Howdilli-doodili-doo! I'm Tyro and I'm an hobbying critic. It's a sad thing but it's a little thing I like to do. Otherwise, all these little ideas weigh down on my mind and keep flying round near constantly...I have no real limits on topics which is good because opinions and suggestions about almost everything keeps popping up in my head. I would review bricks or the orange I just ate happily a couple of days ago if needs be. However, I do like computer games a lot as well as looking over fan fics. Expect lots of that, especially here. Yes, your work could appear here... And about the name of the forum? The name is a small part of a little bit of my RP character's history. It was that or "Tyro's Foxhole". Nope...No...Just, just asking for trouble... Shall we get started? If "no", well, tough... [size=+1]Amnesia: The Dark Decent[/size] There are two things Tyro likes: A Good Story and things being cheep. Amnesia was both. Steam is a wonderland for a cheep-skate like me that wants all the super, wizzy games with more polygons than a bag of dodecahedra, but tends to be happiest when shelling out less than £5 for a game that cost at least six-times more when it was new. Thanks to the recent Halloween Sale, I picked this up for about £3.50. Or, in American: roughly $5.52. Chuffed to bits after hearing so much good about it, I popped it on. About, what? 10 minutes in, I was beginning to regret turning the game on, then thinking about purging my hard drive in holy water of the evil I had endured... Don't imagine that I didn't like it though. Amnesia is essentially a 19th century Horror novel you can walk through. How do I know? Let's examine the facts I can talk about without ruining everything: 1. Everyone uses 'that sort of language'. Everything is in an elevated form of English so all dialogue sound like Jane Austin wrote them. Everyone has that slightly poetic way of speaking reservedly called "Ye Olde Speech". 2. Your in a massive, largely abandoned castle in Poland somewhere. If you look up Horror Tropes, you tend to find that everything is usually set miles away from all and any possible places where help might be found. Anything genuinely useful happens to be either miles away or in a dark room full of crazed maniacs that wish nothing but to be picking bits of your out of their teeth for weeks to come... 3. Everything is explained in either flashbacks, letters, diary extracts or notes. Another Horror thing. If you want to sound clever to your friends, remember that when the plot is explained in this manner, it's called an 'Epistolary'. Their used usually for that...er...I'll say "Authenticity" feel. The other reason is usually so that the story can be staggered in just the right way to build tension and drama as you uncover the mysteries of the game. That's why all the best letters tend to be right at the end. The plot is, at the beginning, odd. I can't go into too much detail of course but I can say that you play as a guy called Daniel. He knows as much as you know about what the hell is going on and why that thing with no face seems to crave your flesh so much. The idea is simple: You have monsters in this game, somewhere, but you have no way of fighting them off. You must run or hide, otherwise you never get to see the fulfilment of the one, and only, objective you seem to have left yourself somehow: kill Alexander. Again, no idea who he is, but he must die. Well, why would I argue with myself? First sign of madness after all... On that note, I should move towards the gameplay. Amnesia does have a Sanity Mechanic. The only other time I can remember seeing this sort of thing was in a game called Eternal Darkness. That was an unnecessarily nasty game. If your sanity level dropped too low, it would play tricks on you, such as freezing your controller or pretending to wipe your memory card. But these Sanity Meters tend to seem like secondary health bars that you have to keep topped up to make it through the game. Amnesia's sanity seems more like a timer. You slowly grow more insane the longer you spend in darkness with no light or looking at something horrifying. Both make perfect sense. Monsters impact the mind pretty hard while being left in the darkness for too long confuses our sight, arguably our primary sense, rendering us vulnerable. We know this and so every noise or thing coming towards us is a possible monster. If your starting to feel a little cuckoo, Amnesia will start messing with your head in a more subtle way than pretending to erase hours of 'me-time'. Amnesia is above dangling your Memory Cards over an open fire waiting for the right moment to shout "psych!". No, it'll leave a corpse around for you to find. Then make it vanish when you come back to look at it again. Yes, Amnesia is a crueller game like that. Gameplay-wise, Amnesia is essentially a 3D Point and Click Adventure. Don't scoff, that style really works here. Amnesia asks you to, generally, go find stuff in areas patrolled by Mr No-Face so that you can progress with the task you set yourself. To get the item that will let you continue through the game, there is often a kind of puzzle involved. In fact, a large amount of what you'll be doing is looking for stuff that will allow you to get closer to Alexander or solving a puzzle that will let you proceed onwards. I found most puzzles to be challenging but not impossible. The most difficult and weird puzzle was one that related to shapes and a clue embedded in their name. I can imagine people sitting around for a good hour trying every combination of rod to hole. Unintended puns aside, the quality of logic here is much better here than in other point and click adventures I've tried. The tool your using on thingamajig A does make sense 90%, rather than about 70% where your logic and the level designers logic have gone in different directions. The other 10% of the time is down to tiny, science bits where it's not a hundred percent obvious. And one bit in the water. Amnesia is not a particularly harsh game as it will give plenty of clues. But it is scary. Everything that chases you is far faster than you. Even worse, your unsettlingly told that there is no way of attacking anything by the Developers right at the beginning of the game. You can't be Leon with a shotgun and a tub of hair-gel, mowing down Spanish peasants. You are a weak, helpless, clueless, lost little man with no weapon at all. You have a Lantern and squishy parts that don't have much use on the floor. All you can do is hide or run. And you can't always run. The game is grotesque too. For Horror, that's good. Your game shouldn't be pretty when your trying to scare people. Your monsters should move and look like something Nature would cough up by mistake. The environments have to be sparse areas of dilapidation. You have to be in a place you would never wish to step into. Amnesia delivers that constantly. You never really ascend to anywhere that has light. Everywhere is a dark, cold cellar or another hallway of rooms full of junk that could have been just thrown in. Dust is heavy, lights have huge gaps in-between each on and the game has a perverse joy in toying with you till it thinks your ready for the next appearance of Mr Hacky-Slashy. The game is perfectly timed to make sure your heart is racing in all the right parts. And while your not tripping over your own feet, we've good a mystery too. I never once read through one of the letters and notes the game expects you've read to understand what's happening, and wished they'd stop doing that. The fact that I wanted to know what happened here is a testament to the game's narrative. Characters mentioned are interesting but aren't kept for longer than necessary. Sweet! All I can ask for. Amnesia: Dark Decent is good. There. The bottom line. It's good; go find a decent copy of it. If I talk any more, I might blab something important about it. Go! Go!
Minecraft V1.1 Meet your new Lord and Master Minecraft Version 1 has been released This is not particularly recent news at the time of writing but it is important news from the view point of a critic. From here on out, Minecraft is officially a game. Notice that there is no-longer the word 'beta' hanging around it's neck like an L-plate made of stone. No! I has graduated, morphing before our eyes as the strange powerhouse of a game that has swallowed imaginations whole, letting us rush around a new, dazzlingly vast world. What makes it even sweeter is that Notch does not say merely "Here's a world, maybe a little story. Go have fun." Nay! He tells you that this world is yours. You are it's archetect, it's master. You may sculpt, plunder and build this world anew and in almost anyway you choose. All it asks of you is your time. It has taken so much already to create such wonders of a world ever-creaping towards your idea of perfection...Your imagination is now your fronteer. Cor blimey! I seemed to have unleashed my inner Tycho. Sorry about that, I must have gotten carried away there. *Ahem*, yes. Review, yes... Surface it to say, I like Minecraft. It's a digital version of when I played with Lego many, many moons ago, you might say. Except, I now live in the box of bricks rather than a god-like builder that reaches in and has a good rummage for the right bit. Instead, I must dig down to find it. Now that it's out of Beta, this means that there probably won't be much else to say on the Vanilla version of the game (and by that I mean an un-modified version of the game) for a long old while. That means that this is ther version of Minecraft Notch wants to be reviewed. All righty, matey! Let's start off with the potential idea that someone hasn't heard (stupidly unlikely) of Minecraft or someone has not played Minecraft. These heathens exist apparently...somewhere. Poor souls...their Worlds cluttered with polygons of which they do not understand. Such woe and...yes...I'll try to restrain myself... Minecraft is set in a world that is made up of thousands of destructible blocks that you can collect and then place again wherever you like, more or less. You are a random dude with a strange face and a blue T-shirt. This is your character but you are allowed to change what he or she looks like. It's a pain as you have to use other tools but it is possible. Now, this world is also in habited by other creatures that are usually referred to as 'Mobs'. They range from your basic animals such as pigs, cows, chickens and squid. You also have potentially helpful Mobs such as wolves. You also have the hostile mobs that will try to kill you. Zombies, spiders and Skeletons will try their hardest to rip you to shreds. The most feared is the Creeper: a creature that is able to explode. They can destroy what you create as you go about your building business. These guys will only spawn in darkness so only roam the world at night or in caves. Everything else appears in the daytime. You have a food bar and a need for shelter to hide you and any valuable materials from hostile Mobs. The Food Bar will slowly heal you when full enough but otherwise adds to the whole 'survival' thing. Everything else is health, armour and EXP. I'll talk about that last one in a bit. You can build new tools or items by combining materials but not all materials are just handed to you unless your in creative mode. Everything has to be found, mined and then taken back to the work space relevant to your goals. You must do this to make your shelter and tools better and better to resist attack from monsters better and better. Or whatever you like really... All right, that's the basics. How about we look at what Notch has added since the last time I looked at this thing, shall we? When was that? Beta Version 1.8, eh? Oh...I didn't finish the two parter I had planned...ah....Ah well... Now, that review for Beta 1.8 is here. It's right at the bottom. Everypony ought to glance over that because I should be picking up from there. But I apologise about the site's background at the time of writing. It's a very bright red, huh? Ender Stuff and The End The Endermen were left out of the last review so lets pick up where I left off. The Endermen are meant to be a more majestic and powerful new Mob added a while back. They're tall, black men with huge limbs that have the ability to move blocks. They're a problem to you, potentially for three reasons: 1) They can move blocks. This means that they can create holes in your defences if your not careful even though their ability to pick stuff up has been diminished. 2) They are the only mob capable of teleporting. I had one teleport inside my base once. Not cool man. Not cool... 3) They are actually quite powerful attackers providing they can lay a hand on you. Baring that in mind, the Endermen aren't that scary or dangerous. Firstly, they're docile unless you look at one in the eye or attack one. Even then, the one's I fought just teleport away. Secondly, they have more weaknesses than a chip sandwich. They can be hurt by water, sun-light and lava. They have no immunities so they're basically teleporting kleptomaniac zombies. Just have a bucket of water handy and they'll be easy. The Enderpearl now has a use. It's a teleporter. You through the pearl and you appear where it lands with a slight amount of damage as the price for such tom-foolery. It's not a cheep or effective form of travel but it's still cool to have. Apparently, you combine it with something else to make an Eye of Ender. This can lead you to a stronghold or open up a gateway to the final part of the game. The End is just something to work towards. It's a weird, lurid place filled with Endermen. It's made of a white rock and Obsidian. Here, there is the Enderdragon. This beast is protected by Elder Crystals and it's up to you to defeat it. You destroy the crystals making the dragon invincible before going for the only boss in Minecraft. He's stupidly hard and only, really, for completionists or people that want to be working towards something in Minecraft but can't think of anything else. I like this but I haven't gotten anywhere near finding the damn place. Yay! There's a vague point to Minecraft now. But I'm not sure whether we needed it...Minecraft was a game where you made your own fun after all. But! As I've played, it has kept me interested as I try and drag myself closer to The End one block at a time. Magical Stuff and Potions You remember that green EXP bar that was given to us in 1.8? Were you annoyed that it did absolutely nothing then go and download that RPG mod? Well, Notch has finally wired it up to something: the Enchantment Table. Arguably one of the most expensive items you can craft, the Enchantment Table requires a book, two diamonds and four lumps of obsidian. What it does is lay magical upgrades upon certain tools and armour at the expense of one full bar of EXP. So yes; there is now more of a reason to go out and kill things. To make your enchantments more powerful you have to surround the table with bookshelves. Yes, that is correct; there is now a use for bookshelves. The potency of your enchantments increases with the number of bookshelves feeding...words, I think into them like this: Cool, huh? The thing is that I've found growing sugar cane stupidly slow. This makes getting a small room of bookshelves very difficult. However, if memory serves, strongholds have entire rooms of bookshelves making them even more vital to find. The other Magical thing to turn up are the Potions. Effectively, its another list of recipes to remember. Hurrah! Like with crafting, brewing recipes are on the wiki and explains exactly how everything works as well as what makes what. Firstly, you'll need plenty of glass for bottles. Then you'll need to pop into the new Nether...which I'll chat about in a sec. From there you'll need a blaze rod to make a brewing stand. Then, you add your bottles (up to three) that you've filled with water and start adding ingredients one by one till you have the potion you want. You can brew Positive effect potions that increase your health or attack power or even make you impervious to fire and you can brew negative ones that'll make you weaker, poison you or slow you down. Lastly is what type of potion you can get. You can add redstone dust to increase the length of the potions effect but at the price of potency and glowstone to do the opposite. Gunpowder will turn the potion into a Splash potion. Effectively a grenade. It's an interesting and potentially useful feature that doesn't feel too over powered. I admit that I have not played around with all the potions but growing and maintaining ingredients for these potions is an interesting way of playing. You could figure out special gardens for them all. The Nether The Nether has always been a place I've gone to, grabbed a couple of bits then dashed back to the relative safety of the normal world. Usually some Netherrack and some Glowstone. Then, just left it. I can definitely say that the updates have improved the Nether as I've been back again and again to plunder the new Nether Brick structures, randomly generated in this world. Nether Brick is tougher than Netherrack. It can be crafted into stairs and fences. It has a resistance to Ghast attack but not Creeper attack, meaning that it's not a cheep alternative to Obsidian in that respect. However, it's still a handy building material due to the large amounts on offer. They form massive and expansive ruins that snake through the Nether. It doesn't take long to find them. And now the Nether is more dangerous too, potentially. Two new monsters were added. The Magma Cubes are just fiery slimes really. Blobs that bounce after you and split into smaller enemies when killed. It's the Blaze that is the real interest here. The Blaze is a flying weirdo that shoots fire at you. Why should you not run the other way? They give you the blaze rod, necessary for brewing upon death. Arguably, you'll only ever need one but they are nasty if your not careful. Small tip: rush at them when they stop spouting fire. I like these additions too. The ruins do the same thing as the underground mines. They suggest a larger story of previous settlers here that the game has yet to share with you. It gives this horrid place a sense of character. It also means that the Nether is more appetising. You have more of a reason to pop in. Not only for nether brick and blaze rods but for nether wart too for your potions. The Mushroom Biome and the weirdest animal you will ever see. This is where your most likely to find giant mushrooms natually occuring. It's largely gray soil and utterly bizarre. Not only the 'so this is what it's like to be a smurf' aspect but also the Mooshrooms. They're cows that have become part Mushroom. Their rather alien in many ways. They don't make milk, they make Mushroom Stew. You can even shear them for mushrooms. They creep me out a little with those big beady eyes... And while we're talking about animals. Sex Breeding has now been added to Minecraft. It's very simple. You get two of the same animal and give them wheat to put them in luuuurve mode. The powerful aphrodisiac that is somehow lost whenever you make bread from the stuff, acts upon the two animals and a tiny, baby animal is born. I've seen people dye their sheep then breed them to get a mixture of the two colours so the uses are more than just getting more food stuffs. Neat! Strongholds Meat the nastier bigger brother to the Abandoned Mines. These are long empty underground dungeons full of monsters and goodies. They have libraries vital for your Enchantment Table as well as boxes of stuff too. This seems to be the only place to see the Silverfish too. Their nasty little things that hide as fake stone blocks. The Stronghold is also made of some new material called Stonebrick. It's strong against most Creaper attacks so might be worth picking up a couple of 64's of it. Not only are the goodies here pretty good (Compasses, Diamonds, Ender Pearls), you also have the Ender Portal here too. This is your only way to The End. To activate it, you need to gather lots of Eye of the Enders to put in the blocks surrounding it. Which is no mean feat, I can tell you. The problem is finding them. Well, what you can do is get an Eye of the Ender to tell you. Throw it on the ground and it'll point the way but it might break while doing so. So that's more or less it. Minecraft is out and none of the things added subtract any fun from what your doing as far as I can see. It's still the strangely entertaining little playing we've grown to love just that now it's got a few more goals. There's still things missing such as an in-game tutorial (achievements don't count) and maybe a mod that could actually cause a larger amount of damage to my establishment. The worst they've done is smash up my stairs. But Minecraft is still entertaining and fun. Even better, the modders have a more stable base to work from now. No more having to modify everything to make sure their up to date. At least, until Minecraft V.2...
Christmas Films Christmas Movies Here's a brief guide to Christmas Films to help avoid turkey's and find little gifts in this time of perennial favourites. And crap they shove out for more money... Micky's Twice Apon a Christmas - AVOID It's not as good as it could have been as it bludgeons kids over the head with some message about not being a git. It tries to be about unity and stuff like that, trying to be mushy lovely stuff but fails to realise that we're here to see the entirety of the universe torture Donald into a murderous rage. Or see Goofy fail epicly to perform a few simple tasks in a bizarrely inventive ways or Micky to do...something funny. You know...whatever...he does...It fails to realise that it would be better being entertaining rather than peddling a message we're already bombarded with everywhere else. Just show us some funny cartoons! That was longer than I thought... It's a Wonderful Life You will be out of the loop on so many references and jokes surrounding this classic. It's entertaining if you can sit through a back and white film. You see the slow piling up of Georges problems getting in the way of his dreams and what he plans to do about it. It good. Go see. The Nightmare Before Christmas The film is really weird in the sense that it's arguably a film for both Christmas and Halloween. It's a strange, inventive and pretty musical that has some catchy, memorable songs. Go see. A Christmas Carol Now, there are plenty of versions of this. Possibly too many. So, here the one I've seen: Patrick Stuart as Scrooge It's arguably the closest to the original story your ever going to get so is basically awesome if your happy with Dickensian English and frightening old men into philanthropy. Go see this one. Jim Carry as Scrooge - AVOID It keeps large amounts of the original text and conversations but then tries to make it into a family adventure film. It's rather stupid because of this. One minute we're talking about workers having Sundays off, the next we're running from death. It's nonsensical. Michael Cain as Scrooge This is, of course, the Muppets version. It's a pantomime of great lines, funny characters and a very good performance from Cain as Scrooge I think. It's musical, silly and close enough to the story to work well. One thing: it you get the DVD version, then an important and pivotal song has been removed. I think it was removed because it was believed that it was boring kids but it then removes a huge amount of characterisation and emotion from the whole thing...Idiots... The Snowman and Father Christmas Charming and endlessly entertaining. If you have not watched these, do so or forever have people sing that song at you with your ignorence hanging around your neck. Elf Meh. It's kinda funny and rather stupid. You could do worse. Hope this helps. Merry Christmas everybody! Also, I know I've missed loads. Want to help? The Floor is open (and is always open) for people that want to add their own reviews. Or guides even.
The Adventures of Foxytail in the World of Aerial Acrobatics Oh damn it...I wonder what happened to the picture for my first review...Uuuhhh...I'll change it later... [size=+1]The Adventures of Foxytail in the World of Aerial Acrobatics (Or Flying Around in Pretty Formations, Leaving Pretty Trails in the sky)[/size] Yeah, if you don't give your stuff a proper title I'll make up my own....and their always awful... Foxytail is the one that bothered me into watching the show this site pays tribute too and getting me to come here in the first place. With that in mind, I thought it right to look over his stuff before anything else. Rather annoyingly, there is an order to his Fan Fiction offerings, going from Black Lightning - Foxy's initiation to Black Lightning - Training to Where Ever You Are with little to actually suggest this order. Just numbering them might have over come this but never mind. I got it the right way round now. But I will say for those briefly skimming, that he's done pretty well on these. Although that one thing about the order illustrates the overall problem with the stories that i have found. These need a good going over with a fine toothed comb as they have plenty of rough edges and things that need tightening up that I notices. They are small and sometimes petty that barely impacts on the over all quality of the work alone. But! These seem to be in 'first draft' stages where these small problems are plentiful because the normal mistakes that come with writing anything haven't been sorted yet. The bottom line is that these ought to be given the second draft treatment to make them better still than they currently are. Black Lightning - Training So, right off the bat, we get introduced to the story at lightning speed. This is Foxy, she's pink. She works at a bar. There's two famous colts she wants to chat too. Shoom, straight to the main thrust of the story only to stagger to a slower speed. OK, it's good to establish what's going on but there's no need to do so at such a pace. Tell us about the bar, mention what other patrons are doing, maybe even describe how Foxy managed to be talking with R and Flash. A little establishing of what's around the characters and what's going on is interesting and sets tone. It adds character to the bar their in to bring a little colour to the world. Then dropping descriptions of the characters into the mix to keep everything at an even pace so we still get a good idea of what the characters are like without having to stop the whole show to describe everyone. OK, so we're in to the story now. Foxytail creatively puts Foxy on the spot with a idle conversation between R and Flash about each other's heroes and she can't bring herself to shout "It's you guys! Your so AWESOME!" then ask for them to sign something. Good, it tells us a little about Foxy's possible insecurities. She continues her fan-filly appreciation with Flash and establishes a few more bits about Flash now. We understand he's a pretty important pony. Foxy witters on for a couple of sentences about herself and it's slipped that she's a writer. Good, good. We're laying down the foundations for the characters. Foxy wants to fly professionally but doesn't and is a writer instead. Flash manages the Weather and is the Captain of a racing team so is both important and probably talented to juggle both responsibilities. What about R? No? Just, just going to make him injure himself to let Flash race Zephyr? All right but maybe you could get some characterisation in the next story. Also, is Zephyr a rival of some kind? It was hard to tell, all that happened was that Zephyr made a beeline for Flash. Maybe a face-off or something might visually explain how Flash and Zephyr know each other. Or some banter where they make fun of each other playfully if they're not hostile towards each other, perhaps. Otherwise, it's as though the pony just wonders into every bar in Equestria, looking for challenges. Tiny details adds character in an instant. Now the thing is that the greatest flaw here is, as far as I can see, that the whole thing appears a little slap-dash. The concept seems to be perfectly fine: a young mare manages to lands her chance to join a famous flying team. She thinks she's messed it up but get's chosen anyway. It's not all that complicated and you can easily create origins from that very nicely. It's just that we're slower in the duologue than in the action sequence here. The balance seems a tad off. For instance, how far off is Canterlot? It's probably not that far, maybe about a ten minute trot because the two pegasi that finish the race do so in such a short time that Foxy appears to have never had much of a chance. It seems really odd to me how the race - a point of action and excitement - is dealt with like the story is embarrassed to be doing such a thing. It's especially odd when the dialogue has been building up to this moment as a climax to the story, then to be tied up in a neat conclusion bow later on. Also, she technically cheated. She never makes it to Canterlot, deciding to just turn around when the moment suited her. Petty, I know. Possibly too petty... But how about this? She uses the high-speed glide trick to get her to Canterlot, crashes through a door to somewhere in the city only to find she's a couple of seconds behind the other two ponies. In a desperate attempt to gain more speed she goes all out on the return flight, loses control then crashes into the forest canopy. Despite the battering, she pulls herself out of a death-dive to zoom straight out of the trees. She's last and beaten up. Depressed and deflated, she's coaxed into meeting Flash. Then Flash says something along the lines of: "Not many ponies could take turbulence like that!". Because she crashes through a forest canopy and manages to stop herself being turned to jam on the floor, she showed promise in a possible skill needed to be on the Weather Management Super Team Hyper Force Group Team. I mean, she's going to be handling storm clouds and those things can be dangerous. If you happen to be falling through the particularly big ones, you could get more bruises than if you were hit with a volley of bean bags. They can be violent places. If she's able to take that sort of punishment and pull up afterwards to carry on, she can handle a storm cloud on top of being able to keep up with both Flash and Zephyr. It adds a little reasoning behind Flash's decision. Otherwise you get the feeling that he just fancies her or something... Otherwise, the dialogue is done well. Characters chat with each other well and realistically, at least in my opinion. It's banter, not a careless fumble for the next line that will lead nicely into the next plot point. It has the best flow in the piece and doesn't include awkward kinks where the subject changes suddenly. It's coherent in the a way that chatting is only coherent to those involved. Plot holes are all over the place, sure but I get the feeling that this was the result of not having the time to think things through properly. It's not been combed for mistakes yet but all that's needed is new drafts. Just look over it and make a few necessary changes to tighten this up a bit. You've done well. Black Lighting - Foxy's Training. This has more or less the same problems and strengths as the first story. I'm not overly sure how much time has been spent on refining any part of the structure of what's happening but I think it needs another flick through. More so than Foxy's Initiation. As a larger thing to work on, I think you need to slow down a bit and linger long enough to give an idea of that moment or location's feels or looks like. When Foxy achieves sonic boom, how does that feel? How does she feel? What's the bar like at that point in the day? How hard is Foxy's heart thumping in her head when Flash offers to share a bath? These details let us try to imagine what the character is feeling too, of course. Seeing as your writing in prose, your allowed to occasionally slow the story to a crawl to explain the sensations a character is going through. As a more minor point, it would make sense to lord the threat of the show over the characters a little more as motivation for working hard. Even if it's in passing mention, it's meant to matter to them. They should talk or worry about this. The scene with the bath is awkward and rather cute. Yep, fine, good. I can't think of many ways of making that happen better... Where Ever You Are Ah, now we get to the current best of the three so far. A Fan Fic so well done in it's early form that it has earned the coveted Seal of Approval. It's an accreditation that I too strive for as I like having my efforts pay off with a horrify pun. Anyway, back to the review. And, again, it's the nit-picking that a going over with a fine-tooth comb could easily fix that slightly tarnish the story. Right, aaaand...we pay attention to details of the surroundings! Good. Yes, excellent. That's what makes Tyro happy. Paint that image with words. It's brief but it does get the job done. Happy Tyro. Next, we're talking and it's more of the dialogue that makes sense as two characters chat with each other. Good. We also get a good idea about the surrounding family and affairs of these two characters... Except any real suggestion for what motivated Ichigo to do whatever she did (although it is implied as suicide) further than "Her parents...did something...". They were strict, according to the testimonies of these two about being home-schooled after damage caused by flying, but not hugely horrible. Surely? Is this all explained in the next part of this? Is there another story in the works? You've got a big hole to fill here. But it's a sweet piece that needs refinement. It's already tugging at your average pony's heartstrings so your on the right tracks. As for small niggles, they are very small. The large flaw is what needs fixing over all in my eyes before sorting out a few minor bits. Foxytail has a knack for dialogue that could prove useful in his work. He's able to have characters present and lead into plot points without making the conversation feel forced in that direction. He attempts emotional depth with his characters, something well worth doing. A couple of things to work on: - Describe locations. They'll help set your story's tone well and adjust the readers perspective to observe events in just the way you want. - Proof-read. If it's not someone like me, then someone should look over everything, looking for parts that make little or no sense. - Slow Down a Little - Parts of these stories felt like you were rushing over them to get to the next part. This is not good for cohesion or being able to write something exciting such as the race. Shuffle through the story, making sure each detail has a specific purpose and that everything has sufficient detail. All right? All right. Now...off to look at the work of ponies I've not met yet. Hurrah!
BIT.TRIP Runner I've been playing lots of indie titles recently. It's been good fun. I got most of them around Christmas time and I'm getting through them reasonably well. I think I should share this with the wooooorrrrllldddd! Or here at least... [size=+1]BIT.TRIP Runner[/size] Juuust to clarify, this is for the PC version of BIT.TRIP Runner, not the WiiWare version. Not that I think it makes any difference. So, now that that's out the way, on to the review. I hate BIT.TRIP Runner. Seriously, I have never played a game I have hated more than this game. I've seen games I've been more offended by just by their existence (the Little Britain game (anyone outside of the UK can count their blessing to have never heard of it)) or had such stupid, soul-crushing elements that it makes the game irritating (Resident Evil: Outbreak and it's ability to kill you by viral infection) but I have never had a game slowly bully me as I play. But it's good in many ways. Let me explain... B.T Runner is a platformer in the same way that Guitar Hero is a musical instrument. In both, your just careering forwards endlessly towards your finish line, you just have to deal with every obstacle in your way. In Guitar Hero, it's the notes of the song but B.T Runner actually is a linear obstacle course. You don't directly control a little man dressed in black...I think it's a ninja. The ninja will run constantly forwards at a regular pace. Your part in all this is to telegraph to your ninja one of about 5 different actions to get him to avoid the obstacles coming towards him. The only actions you can signpost are for him to jump over stuff, flying kick spinning crystals, slide on the floor to travel under low hanging things without lessening your speed for some reason and leaping from special spring-loaded pink pads for a massive jump upwards. Fail to avoid an obstacle and you have to start the level again. Controls are pleasingly simple. You start off with nothing more than "Press Space Bar to Jump". Lovely and easy to understand. Goood. Oh, and look at that, the world is a crazy space place with loads of stuff happening. And your actions seem to be adding notes to this catchy electro music in the background. Sweet. They then add other buttons and actions later as you go through the game. The challenge mounts up and the premise is pleasing and eye-catching. The gameplay is simplistic and perfectly enjoyable as you work to avoid obstacles and get the runner to the end. Now, some of the more observant may have noticed a missing fifth thing the runner can do to avoid smacking into stuff. It's missing because I have no idea what it could be. I haven't gotten that far into the game to even know if there is one because the game, while simplistic and charming, is also very cruel. It's all to do with it's difficulty curve. Remember Guitar Hero and how it expected you to be able to play enough of a song to get by and pass. Sure, you passed badly but you still entertained the virtual 'crowd' enough to get out with less shame than failing. You appeased the weird dial at the side of the screen just enough to be let through to the next song. The point is that even though you had one shot or you'd have to start again, you had some wiggle room for mistakes. B.T Runner does away with the one thing that stopped Guitar Hero from becoming infuriating within a few attempts at a difficult point immediately: the room to make mistakes. You have to complete entire levels, start to finish, in one take. You can try it as many times as you like but you must start from the beginning every time you manage to smack straight into something. And as levels get harder and longer, that can start to grind a man's soul into the ground with a stiletto heel. Gratifyingly, it takes seconds to zip right back to the start but your likely to be seeing that little animation quite a bit. Then you realise that you have to make all that progress and perform all those acts of skilled reflexes all over again. That feeling multiplies as you get pinged back for hitting that crystal you can't quite manage to kick again. And again. And again. The first instance of this is right on the first few levels when your asked to climb stairs for the first time without the usual freedom of movement something like Mario would give you. I guarantee that you will fail at this obstacle again and again till you master the timing required. I'm not saying that this is a hard concept to grasp, it was just really difficult to pull off. It's torturous to be giving us all something this hard, this early on. At least let us see how bosses work first? The game has been made frustrating by giving almost no ability to make a mistake or two in the game. We're fallible beings, we'll make slip-ups. Especially if you suck at Guitar Hero as much as myself but if you don't add in hit points, how about Checkpoints for the sequel, if there is one planned? Checkpoints in the game would allow players to feel like some progress has been made but still taking a punishment. It's harsh to erase the entirety of the player's progress, frustrating, even. Games similar to this like Sonic and the Secret Rings or Guitar Hero or even racing games, vaguely, don't ask the player to begin the whole level again. Instead, they'll likely allow for a certain number of mistakes before shelling out an appropriate failure condition for losing. Either 'Game Over' or 'You lost the something something'. But even that is not as harsh as B.T Runner and it's demand that you play perfectly or you don't get to succeed. Even worse, I'm still only on the first set of levels. You see that picture up there? Probably no-where near that level! There's about four more sets of this game and I'm already finding it taxing. Great! Pleanty to do but it's going to get to the point where I may defenestrate my laptop. And anything/anyone that happens to be around me as I breathe fire and start to pull out my hair in frustration. I have a lot, I know, but I'd rather leave it alone for something genuinely, excruciatingly irritating that I would be forced to perform such an act. Like house training my first kitten. Or the day I get my first 'present' from said kitten. And it's just run up my leg and bit me. So that's why I hate the game: it expects too much of me and so infuriates me when it dumps me back at the start as if to say "No, no ,no! Do it properly!". Why am I still playing it? Well partly because it's still a well-made, fun little thing to play with compelling "one-more-go" gameplay but mostly because the damn thing will not beat me....With whatever deity that happens to be near by, I'll take one of the mods in a pinch, as my witness, Bit TRIP Runner will not beat me!
That's quite a lot of critique. I think that trumps half of the actual fanfics in text, and another half in effort. Though, if you end up critiquing mine, post it on its FiMFiction page.
All righty but I'm gonna post it here too. Just for a sake of keeping all my work in one place. But, err...Thanks. I think. I'm currently looking at the soul works of three Ponies at the moment but I'm sure you won't mind being the subject of the review after that... Heh. Heh...Heh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa! Hooo-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Heeyahahahahahahaaaaa! HAAAHaaahahahahaaaaaaa! Heeehaaahahaaaaaaaaa.... *And so on, walking off stage-left, cue lightning* Oh and, just cause I'm picking holes in everyone elses, doesn't mean I've not given it a go too. My Fan-fic is the Sci-Fi one with the long and unnecessary name. At least chapter one is.
Braid Oh, and err...There's this to contend with too... So, the next in the series of games I got given. Cheers JJWCool for this one. May the bland, uninteresting face you choose to show the world never, ever crack a smile. [size=+1]Braid[/size] Does any one have a good handle on what the heck is going on here? I think I have a good idea but if anyone has a better idea of what's going on, especially that ending and epilogue? I think there might be references to things like fractured psyche and arguably the best instance of an untrustworthy narrator here. It's an interesting game to lift the lid off of and start poking around in. Oh! And it's a wonderfully clever puzzle game too. Braid seems to be a deconstruction of the whole Super Mario Bros. thing and that's the closest to a spoiler you'll get here. It's not overly subtle in it's references to that particular game either. If you rush through the first level, you'll arrive at a castle eventually where a dinosaur will come out, telling you that "the Princess is in another castle". Heh, riiiight... The only other allusions to the existence of such a character are the books. Now, I know it's an unwritten law that games shouldn't ever be forcing the player to read something that could be conveyed through a more visual way, like a cut scene. But I'm willing to ignore the whole "Show, don't tell" Thing here as Braid has well-written gushy love-stuff instead of any straight forward scenes detailed in the books before each world begins. They're more heavily devoted to emotion than actions like a diary that was written in 3rd person. They serve to introduce the ideas but not specifically tell you what's going on. Braid's plot is more ethereal than tangible. OK, so you might come for the weird plot just to make sense of what's going on but you'll probably stay for the game play which is inventive and challenging. It's a puzzle game that uses some of the mechanics of Super Mario Bros to have you collect puzzle pieces to then complete a ladder to the final level. But you can't get about 7 levels out of just jumping so Braid throws in Time Manipulation too for good measure. Depending on the level, time becomes a bizzare and potentially Timey-wimey thing that could end up looking like a Snake's mating ball if your not careful. You see, Tim, the little man in the tie you control, has the power to turn back time, Prince of Persia style! There's a massive difference though. In Prince of Pursia, the rewind button was to fix your mistakes, making the complicated parkour jumpy-jumpy puzzles less taxing as you could re-write mistakes in an instant. But this power was limited in uses. Here though, the power is unlimited and really does feel like your hitting a rewind button. You even have a fast-forward too. Plus, this power can be used as much as you like, for as long as you like. Screwed everything up? Just start the whole level all over again by speeding up the rewind and waiting the Goomba lookalikes leap back into a cannon and come back to life. Complications set in when certain items will sparkle with some sort of magic that change their behaviour when ever the timey-wimey effects are in play. When you rewind time, that door might stay unlocked and open or that enemy will carry on walking onwards like nothing's happening. These elements are introduced to us then we're let loose to try and use the time conditions available to us to our advantage some how to get that all important puzzle piece. Because's the main aim of the game: collect those pieces to build the puzzles to get to the attic. The Time Elements really are the jewel in the game's crown, however. The puzzles here, while have a few that I could have never solved myself as they involved thinking in a way I had never imagined, are a good challenge but not overwhelmingly complex. They just need a little 4-D thinking. For instance, one set of levels has the condition that time is relative to your position within the level. Time will fast forward and rewind as you move forwards and backwards. You stop, everything stops. Then you have to use this to get to the ledge where the puzzle piece is. That's just one of the several inventive uses of time in the game that need to be seen rather than mumbled on about here... Before I begin to wrap up, I was curious about one aspect of this game. While it borrows a lot from games like Super Mario Bros. and a little of Donkey Kong even, I was rather surprised to see the return of a mechanic I've not seen for a long while. And it comes from this: The bit where you reconstruct the puzzles has been lifted straight out of Banjo Tooie, except without the time limit. I thought it rather...sweet, I guess that this got some sort of homage too in this game. As long as it is from Banjo Tooie... Anyway, Braid is well worth your pennies. It's interesting, entertaining and well-written. It will probably keep you guessing all the way through the game. Highly recomended.
You're welcome for playing Braid. My face may show blandness that may never crack a smile but once you look carefully I'm actully more than meets the eye. I couldn’t agree more. If you want more of my recommendations, try out Eversion, a nice Mario-like game (That's a lie, this game will test your fear) which is short but free unless you want the Steam updated version which is still short but looks abit better.
Hatred, Nuclear Fallout and Cake Right, that's that. Now on to sorting through this little lot...Hmm...How about we look at a few small morsels for now, eh? [size=+1]Hatred, Nuclear Fallout and Cake[/size] These three Fics are just a few I thought I'd look through rather quickly. They're not badly done or anything, just short and quick to read. I've not had the chance of yet to look at anything larger to review. Furthermore, that's three writers down in one sitting as these are the only Fan-fictions by their respective writers I could find. So, first up: The Nightmare Eclipse - By Chocolate Chip Ah! An open invitation? Wonderful. Thank you Chocolate, thank you. It's a rare thing for me but seeing as I haven't got a wet haddock, I'll have to review the fic instead. I'm going to start everything off, right out the gate, up front, right here, right now and say that this needs another look over. Quite badly, I think...The major mistakes are that the actual title of this little monologue is 'The Nightmate Eclipse' but I changed it as I assumed 'mare' was what was meant. I'm not so sure. What I am sure of is that Chocolate has accidentally written that Celestia "made it so evryone would be around to love your precous moon". Ah...er...Oh dear. Now in the logic of the story, everyone goes to sleep whenever Luna's Sun comes up, I guess. Vampire ponies or just nocturnal? You decide! Past the odd mistake, this is a stream of consciousness belonging to Nightmare Moon, comming from...the Moon, I guess. The opening few sentences are broken to show a frustrated anger, which is good. Then Chocolate establishes what was going on: we're listening to Luna rant on the Moon. Her voice enters, praising the moon over the sun as we'd expect, then...Wait, what? It's all a con?! Heh, that's actually rather interesting that these two sisters seem to be running some sort of sham to get wealth and power. An interesting idea: Luna has motivation for wreaking revenge as she's growing ever-more power hungry but then Celestia sends her to the moon to keep her from blabbing about everything. Is that it? Or am I making up more than what's actually there? Luna is an unreliable narrator, however, as she is seriously pissed with Celestia, unsurprisingly, so might just start throwing slander in at any moment. Nothing can be fully trusted as she might be warping reality to fit her own side of things. Most villains believe themselves to be the good guys after all. She openly spits bile at her sister and discredits an important thing Celestia is supposed to have done: use the Elements of Harmony. This seems like an odd thing to lie about though, so might be true...Hmm... I like the turning of the tables here. The idea of taking a snap-shot of Luna's point of view is a thought-provoking idea. It just needs a good bit of looking over again. It might be suffering from being written too late at night. Or after a hang-over. Or concussion after that last salmon hit. War Never Changes - By Ciphered Maybe I shouldn't look at a work in progress...Actually, maybe I should. Always handy to fix problems early on, right? So what we got? Well, to put it bluntly; Fallout, the games about surviving in an America reduced to radioactive ruins by nuclear bombs, that's also culturally stuck in the 1950's despite it all being about 2177 depending on the game you play, crossed with My Little Pony. Yes...OK. Not the first two things to come to my head to try to blend together. It goes against almost all of the bright and colourful themes of the show by smashing them down to a dull, grey-brown rubble for a start. Then there's weaponry: how would a pony operate a gun? Only Unicorns would be able to do it right? Are there Super Mutants and other monsters born from the radioactive creature shop of horrors? Is there a pony equivalent of Ghouls? Interesting questions that Ciphered hasn't gotten around to answering yet. So, the idea is that Equestria, at some point in the future is destroyed in a similar manner to Fallout. Bombs are the likely culprit as there is a shown need for a Geiger counter. Could just as easily be some magical what-sit that annihilates everything. Maybe a spell went pear-shaped, destroying Equestria. Ciphered distances himself from the story telling technique of the games by adopting his own. There is no "War, war never changes" monologue to start us off. Which isn't a terrible thing. I like that Ciphered didn't feel obligated to ape the style and narrative techniques of Fallout 3, I would guess, just because it's set in the same sort of place. But, the monologue served two important functions: it explained what was going on and had been going on for hundreds of years plus we get a good understanding of the tone for this game. A harsh world where Man is still struggling to survive despite the death of the world. It's all dark, bitter words. I think that Cipher expects the reader to already know about the world, or at least the sort of world, this is set in. Fine, that's fine as it was easy to guess which world we're talking about. But! Please don't ignore details of the world your exploring. Tell us about the Equestria that has been left behind in the currently nameless tragedy. Show us details of what a Lance Corporation officer's uniform is supposed to look like. Even details of the characters can help us envision them better as actual Ponies. It adds some colour to what's left of the world your exploring. Now, the story seems to be fine. Very Fallout. One army that's dragged itself from the dust is looking to attack. Another army is now looking to stop them. Yes, good. What are the other four characters here for? Are they important too? There's the two ponies at the radio in a bunker somewhere, finding the Post-Apocaliptic Everypony Radio broadcast. Wow...Even utter annihilation won't stop them. And there's the two scavengers wondering around the ruins of Canterlot. What do they have to do with everything else? The arrival of Lance in Povie and the introduction of the Mayor made sense but I'm unsure as to the point of showing us these random jumps right now. They have no connection to one another. This could, again, just be Ciphers style. The jumping around a following of more than one main character and plot point may have over-lapping goals later on that result in some conclusion. If that's the case, then I'll await eagerly the events waiting them, which should come with more installments. I'll keep an eye on it. Otherwise, I hope to see more. If there is any more to come. Delicious Cake - By Ink Swirl "Awwww.....:3" Me after I finished reading. This is an excellent piece of prose, as far as I'm concerned. It's short, yes, but well-crafted and sweet. It's a happy, touching interaction between two characters that seems about right. Never heard of the competition it was made for but Ink Swirl's mini-Fic is about Luna failing to back a cake for her older sister. It's as simple as that. There's a set up of the scene, introduction of the characters, dialogue to get the story across and one of those sibling-love moments then a small joke. It's worth a read and it'll barely take you a few minutes. Might even cheer up your day. Well, then a review's short, it means I like it. Good job, Ink Swirl.
Eversion Review [size=+1]Now for someone different.[/size] Hello my name JJWcool and like Tyro I’m a hobbying critic and I can criticize games to movies to shows to anything weird and unheard of. As I said I play video games, my usually favourites are shooters and RPGs while my least favourite is anything that if find boring. I’ve did seen alot of movies, mostly good and bad, some I completely forgotten unfortunately and let me tell I do like a good movie, if not then a laughably bad movie, if not then it’s not a movie at all. Okay let’s start with the game of the hour: This looks like a lovely colourful innocent game, now I want to keep thinking this a lovely colourful innocent game because it’s best to feel the shock in your own faces that this game isn’t a lovely colourful innocent game, hence why there is a quote from H.P. Lovecraft. I only came across this game from TVtropes and quite interested in the gameplay and game world around it. Plot: This is your standard Mario-plot with a twist. If you don’t know your standard Mario-plot, then I’ll explain, you play as a character, like a knight-in-shining armour if you say, who have to save the princess from a evil villain by going through a series of levels fighting minions on the way. Your character is a flower, don’t ask me why its flower, which you have to save the princess and this flower has to travel between worlds in order to reach that goal. The interesting feature in this game is the ‘travelling between worlds’ bit where the entire environment changes to actually help go forward, for an example one world can make enemies frozen in time as well as making clouds denser for you to use as a platform. It’s quite interesting the contrast to the worlds in the beginning compared to the worlds from worlds as you find later. The worlds get more and gloomier to chaotic to very monstrous. This game is indeed a horror game but do let the beginning of the game fool for just a moment that it’s not. I do have to mention that this game IS DEFINALLY NOT FOR KIDS. The horror is very inspired by H.P. Lovecraft where the story screws with your mind as you got no idea what’s going on, the monsters are basally like gods if they’re not gods themselves and the protagonist is basically ineffectual no matter how hard he tries and eventually get a fate that nobody should ever deserves. Yes this is that kind of game, which you don’t see much horror games like this, even in horror movies in which today are just sloppy, the closest that given me an emotion reaction (that isn’t a cat scare) is the first Paranormal Activity movie. If you don’t a strong stomach then it’s best to play something else unless you don’t have much imagination then you’re fine. Besides the ‘travelling between worlds’ gameplay, this game is basically a H.P. Lovecraft version of Mario, so it’s best to not expect too much and just play this game at night. There are some flaws in the game that I really find it annoying in the game like in one level I have to jump on to a ledge to a another ledge right above me without hitting the ceiling that blocks my jump or the demonic hand that would kill me. The biggest problem with the game is its length which is short even if you can get to the true final level. There are two versions of the game in which you can obtain: The free original version from the creators’ website: http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html and the Steam version which is cheap to buy with a small upgrade that includes more details, a time attack more and a level editor: http://store.steampowered.com/app/33680.
I have never had my computer break-out into sweats before...It did freak me out but I think once you get over the whole "This is all nucking futs!" thing, the game looses some of that ability to scare you. At least it did for me. For maximum effect,you need to know nothing about this.
Marble Hornets review You know, since I have some fun writing about a game with a strong influence on H.P. Lovecraft, I’ll review a YouTube series with a strong influence on H.P. Lovecraft I recently found. A friend gave me some thoughts that I send you the link to the series so you can watch before reading my review on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmhfn3mgWUI DVD store: http://www.marblehornetsdvd.com/ Marble Hornets is a YouTube series based on ‘The Slender Man Mythos’ so yes this a actual horror series with the monster being Slender Man (Slendy as I like to call) or ‘The Operator’ as this series may be calling him. If you don’t know Slender Man, he’s basally a monster who looks like a tall man with a blank face and suit with the power to teleport, being invisible, mind-bending, possibly time travel and messing with your video camera. Definitely a guy you do want to get his attention. Plot: Takes three years after a film student, Alex, mysteriously cancelled his own film then moved to a city far away and his friend, Jay, curiosity looked at the videos about the production of that film despite the warring “Burn it all”. Now Jay is stuck in a mystery that his friend is being stalk by Slendy as the whole world around him is going insane. I have to admit that this series is better as a horror series compared to actual horror movies especially in using the camera prospective like Cloverfield, REC and Paranormal Activity (not saying that they’re bad movies except for REC). Compared to Cloverfield the movie starts out with twenty minutes of character development to boring bland characters but Marble Hornets starts out with a two minutes exposition and the next minute introduce the monster of the series in a way it works. Compared to Paranormal Activity, when Paranormal Activity shows the characters outside of the horror area it’s quite useless and boring but Marble Hornets actually only shows the more essential bits and even better is that it’s still scary for multitude of reasons. I’ve never been so enjoyed and more horrified than any series I’ve ever saw. This actually proves that a small group of YouTube movie artists actually make a scarier movie than Hollywood horror movies but then again I haven’t seen much of that. As much as I eager to like this series, it does have that flaw you find in many horror movies, you know the ‘Stupid Rule’. The ‘Stupid Rule’ is where the characters doing something stupid for the sake of the plot and/or for the sake of some scares. In this case I find the ‘Stupid Rule’ in Marble Hornets indirectly scary and funny. For example Jay went to a house at night alone and when he finds it abandoned he still explores and never told the police and when he did gets out he still comes back again and still alone at night. Another example is that he actually went alone in the forest for no deliberate reason but because he’s bored waiting. He did get better as the series went on. You could interpret that ‘Stupid Rule’ is all part of Slendy’s control but that’s like to lame excuse to every horror movie but it’s still funny. The horror absolutely works and it’s the best way to introduce the audience to the ‘The Slender Man Mythos’. To tell you the truth most of ‘The Slender Man Mythos’ series didn’t exactly get the appeal for me like Everyman HYBRID mostly because it’s kind of slow and that everyone actually do know who Slendy is which just ruin the whole mystery for me. I still haven’t watched the other series though but I’m eager to watch. I did show this series to a friend of mine who uninterested with the series when I want to introduce her but eventually gave in. She in fact actually believed it’s real until the half way mark, which even then she still freaks outs at Slendy and rest of the insanity that happens. We still have some few laughs pointing out the stupidity of the characters especially Jay. By the end of the second season she very much wants to see the end of this series and even being paranoid of the dark. I can’t wait till show this to my other friends and see their reactions. Hopefully they won’t be too repelled or too aggressively indifferent like the time I let them play Nightmare House 2. There is another part of the series with the totheark videos, who is basically one of the characters of the show whose motive is largely unknown. totheark keeps sending replies over the Marble Hornet Entries with cryptic videos that doesn’t make sense to Jay or the audience. http://www.youtube.com/user/totheark There is even a Twitter spin-off but I really haven’t being paying attention to it. http://twitter.com/marblehornets In short: this series is one of the best horror series as long as you don’t think so much and have fun imaging this as real.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World Well, I do have a review for A Quiet Place languishing in my head but I'm such a glacially-paced reader I'm still yet to read Chapter Two. I blame coursework as well. Still deciding whether I should look at it Chapter by Chapter on in one huge lump... Anyhoo, Game Review Hero's been dictating what I've been looking at for a while. I think it's time I did something else. As much as I'd like to add to the string of H.P.Lovecraft stuff, I'm gonna do what I do best; talk about stuff I'm only just catching up on. [size=+1]Scott Pilgrim vs The World[/size] My word...Oh my word, this is a lot of fun. Edgar Wright. Hit Anime Books. Video Games used as one giant metaphor. Awesome Battle Scenes. Pretty Sweet Music. Kinda Funny too. Awkward Teen Romance Stuff. I could end it there really. I like this movie. Next chance I get, I'm sticking it on again. It's a strange juggling act where a film has awesome battles with comically oversized weapons with daft choreography, balanced by a story about a love-blinded fool attempting to get the girl of his dreams despite already dating someone. All dressed up with an Anime style of visual metaphor. It's unlike anything you might have thought possible from one of the guys that brought you Shawn of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. They weren't serious minded movies, no. But they're still pretty close to normality compared to this. Let's start off with the Main character, shall we? Scott Pilgrim has just come out of a break-up rather badly-scathed. He's behind on his rent, lives with his promiscuous house-mate and is dating a school girl on the rebound. After a dream about a girl with blue hair, Scott spots the dream girl in a shop and has a date with her before breaking up with his current girlfriend. Yes, Scott is a bit of a dopey idiot. He gets dragged around by fantasy and infatuation quite a bit. It leads him into awkward situations that require him to have a certain resilience of character to do things the right way. Instead, he cowers away from such things as breaking up with his current girlfriend before finding another, for example, and must now get away with cheating on them both. Our hero, fillies and gentlecolts! So far, so Rom-Com right? If this was called simply Scott Pilgrim this would actually still be a half decent movie. The cast are colourful and can tell a joke well. Michael Cera seems to be the go to guy for playing a struggling teenager character well. The supporting cast pop in and have their gags and parts of the story that they can help with to make sure it makes sense. They might not pop up all that much but they seem to have been distilled into a more concentrated character to make up for that. They get one or two token lines in the whole thing but it's more of a quirky addition than a forced subtraction. Cheesiness isn't all that abundant in the film and when it is, it seems justified. Or it's countered with an anti-climax for comedy. The ending, for example, when Knives says to "go after her" because Scott fought for her, it feels perfectly fine. To top it all off, there's Wright's style in here too. He is a director that is able to work quick transitions, visual gags and good, over the top action. Just look at Hot Fuzz if you don't believe me. Look at when Sergeant Tony Fisher is first introduced and look at the flip-chart behind his head. Look at how quickly we get from London to Sanford in under roughly 10 mins. And take a look at the awesome gun battle in the Town Square. All of this is here in this film too. It's just done in a slightly different way... Have you ever seen in an manga or anime random cuts away to something that appears to be utterly unrelated? I can think of one example and it's from Ouran Host Club (what a show...). The first episode when the characters are all slowly discovering that the new recruit is actually a girl despite vaguely looking like a boy. I think she looks around in the middle of both genders but, hey! It's anime, doesn't matter. Did you happen to notice that each time they got a clue about her real gender, a light bulb appeared on screen turning on? Yes, that was a visual metaphor for that character having a sudden realisation. Anime tends to slide towards the arty side of animation where it can convey ideas about what's going on through their visuals quickly. Partly because it's easier as Anime rarely has the same level of fluidity Westen Animation has often due to a large amount of character detail. Partly because of the Directors and that kind of visual style seems to be a running thing over there. Wright seems to embrace that same kind of visual variety here. The same kind Computer Game themed metaphors of the books are carried over to the screen. So, there's little things like stat bars, collecting extra lives and enemies bursting into coins with points flying out. One of the best parts is when Scott is asked who the girl approaching is. We cut to a gauge in his head that gets stuck between "I gotta pee!" and "Who's her?", resulting in him spluttering "I gotta pee on her." Simple but effective and get's the point across in point two of a nano-second. As for this style in a broader sense, it seems to be a series of trials to force some character development into Scott as well as jazz up the story with excitement. Scott's Dream Girl, Ramona Flowers, tells him that her evil Ex-Boyfriends are going to try and destroy him. To stay with her, he has to defeat all 7. Yes...They took teen drama and added some Megaman to the mix. As well as other things like maybe...err..Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto. Anything where people are fighting in huge battles with largely unexplained powers. They are an unexpected but certainly welcome break from the story as everything turns into a comic book for a bit. Or maybe Viewtiful Joe. They are tons of fun that work with the whole idea of the story being Scott having to fight against everything to become master of his own life. Each Evil Ex is a unique character with maybe one quirk about with everything is based around. The Indian guy has fire powers and a Bollywood Dance Number. The Vegan guy is psychic. The DJ Twins fight with music. And on and on. It's done with just the right amount of that video game style of camp that I was washed away with it. Everything in it makes you wish battles like these could happen to you too... Would I recommend Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? Well, I managed to pick up the DVD for about £4 in HMV. I have no idea where you might be, reader, or what they trade with there but £4 is a good price for a film like this. It's concentrated Game Fandom on top of a decent story, is what it is. That's money spent on a film we probably should have seen already.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D [size=+1]Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D[/size] I wouldn't bother watching this if I were you....You probably already knew it's a bad film anyway. 3D'll do nothing to help.
It’s such a shame that George Lucas hasn’t given up on Star Wars but it’s a greater shame that there are people that paying for the 3D version of Phantom Menace. From what I’ve heard, the only 3D part is the opening text, the rest is just poorly done and just a lame excuse to grab money. Sometimes I’m not really proud that I’m a Star Wars fan especially when George Lucas involved.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events I believe at this point, he must feel obligated to make these films just the way he wants them to be because we attribute him as the creator of Star Wars. Sort of... Ah! Anyone who liked the film, I would urge you to watch the original. Everyone else who's looking for something cheep to watch...hmm....How about... [size=+1]Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events[/size] Is this a good Valentines film? No. Good lord no but I think it's a beautiful, well-written and often grim story aimed at kids. And really should have been taken further. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of kids books written by Lemony Snicket (the pen-name for american writer, Dan Handler) that's openly dark and miserable in it's portrayal of the world. Three children are placed in the custody of their distant cousin Count Olaf who then attempts to embezzle any inheritance the orphans might have had, mainly through murder. Once he's accidentally found to be an appalling guardian by the clueless banker Arthur Poe, the Baudelaire orphans are taken to a variety of different relatives to become their next guardian. Each one is bumped off by the villainous Count Olaf, using his ridiculous acting abilities to sneak into the children's lives, often murdering the children's current guardian in the hope of getting custody of them again. Each time, the ingenious orphans trump the Count, escaping into the care of the next guardian. All of this is going one with a mystery of the spyglasses throughout this family. Firstly, I love the anachronistic details of this film. It's all over the place deliberately to bring out the gloomy setting of this film. Snicket and the film-makers don't shy away from the ideas of the book just because it's for kids. There is death, abuse and cruelty here counter balanced by the cleverness of the main characters. But, back to the setting, the Victorian details in what could pass as a relatively modern period with cars and fridges makes for a Poe-esque feel. It's gothic and knows it, choosing to flaunt the strange world the events sits in. The weird creatures in Monty's menagerie or the precariously perched home of Josephine, for example. It makes you sit up and notice any warmth in the colours when they do appear. Secondly, I really like Jim Carry in this. In other films, I've found him bloody annoying. Ace Ventura is funny, yes, but I couldn't watch it forever. He was al'right as Scrooge but an annoyingly over-the-top Riddler. That's my take on it. Here though? Fits really well. He's clearly just pissing about in the guise of a terribly incapable actor. It works, I think. Carry is seems to always play high-contrast characters that will have strong, obvious characterisation and it's clear here in the way that Olaf is given huge amounts of ego and pride. Carry's Olaf feels the need to fill every single syllable of dialogue with theatrical tones. He even stops the conversation to say something in the way he thinks he ought to have. He's a man that doesn't ever want his show to end, right down to his idiotic plan to get the orphans back. Thirdly, generally everything else. The film remembers to add some levity to this harsh, grim world. Olaf's bizarre disguises such as Stefano and Captain Sham. Poe completely missing what the Orphans are telling him. The warmth of Billy Connelly's character. The character's of children are good too, effectively sitting into the roles of the knower, the do-er and the muscle. Sort of...Sunny doesn't really count as muscle...except in the jaw department, I guess. What I find odd is that this film hasn't been picked up and ran with more. I for one, would welcome more of these films. They have room for them and it's not like Jim Carry wouldn't come back. He's mentioned that he had "a lot of fun" in an interview, saying that he could play a variety of characters in one film as Olaf. I'm sure they'll have to replace the children through as the actresses and actors are far older by now. For example, Violet's actress - Emily Browning- was recently in Sucker Punch and probably isn't likely to be able to play a 14-year old all that convincingly. Otherwise, you could argue it's mainly one of those "Shouldn't have released it around the time of the Harry Potter films" victim stories. Quite a shame. Maybe I should go pick up the books instead...
Shank Hello, and welcome to reviews on the new server. Let's start off this networking newness with some blood and guts! [size=+1]Shank[/size] I'm not a manly man. Underneath this shiny coat beats the heart of a hero but the stomach of a bottomless pit and the muscles of a four-year old girl. A rather nasty little girl, but still not all that intimidating. I'm as threatening as a teddy bear if you've ever seen me. Bushy tails and fluffiness don't strike fear into the hearts of men, even with canines like these: it instils images of the Build-A-Bear Workshop. But Shank, ah! Here is a world filled with muscled meat-heads that know only how to deal pain. And you play as the one that knows the most out of anyone. Shank is a fantastically good fun 2D beat-em-up with a beautifully drawn world mixed with a challenging battle to save Shank's girlfriend. And that's the story explained. Shank has a genre-savvy, B-movie, revenge story that should be familiar to anyone that likes those kinds of 80's movies. Or something done by Tarantino, I guess. Your Shank, a one-man killing machine that has to fight a small army with nothing but a chainsaw, two pistols and two jagged knives. Your trying to cleave your way though to your girlfriend, meeting up with people from his shady past. And you get to kill them too! Yay! Firstly, let's talk aesthetics. Sure, it's not graphically impressive, as is the way with indie games. Game's have been doing all this 2D lighting shenanigans for yonks now. However, Shank uses the lens flares and silhouetting along with a gritty, comic book art style that reminds me of Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik than anything else. They capture the feeling of a move set in a desert. Sure, all the levels look gritty and dirty but the variety of location is more important. We get seedy night clubs, slums, cage fights and meat factories to smash through. Even a train, just because...The plot stitches this all together well enough as Shank searches for clues. And by that I don't mean walking down a very long corridor with a Great Dane. More on that in a sec. But let's talk fighting. Shank has a combo system that depends entirely on what weapon you happen to be using and the direction your travelling in. Each of your weapons is attached to one of the buttons on the keyboard or joypad. To use that weapon, you push that button. To rack up a combo, you can smash that button repeatedly and you'll do a simple little combo. Its good for people just getting on the ladder of skill but the game starts to get harder quickly. Now that nursery is over, try adding some of the direction buttons in to change the direction or type of attack Shank performs. That allows you to slash at someone behind then cut in front within three milliseconds. Or, get out your guns and fill one bloke in front of you with lead before sending a shell up the nostril of the guy approaching from behind. For the master class, try stringing weapons together. Go from knives as a starter, bullets as a main course then a chainsaw as a desert that by-passes your mouth and goes straight for the guts. Shank also has two extra moves to deal death with it. Move number one is the shock-and-awe Pounce. At the touch of a button, Shank will fart into the air - slow motion will make this look cool while allowing your a few seconds to plan your next move - then glomp your enemy to the ground. From here, Shank will do something unpleasant to your downed enemy at the touch of a few buttons. Weirdly, enemies will leave you alone while while your doing this. I haven't a clue why they appear to back off but I tend to deal with enemies too quickly to have then smack me round the head as I quote Dirty Harry. Next, Shank can be made to grapple enemies that are the same size as him and it's rather the same sort of thing, except for the psychotic-nutter leap so it's a quicker alternative. These two moves, however, cannot work on the 'far-larger-than-you' enemies that are built like a tower block rather than a brick *squee!*-house. Which makes sense and balances the game nicely. Lastly for masters, you also get grenades. I don't know why either but welcome all the same. Now, they are not the terrible, pear-shaped nukes of screen-clearing they appear. Actually, their handy for causing lots of damage to a select group of enemies that are close to each other. Or just one, maybe. Any Jedi playing will want to think about defence as well as offence. Shank's defective abilities are closer to a Super Smash Bros. character than anything else. You hold a button for as long as you like to sacrifice all other movement for not dying. And if there's anything that doesn't look like a block will do, you can slide either left or right to become like a ghost. You manage to slide around them, avoiding all damage for a few seconds. You even have a split-second to sit there and hack at their spine while they turn around. Now, I never could find anyway of working blocking into Smash Bros. without hours of practise and it's just as difficult to pull yourself back from mad-button smashing to then think of making sure Shank's face wasn't full of knives. On top of that, we have two flavours of jumping out of the way. The regular jump is all right. About as good as any normal fighting game character; just enough to jump over most enemies heads. It's not overly quick but it'll do if what you want to avoid armed maniacs but the Pounce is a slightly faster alternative. Your shot into the air then allowed to come back down on someone to relieve them of their entrails. This doesn't work with the larger lads though as they'll swat you back down no matter what. So, a nice amount of levelling for a player to get progressively better at mass-murder. They can get the basics then move on upwards through the necessary skills. It's just that, the difficultly will jolt upwards at your first boss fight once you figure out how to fight him. They have the old style bosses here, where they are relentless in their efforts to pummel you into the ground. It's lucky they don't guzzle lives or money in this case every time they turn you to jam. The combos themselves are simple but using them is a tad awkward. Hammering new combos out seems to need a direction to attack in, for reasons known only to the developers. It's an odd quirk of the controls to have to move forwards constantly that blocks learning how to play. As I said, the game recommends a joypad and it does make a world of difference. Hammering an important piece of equipment, like your keyboard, as thought your fingers are jack-hammers is detrimental for when you had enough and wish for the simpler life of chatting to your mates. If you've smashed your keyboard half to death, then your friend has only the conclusion that your under the effects of dentistry medication when your messages are full of missing letters. Lots of "pplogie" for not making any "ence". Furthermore, when they tell you that, it tends to mean that the game has been built for use with joypads, and then begrudgingly checked with a keyboard afterwards. This game seems to have been built with being made for a games console but saw no harm in putting it on PC's. Now, I'm fortunate enough to have joypads in the same design as a PS2 controller. After years of owning a PS2, I had no problems hammering buttons on mine but things might be different on other controllers. For the sake of your ability to make mincemeat of armed angry people with greater ease then to still be intelligible to your mates later, use a game pad. And now we have the bosses. In a game where some of the enemies are twice the size of the main character, the only logical conclusion to make bosses dangerous is to make them five times larger than the main character. And their all really nasty. While Shank is a reasonably powerful battering ram of splashiness but the bosses tend to be more so. Their attacks and the amount of health they have mean they can take almost anything you can throw at the hulks with ease before smacking you into the wall with one fist. Your advantage is your speed and your guns. Each boss, even the super speedy (and as tall as Shank is) woman with the katana, has a situational, reaction move for Shank to deploy on them to inflict far more damage than knives, guns and chainsaws will. Generally, these reaction command attacks can be orchestrated by you. For example, a gentlemen by the name of 'Butcher' happens to be working in a meat factory when you find him. He will then come at you with a meat hook on a chain. To combat this, you lower carcasses hanging from the ceiling close to where Butcher is standing to then have him get the hook caught in the meat. Then, you leap on him, pulling the chain around his neck till he chokes. Spam that for all it's worth and there's your boss fight in the can. That is my only problem with it. You spam that one reactionary thing for all it's worth and you win. You can try and beat them with knives and guns and chainsaws but you've got to be Jedi Master at least before doing so. While I makes the bosses a puzzle to figure out, it feels more gimmicky than a simple battle using all the skills you've used so far in a mano-y-mano fight. It's closer to bull fighting. You avoid them then go for their weak spot. It's a different way of fighting that the game never sets you up for in the rest of the game. I'm not saying it's a bad way of fighting, just not what I was fully expecting. Story-wise, this is where you get told what's been going on and why your heading for this one person and that's usually for a clue. It seems more of the fault of the levels structure than anything else as we do get to see why these guys have taken your girlfriend and probably deserve the effort of fighting. It just that we get it the instant we meet them. We turn up then get an info dump. Why not use the screen in the corner more for filling us in? Occasionally to explain certain points of the plot and to get tension high, we get a small screen in the corner detailing what's going on like a train leaving the station of a phone call. Small things. Why not use them for exposition too? I know we're beating the hell out of baddies but I never felt too distracted when the information is in plain sight. But, fights made enough sense, when they were explained that I'm not horribly miserable about it as it's pretty good. I'm expecting a Valve-esque story that's omnipresent and that may not be possible. And, to add to the complexity here, there are more than just one type of gun and...secondary choppy thing you can use. Things like shotguns and machetes. Nice! Each one has their own combos to bring to the table in roughly the same matter and their own methods of slaughter. Each has their own strengths, weaknesses and proper situations. Some are good for crowds, some are good for keeping people at bay and some are simply good at killing stuff. You'll pick them up through-out the game. Each feel balanced enough to be usefully and powerful but not over the top, making the bad guys a threat still. One last mention has to go to the music. They have hit the nail on the head with all the horns, the crashing symbols and the slow, lingering guitar. Perfect for what this game is emulating. Shank is a beautiful looking game filled with one super man kicking the *squee!* out of hundreds of others. It's bloody and bloody good fun. You might need a wee bit of practise before you really get in it but you should be sailing along by the time you get around halfway past the second level. It's detailed and has the heart of an action B-movie. Right down to the fact that the main character gains health and sustenance from beer alone. That should tell you a lot about this game and how much of a ride your in for. Go! Go find it! Before he finds you! It's only about £7. Now, it was important to get this review out because it's now got a sequel. This gives them a chance to fix anything that didn't work the first time and generally improve. To get some continuity and sense of improvement, I came up with a little list: Tyro's Wish List for Shank 2 Use the little window in the corner more for story further than what's immediately happening. Tweak the combo system so that it's less fussy about the direction your travelling in. More weapons please! Maybe some more unusual ones? Alternative costumes, characters or something for us to unlock over the course of the game.
