I've been fortunate that there's been no good television on in March to review, otherwise I never would've gotten done all the damn programming assignments and tests that have been bogging me down for the past thirty days or so...

Sure, I had some moments on the weekends to actually get my gaming groove on... But the thing is, without time on weekdays, I just didn't have the urge to play any of the long winded, single player games that I've bought this past month or so...

Well, the only real gaming I've done the past month or so, have been spurts of Xbox fighting games in between Toronto Raptors commercials and crap like that...

I've been playing Street Fighter 3 mostly... and if you checked my review of Street Fighter Anniversary, then you'd see I definitely chastised Capcom for milking those Street Fighter titties dry...

The thing is, I'll readily admit that I'm definitely no Dead or Alive fan. I may own Dead or Alive 2 for the Dreamcast, but I regret ever even picking up that game for the $20 or so that I did in the past... I just can't seem to ever get into 3D fighters, the way I fell in love with Street Fighter all those childhood years ago...

So why the hell did I essentially buy Dead or Alive 2 all over again? And for $40 this time?...

Dead or Alive Ultimate contains both DOA1 and DOA2... I was severely disappointed at the port of Dead of Alive 1 though. Except for maybe the controls and added Xbox resolution, the game is exactly the same as it was back on the Sega Saturn. And the game sucked back then, and it still sucks now... although I definitely get a chuckle out of just how damn "bumpmapped" they made every single female fighter back then, no matter how primitive those graphics were, long before the bump-mapped phrase was ever truly coined...

But the real meat and potatoes and jungle beat bongos of Dead or Alive Ultimate, is the remake of Dead or Alive 2, a game I've repeated many times before as one that I simply cannot enjoy... despite wasting my cash on it all those years ago...

And to me, I still can't enjoy the game really. The reversal system is nice, and some of the punch and kick combos I can pull off in Survival mode kept me coming back for more on the Dreamcast... but really, that's all there ever is in a 3D fighter. Dead or Alive 2 has always felt just as generically bland to me as the Tekken and Virtua Fighter series always have. All I really do is punch and kick and do some fancy special moves... and while sure, essentially that's all a 2D fighter is as well, somehow 2D fighters just feel like they have a hell of a lot more intuitive strategy involved...

So why did I buy Dead or Alive Ultimate, over all those March 2005 releases that I mentioned up above?...

Yeah, this month has been all about the quick gaming fix for me. And in that sense, Dead or Alive Ultimate really delivered...

I can honestly say that next to Street Fighter 3, DOA2 has been the game I've picked up and played the most in this month of March. And why? Because it's just so easy to pick up and play for a session...

Who here doesn't get addicted to unlocking potentially dozens of costumes for Ayane and Kasumi? That's all I did whenever I had free time this month, as the story mode is just that damn short and that damn gratifying... All I do in story mode, is beat on a few guys, watch some boobs fly, and then unlock a costume after just five or ten minutes of playing. I actually get a reward for literally playing the game during television commercials, or whenever I get burned out from work... and that sadly has been worth my money, I think...

Now, I hate the characters in DOA2. All the guys are absolutely useless, as Hayate and even ol' Ryu just feel generically empty compared to their female brethren... I hate all the moves in the game. Except if you're against a real pro, you can literally beat almost everyone in 3D fighting games by just mashing damn buttons, and Dead or Alive 2 is definitely no exception to the rule... And I don't even like the music and sound effects in the game. Japanophiles may adore the fact that nothing was translated essentially, but I just get annoyed that so little work was ever done in the transference over to North America. And the damn menu song still bugs me, long after all those damn years of hating it back on the Sega Dreamcast...

Dead or Alive Ultimate is simply gorgeous, no matter what TV you own. Every character is so vibrant in colour and literal bump mapping, and every single background is so rich with detail that it really makes the new revamped DOA2 stand out from the rest of the 3D fighting crowd... Hell, the background settings are probably the only real reason to play the game, next to the women of course. The only thing better than tickling Hitomi in tight jeans, is fighting amongst rhinos or knocking goddam Helena off of goddam buildings, or whatever sort of crap...

I still had my grave disappointments with Dead or Alive 2 though... I mean, besides the added costumes, graphics, and background settings, there really isn't anything new...

I at least wanted new characters, more than the piddly default of 8 or 10 or whatever. And yet as soon as I popped in the game, I found that the only DOA3 character added (Hitomi) wasn't even unlocked by default... Hell, they don't even let you use her in story mode even after you unlock her, which is a royal pain in the ass as far as I'm concerned... costume unlocking and wallet wise, at least...

But even though I still don't enjoy the Dead or Alive series for its fighting... even if I still don't have the guts or the groin to actually give a damn about its graphics... and even though I'm still kicking myself, for buying pretty much exactly the same game as I already had on the Sega Dreamcast (with added Xbox Live features, not that I ever use them, mind you...)...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
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