Goodbye, 2009

2009 had its ups and downs with me. There were some good stuff, lots of bad stuff and lots and lots in the middle.

Happy new year, dear readers.

District X: Episode 0 (a.k.a. District 9)

The movie that came out of nowhere… Produced and sponsored by Peter Jackson. Made for cheap and heavily advertised, it went to make a huge profit. Not bad for a guy whose first movies were short films on Youtube.

 

While I did enjoy the movie, I didn’t understand what all the hype was about. Yes, it does have a story, and is story-driven, AND it’s not Transformers 2… But, the story has more plot holes than actual plot lines. And I didn’t care for the main character, at all.

 

The following review contains SPOILERS. I repeat, SPOILER ALERT. You have been WARNED!

 

The story about a space ship that appeared out of nowhere and stopped over Johannesburg seems very promising. The first few minutes with their documentary-style really attracted my attention. But I guess the movie was like a pretty girl who was pretty until she started speaking.

 

If the movie didn’t try to be big on the story, I wouldn’t have minded, but to try to be story-centric and then deliver a mediocre one is baaaaad in my book. The movie fails to answer a lot of the questions that it asks, giving you the impression that the story is incomplete. The biggest mistake they made was the 20-year time gap between the arrivals of the aliens and the events of the movie. 20 YEARS!!! That’s a lot of time… If the aliens were sick when they arrived and the humans helped them and reallocated them. Did we learn anything about them (except that they love cat food)? Nope. Nothing. Did the movie tell us how come they were prefectly adapted to the Earth’s atmosphere and gravity? Nope. Are we given any explanation on how come humans and aliens are able to understand each other without speaking the same language and without even being able to replicate the same sounds? Nope. I don’t even think that it is humanly possible to replicate these clicks. Do we know anything about their government system, their society, religion(s), anatomy and physiology? Nope. Did anyone try to board the ship and dismantle it, know its energy source, flight logs, operating mode, loaded weapons? Why wasn’t the ship destroyed after the evacuation of the aliens? So many questions.

 

But the most important question that was left unanswered is why they came to earth? Refugees? Then why pack such kick-ass weapons? Which brings me to the point of how come were these weapons brought to earth from the ship if the evacuations were done by humans? And if you had such awesome weapons that can only be used by your kind, why beg for food when you can take it? Why stand so much humiliation for 20 YEARS without doing something about it? Wasn’t any of these aliens interrogated to find their purpose? Why wasn’t the city evacuated for fear of something so massive as the mothership to fall down? And speaking about falling down, why did the little shuttle fall down? And why was it needed for the operation of the ship? And how come no one found it, again for 20 YEARS?!!! Why, why and a million other whys?

 

And here is another why: why do I care? Because the movie could have been GREAT. It could have been a whole new sci-fi universe that could rival Star Wars, Trek and Battlestar Galactica. But no. It was just a wasted opportunity. I don’t care that the movie was made for cheap. Look at The Fountain. It was made for real cheap! And it delivered a great, minimalistic story that respected its budget while answering most of its questions.

 

This brings us to the point of looks. The movie is a looker and I think after watching this movie two persons committed suicide right away: whoever was responsible for the Halo movie in both Microsoft and Universal. A Halo movie with these filming techniques and visuals would have been massive… It could have been the biggest blockbuster for many years, looking at home much the game is popular. The special effects in District 9 are life-like, gritty and believable. Too bad that the story wasn’t given the same attention to details. Great job by the WETA guys. After all, the made Lord of the Rings visuals!

 

For a movie that was shot by a South African and filmed in South Africa, I think the movie is racist! There is not a single good black character, except for Wikus’s assistant who is a total noob! The bad, non-alien guys are black, and they are (surprise, surprise) Nigerian. Nigerian? Why Nigerian? Why not South African? And why not white, or a mixture of both? And it’s really ironic that Wikus can understand the clicks of the aliens, but he can’t understand the Swahili or whatever these Nigerians are speaking… Ironic, isn’t it?

 

So, after everything is said, this is a good movie that could have been great. It was a commercial and critical hit, which means that District 10 is only a matter of time! Which makes District 9 nothing more than a pilot movie, a proof of concept and a test drive to the abilities of Neil Blomkamp… And as Christopher the Prawn told Wikus that he will be back in 3 years, I am waiting for the sequel in 3 years.

 

I didn’t hate the movie, but I was pissed off because I was expecting something great. The hype was incredible and I did put myself in my radio silence mode and avoided any distractions from trailers and reviews. But I wanted more… The Amorphous Snake is disappointed… 3.5/5.

 

P.S. I guess after reading this you must be shaking your head at disbelief and saying, “All this criticism and he gives it 3.5/5”. And my answer is that I could have gladly given it 5/5 if it had filled the clothes it made for itself. It’s a nice first effort, and it has great action and visuals for a $30 million movie, but when you start something, you finish it. Look how Battlestar Galactica’s pilot was. It didn’t fill in all the details about the Cylons, but the movie was about the human survival and the Cylons were a mystery to us and the movie didn’t try to give you conclusions, but asked you to focus your attention elsewhere and allowed you to fill in the gaps with your imagination, but the gaps were small gaps, not lunar craters!

Greatest movies 2000-2009

While I personally believe that the first decade of the 21st century ends in 2010, NOT 2009, people still believe that 2 days from now will be the end of the decade. So, here is a list of the best movies I have seen produced between 2000 till 2009, in no particular order. You may notice that they are ordered alphabetically. This wasn't intended, but there was so many movies, that I had to use my list to remember. My list was listed alphabetically.

Note: If you would like to contribute to this list, be my guest in the comments section, but no bashing of any kind will be permitted.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Gladiator

Requiem for a Dream

Traffic

Memento

Snatch

The Patriot

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Cast Away

Amores Perros

Training Day

Black Hawk Down

The Man Who Wasn't There

Kingdom of Heaven

21 Grams

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Big Fish

Letters from Iwo Jima

Avatar

Sin City

City of God

Downfall

The Lives of Others

(500) Days of Summer

Kill Bill

The Fountain

The Fall

The Prestige

The Incredibles

Wall-E

Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

Spider-Man 2

X-Men 2

Mulholland Dr.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Children of Men

No Country for Old Men

Oldboy

Infernal Affairs

Pan's Labyrinth

Mystic River

Gran Torino

Hero

Hotel Rwanda

Ocean's Eleven

Battle Royale

King Kong

The Last Samurai

Little Children

Little Miss Sunshine

Million Dollar Baby

Minority Report

The Mist

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

This list is by no way complete for two reason a) my memory is not perfect and b) there is a lot of critically-acclaimed movies that I have and haven't seen so far.

There are two non-movie entries that I would like to add: Band of Brothers and Battlestar Galactica. They are simply amazing...

Avatar: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the CGI

Several months ago, I read an interview with James Cameron about this movie. He said that directing such a movie is risky nowadays, because it’s not a franchise. Avatar is a totally new thing, and he didn’t know how the audience would react to it. He also said that he wanted this movie to be the next Matrix. He was right in everything.

Enter the world of Avatar, dear friend and don’t look back, because you won’t want to do so. James Cameron deserves the place he has crafted for himself among moviemakers. I don’t care if he makes a movie every 10 years or every 100, at least it’s better than what some great directors have been doing, like Spielberg whose movies have been going downhill ever since Saving Private Ryan.

Avatar is a revolution in film making. It’s the most visually impressive movie I have ever seen. Period. The CGI (or Computer Generated Images, for the not so tech-savvy readers) used in this movie wasn’t an extra or a gimmick: it’s the whole movie. It became more than just “special effects” and became an item by itself that even rivaled, and dwarfed, the plot. More on that later.

Before watching this movie, I put myself in the radio silence mode… No trailers, no reviews, no previews, no viewer comments, not even an IMDb score, and it worked! Before watching it, all I knew was that the movie was in 3D, looked spectacular, was about a planet called Pandora, and had James Cameron’s name on it. Good enough for me.

This was the first time I have ever seen a movie in 3D. The verdict (about the 3D, not the movie): it was good. I will certainly watch more and more movies in 3D when they become available, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. Also, I got a little headache, but I really can’t blame the 3D effects for that only. It’s the 3D way! I am not used to wearing glasses, and I think that was the reason. I expected a little more depth in the image. But I can’t complain. For the first time in my life, I am finally able to see a clean picture in a cinema, without the usual film artifacts from the film reels.

Pandora is a living and breathing world. Everything is detailed, from the flora to the fauna. And it’s not just the details, it’s the beauty of the details. The beauty of seeing a whole new world that is so different from ours, and knowing that it’s fake but you still believe it’s true because it’s so gorgeous to look at. Cameron forced you, through his CGI magicians, to go into suspension of disbelief mode, see the tale, and like it.

The Na’vi people are the real stars of the show. They are pure and simple, strong and proud, ancient and spiritual, and they were all done in motion-capture technology. Damn, I can’t write two words without mentioning some technical stuff that the movie did… Only 40% of the movie was live action with real actors. The rest was all motion capture and CGI. Which brings us to speak about acting… There isn’t much of it here, and there can’t be. Like I said before, Hollywood blockbusters generally don’t have good acting. They have memorable characters, sure. But not good acting. You simply remember the characters, not the actors who did them, because the characters are over the top, and the actors are just doing their best to fill the shoes of these characters. The Avatar character of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is much more alive, memorable and likeable than Jake Sully the Marine. Sam Worthington is also staring in Clash of the Titans, a remake of a movie that is one of my favourite childhood, and adulthood (Hell, yeah!) movies. I haven’t seen much acting from him, but the success of Avatar will catapult him into the world of stardom, that even made the producers of Titans decide to make the movie in 3D, increase its budget and allowed the director to re-shoot some stuff. Let’s wait and see. It’s coming next year.

Back to the Na’vi… I really liked Neytiri. Her character was so likeable, her role pivotal to the movie. The only problem is that I have seen it all before. Yup, and this is the only black eye in the beautiful face of Avatar: the story have been told before, over and over and over. You can say about Avatar anything of the following, and you won’t be wrong! Avatar: Pocahontas III, Dances with the Na’vis: Avatar, The New World: Avatar, Avatar: Tarzan the Ape Man in Space, and so on. And there is more! After walking out of the cinema, I kept trying to remember a cartoon movie that I have seen before, a lot actually, when I was a child. I didn’t quite remember the name. It was *Something*: The Last Rain Forest. So, when I went back home, I did a search on IMDb. The movie was called FernGully: The Last Rain Forest. Lots of other users saw the resemblance too and there is an active forum post there discussing that. Youtube has a lot of videos about it!   is not just similar to this movie, it’s more or less a shot for shot remake!!! Even the huge bulldozers were in the cartoon. I remember really liking FernGully. But it’s not a reason to hate Avatar. It’s just retelling the tale, in glorious style) to a newer generation.

So, is that all there is about Avatar? Special effects, 3D and a native people. Nope, there is more… There is a (drum roll, please) message behind the movie… Save the environment. Save the planet. Stop wars. RIP to every indigenous culture that was butchered at the hands of colonialism. Not bad for a Hollywood blockbuster.

Jurassic Park was perhaps the biggest movie of my childhood. Alas, I haven’t seen it at the cinema. But still, it held it’s place as one of the most spectacular thing I have seen in my mind. Note: there are other, a lot other, spectacular stuff I have seen, but I am not going to compare Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur or Lord of the Rings to Jurassic Park, it’s unfair. Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong is also in this list. And now, there is Avatar to add. These three movies represent the best of their kind in my eyes. Total immersion in an ancient and lost world. You will notice that I didn’t mention Lord of the Rings, even though it had great visuals too. But like I said, it’s unfair, because even if you remove the visual elements from LOTR, you still have a huge and beautiful story, which is not available in the other three movies. They do have stories, but it’s not the main attraction.

There are two minor things that bothered me in Avatar, and they are related to it’s presentation. The first is some, very minor animation problems. They only happen like in 0.00005% of the whole amazing ride! But they are there. CGI has come a long way, but still the human eye can differentiate between natural and synthetic animation. The other is that most of the creature sounds in the movie were taken straight from Jurassic Park.

James Cameron is a master of film making, he is the one who made Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens, The Abyss and Titanic. While Avatar won’t make as much as money as Titanic (I hope I am wrong), it will make a lot of money. Which brings us to the point of sequels… While I do want to see more of Pandora, I don’t want a cheap sequel. Cameron said that he may work on Battle Angel (his ambitious, manga-based project) or an Avatar sequel. I would like to see the first. Avatar will have a long life and it will not age badly. The attention to detail in the movie will assure years and years of compete supremacy in its category and it will be remembered in the same manner that the original 1933 King Kong or the 1993 Jurassic Park are. And when you consider that Cameron made two among the three best sequels ever! (The Godfather: Part II, Aliens and Terminator 2). I guess he can make a great Avatar sequel…

So, if you want to see something amazing, meet a new civilization, hear a new language, see some cool aircrafts and mechs, ride a pterodactyl-like bird, watch epic battles, see an effective although repeated story, see Ripley, err, I mean Sigourney Weaver, all in 3D… Then what the hell are you waiting for?!!! Go and watch this movie, NOW!

The Amorphous Snake is pleased… 5/5. A masterpiece…


[Edit 1]: I forgot to mention that I am actually glad that something will just make people forget Transformers 2's visuals. With Avatar, there is simply no comparison, at all... This is the Academy Award 2010 winner for Best Visual Effects (among a bucket load of other Academy Awards). A friend of mine sent me a comic about George Lucas commiting suicide after seeing Avatar. Well, I have to say, it's not just Lucas, but almost every director that made or dreamed about making a sci-fi movie. In the case of Michael Bay, director of Transformers 2, he should go to the real Optimus Prime and beg him to step on him and end his and our misery...

Tarantino and his Inglourious Basterds

This is a different movie. Yes, different is the word for it. The movie wasn't quite what I expected. I expected a wild WWII movie, something along the lines of The Dirty Dozen and Kelly's Heroes. But this wasn't the case. I don't know why I got these expectations in my mind, although I avoided watching any trailer for this movie (not just for this movie, but for all movies). Perhaps, it’s stuff that got into my head since Michael Madsen was attached to this movie. He would have made one fantastic Basterd… Even better than Brad Pitt.

The movie is great if you want the short version (great and different). This little review may contain spoilers, or what I consider to be spoilers. My spoiler-alert meter is quite different than most of the people I know.

The good stuff:

It’s a Tarantino movie! So, everything from the cool factor, to the music, acting, length, stylish and memorable conversations that would make you feel that the characters are really alive and you have known them for ages, the selection of actors and their performances. Brad Pitt has been better before, but his role as Aldo the Apache is marvelous, but I don’t think it will win him any awards. He was a little stiff. But Chrisopher Waltz as Colonel Landa was amazing. A great villain was added to my all time favourite villains list! Yes, I do have such a list!

The opening of the movie is something to behold. If you are like me and love great opening scenes, and in particular, if you like westerns, and especially, especially, if you liked Once Upon a Time in the West. This is an opening that would have made Sergio Leone proud! And if you watch Chapter Two, you should start thinking about The Wild Bunch.

The Basterds were cool. The intro scene for Hugo Stiglitz should have been for every member of the Basterds. But it wasn’t. I’ll talk more about that in “the bad stuff” part of the review, below.

The bad stuff:

The ending of the movie is unique, it will be a love it or hate it kind of liking. Tarantino tried to do something that wasn’t done before in WWII movies. But the sudden change from reality to fantasy was abrupt. I wasn’t expecting that ending, at all. Really, it came from nowhere. The gritty tone in the rest of the movie made me think of a different ending.

Now, to make the last paragraph more understandable. All movies are works of fiction, even if they were inspired by true events, which this movie claims to be!!! But ending this movie the way it ended, is like ending Braveheart with a bunch of angry Scots that came to storm the castle to save William Wallace. You get what I mean? Braveheart prepared you that Wallace will be executed. And you accepted and expected it.

I wanted to see more and more of the Basterds and their inglourious conquests! After all, the movie is named after them. But this wasn’t the case. Tarantino gave you a taste of sugar in the first two chapters of the movie and promised you for more, but he didn’t give you sugar, at least not in the promised quantity. This doesn’t mean that the later parts of the movie are bad, but it wasn’t what the beginning of it made me think.

Like I said, all the lengthy conversations in this movie were awesome, but I felt that introducing the British Lt. Archie Hicox was a distraction. But the almost 20 minute basement cellar sequence was great and Archie’s performance as a British officer was stunning and was a tribute to all those classic WWII movies. Tarantino could have skipped him and showed us more about the Basterds adventures among the Nazis. You must have seen the baseball bat in posters of the movie. It was only shown and used once… A big missed opportunity...

Speaking about old movies, I would like to see Nation’s Pride! I hope it gets the same treatment as Machete and be turned into a separate movie that is a parody of all the 1940-1950 WWII movies that were made to boost morale.

A great movie, but Tarantino has done better movies. This is not Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. But it's NOT Death Proof! But he will get some awards for this movie. After all, you know the saying that says, “If you want to get an Oscar, make a film about the Holocaust.”.

Great movie, but I expected too much of it: 4/5.

[Edit 1]: Added some hyperlinks, a score, the baseball bat and fixed some stuff. I visited Youtube and watched 2 trailers for this movie after I wrote the review. Man, I am glad that I haven't seen them before watching the movie itself.

(500) Days of Summer

I am not going to give you a review. All I am going to say is this: This is among the best movies I have seen in all my life. But... Not everyone can understand its beauty. You will, or you will not.

Transformers: A Movie for the Fallen

How do I begin? The short version? OK: This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life... up there with legends like Ocean's Twelve and Komodo!!!. Wait, strike that. This is not a movie, this is a 150-minute MTV music video with bad editing, some explosions and shiny graphics. These are a hundred and fifty minutes that I have lost and never, ever will regain.

A friend told me that the movie was enjoyable but not to expect anything cerebral. But the truth there is nothing to enjoy in this movie. NOTHING... There is no story, at all. There is no climax, no characters, nothing is happening throughout the duration of the movie, even the music was bad. I think they started filming without the script, and when they did have a script, it was too late. Can you imagine 150 minutes with nothing happening in them, but they are full of crappy one-liners and explosions.

I gave this movie a score of 2/10. I originally was going to give it a solid ONE, but the CGI added another. The only thing worth watching in this movie is the CGI, and this could have been edited out of the movie, and made a solid 15-minute short movie.

And Megan Fox... She was hot in the first movie, really hot. But in this one, she is... Well, let's say that every time I saw her in the movie I wanted to laugh! The "wow" factor is gone, and the truth is now clear. This is a pretty doll who can't act. And even in this movie, she is neither pretty nor hot.

The biggest factor that destrtoyed this movie for me was the Egypt segment. Mr. Zahi Hawas, you should resign for allowing this crap to be filmed in Egypt. The should have filmed in Morrocco and made all the people there rich, I don't mind. But what I do mind is selling out. WTF was that? The Pyramids are ... I don't quite get it, in Egypt or in Jordan? In Giza or in Aqaba? I didn't know that there was a sea near the Pyramids! With deploy-able amphibious assault troop and tank carriers parked at sea waiting to intervene. I didn't know that aliens built the Pyramids. I didn't know that the Temple of Karnak is next to the Pyramids. I didn't know that Petra was within walking distance from the Great Pyramids. I didn't know that Egyptians live in Pharaonic ruins with obelisks and all. I didn't know that we still have camels and goats and that our streets are full of broken cars. I didn't know that there are generals in the Egyptian Army who actually are dwarfs. I didn't know Egypt had no army at all, and when there is a need we call brave Jordanian helicopter pilots that are no match for the transformers, but the Americans are. I didn't know that Americans are stupid...

Seriously, are Americans stupid? Do they really know nothing about basic geography and history? Do they really feel envious that since their nation has no history to speak of, then every major ancient wonder must have been built by aliens or robots or whatever, just because they refuse to believe that while their great grandparents were dancing around fire, there were actual humans building these wonders?!!!

Michael Bay should be stopped. He should stop making movies for good. I did enjoy some of his movies like The Rock, Armageddon and The Island. Hell, I even liked Pearl Harbor. And I somehow enjoyed the first Transformers.

This is to keep my promise! I gave the original Transformers a 6/10. The movie was a textbook example of what a Hollywood popcorn movie is. The low score is because the movie should have been called The 15-Years Old Virgin, because the movie is more about the trials of Sam Whitwikey to lost his virginity than actual Transformers, who we only see for a fraction of the length of the movie. The movie also thinks that there are no people living in Qatar (Qat-aaaaar, as they pronounce it in the movie) except a nomadic tribe that, surprise surprise, also lives in ancient ruins with only one working phone and some WWI-era rifles. Megatron is shown for minutes and Starscream didn't transform into a gun.

6/10 is what it gets.

So to conclude, if you want to watch an enjoyable B-movie, watch the first Transformers, if you want to torture yourself, watch the second. If you enjoy the second movie, then you either should have your head checked or you should stop watching movies for your own good.

2/10... And this is after being generous...

While not every movie can be The Dark Knight, but it's a proof that you can make a summer blockbuster that will satisfy those looking for explosions and those who think that movies are an art form. And this year's example was Star Trek.

E3 2009: Sony Conference

They started late, way too late compared to the other press conferences, with a female announcer urging the audience to take their seats and switch off their mobile phones, twice!

While MS didn’t show any graphs or sale figures, Sony kept singing about the sales and the strength of the PlayStation brand. They dedicated some minutes to the PS2, praising its price and its long life. But seriously, if they want to place it against the Wii for casual, family gaming, why are there no worthwhile new games for it?

After the statistics, Uncharted 2 started with a big bang. This game is gorgeous. It simply looks amazing and with the most realistic, life-like animation I have ever seen in a video game. And you can actually like Nathan Drake, he is a cool guy with funny comments. The inclusion of a female companion in the demo confirms that the campaign can be played cooperatively with a friend.

Then came MAG (or Massive Action Game) which is a 256-player game. The demo showed a massive game, but you only get to see your squad and commander. So, while the game is huge, it’s manageable and easy to progress in. The commander was certainly playing in god mode because he was taking damage from everywhere and his health was at 100% all the time. But this is acceptable for a stage demo. This game has potential, but I wonder if I get it how it will fare with my slow internet.

I will try to forget what came next, until the moment Kojima came on the stage… What the **** was that Sony? You spent too much time… Way too much time on the PSP Go. The Polyphony dude with the translator was incredibly boring and his translator was incredibly stupid. I think he was really an amateur or he had what the guy was saying pre-written in the notes he was constantly reading. And then they showed the trailer, why not show the trailer from the start?! And what’s wrong with Sony, they are praising the PS3 for powering the massive 80x40 feet screens in the theater, but all the footage was shown from the inside of a screen on the screen, reducing the practical size of the screen to less than quarter. Great thinking Sony! Stupid!

Next came MGS: Peace Walker. I think it makes since to put it on the PSP considering that the MGS: Portable Ops game was also on the PSP, and both games have something similar, they both star Big Boss and are post-Snake Eater. The trailer was nice and it has the same self-conscious remarks that are found in all MGS trailers. But there is something I don’t understand, in the trailer, several clones of Big Boss were shown, with eye patches!!! I don’t understand this. The Les Infants Terribles project started in 1973 or 1974 which is after the 1970 setting of the game, and also how can you accelerate the growth of a clone that much? This isn’t Attack of the Clones, you know! And also, why would they have eye patches? The bullet that Ocelot fired at Naked Snake wasn’t coded in his genes, was it? I guess we will have to wait and see.

The PSN and PS Home parts were as boring as the PSP parts (minus MGS of course) and I simply don’t care about them. All I care about PSN is that it’s free! Oh, and I guess that the $250 price of the new PSP Go is way too much, compared the price of the existing PSP 3000 which is $170.

The new Rockstar PS3 exclusive game, Agent was given as a mere title with no footage at all. What about LA Noire?! Is it dead?

Then came the great Assassin’s Creed II, the game is simply amazing. I wish they just fix the boredom that I suffered in the first game, and it will be great, considering that the first had great gameplay mechanics but it lacked diversity and freshness (after a while, that is). The double hidden blades are badass! I can’t wait to play this on the PC.

A new Final Fantasy is announced, this time it’s XIV and is exclusive to the PS3 and is a MMO.

Then came the big surprise of Sony, the PlayStation motion sensing controller… I guess when MS showed Project Natal yesterday, an alarm went off in the secret PlayStation, and an announcer with a nice female voice like the one in Team Fortress 2 said, “Alert, the final checkpoint is being contested.” I guess Sony flew their prototype weapon straight from the labs to the conference hall, and with a lab rat to do the demonstration. If I have one word to describe the announcement, that it was RUSHED.

The technology is similar to Natal in some sort. You use the already available PS3 EyeToy as a camera and you hold two prototype sticks like the Wii controllers and whatever you do with them is translated on-screen. The tech demo showed serving tennis balls, with realistic physics, using sign posts and baseball bats! They also showed how the controller can be used as a gun, a sword and a shield, a whip and finally a bow and an arrow. The motion is swift. As I said, it’s basically the same as Natal, minus the voice recognition, but with you holding two sticks in your hand. So, it’s the same shit! Unless I see games on this thing, this is as nice a gimmick as Natal and Milo. Show me the games, dammit. And what proves that the whole thing was rushed is that the thing doesn’t even have a name or even a codename. But it was said that it will launch next spring?! Now, that’s strange. Launch to do what exactly, if there is no announced software to benefit from it.

So, now you see what I meant with motion sensing, it’s useless for the most part, and I still remain skeptical.

I think that Natal has an edge over the unnamed Sony tech demo, for the fact that it tracks your whole body motion. Sony seems to have created an ugly mutant from mating Natal to the Wii. Copying what others are doing isn’t the best way to go, Sony. But on the other hand, Natal is going to need some kind of trigger or controller to control some in game actions at some time. That’s why I hate motion sensing… It will force you to focus on way too many thing to streamline the experience rather than making a great game with traditional controlling.

At that moment I was desperate… The clock was ticking and they still haven’t showed up the big guns. Uncharted 2 and MAG are big, but they are not Kratos-big. So, when they showed up yet another PSN game about racing, I was close to giving up and calling it a day.

Then came the moment… The Team ICO announcement… Ueda’s new masterpiece is called The Last Guardian, and guess what, it’s the same game like the one I posted its video last month. But this time the trailer had better graphics for the creature with feathers. They are still using the same music from Miller’s Crossing. They also showed gameplay. The game is definitely more like Ico than Shadow of the Colossus. And I think we will be seeing the same relation between the little boy and the creature as that between Ico and Yorda and Wanderer and Agro. I am really happy. The creature reminds me of my cat a lot, you got that right, Falcon!

After that, they showed Gran Turismo 5. I felt real bad for the Forza 3 developer who claimed last night on the MS conference that Forza 3 was the most realistic looking racing game ever. Well, I guess he is crying in the corner now! Too bad I am not into racing games. Honestly, I did try, and I even own Gran Turisom 1 and 4, but racing is not my type of game. The graphics are photorealistic. Period. And the cars now show damage. There is still no release date…

Then came the angry Spartan. Kratos is back, baby. And this time he is angrier and stronger than ever. I mean, he has just killed a chimera with it’s own horn! Ouch! The game is coming next spring, and it will be the final game in the series. How cares now about Dante’s Inferno? I guess Wolverine is shitting his pants now after seeing this video… Kratos is not friendly with copy-cats, and he kills people with their own prosthesis.

And with that the conference was over.

Hold on a second… Where the heck is my price cut? Where is Heavy Rain? I saw it in the PS3 games montage, but why there was no demo for it. This is one of the AAA PS3 games. Strange! And where is the announcement for MGS: Rising for the PS3 as well as the X360. The game was confirmed to be coming to the PS3 as well as the X360 from external sources but I expected that Kojima will show something on the PS3, exclusively, for the sake of the good old days of developing MGS4.

That’s it ladies and gentlemen. Sony’s E3 2009 conference.

E3 2009: Nintendo Conference

Yeah, I watched it! It was super short: at 1 hour and 15 minutes. But I didn’t know that beforehand, of course.

A new Super Mario Bros., a new Super Mario Galaxy, a new Metroid game, some Wii ******* (whatever) titles, some DSi titles for girls about fashion and so. They showed The Conduit, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space: Extraction.

Surprisingly, I didn’t see Red Steel 2 in action, but I read that it was shown yesterday on the Ubisoft press conference.

Resident Evil brought memories back as the setting is in Raccoon city during the events of Resident Evil 2… Man, I loved that game.

I wonder how Nintendo managed to fool the world and sell that many Wiis! I really want to know.

E3 2009: EA Conference

The conference was great. I skipped the Mass Effect 2 presentation as I haven’t played the first and I didn’t want spoilers. The Dragon Age cinematic was good, but the Star Wars: The Old Republic CGI trailer was just amazing! It could have been aired as a 3 minute animated episode like the original Clone Wars TV series. It was that good. And to quote Gametrailers, “This is better than Episodes I-III put together!”

Video Games | Star Wars: The Old Republic | E3 09: Jedi vs Sith Cinematic

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Dante’s Inferno seems to be going on nicely. If X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a God of War-rip off, then Dante’s Inferno is actually a perfect target for legal action from Sony! Sony even admitted it and they said that they welcome the competition.

Video Games | Dante's Inferno | E3 09: Exclusive Lust & Heresy Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

APB had great graphics but I am not into MMO games.

There was a massive section about light casual girly games (real girly games, no jokes here), Wii and iPhone games and finally EA Sports. I really don’t care for any of these things.

The Saboteur trailer is the same one I saw yesterday, it’s really stylized, but when they showed gameplay, I lost my interest. The game needs more work to distinguish itself from other games. It really feels like Mercenaries, with a little GTA here and there.

Video Games | The Saboteur | E3 09: Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Brutal Legend seems amazing, if only it was coming to the PC.

Speaking of the PC, Crytek’s CEO made the Crysis 2 announcement, which I predicted in my E3 prediction page (yay!), and it’s going multiplatform but with each version taking advantage of its platform. There was no trailers or screenshots, but he said that more info will be available later this year.

E3 2009: Microsoft Conference

As you saw is the previous post (it’s MGS, so it gets a separate post. OK?) the conference was really great. Here are my impressions.

The conference had a bad start, I don’t care about The Beatles really. So, these were 15 minutes wasted from my life… Then came Tony Hawk, another waste… I am sure that other people like these things, I just don’t like them.

I wasn’t able to watch the Modern Warfare 2 gameplay that came next as my streaming video on IGN was interrupted and by the time I switched to Gamespot, it was over. I have been trying to see it again, but I failed. IGN is not working and the footage is so far not on any other site. So, I can’t comment. UPDATE: Here it is!

Video Games | Modern Warfare 2 | E3 09: Press Conference Gameplay

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Cliffy B is called to the stage, I thought “Oh, here goes Gears of War 3” but no, he is announcing a Live Arcade game, fine by me. If only the game was that good (it wasn’t) and it was buggy! Near the end of the demo, the player was floating on the air where the destroyed boss have been. This is really embarrassing!

What’s this? Zombies? I thought I was watching a trailer for the upcoming Dead Rising 2. The sound effects were just wrong, they were from Left 4 Dead. I thought that this was cheap from Capcom. But wait a second, it’s Left 4 Dead 2!!! For a November 17th release. I have a mixed reaction here. This is definitely a must buy. And I think I will be buying it, when it’s released. But this got me worried over the future support for Left 4 Dead, the original one. If you look at Team Fortress 2, you know what to expect from Valve. But when you release a game every year, what will happen to the old game, will we see new levels (we haven’t seen any till now, and the SDK is still in beta, so no user-generated levels till now too. So, comes November 17th, will the original Left 4 Dead be dead? The game did offer very low value for money when it comes to levels and campaigns, but it offered incredible value for the fun factor of playing the same levels over and over again and again and each time you will have fun. I really want to see more from the original before I see a sequel. But if the mighty Valve chooses to grant us a sequel, let’s hope it’s for a reduced price for the current owners of L4D. And the trailer looked like it was in CGI, or they are using a new engine other than the Source Engine. The concept of chainsaws is great, but the one who is using it will simply be slow, how they are going to balance this for the remaining 3 team members to keep things moving fast? We will have to wait and see. Valve have the talent. I just wish they would announce Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and Portal 2 too. I am dying for this.

I hate the fact that Splinter Cell: Conviction is now a X360 exclusive. I still have to play Chaos Theory and Double Agent, the previous two games in the series, though. But I didn’t like the departure from the gameplay style of this new game. This was more Jason Bourne than the Sam Fisher that I liked from the first two games in the series. But I think, ultimately, UBISOFT is going to release this on the PC.

Video Games | Splinter Cell: Conviction | E3 09: Extended Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Next up, was Halo. I haven’t played Halo 3, so I don’t know how the fight ends, so I have morbid fear of having the game spoiled for me. But luckily there was no such thing. The gameplay footage of Halo 3: ODST was great. But I thought that it would be a team game in the manner of Star Wars: Republic Commando. Maybe it’s because the footage was early near the start of the game, so you haven’t met the members of your team yet. But it looks really promising, and after all, it has Halo on it, so it will sell like crazy, but Bungie makes great games.

Video Games | Halo 3: ODST | E3 09: Gameplay Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The reveal of Halo: Reach confirms the rumors and here we have a game about the early days of Master Chief during the Fall of Reach which was told not in the previous games but rather in the novelization of the Halo universe in the novel, The Fall of Reach, which is considered the first of the 4 Halo novels. There were no further details other than a 2010 release date. A beta key will be included with copies of ODST. Good.

Video Games | Halo: Reach | E3 09: Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I don’t like racing games that much, so Froza 3 didn’t catch my attention.

Now, Alan Wake, that’s more like it. I am glad that the game is nearing release (Spring 2010) and it does look good. It has the same Silent Hill atmosphere but with a Max Payne style. But what was Alan’s flashlight? It’s beam was too powerful and highly focused!

Video Games | Alan Wake | E3 09: Press Conference Gameplay Demo

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The surprising Kojima announcement is discussed in the previous post, so I am not going to repeat the same stuff here.

As for the Xbox Live, Last.fm, Netflix, Facebook announcements, I simply couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Live is not available in my country, and until MS has the decency to respect my country, I am not interested in the service, besides, all this requires special internet broadband speeds that are simply science fiction where I live. As for Facebook, I am the site’s public enemy #1.

Now, let’s talk about the Natal Project. Natal? What’s wrong with Natalie? No, seriously… I love controllers. They provide accurate and responsive controls to all games, regardless of the genre, and I am not going to mention the magnificent keyboard and mouse combo. This new project is simply a camera that reads your body motion and translates it into commands for the X360 to integrate into the software. There is also voice recognition software that identifies the person and possibly, his/her emotions. The press conference showed some applications in both gaming and social Xbox Live activities. I am not going to talk about the Live activities, as simply I won’t use it and I won’t have a video chat with my friend to help me choose what dress to wear! LOL!

The showed games were all concepts with nothing that is actually in production. Both Stephen Spielberg and Peter Moylenaux (of Lionhead) made an appearance and discussed the future capabilities of the device. Moylenaux even made a concept project about a virtual boy called Milo that the player can interact with, emotionally.

Video Games | Lionhead Milo Project | E3 09: Milo Tech Demo

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Now, I may seem like a backward, stone age person, but I don’t like this new direction. About the Milo thing, first, it will be a world of hell to the developer to record all the pre-recorded audio for the virtual character, because voice generation software can’t simply simulate human emotions. Now add the needed animations and facial expressions and you will understand what I mean. Besides, didn’t you think that Milo was so close to HAL? I mean, it’s scary. And if I want something to talk to, I will get a real person, or I will simply talk to my cat, which is easier, and the little furball understands it all!

Don’t get me wrong. The technology is wonderful, and it has an edge over the Wii, namely the graphical power of the X360, and also over similar PS3 stuff like the Singstar camera. But what this technology needs is careful implementation into games. When the Wii was announced, it was praised as a game changer for the console market and as a revolution (the old name for the Wii was the Nintendo Revolution, back in 2005) in the video game industry. Now after almost 3 years of being in the market, the number of really imaginative games that took advantage of the technology are less than 10. The rest are mediocre at best.

So, if you want to sell me this technology, show me its integration into games, good games, and I am sold. But until then, it’s a nice gimmick.

Finally, I would like to illustrate my stance about controllers to my dear friend Falcon. I think that controllers are here to stay. They are wonderful at what they do, and they work for everything. The new motion sensing techniques failed for the Wii and failed for the PS3 (miserably). Motion sensing can work for some games, but not all. Imagine playing a RTS with this, it’s useless. A fighting game like Street Fighter or Tekken, how the hell are you going to do the insane combos? Finally, it’s potentially disturbing. I know that you will accuse me of nice things regarding testosterone deficiency… But I won’t be comfortable playing a game like God of War or Manhunt with motion sensing. It’s very, very disturbing. Imagine doing the motion necessary to snap someone’s neck… That’s not why I am playing games. I don’t want this. Also, the transition of controlling in a game like Battlefield or GTA where there are on foot sections and others with vehicles. How can you motion control this? Or are you going to sacrifice vehicles and mounted turrets for mimicking firing an AK in a game. And imagine the disadvantage this is going to introduce in multiplayer games. If you are not fit or if you are sleepy and tired, then you are pwned! But I have to admit, playing a Star Wars game or a samurai game with this technology will be interesting.

I also would like to stress on something, everyone is so irritated that gaming needs a wider audience. I don’t agree. Gaming is a hobby that has its fans, not all people are gamers or capable of being gamers, so don’t punish the real gamers by forcing them to play using pathetically simple controls to please the non-gaming base. This is what Nintendo did with the Wii, they profited from the sales, but the real hardcore gamers got very, very few good games. The rest of the garbage are made for lonely mothers and grandmothers. I am not an elitist, but if the controller is the barrier that prevents these mindless masses from destroying my hobby, then I will protect the controller with everything I have got. Gaming is not a casual hobby, it’s something that you either have it or not. No body buys a digital SLR camera for $$$ and then complains that there are way too many controls on it and they need to be simplified like a point and shoot camera. Why didn’t he/she buy a simple camera from the start and saved him/herself the trouble, instead of forcing the industry to change itself to accommodate his/her needs, regardless of the real photographers who benefit from the added complexity?

Just think about it.

MS is not stupid, I just hope they do it right and not to chase a quick buck.

Finally… (no, really) we didn’t get Halo 3 for the PC, or Gears of War 2. This is just sad.