Nik Mortimer's Blog. Insert witty title here...

The Darjeeling Limited

2009-04-28T04:19:00.000-07:00

The Darjeeling Limited was released in October 2007 and co-written and directed by Wes Anderson. The film tells the story of three estranged brothers Francis, Peter and Jack Whitman (played by Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody and Jason Schwartzman) who go on a spiritual journey through India together on the train The Darjeeling Limited, one year after the death of their father.

The acting in the film is top notch and not just from the main the cast Amara Karan and Waris Ahluwalia who play train assistants provide excellent comic foil for the main cast. The film features several appearances from regular Anderson alumni including cameos from Bill Murray and Angelica Huston as well as a few other recognisable faces. One critique that can be angled at the film however is that the main cast aren't really pushed by the roles that they are in, and you've seen them in similar roles before. Schwartzman plays the confused intellect, much like the character he played in Rushmore. Owen Wilson plays the same character that he tends to play in every film and a similar thing can be said for Adrian Brody. Whilst the acting isn't bad by any means, don't watch the film expecting Oscar winning performances.

If you're a fan, or have seen any of Wes Anderson’s previous movies (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) you'll already know that he is a visually capable director, and his films whilst simplistic in their style are beautifully shot. The use of colour in his films is always strong and The Darjeeling Limited is no exception. Most of the film was shot on location in India and Anderson makes the already colourful country leap off the screen and by contrasting the bright, primary colours of India with the dark coloured suits of the main characters, creating an interesting character of the country itself. Whilst his style of shooting is simple, it works well the story he is trying to tell, quite often the camera won't move whilst the characters move into and out of shot as they are talking, or the camera will seemingly move through walls as it follows several characters in conversation.

The films soundtrack is the typically eclectic mix that Wes Anderson featuring songs by The Kinks and The Rolling Stones as well as a traditional Indian score composed by Bengali composer Satyajit Ray, a departure for Anderson who usually uses Mark Mothersbaugh to score his films, although given the setting of the film Satyajit fits well and his songs add another layer to the character and background of India that Anderson builds up throughout the course of the movie.

I would highly recommend The Darjeeling Limited to any fans of Wes Anderson and indeed any of the cast. Whilst I wouldn't expect you to find anything new and it does feel at times Anderson is now merely imitating his earlier films, it’s an enjoyable way to spend an evening. The film won't win you over if you’re not already a fan of Anderson unique style and if this is the first of Andersons films you're checking out, I would advise watching The Royal Tenenbaums whilst it isn't a better film but is thematically similar and with a larger, more recognisable cast will give you a good idea if you'll like the humour and style Wes Anderson puts into his films.

Review - Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Directors Cut (DS)

2009-04-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

The Broken Sword series used to be a massively popular point and click adventure released on the PC in the 90's before the genre slowly died out. Various ports, updates and sequels have been made over the years on the Game Boy Advance, Palm OS and the Playstation. And now the original game Shadow of the Templars has been updated for the Wii and the DS.

You take control of George Stobbart, an American touring Europe on his summer vacation when the café he’s drinking in is blown up by a suspicious clown. After dusting himself off and meeting Nico Collard, a French photo-journalist who explains to him that not all is what it seems with the bombing of the café, George sets off on a European tour trying to solve who is responsible for nearly killing him.

The developers have added a prologue to the game where you get to play as Nico Collard, who is investigating a murder of a rich Parisian who seems to be linked to her father. Her investigations lead her to the bombed café and meeting George, teaming up with him in order to solve the mystery. I like the addition of adding a quest to Nico, it gives her appearance in the main quest a bit more purpose. For those of you don't remember the first game, she just spends most of it sat in her apartment room and I for one never really worked out her importance.

The other changes are mostly cosmetic, they have removed the blood in several of the cuts scenes that feature it, and parts of the game have been shortened down or removed all together in order to streamline the game, of the segments removed, most interestingly they have removed the sections of the game that can end in death, if the player doesn’t react in time or make the correct decision, it seems like a strange choice to remove it because normally it’s quite clear what the player has to do.

The game is really well written and the story is interesting enough to keep you hooked for the game 10hr playtime. The hundreds of characters that you’ll interact with throughout the game have enough speech options to ensure that they won’t be repeating themselves and you’ll want to speak to every character to find out as much as you can about the story, on a negative note some of the characters speech can get a bit juvenile, normally where the writers have attempted to inject humor into the story. Georges’ speech can also seem quite immature when he’s (attempting) to flirt with Nico and the conversations just resort to sexual references.

Using the stylus to control George around the games settings work surprisingly well, you click where you want him to walk and he and if you want to investigate something the game indicates what can be interacted with when you pass touch something with the stylus. A few of the touch screen puzzles that they’ve added do seem to feel quite sluggish and unresponsive at times, however there are only a few of these touchscreen puzzles and the rest of the time the interface lends itself well to the point and click game.

The graphics are all hand drawn, including redrawn facial expressions drawn by Dave Gibbons (the artist of Watchmen) and really act as throwback to the era before hand drawn animation made way for the computer generated kind. The backgrounds all leap off the screen, they are all colorful and they look individual. The cuts scenes that have been included in the game were all present in the original, they haven’t however been updated at all and as such manage to look dated and out of place in a great looking game.

If they go ahead and port a couple of the other Broken Sword games to the DS, I hope they decide to step back and improve some of the dialogue and really work on the touchscreen puzzle elements of the game and not just give it a mild graphical update. I wonder if this is going to be the start of a renascence of the genre, or are we going to see remakes of the classic point and click adventures of the ‘90s (Beneath a Steel Sky, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Monkey Island)? The system certainly seems made for the genre, I’d happily purchase a DS port of Day of Tentacle or Sam and Max but for now this Broken Sword will suffice as a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Review / Rant - Lesbian Vampire Killers

2009-03-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Lesbian Vampire Killers sounds like it should be awesome doesn’t it? It’s not, in fact I’d probably put it in my top ten worst films I’ve ever seen, and I've watched a lot of shit. Starring James Corden & Mathew Horne (Gavin and Stacey) alongside an instantly forgettable cast of attractive model/actresses as the lesbian vampires that the title alludes to.

The Lesbian Vampire Killers plot revolves around two unlucky losers, Fletch and Jimmy - played by Corden and Horne, who decide to temporarily escape their woes and go on holiday to a remote village, only to find that all of its women have been enslaved by lesbian vampires due to an ancient curse. Things go further awry when they hook-up with a bus-load of attractive foreign female history students and run in to the local vicar (Paul McGann) who seems to think that Jimmy is the long lost descendant of a local vampire slayer.

The problems with LVK are numerous, the film desperately tries to be funny with its typical British male humor that you’ve seen done better in Shaun of Dead which Lesbian Vampire Killers is desperately trying to be. The audience I saw it with barely laughed during the opening chapter, the laughs only began to pick up after the halfway point of the film, when people had realized just how bad the film was and were laughing at the film, rather than laughing along with it. The effects in the film are questionable, whilst it’s clear the effect they are going after is that of the lo-fi grind house flicks of the 80’s, sometimes the gore looks like it’s been edited on later. One thing that I found to be quite jarring was the way they chose to show the passage of time. Every time somebody was walking somewhere, they would simply speed up the frame rate until they were out of shot, coupled with a beat which made for a very strange very experience when the characters are being sped up every couple of minutes. The film hardly shows any of the lesbian vampires that the title promises, a couple of bloody, half naked ladies kissing at the start of the film, followed by the occasion kiss throughout the rest of the film. The rest of the time the vampires aren't really doing much except writhing around next to each other.

I can’t really recommend Lesbian Vampire Killers as a film worth watching, if you want to see a great example of British horror comedy, go and watch Shaun of the Dead. Alternatively if you find yourself craving for an actual grindhouse flick, go and watch Planet Terror.

Bafta Video Games Awards 2009

2009-02-14T14:30:00.001-08:00

Award season is upon us on once again, not just for films but for video games as well. The Bafta Video Games Awards are probably the only awards that I take seriously when games are concerned, most of them are put together by people who have no idea what they're talking about (Star Wars Force Unleashed won the award for best writing at the Writers Guild of America awards, games like GTA IV and Fable 2 weren't even nominated) and I think that it's fantastic that Bafta recognises them in the same way they recognise films. With this in mind I thought I'd have a look at this years nominees and most likely winners.

ACTION & ADVENTURE

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Dead Space
Fable II
Grand Theft Auto IV
Prince of Persia
Tomb Raider: Underworld

GTA IV, will probably take this but then I think the only competition it has in this catergory is Fable 2 or Call of Duty 4.

ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT

Assassin’s Creed
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Dead Space
Gears of War 2
LittleBigPlanet
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a beautiful game game so my moneys is on that. Little Big Planet is another contender. Gears of War 2 is probably a bit too 'Brown' to be a serious contender and Dead Space really downs't look all that impressive if your watching it on a standard def television.

BEST GAME

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Fable II
Fallout 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Rock Band
Super Mario Galaxy

This could go a number of ways, the popular choice would be either GTA IV or Rock Band, with Fable 2 or Fallout 3 being the outside contenders. Super Mario Galaxy and COD4 are a bit too old to be anything but nominations in thsi catergory.

CASUAL

Boom Blox
Buzz! Quiz TV
Guitar Hero: World Tour
LittleBigPlanet
SingStar Vol. 2
Wii Fit

Wii Fit should take this, it's easily the most popular thing on here and the reason that most casual gamers rushed out to buy Wii's.

GAMEPLAY

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Grand Theft Auto IV
Left 4 Dead
Mario Kart Wii
Rock Band
Super Mario Galaxy

Left 4 Dead is the really obvious choice and I hope it wins, failing that COD4. At any other awards, I think Rock Band would be taking this home I'm kind of hoping the Bafta's will have more sense.

MULTIPLAYER

Buzz! Quiz TV
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Gears of War 2
Left 4 Dead
Mario Kart Wii
Rock Band

Again, Left 4 Dead outstripes anything else in this catagory and why has Buzz! even got a nomination.

ORIGINAL SCORE

Assassin’s Creed
Dead Space
Fable II
Fallout 3
Little Big Planet
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

MGS4 will end up taking this one, you cannot beat a Harry Gregson-Williams score, it's very cinematic and well it is the BAFTA's

SPORTS

FIFA 09
Football Manager 2009
Motorstorm Pacific Rift
Pure
Race Driver: GRID
Wii Fit

Wii Fit but can it really be considered a sports game? I still think it'll end up being the winner.

STRATEGY

Advance Wars: Dark Conflict
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
Ninjatown
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
SOCOM: US Navy Seals Tactical Strike
Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Civilization Revolution will take this. It's just so playable, I've lost more hours than I can count playing it and it's a fantastic conversion from PC to 360, really focusing on the pick up play nature of a console, and focusing less on the complicated rules and menus that can sometimes bog down the PC games.

STORY AND CHARACTER

Assassin’s Creed
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Fable II
Fallout 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Mass Effect

GTA IV should by all means walk this award. In the scope of the story alone the game is stunning achievement and they way it fleshes out all of the major characters is amazing.

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT

Assassin’s Creed
Fable II
Fallout 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Little Big Planet
Spore

Again GTA IV, technically is brilliant creating a living, breathing city is certainly a site to behold. Spore I think be the game that everybody thinks will take this but it just dissapointed on too many levels to be a contender.

USE OF AUDIO

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Dead Space
Gears of War 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Little Big Planet
Super Mario Galaxy

Can you guess what I'm going to go for yet? I think GTA IV will take this, the speech, the sounds of the city and the soundtrack are all phenomenal.

GAME Award of 2008

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Fallout 3
Gears of War 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Guitar Hero World Tour
Left 4 Dead
LittleBigPlanet
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Wii Fit
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

The only public vote! It's tense, I've gone for and urge everybody to vote Left 4 Dead, that's my game of the year. Realistically I'm saying GTA IV or Gears of War 2. It's a public vote, and the public like to blow shit up.

So there you go, I've gone for what I'd like to think is a pretty varied mix with big winner of the night being GTA IV. I might be wrong but GTA IV has cleaned up at every other award ceremony, why should the trend be any different here. I guess we'll see on 10 March.

Resident Evil 5 - Demo Impressions

2009-01-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe that it’s been nearly four years since the seminal Resident Evil 4 was released and completely reinvigorated not only the flagging Resident Evil series but the survival horror genre in general. The release of Resident Evil 5 is nearly upon us and Capcom have been good enough to give us a demo to wet our appetites. Once again we’re out of America and placed in the somewhere in Africa called Kijuju rumoured to be the where the T-Virus originates from. We’re back in the shoes of series protagonist Chris Redfield, last scene in Resident Evil: Code Veronica and series newcomer Sheva Alomar and features the return of antagonist Albert Wesker. Now before we go any further let me say I'm a massive Resident Evil fan, I will buy anything to do with the series (I’m tempted to buy the Umbrella corporation umbrella); I have to say overall I was pretty underwhelmed by the demo.

It felt really similar to Resident Evil 4 which is no bad thing do get me wrong but I was hoping for a little bit of an evolution, surely if you’re trying to get people excited about a game you don’t include a sequence that’s nearly identical in style to the a sequence in Resident Evil 4, there was no panic, I walked into the first house, looked at the bookcases and thought “right I need to use those bookcases to cover the door and window”, when I played the level in Resident Evil 4 where you and Luis have to protect Ashley in the house my first thoughts were more “shit, what am I going to do, there are too many of them” then working out that what windows doors could be covered to buy me time. It only changed really when the guy with the big axe / hammer turned up but by then I had no ammo left so spent the rest of this segment just trying to survive till the rescue showed up which I will admit to enjoying because it invoked that traditional Resident Evil panic.

The second section I enjoyed a whole lot more, it felt like an evolution of Resident Evil 4, your introduced to a new evolution of the Las Plagas from the last game, these ones explode out of the heads of the villagers and fly around at you which I liked a lot, I was quite glad they didn’t stick with the standard parasites from Resident Evil 4, although I have no doubt that they will feature at some point. Also I really felt like Sheva was there with you as a teammate in this level because there were points when you actually had to split up and you had to worry about what she was doing and did she need covering? Like tossing Sheva into an adjacent building to unlock a door below, whilst you have to cover her with your sniper rifle from the roof as villagers pile in to attack her.

Whilst most people come to expect a poor control scheme in the Resident Evil series, I found this one not particularly bad, just confusing. I found myself on several occasions backed into a corner, lining the sight up on my gun, only to pull out my knife because I pressed the wrong button. Or I would be running away from a crazed group of villagers trying to figure out the button to reload my gun. The in game item system, I felt needs some work to it as well. Whilst I think it makes sense to bring the item system rather than pausing in the middle of the action like you used to, there are too many button presses and it makes it feel rather awkward. Press Y to open the menu, select the item, press A to select the item, then do you want to equip, reload, drop or show description. Not very practical in the heat of the action, I found myself nearly dead on several occasions because I was trying to change my weapon and ended up getting attacked. I think it would have been easier if you could just hover the item that you want and then it automatically equips it, making it that bit quicker. Then if you want to view the description of something, maybe keep that in a separate menu in the pause screen (I mean we all know what the herbs do by now right?). I did try out the Gears of War styled controls on my second play through, and whilst it rectified some of the confusion that I was having, it just didn’t feel right using this control scheme in the game. Maybe it’s just not Resident Evil without getting confused by the control scheme.

And one minor gripe that I’m really hoping has only been included in the demo for the sake of hiding the more graphic violence from the minors is that the game appears to have been cut, I noticed this in two places. In the opening cut scene that camera cuts away as the hammer / axe thing is being brought down on the guys head, although it’s a cut scene I can handle that. More disturbingly however, I was killed by Dr Salvador’s cousin (the guy with the chainsaw), expecting a nice gory death scene like when Leon got decapitated, I was surprised to see the game over screen appear. Hopefully the more graphic violence will be back for the retail version, I know it’s not the end of the world if it has been cut but I’m used to the death scenes in the series being nice and gory.

Rant over, now onto the things I enjoyed. This game is stunning, I’m playing it in HD and I think it’s one of the best looking games on the 360. The lighting effects that change between walking into and out buildings are nicely in place and the animation of Chris, Sheva and the villagers is spot on. I do like how the villagers are a bit more athletic when trying to attack you, rather than the steady pace the villagers walked towards in Resident Evil 4, before making that up close leap by which point they were normally dead. I haven’t played the demo in multiplayer yet although I’m hoping to rectify that in the next couple of days but I thought the A.I held up admirably controlling Sheva. She would heal you when you needed healing, and try and help you out if you were ever gripped by a villager. And in the two times she wasn’t at my side in the second level, she actually seemed capable of looking after herself whilst I was reloading, which makes a pleasant, part of me was expecting somebody like Ashley who was acting like she wanted to be captured all the time.

So overall I wasn’t impressed by the demo, too much over familiarity and poor control schemes but there is still enough here to get people excited for when the game is released on March 13, and if you’re lucky enough to live in the US then you get to pre-order that sweet limited edition pack, that I guarantee will never see the light of day in the UK. In fact I’m pretty sure we’re just getting a steel tin and making of DVD! I’ll still be there on launch day to pick it up regardless, the thought of going toe-to-toe with Wesker is still to enticing an opportunity to pass up on.

(500) Days of Summer

2009-01-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't stopped watching this trailer since this morning, looks like I've got my most anticipated film of '09.

2009-01-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'm officaly excited:

If they can keep the pace of of series 4 going in series 5 & 6. Then I don't think anybody has too much to worry about.

34 episodes left!

iPhone review - Dr Awesome

2009-01-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dr Awesome is an iPhone game released by ngmoco, current kings of the iPhone games market after releases such as this, Topple and Rolando.

Dr Awesome is a microsurgery game stylised in a similar vein to the popular Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series on the Nintendo DS. The in game graphics are bright, clear and colourful, and the in game cut scenes all well drawn with the characters all modeled after stereotypical archetypes found within your everyday hospital drama.

You start the game as lowly junior resident Dr Awesome when a series of viruses causes an epidemic at your hospital and it becomes your job to save the patients and get yourself promoted until your the best doctor in the hospital. One of the most interesting features of the game is that it will import the names of people within your contacts and these become the people that you will be operating on throughout the game. To make things more difficult when patients are admitted to the hospital you are only given 24hrs to operate on them, and this happens in real time. Whilst this is only a minor inconvenience, it can frustrating to find several of your patients dead, and yourself demoted a few ranks because you haven't logged on in a few days.

The operations themselves make splendid use of the phones accelerometer as you tip the phone around to guide your surgical instruments around and cut away at bits of infected flesh with the aim of isolating the viruses to destroy it. Whilst this starts of easy in the early levels, later levels will see you dodging electric shock inducing bacteria and viruses that will periodically fire at you and can make for a very challenging and sometimes frustrating game.

Dr Awesome is well worth 59p that I paid for it in the app store and I would highly recommend anybody pick it up, it's a perfect game to have a quick go on if your travelling somewhere on and public transport and haven't got time play to something more substantial. I would also recommend it to people who like to play games on the iphone that don't involve a lot of touching, so they can focus on what's going on in the game, the only on screen interaction you'll have is when you go through the menus. It's also has a lot of that one more go appeal, that will have you coming back for more to try and save a couple more of you friends.