An IvanF, IVT, No-Name Whiner, HomePage Production... December 2004: IvanF's No-Name Brand Website...

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Wow, does it ever feel weird to write the year "2005"... I hate odd numbered years, afterall...

Well, it seems my noname website has finally gotten some Reggielution momentum, heading into 2005... I just recently, finally passed the pathetic 20 000 hit mark on my noname website, on my official counter down below at least. And on my unofficial, invisible one? It claims I have 70 000 unique hits... big discrepancy there, yet that's still pathetically low for a website that's approaching its third birthday...

I guess the momentum couldn't have come at a better time, because who honestly knows, right? Maybe somebody on the face of the planet might actually read my 2004 Annual, IvanFian Video Game Year in Review...

... and if you ask me, 2004 was a pretty big damn year. Probably the biggest since 1998, both in terms of sales and gaming quality, no matter how many sequels were released...

Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas absolutely cleaned house at North American cash registers, selling 3.2 million and 3.6 million copies respectively... and while unfortunately, they cannibalized pretty much every single other game's sales for the holiday break? Still, judging from the list below, you gotta admit that 2004 was a pretty damn big year in terms of gaming quality...

Metal Gear Solid 3. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Madden 2005. NFL 2K5. Need for Speed Underground 2. Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within. Call of Duty: Finest Hour. Killzone. X-Men Legends. Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door. Tales of Symphonia. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Pikmin 2. Mario Power Tennis. Mario Party 6. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Donkey Konga. Sonic Heroes. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Full Spectrum Warrior. James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing. Ninja Gaiden. Fable. Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. Rainbow Six 3. Burnout 3. Ratchet and Clank 3. Jak and Daxter 3. Mechassault 2. Megaman: Anniversary Collection. Viewtiful Joe 2... Halo 2. GTA:SA. The Nintendo DS... on the PC, FarCry, Warhammer: Dawn of War, LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth, Doom 3, Half Life 2, and World of Warcraft... and in Japan, Dragon Quest VIII, Tales of Rebirth, Grand Turismo 4, and the Sony Playstation Portable... the year of 2004 indeed...

... now, unless you have a complete prejudice against sequels, no matter how polished the games may be, then you can't honestly tell me straight to my face, that this list isn't at least the best damn video gaming list since 1998... hell, I even left off a lot of games that I personally didn't like (not like I liked most of the games on that list either), that a ton of other hardcore gamers thought were some of the best games ever made... Lumines, Legend of Zelda: Minnish Cap, and Katama-Da-whatever for starters...

2004 was indeed perhaps the best damn year for 3d gaming ever, and arguably one of the best years for gaming period... It definitely set my wallet back a few hundreds dollars, in the month of November alone... Hell, I think my video game collection nearly doubled from this one damn year alone. And if that doesn't say something, that I don't know what will...

So for one of the greatest years ever in the history of video gaming (the only things missing, were a true Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Starcraft game, alas...), it's finally time for the moment you've all been waiting for...

... not that anyone cares about it, mind you... especially since I only nominate games I've played, but still...

Best Game of the Year - Halo 2 (Xbox)
Runners-up: 1 - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Gamecube), 2 - Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door (Gamecube)

Ah yes, the Halo 2 hype and hate on the net... not that I can really disagree with it all though... I mean, I think it definitely says something about the marketing, when I still get more shivers running up and down my spine, from watching the 30 second TV commercials for the game... than I ever got while playing Halo 2 in the first place...

While Halo 2 was definitely not the end-all, be-all of gaming (as we all hoped it would be), it was still the damn funnest game I played all year... The core gameplay mechanics of the Halo series simply cannot be denied. I loved all the weapons in the game, and both dual-wielding and vehicle jacking helped push this game over the top in sheer fun factor quality... And if there's one damn thing that I wish all the Halo-haters would simply try before they cry and whine, is the entire damn game on Heroic difficulty at the bare minimum. Even I admit that Normal difficulty in this game was a complete joke, even though I did die quite a few times on my first run through... It's just that, what made the first Halo so damn good was the AI on Legendary. And except for the idiotic Brutes, I must admit that Halo 2 on Heroic is every damn bit of fun as the first game was in taking out swarms of intelligent enemies...

The sheer combination of multiplayer co-op, dual wielding, amazing AI (on Heroic and Legendary, at least), the badassness that is Master Chief, and the hottness that is the voice of Julie Benz... it all comes together to make what I definitely feel was the most addicting (and probably most polished as well) game of 2004... It may not have lived up to the immeasurable hype. But instead of being the best game ever made, I guess it'll have to settle for my best game of the year award...

Now, as for my runners up... It may feel weird for me, to give the first runner up award to Metroid Prime 2 (a game that I haven't even reviewed yet on my website), considering I've only beaten about 60-70% of the game so far... Still, from what I've played, it blows pretty much every other game from 2004 out of the water, except for the easy pick up and play factor of Halo 2... I admit that the worlds in MP2E are not as "immersive", and not as nostalgic as they were in the original Gamecube incarnation. I'll also readily admit, that I hate the light and dark beams, if only because of their ammo limits... and probably my worst concern with MP2E, is that it's quite the Rare collectathan, with all the temple keys and whatnot... But while these flaws all deny this game the best game of the year award, there's simply no denying the polish that went into this game. Enemies and bosses are huge challenges, with "huge" and "challenge" being key words here, even on normal difficulty... And while it did take a while to get reused to the Metroid Prime controls, after Halo 2 that is, I still loved how well they integrated into this game. Taking on Dark Pirate Crusaders was a great challenge, and I still get freaked out by some of the Ing creatures in this game... plus, firing the Annihilator beam at Luminoth lamp posts and watching the Ing all splat and die, is reason enough for this game to absolutely kick ass and take Reggie names...

I considered a host of other games for my final runner-up award, for best game of the year... afterall, I did play through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 twice. I did get so damn addicted to Tales of Symphonia, that I put over 50 hours into it. And Half Life 2 would've been impressive, if I didn't get bored of the game from all the 30 sec loading times on even my cousin's 1 GB of RAM...

But in the end, I agreed with myself, that the game I probably "loved" and cherished most in 2004, was Nintendo's Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door... It was probably the most endearing RPG I have ever played, at least since the original Mario RPG. And maybe even since Earthbound for the SNES?... There were obviously a few flaws in this game, namely some of the piss poor levels late in the RPG, and some of my NPC partners being pretty damn lameass in the end... But overall? Regardless of how "kiddie" this game looks to some, everyone really should give this game a try. It just has an inherent charm factor to it, with all its little punios here and Doopliss factors there. Combine that with still the best damn RPG combat mechanics ever, and you have the game of 2004 that I quite honestly, look most fondly back on... It may not have had the total fun factor of Halo 2, or the polish of Metroid Prime 2. But Paper Mario 2 was pure and simple, unadulterated fun... the kind of innocent fun, that I really do miss from the SNES days, actually...

Best Story of the Year - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords (Xbox)
Runners-Up: 1 - Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door (Gamecube), 2 - ... umm... Real Life?... no...

In a sense, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic got cheated out of my Best Story of the Year award of 2003... so lucky for the series then, that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 didn't really have a lot of competition in the year of 2004 (hence the fact, that I don't even have 2 runners-up for this award)...

Now, sure... some fans out there will claim that Half Life 2 had a stellar plotline. But those people were probably claiming Half Life 1 a long time ago had a great storyline, while I personally thought that game had absolutely zero plotline to begin with... Tales of Symphonia definitely did keep me interested with its twin world idea, but the story eventually dragged on and on to the point where I just didn't care... and God knows I'd never give the award to Prince of Persia 2, with its goddam Godsmack riffs, blaring and swearing and waiting in the wings... Now, I haven't played MGS3 yet, but I did play MGS2 and Twin Snakes this year, and I ended up pretty much rolling my eyes at every damn cutscene and codec sequence in those two games, so... And Halo 2? Oh my God, talk about the worst storyline ever made, dragging down one of the best first person shooters ever made... Before I played Halo 2, I really was expecting it to at least get a runner up award for best story of the year. But after going through the trials and tribblelations of The Arbiter, The Prophets, The Flood, and the Ark of the Covenant?... oh dear god, it almost made me want to rescind my best game of the year award from Halo 2...

Which brings me to KOTOR 2... because congrats! The game wins by default then!... sure, it feels wrong as a Star Trek fanboy, to give a best story of the year award to a Star Wars thing. But hey, the game kept me interested with its storyline, as all RPGs seem to do... Even though it could never match the sheer majesty of KOTOR 1's Sixth Sense turn of events, I still must admit that all the voice acting and branching dialogue in the game was most HK-47 impressive... and while many characters (Atton, Mira, The Disciple, and the Handmaiden especially) just weren't nearly as interesting as the hotass Bastilla was in the first game, at least HK-47 was back.. and at least we got some nice nostalgic Carth and Bastilla moments, especially with the very nicely done Korriban testing grounds... ahem...

<Condescending Explanation>: Of course, Master... The dialogue is this game could kick your ass and take your name... just go ahead and ask HK-47 how he feels about love... because I must admit, the only things written better than the script of Knights of the Old Republic 2, are my own absolutely stellar reviews of the KOTOR games themselves...

<Egotistical Boast>: And ah yes, was it ever damn fun to level up my Jedi Sentinel / Sith Lord in this game... God, it felt empowering (and kinda damn hot), to see my female dark side character kill entire rooms of Jedi Marauders with just a flick of her force storm wrist...

<Mockery>: Yes, I still missed Bastilla, with her poutty accented lips, and her gasping for air as she screams, "oh I love you, but I hate everything about you! Let's have sex..."... But damn, there was some damn fine eye candy and comedy in KOTOR 2 as well... I dare you not to laugh when you Die Hard your way through the Handmaidens, only to show up at Atris' doorstep and claim in a badass voice, "I'm here for my lightsaber, Atris"... and bitch slap that Bastilla-cloned bitch all the way back to your cargo hold...

There were no great revelations in Knights of the Old Republic 2, and the plotline definitely did feel jagged and unfinished as soon as you finished the four worlds you had to explore... But like all the above explained, the dialogue in this game was simply top notch. I don't think I've laughed that much in a game in my life... or at least, not on purpose...

... well, except for perhaps Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door of 2004, at least....

If only I had an award for best Japanese to English translation ever made, I'd give the award to Paper Mario 2 in a heartbeat... The plotline did stumble in the latter parts of the game, where the train mystery was nothing but a bore, and poor Bowser never really ended up integral to the storyline afterall...

But definitely the early parts of the game, had the absolute best Nintendo quirks since at least The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker from last year... I loved the little family relations between the punios in the Great Tree. I loved the fact that your koopa partner was weeping over the last letter of a father that wasn't his... But the absolute best stage ever made in a video game (except for the backtracking), has just got to be the Haunted House of the fourth world. Listening to the crows talk about T3 internet connections had me howling on the floor in laughter... and really, there are only three damn words needed, to sum up exactly why this game was a pure godsend to video gaming storytelling...

Best Multiplayer Game of the Year - Halo 2 (Xbox)
Runners-Up: 1 - X-Men Legends (Multiplatform), 2 - Mario Power Tennis (Gamecube)

If you asked me (ironically) before I played Halo 2, then I would've just rolled my eyes and stated in an HK-47 condescending manner, that of course Halo 2 would win the IvanFian multiplayer game of the year award, hands down... the only damn ironic thing though, is that Halo 2 was probably also the hugest disappointment for me, in terms of multiplayer...

Let's get one fact straight: I hate online gaming... I hate it, because I don't have broadband. I am fucking broadband impaired... I don't have Xbox Live... And because of Microsoft's and Sony's push into the online realm, I've been left with absolutely nothing when it comes to my single Xbox with three cousins in the same room...

... sigh... I miss the age of Goldeneye... not EA's goddam Goldeneye, but the real Goldeneye... the classic N64 days...

Halo 2 is absolutely atrocious when it comes to old skool 4 player deathmatches. I couldn't even believe it when I first tried it, but no stage but the old Coagulation stage was any sort of fun at all... Every stage was so obviously made for Xbox Live and 16-player LAN matches, that it simply wasn't funny. It would take ages for me to find my cousins to shoot in the ass, only for the respawning feature to bring them back so far away that half the game was just trying to find each other in the maze... The only thing we did have fun with in multiplayer was Ghost jacking. But even that got boring... once my little cousins figured out how to run me over with the L button...

Despite all the whiners on the net, complaining about the lack of system link or XBL co-op, there was only one damn saving grace to Halo 2's multiplayer: the co-op campaign. And that alone still makes Halo 2 my favourite multiplayer game of the year (if only because of the lack of competition... goddam Xbox Live...)... I mean, it doesn't matter who I was playing with, whether it was my brother, my high school cousin, or the littlest kids of my family of relatives. Co-op on a single system allows for the great, kickass fun of trial and error - with rewards... by allowing my cousins to just run in, die, and respawn where I was, it allowed them to both "progress" and "learn" about the game at the same time. And it was amazing actually - they hated Halo at first, but after just one hour, they were killing Elites by my side on Heroic difficulty. Just unfucking believable... Sure, I hated how Bungie removed the respawning feature from Legendary difficulty (making it in co-op less fun than it is in single player...). And sure, I will never understand why they removed the crescents from stages you beat... But hey, co-op campaigns on a single console are still just as damn fun as they were in the original Halo. And considering I loved nothing but the co-op in the original Halo? Then that's good enough for me...

Now, probably the only reason Halo 2 still earned the best multiplayer of the year award from me, was because there were no decent multiplayer games released this year, outside of the online realm... I sure as hell wasn't going to give an award to Retro, for wasting their time on the Metroid Prime 2 multiplayer (I tried it... it sucks...). So the first runner-up award goes to X-Men Legends, because surprise, surprise - co-op campaigns rule my life... X-Men Legends is a flawed game, a repetitive beat 'em-up if you will. But the game never really got boring for me, half from the novelty factor of fighting against giant Sentinels, and half because I got to take on the whole game with my brother and his friend... It was a great idea, to bring in the arcade element of just pressing start on controllers, to have a four player beat 'em-up game with the X-Men license. It brought back the best memories of Konami's old 6-player X-Men arcade game. And considering that was my second favourite arcade of all time (with TMNT being the first... sorry, Street Fighter 2...), that was sure as hell good enough for me...

Now, the sad thing about Nintendo lately is, even without online to waste time and resources on, my favourite company in the world still hasn't produced any decent multiplayer games in 2004... I was tempted to give the second runner-up award to The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure. But considering I don't even own a Gameboy Advance, let alone four, I can't really say that I was the biggest fan of GBA connectivity in this game...

So I guess by default (because I can't think of a single other decent multiplayer game this year), I give my final multiplayer nomination to Mario Power Tennis. Because I admit, it was a hell of a lot of fun for my little cousins to team up against the CPU... Sure, the power shots annoyed the hell out of me, considering they freeze the gameplay for redundant animations. But those power shots do add a nice new strategy factor to tennis games, and I definitely loved the gimmick courts myself... My only real gripe with Mario Power Tennis (besides the crap mini games, at least), was the fact that there was no goddam co-op tournament mode. I mean seriously, WTF?... It boggles the mind sometimes, how Nintendo (or Camelot in this case) seems to put so much damn refinement into their portable games, yet always manage to leave huge oversights in their Gamecube releases. Having no co-op tournament mode is inexcusable, and caused my cousins to put down the GC controller after about an hour of play (since these days, you really don't want to keep playing, if you find there's no rewards or point to it all...)...

... still, Mario Power Tennis was a fun game... it just wouldn't have won an award if Sony and Xbox Live wasn't ruining multiplayer as I knew it, at least...

Most Surprisingly Good Game - Tales of Symphonia (Gamecube)
Runners-Up: 1 - Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (Xbox), 2 - Freedom Fighters (Multiplatform)

I guess it shouldn't come to any surprise, that Namco would produce a great RPG. They've been doing it for years, even if I never got into the original Tales of Phantasia on the SNES...

But the thing is, after Grandia II, I've had a real thing against Japanese RPGs. Every single one seemed to have the same generic storyline, the same random (or not random) battles, the same cliche characters, and the same pointless leveling up each and every stage... Tales of Symphonia obviously suffered from all the above, which is why I didn't really expect much from this game. And yet I didn't care about a single damn one of these faults in the end, if only because the battle system was addicting beyond any sort of belief...

Having four of my guys just hacking and slashing away on screen for once, made the battle system second only to the Mario RPG series in greatness... Finally, I had an RPG to truly satisfy my ADD cravings, and I mean that in a good way... I was completely sick of turn based combat in Japanese RPGs, or piss poor real-time combat (like Grandia II had to some extent, in retrospect). But Tales of Symphonia really changed my opinion, and really gave me hope that the Japanese can really produce new, invigorating, if not innovative RPGs from here on out...

... and then Namco released Tales of Rebirth, a clone of their earlier and more boring Tales RPG series, exclusively for the PS2... go figure...

The first runner-up for the most surprisingly good game of 2004, was undoubtedly Midway's Psi-Ops. I mean, I still can't believe it... The makers of endless Mortal Kombat clones and brainless shooters (although I did love the Area 51 arcade), actually made a solid, polished game for once? WTF?!...

But it's true. I bought the game myself, and saw for myself the truth... Psi-Ops really is that damn good. The controls are amazing, especially considering this was the first ever psionic power game in the genre... Flinging bodies with telekinesis is amazing fun and amazingly addicting, if only thanks to the sheer ease and joy of tossing an enemy down a ventilation shaft... Pyrokinesis is especially amusing, if only because I fell in love with the simple but effective fire effects in this game... And absolutely the most guilt-ridden yet enjoyable feature in the game, has just got to be the brain suck. It's just so delightful, to pop a man's head like a balloon... sure, it sounds grotesque and GTA inhumane, but hey - don't knock it until you try it. The game really is that damn good, despite the Midway label on top...

Now, for my final runner-up for most surprising game of the year, I had a toss-up between Need for Speed Underground 2, LOTR: The Return of the King, and Freedom Fighters... While I realize that all three games are made by EA (and after they bought out the NFL, I've now jumped on the EA hate bandwagon), and while the latter two were released in 2003... the thing is, I played LOTR and Freedom Fighters in the summer of 2004, and found them both to be addicting beyond belief...

NFSU2 had great racing mechanics and LOTR had indelible co-op action, but in the end, I just had to give the nod to Freedom Fighters... I just never saw it coming, how a game as ugly looking as this, could be so much damn fun in the end. And it was all thanks to the great controls and your own personal red army in the end... It was just simple fun, to point and send your legion of loyal men to the deaths, with the single click of a button. Freedom Fighters (along with Psi Ops) was the best third person shooter I've ever played, simply because it didn't rely on shooting or aim. It relied on strategy, and with the great gimmick of having an army as your right arm... The game may have been short - only 4 hours long, if you know where to go. But I think I played through Freedom Fighters at least four times, eating my Freedom Fries as I went along of course... FF, LOTR: Return of the King, and NFSU2 are all three great games (no matter what the haters say), that Electronic Arts all managed to magically produce out of their ass last year (NFSU2 is just the NFSU1 engine, afterall)... It's just too bad that perhaps thanks to competition, EA completely choked in 2004, with mediocre games like NHL 2005, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and, uggh... Goldeneye: Rogue Agent...

... guess no more surprisingly good awards for them... not like anyone will ever read these awards of mine, mind you, but still...

Most Disappointing Game - Fable (Xbox)
Runners-Up: 1 - Ninja Gaiden (Xbox), 2 - The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox)

2004 may have been one of the best years for video game releases, overall... but I think it's pretty safe to say, that this year produced probably the largest amount of disappointments that I've ever seen in my life as well...

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is the obvious culprit, although every informed gamer knew how much that game would suck... But there were a lot of games that I personally expected to be good, that just didn't turn out that way... Call of Duty: Finest Hour was plagued with lockups, freezes, and just piss poor FPS accuracy compared to Halo 2... Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles may have been decent, but it was a repetitive beat 'em-up at best. Hardly worth the Final Fantasy name... Killzone and Doom 3. 'Nuff said... And hell, even Halo 2 was a huge disappointment, relatively speaking compared to the hype at least. I hated the multiplayer in it, the single player campaign was too damn short, and the story in the game was one of the worst I have ever been forced to experience, since at least Metal Gear Solid 2 made my eyes and ears taste like burning...

But there was one game, and one game above all else, that sucked beyond all known measures of belief...

Sure, I gave the game a decent score. Hell, in retrospect, I gave it a mark way too high for its own good... The thing is, Fable wasn't that terrible of a game. The combat was stiff, but adequate. The music wasn't altogether so bad. And I did like the wife system, even if I didn't get any lovin' (just like real damn life...)... But suffice to say, when it came to Fable, I wasn't lovin' it... because even if the game wasn't quote mediocre, the fact of the matter... compared to what it was supposed to be like?

Where was the real-time weather effects and lighting? Where was the single player quest that lasted more than either hours?... Where was the clever story we were promised? Where was the soccer with the heads of slaughtered kids, even?... Why were the choices between light and dark so damn useless and futile in the end? What was the friggin' point of the completely missing economic system?... dammit, where's our growing trees?... Xbox fans were promised the world when it came to Fable, just like PC gamers were with Black and White. And it was embarrassing really, to watch the Xbox fanboys try to justify how Fable was the best RPG ever made, when it barely even looked or played better than Sudeki of all crappy games...

But at least Fable wasn't alone in the Xbox disappointment bargain bin of trash...

Regardless of what the "l33t" and "g33k" gamers on the net claim, Ninja Gaiden was pure and utter trash as far as I'm concerned. It was hyped to the blue heaven's, all thanks to the gaming purists claiming that it was hardcore divinity at is finest... But where the hell was the gameplay? The combos were completely missing in action. All you needed to do to beat most opponents, was to simply mash buttons and hope you hit something with the god-awful camera... And the boss battles were just insanely hard. It just makes no logical sense to make the first half of a game so much harder than the second, completely negating all sense of logic for the learning curve of a human being... Yes, I am weaksauce. I sucked at this game. But like I said in my review long ago, if gamers can complain that a game is too easy, why the hell can't I complain that a game is too hard?... Ninja Gaiden was frustrating at best, and the piss poor controls didn't really help things out either...

Now, for my final choice for most disappointing game of the year... I was going to put in Halo 2, considering how much better I thought the game would be than the actual product turned out to be, but... Just because Gamespot picked on Halo 2 and gave all its heaps of praise to The Chronicles of Riddick instead, I thought that it was only fair that I turned the tables on that goddam tabloid of a publication... not that anyone will ever read this, but...

I am quite backwards compared to the rest of the world. I loved the Riddick movie, but hated the game...

I'm sorry. I know that Riddick for the Xbox has been compared to a new age Shenmue mixed with GTA, but I just found it utterly pointless to scrawl the streets of the prison for any clue what the fuck to do in the game... As linear and short as Riddick was, I was still bored out of my mind, because it somehow artificially inflated the gametime from 6 to 10 hours, just from leaving me with no clue what to do in terms of objectives half the time... I hated the first person shooter controls in the game. Hell, if they were going to make Riddick this damn sucky with a gun, I would've preferred Metroid Prime controls, thank you very much... And I was never able to get a hang of the first person fighter controls. I hate stealth in games, and if it wasn't for the badass factor of the EyeShine, I would've hated all the stealth in The Chronicles of Riddick too... I may respect the game, innovative and graphical wise. But I just couldn't find a single ounce of fun in its gameplay, no matter how hard I tried to agree with the critics...

Halo 2 may have been disappointing... but at least I still loved that game... which is far more than I can say, for Fable, Ninja Gaiden, and yes, even Riddick...

... the introduction of the Sony PSP to North American shores... the revelation of the Xbox 2 Xenon at CES and E3... Resident Evil 4 on January 11th... Star Fox Armada in early February... Halo 2.5 supposedly for the Xenon launch... The Legend of Zelda GC coming out in November... Grand Turismo 4 head on with Forza Motorsports... Timesplitters 3, for me at least... and who knows what else is in store for E3 2005?...

While I fully expect 2005 to pale in comparison to 2004, at least gaming wise... I am looking forward to the new year, if only because of all the new technology coming... The PSP, as much as I hate to admit this, will make the Nintendo DS look like a kid's toy in direct screen comparisons (even though I'm sure most potential buyers will be pissed off as hell, once they learn the PSP can't play DVD movies, and can't even play their PS2 games...). And with 3 separate parallel processors in the Xenon, I can only guess what the next generation of graphics will look like... even as a Nintendo gimmick fan, I am excited by general technological progress in the industry. And with the next generation of gaming just ahead, now in reach, how the hell could I not be excited?...

Y2kk Update: - Activision's / Raven Software's X-Men Legends Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers) -

There was one really memorable quote, that someone at university told me earlier this year...

He said there was only one thing and one thing alone that he needed to know, to truly know who I truly was:

Seriously, why the hell must Cyclops always suck so much ass? In the comics, he may be jakked beyond measure, yet his damn punches and kicks are weaker than Jubilee's it seems... And his optic blasts? Sure, occasionally they burrow through walls and sentinel torsos, but for the most part, Cyclops just gets owned by everyone. He's useless against Juggernaut, he gets bitchslapped by Magneto's shield all the time, and he even gets fucking womanized by Jean Grey, especially when she's going all Phoenix feminist on him... And for Christ's sakes, why the fuck did Cyclops have to suck so damn much in the movies? For crying out loud, he got wasted by Toad - by fucking Toad in the first movie! And he couldn't even beat his girlfriend in a one-on-one battle, let alone Lady Deathstrike early on... uggh... and the actor they chose for his part absolutely sucked ass at acting...

... sigh... and yet I still choose to elevate Cyclops as my favourite X-men of all time...

... and that's all my friend needed to know... to realize just why I fucking suck so damn much at university...

... which also does explain why I've definitely put up with my own fair share of god-awful X-men video games over the years... Starting from Wolverine's and the X-men's first games on the NES, I've played basically every single X-men game ever released. Some were decent, like Capcom's Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes arcades. Some were among the best games ever made, like that Konami 6-player X-men arcade game that I still wish they would just friggin' bring over to consoles (thank God for Mame then...)... but proportionally wise, there have been a hell of a lot of "Cyclopses" in the master mold of things, with god-awful X-men games like Next Generation and Adamantium Rage defining and defiling the holy X-men void...

X-men Legends is definitely a good game. And by X-men standards, it's definitely one of the best ever made... It may not be a great game. It may not be up to Hugh Jackman or even Captain Picard standards (despite the inclusion of Patrick Stewart's awesome voice), but it's definitely a game worthy of the X-men name...

Finally, I get a game where I can play pretty much any X-men character that I want to play... Sure, only a few of the X-men are decent to play as. Storm conquers all with her Catwoman lightning strikes, Iceman can freeze the entire screen of enemies to make the entire game easy, and Wolverine is literally unstoppable as long as you max out his healing factor... And even though none of the other characters are really any good to play, at least I finally get the chance to play them if I want to. Jubilee now boasts some nice cleavage after finally reaching the legal age to do so, Jean Grey may look absolutely awful in pictures but her telekinetic powers are neat in this game, Rogue has an awful voice but has a nifty flying move, and Gambit is just plain damn cool to be around. His kinetic charging is useless in this game, but hey - he's Gambit. He's badass personified...

X-men Legends has perhaps the best story ever told in an X-men game. Sure, that doesn't really say much, considering the competition it's up against, but at least that's saying something... Most of the plotline deals with the Brotherhood of Mutants, with Mystique somehow coming back to life a million times until you finally put the bitch down for good. But there are a ton of nice surprises for X-men fans all over the planet, from the Night of the Sentinels, to great battles with Juggernaut, to the inclusion of Magneto (naturally), and even some very nice touches with flashbacks to Wolverine's Weapon X project... The plotline wasn't entirely epic like many of the old skool cartoon episodes I watched were (yes, I even watched up to the Phalanx episode... and I even kinda liked it... that's how hardcore I was...), and it certainly can't match the caliber of either of the X-men movies. But really, the only weak point of the entire RPG campaign was the inclusion of Magma... I don't know whether she's a made-up character for this game or just an obscure one from the comic books that I don't know of, but besides her nice and very hot cleavage? She really was just annoying in the game (which sucked, considering you play her throughout the X-Mansion scenes)...

... and ah yes, I mentioned that this game was an RPG, didn't I? And how did that work out for the game?...

... RPG features are always a mixed bag of both good and bad in the end... On the plus side, I always manage to get addicted to RPGs, no matter how bad they are, and it happened yet again with X-men Legends. Leveling up Wolverine, Iceman, and yes, even Cyclops, became an obsession for me. I put all my points into strike and body, and waited for my mutant powers to max themselves out before really having fun with the X-men unleashed... but then again, the RPG formula really did make the game feel a bit too damn linear in the end, like most RPGs do. Even for a beat 'em-up, X-men Legends did kind of feel shallow. Beating up endless hordes of Morlocks (who somehow kept rising from the dead...) was not my idea of fun. And it really does seem to disrupt the game whenever a character does level up, considering a) the loading times to get to the level up screen, and b) the leveling up happens so damn often, considering you play as four characters on screen at once...

Presentation wise, I really have to say that X-men Legends is a mixed bag as well... On the plus side, the sound is simply incredible. Not all voices in the game are great (Gambit, Rogue, and yes, even Cyclops all suck ass...), but the key players (Professor X, Wolverine, and Iceman) are all done to really nice perfection. And I just love all the little sound effects that bring the comics to life, like the whirl of the Sentinels, or the hum of Magneto's powers... But then again, for every good thing that the game accomplishes in sound, it really just negates it all with the piss poor graphics in the game. At least the framerate was steady, and the colours on screen were plentiful, but... I respect that Activision went with cel-shaded characters, considering the game is based on a comic book, right?... But did they really have to make each damn character look a million times less detailed than their actual comic book selves?... Professor X has a blank head and mittens for hands. Rogue and Storm meanwhile, look like they're having bad hair days from the 80's... And WTF is up with Jean Grey? Even in her portrait picture, she looks like an ugly 50-year old whore... Maybe that has more to do with the new designs of the X-men in the comic books (I admit, I stopped reading the graphical novels around the time that Prime Sentinels came into the fold...). But still, at least it would've been nice if we players could just choose the uniforms we wanted to wear, instead of having to unlock the yellow Wolverine (or the actually decent looking Cyclops) only after beating the 15 to 20-hour game...

... yes, for an X-men game, X-men Legends (coming in over 15 hours of gametime) was pretty damn long. And with all the repetitiveness of an old skool beat 'em-up, the game did kinda get boring at times... There were a lot of frustrating parts as well. Some areas were just ridiculously hard (such as the infinitely respawning Morlocks, or the infinitely strong Sentinel glitch in the system...), and some parts were just idiotic in their design (dropping to our instantaneous deaths in fucking sewer water, by missing the damn hand rails, was not my idea of being an uncanny X-men...). And to be honest, the AI of your CPU partners in this game was just atrocious at best... If you tell them to use up health to save themselves, they end up using all your supplies for themselves. And if you tell them to remain defensive so that they won't die all the time, then the CPU pretty much does nothing, and it's just you against the entire army of muties and mutant haters out there in the world... Using the L button, you can call for help from your allies (and in the case of Storm, it does help out). But once they run out of mutant powers, they become useless again for the next five minutes of the game, making X-men Legends feel a hell of a lot more tedious and infuriating at times than it really should...

... the 6-player X-men arcade game was just a beat'em-up too though, right? And I loved that game to death, not just from nostalgia, and not just from my completely inexplicable obsession with Cyclops...

... but rather from the fact, that the arcade was fucking 6-players simultaneous...

I love co-op games. I always have, ever since the first Turtles arcade, and I think I always will love co-op... And X-men Legends truly delivers on the fun factor in that department as well, as the multiplayer campaign is simply pick up and play at its finest. I have four controllers at my house, and while I'm playing solo, all my brother or friend has to do to join in, is press start on another controller. And voila - we have a kickass party game going... Words cannot describe how much more fun a co-op session is than a single player campaign. Ganging up on Juggernaut from behind, or witnessing just how damn much Cyclops sucks against the Master Mold in two fold, is exactly the kind of shit that I wish every single friggin' game on the friggin' planet would just give to me these days... And even without co-op, this game has pretty decent multiplayer. It may not be Children of the Atom quality, but the skirmish mode does provide a few decent matches now and again. And the Danger Room scenarios (if you can collect them all, at least) offer a hell of a lot of replay value after the game is done. Because in them, at least Cyclops doesn't suck that damn bad...

... and he gets to bone Jean Grey, which besides her ugly mug in this game, is a good thing as far as I'm concerned...

My friend only needs to know one thing and one thing alone, to figure out what kind of man I am...

But I guess it really shows something as well, about both X-men Legends and I... that no matter how damn much he sucks in this game...

... well, thanks to four player co-op... thanks to a great X-men storyline... thanks to the RPG leveling-up... and thanks to one kickass voice by one kickass Captain Jean-Luc Picard...

Well, seems that Prometheus Unbound will be the last episode of Stargate to air in 2004... and to be honest? It wasn't a bad way to go out... at least compared to the rest of the year that SG-1 has had...

Prometheus Unbound was completely a campy, collectively comedy episode. And at some times it worked, and at some times it didn't... Really, while it was a nice change of pace to the overly dramatic (and utterly stupid in the end) episode from last week, I still just didn't feel that most of the humour really worked in this week's episode... Dr. Novak with the hiccups was simply far too unprofessional and far too "high school play"-like in comedic quality for me to bear. Her running gag just got old by the time her first scene was up, and the bad acting on behalf of the actress really didn't help things out later either... good thing she never made it to Atlantis, where she would've ruined the better of the two shows as well...

And Claudia Black's character of Vala (aka Farscape meets Star Wars)? Well, she was a mixed bag, to say the least... I absolutely hated her character, technobabble wise or whatever... I don't care how smart she is - she still shouldn't have been able to lock down the Prometheus within just a few moments of boarding the ship. And it bothers me a hell of a lot how at the end, how not only did she escape from the brig (and from armed guards, I'm sure), but she took out SG-3 without any problems as well. I mean seriously, WTF?!... I don't care if she's "good", as Daniel says. It's just that, if she's that damn good, I'd like some actual writing to back it up and fill in the blanks for me... but I guess that's what her five part Farscape mini-series will be about next year on SG-1, but I digress...

The thing is, overall I did like Vala as a character... Some of her sexual innuendo crap was taken over the top though, such as the obvious and obnoxious "size does matter" line. But seriously, when have I ever objected to flat out sexual innuendo?... I admit, I did crack up at the romantic tension between Daniel Jackson and the SuperSoldier, even though I knew Vala was inside the costume. And the catfight between Daniel and Vala was one of the best one-on-one fights in Stargate history, with a glorious fire hydrant to the crutch to boot... afterall, she is a "fruitcake"...

One of the main problems with Prometheus Unbound at times, was that except for the scenes on the Alkesh, it really didn't feel like SG-1... One of the main problems was the Prometheus itself. I mean, sure I appreciate a little firefight at the end, but must the Prometheus suck so damn badly, as if I was watching the Millennium Falcon get its ass kicked? I mean, it blew up one Alkesh, just one damn Alkesh, and got its ass kicked by just two more?... And had to be saved by Walter of all people?!... So let me get this straight: we can now fly between galaxies, yet we run out of weapons after ten seconds of shooting?... Honestly, we should give the Asgard back their technology. Our ship damn sucks more than the NX-Enterprise does it seems... Hell, I think it did better with its shields down than up, but that's besides the point...

But of course, the real factor in making the episode feel strange to me, was the fact that it was a solo "Hans Olo" effort from the cast... Teal'c and Carter weren't there, since they spent all their filming time on the last episode. And Jack did have a great scene with Hammond over the return of the general's chair, but it was still only one scene that make me snicker... Don Davis made a return as General Hammond, and at the start, it was all fine and dandy. I loved the return of the Jack and Daniel and Hammond banter, and it was nice to see that George was finally promoted to a 3-star general (unless I saw wrong). But after that?... well, Hammond was written into the trap of playing the hero. It was nice that he wanted to do everything himself, as if he was reliving his Colonel days or something. But generals are supposed to be smarter than that. Because seriously, what if something happened to him? I sure as hell wouldn't want Col. Reynolds running the ship... It would've been better if Hammond had been the one to rescue Reynolds off the Cargo ship then, instead of being the one to go in the first place...

The real star (and only star) of the episode was once again Daniel Jackson... He provided some nice ties to the Stargate Atlantis mission (although ironically, the team there has never needed to translate Ancient even once so far...). And like I said earlier, his conversation with Jack and Hammond over the Prometheus mission was one of the best comedic moments of the season so far... When it came to his chemistry with Vala, I think Michael Shanks did the best he could, but really couldn't muster up much in the end. Sure, I loved his reactions to the Supersoldier and the catfight in the engine room, but a lot of his other moments with her were just too campy for their own good... I snickered at the pinching of her head on the monitor, but it did seem a bit too childish for his character at times. And sure I loved the rolling of his eyes whenever he zatted her, or whenever she was lecturing him on some made-up story of the Tok'ra, but it did get a bit boring and redundant by the end...

All was forgiven with the "Hans Olo" moment though. Even if I saw it coming, it was nice to know that Vala was completely full of bullshit, simply wanting to trade the Prometheus for a shipment of weapons grade naquada. And the Twi'lek looking aliens, provided a nice and obvious tie in, to this episode's feeling of Farscape meets Star Wars... although their "business" does seem to change the Stargate outlook on our galaxy a bit too much, where once it seemed like the Goa'uld oppressed everything, but now it seems that the galaxy is pretty much free to do whatever they will... I don't know if this will be a good thing or bad thing in the end, but I digress...

Short story short, I did enjoy Claudia Black as Vala, and I did enjoy Michael Shanks as Hans Olo... but this episode tried too damn hard to be funny for its own good, leaving its mark with a whole lot of groan moments as well (and I ain't just talking about the groin)... Still, compared to the rest of this Stargate SG-1 season, Prometheus Unbound was not a bad way to end the year. We've all missed Don Davis afterall...

... and hell's bells, even if she's not my type, I guess Claudia Black on top would be damn comfortable too... but I digress...

Y2kk Update: - Sega's / Global Star's ESPN NBA Basketball 2K5 Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers?... umm... no...) -

Now, I really loved the potential I saw in NBA2K and 2K1. I mean, I'm from Toronto, and we're all about "potential" over here (we love Chris Bosh and Matt Bonner afterall, no matter how inconsistent they are night in and night out...). And Sega's NBA2K2 was probably the basketball game that I played the most in my entire life, or at least since NBA Live '95... But NBA 2K3 and ESPN 2K4 just didn't do it for me on the Xbox. 2K3 was ruined by shoddy controls and DC-era graphics, and ESPN 2K4 lost something in the translation as well, with offence and defence lapses that I could forgive on the Dreamcast... but not on the Xbox at least...

Now, ESPN NBA 2K5 suffers from the same damn problems as its predecessors did pretty much, on both offence and defence...

On offence, the entire game is now based on the paint. It's almost impossible to get clean 3-point shots, and everything else is pretty much bricked around the perimeter, no matter which player you use. Meanwhile in the paint, it's far too easy (even with big guys like Shaq) to use hop skips or whatever to get past defenders and get an easy lay-up. Yet ironically (and very frustratingly), everything but the easy lay-up or the straight jump shot in the paint is fucked up in this game as well... The computer seems to be able to block (without being called for a foul) practically all the dunks I try, no matter who I try them with. And whenever I get an offensive rebound? All I want to do is get an easy lay-up off the glass, but following in the tradition of the series' DC days, my player does some weird ass fadaway hook-shot all the time, that always ends up missing... The computer never has these problems though. I play on Superstar difficulty, and the first three quarters of the game are easy to deal with, considering the players always predictably go inside. But in the last quarter? All of a sudden, they can rain threes, even with four hands in their face, and I just end up shaking my head at how damn cheap the computer has become...

On defence, ESPN NBA 2K5 really didn't fix any of the problems that 2K4 had... Blocking shots is just damn weird still, with point guards able to block centers seemingly enough. And the "take-a-charge" button, or whatever it's called, sometimes makes playing against anyone but the computer (who never hop skips) a bit too frustratingly easy... There's now a double team button (the L button), which I liked at first. But after a while, it just becomes useless, since you lose all control over your player (allowing some opponent guy to get open somewhere else, of course). And it was only a matter of time, until I missed that defence L button thingy that the DC 2K series had... And in the end, once again, the 2K series is anything but a simulation of the game, especially against the AI... Even with 5 minute quarters, I routinely rack up scores in the 70-80 range, because the defence just ain't there... The AI ain't there either, and I ain't just talking about how badly Allen Iverson sucks in this game... Because even on Superstar difficulty, the computer will not play defence on you, until the fourth quarter at least... where they seem to be able to impede your every movement with their cheating ways, but I digress...

There are huge flaws with NBA 2K5, I'm sure... For one, the graphics are subpar, even compared to the Dreamcast on my VGA monitor, it seems. Some players have faces that resemble their real selves, but the crowd and courts and pretty much every single body in the game just looks like a high res N64 game at times... The sound is decent, but the commentary is still the same as before. Meaning it surprisingly stays on topic all the time, but bores you to the death while it's doing so... The controls are decent in this game, as the Xbox controller has always been close to the DC one for the series. Free throws become easy after you get used to the new L and R system, but overall the accuracy of the analog just doesn't feel as nimble or fresh as it did back in the early days of the 2K series... And ESPN NBA 2K5 does have a nice overall presentation, with easy to navigate menu screens, a decent franchise ("The Association") mode, and the return of the 24/7 mode from 2K4... I haven't played much of a season yet, but even with the salary cap issues and player demands, it's not much more deep than 2K2's was. And I still don't care for the 24/7 mode, as it's one of those RPG-like things that only Xbox Live owners would give a damn about in the end...

... and wow... that's quite a few complaints already, isn't it? And all this, over a game I've already professed to love? WTF?!...

I bought ESPN NBA 2K5 for $20 CDN used, just one week after the game was released... While I'll never forgive Sega and Global Star for bundling it with a crappy green stub in the middle of the case, I will still admit that there's a damn good reason why EA just joined the dark side and bought out the NFL (and tried to buy out the NBA's exclusive rights as well)...

Because honestly, for twenty frickin' dollars? Even if I admit that the NBA Live series is slightly better than this game (which quite frankly, the 2K series does look low-budget this year), the $60 CDN price tag for EA's roster updates just can't compare to the $20 that I could get NBA 2K5 for... Because seriously, all I really want each year is the same game (if the core gameplay was already damn solid) with updated rosters and a few new features. That's it... and for a low price...

And that's exactly what Sega finally delivered this year... In some ways, ESPN 2K4 was better than 2K5. But I will still give 2K5 a better review, simply because it's worth so much more for every damn dime I spent on it.

I've already logged dozens of hours into ESPN NBA 2K5 against my brother, as we just can't get enough of posting each other up and boxing each other out for the rebound... There are a ton of little things that this game does so well, from tightening up passing lanes, to making fast breaks into something you work hard for... The replay systems in ESPN games are always among the best, and the new player and crowd animations in this 2K5 are almost damn good enough to completely forget about the piss poor graphics... The new free throw system is simpler than before, and the series finally made posting up and taking a step back for a shot into something that's finally fun again, for perhaps the first time since NBA Live '95...

From an overall perspective, directly compared to other games, then yes, ESPN NBA 2K5 isn't really high on the list. It's poor overall presentation, horribly cheap AI, and failure to live up to the "simulation" aspect of its branding yet again, is all forgiven this year around however... simply because the game was damn cheap enough to take a risk on, and get my damn money's worth out of it.

I'm satisfied with this game. I have not said that with any basketball game since 2K2 a long time ago...

In a sense, Sega set a dangerous precedent with their 2K5 series of sports games... By pricing them all at $20 US new right off the bat, we gamers may always expect the same damn price from Sega down the road. Because I hell for sure would never buy one of their sports games again for full frickin' price... they're just not worth it for $60... or $50... or hell, even $40...

... heh... I'm the kind of guy, who's so damn cheap that I even still bother to watch the Toronto Raptors every night... just because it's free...

... I like inexpensive things... hell, getting a bargain is half the fun of a game...

... and regardless of all its flaws, the NBA 2K series has finally proven fun again for the first time since the Dreamcast days...

... both from the bling bling of the game, and the money still rattling in my pockets as we speak...

Y2kk Update: - LucasArts' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers) -

George Lucas: "... and if Star Wars is a religion... then I am a god!"
Reporter: "... no... no, you're not..."
George Lucas: "Again, was I talking to you?!..."

You know, in the days before Star Wars: Episode I, most geeks all over the face of the planet would've sided with George Lucas in that old MadTV skit... but the reality these days is, it's kinda ironic actually, how Bioware created a much better Star Wars plotline in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, than I think ol' George Lucas has ever done since A New Hope (and yes, I hated Empire Strikes Back, just for the record...)...

I loved Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I played through it three times... My first time took me 50 damn hours. My second two times, twenty and fifteen hours respectively, I think... If anything, that game has absolutely the best storyline of all games in 2003, if not for pretty much the entire Xbox library as a whole. And if anything, Knights of the Republic is right up there with the Halo series, as the only Xbox games that I've ever rated with the rare score of 9/10...

So of course, as soon as my exams were all done and fini (sans one this Monday, at least...), I rushed over to my local Great Canadian Superstore (since Wal-Mart was slow on the deliveries) and got myself one of the few copies of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords for the Xbox... Now, I knew the game wasn't made by Bioware any longer. Instead, they folded the reigns over to Obsidian Entertainment, so that the big wigs at Bioware could spend their time on Jade Empire instead... And truth be told, I knew long before I purchased this game, that it just wouldn't be able to live up to the immense standards that Bioware set forth with the first in the series... I mean, they released a sequel to KOTOR in not much more than a year after the first. That can't really be good, now can it?...

Now, Obsidian did a pretty good job of learning the tricks of the Bioware d20 system pretty quickly... The core RPG gameplay of Knights of the Old Republic 2 is just as solid as it was before. I absolutely am addicted to watching my Jedi Knights go at it with the sound of lightsabres searing through the air. And thanks to my familiarity with the menu system, I didn't have a single problem with using force powers, pausing the game to refocus on enemies, using items (although I kept using up my melee shields when I didn't want to...), or even activate the new Jedi stance things that they added to the game... I complained about the menu system in my review of the first KOTOR, because at the time, it was new and a tad bit confusing. But confusing controls, if they become standard, are good enough for me. And truth be told, I loved the play control in Knights of the Old Republic 2... I loved the turn-slash-action based command style of the first game, and it was great that Obsidian transplanted it so well into the sequel...

I just wish they would've fixed up all the problems with the first game, you know?...

Sound is still of an extremely high caliber, as the lightsabers have the most kick ass effects I've seen in an RPG this year... But the music quality, while still better than the new Star Wars trilogy (though that's not saying much), just can't compare to the score in the first KOTOR... The graphics in Knights of the Old Republic 2 are also strangely enough inferior to its predecessor's. The brilliant lightning of the first game is now replaced by dank and dark backgrounds, such as those of Malochar V. And all the NPC faces look so damn generic and devoid of details now, as even the Jedi Masters you meet look like they were from an early Dreamcast game or something... The level design is awful compared to the first game as well. While obviously stages such as Taris and Korriban were nothing to brag about in the first KOTOR, they were still miles more interesting than Telos or Dantooine rehashed in the second game... But the absolute worst thing about The Sith Lords is the framerate. Why, oh why did Obsidian absolutely ignore all the framerate issues that plagued the first game? Not only that, but the framerate is actually worse is so many ways now. The first area of the game (Peragusus, or whatever it was called) ran so slowly at times, that it felt like the game was chugging at 5 fps half the time. And yet even that was a godsend compared to some of the lightsaber action later in the game, where the word "rate" might as well be dropped in place of single frames...

Obsidian did a rush job on this game, and it definitely shows in a lot of places... Not only did they create a bunch of worlds devoid of imagination and creative level design, but unless I missed most of them, they went pretty sparse on the sidequests as well... Now, I'm not saying this was a short game. It still took me 22 hours to beat, even after all my experiences with the first game. But it definitely didn't have the replay value that the first in the series did, and a lot of that has to do with the tedious combat (where I could literally leave my controller in the middle of a battle, and come back five minutes later), and the most boring NPC characters I've seen in a long time... And while some might claim defects do provide replay value, it's just amazing what kind of bugs that Obsidian left in the Xbox version of this game. While I didn't encounter any as horrible as the infamous "Carth bug" from the first game, I still had my fair share of problems... For one thing, there were two Miras on the screen at the same time for some odd reason, the game has frozen on me twice, I've had sidequests reappear after I've completed them, and oh yes - after the big revelation with the Jedi Masters, the game skipped all the cutscenes and went right to Telos... until I went "huh?", loaded up an old save game, and tried it all again...

Yes, I wish the game fixed up the loading times from the original. Instead, it now takes even longer to wait, after you accidentally step out of a catina only to realize you have to go back in... And yes, I wished the framerate was improved. I wish more levels were interesting. And I wish there were better items to search for (although I hear Malak's equipment is in the game... haven't found it yet...)... And in a sense, I will complain that Obsidian just didn't add enough into this game. The Jedi stances were just not enough to feel like innovation, and the Jedi prestige classes barely made a difference at all (didn't we get to pretty much do this in the original game as well)? Both of these things just weren't enough, compared to the flaws still evident throughout the game... While I was willing to overlook these issues a year and a half ago, it just feels annoying now to have to deal with this kind of stuff. I expect this crap on the PC, not on the Xbox... but what else can I expect from PC-centric developers, right?...

Regardless of the rest of the implementation of the game, I still loved the core fundamentals of it all. The d20 action, the upgrading of light sabers with crystals, the building up of your Jedi powers, and all the interactions you share with your allies and crew... That was the best innovation in this new game: the influence system. I could now turn my partners to the good or bad side through conversation and actions, and it actually worked extremely well at times... While there weren't nearly as many scripted events as there were in the first KOTOR, I somehow felt closer to my allies in this game, if only because I could actually change their alignment and turn them into Jedis if I wanted to... Obsidian created a much greater sense of interaction with your playable characters at least... and the greatest part of all it, was that they integrated this feature so damn well into the storyline of the game, that I really can't help but give kudos to them in the end...

... the storyline wasn't nearly as great as the first Knight of the Old Republic... but at least it was still miles ahead of anything George Lucas is producing these days... though obviously, that ain't saying much...

... big time spoilers... for a game completely based around its storyline, so...

There was no great big revelation like there was in the first game, but The Sith Lords did bring up enough of a mystery around your "exile" character to keep it interesting the whole way through... I mentioned how the influence system was integrated into the storyline, and the truth of the matter is, it was woven in rather brilliantly at the end...

It turned out that your "exile" was the one who basically (though not intentionally) taught Revan and Malak how to consume the life and strength out of force sensitives. And at the final battle of the Mandalorian wars, your character consumed so much power from all the death and destruction, heard so many force "echoes" from the dying, that you cut yourself off from the force... thus making you neutral for the start of the game, without any memory of why or how you cut yourself off from the force in the first place... And the influence addition to the game, is directly tied to your character. You can influence everyone between light and dark, because you subconsciously feed off of all them around you (since they're all pretty much force sensitive). That's how you regain the force - by consuming it from your friends, while you subconsciously control their minds... and while this wasn't nearly as cool and badass of a twist as "You're Revan! OMG! Hi2U!", I still gotta admit that it impressed me with the whole philosophical aspect of it all...

Knights of the Old Republic 2 wasn't very potent in the big ass, epic sense of the word... There weren't really any large scale ship battles, there weren't really any planets on the brink of disaster (most of them were simply rebuilding from the Jedi Civil War), and the fate of the galaxy wasn't really in play (although the force itself was being threatened)... We got glimpses of this through the return of Carth Onasi (and Bastilla I heard, although she didn't show up for me... weird...) and the attack on Onderan, but for the most part? KOTOR 2 felt like just a substory, to set up whatever Bioware has planned for the inevitable finish to the epic trilogy...

Instead, while I was disappointed a bit in the lack of LOTR epicness or whatever, I did find comfort in just how much depth characters were given, especially Kreia... She was your enemy right off the bat, and I appreciated how the game never forgot that fact. Every time I did a good or bad deed, she would go off on a tangent about the repercussions of what I did... If I did a good thing, she'd say it was a waste, and didn't help things one damn bit. And if I did a bad thing, then she'd twist around her words again... While I don't make it sound very appealing here, in the actual game it's actually done extremely well. The old hag only respects people with a firm mind, who believe in what they choose. Kreia provides a great sense of social commentary, that basically mocks both capitalists and socialists alike... In the first game, choices were far too black and white. But thanks to Kreia, and also due to the influence system, things are suddenly a lot more gray and murky. And it pretty much worked out in the end...

Take Atton (or Carth Jr, since that's what I call him) for example... It turned out, that he was a Jedi hunter/killer during the Jedi Civil War. The only reason he abandoned Malak's cause, was because he discovered that he was force sensitive himself, and would become a target for force consumption... But Carth Jr. along the way brings up a lot of good points. What really is the difference between a Sith and a Jedi anyways? Both are arrogant, both have too much power for their own good, and both (in the KOTOR series anyhew) seem to ignore the people's plight all too often...

The biggest focus of the entire game (which was brought out brilliantly in the vision quest on Korriban) was whether going to fight in the Mandalorian wars was the right thing to do or not... and the story really brought it out nicely (with a nice return of Malak), that it really was a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario... Kreia brought up the most compelling point of the entire game: maybe Revan didn't fall? Maybe he sacrificed the good in himself to save the Republic from Mandalore? Maybe he knew he would be turned, and chose to sacrifice himself for the greater good?... What was really right then? Let the Republic fall, to save the good in you? Or save the Republic, only to turn on it due to the dark side of war?... Kreia sought out the "exile", because unlike Revan and Malak, she actually did manage to turn away from the dark side after the Mandalorian war. And while I didn't like how the game tried to use this idea near the end (using the exile to destroy the force?... umm... alright...), I still gotta admit that it made for some clever thinking thanks to some clever writing along the way...

Every character had some meaning in their backstory... Visas revenged and redeemed herself for the destruction of her entire planet. And she provided a nice little insight, into what it's like to finally have your own dark padawan for once... Bao was a waste to me, considering I could never get him to talk. But he provided decent backstory about the wars, serving under the exile, so that was good enough for me... The Handmaiden I still haven't gotten, but I will in my second play through. Instead, I got stuck with Disciple, who basically felt like the goddam MGS2 Raiden of the game (... "Sam Fisher can kick his ass... but that ain't saying much..."). Sure, he was a decent Jedi (though I gave him purple light sabers for a reason...), but I still felt embarrassed to play Mr. Prince Charming... Fission Mailed in that sense...

But his character was made up for by HK, Goto, and the return of Canderous... I never managed to rebuild HK-47 (missed one part, dammit). But his HK-counterparts had absolutely the most hilarious dialogue at the Telos Jedi Academy, and definitely helped save the game during the boredom of the Peragusus or whatever space station... Goto surprised me with his intellectual nature. He brought up some good points, that it doesn't matter who won the Jedi Civil War, as long as the people still prosper with food and money. But he never really said much for the latter half of the game... And Canderous? I may not have liked him in the first game, but he was just kickass in this one. Probably the only sidestory I did care about, was the rebuilding and recruiting of his new Mandalorian nation (only to learn from Kreia later on that it will all fail in the end). I also loved all the little insights he gave into what happened with Revan after the first game, and how damn pussy whipped he was feeling, for being left behind...

The last area of the game actually challenged me a bit. With so many Jedi Lords there, I had no choice but to keep using my Force Storm, draining my powers until I could barely use heal along the way... I was expecting a tough battle with Kreia in the end, only to have her die on me even easier than Malak did in the first game (and yes, Malak was easy for me... I literally beat him while standing in one place using Master Flurry all the time...)... but the last stage in the game wasn't what disappointed me the most...

... Kreia talked about what influence you had over your friends' futures. I liked that... and then she set up the inevitable conclusion to the trilogy, that the true powers behind the Star Forge and the Mandalorian wars was still out there, waiting to strike... I liked that too...

But then Kreia just flops over and dies? And then boom, the game ends? WHAT THE FUCK?!...

... God... the game might as well have finished with, "Master Jedi, what are you doing on that ship?"

... then again, I didn't like the endings in the first KOTOR either... but at least we got some semblance of a conclusion there...

... end big time spoilers... although Star Wars on the net always gets spoiled...

Now, I admit that pretty much everything (and yes, I mean everything) in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, was pretty much inferior to the first game in the series... The framerate is just atrocious now. And the bugs are more frequent and more annoying than ever (if possible)... The loading times are just plain awful, and the myriad designs of the levels and cantinas you have to wait for definitely don't help with the boredom... The action in this game is still great, but just doesn't feel new or refreshing after playing through the original game three times in a row. And the best part of the first game, the stunning storyline, may still be great in the second game... but just doesn't feel nearly as witty or creative as Bioware's vision, you know?... I know you can't recreate the Sixth Sense feeling all over again, but at least create some sort of a feeling of a threat. Instead, we learned nothing about the "Sith Lords", as the only times we met Darth Sion, Darth Nihilis, and Darth Traya (sort of...), are the times you bash them over the head with your light saber sticks...

Still... while I am disappointed in this game, I'm disappointed in a Halo 2 kind of way... While KOTOR 2 could not live up to my expectations, it's still one of the best RPGs I've played this year, and it's still a very worthy sequel to the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Hell, I think that's cause for celebration enough, considering the first KOTOR still is the best RPG on the Xbox, and one of the best RPGs of this entire generation of gaming... and thankfully, Knights of the Old Republic 2 keeps that tradition in line, as my 22-25 hours of play time in just three days proves without a shadow of a doubt...

I went into this game, expecting to be disappointed... and I admit, The Sith Lords just couldn't reproduce the amazing Jedi aura and atmosphere that the first game did... it just wasn't nearly as immersive, in its environments and in many ways its character arcs as well...

But I got addicted anyways. The fun factor of the first Knights of the Old Republic didn't skip a damn beat...

Well, colour me surprised yet again... Just when I was still reeling over the losses of Stargate Atlantis and Star Trek Enterprise for the rest of the year, guess what series shows up right on the UK doorstep?...

Well, actually... SG-1 has been quite forgettable this season. Because except for New Order and maybe Covenant, this season has really sucked... It's painfully obvious that the writers and producers have been putting all their work into Atlantis instead, so I wasn't really expecting good things from this week's returning episode of Gemini...

... the thing is though, Gemini ended up being one of the better episodes of the season so far... although I know that certainly ain't saying much...

I had one major complaint with this episode: the sheer stupidity factor of Colonel Carter... I mean, I know they've been developing her feminine, empathic side a lot more over the past four seasons, but c'mon already! How can she really be that damn dumb, to let her evil, gooey, Replicarter stunt double, gain access to the only known weapon in the universe that can stop her?... I mean, seriously! Teal'c should've just dusted Replicarter when he had the million or so chances that he did, because calling a bluff is a lot sounder policy than just handing all your technology and knowledge to the enemy... Acting wise, Amanda Tapping did a superb job as her usual Carter self. And dialogue wise, she wasn't so bad either, pulling off the deus ex machina or whatever much better than Weir did on Stargate Atlantis... But Carter was just so damn stupid this episode that I just couldn't stand it in the end...

However, I definitely did enjoy Amanda Tapping's double duties as the Replicarter from hell... Now, I wish that Fifth got a much better finish than he did this episode, considering his adolescent crush on Carter was one of the most wicked things the writers have ever come up with. But alas, the poor dumbfounded bastard got betrayed again (women are evil, afterall), and I suppose it was cheaper for the show just to ditch the actor in turn for more sexy Amanda Tapping scenes... She definitely had a spark of attractiveness, with her overuse of tank tops and silk blouses or whatever. And it was Illyria effective actually, seeing two Carters in the same room yet feeling that they're different somehow... Amanda Tapping was able to play a Replicator very well. She gave hints of having feelings, yet also seemed so cold and distant inside at the same time. And who doesn't love the Terminator rip-off at the end? The music even sounded familiar, as Replicarter just tore the entire Alpha Site a new one... If anything, what really made this episode was the final conversation between the two Carters. As a psychology wannabe, I couldn't agree more with Replicarter's assessment of her biological counterpart... We all have a thirst inside ourselves for power (or at least, recognition and prestige), and it definitely tickles the fantasies at the thought, that Replicarter's personality is simply the more darker side of Samantha that she bottles up inside...

As for the rest of the cast, Daniel wasn't there much (except to get nicely shot by a P90), so I'm assuming he'll be trying to get to Atlantis next week (although we know that he'll fail then... but wait, the Prometheus now has intergalactic hyperdrive? Where's the power source coming from?...)... Teal'c was reasonably smart, always pointing the Replicator disruptor at Replicarter, even though he was too damn trusting to ever take a shot. Still, I loved the CG shots of the F-302 deploying the Asgard satellite and all, and at least Teal'c can feel smug that he was smarter than Carter (or just wiser) for once on the show... And Jack? Surprisingly, even though he was barely on the show, this was one of his best episodes of the season. He took everything seriously, especially the threat, yet he also showed some trust and shippiness with Carter as well... And whenever the general had a joke? Because his quips contrasted so well with his seriousness, it reminded me a hell of a lot of just why the show had great comedy when the series was still new and starting up... There's no real juxtaposition these days. But Jack O'Neill definitely had his fair share of it here...

Sometimes I feel like a Marvel outcast, you know?... I've always loved the X-men series, but that's about it... I cringe at the mention of The Hulk or the Fantastic Four. Hell, I didn't even like Spiderman much until the hype for the second movie started turning the other cheek...

Now, I feel like an outcast for that series too... I absolutely hated the first in the trilogy, and I will never understand how the fans of the series could ever tolerate a final battle as bad as that first movie had... But, well... except for the final third of the second movie I suppose, I absolutely was thrilled with Blade 2. I thought it was as kickass of a sequel ride, as Aliens was to Alien... and along with Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, and maybe Galaxy Quest, stands as one of the few movies that I wish that I wrote reviews for back in the day when I first saw them...

... so obviously, thanks to Blade 2 and the marvelous Marvel name, I've been more than just hyped up for Blade Trinity, for quite a few years now... I didn't want to feel like an outcast, afterall...

The general consensus amongst the Blade geeks out there, is that Blade Trinity was good, but definitely the worst of the trilogy... In my honest opinion at least, while the film definitely wasn't nearly as good as I was expecting (starting right from the cheesy 70's-like intro screens), I still liked it much more than I did the first film. It just couldn't match the second film in my eyes, that's all...

The writers tried to make a "funny" Blade movie this time around, and in theory, humour was one thing that the series definitely needed... But the cast for such a change just wasn't there... I mean, has Wesley Snipes ever done decent comedy? The only moment in the entire film where he actually made me snicker, was when he was being purely badass with the police familiar in the harvesting plant. And why? Because he actually changed the tone of his voice there, that's why... For the rest of the film, Wesley Snipes was either too busy sniping at the director behind the camera, or too damn busy with his badass power-walking shots to ever sound anything but monotonous. That was quite a shame really, especially when compared with his excellent subtle reactions in the second movie...

Probably the best biggest (or just plain weirdest) comic moments came from the vampire side of things... Parker Posey (yes, Parker Posey... I couldn't believe it either...) plays the lead vampire leader. And while we all knew that she could play an annoying bitch very very well, I really didn't think she could play a cruel, malevolent bitch on screen... and the jury says, she still can't... But while her threatness ratio on screen was a big fat zero, at least her relationship with Hannibal King was one of the more dynamic things on screen... Now, it was ridiculous how completely not funny Parker Posey was in her role. I mean, I think I was the only one who burst out in laughter from her penis envy joke, because literally the entire damn theatre I was in didn't get the joke. It was so damn ridiculous how damn stupid that comment was, that it actually was funny... But while that was the only moment where Parker Posey's presence actually cracked me a smile (albeit not intentionally... I think...), I gotta admit that she didn't play a vampire that badly. She pulled off the look well, she did the badass power walk superbly (Kill Bill style, sort of...). And while she completely cannot fight (her kicks were pathetic), at least she could handle an SMG (sub-machine gun... not Sarah Michelle Gellar... although I wish...) at the end of the movie with villainous pinpoint accuracy (hitting everything but her target, of course...)...

If there was anything really funny about this movie, it was just how damn bad Dominic Purcell was as Dracula, or Dagon, or "Drake" in this film... Probably the lowest point in the entire movie was when Hannibal was lecturing us on the origins of Dracula, in a way that was more boring and more grating than being forced to read that old Dracula comic book he had... But even that couldn't compare in the stupidity factor against the sheer awful dialogue that Drake had throughout this film... "Are you ready to die?", he uttered more than once I think? In a voice that would make even Star Wars actors cringe... uggh... And his whole exchanges with Blade, about what it means to being a warrior or hunter or whatever, weren't just making my ears bleed from sheer bad writing. It also made no logical sense, as to why the film made Dracula into just a generic, "smoldering generic rage" mercenary kind of guy, completely avoiding the 'sexual empowerment' (as Vance would put it) that vampirisim gives to the modern world... Sure, I cheered when those goddam Goth wannabes got what they deserved. But even that scene overall was just plain painful to the eyes... and definitely not in the way that was intended...

... now, I watch Monday Night Raw each and every week, so forgive me when I see the family friendly HHH actually try to properly say, "What the fuck?"... and, well, it just didn't work in my opinion... And if you take Blade Trinity as a serious film, then Triple H being there definitely wouldn't have worked as well... But to be honest, after letting down my WWE guard, I actually did enjoy Triple H's moments in Blade Trinity quite a bit. A shock, to be sure... I loved his relationship with the little Reaper dogs (the best part of the film, no doubt). And c'mon already, who doesn't enjoy the fact that Triple H completely cannot act? Whenever he had a line, I couldn't help but giggle and gaggle at the thought of him spouting a one-liner from his WWE promos... I'm still not used to the Rock being in films, and I'll definitely never get used to Triple H... But just like with Jackie Chan, why does acting matter? Not when this is an action film at least, but I'll get to that later...

Ryan Reynolds joined the cast as Hannibal King, and I remember reading only good things about him from early screenings... But seriously, what the fuck happened to his character then? It was ridiculous actually - he was only funny, because he was so completely NOT funny, and even he knew it... Probably the only times he made me crack up, were the times when he realized nobody gave a damn about his lame, sarcastic comments... "He hates me, doesn't he?", in reference to Blade, was probably the biggest joke that I laughed at in the film, at least intentionally... But still, like I mentioned above, his "relationship" with Parker Posey was amusing, if only because the two characters are the least and last you'd ever expect to be badass vampires... And while Ryan Reynolds definitely ain't no action star, I was still pleasantly surprised at how well he handled the gruelling ass kicking he took from Triple H. The reverse arm-bar was especially a howl for me, and to be honest, Ryan Reynolds actually seemed to pull it off quite well...

Now, that's a hell of a lot complaints coming from me so far, isn't it? And in a sense, this movie deserves to be dead-panned... Because regardless of what my brother argued to me over MSN last night, the first half of the film was absolute Blade 1 shit in my eyes... We start off with a decent action scene against vampires, a species with the worst allergies known to existence (a fight though that I needed to get out of my system, now that Buffy and Angel are off the screen). But then the movie drags on, with Whistler pulling a suicide bomber for absolutely no reason whatsoever, killing himself (again...). And then we get completely unfunny scenes with Vance the familiar psychologist, and Wesley Snipes not even giving a damn that Whistler has died (again...)... And then we meet the Nightstalkers, who (with the exception of the blind lady, who somehow browses the net faster than any normal human...) are completely dull and bitterly pointless compared to the greatness of Kris Kristofferson (who also didn't try to act in this movie, along with Snipes...)... And what was up with the vampires' 'final solution'? It didn't lead anywhere - Dracula's return to sunlight absolutely had no point whatsoever... Add in horrible scenes with Drake, Parker Posey as a vampire, and some of the worst cutting and splicing of scenes and action that I've ever seen (like Abigail Whistler's intro, for example), and then it's no wonder why halfway through the film, I almost felt like getting my $4 CDN back...

I remember reading that people who saw the early screenings, said this film had the worst ending known to man... But to them I say, either things were cut, or WTF?... Because what absolutely saved this film, was the last third of the film of action... The final moments, right from when Ryan Reynolds first encounters the Reaper dogs, was pure Blade and Marvel gold, at its finest... Add in some nice silver air, a steel cage match against Triple H, some very fine archery from Jessica Biel, and one hell of a good swordfight (unlike Blade 1's) between Blade and Dracula, and you've got something in the winners column... Now, sure the dialogue in this film sucked from start to finish. But why the hell would that matter, when I was literally smirking with delight at all the sheer carnage that was happening on screen for the last half hour?... Wesley Snipes may have waltzed through his acting scenes as if he was only collecting a paycheck, but damn can the man put on a good Best in show when fighting... And the interleaving of his battle against the Reaper-like Drake, and Ryan Reynolds being British Bulldog powerslammed into the wooden canvas, really made the ending to this film worth far more than the $4 CDN that I had paid on that Tuesday night...

And she was a surprise too, really... I mean, she really can't act. And her dialogue in this film, while also written poorly, just wasn't acted well either. The generic turmoil on her face during the shower scene alone proved that beyond all belief... But c'mon already, there was a Jessica Biel shower scene already! And hot damn, does she ever look fine in her low cut archery clothing, if only by reminding me of a nymph of a nympho elf, standing out in a crowd of horny businessmen... whatever the hell that means... And while she couldn't act out any of her lines well, she definitely exceeded my expectations when it came to being feminine badass. Her archery skills looked remarkably accurate and deadly, not to mention very sexy... And it was her reactions, not Snipes', that made Ryan Reynolds' completely unfunny lines into something worth a genuine laugh... And hot damn, can the girl ever fight! Now, she can't pull her punches well, but her kicks looked hot, nimble, quick, and more than flexible enough for me... and painful. Did I mention her kicks looked painful?... I give her huge credit for that. She may have had the smallest role in the finale of the movie, but she took it to the vamps with style, and never missed a beat with Snipes and Reynolds... Hell, I hate fucking iPods, but even she made them look hot and spicy. She was the true essence of badassness in this film, not Snipes, and it'll be nice if she came back again with a spinoff of her own... she deserves it...

And, well... sure, number and count wise, the cons outweigh the pros of this film... But you simply cannot measure how kickass that final battle sequence was. It was worth a DVD purchase alone... And it was shocking really, that it would be Jessica Biel and Triple H of all people, that made this film enjoyable... I will give all the credit in the world to Jessica, for kicking ass so well in her first real action flick ever (and for making real dumb technology seem cool, like that weirdass UV blade that really should've just been silver...). And to Triple H? Good show man, if only because you kicked Reynolds' ass and took his name with style...

I enjoyed this film for what it's worth. It may not have been Marvel quality, it may not have even been Blade quality... and it tried too damn hard to have style... But it definitely was a good action flick nonetheless. And it was definitely more than welcome, in my goddam university exam season of pain and misfortune at least...

Y2kk Update: - Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Underground 2 Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers) -

EA haters, start your engines... because for the second year in a row, Need for Speed Underground ain't gonna be getting a negative review... not from this reviewer, at least...

Last year, Electronic Arts put the real pedal to the metal, and absolutely floored me with the surprising quality of their first Need for Speed Underground... Truth be told, while so many on the internet didn't give the game a chance, simply because of the EA name (and the fact its 2 million sales killed almost every other game last year...), I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who did play NFSU for at least a couple hours, became addicted beyond any of their petty boycotting... because hey, it happened to me, now didn't it?

I seriously wasn't expecting the same from Need for Speed Underground 2 though. I mean, miracles can only happen once in a blue moon, am I right?... I've spent months chastising EA for their cop-out idea of cloning GTA-style free-roaming into their world of racing. And for the most part, I still gotta agree with my original assessment...

I've never liked the new age style of free roaming, in any game mind you. And for the Need for Speed Underground series at least, the implementation of it is as much of a step backward as it is forward... While playing against endless outruns after the entire story mode of the game is over does add a bit of replayability, I still gotta admit that the game felt like a total chore most of the time, having to get from point A to B in quite frankly, was too massive of a world at times... The GPS system did alleviate some of these problems, but it didn't solve all of them. Often the GPS made me take really weird turns that I didn't need to take, and the GPS system didn't help one bit during the magazine cover time runs... In order to get those done, I had to memorize the absolutely fucked up highway system in NFSU2, where right offramps lead left, and left onramps lead to God knows where... It was a pain in the ass, to only be able to unlock new performance parts after finding their secret shops... and considering I'm a sucky enough driver in real life? Obviously, figuring out the streets of Bayview was not exactly my cup of earl gray tea...

Now, this is gonna sound weird and all, but I actually missed the lack of stages from the original Need for Speed Underground... I know a lot of gamers complained that almost every single stage in the original was too similar to all the rest, but as the no-name nostalgic, I actually liked that. I actually enjoyed it a hell of a lot... It allowed me to become familiar with the world I was racing in. It allowed me to memorize shortcuts and optimal paths, in a way that made the tracks feel cozy at times... it kinda felt like home... But in NFSU2, thanks to the absolutely massive world, I can honestly say that I didn't memorize a single damn track (except for the highway ones, which I needed to memorize for the magazine covers). While I loved circuit tracks in the original, they're just a total chore of a bore in NFSU2, as they're too damn long with tracks that I just can't seem to recognize or memorize half the time... I felt like I was in a huge city in NFSU2, especially thanks to the free roaming, but it didn't feel like my city, you know what I mean?... In the first game, I felt like I owned the place. But possibly thanks to the massively static nature of the NFSU2 world, I definitely felt like I was out of the loop or some crap like that...

Of course there are other problems with the game as well... Graphics are completely sub-par. While EA fixed the graphical glitches and slowdown that plagued the first game in the series, it's just disappointing that the graphics still look like something out of an early PS2 gen game... My biggest gripe though, is that the music absolutely sucks in this game. While the sound effects are surprisingly feel-good (with Dolby Digital 5.1 and the interior car mode, the engine sounds are absolutely the best that I've ever heard outside of real life...), I just hated all the EA Trax in this game... I still don't understand how I fell in love with the music from the original NFSU, considering I hate those types of music. But at least those tracks actually seamlessly flowed together with the action on the screen somehow... The tracks in NFSU2 just don't have the same right feel. And it certainly says something, when instead of listening to NFSU2, I just keep humming the songs from the first Need for Speed Underground from the top of my head...

... but with that said... I still gotta admit... Need for Speed Underground 2 was a hell of a lot of fun...

Let's face it - the Need for Speed Underground series is basically a racing RPG, in the vein of the Gran Turismo series... And Need for Speed 2 Underground really improved on the original in this aspect, and consumed pretty much 30 hours of my life by doing so... Suping up your car is just so much better now than it was before, that it still surprises the hell out of me... Unlike the original game, more expensive visual parts actually do look better on your car than the cheaper ones, making me actually enjoy the 10-star system this time around... And most reviews will compliment the GT style tuning in this game, which in my opinion, was a little too damn effective for its own good... Drag races are now impossible until you tune up the ponies on your ride. And while I'm not a tuning guy in real life, I am the no-name tweaker still... and it's somehow gratifying (and addicting) to take your car to the dyno track after each and every upgrade you buy, just for the shits and giggles of it all...

And performance upgrades have absolutely consumed my life as well. Because we're now given 5 cars, I spent all my time pretty much trying to rake in the money to upgrade my entire car lot (the Mazda Miata MX-5, Ford Focus, Lexus IS300, Acura RSX, and Ford Mustang GT... nice...), only to find that even at 100% game completion, I still don't have enough cash to get all five of them to maximum specs... And now that I have no way to get more money, I'm still looking forward to starting up a new game with another five different cars (Honda Civic, Acura RSX, Mazda RX-7, Nissan 350z, and the Pontiac GTO... nice again...), this time making an effort to actually ING save my money this time around... I may complain that a lot of cars that I wish were in this game just didn't make it (the Pontiac G6, the Toyota Camry, and my own Ford Taurus, for example...), and some cars are just plain bad at handling for some inexplicable reason (the Mustang GT for example, even with all upgrades). But there are still enough cars, and enough performance upgrades, and enough damn fine body parts in this game to keep me coming back for more... I've spent already 30 hours of my life finishing everything in the game (except for the Outruns... but I'll get to that later), and I'm already savouring the idea of spending another 30 hours more... and if that doesn't say something, I don't know what will...

I said it last year, and I'll say it again this year... there's just something to the controls in the Need for Speed Underground series that simply cannot be found in any other racer... I mean, I've played Burnout 2, and found the handling to be horrible at best (plus I ironically hate the crashes in that game). The same goes for the Project Gotham racing series too, although the jury is still out on Forza... I've played the GT series, and just found it too damn slow for its own good... But when it comes to the Need for Speed series? I don't know whether it's just the delightful triggers on the Xbox controller or something, but still... just somehow, the gas pedal at R and the brakes at L just feel so damn good in this game, that it literally makes me want to drive, and drive hard...

There's just something so "sexy" feeling, in the way you take corners in this game (at least with the Miata and the RSX), that I honestly can't play any other racing game anymore without feeling like something is missing... Yes, I know every racer on the Xbox uses the R for gas and the L for brake, but there's just something about the way cars handle in this game that intangibly puts it over all the rest for me... I love the touch of the handbrake. I just adore the sensation you get from drifting... Except for all the constant burn-outs, I love the thrill of power sliding. I'm obsessed with the burn of the nitros... Some complain about the lack of car damage, but I actually find it a hell of a lot of strategic fun, choosing to either completely dodge traffic or take the bullet when it comes to the wall... But most of all, I just love the feel of the gas and the brakes in this game. There is simply no way to put it into words... I've always loved racing games with traffic, and there is just something so damn satisfying, about weaving and interleaving your way through highway traffic in this game... there's just a feel, that I just can't feel in any damn racing game outside of the Need for Speed Underground series. And I love it...

There are obviously flaws with Need for Speed Underground 2, as every EA game seems to have a need to have flaws... The GTA-style free roaming isn't very useful outside of giving you something to drive through after the game is done... The drag races and the outruns are too damn hard for their own good, thanks to the rubberband AI or whatever in these modes (while everything else is ridiculously easy, on medium at least, thanks to the removal here of the god-awful rubberband AI)... The graphics are still god-awful. And it sucks that all the amazingly atmospheric "puddles" in the original, were replaced by endless torrents of pointless rain in the sequel... Most of the circuit and sprint tracks were boring, since without the highways, there were simply too many twists and turns to feel like I was actually gaining any speed... Street X wasn't the best either, considering the best features of car combat in the original (smashing AIs into cars and corners) seems to have been replaced with cars just spinning out of control in the sequel and all... UBL races were a joke, thanks to super slow AI, the inability to skip these stages, and the complete lack of traffic... And as weird as this is to say, the plotline in this game was absolutely inferior to the original. While Brooke Burke provides a nice voice (with some lovely lesbian undertones near the end with Nikki...), I just never got into the comic book style of the cutscenes. And Caleb was a fucking joke, as I would've lapped the poor over-acting loser on the last stage, if only I didn't hit something like three cars a lap...

But considering the improvements to the car selections, body parts, and performance upgrades that form the meat and potatoes of every great racing game, I still must admit that I loved Need for Speed Underground 2 just as much, if not greater than I did the original... I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I may not be able to put it into words, but there is just something so damn majestic, and so much of a damn rush, about speeding through traffic against all odds at 180MPH, that has never been reproduced in other racing game series before... And hell, even drift stages were improved so damn much in this game. Just go ahead and try the downhill ones in Jackson Heights, and I dare you to tell me that you don't feel a real sense of excitement everytime you save a colossal drift by squeezing your way through two cars at once...

After a completely disappointing year from EA (Goldeneye 2 and NHL 2005, for starters), I still have to say that Need for Speed Underground 2 absolutely shocked me with its sheer addictiveness and quality, just like its predecessor did last year...

... actually, it's going to be my last television episode review for quite some time, now that both Smallville and Star Trek Enterprise have gone on hiatus until the new year of 2005... Which means what for me?... which means, I don't know what...

Half of that is obviously from exam time. I always feel so damn bitter at this time of year, especially at times like this where I fucking actually learn that I failed my last assignments... again... just like every other fucking year... I'm dead in the water...

The only thing that could ever give me shelter from all of these horrid things in my life, was television... Star Trek Enterprise and Stargate Atlantis have been my best friends these past few weeks, sad enough to say. It's only when I watch these two shows that the rest of the world melts away, and for a moment... if only for a moment... I actually do escape reality, like the old adage of a cliche seems to say...

But I guess every show has its limits... or its outer limits, at least... I can't expect miracles afterall, now can I?...

The thing is, I watched Before I Sleep pretty much right after I completely bombed one of my final exams this week... and suffice to say, out of my own bitter disappointment at myself, the episode kinda put me to sleep... Now, I'm sure it was a good episode. Or at least, it would've been, if I was in the right mindframe... or timeframe, in this case... And it definitely had its moments, which I'll get to in a minute... But for a Dr. Weir episode, I can't believe just how stale and stagnant it felt. Torri Higginson may look adorable, and it was nice to see her with her old hair back, but... She just can't act interesting!... Her old self was alright I suppose, except a few times her voice was a bit too youthful. But it was her regular self that bugged the hell out of me. She didn't seem like she had anything to say but cliche statements about 'connecting' with her older self. She spouted off a bunch of rhetoric that was trying to be meaningful, but just felt empty and ultimately misplaced in the end... I liked the touch that the end of the episode was pretty much exactly as it started, with the urn and the birthday thing on the balcony and all. But even then, Weir felt more angry than she seemed sad as she basically told Sheppard to shove her ashes up his ass... Her character just felt off this whole episode. She just felt so one-dimensional, that it really made this Dr. Weir episode feel like a clip show episode at times...

Now, as the no-name nostalgic, I absolutely loved the redoing of the initial arrival at Atlantis. It was funny how Colonel Sumner was once again the first to die, and I was just as puzzled as Rodney was when I started noticing the small things different in how the characters were acting... I liked the 'alternate reality' that the old Weir was presenting us. I thought it flowed well together, with the time ship being destroyed (twice...) while Sheppard was learning how to drive. And Rodney even got to play the hero again, showing us that even at the start of the series, he was completely different than he was in SG-1...

If there's one damn nitpick of a timbit that I have with this episode, it's that once again, sci-fi goes the route of the god-awful "parallel universe" time travel paradox crap. I mean, I loved 1969 not just for its zany humour, but because it followed my personal preferred taste of time travel - the self fulfilling prophecy... But then the SG-1 writers lost all their guts and guns, and went for the easy time change paradoxes in 2010 and Before I Sleep... I may have enjoyed the redone scenes in this episode. Hell, I even enjoyed seeing Lt. Ford back in his Marines outfit... I may have liked the whole idea that Atlantis, being prepared for the arrival of the expedition team, was not a fluke... The time travel all worked out well, in terms of the parallel universes theory at least. I just don't like how just like The Back to the Future films, time travel creates and destroys entire universes in order to just make some fucking sense...

Before I Sleep was mainly a Dr. Weir episode, and ironically enough, that was the weakest point... I mean, she pretty much mumbled more as a young lady than she did as her older self... I respect that the actress pulled off the double feature so well, but I can't believe just how damn boring she was as she was living with the Ancients and all... She had almost no rapport with Janus or Gideon or whatever you want to call that goddam traitor of an Elder. There was a small kiss on the cheek there, but really, the episode just wasn't fun watching her follow him with absolutely nothing to do (where's dark and disturbed Leo when you need him? Or the demon of hope?... nevermind...)... And if there's any real complaint I have about this episode besides the time travel, it's that it ruined all the remaining air of mystery surrounding the Ancients... I mean honestly, they sucked and idled as much as the Tok'ra do! They sat around with bad fashion sense, acting all arrogant, bantering about with no real intellect there that we humans don't seem to have... It was confirmed (sadly) that the Wraith were the enemy that defeated the Ancients. And now we know why... so let me get this straight... The Ancients have an entire array of Stargates to travel through, yet they still try to breach an entire armada of Wraith ships with ONE damn transport vessel?... WTF?!... uggh...

This was a bad Dr. Weir episode, that thankfully featured a hell of a lot of great moments from the rest of the cast... Lt. Ford didn't have much to do, but at least his regular stunned and confounded look worked charms when he learned that he died... Dr. Carson was his usual self, without much comedy however. It's great though that he was officially announced today as joining the cast as a regular. Because if this episode was any indication, then he may be the greatest actor at feigning care for patients since the original Dr. McCoy. And I mean that in a good way... Teyla only got to blankly stare at the camera as she was pretending to understand what McKay was mentioning about Black Holes. Poor lass couldn't even get a moment in the flashback scenes. At the very least, she could've used some hot lesbian action with that Sora girl stuck and forgotten in the brig. I'm sure she's getting looking for a release after her long incarceration, but I digress...

Still, even lesbian sexcraft wasn't needed thanks to the brilliant Jack-Daniel-like banter between McKay and Sheppard. I absolutely loved their opinions on Back to the Future... And honestly? Who doesn't get a kick out of watching too ego maniacs argue over who's death was more heroic and less of a failure?... McKay was absolutely the best, looking genuinely morbid one moment after learning of his death by H20, and then the next moment making me snicker at the thought that he could've finished the job if he only had a few more seconds... Sheppard had a nice "shipper" scene with the birthday gift to Dr. Weir. I don't think the actor played the flashback scenes with the right mentality (he was a lot more rough and "n00bish" in the actual pilot episode), but it was still kickass fun to watch him being absolutely clueless at the Puddle Jumper console yet again...

I loved the characterizations of every character but Dr. Weir this episode. And with the new set of gate coordinates that they found, I'm sure that the Atlantis team will be making contact with earth soon (although which address was the one they already visited? The 25-year old sacrificial one?)... I am bitterly disappointed that this episode a) was no better than Time Cop in their goddam time paradoxes, b) made Dr. Weir into even more of a boring of a philosophical character than she was before, and c) made the Ancients look like complete morons in the end... But at least even after my dismal failure of an exam, I still couldn't help but find that holographic/Ancient council member chick to be pretty damn, morosely hot... loved the accent too... hell, I even loved that old woman skirt she had on...

... and it's gonna be a long wait 'till I get to watch anything I like again, I see...

Truth be told, I'm not the hugest fan of this Vulcan Civil War arc... I was expecting something a lot more epic feeling, or at least a lot more action feeling, like the Augments arc was at the start. And I really do get the feeling, especially from the two first Vulcan arc episodes, that this 3-episode arc was especially designed for people like Manny Coto - huge fans of the original series, and not really of TNG...

Kir'Shara though, I think brought together a pretty good best of both worlds... I can't proclaim it as the best episode ever made. But it found a nice katra balance between The Original Series and Star Trek Enterprise from season 3... It was nice that the Xindi probe thing wasn't completely forgotten. And it was kind of neat and telling actually, how the Vulcan's "left out" details from their reports on Andorian weapons of mass destruction... At times, the Kirk-ness of the show did annoy me. Super Archer not only riled me with his annoying conversion of T'Pol to the Syrrannite philosophy, but I honestly can't believe that he can kick ass and take names against Vulcan officers... Where's the difference in strength and speed? Why the hell was T'Pol taken out, when Archer was more outnumbered than she was?... And at the time, I was getting annoyed with the Vulcan officers as well. Their hand to hand weapons looked really weird and "pointless", and their leader was acting far too Romulan-like for me to bear...

We Star Trek fans have all been bitching that Vulcans like V'Las are completely acting more Romulan than they are Vulcan... and what do you know? I was surprised that I was still surprised when the big revelation came, but I was more than happy to finally see the truth... So V'Las was a Romulan operative the whole time, working for unification? While it boggles the mind how someone like him could get so much power in the Vulcan High Command, it still started to make the past 4 years of Vulcans on Enterprise make more sense... It also provided a great ending to an episode that was feeling too short at first. And hopefully, it'll provide great ties into the inevitable Romulan War, if only Enterprise would be so bold... I mean, even if it was a bit too predictable, this was the kind of ending that season three really could've used...

Kir'Shara was an absolutely beautiful episode. I never really saw green screens stand out like previous episodes, and the skies of Vulcan really did start looking natural at times. Sure, I can complain that the Vulcan High Command and their ships looks like something stolen right out of Star Wars: Episode I, but I still love the designs of the Vulcan ring ships anyways... I wish the final battle between the Andorians and the Vulcans was done better. Instead of more space shots, we got teasers of it through endless sparks flying on the Enterprise bridge... But while the Enterprise budget has obviously been slashed in that department, the writers certainly made amends with their Soval torture scene. Because just like with the Augments arc, Enterprise somehow made torture feel real again on screen... It wasn't the pain that made me feel sorry for Soval. It was the fact that he could permanently lose his emotion suppression skills like T'Pol that had me on the edge of my seat. And because of his lovely sense of humour only when tortured, I actually concluded at the end of the episode that I really did like Soval... he was finally feeling like both a Vulcan and an ambassador to earth. And finally a welcome addition to the Star Trek mythos as well...

I can't say that every cast member had a lot to do, but at least they all showed up... Poor Hoshi only got to relay messages between Administrator V'Las and Tucker, but at least she looked cute while doing it. And Mayweather just got to sit at his console like usual, although I think he at least got a token line or two... Reed finally had a moment with Tucker. I was hoping for some friendship thing, and was surprised when there was actually conflict between the two of them. I actually felt that refreshing, but I can't say Reed really had any moments after that... Dr. Phlox only got to check on Soval after he was returned by the Andorians. I wish the actor got more lines, considering he's one of the best actors Trek has ever had. But I assume his time will eventually come, and maybe then he'll finally shine... And Tucker? Now, this was his episode. He just felt so much more natural in that captain's chair than anyone since Captain Picard... I loved his respect for Soval, and his distaste for Shran after he was betrayed. He just felt natural in how he was feeling - the actor just had the role of the new Captain Kirk down to a pat... If Archer had put the Enterprise between the two fleets at the end, I'm sure the ensuing speech would feel completely forced. But not for Tucker - it just felt right that he would do such a thing. Sure, the Enterprise got sniped in the ass for its efforts, but still... something just felt right about him being in that chair he designed. And truth be told, this was absolutely Tucker's best episode in quite a long time...

Kir'Shara really did belong to T'Pol and Archer though... T'Pol was finally acting like a Vulcan again, at least at the end of the episode. I thought the P'nar syndrome thing was taken care of too quickly, but at least it finally got a mention (unlike season 3...)... I don't get why she would be antagonistic towards Archer's annoying sermonizing one moment, and then swearing in with the Syrrannite movement the next. Maybe something T'Pau showed her about her mother made her mind click, but then why still not believe in the Katra stuck in Archer's head?... Now, unfortunately I didn't feel any lesbian sexcraft chemistry between T'Pol and T'Pau (I can still hope for T'Pau and Hoshi, now can't I?...). But they definitely did feel more like Vulcans this episode, even if T'Pau's logic seemed to be clouded with a little too much Christmas elf-girl rebel emotion... I liked how T'Pol was strong once again, lying to the Romulan-Vulcan guy about where Archer was going. She was selfless, and finally not so bitchy for once (although she certainly had her fair share of bitchiness throughout this arc)... But her absolute best scene came with Koss at the end. And it's hard not to feel bad for Koss... We the audience (or I, as a guy who loves T'Pol with Tucker) are preprogrammed to simply hate Koss for taking T'Pol away from us. But he proved that he was not a bad guy throughout this Vulcan Civil War arc... instead, he actually proved to be really kind and throughtful, a true Vulcan even... giving T'Pol freedom out of sorrow that her mother died... and the single look on T'Pol's face then and there, really did help to make up for all the awful acting Jolene Blalock has done this season... almost, at least...

I've already mentioned that I hated Super Archer, with his nerve pinching and his ability to beat down hordes of crazed Vulcans around The Forge... He also didn't have any chemistry with the young T'Pau, although at least he didn't take any shit from her when it came to abandoning T'Pol... I also hated Archer as he was trying to act like a Vulcan, preaching about logic and the true Vulcan way. Sounds to me like he was actually possessed, although his old skool and completely illogical cockiness did sort of prove otherwise... Still, Archer at least did one thing right: he looked drained and "human" as he was crossing the desert. But besides looking like a guy who was going to collapse, I can't say he did anything I liked... He made the Kir'Shara new age bible look like a cheap triangular trinket at times, waving it around in ways that only V'Las would approve of...

But Super Archer and all the really dumbass Vulcans this episode, were the only real complaints in an otherwise brilliant episode... Now, my Smallville-advocate of a friend may hate the Andorians for looking like aliens straight out of 1967 (and yet he thinks the SGA Wraith don't look like smurfs... go figure...). But I even loved the Andorian performances, if only because of the nice nebula effects, the return of the Xindi prototype incident, and Jeffrey Combs putting in yet another great performance in a Star Trek role...

I wish the Vulcan arc was more tailored to guys like me, of the TNG and DS9 era (although I refuse to accept Voyager as a series... God, that show sucked... I want my seven years back, goddammit...)... still, the thing is, I can sense (through either logic or emotion), that this was a great 3-episode arc for Trek as a whole. It solved a lot of problems when it came to the Vulcans of this generation, and it opened up a hell of a lot of doors for the Romulan war to inevitably come... It may not have been my favourite episode, but it definitely was Trek writing at its finest.

... now, if we could only get T'Pau back, wearing nothing but silk and desire in Hoshi's quarters, then Enterprise really would be the perfect series, and this really would've been the perfect arc... the two of them do have perfect arcs afterall, but that's besides the point...

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

Oh dear God... and for a while there, I thought this would actually be a good week of entertainment...

"... Somebody save me!... from this... god-awful show... Save me! I don't care... how you do it... just save me! SAVE ME! C'mon... I mean seriously, I've been... waiting for it... ahem... WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Seriously, what the fuck is this? A Halloween episode? In December?!... Seriously, what the hell is going on in the writers minds?...

Okay, I know that I'm a strong proponent of standalone episodes and everything, but this episode simply had no friggin' point whatsoever... Scare reached an all-time new low for the show, and that's certainly saying a lot... Sure, we all love the occasional, Buffy rip-off, scare episode now and again. But not when the episode just comes out of nowhere, with absolutely no point or purpose whatsoever...

Every single character had their moment this episode, and every single character literally sucked the life out of the room... Lana Lang was the worst of the bunch. In both her dream sequences and reality, she was a complete and utter bitch. I hated her look when Clark showed up at Jason's bedside. And sadly, I actually thought her mood had improved when she was staring at zombies by the incinerator or whatever other pointless kind of crap... Jason's dream was completely idiotic. It was obvious it was a nightmare from the camera angles (and the fact that Clark was completely wimpy). And yet it didn't feel like a dream at all, because sadly enough, the characters were pretty much acting in sync with their normal angsty selves... Lana was a bitch. Clark was horny and desperate. And Jason was bullish as always, with his greatest fear being that he has some evil agenda or something... and then he just leaves at the end of the show, for really no reason whatsoever... While at least that may cause some conflict eventually, I certainly didn't ask nor enjoy Lana's forced bedside manner this episode. Having to watch her character is by far my greatest fear, of course...

Chloe had a really whacked out dream, with her fear of being genetically crazy or some crap like that... Not only did the revelation about her mom come out of absolutely nowhere, but it really made no sense in the context of the episode either. Where were the hints or clues in the past few weeks? Why should we even care if she's crazy as a loon? Doesn't she act that way already?... The only thing we could possibly care about, was the fact that she still seems to know about Clark's powers to some degree. But near the end, just when I thought the episode would finally find some purpose, Chloe and Clark just end off the episode with yet another "oh shit" look on their faces... I mean seriously, WTF? The Smallville writers completely wasted their November Sweeps, and now they're doing standalone filler, Halloween episodes in December? Please explain to me the logic in that...

The idea of a nightmare inducing drug not only has been done on television before, but it's a damn staple of sci-fi, and certainly not a good one at all... The only thing I did enjoy about this episode, was Lex's greatest fear. He was completely idiotic to go into the infected room, but at least he acted genuinely concerned about things and people this episode (unlike for the past month, where his eyes always seem to glaze over in callousness)... I did like the special effects of his "Judgment Day" scene. Not only did the whole moment foreshadow his comic book self's eventual American presidency, but the blue screen effects were pretty damn nice themselves... As for Clark, I did like the meteor shower scene, if only because of the special effects. But his fear of being turned on and off by Lana was just so damn mind-grating, that I think I bashed myself over the head with an ugly stick about a dozen times until the next commercial break... And then we got that god-awful conversation with his parents, where Tom Welling tried his hardest to seem like he still cared for Lana, but it just came out so damn forced and fake in the end... hell, this whole episode was a goddam Lana migraine, and I certainly would've preferred to have my damn hour back...

The only sane part of the episode, was Lionel's escape from prison... I wish I could remember where I've seen the actress playing the Warden before, since she completely didn't seem like a warden... I don't get how Lionel got out of prison, and I especially don't like how he's still acting like a golden preacher boy... but at least there was some point to the episode, in keeping with the storyline that someone "more powerful" than even him was pulling the strings... and thank God that storyline was completely segregated from the rest of the crap of Scare at least...

The only thing Scare achieved, was terrify me that Smallville will be this damn bad from now on... all over again, actually... I mean honestly, why the hell are the writers pumping out crap like this? They started off the season so well, and now they're back to being a bad high school rip off of Buffy? Literally... considering I've seen this episode done before and done much better... on fucking Halloween, for Christ's sakes...

... sigh... well, it's the end of November... which in my opinion, was one of the greatest months in the history of entertainment as we know it...

In the video gaming world (the only world I do care about), I picked up Halo 2, Mario Power Tennis, and Metroid Prime 2 the first days they came out... And if only I had a decent PC, PS2, and a hell of a lot more money, I probably would've picked up Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, GTA: San Andreas, Dragon Quest VIII, and Metal Gear Solid 3 as well (and bleh... maybe even the god-awful Killzone), just for the hell's bells fun of it all...

In the movie world, I may not have seen much, but Sideways (well... that's actually October...), National Treasure, and especially The Incredibles will all go down as some of my favourite movies of the entire year of 2004... And I still have to see Kinsey as well, which still counts as a November film as far as I'm concerned...

And in the world of television?... Well, Smallville has royally sucked. And I'm still bitter that Joss Whedon is too still bitter at Fox to ever come back to television as we know it... But Charmed has actually been decent thanks to Charisma Carpenter and their Angel-season four "peaceful" apocalypse. Enterprise has shown just how damn good the series can be without Berman and Braga, with the Augment and Vulcan Civil War arcs...

And Stargate Atlantis? Now there was the wildcard... Whoever thought that Stargate Atlantis would start airing during November sweeps up here in Canada, months ahead of its scheduled dates in America?... and while yes, I have been quite critically harsh on the episodes that have come out in November, the truth of the matter is... I love Stargate, and being able to watch new episodes in November reminded me just how much I missed the series in the first place...

Sanctuary gets the not-so-desired rights of being the absolute last thing I review in the hallowed and Halo'ed months of November... and truth be told, it won't be a negative review, but rather a positively glowing one, actually...

The thing is, yes as a long time Stargate watcher, I did have my complaints about this episode, mostly with Athar... I gotta admit that the actress/model was very beautiful, and actually quite good as the omnipotent, mother-like being of the episode. But in a sense, Sanctuary was too predictable for a longtime Stargate veteran. It was simply a combination of Maternal Instinct and that episode with Orlin, whatever it was called, and it did kind of bug me that nobody but MacKay (not even Beckett) seemed to think of the whole ascension thing. Hell, they were still clueless, even after the doctor mentioned it... I also didn't like how rare the comic relief was in this episode. It maybe took itself too seriously at times, which is never good for a sci-fi show... but that's about where the complaints pretty much end...

Sanctuary just had a solid feeling of writing to it, and a positive glow about it that just somehow worked... Like I said, the actress who played Athar was very good at what she did. She perfectly acted like an Ancient, with all her vagueness and mystical telepathy. And hell, she didn't even try to hide who she was to the audience (thankfully), even giving weird looks behind Beckett's back when he mentioned ascension (guess she didn't think we'd know about that)... I would say she was the best Ancient we've seen so far, except that that hologram girl from the Atlantis pilot was a bit hotter... Still, I also liked how the mother nature thing was much better done in this episode than it was in Maternal Instinct. The idea of a "weapon" instead of just weather and lightning, was much more bearable to me at least. And to be honest, I liked her punishment... It sounds completely dumb that as punishment, the Ancients would allow her to save one world and not all the others. Isn't that unfair to so many, and completely interfering in corporeal matters still then?... But the actress wonderfully pulled off that sense of pain and longing on her face to leave. She was actually good at seeming a) lonely, b) tired, and c) very damn horny, which I couldn't agree with more, mind you...

Another decent thing about Sanctuary, was that it provided a safe haven for almost all characters to shine... Lt. Ford only had a few words, but at least he got to show some guts during the Wraith dart firefight. And Teyla may not have had much to do either, but even she got to tease Sheppard about the whole seaside picnic thing... Dr. Beckett didn't have any comical moments to himself, but he was back to being his jolly ol' self with that MRI machine. And his enthusiasm over Athar's perfect health, was perfectly healthy for a scientist like him... Dr. Weir was a bit off this episode, completely ignoring what Sheppard did last episode, by seeming so damn concerned for him yet again as he left in the Jumper at the end. Still, I loved the T-shirt she was wearing, and I just somehow felt more chemistry between her and Athar than I did with Sheppard. And I certainly liked the feeling of that... And MacKay? MacKay got a bit annoying in the end, being completely tactless in his jealous attempts to prove that Sheppard's new girlfriend was an Ancient. I've always loved the bratty MacKay, but he was a bit too overbearing with his complete lack of diplomacy this episode... Still, he had the absolute best lines in the entire episode. Calling Sheppard "Captain Kirk", and claiming that doing it with the alien lady is so "1967", absolutely had me rolling on the floor in laughter! I see now who on the Atlantis squad worships at the altar of Roddenberry...

This was a John Sheppard episode. And I admit, he did have some chemistry with Athar, if only because their two opposite personalities seemed to click really well (and because she was damn hot...)... It was weird near the start when he was telling MacKay to shut up though. Sure, the doctor was being completely undiplomatic, but it seemed more like Sheppard was under an alien influence at the time, than just the influence of his libido... Still, I may not have liked how the episode revolved around Sheppard, but I did love how the script revolved around everyone else's jealousy. Teyla mocked him, but made a few looks in their conversation that showed she wished she was getting some herself... MacKay's jealousy was completely rampant, and I couldn't have laughed more when he finally sighed, "he is Captain Kirk..."... And Dr. Weir? There weren't many Sheppard and Weir moments this episode, but Elizabeth did certainly seem a bit bitchy towards Athar at times (probably due more to MacKay's warnings about her than what Sheppard was doing with her, but still...)... And c'mon, who doesn't like John Sheppard playing the romantic sweetheart asshole one moment by the sea side, and then kicking ass and taking Wraith names with a Puddle Jumper the next?...

My only complaint about Sanctuary, was that it was a bit too predictable for me, and that Dr. Weir and Athar never really got it on... But still, thanks to the strong writing, the return of almost the entire cast (hell, even Peter and his accent got something cool to do), and just from the surprising effectiveness alone of the actress who played Athar, it was nice to see that November ended off on exactly the same, positively glowing note as it started on...

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