I couldn't review it any better than this:
http://www.widescreenwarrior.com/secondlook/transformers-dark-moon-3d-review-3327
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
I AM NUMBER FOUR
Finally got a chance to watch "I AM NUMBER FOUR" yesterday. This was one of the few movies that I didn't watch a single trailer for and I must say it was pretty good. I had no idea what to expect at all. The story was very familiar to me. Basically, it's about an outsider moving from town to town trying to stay hidden from a threat that he is not ready to face. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and hope that a sequel does happen.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Green Lantern 3D
Don't worry, no spoilers here...
Midnight was the release of Green Lantern and since Legend3D actually did about 3 to 4 minutes of conversion on this film we had a private screening at Ultrastar in Mission Valley. It was great for Legend3D to arrange this for us. I must say that this theater is not the greatest though.
The theater was tiny, has non-stadium seating and is very uncomfortable. At least the screen was in good shape, picture quality and brightness of the projector were pretty good. This definitely helped with the presentation of the movie even though I had to look around someone's large head.
Presentation... was pretty much all of what this movie had. Overall Green Lantern did not live up to any of the hype. Definitely had all of the cheese I was expecting from any other movie that Ryan Reynolds is in. I do enjoy a lot of his movies but, majority of those are comedy driven. This was supposed to be a sci-fi action adventure hero flick or, something like that... Through out the movie I was feeling generally entertained with some cool CG effects and gorgeous landscapes (that were also CG). The story was pretty general with some meaningless plot twists and vague character connections. I didn't really care what was going on with Hal Jordan's (Ryan Reynolds) life and the post traumatic stress issues he was suffering from. I knew he was going to be Green Lantern and just wanted to have it happen already. And, don't get me started on Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). This character was completely pointless and didn't really do anything for the story except for filling a common story plot. Which is, the hero has to save the girl!
I would honestly have to say that the 3D on this movie was pretty good. Some of the shots were really deep. To the point where I had to actually focus to things that were really deep in the background. And, they were able to achieve this depth with out any stretching. Though this is probably contributed to the fact that most of this movie was actually rendered in 3D because of the high volume of CG elements. The scenes that we had worked looked amazing with no stretching or artifacting that I could see. Overall, the 3D was very clean even though there was occasional ghosting on some shinny surfaces.
The big question is, should you see this movie? Yes and in 3D but, I wouldn't even bother rushing out right now and don't bother seeing it in 2D. A lot of the landscapes would not be as impressive in 2D and that's what I liked most about this movie. Avoid the crowds and try to catch a matinee. I was fortunate enough to see it at a discounted rate. Unless, you have a 3D TV. Then go ahead and wait for the 3D Blu-ray to come along and rent it.
Midnight was the release of Green Lantern and since Legend3D actually did about 3 to 4 minutes of conversion on this film we had a private screening at Ultrastar in Mission Valley. It was great for Legend3D to arrange this for us. I must say that this theater is not the greatest though.
The theater was tiny, has non-stadium seating and is very uncomfortable. At least the screen was in good shape, picture quality and brightness of the projector were pretty good. This definitely helped with the presentation of the movie even though I had to look around someone's large head.
Presentation... was pretty much all of what this movie had. Overall Green Lantern did not live up to any of the hype. Definitely had all of the cheese I was expecting from any other movie that Ryan Reynolds is in. I do enjoy a lot of his movies but, majority of those are comedy driven. This was supposed to be a sci-fi action adventure hero flick or, something like that... Through out the movie I was feeling generally entertained with some cool CG effects and gorgeous landscapes (that were also CG). The story was pretty general with some meaningless plot twists and vague character connections. I didn't really care what was going on with Hal Jordan's (Ryan Reynolds) life and the post traumatic stress issues he was suffering from. I knew he was going to be Green Lantern and just wanted to have it happen already. And, don't get me started on Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). This character was completely pointless and didn't really do anything for the story except for filling a common story plot. Which is, the hero has to save the girl!
I would honestly have to say that the 3D on this movie was pretty good. Some of the shots were really deep. To the point where I had to actually focus to things that were really deep in the background. And, they were able to achieve this depth with out any stretching. Though this is probably contributed to the fact that most of this movie was actually rendered in 3D because of the high volume of CG elements. The scenes that we had worked looked amazing with no stretching or artifacting that I could see. Overall, the 3D was very clean even though there was occasional ghosting on some shinny surfaces.
The big question is, should you see this movie? Yes and in 3D but, I wouldn't even bother rushing out right now and don't bother seeing it in 2D. A lot of the landscapes would not be as impressive in 2D and that's what I liked most about this movie. Avoid the crowds and try to catch a matinee. I was fortunate enough to see it at a discounted rate. Unless, you have a 3D TV. Then go ahead and wait for the 3D Blu-ray to come along and rent it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
E3 and Ghost Recon Future Soldier
E3 2011 was huge. Almost back to it's roots where there were huge crowds, long lines, and tons of booths containing booth babes (G4's booth babes being the best). My focus for this year was to try to play or at least see the following games; Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Forza Motorsport 4, and the long awaited Ghost Recon Future Soldier. Unfortunately because of the long lines I was only able to play Forza and Future Soldier.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier is a big deal for me because the original Ghost Recon is what got me hooked to Xbox Live and Xbox in general. Also, Ghost Recon Future Soldier was demoed at last years E3 and it wasn't looking so great. A lot of the original elements were gone from the series. Fortunately, Ubi Soft saw the reactions they were getting at E3 2010 and decided to return the series to its roots with bringing back the original developer Red Storm.
With Red Storm returning to the franchise most of the elements that made Ghost Recon a contender all these years came back. Squad based combat, camera switching between shoulders, rate of fire options, and my favorite bullets do kill people. This was one thing that I loved about the Ghost Recon series. When you hit people with a couple of shots they actually go down. It's not like the other heavy hitters where you spray the hell out of your enemy and they just keep running along like nothing had happened. Let's face it, that's just not going to happen. While playing the last couple of iterations of Ghost Recon there was a disconnect between single player and multi-player. They were pretty much separate games. In single player everything was better, character models, mechanics, options and controls. Multi-player was still great it just didn't have all of the same options and look of the single player game. And, this is where Future Soldier comes in.
Future Soldier has brought in all of the things from single player into multi-player. The cover system is there, the main character models look great, pretty much it's the same game as single player. While playing the game at E3 2011 I was enjoying it very much. I was able to take and back up my fellow team members while watching ahead of them as a few enemy combatants appeared ahead. I has to raise my weapon with the left trigger and squeeze of rounds taking out the closer enemy then, clicking in the right analog button to look through my scope to proceed firing at the other two guys further away. And, like I said before. One to three hits and they go down. Not having to waist a clip per kill is great. Immediately I was getting really excited to play this game early next year. However, there were some things that needed to be worked out. The cover system, which I love because in real life one would take cover, is still clunky and needs to be cleaned up. They should take a look at how Epic games has worked it out in Gears of War 3. Epic has gotten the cover system down to near perfection. I feel Red Storm still needs to work out the functionality of it because, there is no fluid transition from cover to cover. You can peek around a corner and an icon shows up showing you the next place of cover. But, when you push a to run there, like other games, you just pop up and stand there out in the open. You actually have to hold the button to continue running and hit the cover point. Also, it took a little getting use to moving the analog stick to the right position for the icon to show up. It's not a natural position right now but, with some tweaking I think it will be good enough. Another thing I didn't like that use to be there in previous Recons, they took away the ability to select what ever weapon you wanted. Now you have to pick a class and then you get a choice of two weapons. This is how Medal of Honor did it and the game didn't do that well. If Red Storm wants to proceed this way then, they should do it like this:
1. Pick your class. Then this class would determine certain attributes you get. Such as tools, accessories, speed, stamina, and armor (you can take a little bit more damage).
2. Now that I have picked a class, yes I should be limited to certain weapons. But, not just two. Should be similar to the setup of Battlefield where you have an assortment of weapons per class.
Now one thing that has been lacking from games in awhile is character customization. Black Ops tries to do it but it's still lacking. Future Soldier is taking the next step which is weapon customization. Using Kinect I can do a hands on weapon customization of just about every part of any weapon, right down to the internal pieces of the weapon. You can also, take the weapon to the firing range and using your full body to take aim and fire down the range with the weapon you just made. However, this weapon customization looked to be only useable in this part of the game. I would hope that I could customize an assortment of weapons and save those as load outs to use in single player and multi-player game types. And, of course the more you play or how you play unlocks more items to customize your weapon with. This would be huge differentiator to all other shooters out there right now. No other game that I know of have this yet or too the level that I saw demoed at E3 2011. The next part to the customization would be character customization. Need to have the ability to change camo, armor, and loadout. I would go into more depth but, I don't want someone to steal my ideas... And, let's use the dang cameras that we have spent money and let me put my face on my character!
So, to end, this game is looking pretty good so far. With some minor tweaking it will be highly successful. But, I hope they can really polish it up before release and make some of the changes I'm talking about. The game is still in production so, I can only hope. Either way, I will be purchasing this game because the market is getting flooded with these arcade shooters from Activision and Microsoft and it's time to bring back the simulation shooters which is what got me hooked on Xbox Live in the first place.
Check IGN's site to see some of the demos that I was referring to at E3 this year.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier is a big deal for me because the original Ghost Recon is what got me hooked to Xbox Live and Xbox in general. Also, Ghost Recon Future Soldier was demoed at last years E3 and it wasn't looking so great. A lot of the original elements were gone from the series. Fortunately, Ubi Soft saw the reactions they were getting at E3 2010 and decided to return the series to its roots with bringing back the original developer Red Storm.
With Red Storm returning to the franchise most of the elements that made Ghost Recon a contender all these years came back. Squad based combat, camera switching between shoulders, rate of fire options, and my favorite bullets do kill people. This was one thing that I loved about the Ghost Recon series. When you hit people with a couple of shots they actually go down. It's not like the other heavy hitters where you spray the hell out of your enemy and they just keep running along like nothing had happened. Let's face it, that's just not going to happen. While playing the last couple of iterations of Ghost Recon there was a disconnect between single player and multi-player. They were pretty much separate games. In single player everything was better, character models, mechanics, options and controls. Multi-player was still great it just didn't have all of the same options and look of the single player game. And, this is where Future Soldier comes in.
Future Soldier has brought in all of the things from single player into multi-player. The cover system is there, the main character models look great, pretty much it's the same game as single player. While playing the game at E3 2011 I was enjoying it very much. I was able to take and back up my fellow team members while watching ahead of them as a few enemy combatants appeared ahead. I has to raise my weapon with the left trigger and squeeze of rounds taking out the closer enemy then, clicking in the right analog button to look through my scope to proceed firing at the other two guys further away. And, like I said before. One to three hits and they go down. Not having to waist a clip per kill is great. Immediately I was getting really excited to play this game early next year. However, there were some things that needed to be worked out. The cover system, which I love because in real life one would take cover, is still clunky and needs to be cleaned up. They should take a look at how Epic games has worked it out in Gears of War 3. Epic has gotten the cover system down to near perfection. I feel Red Storm still needs to work out the functionality of it because, there is no fluid transition from cover to cover. You can peek around a corner and an icon shows up showing you the next place of cover. But, when you push a to run there, like other games, you just pop up and stand there out in the open. You actually have to hold the button to continue running and hit the cover point. Also, it took a little getting use to moving the analog stick to the right position for the icon to show up. It's not a natural position right now but, with some tweaking I think it will be good enough. Another thing I didn't like that use to be there in previous Recons, they took away the ability to select what ever weapon you wanted. Now you have to pick a class and then you get a choice of two weapons. This is how Medal of Honor did it and the game didn't do that well. If Red Storm wants to proceed this way then, they should do it like this:
1. Pick your class. Then this class would determine certain attributes you get. Such as tools, accessories, speed, stamina, and armor (you can take a little bit more damage).
2. Now that I have picked a class, yes I should be limited to certain weapons. But, not just two. Should be similar to the setup of Battlefield where you have an assortment of weapons per class.
Now one thing that has been lacking from games in awhile is character customization. Black Ops tries to do it but it's still lacking. Future Soldier is taking the next step which is weapon customization. Using Kinect I can do a hands on weapon customization of just about every part of any weapon, right down to the internal pieces of the weapon. You can also, take the weapon to the firing range and using your full body to take aim and fire down the range with the weapon you just made. However, this weapon customization looked to be only useable in this part of the game. I would hope that I could customize an assortment of weapons and save those as load outs to use in single player and multi-player game types. And, of course the more you play or how you play unlocks more items to customize your weapon with. This would be huge differentiator to all other shooters out there right now. No other game that I know of have this yet or too the level that I saw demoed at E3 2011. The next part to the customization would be character customization. Need to have the ability to change camo, armor, and loadout. I would go into more depth but, I don't want someone to steal my ideas... And, let's use the dang cameras that we have spent money and let me put my face on my character!
So, to end, this game is looking pretty good so far. With some minor tweaking it will be highly successful. But, I hope they can really polish it up before release and make some of the changes I'm talking about. The game is still in production so, I can only hope. Either way, I will be purchasing this game because the market is getting flooded with these arcade shooters from Activision and Microsoft and it's time to bring back the simulation shooters which is what got me hooked on Xbox Live in the first place.
Check IGN's site to see some of the demos that I was referring to at E3 this year.
I don't post enough...
But, today I've decided that that is going to change. I will put forth the effort to post at least once a week if not every day. Preferably, something like video game reviews, movie reviews, product reviews, etc... I will also post some photos or paintings in order to get back into things. We'll see how this goes.
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