There is nothing physically stopping me, nor a shortage of thoughts, ideas or events to comment on. I made attempts to get something down earlier but beyond an unsatisfactory paragraph or two the words didn’t come. Inspiration would strike when I was far removed from my laptop or some paper and by the time I got to them, the initial spark had faded.

So many posts have come and gone in my mind, scrapped by idleness and a complete lack of motivation, but I will persevere with these few paragraphs. I could have filled this post with any number of topics related to the New Year. I could have written about my choices for game of the year (Arkham Asylum) and movie of the year (Avatar, I think, though didn’t see that many films to be fair).

There will be more content, more interesting content, to come. I’m just attempting to break an unproductive streak with this post.

I’ve never been especially proficient in the pool.
Like quite a few of my lesser skills my swimming is entirely self-taught. I learned as a five year old when someone kept pushing me into the deep end of a pool in South Carolina. My minute frame was easily shoved back into the deep waters by a mystery assailant and in terror I managed to manipulate my limbs in such a way that I didn’t drown. I thrashed and flapped and made my way back to the safe shallow end, fear propelling my stringy arms and stick legs into something that resembled swimming. I was pushed back again and again, I think it was at a barbeque or something and one of the adults must have thought drowning a five year old was a bit of a larf.

I suppose I could sympathise with that.

Over time my technique has not become anymore refined.
I still find moving underwater a laborious process, my legs kick and my arms whip through the water with all the grace of … well, a fish out of water. Like the dying salmon it is clear I’m far from my comfort zone. I would imagine there were fish moments from death that looked better than I did.

If my life is ever dependant on me swimming underwater for a period of any longer than 30 seconds I will die. I never would have survived that bit in Alien Resurrection where the survivors swim through a flooded kitchen while being pursued by aliens. It was about the only decent part of an otherwise terrible film and I watched knowing full well I would have suffered the same fate as Hillard. I don’t know if I would have even made it as far as she did. I would have outright refused to have even attempted the swim, which saddens me as I think I’d have a pretty decent survival instinct.

If I had to outrun someone or something I probably could.
On land I’m quick and agile, I can run for hours and my balance and core strength are good but put me in water and I’m plankton. Suddenly all of my physical attributes are nullified to the extent that almost anyone with reasonable technique could out-swim me.

When I was flapping through my 20 lengths I was overtaken by a doughy middle-aged man and almost overtaken again. I saw the other swimmers glide through the water, at least in my mind, like silvery fish. Their smooth strokes contrasted starkly with my own shambling efforts.

I thought about reasons for my aquatic ineptitude.
I thought blaming my long hair and hairy legs for dragging me down but a look at multiple gold medal winner, Mark Spitz, kind of makes a mockery of that excuse. Perhaps if I actually learned a proper technique based upon the advice of a professional and not the efforts of a child fearing death I might be better.

It’s possible that I may improve over time but I’m not going to trouble Michael Phelps anytime soon … or even Eric the Eel.

It is probably over a thousand, the list below barely scratches the surface of all the films I’ve seen and it was surprisingly easy to come up with. Rather than systematically list films by era or genre I got my brother’s girlfriend Dawn to call out any films she could think of.

I thought of this idea about five minutes before I began typing and Dawn rattled off films as they came to her while I typed out brief verdicts for each one. I initially intended to create a system for rating but found it too restrictive so I just wrote a brief instinctual verdict for each one.

I have included a link to Rotten Tomatoes and the score of each film, I haven’t seen some of these movies in a very long time…

NOTE: The percentages at the end are not my scores but the percentage of positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

1. Men in Black (1997) – meh (91% – seriously?!)
2. Fight Club (1999) – brilliant (80%)
3. Unforgiven (1992) – immense (96%)
4. Shaun of the Dead (2004) – decent (gets worse every time I watch it)
5. Memento (2001) – pretty good (93%)
6. The Departed (2006) – good (92%)
7. Aliens (1986) – the best sequel ever made (100%)
8. Reservoir Dogs (1992) – great characters and dialogue (95%)
9. American Beauty (1999) – uplifting, brilliant (the stupid bag scene apart) (89%)
10. Goodfellas (1990) – excellent (96%)
11. Predator (1987) – one of Arnie’s best (76%)
12. 12 Angry Men (1957) – captivating (100%)
13. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) – meh (78%)
14. Shawshank Redemption (1994) – really, really good (88%)
15. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – better than I expected (90%)
16. Sin City (2005) – flashy trash (78%)
17. Toy Story 2 (1999) – yep, it’s good (100%)
18. Bambi (1942) – I remember it being good (much to the amusement of Dawn and Sean, many gay jokes followed) (89%)
19. Final Destination (2000) -guff (30%)
20. Edward Scissorhands (1990) – pretentious crap (90%)
21. Stranger than Fiction (2006) – Surprisingly good (72%)
22. Shallow Grave (1995) – okay (71%)
23. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1996) – facepalm (49%)
24. Man on Fire (2004) – underwhelming (39%)
25. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – meh (81%)
26. 28 Days Later (2003) – meh (88%)
27. Casino Royale (2006) – surprisingly really good (94%)
28. Psycho (1960) – I was expecting it to be better (98%)
29. The Flintstones (1994) – Jesus wept (18%)
30. Aladdin (1992) – good (92%)
31. Jackass: The Movie (2002) – hard to class as a film really, hit and miss(48%)
32. E.T (1982) – good (98%)
33. Independence Day (1996) – a glorified B movie (61%)
34. Titanic (1997)  – Good (81%)
35. Ring (2002) – fairly decent (71%)
36. Pulp Fiction (1994) – Tarantino’s best film by a long way (97%)
37. Hot Fuzz (2007) – fun (90%)
38. Monty Python: Holy Grail (1975) – classic (94%)
39. Good Will Hunting (1997) – good (97%)
40. Heat (1995) – pretty good, not great (89%)
41. Zodiac (2007) – boring (87%)
42. Little Mermaid (1989) – decent (90%)
43. Ghost (1987) – crap (80%)
44. Dirty Dancing (1987) – utter shit – that women like this film makes me wonder if they actually deserve equal rights (67%)
45. The Terminator (1984) – the best Terminator (100%)
46. Bean (1998) – a test of mental endurance, awful (41%)
47. The Mask (1994) – rubbish (76%)
48. Frailty (2002) – ridiculous (74%)
49. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) – shite
50. Donnie Darko (2001) – overrated pish (84%)
51. Apollo 13 (1995)– crap (96%)
52. Deep Impact (1998)– more crap (46%)
53. Volcano (1997) – even more crap (40%)
54. I know what you did last summer (1997)– yet more crap (36%)
55. The Matrix (1999) – first half decent rest shite (86%)
56. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (2002)– boring (96%)
57. Addams Family Values (1994) – some good moments (74%)
58. Nightmare before Christmas (1993) – overrated, largely guff (97%)
59. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) – (see earlier blog) (75%)
60. Three Men and a Baby (1987) – sickening  (78%)
61. Transformers: The Movie (1986) – decent (haven’t seen it in 10 years) (50%)
62. Cruel Intentions (1999) – trash (47%)
63. Lock Stock and Two Smoking barrels (1998) – good if a little overrated (71%)
64. Clerks II (2006) – absolutely fucking diabolical (62%, seriously what the fuck?)
65. Baby’s Day Out (1994) – horrific (23%)
66. Home Alone 2 (1992) – decent (17% – that seems harsh!)
67. Liar Liar (1997) – pretty bad (84%)
68. Babe (1995) – Jesus wept (98%)
69. The Simpsons Movie (2007) – unfunny crap from a show that is a pale shadow of what it used to be (90%)
70. Mr Nanny (1993) – a holocaust of a film (7%)
71. The Thing (1980) – really tense, really good (80%)
72. Blair Witch Project (1999) – doing something different doesn’t make it good (85%)
73. Run Lola Run (1999) – see above (92%)
74. The Santa Clause (1994) – crap (Dawn: “What’s the film with Tim Allen dressed as Santa Claus?”) (79%)
75. Silence of the Lambs (1990) – they really should have just stopped at this one, a fine film (96%)
76. Matilda (1996) – another crap Dahl adaptation (89%)
77. A Bridge too Far (1977) – the quintessential war movie (67%)
78. Rocky V (1990) – laughable (21%)
79. The Sting (1973) – really good (91%)
80. The Sword in the Stone (1963) – good (73%)
81. The Witches (1990) – crap (100%, what the fuck?)
82. Starship Troopers (1997) – entertaining trash (60%)
83. Love Actually(2003)  – hated it (63%)
84. White men can’t jump (1992) – I liked it despite itself (78%)
85. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1999)– a pointless sequel (48%)
86. A Bug’s Life (1998) – meh (91%)
87. Hollow man (2000)– hollow is an appropriate adjective (but I like Bacon’s character) (27%)
88. Jaws (1975) – good but overrated (100%)
89. Jerry Maguire (1996)– oh Christ (84%)
90. Dawn of the Dead (1978)– awesome (95%)
91. Drop Dead Fred (1991)– mindless crap (still haunted by my little sister’s repeat viewing of this monstrosity) (9%)
92. Braveheart (1995) – good (it’s a movie, not a history lesson) (76%)
93. Saw II (2005) – crap (35%)
94. Mouse Hunt (1997)– hated it (really wanted the mouse to die) (44%)
95. The Mummy (1999)– didn’t like it (54%)
96. George of the Jungle (1997)– crap (53%)
97. Leon (1994) – ludicrous garbage (74%)
98. Death becomes her (1993)– had its moments (56%)
99. Meet Joe Black (1998) – meh (49%)
100. Dog Soldiers (2002) – entertaining (79%)
101. Cool Hand Luke (1967) – the best film ever (100%)

Star Wars Trilogy

A (fairly) long time ago in a studio (somewhat) far away the most overrated film in history hit our screens. I’ve decided to start what I intend to be the first of series of posts about overrated games and films with one of the most iconic franchises of all time. My reasons for not liking Star Wars are:

• An unlikable lead character
• The simplicity of the story
• Darth Vader’s redemption
• Ewoks
• The Force
• Lightsabers

An unlikable lead character

First of all, Mark Hamill is not a good actor; I shouldn’t have to labour this point particularly strongly. A quick look at his subsequent work or complete lack thereof should be confirmation enough.

His portrayal of Luke Skywalker is stilted and awkward. Luke is a hero bereft of charisma; he quickly and readily accepts Obi Wan’s words as gospel with a complete lack of cynicism. If he were around today he’d probably have bought double glazing fifteen times over and practice scientology. Luke is a well-heeled nerd, a boring, clean-cut stiff with a shit haircut.

The Simplicity of the Story

I don’t really like the simplicity of the plot, essentially “good” v “evil” and if you ask me I’m not really sold on how good or evil each side is supposed to be.

I’m not really convinced by the merits of the rebellion and quite why the stability and economic infrastructure offered by the Empire is to be viewed as a bad thing. So the Empire ruthlessly crushed its enemies … what else was it supposed to do? Just allow these terrorists to run riot?

Those pricks on Alderon had it coming if you ask me and they should have just summarily executed Leia. See what then happened when they tried to give terrorists human rights…

Naturally I’m being facetious in my positive appraisal of the Empire; I just find the story desperately shallow. Essentially it is cartoonish super-villains versus virtuous but vacuous heroes. It’s a story with all the depth of a bird bath, we are distracted from this lack of brevity by a range of colourful characters and numerous battle set pieces.

When it comes down to it, it’s really just about the big space battles and lightsaber duels, everything else is just filler to take us from one battle to the next. It’s a kind of like porn, except with worse acting.

Porn:

Woman waits for delivery man, silly dialogue, sex

Star Wars:

Empire takes over galaxy, silly dialogue, battle

At least those who masturbate themselves raw over porn aren’t deluding themselves in the way that the Star Wars fans are.

Darth Vader’s Redemption

We see a guy billed as the ultimate badass for two films, a ruthless and efficient tactician. We see him order the destruction of an entire planet, execute officers for spurious reasons, practice torture and mutilate the son he never raised.

But it’s all fine in the end because he betrays his mentor and commanding officer. Is it just me or does that seem a little lopsided? It’s kind of like going on a shooting spree in a primary school but escaping prison because you remembered to recycle.

Ewoks

Do I even need to expand? Even the staunchest Star Wars fan boys don’t like them.

They were featured entirely for merchandising reasons; it also dents the image of the Empire as this unstoppable entity if a garrison can be routed by overgrown teddy bears with sticks.

The Force

Spaceships mixed with sorcery; in fact this is a rant for another day. The sheer scale of the idiocy of this concept can’t be confined into one or two paragraphs.

Lightsabers

Please explain to me why anyone would choose to use a glowing sword when there are GUNS available. Even with the reflexes to deflect lasers with what is basically an oversized dildo I can’t see the justification. Sure a Jedi can do this but why? Its like using a bulldozer to build a sandcastle – just shoot the fucker repeatedly or use a grenade (if they can construct inter-planetary space ships surely a small explosive device isn’t too much of stretch).

The verdict?

When I see this rubbish regularly trouble the top of all-time movie lists I despair for mankind. We’re basically watching prolonged toy commercials, lots of flashy stuff, precious little depth. This is not the pinnacle of filmmaking it is made out to be, it’s not even a good film let alone the best ever.

• Mario 3
• Streets of Rage
• The Legend of Zelda
• Golden Axe
• Doom

Mario 3

By far the best of the three NES Mario games and despite the fact it’s been out 22 years it still plays well to this day. It was an inventive game that had tremendous range of worlds and items. It was far ahead of its time and the polished presentation means the graphics haven’t aged nearly as badly as most other games from that area.

Mario and his brother Luigi for indiscernible reasons once again down tools and set off to rescue her from Bowser (although I think he was still known as Koopa back in those days). The plumbers set off across eight different worlds each governed by one of Bowser’s children. I was going to make a comment about the fact you never, ever see any allusions to Mario or Luigi actually being plumbers but let’s face it – realism does not come into Mario’s equation.

For an eight bit game it was pretty damn big, it also boasted a pretty impressive musical score. It could have done with a save feature as I can’t think there would be too many people who could get through all the vast number of levels in one sitting. It was simply a great game that can still stand tall amongst the flashier titles of today.

The Legend of Zelda

Remembering the countless hours spent playing this classic title as a six year old in South Carolina I got the collector’s edition of this game when I bought my Gamecube.

I sat in my little room in the university halls and waited to take a trip down memory lane. That familiar theme tune struck up and even my cynical heart lightened, I started a new game and even named my character Link to make it authentic. I had my sword and three hearts, the world loaded up and I took my first steps in this world I was revisiting after 14 years.

I took about fifteen minutes for the realisation to come. Hell, I was determined to enjoy this game – it was Zelda for crying out loud! How could I not fall back in love with this?

Then as I got stunk by barely visible harpoon flung by an enemy off screen for the umpteenth time and realised there was no real hint about where the hell to go I realised. “This is shit!” I thought to myself and that part of my heart that had lightened on hearing the theme tune again blackened and died. I switched it off and have never played it again. The later Zelda games can be summed up as follows: princess captured, go get princess, visit levels and get bombs, get boomerang, get hook-shot, play mini-games, save princess again.

What is it with Nintendo and recycling the old “princess has been captured storyline?” Jesus if she’s such a high profile target why not beef up security considerably rather than rely on a single vigilante time and time again. If I was Link or Mario I’d probably have given up the third or fourth time the dumb bitches got captured. I’m guessing Zelda and Peach are by now so used to being captured they probably like it. I’m not saying they enjoy the inevitable gang rapes at the hands of Gannon’s and Bowser’s goons but they’re not complaining so much either are they? This is probably a good time to move on…

Golden Axe

The dwarf with axe, the dude in blue pants and the chick in the red bikini: three retro icons. Did they even have names? No-one ever went the dude, I think even as nine year olds we thought controlling a muscular, long haired guy in a thong seemed kinda wrong.

I can’t really remember the storyline, some enemy is on the move again and you have to stop him by cutting through waves and waves of his henchmen. You can co-op, ride dragons and use magic. It seemed good at the time.

I replayed it recently and once again my childhood standards seem to have been way off. First of all you can’t block at all so if you don’t get the first hit in you just have to sit there and take it like a bitch. The controls felt clumsy and there was little skill involved other than making sure you got the first hit in. Plus your characters are just so maddeningly slow it’s inevitable you’ll have to endure quite a bit of punishment. The spells are also piss-weak and about as much use as tits on fish, this whole game is a war of attrition that takes a lot of time and more patience than I am currently able to muster.

As a sapling I actually completed this game, revisiting it I could barely get past level three. I wondered just how I could possibly have revered this game as it was utterly crap.

Streets of Rage

Another side-scrolling beat ‘em up from Sega. This is one game that actually stands up well. Right from the off you know you’re playing a classic, the soundtrack is one of the best in any game. You bash through a few punks with a decent variety of moves – unlike Golden Axe’s hack, slash, hack you do have some options and the three characters contrast nicely.

The levels vary well from grimy streets (have a look at some of the vandalism in level two) to a boat to a lift. Throughout the game you have the option to call for back up in the form of a police car that fires a mortar that instantly kills any goons in the area yet also does no damage to the players. Most of the time it gets saved for the boss at the end of the level.

One of the main reasons this game still plays well today is the simple fact that a side-scrolling beat ‘em up could only ever work on a 2D format. It’s impervious to technological improvements.

Doom

I almost feel bad slagging this one off but not bad enough to stop me from doing so. It’s premise is simple – you’re the last marine left alive, a ton of gruesome enemies stand between you and the end of the level. Kill every single thing that moves and pick up lots of new toys on the way.

Simple mindless fun.

When I played it again recently it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t really good either. You can’t look up so stairs become a bit of a lottery, the graphical limitations make some of the “horrific” scenes in levels seem laughable. The enemies kill each other which would seem like a good touch but they do it so much you’re often left wandering corridors of slain foes feeling a bit aggrieved that you didn’t get to do it. The levels are very similar: find the red key, find the blue key, find the yellow key, find the exit.

The novelty wears thin and the killing becomes repetitive all too quickly, its hard to play something like this knowing some of the titles that are available now. It simply cannot stand up to the top FPS games of today.

I know what some of you will be thinking “they were good games for their time” and they probably were but the thing is that time was twenty years ago. Very few are even playable now, you can quite easily download almost all of these old games in an afternoon and I guarantee the novelty will have worn off by the evening.

Games are better now than they ever were and in ten years time most of the titles today won’t seem up to much. Put it this way – the Wright brothers crafted the first plane and for it’s time it was the best flying machine available. Today we have 747s, if I need to fly somewhere I know which one I’d take.

Leave the old games where they belong – in your memories. If you try to play them today you’ll just be sorely disappointed. Move with times and enjoy the innovations as they come and maybe in twenty years time Nintendo might come up with something a bit more compelling than “the princess has been captured”.

Image by Photobucket user avs111

In 1979 The Buggles released the song detailing the career of a singer that was cut short by television, Video killed the radio star.  As well as being the first music video played by MTV way back in 1981 it also featured in the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2003.

Rockstar North didn’t create the idea of the open-world sandbox game but few would argue that the 2001 monster hit, Grand Theft Auto III didn’t galvanise this genre.  I’d been aware of and indeed had played the previous two but it wasn’t until the advent of a huge, 3-D environment that the series really took off.

I can still remember that sense of wonder when I drove the mute protagonist and 8-ball to Luigi’s club.  Here was a world full of cars, guns and innocent squishy people and I could do whatever I wanted.  I could run around and start fights with homeless old ladies and shoot prostitutes shortly after being serviced by them.

Truly GTA III was the dawn of a new era in gaming, looking back the graphics were fairly crude even by Playstation 2 standards and there were only about a dozen different people to run over  but it was a landmark moment in gaming and I knew I’d be amongst the first to buy the next GTA.

The series continued to rise with the releases of Vice City and San Andreas and for me, the series peaked at the latter.  I remember the range of characters, the impressive voice acting, the killer soundtrack and the massive array of missions and possibilities.  It wasn’t perfect but damn it was close so when GTA 4 was announced I was sold before I heard anything about it.

It’s fair to say my expectations were high – I was actually expecting GTA 4 to be the best game ever released.  My first disappointment came when I heard they’d be doing Liberty City in the present again.  The mystique of a new city in a new era was gone but I was still optimistic.  I read tentative details about it and awaited the release with great excitement.

I made my preparations for the release – I used a couple of holidays, cold beers were in the fridge and I waited in line at midnight on release night with about 30 other people.  I settled down to play what I was expecting to be the best game ever at about quarter past midnight.  By quarter to one I realised I was not, in fact, playing the best game ever.

To say I don’t like Niko Bellic as a character is to say the Nazis killed a few Jews.

Never has a game had such an ill-fitting lead character, this is the game series where you’ll kill someone if they bump into your car.  The turn towards realism was a catastrophic misjudgement on the part of Rockstar.  I don’t want a car that handles realistically – I want to swerve violently into the path of a crowd of people and watches bodies fly over the hood of the car I stole just moments ago.

I don’t want to fiddle with my phone, I want to shoot people!  Don’t give me endless customisable options for my phone, give me a jet pack!  Most of all don’t make me take out my fucking cousin every 15 fucking minutes for no discernable reason!

The gleeful amorality of previous games was gone, replaced by a whinging prick who I felt absolutely no empathy for.  I don’t mind if I game tries to be deep but it should never be at the expense of fun.  GTA had completely lost its sense of fun and though I did indeed finish it I could only feel a crushing disappointment in the turn the series had taken.

I later picked up Saints Row 2 and it was a lot of the things GTA 4 should have been yet I didn’t quite finish it.  Sure it was fun for a while, the insurance fraud mini game was a great idea, but the whole thing was so desperately dumb and shallow I couldn’t quite make the end before I returned it.  It was as if my will to kill innocent people was gone, I just rushed through the storyline missions.

Other sandbox games have come and gone and I’ve felt the enthusiasm I had for such games drain away.  Prototype was pretty good yet I didn’t like it as much as I possibly feel I should have.  Maybe it’s more to do with my own personal tastes in games changing, that I’m no longer enamoured by the idea of beating homeless people to death with a baseball bat.  That too much freedom in a game makes me lose the will to keep playing it.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen it all before, when you’ve run over one pedestrian you’ve run over them all.  Stealing a helicopter doesn’t feel fresh anymore; shooting people for no reason isn’t new.

Maybe it’s time for a new genre or maybe I’m just getting too old to enjoy random, pointless violence.  That’s too depressing a thought so I’ll just blame my dissatisfaction on Niko Bellic.

Fuck you Niko.

And fuck your cousin too.

-M.