An Hour of: Bullet Witch

Hello and welcome to the first edition of ‘An hour of’, where I play a game for an hour and say what I feel about it. If you want a more thought out idea of what this is, it’s essentially the same as the ‘Beowulf’ game diaries that are locked away in Movie Vault 666.

So a while back I was in Gamestation, I can’t remember why, I was either buying a game, pre-ordering a game or getting some points to spend online. Either way, whilst I was in the queue I couldn’t help but look around the store. Hell, we all do it when we’re bored, just look around to see if there’s anything exciting or unusual happening.

And that’s when I saw it. A game for five pounds, a game which caught my eye with the image of a stunning black haired woman on the cover, a game called ‘BulletWitch’.

I had a look at the box, which read “a witch burdened with undesired magic and gunplay powers”. I’m sorry, but “undesired magic”? Somewhere underneath that it says “weave astounding magic”, you can’t describe it as “I don’t want this magic, but it’s awesome!”. “2013 AD. Humanity hangs on the verge of extinction. An Army of evil, twisted monsters walk the Earth”. Well the good news is I’m still listening. It looked intriguing to say the least, I mean, the box didn’t say what this evil force was or who the main character is beside her name ‘Alicia’, but I’m sure that the introduction of the game will tell us that.

So I bought it, went home, put it with my other Xbox games in the cupboard and promptly forgot about it whilst I played Gears of War 2. When it got to the point that the special XP event at the weekend had stopped, for the time being anyway, I found BulletWitch again and decided to finally try it out. I loaded up and, finally, started the game.

We first get a cut-scene of what appears to be every single volcano in America erupting, from what I can tell brought on by a 8.something earthquake, killing tens of thousands. Then a new Middle Eastern War erupts, killing six hundred thousand I believe it was. Then demons invade and kill over five billion people. Wait what? Is that it? Demons just suddenly turn up? No explanation? Okay, I guess this makes them a bit more mysterious.

We then see what they look like, malnourished soldiers with a face sewn into their shoulders. They could’ve been a bit scarier, especially since a later foe we see later is just a giant brain on a body. I can’t take that seriously to be honest. The Geist, as the demons are apparently called, shoot someone then a bird, well, because they could and to show they’re the bad guys. They then see our main character and complement her skin, basically insinuating that they want to wear it.

And it’s this point that we get to control the main character, our first task, shoot the three Geist soldiers before venturing through the city. Now the controls are okay, I guess. You press the left shoulder button to bring up the magic circle, press it again to see other spells, right trigger shoots her gun...staff...thing and, of course, the analog sticks move the character or screen. Pretty standard. But the major problem I have, is that there’s no ‘run’ button. You either jog, which is slightly quicker then walking, or press the left trigger to jump, which is what I ended up doing most of the time. That and accidently summoning a wall to block my view for the first five odd minutes of gameplay; the good news though was it blocked the enemies bullets.

Then again most of the time I kept getting lost. There was no clear route of where to go, so most of the time I was just running round until I found the way forward, shooting more and more Geist as I go. It did help though when I killed the flying brain people that a cut-scene showed where a barrier blocking the way forward was.

Speaking of the flying brain people as the game progresses they got stronger. They apparently gained the ability to lift multiple objects up into the sky to use as a make-shift shield before throwing them at Alicia. But they were probably the second toughest foe I came across (so far anyway), as during the first two levels, I took on tanks. Yes, tanks. The Geist, this invading demon army uses our military vehicles. They didn’t bring their own dark, twisted version? Okay. Well I suppose if I gained some tanks from the enemy I’d use them. But in order to fight the first load of tanks, I was given a new spell for free; lightning. And boy did I enjoy using that spell! The animation of her summoning the spell, changing the conditions of the sky into a storm cloud with lightning and then blowing crap up! It was awesome!

So after finishing the first level, which involved blowing up a fuel station, lightning bolting two tanks and killing a psychic brain person, I get a point screen based on my performance. This is used to purchase health, mana, gun staff or spell upgrades, so I brought a health & mana upgrade as well as two new spells, raven panic and rose spear, and an upgrade to willpower.

Oh wait, I haven’t explained willpower yet have I? The willpower spell is a spell that throws objects like telekinesis. When I first attempted to use it however, it barely did jack. Then there’s a spell called sacrifice, which allows Alicia to sacrifice some of her health to heal civilians. I don’t know why since they don’t seem to die, I’ve only seen them buckle to their knees. I guess it’s to do with the skill points at the end of a level. Now the rose spear, that was a spell which intrigued me since it said it would spear groups of enemies. However about 90% of the time this spell does nothing as the enemies just walk away before the spell takes effect. Raven panic I only used once, it did distract an enemy which allowed me to kill it, so I suppose it was an effective spell. The other spells I don’t know how effective or terrible they are, since I haven’t used them yet.

Now there was something that was bothering me at the end of the first level; we have no idea what’s going on! Okay, the plot has been set, demons have brought humanity to the point of extinction and Alicia is saving us. But why? Who is she? Who is the main body she was talking? Why does she have these powers? Why do the screen borders go...smoky? Who still develops the Day Break Times newspaper during the Apocalypse? Well, I hope we get some clarification in the second level.

The second level starts off with saving a bunch of soldiers, and we are introduced to Maxwell Cougar, a leader in a...demon...resisty group....the resisty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gv_Dy0OB8g.  Anyway Cougar assigns some soldiers to go with her and then disappears. I’m sure he’ll turn up again later though, it is the beginning of the second level after all. I can’t say the same for Cougar’s men however as they eventually got squashed a brain person throwing cars at me. The same type of enemy who would (after I blew up a tank) go on to crush me to death, twice, later on in the level. Well I would have killed it first but I was unable to use my lightning spell. Third time was a charm though as I used it to blow the brain person and other Geist soldiers defending it. Beyond this point I went onto a large area where I now have no idea where I’m going. I did kill a brain person which lowered a shield somewhere.

Did I find out where to go? Nope. Because my hour was up.

So how did I find it? Well it isn’t a bad game. The graphics and gameplay are pretty good, the cut-scenes are brilliant and the controls are easy to get used to. The story though is a bit lacking, but then again it’s maybe because I’ve only played an hour and two levels of it. So like I said, it isn’t a bad game, but it does seem the game did a ‘Naughty Bear’; great concept, poor execution. But why? Maybe I will find out later.

Fright Night (2011)

Now one thing that you’ll find out as time goes by, is that I don’t like remakes. I have the ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ attitude. Remakes serve no other purpose then to generate money for film makers whilst pissing off the loyal fans of the franchise. So, what’s my opinion of the 2011 remake of the 1985 film ‘Fright Night’?

It is great.

Oh yes, I was shocked too. I went into this film not entirely sure what to expect. Yes, it is a remake which initially makes you think ‘it’s gonna be rubbish’, but it has Colin Farrell AND David Tennant, two of the best actors around. Colin Farrell brings us a vicious and calculating character with the unlikely name ‘Jerry’, whilst David Tennant’s ‘Vincent Price’ brings us most of the laughs. David Tennant did certainly surprise me in his role, I expected him to be able to play such a character as he played ‘Barty Crouch Jr’ in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, but I never expected the former Doctor actor to say the F word!

 

Not that there are many laughs in this. Despite being classed as a horror comedy, there aren’t really that many comedy aspects. Sure there are some buts which make you laugh, but the film focuses more on the horror and survival traits, which was definitely done very well.

Back to the acting. Basically everyone was great in their roles, except for Christopher Mintz-Plasse as ‘Ed’. I mean, I suppose he did give a good performance as the nerdy friend, but as a vampire I just didn’t believe his performance. Anton Yelchin, probably best known for his role as Chekov in the ‘Star Trek’ reboot, gave a great performance as the lead ‘Charley’, as did Imogen Poots as female lead ‘Amy’, and boy did I have doubts about her, since the only other thing I had seen her in was ’28 Weeks Later’ where she played one of the very annoying children.

Now there have been criticisms about the 3D effects...and I agree with them. Granted I did see it in 2D, but there were some obviously ‘3D in 2D’ moments. Since the release of ‘Avatar’ we have seen pretty much every single film released come out with a 3D screening, as well as some films such as ‘Toy Story’ and ‘The Lion King’ being re-released in a 3D viewing. Now, it was cool in ‘Avatar’, or from what I was told it was, I’ve only seen it in 2D on DVD, but even in 2D ‘Avatar’ worked, whereas in later productions it looked stupid and unnecessary. ‘The Final Destination’ was a prime example of this, as the film makers went to such lengths to make the 3D great, but not much in anything else. However, ‘Fright Night’ in 2D, whilst there were obvious ‘3D in 2D’ moments, it didn’t actually affect the film that much. The car scene was actually made better with that, but then the rest of it was pretty much ‘meh’.

Now the special effects were really good. The transformations scenes, okay, they could’ve been done better, but the rest of it was brilliant. The effects used for vampires exploding in sunlight and Jerry healing were some of the best I’ve ever seen in a vampire film, then again the effects for Mintz-Plasse’s character losing chunks of his body and jumping all over the place were pretty laughable.

Plot wise, well, it’s pretty standard. Vampire moves in next door and guy tries to protect his loved ones. But the way it’s dine is great, especially when the film puts important characters into the line of fire where they actually fall into Jerry’s evil. But it did seem odd that a character who kept what he was doing quiet for so long, would then throw subtlety out the window and blow up a building.

So overall? It is a brilliant film which is definitely worth a watch, though I would suggest watching it in 2D rather than 3D, mainly to avoid the needless 3D shots and to save some cash.

The Batman vs Dracula

To coincide with the release of the ‘Fright Night’ remake I decided to look at a vampire flick, and what did I pick? ‘The Batman vs Dracula’. Yeah that’s right, Batman versus Dracula. Who the Hell thought up this idea? What will they come up with next? Dracula fighting Billy the Kidd?

But then again, the idea of Batman facing Dracula has been done before, oh yes. In 1991, in the DC Comic’s Elsewhere series, Batman faces off against Dracula, but in a stunning result becomes a vampire, even after defeating Dracula. This would then go on to spawn two sequels, where the vampiric Batman would kill Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face Riddler, heck, even Commissioner Gordon and Alfred bit (no pun intended) the dust at the end of that series.

But let’s start this review shall we? We start at Arkham Asylum, where the sign looks like it was borrowed from a carnival and the building itself looks like a hotel. Inside, an inmate is asking the Penguin to help him break out. The Penguin has no interest until the inmate says he’ll share some loot with him, but makes the mistake of saying the location of where it’s buried, not the exact location, but where it’s buried, which just happens to be a cemetery. Unfortunately for the Penguin, the inmate also went to the Joker, where it is then revealed that the Joker has broken out of Arkham, right on cue.

Now it’s here where I notice the animation. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, far from it. The animation, whilst I prefer the 90s animated series, is really good, great in fact. Okay, it’s not the animation I’m concerned about, it’s the character designs. The Penguin looks really good I have to say, and Joker looks more like Hitmontop from Pokémon now, though I admit it actually suits this version of the Joker. But the Batman design, it looks weird to me, he has a weird body and his facial features look odd, where’s his nose? Why’s his chin pointy?

Anyway, Batman fights Joker, where it appears Joker is electrocuted in a river and is killed. Penguin goes onto the graveyard, breaking into a tomb where he believes the loot is hidden in a coffin which is chained up. Come on Penguin! You’re smarter than this! Did you really think the inmate went to such lengths to hide the loot? He told you where it was for God’s sake! He’s not crazy, he’s just stupid!

It turns out there’s only a body in the coffin, big shock. However whilst opening the coffin Penguin cut himself, and his blood drips onto the heart, resurrecting Dracula. Yes, that’s right, Dracula’s tomb is in Gotham City. Why? Well it turns out in Transylvania the townspeople stormed his castle...at night, put a stake through his heart...whilst he was sleeping...at night, and then shipped him off...for insert reason here, where his coffin ended up in Gotham. I don’t know.

But despite the silly plot idea, the creators actually did a serious story that holds up. Dracula goes on doing what he’s best known for, drinking people’s blood, flirting with females and creating servants from the Penguin and turning the Joker into a vampire. Yeah, Dracula takes the most dangerous criminal Gotham has, and makes him more dangerous! But the story, well, it is pretty much taken from the book by Bram Stoker. It is essentially Dracula turns up, enslaves a minion, flirts with lead female, annoys vampire hunter, steals lead female, tries to turn her into bride, fights vampire hunter and is killed. Just replace vampire hunter with Batman. But at least they didn’t take a weird, stupid concept and made it, well, stupid. They actually took it seriously, they put a lot of effort into it. It’s dark, gritty and has a great flow.

Now, the love interest. Bad news; it’s Vicki Vale. Good news; she doesn’t actually suck (again, no pun intended) this time. You know from my ‘Top 15 Batman Villains’ that I really didn’t like her character in the 1989 Batman film. But here, she’s actually a likable, well rounded character, with a decent voice actress! Then again it may be because there wasn’t really a love sub-plot in this. Whenever Vicki goes to see Bruce, he’s in the Batcave or out in Gotham as Batman, I think they only had like two, three scenes together. But at least Bruce and Alfred acknowledge this; Batman was originally going to go after Dracula at dawn, when he’s at his most weakest, but after learning that he’s taken Vicki, he says “I think she’s waited long enough,”.

The voice acting was great, I have to say, though I must admit, I am biased more towards the 90s animated show which included Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil, but I did like the voice acting in this, especially the Joker, this time voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. Wait a minute, I recognise his voice. Holy crap! It’s the principal from American Dad! I’m never going to look at that character the same again. Then there’s the Penguin, voiced by Tom Kenny. Yes I do like the Penguin’s voice from the other animated series, I can’t help but draw a comparison, but Tom Kenny did a brilliant performance.

But not everything is good, there is some dodgy dialogue and some bits you probably won’t like. One example is Batman’s first line, “Don’t get caught out in the rain without your straightjacket,”. Was that meant to be a one liner? Batman does not do one liners! Then there was the bird puns earlier with Penguin, Joker and Alfred at one point saying they were “out for blood,”,  in a film about Dracula...do you get it? Then we have Dracula introducing himself as Alucard...do you get it? Well just in case you didn’t Bruce holds it in on a card in a mirror to literally spell it out.

It’s not a perfect piece of animation, but it is definitely well worth a look and a good solid entry in the Batman franchise.

Harry Potter and the Plot Convenience

Let’s start this off by saying I don’t hate Harry Potter. I like the books, I like the films, I like Emma Watson! Wait, that’s beside the point. Anyway the Potter franchise has  pretty much dominated the last ten odd years of our lives thanks to the movies, and with the last Harry Potter film out earlier this year I decided to watch the films from the start.

But after watching the first two, I started to notice something. There’s quite a lot of plot convenience going on, items or plot points which are brought up, but are only used at a certain point for that film. Confused? Well let’s take a look at the first one.

During the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ we see Ron and Harry having a game of wizard’s chess, where we see Ron is a master at the game. And what should one of the challenges that Harry Ron and Hermione face on their way to getting the Philosopher’s Stone? A giant chess board of course! And that’s it. We never see wizard’s chess again. I guess it was discontinued after it almost killed someone. What about the need for Harry to go to the restricted section of the library? If only Harry had gotten an invisibility cloak for Christmas. What about when Harry faces off with Professor Quirrell/Voldemort which essentially went:

Voldemort: Kill him!

Quirrell: Isn’t he a main character?

Voldemort: So? It’s not like he’s being protected by the power of love.

Quirrell: Oh okay. (Grabs Harry, starts dissolving) Argh! He’s protected by the power of love!

Voldemort: Curses!

Okay, so there was a couple in that one. But just wait! We still have six books/seven films! And ‘Chamber of Secrets’ is filled with them. It starts off with Harry being locked in his room, since Dobby the elf dropped a cake on Bishop Brenan’s wife, smiling all the way because, whilst it makes him look like a jerk, people will love him for it! Anyway when Harry is locked away behind bars in his bedroom, I bet he was going “If only Ron’s family had a flying car...oh hi Ron,”. Yeah, the Weasley’s have a flying car, but this wasn’t the only time that car saved the day, it also got Harry and Ron to Hogwarts when Dobby shut the portal to the train, and saved Harry and Ron from Shelob, I mean Aragog, Hagrid’s giant pet spider. Oh but the ultimate plot convenience scene comes when Harry ventures into the Chamber of Secrets, when Tom Riddle reveals that he’s Voldemort in teenage form and summons the Basilisk, a giant snake which can kill on sight. But it’s not like a phoenix that belongs to Dumbledore will come and scratch out the Basilisk’s eyes...oh. Well, um, it’s not like the sorting hat that the phoenix brought along will cause a sword to materialise...oh. Well ha! You’ve been bitten by the Basilisk and it’s poison is flowing through you! It’s not like the phoenix has Pokémon healing tears...oh come on!

Next story, the prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry is having his soul sucked by a Dementor, oh wait, luckily out of all the carriages on the train, they pick the one where the only person on the train knows the only spell needed to repel the Dementor. And we all know the story I’m sure, where Sirius Black is innocent and Peter Pettigrew is the real villain, however Pettigrew escapes and Black is almost killed but is imprisoned, oh, and Buckbeak, the hippogriff Hagrid has is due to be executed. If only there was a magical device that could allow Harry and Hermione to travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Black. Oh wait! Hermione has such a device! Which we also never see again! Why? Being able to travel back in time would be brilliant! It could save so many lives! It could save Cedric Diggory! What about Black in ‘Order of the Pheonix’? What about everyone else in the later stories? Oh wait, no we can’t use it because Dumbledore told us not to. And Buckbeak also saves the day a couple more times, once by saving Harry and Hermione from the werewolf Lupin and how else were Harry and Hermione suppose to get to the top of the tallest tower to save Black, who was imprisoned up there in a cage which Hogwarts has for some reason? Do Hogwarts imprison supposed killers often?

As for Goblet of Fire...I don’t actually recall any plot conveniences for that. I remember things like ‘use this spell’ or ‘hey look, dragons’, but nothing major.  Oh wait, I remember one, which literally spells it out as plot convenience, where Harry asks Neville Longbottom if he knows of a spell to allow him to breath underwater. Whilst Neville doesn’t, he does provide gillyweed. Oh! And when Voldemort has been reborn and challenges Harry to a duel, because the power of love from the first story has worn off or something, Harry is saved when Voldemort’s wand produces...I don’t know, ghosts I guess, which save Harry.

Order of the Phoenix? Well they did actually cut back on the plot convenience a little, especially when Harry himself points out “he was lucky,”. There was still a little though, I mean when they need to fly to London, it’s a lucky thing they have Thestrals. Then again there’s a bit of weird stuff going on with those. You can only see them if you’ve seen death, so why Harry didn’t see them until now is beyond me since his parents were killed in front of him as a baby! Also when everyone was flying them, well, could they see them now? Harry and Luna could, but what about the others? Did someone die since they arrived at Hogwarts? Or were they flying whilst terrified since they couldn’t see their steed? Oh and the room of requirement showing up when they needed a secret place to practice, though I’m not really sure it is convenient since Dolores Umbridge blows the bloody doors off later.

And yeah, there wasn’t really that much plot convenience in that one, or the ‘Half Blood Prince’. Or the most part of ‘The Deathly Hallows’/Deathly Hallows Part One’. Actually one of two main plot conveniences for the ‘Deathly Hallows’ is the mirror shard that allows Dumbledore’s brother to see Harry whenever he likes. And yes, it is also creepy.

The other major plot convenience is one of the Deathly Hallows, the resurrection stone. Now, the other Hallows, the invisibility cloak and the Eldar Wand, well, at least Harry had possession of the cloak since the first story, establishing it very well, and the Eldar Wand, whilst it has been around since the start, was very well established in ‘Deathly Hallows’. The resurrection stone was just ‘here it is, enjoy’. Harry was carrying it the whole time inside the snitch, but the revelation that the stone was inside was still just a bit, hmm, flat shall I say. Now if it was the Philosopher’s Stone, maybe I’d cut it a little credit.

Then again, now that I think about it, the resurrection stone shouldn’t have worked the way it did. In the Three Brothers story, it was said the stone resurrected loved ones, which basically means person A uses it to resurrect person B, Harry couldn’t use it on himself. Then there’s the fact that Harry dropped it in the woods...BEFORE facing Voldemort! So he wasn’t even holding it when hit by the Avada Kedavra, so he shouldn’t have survived!

I will give J.K. Rowling credit though, at least it’s established. The Deathly Hallows I’ve already mentioned, but yeah, so was everything else, the phoenix’s healing tears, the wizard chess playing, Hermione’s time-travelling device...sort of. And that’s about it. Everything else was explained later. Yeah.

But despite the stories being riddled with ‘the butler did it’ scenarios (the term used when writer’s can’t think of an ending), the books are still extremely entertaining, the films are brilliant, the acting is great, especially from when they were child actors, normally they’re terrible! But yeah, the Harry Potter franchise was a great laugh and will be enjoyed for years to come.