*This blog contains some spoilers.*

After having watched and enjoyed Batman begins and loved The Dark Knight, I looked up some of the other movies made by Christopher Nolen. Apparently the guys got a rock solid track record with respect to highly rated movies.

After reading the synopsis of Memento, The Prestige and Insomnia I found Memento to be the most intriguing and have heard a lot of praise of it from OT'ers on Gamespot. I have previously watched Se7en, Blade Runner, Donnie Darko, Fight Club,The Shawshank Redemption based on the praise/recommendations etc that I hear in OT movie threads. And each time ive watched a movie based on that praise the movies turn out amazing(except for Bladerunner.)

Well Memento is definitely an Amazing film.(I just saw that it has a 94! On rotten tomatoes! Amazing!) It was a bit daunting at first because I wasn't able to fully comprehend the ending due to style in which the movie was made .I felt thoroughly confused. I watched it once from start to finish. Then watched all the "colored" scenes backwards starting from the final scene. That cleared up all the loose-ends or confusions that I had. Then I watched all the "black and white" scenes from start to finish. And then watched the entire movie again from start to finish,this time fully enjoying and understanding everything. So that technically that means I watched the film 4 times today itself and loved it each timeAn enjoyable mind-bending ride.5/5.

It was a fantastic movie and easy to recommend to any movie fan.Guy Pearce did an amazing job.(ive only seen him in 1 movie before this:the time machine)Though I must admit that if I had seen the movie in a theatre instead of on dvd I probably would have been really confused and ended up disliking the movie. The movie has to be seen on dvd and its one of those movie you will watch atleast 1 more time. Its that good.

The only thing I didn't understand in the movie was the scene where he gives some of his wifes items to the prostitute and tells her to place them around. Then goes and burns them. Did he make a note of that? Why did he decide to do that all of a sudden? It didn't help explain anything either. One more thing………so was sammy jankins made up? I coudnt find the exact answer.

Last week I saw Se7en and the week before that it was Shawshank redemption. Both phenomenal films that were engaging from start to finish.

Both had great endings and Morgon Freeman!(The man can do no wrong). I had only seen one movie by David Fincher and that was Fight Club(one of my favorites), and it was great to see another exceptionally stylish and enjoyable film made by him. . Since im not a fan of gore, the Sloth and Lust murders were disgusting. Especially lust.OMG!! The lust one haunted my dreams that night.! That was just plain sick. Spacey was disturbing as the psychotic killer and hauntingly so. He only appears in the last part of the movie but he stole the show nontheless. Kind of wished John doe didn't get his 7 sins in the end but nonetheless-5/5-

"Im setting the example"

I think I may watch Zodiac and Panic room ,but they don't seem very interesting based on their respective synopsis' .

Shawshank was actually surprisingly good. I didn't have high expectations from it mainly because it didn't seem very interesting ,but the overall love it gets convinced me to rent it. Great movie. Superb narration and beautifully made film with a thoroughly satisfying ending. From start to finish it felt like a happy prison-fairy tale story(apart from the whole prison-rape stuff.*shudders*).It probably Tim Robbins best performance.Sadly it won no Oscars because Forrest Gump was the favorite that year.Movie made shed a tear and that's pretty rare . 5/5-

"Get busy living or get busy dying".

After much thought I think Curse is the best. It had a really beautiful and engaging artsyle(handdrawn?) and it was the only point and click of the 3.I was so frustrated playing Grim Fandango because of the horrible inventory system.Looking at one object one at a time made puzzles overly infuriating and frustrating.Sure unlike the monkey games it doesnt involve combining objects but it was really testing my patience.Moving in Mi4 and grim was pretty bad too.

At least MI 4 let you scroll through your items quickly in a translucent inventory.I also hated how lack of point and click spoilt MI4 and grim. I mean in grim you had to notice if Manny's head looked down at the item or you'd miss it. I wasted time because of overlooking items that way.

The most infuriating moment is when you reach that railways station and you have to help the big orange dude(glottis?) and the area was so small and knew i was so close to cracking it but ended up spending an hour because the toaster and cupholder were so close together( your head has to face the cup holder). Had it been point and click i would have finished it in a jiffy.I had to use a walkthrough for that.pathetic.

I think the way of interacting with characters and objects was the best in the MI3 with the coin thing. use-look-eat/talk. So well thought out. I played that game without overlooking items because of that.

But between MI3's ship insult swordfighting and MI4's monkey kombat i think its hard to choose. Monkey combat was waaaay harder than insult swordfighting(but insult swordfigting was funnier). I had to make notes after each mnkey move and finally masterd it. Very complicated.took 3 full pages of notes to crack it. Each new save game the sequence changes so you coudnt use a walkthrough for it.

One more thing.towards the end of grim fandango you had to pick a ice bucket or somthing from a stage top after putting a skeleton hand in it . That was the only time in the entire game you HAD to use the "pick-up" button. I spent hours trying to complete that part. then i see a walkthrough and it says you have to use the specially assigned pick up key......which i never needed to use in the entire game!!!

But the fake ending in MI3 was hilarious.

Grim fandango had a more satisfying and engaging story from start to finish though.It would make a very good animated movie(pixar?).

If they ever do make another MI game or adventure game lucas arts should use the MI3 coin system and ditch the weird movment and ditch the "head looks down at item and press I or p etc etc" system.

So over all MI3 is the best in humour,look/artsyle and inventory system.It really puts the other 2 to shame. It was so engaging,funny and pretty at the same time.Plus solving puzzles was so much easier beacuse all your items were shown in the same chest ,so figuring how to combine what with what was alot easier. I doubt i ever got frustrated and all the puzzles were great..travelling from one place to another also was done in a more fluid way.

Grim fandango best and most satisfying story/plot but had alot of gamplay issues.In the second year travelling up and down lifts to your hotel,the casino, the morgue,restaurant etc etc was really dull,long and unnessarily tiring.But it had some great puzzles too(alot of weird and unsatisfying ones as well). In MI3 you could just put the arrow at the location and reach there immediately with a double click..MI4 really good but not as good as MI3. I dont know why so many people here seem to hate it or consider it bad. I had alot of fun with it but again, beautiful handdrawn 2d > comparitively unatractive 3d.

The irony is how much better Mi3 is in almost all aspects even though it came out way before the other 2.

I recently got myself the Half-Life anthology. After completing half life 1 completely and Opposing Force, i have to say i enjoye the latter much more.

Now thats not to say i didnt enjoy hl. It was fantastic. Especially upto Questionable Ethics. Surface tension was good, but not as great as i had heard about it. From Lambda Core onwards i really started disliking the game. Espcecially Interloper.wow that level got on my nerves.horrible.Those flying creatures that open their head to fire golden orbs.......ughh. That horrible noise made me mute the game for that level. Xen is self explanatory. Though nihalinth and the ending were pretty enjoyable. Was the game rushed.... is that the reason why the last few levels felt so .....unsatisfying? The chapters upto residue processing(and to some extent questionable ethics.....i really loved using the console to blow up the gates and the gargantua) were pure gold.brilliant.

But the last levels really made me forget about all the good.So after completing it i played oppsing force and am loving it!!! Its consistently good.i love the huge labs. You meet fellow soldiers more often.So many cooler and scarier aliens(especially the huge dudes that dwell in darkness.dam their scary!). A couple of awsesome new weapons. The bee gun replacement is much better. The gun with the lizzard head which eats green balls is great too,and some others(the barnacle thing).The outdoor levels are more aesthetically pleasing than SURFACE TENSION.

For some reason it feels better paced and a little more challenging.I Just loved all the levels..My heart jumpeda beat when i entered the portal dome in which freeman is running into the the portal.EPIC moment.

PS: i though the opening level to blushift ....where the lift breaks down was done brilliantly. a great into.

Is it just me or is hl1 and its mods MUCH harder than half-life2? i may be wrong but i dont remember being very challenged by hl2. maybe i havent played it in a long while. But i can swear the AI in hl1 is really good even by todays standards. In one level these soldiers pressed a button and the car lift crushed me!! That was awesome and surprising at the same time!