Blog entry05 Running Time!

Hey guys and gals!

Sorry for the lack of update lately :P

I've just finished this weekend that Riddick game I talked about in a post some time ago.
Loved it by the way! Great neat experience not unlike Bioshock!
I like when FPS try to offer a more original experience and push the envelope of the 1st person format. I'd much rather play these kind of FPS than the usual multiplayer/online random deathmatch or Call of Duty or Modern Warfare... I just don't like these generic realistic war gritty and nervous games. Give me a classic scripted FPS over those anyday!

In conclusion:
Half-Life, Bioshock, Riddick -> Yay!
Unreal, Call of Duty, Halo (multiplayer) -> Nay!

Anyway, that's just my opinion!...

What I've been up to lately? Bought that 2 years old Spidey game, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.
I found it very cheap in an electronic story! So I jumped on it.
The game was like ~10 dollars!
I know, it isn't that great or original. Like most modern Spider-man games it's an open world game with many repetitive side missions to do around. And it suffers like the others from the lack of creativity, iconic Spider-villains and fun. (yes it becomes kinda boring after a while).

The only 3D Spider-Man games I've liked so far was the one on the Dreamcast (and PC and PS1) that was based on both the animated series and the comics. This one was neat!
And the Ultimate Spider-man one! Very fun, plenty of Spider enemies in this one! And based on a story by the USM writer and artist! So a very entertaining story drove the player into the action directly.

The 3 Spider-man movie games were kinda... lacking.
Like this SM: WoS, the movie games offered a nice sandbox to web-sling around, but not much other than that.
My bro always liked to turn on Spider-Man 2 the movie the game (arf..) just play around with Spider-man's power across NY city..then usually turns it off after that. Just "flying" across the city. It's a great impression. But the lackbuster fighting mecanics, boring enemies and lack of fun plot really was't able tu do it for me the previous times.

This Web of shadows uses an original plot for once.
But not that original. It's your usual Symbiote invasion (which has been done over 5 times in the comics and 3 times in the games...).
The writing is a bit bad...but makes me smile anyway. Like, say, Resident Evil 1.
Spidey is over-nerdy in this one and the voice actor pretty bad... Fun stuff!

Web-slinging is still fun, fighting baddies is a bit more fun than usually, but still not great.
Like all previous movie spider-man game it really lacks more REAL SPIDER-MAN FOES!!
Instead of fighting tons of little group of enemies/robots couldn't they throw in more classic Spider-villains? I mean they aren't restricted to movie characters this time (which didn't stop them from including Kraven or Elektro or Shocker in the previous games). But you'll only meet 3 or 4 villains and 1 or 2 guest characters.
I would have put villains like Sandman, Hydroman or Shocker trying to rob banks in the panic of this game's story. And Venom doesn't control his symbiote in this game? (which provides Spidey's symbiote costume + the mass symbiotic invasion later) Couldn't they have used Carnage for that and Venom being a villain then an allie to Parker! Much better plot like that!
And many more classic Spider-villains could have been used has "enemies to defeat on the streets". Like one or two goblins, the Lizard, Octopus, etc..

Anyway, the game has its moments!
Not very good game, but not bad either.

Other than that, I've been really into "Time Travel" as a story device.
I always loved the concept. (hey, Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies ever!)
I find the idea pretty nea, and...yeah it's "fantastic" and "unrealistic" but it offers some great possibilities story-wise.

So I watched 3 movies about the same subject at its core but totally different.

Primer is a recent an independent movie that was shown at the Sundance festival. I've watched a lot of indie films that won awards at the Sundance festival and up till now, found most of them pretty neat. It's a whole different genre than the classic hollywood blockbusters that most of us watch. I like how creative Indie flicks try to be!
Timecrimes is another indie movie from a spanish director. I do watch plenty of non-american movies. (I'm not American, in case you didn't knew!)
12:01 is a 90s movie take on a short film that was realesed earlier, which was the adaptation of a classic 70s scifi novel from Richard A. Lupoff.

Now, I've voluntary chosed those 3 movies because they represent a different aspect of "time travel" story telling. Each of these 3 use a different interpretation and gimmick of time travel.

Primer is the story of two scientist who built a time machine which looks like giant boxes. Entering the maching will bring them back in time and thus creating a new "timeline" in which there's 2 copies of them around, much like in Back to the Future when Marty and Doc go back in time and alter the past thus creating a new future/timeline. Primer was a very smart and well written/directed indie movie. It makes you think about it, want to watch it all over again to see it completely different each time. The scientists of the movie go back in time a lot of times, end up changing many events and past scenes... It's a very well crafted story. Brilliant!

Timecrimes is all about time as something that cannot be changed. The movie started pretty slowly but it really went nuts later on.
There's like 2 different approach in this movie, it starts as a slasher/horror flick then become this time travelling story. Thins cannot be changed here. Everything that happens must happen. The story has that "going back in time to change the past" concept, only, nothing changes, everything we saw the other times will happen.
So the rest of the movie is mainly watching how and why stuff ended up like that. Quite clever!

Finally 12:01 is very similar to Groundhog Day, that classic Bill Murray movie.
In fact there's always been some problems between both these 1993 movies. The 12:01 crew said the GD crew ripped off their movie & plot since it was a retake on the 1990 short film which was a 70s novel. And the GD crew made this movie went only on TV and not theatre (but it was a widescreen full release movie and not a 4:3 TV movie at first!) and the GD producers even made some pursuits against the 12:01 crew... anyway.. back on the subject.
12:01 is all about a time loop, you know, someone going back in time on the beginning of the same day over and over again. Everytime he tries to understand, tell other people and utilise than "time knowledge" to change stuff. In the end, he finally finds a way out...
I like both 12:01 and Groundhog Day, they are quite similar in subject but quite different in plot details. GD is more spiritual and "magical" where 12:01 tries to be more science-based. Alos 12:01 does have murder, enemies and a little thriller/drama aspect to it.

Anyway, I watched those 3 unrelated time travel movies. Which made me like even more "travelling through time" as a story device.
All those movies are quite different from one another...so expect one to be an Hard-Scifi realistic and serious indie film, the other to be a non-hollywood produced clever and quite unusual small budget film and the last one a scientific, funny and limited budget different take on Groundhog Day.

All pretty good in my eyes!
Anyway, that's all for now, be back in a moment with some news~