fuck u tomchick
That message was delivered over the chat function in Battlefield 3 from someone on the opposite team who had been killed by me during a battle at the Capsian border. My first reaction was basically “Well, I never…“. I was on a server recommended by a friend for mature players who I didn’t think would type that sort of thing.
But my second reaction was to type something about how he should stop sucking and learn to play the game. I was ready to go there. But my third reaction, which kicked in only because I didn’t have time to type in stuff about stopping sucking and learning to play, was delight that he was irked, so I should just type in “u mad?”. My fourth reaction, which kicked in only because I had people to shoot, flags to cap, tanks to spot, ammo bags to chuck, and no time to look up the chat key, was that I should really try to rise above that sort of silliness.
Multiplayer shooters makes me as stupid as the other people playing them. I really enjoyed aggravating someone because I’m as good as I am*. But I should keep that to myself. If there’s one thing worse than a sore loser, it’s a sore winner. The worst stupidity comes from people crowing because they’re winning, which is worse than the more common stupidity where someone is berating his team because they’re losing. Competitive videogames aren’t just for kids. They’re for people with no sense of sportsmanship.
But for all the icky juvenile behavior that can be as infectious as cooties, I love Battlefield 3. And by way of a teaser, I also love another high-profile shooter coming out next week that I’ve had the opportunity to play. To me, they’re not quite direct competitors. They offer different kinds of experiences, and dramatically different ways to play. I suspect I’ll be playing both, trying desperately to retain the level of dignity that befits a grown man.
By the way, the chat key in Battlefield 3 is “K”. Next time, I’ll be ready when someone comes at me.
* I mean every word of that, but not as a boast
If I’m ever going to be a villain, I want to know where Uncharted 3 villain Marlowe hired her henchmen. These are some of the most dedicated henchmen in the world. They will not be deterred. If they’re in a burning building, sinking ship, plummeting airplane, or crumbling ruin, their number one order of business is to shoot the hero.
At one point, after a plane crash in the desert, Drake finds a gun sticking out of the sand. He grabs it, put has to tug a bit to get it loose. It turns out it was still grasped by a dead body. Here is a man who fell out of an airplane and did not let go of his gun as he was falling, or even at the moment his body hit the ground. That’s dedication!
Nathan Drake is back in what is, so far, the weakest Uncharted of them all. More on that later, but as of about two-thirds through the campaign, it’s not looking good.
If you’ve only got an Xbox 360 or PS3, you can finally play the Wii version of Goldeneye. This means that instead of going, “Hey, this isn’t bad for a Wii game…”, you can just go, “Hey, this is pretty bad…”. But at least someone is keeping the James Bond franchise alive, since MGM isn’t quite up to the task.
After gladly skipping games with Sonic’s name on them for the last several years, I wonder if its time to revisit that policy. Sonic Generations’ blend of classic retro 2D levels and rebooted 3D levels might be just what the tired old hedgehog needs.
Finally, there’s a Lord of the Rings action RPG with co-operative multiplayer called War in the North. It’s made by the folks who did Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath, so they’ve already gotten their feet wet with action RPGs. And now they’ve got a license.
This week we’re underwhelmed by The Rum Diary, which is the prequel to Hunter S. Thompson, directed by the guy who did Withnail & I. But first, we make up for our week off with a recap session to briefly discuss why Dingus hates Paranormal Activity 3, why Kellywand hates Meek’s Cutoff, and why Tom loves Margin Call. At the 54-minute point, this week’s 3×3 is our favorite examples of Chekhov’s gun in movies. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. We’re on shaky ground ourselves.
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So you might not think to look to children’s fare to find good examples of horror. And you certainly wouldn’t expect much from a cartoon, for Pete’s sake. Especially one with Spielberg and Zemeckis’ names on it. But if this means you missed Monster House, you missed out.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that the protagonists are kids. This is a grand spooky adventure with just enough of a dark twist to take off that sugary Halloween aftertaste. I’m actually pretty surprised it’s a straight-up PG. It features some really wonderful and imaginative, uh, creature design for lack of a better word. Because — spoiler — the creature is actually a house.
Furthermore, all the stuff with the kids is really well done. In fact, everything Super 8 attempted, Monster House does ten times better. It even uses the same motion capture technique that Zemeckis pressed into service for Polar Express, but it doesn’t make that movie’s mistake of trying to look photorealistic. By presenting animated characters instead of creepy lifelike dolls, Monster House skips nimbly over the uncanny valley.
If you can dig on Nightmare before Christmas, Coraline, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Costume Quest, then I promise the sadly overlooked Monster House will be right up your alley.
I don’t want to embarrass anyone who may or may not be the online gaming service OnLive, but I noticed a recent Halloween related press release missing the point of trick-or-treating. The company promised “All Tricks No Treats With [insert name of a certain online gaming service] Halloween This Week”. That doesn’t exactly encourage me to knock on their door.
On the flip side, if you play Space Pirates and Zombies this weekend, you’ll notice the option for a Halloween mod is enabled by default. Leave that on. When the game starts, head for the nearest space station and dig the new “Trick or Treat” option. And don’t expect All Treats No Tricks. You’ll find a bunch of other adorable Halloween touches in Space Pirates and Zombies this weekend.
Another one of my favorite indie games, Dungeon Defenders, features costumes for the characters and a new Halloween mission, but only for PC users. Thanks, Microsoft, for no treats this Halloween!
Apparently, working for NASA isn’t rocket science. Take it from Rob, a.k.a. Manresa, who works for NASA but doesn’t even know how to say his own username. But if you want to know what natural disaster is coolest to watch from space, and what you might have missed in the skies of George last Monday, and why hard drives are more expensive, listen to this week’s podcast with Rob and Jason T. McMaster. Also, don’t be alarmed to discover that the Terminator is angled across the surface of the earth. Kyle Reese is doomed! Tom Chick is “on assignment”, so the podcast features no music and 90% less fancy-pants talk.
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If you’re watching The Cottage without having read anything about it (this excepted, of course), you might not realize you’re watching a horror film. In fact, you might be put in mind of a certain Mark Twain story. Which is exactly how it should be. All you need to know is that you’re watching a movie from one of the most talented and little known directors working today. Meet Paul Andrew Williams, whose movies are as distinct as his name is banal. I use the acronym “PAW” to keep all his various first names in the right order, but I’m still liable to call him Peter Allen Williams or some such thing.
The Cottage is British and I promise you that it is indeed a horror movie, albeit unlike any other horror movie. And that’s about all I want to tell you. You’re lucky if you get to see it knowing only that. Frankly, I’m a little jealous.
Also, I’m tired of people saying adoring things about Andy Serkis based on having only seen Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Do you people even know what Serkis looks like? He’s just as riveting when he comes out from behind the CG. And, in the case of The Cottage, he’s perfectly at home in less serious settings.
Get The Cottage from Netflix here. Be ready to never look at frozen peas the same way again.
I did not write the following article, which is a grossly inappropriate way to cover a charming Nintendo title like Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. Instead, it was written by my potty mouthed twin brother, who asked me to post it on his behalf.
After the jump, grossly inappropriate stuff Continue reading →
Not the actual games, of course. That will have to wait. This is just the titles of the games.
After the jump, the best and worst of 2011 Continue reading →
I’m not sure whether Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds is the first mockumentary, but it’s probably the first notable one for how it freaked out so many listeners. They weren’t yet accustomed to the wide range of stuff kicked off by Blair Witch Project’s success. Back then, there wasn’t even a word for mockumentaries. Another notable episode that predates jaded Blair Witch Project audiences is the 1992 BBC broadcast Ghostwatch, which is eerily prescient of reality TV and mockumentaries. There are conflicting reports about how much audiences were actually freaked out, but the reaction to the show was just as much a part of Ghostwatch as the show itself. And perhaps most surprising of all, the show itself actually holds up.
The premise is that a film crew visits a haunted house on Halloween night while a live studio broadcast checks in with them periodically. Callers call in, reporters on the scene offer updates, and experts unfold some obligatory backstory on a ghost with the unlikely name Pipes. It’s got a lot of Poltergeist going on, but with the dry British sensibility that got the Queen’s subjects through the fall of an empire, World War II, and Margaret Thatcher. BBC hosts react pretty much like you’d expect when confronted with strange goings on and unexpected developments. And I love how Ghostwatchers plays with the divide between the on-the-scene crew and the studio hosts.
You can watch the entire episode here. Save the money you would have spent on Paranormal Activity 3 and watch Ghostwatch instead. In fact, I recommend an annual Halloween viewing to share this with friends who haven’t seen it.
Next time someone accuses me of being a contrarian because I was critical of popular games like Gears of War 3 or Rage, I’m going to fling in his face this quote from my review of the latest Batman game:
There is almost nothing in Arkham City that doesn’t feel perfect.
Ha! Take that! What kind of contrarian hops so gleefully onto the Batman: Arkham City bandwagon? In fact, scoot over and let me drive this thing.
Read the rest of the review here.
Like so many horror movies, Reeker starts with a bunch of kids in a car going someplace to party. But the first striking thing about this movie is that none of these kids is annoying. How is this possible? The premise of many bad horror movies is that you secretly want these snotty grating kids to get killed. But I actually liked every single one of the characters in Reeker, without exception. Even the funny guy, who would usually be the most annoying of all, was likable. Much of the credit goes to the actors, but you can’t underestimate writer/director Dave Payne’s convincing dialogue and humor that’s actually humorous. Any of these characters in, say, Shark Night or Wrong Turn wouldn’t fare nearly so well.
What’s more, the monster isn’t obvious for a while, so you can’t very well root for it. This is one of those “what the hell is going on?” movies in which characters are literally lost in the desert and the audience is metaphorically lost in the desert. Is it a slasher film? A creature feature? A metaphysical mind-bender? When it all comes together, it’s not the least bit surprising to anyone who’s seen more than a handful of horror movies. But it’s a good example of how a horror movie doesn’t have to be unique or even airtight. It just has to work.
The movie frequently shows us things the characters can’t see, which is usually a cheap shot. But Reeker has a good reason for doing this. In a couple of clever ways, it plays on the senses. The title refers to a bad smell, which is rendered with a silly visual effect you’d normally use to show the gas stove is turned on and it’s going to blow up the house when someone lights a match. I personally would have preferred something along the lines of how Charles Schulz drew Pigpen.
You can get Reeker on Netflix here.
The real wallet threat this week is Kirby’s Return to Dreamland. I wasn’t aware he’d left, but I’m glad he’s back. This is Nintendo platforming at its finest. Mario who?
I’m mostly curious this week about The Haunted: Hell’s Reach (pictured), a mod-gone-pro supposedly published by THQ. I say supposedly, because when I searched for the game’s name on THQ’s site, the only result was a zombie unlife sim for tween girls called Monster High Ghoul Spirit for the Nintendo Wii. “This semester, there’s a new ghoul hitting the haunted halls of Monster High — you!” So, like, Bully, but you’re a zombie? I would totally play that. Err, uh, I mean, that sounds stupid. Pfft. Anyway, that’s out this week as well. But The Haunted: Hell’s Reach, not for tween girls, is a horror-themed PC shooter with co-op multiplayer. I watch the trailer and think about how great Painkiller would have been with co-op multiplayer or how good Bulletstorm should have been.
I’m also curious about a downloadable War of the Worlds side-scrolling adventure for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN called, fittingly enough, War of the Worlds. It’s published by Paramount, but it’s based on the 1953 movie instead of the Spielberg movie. I would like to think this was a creative choice made by the developer, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts it was an easy way to sidestep the rights to Tom Cruise’s likeness.
Stronghold 3 is out this week for any castle building needs not being met in Minecraft. Folks with Kinects might care about Dance Central 2. Cursed Crusade looks like Atlus’ attempt at a slice of the Assassins Creed and Dark Souls pies. Pokemon Rumble Blast is probably the worst game name this year. Also, Electronic Arts’ Modern Warfare 3 is out this week.
One of the trademarks of indie horror is that it can’t get too ambitious. One haunted house, serial killer, or monster at a time, please. Mulberry Street didn’t get that memo. It’s a movie of limited resources, but considerable ambition for telling a story about a plague in Manhattan. And even though it tries to go big, it does something that I love about some movies set in New York: it lives comfortably in a specific neighborhood. This New York City consists of the people in a crowded apartment building, a neighborhood bar, and the route one character takes for his morning run. The Statue of Liberty and Times Square are nowhere to be seen.
These crowded city apartment buildings span generations and ethnicities. They aren’t unique to New York, or even America. [Rec], Phase 7, and Rammbock present the same thing in entirely different countries. Here are people who are different but close, their relationships tested by some horrible calamity. They are the new family unit.
Mulberry Street features a twist on the familiar soldier-returning-home motif that I really liked. And I love how much attention it pays to older folks. Normally, if you’re over 60, a movie isn’t going to bother with you for very long. Mulberry Street also features some neatly staged action sequences, including a fight scene that belongs alongside Disney’s Tangled as proof of the tactical advantage of weidling a skillet. Also, any movie where Larry Fessenden shows up gets extra points in my book (his vampire movie Habit was another great example a New York City neighborhood). Enjoy his mini character arc as Man Behind the Gate.
Director Jim Mickle and actor Nick Damici, who co-wrote Mulberry Street, recently made a more ambitious but ultimately less effective movie called Stake Land, which ranges across a vampire post-apocalypse. Sometimes it’s better to just keep your apocalypse local.
Mulberry Street is available on Netflix here.
