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Glad I didn't waste money on this

Posted : 3 months, 1 week ago on 28 April 2008 11:39 (A review of Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights)

'Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights' is yet another run-of-the-mill generic console racing game to get released on every platform under the sun. Xbox360, PS2, PS3, PSP and DS editions of this game were developed, and I use that term with reservations, as this game wasn't so much developed, but rather coded up by a late-shift coked-up monkey at THQ.

The PC/Windows edition of this racing game was released in Europe in December 2007, and its coming soon to North America, but I pray it never reaches these shores. I've played lots of sloppy ports before, most recently DiRT, but at least in that game, they attempted to code up support for a steering wheel. The drugged up monkey at THQ didn't even bother to include support for a steering wheel & pedals for this racing game. Let that soak in. ZERO support for a wheel - in a racing game. Yes, that alone made me scream in rage.

Oh, and it gets better. Of course as with all sloppy console ports, there is no mouse interaction at all, but these guys didnt even bother changing bitmaps and key assignments. You are presented with Green 'A', Red 'B' and Yellow 'Y' buttons as you navigate the idiotic menu system. Yes, you actually have to hit the letters A, B or Y to set your options.

As I'd try this game even with a bloody keyboard (actually bloody from all the times I had to hit arrow and enter and A, B and Y keys before I finally got to a fucking race), I figured maybe the game would make up for it in gameplay/graphics. But it got even worse. I just played a bit of Need for Speed: ProStreet and Test Drive Unlimited earlier this evening, with full graphics, full rez, full AA and HDR, and both those games ran as smooth as a baby's bottom, but Juiced 2 looked like shit, and was choppy as shit as well. And I mean 'so-choppy-it-was-unplayable'. And its not even a frame rate issue. It was smooth for 2 seconds, then screen locked up for a half a second. Smooth for 2, locked for half. And in half a second, I always re-appeared crashed into a wall.

So game's graphics look horrible, menus are ripped straight out of an Xbox, there is no steering wheel support whatsoever, and its got some serious lag/stutter/lock-up issues making the game un-driveable even with a keyboard. If I could give this turkey a 0 out of 10, I would. My only consolation is that even the console versions are crap, based on reviews and sales figures, so nobody will hear or care about this PC release. But if you do happen to see it by next christmas in the $2.99 bin o' crap games, spend that money on a hot dog and pop instead.

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The Ultimate Test Drive

Posted : 3 months, 1 week ago on 28 April 2008 07:49 (A review of Test Drive Unlimited)

I grew up in the golden era of PC Gaming - the DOS years of late 80s & early 90s - so I'm very familiar with this series' roots. But despite its concept early on, with add-on packs of different cars to test drive, the series never flourished, and was nothing more than second (or third) fiddle to the hugely popular Need for Speed series. The closest the game actually felt like a test drive was the first Off-Road spin-off series, with a large selection of trucks & SUVs, and wide-open terrain to explore, and the buggy but ambitious Test Drive III.

And now comes Test Drive Unlimited, released a few years back for the Xbox360 and then on the PC. It is the latest (and perhaps the last, given Atari's financial woes) of this long running series of driving/racing simulators. And man, what a ride it is!

Unlike the disaster of a PC racer that is DiRT, TDU developers took a lot of effort to make this PC game much more than a worthless port. For starters, not only are steering & pedals well supported and setup, driving with a wheel feels very realistic and is a pure blast. And OMG, mouse-driven menus in a console port! Unheard of! :)

You start the game with $200,000 and a ticket to Hawaii. Upon your arrival, you choose a rental car, choose a house (which acts as a hub for your stats and multi-car garage for the cars you purchase along the way), and go to various dealership to test drive and pick your first ride. I started off with a sexy Audi TT Coupe, bright red.

And now the beauty of the game. It's open-ended, and the world is massive (complete island of Olahu, to be exact). And driving 15 miles actually feels like driving 15 miles. And on a high-end system, you crank out all graphics and turn on HDR and you've got a stunning looking world to explore. Various races are held throughout the island, as well as several missions (courier, hitch-hikers, etc..) are you chances to rack up money. You can sell your cars, collect them, but other than paint jobs and rims, you won't find Grand Turismo or Need for Speed Underground level of tuning. This isn't pimp my ride - this is test drive the world's most beautiful exotic cars (although several dozen cards from all dealership, from GM, Nissan, Audi, Cadillac and many others, are available - its not strictly supercar city). Damage however is non-existant, except for fact more cars you hit, the more the cops will be out after you with a hefty fine (racked up a $20,000 fine after evading the cops for half hour, passing numerous road blocks, and trying to hide from them. Man, that was a riot :)

And let's not forget about the music and sounds. Every car is perfectly re-created, not just in details, dashboard and instruments, but also by engine sound. And if you turn on the radio, you'll notice the game comes loaded with a killer list of tracks (although its easy to link to your mp3 folder for a personal radio station.)

I haven't had this much fun in a driving/racing game in ages. I mean, if racing is your thing, there's so many to choose from on the massive island (and even more if you choose to race online, where everyone else is driving around the island in real-time, waiting for challenges). And if you just want to drive around a beautiful island, in a lambo with the top down, soaking in the rays, you can do so as well, for hours at a time without seeing the same scenery. This game truly is unlimited.

Gameplay:

The only drawbacks some may see is lack of customization of your cars (which in all honestly, go play NFS: Underground or something similar, if that's your thing). Also even though handling of the car is quite accurate, physics and damage model are not (the car never seems to be affected by damage, and everything except for street signs is totally rigid and indestructible). The lack of any pedestrians is also a bit weird, especially after being used to moving down people in GTA. ;) But I'm sure to model up all the buildings, every tree and shrub, and have tons of dynamic traffic around, it was probably deemed unnecessary to include pedestrians, as it would just kill system requirements needlessly.

Presentation (graphics, framerates, level design): 10/10
Gameplay (controls, interface, game mechanics): 9/10
Sound (sound FX, music, voice acting): 10/10
Personal slant (fun factor, nostalgia): 8/10
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Overall: 9.3 / 10

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Colin McRae rolls in his grave

Posted : 3 months, 2 weeks ago on 26 April 2008 01:08 (A review of DiRT)

DiRT, the next gen installment of the long-running Colin McRae series of off-road/rally games, is getting some good reviews on the net, and being a rally racing fan, I was excited to finally get my hands on this title. Unfortunately, the excitement ended very quickly.

Let me say the few pros of this game before I bash it senseless. For starters, this is a beautiful game, and it gave me great framerates at full resolution. It's probably one of the finest looking racing games to come out on the PC to date. And that's all the praise this lemon is getting.

The Joys of Installing: As seems to be the current trend, games are released so buggy they need a patch before you can even run them, and DiRT is no exception to that. In fact, had to get 2 patches before my steering wheel & pedals would even be recognized in this driving game. Its not like my hardware is obscure - it's a Logitech Formula GP.

Interface: The game's menu and navigation make this title feel like a sloppy port. Mouse is not recognized, so I have to resort to bashing the arrows keys, Enter and Esc a dozen times to get anything done. Even when its saving progress and settings, the game keeps telling me not to turn off my PC. Yes, that's just what I was going to do. Turn off my PC and lose data on my memory card. *roll eyes*

Racing & Driving: Now for the painful part. I do not believe that Codemasters have spent more than 3 hours tops programming in support for a steering wheel. I turn the wheel, and car responds two seconds later. Sure comes in handy flying thru narrow paths at over 100mph. Oh but it doesnt really matter anyways, because the car just bounces off scenery like its made of rubber, and you can honestly drive with pedal to the metal, make a hard turn, and your car flies thru a narrow tight turn like its on an invisible set of train tracks. Thats the whole game. Keep pedal buried, turn wheel sharply. Of course, that wheel delay simple kills you. But if you turn off wheel & pedals and go back to keyboard setting, steering is flawless, instant, and you just keep gas buried and fly thru all the turns, and you will move up the elegant career mode because you'll be winning every race like that.

I want a real racing game though, so I didnt give up. I went to Google and searched up anything I could to improve DiRT. And it turns out I'm not the only one. In fact, everyone with a steering wheel & pedals finds the game hopeless. There's one custom patch that made the grip more realistic, and it helps as it no longer feels like you're on rails, but since you're now actually sliding around and fishtailing and fighting for control of the car (the way a real racing game should be), and you still have that nice 2 second delay to your wheel, you'll find yourself alway in last place, a full minute or more behind all computer car times. So much for career mode.

But since this is the only recent rally game for the PC, I had to give it one more chance. Maybe me (and everyone else) on racing forums were wrong. Maybe it's just been a while since I played a racing game with my wheel on my PC (probably has been 6 months at least), so I fired up Richard Burns Rally, and was in heaven once more. Every single twitch of the wheel is recognized, you can pull awesome moves, and the game honestly feels like you are really driving. And I noticed something else in that game - the sense of speed. In Richard Burns game, you can feel the speed. I loaded up DiRT, and noticed the difference. Going 50km/h or 100km/h or 150 km/h, its such a minor change. Its almost like your speedometer and the rate the scenery flies by you are on two seperate clocks. You go 150km/h in RBRally down a narrow forest track, you're crappin' yourself. You do the same in DiRT, and you can look around and enjoy the scenery and call your wife on your cell phone and maybe flip thru your CD collection. It doesnt have the sense of speed whatsoever.

The Final Verdict: It's a pretty game, but it's nothing more than a keyboard-driven arcade racing game. And if using a steering wheel in a racing game feels worse than using a keyboard, there's a major problem. It may be a fun game on consoles, but PC racing fans should avoid this at all cost.

Presentation (graphics, framerates, level design): 8/10
Gameplay (controls, interface, game mechanics): 1/10
Sound (sound FX, music, voice acting): 3/10
Personal slant (fun factor, nostalgia): 1/10
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Overall: 3.3 / 10

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rehashed american junk

Posted : 3 months, 4 weeks ago on 11 April 2008 02:42 (A review of 21)

This movie was great!.... when I saw it 4 years ago, as a Canadian-made film called 'The Last Casino'.


That's Hollywood for ya - no more original ideas left. They had to steal all Canadian actors, now they're stealing our movies too. And some IMDB reviews are calling it 'fresh and original'. *sigh*

anyways, at least this will *inspire* me to write a review... for Last Casino.



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Kind of grows on you...

Posted : 4 months ago on 9 April 2008 07:28 (A review of Super Mario Sunshine)


Being a mario fan for life, I knew I was going to have to get Sunshine for my Gamecube, despite some of the poor reviews I read. And to be honest, at first, I tried it for about 20 minutes and was rather disappointed. The water canon / water jet pack was too strange and too different, and I think the issue I had was that Mario seemed to do 90% squirting and 10% jumping in this game. That's not the Mario I know and love. First impressions, I probably would've given it a 4 or 5 out of 10, and was even contemplating trading the game in at a pawn shop.



After it sat on my shelf for 6 months untouched while I was having fun with Paper Mario, Zelda Wind Waker, Mario Party series, Mario Tennis and Mario Kart, I finally decided to give Sunshine a second chance this past week, and I'm actually hooked. What's odd is that levels are scattered all over the place and there is no set path you must take, but each level is actually very nicely made and very creative, and there is a lot more jumping and other tricks Mario has to do than just using his water pack. But once you get over the initial 'WTF is this?' feeling when loading the game for the first time, you will find a very addictive 3d platformer.

Inspiration for Super Mario Galaxy?


For the negatives, there are a few issues I find rather frustrating. First, the way the characters talk, with the arcs of blue ribbons, is ugly as sin. It almost makes me not want to interact with all the townsfolk. They should've just stuck to Paper Mario style bubbles. Second, the camera is a major pain in the arse, often rotating when you don't want it to rotate, clipping behind buildings or mountains, or not rotating in one direction at all because 'something' is in the way. Third, Mario is known for cool unique power-ups, and despite some variety in enemies and ways to defeated them, so far everything is either water nozzle or jump. Where's the Fire Flower? Where's the raccoon tail? Frog Suit? man, give me something different. Maybe it comes later in the game, but after bout 5 or 6 episodes, I'm starting to lose hope in new cool power-ups.

Trailer:

The final verdict: if you love Mario, and have a Gamecube, its a must-have title, though definitely not his finest game.

Presentation (graphics, framerates, level design): 9/10
Gameplay (controls, interface, game mechanics): 6/10
Sound (sound FX, music, voice acting): 6/10
Personal (fun factor, nostalgia, personal slant): 9/10
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Overall: 7.5 / 10



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Another Stephen King masterpiece

Posted : 4 months, 2 weeks ago on 26 March 2008 12:14 (A review of The Mist)

We all know Stephen King is the undisputed master when it comes to horror novels, but not all his works have translated well to the big screen. But I'm glad to say this one, based on a novella (mini-novel) of his, is a beauty. When I read it a few years back in college, I remember thinking 'man, this would make an awesome movie!' so I was excited when I found out that not only was it coming out, but that Frank Darabont was at the helm. The critics came, and many were harsh towards it. I suppose they just didnt except such a King-style ending. lol

All the things that make King special are in this film; the slow build-up of suspense, the complete unexplained mystery, a raving lunatic, terrifying monsters, and finally, the end.

And what an ending. Speechless. wow

THAT alone is worth the price of admission (or at least a rental). The ending. Predictable if you know King (as Voxy points out in her review), but shocking nonetheless.

Well, that, and the justice dealt to the crazy bible thumper. It's been a while that I stood up and yelled 'YES MUTHAFUCKAA!' at my TV. :)

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Great RomCom, but predicable as hell

Posted : 4 months, 2 weeks ago on 25 March 2008 11:57 (A review of Dan in Real Life)

For starters, Steve Carell is the only reason I watched this film, and its the perfect role in which he excels at - as a lovable down-on-his-luck good guy with great punch lines.

Not being a fan of romantic comedies (i'm a guy, after all), I still found myself somewhat impressed with this one, and even fought back tears in one scene (when Steve was telling his three daughters which part of them reminds him of his dead wife). And many of the jokes throughout are brilliant and funny.

What I didn't like about this film was the cheezy family dynamics. Seriously, does ANYONE know a family out there that meets up for a week, get along perfectly (for the most part), exercise together, play football together, and even do special talent shows in front of each other by the fireplace? guitar and all? come on... that's not 'REAL LIFE'.

The plot also was way too predictable. I knew right away things would be awkward, then they'll fall in love, then all hell will break loose in the family, but then everything will work out perfectly and last scene will be a wedding with everyone all happy and perfect. Its about as predictable as a period.

And *despite* all that, I still give it a generous 7 out of 10 because, well Steve Carell is in it, and its NOT Evan Almighty. :)

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Visually beautiful, but not for everyone

Posted : 4 months, 2 weeks ago on 25 March 2008 11:45 (A review of Rescue Dawn)

Leave it to the eccentric Herzog to make a Vietnam War movie about 15 years after Hollywood stopped making Vietnam War movies.

This movie is loosely based on real events of an air pilot's capture, life in a POW camp, and a daring prison break with his fellow american prisoners.

If you know Herzog, you'll quickly notice his very sparse use of music, very slow-paced cinematography, and with all the sounds of the crickets in the jungle while time slowly passes by, I don't recommend watching this if you're tired (I fell asleep twice before I finally finished this film).

But despite all that, it's truly a beautiful film. So if you are seeking a great film that's off the beaten path, might want to give River Dawn a chance. But don't blame me if you fall asleep ;)

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Best Western since Unforgiven

Posted : 4 months, 2 weeks ago on 25 March 2008 11:33 (A review of 3:10 to Yuma)

To anyone who loves westerns but feel like the genre has died, you owe it to yourself to go buy this movie. It is quite easily the best Western since 'The Unforgiven', and I consider it up there with 'Good Bad & Ugly' and 'Once Upon a Time in West' masterpieces.

First off, Christian Bale - quite easily one of my fave actors lately - pulls off another intense performance. Is there anything this guy can't pull off? He riveted me in 'The Machinist', he mesmerized me in 'Prestige', he blew me away in 'Batman Begins', and now comes out smokin' in '3:10 to Yuma'. (like the metaphors? lol)

And after a few duds, Russell Crowe is back in top form as the bad-ass gunslinger in this western, revolving around getting him to the 3:10 train to Yuma, while his entire posse is determined to free him. While in captivity, Crowe and Bale's characters develop respect and sympathy for each other, leading to an incredible shootout thru town as the train awaits them.

Seriously, if you like westerns, don't you dare miss this one. Even if westerns are not your thing, the action and suspense in this film will keep you hooked throughout.

A flawless film. 10/10

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Disappointment

Posted : 4 months, 2 weeks ago on 24 March 2008 08:38 (A review of Bee Movie)

Some animated movies are clearly aimed at kids, others are clearly aimed at adult audiences, and the real winners are the ones that can give something for both; films like Shrek for example. But Bee Movie? What were they thinking?

To me, its clearly an adult-centered animated film, but was marketed for kids instead -- the story is so silly and ridiculous that only kids can accept it. But with Seinfeld's ill placed jewish jokes, tons of side jokes only intended for adults (like a parody of Haliburton and Enron company names), and a plot revolving around a class action lawsuit against humans so they stop stealing honey, I guarantee your kid will stop watching once the 'cool! a talking Bee!' effect wears off.

yes, it's quite bad if an animated film can do that to a 4 year old. This will leave the parent being pissed off at this film half way thru, and be wishing he rented the latest action or thriller instead.

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