Video Game Review: The Darkness II for Xbox 360

"The Darkness II" is a first person shooter that sets it's self apart from the crowed market. After many complaints by critics over the original game, it's sequel was able to address those problems and then some. You play as Jackie Estacado, the leader of  a mob who tragical lost his girlfriend and is now trying to rebuild his life again. The only problem is that "The Darkness" won't let him. "The Darkness" is an evil entity passed down to Jackie which allows him to have the ability to grow two evil demon arms and summon a creature called the "Darkling" to do his binding. These abilities play a major role in the gameplay as you not only have a large arsenal of guns at your disposal but you can use "The Darkness" to rip enemies in half, pick up environmental objects to perform fatalities, and to enhance your gun wielding abilities. This may seem like you're character is overpowered but there are a few elements that keep you from being too powerful which ultimately is the games main problem. First though, I'd like to point out elements that are good. I think that the gameplay is "The Darkness II" strongest element as you can shape the way how you want to play. The player can have an experience where he can rely only on the use of guns, darkness powers, or a combination of both. It not only changes the way you play the game but makes the game have high replay value. "The Darkness II" also uses an upgrade system to make Jackie stronger. The player obtains points by performing different ways of kill the opponents and then can spend those points to enhance certain areas such as increasing the amount of ammo you have, unlock new execution moves like summoning a black hole, and raising Jackie's defense. This may not be an original idea as it's been done before in many other games but it's nice to see that while you progress through the game, Jackie does as well. The player also has the option to start a "New Game +" which restarts the singleplayer experience while you still retain the powers you have earned from the previous playthrough. Also included in the package is "Vendettas", the multiplayer of "The Darkness II". Vendettas is an entirely new campaign in which four players can play online as Jackie's friends, which have both there own characters and abilities. While there wasn't much of a story and the characters seemed one dimensional, I still thought it was an enjoyable experience as I didn't experience any connection problems whatsoever. All of these features make up "The Darkness II" but there are a few things that keep it from being a fantastic game. First is the weakness of using the powers of "The Darkness" in both the singleplayer and multiplayer campaign. Apart from taking damage from bullets and objects, light also contributes. That's right, whenever you stand under a light, you take damage as the player can only use "The Darkness" powers in the dark. There will be moments where you'll been in a bright room full of enemies and you can't direct you're attention to these two things. The only way you can heal yourself is eating enemy hearts which really starts to become tedious by the time I was six or seven hours into the campaign. Also I felt I was constantly low on ammo I had to either pick of up different guns after every enemy I killed or  I had to run away. It really started to be frustrating as I can remember dying over and over again just because I didn't have ammo and enemies were too far away. Overall, "The Darkness II" is much better than the original and host a new bunch of content but at times is incredibly difficult.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World- Movie Review

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is the kind of movie that doesn't come around often. Based off the graphic novels created by Bryan Lee Omaley, Scott Pilgrim tells the story of a 24 year old man in Toronto, Canada who comes across a girl by the name of Ramona Flowers. Upon meeting her, Scott instantly falls in love but in order to date Ramona, he must defeat her seven evil ex boyfriends. Now you're probably thinking that this is a stupid concept but it isn't as it what makes the film stand out. What the film really adopts is the classic retro video games and applies it to the character's make each of them unique from one another. This especially comes into play during the fights Scott must participate in as it meant to be taken in a realistic manner but to more of the style of the original graphic novels. This could also be considered as one of the films biggest flaws and is probably why the film didn't do well commercially. Most audiences won't understand the style and the easter eggs laid throughout the film and if seems like it was directed towards a specific audience rather than everyone as a whole. That doesn't stop it from being a great film though but it seems its associated to both the 80's and today's youth. The fight sequences use a comic book style feel as characters are flying through the air, using flaming swords, and using super powers which is something the common person wouldn't expect from a film such as this. Sounds like something a person were to find on a Saturday morning cartoon but the overall special effect are great. If you are a fan of Scott Pilgrim, I highly recommend you see this film as it's a faithful adaptation to the graphic novels. For those who are new, give it a try and you may forgive it for its lack of clarity.

I love Katamari impressions video IOS

This is an Impressions video of me playing the IOS game "I Love Katamari". Review to follow shortly and I made this video to demonstrate the game's gyroscope control scheme. I apologize if it's difficult to see as I am trying to get accustom to filming such a small device.

Star Wars Prequel's- Movie Review

   Instead of just picking specific episodes from the prequel trilogy, I rather just address the series as a whole as my opinion is pretty much the same on a of these films. Let me just start of and say that I was a huge Star Wars fan during my early childhood as I would watch one of the three movies every day multiple times and you know, I still think the movies are great to this day because the originals were able to combine multiple film genre 's into one to make it appealing for the masses. Unfortunately, that not the same with the prequel's  as they lacked the sense of fantasy and the idea of adventure that the original films had. I just believe that George Lucas's career just went completely downhill from the release of "The Phantom Menace" as I really didn't think he cared anymore and it was only about shoving as much crap on screen as possible to he could make money off toys. There's also the argument the prequel's were made in order to appeal to the new generation of Star War's fanatics, trying to rekindle to magic that was left back in 1977. Well, it didn't work as I don't think this was a story that necessarily needed to be told because the franchise would lose respect of audiences anyway. It's just a same to see just a great franchise go to waste because of these films so enough of this conversation as I promised to analyze these films.

 So let's look at the first film "Episode I: The Phantom Menace". Like many people, I was excited for the film to be released as I never thought that after twenty or so years, Lucas would start a line of new films. My expectations were high I thought to myself "There's no way Lucas could screw this up!". And then I saw the movie...ouch. When you think of "Star Wars" does a trade federation or space taxes come to mind? Yeah I didn't think so as it's basically the plot of the entire movie. We are introduced to wooden characters such as qui gon jinn and  obi wan Kenobi, two Jedi who have no personality whatsoever and we never really get much of a back story about them. Then we are introduced to the annoying cartoon rabbit JAR JAR BINKS, which pretty much put the nail in the coffin for whatever chance Star Wars had to impressing the audience. I understand that Lucas really wanted to appeal to little kids but he doesn't really make much contribution to the story other than being  comic relief. Every time this character opened his mouth, I wanted to throw my TV remote at the television screen. He just felt completely out of place to the whole feeling of Star Wars and the only thing positive thing is that he would later be ignored in the later films but it still didn't the sequels better. You see, in the original Star Wars films, characters such as "C3-P0" or "Chewbacca" actually served a purpose to the overall story because multiple times, whether direct or indirect, they would save the main protagonist from peril and they weren't annoying. Jar Jar is the exact opposite as he constantly makes an ass out of himself when ever he's on screen which doesn't help the audience establish a connection with the character. I also need to mention the "cookie ucutter" dialogue and delivery by the actor's and actresses, the worst being from Anakin Skywalker when he say something along the line of "Are you an Angel?".  It just support's the idea that Lucas must've finished the script in an hour and decide to direct his attention to the Lightsaber fights and space battles. I could go on and on about how many problems this film has but I'll just sum up the big standouts. The whole idea of Midichlorians took away the fantasy aspect of "Star Wars" and made it science fiction, Ray Park as Darth Maul was only casted for his martial art abilities and not for his acting so we don't get a back story to his character, the amount of direction focus put towards random CGI character takes away from the story as it isn't needed, It just goes on.


So we knew episode I was a disaster but "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" looked promising right? NO! In fact many people argue that the second film is the worst of the series for numerous reasons. One of which is the awkward and forced relationship between the two character's, Anakin and Padme.  It's extremely dull as the dialogue is just horrible between these two, one of them being Anakin's opinion about sand. Do you see the pattern here? With a title like episode II, you think they wouldn't focus the majority of their time on this relationship. I'd also like to mention the amount of CGI back rounds used in this film as I noticed the use of this becomes more frequent throughout the films. It's ok to use computer generated images in you're film but not for the whole movie. It start's to look like a video game and not a movie and it certainly doesn't help the Actors and Actresses. You start to lose a sense of realism with both the actors and the world around them. I guess lucas didn't want to travel all over the place and wanted to just stick to one area. Basically, the film highlights the rise of the Sith and the start of the transformation of Anakin Skywalker to the dark side. None of the problems that were addressed from the first film weren't corrected for the second and it just becomes more of the same. If there was anything positive about film, It would be when the film was over.

Now we get to the final film of the trilogy and at this point, my expectations were extremely low and I pretty much lost all faith within the franchise. Even if it is considered the best of the three films, It didn't feel like Star Wars and unlike the previous films, the movie takes a darker tone and gets a full PG-13 rating. Lucas's is now trying to stray away from his original path of appealing to a new generation of Star Wars fans. Just the change from the annoying Jar Jar Binks from episode I to a  fallen Jedi in episode II who decides to slaughter children feels disjointed. I thought the audience was going to be introduced to a kind hearted character who unfortunately was seduced to the dark side. The problem is we never got that from the first two films as they just made Anakin's character evil from the beginning. You just have no sympathy for him and it unfortunate that the audience wasn't able to connect with a main protagonist because there was never one to begin with. And that's the big problem with all three films, the characters. If one was killed off, you never really cared because there was nothing about them that really stuck out or they were underdeveloped. The cons outdo the pros in these films and I think it really didn't help expand the story but rather hurt it. Even  20 years after the release of the original films, people were still talking about it which showed it stood the test of time. However, the prequels make you want to forget that they were even created.

Movie review on the way!

Sorry for the lack of films review recently but I can promise that there's one on the way...and it's big! I will be reviewing three films that arguably ruined the future of a popular franchise. I won't spoil it now but It will be one of the longest reviews I ever typed. Be sure to stay tuned as I will post it  this upcoming monday or tuesday. I also would like to encourage you to please follow on the blog because it let's me know who is reading this material and it's helps me a lot. Thanks!

[Coletrain]

Meet "Coletrain"

This is lost footage from a year ago. Never had the opportunity to upload it till now. Now you can see me fire a 357 magnum unprofessionally...YEA

Let's Talk: Anime (Discussion segment)

        This was a journal I wrote during my Film Analysis class after viewing the short film "She and Her Cat". I actually got a bunch of extra credit points from my teacher after writing this response as it was not assigned. I basically highlights the general topic of Anime and its view with western audiences. Enjoy!


        From the recent viewing of the short anime film "She and Her Cat", I can understand why the film may have been different in the eyes of my class mates. Anime doesn't attract much of a western audience because it either hasn't been exposed enough in the community as only a few channels host it at the moment (mainly Toonami or Adult Swim), or it's just the group's overall reaction. Audiences in the United States are often put off by the overly complicated story lines of these shows, as well as the overall art direction.
        Let me just state that I am not a hater of Anime, I'm a supporter as there are a bunch of examples that stand out of the crowd. In terms of film, the work of Hayao Miyazaki has always stood out. In fact, one of the very first films I ever saw was "Princess Mononoke", a film in which I highly recommend. I was about five or six when I saw the original film in theaters and my parents took me to it thinking it was fun for the whole family. Instead, what we got was a film with graphic violence, well executed voice acting and overall, Miyazaki's best film in my opinion. The film is so good, I have it in my DVD collection. "Akira" is also another film that stands out which at the time, pushed animation to a new level while not doing great commercially. "Ghost in the Shell" serves as a great example of Anime being noticed as the Wachowski brothers were inspired by the "cyber-punk" atmosphere of the film and were able to recreate that sort of feeling but in there own vision in "The Matrix".  TV shows vary on the other hand as there are some that are good and some that need improvements. I tended to lose interest in shows that repeat the same plot structure and that are longer than 100 episodes but I try to be patient, waiting for deeper character development to hopefully come into play. Shows like "Bleach" and "Naruto" follow this kind of structure in order to not only hook its viewers but to follow the Manga as best as possible. Repetition is what hurts these shows. I don't need to see a fight that goes over the course of 15 episodes because that not only takes away excitement and suspense from these fights. It becomes monotonous and it begins to lose my attention.
        This doesn't necessarily apply to all Anime as there are some that are able to break from the sense of repetition and deliver new ideas but go unrecognized because of the common misconception that cartoons are for kids. "Death Note" is an example of the darker side in which shows can go as teenager, Light Yagami, is given the power to kill anyone by simply writing their name in a book, whether it be through a heart attack or through other means of torture. With Anime, artists are able to create a world to their liking and it gives the creator more freedom to their work. I can understand the turn off as audiences don't want to have a complicated story or annoying characters but it isn't all that bad. If you just get past these annoyances, there are truly some great hidden gems within the genre.

Update 2/8/12

Hello people of the internet. Just want to give a quick update. Sorry for the lack of content as I've been trying to spread the word about the blog. New reviews will come this weekend. So yea the blog isn't dead just took a bit of hiatus but will be back this weekend. Also make sure to follow because that's how I know people are reading my thoughts...

Cool beans