Friday, June 24, 2011

Green Lantern Review

Introduction: I guess the only comic book movies Warner Bros can do are with Superman and Batman. You know what that means, right? Reboot, reboot, reboot. Oh right, and Green Lantern is sh*t.

Topper: So this film starts with Topper Harley from Hot Shots! calling himself Hal Jordan as he defeats a couple of AI jets but then is plagued by flashbacks. Here Lies Hal Jordan, Killed By a Flashback. Oh wait, he barely survives and then is given a green lantern ring because I don't know why. He doesn't have a lot of will or courage but seems to be afraid of flashbacks. Poor idiot. Then he trains in an animated film with his head copied and pasted into it for about 5 f*cking minutes and quits like a failure. Our hero is a quitter. Then after quitting he reveals his secret identity to his best friend and his ex and plays hot wheels. In the end, he shows that not only are humans better than technology but also every species in the universe. How conceited is this f*cking movie!?

Talking Cleavage: Not as retarded as Lois Lane, but that's the only thing I can really say. Let's call her Talking Cleavage.

Signal: So Hector Hammond is the villain. He has a connection to Topper and Talking Cleavage but it's never made clear. He gets infected with fear and can thus induce fear in others thus weakening Green Lantern in an epic battle. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I was thinking about something not retarded. Fear actually makes him super smart and courageous enough to take on Topper all by himself. Doesn't that make perfect sense? Oh, and I forgot to mention his whole purpose is to signal Parallax to come to Earth. I guess Parallax is like "Oh, that's where my shin is. Gotta go get it then, I guess."

Octopus Cloud: Remember when Parallax was introduced in the comics by destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps by possessing Hal Jordan as an insectoid embodiment of fear? Well forget that sh*t. He is now the Octopus Cloud and his head is even BIGGER than Signal's, yet he is a MILLION times more retarded. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF***************CCCCCCKKKK YYYYOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!!

Sinestro: After hearing the story about how a Guardian tried to control fear and thus turned into Parallax and created this whole predicament Sinestro's first thought is "Then we should try that too!! Because now it will work for no other reason then to set up a sequel!!" For my feelings on this character please read the last two words in the above paragraph on Octopus Cloud.

Nick Fury Knock Off : Imagine if Nick Fury was involved in the B story in the first Iron Man movie and about halfway through the film he is killed by Iron Monger. That's this character. Minus the coolness. Plus estrogen.

Conclusion: Just imagine some green diarrhea that came from Warner Brother's ass. Now get the f*ck away from that sh*t. GET. THE F*CK. AWAY.

Friday, June 3, 2011

LA Noire Review

Introduction: Part point click adventure, part Rockstar, part LA Confidential. It delivers in some areas but it fails in others. Guess which one I'n going to talk in depth about?

 Driving and Shooting: Same as every other Rockstar game. Cars feel weird, reaction time to button pressing lags, and letting go of cover is still a pain in my ass. RUN DAMMIT!!! I PRESSED TEH BUTTON LIKE 3 SECONDS AGO!!!

Waiting For the Bell: Investigating is rather weird. It's actually harder in the beginning. See, when you become a detective clues are actually mapped out for you in the usual way they are in a crime scene with letters from A to however many clues there are. Essentially, the game is saying Hey!! Hey!! The answer is over here!! Which essentially destroys the looking for stuff aspect of investigating. And when things aren't mapped out the game has a system where you come upon something you can investigate it rings a bell that says the same thing those damn signs do. You have the option to turn them off but then you'd just walk around pressing the investigate button like a cut scene God of War or Naruto. As the game progresses more things become available to investigate that are useless and you can tell when your character, Cole Phelps, comments on them. At one point in the game I was investigating a house and came upon some matches, and then the game zoomed in and Cole stated we should go there. But then later in the game if you investigate houses and you also find matches he'll just say "This has nothing to do with our case" which makes me scream "HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT!?!?!" Essentially, investigating is walking around an area waiting for the bell to ring to tell you what to pick up and you have to keep doing this till you find all the USEFUL stuff. Ugh.

Interviewing: Before I start riding this part of the game like my childhood dog I'd like to say that MotionScan is truly great. It's not perfect, but it is truly an advancement in facial capture. The way it is used in the game to hit home the fact of how good it is also shows the problem. The problem with interviewing could best be described like this;
Team Bondi: Alright, you're lying to the cops about murdering a woman so you need to look really suspicious. Just move your eyes and head a lot, that'll sure highlight our technology.
Actor: That's not realistic at all. A real killer probably would keep as much of a straight face as he could so he wouldn't get caught.
Team Bondi: STFU, we pay you.
Whenever interviewing someone you have a notebook with questions and if you get a question right you get a check mark and if you get it wrong you an x, so that way it doesn't matter if you got it right or wrong since you can simply figure out that since you got it wrong when a person would say something like "I didn't know him" you would know he actually did. It destroys the mystery of what they are saying is actually a lie or a truth. Another problem is that Cole Phelps actions for if you pick truth, doubt, or lies is really odd and can ruin everything for you. If you say truth you act all sarcastic like "Oh, okay. You didn't kill him. I totally believe you. He just ran into the bullets. Yupp, that's it. Case closed." If you say doubt he acts angry like "YOU MOTHERF*CKER!!! STOP FEEDING ME BULLSH*T AND TELL ME THE F*CKING TRUTH!!!" And if you say lie he acts very calm like "You're lying. Here is the proof. Tell the truth, please? Thank you?" WTF, COLE!?!?

Money: Whenever you beat a case two things happen; you get case notes and you get fines for damages. Case notes are brilliant and can help a player be better. The fines are bullsh*t and I'll tell you why; they aren't deducted from anything. See what the game should have done is have a money system. Start the game with a good amount of money for essentials and then with each case give the player a certain amount of reward for how they do on the case. Maybe they could also use the money to bribe bartenders or anyone over the counter. Then when you fine the player for such things as running over pedestrians and destroying sh*t the player will learn to be more in character as a detective and not run over people so that he/she can keep more money. Maybe they could use the money for clothes, hats, and cars. I don't know, or they could get rid of the stupid fines at the end of a case. Maybe that would be easier.

Cole Phelps: Cole is a guy who believes in fairness and justice. When in Japan during World War 2 he showed compassion and respect for the Japanese. Sadly, something utterly stupid happened and he came back home and became a patrolman for the LAPD. He got promoted to detective and slowly made his way up the police department ladder.  Now besides all that exposition he can come off as a big ass hole. A lot. It especially comes off during interviews. Gawd dammit, Phelps. At one point in the story he randomly, for no reason whatsoever, cheats on his wife with a German singer and all you think about is how utterly stupid it is. He only does it to serve the story. What bullsh*t.

Patrolman: When you first start as a patrolman the gave doesn't hold your hand when it comes to waiting for the bell. Everything is rather simple and liars stick out like soar thumbs. I wish we could get some more info like why the f*ck he did this in the first place?

Burglary: Their was supposed to be a burglary desk but for some reason Team Bondi cut it out even though it would have been BETTER for the game since an overall story could have connected with it better. But nope. Instead we get...

Traffic: Just think of any possible case regarding a car. Hit and run, car crash, a car pushed off a cliff, etc. It's mainly about Hollywood and it's probably my favorite part of the game. It's the most intriguing and your partner is actually a good guy.

Homicide: Basically, a bunch of murders where the killer is the Black Dahlia killer except even though your character suspects it's him the whole time you still have no choice but to arrest innocent guys. WTF?! This desk has the best connected cases story, but once again it doesn't tie in with the overall plot of the game.

Vice/Arson: Vice is drugs and Arson is fire. Get it? Alrighty, after finding out about an overall plot about stolen morphine regarding your old squad from World War 2 you get caught with the retarded story regarding the German singer and get demoted to Arson for a little bit before being fired. While in Arson you find a bigger story connecting with the drugs. The story is this; your old squad stole some morphine and drugs and sold some of it to gangs and used the money to fund the building of flimsy homes for GI's (unknowingly) which were then set aflame by a crazy guy for insurance money even though they later state it isn't about the insurance money which doesn't make sense at all and that the houses are actually about being bought back from the government to build a freeway (which kinda ties into Traffic but no one mentioned it so no, who gives a f*ck) but thankfully an u=insurance salesman who also happens to be from Cole's old squad finds the truth about all this and Cole, the guy we don't like, dies. The end.

Cut Scenes: The only reason I bring up cut scenes is because of moments in the game where you can talk to people without going into a cut scene by pressing the talk button. If they just had that instead of cutting to a cut scene the immersion would have been better. I guess they just wanted to show off more of that technology. Ugh. 

The Open World: The open world of 1940's Los Angeles is amazing. It's not a sandbox though so don't complain about the game being linear in regards to the world. This world was perfect. The gameplay is f*cked.

Conclusion: The game pushes some nifty technology and the last 2 desks have the best effort at creating an overall story which is really contorted, but the game lacks an overall story for the beginning and I wish investigating and interrogation could have been used better and more realistically. A big plus is the recreation of 1940's Los Angeles as an open world which is highly immersive. In the end, it has flaws but it's worth a try.