1 Comment// Posted in Reviews by Sean on 09.24.09.
I have been a long fan of zombie movies, honestly because my friends are so into them. But because of this, I’ve seen a ton of zombie movies, including a lot of bad ones. I went into this movie thinking it was going to be one of those bad ones; not in a b-movie sort of way, but in a terrible expensive Hollywood movie sort of way. But boy was I wrong.
Zombieland is without a doubt my favorite zombie movie of all time. It is 5 times funnier than Shaun of the Dead and all of jokes are real jokes, not just spoofing a zombie movie or making fun of itself. Also, you actually care about the characters, or at least like them enough to want to to continue to live. From the previews, it looked like Woody Harrelson’s character was gonna be a big stupid redneck and Jesse Eisenberg’s character was gonna be the typical awkward teen you see in every comedy these days. And they were those things. But they also had character and depth, enough to make you really enjoy them.
But the absolute best part of this movie is that it is fun. In fact it’s the only real fun zombie movie I’ve ever seen. Zombieland isn’t a horror movie and it’s not about surviving or anything depressing. It’s about how to have fun in a world full of zombies.
Conclusion
Zombieland is an amazing movie for anyone. There is enough gore and zombie killing for the core zombie fan and there is enough comedy, action, and emotion for the typical movie fan (or anyone else really). Justin (huge zombie fan) and Melissa (not huge zombie fan) both loved the movie, so that tells you something.
No Comments// Posted in Reviews by Sean on 09.22.09.
“Broken,” the House Season 6 premiere is something everyone should watch, House fan or not House fan. It is much more like a movie than any episode of House. In fact, House is the only character (besides Wilson for about 60 seconds) in the entire episode that isn’t totally new to the viewer.
The episode has a clear-cut beginning and end like a movie with it’s own entire story arc, but it still has the same House you know and love. It is the most unique premiere of any television show I’ve ever seen, and I’d love to see more shows do it. Anyone can watch this episode without an prior knowledge of the show, and hopefully (to them) get hooked to watch the remainder of the season.
The episode takes you through the emotion chaos that is House’s psyche, seeing him break down before your eyes, so for House fans this itself is so emotionally.
The beginning of the episode with the credits is definitely the best intro to any show or movie I’ve ever seen. It’s beautifully shot with the feel of an indy movie. You immediately get the impression that the episode is going to be an emotionally roller coaster. It was clear that someone that normally doesn’t shoot House was hired to do the cinematography for this episode.
Conclusion
Everyone needs to watch this episode of House, whether you are a House fan or not. It is a mini-movie with it’s own complete plot so that it is a complete experience throughout, and it is a good experience. House’s emotions get stripped down and laid down on the table for everyone to see, but he’s still the same lovable ass that you know.
No Comments// Posted in iPhone, Reviews by Sean on 09.22.09.
I’ve been using the iPhone app LOLCats for a while. Every once in a while I get in a lolcat mood and spend an hour giggling profusely over kittehs. For a while it was the only iPhone app worth getting to view lolcats. But today I noticed there was app made by ICanHasCheezburger.com themselves (basically the official lolcat database, as much as it can be at least). I had to immediately compare the two to figure out which one provides the best lolcat experience.
LOLcats |
I Can Has Cheezburger |
First let’s look at what both apps offer. Both have lite versions that display ads and both give you a simple lolcat viewing window to go back and forth between lolcats. That’s all you can really ask for and want from a lolcat app. And that is the biggest problem with the LOLCats app.
Since the latest update, the LOLCats app integrated the OpenFeint platform into its system. OpenFeint is a platform in many iPhone games that integrates achievements, chatrooms, and leaderboards throughout different games. OpenFeint is a really awesome idea. But the problem is that LOLCats isn’t a game. The leaderboard and achievements consist of how many LOLCats you’ve looked at. I didn’t even mind this though, except for that fact that the app initially opens up into a menu contains these things. You then only have to click “Browse lulz,” but that’s just one more step in between me and ceiling cat. I Can Has Cheezburger (ICHC) instead opens directly to the lolcats viewing screen. Simple and how it should be.
The ICHC app also allows you to view their other LOL sites as well, such as Failblog and others. This is a big plus for me since Failblog is equally as hilarious as ICHC.com. One might think that it is unnecessary and just clutters an app that would otherwise be exactly what you want and nothing more. But to access the other sites’ content, you have to touch small button that is wonderfully place and not in the way.
Another feature ICHC offers that LOLCats does not is the ability to upload photos from your camera (either by taking a photo within the app or taking a photo from your library) to their sites. It has roughly the same editor that their site does for creating and uploading LOLz, and you can even save the LOL to your photo album or email it.
One thing though that LOLCats does have over ICHC is that you have a favorites list where you can save the links to LOLz that you like to view later. This enables you to go back to a LOL later without having to save it to your phone. I personally could care less about saving some photos to my phone though since it’s easier to get back them that way anyway, in my opinion.
Conclusion
I Can Has Cheezburger offers a highly superior product than LOLCats, offering a LOL creator/submitter and access to other LOL sites such as Failblog, while LOLCats only offers a cluttered home screen with meaningless achievements and leaderboards.
2 Comments// Posted in iPhone, Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.21.09.
I thoroughly love (present tense) Self Aware Games’ Word Ace, so I thought I’d check out their other game, TaxiBall. The game is sort of a mix between Super Monkey Ball and Crazy Taxi. Now Crazy Taxi is probably one of my favorite games of all times, so I was doubly excited about playing this game (past tense).
In TaxiBall you use tilt to move a ball around a world where you pick up people and drop them off at other destinations. What I do like about the game is all of it’s social networking features, such having a profile that shows your stats, awards, and a friends list. What I don’t really like about the game, is just about everything else.
For some reason this game just doesn’t pull me in. The concept sounds great: a Crazy Taxi sort of game created for optimal support on the iPhone. But it’s just a little too bland for me. I feel like much of the fun of the game is probably going back through the levels and trying to get a better score. But I just don’t want to. There simply isn’t enough to make me come back. And for some reason the controls just make me angry. I don’t know what, but I just feel like the ball is constantly not doing what I want it to. Oh and you HAVE to go into the settings and recenter the “neutral position” of the ball. Otherwise when you are tilting forward you can’t even see the screen. I just feel like this default neutral position (despite being truly level) should have been optimized for a normal person without them having to go into the settings.
Conclusion
For a Word Ace and Crazy Taxi fan like me, this game still didn’t do it for me, especially not three dollars worth. As much as I want to support the Self Aware Games studio, I simply can’t recommend this for anyone. But there is a lite version for the game, so definitely check it out and see if this is the game for you.
No Comments// Posted in iPhone, Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.20.09.
For some reason I think indy games on the iPhone whose graphics are made to look like hand drawings. The style just intrigues me for some reason. So because I this I thought I would check out Sketch Dungeon. It is a single-player dungeon crawler similar to the old-school game Gauntlet, but with the appearance of a hand-drawn, pen and paper game. It sort of brings the pen and paper feel of the good ol’ days to the game.
You tilt to move your character, you tap or hold down in a direction around your character to shoot, you collect keys, and you shoot bad looking things. That’s it. And with the gameplay being all there really is to this game, it doesn’t even work. When you are trying to touch the screen to shoot in a certain direction, your finger is blocking everything you are trying to shoot; so you can’t see what you are shooting/running away from. The art style is really all there is to really like about this game. Somehow, I would even say there is less going on graphically in this then there is in Gauntlet; so there’s nothing even to look at while you’re walking around doing the same thing over and over again. I will say, the game does trying to have funny/intriguing writing on the ground; but it’s far too and between, and most of the time it’s not even that funny.
Conclusion
I wouldn’t recommend buying this game, but there is a lite version; so if you dig the art style and you have a few minute, then it may be worth you checking it out. The art style is unique, but the gameplay is bland and there is nothing to keep you coming back.
No Comments// Posted in iPhone, Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.19.09.
I’ve seen Doodle Jump on the top of the list of most popular iPhone games for a long time now. I’ve seen numerous reviews of how addictive it is. But I just kept looking at the artwork and how the game is played thinking it looked retarded and never gave it a change. Well now I did and I’m so glad I did.
Every one of those reviews and people who put the game at top of the most popular list were correct. This gave is so freakin’ addicting and awesome. You just hop on little ledges to get as high as you can without falling down and avoiding things. That’s it. But it’s so fun to do it. And it’s my favorite type of game where you just play over and over trying to get a high score (another example would be flight control). It’s the perfect type of game for the iPhone since I generally only play games on it when I need to wait for something.
On top of this though, the game has great social integration. You can sign into Facebook, which allows you to upload your score to your Facebook profile. But more importantly, it allows you to pull your friends scores into the game. This means that you can look at a leaderboard that shows you the best global scores and also the best scores amongst your friends. And on top of THAT, the game shows you your friends (or global) scores as you pass them in the game, while playing (sort of like a ghost in a racing game). This is something that I saw in the XBLA game Trials HD and loved it. It’s a great feature to integrate into any game.
Conclusion
Doodle Jump is probably one of the most addicting games on the iPhone platform that will surely keep you coming back to it trying to beat your Facebook friends’ scores.
No Comments// Posted in Reviews by Sean on 09.13.09.
This game rocks. That’s all there is too it. It’s simply spectacular and without a doubt the best DS game ever created. But I guess i’ll tell you what it is, for those who don’t know.
Scribblenauts is the most ambitious game on the DS to date. It is a puzzle game where you type in an object/person/thing on a keyboard which puts that object/person/thing on screen to solve puzzles. And it literally has everything you can think of from a shoe to keyboard cat. You can type in any non-proper noun that isn’t copy written or vulgar. Out of around 100 things that I typed in, maybe 2 of them didn’t work.
You also play as a kid displayed on screen. So one level has you, a tree, and a lumberjack on screen, and the game tells you to help the lumberjack do his job to win the level. So you can give yourself an axe or saw to cut the tree down, or you can give either of them to the lumberjack for him to do it, or you can make fire and burn the tree down, or you can make a woodpecker who will chop the tree down; and there are probably many, many other ways to go about it.
That is what I love about this game. The most fun of the game is just to think of the most creative thing you can think of to solve the puzzle, and the game encourages it by giving you awards for thinking outside the box.
I once had to get the starite (what you need to win the level) which was in a very small space that I couldn’t fit into. So in order to get it, I created a ‘guy’ and gave him a shrink ray. But I couldn’t get him to shoot me, so I gave myself a gun and shot him, which made him freak out and start shooting me. Upon doing this, I fell down a cliff and had to get back up, so I made a jetpack. But since I was shrunkin, the jetpack was too big for me to use. So I had to walk behind the jetpack and make the ‘guy’ shoot the jetpack with the shrinkray so I could use it. Then I got the star.
On another level, I had to get something to push and hold down a horizontal button. You can’t issue commands, so what I did was put a girl inside of a car, and then I put a zombie behind her car. The girl then start driving the car into the button trying to get away from the zombie.
So the bottom line is that you need to get this game if you have a DS. Melissa seemed to like it too, so it’s good for those people trying get their girlfriends to play games too I guess. I have also seen on message boards that apparently if you buy the game at Toys R Us on Tuesday (Tuesday only!), you get a $15 gift card back, which makes the game pretty much half price.
Scribblenauts releases on Tuesday, September 15th. Buy it!
No Comments// Posted in Reviews by Sean on 09.13.09.
Let me start this off by saying this review will have no major spoilers in it (at least not of this episode). I’m writing for people looking forward to watching the premiere, since most people probably haven’t watched it yet. This review is for the upcoming season premiere of Showtime’s fantastic show, Dexter.
The start of the episode was pretty dry for me. It made me feel like the rest of the season is going to be about how Dexter has to cope with his life job and having a baby, which is pretty boring. Then the serial killer stuff comes back into play, and I’m honestly still feeling like it’s still a little dry, but it’s almost there. About halfway through the episode though, the suspense starts to kick in. The classic Dexter that keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole episode. I was hooked again, especially after a major cliffhanger at the end of the episode.
But there is still one huge thing missing from the show that I simply adored about the first season, being the reason that the first season of Dexter is one of the best seasons of television to me. In this episode of Dexter, you really don’t feel for little ol’ Dexter. The episode definitely revolved around him, but there was really nothing to like about him. Much of the greatness of Dexter is that you love him so much that when the suspense kicks in, it really grabs you. But this episode pretty much just showed me Dexter making a bunch of poor decisions, bringing him into some bad corners. It doesn’t show you the inner workings of Dexter; you don’t know him.
The episode started out slow, but quickly kicked into gear about halfway through, bringing back the suspense that keeps you hooked to the show. But I still would like them to emotionally bring the viewers closer to Dexter again. I want to know Dexter, not just watch him do things. So I have hope that maybe this episode was building up and the best is yet to come.
“Living the Dream” premieres Sunday 9/27 on Showtime at 8pm.
No Comments// Posted in Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.11.09.
The recently released XNA community-made game for the Xbox 360 (yeah that’s a mouthfull) I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 has been #1 for a few weeks as the most downloaded XNA game. I kept hearing something about an awesome theme song, so I had to check it out. Little did I know that this is what appears to be a game that TJ and I made in the future and it was beamed back for me to play.
The game is just a basic twin-stick shooter (you control a character with an overhead view and can shoot in any direction) where you kill waves of zombies (and other weird things) that come at you. It a very simple game, not much to it. But the presentation is great. I saw another review describe the presentation as looking like something Adult Swim would do. You basically have a set number of lives and just get as far as you can in the game to get a high score. The game also has 4 player co-op, which every zombie game should have.
What I read about the theme song to this game is so true. It’s fantastic and is definitely something I would do myself. What is even cooler is that the background to the game goes along with the music (lights and stuff). I’m pretty curious to see if the game even ends when the song ends or if it just repeats. I just wouldn’t think it would repeat, but I may never know since the song was still going when I died.
The bottom line is that you should buy this game right now. It’s only $1. I’m actually pretty sure the demo is exactly the same as the full game, but who care? It’s $1 and you should support the developers.
No Comments// Posted in Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.10.09.
I’ve always loved Guitar Hero and Rock Band games in a way, so it’s no suprise that I picked up the Beatles Rock Band. I was pretty excited for it despite not exactly loving the Beatles like others do. But I figured it would be a more fun game for parties and gatherings since everyone would know the songs. One of the biggest downfalls of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero (band) games for singing was that no one wanted to sing the songs that they didn’t know the words to, and there are a lot of them. Instruments are fun to play even if you don’t know the song, but vocals generally aren’t for more people. So what do I think of it now that I have it?
The presentation of this game is gorgeous. All of the stages they play at, including the famous rooftop last concert, are replicated (I would imagine) perfectly in the game. As I previously said, I’m not a huge Beatles fan; but this game seems to capture the essence of Beatle Mania perfectly. It is definitely clear that much more thought was put into the presentation of this game than any of the other Guitar Hero or Roc Band games, even the single bands ones out already such as the Aerosmith and Metallica games. And when you play the stages where the Beatles are in the studio, they are transported into crazy worlds relating to the song/album covers that just spectacular.
Well that’s what I like about the game. What I don’t like is that I went through the entire story mode (all of the songs) and now I feel A LOT less like I want to play the game; like a lot more than other music games. I feel like I beat it in 3 or 4 hours and theres no need to play any more. And I don’t know why. Well part of it has to do with 90% of the achievements being absolutely impossible. Most of them consist of getting 100% on songs on expert. When will developers realize that getting 100% on a song in a music game in near impossible? Plastic instruments don’t work like they are supposed to, ever, no matter how good the person playing it is.
I also really don’t know as many of the songs as I thought I would. Any Beatles fan will clearly know every single song on here. But the average person will know probably 60% of them; and the average person will probably know all of the vocals of about 20% of the songs. In my opinion at least.
So all in all, I would recommend any Beatles and music game fan (or maybe just Beatles fan?) to go out and buy this game now. But any mediocre Beatles fan and music game fan should wait until the price drops. I really wish I did. I can’t see myself playing this game long term, but it’ll surely keep me occupied for a couple weeks. And it’s worth $20 just to see the awesome visuals of this game.
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