I keep meaning to get on here and talk about the latest game in the Castlevania series, Lords of Shadow, but I just keep running out of time. By which I mean my bed starts talking dirty to me and I pass out :D. Hopefully I'll be able to collect my thoughts sometime later today and post them. If I don't pass out again, which is lookin iffy.
Bai nao. ZZZZZZzzzz....
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Stephen King's IT
Last week, the Nostalgia Critic did a review of this movie. He hammed it up, turning it into a Stephen King drinking game. Look, I have no issue with the NC doing this, it's his job to nitpick and go over-the-top for laughs, and the problems he pointed out with the movie are legitimate. But let's be fair to the movie: it was made for tv in 1990, so not only are the effects not going to be that good, but the story is going to have to be butchered. Not to say they did a bad job with the story, they hit the main points of the book and captured the atmosphere of Derry.
I'm going to compare/contrast events in the book and movie and explain a logical reason why they were changed.
Sightings of It
Almost all of the seven Losers' first sighting of It was changed from book to movie, but the changes make sense when you take into account budget and whatnot.
Ben: In the book, Ben saw It as the mummy while walking home from school in the winter. The movie was probably shot in the spring/summer and they couldn't afford to draw out the shooting long enough to actually shoot in the dead of winter. Also, Ben saw the creature on the frozen over Canal, a channel that keeps the Kenduskeag river flowing through downtown Derry. I don't know of any town in America that has something like this and it would have been to expensive to create some kind of analogue and so, Ben's sighting was changed to seeing It as his father in the Barrens.
Bill and Bev were unchanged.
Eddie: Eddie saw It as a leper under the porch of 29 Neibolt street. This would have introduced several plot threads into the movie that would have made it probably made it 2 hours longer, so it was changed for time.
Richie: Richie saw It as a moving Paul Bunyon statue. Let's face it; the computer technology that tv studios had to work with even now could not make a 30 foot Paul Bunyon statue look anything but fake. Back then, it would have been worse. This one goes to tech and budget.
Stan: Stan saw dead boys in the Standpipe. Once again, we deal with location and budget. What town has something like the Standpipe?
Mike: Mike saw a giant bird at the ruins of the Kitchener Ironworks. Once again location and budget. They would have had to create a field full of detritus from the exploded ironworks and on top of that make a giant bird chase a small boy. No way they could have done that on a tv budget in 1990.
So we can understand why these changes were made. Other changes were mostly for time; they left out the Neibolt street stuff and the children facing down the giant spider.
Another thing the Critic complained about was the flashbacks; and he's right to complain about that. Half of the story is told through flashbacks, both in the movie and the book. The thing is, in the book they make sense. The adults forgot everything about that summer and the phone call from Mike triggers their memories and they start to remember things that happened. As they remember, we learn what happened. This isn't really explained in the movie and the flashbacks get kind of annoying.
I think the movie was made for fans of the book, who can kind of plug in the missing sequences from the book to make the movie that much better.
God I don't want to talk about what I'm about to, but it's all the people who trash on this book seem to focus on: the sex scene in the sewers between Beverly and the boys. Look, I know it sounds bad, especially when you take into account the kids are 12 but damnit, it's not the point of the book! First of all, did you pay attention to this book? Supernatural forces were keeping the kids bound together as one force to kill It. When they were leaving the sewers, the bond began to break down and they got lost. Bev used sex as a way to bind them together forever. IT MAKES SENSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE BOOK!
Besides, it's not like its written in disgusting detail like a Penthouse Forum letter; its very downplayed and sweet, not to mention vague. This is sex from the point of view of a kid who's just starting puberty. If you let something like this, which amounts to maybe 20 pages in a 1104 page book, hey, too bad for you. IT is one of Stephen King's best. The man not only knows what scares us, but how to write it.
I'm going to compare/contrast events in the book and movie and explain a logical reason why they were changed.
Sightings of It
Almost all of the seven Losers' first sighting of It was changed from book to movie, but the changes make sense when you take into account budget and whatnot.
Ben: In the book, Ben saw It as the mummy while walking home from school in the winter. The movie was probably shot in the spring/summer and they couldn't afford to draw out the shooting long enough to actually shoot in the dead of winter. Also, Ben saw the creature on the frozen over Canal, a channel that keeps the Kenduskeag river flowing through downtown Derry. I don't know of any town in America that has something like this and it would have been to expensive to create some kind of analogue and so, Ben's sighting was changed to seeing It as his father in the Barrens.
Bill and Bev were unchanged.
Eddie: Eddie saw It as a leper under the porch of 29 Neibolt street. This would have introduced several plot threads into the movie that would have made it probably made it 2 hours longer, so it was changed for time.
Richie: Richie saw It as a moving Paul Bunyon statue. Let's face it; the computer technology that tv studios had to work with even now could not make a 30 foot Paul Bunyon statue look anything but fake. Back then, it would have been worse. This one goes to tech and budget.
Stan: Stan saw dead boys in the Standpipe. Once again, we deal with location and budget. What town has something like the Standpipe?
Mike: Mike saw a giant bird at the ruins of the Kitchener Ironworks. Once again location and budget. They would have had to create a field full of detritus from the exploded ironworks and on top of that make a giant bird chase a small boy. No way they could have done that on a tv budget in 1990.
So we can understand why these changes were made. Other changes were mostly for time; they left out the Neibolt street stuff and the children facing down the giant spider.
Another thing the Critic complained about was the flashbacks; and he's right to complain about that. Half of the story is told through flashbacks, both in the movie and the book. The thing is, in the book they make sense. The adults forgot everything about that summer and the phone call from Mike triggers their memories and they start to remember things that happened. As they remember, we learn what happened. This isn't really explained in the movie and the flashbacks get kind of annoying.
I think the movie was made for fans of the book, who can kind of plug in the missing sequences from the book to make the movie that much better.
God I don't want to talk about what I'm about to, but it's all the people who trash on this book seem to focus on: the sex scene in the sewers between Beverly and the boys. Look, I know it sounds bad, especially when you take into account the kids are 12 but damnit, it's not the point of the book! First of all, did you pay attention to this book? Supernatural forces were keeping the kids bound together as one force to kill It. When they were leaving the sewers, the bond began to break down and they got lost. Bev used sex as a way to bind them together forever. IT MAKES SENSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE BOOK!
Besides, it's not like its written in disgusting detail like a Penthouse Forum letter; its very downplayed and sweet, not to mention vague. This is sex from the point of view of a kid who's just starting puberty. If you let something like this, which amounts to maybe 20 pages in a 1104 page book, hey, too bad for you. IT is one of Stephen King's best. The man not only knows what scares us, but how to write it.
Monday, October 25, 2010
CSI
I liked the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. I thought the premise was great, at the time there was a distinct lack of forensic shows and it worked. I hate cop shows, but I have always enjoyed science and stuff so this seemed like a happy middle ground. Then the spin-off started cropping up. Miami, New York plus like a thousand look alikes like Bones (which I love, I have no beef with Bones) and NCIS, which has since spawned its own spin-off: NCIS: Las Angeles.
Seriously, do we need this many shows about the same damn thing? The way I see it, the only one worth a damn still is Bones, which is basically all the Fox network has going for it aside from Chef Ramsay shows. Vegas CSI should have ended long ago, when William Petersen left. To me, he was what made the show great; he was a quiet, introspective character who could be really funny at inappropriate times. Kind of like me. I thought they should have ended the show when he left, but no, somehow it endures. Come on guys, Nick Stokes cannot carry the show by himself, put it to rest.
I can't say too much about CSI: NY or NCIS; I don't watch them. I can tolerate NCIS sometimes, but it's hard to enjoy a show my 50 year old mother swoons over. Kinda kills the tension when she's hollering about how hot Gibbs or DiNozzo is. I enjoy the show, but it kind of grates on my nerves after 2 or 3 episodes and somehow we always seem to catch it on marathon day or something.
Now, regarding CSI: Miami. Oh dear god do I hate that show. Seriously. I mentioned it in passing on my FB but seriously, David Caruso chews more scenery in that show than John Travolta did in Battlefield: Earth. My god. He so consistently hams it up, I'm surprised there aren't teeth marks on some of the props. I know what he's doing. William Petersen usually had some kind of witty remark right before the title sequence. So Caruso's trying to do that. But see, the thing is David, William was clever about it. He didn't feel the need to chew scenery while delivering his witticisms. When he did it, it was always kind of sarcastic, with a smirk on his face. When you do it, I want to push my thumb through my eye and give myself a frontal lobotomy with my thumbnail. Seriously dude, stop it.
Well, I've said enough and I think sleep might be nice; I'm at the stage of weariness when you're sitting perfectly still, yet the floor decides its time to shimmy and shake. Night all.
Seriously, do we need this many shows about the same damn thing? The way I see it, the only one worth a damn still is Bones, which is basically all the Fox network has going for it aside from Chef Ramsay shows. Vegas CSI should have ended long ago, when William Petersen left. To me, he was what made the show great; he was a quiet, introspective character who could be really funny at inappropriate times. Kind of like me. I thought they should have ended the show when he left, but no, somehow it endures. Come on guys, Nick Stokes cannot carry the show by himself, put it to rest.
I can't say too much about CSI: NY or NCIS; I don't watch them. I can tolerate NCIS sometimes, but it's hard to enjoy a show my 50 year old mother swoons over. Kinda kills the tension when she's hollering about how hot Gibbs or DiNozzo is. I enjoy the show, but it kind of grates on my nerves after 2 or 3 episodes and somehow we always seem to catch it on marathon day or something.
Now, regarding CSI: Miami. Oh dear god do I hate that show. Seriously. I mentioned it in passing on my FB but seriously, David Caruso chews more scenery in that show than John Travolta did in Battlefield: Earth. My god. He so consistently hams it up, I'm surprised there aren't teeth marks on some of the props. I know what he's doing. William Petersen usually had some kind of witty remark right before the title sequence. So Caruso's trying to do that. But see, the thing is David, William was clever about it. He didn't feel the need to chew scenery while delivering his witticisms. When he did it, it was always kind of sarcastic, with a smirk on his face. When you do it, I want to push my thumb through my eye and give myself a frontal lobotomy with my thumbnail. Seriously dude, stop it.
Well, I've said enough and I think sleep might be nice; I'm at the stage of weariness when you're sitting perfectly still, yet the floor decides its time to shimmy and shake. Night all.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Game Review: Sanitarium
I've been on an old-school pc gaming kick recently. Now, you have to realize that what I call "old-school" may not mean the same thing to everybody else. I consider early to mid 90's games old school, simply because I didn't have a computer at the time and when I did get one, I had never heard of these games.
Sometimes I go on IGN or GameSpot and search a game I have, say Thief: Deadly Shadows for instance, and I look at the other games it recommends. Sometimes the recommendations pan out like when I searched for T:DS and I found out it was the third game in the series and that lead to me playing the other two, which are much more tense and overall enjoyable than the third. One game I found while checking out recommendations was this one, Sanitarium by ASC Games.
Sanitarium, besides being one of my favorite Metallica songs EVER, is a nice little action game where you take control of a prisoner in a very whacked-out asylum. It's your job to figure out what in the hell is going on. The game is divided into eight chapters across three disks and..It's freakin' awesome. I'll admit, I got this one quite awhile ago and lost interest when I got stuck in the second chapter. I found it again the other day and re-installed it on a whim. There are a few things I disliked and I'll get to those but I'm going to start off with what was awesome.
The story was great. I don't want to give anything away, but it kept me guessing right until the end. The visuals were creepy and, although dated, were still good. The sound also added to the atmosphere, although most of the voice acting was, well, bad. Then again, it was released in 1996 and I don't think I've seen any game from that time when the voice acting didn't kind of suck.
Now, there were only a couple of things that irritated me about this game. Mainly the length. Even though it was eight "chapters" it only took me a few hours altogether to beat. Sadly, the controls were completely horrible too. Now, I'm playing on a touch pad on my laptop, so maybe it's better with an actual mouse, but I had real difficulty controlling the movement of the character and sometimes would be thrown in an odd direction just because I wasn't paying enough attention to where my cursor was. I would have liked an option to use the keyboard for movement, but oh well. It was still a great game and if you haven't tried it, you probably should. It's currently up for purchase on gog.com.
Sometimes I go on IGN or GameSpot and search a game I have, say Thief: Deadly Shadows for instance, and I look at the other games it recommends. Sometimes the recommendations pan out like when I searched for T:DS and I found out it was the third game in the series and that lead to me playing the other two, which are much more tense and overall enjoyable than the third. One game I found while checking out recommendations was this one, Sanitarium by ASC Games.
Sanitarium, besides being one of my favorite Metallica songs EVER, is a nice little action game where you take control of a prisoner in a very whacked-out asylum. It's your job to figure out what in the hell is going on. The game is divided into eight chapters across three disks and..It's freakin' awesome. I'll admit, I got this one quite awhile ago and lost interest when I got stuck in the second chapter. I found it again the other day and re-installed it on a whim. There are a few things I disliked and I'll get to those but I'm going to start off with what was awesome.
The story was great. I don't want to give anything away, but it kept me guessing right until the end. The visuals were creepy and, although dated, were still good. The sound also added to the atmosphere, although most of the voice acting was, well, bad. Then again, it was released in 1996 and I don't think I've seen any game from that time when the voice acting didn't kind of suck.
Now, there were only a couple of things that irritated me about this game. Mainly the length. Even though it was eight "chapters" it only took me a few hours altogether to beat. Sadly, the controls were completely horrible too. Now, I'm playing on a touch pad on my laptop, so maybe it's better with an actual mouse, but I had real difficulty controlling the movement of the character and sometimes would be thrown in an odd direction just because I wasn't paying enough attention to where my cursor was. I would have liked an option to use the keyboard for movement, but oh well. It was still a great game and if you haven't tried it, you probably should. It's currently up for purchase on gog.com.
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