W. review

Verdict: Meh.

I assumed this film would be a funny-but-accurate film about Bush’s evil reign over America, but it turned out to be a vaguely-unfunny-and-inaccurate film about Bush’s evil reign over America.

The thing about political films is that they must be balanced to be accurate, and the fact that this is a film purely for lefties like me means it loses its edge.

In case you’re wondering, yes I’m a dirty liberal, but I’m suspending those views for the purpose of this review.

Frankly, I hate Bush. However, he was elected once (the second time, by the way) by the people of America so surely there’s at least something good about him. In W., the entire film is just caricaturing republicans and politicians, throwing some lame jokes that didn’t get much more than a chuckle from me.

Oh yeah, and the actress who played Condolezza Rice is annoying as hell. Only see this film if you have an intimate knowledge of American politics, or want to see a vaguely-unfunny-and-inaccurate film about Bush.

Vague update

Hey, I haven’t posted recently as I’ve been a bit busy (playing COD), but I thought I might do a little update. I’m not doing much currently, I’ve pitched an article to The Escapist, and been enjoying their forums a lot, as l337 speek is banned, and most people are polite and helpful. I also thought I might boast about how good I am at COD by posting a screenie with me at the top of leader boards with 92 kills, but the file type of the screenshot means I can’t post it on wordpress. Sadface.

Anyway, my lack of stuff to do means you’ll be treated to a few more posts soon, and I’ve been frequenting the cinema recently, so expect some movie reviews as well.

Call of Duty review

Ok, time I got round to reviewing this. I’m at level 30 on the competitive multiplayer, and I’ve finished the single-player campaign on Hardened. Which is actually quite a feat. The COD series have been known to be punishing, but this latest incarnation of glorious WWII is ludicrously hard in parts.

The reason?

Grenades. Although you can throw them back, they’re ridiculously overpowered and even more deadly in multiplayer, where your oponents will “cook” the grenades. That is, to hold onto the grenade for few seconds, so it’ll go off the moment it lands.

Not only that, Treyarch have insisted on using the “waves of respawning enemies” mechanic that made the earlier CODs annoying. They’ve also used the “regenerating health” mechanic, which seems completely obsolete compared to Far Cry 2’s field surgery.

I completely preferred the Russian side of the single player campaign to the American side. What Treyarch have managed to do is sum up that artifical patriotism for Mother Russia that Activision did so well in the first two CODs, and when you stagger forward on top of the Reichstag, wounded and bleary-eyed, and plant the blood-red flag for the Motherland while your Sergeant pats you on the back is incredible….

…Maybe I should have put a warning of spoilers in that paragraph. Ah well.

The American side of the campaign, on the other hand, is like COD forgot all that made it so great and just copied off Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. The story line if rubbish, the enemies seem cliched, and the level design annoying.

The weapons are much chunkier and budda-budda-budda-ier than COD4’s sleek weapons, but personally that suits my taste. It’s far more manly to kill a nazi up close with a thompson, than kill a genero-terrorist from long range with an M16.

Annoyingly, Treyach have copied the multiplayer aspect of COD4 where everyone picks from the same pool of weapons, so nazis run around with japanese rifles, and russians hold american shotguns. 

They also included perks, and I’m sad to say that Martyrdom makes an unwelcome return. Even worse, the grenade doesn’t make a noise when they drop it. However, there is a new perk which counters Martyrdom and grenade cookers by resetting the fuse of thrown grenades, and people in last stand second chance can now be revived.

PC players also now get prestige mode, where you reset your level and unlocks in return for a new custom class slot and bragging rights. I look forward to getting to the tenth. Anyway, this means COD now has a much longer playing value, and it’s very addictive.

You may have noticed I haven’t talked about co-op, because it doesn’t work. At all. Hopefully a patch will be released, but currently I would warn you against buying it if you have visions of glorious co-op. I’ll update this post if the situation changes.

So, in conclusion, it’s a successful transition from modern to WWII, but with a few hiccups in singleplayer and co-op. Still, it’s the only game about which I can say I’ll join any server, come top of the scoreboard and have an incredibly fun time. Seriously, that’s what years of playing COD 2 on a single server against the best of the best gets you. Anyway, I strongly recommend you buy this if you’re an FPS player, or someone who wants to play one game for a long time.

I’ll be posting screenshots soon.

Big News!

Today 2 marvellous things happened;

1st of all, I did some GCSE science modules which went very well, and there was a misprint of the hardest paper so we all got 20 extra minutes.

2nd of all, and far more important than my future, CALL OF DUTY ARRIVED! Actually it arrived yesterday, but I may as well mention it here. It seems like a welcome return to WWII but still can’t compare to the first (3) games. By the way, when I say the 3, I don’t mean COD 1, 2 and 3, I mean COD 1, united offensive, and 2.

Just to clear that up…. I’ll post more thoughts once I dive into multiplayer.

UPDATE!

Ok, ok, I’ll review it soon.

A short post

A short post I wrote for Viewx:

So, to start off my career as a contributor to ViewX, let me do a short review of Rage Against the Machine, and one of it’s typical songs.

Beginning: QUITITNOW!!!

Midddle: bow-chick-a-wow-wow

End: FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER

Moving swiftly on from that tangent (I’m a master of those)….

WII SUCKS

Seriously, it tries to be novel and replace button-mashing with stick waggling, making everyone look like Boris Johnson flailing his arms around like a wacky-wavy-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man. It has awful, awful, awful graphics, and even worse games. Seriously, have you people ever played Red Steel? And have the devs ever heard of aiming?

Let’s face it, wii sucks.

End of. Watch this video if you don’t believe me, and bask in Yahtzee’s hate of consoles.

An utterly brillitant webcomic

No, not Cyanide and Happiness.

It’s xkcd.

The utter beauty that these stickmen drawings can create, the hilarity, and the thought provoking philosophy is fantastic. Amusingly, my level of art is the same as the author’s.

Clicking the comic below will take you to the site.

Madagascar 2

Just went to a “Multimedia FDA screening” of Madagascar 2. It’s pretty good.

It doesn’t build upon or advance the story dramataically, but nevertheless, I was immersed, and the penguins are much better than in the original. The animation remains at the same level, but there are some pretty shots of a CGI Africa.

 

As cute as ever.

The funniest moment involved one of these gerbil creatures, doing a 2-way conversation with himself. I was less keen on the edge-of-racism moments where the zebra (voiced by Chris Rock), can’t be distinguished from the other zebras. Like saying all the black people are the same, basically.

David Schwimmer does his regular nervous-and-anxious schtick, and Alec Baldwin, playing the easily-defeated villain is as good as ever.

In lieu of fighting, there is dancing, although there is a scene where a lion and an old lady are beaten brutally by each other, and there’s some of those pretentious, fake “c’mon guys, we can do it!” scenes, which I loathe and detest in such a manner that if one walked into the room, I’d have a flamethrower out quicker than you can say burn, baby burn.

Altogether, a decent sequel, not a complete milking of the franchise cow *coughgeorgelucascough* but not incredible either. Something to take a younger relative to, basically.

My friend’s blog!

Hey everyone, my friend, ViewX, just updated his blog, so let’s all give him a round of applause! And if he’s reading this, ADD ME TO YOUR GODDAMN BLOG ROLL. Seriously, us solo bloggers need as many views as we can get, to help us forget out lack of friends in real life, so if you’re a solo blogger *coughpoisonedspongecoughchrisevanscoughtomfranciscoughchrislivingston* I think we should band together and frequently advertise each other.

My mottos

Continuing the theme of the stuff I say, here are some of my mottos:

Heh.

Truly, good sir, your wit knows no boundaries.

Screw this.

Excercise can fuck off.

My regular chats

I thought it might be interesting to post a conversation between me and Roadrunner on steam. So here goes:

 

J-Man: ZOMG L4D DEMO AVAILABLE FOR NON-PREORDERERS

J-Man: COME PLAY IT WITH ME LULZ

J-Man: L337 SPEEK

J-Man: WILL CONTINUEZ UNLESS YOU PLAYZ WIT ME.

J-Man: Oh.

Roadrunner is now Online.

J-Man: 5.5days left on the download.

Roadrunner: what

Roadrunner: Yeah

J-Man: L4D demo available

Roadrunner: for me its 5.5 days until it downloads

Roadrunner: So screw it

J-Man: Quite.

J-Man: Hmm

J-Man: at my calculations

J-Man: should actually be done within 4 hours or so

J-Man: at 1.2MB/s

J-Man: stupid steam.

J-Man: 20% done on L4D!

Roadrunner: Hey i know, why dont we do the most useful thing ever! Maths calculator exams. for indecisive shits who cant decide whether they want to use a calculator or not. For asshole who want to remember endless formulas. For twats who want to find an angle of a triangle which can never be applied to real life. Yup, if this sounds like you, you’ll love calculator maths!

J-Man: So, so, so, so

J-Man: true.

Roadrunner: how do i set my blog so i dont have to click yes or no to every comment anyone ever posts

Roadrunner: is there a way so people can post whatever they like and i dont have to moderate?

Roadrunner: http://www.cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

J-Man: I cant remember. Try looking for an option called comments. My setup si that if I allow someone to comment for the first time, they no longer need moderation.

J-Man: yes.

J-Man: yes

J-Man: YES

J-Man: YES

Roadrunner: if i was **** (no consent from him, and I don’t know his online name – J-Man) i would go

Roadrunner: DATS WUHT SHE SAID HAHAHAHAAHAH EPIC LULZ YO

J-Man: don’t.

J-Man: sigh

J-Man: 36% of L4D

Roadrunner: also a while back bobic commented on 1fort

Roadrunner: so i said @ Bobic. Hi bobic, remember me…?

J-Man: He called us lovers on pentadact.

J-Man: on the latest post

Roadrunner: well oooh lala

J-Man: I KNOW! WE’RE HETEROSEXUALS!

Roadrunner: tell him no, we pointed out that we are heterosexuals

J-Man: That must mean one of us is a woman.

Roadrunner: we dont have to be lovers with each other

Roadrunner: we can be lovers with anyone

J-Man: KIERON GILLEN!

J-Man: yyyyyaaaaayyyy

J-Man: kieron gillen FTW

Roadrunner: whos keron gillen

J-Man: http://www.kierongillen.com/

Roadrunner: his sillhouette looks like rasputin

J-Man: The beard is spraypainted on

J-Man: in ms paint

Roadrunner: Ra.Ra.Rasputin.

J-Man: lover of the russian queen.

J-Man: 53%

J-Man: this is the watch I’m gonna get for channukkah

J-Man: http://www.vintagewatch.ca/Pictures/Picture%202771.jpg

J-Man: just less rusty

Roadrunner: Cool and retro

J-Man: WW2 US army watch

J-Man: saw it in band of brothers, had to have it.

UPDATE!

J-Man: look at my latest blog post:

J-Man: http://existentialistgamer.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/my-regular-chats/

Roadrunner: how subtle

J-Man: heh.