Skyline Review

A slightly modified version of this was posted at http://wegotthiscovered.com/2010/11/14/skyline-review-a-second-opinion/ on 11/14/2010.

I remember two or three months ago when the first trailers of Skyline played in front of whatever movie it was I had gone to see that day.  Blue lights streak down from the sky in a city, causing no damage when they hit, and two people looking upwards as people around those lights get sucked upwards into what are revealed to be alien spaceships, followed by the title card.  Though I did not see them, I know that later trailers included rampaging creatures, and a massive aerial battle against those ships.  The movie looked really good.  It looked like it was worth seeing.

It was not.

There has always been a saying that producers in any visual medium put their best stuff out front to get people’s attention.  But there is usually enough things held back so that there is still something there to interest the people that shelled out their money for it.  Then there are the cases where people will say that the trailer was the only good stuff, as opposed to some of it, and this is the case with Skyline.  The people that made this definitely know how to cut a trailer together.

I suppose I’ll start at the beginning Eric Balfour (the only thing I know him from is SyFy’s Haven) plays Jarrod, a struggling “something” that’s never really specified (but I assume to be graphic designer), and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson, who looks like a young Jerrie Ryan) flying  to Los Angelos for the birthday party of his now successful friend Terry (Donald Faison, Scrubs) whose job is also never specified (I assumed singer/songwriter, Wikipedia confirms Special Effects Producer).  During the party, Jarrod and Elaine fight about uprooting when Terry offers him a job, and Elaine reveals she is pregnant.

During the night, the blue lights start falling, and anyone who looks into them is lured in, and they disappear.  Jarrod is one of the people lured in his eyes going white and his blood vessels visibly changing color, but he is stopped before he can get close enough to be taken.  Shortly after it is revealed that anyone close to these lights is being sucked (more like vacuumed)  into the sky by several alien ships floating over the city.  The characters try several times, unsuccessfully, to escape the building, as smaller aliens slowly pick them off.

During the ordeal, the military tries to deal with the aliens.  First it sends in a flight of Predator drones running interference for a nuclear armed Stealth Bomber.  It takes down the largest of the alien ships, and things might be looking up, until the ship starts repairing itself.  Later, the military also attempts a more concerted attack using conventional fighters and airlifted infiltration teams.  But nothing stops the aliens, it was over before it even began.

I will say this flat out, this movie is not good.  The filmmaker’s purpose in creating this movie was to do a low budget, studio-less alien invasion film, and to have it center on a small group of characters caught in the middle.  Centering on small groups of characters caught in the sh-tstorm allows the filmmakers to keep information and exposition to a minimum while, bringing character development and intensity to the proceedings.  This, combined with strong writing is why “found-footage” style movies like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity have managed to be so successful.  Except this is not one of those found-footage films.

The script, actors, and setting are limited in such a way that this probably would have worked better as a shaky-cam, found-footage film.  As it stands, instead of watching as our intrepid survivors attempt daring escapes, we watch as they sit in this single apartment and themselves watch the invasion happen and occasionally fail to grasp the obvious danger that they’re in.  The characters are poorly written and acted, and fall back on several cliches that are unimportant, again considering the danger the characters find themselves in.

For example, stressed out, one of the supporting characters lights up a cigarette, after which Elaine tells her to stop, because she’s pregnant.  Seriously?  You’re hiding out in a high-rise condo, they know you’re there, your life expectancy can be realistically measured in hours, and you’re worried about a few minutes of secondhand smoke?  That is only the most egregious, but it is by no means the only example.  I realize that part of the purpose of keeping the focus small was to keep the characters in the dark and their reactions more natural, but the script written well enough for those reactions to feel even remotely natural.

Probably the one good thing about the movie is the design and special effects.  It should be, the directors own and operate the effects studio that produced Skyline, and its where 90% of its budget went.  There are many interesting things done with the design and visualizations of the alien ships.  The aliens come in many different shapes and sizes, from octopus creatures to hulking brutes, all well realized in a low-budget, pseudo biomechanical way.  The majority of them are purposely indistinct, despite the amount screen time they get, especially the octopus creatures.  The idea that the aliens would attack via something as simple as brainwashing and mass abduction instead of lasers blazing is an idea not commonly seen in science fiction.  And the idea that they extract the brains of said abductees for use as operators/batteries is, similarly, something that is very out of the ordinary for the genre.  I don’t believe I’ve seen anything similar except in a single Star Wars EU novel.

Ultimately, though, the special effects provided good footage for the trailers, but is not enough to truly save the movie.  Skyline is a science fiction invasion movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be, whether it be found-footage, character study, thriller, or disaster movie.  While there are some interesting choices in terms of the aliens themselves, the writing, acting, and overall plot are pointless, tensionless, and borderline absurd.  It is simply not a good movie, and the score I’m giving it is based entirely on the strength of the aliens and associated effects.

Score:  4/10

Pros:
Interesting alien designs
Good, if low budget, special effects
A lesson in how to do a trailer right

Cons:
Poor lighting
Unlikable characters
The ending was too long, adding a cliffhanger/sequel-hook where none was needed

Vanquish Review

A slightly modified version of this was originally posted at http://wegotthiscovered.com/2010/11/04/vanquish-review/ on 11/4/2010.

There was a moment early in the game when I realized that Vanquish was not just a standard third person shooter.  That could have been when the Argus robot broke through the ground into the area, but that, technically, happened during a cutscene.  No, this was later in the chapter, when a ship crashed into the battlefield.  It may have been scripted, but literally crashed into the stage.  The sheer spectacle of Vanquish starts early, and doesn’t let up.

Vanquish was made by Platinum games and masterminded by Shinji Mikami (of Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, etc.).  I say masterminded because Vanquish is Shinji Mikami’s attempt to created a game caters to the Western market, while still managing to be undeniably over the top and Japanese.  Some parts even get as far as being downright insane.  The ship crash is one of the lesser events to happen.

In Vanquish ,Russian nationalists take over an American space colony, using the energy transmission system it contains to wipe out San Francisco, and threatening to do the same to New York should the US not surrender.  You play Sam Gideon, an engineer for DARPA, and lead tester for the ARS (Augmented Reaction Suit).  When the military launches a counterattack, DARPA sends Sam to rescue the developer of the ARS and colony transmission system, covering it up with the excuse of testing the suit in actual combat.

Really, the story is rather meaningless, doing nothing more than setting the stage for the long string of set pieces that make up Vanquish’s gameplay.  There is a bit of a plot-twist near the end of the game, but it comes so far out of left field that its very much a “huh?” moment, as well as the obligatory sequel hook, of course.  The ingame dialogue that moves the game along is rather bad too.  At least the VAs seem to understand that, with veteran VA Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) hamming it up as the ultra-gravelly voiced Sergeant Burns.  I am unable to find a full voice cast for some reason, but Sam himself is voiced by relative unknown Gideon Emery, also speaking in full gravel mode.  Ellen Ivanova sounds familiar, but I can’t place the actress offhand.

A cover based third-person shooter, Vanquish pulls its primary inspiration from Gears of War, with a healthy addition of Devil May Cry speed and style, with homages to other lesser known games.  The basic gameplay is the  same as Gears, players run around a battlefield, taking cover behind various objects, mostly conveniently placed waist-high walls to avoid enemy fire, popping out to shoot at enemies.  Sam, however, is sleeker and more mobile than his Gears counterparts.  There are not a huge number of enemy types, so the majority of differentiation is in enemy equipment and numbers.  The encounter design is built around using certain enemy types in limited spaces to make things more challenging.

Where it differentiates itself is with AR mode, and the “slide”.  AR mode can be best described as bullet-time.  When activated, it slows down time for the player, allowing them to better tune their shooting, or getting out of danger.  The slide, with a press of a button, Sam activates jets in the ARS’s legs to do what can best be described as a “rockstar slide”, propelling him around the battlefield at speeds that make the roadie run look like a snail crawling backwards.  What the combination of both of these systems does is allow the player to be significantly more mobile.  So mobile in fact, that a skilled enough player doesn’t actually need to play this cover as a cover based shooter.  The slide serves several gameplay functions as nearly every other function can be followed through after it.  It can be used to escape danger, dodge enemy fire, and move quickly into cover or melee range.  It allows for a game that is faster paced than other third person shooters, and everything feels incredibly tight.  Those tight controls are needed because the action sequences always very intense.  Even the first firefight after the opening cinema is visually overwhelming, the player needing time to simply adjust to everything that they’re seeing.

Everything works the way its supposed to, but there one of the related design choices serves to put a bit of a wrench in Vanquish’s usually frantic pace.  That choice would be the heat gauge.  Those three functions:  AR Mode, sliding, and melee are all connected to this meter.  AR mode and sliding both drain the gauge at a constant rate, while a successful melee attack drains it completely.  When the gauge is completely empty, it ends up taking several seconds to completely recharge, leaving the player without any of those abilities, almost requiring the player to take cover until it recharges.  Even more so, when Sam takes too much damage, AR Mode is automatically activated to allow the player an opportunity to take out the enemies and/or find cover, and there isn’t any way to end this manually, the player has to wait for the gauge to deplete.  While it isn’t an insurmountable problem, it often breaks the game flow, forcing the player to slow down, or even stop, during sections that are often frantic and overwhelming.  It also leads to many extra deaths due to AR sometimes not being available when its needed.

The other place Vanquish shows off is in the overall visual style.  Going hard into the near future setting, the inside of the colony itself shows off stark white building-scapes, accented by harsh lighting, and of course lots of explosions.  The enemies are robots, usually appearing in a shiny red, the majority of them being reminiscent of Mass Effect’s Geth, with a separate type being the more bruiser type.  Boss take several forms, from massive transforming quad-leg tanks to a veritable junk-robot (more effective than one might think).  There aren’t many enemy types, but I don’t really hold it against Vanquish, as many other shooters had limited types.  The character models are well made, especially the stylized faces, and they need to be since they’re often shown during the cut scenes.  The ARS that Sam wears, that is definitely one of these most impressive things in the entire game, all white with black trim, lots of interlocking pieces, and a sweet helmet that folds open whenever Sam needs to take a smoke (which is often).  While the overall background doesn’t change throughout, the spectacle of looking at the inside of the space colony is very impressive.

The cityscapes are stark and sterile, it ends up being the battles that add that gritty feeling that all other shooters have.  Unfortunately, aside from specific objects, usually cover points, the battlefields themselves are not interactive.  The setting’s artificiality is especially on display during a section in the late game where Sam passes through a park area, and all the foliage looks unnatural.  As well, the onscreen UI is functional, but rather ugly, and ends up taking up a lot of the right side of the screen.  Many times the player is likely to take deaths because there they simply do not have as much situational awareness as they should.

If there’s anything holding Vanquish back, it’s the selfsame style that gives it most of its character.  It’s a Japanese game trying to emulate American games.  It gets the core gameplay right, and adds on it to make things fresh, but most of the design screams of the old “this is what Japan thinks Americans want” notion.  Vanquish is more successful at it than most, but it still can’t get away from that feeling of being a Japanese game.  Sam and Burns are the biggest examples, playing off the bulky Space Marine aesthetic, but going over the top with it.  Burns is too big to be realistic, with as little actual armor as he wears.  Sam is the badass former College athlete, scientist, engineer, and world class cigar chomper.  How does that make sense?  The words “shit” and “fuck” are thrown around with almost reckless abandon, often at least somewhat out of context.  As well, Vanquish can be rather short, potentially as short as 4 hours, on the lowest difficulty, though a highscore system was added, potentially as means to add replay ability.  There is no multiplayer, but I don’t consider that a negative.  Vanquishes  primary gameplay conceits, slide and bullet-time, would not work in a competitive game.

My opinion, Vanquishes good aspects outweigh the bad, and I consider it a buy.  The gameplay is fast and furious, emphasizing a more active role in combat.  The story may be nonsensical, but it doesn’t really have to make sense.  Aside from the length, the only thing that I can see people having an issue with is the over the top Japanese styling.  Given the genre, third person shooter, this can be rather off putting.  Not to me, but others might, so my suggestion is to play the demo first.  If you like it, then you should like the full game.

Score:  9/10

Pros:  Fast gameplay
Great graphics
Slide and bullet time make it feel different from other third person shooters
Incredible set pieces

Cons:  Nonsensical story
Short
Heat gauge can break game flow
Might be too over the top for some players

Super Meat Boy Review

A slightly modified version of this review was originally posted here ( http://wegotthiscovered.com/2010/10/28/super-meat-boy-review/ ) on 10/28/2010.

Super Meat Boy is remake/pseudo-sequel to Meat Boy, an indie-game that was featured on Newgrounds and gained enough of a following to get the XBLA and WiiWare game.  And it’s one hell of a game.

Super Meat Boy is the story of Meat Boy, Bandage Girl, and Doctor Fetus.  Bandage Girl loves Meat Boy, he and her.  But Doctor Fetus, know one likes him, and he hates you.  Not just you as Meat Boy, but you, the player.  And so beats Meat Boy up and steals Bandage Girl, so its up to Meat Boy, and you controlling him, to save her from Doctor Fetus’ clutches, and remember that Doctor Fetus hates you.  That’s the story in a nutshell, it doesn’t get anymore complicated because it doesn’t need to.

To put it simply, Super Meat Boy is a 2d side-scrolling platformer.  But that’s selling the game short.  Super Meat Boy isn’t simply a platformer, rather, it’s a throwback to the old days of hardcore, hard as balls NES platforming games of the ‘80s.  This is game that is pure platforming at its core, and nothing gets in the way of it.

So what does a platformer need to be successful?  Controls and level design.  Controls are the most important part of games of this type.  If it doesn’t control well, the entire thing falls apart.  If the levels are dull, then it doesn’t matter how well it controls, since the game wouldn’t be making good use of them.  Well SMB has them both in spades.  Meat Boy controls perfectly, running, jumping, wall-jumping.  He can run, stop on a dime, and bounce back and forth between walls with absolute precision.  That’s where the stages come in.  After a few stages to help the player learn the controls, the difficultly starts ramping up, each stage giving the player a new challenge with which to test their skills.  From buzz saws to moving grinders and beds of spikes.  And that’s just the first world, the second brings in cascades of spikes, allowing them the developers to put them anywhere, and the third world has missile launchers.  And that is just the kinds of things in the stages, not how the stages are actually set up to challenge you.

What makes it interesting is how those things are used.  I know its hard to imagine with just words (indeed, it might be better to watch a youtube video of SMB in action), but imagine a stage where you have to run to the edge of a platform and long jump onto a wall, wall-jump between two walls several times, followed by a jump between two close set saw blades onto another wall and time your wall-jumps so as to not hit the saw blade that’s moving along the now opposite wall.  And consider that all of that will probably happen over the course of maybe 5 seconds, and that is, within this game, a very simple challenge.  The controls let you get through this, and many harder challenges with precision.  To put it simply, this game is pure skill, and if you fail (and you will), then it’s entirely your fault (or maybe the sweaty controller), and the game gets you back in the action very quickly, usually within one or two seconds.  One of the fun little features at the end of each stage is that it shows a replay of the stage with every single life you used up on it, all playing at once, and is pretty wild.  Each world also has a “boss” stage, which typically presents a unique challenge in itself.

Stylistically, keeping true to the 8-bit and 16-bit inspiration, SMB was definitely made in very clean, very simple style that almost looks like it could be played on an NES or SNES.  Meat Boy himself is a simple red block with eyes and a mouth, kicking up meaty blood as he runs, and leaving trails of meaty blood on  on any surfaces he touches.  All the stages seem to have a bit of a tile-set set look, but again, its in service to the throwback style.  As well, each world has its own visual style, from earthy in the first world, to industrial in the third.  Some of the persistant obstacles (the ones that aren’t world specific) have world specific visual styles.  The basic spike trap looks like saws, hypodermic needles, salt, and actual spikes, depending on the world.  As well, some stages change the style and present them in monochrome, its very striking.

Music is good.  Each world has its own general theme, with variations of volume and tempo to keep it from getting too repetitive.  Sound effects, well, Meat Boy is made of meat, and he’s pretty squishy, and it sounds like it when he runs and jumps.

One of the big things about Super Meat Boy though, is the non required, and bonus content.  Each of the seven worlds has 20 stages plus a boss stage, which must be played to complete the main game.  But each world has more than that, if you look for them.  Complete any stage under the target time earns the A+ rank, and opens up a “Dark World” version of the stage, which is harder.  Each world also has several warp zones that lead to sets of stages that are supposedly easier than the main stages, but you only have 3 lives to complete each of the three stages in the set.  All of these special stages has their own style as well, going further into homage territory by going complete 16-bit SNES, 8-bit NES, or even full on monochrome Gameboy style with the visuals and sound.

Some of these warps take you to a special set of stages where completion unlocks a new character. Each world (spread between all Light, Dark, and Warp stages) contains 20 bandages, which are collected to also unlock bonus characters.  That’s the big thing, all of the unlockable characters are from other indie-games out there, including, but not limited to, Commander Video  (of bit.trip series), Tim (of Braid), and The Guy (of I Wanna Be The Guy), each with their own speed and jump power, as well as special ability.  And they need to be used for any of those people going for 100% completion.  Meat Boy can complete every stage in the game, but he can’t obtain every bandage or make it to every warp by himself.

Final recommendation, buy it, with a caveat.  Super Meat Boy is not for everyone.  Not everyone can handle the difficulty of a game like this, which I’ve heard described as “masocore” (combination of masochist and hardcore).  So try the demo before buying.  If you don’t like it, don’t buy.  If you do, then Super Meat Boy is a hardcore platformer that will make you throw a fit, shout expletives, and make you want to throw your controller, and then you successfully complete a stage and will be thanking god for it.  Then you will move onto the next stage and the challenge it offers, and happily start the cycle again.

Pros:
-I LOVE THIS GAME!
-Great level design
-Solid controls
-Lot of game for the price

Cons:
-I HATE THIS GAME!
-Painful level design (not really con so much as just what SMB is supposed to be)
-Not for everyone

Random Thoughts:
-Doctor Fetus is a dick.
-The world 4 boss is made of your death, you’ll know what I mean when you see it.
-Poor squirrel…

Final Score:  9/10