The A-Team

I've never seen the tv series that this is based on, but pop culture has filled me in on all I need to know. We're living in the Age of the Remakes, and the big-screen adaptation of the A-Team sees when the four heroes put their team together, with an absurd, fun escape that just doesn't seem possible. Of course, over the next two hours, these four characters weave themselves in and out of impossible situations, but always manage to escape, no worse for the wear, and able to quip about their close calls. And of course, they work in their well-known lines with Hannibal saying, "I love it when a plan comes together," while Baracus steadfastly refuses to get on an airplane. As expected, they also are framed for crimes they didn't commit, making them fugitives on the run. Make no mistake, this is a campy film. It is not award-winning stuff. The plot is more than a bit convoluted, and villains repeatedly pass up chances to kill our heroes until... sometime later.

This is a pretty by the numbers action movie so there isn't much to talk about. With Liam Neeson leading the team as Hannibal, they definitely cast the right actor to lead the ragtag team of ‘soldiers of fortune. Bradley Cooper also is perfectly cast here as "Faceman," the smooth-talking, womanizing member of the squad. Sharlto Copley is the goofy Murdock character here. And of course, Quinton Jackson plays the character B.A. Baracus, who was famously played by Mr. T in the TV version and sadly doesn't cameo here in the film.My only real gripe with this movie is the same I have with lots of action movies these days: It's way too rapidly edited, to the point that I found it hard to register what the hell's going on during some of the action sequences. I also find a few of the characters a tad annoying, but it wasn't enough to distract from what was a pretty solid action movie.

Final Fantasy XIII

Sure took me a long to complete this game. I've had it seen it was released back in March and was playing it randomly since then. I haven't played too many of the games in the main Final Fantasy series, just III, X, X-2, and the beginning of XII. At the end of the day I liked this one but I have to say that your opinion on Final Fantasy XIII will depend greatly on your ability to like the story, or rather its storytelling method. Like every Final Fantasy game since VII, XIII’s storytelling is derived from anime, and if you don’t like anime for its melodrama, long winded dialogue, and over exaggerated movement, I don’t think you’ll be too happy when the characters start spouting extemporaneous prose posing as conversation at each other like a couple of professional wrestlers cutting a promo in the middle of a ring. This style of storytelling derives from the theatre of ancient Greece, where the primary purpose of their morality plays was further development of their characters, and it is here where XIII’s story truly shines.

As for the gameplay, the first thing that has to be brought up is that the level design is extremely linear. Actually, The first 60% of XIII isn’t just linear, it’s a straight line. There’s very few branching paths to speak of, and the ones that are there aren’t very big. Chapters one through twelve are designed for two things: to tell you a story and to train you how to fight. This sounds like a long tutorial, and it somewhat is, but there’s not a lot of downtime. You’re constantly learning new things, developing the story, changing locales, and you are always moving forward and never backward. It gets kinda boring, but once you hit chapter thirteen, that all changes. Suddenly you’ll be in a big open world with all the optional areas, side quests, and treasure that you were looking for most of the game. This is where Final Fantasy XIII the game really starts to live up to its potential. It's a shame then that you can't fight everything you see, because the difficulty of some of the random enemies suddenly spikes, which brings me to my next point: Final Fantasy XIII's difficulty is a very random. I frequently destroyed my opponents for a bulk of the game's routine encounters and suddenly found myself outclassed by the time I reached the second half of the game.

The combat doesn’t get off to the same blistering speed as the story does, as the game spends the first ten or so hours slowly feeding you the basics of the battle system and this is a good thing, as throwing the unique and complex mechanics at once could’ve been too much to handle for some. In a first for the series, you only have control over the party leader, and instead of micromanaging what each character does, any point during combat, you can initiate a paradigm shift to change the role that each character plays in battle. The combinations of classes your characters can be at any given time are limited to pre determined commands that you can select in the options menu before battle. It's certainly a unique combat setup, but the only downside that the game ends whenever you leader is knocked out, regardless of the status of the other two party members. It's annoying, but it just another of a few small flaws in an otherwise solid game. The JRPG genre has been one that has been starving for innovation and a refreshing change of pace, and Final Fantasy XIII is certainly that. Its originality derives from its streamlined nature and its no-nonsense approach to progression. I've played better RPGs than this and though I can't compare it to other entries in the series, it gets the job done.

Sex and the City

Never thought I'd watch this as I'd never seen the series that inspired but, here I am watching the Sex in the City movie. The movie finds Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda four years after the hit HBO series ended, as they continue to juggle jobs, friendships and relationships and start to navigate motherhood, marriage and Manhattan real estate. Most importantly, the main plot of the film finds Carrie and Mr. Big decide to get married. The film then races through various themes of love, commitment, individuality, forgiveness, friendship, loss, loneliness and just about every other human condition you can think of.

I'm surprised that I really liked this movie. The film was funny. Pure and simple it did the one thing I didn’t really expect it to be able to do: It made me laugh. A lot. The humor was more “male” than I expected it to be, and a little more crude at times. There were several solid laugh out loud moments and the rest was quite entertaining. In most movies, you have characters that make their way through the story. But Sex and the City didn’t really have a story. The characters WERE the story, and in this context it really worked because of the diversity in the 4 main characters and their legitimate charm and likability (aside from the Miranda character)… but most importantly because of the long tested chemistry between them all. The chemistry of that on screen friendship was palpable and carried the movie.

Although sometimes a bit forced, I found the emotional and touching scenes worked. Each of the main characters go through significant challenges in the movie and at times it is communicated quite well. As good as the film's drama is...there was simply too much going on. For some reason the producers felt the need to give each and every one of the 4 main characters a significant story line sub-plot instead of one central story or without tying them together. 4 full stories takes screen time, each one interrupting the other and causing far to many themes to be brought into it. It’s not that any of the stories weren’t good, nor that any of the themes introduced weren’t worthy ones to be explored, it's just that Sex and the City had too many things going at the same time, and as such it hindered my ability to savor or appreciate any single one of them. In spite of that I loved this movie and while I may not check out the series anytime soon, but I'll be watching this movie every now and then.

Hal Sparks: Charmageddon

I've only known of Hal Sparks from acting on Queer as Folk and his appearances on VH1's I love the 80s series. I've never knew he was a stand up comedian and a pretty good at that. His takes on the difference between women and men,sexting and anything else of pop culture,his take on comedy is definitely refreshing and straight forward. From beginning to end his set is packed full of intelligent, hilarious, and perfectly executed comedic insight that's so close to my own that I found myself exclaiming "Exactly!" "Yes!" and "That's so true!" in between fits of uncontainable laughter. His fundamental beliefs on "unsweetened" tea and drink sizes are raised to new levels with his passionate delivery and his priceless insight into the history and execution of "sexting" will made me sigh an enthusiastic "Nnnff..."! Sparks has a way about him, a command of himself and his audience that is at once disarming and just plain hot. And in this one hour special, he showcases his many levels of awesomeness perfectly. "Charmageddon" is indeed charming, but not in a wholesome and quaint B&B way; certainly not in a old school Austen hero way. It, and Sparks, are charming in a "woke up in bed with some guy you just met and are not sure how he managed to get you there or where your pants are" kind of way. And by that odd analogy, I trying to say that I really liked Charmageddon.

Shrek Forever After

Dreamworks can't hold a candle Pixar. The Shrek movies come close in a different manner, but everything else Dreamworks does looks either uninspired or just plain awful, and I'm never interested enough to see if my first impressions (and most critics) were wrong. As their sole successful franchise, the Shrek movies have had a pretty good run. The first two were surprisingly entertaining films, but the third entry was a dull, lazy film that seemed to descend into the very thing the first movie seemed to parody – generic, cliché, pop-culture trash (Okay maybe I'm being rough on a film I've only seen once several years ago). But it seems that the series is finally ready to close it doors as Shrek Forever After is apparently the last in the series (aside from a Puss in Boots spin off movie). Thankfully, Shrek Forever After turns out to be a surprisingly funny and enjoyable affair.

The plot is basically a take on "It’s A Wonderful Life", which reflects a world in which Shrek was never born. In viewing the trailers, I felt this came off as a rather underwhelming and lazy plot. However, the writers Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke manage to do enough with the material and place Shrek in quite an entertaining setting where his friends and family do not know him. The best main character here is the lead villain of the story Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpel is played like a conniving, snake-like Southern Californian swindler with a Napoleon complex. All the best scenes and material come from Rumpelstiltskin, although the true show-stealer and crown jewel of the movie is the minor character of a little fat kid in the beginning of the film who only has 3 lines of dialogue and manages to be the funniest character in the film (my friends and I are still quoting him).

The frustrating aspect of the movie comes from DreamWorks’s penchant for casting big names in very minor and borderline bit roles, such as Jane Lynch as a random ogre by the name of Gretched. Jon Hamm makes his voice acting debut as an ogre named Brogan in Fiona’s resistance movement, but Hamm is left with little to do, making his casting rather pointless. DreamWorks Animation features tend to rely on celebrity stunt casting more than any other studio and nearly rival the Simpsons in terms of pointless celebrity guest stars. If Shrek Forever After is to be the final chapter of Shrek’s story, at least the franchise ends on a positive note. In no way does the movie exemplify revolutionary or fine cinema such as Pixar’s works, but it possesses a good sense of humor, provides a few good chuckles, and is even touching at times making the movie feel satisfying if this is the last they ever do.

Glee - Season 1b

The extra nine episodes that were added to Glee's first season really feel that they should have given room to breathe as its own complete season. In fact, I spend a bit of time musing about how different the storyline would have developed if it was the proper 2nd season. These episodes "add on" status forces the various plots to rush themselves and squander their potential. The back nine episodes have certainly given us some great episodes of television - "Dream On" and "Theatricality" are probably the series' strongest hours, with "The Power of Madonna" coming out as the most fun. But overall, the conclusion to the show's first season is a bit uneven. The mid-season premiere Hell-O left a lot to be desired as it quickly undoes all that characters had accomplished in the prior run, while a great arc about Rachael finding her mother is rushed to hell and back. I mean, they have a small build up to it, the reveal tied nicely to the main arc, and then their relationship is quickly explored and wrapped up in one episode...as a B-story (well, as a b story to a really good main plot, but still more time could've been given to the story).

Perhaps, even worse is the revelation that the writers have no clue how to handle relationships. Will and Emma are somewhat tolerable. But the season's main triangle between Rachael, Finn and new boy Jesse St James. For one thing, The thrust of Jesse's relationship with Rachael is that he's exactly like her...without all the quirks that make Rachael enduring to watch. Also their relationship wasn't believable as Jesse's intentions weren't clear. The writers just kept flip-flopping about whether Jesse was actually in love with her or was just using her, so when the big betrayal comes along and Jesse starts going on about how he's the victim in the all of this, it extremely difficult to buy into because their relationship was poorly developed. It really really was the worse relationships I've seen played out on television in some time.

Anyway its not all bad. As I said, The back nine episodes have some of the season's best episodes. Sometimes, the show amazes me by bouncing great humor off of strong dramatic moments. The songs here are even more infectious the the last batch, the dancing is fun and the drama is both what you would expect from a high school show, while also making fun of the genre. The writers can do a great job when they put their minds to it and I guess they'll have had more time to plan the entirety of season two as it's produced. They get some good guests like Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris, and it's mostly enjoyable week in and week out. It definitely walks a fine line every time out, but I don't think they've really stumbled yet. I'm definitely interested in seeing more.

The Killers - Sam's Town

Sam's Town is The Killers second album and it holds a special place in my heart as the album I was listening to in late 2006: when I got my first job and was looking forward to buying the Wii. I'd compare this album to a second date: you realize that your new crush has flaws you hadn't noticed the first time around, but you're just that much more endeared. And flustered. And optimistic for the future. The band goes for a more rock-oriented approach, leaving behind much of the glam/disco undertones of the previous album. It's not as endearing as their debut showing, but its nonetheless, a thrilling ride. It instead showcases the growth of a more mature band moving forward musically. Flowers' voice is much rawer and emotional here, not buried under layers of modulation, and the band's sound is more vibrant and diverse. The band notes that this record was influenced by Springsteen, but this album does not have much of a Springsteen sound, at least, none that I caught.

The addictive opening track "Sam's Town" has the same punch rhythmically as "Somebody Told Me" from the first album, but is less reliant on synths and more on electric guitar. The piano-based "Interlude" showcases a softer sound with Brandon Flowers' voice fragile and emotional before it amps up and punches into the rocking first single "When You Were Young." Despite its title, the soaring "Bling(Confession of a King) has shades of the late 80's U2 musically but Flowers can't quite match Bono's vocal style. "For Reasons Unknown" and "Read My Mind" delivers a synth-heavy up-tempo sound that is somewhat reminiscent of the early 80's Talking Heads.

Grounded by a solid bass line, "Uncle Jonny" makes for a great track that thankfully is not overly commercial. Flowers' takes his vocals down a notch for the excellent "Bones" decorated with some great trumpet and sax. The sound of Queen returns with the bombastic track "My List" and "This River Is Wild" is hook-filled and rocking enough to make this a solid second single. "Exitlude" is a nice touch that speaks to the fans, "We hope you enjoyed your stay..it's good to have you with us, even if it was only a day." I do have some misgivings about the way the album was recorded. Unlike the band's stunning debut, there are some songs on Sam's Town that I will outright skip as the song tries too hard or they just don't work for me ("Why Do I Keep Counting" is the only song to really cover those two comments). And there are some noticeable pitch problems with the vocals--baffling on a major-label, Flood-produced album. But all in all, Sam's Town is a great album and while it may not be their best work, it will grow on you with every spin.

E3 2010: Overall Impressions

Well, E3 ended last week and it took me awhile to get to this point as I've been pretty busy over the last week. After thinking about it for a while I decided that E3 2010, like last year, was decent, but nothing mind blowing. The big difference is that most of what was really good about this years showing only came from Nintendo while Microsoft and Sony were weaker than they usually were which I guess I should elaborate on.

Out of the big 3, I think everyone agrees that Microsoft had the worst showing without a doubt. They didn't have have much to present that wasn't already known or guessed at in some shape or form and half of that had to with the fact Microsoft unveiled half of their stuff in the weeks leading up to E3, Gears of War 3 being the biggest spoiler. Last year Microsoft had 90% of their game shown before the conference and this year that total is somewhere around 99%. Microsoft needs to learn that part of the fun in E3 is the surprise and wonder in what new game could possible be shown off. Even worse was Microsoft's Kinect. Their answer to the Wii turned out to be nothing more than a straight up rip-off as every game looked and played a like poor man's Wii game and considering that the 360 is more powerful than the Wii, this is just pathetic. The gadget's use for interacting with the console itself is less impressive than it was last year as it looks like it would be easier to just use the controller, which defeats the purpose of Kinect entirely...I don't know what the hell Microsoft is thinking...

It seems like Microsoft and Nintendo switched places. While Microsoft was trying to damn hard to grab some casual gamer attention, Nintendo actually showed off a surprising amount of new games. Even more shocking is that most of these games are from franchises that the company has ignored on the Wii. The fact that Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Kid Icarus are getting high profile games alongside Metroid and Zelda is nothing short of mind blowing. The only thing they could have done to make this any better would have been holding off on revealing Mario Galaxy 2 last year and showing it now. Nintendo seemed to finally realize that they can target hardcore and casual gamers with their classic series and it paid off wonderfully. Even though I can't comment on the system, the way they handled the 3DS unveiling was just the icing on the cake. It truly was Nintendo's E3...

Sony managed to convince to buy a PS3 last year with they're comparatively stronger showings and its a purchase I haven't regretted yet. I've play my PS3 more in the past 6 months than I played the 360 in the two years I've had the thing. Sadly, Sony fell in the same trap Microsoft did, only they aren't in as deep. Only Twisted Metal was a true surprise announcement and everything else was shown beforehand. It doesn't speak well that the game I'm most excited for is The Sly Collection...a group of games released roughly 5 years ago. Sony's games are at least more interesting than Microsoft and I say that I'll actual try to play most of them. Their attempt at a Wii counterpart, The Move is somewhat more respectable as it appears to work much better than the Wii does and the games seem kinda interesting, but like Kinect it seems to be 4 years too late. Unless casual gamers with a Wii happen to also have a PS3 or 360, I don't really see the market for either motion control device. They still haven't given me a reason to get a PSP, although I think the thing has enough games that I could justify getting a used PSP...still better than anything Microsoft has come up with.

So in summation, E3 2010 was okay. Microsoft was the worst, no question asked. Some of Sony's games mentioned should be pretty good. And Nintendo did the reverse of the other two and give everyone what they want.

Score below is as follows.

CONFERENCE PLACING:
1st: Nintendo
2nd: Sony
3rd: Microsoft

E3 2010: Additional Game Impressions

Here's My quick thoughts on some additional games that were on display at E3 but not shown off during the conferences.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS): The N64 classic and self proclaimed best game in the universe will be released on Nintendo's new handheld system. I never played the original game as I didn't get into the Zelda series until Wind Waker. All I've heard about this game is that its really good and the water temple is bitch, which apparently is going to be made a tad easier in this version.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Really..another Kingdom Hearts game? I love the series but they're really just stalling with the third game. We've already got a prequel coming on the PSP and two handheld titles that take place between the first and second games. Its unknown where in the timeline the game will take place in, but I'll probably play and at least the 3DS's analog nub will make the game more playable than the DS iteration of the series that came out last year.

Sonic Colors (Wii and DS): This looks like it takes what worked about the sonic levels in the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed and made them into their own game. Sonic has some power-ups to use that don't seem to impede the gameplay so is shaping up to be a pretty good title...lets just hope that Sega doesn't predictably mess this up...

Marvel vs Capcom 3 (PS3, Xbox 360): I guess this is the Vs. Capcom's series answer to Street Fighter IV. I don't play Marvel vs Capcom 2 that much but I might give this a shot when my fighting game friends get a hold of this.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (Multiple Platforms): This is just further devaluing of the Star Wars series. The purpose of the first game's plot was to bridge the gap from the prequel series to the original movies so making a sequel to that seems kinda pointless...I did kinda like that game, so I'll check this one out in spite of my bitching...

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (Multiple Platforms): seems to play more like the DS games than an actual continuation of the original series, but I'm intrigued by the episodic content and my fondness for the series pretty much forces me to want to download this. If I had a choice between Sonic Colors or this, I'd guess I'd go with this one.

Okamiden (DS): I still need to finish the Wii version of Okami before I can even try this, but I like what played in that game and I hope this handheld version doesn't disappoint.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem (DS): Sadly, this game continues the Mini Mario gameplay that second game used...I want them to go back to the Donkey Kong Arcade style gameplay from the first game.

Star Fox 64 3D (3DS): WooHoo! I love Star Fox 64 and having a portable version of it is a dream come true. I don't know what will be added to the game other than 3d effects but I hope it doesn't mess up with what made the original game.

And so E3 2010 comes to a close...

E3 2010: Sony Impressions

Last one...After the unexpected domination of Nintendo at their conference, Sony's turn at bat was surprisingly disappointing. Not as bad as Microsoft's waste of space, but still pretty underwhelming. This mainly had to do with Sony not reveling anything that everyone was already aware of. There's still some games worth discussing though.

Killzone 3: I'm not sure what sets the Killzone series apart from other shooters on the market other than it being the only shooter franchise of any value on the Playstation systems. Everyone seems to be really excited for this one and I don't see much reason why. It looks pretty and some of the action is intense, but I have to say that don't like the Playstation controller for standard shooters, I'd much rather play it on X-Box...see I don't completely hate my 360....

The Sly Collection: I'm kinda pissed that Sony didn't dwell on this outside of an announcement that it was coming and it would in 3-D and be compatible with the Plystation move. The Sly Cooper series will be getting the God of War treatment by having it PS2 entries scaled to HD and released in a PS3 collection. I loved the Sly series and I can't wait for fourth entry in the series, but being able to play the older titles on the PS3 with thorphy support will be a the things that dreams are made of. The best part is that more of this collections are rumored to be coming. Keeping my fingers crossed for a Ratchet and Clank collection...

Playstation Move: Mircosoft's motion control device had a name change in the last year. Sony's device was just lucky enough to get a name. Like Kinect, the Move doesn't look any different or better than what was shown off last year. It offers full 1:1 motion control which is on par with what Wii motion plus can do and while the devices line-up of games is a lot less rip-offy than Kinect's offerings, they still aren't interesting enough to warrant a look. Sure, I think the Move is stronger than what the Wii offers, I just don't think the Market is there for it. The thing will launch this launch this September and there are bunch of different add-on devices to go with it.

Sorcery: Good job Sony! You made a Harry Potter game for the Move that looks even less interesting than they do.

Heroes on the Move: The idea behind this is somewhat intriguing. The game's a crossover between Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank, and Jak & Daxter and uses the Move to pull off attacks. from what was shown in the trailers, it looks like all the characters the do are their most basic attacks: Sly swings his cane, Ratchet swings his wrench, etc. I love two of the franchises on display here (piss off Jax...), so if I ever do get a Move, I'll have something to check out.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta: I knew that although God of War III is the final game in the series timeline, the franchise was just gonna do a Metal Gear Solid and release a bunch of games that take place at different points in the series history. This one takes place between the first and second game as Kratos is getting use to position as the new God of War. I don't have a PSP yet and I would have preferred that GOW III turely would have been the last of the franchise, but I might play this one.

Little Big Planet 2: I didn't like the first game, it came free with my PS3 (along with the amazing Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time) and just didn't live up to the hype and success that the franchise has garnered. The sequel looks like it could be an improvement. There's more customization options (no shock there), and the series is make a jump to cover more game genres than just platformers, so this one could be worth a look.

Portal 2: Like everyone else, I love Portal and although I want more, I don't really care for the notion of a full blown sequel. The first game was an independent masterpiece, taking a small idea an pushing it to its limits and working with little resources the development team had to its max. The sequel is getting a bigger team and seems to be going for the whole bigger is better idea that games stupidly fall for.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: I finally completed Final Fantasy XIII a few weeks ago, but that doesn't mean I'm icthing for more and it certainly doesn't mean I want that more to be an online game. I didn't like FF XI because it was online and my stance has changed here...didn't i say that last year? Oh well...

Gran Turismo 5: Again, I don't really have much interesting in racing outside of Mario Kart and Burnout so Gran Tursimo is pretty much a moot point to me. Looks really pretty though. Its stated for release nest year but given the infamous delays of the last game, I'm only interested in seeing rather or not it actually comes out.

Infamous 2: Infamous is on my list of Playstation exclusives that I need to play now that I own a PS3. Even though I haven't played that, I can't really say I'm excited for this and its for its for the dumbest reason...I can't stand Cole's new character design...his hair looks so damn out of place. Anyway the game's developer Sucker Punch also develops the Sly Cooper series and it goes without saying that I'd rather they make a new Sly game than new Infamous.

Twisted Metal: I've never played a game in this series before, but it looks cool, like a twisted version of Mario Kart. Not much was shown apart from some muliti player modes, but I could get into this.

And so E3 2010 ends...