Persona 4

PS2

94 hours 52 minutes

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Let's be honest, Persona 3 is a hell of a hard act to follow. Great gameplay, a fantastic story, and an ending that could make a sufferer of Bell's Balsy weep like a Japanophile being told their Holy Land ain't all its cracked up to be. To those unfamiliar with the series it belonged to (which was just about everyone at the time) it came out of nowhere, grabbed everyone's attention and became everyone's new favourite series. Critical acclaim, the endless appreciation of fans everywhere... yeah, a hard act to follow by anyone's estimation.

Persona 4 opens in much the same way the last game did: new student transfers to a new town and school, wackiness occurs. Yeah, it's a cliche, but it's a classic, and it works, so we'll let it slide. Our hero (who, for the sake of this review, we'll refer to as Jotaro Tenryu) quickly makes new friends, who tell him about a local urban legend. It's said that if you try watching a TV that's been switched off on a rainy night, you can see something: another reality, your true love, whatever, the reports vary depending on who you ask. So, bored one night, Jotaro tries it out. And finds that he can not only see something, but he can also physically enter the TV itself. The group, disbelieving at first, start to wonder if it has anything to do with the recent spate of murders in the formerly quiet town. And then, one of them goes missing, soon appearing on the Midnight Channel.

Persona 3, while a fantastic game, was not a game without its problems, primarily in the realm of combat. Having your teammates act for themselves, while a nice idea, often proved more trouble than it was worth. While you still have the option of letting them do their own thing, most people will head straight for direct control and never look back. The damage types have been pared down as well, presumably to make things less confusing: now, there's only one type of physical damage, as opposed to three, and the main character can only equip swords, rather than whatever the hell he wants.

Outside of battle, the music has been given a major overhaul. Fans of the original will be pleased to find that themes no longer restart from scratch every time you enter a new area, praise be to Philemon. The world map theme also changes depending on the weather, so you're not stuck listening to the same piece of music for months on end, another welcome change. The main battle theme, Reach Out To The Truth, isn't quite as catchy as Mass Destruction, but it does the job well.

The dungeons have been given a major overhaul as well. Now, every dungeon not only has a distinct look, it has its own music too! Each area ties in to the person lying at the heart of it. So a shut-in game-freak's dungeon is styled after an 8-bit RPG, the girl missing her deceased mother has hers looking like a storybook version of Heaven, the guy struggling with his sexuality has a very suggestive screamingly gay bathhouse, and so on. An infinite upgrade from the atrociously bland dungeon(s) of the last game.

So then, The Big Question: is it a better game than Persona 3? In sheer gameplay terms, yes. Developers, take note: when designing a sequel, this is how things should be done. All the rough edges have been smoothed off, virtually every problem I had has been fixed or improved, and the whole thing has been tuned to perfection. This is everything I had hoped for in the last game, and it's a testament to Atlus that they've delivered in spades. Outside of the gameplay, however...

It's ironic in a way. P3 had a great story, but the gameplay was lacking. And now, here comes its sequel with the exact opposite problems. They've managed to avoid the trap of having identical characters, thankfully. Yosuke is kinda similar to Junpei, in that they're both your buddy and co-pilot for the game, but in terms of personality, they're fairly different. Same goes for Yukiko, who outwardly resembles Mitsuru from the last game, though she's a lot friendlier than Mitsuru ever was. The problem comes with their social links. Every party member has them, and raising them gives them extra abilities in combat, such as being able to knock you out of harm's way when low on health, or being able to stand up again after taking a fatal wound in battle. Fair enough, except this is the only way to unlock their ultimate Persona. Honestly, I preferred it when it was part of the story. Seeing Akihiko's determination to live up to his friend's memory, or Junpei laying the smackdown on Strega with his upgrade gave you a real feeling of pride in your characters. Here, it feels more arbitrary. "Oh, well done, you've maxed me out, have a cookie and a Suzuka Gongen."

Then there's the music. It starts off strong, sunny day theme Your Affection quickly becoming one of my favourite pieces of music in the game. The first couple of dungeon themes are also good, the music for Yukiko's Castle being a standout piece. But as it progresses, the music becomes more and more lackluster. The last couple of dungeons are quiet, sedate pieces when you should be gearing up for a major no-holds barred fight. The final boss theme aims for symphonic fierceness and falls waaay shy of the mark, landing squarely in hum-drum mediocrity. The call back to the battle theme is nice, but not what I was looking for. Honestly, this is probably the first final boss theme I've encountered in a Megaten game that's outright sucked. 'Disappointing' is not the word.

On a related note, the cast has fewer duds in it than P3 did. The voice actresses for Fuuka and Ken were almost universally derided, but here, even the worst voice is tolerable. Kanji is probably the best on offer here, never once dipping below good, and his actor's delivery of lines is, on occasion, perfect, turning mere funny lines into outright hilarious ones. On the other hand, Naoto's is a poor choice. Massive spoilers that really aren't: Naoto's bag is that she's a girl pretending to be a boy. It works perfectly in the Japanese version, since her VA is known for playing gruff teenage boys like Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist with the twist being that, for once, she's playing a girl. In the Western version, the second she opens her mouth, the illusion is shattered and you spend the next 20 hours wondering if your team is functionally retarded for not noticing that she's quite clearly a girl. The battle quotes are hilariously poor as well. They must've been recorded at the start, before most of the cast grew into their roles, because they're badly delivered ("Let us attack with all our strength" and "It's quite tenacious" being primary offenders) or just plain hilarious - Chie, dear, I love you to bits, but your wimpy little battlecry is abysmal. Seriously, stop it. And maybe it's more of a problem of translation, but they leave in all the honorifics like '-san' or 'senpai', and use them liberally, then have your cousin call you 'big bro' instead of 'onii-chan'. It's baffling why they'd do that, and it's jarring to boot.

And finally, we have the story. For the first 8/10ths of the story, it's fairly good. Great in places. Seeing your character actually get involved with events, rather than just standing there as things unfold around him is much more satisfying. You really feel like you have a part to play beyond pressing the X button to make the conversation move on. Some of the shenanigans you get up to are outright hilarious, such as the disastrous school festival and the camping trip, and draw you in more than the events in the last game. However, it's when you get to the end that things start to unravel.

Persona 3 was an epic story in the old sense of the word. You started out fighting monsters with friends and, before you knew it, you were locked in battle with an eldrich force that existed solely to obliterate all of mankind. You were rarely in any doubt as to what was at stake, and when the time came at the end, you knew damn well what would happen if you failed and were ready to give all as a result. Brilliant. Here, things start small with a serial killer offing people in the town when the fog rolls in. But Persona 4 never ups the ante much. When the fog covers the town permanently towards the end, you're expecting something big to come out of it, but it never really does. You're told there will be dire consequences, but, crucially, you're never shown what they are. And when you go to uncover the true mastermind at the end, it feels like an afterthought. One of the party outright states that you're doing this to give your character a good sendoff. Never mind that you've got a literal god taunting you (who's barely mentioned throughout the game, by the way), forget that a whole bunch of people have died as a result of all this, as long as Senpai gets a glorious final battle, everything else is just gravy. Tell me, did someone replace the cast with Klingons while I wasn't looking? What the hell, guys?! And the final bosses themselves are just so boring! Sure the final final boss looks great, but come on, we went through a fight last time where we battled our way through the Major Arcana of the tarot, then fought the god of death and her harbinger to a standstill! "Big spiky disco ball" and "Silent Hill reject" is a major step back by anyone's standards.

It's frustrating, really. For everything Persona 4 fixes or polishes, it creates another gaping flaw. When it should be increasing the pressure, it steps back and eases off on you. And when it should be telling you to gear up for a titanic struggle, it idly tosses a boss with no real difficulty behind it and tells you to busy yourself. I can understand why they'd want to scale things down after the last game - after all, when you've tangled with the embodiment of mankind's despair, how exactly do you top that - but that doesn't mean they can't make the current threat appear every bit as real as the last one. Just because the scope is reduced, that doesn't mean the danger should be too. Ironically, Persona 4 falls into exactly the same category as Devil May Cry 4: both are games that are great in their own right, both have the bad luck of being follow-ups to leaders in their field, both are kept from greatness by major problems. If we could meld Persona 3's storyline with Persona 4's gameplay, (and maybe DDS' or Maken Shao's OSTs, since I'm bored with the J-Pop by now) I have little doubt you'd have one of the single finest RPGs of all time. I still haven't lost faith in the series, not by a long shot, and it'll take more than a lousy final 5th of a game to do that. Still, here's hoping the inevitable Persona 5 will finally bring to fruition everything the games have promised thus far.

Detroit Metal City

12 15-minute episodes

Woah. Brutal.


Back at the beginning of the year, you might remember I reviewed a show called Orochiban Ebichu. I said, in short, that it was about as crude and wrong as it gets.

Turns out I was wrong. There is another. And it's worse.

Soichi Negishi wants to sing cheesy pop songs about love and cheese tarts. He's calm, polite, thoughtful of others and generally a sickeningly nice guy. However, he's also Johannes Krauser II, lead singer of the titular Detroit Metal City. DMC and Krauser in particular, are famed for their various deeds, usually involving, violence, murder and/or rape. Usually all at the same time. None of this is strictly true, but the fans believe it entirely. Negishi desperately wants to leave the band, but no matter what, fate - and his own frustration - keeps conspiring against him, and the Emperor of Hell keeps making the most unwanted appearances in his regular life.

Obvious statement time: do not watch this if you're easily offended. No, I'm serious. If something like Dethklok, the most obvious touchpoint, gets your face a-frowning, and Ebichu gets your dander in an upright position, this will rankle you in new and exciting ways. How so? Well, let's see. The group's manager is a foul-mouthed wench, prone to gratuitous swearing (in English) who judges the worth of a song or performance in how hard she gets off on it. Some of her descriptions of her... excitement will either have you scurrying from the room or laughing your proverbial ass off. On stage, they're joined by their mascot of sorts, a balding middle-aged man in women's underwear and a ballgag known as the Capitalist Pig, whose job is solely to be abused by Krauser. And then there's Krauser himself. Oh, where to begin. Seriously, I have no fucking clue where to start. I mean, you're supposed to start small and work your way up, but when you consider that one of his 'talents' is known as the 'Ten Audible Rapes a Second' (saying the word 'rape' really, really fast), that he humps the Tokyo Tower (which makes him the father of the Roppongi Hills, naturally) and that he molests a turntable while someone else is using it at the time, it's hard to decide where the starting point even is.

Most worryingly of all, it's absolutely fucking hilarious. Good thing too, since if it weren't so funny, it would be terrible. Much of the humour comes from Negishi trying to reconcile his love of horrible pop music with the fact that he's the lead singer of the most notorious metal band in Japan. The rest usually comes in when the two collide and he winds up accidentally announcing his (well, really more Krauser's) intent to violate the sweet and innocent Yuri, his old college sweetheart. That's when he isn't calling her a pig, or telling her that the zit on her face resembles a clitoris.

Like I said, if any of the above sounds like it's going to hit your personal berserk buttons, stay the absolute fuck away from this show, lest your rage crack the heavens. Same goes if you have an aversion to metal. Personally, the soundtrack's pretty good. Title song SATSUGAI is probably the best of the bunch though Death Penis is a close second on strength of name alone (though that's beaten by a song in the last episode called-and-I-shit-you-not Fuckingham Palace). Detroit Metal City is wrong on so many levels, but the humour always just manages to sneak ahead and make even the most horrible of scenes laugh-out-loud funny. It helps that it also manages to avoid the trap shows like Drawn Together plummeted face-first into - that of believing that you can just say 'rectal violation' and that the laughs will automatically generate themselves. Definitely go to DMC, but don't expect to return... unmolested.

20th Century Boys: Chapter 1

142 minutes

I was angry at my Friend, I told my wrath, my wrath...

Chances are, you still remember what you wanted to be when you were a kid. No one ever really forgets. At some point, you probably wanted to be a pilot or doctor or something, right? Something important, but interesting. If you had pets, you probably toyed with the idea of being a vet at some point. If you had an active imagination, you wanted to be an actor or an artist. Me? I wanted to be a hero. You're shocked, I can tell. Maybe not a superhero, since, in our world, radioactive chemicals don't normally endow you with superstrength, as much as they kill you painfully. But still, going off on grand adventures, saving the day, all of that had an undeniable appeal. And I know I'm not the only one out there. As I grew up, the call to heroism never came, and so I decided I wanted to be a writer. Again, utterly shocking. Granted, I wanted to write books, rather than be on the other side, ripping them to shreds, but one step at a time. Of course, being perfectly honest, if the call came in tomorrow, I'd probably jump at the chance. And chances are, so would more than a few of you.

What does any of this have to do with today's movie? More than you'd think.

The story starts in 2015. Well, really, it starts in 1997. Well, really really, it all starts in 1969. Sort of. Wait, this isn't making any sense, is it.

Okay, let me start again. Kenji Endo's life isn't quite how he imagined it would be. As a boy, he saw himself as a champion of justice. As a teen, he dreamed of being a rock star, believing rock had the power to change the world. Now, as a man, he's running a crappy convenience store, his mother disapproves of everything he does, and he's left looking after his sister's daughter, Kanna, after she appeared one day, begged him to look after her, then vanished just as suddenly. All things considered, not the glory he dreamed of in any way, shape or form. At a class reunion, he hears of a cult led by a figure calling himself 'Friend'. Friend is slowly gathering influence, making predictions about the end of the world. These predictions (as well as his logo) are scarily similar to ones Kenji and his friends made as children in their secret den. They imagined the world coming to an end, attacked by a giant robot, before being saved by a hero. Now, as more and more of these 'prophecies' are coming true, Kenji rallies his old friends to try and put an end to Friend's apparent goal of destroying mankind on December 31st, 2000.

The story jumps back and forward through several time periods. The majority of the film takes place in the 'present' of 1997. There are regular flashbacks to 1969 as characters remember their childhoods and the moments which led up to the current events. Despite all this leaping backwards and forwards, the story's still fairly straightforward and easy to follow. More so than the original manga it's based on. As great as it was (and the original is a fantastic story, let me assure you of that much) it had a real problem with the sheer volume of characters thrown at you. It's not helped by the fact that many of them have the annoying tendency to vanish for lengthy periods without warning, before returning out of the blue. And all the while, you're expected to remember who they are, what they've done and what their motivations and goals are. Here, things are a lot easier to handle. And while there are a few changes (the occasional suggestions of psychic powers are a lot more subtle in this retelling, for example), it's a very faithful adaptation overall.

Things take a while to start up - the main plot proper doesn't kick in for a good long while - but, crucially, it never drags once. In many ways, it's similar to the Lord of the Rings movies: a pragmatic adaptation that doesn't cover every single last detail, but keeps everything you need to not only get the full story, but, more importantly, ensure the film itself is still enjoyable. And when things start kicking off in the final third, the tension builds steadily. By the time Friend's ultimate plan comes into operation, you'll be swept up in it without question. It's a tribute to everyone involved that they manage to take something that, at first glance, seems silly, and turn it into an actual threat. More than that, it's outright terrifying if you think about it long enough. When Kenji and friends mobilize to fight, it's stirring stuff, and the ending leaves you on one hell of a cliffhanger.

Worthy of mention is the soundtrack. Of course, 20th Century Boy by T.Rex gets frequent reference, including one key scene when Kenji regains his determination. The score as a whole is great stuff, but the most glaring omission is the song Kenji plays frequently throughout the film. We only hear snatches of the beginning and end, and, criminally, it's never even named! Considering how important it becomes - especially from the second half of the story onwards - it's a sad and outright irritating change, especially considering how good the song is anyway. We finally get to hear it over the end credits, but it belongs in the film itself, not as an afterthought.

(the song's called 'Bob Lennon' in case you're interested, so called because, as Kenji says in the manga, it's part Bob Dylan, part John Lennon)

As the first part of a trilogy, it's a great lead-off, and as a film in its own right, it's as good as you could ask for. Fans of the manga will not be disappointed, and if you're coming to this for the first time, don't be surprised if you're left with the urge to read the source material, if only to find out what happens next. The movie ends with a post-credits trailer for the second film that only leaves you wanting more. And trust me: you will want more.

Games Finished

The Suffering: The Ties That Bind

Total Games Finished - 12

TV Shows Watched

Cromartie High School

Total Shows Watched - 12

Books Read

Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein

Total Books Read - 11

Movies Watched

Moon

Total Movies Watched - 14


So. Endgame. One month to go and it's all over. Four more reviews and we can call it a day.

December's movie will most likely be The Mist. Book and TV show are still up for grabs, if anyone has suggestions, otherwise I'll probably go for whatever's closest to hand on my bookcase and another crappy anime none of you have ever heard of. As for game... When I started this, the first game review I did was for Persona 3. So it's time to bring it full-circle in a way.

My final game of the month/year will be Persona 4.

Moon

93 minutes

Winner of the 2009 award for Best Use of Chesney Hawkes in a Movie


I've said before that some of the best films, games, whatever, are the ones that come out of nowhere. The ones that have no real hype or build-up about them. Unsurprisingly, I've always had a fondness for them, since, as we all know, I'm one of those freaks who likes to (and occasionally has to) wander off the beaten track for his entertainment. I hadn't actually heard of this film until I read a glowing review of it in Bizarre (still the only major review of the movie I've personally encountered), and while the magazine's gone downhill of late, it's entertainment reviews are still usually on the money, so I decided to check it out for myself.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a miner on the far side of the moon. Sam lives and works alone with GERTY, a robot programmed to observe him and keep an eye on his general well-being. Sam starts having weird lapses, seeing things on monitors, having visions of other people. While out investigating a problem with one of the mining harvesters, he suffers a crash. He awakens some time later back on the base, but is under strict instructions not to leave again. Faking a malfunction in the base, he manages to escape anyway and returns back to the site of the crash. His old lunar rover is still there. More to the point, so is he.

At first, you'd be forgiven for expecting a movie in the vein of Fight Club or The Machinist. You begin thinking it's going to be the tale of a space miner dealing with cabin fever or something like that, before pulling a bait and switch with the second Sam. It's a sneaky move that keeps you guessing past your original conceptions of what the movie is going to be about. To talk any more about the plot would be giving the game away completely, but trust me on this, it's a good one.

Similarly, Sam Rockwell is nothing short of amazing here. Yes, the film is basically Sam Rockwell talking to himself for an hour and a half, but if he wasn't any good, the film wouldn't be anywhere near worth watching. The two Sams manage to have differing personalities, despite being fundamentally the same person. By the same token, Kevin Spacey manages to be weirdly sympathetic as GERTY, despite never raising his voice above a monotone.

Moon is a hard film to talk about, hence this spartan (for me, at least) review. That's mainly because discussing the really stand-out parts, or anything beyond the basic premise, for that matter, means spoiling it, and trust me, this is not a film you want spoiled for you. The other problem with movies like this is that they tend to be slow and ponderous, outstaying their welcome by a good 40 minutes in an attempt at making some vague statement about the nature of humanity. At a mere 90 minutes, however, this is a film that comes in, says its peace, then leaves without incident, and that's probably its greatest strength. It's exactly the right length, and no more, and doesn't try and milk all the emotion it can out of things. And probably for that single reason alone, it stands head and shoulders above all others in its class. Definitely keep an eye out for this film if you get the chance

Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein

280 pages

This is the book your parents warned you about


Slight confession: I am horribly biased towards Warren Ellis. I don't talk about comics much, mainly because I know so few people who dig them. Everyone and their goldfish loves anime and manga, but comparatively few like comics. But that's beside the point: Nextwave, Planetary, Desolation Jones, DV8 and, of course, Transmetropolitan, all of them rank among the best comics I've ever read Okay, maybe not DV8, but I still have a soft spot for it. So, as you can probably tell, my hopes were high for this one.

Mike McGill is a private eye. Not the hard-bitten kind, unless you count the occasional attack by the monster rat that lives in his office. Mike is charitably referred to early on as a 'shit magnet' - a beacon for trouble, bad luck and weirdness, something he's usually inclined to agree with. While reflecting how utterly crappy his life is, he's approached by the President's Chief of Staff to find a book. Not just any book, however. Mike has to find a back-up copy of the US Constitution. One that sounds more like the Necronomicon than an important historical artefact. And considering the Chief of Staff is worryingly upfront about it's ability to warp minds (and his various drug addictions) that might not be too far off the mark. As he searches for the book, Mike picks up a partner, Trix, deals with a family that would make the Mansons look like perfect neighbours and has a pleasant chat with a serial killer as his search takes him to places he never thought he'd encounter. When a journey starts with 'Godzilla bukakke', you know things are only going to get worse from here.

If you've read any previous Ellis work, two things will probably stand out to you: the creative use of insults, threats and swearing and the air of not-quite-reality always present. No, people don't quite act like that in real life (you would hope) but let's roll with it anyway. And while it's toned down in comparison to something like Transmet, the vaguely surrealistic edge shows up here again on occasion, background characters getting hit with taxis or garotting cattle, naked in the moonlight. Then again, that's juxtaposed with slightly more real strangeness.

Back when the internet first opened, in the days when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and we used to watch TV by candlelight because electricity hadn't been invented yet, things were different. It was like the Old West, as opposed to the more cultured, civilized internet of today: people used the net to share opinions, rant about Star Trek and, more importantly, freak the almighty shit out of each other. You might see a picture of a man spreading his anus open so wide, you can see his back teeth and think it passée, but back then, it was the single most disgusting thing you could imagine. You may scoff, but pictures of genetic abnormalities and elderly gay men sucking each other off was Bad and Wrong. Amongst all these images, you may recall a couple of pictures of a group of rather cheerful, energetic-looking men. You know, the ones who had infused their scrotums up with saline til it looked like they'd stapled fleshy cantaloups to their groins. Yes, I can see you remember now, the rocking back and forward is a dead giveaway. Well, good news: they're in here. As is the Baby Jesus buttplug. And yes, the macroherpetephiles (look it up, kids) in probably the single most infamous scene in the book. The real-life strangeness, both the outlandish and the darker side the characters stumble into, serve to blur the line between the the real weirdness and the unreal weirdness. After a while, you stop wondering what belongs in which camp. You say you've never seen or heard of half the stuff in here, but is that because it doesn't exist, or because you're just not looking?

If there's any downsides to the book, it's the occasional breaks in narrative to get across ideas. One of the most glaring is when Mike encounters Zack, an internet pornographer with a side-market in breaking the boundaries between people, the media and the truth. Yes, it does eventually pay off in the final sections of the book, but at the time it's introduced, it comes across more the writer getting a boner over technology. Which, granted, is probably true, as anyone who reads his various feeds and sites can attest. The characters don't really change much either. Mike and Trix don't really have any mind-shattering epiphanies or revelations that change their lives. Mike becomes a little more open to some of the strangeness he's exposed to, but other than that, nothing much else. Something of a disappointment.

Crooked Little Vein is a quick read, I'll admit, but by no means is that a bad thing. The short, punchy chapters (sometimes an entire line in length) mean you can open the book, read a dozen pages and be guaranteed of encountering something that'll make you laugh, stop and think or recoil in horror. Usually all at the same time. Then again, it's also the kind of book you can easily find yourself reading in a single sitting, in part because of it's length, but also because of the writing style, which flows easily. This isn't a book for the faint-hearted, but screw them, since they're missing out on all the fun. For the rest of you, get this book and read it ASAP. You will not be disappointed.

Cromartie High School

26 15-minute episodes

"Dearest Mother... I'm trying to write a review of this show without any Queen references..."


Doing a write-up for a show like Cromartie High is difficult. Not because it's a particularly uneven show, or it's hard to get into or anything like that, but more because you'll probably enjoy it more going into it cold. So, if you haven't seen it, or you're completely unaware of the show, take it from me: it's a great series, funny as hell, and you shouldn't read any further until you've at least watched the first episode. Seriously, go watch it. I'll wait right here.



You done? Yeah? Okay then, back to the review.

At first glance, Cromartie High would appear to be in the same vein as other series like Crying Freeman or Fist of the North Star - very serious, grim character designs with eyebrows that could stop a tank. Of course, that would need to be a very brief glance. Mid-episode. And it would require you to have heard absolutely nothing about the show or its parent manga beforehand. The series focuses on Takashi Kamiyama (at first, anyway), starting his first day at the titular Cromartie High. Thing is, he's a bit of a milquetoast, and Cromartie is a school for outright badasses. Not the best start. As the series progresses, Kamiyama is repeatedly forced to prove how much of a badass he is (he isn't, but he keeps managing it anyway) goes on about 30 class trips, becomes the number one Boss of all gangs in Japan and wonders if he's the only one questioning why there's a robot, a gorilla and Freddie Mercury (even though he looks more like Mike Haggar) in his class.

As you can probably gather, Cromartie High is not a series that takes... well, anything seriously. There's a few vague attempts at consistency, but frankly, if it makes for a funnier joke, they cheerfully throw it out (see: Yutaka Takenouchi managing to show up regularly, despite being stranded in America for a decent time). The short episodes mean that if you didn't find that last bit funny, you're never more than a minute from something better. Worthy of note as well is the dub actors, who pull off some of the best delivery I've encountered in any comedy show. Anyone who complains about dubs being nothing but garbage should be forced to sit and watch this one, it's fantastic.

Cromartie High isn't quite a must-see, but definitely one you should check out, especially if you have a healthy appreciation for the absurd. Even if surreality grates on you after a while, you'll probably still find it funny. And even if that doesn't do much for you, the soundtrack (especially that hideously catchy opening theme) will definitely grab you.

And if even that much doesn't appeal to you, then I'm sorry, but I just don't think we can be friends anymore.

The Suffering: The Ties That Bind

PS2

I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on...

When the first game in the Suffering series was released, it was to critical indifference. It was seen as trying too hard to be dark and edgy, throwing in lots of blood, gore and random swearing simply because it could. This was a Mature game for Mature gamers - read: impressionable teenagers who still think saying 'fuck' is the epitome of cool. First impressions, however, are never anything short of deceptive. Actually play it, and you'll discover that, behind the swearing and the violence and the unrelenting darkness of it all, there's actually a good game behind it. Surprising considering the lengths it goes to to prove it's got a pair, but The Suffering actually had something to back up its posturing. The plot concerned Torque, prison for the murder of his wife and kids. He was being transferred to the brutal Abbot State Prison on Carnate Island, before an earthquake released all manner of evil monsters and freaks. Barely escaping, Torque made it to Baltimore, and is now hunting his old stomping grounds for a man known only as Blackmore.

One of the interesting things about plot of the original game was there were three different endings depending on how you played it. Along the way, there were people you could save or outright kill depending on your actions. Save people, and the story would reveal that you'd been framed for the murder of your family. Kill anyone and everyone and you'd be shown as an irredeemable monster. In the first game, all this would do is affect your ending. Here, it also acts as a sort of experience meter for your Insanity Mode, a sort of berserker mode in which you turn into a giant rampaging demon and rip everything around you a thousand new ones. It was somewhat gimped in the last game, since if you over-relied on it, you'd eventually trigger the third ending of the game, the Beast ending, which pretty much sucked if you were aiming for one of the other two. Here, it's been fleshed out properly. Depending on your alignment, you'll not only get a different form, but different attacks as well. And considering a whole class of enemies requires you to use it, it's probably a good thing.

Outside of that, the game does a lot of other things right. The voice acting is a cut above, with Michael Clarke Duncan doing his best Scary Black Man voice as Blackwood, the main antagonist, and Rachel Griffiths (Brenda from Six Feet Under) as Jordan. There's one or two bad spots, but by and large, the talent on show here is great. Unrelated, but also worthy of note, is the fact that you can switch out of first-person mode and into third person, something a lot more FPSes could stand to do. Considering the speed some enemies attack with, being able to see more around you will save your rear more than once.

Aside from that, the story is, once again, all over the place. You start off arriving in Baltimore, trying to find Blackmore. Then you're attacked by a group trying to capture you to work out how you do that transformation thing of yours (despite it being hinted at in the last game as a mental, rather than physical thing). Then you escape only to find that the entire city has been taken over by the monsters from Carnate, as well as the spirits of a pair of notorious murderers. Then you wind up in another prison, then sewers, then a mining complex, then everything gets a bit Twilight Zone and by that point, you've either stopped playing or caring. Dr. Killjoy, the mad 'experimental' psychiatrist from the first game also makes a return which I'm somewhat split over. On the one hand, his appearance in the first game added a sort of House On Haunted Hill vibe to the proceedings. Utterly out of place, but not necessarily in a bad way, since he was arguably about the only person in the game you could say had any kind of character to him. Here, on the other hand, its harder to argue that, since he barely has any impact on the story, unlike in the last game. He shows up on a TV screen, does a kind of summing up/trial of the player at the end then... well, doesn't do much else. Even worse, it's not until you get to the very end and you look back on both games that you realise that not a damn thing in the story makes a blind bit of sense, even for an action game, such is the scattershot application of the events and plot. Impressive in a perverse sort of way.

Of course, any and all goodwill the game's built up by this point will evaporate swiftly in the face of one small detail. The game glitches like you would not believe. No joke, this game is horribly programmed: I've had CPU-controlled characters refuse to move, blocking my path, falling through floors or failing to trigger the next section. I've had enemies refuse to activate at all, just standing there, seemingly taking no damage or even noticing me. I even had the game crash outright on me, twice! I honestly can't remember the last time I played a console game with such glaring bugs. On a PC, sure, you almost expect it, but on a console... And they all happened at more or less the exact same places with worrying regularity, which, frankly begs the question: did anyone even bother to playtest this game before release?

The original Suffering was a great game, far better than it had any real right to be. Not a classic by any measure, but not a game you'd regret spending time or money on either. The sequel, on the other hand, takes all of that and squanders it, somehow winding up with a worse game in the process. If the game had actually been coded properly, it would've merely been below average, but with the glitches and bugs present (including one which makes the game impossible to finish, should it kick in) there's no way to recommend this. And the ending is non-existent as well, but that should come as no surprise to absolutely anyone. Get the original, but woe betide anyone who goes looking for the sequel: all that awaits you is a litany of disappointment and NPCs glitching up to their knees in the floor.

Games Finished

Silent Hill 0rigins

Total Games Finished - 11

TV Shows Watched

Soul Eater

Total TV Shows Watched - 11

Books Read

China Mieville - The City and The City

Total Books Read - 10

Movies Watched

Friday The 13th (2009)

Total Movies Watched - 13

Something of a mediocre month this time around. Soul Eater fell down in the final third, Friday The 13th was just plain bad, while Silent Hill is a frontrunner for the title of 'Worst Game I've Played This Year'. Hopefully I'll be able to get something quality across my eyeballs Novemberwise.

As usual, playing it by ear. Didn't manage to get Silent Hill 4 done, though this month fell apart rapidly, so I'm not entirely at fault with that one. Though after SH0, I suspect my opinion of it may have improved slightly.

China Mieville - The City and The City

312 pages

Time to let you all in on another of those little details you'd probably never guess about me: I've always had a fondness for detective fiction. Not so much the standard police stuff, more the hard-boiled kind. A single cop or private eye on the edge in a rainy city, internal monologues, infernal dames, the works. This isn't quite your standard detective fiction, but then again, it kinda is. Oddly appropriate, considering the subject matter...

It opens, as all the best stories do, with a body. Inspector Tyador Borlu is a member of the Extreme Crime Division in the city of Beszel. When the body of a young woman is found, he is tasked with finding her killer. Of course, That's never an easy thing at the best of times. When you consider the nature of the city he lives in, however, it becomes even more difficult. You see, Beszel has a... unique relationship with its neighbour/sister city Ul Qoma. They both technically exist on the same spot. Except they don't. People are trained from birth not to see the other city, even though it's still there. And the other city may be where some or all of the answers lie.

This is a weird and strange book to describe, let alone get into. The idea of a second city overlaid on top of another, invisible, but distinct is something I don't think I've ever encountered before. It's different to books like, say, Neverwhere, with its London Below, where the other world is literally otherworldly. People on both sides actively seek to maintain the divide, conditioning themselves to 'unsee' and 'unhear' the other though the use of identifying colours and symbols. In the inevitable areas where these areas can and must intertwine, 'crosshatching' occurs where a certain amount of leeway is admitted. Characters frequently remark how strange it is to outsiders, but, unless I missed something very obvious, we're never told why the cities are the way they are. This is the way things always have, and this is the way they must always be, simple as that.

Maintaining the balance is one of Mieville's pet obsessions: the secret police force, in this case, Breach. Failing to maintain the delicate membrane between the two cities, either through carelessness or malice, is known as a breach, and is passed on to the appropriate group. They're the only vaguely supernatural or otherworldly thing in the book, fading in and out of the shadows as needed, similar to the secret police in Perdido Street Station, but they're not quite as brutal. Everyone fears them as a matter of course, but they're not as malicious, they're simply there to maintain the balance. You couldn't quite stretch to call them sympathetic, but it's interesting to see a slightly nicer approach to the concept for once.

If there's anything wrong with the book, it's the number of misleading clues and avenues the story goes down. It's less misdirection, more that everyone's repeatedly wrong. Closer to a real investigation, I'm sure, but not entirely what you'd expect. The truth, when it's finally unveiled, is disappointingly mundane. Not that the ending itself is disappointing (though it is pretty darn silly in retrospect) but you're led to believe it's going in one direction before it pulls a complete 180. I've read worse twists, but it's been a while since I encountered one where you could almost audibly hear the author shifting gears.

The City and The City is a book that needs to be read simply for its central concept. It's hard to say how successful any of it is in terms of the actual story - compared to the New Crobuzon books, it's sadly not as good. It's an admirable first attempt at something new, but it doesn't quite make it. A rare misstep from a great author, but I'm still looking forward to the next offering.

Friday The 13th

1 hour 45 minutes

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise...

As cheesy as they are, the big horror movies of the 80s have a certain charm to them. Cheesy as hell, outright stupid in places, but still always watchable. The Friday the 13th series, one of the biggest of the time, was arguably more serious than the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but it still had some moments of dumb fun before becoming outright silly in its final instalment, the downright hilarious Jason X. It's probably worth mentioning that that was also my favourite entry in the series, a film comparable to Army of Darkness in terms of genre switch and sheer excellence. Since 'reboots' are the marketing buzzword of the week, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to do a more serious remake. The results are, predictably, less than great.

You all know the story: Jason Voorhees goes ballistic against a bunch of retarded horny teenagers. The film opens with a replay of the end of the first original film in the series, before skipping forward some years later. A group of teenagers are looking for the ultimate weed patch while on a camping trip. Within the space of the first 20 minutes, they're all butchered mercilessly. We're then introduced to a new bunch of teens, going to a plush woodland cabin for the weekend. Unfortunately, these guys last slightly longer, everyone resisting the temptation to off a conveyor belt of idiots every 20 minutes.

This being a remake, there's a slightly different take on the original concept: the idea of Jason going apeshit at a summer camp has been dropped, in favour of a typical 'house siege/running around the woods'-style story. Rather than the slaughter being spaced out evenly throughout the film, there's one big blood orgy at the start, then pretty much nothing for about the next hour before the murders begin again in earnest. That wouldn't be such a bad thing if the rest of the cast were even remotely likeable, but I haven't wanted to see a bunch of idiot teens get ripped apart so badly since high school. There's one guy, a stoner, who's halfway cool, but, of course, he dies horribly. Jared Padalecki is probably the only person you're likely to recognise, playing Clay, a guy looking for his sister, who was part of the group killed at the start. He's also the only remotely sympathetic guy in the bunch, only emphasized by the fact that he's pitted opposite Travis Van Winkle, playing, as Sir Laurence Olivier would put it, 'a gigantic douche of no singular redeeming value'. Kudos to the guy for playing such an utterly convincing dick, but he doesn't even get an interesting death, which highlights the other major problem of the film.

Let's face it, you all watch these films for the same reasons: you want to see idiot people dying in fun and interesting ways. There's no shame in it, that's the primary draw of them, after all. But no, this is a Serious Reboot for Serious People. Can't be having any of those wacky shenanigans here! So everyone gets offed in a variety of incredibly samey ways, every last one involving impalement or stabbing in some way or another. If you were one of those boring types who has to write a lengthy thesis or two on phallic imagery in modern cinematic blah de blah, you'd probably have a field day with this one. Me? I'll be sitting over here, bored out my mind. And I still won't be finding the film much more entertaining.

If there's one thing the movie does right, it's that there's none of those knowing winks to camera. There's a couple of musical cues that you might recognise, but other than that, it's entirely fanservice free (if you don't count the mandatory boobs, of course). But really, I can't remember the last time I saw a more boring horror movie, and that's the last thing you want to say about any horror film. It counts double when you take into account that it's based on a series that's still popular nearly 30 years on. I don't ask for much in my horror movies: I don't mind if they don't scare me, I don't care if the effects look atrocious, but if they're not entertaining, that's an immediate fail right there, and Friday the 13th falls hard at that hurdle. Stick with the originals, kids, this isn't worth your time.

Soul Eater

51 30-minute episodes

This show's legend began in the 12th century

Soul Eater is set mainly in and around Death City. Maka Albarn is a Technician, while her partner, Soul, is a Weapon, capable of transforming bodily into, well, a weapon, in his case a scythe. The pair of them attend Shibusen, a training school for Technicians and Weapons to help them learn how to defend humanity from various monsters and, most dangerous of all, Witches, magic users capable of great destruction. As the show opens, Maka and Soul are on their way to their final mission. Their goal is to become a Deathscythe, the highest rank available to a Weapon. In order to do that, they have to absorb the souls of 99 monsters and one witch. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned, and rather than eating the soul of a cat witch, he eats the soul of a witch cat, a very different thing indeed...

First impressions will more than likely remind you of Fullmetal Alchemist. No bad thing, since FMA was a top-notch show. It's got the same kind of feel to it. Obvious comparisons with other fare like Naruto will also abound, but frankly, they couldn't be any further from each other if they tried. Some of the characters superficially resemble their counterparts in Naruto, as well as general Shonen archetypes in general: Black Star's a familiar-acting boisterous ninja determined to make everyone acknowledge his greatness, Death the Kid is an aloof prodigy, leagues ahead of everyone else, and Maka's a booksmart girl prone to violence when things get too stupid around her. That's about where the comparisons stop, however. The idiot hero ninja? Best friends with Soul, outwardly your typical 'violent hero', but really more laid back than you'd expect. The aloof prodigy? Yeah, he's got a crippling OCD obsession with symmetry that tends to take him out of fights fairly regularly, as he's left rocking back and forward gently. And Maka's not only not involved in any love triangles between anyone, she's also the main character AND a hugely competent fighter, and you have no idea how refreshing that is! It takes most of the cliches seen in this kind of show and either turns them on their head or just throws them away entirely, and the effect is refreshing as hell. As someone points out at one point, 'if you could get stronger just by shouting and stamping your feet, everyone would be doing it'. Ouch.

The other thing it has in common with FMA is that they both go off in their own directions after a while. However, while FMA made the switch fairly early, Soul Eater makes its switch quite late, and that affects a whole hell of a lot. The switch comes in about about 3/4 of the way through and you can spot the break quite clearly, since much of the spark seems to vanish. There's a few episodes spent floundering before it gets its own path, and then it acquires a weird rollercoaster effect, great moments followed by great lulls in the action. So one minute you'll be cheering when a certain recurring character gets promoted to a more regular role in the last few episodes, the next you'll be sitting twiddling your thumbs as Black Star and Mifune have yet another conversation about the path of the warrior. You'll be jumping out of your seat shouting 'HOLY SHIT, DEATH CITY ROBO! DUELLING BASES! AWESOME!' then back down again. The awkward pacing makes the last ten episodes rather unsatisfying to watch. Similarly, characters who were getting more characterisation like Ox, Killik, Kim and Nygus are utterly dispensed with. They get some excellent moments in the manga, several of them being some of the best moments in the equivalent arc, but here, they make a token appearance at best at the start of the final battle, before being swiftly forgotten.

For the first 30 or so episodes, Soul Eater is excellent. The characters are great spins on the standard cliches we've come to expect, with actual flaws beyond 'he's dumb and likes fights lots'. And when these flaws start becoming part of the actual plot, you almost feel like you're being rewarded for your diligence, especially when you realise why Kid's so obsessed with symmetry. There's no 'I have to train so I can get stronger' bollocks, beyond the fact that the kids are in still in school - any training or learning of a new technique is usually presented as another lesson, and such lessons are used sparingly so it's more organic and natural than pretty much everywhere else. Similarly, the few times a new attack is used, they're used as last-resort attacks, or right at the beginning to put an end to things before they go any further. There's only really one instance of anyone tossing them around randomly, and that's long after the split occurs.

After the split... well, its still worth watching, if only to find out how things end. It's not a bad show at this point, exactly, just one that doesn't live up to the standards set by its earlier self. If the switch had come earlier, or they'd had an extra 20-odd episodes to actually set up and plan out a decent resolution, I have little doubt it would've been much better. It leaves things too late, and considering the huge number of plotlines it has to tie up by that point, its hard to say it does many of them justice. It's still a great show, though, and a definite cut above and beyond the typical shonen series.

Silent Hill 0rigins

PSP

4:13 hours

Mirrors are more fun than television

Prequels have a very bad reputation. Oh, the intent is fine enough: showing what the world was like in the Before Time, letting us see familiar faces and the events that shaped them, that kind of thing. But all too often, they devolve into brainless fanservice, burying you in an avalanche of knowing winks and sly glances. You can hear them pissing themselves with sheer glee as one character tells another that their brother will never betray them/will be the death of them/could be the greatest of us all, or some other ironic comment, rather than trying to get some actual tragedy or pathos out of the events. And woe betide if you don't have any working knowledge of the original, since you're going to be left wondering every few minutes if you just saw something important. So yes, to your average viewer, prequels are never a good idea.

Silent Hill 0rigins is a prequel to the original Silent Hill. It's also, not very good, though in its defence, that's not entirely the fault of its status as a prequel. Give it its due, it sucks on its own merits.

( Some stories need to be told... this wasn't one of them )

Poll #1464704
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Which Silent Hill game (that I haven't yet played) should I subject myself to this month

Buggering off to friend Kiz'szs for the next day or two. Anyone who wants me would do well to get me via text. Anyone who doesn't have my mobile number and wants it would do well to get it off someone who has it.

Hideaki Sena - Parasite Eve

320 pages

I want to be your parasite god, so I can show you what you really are

Okay, time to make everyone really paranoid for a second. In an average day, out of all the actions you take, how many can you say for certain are actually yours? That sudden urge to get something to eat, to go into a shop, to call someone. Are you entirely sure it's all you? Can you say with absolute certainty that everything you say and do is all your own decision? Or is there something urging you to take certain decisions on occasion? A little voice, a tug, an instinct making you think that this idea would be better?

Are you sure that you are really you?

If you're familiar with Parasite Eve, it'll more than likely be with the PS1 game series. Released in 1998, it was described as the first 'survival horror RPG', and while fun, it was a seriously flawed game. I've actually been playing it myself recently, and finding myself getting frustrated with the awkward pre-rendered environments, a kink that would be worked out in its spiritual successor, Vagrant Story. But this is a review of the original book, not the games, so let's forget about them for a moment.

If you've played the first game, you'll already have some idea of how it all begins. The story focusses on Toshiaki Nagashima, a scientist working in the field of biological research. After his wife is rendered braindead in a car accident, Toshiaki arranges for her organs to be donated. However, he feels compelled to harvest some of her liver cells for experimentation. However, it's soon revealed that the accident was no accident, and what caused it is looking to expand its empire.

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that the central concept is a goofy one - "Oh noes, my cells are evil and have turned against me" is, at first glance, kinda dumb. But think about it: an unseen enemy, forcing you to do its bidding and you won't be aware of it until it's too late? terrifying if done right. And here, a few translation flubs aside, it's done remarkably so. The first half is very dry. The writer, Hideaki Sena, has a background in medicine, and it shows, large swathes of text being used to discuss medical procedures or experiments in mind-numbing detail. It's medical porn, plain and simple. More than once you'll find your eyes sliding down the page as the steps of an experiment are run through in depth. It's authentic, sure, but doesn't make for the most exciting reading. Once the primary villain makes Her presence felt, things start getting much better, with the final third being a desperate race to stop Eve, as she has now named herself, from evolving to the next stage. Again, there's a tendency to go indepth into the the genetics and biology, when you want the writer to concentrate on the big gloopy superbeing that can set people on fire, but when it does, it's worth it.

If you're a fan of the games, you'll probably be wondering where all the hideously mutated monsters are. Well, bad news is, there aren't any. This is closer to the Ring/u school of horror - slowly building up til it drops everything on the reader in one big clusterfuck of fire and mutilation. It's hard going at times, and the translation has a number of glaring flaws - upon hearing his wife has been in an accident, Toshiaki groans like he's been asked to do the dishes, for example, and the onomatopoeia chosen for Eve's movements is the none-more-chilling sound 'flap'. Know fear and despair. But still, it's well worth a read, especially if you're familiar with the games. Finding out exactly what that 'incident' in Japan was all about adds a few things to the original, even if it does introduce a plothole to the narrative. Apparently the second printings of the bookfix a lot of the errors, so a first edition, while a nice thing to have, may not be the best thing to get. Either way, worth a look for the curious and the fans.

Armour Hunter Mellowlink

12 30-minute episodes

Welcome to the Old School.

Every so often, you encounter one of those forgotten series. An old show that's good, but for some reason, never caught on as well as others. You say the name 'Dragonball' or 'Sailor Moon' or 'Doraemon' and there's a good chance that even non-anime fans will at least be familiar with it. Then you have the Guyvers, the Mazinger Zs, the shows that have a decent-sized fanbase, but no recognition outside. And then you get to the Moldivers and the Gal Forces and the Sol Biancas and for all their quality, you might as well just give up there and then. Ain't no way anyone other than you has heard of those ones. Filed alongside these unremembered shows is Armor Hunter Mellowlink, and if there was any justice in this world, it too would be considered one of the greats.

The story centres on Mellowlink Aliti, last surviving member of his platoon. His unit sacrificed for unknown reasons, sold out by corrupt officials and blamed for their deaths, as well as a whole bunch of other miscellanious crimes they had kicking around the office, Mellowlink is out for revenge on his former superior officers. Armed only with the outdated anti-mech rifle he was issued for that disastrous last mission, a weapon easily as tall as he is, Mellowlink is determined to make every last one pay for his comrade's deaths, starting from the bottom of the pile up.

The show's a spin-off of Armoured Trooper Votoms, a much larger series that, admittedly, I've yet to see. But while the larger details, like who the players are in the frequently-mentioned war are, are probably meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with the parent show, the story itself is easy to follow. Its your typical revenge story, but with giant robots, which makes it that much more interesting (giant robots make everything better, just try and deny it). Okay. slight exaggeration, but the giant robots are surprisingly more than a way of spinning money through toy and model kit sales. One of the interesting things about the show is that, for all the mechs - Armoured Troopers, or ATs - running around, Mellowlink never once uses one. It's suggested that he's part of an anti-AT squad, hence the gigantic gun and title. So, here you have a regular human, running around capping mecha 4-5 times his size. It's amazing that it's an ideat not utilized more often, since the fight scenes are nothing short of gripping. Seeing a single unarmed squishy human making sport of a squad of heavily armed and armoured combat suits is a sight to behold. It's a shame that most shows tend to lean more toward the 'unstoppable behemoth' end of things, since it's also a sight I'd love to see more often.

The other great thing about the show: the entire thing remains almost 98% bullshit deus ex machina-free. Okay, there's one or two moments where Mellowlink gets exceedingly lucky, but the entire rest of the time it's due solely to planning and skill. See your opponent dodge a certain way to avoid a booby trap? Set up another to catch him off-guard mid-dodge. Your opponent has a certain victory pose before killing an unarmoured opponent? Counter the pose and strike while he's defenceless. Potential love interest demanding to join you in a fight where she'll almost certainly be a liability? Wait for the obligatory 'staring into each other's eyes' moment, then slug her in the gut, rendering her unconscious - and therefore safe - the entire fight. It's a refreshing change to see a character win by fighting smart, rather than overpowering their opponent and just plowing through them. And the fact that, with hindsight, you can see how he's planned all this in advance - a throwaway comment about a car jack is responsible for one of the most satisfying reveals in the show - makes it that much sweeter. Something I'd argue we need to see more of these days.

Mellowlink is a gem of a series. The show was made in the late-90s, so for anyone more familiar with the more polished animation of recent years, it'll come as a complete culture shock. But the roughness of the art and animation just gives it a real charm you don't see too often these days. Mellowlink is an excellent series, and a welcome change for anyone sick of power levels or giant robots designed as toys first and foremost.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

87 minutes

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows if you're you're awake...

Dig if you will this picture: you're in charge of New Line Cinema. The year before, you just put out A Nightmare on Elm Street, arguably a film as iconic of the 80s as anything John Landis ever put his name to. You realise that you're sitting on a franchise easily as lucrative as the Friday the 13th series, which has been going great guns the last 4 years. This. Is. Big. Slight problem: the guy responsible for the idea to begin with, Wes Craven, doesn't want it to happen. He's intended for the original movie to stand alone and be a one-off, and even wrote a happy ending into the original, which you changed to set up the sequel anyway. So, what do you do? Well, if you answered anything other than 'go ahead and make the film the way you want anyway', you'll never make it big in this town, kid.

Whether that's actually the 'right' answer, on the other hand, is a whole different matter...

The film picks up some years after the original. Jesse Walsh has moved to the town of Springwood with his family, and is now living in the former house of one Nancy Thompson, heroine of the last film. He's having dreams of a burnt-faced madman who demands that Jesse kill for him, all the while hinting about a darker plan for our young hero. Could these plans have anything to do with the increasing periods he's spending blanked out, unaware of what's going on while others are being brutally murdered? Oh come on, what the hell do you think?!

The original Nightmare on Elm Street is still a pretty decent film. Yeah, it's about as 80s as all hell, but Freddy Krueger ('Fred' in the original) still works as a figure of menace. His past is only ever hinted at and in the first few films, he showed up, did the damage, then vanished, all under the cover of darkness. It wasn't until the later films that he decayed into a shadow of his former self, taunting and outright joking with his victims (and the audience on more than one occasion) before killing them in some gimmicky fashion. Similarly, Freddy only had power in dreams. When brought into the real world, he was far less effective, if a complete pain in the ass to kill. This latter point is important, because it emphasizes one of the biggest flaws in the movie.

The main plot is this: for some reason, Freddy wants to get back into our world to start murdering nubile horny teens again (despite the fact he was originally a child killer/molester. Huh). Thing is, he's been, presumably, doing that perfectly well in the dream world, and, more importantly, getting away with it. And he gets to be far more creative in there as well, as the later films suggest. More than that, unless you're possessed of a an imagination and mental fortitude that'd do a Green Lantern proud, you've got precious little chance of defending yourself. There's practically nothing you can do to stop him. So, let's see: god-like omnipotence and power...versus voluntarily bringing yourself into a weaker plane of reality for the sole reason of getting your hands dirty. Yeah, smart move there, Fred, ol' boy. No wonder you become such a pussy in the next few films.

The cast themselves aren't much better. The main love interest looks like Jennifer (Dirty Dancing) Grey's less interesting younger sister and has no real character beyond 'girlfriend'. The jock best friend is Rod from the first film with the numbers filed off, and and Jesse's family are idiots from top to bottom, deciding that the pet budgie caught fire and exploded midflight because their son loaded it up with firecrackers, no matter how improbable that sounds. At least Freddy hasn't fallen to the depths he would eventually go to, questionable methods aside. In fact, the one scene in the film where he does get to let rip, one of the few times in the entire series we ever actually get to see him do so, is probably the most enjoyable moments of the movie, and a prime example of why you never try and deal with the scary psychopath.

As an interesting aside, the film is, well... it's kinda gay. There's lots of long, lingering shots of Jesse, half naked and drenched in sweat, screaming like an absolute queen from his nightmares. Seriously, he screams like a girl. His dick of a gym teacher goes to an S&M leather bar and is tied up and whipped naked with skipping ropes before he dies before Jesse (who has a look halfway between horror and fascination the entire time). Best of all, at a party, he has a vague attempt at getting friendly with his girlfriend. It's hard to tell who looks more uncomfortable with the situation, and the entire time, he doesn't look like he has a clue what in the hell he's supposed to be doing ("What, so I just... wiggle these bits back and forth do I? They're not very nice, are they?). When the session is cancelled due to Acts of Freddy, he runs, half naked, over to his best friend's house, and tries to tell him that he's slowly being possessed... and winds up sounding like he's trying to come out, complete with 'there's something inside of me'-style lines. Why certain fandoms (you know, the ones who try and draw disturbingly pretty renditions of hideous characters) haven't jumped on this before now, I have no earthly idea. Is Freddy beyond even their ability to make bishie?

No, that's not a cue to prove me wrong. Stop it.

To fans of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, this is the film you don't talk about. It's made easier by the fact that the next film in the series, the infinitely better Dream Warriors, ignores it completely and goes back to the original premise, acting as a true continuation of the story. Bear in mind, this is a series that has Freddy killing one character with video games, and a 3D segment: and this is the one that's considered anathema.

Clive Barker's Jericho

PC

A tale of gods, monsters, and telekinetic lesbian snipers


Of all the most frustrating things in the world, one of the greatest must be when something is so close to greatness, only to fall short. The film with solid actors and ideas, but no spark. The book that doesn't quite gel together, despite some fantastic moments. In short, The Little Engine That Could, If Only It'd Had Another Six Months In Development. If you were to take this concept, wrap it up into a whole and ship it off for sale, that concept would be shipped in a box labelled 'Clive Barker's Jericho'.

The story opens with the titular Jericho squad being shipped out to the ruined city of Al Khali. The team are a supernatural special ops unit sent out to deal with possible demonic incursions into our reality, and Al Khali is potentially the biggest, as the ruins sit on top of The Box. The Box is a prison, of sorts, containing The Firstborn, God's pet science project before Mankind. Arnold Leach, a former member of the Department of Occult Warfare is trying to break open the prison and release the Firstborn, and the Jericho squad is sent out to stop him. Of course, when they finally encounter him, they discover that not only has he gone through a few... modifications, becoming a huge demonic entity, he's also been able to open a breech in The Box. Before they can do anything about that, however, Leach grabs hold of Devin Ross, the player's character, and rips him to shreds in front of everyone. Of course, The Box is outside the normal realms of the world, and death is very rarely anything more than a minor setback...

Ross' death opens up the major selling-point of the game. As a spirit without a body, he is now capable of hopping in and out of his teammates' bodies. Obvious oo-err-missus jokes aside, this is where the majority of the gameplay comes in. Each character is equipped with a main and sub-weapon, ranging from a minigun, an assault rifle/shotgun combo, to a sniper rifle or machine pistol and katana, and you're free to hop from one to another at will. The team is split up on occasion, but by and large, you're free to choose whoever you want, whatever the situation. One of the characters, a 'reality hacker' with a wrist-mounted supercomputer, also has the ability to 'rewind' the team's ammo reserves, so you never have to worry about running out of ammo for very long. Good thing too, because it's here that we encounter one of the game's biggest problems.

What do action games and your characters have in common? Answer: they both live and die by their enemies. Even a bad game is looked upon a little more fondly if the foes are interesting, and with Clive Barker involved, you'd expect something special. Sadly, you'd be disappointed. The enemies start off as blade-handed gimps ripped right out of The Suffering or Soul Calibur. Get used to these guys, as you'll be seeing them at least once or twice a stage from now until the end of the game, and there's going to be next to no graphical changes to them the entire time. Ditto the exploding cultists, huge warped blobs of flesh that, funnily enough, explode when they get to close to a character. They have painfully obvious glowing blobs on their bodies that you need to shoot in order to kill them, and, wouldn't you know it, that's never an easy thing to do. Anyone who has the patience to do that repeatedly, rather than switching to a character with an explosive weapons and wiping them out in a single shot is destined to reincarnate as the Buddha in their next life. Beyond those two, you'll be lucky to see more than one or two unique enemies per chapter, and given that this is a game sprawling over five different time periods, that's a really poor offering, especially when said enemies really aren't remarkable in the least.

Of course, it's not made any easier when you're facing endless waves of foes without respite. The way the game works is like this: you enter a room, enemies spawn, you kill those enemies. Then more enemies spawn. Then you kill them. Then yet more enemies spawn and you kill them and eventually, the game is merciful enough to let you out of the room and into the next one where you repeat the whole thing again from the start. Now, if all this were played at the breakneck pace of, say, Painkiller, Serious Sam or, hell, even Doom, it'd be great, frantically dodging wave upon wave of charging monsters, it'd be fantastic fun. But it's nothing like that. The monsters come at you one or two at a time, take way too many shots to kill (unless you're using Abby Black, the sniper, who kills anything headshottable in a single hit) then, once they're dead, another couple who have been waiting patiently at the side wander in and it all repeats itself again. If I wanted to spend time grinding enemies, I'd be playing an RPG. At least then there'd be some kind of reward for standing somewhere, repeatedly wailing on the same enemies over and over again.

The team themselves are an interesting bunch. Essentially, everyone plays pretty much the same, barring their weapons and special powers, so you don't have to worry about the typical fast-but-weak/strong-but-slow shenanigans. Some, like the TK Push and fire shield are situational and used solely to progress, the latter being used in all of one section. Others, like Cole's Temporal Loop (bullet time effecting everyone but her) and Ghost Bullet (a guided sniper round) are infinitely more useful, and will probably mean you spend most of the game using those characters more than anyone. Most powers take a while to recharge after usage, to keep you from spamming them at every opportunity, and the computer has the foresight to actually use most of them to a decent degree. That's where the AI pretty much begins and ends, sadly, as the computer will derp its way through every encounter in every other way possible.

Here's an example for you. In the squad, there are two characters who can resurrect the rest of the team: you (i.e. Ross in the body of whoever you're controlling) and Father Rawlings, a Texan preacher who dual wields a pair of big-ass handguns. Now, common sense would suggest that you should keep a fair bit of distance between yourself and Rawlings, assuming you're not controlling him, in case of explosive death, something that happens all too often in the game. But no, both he and everyone else in your group will cluster together at every opportunity, no matter what's going on, forcing you to drop whatever you're doing and revive their dumb asses, if only to get them to shut up about how someone or another is hurt. Likewise, they they never, ever think about positioning or actually aiming. Take the cultists and their 'shoot here to kill' weak spots. If any of your team actually hits one, it's nothing more than a fluke. Sure, they'll unload bullet after bullet into them, but never at the painfully obvious squishy bits, oh no. Enemy is heavily armoured everywhere but a suspiciously large space at the back? Sounds like a perfect opportunity to - you guessed it - fire randomly into its front, then shout at you for letting everyone die, while you're desperately trying to hack away at its arse. Then complain that they're running out of ammo because none of them have learned yet that aiming is not necessarily the same as hitting a target. I know it's there to keep the game from becoming too easy, and to make the player feel like they're the single most important person on the team, but it feels less like you're the centre of the universe, and more like you're the only one in the universe capable of eating anything more complex and dangerous than mashed banana.

As for the script and the story, if Michael Bay were to direct a horror movie, this would be the result: tough-talking macho men who don't give a fuck, sexy kick-ass chicks who don't take no shit and explosions technically measured in kilotons. It'd be interesting to see how much input Clive Barker had with the game beyond the storyline, because if he had any, it sure as hell wasn't with the script itself, filled wall to wall with with every action movie cliché you can imagine. Try searching for any more depth than that, and you're going to be left very disappointed indeed. Try incorporating it into the game as a kind of buzzword bingo, ticking off a list of one-liners as you go, on the other hand and you'll have a lot more fun.

If you've gotten this far, you'll probably be wondering why I played this game at all, since I haven't had much nice to say about it. Well, here's the thing, for all the stupid mistakes it makes - and it makes those in spades - you're left with the impression that somewhere, deep inside, there's a far better game waiting to get out. The combat is genuinely great fun, but it's slowed down to a laborious crawl because of the constantly spawning enemies. The few times you're allowed to maintain a kill-and-move rhythm, the gameplay improves no end. The cast are a bunch of one-note assholes, but some of them are surprisingly likeable, indulging in banter and the like. The idea of seeing the same area from different time periods is an absolutely fantastic one and woefully underused. Last game I can remember playing that trick was Eternal Darkness back on the Gamecube. Just a crushing pity that the graphics exemplify everything wrong with the current generation: very pretty, very shiny, physically incapable of displaying any colours other than brown, grey and bloom.

And as for the ending, what ending? There's a brief 10 second uncontrollable cutscene after the complete non-entity of a final boss ("Oh no! It's immune to our weapons! Let's all fire wildly in the hope that will change!"), and then the credits roll. That's it, so long, thanks for all the fish. A lack of an ending is a complete kick in the balls after spending any decent length of time of a game. I know studies have shown that only one or two in ten people will ever reach the ending of any given game, but getting a decent ending should be a reward for our diligence and appreciation, rather than an afterthought, the equivalent of the dev team walking in and saying 'what, you're still here?!' then doing some half-assed shadow puppetry until we get bored and go home.

There really is a good game in here, and there are occasional flashes of that greatness to keep you playing. Whether these flashes are actually a sign of something special, an idiot savant showing off their smarts, or heartless cockteasing is up to the player to decide. In my mind, this could've been a superior game if they'd been able to fully realise what they have on offer here. But, for whatever reasons, they couldn't and all we're left with is a basic shooter with some great ideas and occasional glimpses of something better. Clive Barker himself has spoken of a possible sequel, though whether that will appear as a game, a book or even possibly as a movie, is something we'll have to wait and see.

Games Finished

Rez

Total Games Finished - 9

TV Shows Watched

Gilgamesh

Total TV Shows Watched - 9

Books Read

Robert Rankin - Raiders of the Lost Car Park

Total Books Read - 8

Movies Watched

The Boondock Saints

Total Movies Watched - 11

Rapidly approaching the final stretch. When did it suddenly get so late? Not a bad haul, considering I spent most of the month either offline or hideously sick.

Next month... I dunno, some crap or other that you've probably never heard of. Y'know, just for a refreshing change.

The Boondock Saints

110 minutes

Two Irishmen, a Scotsman and six guns walk into a barfight...

Sometimes, it's hard to know how serious a movie's actually being. Was that cheesy one-liner a knowing wink in your direction, or was that the actor 'emoting'? It's an important thing to judge, since it can make the difference between a terrible movie and a hilarious one. Look at Shoot Em Up: everyone thought that was Serious Business and called it accordingly. Those of us who were actually in on the joke thought it was the most hilarious film ever and had a blast. So that puts The Boondock Saints in an awkward position. Shoot Em Up aims for audacity from the word go, while Boondock Saints...

Our heroes are twin brothers, Conner and Murphey MacManus who, if you couldn't guess from the name, are as Oirish as Irish can be. Every time they appear at the beginning, there's cheesy stereotypical Riverdance-style music, just to hammer the point home. After celebrating St. Patrick's Day (of course) with a good old, home cooked barfight, the losers, a group of Russian mafiosos, track them down to their stylish hovel and get revenge on them. They're forced to kill the mobsters in self-defence and hand themselves in to the police, where someone leaks their names for... some reason, and they quickly become minor celebrities, being dubbed the Saints. The pair have an epiphany of some description (again, not really described well) and decide that if killing two mobsters makes people like them lots, killing tons of mobsters will make people like them even more! And with this kind of excellent logic, the film proper begins.

At first, it's hard to know where the film is going. With the constant background presence of the various mafia groups, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're in for another grim and gritty crime drama, something with the moral 'vengeance for its own sake never works'. But as you watch, things don't quite pan out the way you expect. Ron Jeremy appears as a minion, with a... memorable scene in a porn shop. The action sequences get progressively more and more silly. And then Willem Defoe comes along and completely blows any and all pretences of this being a serious work out the water.

Y'see, Dafoe is easily the single best thing in this entire movie. Mainly because he's the only one who seems to have grasped how entirely ludicrous the whole exercise is, and is intent on having as much fun with it as possible. So while everyone else is taking the film fairly seriously, he's busy chewing up the scenery as a gay FBI agent, cheerfully sending it up left and right. By the time he starts describing (and enacting) the gunfight between the brothers and Billy Connelly, here playing a mob hitman by the name of Il Duche, a cigar the size of a small canoe wedged in his mouth the entire time, you've either turned the film off or you're on the floor in stitches. The man makes the movie, and if it weren't for him, it really wouldn't be anything more than a bland, somewhat confused action movie. Even seeing him in painfully unconvincing drag doesn't kill the movie, and that's definitely something.

The ending loses all momentum, being a boring statement of intent that opens the door for a sequel (tl;dr "We're gonna shoot this guy in the head now and you're the lucky folks who get to see it! Tell the kids!"), Irish accents breaking badly every few seconds, which is a shame (and a little painful). If it had more courage of its convictions, it could've powered through and turned even that into something good. Even still, if you're able to get the joke, this is a surprisingly good film once you get past the beginning. Just... someone tell Dafoe he shouldn't have his legs apart when lying down wearing a skirt? Please?