Catch up

A lot happened in terms of entertainment since my last post, so I'll try to sum it all up in a , hopefully, not to long post. Breathe in:

Movies:


Despite funnyman's warning about this movie, I decided to see it anyway, and guess what...I'm glad I did it! The action scenes are nicely done, well choreographed, with an interesting mix of shoot outs and sword fighting (no hand-to-hand combat, thought, so technically this can't be considered a martial arts movie) and the plot, well, for an action film is fucking great! I don't want to spoil it for you, but there's a plot twist here as amazing as classics like "Luke, I am your father!". So, my verdict is, if you like action movies, you should definitely give this one a shot.


This one is for Junlee, don't know if you've already seen There Will be Blood, but in case you haven't, here's what I think of it. It's a pretty good movie. Sorry I'm not as enthusiastic as most critics who called it a "masterpiece" and so on, it's my fault really since I can't seem to enjoy a movie with a really good story as much as a flick with loads of shit blowing up and blood splattering on the walls. Still, I admire the damn good acting and the interesting depiction of such a curious period in the American history, so if you're in for a good (yet tragic) story, I think you'll be pleased.

On a side note, I'm not a movie expert by any means, in fact my knowledge about this form of art is pretty limited, so I had never heard of this Daniel Day Lewis guy who plays the main role in this movie. Still, he looked familiar, and now I know why. He starred in one of my favourite movies, Gangs of New York!

On to games:


Finally I've played Call of Duty 4. It was about damn time! But the wait was worth, because the game exceeded all my expectations, and keep in mind that I've played almost every Call of Duty game out there, so it wasn't exactly easy to surprise me. But this game managed to do it, thanks to some of the most intense interactive cut-scenes I've ever seen and some of the most intense missions I've ever played. I don't want to ruin the experience of those who haven't played it yet, so I'm not going describe specific events here, but trust me, this is a game every FPS fan must absolutely play, and don't even think about just playing online. As great as the multiplayer modes are (CoD 4 owns Halo 3, and the statistics prove it), the single-player campaign is absolutely amazing. In fact I'm currently playing the game again on elite difficulty, but it's proving to be almost impossible at times, since you die with just 2/3 hits... Don't worry, there are difficulty settings to please everyone.

A great interactive action movie, that's all I can say about this one. What else would you expect from the pseudo-sequel to one of John Woo's masterpieces, Hard Boiled? It plays a lot like one of my all-time favourites, Max Payne, meaning you control your character in a 3rd person view and shoot a lot of bad guys while jumping in the air in slow motion. Not only that, but it also allows the player to slide over tables, run up stair rails or role around on carts, all of this while shooting bad guys in the face...or in the crotch (that got to hurt). But what impressed me the most in this game was the technology.

The engine core engine is the very popular Unreal Engine 3, but the developer's heavily modified it order to create the most awesome interactive environments you've ever seen. Everything on the levels react to bullets and more often than not they do that in a spectacular fashion, with big structures like statues that slowly fall apart with each consecutive shot, until they're nothing more than a pile of rubble on the ground. Believe me, I know I say this a lot, but this time I really mean it: it's fucking awesome! You can even shoot flags. Flags! For year's I've been trying to put a hole into a fucking flag, but the games never allowed it, with the still intact pieces of cloth laughing at me after an unsuccessful try to damage them, but in this game I was finally able to do it! Fuck yeah, now that's attention to detail!