A review of the Thai restaurant: Siam House, 63A Goodramgate, YO1 7LS, England: Let’s start with the fact that there were no salads on the menu. At least I couldn’t find one.
A Thai restaurant with no Som Tam? Seriously? Yes indeed. So, we opted for the vegetarian mixed opener, which turned out to be deep-fried stuff with two tiny dipping sauces that I assume came from the local cornershop.
Read on »
“Three is the magic number”, the hippies used to say, and in many respects this is true of Shadows of the Damned. Grasshopper Manufacture’s recent action horror title is the product of the combined pedigree of Goichi “Suda51″ Suda (Killer7, No More Heroes), Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil 4, God Hand) and Akira Yamaoka (Snatcher, Silent Hill 2).
When three individuals with such strong artistic visions come together, there’s always the danger that the final product can be less than the sum of its parts. One only has to look at the world of popular music and see the long and rather wretched line of heavyweight collaborations that fail to live up to billing. Fortunately, I’m pleased to say that this veritable supergroup of developers manages, on the most part, to deliver; each one’s contribution is unmistakably their own, yet everything fits together to form a cohesive end product.
Suda 51’s videogames-as-punk-rock aesthetic is borne out through the main protagonist, Garcia Hotspur, a hard as nails, leather clad demon hunter, and even more prominently by the puerile humour, ghost-train horror narrative and irreverent script, which has an Evil Dead goofiness to it rather than any psychological horror aspirations. It’s a rescue the girl caper as Garcia heads off into a deranged underworld accompanied by Johnson, a floating skull with an upper-class English accent, to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend from the malevolent demon-lord, Fleming. As Garcia and Johnson make their way through this warped reimagining of hell, they must battle a plethora of demons. Fortunately Johnson has the ability to change into a variety of weapons that can be used to stem the never-ending tide of hellish denizens.
The combat is where Mikami’s influence and the game’s Resident Evil 4 DNA are plain to see, with Shadows of the Damned sharing Resi 4’s over the shoulder view point and control scheme. Unfortunately, it lacks its esteemed predecessor’s polish, with the controls at times being needlessly awkward and frustrating. Occasional control issues aside, it’s still a lot of fun. Pulling off headshots is particularly satisfying; slowing the action down and zooming the camera in on the visceral consequences of your sharp-shooting. Other hints at the game’s lineage include Christopher, the yokel demon salesman who recalls Resi 4’s fondly remembered Merchant. His intermittent appearances offer brief respite and a chance to upgrade Johnson’s firepower.
The pulping of demons is broken up with the occasional puzzle and basic strategic play. The latter is focussed predominantly on Johnson’s light shot ability, which can momentarily freeze players and also comes in handy when the game throws “The Darkness” into the mix. This crepuscular mechanic drains Garcia’s health and can only be stopped by using the light-shot to shoot the golden goat heads scattered around the landscape. Although the use of The Darkness and infrequent puzzle elements add nothing groundbreaking, they add a nice variation to the gameplay.
The minute-to-minute action is broken up further by several sections that involve manoeuvring a paper cut-out of Garcia through rudimentary 2D landscapes. From a gameplay perspective they will not show your average gamer anything new, but they are executed with the playful charm that permeates the game. Also shaking things up are the obligatory boss battles the player will face. This is where the game arguably most disappoints. As whilst being memorable from a visual perspective, they lack wit and invention in challenging the player to defeat them. The key to defeating the majority being a simple case of shooting garishly obvious weak spots – a little passé in 2011.
To this reviewer, the true hero of Shadows of the Damned is Akira Yamaoka. His soundtrack is simply stunning, showing off his knack for flitting between styles with a dizzying proficiency. Whilst it doesn’t hit the lofty heights of his haunting Silent Hill 2 soundtrack –still in my mind the greatest video game soundtrack of all time – Yamaoka manages to conjure forth chilly electronica, raucous punk-rock and playful latino guitar riffs, all masterfully capturing the essence of the game and the characters which inhabit it.
It’s the game’s lack of anything particularly fresh or groundbreaking, and at times awkward controls, which stopsShadows of the Damned being a truly great title. The personnel involved in creating this title undoubtedly give the game a distinct charm and personality. However, it also raises gamers’ expectations. Having produced some of the most influential games of the last ten years, I don’t think it would be amiss to want and indeed expect the developers to raise the bar higher. It would of course be unfair to dismiss the game purely because it’s not the next great evolutionary step in the art of video game development. Ultimately, Shadows of the Damned is a fresh IP that’s an enjoyably entertaining roller –coaster ride, featuring a memorable protagonist and supporting cast. If you can forgive the rough edges, this is a game well worth further investigation.
Oh, and what a soundtrack.
This piece originally appeared over at http://game-bit.net/
So, hands up who bought a 3DS. Go on, all the way up. Okay, you can carry on with what you’re doing. This here article is for those of you still living the 2D dream, those of you looking for some RPG action with an Eastern flavour for that trusty little DS of yours. You interested? Yeah? Okay, gather ‘round…
Now some people will say that the JRPG is dead. And some people will say there have been no decent JRPGs this generation. Both of these statements are, I’m happy to point out, utter bilge. Admittedly, it’s a genre with what we can politely call idiosyncrasies and quirks that may put some off. Foibles that can send even those blessed with Zen like calm into fits of rage. I mean, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve screamed into the nearest pillow after being kicked – KICKED HARD – by the hoary old JRPG.
Anyway, as I was saying…
That whole “JRPG is dead” thing is a fallacy. They’re not dead, they just chose new pastures from which to entertain us. Yeah, that’s right. It’s the handheld where this much maligned genre has found succour. The reasons for this? Well, I can think of two main reasons. Firstly, from a financial point of view it’s relatively cheap. As technology evolves and becomes ever more sophisticated, the cost of development spirals accordingly. Producing big budget JRPGs full of the cinematic bombast we’ve become accustomed to is simply not commercially viable. Unless you’re a big hitter such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest or Shin Megami Tensei you’re going to find it hard to shift the units to recoup those millions upon millions of Yen you’ve burned in development.
Other than commercial viability another factor that springs to mind is simply the lay of the land. Gamers’ tastes have changed regarding what they play on the consoles sat under their tellies. The high-end consoles, namely the Xbox 360 and PS3 are capable of handling the gargantuan Western role-players formerly exclusive to PC gamers. The likes of BioWare and Bethesda have been able to steal the hearts of console RPG fans with their sophisticated wares. This is compounded by the fact that on the whole the genre has failed to evolve. Whilst the WRPG still feels fresh to your average console gamer, the evolutionary paralysis that grips most Japanese RPG developers dictates that creaking mechanics of a bygone era still reign supreme – something gamers, in the West at least, have had a bellyful of.
Woh, there. This is treading into epitaphic waters. I know, I know, this is supposed to be a positive piece. Before I started chewing the fat over the state of the genre I was telling you that the JRPG is alive and mostly well on the handheld console. Below are the four DS titles I think most worthy of checking out if you haven’t already.
Chrono Trigger DS
Okay, this is technically an old game. I was finishing my GCSEs when it appeared on the SNES back in March 1995. I didn’t see a copy until later that Autumn as the North American release didn’t appear until that summer and back then it was trickier to get hold of games from overseas. That’s right, this never got a Euro release – either on SNES or on the PlayStation port that appeared four years later.
Now anyone who was fortunate enough to have played this back when it first appeared will tell you that this was a high watermark for the genre. Developed by Square, whose staff were at the peak of their creative powers, Chrono Trigger has everything; an epic narrative that spans thousands of years and several dimensions, a varied cast of characters you actually care about, a fun combat system and multiple endings. The game follows the exploits of Crono and his band of companions as they endeavour to save the world from the evil Lavos. As mentioned, the story takes the adventurers across many centuries and alternate dimensions, each with their own separate story arc that cleverly ties into the bigger picture. The DS version is arguably the definitive version in that it adds a New Game + mode and several new quests. If you haven’t played Chrono Trigger I implore you to do so. The game has stood the test of time well and will provide a rewarding experience that many, more modern titles struggle to match.
Dragon Quest IX
No one needs an introduction to Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky. Nintendo did a pretty good job, via slightly creepy X-Factor berks “Jedward”, of ramming the game down our throats. At the time I derided Nintendo’s cynical marketing campaign. The idea of “The Jedward” grinding an old-school JRPG for 70 plus hours seemed frankly ridiculous. In hindsight, however, I applaud them. You see, they managed to get one of the DS’s most hardcore titles into millions of homes.
Level-5’s second Dragon Quest title (following the stunning VIII on the PS2) is essentially a series of vignettes sewn together by a tale of a (literally) fallen angel charged with collecting a number of celestial fruit. The fruit has fallen into mortal hands, wreaking havoc in the many locales your hero travels to. Although not the greatest narrative in relation to other Dragon Quests, the varied cast of NPCs and locations in which they are found keep things engaging. Anyway, you’ll get most of your enjoyment from building up your team, each member having a vocation which grants them unique skills.
Make no bones about it, Dragon Quest IX is a beast, a veritable leviathan of a game. It’s absolutely massive. There are hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gameplay on offer here. Firstly, the main game itself can take upward of seventy hours to finish. Not only that, the game includes a plethora of treasure maps which require some serious levelling to best their dungeons’ bosses. Then there are the various vocations on offer to the player and his squad, each requiring a good degree of grinding to take full advantage of. To top it off, once you’ve finished with the single player experience you can even take the game online to play with others. Seriously, this game is massive – and tough too. The game will happily punish poor player preparation, removing half your stash of total gold and sending you back to the beginning of a dungeon. Definitely do not be fooled by the cutesy art-direction and playfully colloquial localisation!
Radiant Historia
Developed by Atlus, of Shin Megami Tensei fame, Radiant Historia arrived on DS in the US earlier this year. The game follows the exploits of special agent, Stocke and his friends who become embroiled in the battle between their native country and their bitter enemy, neighbours Granorg. Radiant Historia riffs on Chrono Trigger’s time travel mechanic superbly. The plot crsiss-crosses between two main timelines, with the player having to dart backwards and forwards with the aid of a mysterious tome, resolving plot points that enable progress at later points in both timelines. In addition to the wonderfully dizzying plot, the game’s combat is also superb. The enemies appear on a 3×3 grid with the player having to cue attacks. The longer the chain of attacks the quicker enemies are dispensed with and the more XP is awarded at the end of battle. This adds an almost puzzle element to the game and stringing a big combo together is extremely satisfying.
Unfortunately, the game hasn’t had a European release. This is probably because Atlus don’t have a European presence, with a lot of their games being published in this region by the likes of British publisher Ghostlight. Fortunately, importing games is a lot easier these days and with the DS being region-free, playing this game should be relatively hassle free. There are a number of reputable North American sites who will happily ship to our shores so you’ve got no excuse not to play this excellent title.
Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver
Okay, for a lot of gamers in their twenties, a new Pokémon game is a no questions asked day one purchase. They were at the right age in the mid-nineties to form an emotional attachment with the franchise. Pokémon’s surge in popularity at the time was part of their childhood; the cartoon, the lunchbox and of course, the original Game Boy title. In contrast there are a lot of older gamers who view Pokémon games as childish fare, simply that videogame of that annoying cartoon that used to be on years ago. Now, I don’t mind admitting that until about a year ago I was one of the latter – and how wrong I was. Pokémon may be chock full of cute, nonsensical beasts with equally nonsensical names but don’t let that fool you, as like Dragon Quest IX this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yes, under the fluffy surface Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver is a brutally addictive collect ‘em up fused with a deceptively deep RPG.
The aim of the game is to become the best Pokémon trainer in the land. To do this the player must battle other Pokémon trainers as they traverse the large game world. Along the way your trainer collects wild Pokémon which can be trained to fight in your team of four. Unlike other JRPGs the player does not level up, each individual Pokémon does, and at certain levels, your Pokémon will evolve, granting them a wider selection of special moves. The battles are essentially rock-paper-scissor affairs and the skill is to create a balanced team to go into battle with. The sheer number of Pokémon you are able to collect means that hundreds of hours can be spent collecting, training and organising your team. And of course, once the collecting bug bites it’s really easy to find yourself saying; “I gotta catch ‘em all”.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Pokéwalker, a pedometer like device that comes with the game. You can transfer a single Pokémon to the Pokéwalker and fight and capture random Pokémon on your travels and discover random items too. The more steps you take the better the Pokémon you can attempt to snare and the better the items there are to discover. That’s not all. Each time you transfer a Pokémon to the device and then back to the DS it will level up by one level. That means you can continue to cultivate your collection of Pokémon even when you don’t have your DS with you. Neat.
Honourable mentions:
The World Ends With You – Set in contemporary Japan, this Square Enix title is a feast of Japanese pop culture and makes full use of the DS’s touch controls.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – A sci-fi dungeon crawler in which the player has the somewhat novel option of negotiating with the demons they encounter.
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time & Bowser’s Inside Story – The Mario and Luigi RPGs are all of a high standard, with Superstar Saga being one of the GBA’s best titles. The DS games or of a similar standard; full of playful humour and typical Mario charm. The battle system in both games is particularly satisfying, utilising a clever rhythm action based mechanic.
This piece originally appeared over at http://game-bit.net/
Okay, before I start this review I need to come clean. I’m a massive Level-5 fanboy. There I’ve said it. Why? Let me explain.
To most people Level-5 will be known as the people who gave the world the charming Professor Layton games. They need no introduction of course, they’re pretty much a global phenomenon. I mean, Nintendo were trying to con housewives into buying the last Zelda – yes, that gaming juggernaut – by cynically comparing it to Level-5’s opus. It’s THAT big now.
The thing is there’s more to Level-5 than the Layton games. Since 2000 the developer has been producing some of the most charming (a word I use a lot when referring to Level-5 games) console role-players on the market. On PS2 they gave us the wonderful Dark Chronicle and Rogue Galaxy, as well as revitalising the Dragon Quest IP with the gorgeous DQVIII on PS2 and DQIX on DS. Incidentally, if you haven’t picked up the latter do so. It’s done as much for the genre as the recent and much lauded Xenoblade Chronicles has. Anyway, there’s a bit of back story for you and I’m sure you’ll now appreciate why I was excited to hear that Level-5 were bringing over Inazuma Eleven, until now an unobtainable piece of Japanese exotica.
Inazuma Eleven is a console RPG that follows the exploits of Mark Evans, a football obsessed goalkeeper in the city of Inazuma hoping to take his school team to glory. He’s aided by his dead Grandfather’s book of football skills, along with a variety of characters including the enigmatic centre-forward, Axel Blaze and somewhat begrudgingly by the other members of the school’s team, the Raimon Eleven.
The team starts off as being close to closure, with Mark’s first tasks being to fend off the team’s dissolution and then to recruit new members. As the game progresses the plot thickens, becoming much more than a tale of a footballing minnow blossoming into champions elect. I won’t divulge anything else as the plot is one of the game’s strongest aspects. It’s a joy to see the Raimon Eleven journey from near extinction to contenders. And as other, darker plot elements are brought in, the air of mystery and expert drip-feeding of narrative turning points keeps the player wanting to play on.
The excellent story is complimented by the large and varied cast of characters. The Raimon Eleven are a loveable bunch of losers and slackers, cajoled into action by the ever-positive Mark Evans. Additionally, the Raimon Eleven’s opponents are a colourful bunch; as much quasi-superbaddies and wry parodies as they are football teams.
The game’s core mechanics are split into two distinct parts. Mark traverses the world using the JRPG’s tried and tested formula of field and world maps. The world map is comprised of various sections of Inazuma that Mark is asked to visit, whilst the field map is full of NPCs who, as the genre dictates, provide useful tips and conversation that flesh out the game’s lore. The other main component of the game comprises the matches against the other teams the Raimon Eleven come up against, and the random “battles” Mark faces – challenges from other Raimon School students which come in a number of guises that allow Mark to level up his team.
Ever since I first heard about Inazuma Eleven the element of the game I was most intrigued about was the actual football. I mean, it’s a JRPG where you don’t battle monsters and pantomime villains. You play football, how do you give the player a battle mechanic that’s based around a sport and not besting beasties?!
I’m pleased to report that the football/battle mechanic is brilliantly implemented. In the full matches the player controls a full eleven-a-side game, directing players on and off the ball with routes drawn with the stylus. When shots or tackles need to be taken the play pauses and the player is presented with a number of options; either to take a standard shot, dribble or tackling manoeuvre depending on the player’s situation. In addition to this the player has a number of special moves which can be used depending on the amount of TP (essentially magic points) the team member has at his disposal. The player also has the chance to freeze play to plan ahead. This is to be taken advantage of as play moves quickly and any player, however good, has only a little time on the ball.
In battle situations, the random encounters that occur intermittently, the player controls three members of the Raimon Eleven squad and is asked to meet each encounter’s requirements; whether it be score first, get possession of the ball or a similar bite-sized task. Stringing moves together and finding the onion bag in both battle and match scenarios is immensely satisfying and Level-5 should be applauded for giving gamers a new way to experience football in a videogame.
Okay, so far Inazuma Eleven sounds like a bona fide classic. Yes, all of the game’s elements I’ve described in this review are excellently executed. However, there’s a big but. If you’re an experienced gamer you’ll find Inazuma Eleven far from challenging. The game has two genuinely tough matches and that’s your lot. Once you’ve started levelling your team up, allocating special moves to each of your players, you’ll find it easier and easier the further you progress.
Another aspect of the game that stops this game from being Champions’ League material is that the RPG elements are fairly lightweight. Exploration is minimal as the world map is relatively small and an omnipresent blue arrow keeps the player locked to the correct path.
It’s a shame as there’s a lot to love about Inazuma Eleven. This is a game with a compelling story, charming cast and unique take on football in a videogame context. There’s depth too in that you can recruit a plethora of players, each with their own personality and special powers to the Raimon Eleven cause. Although superfluous to progression it adds a Pokémon-esque, collect ‘em up facet to gameplay that increases the games longevity. This is a game that I heartily recommend to young gamers who are either fans of the Inazuma Eleven cartoon currently airing or those in need of a “my first JRPG” experience. Unfortunately, the more experienced gamer may want to look elsewhere unless they are a hardcore JRPG fan.
This review originally appeared over at http://game-bit.net/
How not to make a documentary
Fire in Babylon not only documents its subject – the West Indies cricket teams’ rise to dominance as a form of sporting, historical political and social interplay. It does so using facts, subjective interviews, contemporary footage and a consistently immersive soundtrack.
The interviews, with players of the time as well as local groundsmen and personalities such as Bunny Wailer, are pithy, to the point and fitted an understandable and immersive timeline.
The thesis of Helvetica, however, appears to be that ‘Helvetica is used a lot’ or possibly that ‘Helvetica is the perfect san serif font’. Its creator uses over-long sequences of footage showing vans, trucks, lorries, aeroplanes, airports, shop signs, warning signs, more shops signs and on, and on, and on behind which plays a series of ‘choons’ in a mathrock or minimalist douche 8-bit.
The history of Helvetica is explained as an afterthought. The reason for its ubiquity in a commercial sense is equally left well alone; was it well marketed? How did Linotype, Haas or Stemple ensure that it gained wide use?
One interview with Eric Spiekermann (whom we’re told nothing about, as is the case with all the other interviewees, we are you see just supposed ‘to know’) almost brings the viewer to a reason for the success of the typeface: “Most people who use Helvetica use it because it’s ubiquitous. It’s like going to McDonalds instead of thinking about food. Because it’s there, it’s on every street corner. So let’s eat crap, because it’s on the corner.”
The rest of the interviews are solipsistic and vacuous (Manuel Krebs and Dimitri Bruni of Norm, Zurich manage to get an age to say ‘If something is nice, it’s nice’). They reach their nadir both in terms of paucity of information and glut of empty words with the advertising feature (interview) with Michael C. Place “of Build in London”. Place begins disingenuously with, “I don’t know the technical terms like ligature, ascender, descender” before speaking in about how he would like to design some airplane livery. “Go on then mate! Bothy myself and my partner yelled.
What we took away from Helvetica is that:
(a) It’s a typeface created by Max Miedinger with Edüard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland or “No on really knows”… I bet they fucking well do mate.
(b) People who talk about design to documentary makers tend to be conmen well versed in the Emperor’s New Clothes.
(c) That Massimo Vignelli is an arse.
(d) That Michael Bierut (New York) is a high-pressure salesman with no knowledge of context.
—UPDATE—
I’ve just submitted the following to iTunes in an attempt to help others 
If proof be needed that making a great documentary – or even a good one – requires an understandable thesis told in compelling manner that opens a subject up via insightful commentary and interviews, with relevant footage then this is it. Helvetica achieves none of the above mentioned criteria.
Why did Helvetica, the typeface, become so widely used? This is as much of a mystery after watching this self-regarding slab of charmless, insight-free c*nts’n'clips outing as the apparent popularity of the movie itself.
Did Linotype market it in a new way? Was the typeface different from what went before? Did the name change aid the ubiquity? Is it simply because designers are lazy? No one knows. Well, no one who made this.
Slapped in with the vacuous interviews from designers who say things as deeply helpful as, “If things look nice, they are nice looking” or “I would love to design aircraft livery” or “Don’t ask me” or “Helvetica is capitalist” or “Helvetica is socialist” are slabs of footage showing Helvetica being used on trucks, vans, sign-posts, aircraft livery, more trucks.
What isn’t there is any kind of context in the design that preceded it, the economics or logistics of its take-up, the design principles that underpin it.
What you do get are pieces of music that describe nothing nor do they add to the scraps of information that are there but merely serve to lift the viewer out of the experience.
So, if you enjoy talking heads expelling the kind of hot air that would make Emperor’s new clothing salesmen blush, in order to come away out of pocket and possibly less informed than when you went in… this is perfect.
— END UPDATE—
Now, let’s watch a compelling documentary: Fire in Babylon.
David Braben’s notion of a “Metacritic service for computer game reviewers” caused a bit of a stir across the Internet last week. Not least amongst the various games journalists I follow on Twitter. Personally speaking, I can see both the positives and negatives regarding Braben’s idea – but ultimately I think it raises questions about how reviews are perceived by the gaming community as a whole.
In a perfect world, where the Internet isn’t choked with droning, brainless ninnies, Braben’s idea is perfectly serviceable. A place where readers can see who the most highly rated reviewers are would be a godsend, as unfortunately there are just as many badly written and poorly conceived reviews out there as there are good ones. Not only that, it may also breed healthy competition amongst reviewers, keeping the standard of reviews high and who knows, it may also weed out the flagrant plagiarists who pop up from time to time.
Ah, but alas. We don’t live in a perfect world and the Internet, reflecting society as a whole, is often spoiled by idiots. The gaming community has a healthy idiot quota and it’s those cerebrally vacant amongst us who would derail Braben’s vision. There will be a minority (and I keep telling myself it’s a minority for my own sanity) who would use such a site to wage petty vendettas against those writers whom they perceive to be prejudiced against certain platforms and IPs dear to them. These of course are the minority (got to keep saying that) known as fanboys; a cretinous breed, stalwarts of gaming culture since long before I can remember. Pre-web their inane, zealously partisan rantings were limited to the letters pages of gaming magazines. Editors would often allow the odd rant to be published just for sport, often responding to such bilge with deserved scorn and witty ridicule. However, the Internet changed all that and now any misinformed berk (myself included) can, by blog, forum or comments thread, ejaculate their cerebral detritus over our horrified faces.
The problem with fanboys and those similarly challenged is that they don’t appear to understand the difference between fact and opinion. They fail to grasp the fact (i.e. “a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case”) that a games review is an opinion offered forth by the writer that is more often than not consistent with the priniciples of the magazine/website in which it is published. If a writer criticises an aesthetic or gameplay mechanic within a game it is, as an individual, that writer’s opinion. When taking said opinion on board the reader should also take into consideration the publication in which it is published. For example; a review of COD BLOPS found on a niche JRPG website is not going to be sympathetic to the FPS genre in the same way that say, Eurogamer or CVG would be. Of course it’s improbable that there would even be such a review on such a site but I think it bears out the point I’m trying to make.
The one part of any review that is most likely to cause the most contention is the score at the bottom of the page. I personally hate scoring, I really do. I think that if a review is well written you don’t need one. The reviewer should have by that point sold the game to me or otherwise. Scores make readers lazy, myself included. I’m guilty, like many others, of sometimes skimming straight to the score at the bottom, bypassing the review completely. On top of that the score also seems to baffle gamers regarding how they should be perceived. A score, to my understanding, should reflect how a game compares to others within its genre. Gamers, or at least those most vocal in forums and in comments threads seem to struggle to grasp this idea. There seems to be a misconception that if, for example, a third person shooter scores 8 out of 10 it is therefore a poorer game than an RPG that scores 9 out of 10.
So how can publications and journalists make it clearer to readers how reviews should be interpreted? Well in all honestly I don’t think they can or indeed should. Journalists should just accept that a by-product of the golden age of communications in which we live is the deafening noise of the idiot throng. This may seem like a negative thing to state. However, I’m confident that there are just as many, if not more gamers out there who do understand the basic concept of the games review and how it should be construed. It’s just a shame that because of others we’ll never see David Braben’s fundamentally sound idea be realised to its full potential, if at all.
I am acting the fuck out of this box!
I went for my triannual trip to the cinema last night. Went to see Ryan Reynold’s tour de force, Buried. I’ve got one thing to thank Buried for, it reminded me that I needed to get a copy of Russian Ark. Both have intriguing theatrical devices:
Russian Ark is a single Stedicam shot for over an hour as the filmmaker, Alexander Sokurov, helps us explore Russian history from the 17th century via a tour of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
Buried‘s device is a bloke in a box and no other on-screen visible cast members. It stars Ryan Reynolds (Two Guys and a Girl, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder) as ‘simple truck driver who goes to Iraq to make money for his family Everyman guy’ Paul Conroy. Within moments of meeting Paul in his box, I could totally understand why someone, anyone in fact who had met him, would want to incarcerate him, three feet underground, in ‘one of those old wooden coffins’.
Fortunately, EveryPaul has a Blackberry with a good signal, nearly half of its battery left and incredibly quick broadband. He’s also got his anti-anxiety pills, a small flask of spirits, two glow sticks and a torch. Despite apparently being a non-smoker, he’s also got a spectacular Zippo lighter; it’s hard to light but once in action would shame a M2A1-2 flamethrower, which he uses at any given opportunity.
Opportunities include when trying to phone for help – a genuinely savvy move despite one laboured again and again by the “Don’t put me on hold” gag. Yes, for some reason, EveryPaul does not find the light from his Blackberry to be sufficient. He must also use his oxygen-sucking Zippo to illuminate his box when making phone calls.
He calls for help a lot. He calls his wife in the USA, his calls his mother-in-law in the USA. I assume it’s his mother-in-law. He reacts to her in the same way as most old mother-in-law jokes do, but he gets to call her a ‘cunt’ not a ‘battle-axe’ once he’s hung-up in a fit of pique, edgy stuff. He calls the State Department in the USA; he calls his employer (not Blackwater) in the USA; he calls 911 in the USA.
He never gets around to calling his local office in Iraq.
Also, because the people who have put him in the box have taken the one emergency number EveryPaul was given, presumably one in Iraq, he can’t call that. He’s not memorised it. Maybe this is me, but if I was an Everyman truck driver who had gone to Iraq to feed my family, I would have tattooed that number on the inside of my eyelids and the outside of my wrists like an exam cheat with intense purpose.
Paul is not about that kind of thing. Nor is Ryan Reynolds. Ryan is about acting. He acts the shit out of that box. He emotes, he grunts, he insults everybody he calls, sometimes he doesn’t even answer the phone because he’s so fucking angry… Ryan is so fucking acty that once or twice I forgot the screaming, fucking angry voice in my head fucking screaming, “Just fucking die you cunt fuck!”
The edginess is catching, obviously.
The Aint I Cool site really rates Buried
The kidnapper is voiced in superbly e-e-e-evil style by José Luis García Pérez (8 Dates) because no Iraqi actors were available, anywhere, at any price.
This fact actually tells us more about the evils of occupation than anything in this excruciatingly ham-fisted movie. Fortunately for us and probably for the movie’s ‘acting coach’, Warner Loughlin, Jos√© Luis Garc√≠a reminds EveryPaul to take his pills.
He does so, with a slug of booze and some of the absolute best ‘drinking booze and eating pills’ acting I’ve seen ever, or more accurately heard. Ryan eats the fuck out of those cunt pills and sucks that booze down like a motherfucker, he genuinely makes glugging noises that should at least gain an Academy Award nomination.
The premise though, is a brave one. The Bloke-in-a-Box genre has not been well-served even by the likes of Buried Alive (‘Hell hath no fury like a man buried alive!’). Sure, Uma Thurman in her Kill Bill 2, ‘Chick-in-a-box’ role is the high water mark, but even she didn’t last an entire 16 hour movie.
No, the movie I am calling, “EveryPaul IS Bloke-in-a-Box”, is not 16 hours long, it just feels as if it is.
Director Rodrigo Cort√©s (‘biting satire on consumer society’ The Contestant) and writer Chris Sparling (An Uzi at the Alamo, ‘Every day life has a story. Some just have better subtitles’) got themselves a neat, low budget device and they went with it. Sadly, the idea that could have been claustrophobic to view became laughably constricting. The story of an everyday guy caught up in the vicissitudes of an occupation/liberation turns instead into the phone problems of a dull, spoilt meat-ager who is profiting from that occupation/liberation while kidding himself that he’s a good guy.
Make sure, however, to stay in your seat (or fast forward) for the scene in which HR director of EveryPaul’s employer, Alan Davenport (played by Stephen Tobolowsky), steals the movie.
Oh, and Kevin the CGI snake… now that is high point of hilarity and studio bosses screaming, “Give Ryan some fucking action to fucking act! Ryan needs to fucking act!”.
Anyway, I picked up a copy of Russian Ark today.
2/5 – this indicates that I want those 16 hours back and I will become violent to anybody who even gifts me this as a DVD or Blu-ray.
