Angst

#630

A grim and pitiful look into a serial killer’s life, Angst features unusual camera angles which was nice to see. Story is pretty much about the life of a serial killer, like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer(1986) or Man Bites Dog(1992). With a German voiceover narrating the story, pretty much everything was explained, and the killer’s reason for killing seemed to be consistent. 

He was abused a lot as a child, he did not want to be ever alone and creating fear is what excited him the most. After his release, he wanders around, looking for a new start not for a new life, but for the same old; that of killing people. In this case, he coincidentally targets a group of which they remind him of his family. This long scene is very well done with the camera while the narrator, the psychopath himself, narrated more about his sad past.
 
The serial killer’s actions looked like a novice, but eventually he succeeded in tying them up. The handicapped son ends up in a bath of water, the mother is strangled and gets an overdose of her pills and the pretty daughter is brutally knifed to death and on top of that, the killer literally slurps her blood out of her neck. The music was dark and Angst was a disturbing movie in overall, highly recommended for those looking for a genuine murder act. Almost authentic.

The ending is kind of ironic, how he walks into that café once again and the same people stare at him and his clothes. The fundamental emotion known as fear will always be one of the most fascinating things to ponder about.

Rating: 7.5

Gaming kan Sociaal zijn

This time I am doing something different. Unfortunately for English readers, you won't be able to understand my next blog unless you translate it.

Voor de mensen onder ons die het nog niet zeker wisten en vooroordelen bewust of onbewust gebruiken; gaming kan sociaal zijn. Dit klinkt voor sommigen als een dikke "duhh" maar andere personen zullen zich misschien nu afvragen waarom dat zo is.

Ik heb al een paar jaar een bepaalde document opgeslagen die ik ooit las op internet ergens. Ik vond het interessant om te lezen en daarom deel ik graag nu met jullie dit voor de nieuwsgierigen onder ons, ook al is het alweer een oud onderzoek:

"Henry Jenkins, directeur van MIT en een zeer bekende professor in de gaming, heeft een essay geschreven over de acht vooroordelen die er rondom games en gaming bestaan. Jenkins neemt alle vooroordelen onder de loep en weet deze goed te analyseren en te verwerpen. Het essay is niet bijzonder lang, maar zeker de moeite van het lezen waard.

1. Games leiden tot een epidemie van geweld onder jongeren.

Volgens de statistieken met betrekking tot criminaliteit in de Verenigde Staten is deze in 30 jaar nog nooit zo laag geweest. Onderzoekers toonden ook aan dat mensen die geweld plegen, minder media consumeren dan mensen die geweld liever achterwege laten. Het is waar dat de jongens die betrokken waren bij schietpartijen op high schools gamers waren. Maar dat is niet zo verwonderlijk aangezien bijna elke jongere wel eens gamed: 90% van de jongens en 40% van de dames. Het overgrote deel van jongeren dat gamed pleegt GEEN geweld. Volgens een rapport dat verscheen naar aanleiding van de Columbine shooting blijkt dat de voornaamste redenen voor jongeren om gewelddadige delicten te plegen een onstabiele thuisbasis is en niet de exposure aan bepaalde media.

2. Onderzoek linkt gewelddadige games aan aggressie van jeugd.

Deze onderzoeken komen voort van de hand van een relatief kleine groep onderzoekers die zich bezighouden met media effecten. Dit onderzoek bevat zo'n 300 onderzoeken naar media geweld. De meeste van deze onderzoeken zijn onvoldoende gegrond om er conclusies aan te verbinden en zijn bekritiseerd op hun methodologie. In deze onderzoeken worden beelden losgemaakt van verhalende contexten en dus in feite uit hun verband gerukt.

Respondenten worden vaak in aanraking gebracht met onbekende mediavormen of manieren waarop zij normaal niet met die mediavorm zouden omgaan. Al deze onderzoeken hebben wel een verband kunnen vinden tussen geweld en het spelen van games, maar geen enkel onderzoek is erin geslaagd om een direct verband aan te tonen.

3. Kinderen zijn de belangrijkste markt voor games.

Hoewel de meeste Amerikaanse kinderen computerspellen spelen, blijkt de grootste groep gamers ouders te zijn want jonge gamers van toen gamen nu nog steeds. Inmiddels bestaat 62% van de console markt en 66% van de PC markt uit gamers van 18 jaar of ouder. Ook de game industrie speelt in op deze hogere leeftijden. Veel ouders hebben dit nog niet helemaal door en letten niet op de leeftijdsindicaties op games. Er moet dus meer gedaan worden tegen game reclames die zich richten op jongere gamers met voor ouderen bedoelde content. Ook moeten ouders meer op de hoogte worden gebracht en zich er zelf in verdiepen.

4. Meisjes spelen geen games.

De games industrie is inderdaad een markt die vooralsnog voornamelijk uit mannen bestaat. Het aantal spelende dames neemt echter zeer snel toe. Vrouwen domineren mannen nu zelfs in web-based games. met de komst van The Sims steeg ook het aantal vrouwelijke gamers en dit zal in de komende jaren alleen maar toenemen.

5. Games worden gebruikt om soldaten te trainen, dus kinderen leren ook om te moorden.

Dat verklaart moraalridder David Grossman. Dit zou kunnen kloppen, indien het volgende zou gelden:

* alle educatie en training wordt verwijderd van betekenisgevende culturele contexten

* we ervan uitgaan dat mensen geen persoonlijke mening hebben en klakkeloos overnemen wat hen geleerd wordt

* we ervan uitgaan dat mensen direct dat wat ze leren in virtuele werelden implementeren in de echte wereld.

Militairen gebruiken games voor specifieke doeleinden met als doel er iets van te leren waar ze nut van hebben.

6. Games zijn geen noemenswaardige vorm van expressie.

Games zouden alleen maar leiden tot geweld en zouden ervoor kunnen zorgen dat jongeren de realiteit uit het oog verliezen. Veel games die tegenwoordig uitkomen zijn echter doordrenkt van ethische aspecten. Bovendien hebben gamers de leiding en is het juist interessant voor gamers om te zien welke keuzes zij maken en welke gevoelens daarbij komen kijken.

7. Gaming zorgt voor sociale isolatie.

Veel games zijn erg sociaal. Ongeveer 60% van de gamers speelt samen met vrienden. Zelfs games die alleen een singleplayer kennen worden vaak met meerdere mensen tegelijk gespeeld waarbij een de game bestuurt en de ander tips geeft of de tactiek bedenkt. Veel games kennen een multiplayer optie die online functies kent. Bovendien zorgt gaming voor veel internationale contacten tussen gamers.

8. Gaming stompt af.

In klassieke studies onder apen is aangetoond dat apen prima het verschil weten tussen vechten voor de lol en echt vechten. Voor mensen geldt hetzelfde. Spelen/gamen zorgt ervoor dat kinderen zich kunnen uiten op een manier die niet altijd gewenst is in de samenleving. Dat er kinderen zijn die moeite hebben de virtuele wereld los te zien van de echte wereld is niet kenmerkend voor de games industrie. Dit zou evengoed kunnen gelden voor andere media en hoogstwaarschijnlijk ligt de oorzaak bij het gezin."

Final Fantasy VII through XII

I shall continue now with the second part of my marathon. Remember, these reviews are unbiased because I managed to beat each title this year.

Final Fantasy VII

Rating: 8.6

What can I say? This is together with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a juggernaut of a game regarding impact back in the 90’s, and during my FF marathon I finally, finally beat my first Final Fantasy game I played back in 1998. As I was passionate back then to beat it, I just could not defeat Safer Sephiroth after barely killing Bizarro Sephiroth before. In 2003, I got as far as defeating Hojo, sickening close towards the end. Both times, either I gave up, or other issues came, honestly, I cannot remember which. 

Final Fantasy VII is simply the best RPG in the franchise yet for its grand department from the 16-bit era, throwing in adorable yet very memorable graphics, another interesting storyline plus villain, a stunning soundtrack, a great deal of mini games(Fort Condor, Bike Chase, Gold Saucer) and just a streaming flow of good RPG gameplay, lowering the difficulty but with the entertainment perhaps risen because of the animations. Not only during battles, but also during story sequences. 

The materia battle system is another noteworthy new feature in FF7, it’s kind of a mix between the Esper and Relic system from FF6 as you decide which person gets what kind of ability/spell/summon/support and then, by gathering so called AP points, these materia stones will eventually level as well, sometimes granting better spells or stats.

The nostalgia is very strong for this one, especially when listening back towards some of the very best songs of the game, such as the Main Theme on the world map, Still More Fighting and Buried in the Snow. The main characters are widely known, I was very impressed with the Shinra Corporation and the main villain is both really. Glad to have finally beaten the antagonist Sephiroth without beating Ruby or Emerald weapon, without getting a Gold Chocobo and without the summon Knights of the Round, just wanted to point this out.

Many of us loved the game back in 1997, and I can definitely agree. Despite that everything has been said about it already positively as well as negatively, Final Fantasy VII will always be a juggernaut of an RPG.

Final Fantasy VIII

Rating: 7.4

The last Final Fantasy I played, before ignoring the series almost entirely through a decade. I got around the end of Disk 3 in 1999, but I barely remember where exactly. Upon beating it now, I remember that I was stuck in the maze city of Esthar. Part 8 is a mixed bag of good and bad things. The bad things are its pace, slow gameplay and ultimately weird story direction. The good things are the setting of it, improved graphics, a decent soundtrack with Balamb Garden sticking in my mind and 2 major systems which I will list below.

The Junction system is a complex system at first that lets you play with variables by adding a GF here or there, Magic here or there and then playing around with the various advancements they bring you. It is a detailed system where you can either manually or automatically set the settings, adding for example a certain element to a weapon, or boosting your magic defense with the Ice elemental. While playing around with this, the Guardian Forces level up through AP’s, gaining new stats and abilities for the main characters as well as their own.

Triple Triad is the most addictive mini game I have played in a RPG game. It is a collecting card game, with different rules depending on which region you currently are in. Monsters, bosses, GF’s and characters appear as cards, and generally the rule is to empower other cards by having a higher number than those they present towards either the east, the west, the south or the north. Later on, you can no longer pick cards by yourself, elemental rules come into play and collecting becomes more fun as well as dangerous, unless you abuse the save system. At times, I just had way more fun with it than Final Fantasy 8’s gameplay itself. I think that Triple Triad is an excellent game for a mini game.

I must note that level grinding is very tempting to do here. As you draw out stronger magic from enemies, another new feature, your level stats will go up faster. It is even wise to draw a lot in order to stock up on useful spells, as well as hidden summon GF’s. While the grinding is different here in FF8, I think it both has a high and a low point, for lowering the difficulty, but raising the customization and honestly, I had not seen the art of drawing magic before, so it gets a thumbs up for me. On minor notes, equipment is almost entirely gone and the currency system depends on how well your SeeD rank is, you can no longer grind it.

Looking at it all in overall, with its experimenting ways, FF8 is bold just like FF2, only it is much better. It even can get emotional at times with its odd story. However the bad things I mentioned do make me doubt the overall fun I had with it, thus lowering its rating. And it gets tedious after seeing a GF’s animation for the umpteenth time, because YOU WILL use them a lot, more than any other FF game.

Abusing the gameplay system here is a must. The first time in 1999, I had no idea why my normal attacks were so damn pathetic compared to the GF’s might. Playing it now in 2011, I breezed through the game. The amount of abuse to be found here is broken, no question about that. If you don’t know what you are doing, then be prepared for mindfucks and annoying hazards caused by enemies in the final stages. 

Lastly, this is the longest Final Fantasy game for me yet. I honestly felt that this game was way too long for its own good and that the length utterly destroyed the pacement of the game. And experiencing frame drops during many battles is just a sign of bad design in my opinion.

Final Fantasy IX

Rating: 7.5

After a long break from March through early June, I went back to my gaming deeds and needs and passion. Continueing on the Final Fantasy marathon, part IX happens to be only slighter better than VIII for some better upgrades here and there. As a so called return to the older final fantasies, it still feels quite different from other titles. I honestly didn’t care for the card system this time around, as I was focused on beating the game.

IX also had some decent songs, the story was alright and difficulty was quite normal, perhaps the easiest of the three PSX main Final Fantasies. However, Part IX simply did not grab the same momentum ride I had with Part IV, V and VI and is thus rather average. Kuja was a decent antagonist, but I wasn't fond of the twist surrounding him and Zidane, since it has happened before. Still, it’s not a bad game by any means.

Final Fantasy X

Rating: 5.7

Well, this is where Final Fantasy would change radically for the first time. Excluding only FFVIII’s rather more complex system here, the series always used its battle system traditionally (well FFII didn’t…), and now it truly has changed dramatically. Conditional Turn Based system is the new kid in town, which I actually first experienced with Mega Man X: Command Mission. Everything is fully 3D rendered now, there no longer is a world map and voice acting is also introduced , which isn’t that overwhelming, but I remember it being a big deal back in the day. The playable characters this time are perhaps the worst cast I have seen in the franchise yet.

It also has the most annoying mini game, which is Blitzball. The lip synchronization is horrible, as expected from JRPG’s with voiceovers. And it is cramped with cut-scenes, marking this pretty much the first game for me that has so many, it could be considered a movie instead. I cringe to think about the cut-scenes people have said about Metal Gear Solid 4, which I will play in the future.

The storyline is a major step back towards general RPG storytelling, and is severely damaged because of the linearity of the game. It is mainly about the Yevon religion and the duty of summoners to pray, while an unusual large group of guardians does their thing and in the end a very stupid creature was constantly bothering everyone destructively called Sin. Seymour can hardly be called an effective villain and is rather forgettable other than “that blue guy” from part X. OH AND THE WHOLE BLITZBALL STORY WAS LAME.

Final Fantasy X is the easiest RPG in the series yet, for including an abusive new system called the Sphere Grid to theoretically give any ability or stats to any character and for giving Wakka a friggin certain dodgeball that can instagib normal enemies. However, like FFVIII before, both of them happen to have hard as hell sidequest bosses that honestly are not even fun to try to beat. Which essentially means that the difficulty was either non-existent, or right in your face.

The only thing that was consistently designed is the new battle system here, everything else surrounding the game was terrible. I can’t believe that since Final Fantasy 7 was released, there hasn’t been a greater momentum. X happens to be the worst FF since I beat II some months earlier. I’m skipping on FFXI because I dislike MMORPG’s, especially discontinued ones, and I hope that the next one will be a saving grace.

Final Fantasy XII

Rating: 6.9

I must take my words back from FF X. XII happens to have changed even more, because the gameplay is totally different now. In fact, it all bears a striking resemblance towards MMORPG’s, but offline then. It is interesting and entertaining at first, but eventually becomes quite repetitive, like pretty much any generic RPG, but actually, I wasn’t really bothered by XII that much. Except for uninspired music, scarcity of gil and some enemies that are way too strong and could instant kill party members at certain points in the game. But that is all really.

I liked the changes this time more than before, as the game’s presentation is well done, including professional voice acting, better lip synchronization, a more decent cast (Not hard to overcome X’s) and a David Attenborough sound alike narrates the events happening, while a cut scene skip button IS available. The gameplay is only a bit less controllable, because normal attacks are automatic now (Active Dimension Battle).You can still cast spells, use techniques and items and summon beings. A new Gambit system is now used, which really is a luxury sounding name about how to let the A.I. issue orders by themselves. Lastly, the Sphere Grid has now turned into the Licence Board, which by design is less intriguing, but I think by available upgrades better balanced.

The story, NPC’s and such is alright. I did not read every wall of text the many NPC’s offered, but I’m sure that most of it was well written, looking at the text of the cutscenes. The story is passable for offering political themes in some kind of medieval based setting with of course science fiction and fantasy elements. While XII is a step back up in the right direction, it does not has, let’s say, the same magic and memorable characters that VI or VII had for me. XII also is perhaps, the most unlikely main Final Fantasy game yet, simply because it’s designed world looks so much like any generic MMORPG nowadays.

Well, this marks the end of my Final Fantasy marathon. I must say that I have seen average, great and disappointing titles, all for different reasons. It’s good however that each title is quite different from each other and it feels like a huge achievement that I managed to beat all of the main entries excluding XI, XIV and XIII. I will probably never try out the first two, and I am simply unable to play XIII yet, but I have heard very bad ominous things about it….can Squeenix be saved from my criticism? Until the future.

Final Fantasy I through VI

Back in January, I decided to do a crazy Final Fantasy marathon and finally beat all of those famous RPG's for once. So then I started on the first one, all the way up until number twelve while ignoring eleven and thirteen for different reasons. It took me until June to beat them all, and now I present to you, my opinion about each of them. The blog will be split up in two parts because many reviews await:

Final Fantasy

Rating: 5.9

Barely playable today. And by that I mean poor difficulty flow, tiresome level grinding with little benefits mostly, expensive currency, confusion among equipment and perhaps worst of all, limited use of spells. By far are later Final Fantasy titles more playable, more challenging(that’s right) and more fun. Which is quite logical, this being the first Final Fantasy and all. The first segment of the game is at certain spots just harsh with the difficulty, there is some research to be done if you have no clue what works and what doesn’t.

The game does pick up once you collect the better items but by then I already judged the whole game because of the struggles I experienced. Here, Squaresoft did their best and I approve of their efforts, but not every NES classic stood the test of time. I just wanted to get over with this and finally start beating Final Fantasy games for once.

Final Fantasy II

Rating: 5.5

Wow, just wow. Final Fantasy II might be the oddest experimental NES sequel I have beaten yet. After Super Mario Bros. 2, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, I stumble upon this much lesser loved title in the huge franchise. And another point of thought is that it brings out some of the most conflicting emotions I’ve had during reviewing a game. On the surface Final Fantasy II ain’t no big deal. It is your typical sequel title done right, the characters and plot are a vast improvement over the original, the inconveniences such as limited spell usage is practically much lessened, it’s a bigger game, the graphics are here and there improved, more music, better level design and other small things I noticed.

Then what in the blazes of the RPG universe does that lower rating mean then!? I’ll tell you, as others dared to set forth the message from the odd Famicom RPG title before; it’s the one and only unusual level system. 

Sure, the gameplay is largely intact and in some areas improved(such as healing in a much more relievable way, rather than using a potion 40 times on a hero in the original or otherwise I would had to use one of my limited healing spells), but the leveling system was both stunning and tedious for me as I played through this.

The catch is that every stat, spell and weapon level through specific ways, not just all blended as regular with experience points, but all pretty much separated. If you slash an enemy with a sword long enough, the sword itself will level up. If you cast Cure on someone for about as 100 times, it will level up. If your character gets hurt so much that it will be in its kneeling position, vitality will rise. If you emptied all of your magic or if you cured a certain character to max health, your intelligence in magic will level up. If you use physical damage on enemies long enough, you will gain power but will lose intelligence. I am not making this up.

What Final Fantasy II dared to do here is try to add in reality issues and thus suggested that if someone was violent enough, that person would lose intelligence. That just blows my mind, but let’s not mix fantasy with reality too much now. All I will say further from this system is that while I truly applaud Squaresoft, even more than before for trying this bold direction, it turns out to be an incredible frustrating game mechanic the longer you played.

I had to use extreme measures in order to beat this very frustrating and very, very tedious way of getting stronger, such as by speeding up the game and yes, even the infamous pseudo bug everyone is talking about. The original game was moving slow, but here it was as if time was slowed much more because of the individual leveling of everything and by my full opinion do I feel that this process completely shattered the appeal of this sequel. 

Simply put, if you did not level up your 3 prime characters and optionally your 4^th character properly, the game would drag your ass from Mysidia to Dist and leave you for death on the ground by its use of the late evil(literally in all its way) bosses. I really am starting to hate the confusion among properly preparing for certain things in NES titles, because here it is a large issue for me. Seriously, for some of these games, walkthroughs are a must. Status effects are even more annoying here and the late jump in difficulty is as wide as Russia, it’s very poorly done. The game was encouraging and even fun to play while venturing through a large portion of the game, getting further with the plot. But once you got to the final areas, well, enough already, the difficulty is just YUCK.

So much writing about this poor yet fascinating title, It’s a miracle that online NES reviewers such as the Angry Video Game Nerd haven’t touched upon it yet.

Final Fantasy III

Rating: 7.5

Finally a Fantasy that is actually decent enough to be an RPG, and by far the most fun to play out of the NES trilogy. Interface is finally improved towards RPG accessible standards, and it’s a huge relief to visually know what is equip able on whom. A system that was hinted at in the original Final Fantasy has now become a full fledged so called Job system, where characters can change their classes at any time, given that their equipment is depleted in the process. It isn’t a balanced system, but it sure is fun to see the diversity in these classes. 

The pace of Final Fantasy 3 is just right, the same goes for its difficulty. Sometimes there are hard bosses, but the Job system and local news of the towns are your 2 friends then. The levels in the game also had enjoyable placed secret areas with goodies awaiting, the music is the best yet and this seems to be the largest game of the trilogy, with the final areas becoming harder and harder. What else can I say? Both FF2 and 3 saw the birth of plenty of FF trademarks, Chocobos and Moogles for example. And it’s relieving to end the NES games with a good third part, nothing wrong with it at all.

Final Fantasy IV

Rating: 7.6

The most traditional of the Final Fantasies yet, with traditional music, traditional magic point usage and a traditional storyline, this time with actual emotional main characters to care about and well, kind of an opposite back then, you play as a Dark Knight for an evil empire. But that will soon change as you progress further in FF IV. Looks like gameplay, graphics and music became better yet again, and that is why I easily give IV a higher score than III. Regarding gameplay, I keep noticing small changes in it while I play each of the games, such as the interface, the battle speed, the way towns work etc. 

As for difficulty, it is more relaxing to play through than the NES trilogy, hence making it easier, but not that it becomes a breeze, especially when looking at the final dungeon. Final Fantasy I might be the classic game for many, but IV is the most accessible and the most personal RPG of the series so far.

Final Fantasy V

Rating: 7.8

Improves yet again from its predecessors, having a MUCH NEEDED dash button (I do not think this was implemented before), a much more polished Job system, a storyline with effective humor, an even better interface, smoother and faster gameplay and the music in overall is positive. Possibly also the longest FF yet, even longer than III, V is just a solid RPG in overall. Especially consider playing with the Job system here and figure out its remarkable advantages for the player. 

The main villain can finally be called somewhat memorable, because of his desire to consume everything, plus Exdeath is just an odd name. Most of all, Exdeath is just more involved than Chaos, Emperor, Dark Cloud or Zeromus in my opinion. The difficulty seems even more lowered than before.

Final Fantasy VI

Rating: 8.1

And now Flok has come to the first massive leap from previous titles, Final Fantasy VI. In the past I tried to play this title because of its massive popularity, but I never got into it, nor did I get further than the Opera part and entering Vector for the first time. Playing it now during my Final Fantasy marathon is an enormous joy, not only because I can see the connections with earlier titles, but now I can also see the very good qualities this game brought upon the RPG genre, including a massive playable character lineup where almost any time it would be up to the player which 4 characters he would use throughout the journey.

The graphics are finally improved in an obvious way, the music embodies the settings even more, the gameplay is pretty customized, reminding me of the Job system in FF3 and FF5, but this time with a twist, the summons(Espers) of the game play around with stats and spell boosts now. The Relics system is a nice touch, the characters fight in their own interesting way, each one getting more unique than the other.

And the story is the first one I can say is poured with quality in overall, most of the main characters have developed backgrounds and emotions, the citizens of towns are more alive and best of all, Kefka is simply a classic power hungry villain with a maniacal personality of insanity. Contrary to popular belief, this game can be hard, especially when you have no knowledge of weaknesses or strong acquirements, and the Fanatic’s Tower and Kefka’s Tower are just that.

This marks the end of the first part of this marathon of RPG reviews.

NEVER Watch these Movies

Today, I present to you, 3 of the worst movies I have seen yet, each of them differ greatly from each other, starting from best to worst. As the title says, I advise you to save your time and never watch these failures, as I took the principle of viewing them for the sake of reviewing and curiosity.

#728
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale(2007) 
Rating: 3.5

Way too melodramatic Uwe Boll! Jason Statham also was not suited as the main character for this medieval fantasy based movie in my opinion. Beware of many one-liners as well while this failing movie is filled with bad jokes, bad editing and bad characters. While at times it can look pretty, don’t be deceived by the content In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale provides. It’s like a beautiful graphical video game, without beautiful gameplay to accompany it. It also has a few similarities towards The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I wasn’t bothered by that.

Some settings also looked silly, there were cheesy effects involved and the plot suffered because of the things listed. And oh man that twist at the middle of the film felt bad, about Farmer being the son of the king of Ehb. The only redeeming factor is watching how the choreography can get hilarious at times(which by the way, is vast in numbers), other than that, avoid Uwe Boll movies like the plague. And yet I watch this…perhaps to remind myself how a bad movie is like. 

 

#699 
Philosophy of a Knife(2008)
Rating: 3.5

Yeah, Men Behind the Sun(1988) is a better title than this mess. Based on a notorious Japanese experimental base unit during World War 2, Philosophy of a Knife is a way too long of a docu/mockumentary(you decide, it claims to be an artistic interpretation after all) to truly enjoy with all of it's content. I dislike it when a film has way too much music playing. The emphasis shouldn't be on that, not in such quantities. It kept changing from black and white background scenes, to an old Russian man, who supposedly experienced this notorious camp Unit 731, to fast images of randomness. And every 20 minutes or so, a horror scene would happen.

Well, the only noteworthy scene is the tooth pulling one, those who fear the dentist(including myself) should stay far away from this scene, because it kept going on and on. All the other things lacked impact for me. It was fake, it was over the top, it was wrongfully directed, etcetera. This is, in actual sense, a waste of a movie. Purely an opinion. "The true history", hah! What a joke. 

For the "best scene" this ridiculous and pointless movie has to offer, click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or_nPc5RzQc

#726
Star Quest: The Odyssey(2009)
Rating: 2.5

Don't be deceived by the poster, because that is the prettiest thing it has to offer.

So many close up scenes with bad camera movement, ripped of characters from an obvious franchise, a ridiculous narrator and senseless plot, illogical things happening even for a sci-fi (the stars move around the spaceship...) and wooden acting. Space Quest: The Odyssey is my current fix of looking for a "so bad it's good" kind of movie, but unfortunately it isn't as funny as some horrible movies I have seen already. The settings as well as the costumes are cheap, the music does not go in harmony with this pile of junk and there is no actual sense of a huge war happening. The computer voices fail, the "action" scenes are poor, the special effects are cheap and the lore provided is nothing new at all and ridiculously bad.

The editing was amateur, plot explanation scenes looked like cheap commercials for alienating customers and viewing the spaceship gets rehashed. It’s at times like this, especially when randomly switching from the “story” to a lifeless planet or a solo crappy spaceship in space and quickly switching back, where I want to ask what the director was thinking. All I wanted to do with this was to laugh out loud, but I could only laugh while acknowledging it’s a “so bad it’s bad” movie. Sarcastic laughing at its finest. IMDb’s misguiding and embarrassing summary on this could not be even more far-fetched from what it truly is, a total piece of failure.

Delving into the Ocean of Books

Recently I have been delving into the endless amount of books available. Mostly non-fiction, I happen to be more interested in philosophy, science and religion in particular these days. And even chemistry and physics intrigue me now, which sadly was not the case during my high school years. I marked those two as "stupid" while at the back of my mind, I knew that they were difficult to understand.

My latest purchases have been Beyond Good & Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey. I have yet to start on any of them, but I am sure I will be astonished someway or another by each of them in very different outcomes. Perhaps even reviews will follow.

For anyone reading this, what kind of books can you recommend to me? I am not limited to non-fiction only, so please, speak your mind when you do.

Duke Nukem Forever

What was once the biggest joke in the game industry has now finally been released after roughly 15 years. An old superstar of platforming and first person shooting genres has at last returned. His personality is the same old. He has noticed some of the competition in the industry and makes funny quotes about them. His motivation is once again to get "his" chicks back and to save the world from the aliens bend on doing the same thing all over again: abduct the hot women, and mutate and/or kill all of the rest.

Duke Nukem Forever is released and personally I couldn't believe it. It's finally done? No more switching between developers, acquiring licenses not only on the copyrighted material itself, but also on the various game engines the game has been developed on? No more game trailers, no more teasers? NO more Forever jokes? Indeed, the game has now escaped from development hell, and I have beaten it.

What I have noticed is that DNF is one part the same old Duke Nukem gameplay, one part borrows popular concepts that currently dominate first person shooters, and one part completely forgets about some features that made Duke Nukem 3D back in 1996 a classic. Let's talk about those different parts.

The arsenal is the same, except that a few new alien weapons are introduced, nothing out of the ordinary though. You've got one guy against a horde of aliens, you've got various kinds of level design, with a few basic puzzles and driving sessions thrown in. Occassionally Duke Nukem also shrinks into a tiny size, resulting into some interesting scenarios, and there is even a whole "relaxing" chapter in the game, where the hero takes a break from all of the ass-kicking and blowing everyone's brains out.

Best of all, Duke Nukem's personality is still intact. First introduced in Duke Nukem II(1993), the man has some new hilarious one-liners up his sleeve, such as "My balls, your face" but some of the oldies are also still there, such as "Hail to the king, baby", as taken by the movie Army of Darkness(1992). If you didn't know by now, Duke Nukem likes to quote several movie and game titles.

Now let's look at what all of the developers on this had decided to really change. In Forever, Duke can only carry 2 guns at a time, reminiscent of many other shooters today. Next, the game got linear, where most of the time it would be obvious to know where to go next. And, last of all, auto regeneration of health is also present, making it truly similar to the competition. These are changes that really weren't needed.

Why did this have to happen, if Duke Nukem himself could carry all of his guns in one go back in 1996, had to find medkits or just splashes of water to keep healthy and at the same time be able to use several paths to maneuver through each level, primarily by the use of air ducts? Were the developers really concerned that change towards the actual status quo was needed, or otherwise it would not bring out newcomers towards the franchise?

I think this was a huge opportunity to bring out some old ideas back into the current generation and be proud of it. Some of the old ideas were even entirely missing(the jetpack!). Honestly, it's dissapointing to see that Duke Nukem Forever changed its gameplay more to the likes of titles such as Call of Duty and Halo. So when we are speaking of originality, Forever missed out big time.

There is lack of exciting new content, including weapons, enemies and since Duke can only carry 2 guns, it feels less exciting to uncover any of the game's secret areas(which are more easily spotted when compared to Duke Nukem 3D), and find a gun there that you can only take if you leave another one. Except for Duke Nukem's personality and it's infamous status of development hell, the whole game is an average first person shooter for today's standards.

Which is really sad, considering it's very long development time. I'm not saying that Forever should had surpassed 3D in every way, but unfortunately the game is just way more average and squeezed between the millions of other generic first person shooters available now, and the only way the game is still selling is because of the 2 reasons I listed.

Stick with the three old Duke Nukem titles instead(I have yet to play the first two thoroughly though) and try Forever out. It's nice that the game is finally released, but I hope that whoever is gonna develop an eventual sequal will especially look back at what made 3D really outstanding for it's time.

Or, if 3D Realms allows it, someone should develop a sequel towards a certain game that in my opinion, was even better than Duke Nukem 3D in the 90's, featuring a ninja bodyguard with his own kind of Eastern humor to battle demons.

Rating: 6.5