It has been almost a year since I last posted here, so needless to say I have been out of the GameSpot and gaming loop for quite some time. I've been keeping myself busy with the new job and other pursuits, so I somewhat lost the passion for gaming until recently. I finally took the dive and joined the Next-Gen, so to speak, as I became the proud owner of an Xbox360 Elite and a copies of Fallout 3 and Dead Space.
After holding out for what seemed like ages, I finally just couldn't wait anymore. I'd already "missed" so many great games and I wasn't going to miss either. Having already gone through Dead Space once, I can say for sure that I will play through it many, many more times as it was one of the most satisfying game experiences I've had in a long time. It takes the best gameplay aspects of games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and combines them with the best story aspects of movies like Alien and Event Horizon. A truly enjoyable game that will remember for some time.
Fallout 3 has been an entirely different beast. I'm aghast at the shear volume of content in the game so far, and from my understanding it is actually smaller than the previous Fallouts. The game is flat out fun to play, and not just the missions or the combat, simply walking around the Wastelands is a sight to be seen. You never know what you're going to discover. So far I've been taking it slow, not trying to rush through it, but it has already been one of the best games I've ever played.
Anyways, I'll probably be hanging around here more frequently now. I have a lot of gaming to catch up on and the list is only getting longer, but as always, the Dude abides.
Guilty pleasures. Chocolate. Text messaging. The Backstreet Boys. Whatever it may be, we all have them and usually more than one, if not many. So I think I've just discovered another one of mine. Cheesy action movies. I was watching FX earlier tonight, and it was about 20 minutes into this movie called Undisputed II: Last Man Standing. Now as far as cheesy movie names go, that one is definitely up there. Plus, it's a sequel. A sequel to a cheesey action movie starring Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames. Now I'm a fan of both Snipes and Rhames, but my guess is Undisputed wasn't good enough for ole Blade and Marsellus Wallace to sign on for the sequel. So this movie is pretty much doomed from the beginning, right?
I was expecting something as bad as one of the eight or so Kickboxer sequels, but it actually turned out to be more like the original Kickboxer. You know, the good one. Only this movie was released in 2006, so it's upgraded for the attention deficit disordered 21st century. The action sequences are what immediately sucked me in because they were so well done. The story is pretty typical, in that it's highly unbelievable. I missed the first 20 or so minutes, but from what I could deduce, the main character George "Iceman" Chambers, played by Michael Jai White, is the American Heavyweight boxing champion, and through some ridiculous circumstances is forced into a Russian prison to fight the inmate champ, but in MMA format. There's your standard double-cross early in the movie, which is when the trainer-slash-mentor swoops in right on cue to prepare Chambers for the "final battle".
Despite it all, I can't lie and say I didn't enjoy the movie. It was like Rocky meets Kickboxer, with a dash of The Last Castle. There were some very stereotypical moments in the movie, but they were well executed for the most part. The prisoners standing up for themselves and the "reunion" at the end; They've all been done before, but the slight variations in the characters and the setting made it work for me for some reason. In the end, it's all just a flimsy framework for the action sequences, but they really were impressive. The choreography was fast-paced and intense, and the camera-work followed the action flawlessly. The fights didn't pull any punches either, and that helped to enhance the realism. They were brutal at times, especially the conclusion to the last fight, but not to a fault. Overall, if you're a sucker for 80's movies like Bloodsport and Kickboxer, you should give this one a try. It's better than you might think.
This just in, it seems I've also been treated to The Rundown on FX after Undisputed II was over. It's another great flick that you should check out if you haven't already. I really think it has one of the best opening scenes in a long time...for a cheesy action movies anyways. The Rock is a solid "hero" in my opinion, who I would consider the natural heir to Schwarzenegger and Stallone, whenever he finally hangs it up. Plus, you can't go wrong with a movie that has Christopher Walken playing the bad guy.
"I feel like a little boy who's lost his first tooth, put it under his pillow, waiting for the tooth-fairy to come. Only two evil burglars have crept in my window, and snatched it, before she could get here... Wait a second, do you understand the CONCEPT of the tooth-fairy? Explain it to them... Wait. She takes the god damned thing, and gives you a quarter. They've got my tooth. I want it back." - Hatcher (Christopher Walken)
What's with all of the massive mergers of late? Powerhouse video game production companies are joining forces left and right and we are powerless to stop them! First the record-breaking $19 billion Vivendi-Activision deal, then rumors of a Midway and Eidos merger, and now EA Games has bought out Bioware/Pandemic for a cool $860 million. The big wigs sure are throwing their money around in the wake of record-breaking video game sales in 2007. It seems to me they are positioning their metaphorical chess pieces in an attempt to take sole control of the gaming market. Or maybe I just watch too many cheesy 80's movies like Master of the Universe. Regardless, I'm not so sure these mega-mergers are beneficial to gaming in the long run.
I'm sure some of you are already thinking: "What are you talking about? It's Activision and Blizzard! We'll get sweet games like Guitar Hero World and Call of Dutycraft! And what about EA buying Bioware? Now we'll get copies of Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate every year. Sure, they'll just be new rosters tacked onto the same old game, but Mass '08 really rolls of the tongue doesn't it?" OK, so obviously I'm exaggerating a bit, but what's to stop these super-conglomerates from buying up all of the competition and forcing quality out of the picture? One of the best aspects of the current gaming market is the quantity and the level of the competition, and naturally, the more mergers we see, the less competition as a result.
Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of potential for many of these mergers, especially with Vivendi and Activision, but greatness is not a foregone conclusion. Putting two titans together on the same team does not automatically guarantee success. Just look at Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees, or Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. I mean, the Yanks still haven't won the Series with A-Rod, and we all know what happened with Gigli. Chemistry and cohesion are more important than shear name-brand "star power". These companies were outstanding on their own, there's no arguing that, but mergers can have devastating effects if mishandled. Hopefully the emphasis will be placed on the quality of the games they produce, rather than the quantity of money they make.
