Wolverine : Double fisted.

Well I have both enjoyed the Wolverine Origins movie and the Wolverine un caged on the 360. Both made me happy. But today we'll start with the movie as I've seen it twice now and I'm still in the mindset that I enjoyed it. Question is, does it live up to the hype?


Lets start with the movie shall we? Once again we see Hugh Jackman or Jeeekmeeen (if your from Australia) puts on the mutton chops and claws to play wolverine once more. This guy was born to play this role, looks and style wise, they couldn't have picked anyone better.

Firstly I want to draw attention to the casting for the movie. All in all, I was impressed, as the characters seemed to fit the actors for the most part. I will explain in detail later.

!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD ME HEARTIES, GO CRY TO YER MOMMA!!!!!!

X men Origins: Wolverine starts us off with an interesting ideal of how the killing machine we all know and love came to be. As young children both Logan, (born James Howlett) and Victor creed are living in the 18th century. During a rather confused scene over who is the true father of Logan, Victor's father kills the apparent 'father' of logan. Out come the claws and Wolverine Jr decides to exact some old school justice.

The ideal that wolverine and sabretooth were brothers was always hinted at in the comics, but they some how seem to make it work from the get go of the movie. From the average movie goer's perspective, it works. I'm sure however, like other parts of the movie, this will have the nerds clawing for their inhalers due to the comic induced inaccuracy of the movie. From there we are thrown into an awesome scene through the various wars both Logan and Victor have fought through. I thought this worked perfectly and was seem less in the transition. The opening scene got me on the edge of my seat. However, I feel that the movie didn't keep the adrenaline injection constant.

The weapon X program is the centerpiece of the movie. Everyone wants to know where Wolverine came from. Not being the most dedicated of comic book fans, but knowing the general synopsis for the story, I felt this was generally easy to understand for the average movie goer. I know there are some massive inconsistencies and mistakes throughout, which deviate wildly from the comics, but unfortunately, that's Hollywood kids.

Colonel Stryker makes his reprise, but not played by Brian Cox this time around as we are indeed, in the past. The story focuses on Team X - a group of mutants that were assembled with Strykers blessing. This consisted of Wolverine, Sabretooth, Wraith, Agent Zero, Bolt and Deadpool. With a brief intro to all the characters, and their super powers displayed for the audience, which is awesome, but again, hardcore fans will be upset. I will be honest as I have not read the Team X comics that were produced, but knowing the characters, I felt that this first scene was really stunning to watch.

The story also focuses on Logan's first love of his life as he abandons team X to live a life free from killing. Soon enough though he is tracked down by Victor and the fun ensues. Styker then offers Logan a chance into the weapon X program. This is the point of the movie where most of the semi serious fans will pick up right away and be generally happy with the plot from this point.

There are other mutants in the main story, but they don't really get much of a look in. Wraith, Blob and Gambit all make very small contributions to the film. It felt like Gambit was an after thought. They left him out of the original X-men movies, so by giving him 10 lines of dialogue and some cool FX, every thing would be better. I thought the actor that played gambit was excellent and it was a shame they shunted him to the sidelines so quickly.

Although Hugh Jackman always pleases in his wolverine outfit and does the character justice, I feel that Liev Schriber stole the show with Sabretooth. While Hugh was roaring on set, I felt that Sabretooth seemed so much more natural. He had the whole calculated killing machine mentality down and with a very dark sense of humor, it brought the whole package home for me personally.

Like I said before, there are some HUGE deviations from the true story arc, however, you've got to look at it objectively. Stan Lee was on board for this, so it had to get his blessing before someone completely butchered a story line. I think adaptive change and a fresh look is good for a movie, however, there were some parts I really thought crossed too many lines.

For most serious fans though, there was one mistake that I feel might have damaged the upcoming Deadpool origins movie. Deadpool was taken on somewhat of a tangent. He was literally the 'DEAD POOL' and by this they turn him into the ultimate mutant with multiple powers.
Yes unfortunately, the beloved Deadpool was really really REALLY messed up. Now with Stan Lee on board as a producer, you think that red alarm bells and shiny lights would be going off when they thought of this idea. I guess the green money printing Cha Ching noises must have drowned the other alarm out. Now for the movie though, it stays in line with THAT story. However, it doesn't make a lot of sense and will leave a lot of the marvel fans with a very bitter taste in their mouths.

Ryan Reynolds however should be noted. In the first part of the movie before the butchering happens to his character. He actually has the attitude and the never ending mouth down perfectly. Katanas spinning and people getting killed, he pretty much nails Deadpool's persona, albeit there are a few inconsistencies.I won't go into every little character flaw that was made with him, but I felt that initially, he was going to be awesome. Having already known what happened to Deadpool from a friend that had seen the movie, I was prepared, but still, I wasn't quite prepared for this. Just for comparisons sake...here's some food for thought....




Baraka - Mortal Kombat




Oh look Kids! It's Deadpool, now with LAZOR vision. Oh and if this didn't piss you off enough. He teleports too.Fantastic. No wait. It isn't.Katanas in his hands, oh my word, this is a strange similarity. Oh and if this wasn't enough. They sew his mouth shut to make it ironic as he is the 'merc with a mouth'. Ha. Perfect. I bet the execs spent all night thinking up that little gem. Terrible. To cap it off nicely, they make him a robot essentially that follows Stryker's commands. In the process the space around his eyes looks eeriely similar to Deadpool's actually facemask in the comics. Weird ain't it?

The only reason this is a bit of a bum rap for the movie is because in essence, they spent so much time at least TRYING to keep true to the original characters, why would they go this strange route. With the upcoming Deadpool origins movie in the works, this might damage Marvel's chances of making it stick with the comic fans. I mean if they are trying to make him marketable, then...they should make a toy too...that would follow.

OH SNAP!

SPOILERS END!!!!!!

In all seriousness however, I felt the movie was entertaining. Nothing ground breaking and certainly not as hyped as I felt it could have been. Blame that on the movie leak if you will, but they could have really mopped up at the box office if they kept the story a lot tighter.

As previously mentioned, I feel that Sabretooth stole the show, and even with out adamantium claws, he proved to be far more menacing than Wolverine.

The special effects, although there were some glitches in parts of the movie, were pretty decent. The action was balanced and kept you pretty much interested with the movie for the most part. Personally I enjoyed the character backgrounds to some of the more minor mutants such as the Blob and Wraith. They were interesting sidelines, but I truly wish that they had given Gambit more screen time.

All in all a solid film, which delivered the back story of Wolverine. Comic book fans will hate many aspects if not all of them in the movie. As I previously stated, although it's nice to think that the director is going to do justice to the comics, sometimes that just isn't realistic when cramming it all into two hours.

Frankly, I think it's a great start to the summer movies that are coming out and I look forward to the future blockbusters.

RATING : B - Solid but lacks the pace of Xmen 2.

Ubisoft in imaginationland.

Now I'm not talking about a literal pun about guns misfiring because that's part of the 'fun' in Far Cry 2.

To save an in depth review on this game, it's much easier to look at Ubisoft Montreal Studio's last few titles - Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2. Now these are all respectable games with average to decent reviews. However it seems one thing they truly lack is imagination. Imaginaaaation, Imagiiiinaaaation.

But wait a second you say, Ubisoft made Ghost recon and other such awesome titles. I retort, yes indeed they did. But their Canadian studio just isn't cutting it with their game play design. I don't even pretend to understand the maths involved in coding a game, I truly don't. However, something that requires no degree in physics is creativeness. It's not hard to think of a way to keep the story going.

The three titles mentioned all suffer from the sudden cardiac arrest that occurs probably less than halfway through the story. You honestly stop caring about trying to finish the game as all the missions are the same.

Far Cry 2 - You are sent to kill the jackal (original...never been used before) - Then you are sent on pointless missions to turn factions against each other. And you meet the Jackal...twice? Before you go in to the 'Heart of darkness'...during apocalypse now...uh i mean Far Cry 2. For those of you that don't read books, the Heart of Darkness is a very old book that discusses just how shitty things are in the center of the continent. Long read and wordy, but it was a 1920's look into the way the country was being corrupted.

Prince of Persia - So you have to save the princess. Shit. Original. From an ancient evil...that is locked away and is trying to escape. So this game is utterly different from shadow of the colossus....and Zelda...and shit well let's throw Mario in there for good measure. Lame. They made up for it with the anti-hero styled ending but still. Meh.

Graphically speaking however, they have truly nailed it. Far Cry 2 is just beautiful to look at, and every detail has been noted. From the rust on your gun if it is in bad condition, to the vultures that flock over an enemy camp. I mean it is flawless. Graphics wise, Ubisoft is setting the bar higher than a lot of other companies.

That does not forgive a shitty storyline. Games that hold the semi serious gamers attention needs to give them a reason to beat it, something that denotes a sense of urgency to finish up. Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed just don't do it.

However, Assassin's Creed did have a much more interesting story line in the first place, so they were just shy of the mark there.

In fact fuck it, I will set Assassin's Creed aside just because they put so much effort into making it at least somewhat fast paced and exciting to play, although the missions did get samey once again.

When I talk about game play being repetitive, it's simply because all the missions are IDENTICAL. There is no change in how you approach the mission, there is no change in how you complete the mission and they even use the same voice clips for EVERY MISSION. If your spending millions to craft a game, what the hell is a few more seconds of voice recordings going to cost?

I just find it frustrating that so much effort goes into these recent games in every other aspect, yet they omit the most important one. A reason to not put it back in the case and return it for something else because it got boring. Take a look online at any of the reviews and all the big guns say 'Wow 9/10, I never actually played it but shit it's great!'. Then take a little peek at the user reviews which are split down the middle, saying things like 'This game was boring as hell.'

Wait...a difference of opinion...could this be true? Could politics be organised? Could elections be fixed? DID THEY RIG THE OSCARS?!

However, with Assassins Creed 2 on the way, I am hoping for awesome sauce things. They should deliever as the first one was fun to play for the most part. Just for the love of god Ubisoft, don't make a Far Cry 3.

Left 4 Dead review

This might be a little late in the telling, but I finally got around to grabbing a copy of Left 4 Dead.

Now nothing is more gratifying than a zombie apocalypse, we all want it to be the way humanity ends, right? Well Valve thought 'hell why not' and gives us, the general gaming public, the opportunity to be the last bad ass survivors of said apocalypse.

I was truly skeptical when I purchased this game as I had heard nothing really up or down about it except for 'oh shit yeah it's fun, you get to kill zombies'. My mind instantly turned back to Dead rising...which was fun...for all of twenty minutes...then a weak 'story' was injected which frankly made the zombies a mere obstruction than any actual fun.

For those who are concerned about storyline and gameplay, I will break it down. You play the survivors of the zombie infestation, all of which are wonderfully stereotyped to fit the game.

The game is set up into four major campaigns, each consisting of 5 individual missions. The final mission of each campaign is the last stand against the zombie hoard before you are rescued by some means of transport or another. Personally I found these missions to be the most enjoyable as the odds become down right ridiculous at times.

The story for a lack of a better description, is non existent, and that's the beauty of this game. It is set up to be all in all as if your playing in a B-movie zombie flick. And it works, my God does it work well. The point is folks, you don't need a story, much like you don't need a reason why the zombie apocalypse started, but more a reason to find a gun and start shooting them....in the face. This doesn't get old as you feel like you are actually making the last stand for humanity. It's unfair, and the zombies keep coming, and man is it fun!

The 'director' or the AI determines how well you are doing throughout the game and depending on who is still alive and other such factors, it will alter the game accordingly. Now having said this, the difficulty levels are VERY important. When it says EXPERT, don't think that this is a Capcom title where you can button mash to save the day. This is quite different, as you will be killed in oh...three hits? Your ammo will be painfully low, health packs will be in short supply,and the nice selection of guns will be only at select points during the campaign. Honestly it's down right unfair at some points and you can only laugh or cry, or throw your remote through the TV. Yes, it's one of those games.

With regards to weapons, the selection is limited but perfectly balanced. There are no weapons that make the game unfair. A mix of machine guns, shot guns and pistols are your choices. Explosives are limited to a pipe bomb...which all the zombies chase, useful. The alternative is a Molotov cocktail which allows you to throw up a barrier of fire if your in a bind.

To make matters more frustrating, you've got to deal with 5 'special infected' that are randomly spawned by the director depending on how well your doing.

The boomer is going to be one of the smaller problems in this game. This fella vomits on you, which then attracts a new hoard of zombies straight to your position. This leaves you unable to see for a good thirty seconds, so you've got to have good protection once this happens. Oh and if he explodes, same thing...joy.




The hunter is another personal favorite of mine as this infected is quick and can leap great distances. Can be heard in the level by the distinct growling sound it makes. Seconds later it will pounce you and start clawing your player to death. Makes quick work of you, so again, buddy support is essential.


The smoker is another infected that your going to face frequently. This infected uses his tongue to pull you a long distance away from your group and choke you to death. Nasty.



The tank. His name is exactly what he is. He is hard to kill normally, but on expert mode, you better have a battle plan. He will destroy your entire team within minutes if your not careful. The music will change to a dramatic fan fare and the ground will shake...you'll know when you see one.

Finally there is one non playable infected, the witch. Now the reason for this is because the witch is a sort of zombie car alarm. She will be crying in a corner of the level, which is very audible, as well as the creepy music that plays to remind you. You can either try to kill her, which will startle her. You better be ready because she will incapacitate the perpetrator in one hit.




Beside these guys you will face hundreds if not thousands of the regular zombie hoards. Now don't think George A. Romero when it comes to zombies. No, think 28 days later of the latest version of dawn of the dead. Yes, that's right, you guessed it. They sprint. No slowly lumbering zombies, you'll be burning through ammo clips like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't, apocalypse remember?

The multi player both co-op and online is immensely fun. If you have three buddies to play with through the campaign on co-op, there's a good chance you'll grab over 80% of the achievements after a few plays through the game. Playing Versus mode can be one of two things, amazingly enjoyable or unbelievably aggravating. This is my one gripe with an otherwise near perfect game. You play the campaign as normal and each chapter is played twice, once as infected and once as the survivors. If you know what your doing, you can dominate the game easily. However if you have people that either don't listen or want to go off on a vigilante zombie rampage...you are going to run into problems, and more than likely lose completely.

Communication is vital in the multiplayer as there is a lot going on all the time. You won't see every zombie, so if you and your team mates can watch each others pack , you'll be fine.

This game is wonderful in its simplicity. It doesn't try to have a big epic back story. It is exactly what it claims to be, and that's why it works so well. You don't feel bored when you run back through the same level because the attacks happen differently each time. The replay value of this game is very high due to the dynamic levels and the co-op via online. Overall a solid game and a surprising win in my eyes.

Graphics : 8.5/10
Game play: 8.5/10
Replay value : 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10 (Due to B movie awesomeness)
Multiplayer : 7/10

Overall : 8.5/10 - Solid game, downloads are imminent. This will add even more replay value to the game.

Gamez Gamez Games

So upon my return to America, I've been playing a bit of xbox...well...a lot of xbox as my personal way of getting reacquainted with being bored. And well, this has led to reviews, which will be pending and upcoming.

But in the mean time, I've found this little gem. Now some of you might not be familiar with the kid show Lazy town. But it's a Netherlands invention which has quickly become a pedophiles wet dream, in technicolor...oh and there's puppets if you guys are into the whole 'inanimate' thing. It's terrifying and disturbing...and wait...they sing. Some bright spark decided to change it up a little and I for one, am glad to see the changes.

So here it is ladies and gentlemen, my personal insertion into the hard drive slot of the internet. God I feel dirtier because of it. However, this will not dissuade me from posting inane and insane rantings here about anything that crosses my mind at any given time. Stay tuned.