Ramblings about crap in my life.
Reviews
Mini-review of Sniper: Ghost Warrior
Jun 28th
I rarely write about games in here, but when I do it’s usually because I’ve been annoyed by one, and that is also the case today. I got interested in this game after watching the E3 walkthrough video, so I decided to give it a go. Now, when I think “sniper game” the gameplay element “stealth” comes to mind. I would expect a game where full frontal assaults are not advisable, where you get in, take out your target, and get out. Well, that is not the case in Sniper: Ghost Warrior. In your first mission you are supposed to take out a general, you line up your shot, shoot, and for some reason you don’t hit and everything goes to hell. The general escapes, and now you have to hunt him down. And this is where it starts go down hill, because instead of chasing the guy by hiding in the jungle, you’re told to assault the base he’s no longer in. With a sniper rifle. First I thought I’d just stay in my position and take out all of the enemies, but for some reason they have no problem hitting you from across the base, while you’re hiding in the mountains, with regular, unscoped assault rifles. So yes, you’re forced to jump into the base and try to gun down everyone, not very sniper-like.
And on top of that the game is littered with annoying design decisions and bad implementations of these. For example, if you choose the hard difficulty, you have to account for wind and distance to your target. This intrigued me and looked interesting in the mentioned video, but the problem is that you are not told how to properly do this. You can see the distance to your target and the wind strength, but there is no way to know how much you’re supposed to move your crosshair, you simply have to guess. When playing on easy and medium you get a small, red dot, which indicates where the bullet actually hits, but I’ve found this dot to be very imprecise.
My “New” Top 10 of Movies
Dec 30th
I’ve had a pretty good idea of what my favorite 10 movies are for a couple of years now. The movies usually shift place once in a while, but new movies are rarely added to the list, which can be seen in its current state on this page. However, I recently stumbled upon a website called Flickchart, which makes you choose the better of two randomly chosen movies. If you do this long enough, a pattern should appear with your favorite movies climbing towards the top of your Flickchart, and this is what I’ve done. At the moment, I’m actually pretty satisfied with my “new” top 10, and I thought I’d compare it to my old one here.
My top 10 according to Flickchart:
10. Unbreakable (New)
My old no. 10 was True Romance, which is now off the list completely. I’ve always liked Unbreakable, but I’ve really gotten a new-found admiration for the movie over the recent year.
To me it is one of the best super hero movies out there, and one of Shyamalan’s finest. I’ve also always liked True Romance, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, two of my favorite action-movie filmmakers (although Scott hasn’t made anything but seizure-inducing, Denzel Washington-attending crap fests the last couple of years). Still, I’m okay with it going off the list.
9. RoboCop (8)
RoboCop is one of my favorite sci-fi movies, and probably my favorite which takes place in a dystopian, mega-corporation future. RoboCop was one of those movies I always watched when I was sick as a kid, and rewatching it about a year ago I fell completely in love with it again. Of the amazing Paul Verhoeven trilogy (RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall) this is the only one which made this new (and old) list.
8. Twelve Monkeys (7)
Moving down from a 7th place on the old list, we have Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. I have a weird love-hate relationship with Gilliam, I watched The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus yesterday and didn’t like it, but Twelve Monkeys and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are some of my favorite movies. In Twelve Monkeys Gilliam mixes his weird style with a crazy time-travel story, which is one of the few of those that makes kind of logical sense. Also, Brad Pitt’s role is one of the best of his career.
7. The Sixth Sense (New)
Another new-comer on the list, also from Mr. Shyamalan. I had not watched this movie since its premiere, but watched it about a month ago and really, really liked it. It is no surprise that Shyamalan was hailed as the new great filmmaker after experiencing the suspense and plot twists in this movie, which work very well even if you know the ending.
6. American Beauty (9)
Moving up from no. 9 is Sam Mendes’ masterpiece about the depressed suburban father who’s had enough of his mediocre existence. I’ve loved this movie since the first time I saw it, and it probably deserves this higher spot on the list.
5. Pulp Fiction (4)
Another long-time favorite of mine, Pulp Fiction was probably one of those movies that sparked my interest in film. Loved by many, Tarantino’s masterpiece heralded a new era of cinema. I recently saw Inglourious Basterds for the second time, and even though it doesn’t quite reach the quality of Pulp Fiction I’m very happy that Tarantino is still making high quality movies.
4. Trainspotting (5)
Danny Boyle is one of my favorite directors, the man almost seems to take on a new genre with every movie and still manages to make some very original (28 Days Later, The Beach, Sunshine). Trainspotting is still my favorite of his movies and at this place on the list the movies are almost interchangeable when it comes to deciding my favorite.
3. Fight Club (2)
Fincher’s Fight Club is also one of those movies which instantly became a favorite of mine. The visual style, use of CGI, the plot twists, the acting, it all comes together very, very well. The old list had One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which is now off the list completely. I’ve only seen that movie once and even though I loved it, it probably needs some rewatching before it gets back on the list.
2. Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (1)
I never expected this to leave its 1st place (and it will probably go back on top when I watch it again), but at the moment I madly love the new top of the list. Anyway, Amélie is one of those movies that just makes you incredibly happy after seeing it. There’s a lot of gloomy, harsh movies on this list, so I’m kind of happy that I love this movie so much.
1. Léon (6)
The rank of this movie kind of surprised my (and actually made me make this post), but after rewatching it on Blu-ray a couple of months ago I had a hard time hiding how much I love this movie. It’s also one of those films that I’ve seen a bunch of times as a kid and come to appreciate with the years. The relationship between Léon and Mathilda (Natalie Portman’s debut role) is probably my favorite on film, especially because of Portman’s incredible acting. Apparently the relationship was supposed to have been much more erotic, as in Lolita, but that part of the script was discarded. I don’t know if I would’ve preferred that version, the relationship in the final movie is quite well-balanced, sometimes making you cringe, but not enough to make you dislike Léon (which the early draft might’ve done). Also, Gary Oldman plays Stansfield, one of the most terrifying villains I’ve seen. Anyway, incredible movie.
Closing Thoughts
I think I’ll use this list as my new top 10, and then use Flickchart to see if anything changes along the line. When writing this post I also realized (to my satisfaction) that I really love movies with Bruce Willis (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Pulp Fiction, Twelve Monkeys). As a bonus, my favorite 11-20 movies, according to Flickchart, are: Oldboy, Magnolia, Seven, True Romance, The Terminator, Die Hard, The Big Lebowski, Battle Royale, Children of Men, and No Country for Old Men. However, these are probably not very accurate yet.
Moff’s Law
Dec 26th
I had to post this amazing rant about the ridiculous “just enjoy the movie” comment you often see in movie discussions. It is called “Moff’s Law” since the author’s user name is Moff.
Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???”
If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamn fucking mouth. SHUT. UP.
First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is. Because that is one of the things about art, be it highbrow, lowbrow, mainstream, or avant-garde: Some sort of thought went into its making — even if the thought was, “I’m going to do this as thoughtlessly as possible”! — and as a result, some sort of thought can be gotten from its reception. That is why, among other things, artists (including, for instance, James Cameron) really like to talk about their work.
Now, that doesn’t mean you have to think about a work of art. I don’t know anyone who thinks every work they encounter ought to only be enjoyed through conscious, active analysis — or if I do, they’re pretty annoying themselves. And I know many people who prefer not to think about much of what they consume, and with them I have no argument. I also have no argument with people who disagree with another person’s thoughts about a work of art. That should go without saying. Finally, this should also go without saying, but since it apparently doesn’t: Believe me, the person who is annoying you so much by thinking about the art? They have already considered your revolutionary “just enjoy it” strategy, because it is not actually revolutionary at all. It is the default state for most of humanity.
So when you go out of your way to suggest that people should be thinking less — that not using one’s capacity for reason is an admirable position to take, and one that should be actively advocated — you are not saying anything particularly intelligent. And unless you live on a parallel version of Earth where too many people are thinking too deeply and critically about the world around them and what’s going on in their own heads, you’re not helping anything; on the contrary, you’re acting as an advocate for entropy.
And most annoyingly of all, you’re contributing to the fucking conversation yourselves when you make your stupid, stupid comments. You are basically saying, “I think people shouldn’t think so much and share their thoughts, that’s my thought that I have to share.” If you really think people should just enjoy the movie without thinking about it, then why the fuck did you (1) click on the post in the first place, and (2) bother to leave a comment? If it bugs you so much, GO WATCH A GODDAMN FUNNY CAT VIDEO.
Army of Two is a turd
Oct 21st
Army of Two is a third-person shooter focusing on cooperative strategies, which is what kind of peaked my interest. Now I’ve been playing the co-op campaign with my roommate for about six hours, and I have no idea how we made it that far. This game has so many unforgivable mistakes. First of all, it’s centered around an aggro/invisibility-system, where one player takes aggro and the other player flanks. This doesn’t really work, and most of the time it’s easier to just rush and spray. Then you try to save, but the system feels like it should load the game a campaign earlier before that long cut scene you had already seen but still can’t skip. What still held us mildly hooked was the weapon system, making it possible to buy more weapons and upgrades. But after playing for two hours we could already buy the biggest weapons in the game, just in time to realize they were totally useless. Who the hell wants to run around with a minigun or a huge grenade launcher when the cheap AK-47 is much more effective? And then there’s the fucking AI. The enemy soldiers act like they’re on speed and spent most of their time jumping over crates to run right past you. Finally you have these ridiculous back-to-back sequences where you stand, you guessed it, back-to-back and have to shoot some bad guys in slow-motion. This happens whenever the two players are in a particularly tight spot, because standing in the middle of nowhere is the most efficient way to kill people. The worst part; this game has a 74% rating on Metacritic.
True Blood Season 2 Finale
Sep 14th
I thought I might as well follow up the resurrection of the blog with another post. I’ve been watching True Blood from the beginning, and even though I wasn’t overly excited by the first season, I looked forward to the second one. For the most part, it did not disappoint. Spoilers ahead.
The first 6-7 episodes were very entertaining, mainly because of the “The Fellowship of the Sun” storyline and Eric Northman’s tie-in into it, i.e. him trying to locate his maker. However, the ending of that storyline was rather disappointing. Godric wasn’t nearly as aweinspiring or interesting as I had hoped, even though it was cool to see a Danish actor on an HBO show. Finding out that the fellowship didn’t really pose any threat was also a bit of a let down, and instead we had to follow the rather tame Maryann-storyline as the season’s finale.
Speaking of which, this storyline never really appealed to me, and neither did the ending. If all it took to kill Maryann was stabbing her in the chest, then why hadn’t they tried to do that before? The twist was also extremely predictable. In the last few scenes of the season it was also painstakingly obvious that the show’s creators had to come up with some cliffhangers, and most of them were idiotic. First of all, Jessica fanging some dude instead of talking to Hoyt was dumb and extremely annoying, since their relationship was one of the season’s best. Eggs dying was just as stupid, yes, he was holding a knife, but will you fucking relax, Jason? Jeez. Then we have Bill being kidnapped, I didn’t really care since Bill and Sookie’s relationship has been annoying me the entire season. Sam’s ending was a bit interesting, but honestly I just want to see scenes with Eric being a bad ass.
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