The Games people play!!

...errr... in this case, the "people" refers to only me :)

In any case, I am putting up this huge blog after months of non-updates on the gaming side - the excuse of course being - "its easy to play, but not to write about a great game"!! So, here goes, all the games I played after the laaast update, which was "F.E.A.R." way back in Jan 07..

Just a early heads-up, some of the games I mention in this list might be difficult to find on a store shelf near you. If you are really interested, check the net or ask me for more detailed reviews, and then you can place a special order for that game!!

Syberia and Syberia 2 : 84 - this one came out of nowhere, an adventure, puzzle-solving type game which just blew me away. We follow a New York attorney Kate Walker as she follows the childhood dream of a eccentric inventor as seeing live mammoths!! Long live automatons!!

Far Cry : 82 - a very famous FPS, it does live up to its reputation. It has everything we can ask for from a game of this genre and then some more. Guns, vehicles, AI, blasts and stunning graphics - dont miss!

Prey : 74 - Prey has a lot of potential - trying to mix some ancient cherokee "magic" skills with some interesting gameplay. The concept of using portals for getting between areas is also really good. But, this game gets a few basic concepts and repeats them over and over. Worth playing, but after seeing this - I cant wait to find what Valve can do with "Portal"..

NOLF and NOLF 2 : 86 - No One Lives Forever is one of the few games whose main protagonist is a female - and she grows to become a very good super spy ala Bond, James Bond - yes, I am referring to Cate Archer. This is one well rounded game - good action, good graphics, great locales all over the world, challenging puzzles to crack and one really mean sense of humour - dont miss the dialouges - they are worth stopping the action for!

Call Of Duty : 81 - The original Call of Duty - places us with various teams (American, British, Russian) in the push to capture Berlin during World War II. And it is one "realistic experience". Fans of "world war" themes will absolutely love this..

Psychonauts : 84 - Another game I hadn't heard much of - but was an absolute delight to play. A stunning 3D - platformer, we follow the adventures of Raz - training to become a psychonaut - people who save the world by fighting demons in peoples minds!! Yeah - really!! This gives rise to some really quirky and fun concepts and great dialouge too makes this a must-play. It looks like a kiddies-game, but believe me - everyone will enjoy it.

Condemned - Criminal Origins : 81 - whew!! A creepy horror game, where we battle for survival against some unknown but powerful entity.. There is pretty gruesome first-person fighting and an unrolling mystery.. a dark game which harcore gamers will love - but keep away from the very young..

GTA - San Andreas : 92 - I really dont have to say much about San Andreas - you are not even a bit into gaming if you haven't heard of it. This is a great game well worth the money you pay for it - there are some minor irritants, like forcing us to eat and exercise, but there is just so much interesting stuff to do here that we dont mind at all.

Prince Of Persia - the Trilogy : 91 - Really awesome, Sands Of Time, Warrior Within and Two Thrones combine some stunning gameplay with good dialouges, great graphics and a classic prince storyline. As I mentioned before, I loved the "time sands" concept - and thats jsut one of the great things in the game. A very minor irritant is the fact that sometimes we get the feel that this was meant for teh console - given the key combinations and camera angles we get to use and see.

Hitman - Blood Money : 82 - Another classic Hitman - where you can choose to be a "all guns blazer" or a true "silent assasin" on a number of interesting locales and missions - the ending is also good - with the seeming Hitman "death". Fans - dont miss!

Indigo Prophecy : 81 - Not sure if I have written on this before - but it follows a "movie" like look and we play along as detectives trying to solve a case. Lots of new concepts implemented here and there is a great "impending crisis" atmosphere.

Painkiller & BooH expansion : 79 - A straight FPS - has all the usual frills and all done very well - a new addition is the capture of "souls". Good one for FPS folks..

King Kong : 76 - A short but excellent game following the same track as the movie - and it allows us to play as King Kong too!!

NFS Carbon : 75 - Yet another in the NFS stable - I wouldnt say this is as good as the earlier "Most Wanted", but its worth the ride. All the usual NFS stuff with the new canyon fights - but it is a bit irritating to restart the canyons from start if we fail even at the very end.

Liquidator : 50 - err - why was the game released when all that was meant to be in it was not put in? Only the "options" screens are impressive looking..

Ok folks, thats all the games I remember playing over the last few months - hope you enjoyed reading about it (and wished you could play them too!!). I will update again sooner (or later) on new games I play and anything else I might have missed here.

Till then, have fun - and KEEP GAMING!! (The Orange Box is here - YIPEEEEEEEE)

Transformers

Well, well, well - talk about a rollicking fun ride on a blockbuster Hollywood summer movie!!

This one is a straight "formula" movie, uses all the usual "big" movie tricks but still impresses thanks to a great and "simple-at-heart" screenplay and some wickedly stunning visual effects!!

Adapted from the age old (for me atleast) comic and TV series, the movie features a group of "alien-advanced technology" machines/robots which are looking for something called the "cube" and can transform themselves into the shape of any machine which they observe. There are some good robots (Autobots) here and many are bad (Deceptions) and one teenager called Sam holds the key to finding the cube.

From here on its the standard story - if the bad bots win, the human race will be destroyed, Sam joins up with the good bots and starts the chase for finding the cube - interspaced with efforts to impress the girl of his dreams (from his childhood) who doesnt even know he exists..

But what makes the movie work is the warm, human touch to the screenplay - the robots used the "world wide web" to learn about humans and speak with human voices!! There are many simple and funny moments - a great example being the scene where the robots try to hide from the sight of Sam's parents lest he be grounded!!

The graphics/visual effects are of course ASTOUNDING! Right from the beginning when an army helicopter turns into an attacking machine, there is no letup to the amazing sights we see on screen!!

The acting is par for this sort of movie, but it must be said that Shia Labeouf (Sam) fits his role to a "T".

Overall, my only grouse with this movie is in the climax which is not really as entertaining as the rest of the movie and doesnt seem too inventive but well the graphics more than make up for it.. and of course, the logic leaves a lot to be desired, but hey this is a "comic-book" movie!!

Score : 73 (Dont MISS this on the big screen - its a lot of bang for the buck)

Tagged by Naren - 3 themes/ideas for Tamil cinema

Ok here goes - fulfilling a tag by Naren quite some time back. BTW, all tag trail followers - unfortunately "the buck stops here" for this one!!


Idea 1 : The "book adaptation" - I mean the "real" one - not the kind where songs and fights are inserted into a perfectly good book to make it seem perfectly bad!! I think we did have few, very few of these in the early part of last century - but I cant recall anything which was more recent.

Idea 2 : The "courtroom drama" - again this has been "mildly" (to put it mildly) tried out before - "Naan Avanillai" being a recent example - but a classic courtroom movie could work wonders for the intellectual viewer..

Idea 3 : Hey, you guys took all the "good and easy" ideas and left me to wonder here :) - in any case, here goes my final idea - the "mental movie" - yeah - you read right
"mental" - a classic example would be "A Clockwork Orange" - where we really plough into the "psyche" of a protaganist..

Well - thats it from me and remember this tag trail stops right here!!

meme:tamil.cinema.themes.ideas

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I just completed the long and eagerly awaited book 7 - and it was one racy read... Gone are the intorduction of "new & fun" magical things that makes these books all that interesting to read - but then this is war and the tone has been set in book 6 - there are short spans of humour, fun and even romance but its about the final war between good and evil. Yes - there are casualities ; yes - some unexpected heroes arise and no - nobody could have guessed EVERYTHING this book throws up and so yes - JKR does deliver a "unguessable and well-above par" (not like Matrix 3) final book. You are going to read this book only if you have been following the story so far and in that case you are going to read it anyways!! :)

Have fun - its a must read.

Oceans 13, Die Hard 4.0, Harry Potter - the "multi"quels

Quite a pleasant change - I liked all 3 of these "biggies" - compared to the disappointment of the previous releases!!

Oceans 13 - not many would consider this one too good - but the flow and the dialouges and the "ideas" are just too good - its obvious the cast is njoying itself - as I did - and Oprah - oh Oprah - was absolutely awesome - esp at the climax!! If u liked Oceans 11 - dont miss it!!

Score : 71 (must watch if u liked the first movie)

Die Hard 4.0 - to say the truth, I didnt expect much out of this one - but boy this is another super-fun ride. We have a series of outrageous stunts and actions sequences intersperced with wacky one-liners from the "one-and-only-McClane-Willis". Add to this a "futuristic" storyline, a nerd as a sidekick and a spunky daughter who gets kidnapped - and you know its a worthy movie experince.

Score : 70 (but you may not remember much afterwards)

Harry Potter And The Order Of the Phoenix - I am kind of pre-disposed to like this one - but even then its a very good adaption of what is considered the "most boring" of the Harry Potter books.. A lot of liberties are taken with the story to ensure that the length of the movie is managable, the visuals are really awesome, the mood is darker and overall its a good watch in anticipation of Book 7.

Score : 73 (you are going to watch it anyways)

Sivaji - the "boss" is back!!

Just got back from watching Sivaji - and I must say that the "too-much" hype leaves the feeling that the movie should have been a bit better...

First things first - Rajni is back with full vigour and looking several years younger thanks to some "cool" costumes and makeup - Shankar sticks to his usual formula - though the main theme this time is black money and corruption...

I wont bother with writing the story here because either you already know it or you dont want to know it - (u dont care/u wanna see it live in a theatre).. The film starts with what is a feeble introduction by Rajni's standards and then continues along very light lines..

The entire first half is a fun-riot, nothing really serious happening - with just the establishment of the characters and their relations - Vivek is quite equal to Rajni here playing his "mama" and they evoke quite a few laughs..

Then, tragedy falls just before the interval - after this the Rajni "formula" starts and the adrenaline rush never stops till the very end - with the "motta" MGR finishing things off!!

The fights are way better than "Chandramuki" but still the intermediate scene where Rajni bashes up some 20-30 people doesnt always look too good - the opening "comic" fight though is a classic!

The songs are all good and well-shot - a couple are really fun too - but they inevitably act as speed-breakers - they hold you attention by their sheer lavishness but I dont think - but if you have already seen the songs then you will feel irritated when the break the swiftly moving movie..

Shreya has a pretty good role considering this is a "superstar" movie - but still she is involved only in the songs and in the scenes which set up these songs primarily - she looks good and does her part well - All the other characters are adequate - Suman as the villain looked like a good concept - the underplayed bigshot - but I had the feeling that casting such an unknown here reduced the effect quite a bit - imagine if one of the long list of actors who refused to do this role actually accepted!!

The overall script is good - esp the comic parts - but there are some unbelievable things too - like when Shreya saves Rajni, the way the entire legislative-judiciary system seems to work and so on..

I think you have noticed by now from my writing that my overall impression was that this was a pretty good movie but there are some minuses which stop it from being the "great" movie expected from the stellar team working on it..

Rajni fans - they will surely enjoy this one - even though the "glorification" is not that continuous ; Others - can see it once too - its quite an entertainer!!

Score : 70 (Would have been a lot lesser if not for Rajni!)

PS : BTW, Pirates 3 too didnt meet my expectations - too little Jack, totally unnecessary story complications and leeeeeength bog down what should have been a great movie. Score : 64

Hoping to be back soon!!

Yeah - I know its been a long while, but it took today - when I had to "claim" this blog in order to move it from blogger1 to blogger2 - to make me finally enter an update - with some massive movies and games coming over the next few months - I hope to have some updates here..

I suppose the biggies started with Spidey 3 - but I was really disappointed with it - my score : 62/100

More on movies and games in the near future..