TITLE: Crysis 2
PLATFORM: 360, PS3, PC
DEVELOPER: Crytek
PUBLISHER: EA
ESRB: M
RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

There is one thing I truly miss about PCs, the games. I switched to a Mac about 4 years ago and while I love my Mac; I find myself longing for loading a game on my PC and shooting through it. The first Crysis was a PC-only game that was so popular and well-received that it made me jealous for the SOBs that got to play it. I heard the sequel, Crysis 2, was going to be available on Xbox 360 and I was incredibly excited; but after playing through, my faith in console games was restored because Crysis 2 is nothing to get overly excited about.

Following the events of the first game, the alien virus from the first game has been unleashed in New York City and has thrown the entire country into chaos. You play a marine who is nearly killed trying to enter the city on a mission to rescue a scientist. You are saved by Prophet, one of the super soldiers equipped with a nanosuit from the first game, before being getting a nanosuit of his own and given the task of stopping the aliens. The player now has to fight an army of soldiers from an evil corporation hoping to exploit the crisis, as well as the aliens, who just want to conquer the planet.

The story is pretty standard fare for an action sci-fi game; you got aliens taking over the world and a human super soldier who is supposed to stop it. This is the same for most video games like this; it doesn’t help Crysis 2 but it doesn’t hurt it either. What does hurt it is the backstory from the first game — which really would help players enjoy the game — is mentioned only in the briefest of ways and this really hurts the overall experience.

The gameplay is also a bit of a mixed bag. Overall, the action is fast paced and fun, just when you get used to the experience of fighting soldiers you switch to aliens who present a fresh challenge in the middle of the game. A part that I especially liked was the ability to customize your weapon with various attachments in the field; you don’t have to find a special station or anything similar, you can set it up whenever you want if you have the attachments. The game’s combat visor is an interesting addition, allowing you to view the battlefield and see the various ways you can take out the enemy; this is good idea that allows you to fully experience the environment and new ways to play the game apart from the running-n-gunning. The multiplayer leaves something to be desired. Despite the fact you have a suit with super powers, the overall experience is like bad ripoff of Call of Duty and has all the fun you expect from something like that.

The suit and the powers you get from it are fun to play around with, but the lack of variety with suit powers makes it pretty boring fast. The powers are useful, but if you give a player a nanosuit with incredible abilities, you better come up with more than a shield, a cloak, and infrared vision. Another problem that I have with the suit is the lack of guidance, you get a quick overview of the suit powers but afterward you have to figure it out on your own. I understand from a narrative point of view why this is, but the lack of some tutorial or something to help you get used the suit powers takes away from the experience and pisses me off when I realize I could have done something the entire game and don’t realize it till the end.

I won’t say much about the graphics and sound other than the fact that they are fantastic. But great sound and graphics don’t make up for the rest of the game’s shortcomings. If they did, then the Transformers films would be cinematic masterpiece and not the pain-inducing movie experience that happens every two years. The gameplay and story are either not up to par or are generic enough to have been seen in other games, some of them better than Crysis 2.

RATING: 6/10

Front page image and screenshots courtesy of EA.

TITLE: The Conspirator
STARRING: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Justin Long, Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson
DIRECTOR: Robert Redford
STUDIOS: American Film Company, Wildwood Enterprises, Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions
RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 123 min
RELEASED: September 11, 2010 (limited), April 15, 2011 (USA)

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

When I went to see this movie, I was more than a bit shocked when I was told that the theater was nearly full. I shouldn’t have been surprised considering the fact that I live in Springfield, IL, a city known for its reverence of Abraham Lincoln.  After seeing the movie, I started to feel sorry for all the people who paid to see it and left disappointed.

After returning home from fighting for the Union, Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) is looking forward to continuing his law practice and moving up the Washington D.C. political chain, but soon news reaches him that Lincoln has been assassinated. After the assassination, Aiken is asked by Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to defend Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), an owner of a boarding where her son, John, collaborated with John Wilkes Booth and the rest of the conspirators who planned the assassination; and Mary is being tried as a co-conspirator and faces execution. Aiken reluctantly defends her while enduring ridicule from his peers and a trial rigged in every conceivable way by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline) to find her guilty.

Image from daemonsmoviesmovies.com.

I have always been a huge fan of history; it was my favorite subject in school and a respite from the unbelievable hell that was math class. But while I love history, I go to the movies to be entertained; The Conspirator feels more like a lesson in history class than an entertaining and compelling film based on real events. All the pieces are there for an Oscar-worthy drama and the story is solid, but there is no real emotional connection to the events or the characters for the majority of the film. While there is a real emotional connection in the beginning for certain characters and the scenes between Wright and McAvoy are very well done, the rest of the film lacks this or is never developed properly. This drags the whole film down.

Director Robert Redford has also used this historical event as a way to comment on the treatment of suspected terrorists and the denial of civil rights in the war on terror. The metaphor seems like a reasonable one to make and could be handled well, but in this case the concept is hammered over and over again. I realize this is based on historical events, but the trial of Surratt and its similarities to what is going on now could have been handled much better.

There are a few strong performances, the story even transcends its dullness at some points and has real tragedy that will tie everything together in the end.  But the fact the film lacks a clear emotional connection and development with the characters and events stops this movie from being a truly great film. If you are a fan of history like me, you will get some enjoyment out of it; but if you are not, wait for it to appear online or on TV.

RATING: 6/10

TITLE: Scream 4
STARRING: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere
DIRECTOR: Wes Craven
STUDIOS: Dimension Films, Corvus Corax Productions, Outerbacks Entertainment
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 103 min
RELEASED: April 15, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

Slasher movies are my ultimate guilty pleasure. I should feel scared by a killer stalking idiot teens and killing them in a horrific fashion. But the whole situation is absurd and the stupid decisions by these kids make me laugh. The first Scream encapsulated everything I loved about slasher movies while including meta commentary about the fact they are horror movie clichés. But the sequels have suffered from diminishing quality, and Scream 4 is no exception.

Being nearly killed by psycho killers three times, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has returned to Woodsboro to finish promoting her self-help book and catch up with Gale (Courtney Cox) and Dewey (David Arquette) who are having a hard time in their marriage. Wouldn’t you know it, teenagers soon turn up dead by and hunt is on for this new killer before he kills anybody else.

When you think of the Scream franchise, the first thing you probably think of is the post-modern take they have on the slasher movie genre. But the beginning of Scream 4 does it to such a degree that it wore me out. While the beginning was kind of funny, the fake outs and constant attempts to be smarter than it actually was just made me wish for the movie to be over soon. Some of the meta commentary about the fact that most horror movies today are remakes of older franchises, and the characters are essentially in a horror remake/reboot is funny and in some ways is clever. But most of the time it fails to live up to the previous films, and doesn’t do a very good job of transitioning to commentary. There is the potential for a good message about everyone’s desire to become famous in the age of the internet, and it seems to be built up pretty well throughout the movie, but when it comes together in the end it feels haphazard and isn’t well done.

The story is focused on the returning characters of Sidney, Gale, and Dewey; which is finem but the rest of the characters that are introduced aren’t given that much to work with and are basically walking stereotypes just waiting to get killed. The reveal about which one of them is the killer therefore lacks any real punch and the audience does not care so much about who it is.

The story is serviceable, it’s funny throughout the movie, and parts of it actually come off as scary. But overall, the meta commentary isn’t as good as before. There are two messages in the movie that aren’t handled well, and the bulk of the characters are just walking stereotypes waiting to be killed off. While the movie was intended to be a commentary on the rash of horror movie remakes, it eventually becomes what it’s commenting on, which is definitely not a good thing no matter how meta it is.

RATING: 5/10

TITLE: Hanna
STARRING: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams
DIRECTOR: Joe Wright
STUDIO: Focus Features
RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 111 min
RELEASED: April 8, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

I’ve never seen a film from director Joe Wright. I don’t think he’s a bad director, I just never had a desire to see any of his previous movies. I didn’t want to see Atonement or The Soloist or Pride & Prejudice, not because they’re bad films, they’re just not my cup of tea (and I want my Pride and Prejudice film to include zombies). But after seeing Hanna, I may have to take a look at his previous work because Hanna is easily one of my favorite films this year.

Hanna (Ronan) is a young girl who lives in the forest and has had no contact with the modern world. Her only knowledge of the world beyond the forest comes from outdated encyclopedias, and is being trained as an assassin by her father and ex-CIA agent Erik Heller. Hanna is becoming restless, she wants to see more of the world she has only read about, and Erik realizes that she is ready fulfill her mission; Hanna has been trained since she was young to get close to Erik’s CIA handler, Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett), and kill her. Hanna signals the CIA to where she and Erik are hiding and she begins her mission. Will she succeed? Will she be able to survive in a world that is completely alien to her? And is she a weapon, or a person who is more than what she has been raised as?

One of the first things that people are going to think about this movie is its action, because it has been advertised as an espionage action movie, and it delivers. The action scenes are shot at a breakneck pace but they never feel rushed. Unlike a lot of fight scenes that are shot with handheld cameras to imitate the frantic pace of an actual fight, Wright takes his time setting and rehearsing each action sequence so they maintain the frenzied excitement of a fight but are still beautiful too watch without getting a headache. Another great thing about the action is that they never feel like they are forced into the movie, they are a natural part of the story’s progress and reflect the conflict growing between these characters.

Image from blackfilm.com.

The story in this film is much stronger than your typical spy film. You can view it as a standard spy gets betrayed then gets revenge story, but that is the simplest way to break down the story; it can also be seen as modern fairy tale, a twisted family drama, and a coming of age story. There are multiple layers to the story and they fit together perfectly. The characters are not one-dimensional, they are very well written with motivations that fuel the movie.

The actors nail every part beautifully. Ronan is absolutely incredible, she can appear vulnerable one moment and instantly switch to killing machine; and watching her grapple with the killer she has been raised as and the human being she is growing into is compelling drama and in some cases comedic. Blanchett almost steals the show as the CIA boss who brushes her teeth until they bleed, has sacrificed everything for her country, has her own twisted motivation to find Hanna, and is a terrifying wicked witch in the fairy tale interpretation of the story. Bana is good as Hanna’s father who continuously conflicted about using Hanna to kill Marissa so they can have a safe future or follow his fatherly instincts to protect her.  Hollander is pretty terrifying and extremely creepy as Issacs, the killer sent out to find Hanna and kill her. The hippie family with Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng as mother and father respectively, seem a little annoying at first but they eventually serve as good examples of the traditional family and modern life that Hanna has never had.

The cinematography in this film is amazing with skilled tracking shots utilized to maximum effect in two action scenes.  The set design is great, as it not only reflects the story’s tone but also the mood of the characters.  And the score by The Chemical Brothers is impressive; it is overpowering when it needs to be but can also switch to delightfully subtle with relative ease.

Photo from rottentomatoes.com.

Despite all the praise I am heaping on this movie, there are a couple of problems that hold this movie back from getting a perfect score. The Chemical Brothers’ score while amazing, sounds like it could have used some more refinement at certain points in the film. Hollander’s Issacs is definitely creepy, but we never see a whole lot from his actions to make me consider him a true threat to Hanna; he is kind of threatening to everyone else but I never got a good sense that he could actually kill Hanna if they got in a fight. I also could have used some more resolution between Hanna and her father; they have a moment to deal with the journey they have both been on and the truth of her birth that Hanna uncovers, but it is fleeting and I could have used more reflection and resolution between the two. One more small thing: At one point in the film Hanna plays around with a computer and two minutes later she can use the Internet and do a Google search; this seems a bit unrealistic considering it took forever to help my folks with their computer, but that’s just me.

Even though it has flaws, there is so much in this film that is amazing that its flaws barley have an effect on the overall experience.  As I said earlier, this is one of my favorite films of 2011 (it’s between this and Source Code) and I am already planning on seeing it a second time.  If you are reading this review though, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it; now put the computer down and go see Hanna.

RATING: 9.5/10

Front page image from rottentomatoes.com.

TITLE: Source Code
STARRING: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Russell Peters
DIRECTOR: Duncan Jones
STUDIOS: Summit Entertainment, Vendome Pictures, The Mark Gordon Company, E1 Entertainment, StudioCanal
RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 93 min
RELEASED: April 1, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

To me, the most important aspect of a science fiction film is not the effects, what kind of tecnobabble they use to explain everything, or how many giant robot fights they throw in (contrary to what Michael Bay thinks makes a good movie). The most important aspect is the human element, that part of our nature that exists in all of us that is suddenly forced to deal with a situation that seems completely impossible and has to find a way to endure; that makes good sci-fi. Director Duncan Jones pulled this off with his first film Moon, and he has done it a second time with Source Code.

Source Code follows Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal), a pilot who was in Afghanistan when he suddenly wakes up on a train into Chicago; he is in another man’s body and is talking to a woman named Christina (Monaghan). Suddenly, the train blows up and he wakes up in capsule, to find out that he is in a top secret Air Force program called The Source Code. The Source Code is a program that allows someone to relive the last 8 minutes of a person’s life before they die. Stevens’ job is to relive a life on the train to find a terrorist who bombed the train and identify him before he detonates a dirty bomb in Chicago.

As I stated before, the best sci-fi film makes the human element the most important and Source Code is no exception. The film’s message is about a man overcoming something bigger than himself, in this case the Source Code and the military who is using it — that and being able to retain his humanity despite everything in his life, in and out of the Source Code, telling him he won’t make a difference. This message is never thrown at the audience in a heavy-handed way, and it is wrapped in an entertaining mystery that pulls people in while keeping them invested in Gyllenhaal’s struggle.

I’m not Gyllenhaal’s biggest fan, but he does an amazing job in his role; he makes this unbelievable situation seem real and makes the audience relate to his struggle to remain sane. Every other character is not as fleshed out as Gyllenhaal’s, but they make the most out of what they are given and create rich characters that you want to watch. Farmiga is great as an Air Force member who is torn between her job to save lives and her obligation to her fellow soldiers. Monaghan has a difficult task of being interesting even though she essentially plays the same scene again and again, but she pulls it off like a pro. The only character that could have used some more development is Jeffrey Wright’s character Rutledge, but he is still able to be a decent character despite the lack of material.

While this film is an exceptional science fiction film, the thriller part of it leaves something to be desired. When you know the protagonist is not really going to die and will play through the same events over and over again, the tension never really builds up to anything. The audience grows to care about the passengers on the train but never really worry about their safety.

Still, it is a great film that deserves to be seen and is clear sign to expect more good things from Jones as a director.

RATING: 9/10

Front page image  and interior still from rottentomatoes.com.
For more from Jake Gyllenhaal, check out Love and Other Drugs and Price of Persia.

TITLE: Dragon Age II
PLATFORM: 360, PS3, PC, MAC
DEVELOPER: BioWare
PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts
ESRB: M
RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

I love the talent at BioWare; they reignited my love of Star Wars with Knights of the Old Republic after the prequels beat my love with pipes and then peed on it, and Mass Effect is so far my favorite video game series, but I’m sure I will be the first to say Hollywood royally fucked up the movie adaptation.

Though when I first heard of Dragon Age: Origins I was very indifferent, but then I got my hands on it and while it did not wow me, it was a good game. It had an epic story, a mythology, and an interesting set of decisions in the game that was more nuanced than the obvious good/bad choice system. Dragon Age II changes a lot from the first game and while some of it is an improvement, the rest knocks this game down from a must-play to a game worth renting.

The story follows a character named Hawke who flees The Blight from the first game with his family and arrives in Kirkwall. Working his way up from the slums to the being one of the wealthiest and most influential people in Kirkwall, Hawke must deal with the growing conflict between mages and templars, the Qunari who threaten to destroy Kirkwall, a serial killer, dragons, and just about every problem that could ever exist in a fantasy universe.

Dragon Age II features what some have called the “Mass Effect treatment”, meaning that many of the game’s features have been streamlined, simplified, and made more console player friendly. This has irked some gamers who are used to traditional RPG style and PC gaming, but I feel that this treatment has improved a lot of the problems with the first game. The dialogue system in the first game lacked the sophistication of others and disconnected the player a bit from the game; the new system employs the dialogue wheel from Mass Effect and the player gains a voice to help pull them into the game experience.

The combat system in this game has also received a bit of an overhaul. Every class now has strengths and weaknesses to balance each other out; whatever class the player picks will not feel as though they are useless in combat, and it keeps the gameplay fun. The game world’s mythology is still extensive and filled with rich, interesting characters that help suck players into the game.

After this though there are some big problems with the game. The story is smaller and deals with more political issues than Origins’ evil monsters versus fearless heroes. While I enjoyed the smaller scale and the conflict between the mages and the templars because it helped to build the world of Thedas, the lack of an epic story or a clear villain took away from the overall experience. Some games are still great with a smaller scale story, but when you are planning a series of games set in a fantasy world full of dragons you better make it friggin’ epic. Instead of exploring new environments that showcase the developers’ prowess, the game universe’s mythology and give the players something new to experience, you will end up exploring the same places at least ten times and the result is gameplay that gets tiresome after awhile. After traveling to the Wounded Coast or Darktown to kill a rogue mage or a demon, I was begging to see something new.

The story also suffers because the decisions that the player makes in the game are still not as clear as they were in the first game, but there is no epilogue to show the results of your actions, so the results of your decisions don’t seem to have the same weight to it. The inventory system has been streamlined, which was something I thought needed to be addressed from the first game, but this has been overdone a bit in this sequel. The player can have access to everything in the inventory, but companions can’t get new types of armor, which is a bit annoying when the players are given stuff such as mages robes when he is a warrior.

Overall, Dragon Age II is a fun game with great world building, but the developers have simplified everything a bit too much. The story lacks the epic feel of its predecessor, the environment is repetitive and things have simplified too much in places to its detriment. If there are sequels to this game, I sincerely hope they combine the best parts of the first two games. Otherwise, I will rent future installments for about five days and return them.

RATING: 7/10

Images from dragonage.bioware.com.

TITLE: Limitless
STARRING: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth
DIRECTOR: Neil Burger
STUDIO: Rivers Productions, Boy of the Year, Intermedia, Relativity Media, Virgin Produced, Rogue Pictures
RATING: PG-13
RUN TIME: 105 min
RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

Every single person in this world has thought about what they could do if they were smarter, stronger, or more charismatic; I can’t even count the number of times I have wished everything could be easier or I could be someone better. Would I still be the same person, what would I do, and how long would it last? These are all questions asked in the new film Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.

Eddie Morra (Cooper) plays a writer who is a complete mess; his longtime girlfriend (Cornish) breaks up with him, and he is suffering from writer’s block. He meets an old friend who gives Eddie a pill called NZT that lets him access 100 percent of his brain. Within 30 seconds of taking it, Eddie finishes half of his book, cleans his rat’s nest of an apartment, helps his landlord’s wife with her law school paper, and then has sex with her; the only problem is the pill lasts a day and he needs more to keep his abilities. After getting more pills, he starts getting more ambitious and starts to make his fortune on Wall Street working for a billionaire (De Niro); but people are chasing after him for more pills and the side effects from the pill are starting to take their toll on him.

Director Neil Burger wowed me when I saw his film The Illusionist, and while Limitless doesn’t quite reach that quality, it is still a good movie with a lot going for it. The story is an interesting take on what happens when you give someone with nothing going for them incredible power instantly. What Eddie gets is a gift and while at times he uses them for good, he uses it mostly for his own desires; the concept that having a super-powered brain doesn’t make someone a better person is a concept that has been done before in other media. But seeing the transformation entirely from Morra’s point of view makes for compelling entertainment.

The concept of a pill that enhances people is not limited to Cooper’s character, the sense of paranoia about whom is following him or how many people around him are taking the pill adds solid suspense to the film. Watching Morra enjoy his new abilities is very enticing and watching him suffer the side effects or being hunted by others who have had the drug and want more creates a solid thriller. Burger handles both types of films and Cooper shows off some acting skills portraying the highs and lows of Morra’s life on the pill.

There are a few things that hold this movie from being great. The first is that while there is a very interesting premise, there are parts of the story that are not addressed that would have made it better. The question of whether Eddie is still Eddie without all his faults is mentioned in one scene and never brought up again; this, along other concepts, are mentioned briefly but never really develop into anything. The tone of the movie is also off-balance, it starts off showing the positives and negatives of taking the drug for two-thirds of the movie, the other third seems to ignore that and has Eddie outsmarting the bad guys in the end with no down side. And when you have Robert De Niro in your cast, make good use of his talent. They build up his character but he just comes off as another in a long line of billionaires who try to screw over the movie’s hero.

While this film has flaws, it still has an interesting premise and it does a good job of executing it. There is enough in the story to keep people interested and talking about it afterward.

RATING: 8/10

Front page image and interior stills from rottentomatoes.com.

TITLE: Battle: Los Angeles
STARRING: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Michael Pena, Ramon Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Liebesman
STUDIO:Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Original Film, Legion Entertainment
RATING: PG-13
RUN TIME: 116 minutes
RELEASE DATE: March 11

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

I just want to start off this review with a question; what happened to the movies that had aliens showing up and not trying to kill everybody? It used to be that there were movies where aliens show up and they were friendly, they just wanted to get home and munch on some Reese’s Pieces.

Now every time aliens show up, they’re here to take our resources and kill everybody; normally I wouldn’t rant this much in a review, but my disappointment in Battle: Los Angeles puts me in a ranting mood. The movie has great action, but everything else is clichéd, dull, and kills what could have been an amazing action movie.

In the movie, an alien invasion has begun with the invaders falling through the atmosphere disguised as meteors. Once they start attacking, a Marine platoon including a sergeant (Eckhart) who is trying to retire are called up to defend Los Angeles and rescue civilians trapped in the city. Cutoff from any support, the marines must find out how to stop the aliens and survive.

This is the kind of action movie that one would expect in the summer and when it comes to action, this film delivers. Shot with handheld cameras, director Jonathan Liebesman puts you right in the center of the action and the scenes have much more punch to them. The little details of being a Marine add to the world and make their struggle against an enemy they never planned for compelling. The tone of the film is something I also enjoy, it’s very supportive of our armed forces but never feels extremely sappy or preachy; although this only last for the first two-thirds of the movie.

While the action in this movie is top-notch and the perspective of the Marines is done very well, the rest of the movie needs a lot more work. Apart from Eckhart’s character, the rest are very one-dimensional and have very little to make the audience care about their struggle. They’re not just one-dimensional, they are clichés that have been seen in every war movie; the worst part is with the civilians they have to rescue. They have virtually no character development, serve no real need in the story, and listening to their dialogue made me wince. And while the beginning starts off something different than what we’ve seen from other alien invasion movie, it ends up being pretty standard by the end.

Battle: Los Angeles had a lot of potential to be an interesting take on alien invasions and while it starts off that way, it quickly becomes a clichéd movie that is very boring and only comes to life sporadically when the action starts.

RATING: 6.5/10

Front page image and movie still from rottentomatoes.com.

TITLE: Bulletstorm
PLATFORM: 360, PS3, PC
DEVELOPER: People Can Fly, Epic Games
PUBLISHER: EA
ESRB: M
RELEASED: February 27, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

I hate to sound like an old bastard, but I remember a time when first-person shooters had a barely-there story and had more action than my adolescent mind could possibly contemplate. And while I love shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, there is still part of me that longs for the shooters of yesteryear; which is why I have been dying to play the new shooter Bulletstorm. It’s not the best shooter I have ever played, but it’s an exciting one whose level of fun is inversely proportional to the amount of thought that is needed to enjoy it.

The plot of the game is pretty straightforward. In the future, you play Grayson Hunt, the leader of a black-ops military unit called Dead Echo; they discover they are being used to assassinate innocent people for the corrupt General Sarrano. Refusing to do his dirty work anymore, they decide to go rogue and pledge to kill Sarrano for all the things he made them do. When they finally catch up with him, both of their ships crash on the planet Stygia, overrun with killer plants, monsters and savages with machine guns. You must fight through hundreds of enemies all over the planet to get to Sarrano and get off the planet while [SPOILER ALERT] dealing with your partner Ishi, who shifts from ally to homicidal cyborg who will try to kill you.

Image courtesy of EA.

The first thing to mention is the action in this game, and it is great. The skillshot system, rewarding players for killing their enemies in creative ways and stringing them together for combos, is an inventive system that I hope takes off for use in other games. The joy of getting a tough skillshot and taking out multiple enemies is exhilarating. Another part that makes the action in this game fun is the leash; it is an energy whip that you can use to pull enemies closer to you, send them skyrocketing into the air, and pulling them into traps.

The gameplay works to keep the player challenged by introducing new enemies that present different challenges; there are those that can avoid the leash, which hurts the players ability to fight enemies, since they have gotten used to the leash and lava monsters that are easy to kill but come in waves to overwhelm the player. This, combined with some insane situations like shooting helicopters from a train while a giant gear is rolling towards you, makes for action-packed shooter.

Image courtesy of EA.

The graphics in the game are definitely not the best I’ve seen but they are still fairly good. The cutscenes in this game could have used some more work, but the environments and in-game action are rendered beautifully.

Despite the fact that this is a fun shooter, there are some pretty big problems that hold it back from being great. Some of the weapons just seem to be more for show and skillshots than actually being useful; players will immediately find the weapons they are good with and will forget about the others, which is a waste. Also, you have a planet full of wildlife and killer plants to work with, but there is a lack of variety in the ways you can kill enemies using the natural environment; you get a lot variety killing enemies with machines and buildings but not so much with the natural environment of Stygia.

Image courtesy of EA.

While I did enjoy the fact this harkened back to my days playing Duke Nukem, it goes a little too far and its repetitiveness becomes boring after awhile. The dialogue is filled with juvenile humor and it’s funny at first, but after the hundredth time of hearing Sarrano tell me he is going to “kill my dick” (actual line from the game), it gets really dull. There are interesting moments when Ishi grapples with his robot self and Grayson deals with what he has done in the past, but it is overshadowed by the dialogue that lacks the wit and the self-referential humor that other games have.

Aside from the single player campaign, you have Echoes, which is basically a run through of earlier levels to get skillshots you didn’t get before and get ranked with other players from around the world. The multiplayer in this is one of the weakest elements in the game; you have one gameplay mode that involves you and three other players killing groups of enemies to get enough points to move on to the next round. This is fun at first but gets boring after awhile and the whole system depends on the cooperation of your teammates which is way more difficult than you think it is.

Image courtesy of EA.

This brings up what is my biggest problem with the game. Despite the fact it is a lot of fun to play, it feels like an arcade rail shooter. You have a predetermined path to follow with various traps to make skillshots, but you never get to explore your environment and it feels pretty restrictive.

Though there are big problems with this game, there is enough to make an incredibly fun shooter that has some good replay value and some over the top excitement. I hope DLCs are released to expand on all the good in this game and enhance the multiplayer, otherwise this will be played for a while then left collecting dust on my shelf.

RATING: 7.5/10

TITLE: Sanctum
STARRING: Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhys Wakefield, Alice Parkinson, Dan Wyllie
DIRECTOR: Alister Grieson
STUDIO: Universal Studios
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 103 min
RELEASED: February 4, 2011

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

Why the hell would anybody go exploring underwater caves? I like to keep an open mind, I understand the desire to explore, and I’m not that claustrophobic; but the concept of going into gigantic caves and going underwater at the same time defies logic for me. Despite this, the idea of cave diving is the whole focus of the new film Sanctum.

A group of cave divers led by Frank (Roxburgh) and backed by a billionaire named Carl (Gruffudd) are exploring a vast cave system in New Guinea. The death of a colleague and an oncoming storm force the crew to evacuate the caves, but Carl pushes them on. Suddenly, the storm hits without warning, flooding the caves and forcing the group to dive through unexplored caves to get out.

The one thing that this movie does well is build suspense and it creates some truly thrilling scenes. You feel what these people are going through every step of the way. Every perilous situation of life and death is executed so well that the audience is pulled in and will be on the edge of their seat (and squirming, some of the these scenes are tough to watch).

The cinematography in this film ranges from great to pretty bad, and the 3D use is more of a curse than blessing. The wide shots that establish the vastness of the cave system are majestic and the 3D gives these shots great depth. Unfortunately, the bulk of the film is based in a cave that renders most of the 3D pointless. In fact, with the exception of a handful of shots, the 3D doesn’t make the picture better and it’s just wasted on this movie. Even without the 3D, the way the film is shot and paced makes it hard for the audience to follow what exactly is going on.

Photo from rottentomatoes.com.

There are also some pretty big, fundamental problems with this movie. The reason they are trapped in the cave is because billionaire Carl says they are running out of time and have to finish exploring now; but it is never said what they are racing against or why they are running out of time. Is there a rival team of explorers? Is the billionaire about to die? Or is there a race of mole people who are going to take over the cave and use it as a staging ground to conquer Earth? I would have been happy getting any of those; instead we have no real reason for these people to be in this cave while a giant storm is closing in, and it just hurts the film.

The characters try come off as interesting and there are little details throughout to give them some sort of depth; but it is not done well and any interest in the characters or their dilemmas doesn’t happen until the end. By then, most of the thrills are over and the interest in what’s going on has evaporated.

Overall, this is an entertaining movie because of several thrilling set pieces, but there are some big problems with it that are impossible to ignore, and the 3D doesn’t really serve any other purpose but to overcharge the moviegoer.

RATING: 6.5/10