Persona 2: Innocent Sin

/ skoce / Leave a comment

p2is0

Persona 3 FES is the game that got me into the Shin Megami Tensei mega series. I had been aware of the series before that, but I had never had the opportunity to play any of the games before.  I knew about Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for PS1, but I never saw it in the wild.  The same goes for Nocturne.  Even if I had encountered them, there is a good chance that I would have passed on them; I don’t tend to be a fan of stuff that is “dark.”  But I had heard enough good buzz about Persona 3 that when the re-release was happening I made sure to snag a copy.  It was a great decision.  Since that I had purchased nearly every SMT game, most of them right at launch.  Unfortunately, I often find the games to be as draining as they are enjoyable, so they tend to sit on my backlog.  I bought Persona 2 Innocent Sin for the PSP even though I didn’t own a PSP (my brother did and I did have inconsistent access to it, but I didn’t have one of my own).  It sat on my shelf untouched until a couple of weeks ago.  That was a waste.  I don’t consider P2: IS to be as good of a game as the PS2 Persona games, but it was still an excellent experience.

Persona 3 pulled me in with a solid, thoughtful story.  Yes, it relied plenty on anime clichés, but it was still a well-constructed narrative.  Plus, the Social Links systems let the player feel in control of the protagonist without actually giving the player any control.  The plot is going to play out the same regardless of how the protagonist spends his free time.  Persona 3 kept me playing for 90+ hours with an excellent battle system.  It was tough but almost always fair.  It was all about knowing and exploiting enemy weaknesses while hiding your own.  There were some problems, like the fact that the player only controls the main character, leaving the rest of the party in the hands of the occasionally moronic AI, but it was largely a fine system.

p2is3

Persona 2 Innocent Sin does not match an excellent plot with a great battle system.  The battle system part fails utterly to hold up its end of that bargain.  The story of Innocent Sin is one of my favorite game stories I’ve ever encountered, but the battle system is at best a distraction and at worst a serious flaw.  It seems interesting at first, but it manages to be both complex and unchallenging.  There are a lot of factors at play with the battle system.  Each character can equip a persona, but they have different levels of compatibility with each of them, other than each characters main persona which only they can use.  However, other than being able to use a persona or not the compatibility doesn’t really matter that much. It costs a little more MP to cast with a poor compatibility, but MP refillers are easy to come by.  Each persona has eight levels and they learn new skills as they level up.  Using them, especially in combo attacks, levels them up.  It is necessary to get them leveled up to be useful, but it also discourages experimentation.  You don’t want to get all new personas just to have no skills.  Learning those combo attacks either requires the player to experiment extensively or to already know about them.  The other big part of the battle system is talking to demons.  This is necessary to get cards needed to make new personas, but mostly it is just tedious.  Some of the interactions between the demons and your party can be very amusing, but once you realize that the demons react the same way every time it starts to feel like a chore.  There are two big flaws with battle system.  The first problem with all of this is that the game is so easy that the player doesn’t really need to learn more than a couple of attacks and then can just cheese through most of the game.  It is just too easy.  The other is that the encounter rate is ridiculous.  You can hardly take two steps without getting drawn into another too easy battle.  It drags the pace of the game to a terrible halt.

p2is2

The problems with the battles are mitigated with how great the story is.  I don’t want to spoil it too much, but it is just great.  It manages to have well written complex characters and a just balls-out crazy plot.  The game starts with protagonist Tatsuya fixing his motorcycle at school.  After meeting with his teacher, he has a run in with Lisa, a classmate.  She tells him that there are rumors going around about terrible things happening to people who wear the school symbol on their uniform.  Their investigation leads them to a Michel, a punk from the rival school.  Events at that meeting set those three searching for the truth behind the rumors that are becoming true.  Soon they are joined by Maya and Yukino, two reporters looking into the same thing.  Soon it becomes apparent that group has a deeper connection.  Each character has is complex and multifaceted.  Michel tries his hardest to be cool, though deep down he is really insecure and Maya hides her fear behind constant upbeat cheeriness.  They form a genuinely likable party.

Those rumors they are investigating are where a lot of the fun comes in.  It starts as stuff like inter-school rivalries and disliked Principals wanting to be respected and girls claiming they are a pop group.  Soon it escalates to secret societies, ancient prophecies and hidden Nazis.  Just when you think the game has hit maximum craziness, it finds another gear.  It all manages to be justified by the game’s central premise that someone is making rumors come true.  This power gets progressively stronger, so more and more outlandish rumors start becoming real.

p2is1

Then there is the ending, which is something of a gut punch.  But it does set up the second half of this game, Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.  I’ve got that off of PSN and am eager to see how this story ends.  My only fear is that the localization isn’t up to snuff.  Atlus may be the king of the localization game now, but they weren’t quite there back in the late ’90s.  Just look what happened with the first Persona game.  I am certain the EP is better than that, but I wish the PSP remake would have made It over here, though I understand why it didn’t.  Still, it is half as entertaining as Innocent Sin was, I am sure it won’t matter too much.

The Cruelty of The Office

/ skoce / 1 Comment

off

When I wrote about Parks and Recreation, what was most striking to me was how nice everyone was, that the characters on that showed seemed like actual friends. That contrasts sharply with Parks & Rec’s sister show, The Office. For a comedy, The Office is downright mean. The characters on The Office, for the most part, do not like each other. At all. Though they do grow closer as the show progresses, for the most part the feeling is one of forced toleration, with little affection. Other than some specific relationships, if these characters could never see each other again, they would be perfectly happy. Aside from that, the show puts the characters in awful situations and forces the viewer to watch every uncomfortable, painful moment. That meanness is what makes the show great. One of the big changes from the US version of The Office compared to the British originator is that is it a nicer take. After The Office stopped aping the original and found its own tone, it really came into its own. It became a more pleasant, hopeful experience but didn’t abandon its cruelty entirely.

The bulk of the shows meanness was directed at boss Michael. He was also the source of a lot of the meanness. Even after they sanded off many of his worse qualities, he is still socially awkward and deluded. He is just more pathetic than cruel. His complete lack of self-awareness made many seemingly ordinary situations exceedingly uncomfortable. Especially when it came to his relationship with Jan. It was such a terrible pairing, one deluded man desperate for love and one woman going through some kind of midlife crisis. At first it was just Michael’s overestimating the meaningfulness of their relationship. He thought it was true love; she viewed it as a cathartic, ill-advised fling. As the show went on, events forced Jan and Michael closer together, right up until we got the two of the meanest episodes on the show. The first is the House Party. Michael was constantly inviting Jim and Pam to have dinner with him and Jan. Jim, wisely, constantly put him off. Until Michael forced his hand, leading to the worst dinner party ever. While Jim and Pam plot an escape, Michael and Jan argue and display their wholly dysfunctional relationship. Jan has two of the bedrooms converted into an office and a workspace. Michael sleeps on a bench at the foot of the bed. It is just so awful. While Michael brought this on himself by forcing the issue, both with Jim about the party and Jan with the relationship, you still feel bad for how terrible the whole situation is. The situation is not helped by Dwight crashing the party with his former babysitter as a date. Then there is The Deposition. There Michael is called to testify in Jan’s wrongful termination suit against Dunder Mifflin. There he is forced to sit and watch as the woman he loves and the company he loves both show how little they think of him. Jan reads his diary for the record; they bring up his employee evaluations. For a large portion of the episode the viewer just watches as all that Michael loves is torn down around him.

The true nadir of cruelty in The Office is the episode Scott’s Tots. Long ago, Michael promised to pay for college for a class of students if they graduated high school. Now, on the eve of their graduation, he has to go back to the school and tell them that he doesn’t have the money to pay for anything. Instead of just coming out and saying it, it puts it off as long as possible. The situation gets steadily more uncomfortable as Michael watches them celebrate the contribution that he knows he can’t make. It is a perfectly miserable half hour. The show does dole that cruelty out in smaller doses as the show goes on, but it is almost always forcing the characters to face their worst fears. Upright, conservative Christian Angela ends up married to a closeted gay man. Ryan makes a meteoric rise in the company, but makes horrifically bad choices.

The show does bog down in the later seasons, with Season 7 rushing around to deal with the impending loss Michael and Season 8 dealing with the albatross of Robert California. Really, I love James Spader, but Robert California is a terrible character that takes up too much screen time. But Season 9 rights the ship, so the show goes out on a high note. It largely brings back the tone of Seasons 2 & 3. While by and large the characters are finally allowed to become friends, there is still a lot of genuinely earned drama. Jim and Pan experience relationship troubles when he helps start a business in Philadelphia. Unlike when most TV shows put strain on a couple, this feels truly earned. Jim and Pan argue while staying true to the characters as they had been established for the previous 8 seasons. It is great TV. It also has a maturing Dwight and the disintegration of Angela’s entire life, two solid B plots.

The only fly in the ointment is Andy Bernard. Andy went out on a high note in Season 8, having been broken down as Regional Manager after risking everything for his love Erin before saving the company, and his job, by going to previous CFO David Wallace and getting him to buy Dunder Mifflin. Season 9 throws all of that out the window. Andy quickly abandons the job and girl he fought for the previous season. (I know Ed Helms had to leave to film a movie, but they could have written him out in a better way) He comes back arrogant and vindictive. Andy was always a malleable character, but never this awful. It is hard to watch a character that had been largely sympathetic turn into a villain. It is that cruelty that made the show, but this time the situations feel a little more forced than usual.

The cruelty that had been the shows hallmark makes Finale so memorable, because it lacks it entirely. It is pure saccharine, right down to Erin finding her birth parents. The show always had those moments, the times when joy would surpass the mundane drudgery that makes up the bulk of the show. The best example is the last bit of season 3, when Pam cries to the camera congratulating Jim on his probably promotion only to have him walk in and ask her out on a date. While the cruelty made the show funny, those moments made it memorable. Finale tries to make a 50 minute episode that is just those moments. It nearly succeeds. Suddenly the cast becomes the viewers; their sadness at leaving the office is our sadness at saying goodbye to The Office. It also has one of the best lines in the series with Andy’s “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” That last episode is about saying goodbye to the good old days, and it leaves you feeling satisfied in a way that few shows do. While The Office was never as nice as something like Parks & Rec, in the end it turns out it wasn’t that cruel either.

Top 5 Friday Favorite Movies

/ skoce / 2 Comments

Just about the easiest list to do. But since I was planning to do a lot of lists, I figured I’d get the easy ones out first. When I made these Top 5 Friday lists I had planned to get a full year’s worth of them before I started posting, but that project died pretty quickly.

These are my 5 favorite movies, with the one stipulation that I am not putting more than one movie of the same series on this list. That rule exists so that the list wasn’t all Indiana Jones and Edgar Wright movies.

fg

5: Flash Gordon – I saw this movie sitting in a hotel room in South Dakota on a vacation to see Mt Rushmore. This movie is still the most memorable thing from that trip. It is nuts, pure campy, drug-induced, fever dream insanity.

hf

4: Hot Fuzz – Any of the three movies in this loose trilogy (Shaun of the Dead and The Worlds End being the other two) could have filled this slot, but Hot Fuzz is the one I like best. It simultaneously a hilarious send up of buddy cop movies while also being a great buddy cop movie. There are so many layers that I was still finding jokes after a handful of viewings.

pr

3: Porco Rosso – I don’t know that I would say that Porco Rosso is the best Miyazaki movie, but it is certainly my favorite. There is just so much beautiful scenery on display as Porco flies around the Adriatic and so many great characters.

tpb

2: The Princess Bride – This film has it all, action, adventure, romance, humor. Somehow it lets viewers know that it is all a story and still gets them to care about the characters. It is constantly destroying suspension of disbelief, but that only somehow strengthens it.

lastcru

1: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – I know that many will question the choice of this over Raiders, it was a close call, but I get just slightly more enjoyment of each viewing of Crusade than Raiders. It is the perfect action comedy.

What I Read in August ‘14

/ skoce / Leave a comment

I did a lot of reading in August. Fresh off of reading the latest Outlander volume, I decided to go back and quickly read through the series. I was really lost for the first half of Written in My Own Heart’s Blood and I wanted to jog my memory. I also continued with reading Sayers’ Wimsey books, which I’ve just about run out of at now, as well as some nonfiction and knocked another tome off of my stack of unread fantasy novels. It was a good month.

oos

The Office of Shadow

Matthew Sturges

I mostly liked Sturges’ Midwinter. Its good parts were really good, but it was all around sort of uneven. Office of Shadows is of similar quality, though it is steadier; it doesn’t have the highs and lows in quality of its predecessor, but I’m not sure I liked it as much. Instead of being a fantasy Dirty Dozen, this is more of a fantasy spy thriller. Except in Midwinter the supposed suicide mission got started pretty much immediately, where the thriller stuff here takes a long time to get moving. The cast is also less enjoyable. Returning character Silverdun is still an interesting character, a man of many talents but filled with self-loathing. His new allies feel like missed opportunities. Sela is a girl trained from birth to kill and Ironfoot is lowborn soldier turned scholar who is plucked from his studies to become a spy. They are at least theoretically interesting characters, but the book doesn’t explore them and their motivations as well as they could. Ironfoot is almost ignored at times and Sela spends her time dealing with a completely uninteresting romantic subplot.

The big danger the Seelie elves, the “good guys” country, face is a weapon being developed by the Unseelie that could tip the balance of their Cold War. The thriller part of book is just too abbreviated. Too much of the book is taken up with the training. It takes just way too long to get the three agents to be agents. Then their spy mission is somewhat short and conspiracies and plots that precipitate the coming conflict are dealt with almost perfunctorily. The biggest problem is that the political situation between these two warring countries is not very well explored. It is hard to get a read on the stakes when the make-up of the conflict is so vague. Still, while I’ve spent most of my time complaining, I actually liked The Office of Shadow quite a bit. Silverdun is a great character, one who has already grown significantly in the last book and grows further here. And the world of Faerie here is interesting enough that I wanted to know more. The Office of Shadow is almost a great book, but it has enough flaws that it ends up being merely interesting.

outlndr

Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn

Diana Gabaldon

I sped through books 2-4 of Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I’ve read them before; this was a speed reread just trying to jog my memory for what was going on heading into Written in My Own Hearts Blood. Plus, my interest in this series was rekindled by the TV Adaptation (see post coming … sometime soon). I do like each of these books, with Voyager likely being my favorite in the series.

Dragonfly in Amber is interesting because it is the one true tragedy, meant in the sense of genre and not judgment, in this series. It starts by letting the reader know that the happy ending from the first book did not last, then slowly showing how everything went wrong. It also feels like the end of the first chapter of this extensive saga. Most of the characters introduced in the first book are out of the series after this one, with the next book building up the supporting cast again. The sense of inevitability as things go wrong really helps it feel all the more tragic. Still, since it is tragic, it also tends to be an entry in the series that I am not too eager to revisit.

The third book, Voyager, is a pretty big shake up. The book ranges all over the place. It starts with a really neat section where in the present (actually 1968) Claire, Roger and Briana search for records of Jamie surviving Culloden is intertwined with Jamie’s first hand experiences in the 18th century. Once they track him to 1767, Claire does the inevitable and goes back again. After meeting Jamie in Edinburgh, Claire and Jamie’s adventures take them from Scotland to the Caribbean. It is a far reaching adventure that introduces a host of new characters to replace all the ones lost in Dragonfly in Amber. It is a long book, but one with several separate stories going on, starting with the search for Jamie, then Claire and him getting to know each other again and then their experiences in the New World. It is really just a load of fun.

Finally, Drums of Autumn is Briana and Roger’s book. It does have Clair and Jamie settling in the North Carolina wilderness, but the most compelling story is the romance between Briana and Roger. At first it is just her adjusting to living without either of her parents. Eventually, inevitably, Bree ends up also going back through the stones, followed closely by Roger. Drums of Autumn is not as tight a narrative as the previous three books. Aside from the first bit of Voyager, they each covered a relatively short time period. Drums takes place over the course of several years, time enough for Jamie and Claire to turn a bit of North Carolina wilderness into a thriving community. This is the first part of the American part of the series and the first where my memory of the order of events starts to get shaky.

Next month I hope to get through the next two. I am already at the point where I can’t remember what happened in which book, so the next few should be slower going than the more familiar ones.

bos

The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved the Greece – And Western Civilization

Barry Strauss

This was an interesting look at the Battle of Salamis between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. It is a good primer to that conflict, giving the reader a good introduction to the big players in that fight and the political set up that lead to not only the war but the two sides’ manner of prosecuting it. It is hard to say much about nonfiction when you aren’t that familiar with the subject, and I’m not here. That is why one tends to read nonfiction, to gain understanding, which this book does a good job of imparting.  The writing style, though, is good. It is informative, but not dry. It tells it like a story, albeit one with research behind it. While there is enough uncertainty is events that long ago, The Battle of Salamis does a good job of presenting what happened along with a few likely scenarios for how it happened. In all this a good read.

hhc

Have His Carcase

Dorothy Sayers

Yet another Peter Wimsey mystery, this one being the second to feature Peter’s love interest Harriet Vane. Have His Carcase is one of the most enjoyable Wimsey stories. It starts with Harriet stumbling across a body while talking a walk along the beach during her vacation. Being a mystery writer and fairly versed in the ways of murder and murder investigations immediately gathers relevant details, which is fortunate since by the time she makes it to the police and the get back to the scene the body has went out with the tide. With Harriet involved in a murder, Lord Peter Wimsey is not going to be far behind. He shows up to help her investigate and renew his attempts to woo her. The two of them work together to get to the bottom of a case that involves a disappearing body, an uncertain time of death and victim with absurd Ruritanian notions.

While I’ve enjoyed Ms Vane’s other appearances, I think this one may be her best. She was mostly just the victim/suspect in her first appearance and in the later Gaudy Night she works separate from Peter almost the entire time. Here the two of them actually work together. They do have some nice chemistry. You can see her appreciation for his talents and exasperation with his idiosyncrasies. He has to try to help her without overwhelming her; to convince her that he is not just there to rescue her. I liked the contrast between their fledgling relationship with the sad and dysfunctional ones of the victim and her gigolo fiancé.

Now Playing August ‘14

/ skoce / Leave a comment

I didn’t play a lot of games in August.  I played a few games for quite a long time a piece, but I didn’t really play that many different games.  Lots and lots of hours disappeared into Twilight Princess and Harvest Moon.

Beaten

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Shadow Wars – This is a strategy game along the same lines as Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics.  It plays somewhere in between those two games.  You control a squad of soldiers, each with different skills.  While the characters do level up, there isn’t much character building going on.  All of the characters skills are strictly linear.  The big problem with the game is that for most of it one of the characters can practically beat each map by herself.  The cloaked stealth unit Banshee has a knife that can one-shot most enemies and a special skill that lets her take an extra turn.  It is just unfair unless you are dealing with mechanical enemies.  Otherwise, it is a pretty solid game.

id

Ittle Dew – I kind of want to complain because it is just a real short Zelda clone, but it is also a real good Zelda clone.  Once I got used to the sword swing, the game was just smooth.  It is really funny and has some great animation.  The only problem with game is that it is very short.  There are three mini-dungeons, one big dungeon and the barest scrap of an overworld.  I finished it pretty quickly and it really left me wanting more. I guess that is a good thing.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night – wrote about it here

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – wrote about it here

Pikmin 3 – wrote about it here

Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar – wrote about it here.  I didn’t actually beat it, but I played a year and a half and feel pretty done with it.  I’ve grown a lot of crops and romanced my gal of choice.  I’m done for now, maybe forever.

Ongoing

Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks – After I beat Twilight Princess I started in on this.  It is pretty much the same as the previous DS Zelda game, with some improvements and a few inexplicable steps backwards.  I won’t make a lot of progress until after I beat Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, but it is next on the list.  I still intend to finish my 2nd Quest before the end of the year.  I’ve only got three games left, including this one.

Yoshi’s Island – I am slowly going through this game.  I really respect this game and how just well-made it is, but I don’t really like playing all that much.  It is just a little too slow and pokey.  I appreciate this game more than I like it.

Persona 2 Innocent Sin – This game is great.  The battle system is more complex than difficult, but the plot manages to be both really well written and absolutely insane.  I love it.  I’ll have more to say once I beat it.

Resident Evil 5 – I should have this finished before too long.  Wrote about it here.

id2

Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails – I think I hate this game.  Not because it’s not a good game, but because I am terrible at it.  It is a kind of on rails shooter/platform game.  I’m just having a lot of trouble grasping the controls.  I understand what I am supposed to do, but I am simply unable to do it.  I think I will keep trying for at least the next week, before I give it up for Teslagrad.  Maybe I’ll get back to it at some point.

Pushmo World – I pushed some more mo’s, but there are plenty of mo’s to push in this game.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – I played this last month, but I didn’t make much progress.  Unlike Persona 1, which I just kind of hate, I refuse to give up on this game.  I will not let it beat me.

Upcoming

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright – I am so excited for this game.  It is two of my favorite series, both with hazy futures, combined into one last hurrah.  I have been excited for this game since it was announced almost four years ago.  I’m so happy.

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment – I’ll finish Innocent Sin soon and this one is next on the list.  I am determined to beat down my backlog of this series, but it is slow going.

Ys 7 – I’ve little experience with the Ys series, but I’ve heard good things about this game.  It is going into my PSP one I finish Innocent Sin.

Yakuza 4 – Last month didn’t work out, but this game it still high on my to play list.

Metal Slug Series – It has been too long.  I am going to set aside one weekend to play through my Anthology disc.

Summer Movie Wrap-Up

/ skoce / Leave a comment

And Fall/Winter Preview

I wrote about 20 movies in my summer movie preview. Of those 20, I went and saw only 8; though to be fair two of them were pushed back to next year. Those I didn’t see either looked much less interesting when they finally came out or maybe weren’t playing near me (I live in the backwoods of nowhere) or maybe I just missed them. Whatever the case, I did see 8 movies this summer. Though the highs were pretty high, I would call this a definite down year for summer movies. There was nothing this year as good as The World’s End last year and nothing approaching the trifecta of The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers and John Carter (Don’t question John Carter inclusion, I’ll fight for that movie. I really love it) from the year before. Still, there were a handful of movies that were really good.

8: Amazing Spider-Man 2. There was almost nothing to like in this movie. Just a blah experience.

7: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were glimpses of competence here, but it is mostly just kind of gross.

6: The Expendables 3. This was mostly enjoyable, but it feels like a case of diminishing returns. This series feels a little tired.

5: Hercules. Flawed, yes, but so darn enjoyable. Dwayne Johnson really sells the physicality of the role even when the plot goes to some stupid places.

4: X-Men Days of Future Past. What an amazing recovery for a faltering series. First Class was good, but I doubted their ability to make it gel with the first three. Singer managed it, while not excising just enough of the cancerous X3 to keep things palatable. I want to see where this goes next.

3: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Between this and GotG, this was Marvel Studios best summer yet. As far as

2: Godzilla. This movie really rocked. My expectations were guarded, I’ve seen what Americans do with Godzilla before, but this turned out to be awesome. They may have spent a little too much time with characters that weren’t Godzilla, but they let him be a good guy for the first time in forever. It was just great.

1: Guardians of the Galaxy. Really, this was just the best thing to hit theaters this summer. A perfectly fun film.

It is a top heavy list; lots of bad at the bottom and lots of good at the top. I am usually pretty good at determining what movies to go see, but this year I missed a few that looked like they were good, like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Edge of Tomorrow. Not having seen either of them, I still feel confident saying that both of them would have been better than Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Next summer might be better, it will Avengers 2, but I just hope that I do better at weeding through the crap.

How about this fall? There is a good handful of movies coming out before the end of the year. I am sure there are a lot of great movies coming out that I’ve missed. Please, inform me of them, I want to know. However, these are the ones I am aware of.

Book of Life: This is a really neat looking animated film. The preview I saw in front of TMNT looked nice.

Interstellar: I’ll stop watching Christopher Nolan movies when they stop being good. He hasn’t disappointed me yet.

Big Hero 6: Disney has been hitting it out of the park in the last few years, and this one is based on an obscure Marvel property. It looks distinctly Pixar-ish, which is a big compliment.

The Imitation Game: All I know about this is that it stars Benedict Cumberbatch, which is enough for me.

Exodus: Gods and Kings: I like everything I’ve seen about this movie so far. Ridley Scott has gotten it all right too many times for me to not be excited for something he’s done.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies: This is going to be bittersweet. I have greatly enjoyed the first two Hobbit movies and I fully expect to enjoy this one. But it is also likely to be the last trip we get to take to Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth. I am going to miss it.

American Sniper: I added this to the list based solely on the fact that it is directed by Clint Eastwood. Angry old man or not, that man can direct a movie.

Anything I didn’t mention look good? Tell me about it in the comments.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Monsters

/ skoce / Leave a comment

tmnt

I almost didn’t go see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for several reasons. Reasons such as my familiarity of the past work of the director and producer, the nasty looking redesigns for the Turtles, and bad reviews it got from just about everywhere. However, thanks to my little brother, I ended up seeing this on a slow Wednesday afternoon. My initial instincts were correct, I should have skipped it. There are a few bright spots, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an ugly, stupid mess of a movie that is embarrassed by its own existence.

There are some bright spots. The biggest of which is the characterization of the turtles themselves. Leo, Donny, Mike and Raph’s personalities are all perfectly presented on the screen. Of course, even this bright spot isn’t perfect. It isn’t that their characterization is as deep as the line from the old cartoon. You know, “Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but rude, Michaelangelo is a party dude.” It is that while the turtles are all just like they should be, but the story isn’t about them. In no way do any of them change, they are what they are. Raphael is mad because Leonardo was made the leader, until he is not. He simply stops being mad. That is closest any of the turtles gets to a character arc. Also, the avalanche chase scene is really good, despite not making any sense.

The rest is not so good. The film hinges on April O’Neil, played by Megan Fox. She is a stifled reporter, wanting to make her name but stuck doing fluff pieces. Of course, that is probably what she deserves, since when she has proof of her ridiculous claims about hulking vigilante turtles she crafts a conspiracy theory wall focusing on her old pet turtles and neglects to show her boss the picture she took of them. The picture that she shows the bad guys two scenes later to get him to believe her. Oh and yes, pet turtles because the Turtles are her former pets. The villain’s plan makes so little sense that I am going not even going to try to discuss it. It is just overly elaborate and dumb.

When I first saw these Ninja Turtles, I thought they looked awful. They are hideous, hulking monstrosities, more nightmare fuel than ninjas. I did like the little accents each turtle added to their costume, it really helped them stand out as individuals. And as bad as the Turtles looked, they were amazing compared to Splinter. I don’t know what happened there. Did somebody think that awful CG rat looked good? It is significantly less real looking than Splinter from the original Ninja Turtles movie. He looks unbelievably bad. Then there is Shredder, who appears more like a rejected Transformer than an evil ninja master.

None of this should be surprising to anyone who knows what else the people behind this movie. Director Jonathon Liebesman was previously responsible for turds like Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of the Titans. Both of them were confusingly shot and poorly constructed. Then there is Producer Michael Bay, the name attached to this movie to sell it. Bay makes shit movies, The Rock somewhat excepted. The Transformers series is a series that always makes tons of money yet hasn’t provided a worthwhile second of entertainment.

The worst part of the movie, though, is how embarrassed it is by its very concept. It goes to great lengths to mock the very premise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It waffles between wanting to be a children’s movie, which it should be, and doing its best to earn that PG-13 rating. It is as if it tried to be a gritty reboot, only for everyone to realize how dumb that idea is, so it tries to get back to that cartoony romp. Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of the stupid gritty stuff in there. This is a movie with no confidence, no creative vision. This is not a movie made to tell a story, it is a movie made to make money.

I love the Ninja Turtles. Each incarnation of the cartoon has something to recommend about it, even the cheap, childish version that I grew up with. This is a movie made simply to cash in on the nostalgia and good will this franchise has. The charm of the Turtles manages to shine through at times, even in a mess like this, but it doesn’t stop this from being a bad movie.

*

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

/ skoce / Leave a comment

cap2

As I was writing a Summer Movie Roundup post, I realized that I never actually posted my review of Captain America 2.  After debating with myself for at least 45 seconds, I decided to go ahead and post it.  

The great Marvel movie machine just keeps pumping them out. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, much like the seven or so films the precede it, is a well-constructed, slick action movie. Despite Marvel Studios pumping this out right on schedule, they do manage to make each character’s movie have their own feel. The Iron Man series relies heavily on Downey Jr’s charm and feels the most like a straight superhero movie. Thor has the whole space fantasy thing going for it. Cap’s movies seem to be the most about this Marvel universe. When Iron Man 2 heavily featured Nick Fury and Black Widow, it felt out of place, like the whole movie was preempted to set up the Avengers. When the first Captain America introduced what appeared to be an early incarnation of SHIELD, it worked. The Winter Soldier is the Marvel movie most reliant on the existence of the rest of this loose series, but it is also one of the only ones to really successfully tie things together. The heavy reliance on SHIELD, Fury and Widow makes more sense for Captain America than for the others.

The Winter Soldier starts with Captain America leading Black Widow and a small team of SHIELD Agents to save a SHIELD ship that had gone astray and been highjacked by some mercenaries. While the mission is successful, Cap discovers that Black Widow had another mission that Fury didn’t tell him about. This, and revelations about SHIELD’s future plans that Fury shows Cap after he confronts him, makes him very uncomfortable with his role in working with SHIELD. While Cap contemplates his present and future, the forces working behind the scenes make their move and take out Nick Fury. Before he is eliminated from the action, Fury goes to Cap and tells him not to trust SHIELD. From then on, it is Captain America versus SHIELD, with Cap unsure of whom he can trust. At times it seems like a comic book James Bond movie, others just a straight up action film, but it is always entertaining.

While it does run a little long, The Winter Soldier is a lot of fun. The special effects are as good as always and the acting is better than most of the studios output. Chris Evans does both a good job with the action as Captain America as well as selling his difficulties with modern life. There is also an immediate chemistry with Anthony Mackie’s Sam/Falcon. Sam Jackson is badass as always. I really think Scarlett Johansson really nailed Black Widow this time. In previous movies, she has played her as deliberately emotionless. However, there is a thin line between affecting no emotions and being a wooden actor. Here, because she is allowed to show more emotion, it is easier to see when she is deliberately showing none.

It is a film unafraid of comic book stuff. Characters that were set up in the first film that most people didn’t expect to appear again, especially in anything close to their comic book forms show up. There is little explanation for Falcon’s wings. They are treated as something that just exists. It is also unafraid to radically shake up the status of the Marvel Movie Universe. That is an odd thing. While I think it can assumed that most of the people that watched Avengers will likely watch The Winter Soldier, the fact is that when people show up to the theater next year to watch Avengers 2, the world of that film will not be the same as they left it after the first movie. That was not necessarily true after Iron Man 3 or Thor 2. Of course, Captain America is the character most tied to the Avengers. His first movie even has the subtitle The First Avenger. While the Thor and Iron Man movies can stand on their own, the Captain America movies have so far been Avengers .5 and 1.5.

Still, despite my love of Thor, The Winter Soldier is Marvel’s best movie. It has some of the best action scenes and plot that keeps moving and keeps the viewer guessing without being stupid. It doesn’t quite have the high stakes punch as the Avengers, but it has so much more heart. The characters don’t change in The Avengers, the merely react. In The Winter Soldier, Captain America and his relationship with the world change. But so do Fury, and Widow, and Falcon and SHIELD itself all change. Except for Loki and Thor, the threat of the Avengers was largely impersonal. Here, the threat is a direct result of the actions of the characters, starting with Captain America in the 1940s. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is simply very, very good.

2nd Quest: Twilight Princess

/ skoce / 4 Comments

This was supposed to be 4 Swords Adventures, but that has been put on hold indefinitely. (I have misplaced the disc. I was playing 4 Swords with the Wii, my brother wanted to play Smash Bros, so he took out 4 Swords and I am fairly sure he put it in the Smash Bros case. The problem is I don’t know where he put the Smash Bros case, so I can’t play anymore 4 Swords.) I turned to the next game on the list, Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess has a strange reputation; for a game that earned such high review scores and has such high sales, no one seems to like it all that much. After playing it through for the first time since it was brand new, that doesn’t seem fair. Twilight Princess is a flawed game, but it is also an incredibly ambitious game and largely well made.

tp1

More so than any other game in the series, Twilight Princess follows in the footsteps of Ocarina of Time. That was something that fans claimed to want and something that the Zelda series withheld for a long time. The games following Ocarina played mostly the same, but the structure and tone were quite different. Instead of Ocarina’s Hyrulian epic, Majora’s Mask was a nightmare sidestory and Wind Waker was a nautical cartoon. Both are fun games, but they didn’t feel much like Ocarina of Time or A Link to the Past. Twilight Princess, despite its lupine digressions, was built on that model. It takes place in the traditional Hyrule, it follows the traditional structure. It is consciously a Zelda game. It feels a little like Nintendo saying goodbye to that kind of Zelda game. It had already moved away from that limiting structure, but they gave the fans one last romp through Hyrule.

In a move unusual for Nintendo, the game heavily invests in its story. It is full of scripted events and puts supreme effort into telling its tale, which it does well, with a few exceptions. Some reviewers lambast Nintendo for refusing to get in step with modern standards in regards to things like voice acting. Unlike most developers, Nintendo never embraced idea of the interactive experience; instead they continued to make games. The long time lack of voice acting in their games stems from that. Twilight Princess is one of the few times I really felt the lack. This game does have tremendous storytelling pretensions, but it doesn’t quite have the ability to realize them. The problem is not in the story it tries to tell; that is suitably epic and grandiose. It needs more than the grunts and slow moving dialogue that it has to tell that story.

tp2

It starts with young Link in the small village of Ordon; really letting the player get to know the inhabitants of the village while simultaneously learning the basics of how to play the game. That is the classic start to a Legend of Zelda game, essentially a tutorial that also does a lot of work narratively. From there it sticks largely to the same formula as usual, but greatly expanded. Each area of the game is bursting with new and intriguing characters, not the least of which is Midna, the replacement for Navi. She is an amazing character; strongly motivated and both mischievous and courageous. Outside of the big three of Link, Zelda and Ganon, I would call Midna the greatest creation in the series. Also great is the new villain Zant, though he falters greatly after his excellent introduction.  There are tons of side quests and extra secrets to find.  Some of this extra stuff is good, like the fun bug hunting mini-game, while some are not, like switching from 4 pieces of a heart to 5.  While the story never really goes far from being a Zelda story, it delivers it with a sense of grandeur that is only present in the most well regarded entries in the series.

The game is full of little compromises like the lack of voice acting. It adds the wolf transformation, but the player loses one of the item slots. While switching equipped items has been streamlined, the game makes the player switch them far more often. The context sensitive stuff, like picking up things off the ground or throwing vs dropping seems too finicky and somewhat imprecise. In all the controls in the Gamecube version feel just a little off, as though it lost some precision when the adapted it to the Wii control scheme. The controls are far from bad, but there are just enough times where things don’t seem to work right that it is worth distracting. The hunt the light bug segments are somewhat annoying, but they are also oddly paced. The areas where the bugs are hidden get progressively bigger and the hunt becomes more frustrating.

tp3

One part where the game absolutely doesn’t falter is in the dungeons. The game doesn’t have the usual easy starter dungeon; it gets right into the meat. There are a lot of them in this game and they are almost uniformly great. They are expansive and challenging. Puzzles span multiple rooms and require creative uses of all Link’s abilities. While they largely follow Ocarina’s set up of themes, but the dungeons are greatly different from their predecessors. Like much the rest of the game, the dungeons are at their best when they echo Ocarina without copying it directly. Despite Nintendo’s own word on the matter, I would say any Zelda timeline is at best nebulous. However, this game is clearly a sequel to Ocarina, albeit a distant one. The world of Twilight Princess is a decayed echo of Ocarina of Time. That comes through in the dungeons. Like the Temple of Time that seems to be built on the ruins of the Forest Temple. In all they are some truly excellent dungeons.

There are enough niggling problems that I can’t really call Twilight Princess one of the better Legend of Zelda games. I rank it just on the bottom side of the middle of the pack. None of its flaws are especially big, they are all small things. Unfortunately, there are just enough of them that it occasionally makes playing the thing a horrible chore. These flaws hold back what is truly and excellent game underneath them.

tp4

Top 5 Friday: Favorite Movie Scenes

/ skoce / Leave a comment

These are my 5 favorite movie scenes. While I had to do some winnowing down, most of these scenes popped right into my head. This list did kind of shift from being small, discreet moments to longer scenes. It has a little of both. These are my 5 favorite movie moments. Every time I see one of these I have to stop and watch. Some are just impossibly enjoyable, some give me chills every time; all are great.

5. Clifftop Duel The Princess Bride. I could change this to just about any scene in the movie. There are just so many great scenes here. I’m going with the fight between Inigo and Westley. It is just so much fun, both with the banter and the sword fighting.

4. Castle Escape Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. With all due respect to The Great Escape, this is my favorite motorcycle chase. Plus, it has Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

3. Juror 10’s Racist Rant 12 Angry Men. The most powerful scene in an excellent movie. One by one they all leave the table and turn their backs on him, the exact reaction that people should give thoughts like his.

2. Round 14 Rocky. This scene gets me every time I see this film. It is just so perfect.

1. The Graveyard Shootout The Good The Bad and The Ugly. I have never seen anything better in a movie. It pushes the tension to ridiculous levels yet still is riveting.