(no subject)

[i_kender]

Time enough for a few reviews.

Bioshock – Finished this last night… Wow, just Wow. One of the most innovative and astonishingly accomplished games I’ve played in years. Beautiful world and character design – from the creepy Little Sisters and the hulking Big Daddies, to the glimpses of the underwater cityscape of Rapture, to the random radio messages which reveal smaller pieces of the city’s past and the vending machines with their creepy and incongruous merry jingles – and astonishing sound, special effects, action, drama, horror, tension, and some of the greatest plot twists in a game that I can remember. My jaw dropped, and I had to try and explain in a blabbering way to buddleiawhat had just happened and why it was significant. This game is responsible for me racking up a new high score in “yes dear” looks from my girlfriend, but it’s just that good. Slightly let down by an abrupt and unsatisfying ending, but the rest of the game is so original and adept I barely cared.

Joe Hill – Heart Shaped Box – I finished this yesterday, the horror novel by Stephen King’s kid, and I can understand why he was trying to keep that quiet before publication – of course, journalists spilled it soon enough – as I found myself mentally comparing in my head. But you know what? It doesn’t matter whose kid he is – this is a great read all o nits own. I finished it in no time flat because the story just races along... with its nasty old stepfather ghost out for blood up against the initially unlikeable protagonist, Jude Coyne the aging Metal rock god, and his frantic scrabbling to keep one step ahead. A redeeming book, and a good action horror with a deft sense of character. The only comparison? Those Kings write good, that’s all you need to know.

AVP 2 – Terrible. Just dreadful. The franchise equivalent of a dog knocked over on the motorway, crawling 119 miles to get home with its broken back legs trailing behind it. The Aliens and Predator are only there to terrorise a small town and its inhabitants. So bad, it has a little girl in it who actually says “Are the scary monsters gone, Mommy?” Urgh.

Diary of the Dead – not bad at all, nice film without being great, but I did have the feeling why did Romero bother? It doesn’t add anything, the handheld-camera schtick has been done before and since and better, oh and it has a really annoying pretentious narrative voiceover. Where they even repeat frames of the action you’ve just seen to comment on it, in some sickly American cod-philosophy way. I’m sure the similarly themed [REC] is better, and I can say that without having seen it.

Fringe -  I watched the pilot for this last night, and it was good without being great. Denethor looks like he's having lots of fun as the sage-psychotic professor, and Joshua Jackson is ok if unremarkable (not that he's giving anything to do in the pilot) and the lead female was a little annoying at times, but mostly solid - of course comparisons have been made with The X-Files, and it looks like that's the kind of stories it's going to try and tell - the bit that made me frown and laugh the most was when they tried to explain what kinds of "Fringe Science" the professor was a specialist in (teleportation, mind control, etc) and me thinking er, no, that's actually not science at all, not even Fringe Science... for god's sake, can you not use the terms Occult or Science Fiction instead? Oops, no, I forgot: that doesn't score well with the demographic - can't say SF on network tv. 

So yeah - not too bad, the pilot story was fairly entertaining, but it depends where they go with it. And it's not one of those explosive hit shows that you can tell as soon as you've seen the first episode that you're on to something special - recent examples Lost, Heroes, Pushing Daisies) - but worth sticking around for nonetheless.

Comments

[blankbadge.livejournal.com]

You know I love the idea of playing Bioshock but loads of the reviews on amazon for the pc version talk about how difficult it is to get working because of the DRM and that really puts me off buying it. Says a lot really.

The sad thing about AVP2 is that it's so much better than AVP!

Diary of the dead seemed to me like it would be pretty good if it was made by someone just out of film school but Romero should be making better movies without the self important pontificating that movie had. Although the strange thing about this and Land of the dead is the way they seem to be trying to make out the humans as just as bad as the zombies which doesn't quite work when one side are flesh eating monsters.

Fringe wasn't that good, The Middleman was way better. I suggest checking that out.