Homefront

The year is 2027. The US has been devestated by a tactical EMP and then a millitary invasion by the United Korea which controls the Eastern US up to the Mississippi river, which has been contaminated. New Orleans is a dead zone and the Korean People's Army rules with brutal force. The US Millitary is fractured and in chaos. In the East, members of resistance cells fight back against their oppressors. With hit and run tactics, they seek to end the oppression.

Homefront is the latest from Kaos studios and published by THQ.  It's an FPS set in heartland America after the millitary invasion of the United States by The United Korea. On the surface, it seems like almost a garden variety shooter. Run and gun, shoot em up kind of thing. But below that, Kaos has created something quite interesting.

Thanks to the help of the writer for both Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now, Homefront paints a bleak picture of a future America that is ravaged and eve the most basic of needs is scarce and the enemy controls every facet of life. One thing that really sets the game apart is the locations and battlefields. Where most shooters will be set in a massive battlefield, or a burned out city. Homefront takes place, for the most part, in backyards and cul-de-sacs. In neighborhoods that are not easily recognizable and familier, yet unknown. You'll fight KPA soliders though playgrounds and streets, fighting to regain your homeland. And beyond that you'll find yourself up against American Survivalists. The story is amazing. The locations of exquisit. The downside is that the story is quite short, only 7 missions. But they are long missions, for sure. Still, I finished it while I did feel sated, I felt myself yearning for more. I certainly hope Kaos builds on it and develops a sequel.

You take control of a former USMC pilot by the name of Robert Jacobs. And that is all that is told about the character. You never see your face. You never hear your voice. But you, as the player, will feel connected to the character quite quickly. You are teamed with three other characters, Conner Morgan, Rianna and Hopper.

Kaos does many things right with this game. Chief among them, is the AI. They are ruthless and well coordinated for the most part. But they do switch it up and become annoyingly redundant at other times (especially after you've been killed 20 times trying to get through the same 5 minutes). The switch up in tactics has the effect of keeping you on your toes through the game.


Overall, Kaos does an amazing job of making something truly spectacular. It may not be groundbreaking, but the story makes up for any lack of real originality in gameplay.

9 out of 10. Amazing, but lacking in story length.


Home. Home is where the war is.

Battle: Los Angeles review

As with all my reviews, this WILL contain spoilers. I will try my best to limit them, but I cannot filter them all out.

Battle: Los Angeles was released March 11/2011

Aaron Eckhart as Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz
Michelle Rodriguez as USAF Technical Sergeant Elena Santos
Ramón Rodríguez as Marine 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez
Ne-Yo as Corporal Kevin Harris
Michael Peña as Joe Rincon












It chronicles the invasion of Earth by a hostile alien force and a squad of USMC soliders in LA who have been ordered into the fray to rescue civilians who have been trapped behind enemy lines.With time running out before a massive operation, they must fight their way through an unknown enemy and then back to base.



I like this movie, quite a bit. It may not have been the best written or the most well directed and probably won't win any Oscars, but all the same, it was a damn good movie. You don't have to be a hardcore video gamer to enjoy it, but it does help if you like millitary style video games.

Aaron Eckhart plays Staff Sgt. Nantz, a combat verteran from Afghanistan who lost his entire last unit and holds onto that throughout the entire movie, while some of the other Marines question why he is still on active duty. He still has demons about his last tour and that shows in his character. Eckhart does a good job of portraying a man that feels he has lost everything. He is convincing and captures the emotions very well.

The other Marines I didn't feel had the same mentallity. They seemed to be more a gang of recruits than a honed infantry unit. They spoke and reacted as though they were on their first day. The one I really bought was Ramón Rodríguez as Lieutenant Martinez. His character was supposed to be a green officer. Fresh out of officer training and he did react as such. Constantly panicking and questioning what had to be done. He did that part very well. I don't want to call the characters cut and paste or cookie cutter, because that would be inacurrate. But at the same time, the characters do feel as if they are brought from a box of cliches. In the context of this movie, it's not actually a bad thing. Because of the absolute cliche that the movie is, it makes sense to have cliche characters. To make it different would have been a mistake, I believe.

Little is shown about the invaders, aside from a few interesting shots. No real reason beyond what people assume is given for their presence on Earth. A lot of educated guesses are made and a very obvious reason is made clear, but we can't know 100% for sure because we never see anything from the invader's point of view Almost no option of diplomacy is offered, except for one small part, but it is more done in jest. Still, I think that is for the best. When a hostile force comes in and starts shooting, they probably aren't going to be interested in talking. So by removing that element, the movie is streamlined and moves forward quickly.

The only real bit we get to see about the aliens is when the Marines manage to capture one about a third of the way through the film. Even then, we don't get to see much and what we do see is fast paced and blurry. It would have served the director well to slow down and pull the camera back a bit for that part.

All in all, a good movie. Just remember to turn your brain off before you go and see it. And if you happen to like first person shooter video games, all the better. 8/10


And speaking of video games, Saber Interactive developed a tie in video game to the film. I have played through some of it and it is your garden variety shooter. Using comic strips to narrate the cutscenes, it moves along quite quickly. Not bad for what looks like a very low budget game. It is available on STEAM for $9.99

The Expendables

I just got back from seeing this movie at the theatre and I'm still a bit pumped from it, so I'll try to keep the spoilers at a minimum, but you'll have to excuse the occasional one.

Stallone should stop acting. Right now. Simple as that. I almost needed subtitles to understand him most of the time. His slurring is reaching the levels it was when he was in South Park and it doesn't make for a good bit in a movie.

Otherwise the movie was excellent. Good acting on quite a few points. Some were more believeable than others. Stallone was not one of them. It actually had a decent story, brothers and loyalties and what not.

Good to see Arnie in film again, even if it only was for a couple minutes and Willis' preformance was highly overrated and over promoted. Rourke was not in the kind of role I expected, but he did it well. Austin was also not in the role I expected, but he also did it well. Eric Roberts, the baddie in the movie, was okay, but not terribly amazing, at least not more than usual. The team of Crews, Statham, Li, Couture and Stallone was pretty good. Lundgreen was in there too, but I won't go into that, sufficied to say, Stallone frakked that part up pretty good. Twas just an "Omfg, really? REALLY?" kind of part with that. The entire bit with Lundgreen's character could have been written out and the movie would have been just as good, if not better.

The main sequence, near the end, was pretty awesome and had a few good moments, could have been better topped off by Stallone saying "We're expendable" (watch it, you'll see where I mean) to Eric Roberts.

All in all, a pretty good movie. Worth seeing. 4 of of 5.

Mafia 2 demo

I just finished playing the Mafia 2 demo. It was basically what I had expected, Set in 1950s USA, the game featured one mission that showed off most of the key parts of the game - driving, shooting and most of the mechanics.

You start off playing Vito, an Italian immigrant trying grab a slice of the cake that is the "American dream". The mission that you are given is basically a hit mission and it shows off several of the game systems. You get to use a small variety of weapons, and I have a feeling that the small variety isn't going to change. Over the course of the demo, you use a wall-mounted machine gun and then you have your fists as well as a 9mm pistol, shotgun and the infamous gangster "Tommy Gun" Thompson Submachine gun. As well as you have to drive through bits of the city. Now, the driving bit is where I noticed the hardest part of the game. And while I won't say too much, I will say that it does need some tweaking, but I think by now 2K Czech is well beyond that. Either that, or the cars really do handle like 1950's Chevy autos.

I'm not sure which I would prefer....

All in all, the game is amazingly well done, so far anyway.

Also, I got enough into it that I had to bribe a cop. I didn't see that coming.

The demo is now available on Playstation Network, Xbox Live Marketplace and Steam. I highly recommend downloading it.

The real downside is that you only get 10 minutes ingame play, which is just enough time to finish the mission or play around. Your choice.

Game Review - Beat Hazard (2010)

I just found this game and decided to play a few rounds.


Holy crap. It was the most trippy thing I have ever played. It goes through your music files and you can select tracks to play too. It's like Rock Band or Guitar Hero or even DJ Hero, but you know, ACTUALLY GOOD, which was suprising, and not unpleasant.

the gameplay is fairly simple, it plays like Asteroids and those kind of "top down" shooter games, but adds in the whole music element which adds in a whole new element of awesome.

It looks simple. and it is. W A S D and a mouse is all that is needed (well, music tracks too, I suppose). And the filesize is small, but amazingly impressive. The game comes with several tracks built in, but you can also mess around and do really crazy stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbNBkRx8gg

OH THE HUMANITY.

Go out and get this game. Now. If you don't, you are the most lame person on the planet.
http://rs758tl4.rapidshare.com/files/388649550/2623707/Beat_WarezFreaks.Org.rar
^if you are too cheap to buy it.

Just Cause 2

minor spoilers ahead.

Before I begin, let me start by saying that YES, I know this has been out for awhile. I've been too busy playing it too actually review it, so here goes.

JC2 is one of those games that you might look at and not think much of from the cover, but it is amazing. A cross between Grand Theft Auto, Mercenaries and Spider-Man. That sounds cool, and it is. It's very much like GTA and Mercenaries in that you play as a character running around in an open world doing whatever the hell you want (unlike in Mercs, you don't get penalized for killing civvies). You play as Rico Rodreguiez, an agent for the creativly named US organization called "The Agency" (my hunch is C.I.A., but there is no hints to that). The game takes place on the fictional South East Asian island nation of Panau. A place where, despite the tropical local, the climate is wide and varied, from a large desert to the South-West to the snow capped mountains and the tropical savanna in most of the map.

The map itself is huge. Massive even. about 5-6 times as large as GTA: San Andreas + Mercenaries 2 maps. With 369 villiages, millitary bases/airports/communication outposts/ports and a few smaller cities beside the main capital city which, in itself, is massive. (I'm about about 71% and I've been playing for about 76 hours. Yes, that large.) Vehicles of all types are readily available for use. From motorbikes and small, 3-wheeled taxis, to sedans, sports cars, hummvees, tanks, helicopters, planes (both millitary and civillian), as well as both millitary and civillian boats. Really, the only type of vehicle that the game should've had added was submarines. But oh well, maybe in JC3.

The wrist mounted grapple and redeployable stunt parachute are the real gems of this game, they make it amazingly unique. The grapple can be used for simple tasks, like pulling Rico towards vehicles or complicated tasks like wiring two vehicles together. Either way, it makes the game amazingly fun. The parachute allows Rico to base jump from very high up and land safely no matter what.

When Edios Interactive, Square Enix and Avalanche Studios made this game they took the physics book and tossed it out the window. Rico can pull stunts that would kill a real human (or even some game characters), but isn't affected much at all. For example, you can fall hundreds of meters to the ground, pull your parachute at about 5 meters and be perfectly fine, just stumble a bit. It makes for some reallllllllly fun game play.

The enemy AI is fairly interesting, they aren't too stupid, but tend to favour running and gunning with overwhelming firepower to tactics. The downside is that it actually works. They call in Helicopters outfitted with miniguns and rocket launchers when needed to deliver a powerful punch and handheld weapons are also fairly powerful, the Machine Gun being one of the more powerful ones.

Speaking of weapons, the game features quite a few different ones, or so it seems, they quickly seem to be a bit repetitive, but seem is the operative word thar. However, they could've put in a bit more variety of guns, but the ones they did are fairly good. Scattered around the map are weapon and vehicle upgrade crates, which can be used to, what else, upgrade weapons and vehicles that you can buy from the black market contact. Each weapon has 6 levels up upgrade. One it starts with and 5 more to upgrade with. The other side of the upgrade system is that the enemies ALSO get the upgraded weapons, so it makes it a bit harder.

The real area where the game flounders is in the characters voice acting. Just so bad, and not one of those so-bad-it's-actually-funny things, it's more like so-bad-it-makes-you-cringe. The accents are off key and just terrible.

Final thoughts.

Excellent game. Well put together and thought out. An excellent job in most areas. A few that could use improvements (aiming and voice acting). 9.6/10

On a side note, this game is best played with rock music in the background, like AC/DC or something. makes it that much more fun.

Iron Man 2

quick warning: spoilers included.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Don Cheadle as Lt. Colonel James "Rhode" Rhodes/War Machine
Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko/Whiplash
Scarlett Johansson as Natalie Rushman/Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury











I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for movies like this. I love everything about them and IM2 is no exception. This movie had me from the start. As it started, I knew I was going to love it. That said, I do have some points to make.

Now, in more detail.

I did love almost everything about this movie. It was well written and had a lot of good moments. The characters, despite there being a lot of them and all intertwined, all fit together very well. The movie also wraps together several other characters and continues to take strides towards "The Avengers" movie bringing in characters like Black Widow as well as other classic Iron Man characters like War Machine, which makes a dramatic entrance

Badass.

The scene on the Monaco track with Stark driving the F1 and facing off against Whiplash was really well done. Slicing several cars in half with the whips was pretty awesome, but a bit overdone. One or two would've had a really good effect, but 4 was a bit much.

The movie is based around 4 things, Tony Stark's being poisoned, Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries being Tony Stark's business competitor and rival and Ivan Vanko's desire to get revenge on Tony stark for what his father, Howard Stark, did to Vanko's father. Suprisingly neither Natasha Romanoff, nor Ivan Vanko are referred to by their alias names of Black Widow and Whiplash, respectivly.

As the movie goes on and Tony really starts to believe that he is dying, he starts to get a bit wilder and uncontrollable. Turning Stark Industries over to Pepper Potts and making her CEO and some drunken antics during his birthday party, which saw him dancing around drunkenly in the Iron Man suit and Rhode having to suit up in the Mark 2 armor to try and bring Tony under control. A fight ensues between Starks and Rhode that ends with Rhode flying off in the Mark 2 armor and a good part of Stark's home being heavily damaged.

After the millitary (and by extension, Justin Hammer) get ahold of the armor, they soup it up and add it crap loads of weapons, leading to the birth of the War Machine. The majority of the movie is just building up to the final fight between Iron Man + War Machine versus a crapload of drones.

Something like this.

After that fight finishes, a newly armored Whiplash enters the arena and continues the fight. Which has the usual result. Afterwards Rhode mentions that he is going to "hang on" to the War Machine armor.

All in all, a fairly awesome movie. A lot of tidbits towards other marvel characters and movies.

In review 4.5/5. A couple bits could've been changed a bit, but otherwise awesome. Go see it. And watch for the small scene AFTER the credits.