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In EA’s Godfather for the XBox, you can, should, and will:

• Rob banks
• Get “respect” from hookers
• Hang out with the Corleone Family
• Get vengeance for “the family”
• Execute villains in more than 20 different ways
• Pay off the fuzz (the cops)
• Yell out “Toasty” when you douse some fools in a well thrown Molotov Cocktail
• Bomb safes
• Blow off kneecaps
• Extort all of New York
• Mostly enjoy the 20+ hours of wreaking havoc

Playing through Godfather, I have come to the following conclusion: shooting people in the head is a lot of fun.

Murder 1000 people in various ways:

• Run over them
• Throw them off bridges
• Beat them into submission with your fists
• Easy-bake them in pizzeria ovens
• Choke them

(I hope no one quotes this blog in a study of video game violence.)

Godfather is what everyone will surely describe as Grand Theft Auto with a Godfather skin. This is fairly correct- if you can play GTA, you can pickup Godfather as well. However, these games are usually described more as “sandbox” games, games that you can basically mold your own experience. Incidentally, I never had a sandbox when I was a kid, so I’m not sure what that means for this review.

Godfather, to me, though, doesn’t feel like a true free-form sandbox experience. You have an open world, you can drive around, do anything at any time (you can do a story based mission, or you can try other side missions, like taking extorting a business, or becoming a murderer-for-hire), but the missions themselves are very linear. Often, you’ll have missions which may have two or three parts to them, but in each part, pretty much every player has to do the same thing- there really aren’t options for stealth or sniping or creative methods; instead, you just need to get in there up close and kill, with the only option being what weapon you want to use. Missions will have bonuses that tell you exactly what you need to do, so there’s no creativity in how you do it, and little reason to try to be.

I wouldn’t say this is such a negative, I enjoyed the game regardless.

The game takes place in the time of the first Godfather movie. You’re a new recruit to the Corleone gangster family, and you go through the game trying to prove your loyalty and capabilities. You’ll be able to name yourself (but you are always a man) and create a custom look among a myriad of fashion options, but no matter what you’ll probably always look stylish, like any respectable gangster would. The type of missions you’ll see are what you’d expect if you’ve watched any Mafia movie. You do what they do. Extort. Murder. Talk to cops. Beat up people. Hang out in casinos.

The biggest draw to the game for most people will be the tie-in to the movie universe. You not only meet the characters (excellent character models) and hear old (from the movie) and new recorded footage from the real actors (except for Al Pacino), you’ll also participate in many of the key story sequences from the movie. This is where Godfather really excels in comparison to other movie property games. The integration of the movie and the game world is very well done, the missions here make a lot of sense and seem realistic within that frame. That means that you could actually add the Godfather game to the movie storyline, and the plot would still work. This is rarely the situation with other movie games, which will add pointless sequences related to the movie’s story but would have never happened.

Godfather is a fairly lengthy game, but the central story missions run fairly short, with slightly over 20 missions. You can get through those in less than 7 hours, but the side missions, however, were much more engaging than I expected- taking over neighborhoods and taking more direct action to affect the other Mafia families is truly rewarding. If you want, you can end up taking all over New York, and basically collecting every property in the game Pokemon style- gotta catch em all!

There are some negatives however:

• You’re primarily a one man show, which I thought disappointing, especially when you’ve feel like you earned some respect but still need to infiltrate a family compound and taken on 30 guys all by yourself.
• Clumsy weapon selection system- I wish more games would pause when you’re selecting weapons. If you suddenly have 2-3 people coming after you when you don’t have a gun ready, you’re probably going to die. On the PC, you could probably press a number to unveil a weapon instantly; in Godfather you have to scroll through them with the directional pad.
• There’s essentially one song in the whole game. Guess what that is…..
• This is a game with a story, but there’s no character development. You have a role in the story, but you’re not really part of the story if that makes any sense.
• All the fun is mainly on foot. Cars can be used to run over people and get you to different places, but there’s not much else otherwise that you can do.

Despite those issues, for those who enjoy the movie, Godfather is well worth picking up, and a good game that is improved by its connection to the movie universe and strong production values.

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Mike recommended Burn Notice to me a week ago and when I was skimming through an episode, I was thinking, this show might suck.

But good news, it doesn’t!

At first glance, The USA Network’s Burn Notice reminded me of a cheesy 80’s TV show- maybe I was influenced by its formula of serious, but-not-too-serious action/drama, by the fact that it takes place in Miami, like Miami Vice, which I don’t know a lot about but knew it wasn’t really a show to take seriously, and maybe because of Bruce Campbell, Mr. “Come Get Some”.

I wouldn’t call it a super best-of-TV show, but it’s fun and entertaining. Season 2 just started last week.

It’s a mix of:

• Miami Vice
• Foxhunt (Full Motion Video PC game from 1996)
• McGuyver
• Bond, James Bond
• Bruce Campbell being sarcastic
• Pretender (the NBC TV Show that was on a decade ago)

Jeffrey Donovan is Michael Westen, the guy you see above. He used to be a spy.

From Wikipedia:

Jeffrey Donovan plays Michael Westen, the show’s focal character. Michael is a covert operative who has been “burned” (i.e., tagged as an unreliable or dangerous agent) who now finds himself in his hometown of Miami, unable to leave. With his assets frozen, Michael is forced to live off his wits and any small investigative jobs he can find while he pursues the person or persons who burned him. Highly skilled and extremely clever, Michael displays his abilities by quickly thinking on his feet, improvising electronic devices from commonly available commercial equipment such as radios and cell phones, and by using ordinary items such as duct tape or cake frosting in highly unorthodox ways in order to complete a job. Michael has two black belts (or as he put it in one episode “thirty years of karate“) and is “rated with anything that fires a bullet or holds an edge.” He believes that his unhappy childhood, largely at the hands of an abusive father, helped make him into a natural covert operative, but made relationships difficult for him. Michael presents himself as a cynic hardened by experience, but soon reveals a soft, and sometimes vulnerable, side.

Gabreille Anwar is the pretty girl (in poster) that every show has to have. She’s tough, a little crazy, but she’s a badass. She’s a weapons pro.

Gabrielle Anwar plays Fiona Glenanne, a former IRA operative and Westen’s ex-girlfriend. Fiona re-enters Michael’s life when he was dumped, half-dead, in Miami, and she decides to stay, quickly making herself valuable to Michael. Highly knowledgeable about guns and explosives, Fiona provides support to Michael on his investigations and at times, assists him in mission to find out who burned him.

Bruce Campbell, while generally overrated in life (people really seem to love him a little too much), does a good job of just being a funny but loyal partner. He reminds me of a dog in that sense, but I mean that in a good way.

Bruce Campbell plays Sam Axe, an aging semi-retired intelligence operative and former Navy SEAL. With a low amount of cash-on-hand to his name, Axe spends most of his time sleeping with rich, older Miami women in exchange for food and shelter. Sam and Westen are old buddies; Sam is also Westen’s last, tenuous contact in the official spy community. Sam presents himself as “the guy who knows a guy.”

Throw in some fun, but crazy family members in Michael’s mom and brother for some dramatic and comedic relief, and it all somehow works pretty well.

Back to the show itself:

Like I said, it’s a little bit of……

• Miami Vice: it takes place in Miami. Sometimes you see fruity shirts and white suits.
• Foxhunt: Spy comedy, a little goofy sometimes. Jeffrey Donovan does a good job as Westen, but the way he plays the role is definitely unique. He’s tough, definitely masculine, but he’s not a super serious character either, it’s not the kind of intensity you find in Daniel Craig’s James Bond.
• McGuyver: This is probably one of the most unique aspects of the show. Since Westen is burned, he doesn’t have the resources he used to, and so when he’s in trouble he’s got to make stuff up on the fly. For example, one episode discusses making a homemade sticky bomb. This part of the show is the best; Westen often has monologues to discuss the perspective and thinking of a spy, how one would look at a situation and prepare, and he’ll talk about making different types of weapons with relatively common (household) items. I don’t even know if everything he says is really true, but it sounds true, so it makes you think, “Let me write this down for later, maybe I can become a spy too”
• Bond: Well, Michael Westen’s a spy and very cool, very slick. Gadgets are home made, and Gabrielle Anwar adds the sexiness.
• Bruce Campbell: He’s what you expect. It’s kind of odd there were once rumors he could play Batman- I think this was in the Batman Forever days though.
• Pretender: Michael plays different roles, changing accents fairly well in the process. Every episode, while he’s trying to solve the ultimate mystery of the burn notice, he’s also helping some person in need, like the Pretender, for little personal reward, always keeping a cool head.

Here’s a well-rated fan trailer of the show:

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I told Kyle that Professor Layton and The Curious Village (Layton) is like being Sherlock Holmes without the cocaine.

That’s not quite true, that was just me trying to be funny. Layton is an adventure game where you take the role of the Professor and his young protege Luke. The pair have been invited to St. Mystere (the curious village) to solve a mystery of inheritance. Once they get to the village, however, many more mysteries (puzzles) are unveiled, and the duo have to solve them all in order to unlock the initial mystery of the inheritance.

Layton is a bit different from a normal point and click adventure game like The Lost Journey or the old LucasArts SCUMM games. The puzzles here are more straight forward. Click on a person or item, and a puzzle prompt will come up, and you’ll be given a chance to solve it.

Contrast this with other games where you may not know what you’re supposed to do, and how you’re supposed to do it, Layton is never confusing, and that’s what I like about it. Over 120 puzzles in all, and I hear you can download more over the DS if you have connect it to the Internet.

The puzzles you see are reminders of IQ tests or MENSA, or the GMAT. Basically, if you do well on these, you feel like you’ve proven something (I told you I was smart, DS! EAT THAT!) For the most part, they’re fair, but there are a few that a worded trickily (to trick you!)

You can find coins placed in random areas that can be used to buy hints for puzzles you may get stuck on. Kyle said he didn’t use any, which suggests to me he is Sherlock Holmes because I was using coins all the time. That and tremendous help from the girlfriend really helped me get through the game, although I outright cheated (Gamefaqs-style) once.

The cover art (see above) says “Solve brainteasers to crack the case”, and yeah, there you go, that’s right.

Layton is an outstanding game, it oozes (way to pick an uncommon phrase, me) quality. The puzzles are a ton of fun, but there’s also an interesting story that uses well-animated CG cut-scenes and voiceover work that create a deeper level of immersion. For those looking for replay, you can replay any puzzle after you’ve solved it, and while you don’t have to solve every puzzle to finish the game or do them in order, finishing more puzzles will unlock even MORE puzzles, so definitely worth going the extra effort.

I’d recommend this to anyone. Definitely worth a purchase, and worth your time.

Bring me the sequel! (might be coming in November)

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Continuing my recent man crush parade on Ryan Reynolds, I checked out The Nines, a movie released late last year.

It’s really hard to describe the movie, and when I read the general plot line, it didn’t seem interesting at all. Even if you watch the trailer below, it doesn’t seem that interesting.

But I watched it for Ryan Reynolds (ladies, he takes off his shirt in this, and if you have ever seen him with his shirt off, you will understand and appreciate why I mention this), and it was worth it. He is excellent in this, but so is everyone else.

(I wish I had his abs. When I watch basketball, I sometimes get excited and want to go shoot hoops- Ryan Reynolds makes me want to go do crunches.

Whoa. That is very much a least some homo there. Moving on….)

It’s quite a good movie, it’s a bit of a conceptual piece (though not as much as The Fountain that slowly comes into focus. You just can’t really talk about it or describe it in a way to make people understand if they should see it or not. At the same time I can see it being a this-is-weird, miss, or this-is-awesome, hit type of movie.

I’m on the side of hit, giving it a 7/10 on IMDB.

Like I just said it feels a bit off, but I think that’s what’s intended. It’s hard to know how to rate it. I have some more to say about it, but I consider it a bit of a spoiler, so it’s after the trailer. I suggest not reading in order to focus more on the movie experience.

In the middle of the movie, one of the characters is doing a test pilot focus group. People are watching a TV show pilot and then giving feedback on the show. When I watched the movie, that’s how I felt- I felt like there was some concept or some idea that was being pushed to me. Not as focused or mature as it normally should belike you’d seen in a TV show in its 3rd of fourth year, but I felt like the person being tested, being gauged to see if I could follow the movie, was it interesting, did I like the characters.

Very unique, and my assumption is this was intended.

Trailer:

(The Nines Trailer)

*****Potential Spoilers******

I read an article a couple of months ago talking about how there’s a good possibility we’re (our universe/world) just part of a simulation. Kind of how we’re trying to make video games now that simulate real life, this world could be someone’s advanced artificial intelligence simulation. This idea was somewhat shown at the end of Men in Black- remember how they kept zooming out and eventually the entire universe was shown as one marble an alien was playing marbles with?

Basically, we are not all that in the universe, where universe means everything we can or cannot imagine. It’s an idea I very much believe in, and on a religious level, I know that there was no way I could understand the concept of a higher being or a god. Having that kind of awareness will instantly make me insane.

Anyway, let’s going back to The Nines, this is the concept that the movie wraps itself in.

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The first time I watched this was October 2006. I’d received a copy of the Japanese version with English subtitles from Mike, and I’d just had surgery to repair my torn ACL.

My impressions back then were that the visuals were really good, very action heavy, no real plot.

At the time I was drugged up with vicodin, could not walk, and not so able to focus. I also hadn’t played the game in a very long time and didn’t remember much about it other than the general plot.

When I decided to replay FFVII, I felt I should revisit Advent Children as well, and it was a much better experience this time around, no doubt helped by my recent memory of the game as well as the very good English language dubbing.

The general story is, well taken from Wikipedia:

Two years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, the Planet is recovering from the devastating attack by Meteor, while the survivors of Midgar have begun to build a new city, aptly named “Edge”, on the outskirts of the old metropolis. However, a strange disease known as “geostigma” has arisen. After his showdown with Sephiroth, Cloud Strife established the “Strife Delivery Service”, with the aid of Tifa Lockhart, whom he has been living with in Edge. Marlene Wallace and an orphaned boy named Denzel have been entrusted to their care.

And then…some problems occur. Some old enemies show up. Conflict. Battle.

The story, while not deep by any means, provides a good supplement to the game, and again, the CG visuals are outstanding. From a distance, things do look fairly “real”.

The action is fast paced and exciting, and it’s a little thrill when you get to the moment where all the characters from the game finally show up, and it’s time for a video game style “boss battle”.

It is, a “cool” action movie, the type of movie where the characters do all these things you want to do, the kind of things that in the middle of the movie, you say to yourself, I wish this were a videogame.

My Rating: 8/10 on IMDB, a rating definitely affected by my affinity for/interest in the characters.

The Trailer:

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Batman Gotham Knight is to the upcoming Dark Knight movie what the Animatrix was to the Matrix movies: sharp, anime inspired animated shorts featuring different takes (from different creative talents)and different stories surrounding the subject material. (by the way, isn’t it great that for once, a sequel doesn’t add on to the original’s name for franchising/marketing reasons? Batman Begins: The Dark Knight would be bleh.)

The visual look varies throughout each short (each about 12 minutes long), some feel more anime inspired than others, but overall you very high production values, fluid animation, good CG. The look in terms of the style is definitely not related to the Batman: Animated Series, and whether that’s good or not is up to your personal style.

The DVD is all new material and is meant to be, in at least a superficial sales-boost way related to the Dark Knight movie- they’re both released in the same week or so. David Goyer, one of the screenwriters for Batman Begins, writes one of the stories, a look at Scarecrow post-Begins storyline.

For me, the stories didn’t really excite me. The presentation is extremely stylish, but there’s no real depth to the characters or actions. You don’t really learn anything that’s important to the core of the characters, showing a new side of Bruce Wayne or Batman. If I were to compared these to the Animated Series, these stories would rank in the middle, basically be average or perhaps slightly below average episodes.

I would have preferred stories from Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, the big driving forces behind the Animated Series, even though you’ve got a lot of big names associated with this project.

I think kids will like it because of the flash and action, but the violence is more bloody than what you’d find with a TV cartoon.

Worth a rental, but that’s it.

If you really want to see quality, check out Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (still in my mind, the best Batman movie) or of course, the Animated Series.

More information and the trailer follows:

From: http://www.warnervideo.com/batmangothamknight/

Batman Gotham Knight is a fresh and exciting new entry into the Batman mythos, spinning out of a 40-year history in animation including the Emmy®-winning Batman: The Animated Series, widely considered a pivotal moment in American animation.

Six standalone chapters, each with stylish art from some of Japan’s greatest anime visionaries, weave together into a larger story that follows Batman through his transition from beginner to The Dark Knight.

Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis

In “Have I Got a Story for You,” Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (“A History of Violence”) tells the story of how chance encounters with Batman by a group of youngsters leave each kid with a very different impression of the Dark Knight.

In “Crossfire,” acclaimed novelist/comics writer Greg Rucka tells the story of Gotham City police having to get over their distrust of Batman – while under fire from the mob.

In “Field Test,” writer Jordan Goldberg showcases the incredible high-tech arsenal Batman commands and reveals that there are some things even Batman won’t do in his pursuit of justice.

“In Darkness Dwells” takes Batman into the Gotham sewers to face “Killer Croc,” a deformed thug who seems even more monstrous after the Scarecrow, and his fear toxin, makes a resurgence, in a story by David S. Goyer, co-screenwriter of “Batman Begins.”

Award-winning comics writer Brian Azzarello explores an early chapter of Bruce Wayne’s training in “Working Through Pain,” showing how a mysterious and exotic Indian woman named Cassandra introduced Batman to techniques that would help him to conquer the physical and spiritual consequences of what he does.

Finally, in “Deadshot,” four-time Emmy Award-winning writer Alan Burnett ties together threads from all the Batman Gotham Knight chapters, as Batman must thwart an unerring assassin whose love of guns and disregard for human life lets him cross lines that even a Dark Knight shies away from.

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There are two contrasting reviews of Classic Game Room, a documentary about a short-lived (1999/2000) yet supposedly (I’d never heard of it, as far as I know) popular Internet video show for video game review humor:

From DVD Talk:

It starts out a bit slow, but Classic Game Room develops into a worthwhile, entertaining documentary as the story unfolds. Director Mark Bussler obviously has a knack for the genre, balancing vintage clips and retrospective comments with ease, style and humor—and though it’s disappointing that co-host David Crosson didn’t make the party, Bussler does a fine job of keeping things organized and entertaining. Overall, those who enjoy classic video games (but don’t take them too seriously, of course) should find Inecom’s DVD package enjoyable, which boasts a solid technical presentation and a handful of fitting bonus features. All things considered, this saga of beer and joysticks comes firmly Recommended. Insert coin(s)!

And from Vintage Computing:

Even if The Game Room actually was innovative and ahead of its time, a filmmaker interviewing himself about his own project still seems a little like a person writing his own Wikipedia entry. Ultimately, the documentary spoils any good that could have come from a Game Room DVD collection. A ten minute introduction explaining the setting and the context in which the episodes were created would have done nicely, but Bussler went too far. Skip those segments and just watch the episodes.

The video quality of the collection is surprisingly clear and crisp for a low budget web TV show. The disc comes in a regular DVD case with attractive packaging. But at about $17 US (its current retail price) Classic Game Room is extraneously expensive and definitely not worth the buy for the average video game fan. As previously mentioned, the exclusive “documentary” footage adds nothing of value to the disc, and all that’s left is essentially a half-entertaining, amateur production that’s available for free online. My advice is this: unless you’re a die-hard fan of the original show (all three of you out there), you’d probably get more out of watching the episodes on YouTube instead. In the end, despite Bussler’s nostalgic machinations, history will likely remember The Game Room as a shining example of two genuinely talented people doing something genuinely mediocre.

Here’s the bad news: I read the DVD Talk review before buying this DVD. Read the Vintage Computing one after watching it.

Here’s the good news: I paid $10 USD, including shipping to Vietnam from Play-Asia, for it.

Here’s more bad news: Was not worth it.

While I respect the source material (and the original talents behind the show) for the DVD, I agree more with Vintage Computing- this documentary is a bit boring.

These guys definitely did something unique, and it’s interesting to see the beginnings of the show, but the in-depth self-interviews with Mark Bussler (one of the show’s hosts back then) go a little unnecessary, a little too long, a little too self-deprecating. It’s the type of sarcastic humor that Americans (me too!) seem to specialize in, but those moments tend to be funny when you’re half drunk with your buddies, not when you’re just watching something on TV sober.

I don’t think see the value in watching it again, and because there was so much unnecessary documentary footage, I wish they would have just cut that stuff out and included all the episodes they ever did, to at least add more value to the disc.

$17 or more really is asking a lot there…..

Definitely for the hardest of the hardcore gaming fans only, and I mean not if you are a game player, but just love anything related to the industry.

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From Hell - New Cover Edition by Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell Read more about this book…

I’m a HUGE fan of Alan Moore’s.

Kyle is not. For some reason, if he’s reading this, I imagine Kyle’s thinking “Alan Moore? What a hack.”

But for me, I think Moore is consistently the best writer around. I’m sure many people agree, and for me the reason behind this comes from my belief that no one like him can so seamlessly change characters and genres, yet still create a compelling story around them. When he wants to be funny he is, even when it’s a 50’s style (Tom Strong) golden age way. When he wants to be serious he is. He can even do high quality porn! (Lost Girls)

At the same time, I can see why other people might not like him. I was reading through Marvelman, which I don’t even think can be purchased in stores due to 20 years of legal issues, and it shows typical Alan Moore issues.

In a lot of ways, it’s great, and typical of Alan Moore, the starting points of his works tend to be absolutely amazing. And then as you read more and more, it gets a little…off? Moore is so amazing in terms of the detail of his worlds and his characters, there’s definitely a different feel for each of his works, and I don’t really feel this is true of other writers, even good ones. So while he starts well, at some point, it gets a little too dense. A little too detailed. A bit too high-end, and it can distract from the main plot.

Even though I was a Comparative Literature major (don’t ask), I really just like to read stories. Do whatever you want in terms of depth, and “literature”, but make it a good story. If not, I don’t really care. This is probably why I hate poetry- there is rarely any story.

So with Moore, I know he is doing the equivalent of high end “literature”. But sometimes he gets a little too crazy, and it distracts from the story, which to me makes things unreadable.

And if that makes me stupid, I can accept that. In Marvelman (I was reading the original issues in digital scanned form), it begins to become like that, and I even read a letter in the original issue that pointed out this problem.

In Watchmen, this issue is throughout the book, and for me I ended up having to ignore it, because as impressive as it is from a literary and depth standpoint, it makes it hard for me to focus on the story.

But let’s talk about From Hell, Moore’s graphic novel about the Jack the Ripper murders in the late 19th century, which suggests a possible suspect and back story behind the entire events.

It’s boring literature.

You can tell there’s a cool story underneath, but on the outside there’s just too many parts where it’s not coherent. But you’re sure that it’s super well thought out, super detailed and researched, and also high in fiber.

I liked parts of it, while losing the grasp in the story in many others.

Eddie Campbell, however, is another example of the great line of artists Moore has worked with. When I read Marvel or DC comics, I think to myself, jeez, there aren’t truly that many good artists out there, and yet everything that Moore works on, his artist is fantastic, whether that be Marvelman, Promethea, Swamp Thing, Top Ten, Tom Strong, etc.

From Hell is in black and white, but the imagery is amazing. It’s more in an abstract sense, but the images truly recreate a feeling, a sense of life and lifestyle from the 19th century. Characters and scenes are amazingly detailed, yet up close, they really aren’t.

Jim Lee may be amazing and detail and super fine drawing, but Campbell’s work feel just as detailed yet show no similarities with Lee’s work.

Anyway, my final verdict on From Hell is that if you like Alan Moore, even when he does get a bit excessive, you will love From Hell. Otherwise I’d avoid it because there’s too much of abstract sense to his work to really focus on the story, even though it really is well written, well researched, and extremely interesting at points.

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I think every male is good at some kind of numbers.

• “34D” (Women)
• “220HP V6″ (Cars)
• “1400×1050, 4X Antialiasing, 4X Anisotropic Filtering, 60 frames per second” (Computer Games)

I’m the last guy.

If I had to play Half-Life now like I played it 10 years ago, I’d probably decline. But with all those juicy image quality enhancements I can have now with the modern PC, it’s just sooooo clean, so crisp. (Look at the screenshots at the end of the post).

And all I had to do was wait 10 years!

I’ve been going on runs the last 6 months, doing things in sets, like watching the Indiana Jones trilogy in preparation for watching Crystal Skull, watching the original Star Wars movies in a row, playing FFVII and then watching FFVII Advent Children, and so on.

My current thing is Half-Life. I own the Orange Box with Half-Life 2 and all the other episodes, but wanted to revisit the original game before trying the sequel.

It’s been at least 5 or 6 years since I last played Half-Life, and I probably had gone through the expansions, Opposing Force and Blue Shift (originally developed for the never released Dreamcast version of Half-Life), before too, nonetheless I wanted to play all the Half-Life games sequentially in a short amount of time to basically live out one complete experience.

Half-Life is: (drumroll)

Stressful. Heart attack, cold sweat stressful.

Half-Life’s graphics, if you’re playing with antialiasing, are not so bad. Also, I played with the the hi-res texture pack that Valve developed for the Half-Life games in 2001, so I guess I’m really only playing a 7 year old game.

Today, however, you can still be impressed with how Half-Life looks depending on your computer video card settings:

• High-resolution- while PS3 and XBox think 720p is so wonderful, PC gamers can go way higher. This means cleaner, crisper graphics reducing the jagged edge effect (jaggies)
• Anti-aliasing- makes images even crisper, and kicks in when your monitor isn’t high-res enough (mine’s 1400 x1050 but even then, AA makes a big difference)
• Anisotropic filtering-  look at old games and notice specifically the ground textures. Then run straight and watch how the ground textures pop in or the textures very far away look fuzzy compared to the ones up close. Anisotropic filtering will help so all your textures look more natural, more crisp.
• 60 FPS- 60 FPS is way different from 30 FPS. In fact 60 frames per second (fps), especially in a first person shooter (also called fps) is more important than resolution. You just feel more in control, and you’ll feel like you’re a more skilled player as well.

As for the gameplay, what was revolutionary back then, it isn’t so special now and yet the feeling of stress and tension involved when you play is still there. After 10 years though, it’s still easy to see why Half-Life is so highly considered. It’s still very enjoyable, but in a lot of ways, it feels shallow.

The story for the games are all told to you in a way, you never hear yourself speak and you don’t interact with anyone. People talk at you, rather than to you, and so the character in the game really isn’t a reflection of you, nor is it a reflection of the person you’re supposed to be. Whether you play Half-Life, Opposition Force, or Blue Shift, when you finish, you wouldn’t be able to tell me anything about the characters you’re plying other than simple facts like “he’s a solider, “he went to MIT”, and so on.

In Half-Life, you’re Gordon Freeman, a scientist at the Black Mesa government research facility who unluckily gets caught up in a failed experiment that opens up a portal into another dimension (that means aliens coming to get you sucker!), you basically just need to survive. Who cares about saving the world when there are face huggers everywhere!

Monsters, get away from me!

Stop looking at you weirdo freaks!

The main part of the stress comes from the game’s speed. You run fast, you shoot fast. The problem is, the enemies are pretty fast themselves, especially when attacking. You may shoot quickly, but not powerfully- a shotgun to the head isn’t enough to kill most enemies, and sometimes two isn’t enough. You can bet however, during the time it takes you to fire two to three rounds, you’re being messed up in your own right. Add all that to excellent event scripting, and Half-Life keeps you feeling anxious at all times.

Opposing Force and Blue Shift, however, don’t quite stack up so well.

In Opposing Force, you’re Adrian Shepherd, one the soldiers who was sent in to cover-up the Black Mesa mess, including “handling” Freeman. The unique things about this campaign is that you can fight with legit help in your fellow squad mates.

Opposing Force got really good review scores 10 years ago, but I guess that’s a sign of how things have changed. What was once called outstanding AI, I call retarded jackass AI today.

From Gamepsot almost ten years ago:

Instead of limiting you to fighting alongside no more than two of Half-Life’s weakling scientists or security guards, you can now recruit a squad of up to eight marines. The marines have the same advanced artificial intelligence as when they were your enemies in Half-Life, so that some of the large-scale battles staged in Opposing Force are simply phenomenal. Even though the game doesn’t require you to do so, you’ll want to replay such combat sequences just to try out different strategies in an effort to reduce friendly casualties.However, although the game lets you lead so many companions, you’ll likely never have more than four at a time thanks to the AI’s finicky following behavior. Opposing Force’s only significant flaw is that it’s often difficult to keep your followers in line. In some instances they simply appear to become confused, and at other times there is an invisible line they will not cross. It’s usually unclear which of these two reasons keeps your squad from moving forward, so you’ll spend too much time trying in vain to keep it assembled. This is a shame, as the rest of the game is of such high quality.

I, however, felt better off playing alone- I definitely didn’t feel any kind of sense of “real” soldiers helping me. Overall, this expansion pack is just ok. It’s fun in the sense that it fleshes out more of the Half-Life universe. Other than some nice new weapons however, it feels like Opposing Force and Blue Shift are just bonus levels for Half-Life, and by that I mean it doesn’t feel like you’re really doing anything different or taking the role of different characters- it’s more like playing as Gordon Freeman with a new skin.

Blue Shift is….well, bleh?

It’s definitely the worst part of the 3 games. In Opposing Force, you’re a soldier who is trying to take down Gordon Freeman and all the other Black Mesa staff after the experiment, but in Blue Shift, you’re a security guard (Barney Calhoun) at Black Mesa during those events.

Sound exciting?

I thought not.

And it’s not.

In the training mission for Blue Shift, you see one of your security guard buddies eating a donut at a shooting range. Sure, it’s supposed to be funny, but that’s what I think of when I think of how to describe the Blue Shift levels.

Feels lazy.

In the end, the expansion packs are worth going through if you finish Half-Life and still want more. For those people, they will satisfy that need, but if you take them as stand-alone experiences, on their own they’re not worth going through.

Screenshots (avoid clicking to see the galleries if you want to avoid screenshot spoilers) from Half-Life, Blue Shift and Opposing Force. Check out the high-res goodness!

Half-Life:

Opposing Force:

Blue Shift:

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Did I mention I really really like Ryan Reynolds? I just watched Chaos Theory (8 hrs after Definitely, Maybe), and it’s another fine example of how great he is.

Ryan Reynolds is legit!

Chaos Theory, like Definitely, Maybe, fits the romantic comedy category but not really the mold. Just a serious, intriguing story involving romance, real life issues and complications, and comedic elements.

I would describe the movie, at least a little bit, but it just wouldn’t sound very exciting.

Here’s the trailer, instead:

I gave it a 9/10 on IMDB.

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