Punch-Drunk Lethargy

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

The long awaited home console return of Rare’s royal platforming duo is a major deviation from the gameplay that made Banjo-Kazooie great. Settling into the Xbox 360 as their first post-Nintendo home, the game sets out to establish a fresh identity in the current generation, for better or worse.

It has been eight long years since Banjoo and Kazooie were last seen bounding across the horizon and expectations for their return were running inevitably high. Choosing to reinvent the series rather than merely update the solid adventure game with current technology, Rare have picked a path that couldn’t help but alienate a chunk of their previous fans.

The straightforward collect em up adventuring of the previous games is almost completely stripped away, replaced by a rather incongruous emphasis on vehicular gameplay. Thrust into a new world known as Showdown Town, the duo is tasked with creating a range of vehicles to utilize in a series of challenges such as fetch-quests, racing, and vehicle-based combat.

While the reason for such emphasis on transportation in a series that has hitherto been completely devoid of such things remains a mystery, the first interactions with these mechanics are quite rewarding. The garage feature, in which players create any sort of wondrous machine they like using parts earned throughout the game, is surprisingly deep. The functionality is such that the player has a great deal of freedom in creating vehicles - so much so that it may well be daunting for younger players.

Once you get out of the garage, however, things get a little less polished. Rather than advancing an overall storyline, the game is divided into themed worlds, each containing challenges with no relevance to your characters at all. The tasks are very basic, often routine and boring, and cause immediate flashes of nostalgia for the series’ old format.

While the core gameplay might be almost unrecognizable as the Banjo-Kazooie we know and love, the game’s look is dead on. The hodgepodge cartoon world positively hums with goofy energy, a perfect fit for the series’ trademark satirical humour. Unfortunately that just makes yearning for the old ways that little bit more desperate, rather than benefiting this bastardized attempt at rejuvenation.

Sonic Unleashed

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

With a string of routinely terrible titles to his name, gamers have long considered the once-beloved Sonic the Hedgehog to be cursed. Sonic Team ran with that concept with their latest release, Sonic Unleashed. Apparently to save the dying franchise things are going to have to get a little hairy.

The premise for Sonic Unleashed is one of the least likely twists on an established character I can think of: What if Sonic, for no real reason, turned into a werewolf? Ok, sure, Sonic the Werehog, I’m intrigued. But then what if the wolf, as well as being really fierce but slower than usual, had stretchy powers like Mr. fantastic? Honestly, I can’t even imagine how someone pitches such an idea, let alone gets it green lit.

The result is truly bipolar. Levels taking place during the day are raced through by classic Sonic, levels after nightfall are big fuzzy Sonic’s territory. If you can move past the sheer random absurdity of the concept (and don’t feel bad if you can’t) then you can almost see how it might make for an interesting mix of gameplay types - unfortunately this is where the game well and truly shoots itself in the foot.

When playing as plain old Sonic the game represents the sort of return to roots that fans have been gagging for, ever since the leap to 3D. The beautifully designed levels zip by at blistering speed as you hurl yourself towards rings and away from traps. The sense of speed is exhilarating and the stripped back, simple concept as nostalgically reminiscent of those halcyon days on the Megadrive.

Then the game slams into a brick wall. The sun goes down, the hedgehog wolfs up, and the fun just drains right out of the screen before your eyes. Laborious, long, and just plain dull Werehog levels force you into frustratingly unripe brawler mode, burning the goodwill earned by the other half of the game with each over-extended moment.

It’s a shame things went so pear-shaped in the end, because those all too brief levels melding vintage sonic gameplay with the current generation are gold. Why we needed to go wolf I’ll never know, but this at least creates a glimmer of hope for a truly decent new Sonic title, someday.

Prince of Persia

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:43:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Ubisoft were on to a good thing with last generation’s Prince of Persia titles and it was a bold move to throw all that aside and try something new. A fresh look, some gameplay tinkering and a few nods to the original trilogy make for a solid reworking of the platforming classic.

Reboots are all the rage these days; Bond, Batman, the government, and now Ubisoft’s staple franchise Prince of Persia. With 2005’s Two Thrones capping off the fantastic Sands of Time trilogy it’s debatable whether the series really needed overhauling, but change is good and it is refreshing to see a company take the initiative rather than waiting until the beloved series was driven into the ground.

The most immediately striking change to the series is its look. Deviating markedly from previous iterations, Prince of Persia now boasts a highly detailed version of the cel-shaded style, giving the game a pleasant illustrated fable vibe. Kicking off amidst a roaring sandstorm, the game is quick to illustrate its dedication to wide, sprawling landscapes of ancient Persia.

Wandering rather haplessly through said countryside is the titular Prince, again unnamed but clearly not the same brooding warrior we have become intimate with. This new prince, decked out in a flowing headscarf and leathery open-chest number, has more of an Ashton Kutcher inflection; cavalier, mouthy and more than a little annoying. This doesn’t seem to bother the beautiful princess Elika, who is more than happy to be saved from mysterious pursuers by the dorky rogue.

Requestioning the limber Prince’s assistance in reaching an ornate temple, Elika relates the story of how the land has become corrupted by an evil presence and the task of revitalising the once lush kingdom falls on her mystical shoulders. Assumedly because he has very little else to do that day, the Prince pledges to help Elika accomplish her quest, escorting her across treacherous lands pursuing numerous fertile grounds in need of healing.

This expedition sets our hero on a collision course with evil spirit Ahirman and his ethereal minions. Throwing down with these wraithlike nasties reveals the largest change to the game’s core mechanics; a combat system that closely resembles the original series’ one-to-one combat rather than Sands of Time’s brawler elements. Gone are the unending hordes of goons, replaced with far less frequent skirmishes with a single enemy.

Fighting is a matter of timing and reaction, with sword attack mapped to one button, gauntlet attacks to another, and a third for acrobatic attacks and dodges. Anticipating an enemy’s attack, countering, and out manoeuvring are the keys to victory in Prince of Persia’s swordfights. The unconventional system is novel to begin with but it’s limitations become boringly clear as the game essentially requires replaying the same battle repeatedly, ad nauseam.

Luckily the title leans far more heavily on its acrobatic portions, which are more or less unchanged from the previous trilogy’s masterful system. Monkeying about through intricate playgrounds loses something of its edge, however, with the new title’s handholding decision to make death impossible. As well as being useful for areal boosts and attacks, if you mess up a jump or find yourself losing a battle Elika will step in and save you from defeat, returning the Prince to a safe spot.

This somewhat coddling decision to make failure almost impossible, coupled with Elika’s ability to display a magical trail leading you exactly where you need to go, panders to a less skilled audience outside of the series’ core fan base. Which is fine, obviously, but the game would appear a much more attractive challenge to loyal, hardcore fans if turning the kids table features off were an option.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:42:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

The violent reprobates of Mortal Kombat clash with the heroes and villains of DC comics in what one would expect to be sort of a one-sided fight. It’s nice to have the MK series well and truly back on track, and the spandex brigade is a novel addition.

The colourful characters of Marvel comics have been paling around with the bruisers of Street Fighter for some years now, so it was only natural that their Distinguished Competition would eventually join forces with another member of fighting game royalty. The characters don’t exactly mesh together naturally but fans of either series are well catered to, and fans of both should probably bring a towel.

In a statistically unlikely bit of synchronised villain defeating the champions of both universes (namely Raiden and Superman) each put the final screws to their greatest enemies (Shao Khan and Darkseid, respectively) at the very same time. Somehow things get a bit wibbly and the two villains fuse together to form Dark Khan, an impossibility that also melds the two worlds together. With both sides mistaking the others for invaders (xenophobia runs rampant even with earth’s greatest heroes these days) the streets soon erupt in, wait for it, Mortal Kombat!

Fighting on the MK side we have the usual line up of brawlers, including Jax, Baraka, Scorpian, Liu Kang, and Sonya; and in the DC corner you’ve got sort of analogous personalities like Green Lantern, Deathstroke, Batman, The Flash, and Catwoman.

The insanely uneven power levels in a match between, say, Superman and Sub Zero along with personality quirks that suddenly have dignified heroes fighting in the streets are explained away thusly; The merging of Dark Khan is piping some weird rage voodoo into the amalgamated reality causing powers to fluctuate and behaviours get a bit nutty. Convenient, no?

Tightly stretched story aside, the game plays exactly as it should. If you’re at all a proponent of the Mortal Kombat school then you will feel right at home. There have been a few tweaks to basic combat that break up the frantic pace, such as mid-air skirmishing and close quarters manoeuvring, but nothing that either evolves or spoils the traditional fighter experience.

Order Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Cooking video games, who saw that trend coming? While most games filling out that weird subgenre are little more than Cooking Mama rip-offs, Order Up! is a surprisingly well prepared title in its own right. Addictive, goofy, and a little bit frantic, it’s a casual game that any brand of gamer can dig.

I enjoy cooking, though I’ve only very recently been able to produce anything even approaching proper food. It’s a lot of fun but very time consuming, if people in general weren’t so lazy the fast food industry would be but a niche market. We are lazy though, very lazy, and I suppose therein lies the appeal of a cooking sim; you feel something of achievement in preparing a meal, but if you get bored you can just quit out. And you never have to clean up.

Order Up! bolsters the usual mash-up of servile minigames implied in digi-food prep by coupling it with a very basic business sim. The game (inexplicably) begins as your chef character leaps from a plane into a dumpster, recovers and wanders into a local fast food joint. Burger Face serves as the game’s tutorial level, but to hell with working there for long, once you’ve got basic burger preparation down it’s off to start up your first diner.

Each restaurant you open acts as a level; once you learn enough new recipes, get the place looking good, and impress the local food critic your eatery will be awarded the five-star rank and you can move on to the next culinary challenge.

At each locale you work as the short order cook, receiving orders, preparing the individual ingredients, judiciously selecting spices, and cooking the meal. Tables at your diner can seat up to four people, each placing different orders that need to be produced simultaneously. Splitting your attention between the chopping board, deep fryer, grill, and oven is key to make sure everything ticks along nicely and nothing burns.

Should the stress get too much (and no mistake, despite the game’s cartoonish appearance it knows how to make you sweat) you can also hire on additional staff to assign tasks as you assemble meals, though the help will never be able to hit that sweet ‘perfect’ spot the way you can.

Crawling from one dive to the next, blitzing through the dishes, and building the places up to respectable businesses is a deceptively addictive process that will truly put your multi-tasking abilities to the test.

Skate It

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:40:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

EA nobly continue their quest to break down Tony Hawk’s skateboard gaming monopoly. Re-imagining the basics of last year’s Skate, Skate It for the Wii transplants the nuanced control system onto the motion sensing remote in a bid for an all-new, all-different skating game experience.

I want to start by expressing my gratitude to Electronic Arts for sending some genuine love to the Wii. While most publishers aren’t willing to dedicate anything beyond minigame collections, product tie-ins, or shovelware to Nintendo’s challenging platform, EA have stepped up with a new original game - not a shonky port - for one of their biggest, freshest new series. Thank you for taking the time to be a real gaming company.

The original Skate succeeded by being similar enough to the Tony Hawk titles to feel instantly familiar, but different enough to be exciting, challenging, and new. Skate It succeeds on much the same terms; the basic format is standard skater fare but the controls are a whole new beast. Flush with options from the start, you can play Skate It via one of three different control modes: a single Wii remote, a remote and nunchuck combo, or using the fantastic balance board.

Regardless of which input you go with the resulting game will be a huge challenge, but one well worth mastering. With the board transposed onto your controller of choice you control your skater’s jumps, grabs, flips, and grinds via movement. Perfectly logical when you’re already standing on a skate-like balance board, but a little more difficult to wrap your head around when your virtual skate is in the palm of your hand.

The Wii’s common motion sensing issues aside, once you’ve got a handle on controlling the board you’re primed for a first rate tour through the lips, gaps, jumps, and half-pipes of San Van, which has rather conveniently been destroyed by a series of mysterious earthquakes, leaving it a smoking mess of adventurous skate territory.

The Wii does its best to handle a modified version of the original game’s engine, but is never acquitted quite as well is it’s more robust cousins. In the most extreme cases the visuals end up a distorted mess, but the majority of the time the title coasts by on its average looks well enough. Graphical trifles won’t be enough to keep a starving hardcore audience from this rare ‘serious’ title for the Wii.

Left 4 Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

The cult of Valve is whipped into frenzy as the multiplayer messiahs finally see fit to drop another game, promising to do for co-op gaming what Half-Life (and its derivatives) did for competitive online shooters. Also: zombies!

The survival-horror genre has sought, since its inception, to emulate the horror film-going experience with shaky success. To be fair most horror movies fail to generate much of the horror film-going experience themselves, but where survival-horror games are concerned the big pitfall seems to be adhering too closely to their own genre staples. Stilted movement, intricate puzzles, hunting about for key after key; none of this stuff is particularly scary. At least not in the way it’s intended. It is no big surprise, then, that a game barely fitting the survival-horror tag has most compelling conveyed the need to survive a little horror.

Left 4 Dead is a cooperative multiplayer game in which gamers assume the roles of four survivors of a zombie outbreak. A mutated form of rabies has turned the whole damn world into flesh eating crazies and it is the survivors’ moral imperative to traumatically kill as many of the undead pests as possible in a bid to make it to the credits alive.

As they tend to, the zombies (or ‘infected’ so as not to flare up the whole ‘zombies don’t run’ debate) outnumber the survivors by about a trillion to one, so the awesome foursome rely very heavily upon mutual aid in order to navigate the post-apocalyptic world.

While most of the nasty critters are your garden variety, run-moan-bite infected, a few have evolved special attributes that make them doubly pesky. Bloated walking corpses known as boomers tend to vomit or explode a coat of goo onto unsuspecting players, coating them in zombie-attracting pheromones to which the locals will quickly flock. Smokers have big old tongues that can shoot out and ensnare survivors, Tanks are hulking mutants that like to chuck rather heavy objects about the place, and Hunters move quickly and can pin a player to the ground. Depending on how you are attacked, one of these more classy zombies might require a teammate’s assistance to be repelled.

As well as helping your comrades to their feet, players can share health kits and provide covering fire in order to traverse such classic zombie destinations as the hospital, tunnel network, backwoods, and airport. There’s no fiddling about for door triggers or annoying memory puzzles to be found, the levels are as straight forward as they come, consisting of basic A-to-B objectives with nothing but mountains of the undead to hinder your progress.

This is both a strongpoint and hindrance to the game; while the no-nonsense gun play makes for a much more dynamic sense of horror than similar attempts (such as Resident Evil: Outbreak) it also results in gameplay that gets stale too quickly. Consisting of only four campaigns, it doesn’t take very long to see all there is to see in Left 4 Dead.

Both a heavy emphasis on online play an AI system called Director, which dynamically calculates a group of players’ experience and adjusts enemies accordingly, are workarounds for the brevity problem. Combined they are able to, technically, offer a different experience with each play through, but the subtle tweaks are never enough to make you forget that you’ve already ploughed your way through a given level multiple times in any given session.

Dark City

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

In the late 90s a dark, slick noir-tinged science fiction flick snuck into theatres only to be completely dwarfed a few months later by The Matrix. The films were similar in tone but with drastically different marketing budgets. In retrospect, however, I think the underrated Dark City had the last laugh, as The Matrix series buckled under the weight of two bafflingly inane sequels the smaller film is still fondly remembered by genre fans, as this lovely Special Edition will attest.

A close cousin to Blade Runner, Dark City ties the mystery and style of classic film noir with the unfamiliar and confusing tropes of soft SF. Awaking in a dingy hotel room with absolutely no memories, a thoroughly disoriented John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) stumbles upon the mutilated body of a hooker. Unable to recall who he is, Murdoch struggles to refute the suggestion that he may well be a serial killer preying on working girls, as reported by various newspaper articles in his possession.

The information doesn’t sit will with the desperate man however, and when a group of freakish pale strangers in long trench coats and fedoras show up to put the fear of god into him his suspicions are confirmed; something truly weird is going on.

Also running about trying to crack the mystery of this strange city - where the sun never seems to rise and no one remembers the directions out of town – are a sultry lounge singer (Jennifer Connelly), a vintage hard-boiled detective (William Hurt), and an Igor-like scientist (Kiefer Sutherland) with a troubling secret.

Dark City’s ultimate reveal is exhilarating and inspired; a nice culmination of white-knuckle pulp energy and sociological contemplation. The ride is made all the more enjoyable by a lovely production design weirdly fusing different eras of architecture, and a brilliant cast that fit perfectly into the skins of their oddly endearing misfit characters.

Fred Claus

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

I don’t know about you but I’m sick of Santa Claus. A puffy corporate shill, he’s come to represent everything hollow and selfish about Christmas, despite preaching the complete opposite in movies. Santa Claus is lies and greed and more merchandising than Pokémon. Have we not said, through the innumerable films, books, cards, songs, television shows, and advertisements, everything we have to say about Santa Claus? Apparently not.

For instance, we didn’t know he had an older brother. We didn’t know this brother was forever living in the shadow of his over-achieving, saintly younger sibling. We didn’t know that when you become a saint you and your immediate family are granted immortal status. And we didn’t know that this undying underachieving had turned Santa’s brother Fred into a complete dick.

Fred Claus has been living a middling life as the anti-Santa, a repo man in Chicago who delights in taking people’s stuff away from them. When he runs into a little money trouble he looks, once again, to mooch off his holier-than-thou little brother. The result is North Pole shenanigans involving a little voyeurism, naughty and nice list mix ups, lots of elves, a sexy, inexplicably non-elf accountant, rapper Ludachris as a tiny DJ elf, and an evil Kevin Spacey trying to shut the whole place down.

It is exactly as stupid as it sounds. The real Christmas miracle is how so many genuinely talented people signed on to this steamer. Sure, he’s just playing himself again, but Vince Vaughn’s a talented guy. Then you have Paul Giamati as Santa, Rachel Weisz as the love interest, Cathy Bates as Mama Claus, Miranda Richardson as Santa’s wife, and the aforementioned villainous Spacey. That’s a fine cast right there.

It didn’t necessarily need the hip scathing nihilism of Bad Santa, but with talent like that Fred Claus should at least have been better than anything starring Tim Allen.

Grow Your Own

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:36:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Community gardening doesn’t exactly jump out as fodder for a defiant indie film, but the quaint allotments of Grow Your Own seem to contain the right mix of character and quirk for a flourishing comedy. Unfortunately the piece never blossoms into much, leaving a solid comedic cast with little else to do but potter about in the garden.

Racial tension rears its ugly head when a couple of immigrant families are granted plots of land in a small community allotment (a series of dirt tracts with accompanying sheds available to the public) upsetting the grumpy old white folk. While the immigrant families, each having lost a member of the family as a result of their voyage, get to work cultivating vegetation as a means of therapy, the old guard begin to flex their bureaucratic muscle as a way of alienating and intimidating the newcomers.

When a brash phone company representative arrives on the scene to inform the gardeners that at least one of their plots is being coopted to make room for a pylon, the cantankerous bigots welcome the opportunity to evict their hardworking, friendly foreign neighbours.

The plot plods along predictably, and the characterization is as pat as can be; while the film’s overall spirit is lovely, its execution is decidedly flaccid. The immigrant families are troubled but gracious and the white crowd are divided into obvious stereotypes. There’s the authoritarian bully, his good-natured but browbeaten son, the gruff but well-meaning sage, and a handful of complicit acquaintances, who are forgiven their racism because they were just going with the flow, y’know?

Ultimately the film preaches tolerance and acceptance but doesn’t have any real suggestions as to how to deal with institutions based on the opposite principles. It’s a sweet-natured flick that peddles an inadvertently dangerous message: that we need not worry about problems like this; everything will sort itself out.

Mad Men S1

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Mad Men received an absurd amount of hype when it first aired; critics raved, the awards mounted, but the ratings never really kept up with the accolades. That’s nothing unusual of course, seldom have ratings been anything near an indication of quality, but in this case they did seem to tell a prophetic story. While it starts off with blistering style, the first season of Mad Men all too quickly loses direction and momentum.

Set in the early days of the 1960s, the show centres around the employees of prestigious advertising company Sterling Cooper. The first thing that hits the audience is the show’s outstanding recreation of the era. The nostalgic sets, classy clothes, mannerisms, vices, and culture recall both the whitewashed naivety often associated with the period, and the crueller hypocritical reality we know to be true.

The protagonist of the piece is Don Draper, the go-getting creative director of his firm who struggles to keep his shining professional life and dubious private life separate. Surrounding him is a gaggle of well-dressed sexist buffoons, constantly chain smoking and swilling whisky. The show basks in the bad habits of the era, arrogantly condemning them through virtue of hindsight.

This makes for a shocking and riveting first few episodes; high flying executives that deny the health risks of smoking, see no problem with drinking heavily during work, and flirt, harass, and exploit female underlings at will. These scenes have a perverse draw to them, we know it happened that way but find it difficult to reconcile in a modern frame of mind (that is, those of us not bigoted enough to refer to those as ‘the good old days’.)

The problem is that the show doesn’t seem to have anything else to say other than ‘look how stupid we used to be’. The characters are unlikable pigs, the stories wobble uncertainly to anticlimactic conclusions, and the central ‘mystery’ of the piece is the least interesting detail of all. Hopefully season 2 will recapture the stylish confidence of the initial episodes.

Chuck S1

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:34:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Television producer Josh Schwartz was responsible for the vacuously intolerable shows The O.C. and Gossip Girl, which will earn him a special place in television hell, but the man proves there’s more to him than just super-rich bimbo dramas with Chuck. Not a lot more, sure, but the demographic for this cute spy comedy is at least a sliver wider than a Justin Timberlake show.

Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) is a textbook nerd; he works tech support in a department store, is an avid gamer, lives with his sister, and has no social life to speak of. However the mild mannered dork’s quiet life becomes a lot more exciting when an experimental computer system housing secrets of national defence somehow ends up in Chuck’s brain.

Both the NSA and CIA send operatives to address the situation; with the original system destroyed Chuck is now the only person who can access the library of intelligence agency information. In order to make sure their assets are safe two agents become an undercover part of Chuck’s life – surly agent Casey (Adam Baldwin) poses as a workmate while sexy spy Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) acts as Chuck’s impossibly attractive girlfriend.

Chuck can’t actively recall the secret government information in his head but each episode sees some incident trigger flashes of recollection, sending the unlikely trio off on typical spy skirmishes while at the same time trying to maintain their mundane cover lives.

If the show is to live past the second season it’s going to need to reinvent itself considerably, as that premise is all but exhausted by the conclusion of these initial 13 episodes, but as far as opening salvos go you can do much worse than the fun adventures of Chuck and co.

Penelope

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

A little bit Tim Burton, a little bit Princess Bride, Penelope melds old world fable with modern style in an attempt to reinvigorate the ugly duckling fairy tale with effervescent playfulness and macabre grotesquery. The result is an uneven but surprisingly assured directorial debut for Mark Palansky and an expectedly solid effort from his ever so trendy cast.

Young aristocratic nymph Penelope is having a hard time on the dating scene; her parents’ fortune brings all the wealthy suitors calling, but the poor girl has an unfortunate physical defect that promptly sends would-be boyfriends running in terror. Cursed due to crimes committed by her ancestors, Penelope was born with the nose of a pig, a malady that will only be remedied when she is accepted by one of her own kind.

In truth the snout isn’t anywhere near as ghastly as the film’s superficial rich boys would have you believe; it would take one hell of a prosthetic department to get lovely Christina Ricci looking bad enough to have guys hurling themselves out windows in disgust. In fact the deformity is quite cute, and Penelope actually appears a little odd when she finally loses it at the film’s conclusion.

Things get messy when a plot to out the reclusive Penelope in the tabloids ends in an unwitting stooge (James McAvoy) falling for the mysterious outsider, and the young girl making a desperate bid for independence from her protective parents.

While messages of self-acceptance and unconditional love seem to clash with the fact that Penelope is never really happy until she does, in fact, lose her cursed feature, the film’s charm and whimsy are enough to pull it clear of a limp story. The production design presents a wonderfully collapsed, patchwork version of London, and the strong young cast play their idiosyncratic parts with witty charisma.

The Incredible Hulk

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

After hitting Iron Man out of the park, Marvel Studios moved on to their jade giant for the next blockbuster, but they would have a hard time making people forget Ang Lee’s 2003 interpretation of The Hulk.

More thoughtful and experimental than your average superhero fan is likely to put up with, Lee’s film was met with much baffled criticism. The solution, it was felt, was to return the tragic monster to his big dumb action roots; a simple Jekyll and Hyde story in which big beasts hit each other with buildings. The Incredible Hulk certainly succeeds as basic spectacle, offering a straightforward CGI slugfest, though much of the character’s interesting psychological potential has been jettisoned in the process.

The film opens with a desperate Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) living a quiet, paranoid life in South America. He earns his way working at a factory, studies breath control as a way of controlling his anger, and continues his scientific quest for a cure in anonymity. He can’t stay off the dogged military’s radar forever, however, and is soon being stalked by a crack team of operatives, his destructive alter ego just gagging to burst forth from his skin once again.

Banner is forced back to the States where he is once more reunited with his love Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). They would make a nice couple if it weren’t for him turn into a giant green behemoth when excited and her being the daughter of the powerful general obsessed with destroying said behemoth.

Daddy’s latest plot to stop the Hulk is to inject a little Hulk-juice into an equally disturbed military operative and just sort of throw the two creatures at each other – symptomatic of the General’s wholly cavalier attitude towards wanton destruction of public places.

The Incredible Hulk isn’t much of a think piece, but for pure shock and awe the big guy delivers.

Shine a Light

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:32:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

In their respective fields few names stand much taller than The Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese.

His obvious contribution to contemporary film aside, Marty has also made a name for himself as a chronicler of musical culture, including producing the documentary series The Blues, concert film The Last Waltz, and immaculate doco on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home. Amazing enough that they’re not dead yet, The Stones are also still doing what they do well; unfortunately the master filmmaker doesn’t bring much to this 2006 concert.

The film opens with the band goofing around playfully as a strung out Scorsese frets endlessly about things not being properly organised; very rock and roll Martin. Pre-show shenanigans continue laboriously as Bill Clinton and his brood show up for a powwow with the rockers, but after a brief and cheesy intro speech the band finally rips into it.

The set list is typically iconic, the aging rock stars might not play everyone’s favourite but they certainly give it their best shot. It’s definitely a nostalgic show, as nothing they play is more recent than a good 25 years, not that anyone would complain about that. There is a bit of the new as they drag a series of guests on stage to perform. Jack Black’s adorable duet on “Lovng Cup” is a welcome addition, Christina Aguilera’s grinding rendition of “Live With Me” not so much. Easily the high point of the show, however, is when blues legend Buddy Guy climbs onstage for "Champagne & Reefer”, an astonishing duel with Jagger.

Dynamic and swaggering, this concert could easily convince that the band are just as energetic and raucous as they were some 40 years ago. The only signs of age come through intrusive close ups on the hard living rocker’s faces, deep neglectful furrows surround eyes that still sparkle with passion. I fine concert capably filmed, but nothing that betrays the involvement of the otherwise brilliant Scorsese.

Outrageous Fortune S4

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

I have to confess, I wasn’t onboard with Outrageous Fortune to begin with. I watched the first few episodes and decided it was all a bit too kiwi cliché for my taste. In my defence I was right, re-watching the first season recently reveals a lot of really bad episodes.

What I wasn’t expecting was for the show to blossom into the warm, complex, funny, and earnest tapestry that it did. Season 3 was probably the apex of all that, but season 4 relishes in throwing all manner of spanners into the works.

The West family undergo some big changes during this season: Loretta has her illegitimate child but refuses to mother it, Pascalle finds herself a new husband, Grandpa embarks on a bitter revenge spree, Sheryl is still torn between two men she might love, Jethro is run out of town due to a botched steroid deal, Munter and Casey land upon tremulous times, and Van falls for his Dad’s new girlfriend.

And as if that weren’t enough drama there’s a new antagonist on the scene, manipulative rogue Nicky Gregan. It sounds very soap-ish, and I suppose it is, but the show has a way of unwinding its convoluted plots in such a way that it never feels contrived - at least not in a bad way.

Outrageous Fortune’s uncanny knack for making us care about the misfit family members continues to yank the audience through the heights of giddy humour and joviality before dumping them into the depths of despair, betrayal and heartbreak. It’s a bitch of a show, but impossible not to love.

Perhaps Outrageous Fortune’s greatest achievement is that it doesn’t shy away from it’s kiwi-ness, in fact it revels in it whole heartedly, but never (early episodes notwithstanding) results in the cringe-inducing armature familiarity produced by most – no, make that all - New Zealand drama series before it.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:29:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Returning to Narnia is a darker, more elaborate, and slightly less annoying trip in the fantastical sequel Prince Caspian. Handled by more or less the same team that brought C.S. Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to life, the film is a capable follow-up to the 2005 phenomenon.

A year after their first foray into the realm of Narnia the Pevensie brood have almost adapted to life in boring old England but still long to return to the land in which they were kings and queens. Their wish is unexpectedly granted when a burst of desperate magic transforms their train platform into a gateway back to Narnia.

While only one year has passed for the children their beloved land has aged 1,300 years, the weird and wonderful Narians have been driven into hiding and the land is ruled by an illegitimate king of the Telmarines. The true heir to the throne, Prince Caspian, is forced to flee from his kingdom and enlists both the remaining Narnians and the newly returned royal Pevensies in taking back the throne and restoring peace to the land.

The lion and witch put in appearances, but new faces mostly populate the film; Peter Dinklage steals the show as a curmudgeonly Red Dwarf, Eddy Izzard voices the swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep, and a host of Centaurs, Minotaurs, and Griffins make for an impressive resistance army. All four principles return to their roles as the children-cum-heroes, for better or worse, and Ben Barnes gives us a decently conflicted Prince Caspian, in a boy band sort of way.

Most gripes with the original will still hold true here, and the increasingly dark tone of the film might make the sequel less suitable for certain fans. All the same, a decent bit of kids’ fantasy with plenty of flash and warmth.

Lego Batman: The Videogame

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

In the land of geek you would be hard pressed to find a trifecta cooler than Videogames, comic books, and Lego. Traveller’s Tales continue to milk their winning formula of brickilating cult properties in game form, taking aim at the caped crusader while his goodwill still runs high with the blockbuster-going public.

No one is really sure how it happens, but there exists an inexplicable law of physics that dictates no matter how much fun something is, it’s always more fun in Lego. It has certainly held true for the vanilla brawler; somehow the generic blueprints allowing games to be translated effortlessly across properties mystically take on much greater value by virtue of being made of tiny little squares. Call it clever cross-promotion, call it base nostalgia, but these gamemakers certainly know how to play.

If you have been onboard for the previous Star Wars or Indiana Jones Lego games then you know almost exactly what to expect from the Batman flavour. The gloomy cityscape of Gotham is recreated in Lego pieces with little plastic versions of heroes and villains careening through the breakaway streets. Mixing side-scrolling brawler with elementary platform and puzzle aspects the game is an appealingly accessible play for fans of any age.

As they do with alarming frequency, the criminal lunatics of Arkham Asylum have busted out and its up to Batman, Robin and the extended Bat-family to round them all up again. A nice alternative to the suer-grim tone of The Dark Knight, the game is based in Batman The Animated Series cannon and coloured with ‘Three Stooges’-like slapstick gags, now Lego’s trademark wit.

While the game makes absolutely no attempt to distinguish itself from previous titles outside of a casting change, it does introduce a nice bit of fan-service in letting the player pay as either the good guys or the villains. If playing as Nightwing or Batgirl doesn’t quite sate your thirst for wanton chaos then you can take to the streets as Clayface, Bane, Harley Quinn or any number of Batman’s legendary rogues.

I’m not sure how much longer the developers can trade on the ‘look whose next in Lego…’ approach without offering anything new, but Lego Batman proves their welcome hasn’t been worn out yet.

de Blob

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

It has been a long, sometimes painful wait but a decent new third-party title has finally been released on the Wii. Oozing charm and originality, de Blob should easily hook both the casual and neglected hardcore Nintendo fanbase with its clever puzzles, cute design, and unrestrained excitement.

A veritable Cinderella story for the digital age, de Blob began life as a student project in the Netherlands. The quirky game caught the attention of publishers THQ and was subsequently snapped up for development as both a Wii and DS title. It’s not hard to see where THQ were coming from, just a few minutes with de Blob reveals a uniquely light-hearted, instantly engaging experience.

Chroma City has fallen under the ruthless rule of the INKT Corporation who enforce a strict no-colour policy to keep the population in line. As part of the colour underground, Blob and his rebel comrades must zip around the city spreading contraband colour and music throughout the streets.

The aptly named Blob is literally an amorphous thing with a couple of arms. It (he?) moves by hoping and rolling with great energy, absorbing paint and splashing it all over the dull grey surfaces it comes in contact with. Sort of an anti-Mario Sunshine, you’ll run into trouble with the authorities as you attempt to spread your fluoro goop all over the town.

Levels are divided into segments of the city, each requiring you to spread your love in a variety of ways before they are officially liberated. With Blob able to absorb different coloured paint some tasks have him painting certain blocks particular colours, others test his acrobatic abilities by asking that hard-to-reach billboards be bombed for revolutionary purposes. Important structures of normalcy like cop stations and accounting firms need a concentrated dose of painty rebellion before they transform into dancehalls or candy stores.

The levels are wonderfully well designed allowing for a heap of replay value, the only real problem comes in navigating them. While developers Blue Tongue should be applauded for working the Wii’s patented ‘waggle’ input into something resembling an actual control system, the straight platforming aspects of the game can be maddeningly inconsistent.

Dead Space: Downfall

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

In recent times whipping out a sloppy anime tie-in to a videogame or film has become a popular marketing ploy, both originating and peaking with the Animatrix series. There’s certainly nothing wrong with adding a little texture to a fictional world but if there isn’t the same amount of effort put into these little spin-offs, as is the case for Dead Space: Downfall, then the production can actually have the reverse effect.

For those that haven’t yet played the immensely cool Dead Space game yet, it is a survival-horror title based in a besieged mining spaceship. The game kicks off when a plucky engineer decides to investigate the distressed ship; Downfall is a prequel that documents how things on the mining ship initially went down.

While on a somewhat illegal planet harvesting expedition a group of space explorers and cosmic tradesmen discover a bizarre artefact on a supposedly dead planet. The higher-ups decide to ignore the relic and plough on with the harvest, but less profit-driven members of staff notice a disturbing trend in violent incidence coinciding with the strange marker’s discovery.

Of course the planet is nowhere near as dead as everyone had hoped, instead it has been playing host to a breed of parasitic creatures in desperate need of bodies to assimilate. These beasties get on the ship and proceed to kill and devour everyone in sight. A small band of survivors do their best to salvage the situation, but strange mental static begins to turn them against each other.

Rather than fill in gaps in the videogame’s story, the film raises more questions than it answers. We get glimpses of a strange religion, teased with the presence of unexplained space-voodoo, and meet a bunch of paper-thin characters that we couldn’t care less about. Downfall doesn’t stand up as a self-contained film and it’s hard to imagine it being very essential as background to the game.

Grace is Gone

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

John Cusack has a talent for vulnerability that few male actors can match. His greatest roles are all charmingly helpless, from Say Anything’s Lloyd Dobler to High Fidelity’s Rob Gordon, but the majority of the time he signs on for genre flicks that don’t allow him to showcase his earnest talents. Grace is Gone seems to have been developed with this exact quandary in mind; an entire film devoted to John Cusack doing nothing but acting wounded, confused, and anxious.

Stanley Philipps is a dedicated father of two who is holding down the fort while his wife is off serving in Iraq. He is a patriot and unreservedly supports the war, he would be over there fighting himself had his failing eyesight not been an issue. Of course with a loved one at war there are certain possibilities that cast an irrepressible pall over your mind, and when the worst of those possibilities comes knocking at his door one morning Stanley’s world shatters.

Utterly unable to accept the news of his wife’s death, the father finds it impossible to even begin to explain the situation to his young daughters. In a fit of desperate avoidance he plunges the family into an impromptu cross-country road trip to a Florida theme park. Along the way his elder daughter Heidi becomes savvy that something is wrong while youngest Dawn gibbers away obliviously.

The film doesn’t have a great deal to say about the war. Stanley’s commitment never wavers and the only time his opinion is challenged is a brief appearance by his slacker brother, whose clichéd and nonsensical antagonism hardly constitutes debate. It’s a shame, because outspokenly liberal Cusack playing a sympathetic conservative character could have made for some interesting commentary. However this is not a film about politics, but of a father’s love for his family. In that regard it hits its mark.

Deception

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

It might surprise you to learn that erotic thrillers need get just two things right in order to be worthwhile; they must be erotic and they must be thrilling. Deception, despite boasting robust leads Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, is neither.

Jonathan McQuarry (McGregor) is a quiet, bookish accountant freelancing at a major law firm. Lonely and unknown, Jonathan is befriended by charming lawyer Wyatt Bose (Jackman) and the pair strikes up a firm friendship over a shared joint. So firm is their friendship that when Jonathan unwittingly discovers Wyatt is a member of a very exclusive sex club he invites the shy accountant to take his place on ‘The List’ of high-powered horn dogs on call for an anonymous one night stand.

As if loads of free, no strings attached sex with beautiful strangers weren’t enough, Jonathan decides to fall for one of his potential lays (Michelle Williams) and breaks all the rules of the club in order to get close to her. Things go annoyingly well for the couple, even if he doesn’t manage to learn her name, until one night she disappears and he is mysteriously attacked in his hotel room. What follows is a string of ‘nothing is as it seems’ reveals, absurd plot twists, and gigantic lapses in logic until the film collapses into its own swirling ridiculousness.

Before kicking off its frustratingly obvious twists the film manages to stand up as a fairly inoffensive, generic genre flick. Jackman is suitably charming, McGreggor is bashfully straight, Williams often takes off her clothes; everyone plays their part capably. It’s when the story dives into its blackmail-heist-kidnapping-frame-up blitzkrieg in the second half that things become too predictable and asinine to be tolerated. I don’t think it qualifies as a twist ending, at least from a technical standpoint, if it’s exactly what everyone though was going to happen from the beginning.

Second-Hand Wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

Expectations were probably running unfairly high for director Paul Murphy’s debut, but that comes with the territory when you’re the son of a pioneering auteur. Pappy Geoff Murphy gave us some of our most playfully iconic films (Goodbye Pork Pie, UTU, Quiet Earth) but it seems his prodigy’s taste runs more to the flaccid popcorn rom-com.

Jill, the Rose family matriarch, is a garage sale hound. She devotes all her free time to scouring the town for backyard bargains, picking up anything her well-trained eyes consider a find, no matter how tacky or useless. She’s a bubbly, caring sort and naturally the source of unending embarrassment to her daughter Cheryl. Just engaged to her doting boyfriend, the younger Rose keeps the engagement a secret from her thrifty mother for fear of having the wedding taken over in a whirlwind of used place settings and pre-loved attire. Naturally the hurtful little secret gets out and mother and daughter’s relationship is sorely tested.

Usually I don’t suffer cultural cringe too grievously, it seems unreasonable to criticize a New Zealand film for its New Zealand-ness, but Second-Hand Wedding pushed that tolerance to its limit. With its gaggle of ex-Shortland Streeters, woefully clumsy dialogues, pat kiwi clichés, and what I suppose is meant to be picturesque coastline shots, the film collapses the Aotearoa vibe into saccharine convention.

A slight plot isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for a romantic comedy, but it needs to be held up with strong characters, or at the least a novel gimmick. Second-Hand Wedding’s garage sale culture and down-homey cast aren’t charming enough to justify the inanely predictable script. When the only thing at stake are the feelings of a cloying, often infuriating eccentric then you know you’re story’s in trouble.

Recommended to only the most superficial and sentimental of tearjerker aficionados.

Iron Man

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:19:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

With all the excitement over the caped crusader’s sequel last blockbuster season the hype for Iron Man dissipated rather quickly. Which is a shame, because despite its grandiose bluster The Dark Knight failed on a number of levels that Iron Man nailed with precision. As a pure superhero flick, Iron Man is about as streamlined, elegant, and dynamic as they come.

An origin story (as the first foray onto the big screen invariably is,) the film charts the transition of billionaire Tony Stark from freewheeling playboy arms developer to knight in hi-tech armour. One of the great things about Tony Stark is that, even before he becomes a man of valour, his character is a lot of fun. He’s no geeky Peter Parker or moody Bruce Wayne: It’s as much fun to watch Stark swill martinis, seduce antagonistic reporters, and just generally being a pimp as it is to see Iron Man blow stuff up.

When the charismatic man-about-town finds himself mortally wounded and kidnapped by terrorists (whom his own company has unknowingly armed,) Stark gets his game-face on; a big shiny metal game-face. Using his unparalleled engineering genius the captive builds a hulking metal mech-suit in order to escape, return to the States and make sure his company never again creates tools of death - a move that does not sit well with Tony’s snake of a business partner Obadiah Stane.

The film’s plot isn’t anything especially new; the hero is born, hones his skills, discovers the bad guy, and overcomes. What distinguishes Iron Man is its playful tone and wonderfully textured characters. Robert Downey Jr. crafts a truly fascinating Tony Stark who imbues the film with dry wit and rapid-fire banter without ever detracting from the intense, visceral action. Director John Favreau clearly knows and adores the source material, hitting every beat a fan could ask for.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian H) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:18:00 +0000

Originally published in Gamefreaks Magazine.

It might not sound like it but Wristcutters, the story of suicide victims and their unhappy afterlife, is a cute film. The flick’s odd premise, unique tone, and cultish cast put it squarely in the fine tradition of the small-scale, surreal independent film. Nothing flashy; just a good story, a healthy does of weirdness, and a quietly contented felling come the credits.

Young Zia’s relationship wasn’t going well so he killed himself. Not a particularly clever or original thing to do, but it was his call and he made it. Now he’s working a dead end job, living in a crappy apartment, and drinking his afterlife away. He’s certainly not alone in his mundane little non-existence; a world populated exclusively with people who had previously killed themselves is not the sunniest of bergs. As Zia explains it, this world is just the same as the last one only a little bit worse.

While nobody can smile, everything is pointless, and no one really cares, Zia hasn’t completely given up hope. Rather, he had until learning that his ex also gave it up and has now joined the land of the un-living. Desperate to reunite with his girlfriend Desirée, Zia talks his friend Eugene (weirdly modelled after Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello) and hitchhiking beauty Mikal into a cross-limbo road trip in a quest to make the afterlife a little more liveable.

Depressing and life affirming at the same time, Wristcutters is an excellently ironic love story for those who know love to be dead. If the quirkily melancholy plot hasn’t swayed the hipster in you then the cast certainly will; featuring music deity Tom Waits, Arrested Development’s Will Arnett (basically playing Gob again,) the insanely twinkling Jake Busey, and starring perennial puppy dog Patrick Fugit.