Log: #0086 - [2004-06-12]
working off the pile
so....... ? :
· the usual updates in the chara-section.
So...
Lots of things piled up over the last days... nah, make that weeks... prolly a month or two even, I'm not sure.
Start at the beginning, shall we.
First off, PSO... well... I'm a bit out of wit with it... (that looks funny). Its more fun watching Mr. Oldschool trying to beat Challenge Stages in TS2. The only thing that draws me back is the social aspect. If I could chat otherwise with some of you people, I'd prolly dont think about firing up the ol' lifeeater...
Movies... Lately I found a Rentalstore DVD-copy of the Hulk on the table, where I was supposed to eat breakfast. Fine, I say, lets watch this 2h 10min movie. We did so for lunch. Bad Idea, the TV is between two windows and you could easily call that movie 'nocturnal', as more than half of the scenes play in underilluminated rooms/outside and/or at night. After it, we settled on watching it again during the dinnertime, which basically means, we had to rush over to the rental store half past 12 to return it afterwards.
The movie itself, alright. So lets start. I'm a little bit fond with the story of Hulk since I accidently watched those crappy 80ies cartoons, when I was a child. The whole beginning, the introduction about the father as well as birth and growth of young bruce is necessary all right, but a bit too long.
To make things short and to prevent any spoilers, Its a very interesting movie. Ang Lee made a very good step on doing all those comicesque cutscenes and inframes. Good work most of the time, but sometimes its too much of them, and sometimes its too less. Meaning, the movie kinda pendles between filming a virtual comicbook with motionpicture frames which can cause nausea here and there and a standard single-cam-single-cut-movie.
The end is a wee bit confusing and borders to lame plug of a possible sequel. Can be tollerated I guess. I'd have wished, they'd build the special of the father a bit more, but it's ok. I as an experienced man, wouldnt go senselessly rampart either.
In total, I liked the animated scenes. I even liked the woman (who also played in 'a beautiful mind' along with yet another doctor that has an issue). Heck, I even accepted who played the father although I really dont like that actor very much.
Simply said, its one of the most consequent if not most stylish comic-to-movie adaptions I've ever seen. Not such under-average crap as Spiderman turned out to be.
A little sidenote... I really am amused by the sound the second HDD makes when it goes into hybernating mode. It's like, meh if you dont need me, then I'll just go back to sleep...
Now to TS2 - or for those who have no clue what that could mean: TimeSplitters 2 - the undoubtly best FPS game for this generation of consoles. Spare me with 'OMG HALO HAS SO MUCH MORE TENSION/ATHMOSPHERE!!11'. My ass, honestly. Halo has nothing that isnt in TS2 - and TS2 has more of it. It is what boiled down with GoldenEye and Perferct Dark and finally got all the way up to almost perfection.
'Almost' you read me? Right. Almost. Replaying PD, I remembered what kinda sprung my face after about halfway through easy-mode of TS2 - the enemies are dumber. In PD or GE for that matter, a shot from a loud weapon - i.e. everything that's not silenced - could alarm everyone. In TS2 however, the only thing that alarms other enemies is either a shout or the fact that the first target didnt die from the first 2 bullets.
For example, the start of the second level, in Hard mode. You have a silenced Luger and a NOT-silenced rifle with scope. Three enemies, one more to be alarmed. Shot one of them with the NOT-silenced rifle in the head, the others go on as if they're deaf. They prolly are. Unless they saw it. Then hell breaks loose. On a simple 'hey!', everyone in that area gets alarmed, sees you imediately and runs towards you to shot you.
Also, obviously to make things easier, TS2 has a nifty autoaim option. I hardly miss on Hard Mode and everything that makes Hardmode that damn hard (and hell, even the last stage of normal mode was insane) is the very tight area of allowed lack of perfection. Woah, long construct. Means in short: you're not perfect, youre dead.
Whereas everything that counts is a good tactic and good reaction - also for the challenges and arcade stages.
Actually I'd have prefered a way more intelligent bunch of enemies rather than 4 snipers at once when advancing through the three difficulty steps.
Another letdown from PD to TS2 is that the enviromental illumination is not destroyable. Means... fire at a lamp in PD, light goes out. Fire at a lamp in TS2... nothing happens. Alright, lets blame it on the fact that this game is originally written to run more or less smooth on a PS2. Granted.
In total, everyone who really is into FPS simply has to agree that in matters of fun and difficulty, simple design and perfection, Dave Doak is a gamegod - and where we are at it, I'd go so far to call him the best western developer there is. No, honestly.
And eventually, I'm really looking forward to part 3. Lets hope it hits cube, lets hope it mixes in some really nifty ideas they had in Perfect Dark, lets hope they add a professional mode to the map editor (and allow bigger savegame files for that... 2 blocks mean compact stuff alright, but sometimes 2 blocks is simply not enough to do a decent selfmade storylevel with sniping action and the like) and lets hope, Rare gets dissolved soon so they cant disgrace the good name of Perfect Dark like EA does with Golden Eye (yeah, I have to play that one when it gets released, but I wont buy it ever).
A little addition I'd like to add to what I wrote about 'van Helsing' some weeks ago. Yeah, its no brilliant movie. Yeah, the effects where obvious. Yeah, enemies who scream at the camera, wasting time where they could tear through the heroes, are annoying. Most of my sympathy towards van Helsing is due to the fact I liked 'the mummy' and that I really liked 'the mummy returns', not to forget that I think that Huge Jackman can do more than he shows so far.
'Kate and Leopold' anyone? He clearly overshines the nonactor and male-celeb-hopper Meg Ryan - or how I like to call her: female Tom Hanks - with ease. If it wasnt for him, this little mindless (to prevent 'brainless') romance flik for women would have no further reason to exist.
Back to van Helsing.
Thing is, even though some think this movie took itself seriously, I, while watching, didnt. So it was a surprisingly serious themed effectloaded popcornmovie with a surprising end. The director should go back to meantfunny action-effect orgies. Thats where his good things lie. there are too many bad 'serious' scripters/directors in hollywood already.
Another movie... with Mr. Jackman. X-Men 2. Hm... in one word? Confuse. Another? Unneeded. The good actors in there were the obviously underchallenged Magneto and... well... besides that, nothing really. Xavier was only decent, as well as this idiotic Iceman 2000. Nightcrawler was an interesting char, although his religious babble went on my nerves. The rest was freakshow. I especially didnt like how noone explained the thing about that female Wolverine counterpart.
In conclusion, first one was better.
Austin Powers - Goldmember anyone?
Up to now, and thanks to pay-TV i watched this movie up to 5 times now, the last 3 times in english dub. Simply put, the german dub eats up two thirds of all verbal jokes. It's still a fun movie though, good enough for a mindless as well as endless laugh. Sometimes I need silly stuff like that and I think I'm not the only one who feels like that.
Hm, I think thats it for today. Maybe some other stuff gets into my mind.
Ah yeah, I have a reason to hate 'Titanic' now. Not only is it a senseless romantic crap movie aiming at silly stereotyped females, not only that it spawned this awful waste of celluloid named 'Pearl Harbour'. No, it killed off the success of 'L.A. confidential' - easily one of the best movies made in the 90ies.
With this ending, I'll dismiss you all into your very own lives, thanks for the time.
Rena
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Log: #0089 - [2004-06-19]
· the usual updates in the chara-section.