Raves

Yesterday there was a new Xbox 360 game released called Crackdown that got a lot of press basically because every copy of the game sold right now comes with an invite to the Halo 3 beta. While that is a great marketing ploy by Microsoft, it was not the reason that I bought the game as I already have a pass to the Halo 3 beta (another story for another time). I bought Crackdown for two reasons: it’s fun as hell (I found this out by playing the demo on Xbox Live) and it allows for online co-op play over Xbox Live (just like Gears of War does). That said, let’s get into the review of the game from what I’ve played thus far shall we…

Crackdown is a GTA (Grand Theft Auto) type of game where you’re basically thrown into an “open world” environment and left to your own devices to find things to do. Unlike GTA though, in Crackdown it is a little more guided due to “The Chief” telling you about missions every now and then. Granted you don’t have to take on the missions but they do tend to lead you further down the in-game story path so I’d recommend you do them at some point. If you don’t take them on right away, you can do tons of other activities such as help the police clean up small gang skirmishes here and there (you’ll get notified that the cops could use your help, don’t worry), finding “orbs” hidden throughout the game that help build your agility skill (more on this later), car races, rooftop races (your character in the game can jump from rooftop to rooftop), and much more. For instance, last night my buddy and I played co-op for about four hours and managed to find 60+ agility orbs hidden on rooftops throughout the city, killed three of the twenty one mob bosses, did some stunt racing, helped the police stop gang violence on multiple occasions, and just generally learned how to play the game/control our characters. Yep, all that in four hours and we’ve only scratched the surface of the first difficulty level of the game!

While the game play is fun and engaging, the graphics and draw distance on this game are really what stun you at first. The look of the game is somewhat “cartoony” per se but that only adds to the overall feeling that the game is supposed to give you: you’re a comic book type hero. And when you get on top of a huge building and look around you’ll really be amazed at not only how far you can see but how much detail you can see. The city is HUGE and you really only realize this once you’ve looked at it from on-high. I’m not sure how the guys who did this game got that to work so well (this has always been a problem in games in my opinion… the distance always had a certain amount of “clipping” to it) but I’m VERY impressed! And don’t let the cartoony graphics think that the game doesn’t deliver realism… it does. Every building, every car, every person is detailed beyond anything ever done in GTA or it’s ilk. And the graphics were good enough to give me vertigo a couple times when standing atop a building and looking down. Now THAT’S what I call good graphics!

Another thing I like about the game is that your character “grows” as the gets more experienced. They do this in two ways: skills and physical appearance. Skills are things like agility, firearms, driving, etc. Unlike other games where you have to constantly tweak these skills manually and allot points to keep them growing, in Crackdown this is done for you automatically based on what you do. If you drive alot, your driving skills go up. If you shoot a lot, your firearms skill goes up, etc. I like this because I don’t want to have to think in this type of game… I just want to play. Leave the stats to the guys playing World of Warcraft… this is an action game so let’s keep up the action! Also, every time you “level up” a skill you get a cool little animation and your guy suddenly starts to change in appearance, i.e. bigger body, better armor, tattoos, etc. I love this fact since some of the guys can end up looking pretty bad ass when they’re maxed out (you can see a glimpse of what you character looks like maxed out when you choose him at the beginning)!

I do have one complaint about the game already though and that’s how often it seems to loose connection to the other player in co-op over Xbox Live. My buddy and I got disconnected at least 3-4 times last night during game play and, in this game, that’s really shitty. Unlike other games where you’d jump back in the co-op match right where you left off, when you get disco’d in this game it takes you back to the last “checkpoint” you hit… so if your last checkpoint was on the opposite end of town you’re going to have a long run/drive back to where you were when the game dropped. Not fun! Granted this is something not everyone may be experiencing and maybe it was just due to the large number of people playing last night since it just came out, but hopefully this is something they’ll be able to remedy with an update via the 360 dashboard.

In closing, let me restate that I’ve only played a very small portion of the game so far but what I have played has been fun as hell. Will my opinion of the game change as I get further along? Maybe… but if it does I’ll be sure to let you know here in a updated review. That said, anyone else out there have any thoughts on the game? I’d love to hear some comments from others on what they think… good or bad. Oh yeah… if you want to play Crackdown with me online then feel free to hit me up on Xbox Live sometime. My Gamer Tag is “Ugly Jake Busey”.

Pulse claims to be “the scariest movie of the year” (well, for 2006… it was released last year) and in many ways it does live up to it. The mood of the movie is very dark and brooding, the music is intense at just the right moments, the storyline is original and different, and effects are fantastic. They do a great job throughout the movie of making it darker and darker lighting-wise as the plot of the movie becomes more and more intense. They also use the “shock factor”, i.e. where the camera closes in on some door or opening just before something truly horrific comes breaking through it, quite a few times and this gets people every time no matter how prepared you may think you are for it (since you can almost always see this soft of effect coming). Now you may be saying that most movies don’t use this well enough due to the music hinting at something coming but that’s only done a couple times in this film and that’s one of the things I really appreciated as a viewer: a real surprise shocker!

The basic premise of the movie is “something or someone” is causing people to kill themselves and no one knows why. As the movie goes on, you begin to get some clues that this problem is quickly spreading across the nation and eventually the world. You also begin to learn how it started and, in the end, how hopeless the situation really is. I can’t really tell you too much more about the movie without revealing important storyline factors that may ruin your enjoyment of the movie but I can tell you the storyline is very original and well thought out. If you think you know what’s going on early in the film, you’re wrong… trust me. LOL

Overall, I’d have to say that I definitely recommend this movie! Not only is it a good “scary movie” (I don’t want to say it’s a horror movie since I don’t think it is honestly… horror denotes graphic violence and bloodshed, two things this movie doesn’t really have) but it could also be construed as a good sci-fi movie in some circles due to the rather original story. It’s definitely a must see folks… enjoy!

The Sentinel is a political thriller starring Michael Douglas and Keifer Southerland. That about sums up the whole movie right there. No, I’m serious… it really does. This movie is so much like any other political thriller out there that giving it a full review would result in my telling you same thing you’ve heard again and again for this sort of movie: good man is framed for bad acts and it chased by the government until another good man (the chaser) finds out the truth and they both solve the crime together. There you go… that’s your review. That said, it wasn’t a bad movie per se but it was pretty standard for the genre. I can’t really say I’m for it or against it honestly. If you like this sort of film then you’ll like this movie. If you don’t, then you won’t. Just don’t go into it planning to get more than the basically formula above and you’ll come out thinking it was a decent movie.

Snakes on a Plane is one of those movies that never really takes itself seriously… and that’s a big part of why I thought it was a great movie! I also loved the fact that the movie took the feedback of it’s online fan base into account during the production of the film and actually changed/added scenes to accommodate what they wanted to see. That’s not something you see everyday in Hollywood! That said, let’s talk about the movie itself.

The premise of the film is simple: a mob boss infests a plane carrying a mob informant with hundreds of deadly snakes in an attempt to kill him before he can testify. Now you may be saying that this premise is completely silly… and you’d be right. I mean why wouldn’t they just shoot down the plane with a surface-to-air missile or put a bomb on the plane or any number of other ways right? Well because then you wouldn’t give Samuel L. Jackson the chance to say the soon to be classic line of “I’m tired of these motherfuckin’ snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane!” LOL You gotta love that! Besides, terrorist movies have been done to death using more conventional means and this was a novel idea. How many other “killer snakes invade a plane” movies do you know about? That’s right… none. You gotta give them credit for originality here folks.

The acting in a film like this is usually rather sub par but in this case it actually was quite good. I think this comes from the movie gaining such a high profile from all the “internet buzz” and thus attracting better talent. Also, the actors/actresses in this film had to know this was destined for cult status and, as a result, don’t want to be known for their horrible acting in a film that will be a staple of cult film festivals for years to come. The other lacking part of films like this is typically the special effects but once again this is not the case here. They did a great job on the snakes and the plane as well. It definitely had a “big budget” look even though we know it was a low budget title. I think this says a lot about the production and special effects teams they used. Hopefully they’re work will be recognized by others as proof that low budget films don’t have to look low budget.

Overall, I thought this was a good movie in general and a great movie in the sense of how well it pulled off cheesy without appearing cheesy! I’d definitely recommend it to people but I would warn them what they’re in for here. Some people just don’t like that sort of movie and never will. Sadly these people will be missing out on some really great cinema due to their inability to enjoy good “camp” in a movie… and this movie really redefines the term “camp” in a very good light!