Video Game Review: Bulletstorm

"What happy horse-s**t is this?!" - Steve Blum

Bulletstorm just looks and sounds like more of the same:  you play some dude with a gun, and you run around and shoot things.  It does have plenty of other things that pushes it above and beyond the regular FPS fare though.  If nothing else, the game is a phenomenal blast, largely because the game really tries its best to mix things up and make you do more than just shoot bad guys.  To really succeed in the game, you need to "kill with skill," by sliding, kicking, and whipping your opponents and hurling them all across the map.  You gain some decent bonus points for environmental kills, or for really inventive kills.  The game itself is hardly repetitive:  it takes you through a pretty well-rendered environment that contains huge ruined cities, weird mutated ecologies, and battered spaceships.  You will be pitted against a few annoying bosses, but one of the coolest highlights is taking control of a mechanical Godzilla-like creature and stomping on a hoard of enemies! The game overall is crazy, over-the-top, and rather juvenile; it all makes for a satisfyingly fast and furious piece of pulp sci-fi shoot-em-up action!

The story is pretty straightforward, but it does have merits.  You play a space pirate seeking revenge against a military general (who, in turn, is one of the most stereotypical and ridiculous generals you'll ever see).  The game explores enough of the character's past to explain what happened and how things came to where they are now; it is pretty interesting to see how the guy's own problems (especially alcoholism) brought on his own misfortune.  The game digs up even more drama when the guy's best friend becomes a cyborg, and is constantly struggling to maintain his humanity.  Other than that, however, the game's actual plot is pretty standard, taking you though one level after another with the usual boss battles and some contrived twists.  All of the dramatic impact is further beaten down by a certain faux gung-ho attitude, the constant swearing, and all of the characters' bickering.  Characters can actually be pretty annoying this way, although I thought a lot of their dialogue was very silly and laughable.

This game uses good, not great, graphics.  The visuals are cool in parts, but textures and renderings are average at best.  The levels are very linear, and their designs are generally okay.  This game has plenty of neat and imaginative-looking sets, props, costumes, and locales.  Controls are generally good; it may take a little getting used to, especially with using secondary firing modes.  Voice-work is appropriately over-the-top, but the writing is quite silly and simplistic.  Music is okay.

Bulletstorm is short, pretty stupidly-written, very juvenile, and very over-the-top, but it is still pretty darn fun.  It's worth a rental for anybody who likes sci-fi shooter games.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Perfect | Story:  Pretty Good | Game:  Average)

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Video Game Review: Singularity

Nowadays, it seems like shoot-em-up games come a dime-a-dozen, but most of them try to stand apart with some clever trick or gimmick.  In Singularity, the gimmick is that you have an experimental device that manipulates time and allows you to use it as a weapon.  Imagine being able to aim at a broken ladder, and reversing time on it, so that it bends and folds back into a usable shape.  Or, aim it at a box to age it instantly, causing it to collapse into a rusted old heap.  Better yet, aim it at a hapless Soviet bad guy, and watch him age into a skeleton, just like that guy from the ending of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Isn't that cool, or what?

The game is pretty darn fun.  It is pretty much more of the same by shooting game standards: you crawl through a handful of levels, confronting some waves of bad guys and creepy monsters.  You do get a unique assortment of weapons, including some fancy variants on rail guns, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles, all of which allow you to guide your projectiles to their targets.  The most unique thing is the fancy device that controls time, allowing you to send things and bad guys forward or backward in time.  The game is short (perhaps too short), it runs fast, and it's not too frustrating overall.

The story is pretty neat; you basically play a special forces dude who explores a lost island with the ruins of an old Soviet research station.  The story takes some pretty interesting twists and turns, as you constantly flip back and forth between the past and present to alter the future.  Time paradoxes occur constantly, but the game never really addresses the issue.  The story overall presents a pretty sobering theme that the more you mess with the timeline, the more hopeless things become.  You do get to chose between three different endings at the end, all of which presents a fascinating alternate-history scenario.  Still, the game doesn't offer much character development or that much of a thoughtful plot.

It is a neat-looking game with solid graphics quality.  Textures and renderings are a little rough around the edges, but still have some great-looking parts.  Level designs are pretty decent.  It can take a little bit of a learning curve to master the time-controlling mechanism and all its firing modes, especially when using it in tandem with your standard weapons (some of which are a little unwieldy as well), but once you get the hang of it, the controls are okay.  This game uses pretty stereotypical and over-the-top voice-work and writing.  Most settings, props, characters, creatures, and weapons look great.  Music is alright too.

There's nothing ground-breaking about this game, and it is pretty short, but it is a blast and it does have a few cool ideas.  For anybody who likes shooter games with a twist, this should be worth renting.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Very Good | Story:  Pretty Good | Game:  Pretty Good)

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Film Review: Godzilla 2000 (Gojira ni-sen Mireniamu)

"Godzilla is... inside all of us!" - Takehiro Murata

Just a year after Roland Emmerich's version of Godzilla blessed the world with its presence, Toho decided to start all over again.  This rendition of Gojira eschews all the previous sequels, and takes directly after the original 1954 film.

The film certainly has its moments.  Godzilla does his thing as usual, stomping on buildings and crushing things like it's nobody's business.  This time, however, there's also a UFO in the mix, which wreaks even more havoc and transforms into one ugly mother... Inevitably, the two beasties duke it out, and Tokyo is destroyed yet again

The film will appeal to fans the best, because it's all back to basics with this film.  There are no gimmicks, tricks, or fads pulled out in this film; it's just a straightforward monster flick with straightforward action.  Unfortunately, that also means that the film drags in certain spots, as it focuses on characters who never really amount to much of anything.  The story overall is pretty weak and flimsy, and nothing really stands out about it.

The film is also marred horribly by its overall quality:  the SFX are terrible by any standard, the monsters and models look dirt-cheap, and the acting and writing are pretty bad.  On top of that, if you watch this with English dubbing, you'll expose yourself to some pretty horrible voice-work (I can't keep a straight face anymore, thinking about the line "this missile will go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!").  Photography and editing get the job done, but are nothing worth screaming about.  The music (aside from using the classic film's theme) is pretty horrible.

The film has its moments, but at first, I was a little appalled by it, thinking a little too much like some kind of DTV trash.  It's not quite that bad, and Godzilla fans might still get a kick out of it.  Still, there are better films in the series.

3/5 (Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Story:  Average | Film:  Poor)

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Film Review: Godzilla: Final Wars (Gojira: Fainaru Uôzu)

"Well now, let's enjoy the main event. The last chapter in the Godzilla saga." - Kazuki Kitamura

Godzilla might be the one character on film with the longest history. It's just like James Bond: it never really dies or ends, it just keeps coming back decade after decade in some new hip style.

After twenty-plus Godzilla films, Final Wars presents the last foray in the classic series into the crazy world of rampaging monsters toppling cities (in the same fashion as Die Another Day was the last Bond film of the initial series that went crazy with the gadgets and evil megalomaniacs and such). If nothing else, Final Wars goes all-out in shoving in as much epic action, as many monsters, and as much glorious cheese as it can! And it does so with flash and style!

Really, the film is utterly stupid and laughable. The acting is very cheesy (especially when watching it with English dubbing), the action is very over-the-top, the monsters still look fake as hell, and the production overall is as cheap as they come. The film also has a ton of scenes where they tried their best to be modern and cool; you can expect to meet a squad of dudes who twirl around with guns, as if they came from Equilibrium. And, there are car chases and fight scenes galore. Of course, the main highlight is the mass carnage caused by the monsters, and the film doesn't disappoint on that level: in addition to Godzilla, there are also flying bugs, rampaging lizards, and aliens destroying practically every city in the world. A whole gang of monsters from the older films return, including Mothra, Gigan, Rodan, Ghidorah, Ebirah, and so many more! They've even thrown in Zilla, from the much-hated '98 US film in the mix! Godzilla's son appears in all his stupid glory!  Oh yeah, it doesn't get much bigger than this!

The story's pretty silly, the characters are pretty flat, but what really matters it that it's basically the end-all-be-all war of monsters. The first half of the film sets things up fine and dandy, before all heck breaks lose in the last half. Nothing terribly deep, but it's cool all the same.

This film is quite cheesy. It does have fine and dandy photography. Editing can be pretty hectic and erratic (especially during the opening credits scene, which includes some cool clips from the last 20-something movies). Acting and writing are pretty bad. This production has some very cheap-looking sets, props, and costumes. Music is pretty cool.

This is the type of kaiju film I find myself enjoying more and more: it's the type that doesn't take itself seriously, and knows how to have a good time. The film moves fast, has loads of action, and has a pretty generous helping of cheese. If you don't mind that kind of thing, then this movie should be a must-see!

4/5 (Entertainment: Perfect | Story: Average | Film: Average)

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Book Review: Saga of Seven Suns Book I: Hidden Empire (Kevin J. Anderson)

"'Momentous events do not happen in an instant,' [Basil] said, as if convincing himself. 'Today, we mean to set the course of history.'" - Kevin J. Anderson

I have fond memories of reading Kevin J. Anderson's Star Wars novels, so I was curious to see how one of his more original sagas would play out.  It's immediately apparent, however, that his Saga of Seven Suns is pretty huge:  there are seven of these books altogether, and the first book alone is well over 600 pages long.

The story certainly has its moments.  It is rather surprising and weird to see that it's not straight-up sci-fi, like I expected, but it seems to have a lot of fantasy elements to it.  Even though there are other planets and stars, aliens, robots, and some far-out technology, it's a pretty odd universe with kings, heraldry, and a race of green people who use trees for FTL communications.  The extravagance and political maneuvering reminded me a bit of Frank Herbert's Dune, while the story itself seemed to resemble something out of high fantasy.  It is a very imaginative universe with a lot of interesting concepts, ideas, and fantastic worlds.  The story does boast some exciting action, plenty of drama, and some romance.  It all moves pretty fluidly; the book is big, but not too wordy or dense, so it makes for a pretty easy read.

However, I also felt that it was a pretty dry book, and my interest in it varied from section to section.  The length is pretty daunting, and given the actual plot, I'd say that it could have easily been trimmed down a lot, and it could have gotten to the point quicker.  By nature, the book jumps around multiple characters and viewpoints, which offers a very broad scope and insight on the universe and the events.  It makes everything seem rather random, and it makes the plot meander around a lot.  Very little of the characters really stood out to me; even though they have just enough depth to drive the story, their personalities never really kept my interest.

The book's composition gets the job done; as mentioned above, it isn't hard to read.  It does seem to me that nearly every page is filled less with action and detail, and more with a description of what each character is thinking, what the implications of their actions are, and massive amounts of background information.  This strikes me as a pretty serious violation of the "show don't tell" rule, and often times, some of the ideas become redundant or dragged-out.  I think it makes the book even more dry to read.  The overall style and syntax of the text is good, but not great.

I'm sure that, with the next six books, everything likely comes together into some massive story arc.  I'm sure that there's a method to the madness.  On its own, however, The Hidden Empire comes off as pretty long-winded and random, for a plot that could have been covered in a tighter and shorter novel.  I think the best that can be said is that the author definitely flexes some decent world-building muscle.

3/5 (Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Average | Book:  Average)

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Writing: Sketches from the Void

Even though my own drawing skills are very amateurish, I do endeavor to sketch out certain scenes and designs from my work from time to time.  For my current novel in progress, Void, it's somewhat helpful and important to draw out what a starship, an alien, a planet, or any number of other futuristic things could look like.

Thus far, I've taken the time to make the following sketches, to help visualize certain scenes and figure out what certain things might look like.  They aren't anything terribly great or detailed, but by my standards, I'm fairly proud of them.

Above is the dorsal (top) hull of the Sprite V1 starfighter, the main fighting machine used by the characters in the story.  You'll notice that unlike the fighters you see in things like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, there is no transparent canopy.  The idea here is that the pilots are encased in a totally opaque and heavily-shielded cockpit, and the walls project the image of the exterior (with relevant HUD overlays).  This fighter is also directly controlled by the pilots' brainwaves, so most information (such as speed, direction, distance, danger, etc) can be pumped directly into the pilots' senses.  In this specific scene, I have this fighter floating through a nebula (all the weird blobby things in the background), but I currently have no specific place in mind yet.

This was an older drawing I made, in an attempt to conceptualize the enemy craft.  I thought it would be far more menacing and interesting to make the ship less mechanical and more organic in nature.  At the time, I didn't have any specific idea of what the hull's composition would be or how it works; it would be completely alien, for all intents and purposes.

In this close-up of the alien ship's tentacle-like structures, which I've drawn as having a mechanical-looking exterior, but with an organic-looking shape.  Upon drafting the book, I've described this as having neutronium hulls (the same substance as what's found on neutron stars, which are super-dense), but are flexible enough to move and "breathe" like an organism.  These structures can suck in and absorb ambient light and energy from the universe to fuel the rest of the vessel.

The alien vessels in this story can destroy planets with shocking ease, thanks to a special invisible whip-like weapon.  The idea is that it strings together a long chain of ionized particles, and makes each particle so dense that it carries its own gravity.  It's a thin thread so dense and disruptive that it can cleave entire planets, or entire groups of spaceships, with just a few lashes.

In one of the major battle scenes, a group of starships are able to defend a planet from alien attack.  Even though the enemy hulls are made from neutronium, the other ships are able to modify their weapons to penetrate the dense armor.  They make short work of the first enemy craft, but more follows.

The face of the enemy:  The Korzoch.  As part of the story, these aliens evolved on a rogue planet that orbits a black hole (in theory, live evolved on the planet totally independent from a light source with matter that accreted around the black hole falling on the planet and evolving into strange, scary-looking things).  As a result, the Korzoch evolved into a nocturnal race, with just a single optical visor-like eye across their faces.  Their heads are covered by a weird hood of skin, much like the hood of a cobra.  Their bodies are pretty fleshy and somewhat flexible, and they'd have a tail growing out of them.  Even though they appear humanoid, the closest thing they could be classified as would be like a worm with a head, hands, and feet.

Those are the best drawings I've done so far on this project, and there is a chance I might make more.

If you have even the most basic drawing ability, I certainly encourage you to make sketches of scenes, characters, objects, and other things from your story.  You may find that drawing out a vague idea from your head can give it a shape and form you may not expect, or might find appealing.  It's a good way to let your imagination run free, and it could help come up with new things to insert into your own project.

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Film Review: Man of Steel (Revisited)

"You can save her, Kal.  You can save all of them." - Russell Crowe

Superman has always been one of the most quintessential superheroes of comic-book lore.  It's hard to top a man who can fly, zap things with his eyeballs, see through walls, move faster than a speeding bullet, jump over buildings, survive just about everything, and live for centuries.  On film, the Man of Steel has been treated with varying degrees of class and cheese; Richard Donner's films are iconic in themselves, and Bryan Singer's film had its moments.  Given the success of The Dark Knight trilogy, it was only inevitable that filmmakers would try to put a more earnest, serious, heavy-weight spin on the saga of Superman.

Unfortunately, this is still not a perfect adaptation.  Many critics and film-goers have written this film off as stylistically gaudy, crammed-full of gargantuan action scenes laden with one too many camera zooms and shakes, and with a narrative that's wonky.  It has become the biggest love-it-or-hate-it film of 2013.

I, for one, love the film, despite all its excesses and problems.  The action continuously blows me away; the film is loaded with huge-scale action, the likes of which blows most other superhero films out of the water.   It gets relentless as superpowered characters slam into each other at rocketing speeds, blasting entire city blocks in their wake. In some of the most frightening and intense scenes, alien machines pummel huge parts of Metropolis to a flattened ruin.  Even when the mass destruction isn't on full display, the film still moves fast and fluidly.

A lot of the film's momentum can be attributed to its narrative, which is purposefully mixed-up so that the film doesn't waste that much time covering old ground.  The relevant parts of Superman's origins are covered in flashbacks inserted at key moments.  This does create a jarring shift that may throw viewers off, but I felt the pacing was perfect.  Everything else plays out in a pretty straightforward manner.  What really matters, however, are the characters, which are at their strongest.  The film intimately explores the title character, not only through the snippets of the origin story, but also in exploring him as an outcast full of emotional vulnerabilities.  The film shows what he learns from living among humans, and underscores strong themes of morality.  There are also some deviations that I think benefit the story (primarily, Lois Lane is no longer a total ditz).

There are still a few nitpicks, however.  I never did get used to the notion that Superman could be seen as a threat to humanity (perhaps because I've been spoiled by the older films, where Superman saves people and is cheered; here, he saves people and gets into trouble).  The fate of Jonathan Kent is a rather manipulative scene.  The most critical viewers would also make the same complaints as with Zack Snyder's other films:  too cold, not enough depth.

As mentioned before, the photography can be rather gaudy, with frequent use of zooms, some camera shaking, and some scenes with bright flashing lights.  Personally, I never found it all that problematic; most of the film is still pretty solid, and I think the drama scenes boast some of the best shots, with frequently intimate close-ups of specific characters and objects.  Editing is pretty interesting, for better or for worse.  Acting is a surprising treat:  I think Henry Cavill is superb as the title character, and everybody else is pretty decent.  Writing gets the job done.  This production has fine-looking sets, props, costumes, and locales.  Special effects are plentiful, some looking great and others looking a little underdeveloped.  Hans Zimmer's score, much like the film itself, has been criticized for being too much shallow noise, but I personally love the music for its simple themes and powerful spirit.

In fact, that pretty much sums up my stance on Man of Steel:  it's noisy, but I still find it moving.  It may not be a perfect or beautiful film, but it has the perfect pacing, and it is a film with power.  Not only power in the action scenes (of which it does have plenty), but also power in the characters, and their struggles in finding strength and a place in the world.

5/5 (Experience:  Perfect | Story:  Very Good | Film:  Very Good)

At the time of the film's release, I posted this review, which I don't think was particularly good, and an article where I rambled on about how cool the film is.

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