Resident Evil Revelations

The horror has truthfully returned.

My single wish has been granted by the gaming gods of Capcom(okay, that's overdoing it) while the gameplay of the recent main entries is intact and ported to mobile use. Resident Evil Revelations is the first major third party game to own for real on the Nintendo 3DS. Not a port, not a remake, NOT a quick cash-in.

It presents itself as a videogame first of all, but during the end of chapters, a reminder scene, akin to television series is shown to the player, explaining what happened before this new chapter as a synopsis. This is mainly used because it is convenient to play the game once in a while for small segments of gameplay, and effectively reminds us of it's portable status.

There are many new ideas being designed for this latest entry in the main series. For instance, a new subweapon called the B.O.W. Decoy is introduced to be akin to Left 4 Dead's similar weapon being put to use. You throw it, and the enemies will swarm around it like the mindless infected they are.

A new tool being used here is the Genesis, a radiant scanner that can locate hidden items, analyze monsters and a few other things. Metroid Prime's Scan Mode instantly came to mind. Weapon Boxes are also kind of new, as they allow weapons to be upgraded and their contents travel with each box found. Two old features basically got merged together.

Underwater gameplay is for the first time used, which is fitting considering the marine theme that Revelations is playing nicely. It's easy to manoeuvre around in those sections thankfully. Speaking of the controls, so far, I have used the Circle Pad Pro with great joy. It's almost like holding an Xbox 360 controller for me, except the 3DS is otherwise quite different.

The story features main characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine being accompanied by 4 new playable ones, but the most memorable of them happens to be Parker Luciani. It does not involve the Umbrella Corporation, and successfully creates a well done enigmatic interquel storyline featuring the early establishment of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, the international Federal Bioterrorism Commission, and the bioterrorist organization known as Il Veltro.

Veltro happens to have issued a raid onto the solar powered artificial aquapolis city called Terragrigia during the background, and the FBC is able to overcome the attack using a devastating satellite, killing off the B.O.W.'s, Veltro's unit and the city is destroyed. One year later however, Veltro seems to have survived and their leader, Jack Norman, demonstrates how their deadly new virus called T-Abyss, rapidly mutates fish in an aquarium, making them blood lusted, aggressive and empowered.

Ooze, the new regular enemies, are former humans who got affected by T-Abyss, and their body seems to have hardened up with a white pale skin, while their limbs and face are completely mutated in a grotesque manner. Simultaneously, any parasites being present in hosts mutate at the same time, allowing for accelerated metamorphoses to happen. Incidentally, T-Abyss seems to be the fastest and most aggressive marine based virus introduced into the virology of the series yet.

Interestingly, Revelations uses Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy(which I happen to have read) almost as a lexicon and it's a running theme for the mysterious events which are happening. Several enemies have been named after characters appearing in that old book, and the parts before a new segment of the story, which show us sentences from it, reflect a bit back on the current situation of the story of Revelations. Perhaps another read would reform my opinion about it, and perhaps my imagination must be boosted up in order to comprehend it better.

And you are wondering, does this deliver on the scare factor? And for that, I must say, yes indeed! Not only has Capcom used an excellent location of an abandoned, dark cruise ship as the general area, they have also returned Resident Evil to its roots of horror, with suspense moments, jump scares, hideous new enemies, creepy logs and some genuine effective scares, including an abonimation of a lumbering monster repeatedly reporting in "MaaayyyyyyyDAAAAAY" and a creepy, giggling freak.

Just when I thought the game was over, it continued to go on, which was exhilarating to experience. The length is roughly around the same as Code Veronica, and the main locations are the Mediterranian Sea and Finland. There is intensive music as well as immersive ambient music playing, and the voice acting is the same of what you can expect.

Raid Mode is the online co-operative unlockable that lets you play on many stages, using different characters and weapons. Basically, from what I have played so far, these are extra challenge stages for testing the player's skills. I cannot conclude on this yet, but it seems to be a cool bonus, and might rival the popular Mercenaries Mode.

Aside from some sloppy bad translation errors and a few slow downs(during some elevator rides, the shipwheel doors and whenever there are too many enemies or explosions) as well as the lip synchronization being sometimes just off, the franchise has successfully been put to great use on a portable, and while earlier attempts have been made(Gaiden and Deadly Silence), they do not compare, at all, to the execution this offers.

Resident Evil Revelations is one of the best in the huge franchise, third in place only below the classic RE Remake and the revolutionary Resident Evil 4. It allows for more interesting story events to emerge, handles very responsively with the controls the Circle Pad Pro provides, is scary, fun and a much more faithful survival horror than others of recent memory claim to be.

Rating: 8.8

On the Origin of Species

An astounding written piece of a large natural fact involving how the origin of species were formed. It does not explain the origins of life, but thoroughly shows the reader countless of evidence and testings around the word, conducted by other researchers such as botanists, geologicals and breeders.

Natural Selection, the natural law around evolving species and their variants, are profoundly and in depth explained by the great Charles Darwin, the first of the naturalists to back up the evolution theory with years of experience, experiments and evidence.

He carefully goes briefly on his foundings, while providing counter arguments against potential objections, even depicting that a massive controversity would follow after the release of his work. The diversity of life is detailed on vast amounts of aspects, going through various reasons as to why this intricate natural law is happening.

Next to that, other concepts such as the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest are told about in here, that all manifest into the evolution theory as we know it today. The environment plays a very important role wherever species are situated and however their behaviour changes over time. It takes a very long time as well for change to come towards these species, but it happens, gradually.

Domestication, heredity, geology and offsprings are other factors playing a part in the process of evolution. It varies on how this is all working, but it seems to be interconnected, as it is beautifully explained by "The Tree of Life" biology concept metaphorically, or as it is called in modern times, the Phylogenetic tree.

On top of this all, Darwin writes in such ways that it would be easy for me to know him as an intellectual scientist, knowing exactly what he is talking about. However, he does take his time in his book, explaining his foundations. Even though he stated to go over the subjects as brief as possible.

The information written inside seems to have become outdated, and I cannot point at the exact parts for this claim, but nevertheless, On the Origin of Species remained intriguing for me to read. Only a genius like him could come up with one of the most important books ever written.

Rating: ***(out of 4)

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Redemption has arrived. Nintendo once again surprises friends and foes alike, and delivers exceptionally like the game designers they are.

The wait has been quite long, only comparable towards the time between Link's Awakening and Ocarina of Time's releases. But Skyward Sword has finally been released, and it is the ultimate way for the Wii to blastoff into history, and the amazing gaming year that 2011 was.

There are so many changes towards the established action adventure formula, I don't even know where to start. Visually, it is inspired by Impressionism. Gamers and journalists have simply called it a mix between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess's styles instead. This is one of the great standards to see nowadays, seeing that many Zelda games simply look so different from each other.

The orchestral soundtrack that was at first used for the Super Mario Galaxies has now been fully used in here, allowing for epic, dramatic and interesting songs to appear all over the place. Flying around above the clouds while you hear a motivating song is an effective, atmospheric experience.

Seeing the new fluent control surrounding swordplay instantly reminded me of a little obscure game called Die By the Sword, developed by one of the teams responsible for the present Call of Duty franchise. That was no doubt an experimental game, as it is the only game from the 90's I recall having similar swordplay, which of course plays much better now on the Wii.

It successfully sets itself apart from the other Zelda entries, for feeling as fresh as it possibly can, while at the same time keeping familiar in gameplay, story and design. I have skipped on Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, so comparisons won't be made with those, as the handheld games are separated usually from consoles in several ways anyway. But I will play them in the future.

Skyward Sword is the largest Zelda game yet. And that does not mean that there is lots of traveling to be done. Sure, it's there, but the 3 main areas you will be venturing into are absolutely large enough by themselves, filled with level designs of entertainment. Not to mention the enjoyable sidequests awaiting you as well.

The Lanayru area is pretty much all the way so much fun to discover, and it's dungeons are probably the best the game has to offer. The Mining Facility dungeon is pretty much spot on when it comes towards a balance of puzzles, enemies, length and atmosphere. Only the boss was content at best, but that's still okay for me.

Difficulty wise, I am finally happy to say that this has been improved. Starting with 6 hearts as Link now is exactly one of the reasons the difficulty is better than before. It's not the hardest Zelda game by far, but it does not make fools out of veteran gamers playing their beloved Zelda games right now. As far as enemy design goes, this is spot on. Ghirahim is a great example.

One of the best things that have been designed are the sharpened controls though, thanks to Motion Plus, which is so underused by the way. Enough has been said about the swordplay. It feels much better than when Twilight Princess first started with the idea. But not even the Wii remote's innovating way of controlling are well presented, the interface and the buttons on the remote itself have been carefully selected as well, to allow for a consistent way of playing and navigating the game.

I also liked the little changes some of the traditional elements have gotten out of this entry, such as bombs being able to roll around the fields now. Boss battles implemented have been reasonable for most of them, which is good. But thinking about it in a broadway sense, The Legend of Zelda almost never has any great boss battles, except for final ones usually. But atleast this time, they are memorable, much more than earlier ones.

Which brings me to the end of this review. My thoughts and feelings surrounding this got more positive the further I got with the game's story(which is as far as prequel status and canon goes, pretty impressive), and I have full faith in the next entry, which of course has already been announced. What do you expect, with a reputation of the highest degree when it comes to video games?

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is innovative, feels fresh, has an astounding presentation, crafts precise controls, is lengthy, challenging, explorable and most of all fun. How Link has progressed in all these years, my my.

Rating: 8.8

Upcoming Promising Movies in 2012

I wonder what movie will be nominated the most for the Oscars of 2011. Not that the Oscars are perfect and fair awards, as opinions differ naturally, but yet it would be interesting to see what movie will win this time. To be frank, there were no amazing movies last year for me. But perhaps gems will rise up once again during the awards, like The King's Speech(2010), coming out of nowhere.

The point of this post though is about upcoming promising movies. Normally, I despise trailers, because the chance of seeing spoilers unfold is larger than you think. However, some movies are hyped up so much, you cannot look away. Other movies's strength simply do not lie at their plots, so watching their trailers isn't that risky.

Prometheus

Ridley Scott returns in the director's seat 33 years later on back to the Alien franchise. Well, only partially, because the story will focus on some entire new mythology, set in the same universe. If it has suspense and great looks, then this movie has already won for me.

The Hobbit

The dwarf song in the trailer did it for me. In the book, which I have read, it simply didn't have that much power to me, looking at it's lyrics only. But once they sing, in here, while Gandalf wanders off in dangerous territories, it powerfully makes a mark in the minds of fans. While it will have a different atmosphere than it's epic trilogy sequel, the sense of adventuring will be perhaps much stronger.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's a no brainer for me. Whatever Christopher Nolan touches, he turns it into gold. From Following(1998) to Inception(2010), he has made several remarkable films, and several masterpieces. This final part of Batman's strongest reboot will most likely keep us amazed and respected about its way of filming, storytelling, performances and music for decades. Expect the magnificent unexpected touch of Nolan.

The Expendables 2

You cannot get more manly than this. It's all about the cast, and the plot is funny on it's own, because the first film displayed typical elements of an over the top action film from the 80's and early 90's. Veteran action actors will once again team up to fight evil, and this time, Arnold Schwarzenegger WILL have action, and this excites me already.

[REC] 3: Genesis

Third part of a Spanish zombie/infected/possessed franchise, Genesis looks to be effing crazy, perhaps even more because of the happy irony starting at a wedding. It promises to connect subtle clues from the first 2 movies, and then end off with a good setting for the final fourth film in the future. Honestly, I don't think this movie can fail for me personally, given how the sequel was just as good as the original. The [REC] films are simply some of the best modern zombie infested movies around.

The Tall Man

My number 1 promising movie goes to The Tall Man though, which does not have a trailer yet. I choose for this, simply because the director, Pascal Laugier, directed Martyrs(2008). It does not mean that this will be as horrific as that, but it is definitely enough reason for me to keep watch for an eventual release date for this. Next to Prometheus, The Tall Man sounds the best as a title for me.

Are you excited? And did I miss any film worthwhile to watch this year? Let me know!

Cosmos

You might have remembered my little literature based blog post in the middle of this year, where I asked the readers to recommend any titles of interest according to the subjects I tend to find interesting these days. Well, even after no one replied, I have read several books now, roughly about 3 per month. And it's such a great hobby that unfortunately the younger generations tend to avoid, unless it's their homework. There are always exceptions, of course.

I have read books by well known authors such as Richard Dawkins, Dan Brown and Friedrich Nietzsche, each of them specializing in very different topics, yet nonetheless had me profoundly intrigued. At other times I choose for a bit more obscure, religious based books, such as The Divine Comedy and The Satanic Bible. Admittedly, they left a dissapointing taste.

But this is just random rambling I am talking about now. Today, as my final blog of 2011, I would like to review one of the greatest modern scientific books, which is Cosmos, written by Carl Sagan.

Having seen the mini TV series a year ago already, I knew what kind of contents would be waiting inside. But the good man insured readers from the start that even though both media products are based on each other, they are different enough.

And after going through Cosmos a second time, now in literature form, I was once again astonished. It is one of those science books that gradually lets people open their minds about the entire cosmos we have dwelled in since the beginning.

The late Carl Sagan goes through various topics that focus on the universe, civilizations and science. Chapters about the enlightened city of Alexandria, the evolution of galaxies, cosmic explorations and great scientists such as Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton make sure that Cosmos has a mixture of things to tell.

Perhaps the best parts about this book for me personally were about discovering each planet further; why Jupiter is so massive and enveloped with enormous amounts of hydrogen and helium, why Venus has such a dense atmosphere with it's thick clouds and why Mars has a red sky, a red surface and gigantic dust storms. Each planet unfolding bits of pieces, it's like opening up a present slowly, given by someone.

Comprehensing this information, especially when talking about how large the observable universe is, how stars, planets and life arise and how the laws of nature work can delightfully develop the mind. Sagan happens to be, one of the most charming scientists I have ever seen and read about. He is one of the key reasons I am inspired to learn as many reasonable things as I possibly can(as many others have done already) about science, astronomy, physics and other fields of knowledge.

My rating system for books is different than other forms of media. I use the star system, to see how it works out and to keep exchanging between the ways of reviewing.

Rating: ***(out of 4)

Finally, dear readers, I wish you all a very promising 2012, full of flourishing living moments.

The Factory

Officially called DeFabrique, however, for the sake of this blog, and any English readers, let's call it by it's title listed above.

As my current work location, the place is a large maze, as all the newcomers and temporary workers constantly tell us. Working as an assistent in the spot of catering has shown me varied days of work. Entertaining as it is, it has even inspired me to pursue getting a degree as a basic cook, and anything I am willing to do beyond, despite having a degree for a different field already.
 
It's history goes back as far as the early 20's, and to this day, it holds titles from it's age when it was still an actual factory. Titles such as The Warehouse(which is not the actual current warehouse), Silo 61 and the Jute Cellar are at first confusing, but then it becomes clear that they add to the industrial theme that is still being used.

The Factory is nowadays first and foremost an event organization, where large parties, congresses, auctions, fairs and meetings are planned, discussed and scheduled by our people. When many come over, hired employees are used for different professions such as security, paramedics and entertainers.

Impressive as the interior locations can be, each day being able to look quite different than before, the amount of work to be found in each event can be stunning. Personally, I am most of all responsible for the buffets for colleagues as well as other attending ones. Well known famous Dutch people may even be present, here and then.

Next to the events, The Factory is quite known for it's sub location surrounding most of the inner area, where the sport known as Go-Kart can be done. Starting with this sport at first, it was able to grow larger due to it's success and eventually become the popular party place to be, situated in the middle of the country.

It happens to be an unusual place where all sorts of things can happen, from regular to quite crazy. Personally, factories in general have had quite an interest upon me, so I am glad to be a part of this business.

Retro Blog: Super Smash Bros. Melee

The original title deserves as much attention as it's sequel, but I gotta hand it over to the sequel for introducing to me personally to a world of tournaments, or as it officially is called nowadays, e-sports. Still, talking about all three current games as a whole while focusing mainly on Melee shouldn't hurt.

Around the spring of 1999, a very curious looking fighting game was revealed in a Dutch gaming magazine. Called Super Smash Bros., I was instantly hooked as a young teenager, and I remember hanging up a picture of the game on the refrigerator in the kitchen. After obtaining the game, and after unlocking everything, the most cherishable memories I have with this game is having very good times every saturday afternoon with my best friends since then.

Super Smash Bros. came with it's own unique but simple based fighting system, where easy movements were set in place in order for us to glance at physical moves, as well as special exclusive moves. In essence, all of the character's worlds were put up against each other, bringing with them stages, cameos, items, music themes and of course the main characters themselves.

This trend became the basic for what the fighting games are all about. Introducing us to franchises, as well as recognizing the well known ones, while this crazy fighting system was being put to great use, there is no doubt that Super Smash Bros. remains a classic all-stars based game.

Now I can go all I want into how these games actually play out, but I trust that anyone that is reading this can easily and understandably take note of this, by using either a manual, a YouTube video or just by having played them. After all, the franchise is massively popular, one of the biggest from Nintendo.

After playing several more prominent N64 titles, the GameCube was among us, and the internet with it's mighty influence had arrived. Simultaneously I was getting introduced in 2002 with the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee and the gigantic fan site known as Smashboards, which also happens to be the first forums I had started with and pretty much was the first true homepage for me personally after a small period of scouting for Emulator ROMS, being very active there until the second half of 2005.

Having watched the teaser trailer of the sequel uncountable times, each time drooling of the thought of playing this on the successor towards the 64 bit console, it finally arrived in May 2002, a half year after the American release, which felt way too long for me. Again, after unlocking everything, I had even more fun with this than the original.

Then, at Smashboards, the Dutch Tournament was announced by Mr.Silver, and curious people responded. Situated east from my hometown, I was obviously hooked as well as my buddies. While we trained together(and personally I trained countless times as well against the CPU, which worked for me, but only in a fair way), we decided to register for this special event happening in late 2002.

And as the first contenders arrived in Ede, the competition had started. The names were filled in, the brackets were used as Double Elimination, the money was given from us all as the price for the first place, and the atmosphere was starting to change.

Never before was I excited that much to get higher in this private tournament. I can remember how pretty much all of us had such a good time competing against each other, discussing the game and the rules we used, and in overall the mood was great.

I met many kinds of people there. Some of them have vanished with no sweat, others from which I held either respect or friendliness had disappeared from my available connections entirely, and some are still my friends today. We do not speak much to each other, but we all remember the awesome memories of the Dutch Tournaments, which by the way were 10 in total, and happened from late 2002 until mid 2005.

There were so many funny as well as thrilling moments that it would be impossible to let myself type them all out in here, or even to remember others which I have forgotten now. Examples such as the quirkiness of some people's behaviors, the trash talking on the internet before and after the tournaments, watching with an audience at the final battle on each tournament, the crazy Mario Party Blood events, shout outs, comments and applauds towards others. It was so awesome, you just had to be there to acknowledge this.

And let's not forget that at the early tournaments, I quickly became at a time the best Smasher of The Netherlands, until my main rival Remen and other rising ones eventually continued to beat me successfully at later tournaments. Indeed, I was known as Flok, where as I used Mario as my main character, while I pretty much introduced wave dashing in our country.

At one point, the DT's even went international. Starting with number 6, The Doug, as if a new challenger had appeared in Melee itself, came in from Britain and proceeded to take the first place away from us Dutch men. We were all shocked as well as amazed at the foreign skill he showed us, but between you and me personally old rival, I still remember the half final match between us. Specifically, about the amount of matches needed in order to go to the final battle. What happened was that I won the first 2 matches, which would had let me won originally, but the group decided to enlarge the matches to a total of five. You then beat me four times in a row, but I will never forget this moment, hah!

I think that it was Dutch Tournament number 10, the final one, where another infamous foreigner came to beat our ass. It happened to be Captain Jack, a Japanese Smasher which I did not attempt to play that day, because I held the weird opinion then that this guy was too much for me. What I realize since then is that this was a stupid mistake from me, and that my opportunity to fight against him was gone. And after DT 10, many of the veterans went further with their lives.

Really, I could talk hours upon hours more about Melee and essentially the competition of these crazy tournaments, but I think that everything which I wanted to say has been said. Melee itself by the way can become very hectic when it comes to competitive play, but this was only known exclusively by the community supporting it. In the first place, Melee, like the original and Brawl, are played for fun. But we all know what else these games are and still are capable of.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who was involved and attended the ten Dutch Tournaments hosted by Mr.Silver. My time during these moments was enjoyable, hectic, special and most of all, memorable. I will never forget this period of my teenage years guys.

But of course, my story with this incredible franchise had not ended. In E3 2005 I believe, Nintendo showed the world the next rewatchable teaser. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was announced, and the community discussed the game until the very release in 2008. The Smash Bros. Dojo, an idea maintained by Masahiro Sakurai, was used by Nintendo to keep us updated and hyped about the large sequel project.

Brawl was promised to involve a large group of renowned video game composers from many companies. As such, the soundtrack is one of the best things about this game. Online gameplay was introduced, and while not perfect in any way, it satisfied most.

The character roster, the stages, the items, the trophies, the features, the gameplay, the rules, everything had grown larger, making Brawl the essential fighting game for the Wii. It even let people create their own simple stages, and the single player was largely improved.

As I had promised back in 2005, I decided to host my first and so far my last own tournament, called the Balance Tournament. After a few months of Brawl's announcement, this was set in course and after the surprised responses of a tournament being announced "like 2 years too early", curious ones were vast once again.

Fast forward towards 2008, roughly one week after the release of Brawl, in collaboration with my favorite video game shop Dr.Games, the Balance Tournament was a success. The prizes were nice, the mood was once again enjoyable, I saw old and new faces and I even entered the tournament right away, as a fresh amateur who had just started playing the game. For your interest, others before me had imported the game already and thus had a giant leap of experience among the others.

And after the latest comments in my own tournament thread, I think I even said once that a second tournament could surely happen someday. But, as it stands, it hasn't happened. I was satisfied with the conclusion of the tournament, and went back to my passion of other video games.

Now, at the end of 2011, I type this special blog. And while I did so, I continuously had great memories in my mind from those days in the past, from all three games. In my opinion, Melee is the superior tournament edition, Brawl is the best technically, and 64 is the most nostalgic.

The future shows us that Super Smash Bros. itself isn't over. Nintendo has told us about a possible connection between a 3DS and a Wii U version, and this is only the start of how crazy a part 4 can and will be.

Whatever and however these games and their impact will have, I will always hold the view of the franchise as a whole; as being a celebration of Nintendo's greatest worlds. And I will never forget the enormous fun it provides.