I'm Back!

I'm Back from Berlin. Had a great time, even if it is freezingly cold this time of year!

In order to create some kind of existential crisis in which the universe will collapse in on itself, I am going to review Java's review on reviewing.

Confused? Since I got 100% in my Hamlet exam for A-Level English Lit, it seems to have gone to my head slightly....

Here we can see a clear point from the reviewer, in which his basic instinct to direct himself towards wit from his own personality takes priority over a desire for neutrality. This is a mixed thing, for while it creates an attachment between the writer and reader, it also shatters the positive correlation between the more informative side of reviewing. For example, he provides and insight into how one may use cultural or syntactic elements to provide an insight into the nature of a game, as is clear with his wording of "Theme Hospital is like marmite. You either love it or you hate it." Skilfully, he the "custard-cream gambit" to explain the process of reviewing, a highly developed piece of wordplay which is devolved from an ancient Chinese proverb.

To conclude, I give Java's review 68%. While he provides an insight into how the process of reviewing works, his focus is directed away form any linkage for the difficulties of opening and closing reviews with the body of text that is required in order to make reviewing possible for the masses.

Reviewing. A Review. This title gets 43%.

Today I am reviewing reviewing. As I typed that sentence word decided that I'd gone mad and mistakenly typed reviewing twice, so deleted it. Word is wrong. I hate word. Just look at it, sitting there with its blue UI.

Anyway, on with the review. The main problem with "reviewing" is that unless you get a decent start to the review you may as well give up, and when you do get a decent start it's nigh on impossible to go smoothly from there to the rest of the review. Once the first few paragraphs are done you're fine, but it's damned hard to get past the first sentence, let alone any further. I have 5 or so review starts in My Documents. Most of them I didn't save but here are a few:

I consider it my own small protest against the foolishly big, irritatingly short range weapons available that I always snipe on UT3. I would say it's a peaceful protest but the UT3 announcer shouting HEADSHOT at me is hardly peaceful.

Nope, don't like that one. Too difficult to move on from there to the game mechanics.

My engine has started to rattle. Anxiously I stare down at the dials, leavers and buttons before me. I don't know what any of them do so I throttle back my engine to preserve it. The rattling becomes louder. Guessing that the end is nigh I calmly lower my undercarriage and throttle back some more. The rattle reaches a climax, becomes a screech, then silence. The wind whistling past my now diving plane is the only sound I hear. Looking down I see a clearing in the forest- the perfect landing spot. I put my flaps to the landing position and begin to glide smoothly down. A textbook forced landing. Or not. My plane wheels disintegrate on the rough grass- plowing my plane into the ground. The wings sheer off but eventually I skid to a halt. Welcome to IL2.

Boring.

Theme hospital is like Marmite. You either love it or you hate it. Many people would be turned away the instant they saw the cute pixelart graphics. Many people would mock its cheery soundtrack. Many people would eschew it in favour of something gritty and free roaming. Many people would laugh at me if I admitted that I got owned by it again and again and again. Like marmite this game hides a dark and sadistic core beneath its soft, gooey exterior.

Nice, but irritating to move on from, as you're stuck talking about the cuteness for ages.

So you see, starting reviews is rubbish. This is in part made up for with the glorious middle sections of the review. They're like the delicious filling of a custard cream, sliding effortlessly onto the page. However, like the filling of a custard cream the paragraphs are shorter than the hard bits, and eventually you come to the end. Summing up a game is annoying, because you've just written 600 words on the bloody thing and now have to condense those into 20 words that are going to be remembered, thus are the most important. This frankly sucks, but then at least you get to making up a score. This is easy. Think if you liked the game and pluck a suitable sounding number out of the air.

I give reviewing 68%. Its good, but a lot of hassle to begin with and a frustrating ending.

 

 

Audiosurf, A Brief Review.

I like music. I come from a family of music teachers after all. I have, however, never invested in any music games for a variety of reasons, though mainly because I hate most of the songs on the track list. Audiosurf is a music game that sidesteps that issue by letting you use any music you want. The game works by scanning the music track you select and turning it into a road, well, more of a rollercoaster really, with the track going up during calm sections and down during intense sections. The game also scatters blocks on this road for you to hit in time to the music, Guitar Hero style, which really draws you into the music like never before. The road is divided into three lanes so you'll constantly be dodging around trying to hit/avoid the right blocks in time to the music. Every time you hit a block you see a shower of coloured particles on the screen, making for an amazingly intense, yet flexible, experience. Take Don't Stop Me Now for example. You start going gently upwards with a few blocks to hit before suddenly hurtling down when the main song starts. It's nothing short of incredible.

And yet now I am at a loss for what else to say. It's simply a wonderful game, perfect for anyone with even the slightest interest in music. You can play it in a variety of ways thanks to a variety of ships to control- either trying to hit one colour of block while avoiding another one, or building up connect 4 style stacks of blocks, which is more tactical. The final mode has you controlling 2 ships at once, which can be done in co-op. Conclusion: Buy it! You'll never look at music in the same way again.

Labeled Screenshot Here

J-Film #1 - 'All the boys love Mandy Lane'

Well, good evening chaps, as you should know my name is John Neicho and I'm almost as godlike as the almighty Java (God why does the stupid spell checker keep trying to make me write my sir name as Nacho goddammit!) and I am here for the sole purpose of enlightening you to the wonderful world of cinema; and let us face it, what a wonderful world it is from cheap entertainment like alien versus predator, to crap game spin offs such as tomb raider and to great intellectual war tales such as flags of our fathers, cinemas has given us such joy my friends and I, you friendly neighborhood film buff am here to share and amplify the wonder!

Now, I move swiftly on to my first ever review, and you'll be pleased to know i start off on a good film unlike *cough* Clover field, which tried to be two genres at the same time *cough* This film is wondrously entitled 'All the boys love Mandy Lane' but only at the conclusion of this film does it become apparent that this is an excellent title and it is worth noting at this point that its very hard to review a film such as this, as much of its greatness is revealed as the story progresses and not form the get go, but you don't want spoilers now do you?

The story is that of an incredibly beautiful, late high school girl who goes for a party with a group of weird druggy nutters who keep trying to plow her pink, excuse my language my intellectual demeanor slipped for a moment there. But apart from these meager details , at the risk of letting slip those dreaded spoilerz of war, there is not much more i can tell you apart from the fact that about 7 people die during the film.

The film is brought back as a kind of reincarnation of the 80's hack and slash films, which i doubt many of you will have seen, and i myself had to do research on; and I have been told that the story and the twist at the end are both terribly hackneyed fro anyone around 40 something, but lets face it the average age of Steam goers and the like is about 15, so for us its incredibly fresh and a nice relief from such Hollywood tripe as the guiltily enjoyable 'clover field' or the brilliantly crap 'Aliens versus Predator: Requiem' its fun, with a nice inappropriate soundtrack and a madman launching fireworks at people.

So, what have i covered? It's good, check, It's got a great story for someone of my age (I'm 15 don't tell the coppers i got into it) check, it's a relief from the norm, check, the violence, ahhh the violence. Well this brings me to the bad point of the movie and to be honest it lets itself down quite badly on this front, for a film trying to re-imagine the hack and slash of yore it is horribly mild, especially for an 18! The violence starts off not to abruptly and shockingly, but none-the-less violently, after giving a blow job to Jake, cocaine-taking-bitch no. 1 has a shotgun push into her mouth and through some rough encouragement it breaks her jaw apart, cue blood and groans while looking at the person next to you. So, now your started off you can hear the fat bloke-sitting-two-seats-along's heartbeat like a Moria drum, but it rather disappointingly trails off form their, its not gory in the slightest. But leaving taht point behind as we climb another Mayan pyramid of move greatness we come to my last two points, the characterization and the shooting.

'All the boys love Mandy Lane' has excellent characterization in a film where so many character are thrust upon you so quickly, and when each one is killed, you feel both relieved for the bad things the person has done and you are upset at the good inside of them, and not giving away any spoilerz everyone means everyone. ending upon a high greater than the assorted cocaine-taking-bitches of this film i talk now of the camera work, which is just indescribably excellent, it would make make Bambi's mum come alive again it's so wonderful, and I really cant describe it it just blew me away on every single front imaginable!

That concludes my very first film review, next i shall possibly review 'There will be blood' or 'Rambo' (which is supposed to have the highest kill count know to man, so should be good, providing i can get in that is) and I strongly recommend this film to you, if you are not old enough to watch it and cannot sneak in, pirate it, who cares i disagree with this kind of shitty censorship anyway; and on that not i bid you a due.

Rundown -

Shooting: 9

Characterization: 7

Plot: 8

Effects: 8

Variable field dependent on context and genre - Violence: 4

Overall J-score: 7.5/10

If there is anything you would like little Johnny to know do not hesitate to email me at Johnny.neicho@sky.com.

Alltalk

The Alltalk debate is one that I have been mulling over for the past few weeks. It all comes about as a result of the Javaserver, the place where I play the majority of my Team Fortress 2 games. In the old days there was the PCGamer server, which would always be slow to update, and often crash for days at a time, disappearing after every update. I loved it. It was the first time I had found a server to play on where I started to recognise the people, in that specific online-gaming way, who lpayed it with me. It was great. It had teamspeak. Then time progressed things along, and the Javaserver was born. Most of the people moved from PCG to Javasever, and I was content. But something was very different, and it was unnerving. It was Alltalk.
The idea behind Alltalk is written in the name. If you use a microphone, and talk, then all on the server will hear you. With Teamspeak, only your team will hear you. This massively affects the words you say. With Teamspeak, glorious tactics emerge. With Alltalk, banter with the enemy enlivens the game. I still can’t decide which is better.
There is a downside to Alltalk, it can get quite loud. Some people insist on screaming at every kill and at every death. I don’t like loud; it’s just the way I am. There is also a downside to Teamspeak, it can be very isolated. You are divided from half of the players, which is not so good at creating such a friendly atmosphere.
Is there a compromise? I don’t see how. Having both Teamspeak and Alltalk would lead to much hilarious confusion, as people shout their tactics to the enemy. Is it even possible, to have both enabled at once? Can I assign two buttons in TF2? Should I have researched this before I started writing?
These are the things that I think about on public transport. One fact emerges form all this however: TF2 rules, and I hope all TF2-ers never leave.

--- News ---
Sorry about having not updating things recently. I have had a crazy time at college, mock exams and coursework! I am gonna be gone for a bit, for I have a trip to Berlin planned. Be back soon. Any comments you may have, feel free to post them below.

Cloverfield

I have just blogged about Cloverfield over on my blog. I dont want to take up too much room here, so I'm just gonna like to it. Take a look if you want.

http://thinkingddude.blogspot.com/2008/02/cloverfield.html

Summary
For those who don’t want to link - It is great. The characters are rubbish, but that’s the point. The camera-work is amazing and most of the effects are seamless. It has flaws, but is unlike any film I have ever seen before.

Freelancer - Review

Freelancer

Where to start. This is a HUGE game. First I'm going to tackle which game genre it fits into. Hmm. Arcade/Sim I guess. In more straight forward terms it's a game filled with space ships, guns and explosions. Lots of the latter. In the review I based it all on what I had seen in the Trial Edition. The Trial allows you to play through the first main mission and allows you a few ships.

I booted up the game and the first thing I noticed was an awe-inspiring title. The words “FREELANCER” in big white letters set against the background of the universe. What a way to start a game.

Freelancer has lots and lots of beautiful cinematics which are thankfully unstoppable as missing them is a crime. They are well scripted and look amazing in the urban planets. Apart from the weird “I am totally smashed” NPC eyes, the NPC's animations and emotions are admirable.

The controls are 100% keyboard friendly, being controlled with the Mouse and WASD keys.

After absorbing some incredible well scripted intros I was tasked with finding a job. The interaction interface is understandable and really easy to use. At the top there are a layer of buttons with which you can use to interact with the environment and vendors. After finding myself a job with the Liberty Defence Force I was shown my ship which I would be enforcing justice with. Sure, it was tiny and a bit decrepit compared to some other ships I had seen but I instantly fell in love with it.

I clicked launch and gasped as my ship slowly hovered, then flew straight over the beautiful city in which I was previously based. I took off following the objectives that were clearly portrayed at the side of my screen. As soon as my ship entered space I was greeted with an authoritative voice which my HUD told me was emanating from an allied ship whom I would be questing, no that sounds wrong, adventuring with. I could instantly tell how different his character was compared to the bar owned back down on the planet I had dispatched from. After some chit-chat, my new partner “King” ,as he is called, and I flew over to admire a huge beast of a ship which, from what I can only assume belonged to someone vewy vewy important. My camera suddenly zoomed in one approaching rogue ships as a haggard female voice announced to the rogue ships they should turn back or be shot down. The rogue ships didn't seem to care much as they swooped in gracefully and nuked the dukes ship. Instead of feeling angry at the rogues, which I did, I was staring in awe at the explosions which were glowing all over my screen. Angelic. After the cinematic ended, I was ordered to open fire and I obeyed mindlessly, wanting to test out the lasers which were bolted to my bucket of rust.

The combat is absorbing but slightly arcade style. Baring in mind that this is the first combat section of the game, I can't stop imagining what the final battles are like with all of the fully upgraded weapons. Now seems an appropriate time to rant in blatant admiration towards the wonderful graphics effects. It is an old game, so it's not very demanding, but the graphics are simply beautiful. I'm trying not to use that word too much but frankly, this game deserves all the praise it deserves. After you have destroyed a ship you simply hit “B” to use a tractor beam to, err, suck in all the loot, no, goods. After destroying sed rogue ships I felt attached to King. Not in that kind of way, sick readers, sort of like loyalty.

Once I had terminated the rogues I was clearly designated to a “Waypoint”. These are portals to another location in the solar system. It's really easy to do. Just cruise up to the waypoint, dock with it and wait. You enter the portal doctor who style with all the flashing colours and emerge into a totally different yet still awe-inspiring world. It's moments like these which make freelancer such a worthwhile buy. The levels of exploration and free-roaming are immense and the opportunity for role playing is also high.

The game also features multiplayer which is just like the single player campaign, you start with a basic ship but you have to find jobs and adventures, on some servers PVP is enabled which can be enjoyable.

If you have a fiver in your pocket and you are wondering what to do.. Buy this game. Well worth every minute of “Bloody Awesome”-ing you will do.

92%

-Screenshot Album coming soon-

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