Greetings, Human.
Throughout my travels I have met many of your tall, lanky kind. While the majority of you prove ignorant of the merit of a day's labour and have a bemusing fondness for outdoor spaces, you remain a race we Dwarves can at least maintain cordial relations with.
This is more than can be said than for many other residents of this world. Never trust a long-ear, son, you'll get nowhere in a hurry but t'grave!
But forgive my meanderings, beardless one. Your interest in my previous employment as Administrator of a frontier Dwarven city is highly curious. On the one hand you show great respect - desire to learn from one's elders is a traditional Dwarven virtue. On the other I must disclose my suspicions that you want this information for nefarious purposes - let me iterate this now; you're never going to find out where we stashed our riches, and that's that.
In the following documents I enclose my full work log, with comments. Please get back to me with your thoughts, and I apologise in advance for any creative embellishment.
My assistant Hakrag is most insistent that I must make use of lavish descriptions in order to hold the attention of any impatient cretins that you may pass these documents onto. His beard is tufted and unkempt, and as I write this I am making a mental note to slap the young fool soundly about the ears.
Yours most gracefully,
Mac Luggins
- Senior Records Dwarf/Ex-Administrator of Extremely High Importance
Thursday 27 September 2012
Monday 20 August 2012
Sniper Elite V2
So I picked Sniper Elite V2 up on Steam sale. I thought I'd post up my impressions.
For £10, I have to say the game + DLC was good value really. Still though, I'm finding it to be one of those "wasted potential" games that prove highly irritating at times.
Set in WWII, SEV2 places you in the boots of a US black ops sniper deep behind enemy lines. You are assigned at the beginning a mission to assassinate 5 Nazi scientists who founded the V2 rocket programme before they can defect to Russia and prove a future threat.
First up, I have to echo a point made in Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review (see here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5745-Sniper-Elite-V2 ) - what is up with picking on the Russians in games lately?!
It's like the Cold War never ended or something. Every single war-time American made game in the last 2 years seems to feature Russia as the baddies. In this game, it's revealed that Russia is planning to launch nerve agent filled V2 Rockets at major European cities and pass it off as a desperation attack by the Nazis.
While it makes for a "plot twist", I think it's a bit lame considering that Russia was aligned against the Reich in the period the game is set, Stalin or not. It's not even clarified why Russia would want to do such a thing, because presumably the only way they would profit would be in a full scale invasion afterwards (hardly subtle).
The protagonist doesn't seem to show much love for the Russians either, referring to them constantly as "Reds", "Ivans" and even at one point "crafty Red bastards".This seems a rather odd McCarthy-esque 1950-60's attitude.
Historical inaccuracy and demonisation of Russia aside, much debate has gone on over the game's "X-Ray Killcam", namely a cutscene that triggers upon a good shot that shows the bullet impact its target in slow motion, shattering bones and damaging internal organs.
Frankly, it was taken off of Mortal Kombat which did pretty much an identical thing earlier, and I think really the developers only added it for the "shock factor".
Personally, I think the game isn't particularly violent in the grand scheme of things - a game like Gears of War is easily worse. It's true that the x-ray deaths can be very graphic (I shot one unfortunate soldier in the back - the bullet severed his spine, went through his lungs and then yanked off 3 of his fingers upon exit), but actual evidence of violence on the character model is non-existent.
Look at the soldier above after his death, and he has no signs of missing fingers or huge gory holes in his back - he just has one tiny red entrance and exit wound on his chest, like any other "PG game". The game also doesn't feature much in way of blood decals, so really the X-Ray system is just a detailed gimmick to highlight specific kills.
You could argue it's a little tasteless (as is the "KILL HITLER" DLC imo) since the game depicts a real conflict, but at the same time I think if one approaches the game in a mature fashion the x-ray kills if anything simply make the player a little uncomfortable. And perhaps it's good that's the case, because in a way it gives your enemies a human depth you don't see in other games.
It's easy to pull the trigger on someone in Battlefield 3, you don't even see the impact your bullet makes at long range. But sending a rifle round through the eye socket of an unfortunate German lookout, you feel like an amoral instrument of death. You're killing people, and the details are not pleasant.
In terms of gameplay, the team nailed the feeling of sniping spot on. On the hardest difficulty you must control your breathing, the distance of a shot and any weather effects such as wind on the bullet. You feel disconnected and far from your targets, like a hunter, which completely contrasts with the jarringly personal zoom of the killcam.
Landing a successful shot feels like a satisfying reward of patience and skill. There's just one glaring problem - the game hardly ever gives you a chance to just use your freaking rifle. Almost always you're forced down one linear path full of cramped corridors and bunkers that are completely inappropriate for you to use your rifle in, forcing you to use a pistol or SMG (which feel far less fun to use, thanks to the dev team really focussing on optimising the rifles primarily).
Combat also takes place at silly close ranges sometimes, ususally withing 50-200m. If you build a whole game around allowing us to SNIPE THINGS, why do we have to fight within bloody running distance constantly?
Enemy snipers seem to be implemented in a highly annoying manner, at least on the hardest "Sniper Elite" difficulty. These guys apparently possess the vision of a hawk, the sonic ears of a bat and have railguns with auto-targeting. They never miss if you're in the open, even if you're sprinting at full pace and have a huge distance from them.
Similarly, inch around a corner that seems out of their sight radius and they'll INSTANTLY shoot at you, spinning on the spot to do so. You have binoculars, but you can't even use those to spot them because they will immediately shoot at you the second you look around the corner. It feels very stupid at times, because you practically have to find them via death trial-and-error - you can forget cunningly exposing them or looking round corners with mirrors, Private Ryan style.
So it's a flawed game that offers excellent sniping mechanics, but sadly forces the player to only break out the rifle when it suits the game. There are also irritations with difficulty and the ability of the enemy to detect the player near instantaneously.
Overall, I'd give it:
***
3/5.
For £10, I have to say the game + DLC was good value really. Still though, I'm finding it to be one of those "wasted potential" games that prove highly irritating at times.
Set in WWII, SEV2 places you in the boots of a US black ops sniper deep behind enemy lines. You are assigned at the beginning a mission to assassinate 5 Nazi scientists who founded the V2 rocket programme before they can defect to Russia and prove a future threat.
First up, I have to echo a point made in Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review (see here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5745-Sniper-Elite-V2 ) - what is up with picking on the Russians in games lately?!
It's like the Cold War never ended or something. Every single war-time American made game in the last 2 years seems to feature Russia as the baddies. In this game, it's revealed that Russia is planning to launch nerve agent filled V2 Rockets at major European cities and pass it off as a desperation attack by the Nazis.
While it makes for a "plot twist", I think it's a bit lame considering that Russia was aligned against the Reich in the period the game is set, Stalin or not. It's not even clarified why Russia would want to do such a thing, because presumably the only way they would profit would be in a full scale invasion afterwards (hardly subtle).
The protagonist doesn't seem to show much love for the Russians either, referring to them constantly as "Reds", "Ivans" and even at one point "crafty Red bastards".This seems a rather odd McCarthy-esque 1950-60's attitude.
Historical inaccuracy and demonisation of Russia aside, much debate has gone on over the game's "X-Ray Killcam", namely a cutscene that triggers upon a good shot that shows the bullet impact its target in slow motion, shattering bones and damaging internal organs.
Frankly, it was taken off of Mortal Kombat which did pretty much an identical thing earlier, and I think really the developers only added it for the "shock factor".
Personally, I think the game isn't particularly violent in the grand scheme of things - a game like Gears of War is easily worse. It's true that the x-ray deaths can be very graphic (I shot one unfortunate soldier in the back - the bullet severed his spine, went through his lungs and then yanked off 3 of his fingers upon exit), but actual evidence of violence on the character model is non-existent.
Look at the soldier above after his death, and he has no signs of missing fingers or huge gory holes in his back - he just has one tiny red entrance and exit wound on his chest, like any other "PG game". The game also doesn't feature much in way of blood decals, so really the X-Ray system is just a detailed gimmick to highlight specific kills.
You could argue it's a little tasteless (as is the "KILL HITLER" DLC imo) since the game depicts a real conflict, but at the same time I think if one approaches the game in a mature fashion the x-ray kills if anything simply make the player a little uncomfortable. And perhaps it's good that's the case, because in a way it gives your enemies a human depth you don't see in other games.
It's easy to pull the trigger on someone in Battlefield 3, you don't even see the impact your bullet makes at long range. But sending a rifle round through the eye socket of an unfortunate German lookout, you feel like an amoral instrument of death. You're killing people, and the details are not pleasant.
In terms of gameplay, the team nailed the feeling of sniping spot on. On the hardest difficulty you must control your breathing, the distance of a shot and any weather effects such as wind on the bullet. You feel disconnected and far from your targets, like a hunter, which completely contrasts with the jarringly personal zoom of the killcam.
Landing a successful shot feels like a satisfying reward of patience and skill. There's just one glaring problem - the game hardly ever gives you a chance to just use your freaking rifle. Almost always you're forced down one linear path full of cramped corridors and bunkers that are completely inappropriate for you to use your rifle in, forcing you to use a pistol or SMG (which feel far less fun to use, thanks to the dev team really focussing on optimising the rifles primarily).
Combat also takes place at silly close ranges sometimes, ususally withing 50-200m. If you build a whole game around allowing us to SNIPE THINGS, why do we have to fight within bloody running distance constantly?
Enemy snipers seem to be implemented in a highly annoying manner, at least on the hardest "Sniper Elite" difficulty. These guys apparently possess the vision of a hawk, the sonic ears of a bat and have railguns with auto-targeting. They never miss if you're in the open, even if you're sprinting at full pace and have a huge distance from them.
Similarly, inch around a corner that seems out of their sight radius and they'll INSTANTLY shoot at you, spinning on the spot to do so. You have binoculars, but you can't even use those to spot them because they will immediately shoot at you the second you look around the corner. It feels very stupid at times, because you practically have to find them via death trial-and-error - you can forget cunningly exposing them or looking round corners with mirrors, Private Ryan style.
So it's a flawed game that offers excellent sniping mechanics, but sadly forces the player to only break out the rifle when it suits the game. There are also irritations with difficulty and the ability of the enemy to detect the player near instantaneously.
Overall, I'd give it:
***
3/5.
Saturday 3 March 2012
Movie Review: Wolf Creek
*Contains spoilers*
I'm not a big fan of slasher flicks, but the family wanted to watch this one and so I went along with it for the company.
Wolf Creek was, to me, both a surprising turnaround of the stale old genre norms, yet also a depressing trudge right through all the things that I don't enjoy about "slasher" movies.
Filmed by an Indie group on a low budget, it was nice for once to see that the "Shakycam" effect is foregone for more conventional filming.
The plot concerns the ill-fated adventure of three young people (2 girls and a guy) travelling through the Australian outback.
The acting from everyone involved in the film is quite impressive, though the film gets off to a slow start and I found myself getting restless during the intro 30 minutes or so, where the obligatory scenes of young people having "crazy" parties were thrown in. Since that sort of thing seems to be in every slasher flick ever, I was straight to thinking "Ah, this movie is going to be a pile of turd, no surprises there."
However, things took a turn for the better upon the group's first arrival at an isolated petrol station. The male of the group, Ben, is intimidated by some burly rough-looking men in a conversation that's genuinely tense. Eventually he is bailed out by the "weird over-friendly local", who actually turns out to be the most normal person there - he tells the leader of the men to stop "acting like a dickhead".
Impressed by the atmosphere in the scene, I equally enjoyed it when the villain of the film turned up. Oozing a strange charm and easy sense of humour at first, John Jarratt is great as the terrifying Mick Taylor.
After offering to help out the group with their broken down car, he takes them back to his place of residence (an old mining outpost) and sits around a campfire with the trio.
Mick is a drifting hunter in the outback, moving from place to place. Despite being tough and rough, he seems warm and welcoming to the party. After some lengthy scenes in which we get a glimpse of his superfically friendly personality, he slowly shows his true colours.
Taking offence at one of Ben's "Crocodile Dundee" jokes, he stares at him for an excessive length of time, mouth open slightly, and we start to realise that he's clearly not as friendly as he seems.
It's not long before he drugs them and has them tied up, at his mercy.
And this is where the film took a huge nosedive for me, sadly. The rest of the film is pretty much torture-porn of the nastiest kind.
It's one thing to create a tense and disturbing atmosphere, but the film goes further. It creates that atmosphere, but it seems to stop being entertainment in the process. The effect is more akin to watching a horrific car crash in slow motion.
Take, for example, the scene where Mick apparently rapes a member of the trio. He then takes great delight in taunting the girl, telling her in the most unpleasant ways how he will horribly kill her and so on.
This is not an uncommon sort of thing in horror films...and I expect the most twisted killers out there probably do act like that in reality. But even so, Wolf Creek focuses on this particular scene for what feels like about 15 minutes.
And I did not enjoy that time a bit - it was less like an atmosphere was being manipulated by the director, and more like a prolonged and unpleasantly "indulgent" trip into something that I have no desire to experience. "Exploitation film" is a phrase which comes to mind.
This continues throughout the film, with the two women of the group being subjected to absolutely horrendous things that I won't bother with here. And the film also sacrifices itself to an irritating horror cliche: when given the completely obvious chance of easily killing the main antagonist, the heroines don't take it.
By far the most excessive scene has to be the "head on a stick" scene. Mick essentially ends the life of a main character by severing their spine with a knife, rendering them paralysed from the neck down and completely open to any further torture he'd like to inflict.
When I saw that scene, I just thought "What the fuck? What's the point of this movie, other than "enjoying" watching some poor souls get horribly sliced up in ways I don't even want to imagine?"
The male lead does disappointingly little once the horror begins - instead it feels like watching 1.5 hours of women in the most unpleasant distress imaginable.
John Jarratt's character felt truly promising at the outset, when he is at his most disarmingly "nice", and I had high hopes for the film. He's undoubtedly a very talented actor to make such a blunt and horrible role something you can study with interest.
However, he was let down completely with the material. I don't mind gore in horror films, I don't even mind psychological horror (in fact I enjoy it).
What I don't enjoy watching is an entire feature length which essentially features people put in an inescapable, hopeless situation, then delights in showing their brutal violation with the worst kind of sadistic, directorial glee that revels in every pitiful moment of suffering on screen.
I'll give it two stars purely for Jarratt's acting and the scenes before the "horror" begins, because those elements were enjoyable.
[*][*] [ ] [ ] [ ]
I'm not a big fan of slasher flicks, but the family wanted to watch this one and so I went along with it for the company.
Wolf Creek was, to me, both a surprising turnaround of the stale old genre norms, yet also a depressing trudge right through all the things that I don't enjoy about "slasher" movies.
Filmed by an Indie group on a low budget, it was nice for once to see that the "Shakycam" effect is foregone for more conventional filming.
The plot concerns the ill-fated adventure of three young people (2 girls and a guy) travelling through the Australian outback.
The acting from everyone involved in the film is quite impressive, though the film gets off to a slow start and I found myself getting restless during the intro 30 minutes or so, where the obligatory scenes of young people having "crazy" parties were thrown in. Since that sort of thing seems to be in every slasher flick ever, I was straight to thinking "Ah, this movie is going to be a pile of turd, no surprises there."
However, things took a turn for the better upon the group's first arrival at an isolated petrol station. The male of the group, Ben, is intimidated by some burly rough-looking men in a conversation that's genuinely tense. Eventually he is bailed out by the "weird over-friendly local", who actually turns out to be the most normal person there - he tells the leader of the men to stop "acting like a dickhead".
Impressed by the atmosphere in the scene, I equally enjoyed it when the villain of the film turned up. Oozing a strange charm and easy sense of humour at first, John Jarratt is great as the terrifying Mick Taylor.
After offering to help out the group with their broken down car, he takes them back to his place of residence (an old mining outpost) and sits around a campfire with the trio.
Mick is a drifting hunter in the outback, moving from place to place. Despite being tough and rough, he seems warm and welcoming to the party. After some lengthy scenes in which we get a glimpse of his superfically friendly personality, he slowly shows his true colours.
Taking offence at one of Ben's "Crocodile Dundee" jokes, he stares at him for an excessive length of time, mouth open slightly, and we start to realise that he's clearly not as friendly as he seems.
It's not long before he drugs them and has them tied up, at his mercy.
And this is where the film took a huge nosedive for me, sadly. The rest of the film is pretty much torture-porn of the nastiest kind.
It's one thing to create a tense and disturbing atmosphere, but the film goes further. It creates that atmosphere, but it seems to stop being entertainment in the process. The effect is more akin to watching a horrific car crash in slow motion.
Take, for example, the scene where Mick apparently rapes a member of the trio. He then takes great delight in taunting the girl, telling her in the most unpleasant ways how he will horribly kill her and so on.
This is not an uncommon sort of thing in horror films...and I expect the most twisted killers out there probably do act like that in reality. But even so, Wolf Creek focuses on this particular scene for what feels like about 15 minutes.
And I did not enjoy that time a bit - it was less like an atmosphere was being manipulated by the director, and more like a prolonged and unpleasantly "indulgent" trip into something that I have no desire to experience. "Exploitation film" is a phrase which comes to mind.
This continues throughout the film, with the two women of the group being subjected to absolutely horrendous things that I won't bother with here. And the film also sacrifices itself to an irritating horror cliche: when given the completely obvious chance of easily killing the main antagonist, the heroines don't take it.
By far the most excessive scene has to be the "head on a stick" scene. Mick essentially ends the life of a main character by severing their spine with a knife, rendering them paralysed from the neck down and completely open to any further torture he'd like to inflict.
When I saw that scene, I just thought "What the fuck? What's the point of this movie, other than "enjoying" watching some poor souls get horribly sliced up in ways I don't even want to imagine?"
The male lead does disappointingly little once the horror begins - instead it feels like watching 1.5 hours of women in the most unpleasant distress imaginable.
John Jarratt's character felt truly promising at the outset, when he is at his most disarmingly "nice", and I had high hopes for the film. He's undoubtedly a very talented actor to make such a blunt and horrible role something you can study with interest.
However, he was let down completely with the material. I don't mind gore in horror films, I don't even mind psychological horror (in fact I enjoy it).
What I don't enjoy watching is an entire feature length which essentially features people put in an inescapable, hopeless situation, then delights in showing their brutal violation with the worst kind of sadistic, directorial glee that revels in every pitiful moment of suffering on screen.
I'll give it two stars purely for Jarratt's acting and the scenes before the "horror" begins, because those elements were enjoyable.
[*][*] [ ] [ ] [ ]
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