Brentiverse

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" Movie Review

2012-01-21T12:55:00.000-08:00

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright

Rating: R (U.S.) 18A (Canada)

Warnings: Brutal Violence Including Rape and Torture, Strong Sexuality, Graphic Nudity, and Language

Length: 158 Minutes

Studio(s): Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, MGM

Points of Interest: Inspired by novel, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"; Remake of 2009 film, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"

WHAT I LOVED:

- Rooney Mara delivers a stellar performance as Lisbeth Salander, once again making the heroine more interesting than the plot itself.

- Some of the twists are quite effective, making it an all around solid mystery to enjoy if you don't mind the twisted content.

- If you've seen the Swedish original and/or read the book, this American remake is nicely faithful to both.

- The sets are fantastic, and the movie is wonderfully shot to bring the story to life with maximum impact!

- The intro credits sequence is extremely cool!

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH...:

- Not every element of the mystery makes perfect sense, and there's a few places where you need to stretch logic, despite the movie's otherwise very commendable commitment to realism.

- Some may find certain scenes to be rather difficult to watch if they have a weak stomach or are easily upset, since the story doesn't care about neutering the graphic content of the novel and previous Swedish film adaptation.

- The denouement is too drawn out, and the new ending sequence for the American movie feels unsatisfying.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

It seems that ever since the release of the original Swedish movie adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in 2009, I haven't been able to stop hearing about The Millennium Trilogy. If you're somehow not aware, this is a series of three posthumously published novels written by the late Swedish author and journalist, Stieg Larsson. These books and their subsequent Swedish movie adaptations were so popular, that the Swedish movies even screened in my home city, which almost NEVER picks up any kind of foreign subtitled films! The previous source material of movies and books may be extraordinarily acclaimed, but allow me to clarify here and now that I have never read the novels, nor seen any of the Swedish movies, though I did research the details of both so that I had a clear understanding of what was altered between each telling of Larsson's story. This was an intentional decision, since I wanted to take the American remake on its own merits, and not feel the need to incessantly compare it to the previous Swedish movies especially. It's inevitable that some will feel that this American remake is poorly justified, since the original Swedish movie adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is barely cooled, having been released on the big screen in 2009, before Hollywood decided to snatch it up and do their own spin on it, even with the Swedish movie still relatively easily unattainable. It sort of mirrors the hasty Hollywood remake of Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In from 2010, retitled Let Me In, though that was fortunately a very good movie. Thankfully, this one is too, even if it barely wastes time making an American movie just to put recognizable Hollywood actors and a removal of subtitles into the package. I already knew that this American remake was in good hands, since it's helmed by David Fincher, one of Hollywood's top award-winning directors, whose most recent works include 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and 2010's The Social Network. In fact, it was thanks to The Social Network that Fincher discovered Rooney Mara, whom he cast as the movie's titular heroine, Lisbeth Salander. While the hasty production of the Hollywood remake of DT might leave a sour taste in some foreign film enthusiasts' mouths, I can at least clarify that this is a very strong, riveting adaptation, regardless of the justification of this American version's existence. December saw the release of many strong movies towards the tail end of 2011, and this is yet another one, if you want your movies to go deeper, darker and far more disturbing than the likes of the Sherlock Holmes and Mission: Impossible sequels for example. As with the previous source material, several scenes in the American remake can be very difficult to watch, so I wouldn't approach this film lightly if you have a weak stomach, though I hear that it's actually a bit less graphic than the original Swedish movie, albeit not by much. If you want a large, meaty dark movie that you can sink your teeth into, and one that raises a fair amount of interesting questions about the paradigm of violence and the human condition, this one is well worth checking out, though you'll enjoy it a lot more if you stifle the need to compare it to the Swedish original, assuming that you've seen that. You don't need to see it to appreciate the American remake however, and it's almost preferable that you see the American remake first if this is your first encounter with the story, like me, since you'll enjoy it a lot more without the urge to keep thinking back to the Swedish movie. On its own merits, this is a strong adaptation that's well told and outlines a considerable amount of promise for the trilogy's two follow-ups, and the main point of contention with it is simply the fact that it was quickly made after the Swedish movie's release. So, with that considered, this is a pretty airtight dark thriller that is sure to entertain and effectively disturb mature adult audiences, so long as they are willing to put aside their preconceptions and appreciate this film for what it is.

Characters: (9/10) - Most of the story focuses on our male lead, Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist who is being slapped with a libel suit, after attempting an expose on corrupt businessman, Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. In the novel and original Swedish movie, Blomkvist apparently got a prison sentence, but in the American remake, he just gets a rather hefty fine, as well as a permanently damaged reputation, which, in my opinion, kind of better serves the storyline and makes more sense, as the prison arc didn't really need to be part of the story. After a background check, he's contracted by retired CEO of Vanger Industries, Henrik Vanger, to investigate the disappearance of a young heiress, whom he believes has been murdered by one of his family members back in the 1960's. Though the backbone of the movie's plot is about investigating this disappearance, the real highlight character arc comes courtesy of our heroine, Lisbeth Salander, whom the title refers to. Lisbeth is a ward of the state due to being diagnosed with mental incompetence, despite being in her twenties and being a noticeably gifted savant and tech expert (one of a few stretches in logic in an otherwise chillingly realistic movie), and her character arc eventually unites her with Blomkvist's investigation. I don't live in Sweden, granted, so maybe I just don't understand how it works there, but how does being an anti-social punk somehow equate to being mentally challenged? In a movie that tries so hard to be realistic, character threads like this kind of stick out as questionable, and normally I would say the same about the seemingly irrelevant events leading up to Lisbeth and Blomkvist crossing paths, which include some rather graphic sexual abuse by Lisbeth's new legal guardian (I'm warning you now). Even if this whole rapist character arc just distracts from the main driving force of the story, the investigation of Harriet Vanger's disappearance, and doesn't really influence said investigation in any way, I'm not going to really penalize it. This is because, as strange as it is, despite initially being independent of Blomkvist's agenda, Lisbeth is easily the story's most interesting and noteworthy character. Even though Blomkvist is who is trying to drive the plot forward, the interesting questions and compelling character study elements all come from Lisbeth, which could explain why the story is titled after her, and the movie's intro sequence seems to be a trip into her psyche, and not anyone else's. By the way, I very much encourage you to look forward to this intro sequence, which is a surreal, tar-filled and trippy montage of dark psychological imagery modeled after the innermost workings of Lisbeth's mind. It's a thrilling and chilling depiction of her most deep-rooted psyche set to an awesome remixing of Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song by the film's soundtrack composers, Atticus Ross, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and it's reminiscent of a creepy James Bond intro, somewhat ironic when you consider that Daniel Craig is in a lead role. This awesome intro credits sequence sucked me completely into the movie from the get-go, and its effects compensated for the initial slow pacing, so I think that audiences will likely enjoy it as a strong opener. Anyway, when Lisbeth and Blomkvist finally meet, the investigation starts heating up, and this is when the movie's best moments tend to start unfolding. Unfortunately, this is also when a lot of excess characters from the book just start becoming shoved into the background, in an effort to juggle the myriad Vanger family members that the movie expects you to keep track of. Henrik is conveniently removed from the plot by means I won't spoil, Blomkvist's initially high-profile married lover, Erika Berger is pushed aside, and Henrik's lawyer, Dirch Frode makes a clumsy exit, having added almost nothing to the movie beyond being a plot device and exposition dump for both Lisbeth and Henrik. Thankfully, Lisbeth especially nicely compensates with a compelling character arc that nicely evens out the movie sometimes failing to keep all of its balls in the air, and if you're not consistently paying attention, you'll often become easily lost when trying to keep up with the numerous characters that DT expects you to keep track of. It's difficult to talk about the numerous characters in the film without going into spoilers, so I'll just say that for the first half, DT feels like a combination of murder mystery and character study in jumping between Blomkvist and Lisbeth, two parts that come together surprisingly effectively when they work together to try and solve the mystery of Harriet Vanger's apparent murder. Sometimes, you'll have to put up with stretches in character logic, but considering the movie's extensive amount of highlight moments between its two leads, this is an acceptable compromise, if you're not going to be too much of a hard-ass about the strive for perfect realism.

Acting: (10/10) - Even if characters tend to come and go as the script pleases, with little to no warning, I do have to say that the performances in the movie are pretty well uniformly excellent, even from the underused actors. Daniel Craig is playing a more portly, slovenly version of himself in the role of Mikael Blomkvist that does a good job of capturing the picture of a disgraced everyman, and not his James Bond persona in disguise. He reacts as most real people would during the tense moments, which is to say, running away when he gets shot at, and lurching in digust when he sees something graphic. Blomkvist has a keen investigative mind, as Henrik perfectly sums up, but he never stops feeling like a real, vulnerable person, which helps to keep the tension high. On the flip side, it's Lisbeth that comes off as the more superhumanly capable character, having an eidetic memory and an immense catalogue of technical knowledge, though her vulnerability is still made apparent thanks to the surprisingly effective implementation of the whole rapist guardian arc. Lisbeth is one of the movie's most twisted and interpretive characters, one who is a victim of violence, but also a young woman who can be equally violent herself. Some of Lisbeth's scenes are when she is given a chance to strike back at those who would do harm to her, and it begs the question of how vindicated she would be as a victim, when she displays an almost murderous sadism and moral sociopathy. Rooney Mara had a tough act to follow after the immense acclaim of Noomi Rapace's performance from the original Swedish movies, but let me tell you right now that Mara is absolutely brilliant in the role. From the snippets I've seen of Rapace's performance, I find that Mara is less intimidating than Rapace, but this also makes her victimization feel more palpable during the more dramatic scenes, and it leads to a more effective sense of shock and awe when you really get to see Lisbeth's dark side unleashed. I think that the two performances nicely complement each other, effectively capturing dual sides of the same effective personality, so if you're worried about Mara not being able to fill Rapace's shoes, you can put those fears to bed, even if it's a different set of strengths on display with Mara's portrayal. The movie tries to cram in several big name actors, including Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright and Christopher Plummer, and all of them are nicely brooding, though since the movie never focuses on them, their performances aren't given a whole lot of room to breathe. Of these three, it's Christopher Plummer that has the most bearing on the story, and he was one of the only Vanger family members that I ever got a sense of charm out of, particularly when he's trying to put a light, casual spin on how disturbed and dysfunctional his family has always been for Blomkvist during Henrik's introduction. Wright is similarly effective as Blomkvist's married lover and magazine editor, and while the movie blatantly admits that she's an adulterer without giving the audience any real acquaintance with her husband, it's still difficult to dislike her, which some may interpret as the character feeling ineffective, if we're to believe that Erika is a bad person and an opportunist. There certainly is some interpretation for that, but again, I'm not spoiling anything. The bigger remaining actor is Stellan Skarsgard as Henrik's nephew, Martin, who provides much of the initial explanation of the island to complement Henrik's explanation of the Vanger family. He's Harriet's brother, but whether this has any bearing on the story, you'll just have to wait and see. Skarsgard is another of the more likeable Vanger family members, but unlike Plummer, he doesn't totally escape this sense of shadiness that the whole family seems to have. Thankfully, this isn't a big deal, because unlike Martin, Henrik is written out of the plot pretty early on, so it doesn't matter that he's the only person that the audience won't really suspect. The entire movie is carried forward by the combined talents of Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, and while they don't always offer the perfect replacement for Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace, they're still delivering two excellent performances that manage to hold up DT all on their own, Mara especially.

Stunts: (9/10) - As I said, the American remake is apparently less graphic than the Swedish original and novel, but David Fincher is still clearly not pulling punches. The slight reduction in graphic imagery is probably due to the fact that the American film ratings board is much stricter than their European counterparts when it comes to things like sexual content and torture, two things that DT really isn't shy about exploring. Any modesty here is probably only to avoid an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. There are several highly physical scenes involving rape, torture and other such unpleasantness, so allow me to again stress that people who are easily upset by controversial, twisted and violent scenes may have a hard time watching this movie during said sequences. I don't want to spoil the details of these scenes, as it would mean spoiling the movie and violating my strict no-spoiler policy, but just trust me that these scenes are meant to be as realistic and chilling as possible, so there are some points where DT is justifiably difficult to watch without feeling a bit disturbed and/or squeamish. Anything that comes close to an action scene is pretty restrained, and this is a movie that derives more thrills from its drama than it does from its violence, so while there is a physical component of stuntwork, it's prioritizing shock value over thrills. As disturbing as these scenes are, I do have to admit that they're pretty well-done too, even if you might feel like you need a shower and a good cry afterwards.

Special Effects/Animation: N/A

Set Pieces: (10/10) - One strength that the American remake definitely has over its Swedish counterpart is how well-shot it is. I've only seen a few clips from the Swedish movie, but the American version left more of an impression and came off as much more eye-catching, even when I'd initially just seen the trailer before watching the actual movie. Everything from the snow-covered Vanger estate to the seedy apartment of Lisbeth's guardian looks wonderfully realized, and the movie's sense of imagery is very powerful, which is unsurprising, since David Fincher helms some of the most visually compelling dramas in Hollywood, even with a restrained hand when it comes to the finer details. DT is stylish, but simple, as with many of Fincher's works, and if nothing else, a naysayer can look at this over the Swedish movie, and appreciate the improved quality of the set pieces, which bring the novel to life in a noticeably more memorable fashion than the original Swedish movies.

Costumes: N/A

Story: (8/10) - DT is a mostly engrossing mystery that leaves a strong impression, especially if you've never read the books or seen the Swedish movies that inspired it. Despite the fact that its lead characters are initially separate, it compensates for the slow, methodical pacing of the mystery with some very effective character study elements, especially from the perspective of Lisbeth, and nicely wraps everything up once Blomkvist and Lisbeth actually team up and start approaching the conclusion of their mystery. The movie begins, as I mentioned, with Millennium Magazine journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, losing a libel case against a crooked businessman, forcing him to pay a hefty fine, when his magazine firm is already in jeopardy. The retired CEO of a huge company called Vanger Industries, Henrik Vanger, takes advantage of the situation to hire the down-on-his-luck Blomkvist in order to utilize his investigative senses to try and unearth the mystery of his missing niece, Harriet. Henrik believes that Harriet was murdered by one of his own family members, and is asking Blomkvist to prove it for him. Blomkvist's background check was done by a technical genius and ward of the state, the anti-social Lisbeth Salander, whose guardian suffers a stroke, placing her in the 'care' of a bullying sexual deviant. The two are eventually brought together with a common purpose after it's made clear just how deep their mystery goes, exposing a string of crime and human perversion that runs deep within the Vanger family tree. That's about all I can say about the movie without spoilers, and while the story is both well-told and riveting in the American remake, I do have three points of contention with it. One I already mentioned, and that's that DT's commitment to hardcore realism can sometimes be its own undoing, since it asks us to suspend our disbelief when it comes to blatant lapses in character logic and circumstances, which is harder to do than when the movie tries to be so chilling and grounded. The second slight problem I had was that the denouement is way too drawn out, which I gather was also kind of the case in the novel too. After the mystery is solved and the villain is taken care of, DT sees fit to just keep dragging on for another fifteen minutes, in a hurried and somewhat slapdash effort to try and wrap up the character arcs that it left out to try and solve the main plot's arc; Harriet's disappearance. This makes the very final stretch of DT less interesting to sit through, since nothing really exciting goes on, and it just feels like the movie is in a rush not to forget to wrap up anything, which just comes off as a bit tedious. The third slight issue with the plot is that the ending is changed from the original Swedish movie, to be SLIGHTLY more in line with the conclusion of the novel, only with more liberties taken. Unfortunately, many DT purists will probably hate the American ending, because it feels contrived and unsatisfying, and doesn't give a clear direction of where the inevitable sequel will move things to, as if David Fincher wasn't sure if Hollywood adaptations of The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest would be green-lighted. Beyond those slight kinks though, the movie's story is very easy to get sucked into and try to unravel for audiences. Even when it gets complicated and occasionally a tad slow, it never stops being interesting, which makes it a consistently compelling drama to sit through before the somewhat irritating and long denouement.

Length/Editing: (9/10) - Unsurprisingly, DT is VERY well-directed and edited, and even with its very meaty 158-minute runtime, it never really struggles to suck audiences into its dark, twisted world. The only exception comes from the post-climax scenes, which drag and overstay their welcome, begging the question as to why some of this couldn't just be outlined in the sequel, without having to show every painstaking detail. It feels like a carryover strategy from the book, and possibly even the original Swedish movie, one that just doesn't really work. Even though the beginning moments are on the slow side though, DT is very easy to get engrossed in even from the get-go, so it's a real testament to Fincher's directing skills that he can take such a bloated, methodical story, and somehow make it so captivating, even when it can get very disturbing.

Genre Appeal: (9/10) - DT is a very strong thriller that mature adult audiences should be able to get efficiently invested in, so long as they can put aside any preconceptions that the Swedish movie might have instilled in them. Some of the stretched logic can be an issue, and the ending moments rapidly run out of steam, but the overaching mystery and impeccable character work that's evident throughout this entire piece is impossible to deny. It's dark, it's long, and it doesn't rush to tell its delightfully twisted tale of violence and pain, but if you don't mind hard-hitting thrillers that don't believe in pulling punches, you'll find that DT is one of the most chilling and memorable thrillers of all 2011, and obviously, a must-see in that respect, if you're old enough to get an admission ticket.

Re-watch Value: (5/10) - The large mystery and commendable commitment to detail by Fincher and his crew makes DT surprisingly easy to revisit if you want to continue exploring its dark themes, or perhaps get a refresher on the story before the sequel arrives. That said though, purists will likely be more inclined to revisit the more authentic Swedish movie over the American remake, even if the American version is generally more compelling with its imagery.

Conclusion- Even if I didn't have an easy time watching some of the more twisted scenes in DT, I still thought that this was a very good movie, and it made me really want to check out its Swedish counterpart. This is one of the reasons why I think that the existence of the American remake isn't such a bad thing, because like Let Me In, it gives me a more digestible and widely available way to experience a story, which in turn will make me want to see its less airbrushed Swedish original to see how I would compare and contrast the two. Again though, I intentionally avoided the Swedish movie initially, because I didn't want to keep referring back to it when pondering my final opinion of the American version. This will probably be the main issue that a lot of purists have with this movie, the fact that it came out only a couple of years after its Swedish inspiration, but to write off this American remake for such a silly reason would be doing yourself a considerable dis-service. Obviously, the Swedish and American adaptations offset each other with different strengths and weaknesses, and while purists will inevitably feel that the Swedish movie tells the story more authentically, the American version compensates with its higher polish and the fact that it tweaked a few elements of the Swedish movie that didn't really work. If you want to look at it from another perspective, this is also a great movie to watch for Rooney Mara's incredible performance in the role of Lisbeth Salander alone, and this movie should hopefully mark an extensive career boost for her, since her previous acting turns in recent memory were the lead role in the lukewarm Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and her bit part in The Social Network. With Fincher now confirming his commitment to helming the sequels and even suggesting that he may shoot them back-to-back, I'm also very excited to see where the trilogy will take us next, again avoiding watching the Swedish versions of the two sequels before I watch their American counterparts. To clarify, this doesn't mean that I have anything against foreign films, because I don't, it's just concurrent with my review style, which only covers first-run theatrical movies. My critiques of said movies would be less reliable if I based them around my feelings of another European movie that the reader may have never even heard of before I mentioned its respective American remake. For now though, I can easily recommend DT to anyone looking for a powerful, well-shot dramatic thriller that they can readily recall and question well after they exit the theatre. You may prefer the Swedish movie, and that's up to your opinion, but you still can't deny that for an American re-do that really didn't waste its time being made, DT is a cut above most other movies like it, even if it's not afraid to give you a few nightmares in the process.

FINAL SCORE: 86% "GREAT!"

FINAL VERDICT: "Purists will likely grumble at the hasty production of an American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo so early after the Swedish movie's release, but this powerful and memorable take on the story by director, David Fincher and his crew is no less effective or disturbing in all of its glorious bleakness! Driven forward very well by a compelling mystery and a superb performance by Rooney Mara in the titular role, this is a nicely dark alternative to many of the brighter, more chipper movies that have accompanied the December calendar."

Brentiverse 2011 Movie Awards: Part 4 - Film of the Year

2012-01-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

Thus, we come to the final portion of the movie awards. Ten nominees will be selected, representing the best, most noteworthy movies of 2011. It was a crowded year full of plenty of amazing releases, but after many difficult decisions, I finally managed to narrow down ten movies in the running for the grand champion. There may have been plenty of worthwhile releases on the big screen this past year, but only one can be the best. To start off proceedings, here are the ten nominees for Film of the Year 2011!

1) Rango

WHY: Rango was a strange trip of an animated film, and oddly bucked the 3D convention that the genre has always held firmly since 2009! Even so, Rango was one of the most creative, original and surprisingly enjoyable animated films of the year, and a rare animated film that doesn't really waste a lot of time pandering to kids. This is a movie best appreciated by adults in all of its surreal glory, but they can generally agree that Industrial Light and Magic's first entire animated feature was an excellent one, hopefully starting a new push for more ILM animated films over the years!

2) X-Men: First Class

WHY: The X-Men film series went almost ten years without a real quality entry thanks to the disappointing X-Men: The Last Stand and the rather sub-par X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Not only did X-Men: First Class finally make this esteemed superhero film series awesome again, but it also could be considered the best X-Men movie yet! A prequel/reboot combo, X-Men: First Class delivered a creative, retro chic spin on Marvel's mutants, detailing the origin between the conflict of Professor X and Magneto, before they had taken on these identities. The story was great, the characters were once again front and center, the special effects were surprisingly awesome, and the set pieces were very memorable and engaging. This was a superhero blockbuster that had everything, and hopefully the inevitable sequels can keep this series on the right track!

3) Rise of the Planet of the Apes

WHY: Speaking of excellent reboots, Rise of the Planet of the Apes also took a floundering franchise that had been dragged through the muck by some rather lacklustre films on the tail end of the original canon, and redeemed the series with a back-to-basics spin that detailed just how those damned dirty apes took over our world. Taking place mainly through the eyes of chimp prodigy, Caesar, a character so heartfelt and tragic that he was one of the most breathtakingly human characters of the year, even as an ape, Rise of the Planet of the Apes was very creative, very smart and loaded with thrills, challenging questions and all sorts of surprises for fans new and old! Featuring one of the year's best performances thanks to Andy Serkis as Caesar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes took a mostly ridiculous and dated sci-fi cult series and made it believable and relevant again. It's another refreshed canon that I'm absolutely thrilled to see more from over the years ahead!

4) Drive

WHY: Drive didn't have a complicated storyline, or even developed characters. Even so, it was a movie that spoke volumes through everything that it DIDN'T say. Drive was a movie that wasn't afraid to challenge the imaginations and deeper fascinations of the audience, delivering a classy, retro chic dramatic thriller that was nicely punctuated with several surprising moments of violence, as well as a hallmark performance by Ryan Gosling in the nameless lead role. Sure to be a cult classic for decades, Drive was one of 2011's most criminally underseen films, even if it still turned a reasonable profit over its microscopic budget. It's a movie that some may find too 'deep' as it were, but for those willing to try and understand the vision, Drive represents a rare serving of highly creative dramatic thriller that Hollywood really needs more of. It's rare that a movie so simple is so powerful and memorable, but that's exactly what separates Drive from the competition!

5) Bridesmaids

WHY: Bridesmaids was an R-rated comedy with a surprising amount of heart, inspiration and charm. It was also a movie that proved women can have just as much comedic chops as any male cast in these kinds of movies, resulting in a loveably honest and sometimes hilariously rude take on an otherwise relatable story about dealing with loss, whether it's the loss of your job or your best friend. If you don't care about the subtext though, Bridesmaids was a hysterical comedy that is sure to lend Kristen Wiig to superstardom, and hopefully it paves the way for other awesome female-driven adult comedies to come along over the next few years!

6) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

WHY: Even if you could care less about Harry Potter like me, you can't deny that the much anticipated Harry Potter finale was one of 2011's standout Summer blockbusters. It was a dark, action-packed finale to a much beloved series that gave the wizarding franchise a proper send-off, even if it meant that fans would have to say goodbye to something that defined a large part of their lives. Harry and the Hogwarts crew took heavy losses in the final battle for the wizarding world, and this was a movie defined mostly by action after the buildup of its 2010 predecessor, but in terms of sheer spectacle, there were few other movies that wowed audiences quite like this one! Harry Potter may be done, but at least it went out with a bang!

7) Hugo

WHY: Hugo was one of 2011's worst bombs, and that is the worst injustice that the big screen ever suffered this year. Hugo was a welcome return by Martin Scorsese to the family-friendly subset of movies, and it was as much an amazing, light-hearted adventure as it was a love letter to the medium of moviemaking as a whole. Featuring excellent visuals, great performances, and one of the best 3D presentations of any movie that's yet come to the big screen, the fact that nobody saw this movie is absolutely criminal, especially when it was in favour of a cinematic tween porn fart that couldn't hold a candle to this film in any respect. Sure, Hugo is a movie mainly directed at people who love movies, but I guess those people are in precious short supply if they'd rather toss their ticket money at Twilight over this. Fret not though, Mr. Scorsese. At least I appreciate your incredible vision for this movie!

8) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WHY: The original new take on Sherlock Holmes by director, Guy Ritchie in 2009 was one of the year's best and most entertaining surprise hits. Its sequel was an even better movie in just about every respect. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows delivered a highly intricate and engaging new mystery for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's super sleuth, finally pitting him against his arch-nemesis, and expanding upon the immense scale of both characters with considerable aplomb. Even if you're of a simpler mind, the highly creative action scenes, witty jokes and onslaught of surprising moments helped to elevate this movie sequel above the zillions of others that dropped in 2011. This was a game that moviegoing audiences couldn't possibly lose, because it had a little something for everyone!

9) Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

WHY: Animation director, Brad Bird made his live-action debut with one of the year's most exceptionally entertaining action blockbusters! This fourth Mission: Impossible film operated more closely with the cheesy roots of the original TV series, giving Ethan Hunt another new team (and the return of Benji Dunn from MI3) against a nuclear extremist who frames the IMF for a Kremlin bombing, forcing the whole organization to disavow itself. With nothing but defective prototype gear, Ethan's crew must stop the bad guys before the world pays the price. It wasn't a complicated story, but where this movie really excelled was several of 2011's best action scenes and stunt sequences, complete with a very clever script and plenty of globetrotting fun on top of that, which all only got better in IMAX! In the end, it's a good thing that Tom Cruise decided to return to the franchise, so that we could get another relentlessly entertaining action movie in a year that was somewhat starved for them in the more traditional sense.

10) Crazy, Stupid, Love

WHY: Crazy, Stupid, Love reminded audiences that just because a comedy is PG-13 and about romance, doesn't mean that it has to be bad. An exceptional Black List mainstay, Crazy, Stupid, Love finally made it to the big screen with one of the most clever, funny and extraordinarily heartfelt films of 2011, particularly anchored by one of Steve Carell's best lead performances in recent memory. More of a romantic commentary than a romantic comedy, Crazy, Stupid, Love was endearing, memorable, and a much smarter date movie than most. It wasn't airbrushed by Hollywood, but its honesty was tempered by a sense of hope and affection that gave hope to anyone struggling with love. Funny, cute and clever, this is the kind of sharp comedy that I wish all date movies followed the example of!

Thus, we come to Film of the Year Bronze, the second runner-up for the year's top film. It was a contested award, but ultimately, the winner has to be...

FILM OF THE YEAR BRONZE: X-Men: First Class

WHY: While all of Marvel's films were pretty strong in 2011, X-Men: First Class was a real groundbreaking one, moreso than Thor and Captain America, fantastic as they were. The X-Men prequel/reboot put this esteemed movie series back on its feet with a creative alternate historical fiction tale that also wisely shifted the focus back to the characters, particularly future foes, Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr when they first form the school for mutants. There were less familiar faces from the comics like Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Gambit, with Wolverine relegated to a brief, but hilarious cameo complete with Hugh Jackman, but X-Men: First Class was still not only an exceptional return to form for a floundering film franchise, but also proof that superhero movies can still be plenty creative even over ten years later. Again, this was a superhero movie that just had everything, and it turned out much, much better than its flawed marketing and rushed schedule would initially have people believe!

Next, the first runner-up for 2011's best film. Film of the Year Silver is...

FILM OF THE YEAR SILVER: Hugo

WHY: Hugo would probably come off as a little bit pretentious in terms of its glorification of filmmaking to those who aren't in love with movies, but if you're willing to appreciate the clear love and reverence of filmmaking that is peppered all throughout this riveting adventure, you'll see exactly why Hugo was one of the most captivating movies of 2011. Both a visual masterpiece and an excellent love letter to cinema, Hugo was a thoroughly engrossing, magical journey that was made all the better by its groundbreaking 3D. Far too few people saw it, and they missed out on one of the year's most impressive movies in every respect. It was a radical departure from director, Scorsese's usual work, but it proved even outside of his element that Scorsese is still one of the best directors in the business, and Hugo proves very well that he's still clearly entranced by his love of the movies! Never has there been a finer celebration of everything that makes a film an unforgettable experience than Hugo!

Now, we come to the big moment, 2011's top film. My pick for Film of the Year 2011 is...

FILM OF THE YEAR GOLD: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WHY: This was a close toss-up between the Sherlock sequel and Hugo, but Sherlock barely edged out because as amazing as Hugo was, I found Sherlock 2 to be slightly more detailed and slightly more entertaining, plus its characters were much grander in scale. Sherlock 2 also had the unenviable task of trying to take one of the most beloved villains in the history of literature, and make him a worthy foe to the radically reinterpreated Sherlock Holmes character that Robert Downey Jr. has helped create with Ritchie's direction. Sherlock 2 perfectly lived up to its grand vision, creating a sharp mystery, a highly entertaining action blockbuster, and an endlessly intricate character piece, and rolled them all together into a stylish, globetrotting action blockbuster that closed off the year on an incredible note! Whether it was entertainment, surprises, creativity, style, brains, performances, characters or whatever else you were going for, Sherlock 2 was easily the most complete and entertaining cinematic offering of the year. I'm sure people will dispute this with me, just like my pick for Game of the Year 2011, but for my money, Sherlock 2 was the biggest and best movie this year, period.

So, that wraps up my 2011 Movie Awards, and my awards in general. One last thing though, just a tiny element of my review/award style that I'd like to address, so my readers are aware. It's good timing because I know that I'm going to get yet more flak for my Film of the Year choice I'm sure. Someone actually asked me today why I love these Sherlock Holmes movies so much, despite the fact that the currently airing BBC series, Sherlock is apparently so superior to them. That's a good question. I'll address this quickly and easily, so allow me to explain my thoughts here. As my regular readers already know, I don't review television shows, miniseries or otherwise, nor do I have any plans to expand there. They're not my area of expertise, so I'm not going to penalize a movie just because some people prefer the show. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't mean that I hate TV, because I don't, even if I watch most of it on DVD. I just don't have the time or energy to add a third entertainment medium to my already extensive obligations with movies and video games.

I always prefer to try my best to take a movie or game on its own merits, and not incessantly compare it to any source material that may exist, nor other adaptations in other entertainment mediums, something that a lot of online critics tend to have a bad habit of doing. This makes their reviews less helpful, because readers may not be familiar with the source material, and thus, can't trust their verdict. Comparisons are sometimes inevitable, but I try not to stack one vision against another of the same source when I write reviews and consider awards, because I believe that different visions should be assessed as their own independent visions, not as an attempt to "outdo" another vision. That's a bad habit that moviegoers, TV watchers, comic book readers, and gamers alike really need to kick, because it's the root of this illogical and immature hatred for things like video game-adapated movies or novel-adapted movies for example. It's common sense and review writing 101 as well that you need to assume that your reader is COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR with series canon, other adaptations of the same material, and anything similar to that effect. I obviously have nothing against Sherlock and I do really want to watch it sometime because it sounds awesome, but I prefer to take the Sherlock show and Guy Ritchie's movies as separate visions, letting them coexist as two different, equally valid interpretations of the same thing, something that I think other audiences should do more often. Just because I appreciate the Guy Ritchie movies doesn't mean that I hate Sherlock, or vice-versa, and that's kind of a black-and-white way of thinking that doesn't do anyone any favours. I get this with video games too. When I do a string of Xbox reviews for example, due to requests or a backlog where I just happened to buy a lot of Xbox 360 games at once or something, people sometimes just assume that I dislike PlayStation, because it's seen as the competitor. Why? Just because I like Xbox, doesn't mean I like PlayStation any less. Consequently, I've spoken highly of the SNES in several places, and that's led to some people thinking that I'm somehow attacking the Genesis. That doesn't make sense at all. Why do I have to take sides? Why can't I like everything for different reasons? I don't need to pick an allegiance with movies, video games, TV or anything else. I just like good entertainment, in any form.

To reiterate my stance on movies, I could care less about whether a movie is a wholly original story, or adapated from something else and where it's adapted from. As long as the movie is entertaining and well-crafted, I will find something to like about it. The reason why I hate movies like the Twilight series, is because they're shat into theatres with a bare minimum of effort, where they rake in money on a brand name with a lazy, asinine product that doesn't deserve so much revenue, especially when it takes revenue away from better movies that people put actual effort and dedication into. Movies that DO deserve more revenue! Consequently, with video games, I love and support Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox EQUALLY, and I enjoy all three current gaming consoles and both competing handhelds of the current and last generation, and the generations before all these, all for different reasons, but equally. I don't like Xbox over PlayStation, and I don't have to. I like them both the same, and obviously that goes for Nintendo as well. This obsession with comparing everything needs to stop! We're all gamers, can't we all just get along?!

Ok, so with that explained, allow me to end this off and say, here's to another great year at the movies in 2012! Thanks again for reading, thanks again for your incredible support! You guys are the best!

Brentiverse 2011 Video Game Awards: Part 5 - Game of the Year

2012-01-16T22:38:00.000-08:00

It's that time. It's the big moment! To crown the very best game of 2011 in my roster, and we have quite a bit of big games to choose from! Even as Nintendo launched a new handheld this year, with the Big N also preparing a new console for this year sometime after Sony launches their own new portable gaming device, 2011 was packed with quality offerings across all systems and genres. A slew of triple-A franchises stormed the Big Three's various gaming platforms, with Mario validating the power of 3D graphics in video games while Link proved just how much motion control can enhance a gaming experience, while favourite characters like Nathan Drake and Cole McGrath kept people glued to their PS3's, as Delta Squad concluded their bitter war on the Xbox 360. Rayman returned hand-drawn art to gaming on the third-party end, while Portal 2 took a small concept and blew it up with added innovation and immense appeal, as Skyrim once again challenged the limits of scale in a video game, and Batman: Arkham City continued to prove the unstoppable power of an entertainment license done right in a game! Meanwhile, dormant franchises like Driver, Deus Ex and Rayman came back with a vengeance, and high-quality downloadable offerings like Outland, Bastion, and Pushmo continued to drive forward the indie downloadable scene. It was another eventful year for games, but in the end, there can only be one champion.

As usual, I have painstakingly selected just ten nominees for the honour. These games represent the best strides forward for our beloved gaming industry as of last year, and these are the games that will serve as 2012's benchmarks going forward, even as new hardware gradually drops from both Nintendo and Sony, with rumours persisting of an Xbox 720 and PS4 soon following suit. Time will tell on those, but for now, here are 2011's top ten highest quality games, and only one of them can be number one!

GAME OF THE YEAR NOMINIEES

1) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)

WHY: As if I haven't made myself clear already, Ghost Trick was a ludicrously underplayed DS exclusive by Capcom that featured extremely clever puzzle mechanics, a superb storyline and tons of surprises. Story and gameplay blended together in one of the DS's most unique and rewarding games yet, even with the 3DS close on the horizon. Those who were lucky enough to play the game will agree that 2011 hardly saw a more creative and smart portable effort!

2) Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: The original Portal was easily the biggest surprise hit of 2007, buried in Valve's compilation disc, The Orange Box under a slew of more heavily profilic Half-Life and Team Fortress games. What began as a student project turned eccentric curiosity piece ended up being a masterpiece of mindbending puzzles and dark comedy, and it was much lengthier, more developed, and somehow, twice as entertaining in Portal 2, its full retail exclusive. Bringing back the highly beloved antagonist, GLaDOS, while introducing Wheatley, one of the best new game characters since, well, GLaDOS, Portal 2 complemented its brilliant humour with further expanded puzzle mechanics and an even wackier story, along with a truly brilliant and challenging separate co-op campaign. It was hard to believe that even a great developer like Valve could so effectively improve upon the success of Portal in a sequel, but they did it, and they did it in spades!

3) Bastion (Steam, Xbox Live Arcade)

WHY: One of the most unexpected and deep Summer of Arcade hits of 2011, this isometric action RPG was a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek story about a nameless boy seeking to restore his destroyed world after an inexplicable disaster. The narrator alone was worth the price of downloading this game onto your PC or Xbox 360's hard drive, and the creativity of the fast-paced gameplay and surprisingly effective wit only served to make Bastion all the more entertaining. Digital download games continue to improve every year, and Bastion was an immense new level of quality for the medium!

4) Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Catherine was a game that many believed would never come to North America. It's chillingly eccentric timed puzzle gameplay and heavy erotic thriller themes were thought to be too racy and surreal for anyone but Japanese audiences. Defying all expectation, the game came to North America and Europe in the end, and we're very glad it did, because Catherine is one of the most creative and memorable video games of not just this year, but the past several years! The game's examination of relationships, fidelity, adultery and sex were previously unheard of in such a blatant form in gaming even today, and the gameplay probed players' own deep-seated beliefs on commitment, marriage and even how willing one would actually be to cheat on their loved one. On top of that, Catherine was super challenging, super terrifying, and was guaranteed to give even many adult gamers the willies with its chilling imagery. For being such a bold, thrilling experiment in exploring a very adult set of themes with such an ambitiously creative gameplay offering, Catherine stood very tall as one of the year's most innovative and unexpected hits!

5) Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of the very best games of 2009, and took home its own share of Game of the Year nods. Despite that, Warner Bros., DC Comics and developer, Rocksteady were determined to do even better with the sequel. They succeeded. Batman: Arkham City is a massive game with a huge stretch of Gotham City to explore, loaded with all of Batman's most profilic villains, each with their own agendas, hundreds of optional and story missions, and a new and improved Challenge Mode that not only tested your finest gaming mettle as Batman, but also as Robin and Nightwing. Batman fans were further treated to a huge variety of costumes, the ability to control Catwoman during several of the story sections, and the most immersive, large-scale Batman experience that's ever been placed on a game disc. Like its predecessor, Batman: Arkham City convinced players that they ARE the Dark Knight, made bigger, better and more kick-ass than ever no less!

6) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Skyrim is massive. Once you get into it, you don't stop playing it. When you create a character, you'll begin a quest to be what you want, do what you want, and slay a hell of a lot of vicious dragons while you're at it. Skyrim is an action RPG with a nearly infinite list of tasks that players can achieve and master, and even if the game is plagued with the series' usual tendency to have some unwelcome, albeit sometimes funny glitches, especially in the PS3 edition, Skyrim still provided more bang for your gaming bucks than any other game in 2011. Its play value is endless, its adventure is stagging, and it's a fantasy RPG that truly has no limits. Oblivion was a tough act to follow, but Skyrim thoroughly put it to shame, and it's a game that many people will still be playing extensively in 2012 and beyond, not even close to seeing all it has to offer even years later!

7) Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PlayStation 3)

WHY: Uncharted 3 continued to improve on a series that had already virtually achieved cinematic perfection in every way. Delivering further improved multiplayer modes atop an excellent new treasure hunt with all of the usual charm, exploration and firefights that make this series as amazing as it is, Uncharted 3 placed Nathan Drake on his most dangerous and thrilling adventure to date, somehow outdoing even its excellent 2009 predecessor, my personal pick for Game of the Year that year. This is a series that only improves further with each installment, even if it changes very little of the fundamental formula. When you're a series as ambitious and compellingly lifelike as Uncharted though, where else is there to go when you're already on top?

8) The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

WHY: The Zelda franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011, and even in a year where its most beloved game was given 3D visuals and playability on a handheld, it still stood tallest thanks to a new series high point. Skyward Sword marked a prequel that serves as the new start of the series timeline, delivering the Wii's most large and breathtaking adventure to date. The best part however is that Skyward Sword finally proved just how immensely motion controls can improve a game experience! The 1:1 motion reading of Wii MotionPlus finally allowed players to control Link's sword with expert precision, along with the various other tools in his arsenal, creating a whole slew of new ways to slay your enemies and solve the new batch of puzzles throughout the new selection of dangerous dungeons. Fans were further treated by added insight to former titles and the creation of Hyrule as a whole, making Skyward Sword not only one of the best Zelda games to date (no small feat), but also one of the best Wii games to date!

9) Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WHY: Rayman Origins really should have sold more, but at least its recognition was enough to get the game on track for 3DS and Vita releases in early 2012. Still, even if it's limited to consoles for now, the new Rayman prequel is beautiful, colourful and insane. It also happens to be one of the most pleasantly challenging and thoroughly engaging platformers in recent memory, even when stacked against the stellar mainline Mario games of this year, and the past several years beforehand. With the ability to play with up to four player co-op and the revolutionary push of hand-drawn visuals in gaming, Rayman Origins was a platformer that not only proved just how much heartfelt art can enhance the appeal of a game, but also how good platform gaming sensibilities just never die, while rounding that out by bringing back a long dormant franchise with its best entry yet. It was a long time coming for the true return of Ubisoft's limbless hero, but considering that Rayman Origins is one of the best third-party platformers in years, it was worth the wait!

10) Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

WHY: The 3DS had a bumpy start, between a problematic launch lineup of games, a delay to the eShop online service, and the ongoing (and bullshit) accusation that the rise of smartphone and tablet gaming is making dedicated portable game systems obselete. That's a load of crap, especially since it's constantly non-gamers saying this ironically, who don't seem to grasp that the rift in depth and technology between smartphones/tablets and portable gaming devices is MASSIVE, but that's another blog. Anyway, my point is, the 3DS had trouble at launch, but Super Mario 3D Land finally got Nintendo's revolutionary, glasses-less 3D handheld off the ground, delivering the series' same hallmark stellar level design, while also proving in myriad ways how 3D visuals can effectively enhance the way we play games. The first original 3D Mario game on a handheld, Super Mario 3D Land continued to remind gamers everywhere why Mario is still the top platforming brand in the industry, even if games like Rayman Origins were tough competition. Still, Super Mario 3D Land was the game that proved the power of 3D, in much the same way that Super Mario 64 proved the power of polygonal 3D graphics back in 1996. It's another whole new way to play video games, and leave it to Nintendo to keep standing at the forefront of innovation!

Now that the nominees are decided, it's time to select the two runners-up, and then the Game of the Year. The second runner-up, for Game of the Year Bronze 2011....

GAME OF THE YEAR BRONZE: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Skyrim is an excellent RPG, but to be honest, I disagree with all of the mindless Game of the Year wins that have been thrown at it. Allow me to explain why. First, Skyrim is more "large" than it is "groundbreaking". It mainly sticks to what makes the Elder Scrolls games work, and it mainly prides itself on its massive world and nearly infinite quests. That's still a very impressive accomplishment, and in terms of sheer scope and epic appeal, Skyrim is still one of 2011's best games, but it's not THE best in my opinion. Part of the problem is that, when you look at other Awards rosters, including my own, Skyrim doesn't win any concrete awards. It isn't crowned the best on its respective platforms, it's not effectively honoured for its graphics, sound or story, so why is it Game of the Year? That doesn't really make sense. This is part of the reason why, as great as Elder Scrolls is, I do find the series a tad overrated, since people just give it Game of the Year automatically because it's big, not because it's revolutionary, and they don't really think about it when they do it. In fact, I also feel a bit remiss giving Game of the Year to a game that's as loaded with bugs as Skyrim to be honest. On the note of the series' arrogance too, series maker, Bethesda isn't helping matters by trying to sue Minecraft creator, Notch over the use of the word, "Scrolls" in a game title. Uh, yeah, Bethesda, you don't own an entire word, the series isn't THAT good! Anyway, that's my explanation for why Skyrim isn't my Game of the Year, something I'm sure fanboys will chew me out for, but it's still second runner-up, and it's still a pretty amazing game. I still think that any serious gamer should play it, but for my two cents, it's not Game of the Year.

Next, is the first runner-up for Game of the Year 2011, taking Game of the Year Silver! This game is...

GAME OF THE YEAR SILVER: Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Portal 2 is outstanding, not just in terms of its play mechanics, but in terms of its world and characters as well. The original game may have been a simplistic, three-hour experience, but somehow, Valve took that nearly perfect slice of inventive gaming heaven, blew it up, added an excellent co-op campaign to it, and sold it as a bigger, better sequel, beating the odds in every way. Whether you love Portal 2 for its excellent puzzles or hysterical dark sense of humour, the sequel cemented the revolutionary Valve brand as its own esteemed franchise, only making things better with its new contributions. Portal 2 was still a smaller game than most of what 2011 delivered, but even in a smaller package, it was still one of the most hysterical, surprising and consistently memorable titles of the entire year, and no gamer should pass up the chance to play it!

This brings me to my final selection for 2011's very best game. After much careful deliberation, my selection for Game of the Year Gold, the best game of 2011, period, is....

GAME OF THE YEAR GOLD: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

WHY: Yes, this is going to be a VERY controversial opinion, especially since I didn't, you know, give it to Skyrim like everyone and their grandmother and their grandmother's cat. I was kicking around the nominees for a while, and it was really hard to bump excellent games like Ghost Trick, Super Mario 3D Land, and Batman: Arkham City out of the running, since they were really revolutionary and amazing game experiences that every gamer should play. The more I think about it though, the more that I feel that Skyward Sword best deserves my pick for Game of the Year 2011. It's not quite as massive as Skyrim and it's not quite as off-the-wall as Portal 2, but Skyward Sword took a franchise that turned 25 years old in 2011, one of the most adored and well-known franchises in gaming history and rightfully so, and it completely reinvented how we play it, while somehow still staying true to everything that makes the Zelda franchise a masterwork. As if the game's huge length, excellent world and dungeon design, highly entertaining enemy encounters, superb storyline and breathtaking art style weren't amazing enough, Skyward Sword also finally, objectively demonstrated how motion controls can create a game experience that just isn't possible with traditional buttons and control sticks. The extra precise capabilities of Link's sword were just amazing to finally make our own thanks to Wii MotionPlus, and just in time for 2012's introduction of Wii U, Skyward Sword also finally, objectively proved that the Wii can still deliver kick-ass blockbusters that even outdo their HD competition on the Xbox 360 and PS3 before being succeeded by its own HD successor. The Wii had a pretty tough year in 2011, as is common with Nintendo consoles that are in their twilight stages, but Skyward Sword was enough to make the entire year for Wii owners, and even if it's probably Wii's last big first-party blockbuster, something that even Nintendo basically admitted, it struck a triumphant final blow for Nintendo's little white box, rewarding the faith of Nintendo's fanbase with one of the best Zelda games yet, one of the best Wii games yet, one of the best action-adventure games yet, one of the best uses of motion controls yet, and best of all, 2011's all-time best video game in my opinion, and the opinion of many others.

So, if you have more to say than flaming me for making Skyrim settle for third-best, feel free to contribute your own thoughts on 2011's top games, and what you felt best made the year for you and your gaming peers! Thanks for reading, and happy gaming in 2012!

Brentiverse 2011 Movie Awards: Part 3 - Genre Awards

2012-01-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

As I lead up to my pick for Film of the Year 2011, it's time to count down the specific genre offerings of 2011 on the big screen. Each popular genre of movies had plenty of offerings in 2011, even though it was a very franchise-driven year, and here are the best of the bunch!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 MOVIE AWARDS: GENRE AWARDS

- The Rocket Skates Award (For best action movie)

- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
- Fast Five

WINNER: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WHY: Sherlock Holmes was simultaneously fun, original and brilliant as far as action movies go. Exceptionally improving upon its 2009 predecessor by finally pitting its titular detective against his greatest villain, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows brought with it all of the ingredients that make an action movie great, in the same stylized, memorable package as the original. The fight scenes were amazing, the globetrotting mystery was engrossing, and the conflict between Holmes and Moriarty was captured to a tee and thensome! It had a large storyline that required the audience to pay attention, but no other action movie achieved as much fun or thrills as the Sherlock Holmes sequel!

- The Happy Nerd Award (For best comic/superhero movie)

- Thor
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- X-Men: First Class

WINNER: X-Men: First Class

WHY: Many fanboys were ready to write off the X-Men film franchise permanently after its previous two dismal offerings, and the shaky marketing and rushed development schedule only furthered their dread about the next X-Men film. X-Men: First Class finally got this series back on the right track though, and not only did it do that, but it also produced one of the most creative and memorable superhero flicks in a while, with its 60's setting and historical alternate fiction story. Everything from the cast to the action to the fun spirit of X-Men: First Class was nailed with aplomb, and even if 2011 was a bit lighter on great comic book movies compared to 2010, at least we got one of the most genre-defining superhero film franchises back in fine form this year!

- The Mighty Onion Award (For best drama)

- Warrior
- Drive
- The Ides of March
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
- The Help

WINNER: Drive

WHY: Drive is a movie that more people should have seen, as it's certain to be the cult classic of tomorrow. The movie was a very creative, emotional piece even when it said virtually nothing, and it was so well made that it even made Albert Brooks terrifying! Drive also delivered what was easily the best of three hallmark performances for Ryan Gosling in 2011's movie catalogue, and its European retro chic style boldly defied what people would come to expect from movies like this one. In an age starved for memorable, inspired filmmaking, Drive proved once again how less is more in the right hands!

- The Not-So-Woody Award (For best adult comedy)

- The Hangover Part II
- Horrible Bosses
- Bridesmaids
- A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas
- 50/50

WINNER: Bridesmaids

WHY: There were loads of impressive adult comedies in 2011, and every one of these nominees is a real must-see for fans of the genre. When it comes down to it though, of all these movies, Bridesmaids probably made the biggest splash for R-rated comedies this year, even if 50/50 was a close second. Bridesmaids made a female-starring comedy that wasn't limited to a female audience, nor did it objectify or make a mockery of women. It was a movie that allowed female comedians to take back the adult comedy subgenre with a story that's simple, but clever and even surprisingly heartfelt. Rumour has it that a sequel is in development, which I have mixed feelings about, but allow me to say again that if you're going to see one crass R-rated comedy this year, best make it Bridesmaids!

- The Peanut Snakes Award (For best general audience comedy)

- Crazy, Stupid, Love
- Tower Heist
- The Muppets

WINNER: Crazy, Stupid, Love

WHY: I really wanted to give this award to The Muppets, since it was an excellent movie that really should have achieved more fame. In the end though, it's still based on an idea from the 70's and 80's, and Crazy, Stupid, Love was more original and more influential on its particular brand of comedy. Crazy, Stupid, Love was a romance-themed comedy that was not in fact a romantic comedy, proving that date movies don't have to be dumb to be entertaining, and they don't have to be serious to be taken seriously. Crazy, Stupid, Love was yet another hallmark performance for Ryan Gosling, and it even gave us one of the best Steve Carell portrayals in many years in the lead role. After spending some time on the Hollywood Black List of unproduced scripts, Crazy, Stupid, Love was finally given its time to shine this year, and I'm glad it did, because no comedy simultaneously delighted, impressed and uplifted me quite like this one!

- The Pink Arrow Award (For best romantic comedy)

WINNER: Friends With Benefits

WHY: Friends With Benefits wins by default, because 2011 was a TERRIBLE year for romantic comedies, Crazy, Stupid, Love notwithstanding, as it's not technically a romantic comedy due to its altered formula. Friends With Benefits was the one romantic comedy that was actually mildly decent, even though it was preceded by a movie in January, No Strings Attached, that had the exact same premise. This doubling up of premeses in the same year is sadly continuing somewhat in 2012, with TWO different Snow White movies opening within months of each other for example, while multiples of various other adaptations and plots remain in development limbo, but at least Friends With Benefits was entertaining, which is more than most romcoms can attest to these days.

- The Furry Monster Award (For best horror movie)

- Scream 4
- Paranormal Activity 3
- Insidious

WINNER: Insidious

WHY: Even on a paltry budget, Insidious was novel, scary and highly surprising. It was a bleak story with a secretive plot that I won't spoil, but I will say that it's a horror movie that somehow, someway ends up being amazing, even with a PG-13 rating, which pretty much makes most Hollywood horror films dead on arrival in all other cases. The reason for this is that Insidious doesn't rely on gore or cliches to generate its scares, nor does it fall back on the overused found footage strategies that Paranormal Activity has inspired, even outside of the horror genre in 2012 with movies like Chronicle and Project X. Insidious was just creative, and it was pretty terrifying for the majority of its runtime as well. It's the kind of horror movie that Hollywood really needs more of!

- The Fairy Wand Award (For best fantasy/adventure film)

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
- Hugo
- Immortals
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
- Sucker Punch

WINNER: Hugo

WHY: Yes, I'm going to get bitched out by several Harry Potter fans I'm sure, but as much as that movie was still an amazing finale to a film franchise that I don't normally care for, being a non-fan of Harry Potter in general, it was outdone by the criminally ignored Hugo in my opinion, which was a much more creative and novel piece that hadn't been built up for seven films beforehand. Hugo brought to life an unexpected and unchanting world, while also delivering one of the most incredible uses of 3D that Hollywood has produced to date at the same time, honouring the legacy of filmmaking while representing the cutting edge of current moviemaking technology. It also allowed the esteemed director, Martin Scorsese to branch out from his usual dark, intricate adult-directed movies to produce a surprisingly excellent family-friendly adventure movie. All too many people missed out on Hugo, but before I go on another anti-Twilight rant, allow me to yet again appeal to people's intelligence and insist that they track this one down on DVD, even if they'll be wishing they could have experienced the downright magical 3D job from the big screen!

- The Cuddly Rainbow Award (For best animated movie)

- Cars 2
- Kung Fu Panda 2
- Puss in Boots
- Arthur Christmas
- Rango

WINNER: Rango

WHY: Rango was weird and actually somewhat twisted at the best of times, but even if it wasn't always the most family-friendly animated film, and it was one of the only animated movies in a while that surprisingly bucked the 3D trend, Rango was both beautiful and unique in all its madness. It was a highly original, challenging story that wasn't afraid to engage adults on a deeper psychological level, and the visuals were quite simply stunning even without a 3D presentation on top of them! Rango nicely compensated for the fact that Pixar was forced to deliver only the middling Cars 2 in 2011, but at least one animated movie continued to raise the bar, and hopefully Industrial Light & Magic will follow that up with more promising animated projects in the years beyond!

- The Bobblehead Cyborg Award (For best sci-fi film)

- Real Steel
- Super 8
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Cowboys & Aliens

WINNER: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

WHY: This was close between Apes and Real Steel, but Apes narrowly edged out for being just slightly more original, and also revitalizing another film franchise that had gone to the dogs with a few previously disastrous follow-ups, including the infamously dreadful Tim Burton remake from 2001. Rise rebooted the Apes franchise in style, delivering an Oscar-worthy lead performance by Andy Serkis, and actually creating a semi-believable scenario as to how a bunch of primates took over our planet, and it even made us root for them! Yes, the anthropological ramifications of the Apes franchise as a whole is still bollocks and a half, but Apes was smart, fun and surprisingly engaging, and in another year of strong sci-fi movies, it stood tallest, leaving plenty of promise for this revived series canon going forward!

The Edge of Your Seat Award (Best thriller)

- Limitless
- Hanna
- Unknown

WINNER: Hanna

WHY: Hanna was another movie that spent quite a while on the Hollywood Black List of unproduced scripts, along with Crazy, Stupid, Love, but it finally got its due this year, delivering one of 2011's most engaging and creative thrillers, again, despite its seemingly basic premise. Hanna was further enhanced by a superb Chemical Brothers soundtrack and an amazing lead performance by Saoirse Ronan in the titular role, keeping the April box office wonderfully afloat with a movie that few expected to be as good as it was! Hanna was more creative than unpredictable as a thriller, but in a genre that has a main priority of, well, thrills, no other movie quite measured up to it!

That's all for the genre awards of 2011's movies! Tune in soon for the imminent posting of my pick for both Game of the Year and Film of the Year!

Brentiverse 2011 Video Game Awards: Part 4 - Genre Awards

2012-01-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

The final section before I crown my Game of the Year 2011, Part 4 of the video game awards counts down the genre-specific champions of the year! Across both gaming genres and gaming platforms, 2011 had plenty of big winners, but only one can be the best! Let's get to it!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 VIDEO GAME AWARDS: Genre Awards

- The Red Bull Rush Award (Best Action Game)

- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PlayStation 3)
- Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Outland (Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store)
- Star Fox 64 3D (3DS)
- Saints Row: The Third (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PlayStation 3)

WHY: The Uncharted series continued to raise the bar in 2011 with yet another fantastic adventure, this time taking Nathan Drake to the Rub'Al Khali Desert to find a lost city of the sands! With improvements to both the single-player and multiplayer modes, a killer new story, and even more thrilling moments than its already stellar predecessor, Uncharted 3 was a quest rife with mystery, danger and some of the best production values that the PS3 delivered in a year full of awesome exclusives! It goes without saying in the series now, but Uncharted 3 was like playing a triple-A blockbuster movie. In fact, I can't remember the last time Hollywood produced a treasure hunting mystery this exciting!

- The Spinning Compass Award (Best Adventure Game)

- inFamous 2 (PlayStation 3)
- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- L.A. Noire (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)

WINNER: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

WHY: Just as Mario seems to dominate the platformer awards whenever he delivers a new offering, Link does in turn with the adventure game awards, and after many years of waiting, Skyward Sword lived up to the hype and thensome! Delivering a stellar prequel to the series timeline that made excellent use of the enhanced Wii MotionPlus controls by expanding Link's swordplay capability and arsenal like never before! Containing a lengthy quest, surprising insight into the creation of what we understand as the kingdom of Hyrule, and changing forever the way players experienced a Zelda game, Skyward Sword produced an incredible Wii-exclusive blockbuster that is probably the height of what the system will ever achieve before it's succeeded by the Wii U this year. There's a reason why the Zelda series has stayed on top of adventure gaming since it was created in the 80's, and Skyward Sword celebrated the series' 25th anniversary with everything that has ever made this series shine, plus interest!

- The Bruised Knuckle Award (Best Fighting Game)

- Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The King of Fighters XIII (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS)
- Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (PlayStation Portable)

WINNER: Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS)

WHY: This will probably be a controversial opinion, but as much as Capcom sort of got greedy this year with an overpriced 3DS rip-off, a repackaged hit from the previous year that simply had a new protaganist, and a revised edition of their new fighting game less than a year after it released, they still made things right in two ways. The first was Ghost Trick. The second, was actually managing to outdo Nintendo themselves during the 3DS launch, by producing one of the only launch titles that was any good. This revised portable edition of the acclaimed fighting game on the Xbox 360 and PS3 somehow managed to replicate those games' immensely ambitious graphics on the fledgling 3DS hardware, while featuring a massive roster of fighters, the ability to battle online in awesome, lag-free combat, and even the ability to swap fighter data and collectible figurines with other players via StreetPass. It's not often that Nintendo is upstaged by a third-party developer, but even if Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition did surprisingly little with the 3D element, it single-handedly saved an otherwise disastrous launch lineup for Nintendo's new cutting-edge handheld, not to mention that no other fighting game measured up in terms of its fine mechanics, depth and features!

- The Rock n' Roll All Night Award (Best Music/Rhythm Game)

- Dance Central 2 (Xbox 360)
- Rocksmith (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Patapon 3 (PlayStation Portable)

WINNER: Rocksmith (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: The music genre isn't what it used to be, but Rocksmith is a definite step towards righting its problematic, sell-out reputation. Rocksmith is a game that finally, truly teaches you how to play guitar in a way that games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band couldn't even fathom, and like taking actual guitar lessons, it's a game that demands discipline and dedication. The fact that a game can now actually teach you how to play an instrument in real life is a huge step forward for an otherwise unfortunate genre, and Rocksmith was one of the most ambitious and rewarding efforts that music games have seen in quite a while!

- The Joy Jumper Award (Best Platformer)

- Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Sonic Generations (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 3DS)
- LittleBigPlanet 2 (PlayStation 3)
- Kirby’s Return to Dream Land (Wii)

WINNER: Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

WHY: Rayman Origins and Sonic Generations are both excellent platformers that any true gamer should play, but even they still can't quite compete with the man himself. Nintendo's portly plumber again skyrocketed the platformer genre to new heights, delivering what is inarguably the 3DS's killer app! The game finally proved just how a 3D presentation can enhance the way we play a video game, giving players a revolutionary sense of depth and perspective that just can't be effectively replicated in 2D. Even putting that aside, the series' usual stellar level design and incessant creativity delivered one of the most relentlessly enjoyable 3DS-exclusives that the system saw all year! The 3DS took a little while to get off the ground, but Super Mario 3D Land finally proved what it can do over the competition. Leave it to Mario to yet again reset the standard, while delivering an amazing game in the process!

- The Burnt Rubber Award (Best Driving/Racing Game)

- Dirt 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- MotoHeroez (WiiWare)
- Driver: San Francisco (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Forza Motorsport 4 (Xbox 360)

WINNER: Driver: San Francisco (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WHY: The Driver series really fell from grace in recent years, but 2011 proved to be a good luck charm for this and many other properties that were believed to be toast. Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog and Rayman also made triumphant comebacks during 2011, but perhaps Driver is an even greater surprise comeback, since Driver: San Francisco, despite its bizarre hook of possessing drivers from a comatose state, was actually far and away one of the year's most exhilirating experiences for speed demons! Yes, every nominee on this list was very impressive for a number of reasons, from Mario Kart 7 delivering the 3DS's best multiplayer package to date, to Forza Motorsport 4 delivering one of the most effective core gamer uses of Kinect to date, to MotoHeroez pulling WiiWare out of the sea of shovelware with a very clever blend of racing and platforming, but Driver: San Francisco was easily the most fun and most surprising racer of the year. On paper, it seemed like it'd be yet another nail in the franchise's coffin. In the end though, this was the kiss of life that brought Driver back onto the road, and hopefully Ubisoft can keep this positive direction going for the once troubled driving series!

- The Almighty Epic Award (Best RPG)

- Bastion (Steam, Xbox Live Arcade)
- The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (PC)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Yes, Skyrim is full of bugs. Yes, Skyrim is loaded with frustrating random dragon encounters. Yes, Skyrim started what is already one of the most tired and irritating internet memes that 2011 ever bore unto the online world. Despite all of Skyrim's issues though, it was still an amazing and awe-inspiring RPG that took place in a massive world, with no end of tasks, and infinite possibility. Noticeably outdoing its 2006 predecessor, Skyrim took things to the next level with a further increased sense of scale, and an even more ambitious adventure that players could sink their teeth into for tens, if not hundreds of hours! There are few games that truly give you the freedom to be every element of what you want to be, but Skyrim is a rare and shining example of giving players unlimited control of who they want their character to be, and what they want them to accomplish. Yeah, you'll have to scurry away from a fair amount of dragons on your way to the top, and while some of the glitches can be funny, others can be genuinely troublesome, but no game pushed the RPG genre nearly as far in scale or quality as Skyrim did!

- The Point Blank Award (Best Shooter)

- Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)
- Resistance 3 (PlayStation 3)
- Homefront (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Crysis 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Crysis 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: The original Crysis was an extremely ambitious PC-exclusive that fortunately made its way to the Xbox 360 and PS3 over the course of 2011, but that was after its sequel somehow climbed on top of a massively crowded market of shooters. Shooters of all varieties and ranges of quality dropped left and right over the course of 2011, but Crysis 2 was perhaps the most ambitious, open-ended and exciting of them all! Continuing to raise the bar for production value and open-ended strategy in a shooter, it placed the player in battlefields where they had to cleverly on their own skills and survivability, rather than playing the way that the game wished them to. The new nanosuit abilities only further added depth to the incredible campaign, and even though the charts are sure to be dominated by the competing Battlefield and Call of Duty sequels, Crysis 2 was the game that most elevated the shooter experience over the course of 2011!

- The Stinky Socks Award (Best Sports Game)

- FIFA ’12 (PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, iOS, 3DS)
- NHL ’12 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- MLB ’11: The Show (PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3)
- Fight Night Champion (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- WWE ’12 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WINNER: FIFA '12 (PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, iOS, 3DS)

WHY: I'm not really a sports fan, but even I can see all of the hugely impressive improvements that FIFA '12 brought to sports games this year. The visuals and physics are improved more than ever, and even if people seem to say it every year, I don't think soccer has ever been better realized as a video game! As a non-fan, I couldn't tell you all of the little things that make FIFA '12 work as well as it does, but I can say that the play experience feels smoother and more accessible than ever before, with all of the challenging player tracking and soccer matches that die-hard footie fans crave! Even if you hate soccer, you can't argue that FIFA '12 really went the extra mile for the athletic enthusiast this year!

- The Trippy Goggles Award (Best Simulation/Alternative Game)

- From Dust (Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store)
- Minecraft (Steam)
- Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster (Xbox 360)

WINNER: Minecraft (Steam)

WHY: Minecraft has spread as a wild addiction throughout the game community, and for good reason! I've already gone over all of the reasons why Minecraft has become so addictive amongst PC gamers, so I really don't feel that I need to elaborate further, but I can say again that even as such a simple, yet imaginative gameplay hook, Minecraft is endlessly appealing, and hey, if you want, feel free to pirate it apparently. Notch said so!

- The Distinguished Tabletop Award (Best Strategy Game)

- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PlayStation Portable)
- Tropico 4 (PC, Xbox 360)
- Might & Magic Heroes VI (PC)

WINNER: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PlayStation Portable)

WHY: Strategy games are another genre that I'm not terribly proficient at normally, but the new localization of this PlayStation classic that Japan had previously hogged offered a deep and challenging exclusive for PSP owners to enjoy while they wait for the launch of the Vita. With addictive strategic gameplay and an awesome, dramatic storyline, Tactics Ogre perhaps even succeeds the excellent Final Fantasy Tactics remake on the PSP in terms of what it does best! Even non-strategists like myself can enjoy it, so if you're longing for an engrossing game experience for your PSP, regardless of your taste in strategy titles, you would do well to seek this one out!

- The Rainbow Blocks Award (Best Puzzle Game)

- Pushmo (eShop)
- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS)

WINNER: Pushmo (eShop)

WHY: Pushmo was the game that finally proved the credibility of the eShop! It was an inventive use of the 3DS's 3D capability in a downloadable title, plus it allowed players to create and share their own puzzles, on top of the numerous puzzles on offer by the developers. Like any great puzzle game, Pushmo's objective is simple, tasking players with reaching a trapped child by pushing and pulling a structure's various layers, but it was the addiction and surprising depth of the experience that finally made this the eShop's first must-download exclusive. Hopefully more excellent exclusives like this continue to drop onto the system throughout the 3DS's life cycle!

- The Oversized Spoon Award (Best expansion/add-on)

- inFamous 2: Festival of Blood
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution – The Missing Link
- Gears of War 3: RAAM’s Shadow

WINNER: Gears of War 3: RAAM's Shadow

WHY: Even after the conclusion of the Gears of War trilogy in Gears of War 3's story, Epic Games continued to provide insight into the Gears universe, namely through their awesome game expansion that shifted the series to the perspective of one of its most fearsome Locust villains before the events of the first game. RAAM's Shadow was brief and had a missed opportunity or two in the story, but it provided an unprecedented new perspective that continued to shed light on the Gears canon, entertaining fans and giving you a great new way to play the game, and that's never a bad proposition for your Microsoft Points!

- The Mouse Hunt Award (Best PC Game)

- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Battlefield 3
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Crysis 2
- Portal 2

WINNER: Battlefield 3

WHY: EA clearly envisioned Battlefield 3 as an experience meant largely for the PC crowd, especially since PC preorders initially came with the game's initial expansion pack. On a top-of-the-line PC though, Battlefield 3 is a monster of a shooter, both an excellent multiplayer addiction, and a huge testament to the kind of audio/visual power that PC gaming can achieve over consoles. Battlefield 3 was still a great game on Xbox 360 and PS3, but it was easily the biggest and best testament to the enduring power of PC gaming with how well it tailored itself to the platform, and even if it was still good on consoles, you're not quite getting the full experience unless you load this up on your pimped out computer!

- The Touchy-Feely Award (Best DS Game)

- Pokemon Black/White Version
- Radiant Historia
- Kirby: Mass Attack
- Okamiden
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

WINNER: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

WHY: There were a surprising amount of impressive DS games that dropped throughout 2011, even after the 3DS had succeeded it in March, but one of the most extraordinarily creative and criminally underplayed games of the entire year both pushed the platform to its audio/visual limits, while at the same time producing an expertly tailored experience that only truly feels possible with the DS's two screens and touch control, despite Japan having an altered iOS port. Not only was this one of the best uses that the DS had seen in a while, but Ghost Trick further enticed portable gamers with exceptional puzzle design and a truly riveting plotline. Again, there's still time to appreciate the best of what the DS had to offer in 2011, so be sure to pick this game up at your local retailer if you haven't already!

- The Little Black Screen Award (Best PSP Game)

- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
- Patapon 3
- Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

WINNER: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

WHY: Even as a localized remake of a PlayStation game that never originally made it out of Japan, Tactics Ogre remained quite playable in 2011, with superb strategy RPG gameplay, a large cast of characters and an engrossing storyline. The PSP is rapidly being shoved into the background by Sony as they prepare to reboot their portable gaming strategy with the imminent release of PlayStation Vita outside of Japan, but before you put down an investment on a shiny new Vita, Tactics Ogre will still give you a long, challenging and highly rewarding strategy experience that will remind you that the PSP still has some life left in it!

- The Green Mean Award (Best Xbox 360 Game)

- Batman: Arkham City
- Portal 2
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Gears of War 3
- Forza Motorsport 4

WINNER: Gears of War 3

WHY: This was a bit of a tough call, but in the end, one of the Xbox 360's top 2011 exclusives felt like the most memorable and deep offering on the platform this year. Yes, Batman: Arkham City and Skyrim were also highly enjoyable on Microsoft's console, but the former feels like it was mainly meant for the PS3, and the latter feels like it was mainly meant for the PC, so they're not really experiences that are optimized for the Xbox 360 in every way, especially since Batman: Arkham City's Xbox 360 edition had several additional bugs, including a game save eating bug, that weren't present in its PS3 sibling. Gears of War 3 however nicely helped carry a year that was actually kind of weak as far as retail exclusives for the Xbox 360 go. The game had very nice aftermarket support, made great use of the hardware, and entertained players with action-packed gameplay and a highly satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Who knows where the Gears of War series may progress next, but the Xbox 360 certainly wrapped up the initial arc on a high note this year!

- The Live 'Loads Award (Best Xbox Live Arcade Game)

- Trine 2
- Bastion
- Ms. Splosion Man
- Outland
- Beyond Good & Evil HD

WINNER: Bastion

WHY: Bastion is an isometric action RPG that tasks you with restoring the world after a disaster simply known as 'The Calamity' strikes. It also has probably the best narrator in gaming. Beyond that though, Bastion was an addictive and surprisingly deep downloadable offering that carried more charm and creativity than even most retail RPGs! It was fun, tongue-in-cheek and a highlight offering in Microsoft's always exceptional Summer of Arcade lineup. At the reasonable price of 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15), Bastion is a game that deserves a spot on the hard drives of any Xbox 360 owner that has a taste for fun and originality, and it's exactly the kind of exceptional, bite-sized yet deep experience that Xbox Live Arcade was designed for!

- The Five Refrigerators Award (Best PS3 Game)

- Batman: Arkham City
- Portal 2
- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
- LittleBigPlanet 2
- Killzone 3

WINNER: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

WHY: Uncharted 3 continued to excellently refine one of Sony's top properties on a new treasure hunting quest with even deeper multiplayer features. The game was one of the best testaments of the added power of the PS3, just like its 2009 predecessor, and represented the kind of cinematic appeal that wouldn't quite be possible on the Xbox 360 in its complete form. Uncharted 3 may have ultimately changed the series little, but why fix what isn't broken, especially when it demonstrates what the PS3 can really do when it has a developer that's willing to push it above and beyond the competition??

- The Peddler Station Award (Best PlayStation Store Game)

- Outland
- Trine 2
- Payday: The Heist
- BloodRayne: Betrayal
- Beyond Good & Evil HD

WINNER: Outland

WHY: Outland is a beautiful and challenging spectacle of a side-scroller, one that engaged players with clever obstacles, large-scale boss battles and pretty much everything that made classic 2D side-scrolling games awesome way back when, only in a very modern, unique and stylized package. It's also available on Xbox Live Arcade, but on Sony's console, the game was extra smooth and beautiful, and some gamers were even lucky enough to snatch it up in a sale or two! Outland is a difficult experience to pinpoint if you look at its visuals alone, but it basically amounts to the new coolest way to play the 2D action games of yesteryear. The PS3 was packed with retail exclusives in 2011, and great ones at that, but games like Outland still made sure that the digital download side of things was equally tantalizing!

- The White Whirly Award (Best Wii Game)

- Kirby’s Return to Dream Land
- Rayman Origins
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

WINNER: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

WHY: The Wii is going to be succeeded by the Wii U before 2012 has concluded, but before that happens, Nintendo's little white console managed to squeeze out one of its most large and ambitious exclusives yet. The game brought motion controls to a whole new level of depth and immersion thanks to the addition of Wii MotionPlus controls, and it also featured the largest and one of the most memorable quests in the series to date, while introducing a new batch of tricky enemies and treacherous dungeons. Many accuse the Wii of pandering too much to casual gamers, but even the most jaded of hardcore gamers can't deny that the Zelda series is still one of the best in gaming when they're treated to games like Skyward Sword, games that help remind us that the Wii is good for much more than party games and fitness sims!

- The Red vs. Blue Award (Best 3DS Game)

- Mario Kart 7
- Star Fox 64 3D
- Super Mario 3D Land
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
- Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition

WINNER: Super Mario 3D Land

WHY: Super Mario 3D Land was the game that finally proved exactly what the 3DS could do that its predecessor, and all other portable gaming devices couldn't. It was the game that finally validated 3D visuals as a way to enhance the way we play video games, and it was the first original 3D Mario game ever designed to boot, blending the sensibilities of the old school games with the more off-the-wall design of the Wii's Super Mario Galaxy games, minus the gravity platforming anyhow. Super Mario 3D Land mainly amounted to yet another princess kidnapping, but it was both the stellar level design and the proven power of the hardware's technology that made Super Mario 3D Land still the game that finally got the 3DS off the ground practically by itself. It should serve as a benchmark title for the system throughout its entire life cycle, and hopefully the next handheld Mario game can achieve the same level of excellence!

That concludes the Genre Awards. The Genre Awards for movies should be posted very soon, and then it's time to crown both Game of the Year 2011 and Film of the Year 2011!

Brentiverse 2011 Video Game Awards: Part 3 - Novelty Awards

2012-01-15T20:46:00.001-08:00

Part three celebrates weird achievements in video games, and it's a less detailed, more comedic portion of the awards. As with the introduction of this section last year, only one winner is chosen for each award, with a small commentary on each. Let's get to it!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 VIDEO GAME AWARDS: Novelty Awards

- The John Hancock Award (Silliest Game Title)

WINNER: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Just sound out the title of this game, especially picking up the box in a store, having never previously heard of it. A mildly decent action game despite its weird moniker, nonetheless, if someone asked what you were playing and you responded with the title of this game, they'd probably think that you were speaking in tongues. This was a stylish game despite its flaws, but that doesn't change that it has one bizarre name!

- The WTF Seriously Award (Most Unexpected Unlockable)

WINNER: Tron car (Saints Row: The Third)

WHY: What does Tron have to do with Saints Row? Why would I want to drive around Steelport in a Tron-themed vehicle? Who thought this up? You know what, who cares! Tron is awesome, even if it has absolutely no context even in the hyper comedic world of Saints Row, I guess, beyond that whole cyberspace thing. What was Volition smoking when they came up with that anyhow?

- The Tits McGee Award (Most Blatant Sex Sell)

WINNER: Otomedius Excellent (Xbox 360)

WHY: This is another possible contender for the year's weirdest game title, but Otomedius Excellent, believe it or not, is a spin-off of the highly beloved arcade space combat series, Gradius. What does Gradius have to do with an anime girl flashing her ass at you on the box? I'd wager, precious little. In fact, the game is apparently about Konami franchises being represented by anime girls. I can't make this up people, but you have to give Konami credit. At least they know where an otaku's priorities lie...

- The You Again Award (Most Unnecessary Follow-up or Remake)

WINNER: Goldeneye 007: Reloaded (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: This is vaguely hilarious in all of its redundance, because Activision actually screwed themselves over by putting this thoroughly needless HD remake of one of 2010's most enjoyed Wii-exclusives a week before the release of their own Modern Warfare 3, in a shooter market that was already extremely crowded. This led to the Goldeneye remake's HD overhaul selling very poorly, further lacking a justification of this HD remake in the first place. When you pair such a stupid business strategy with such a blatant slap in the face to the Nintendo community by taking away such a precious Wii blockbuster's exclusivity with an apparent 'superior' version on HD consoles, it's like Activision is TRYING to be the most hated game publisher in existence! Though some HD remakes can be alright, Goldeneye 007: Reloaded unfortunately represents everything that's wrong with this whole HD initiative, but at least I played through the Wii edition before its integrity as an exclusive was butchered by this asinine HD overhaul.

- The Burning Eyesore Award (Worst Cover Art)

WINNER: Duke Nukem Forever (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Nothing hammers home the disappointment of Duke Nukem Forever quite like its thoroughly terrible box art, a sloppy and perspective-impaired crotch shot of Duke Nukem looking down at gamers. Duke Nukem is so excessive and crass that you really couldn't come up with anything better than him thrusting his balls at us, 2K Games? This gets worse when you just look at how terrible the drawing is. It's enough to make a real game artist throw up in their laps. Duke Nukem Forever's horribly disappointing final product only got worse when we had to look at its eyesore of a package I'm afraid...

- The Twisty Passages Award (Weirdest Game)

WINNER: Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WHY: Rayman was sort of a surreal character during his introduction in 1995, but after spending some time with the rabbids, it seems that Ubisoft's insane lagomorphs rubbed off on him. I'm vaguely suspicious that Rayman creator, Michel Ancel and his entire development team downed a whole jar of shrooms before they started drawing the art and writing the level scenarios for this still amazing platformer. As excellently designed as Rayman Origins is though, it is one messed up experience at the same time. The hand-drawn art is beautiful in all of its wackiness, but it's also likely to convince some gamers that they might need a stay in rehab after they reach the end credits. Rayman Origins already stands apart from the glut of 2D platformers on account of just how amazing it is, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as amazing if it didn't scare us just a little bit with its raw insanity too. Seriously, you're not prepared for this game until you actually sit down and play it. No, you're not high. That's just the way Rayman Origins does things...

- The One Shall Stand Award (Best Crossover Effort)

WINNER: Dead or Alive Dimensions (3DS)

WHY: Love it or hate it, Team Ninja co-operated with Nintendo on the latest Metroid game, Metroid: Other M, which came to the Wii in 2010 to mixed feedback. I liked the game well enough, and I felt that it got a bad rap simply because it was different, and Nintendo fanboys are whiny. Apparently, Nintendo and Team Ninja were still proud of their creation anyway though, since the Metroid crossover was referenced in Team Ninja's latest portable fighter, Dead or Alive Dimensions. The game featured a Metroid-themed arena where Ridley actually attacked your fighters while you were duking it out. Yes, the obvious choice for this award would have been Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but I felt that this crossover effort was more unexpected and fun. Sue me.

- The Blood Bucket Award (Most Gruesome Game)

WINNER: Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: After spending years wallowing in the pool of mediocrity, paired with original rights owner, Midway's financial woes, Mortal Kombat finally got back on its feet in 2011, just one of many proud accomplishments that fighting games made throughout the year. Not only did Mortal Kombat come back, but Warner Bros.' all-new HD revival of the series brought back all of the ludicrously over-the-top and disgustingly bloody violence that made the series so famously controversial during its high point in the 90's. That violence only made players more simultaneously amused and squeamish with cutting-edge graphics on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well! Mortal Kombat not only stormed back on the genre scene, but it brought more gore than ever with it too!

- The Box Office Bomb Award (Worst Movie Tie-In)

WINNER: Thor: God of Thunder (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)

WHY: Every year of gaming brings with it its share of shitty movie tie-ins, but Thor was in a class all its own. Harry Potter almost snatched the award with its own equally terrible game tie-in, but many people expected the Harry Potter game to be bad, especially after the first one stunk so much in late 2010. Thor's tie-in however had the potential to be so much better. Making a game where you play as a Norse god turned Marvel superhero really shouldn't have been that daunting a task, but somehow, the developers made Thor boring. I really don't know how they manage this! The HD versions on the Xbox 360 and PS3 were by far the worst, and while the game was passable on DS, it was just boring on Wii and 3DS. Thor deserves so much better, and hopefully Thor 2 can produce a game tie-in that doesn't make us want to take Mjolnir to our skulls!

- The Pixel Palace Award (Best Retro-Style Game)

WINNER: Minecraft (Steam)

WHY: Minecraft is an interesting retro chic game that allows you to create your own pixellated slice of heaven and share it with other gamers. It takes time to construct a worthwhile game world, but Minecraft is ultimately simple to play, yet endlessly addictive, just like any amazing retro chic title. A phenomenon amongst gamers, Minecraft is so wildly popular that its creator is even giving people permission to pirate it. Can you picture Nintendo saying that about Super Mario Bros. back in the 80's? Because they might as well have done so if the internet had existed!

- The Lester Award (Worst Game Character)

WINNER: Fi (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)

WHY: What's a great idea for the new Zelda game? Remind people of how much they hate Navi of course! While gamers got to re-experience that fairy's nagging in the well-done 3DS remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time this year, they weren't even prepared for what would succeed her in the series' all-new proper prequel on the Wii. Fi not only nags you, but pushes you to follow Zelda for no real reason, and worst of all, CONTINUALLY bugs you to refill your hearts when your health is low. Yes, I'm not stupid, Fi. I know that I need to fill my hearts, you don't need to keep reminding me! It's almost like the annoying sidekicks in the Zelda series have become a tradition. Hopefully that changes with the original new 3DS adventure that was recently announced, and the series' inevitable debut on the Wii U when it arrives. We can only hope...

- The No Thanks Award (Most Overhyped Game That Didn't Sell)

WINNER: Duke Nukem Forever (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Duke Nukem Forever had over a decade to generate hype and notoriety. People were so morbidly curious about a game with such a drawn-out, tumultuous development cycle that it's sort of amazing that Duke Nukem Forever sold so poorly. Maybe people were just tired of the wait, and maybe they wanted to spite 2K for either buying the rights to the franchise or not being able to get the ball rolling, which is technically original series developer, 3D Realms' fault, but I digress. The fact is, Duke Nukem Forever's firm release sounded with more incredible fanfare than just about any other game in 2011, and it still turned dismal numbers. I guess gamers were fed up, but it's not like they missed much anyway...

- The Pinched Cheeks Award (Most Sickeningly Adorable Game)

WINNER: Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster (Xbox 360)

WHY: The idea of a Sesame Street game would probably make you laugh, even if it's made by Double Fine, but the new Sesame Street game for Kinect is not only surprisingly fun for young kids and parents to play together, but it's actually really damn cute too. This is the kind of game that you don't have to be ashamed to play with your young ones, since it's not patronizing, it's actually rather charming. Almost too charming. If only all of Double Fine's games were just so huggable!

- The Lunchtime Disaster Award (Worst Glitch)

WINNER: Goron breaks the game (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)

WHY: This 'award' almost went to Skyrim for its rampant freezing problems when players racked up excessive game time. Even though that is a serious problem that severely cripples what is otherwise one of 2011's best games, it's mainly limited to the PS3 version, so I can't penalize the PC and Xbox 360 versions equally with this dubious honour. Thus, I turn to 2011's second-most debilitating glitch, made worse by the fact that it's located in one of 2011's only noteworthy Wii releases for core gamers, and unlike games on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, patches can't be downloaded for games on the Wii, so the glitch is stuck in every copy of the game, with no real solution. The glitch occurs when you talk to a certain goron character after completing the thunder dragon scenario, which prevents the game from triggering new scenarios, and thus, prevents the player from finishing it, forcing them to delete their save file and start a new game if they've saved. You can relatively easily avoid the problem by doing the thunder dragon scenario after the others, but this is still a surprisingly large, game-breaking issue in what is normally a rather bug-free series by a very thorough first-party game company that often doesn't let these problems fly before release. The new Zelda title is still easily one of 2011's best video games, but this glitch is a doozy all the same, especially for a franchise that has normally avoided bad bugs up until now!

- The Thirst Meter Award (Worst Gameplay Mechanic)

WINNER: Parkour movement (Brink)

WHY: Brink aspired and failed to copy the formula of team-based shooter gameplay that Valve did so well with Team Fortress 2. It also tried to incorporate parkour movement into the mix. The shooting mechanics were already problematic, as was the seemingly irrelevant class system, but throwing parkour into a shooter feels redundant, and like a futile attempt to make Brink stand apart from the competition even with no single-player mode, and the fact that it's an obvious clone of another game. The parkour movement is broken and unhelpful, and its inclusion in the game is pretty baffling. There were some really rotten game mechanics in 2011, but this one really didn't help a game that already wasn't great...

Next up is Part 4, the genre awards! Coming soon!

Brentiverse 2011 Movie Awards: Part 2 - The Finer Details

2012-01-15T17:31:00.001-08:00

As the movie awards continue, it's time to examine what went into a movie beyond the usual questions. When we actually hiked our way to our local cinematic establishment, what were the most unexpected and wonderful moments that unfolded before us on the big screen this year? Well, let's count them down. Here, in Part 2, we honour the finer details of 2011's best movies!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 MOVIE AWARDS - The Finer Details

- The Screaming Naked Guy Award (For coolest moment on film)

- Jotunheim Beast Encounter (Thor)
- Erik’s submarine grab (X-Men: First Class)
- Shockwave’s tower ravage (Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Ethan Hunt scales the Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)
- Hogwarts Sentinel Spell (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2)

WINNER: Shockwave's tower ravage (Transformers: Dark of the Moon)

WHY: You can complain at length about Michael Bay's Transformers movies and how much they do wrong, but I don't mind them as guilty pleasures. Besides, you have to admit that they've done some pretty rad sequences rather well, and 2011's threequel was no exception! When Shockwave began to tear apart a towering office with our protaganists inside of it, we got one of the most intense, destructive and way cool moments out of any movie this year! The scenery turned and fell apart around our heroes as the building itself toppled over in pieces, and it certainly was a sight to behold! There were some really amazing moments in the movies during 2011, but none managed to match the scale of this one incredible moment during the climactic battle!

- The Duck Hat Man Award (For biggest surprise hit)

- Real Steel
- 50/50
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Bridesmaids
- Rango

WINNER: 50/50

WHY: Here's a funny idea; A comedy about cancer. What do you mean that isn't funny at all? Well, somehow, 50/50 made it funny. In fact, for my money, 50/50 is one of the best comedies that 2011 ever brought to the big screen, and there were plenty of impressive comedy offerings throughout the year! A heartfelt story about a young man's trial to overcome his seemingly fatal cancer diagnosis, 50/50 was simple, heartfelt and very clever. Audiences were divided at the announcement, but people generally agree that the movie vastly exceeded expectations. It was rightfully one of the most acclaimed movies of the normally dreary September calendar, even when no one thought it would ever be embraced by today's moviegoers. It goes to show you that challenging the audience with something really provocative every once in a while really isn't a bad thing!

- The Fidgety Pants Award (For the best marketing campaign)

- Sucker Punch
- Super 8
- Contagion
- Arthur Christmas
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

WINNER: Contagion

WHY: For a simple virus thriller, coming out in September no less, Warner Bros. threw a staggering amount of insane marketing behind Contagion! The posters were remarkably clever in spelling out the name with various major cities, and the marketing was so ambitious, that it even grew viral cultures for the sole purpose of growing to spell out the movie's name in display windows. Damn! No September movie ever gets promotion like that! The fact that the movie was stuffed with celebrities didn't hurt, but Contagion's merely decent final product was only given any publicity at all because these ingenious marketing tools were further complemented by an excellent set of trailers. It's an unlikely candidate for this award, but I guess it goes to show how creative a marketing team can really be, even for a September movie, when they set their mind to it!

- The Get My Good Side Award (Best poster)

- The Hangover Part II
- Horrible Bosses
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Contagion
- Immortals

WINNER: Horrible Bosses

WHY: Horrible Bosses was a much smarter and funnier comedy than many people felt it had any right to be, and its set of posters were all very clever and eye-catching. They summed up exactly the problem that each of our leads had with each boss in one big colourful word, while placing them atop their victims with dominant poses that grabbed our attention without even trying too hard, as many of these movies often do. The result is a clever poster that says everything in all its minimalism, while also providing something a little different than crazy, impossible to decipher imagery, which isn't always the best solution. Horrible Bosses kept it clean and kept it simple, and the movie probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much attention as it did were it not for its bright, ironically chipper posters so effectively grabbing attention!

- The Poop Volcano Award (For the flat-out worst movie of the year)

- Beastly
- Battle: Los Angeles
- Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
- Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
- I Don’t Know How She Does It

WINNER: I Don't Know How She Does It

WHY: You know, all of these nominees were massive turds for one reason or another, but at least they have saving graces. At least Beastly had some style, at least Battle: Los Angeles had solid marketing, at least Bucky Larson was original (for what it's worth), and at least Hoodwinked Too! sort of made sense, even if it was late to the party, for having such a surprisingly decent predecessor. I Don't Know How She Does It however is just shit. It's witless, unfunny, poorly written, terribly acted, completely uninspired, and worst of all, it is horribly, horribly offensive to both men and women alike. Girl flicks can be very hit-or-miss, but I Don't Know How She Does It was just wrong on every possible level. It was a flimsy premise at best for a novel, but as a movie, it's a disaster. It's truly remarkable how not only did the movie bomb on every conceivable level, but it even had the gall to blame men for just about all of the world's problems, while portraying women as irrational basket cases with no spine to speak of. It takes a genuine desire to destroy humanity to produce a movie this bad, but I Don't Know How She Does It is so terrible, that it may make you want to kick a puppy. It also had the dubious distinction of beating out Eclipse from 2010 for getting the lowest score I've ever given a movie to date at 16%. Oh yeah, it's that bad!

- The Exploded Ice Cream Award (For the most disappointing movie of the year)

- Sucker Punch
- Green Lantern
- Battle: Los Angeles
- Bad Teacher
- Cowboys & Aliens

WINNER: Green Lantern

WHY: Again, I will defend Green Lantern by saying that it's not NEARLY as bad as many people say. It's actually fun in several places, and if you can get past the absurd premise from the comic, it's a flashy and relatively decent superhero blockbuster. The genre has done much, MUCH worse than Green Lantern, and a lot of its bad press was due to knee-jerk reactions from fanboys, who have since cooled down about the movie. That said though, Green Lantern was still a let-down considering what went into it. It was one of the most ambitious superhero movies yet made, and it had an impressive cast, an impressive director, a massive special effects crew and budget, plus direct input from one of the finest writers that's ever worked on the comic. What happened? To make matters worse, Green Lantern was supposed to help lay the groundwork for a larger DC Cinematic Universe, but it squandered this opportunity completely. This was supposed to be DC's answer to Iron Man, but when it should have been excellent, it ended up merely decent. There's all these theories floating around about what made Green Lantern fall short, from the problematic story to the CG costumes to the excessive amount of time spent in outer space, but whatever the case, the movie didn't achieve its potential. Hopefully Warner Bros. and DC do better with a sequel...

- The Seeing Eye Dog Award (Best movie no one saw)

- Super 8
- Warrior
- Drive
- The Muppets
- Hugo

WINNER: Hugo

WHY: This was a very tough toss-up between The Muppets and Hugo, and my initial instinct was Drive, but even if that movie didn't do that great at the box office, it still technically turned a noticeable profit, so it could have been worse. The Muppets also technically turned a profit, but it should have been a much bigger profit, since the characters are so beloved, and the movie was really amazing. Sadly, people would rather see Twilight, so, again, they only have themselves to blame for the onslaught of mediocre to downright bad entertainment that gets put on a pedestal, because that's what they pay for en masse. Hugo however, by box office definitions, was one of 2011's worst bombs. It didn't even make back half of its budget, even being a 3D movie with more expensive ticket prices! What's really sad here is that this is a movie directed by one of Hollywood's best directors, Martin Scorsese, and it's a spectacular family adventure that is far and away the best use of 3D that 2011 ever saw. Again though, people ignored Hugo in favour of Twilight, which, again, is a big part of the reason why I HATE Twilight; It's happy to deliver mediocre, aggressively dumb and shallow content that is unfairly put on a pedestal, and in the process, it steals attention away from MUCH better movies that people actually put REAL effort into, like Hugo and The Muppets! The fact that nobody saw Hugo is egregiously offensive to all collective cinematic intelligence, since most audiences missed out on one of 2011's top films for little other reason than the fact that it came out too close to Breaking Dawn - Part 1, and it won't be the same when viewed on DVD without that amazing big screen 3D job enhancing every second. You only have yourselves to blame for your greedy corporate Hollywood machine, folks, and Hugo's dismal box office is yet another reminder of that!

- The Demon Child Award (Worst movie everyone saw)

- New Year’s Eve
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
- The Adjustment Bureau
- Red Riding Hood
- Battle: Los Angeles

WINNER: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

WHY: I debated giving this award to both Battle: Los Angeles and Red Riding Hood for a while, but those movies suckered people in with trailers that were actually pretty great. After typing my verdict on the last award, the winner is yet again clear. The trailers were awful, the story was absurd, and yet it became one of 2011's top moneymakers. It's once again terribly infuriating and downright offensive to real, dedicated movie crews that so many amazing movies came out in November this year, from Arthur Christmas to The Muppets to A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas to Immortals to Hugo, and hell, even Tower Heist wasn't bad. What happened though? You blithering nincompoops ignored the lot of them and flocked to Twilight, with just about all of November's releases underperforming in the process, despite how great they were. Seriously, November's movies all exceeded expectations in quality while Twilight continued to settle for its usual badness. To be fair, Breaking Dawn - Part 1 was more aggressively mediocre than downright terrible, but still, people go into this movie KNOWING that they're going to hate it, and they still make it the only movie that they see all month, a month filled with amazing releases that weren't given their due by all too many moviegoers. Twilight, even in 2011, remains a testament to the raw stupidity of consumers. The movie may have been merely mediocre, but I swear that it's at the point where the series is just coasting on its runaway success, and it's almost taunting us with how terrible it is, and how much money it steals from more deserving films. WAKE UP, PEOPLE!! If you're one of the zillions of people that saw Twilight in favour of any other movie in November, you should be very, very ashamed of yourself, and apparently, that's a lot of you. Run headlong into a wall, and then go to your room and think long and hard about what you've done. You know what the worst part is? People are just going to make the same mistake in 2012 with the Twilight finale, and I know that. Once again, the quality of Hollywood commercialism is never going to improve as long as you keep heaping money on stupid, braindead 'entertainment' like Twilight, so you have no right to complain about creative bankruptcy when you're all wasting your movie bucks on cinematic crap like this that is in fact fully aware of the fact that it's crap, and makes money anyway. Idiots.

- The Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Award (Best fight)

- Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor James Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)
- Green Lantern vs. Parallax (Green Lantern)
- Brendan Conlon vs. Tommy Conlon (Warrior)
- Atom vs. Zeus (Real Steel)
- Jane Carter vs. Sabine Moreau (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)

WINNER: Atom vs. Zeus (Real Steel)

WHY: As much as I'm tempted to be immature and give this to the hot lady punch-out from Mission: Impossible, I have to admit that the real winner is definitely Real Steel's climactic duel between the unlikely underdog and the unstoppable champion! This was a lengthy and surprising battle that thoroughly kept audiences on the edge of their seats, and even though it went on for a while, we couldn't take our eyes off of it. As ludicrous as a premise about boxing robots may be in the eyes of some people, this was a duel that just about any moviegoer can rightfully cheer for!

- The Hot Lips Award (Best kiss)

- Thor and Jane Foster (Thor)
- Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2)
- Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter (Captain America: The First Avenger)
- Puss and Kitty Softpaws (Puss in Boots)
- Ethan Hunt and Jane Carter (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)

WINNER: Thor and Jane Foster (Thor)

WHY: No, I'm not giving it to Ron and Hermione. That moment was cute, but it was also kind of forced. Thor and Jane Foster had much more chemistry, and made much more sense as a couple. Even though Ron and Hermione were in an equal sense of peril, it was Thor and Jane that really lit up the screen as their sexual tenson finally came to a head in a passionate kiss they shared, unsure of whether they'd see each other again. Thor was to travel to Asgard to battle his brother, and that may mean losing the way to Jane forever, assuming he wasn't killed as well. Jane was Thor's link to the human world, the woman who taught him humility and virtue, and the person who truly brought out the best in the previously arrogant and disagreeable god of thunder. It's up in the air whether Jane will appear in The Avengers or not, but even if I have to wait until Thor's 2013 sequel to see her again, I'll never forget the sparks that flew when she finally laid one on the son of Odin!

- The Two Scoops Award (Best sequel/follow-up/reboot)

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
- X-Men: First Class
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Scream 4
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WINNER: X-Men: First Class

WHY: 2011 delivered plenty of impressive sequels, and of the lot, the new X-Men and Planet of the Apes prequel/reboot combos stood tallest for sure. Deciding between the two of them was tough, but X-Men just barely edged out due to Apes not really featuring a whole lot of rising in the end. X-Men however was extremely creative, bringing the series into the swinging 60's for a prequel tale that revitalized the floundering franchise after two weak predecessors, featuring excellent new takes on both Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, before they become Professor X and Magneto, and providing a great balance between superhero action and dramatic characterization. Many people thought that the one-two punch of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine effectively killed the integrity of the once revolutionary superhero film franchise, but despite its hurried development schedule and weak marketing, X-Men: First Class exceeded all expectation and put Marvel's mutants back on top of the big screen! Even if you normally dislike the X-Men franchise, or perhaps know nothing about it, X-Men: First Class was an incredible retro chic superhero action flick that oozed with inspiration and imagination, beginning a promising new arc of movies that will hopefully keep this series on a positive cycle of improvement!

- The Etch-a-Sketch Award (Most promising new film franchise)

- Puss in Boots
- Real Steel
- Thor
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Green Lantern

WINNER: Real Steel

WHY: Taking rather inconceivable superheroes like Thor, Captain America and Green Lantern, and giving them competent and believable springboard stories is no small task, but even that pales when it comes to taking a movie about boxing robots, and trying to make that credible, especially as a heartfelt father/son story! Real Steel rose to the occasion however, delivering one of Fall 2011's top surprise hits, while leaving all the promise in the world for follow-ups. With memorable human and robot characters left and right, leaving room for toy lines, comic books and video games, among other things, Real Steel should hopefully pave the way for one of the more promising fledgling sci-fi properties to come along in a while. Yes, it's a blatantly commercial movie, but it's a reminder that commercial movies don't have to be heartless, so, yes, I'm really pulling for some quality sequels here!

That's all for Part 2! Stay tuned for the genre awards, coming soon!

Brentiverse 2011 Video Game Awards: Part 2 - The Finer Details

2012-01-15T14:37:00.000-08:00

Now, we come to Part 2 of the Brentiverse 2011 video game awards. Here, we honour the games who delivered beyond the obvious. More than being good-looking or containing a great story, are the games that surprised us most when we actually started playing them. For these deeper accolades, I present these awards!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 VIDEO GAME AWARDS: THE FINER DETAILS

- The Upstanding Goody Shoes Award (Best Hero)

- Nathan Drake (Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception)
- Link (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
- Bruce Wayne/Batman (Batman: Arkham City)
- Joe Capelli (Resistance 3)
- Cole McGrath (inFamous 2)

WINNER: Joe Capelli (Resistance 3)

WHY: Sure, established greats like Nathan Drake, Batman and Link have retained incredible appeal for varying reasons, but one of the most unlikely and memorable heroes of 2011 was one who had just been dishonourably discharged and left in a dying world. With the Chimera having mostly overrun civilization, Joe Capelli had since married and had a child, and it was he alone that was sent off on a suicide mission to try to shut a Chimera wormhole that was set to freeze the planet over. Not only did Capelli have to take over the protaganist role from Nathan Hale before him, but he was beset by insurmountable odds as legions of Chimera, and even immoral humans were around every corner! Joe wasn't in it for the glory, or the justice though. In the end, Joe was a family man, and he just wanted to be with his family. Towards the end of the game, Joe even feels like he may not make it back, and another of gaming's most emotionally memorable moments of the year played out when he desperately tried to broadcast a final message to his wife and child, believing he would never see them again. Even in a game full of ridiculous weaponry and vicious alien monsters, Joe kept a heart firmly beating in Resistance 3's chest. He was just one ordinary man, but in the end, the simple desire to be with his loved ones allowed him to accomplish extraordinary things. If that's not the kind of unsung hero that all gaming heroes should aspire to be...

- The Conquered Heart Award (Best Villain)

- Vladimir Makarov (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3)
- Katherine Marlowe (Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception)
- The Joker (Batman: Arkham City)
- Wheatley (Portal 2)
- Ghirahim (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)

WINNER: Wheatley (Portal 2)

WHY: In a list of nominees full of calculated geniuses and experts at evildoing, Wheatley stands firmly apart. Why? Because he was designed from the ground up, the product of the world's most gifted minds, to create the dumbest most moronic machine that was ever given programming. Wheatley's very existence is hysterical, because the only reason he was made was to make GLaDOS dumber, and early on in Portal 2's proceedings, he tricks protaganist, Chell into giving him control of the entire ruinous Aperture Science facility. How dumb does that make Chell? Well, in any case, Wheatley was the most memorable, entertaining gaming villain of the year not due to his ruthlessness or power, but due to his raw ineptitude. Even then, he still somehow ends up being the key antagonist, which is just another mindbender of many in Portal's history of challenges! Try to wrap your head around this one all you like, but the fact is, Wheatley was tons of fun, and somehow turned stupidity into a credible threat. That's something!

- The Rising Star Award (Best Introduced Character)

- Garcia F. Hotspur (Shadows of the Damned)
- The Kid (Bastion)
- Sissel (Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective)
- Chibiterasu (Okamiden)
- Wheatley (Portal 2)

WINNER: Wheatley (Portal 2)

WHY: You really can't argue with the fact that Wheatley had best show up in further Portal follow-ups, because it's no small task to end up as entertaining as GLaDOS! Somehow though, the great writers at Valve made it happen, and Wheatley was given his own list of amazing quotes and gags to cement him as the new most appealing character in the series. Even from the introductory tutorial, Wheatley is a barrel of laughs, and things only get better when his villainous side is revealed. Again, stupid has never been this good, and I'm hoping that Portal 3 lets Wheatley get stupid all up in here again!

- The Mighty Mouse Award (Best Supporting Character)

- Zelda (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
- Captain Price (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3)
- Dominic Santiago (Gears of War 3)
- Jack Kelso (L.A. Noire)
- GLaDOS (Portal 2)

WINNER: GLaDOS (Portal 2)

WHY: Yes, it seems that Portal 2 is sweeping the character awards for me this year, but if you've played the game, you won't dispute it for a second. GLaDOS was shifted from key antagonist to supporting role in Portal 2, even going as far as to be contained in a potato. Somehow, this only made her funnier. What's most amazing though is that GLaDOS, in all of her snideness, is actually a very entertaining ally, and it's incredible how Wheatley's idiocy actually makes you want to install her back in command of the Aperture Facility, after spending the entire first game and the beginning of the second trying to get her deactivated. Today's enemies are tomorrow's friends I suppose, but even as a potato, GLaDOS carried more charisma and support than any other game character this year!

- The ZOMGROFL Award (Funniest Game)

- Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Serious Sam 3: BFE (Steam)
- Saints Row: The Third (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WINNER: Portal 2

WHY: Geez, I might as well have just renamed this section the 'Portal 2 Awards', eh? Really though, are you going to try and claim that there was a funnier game than Portal 2 this year? Between the brilliant writing, myriad surprises and compelling characters, all of which brought back an even greater scope of the pitch black humour that made the first Portal game such a success, Portal 2 was more than a laugh and a half. Even the most cold, serious gamers will probably be cracking smiles throughout the game, if they're not outright doubled over! There's a reason why huge Wikiquote pages are dedicated entirely to the Portal characters, because they are hilarious, and they only got better in the sequel!

- The Brown Drawers Award (Scariest Game)

- Dead Space 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rise of Nightmares (Xbox 360)
- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Alice: Madness Returns (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: This may be a controversial opinion, but no game terrified nearly as much as Catherine to me this year. This is likely because, not only is the game scary and twisted as all hell at its worst, but it scares players on a deeper, more psychological level as well, by perhaps exposing them to repressed sexual tastes that they may have previously tried their darndest to repress and avoid. If you're to be honest with the game, you may just learn that you are in fact afraid of commitment, or perhaps have the potential to cheat on your partner. What's interesting about Catherine is that it's not just superficially scary, but it probes at deep set vulnerability in the player him or herself. A sequel that allowed a female perspective would probably be doubly terrifying! I tell you, few games could be credited as more scary than the one that makes you come to terms with your own potential for adultery!

- The Broken Controller Award (Most Difficult Game)

- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Shinobi (3DS)

WINNER: Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Dark Souls and Shinobi are pretty tough games, but again, they're not tough in the same sense as Catherine. Catherine is not only bone-crushingly difficult even on the lowest difficulty setting in terms of its puzzles and strict time limit, but it's also a game that asks the player difficult questions, as I mentioned. There are no simple decisions in the world of Catherine, and what's interesting about it is how it garners difficulty not just from the game itself, but in the questions that it makes the player ask themselves. If you want to put all that philosophical bullshit aside though, few other games this year will challenge you like Catherine. I don't want to meet the sick bastards that somehow reach the end of this monster after cranking the difficulty up to the highest setting!

- The Capital Idea Award (Best Puzzle-Solving Component)

- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- L.A. Noire (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)

WHY: It was really close between Ghost Trick and Portal 2, but Portal 2 just barely lost out due to the fact that it's a sequel, and its puzzle design was technically already pioneered in 2007. Ghost Trick however brought with it an entirely new way to solve puzzles, one that made exceptional use of the DS hardware, and beautifully tied the puzzles into the storyline at the same time. Even though the Zelda series still delivered lots of incredible, conundrum-filled dungeons with its latest offering, and L.A. Noire tasked players with a new way of studying suspect mannerisms to find culprits, Ghost Trick was both original and seamless in its puzzle design. It's absolutely criminal that more people didn't play it!

- The Everything Must Go Award (Best Box Art)

- LittleBigPlanet 2 (PlayStation 3)
- Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS)
- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WINNER: Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition was a narrow runner-up with its captivating holographic 3D art, but you just can't argue with how eerily eye-catching Catherine is on either of its platforms. Katherine and Catherine are depicted separately on the Xbox 360 and PS3 art respectively, with their own pictures that emphasize a different side of the game's themes of relationships and adultery. It's rare that we get games that change their box art between platforms, but this was a really cool way to help separate the Xbox 360 and PS3 art and make the two versions feel even more distinct. Not only that, but an incredible amount of creepy artistic detail went into the depictions of both these games' leading ladies. Once you start staring at the box of Catherine on Xbox 360 or PS3, even if you've never heard of it, you'll have a hard time taking your eyes off it. The game sold much better than the usual Atlus project, and that's probably largely because the box art was so hypnotic that many gamers just had to have it!

- The Black Socks Award (Most Disappointing Game)

- X-Men: Destiny (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Spider-Man: Edge of Time (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)
- Duke Nukem Forever (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime (Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store)
- Brink (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Duke Nukem Forever (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Nothing says 'disappointment' quite like spending over a decade in development, only to be handed off to an amazing developer like Gearbox, who somehow still delivers a game that feels half-finished even after all of its time spent in production. That's a real accomplishment. Duke Nukem Forever didn't bring the famous 90's gaming icon back however, it just proved why he was better off dead. The crass humour was outdated, the gameplay felt two generations behind modern shooters, and the rampant misogyny really didn't fly with today's gamers. The people who had waited the painstaking amount of time for this game to hit the shelf, dropping $60 on it on launch day, only to be greeted with this chauvinistic, unentertaining mess of a final product, were no doubt highly pissed off! Duke Nukem Forever is hardly the worst game of 2011, but it was certainly the most anger-inducing for how well it fell below expectations, I'm sure!

- The Virtual Turd Award (Flat-Out Worst Game)

- Thor: God of Thunder (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)
- X-Men: Destiny (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter (PC)

WINNER: X-Men: Destiny (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WHY: It was close between all of the nominees for 2011's worst game, but Sword of the Stars II is being patched, and is a sequel to a reasonably decent strategy game, so it has potential. Thor: God of Thunder was godawful in several versions, but some of the handheld ones actually weren't terrible, just sort of banal. X-Men: Destiny however is a total trainwreck, especially on Nintendo's platforms, but on EVERY platform, it is a trainwreck. The game had so much potential, but in the end, it was a broken, uninteresting mess that failed to deliver on any of its promise. The story was bad, the morality system didn't work, and the gameplay was mind-numbing to the point of making you want to bore your brains out with a power drill. To an X-Men fan, playing this sorry excuse of a game is tantamount to torture, and the DS version is damn near broken enough to drive them to suicide! Marvel's team of mutants has had their share of bad games, especially in the 90's, but it's been some time since they were treated this badly. It's best if we just try to forget that this game exists... As best as we can.

- The Lonely Puppy Award (Best Game No One Played)

- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Resistance 3 (PlayStation 3)
- Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Child of Eden (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)

WHY: In a way, I can understand why no one played Shadows of the Damned, since it didn't make much of a first impression from its trailers or box art, and I can sort of see why many people didn't adopt Child of Eden, because it's difficult to really figure out what it's supposed to be. Resistance 3 was overshadowed in a crowded shooter market that put it in close proximity to the more anticipated Gears of War 3, though I have to admit that people really screwed themselves when they passed up Rayman Origins, easily one of 2011's best platformers even when stacked against a Mario game! Where people really have no excuse though, is Ghost Trick. Ghost Trick was made by a well-known developer (Capcom), the same creator of a beloved franchise (Ace Attorney), and represented a revolutionary new take on text adventures, puzzle games and mystery stories, on a handheld that is one of the top-selling game platforms in the world. No one bought it. What's wrong with you people?! Ghost Trick happened to be my highest scored 2011 game that I reviewed this year, earning an excellent 98% from me, and the fact that it so badly undersold is criminal. This was a game that just did everything right, while providing an amazing storyline and the highly creative, revolutionary game experience that many of you hypocrites call out for continually, and you didn't even glance at it. Shame on you! There may still be time though! The game is rumoured to be coming to North American iPhones sometime in the near future (it's already on the App Store in Japan), and though the 3DS is on the market now, some copies of Ghost Trick are still floating around retailers. Buy it, now. Don't question me, just go purchase this game for its very reasonable asking price of $20-$30, then give yourself a good smacking for waiting so long to play this hidden gem!

- The Shame on You Award (Worst Game Everyone Played)

- Spider-Man: Edge of Time (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (PC, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Thor: God of Thunder (DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)
- Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (3DS)
- PlayStation Move Heroes (PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (3DS)

WHY: Oh, come on people! You couldn't smell a rat with this one?? You'll ignore Ghost Trick, but you'll shell out for a 3DS just to play this one Resident Evil game while you wait for the much better one to drop in 2012?! On that note, the Resident Evil: Revelations demo packed in with this game may have influenced the sales, and Capcom did karmically balance themselves out with Ghost Trick (even if they ruined that with another obvious cash grab retail release that should have been DLC, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record), but really, I smelt a cash grab from the minute this game was announced. All of my fears about it came true, from a severe lack of content to compromised multiplayer features, to the fact that a MINIGAME was being sold as a full retail release, making the excuse that it's on a handheld and somehow that makes it ok. No, it doesn't. Handheld gaming has reached a point where it can produce deep, engaging game experiences on par with many console games, so games like Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D being rushed to retail to take advantage of the Resident Evil fanbase is inexcusable and slimy. I can sort of understand why people still fall for bad movie tie-ins like the Thor game, since superhero games are continually given second chances due to the appeal of their characters, plus Beenox actually did great with their previous Spider-Man game, and a PlayStation Move crossover with Jak, Ratchet and Sly might have actually been fun if it didn't suck so hard in the end. Non-gaming Harry Potter fans aren't educated enough on the gaming industry to know that most movie tie-in games are bad, even Harry Potter's latest, so they're somewhat forgiven too. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was a game meant for gamers though, smart gamers, hardcore gamers, people who should know better, and yet you morons took the money that you could have put down on Ghost Trick for the same result and a MUCH better game, and bought something just because it had the Resident Evil brand on it. Yeah, that apparent creative bankruptcy in gaming that you bitch so much about? You're bringing it on yourselves when you reward developers for this kind of laziness. Again, shame on you!

- The Black Licorice Award (Most Pleasant Surprise)

- Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, 3DS)
- Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster (Xbox 360)
- Sonic Generations (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 3DS)

WINNER: Sonic Generations (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 3DS)

WHY: Even though Sonic Colors helped to prove that Sega's mascot still had life left in him last year, Sonic Generations was the game that finally bucked the trend of terrible Sonic games and brought Sonic back to the triple-A limelight on HD consoles especially. Celebrating the series' 20th anniversary in style, Sonic Generations united the classic and modern Sonic characters in a game that took the best of both schools of Sonic design, and blended them into one kick-ass platformer! It's easy to roll your eyes at the game on paper, since Sonic has fallen so far from grace lately due to poor 3D translation and cheap gimmickry, but Sonic Generations not only effectively reminded us of the series' legacy, but also proved that good Sonic games are still possible. Most people didn't expect much upon the game's announcement, but it was nice to see Sega really rise to the occasion like never before with Sonic Generations! Let's hope that this positive momentum continues into 2012 and beyond for the speedy blue hedgehog!

- The Fresh Paint Award (Best Remake or Special Edition)

- Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS)
- Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (Xbox 360)
- Star Fox 64 3D (3DS)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)
- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PlayStation Portable)

WINNER: Star Fox 64 3D (3DS)

WHY: Though Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together brought two classic Japanese games to North America in style, and two of the most beloved franchises in gaming revived their old favourites with a nice visual overhaul and a few other goodies, it was Star Fox 64 3D that proved to be one of the year's most pleasantly surprising and oddly effective remakes, to the point where the original N64 version feels entirely obselete. The Star Fox 64 remake turned out so amazingly on the 3DS that it actually made it feel like that was the system where the game had always belonged. The 3D effect was excellent, the new Score Attack mode gave us a better way to strive for Medals, the updated visuals were beautiful, the recomposed music was even better than N64, and the dual screen presentation suited the game much better than the single screen presentation on N64! The game even allowed you to broadcast your real-time facial expressions to your friends as you played multiplayer with them! Even if people lamented the lack of online play, Star Fox 64 3D brought an N64 classic to a wonderful new home, and completely destroyed its inspiration in the process! You haven't truly played the game until you've seen it at its peak potential on 3DS!

Thus, concludes Part 2, so stay tuned for Part 3, coming soon!

Brentiverse 2011 Movie Awards: Part 1 - Esteemed Features

2012-01-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

Now, we come to the movie awards. 2011 was a year full of franchise offerings, being the largest sequel-driven year in cinematic history. Some lived up to the hype, some didn't, but even with so much Hollywood franchising, there were still several great original movies that wowed audiences as well. Even when sequelitis set in, several floundering franchises were given a new lease on life after falling from grace, while others continued to surprising acclaim and sales, proving that they're still not out of steam. In any case, 2011 was an eventful year for the big screen, and now it's time to honour the top cinematic products of last year.
The first part of the movie awards will celebrate the most esteemed features of the movies, and how established movie convention continued to improve with both new universes and returning franchises alike. Let's get started!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 MOVIE AWARDS: Esteemed features

- The Human Shield Award (Best Hero)

- Rango (Rango)
- Annie Walker (Bridesmaids)
- Thor (Thor)
- Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)
- The Driver (Drive)

WINNER: Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

WHY: In the span of just under two hours, Caesar went from an unusually intelligent household companion, to an outcast amongst his own species, to the leader of a revolution that motivated human audiences to cheer against their own species. While the real rise of the apes seems yet to come, Caesar kicked off proceedings beautifully, as a fiendishly intelligent leader to the simian uprising, as well as a surprisingly sympathetic victim of circumstances beyond his control. Even though the apes are to serve as antagonists after their takeover of Earth, it was impossible not to fall in love with Caesar's character, to the point where we could put aside the fact that his movement eventually conquers our planet. Even as the groundwork is laid for humans to fall, we just wanted this primate to find peace, even if it meant crushing the human race under his army. When you get a protaganist so potent that it makes you want to root for the eventual bad guys, even when it's your own species they're out to flatten, you know you've created an excellent main hero for your movie!

- The Bad Cheese Award (Best Villain)

- Loki (Thor)
- Voldemort (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2)
- Professor James Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)
- Bernie Rose (Drive)
- Rattlesnake Jake (Rango)

WINNER: Professor James Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)

WHY: It's true that Voldemort got his send-off this year, and he's one of the most beloved pop culture villains today, but when you think about it, he's a pretty one-dimensional bad guy in the movies especially. Where the bar was really raised this year was with another well-known villain of literature, Professor James Moriarty, archenemy to Sherlock Holmes. Outwardly respectable, formally devious and surpressing an undeniable air of moral insanity, there were so many appealing layers to Jared Harris' excellent portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ultimate bad guy that it carried an already amazing movie by itself. Europe at large was oblivious to Moriarty's true motives, but thanks to his airtight plans and superhuman intellect, this was made believable. Even when faced with his greatest opponent, Moriarty doesn't simply bump him off, he almost seems to deliberately challenge him in an unspoken contest to see who truly is the greatest mind the world has ever known. A sign of a great villain is one that redefines our hero, and in a strange way, we begin to question Sherlock's own morality through Moriarty's actions, wondering if his desire to stop the villain is out of a genuine sense of justice, or simply to best him at his own game. Whatever the case, Moriarty's grand plans were deadly enough to bring all of Europe to its knees, and he did it without superpowers, massive capital or even a shred of evidence. Truly, the big screen never saw a deadlier villain in 2011!

- The Eager Monkey Award (Best Supporting Character)

- Anjelica (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides)
- Raven Darkholme (X-Men: First Class)
- Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2)
- William Brandt (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)
- Megan (Bridesmaids)

WINNER: William Brandt (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

WHY: When a supporting character carries enough appeal to upstage the protaganist of a movie over the course of four films, to the point where rumours persist of his being passed the reins of the entire franchise, you know that you've made a winning personality. Brandt begins the movie as a seemingly unassuming analyst, but it's quickly made clear that there's much more to the character. His surprising connection to Ethan Hunt and the operation only serves to make him more appealing, and he finely complements Ethan's superhuman capability with a more grounded, calculating attitude that makes him feel like a much more rounded persona. In a movie that was otherwise all about the ludicrous, yet entertaining spectacle, Brandt brought it to the real world, and even if Tom Cruise makes another attempt at bailing from the franchise, you know that Mission: Impossible can yet continue with this awesome IMF agent taking center stage, even if he'd rather seduce the rich guy than drop tens of feet into an oven.

- The Crying Smiley Face Award (Best Dramatic Performance)

- Chris Hemsworth as Thor (Thor)
- Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)
- Andy Serkis as Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)
- Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr (X-Men: First Class)
- Ryan Gosling as The Driver (Drive)

WINNER: Andy Serkis as Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

WHY: This was a very tough category, as 2011 saw some truly amazing dramatic performances on the big screen, even in the most mainstream blockbusters. I cut my teeth on all five nominees, who would all be winners if they were spread across several years, but of all of them, Andy Serkis is the one that shines the brightest. I seriously hope that they give this guy an Oscar for his portrayal of Caesar, because as I said, the performance is so compelling and sympathetic that it even makes you want to root against your own species! The transition from innocent household test subject to determined leader of the revolution is gradual, but highly believable, and I'd probably love these movies even more if Caesar took center stage over the human characters entirely! Despite the fact that he was an ape, Serkis somehow made Caesar seem even more human than the actual human characters, and as ridiculous and biologically inaccurate as it was, I damn near shed a tear or two when Will beckons Caesar to return to his home, to which Caesar looks at the woods behind him, and whispers to Will in embrace, "Caesar is home". One of the most emotionally poignant moments on the big screen in 2011, for sure!

- The Homing Pie Award (Best Comedic Performance)

- Kristen Wiig as Annie Walker (Bridesmaids)
- Charlie Day as Dale Arbus (Horrible Bosses)
- Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris (A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas)
- Seth Rogen as Paul (Paul)
- Steve Carell as Cal Weaver (Crazy, Stupid, Love)

WINNER: Kristen Wiig as Annie Walker (Bridesmaids)

WHY: This is another list of performances that's tough to narrow down to just one winner, as every nominee was hysterical in all the right ways, from Steve Carell diving out of a moving car upon hearing of a divorce plea, to Charlie Day obliviously trying to revive the dying boss that he's supposed to be killing. I have to admit though that out of all of the great actors giving me the giggles this year, Kristen Wiig likely did it best in the lead role of Annie Walker in Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids was one of my favourite surprise hit comedies of 2011, proving that female-driven comedies can in fact be among the funniest movies of the year, and Wiig's portrayal of Annie was so hilarious in all of its straightness. Even as a depressing near-failure of an ex-small business owner forced to watch her best friend get married and leave her, Annie kept us smiling with how well she kept things light even at the movie's darkest moments, whether she's drunkenly staggering around a plane to Vegas, or trying desperately to get her angry cop boyfriend's attention by spinning her car topless while holding a bottle of liquor. As ridiculous as Bridesmaids' gags were on paper, Annie made them surprisingly believable, producing a heartfelt character even as shit hit the fan all around her. Hopefully this means that we'll be seeing lots more of Kristen Wiig over the course of the future!

- The Orange Jumpsuit Award (Best Breakout Performance)

- Chris Hemsworth as Thor (Thor)
- Charlie Day as Dale Arbus (Horrible Bosses)
- Kristen Wiig as Annie Walker (Bridesmaids)
- Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr (X-Men: First Class)
- Asa Butterfield as Hugo Cabret (Hugo)

WINNER: Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr (X-Men: First Class)

WHY: This was a very close tie between Michael Fassbender and Chris Hemsworth, both of whom received massive, and well-deserved career boosts after their excellent roles in two equally awesome superhero blockbusters. It's very close, but Michael Fassbender just barely edges out in the role of a younger Erik Lensherr, before he becomes X-Men arch-nemesis, Magneto, mainly because he did such an excellent job of filling the massive shoes of Ian MacKellan's incredible performance in the role throughout the former X-Men movie trilogy. Fassbender not only injected a new level of youth and conflict into a character we thought we knew, but also an increased sense of fury and ruthlessness that set him firmly on the path to super-villainy, but also turned him into a character we futily hoped would rise above his desire for revenge on the man who killed his mother and left him with nothing. Though he's a steadfast ally to his future archfoe, Charles Xavier throughout most of the film, Erik inevitably turns to the dark side despite our hopes for him in the end, starting on his way to his growth into Magneto by the time the end credits roll. Even when Erik did terrible things in his quest for the head of Sebastian Shaw though, we understood his grief and what drove him forward. A tortured soul that's as much a victim as he is a villain in the making, Michael Fassbender simultaneously honoured the legacy of Magneto while redefining the character for a new arc of X-Men films. I love Ian MacKellan's portrayal of Magneto as much as any other Marvel geek, but I'm beyond excited to see what else Fassbender can bring to this role in the inevitable follow-ups, and the roles of many other big movies that he's bound to land over the future.

- The Burger Phone Award (Best Quote)

- “No man can walk out of his own story” – Spirit of the West (Rango)
- “If I drive for you, you get your money. That's a guarantee. Tell me where we start, where we're going and where we're going afterwards, I give you five minutes when you get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours, no matter what. Anything a minute either side of that and you're on your own. I don't sit in while you're running it down. I don't carry a gun. I drive.” – Driver (Drive)
- “This is so awkward, I want you to leave, but I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a dick” – Ted (Bridesmaids)
- “Next time, I get to seduce the rich guy.” – William Brandt (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)
- “If you wonder where your dreams come from, look around you. This is where they’re made!” – Papa Georges (Hugo)

WINNER: - “If I drive for you, you get your money. That's a guarantee. Tell me where we start, where we're going and where we're going afterwards, I give you five minutes when you get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours, no matter what. Anything a minute either side of that and you're on your own. I don't sit in while you're running it down. I don't carry a gun. I drive.” – The Driver (Drive)

WHY: Do you love the movies? Did you see Drive this year? If you said no, please give yourself three slaps in the face and take away your allowance, because you missed out on one of 2011's best sleeper hits. Even if you haven't seen it though, this quote alone gives you all the development of your main character, in one paragraph. The rest of our main protaganist, simply called 'The Driver' in all credits and never named in the film, is left up to your imagination. It's amazing though that in this handful of sentences, we learn nothing about The Driver, yet at the same time, we learn everything noteworthy about him. It's kind of fascinating. Drive is a very cool movie despite its slow pace, because it liberally goes against the excess that Hollywood seems to pride itself on, giving us a surprisingly appealing minimalist take on an action-drama. In the opening minutes, this quote is all The Driver uses to describe himself, and doesn't do so at any greater length throughout the film. Works for me!

- The Hot Pepper Award (Sexiest Character)

- Babydoll (Sucker Punch)
- Anjelica (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides)
- Carly Spencer (Transformers: Dark of the Moon)
- Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (Horrible Bosses)
- Jane Carter (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)

WINNER: Anjelica (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides)

WHY: Sure, characters like Babydoll are very beautiful to the point of being downright enchanting, and characters like Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. are so hilariously oversexed that us guys can't help but feel a little aroused at the thought of their existence. What revs my engine as an honest man though, is a mix between beauty, brains and resourcefulness. A little of everything, wrapped up in a spicy disposition and the objective confidence that this woman has no need of a man's influence to get what she wants. That beautifully sums up Anjelica, the new female lead in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film. An ex-flame of Jack Sparrow, and the daughter of nefarious pirate, Blackbeard, Anjelica is a sassy cutthroat who will charm the pants off you just as soon as she'd lie, cheat and steal her way to what she wants out of you. In short, she's what Keira Knightley should have been for this franchise! Penelope Cruz seizes the female lead position and runs with it in the Anjelica role, delivering the bulk of the promise for future films in the new Pirates arc, in some ways even moreso than Johnny Depp, whose Sparrow schtick seems firmly planted in audiences' heads by now. Even in a ridiculous Jack Sparrow disguise, she still kind of made me hot, and I'm sure I wasn't the only man to feel that way! 2011 may have brought plenty of lovely ladies to the big screen, but Anjelica was the one who best stole my heart!

- The Reese's Pieces Award (Best Team)

- Green Hornet/Kato (The Green Hornet)
- Charles Xavier/Erik Lensherr (X-Men: First Class)
- Charlie Kenton/Max Kenton (Real Steel)
- Harold Lee/Kumar Patel (A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas)
- Gary/Walter (The Muppets)

WINNER: Charlie Kenton/Max Kenton (Real Steel)

WHY: Real Steel claimed to be about futuristic boxing robots smacking the hell out of each other for our amusement. That was mostly true. At the movie's core though, Real Steel was actually a surprisingly heartfelt underdog story about a father and son trying to mend their broken relationship. In a sense, Charlie and Max couldn't be any more different, but in a way, they were still much the same. They were stubborn, determined people with a fighter's spirit, with Max restoring Charlie's faith in the fighting game as they piloted an unlikely modified sparring bot to the top! The idea of robots beating each other to scrap is already a decent idea to sell a silly action movie, but when even that seems to be superceded by the father/son bond driving the whole show forward, you know that Hollywood has managed to craft a pretty good team!

- The Flying Pen Award (Best plot)

- X-Men: First Class
- Drive
- Hugo
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

WINNER: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WHY: Towards the end of the year especially, we had some great plots at the movies. This is another category where any of these movies told a great story for varying reasons. Drive maximized emotional and dramatic impact from an otherwise worn premise, Hugo enchanted audiences with a cinematic history lesson disguised as a wondrous family adventure filled with surprises, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo brought the esteemed Millennium Trilogy to an English-speaking audience to once again redefine the spirit of darkness and violence in a wonderfully twisted mystery, and X-Men: First Class brought huge layers of added depth to a deep and provocative comic book series that had previously lost its way on the big screen. Once again though, it was the greatest detective mind in Europe that delivered the most impressive yarn of all. With Holmes pitted against his archenemy in a deadly battle of wits for all of 19th Century Europe, the Sherlock Holmes sequel took us across the country as the mystery only thickened with every minute, raising the stakes, the thrills and the wit all the while. Though it took minute inspiration from a handful of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows mainly devised an original mystery that simply fired on all cylinders, noticeably outdoing the preceding movie and overcoming the sophomore slump with one of the most intricate, smart action movie plots to come along in years!

- The Licorice Whip Award (Best plot twist)

- The identity of the Spirit of the West (Rango)
- Sentinel Prime’s agenda (Transformers: Dark of the Moon)
- Hannah’s lineage (Crazy, Stupid, Love)
- Papa Georges’ history (Hugo)
- Moriarty’s plan (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)

WINNER: Hannah's lineage (Crazy, Stupid, Love)

WHY: If you haven't seen Crazy, Stupid, Love, and are holding out for it, you may want to scroll down. Know which twist I mean then? Good. Actually, there were two really impressive twists in this movie, with the identity of Cal Weaver's son's teacher being the other great surprise. So, in a year full of franchise movies, big blockbusters and all sorts of complicated scripts, two of the best scenes of the year exist in a romance-themed comedy? Again, not to be confused with a romantic comedy, as Crazy, Stupid, Love is in a much better, smarter class of films. Yeah, crazy, isn't it? This just goes to show you how awesome Crazy, Stupid, Love's writing really was though, and it actually spent some time on the Hollywood Black List of unproduced scripts, along with Hanna, another of 2011's best movies that's a must-see for any cinemaphile. Anyway, if you don't know already, here comes the spoilers, so last chance to leave, mmkay? Ok. Anyway, I almost lept out of my seat when I saw that Hannah, Emma Stone's character, was actually the daughter of Steve Carell the entire time, with a twist of fate leading to her dating the very same apparently lowlife womanizer that taught Carell's character his moves after his divorce, as well as being the mysterious 'Nana' character often referred to in passing. Apparently the nickname came from the littlest daughter being unable to pronounce Hannah's name as a baby. Huh. Well played, movie... Well played... Again, I never thought that I would give this award to a comedy, much less a comedy about romance, but hey, it's always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a wonderful movie like Crazy, Stupid, Love!

- The Cannonball Man Award (Best stunts)

- Hanna
- Fast Five
- Drive
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

WINNER: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

WHY: Every nominee on this list had some really impressive stunt work behind it. As ridiculous as it was, Fast Five's climactic action scene is worth seeing the movie for alone, and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows blew its predecessor out of the water with even more ambitious action scenes that were nonetheless true to the series' style. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was the movie that really turned heads though, and rightfully so. Shirking CGI for the most part, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol instead relied on good old handmade stunt work, with Tom Cruise yet again doing his own action scenes, and boy were these some ambitious action scenes! Cruise scaled the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, using nothing but a pair of prototype adhesive gloves (which didn't work well, might I add), pursued a suspect in the middle of a sandstorm, and took to a climax of shifting vehicles and platforms in a tower-like parking garage. Jeremy Renner also got in on the action with a daring wind tunnel leap and a perilous underwater escape to boot! Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protcol was some of the most silly fun I had at the movies throughout all of 2011, but it was still easy to be impressed at the movie when you see its mind-blowing stunts and action sequences at work! Even from the outset, this fourth movie hits the ground running and never lets up until the credits roll, and it's especially impressive to experience on an IMAX screen too! Even if you don't normally like action movies, there's a rough and tumble dedicated to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol that will nonetheless entertain you, if for no other reason than to amaze you at just how these actors pulled all of this off! If only every action movie could look so impressive without that needless CGI cheating!

- The Trippy Colours Award (Best special effects)

- Sucker Punch
- Thor
- Green Lantern
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

WINNER: Green Lantern

WHY: You can say what you will about the quality of Green Lantern as a movie (a movie I actually didn't hate nearly as much as many other people did), but you can't argue that it was breathtaking to look at. It was very ambitious on the part of the filmmakers to try to bring a lesser known B-list DC Comic to the big screen, one that spends much of its time in outer space, from the perspective of space cops that battle alien entities with the power of their imaginations, in a nutshell. Maybe it wasn't a total success, but at least the visuals and effects were spectacular, and beautifully brought the comic to life! Yes, Green Lantern is essentially all style and precious little substance, flubbing most of its opportunities to set up a larger DC Cinematic Universe in order to compete with Marvel's imminent Avengers initiative, but if nothing else, at least we got a movie that looked good in all of its failure. Effects don't make a movie, true, but even disappointing movies can still leave an impression with their effects work, and at the very least, Green Lantern may get a second chance at taking on the big screen simply because it's a better-looking movie than most. Hey, there are worse reasons to make a sequel!

- The Yellow Bunny Award (Best costumes)

- Sucker Punch
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Conan the Barbarian
- Thor
- Immortals

WINNER: Sucker Punch

WHY: This is another movie that kind of... bombed this year, and maybe in some ways, rightfully so. Sucker Punch was a beautiful film, but plot-wise, it was a mess. Thankfully, this confused, faux-artistic action movie at least compensated by having easily the most stunning wardrobe of the entire year! Stylized sometimes to the point of unintentional hilarity, Sucker Punch was nonetheless captivating at how it got beautiful ladies into even more beautiful outfits and challenged us guys not to get a boner even when we were fuming at the whole mess. You can spew bile at this movie until the cows come home, but you have to admit that the costumes kicked ass, and at least director, Zack Snyder and his wardrobe department got those very much right. Sucker Punch's worse moments were sometimes painful, especially with all the hype it garnered in the geek community, but at least the blow was softened by the fact that we could continually make mental notes of all the outfits that we wish the girlfriend we don't have would wear for us. Ahhh, a guy can dream...

- The Googly Glasses Award (Best 3D presentation)

- Kung Fu Panda 2
- Puss in Boots
- Hugo
- Green Lantern
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

WINNER: Hugo

WHY: All of the nominees stood out amongst a sea of 3D releases in 2011 for actually making decent use of a 3D presentation, despite the occasional overexposure. Kung Fu Panda 2 was a 3D stunner that continued to show all the wonderful ways that the third dimension can add to an animated story, while Green Lantern actually successfully delivered a shaky, but fun superhero flick that made surprisingly decent use of 3D, and the Harry Potter finale's post-3D conversion amazingly didn't suck at all, in fact, it wasn't bad! Out of the many, many 3D movies that came to the big screen in 2011 though, it was Hugo that truly took a 3D presentation to the next level. This is a movie that absolutely, and unfortunately loses something when you view it in 2D. The enchanting 3D environments are absolutely breathtaking to behold, constantly creating an unparalleled sense of atmosphere, and truthfully enhancing the enchanting appeal of the story all the while! It seems cheesy to say, but the added 3D presentation made Hugo's adventure feel all the more magical and alive, expertly using 3D to make the world feel so much more lifelike, without resorting to cheap gimmickry like all too many misguided 3D releases. Sure, 2011 had some real 3D stinkers that made terrible, redundant use of a 3D presentation like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Conan the Barbarian, and it's easy to get cynical about 3D when the cinematic calendar is choked with 3D misfires like this, but Hugo is enough to make you really believe in 3D as the future of filmmaking, and considering that it's the first time director, Martin Scorsese has worked with it, it really makes you appreciate the man's immense directing talents on a whole new level as well!

Thus concludes Part 1 of my movie awards, so stay tuned for Part 2 of both the video game and movie awards for 2011 to be posted soon!

Brentiverse 2011 Video Game Awards: Part 1 - Esteemed Features

2012-01-14T13:49:00.000-08:00

Finally, though the new year of 2012 has officially begun, we can now look back on the myriad noteworthy accomplishments of 2011's hefty catalogue of video games. Another superb year for gamers everywhere, 2011 saw the unveiling of both Sony's next-generation portable, the PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo's first contender in the all-new generation of consoles, the Wii U. Before that, Nintendo officially released the 3DS unto the world early in the year, bringing glasses-less 3D visuals to the mainstream public. This isn't even factoring in all of the brilliant new properties, stellar sequels and other such great releases that 2011 saw hit both retail and digital download services.
For the first part of the video game awards, we look back on the established conventions of gaming, and how they were pushed forward by ambitious video games of all kinds, across all platforms. Whether it's redefining the limits of multiplayer features, audio/visual prowess or even how to make effective use of a creative license, 2011 continued to raise the bar for what gaming can achieve as an interactive medium.
It was tough to narrow down a list of nominees for many of these categories, as there were many great offerings delivered in 2011. After choosing five nominees and a winner for each category though, I believe I've come up with my best possible picks for each of these awards! Starting with Part 1, here are the awards for the most esteemed features that 2011 brought to the gaming industry!

BRENTIVERSE 2011 VIDEO GAME AWARDS: Esteemed Features

1) The Bulky Beauty Award (Strongest Console Graphics)

- Crysis 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rage (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PlayStation 3)
- Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- L.A. Noire (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: This was a very tough category, as there were plenty of visual stunners on consoles this year. Despite the jaw-dropping environments of Uncharted 3, the unprecedented facial animation technology in L.A. Noire, and the incredible post-apocalyptic environments of Rage however, you just can't argue with how much EA raised the visual bar with their Frostbite 2 engine in Battlefield 3. Crafting one of the most immersive warzones in recent memory, Battlefield 3 brought the scale and magnitude of its destructive battles both to consoles and the PC like never before, producing one of the most chilling and oddly enthralling depictions of modern warfare that the gaming industry has yet delivered.

- The Petite Princess Package (Strongest Portable Graphics)

- The 3rd Birthday (PlayStation Portable)
- Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Okamiden (DS)

WINNER: Okamiden (DS)

WHY: This was a very close call between Okamiden and Super Mario 3D Land, as both pushed their respective systems to amazing new heights of visual technology. In the end though, Okamiden edged out due to producing a stellar visual experience that almost perfectly replicates the original PS2 visuals, on a handheld that is supposed to be noticeably less powerful! Both the art style and incredible visual fidelity of the original Okami being produced on the DS is nothing short of stunning, and even though the DS has now been succeeded by the 3DS, Okamiden goes to show that even as last-gen technology now, the DS can still impress as a visual powerhouse!

- The Cyber-Heartthrob Award (Best Art Style)

- Outland (Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Alice: Madness Returns (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WINNER: Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)

WHY: This was another category that I REALLY cut my teeth on, because all of the nominees were very strong in the art department. Outland was a masterpiece of colour and shading, producing one of the most eye-catching digital download games of the entire year, while Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective pulled off one of the most memorable and creative DS art styles in the system's entire life cycle to date, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword perfectly blended the dark, realistic art of Twilight Princess with the chipper and cartoony palette of Wind Waker to produce one of the best works of visual art in the Wii's history. In the end though, as beautiful as all of these games are, it was Rayman Origins that most truly raised the bar for gaming as a visual art form. Bringing hand-drawn visuals back to gaming with a vengeance, Rayman Origins' super colourful and wacky graphics produced a game that was impossible to take your eyes off of. It was like a finger painting on crack, and it's one of the proudest accomplishments that Ubisoft's art team has ever put together. It certainly didn't hurt that it was a pretty damn amazing game on top of its wonderfully manic visuals too!

- The Fluffy Earphones Award (Best Music)

- Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
- Pokemon Black/White Version (DS)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

WINNER: Pokemon Black/White Version (DS)

WHY: Yes, I know, people are REALLY going to disagree with me on this, but hear me out. I normally divide this award between an original soundtrack and a licensed soundtrack, but since licensed soundtracks were so few and unremarkable in 2011, and the music game genre has really taken a nose dive lately, I just decided to do a general music award, especially since I generally prefer catchy, memorable, original game music over everything else anyway. As wonderfully composed and memorable as Super Mario 3D Land's tunes were, and as hard rockin' fun as Shadows of the Damned was to listen to, Pokemon Black/White stood out most from the pack, and this is yet another game that somehow managed to wring more power out of what is now last-gen hardware thanks to the 3DS. Pokemon Black/White Version composed a huge soundtrack of beautiful environmental anthems and catchy battle themes, while also creating dual-layered tracks using nothing else but the DS's speakers, which changed dynamically as you took action in the game. Even on a console, this would be remarkable, but on a last-gen handheld, it's truly extraordinarily! Pair that with the music being as catchy and engaging as it was in this game, and you have a true highlight soundtrack for 2011's games!

- The Tap Shoes Award (Best Sound Effects)

- Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Forza Motorsport 4 (Xbox 360)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dead Space 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)

WINNER: Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: It's tough to really adequately break down what makes good sound effects, since they can range so wildly. Are the best effects realistic? Cartoony? Somewhere in between? Well, Battlefield 3 certainly produced some of the most realistically powerful war sound effects that you've heard in years, and nothing sucks you into the white-knuckle racing of Forza Motorsport 4 quite like its hyper-faithful capturing of a car's engine roars. When I think of sound effects I remember and look back on most fondly though, I think of Portal 2. Blending realistic and chilling environmental creaks with kooky and surreal bouncing, shifting and zipping sounds as you solve the game's puzzles both in the single-player and co-op, Portal 2 produced one of the most unique and oddly compelling sound schemes of the year. It's unique and weird, but somehow it just worked, and considering the mad vision of the Portal universe, that's no small feat!

- The Mighty Microphone Award (Best Voice Acting)

- L.A. Noire (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PlayStation 3)
- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Even when all four of the other nominees produced voice acting so convincing and believable that it helped to sell that you were somehow playing a Hollywood blockbuster, Portal 2 again edges out for its sheer wackiness. As enjoyable and clever as the puzzles are, they wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the nihilistic griping of GLaDOS or the idiotic ramblings of Wheatley. These were some of the only two characters that spoke regularly throughout the entire game, and yet they stole the show to the extent of crusing the competition. There's a reason why GLaDOS and Wheatley quotes are some of the most frequently referenced by gamers all over; Because they're just the most fun to listen to, and that wouldn't be the case without some of the best voice acting in all of 2011!

- The Dusty Tome Award (Best Story)

- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)

WHY: Alright, Portal 2 has had some fun, so let's honour another game, shall we? It's true that Portal 2 also delivered a zany story with a really surprising turnout, but in terms of sheer creativity, mystery and surprises, no story in all of gaming impressed this year quite like Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective! Even while Assassin's Creed: Revelations provided a gripping swan song to the series' most compelling protaganist yet, Catherine stole gamers' hearts with its chilling cautionary tale of infidelity, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution told a deep, multi-layered sci-fi yarn about the line of technology at the expense of humanity, Ghost Trick produced something quite unlike anyone had ever seen before, placing you in the role of a recently murdered detective trying to solve his own killing before dawn, by possessing objects to avert the deaths of others and gradually get one step closer to learning who killed him and why. Not only that, but the game consistently kept the player guessing with huge amounts of twists and turns, becoming more unexpected and more thrilling by the second. The conclusion of this twisty tale was also surprisingly emotional and guaranteed to surprise anyone that's fortunate enough to give this game a chance! Even as a January release in 2011, Ghost Trick was never truly surpassed for its raw originality and inspiration, and it's yet another underrated gem that shone on what is, again, supposed to be last-gen hardware now!

- The All Thumbs Award (Best Use of Control)

- Rocksmith (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- The Gunstringer (Xbox 360)
- Kirby Mass Attack (DS)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)

WINNER: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

WHY: Yet another very tough category, as 2011 delivered lots of inventive new spins on play control. Rocksmith successfully turned a gaming console into a teaching tool for the guitar, The Gunstringer finally proved that Kinect can be equally enjoyed by hardcore gamers, and Kirby: Mass Attack produced an extremely clever hook of touch control that marks one of the most inventive uses of the DS's unique control scheme yet! These highly innovative games are just barely overshadowed by Nintendo's new Zelda offering on the Wii however, a game that changed the way gamers play one of the most enduring and beloved franchises in gaming history forever. Utilizing the Wii MotionPlus peripheral, Nintendo finally demonstrated how motion control can be superior to buttons and thumbsticks, giving the player perfect 1:1 control of Link's sword and items, tasking them with mastering various angles and techniques of slashing, thrusting and swinging to take down legions of dangerous, defensive foes. The Wii U may be around the corner now in 2012, but Skyward Sword finally showed both fans and naysayers across the world that Wii's vision changed the way we play video games, and there's just no going back to the old ways now. It's anyone's guess which direction the next Zelda titles on the 3DS and Wii U will take with their controls in the wake of Skyward Sword, but that's speculation for another time, as Nintendo's most ambitious Wii blockbuster yet finally broke the barrier of control immersion, fully placing Link's sword in our own hands, with no compromises.

- The Neon Lightbulb Award (Best Gameplay Mechanic)

- Object Possession (Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective)
- Toys that customize your arsenal (Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure)
- Driver possession (Driver: San Francisco)
- Kirby mobs (Kirby: Mass Attack)
- Physics-based gel (Portal 2)

WINNER: Kirby mobs (Kirby: Mass Attack)

WHY: Another supposedly 'last-gen' game takes home the gold, this time for introducing one of the most creative spins on a Kirby game in recent memory! Kirby: Mass Attack fully utilized the stylus to command an army of up to ten Kirbys, guiding, tapping, flinging and stretching them as you saw fit, utilizing both screens and surprisingly sharp physics to produce clever puzzles and highly enjoyable environments to explore and conquer with your Kirby squadron. Even with the 3DS having been on the market for months by September, Kirby: Mass Attack surprised gamers everywhere with how well it still found inventive ways to make use of the DS's unique hardware functionality, delivering what may be the best Kirby game of the four available on the system, while also making a unique and nearly unclassifiable game experience with its extremely creative level design and mob mechanic. If only all handheld games could have such a noteworthy hook behind them, one that so excellently feels perfectly tailored to their hardware even after it's been apparently succeeded!

- The Box of Chocolates Award (Most Innovative Game)

- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
- Bastion (Steam, Xbox Live Arcade)
- L.A. Noire (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Child of Eden (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Catherine (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: This was a very close call between Ghost Trick and Catherine, since both of them turned puzzle gaming on its head in really neat ways in 2011. In the end though, Catherine's erotic thriller themes and relationship morality spectrum make it even more unique and compelling as an innovative, surprisingly mature game experience. This is the kind of game that you'd never imagine would ever see the light of day in North America, let alone Europe, since it feels like such a twisted, distinctly Japanese vision. We should be thankful that Atlus was kind enough to bring the game to Western territories though, because in terms of both its genre and highly unique gameplay mechanics, Catherine produced a compelling experience, the likes of which gamers couldn't previously fathom. Challenging the player to examine their own views on sexuality and commitment, while also putting their finest gaming sensibilities to the test with strict time limits and crafty puzzles where death was always one step behind you, Catherine oozed innovation and controversy from every pore. No other game pushed the envelope for the industry in 2011 quite like this one!

- The Social Teacup Award (Best Local Multiplayer)

- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PC, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS)
- Pokemon Black/White Version (DS)

WINNER: Mario Kart 7 (3DS)

WHY: Nothing still beats a good, old-fashioned game of Mario Kart with your friends, especially when you only need one copy of the game for up to four players! Should everyone be bringing their copies along though, you can assemble a Grand Prix with up to seven other players, even creating custom communities and rule sets via the Mario Kart Channel, while continually challenging even total strangers with your Ghost Data that you pass by on your daily routine via StreetPass exchange. Mario Kart 7 immensely improved upon its DS predecessor's multiplayer functionality, and even though Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is an equally tantalizing multiplayer option for 3DS owners, Mario Kart 7 offered more local multiplayer incentive than any other game this year, and it didn't disappoint in the online department either for what it's worth!

- The Line Holder Award (Best Online Gameplay)

- Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PC, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PlayStation 3)
- Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Even while Call of Duty will inevitably still dominate the online charts, the fact is, Battlefield 3 was noticeably more ambitious with its online play. Allowing many more online players across larger battlefields that finally incorporated vehicles and other such strategies that was finally, you know, fair and strategic for once, Battlefield 3 raised the bar for first-person shooters online in a way that Call of Duty, sadly, has fallen back on its laurels upon a bit. Noteworthy refinements were made by both the latest Gears of War and Uncharted sequels, and you could lose hours trying to dominate fanboys everywhere with your perfect team on Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but Battlefield 3 is the game that really takes online play to the next level, in a genre where you normally think you've seen it all, thanks to its sheer scope, depth and challenge. No online multiplayer suite proved to be tougher, nor more engaging, to master in 2011!

- The PB and Jelly Award (Best Co-Op)

- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PC, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Payday: The Heist (Steam, PlayStation Store)

WINNER: Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Co-op is often a nice bonus that can help enhance a game as a supplementary offering. In the case of Portal 2 however, the quality of the co-op actually frequently surpassed that of the main single-player story! A complementary tale taking place from the perspective of two robots working under the direction of GLaDOS, Portal 2 forced two players to team up with pitch-perfect precision in solving puzzles that were even more fiendish and challenging than anything in the single-player gameplay! If you didn't feel like being a team player, you could also just as easily drop your buddy into pits or bounce him/her around the area with increasingly elaborate portal pranks as well. Whether you're just goofing around or striving for Portal perfection, Portal 2's co-op was extremely addictive and very well-designed, and it's one of the only co-op modes this year that necessitated true teamwork to finally reach the end. Pick your friends carefully, because you'll never finish the co-op if you team up with that asshole that loves to deactivate a light bridge from under your feet!

- The Bottomless Teapot Award (Best Aftermarket Support)

- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)
- Dance Central 2 (Xbox 360)
- InFamous 2 (PlayStation 3)
- Battlefield 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)

WHY: The Gears trilogy may be wrapped up for the most part with Gears 3 concluding the proceedings of the war against the Locust Horde, but that hasn't stopped Epic Games from delivering more than some half-assed map packs to keep Xbox gamers coming back to the fight. Going the extra mile, the developers have produced community incentives, and more importantly, they've delivered entire new campaigns from the perspectives of alternate characters that continue to add insight and lore to the Gears universe. Even though General RAAM kicked the bucket in the first game, Gears 3 finally allows you to see just how he came into conflict with Delta Squad, if you're willing to shell out for the great DLC. DLC expansions are one thing that developers often love to phone in, but Gears 3 proves that just because the war is over, doesn't mean that there's nothing else for players to experience!

- The Second Helping Award (Best Sequel)

- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The King of Fighters XIII (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Again, this is a very close call for this award. It was stiff competition between Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2, since both so brilliantly expanded on their original concepts to produce a much larger, deeper game experience. When all is said and done though, you have to admit that as fun and entertaining as Portal 2 is, it's still a noticeably smaller game than the MASSIVE Batman: Arkham City! Taking the game beyond Arkham Island and into a huge, open-world city environment, Batman: Arkham City elevated the experience to amazing new heights, giving you even more freedom and influence as the Dark Knight himself. You could listen in on radio frequencies for side missions, glide around beating up criminals at your leisure, and explore entire sections of Gotham City for hidden goodies as you try to get to the bottom of Dr. Hugo Strange's agenda, and how it seems to incorporate almost all of Batman's better known rogues gallery of villains. Portal 2 is short and sweet, but Batman: Arkham City will keep players hooked for hours and hours and hours before they'll ever come close to seeing a 100% completion rating, and that's not even factoring in the Challenge Mode and DLC! When even a revolutionary, thoroughly excellent game like Batman: Arkham Asylum feels so miniscule and shrunken-down compared to its sequel, you know that the developers really nailed the follow-up!

- The New Kid on the Block Award (Best New IP)

- Homefront (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dead Island (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rage (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rocksmith (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Minecraft (Steam)

WINNER: Minecraft (Steam)

WHY: 2011 was mainly a year for franchise follow-ups in both video games and movies, but one phenomenon has really grabbed the world's attention now that it's reached its completed state; Minecraft. Dropping players into a retro chic world where they may build their own landscape and share their own challenges with the world, Minecraft made great strides when it came to keeping PC gaming relevant in an increasingly console-centric industry, hooking millions of players for countless amounts of time as they designed their perfect environments and took on the creations of so many other players. It was a lengthy, painstaking experience to realize your perfect vision in Minecraft, but once you were given your own set of pixellated land to cultivate at your leisure, your social life was gone. The game has in fact become so popular that its creator, Notch has even given people public permission to pirate it if they can't afford it. Wow.

- The Mighty SOB Award (Best Boss Fights)

- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Rayman Origins (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)
- Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

WINNER: Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: 2011 wasn't the best year for boss battles, granted, and with the exception of Shadows of the Damned providing something a little different, players mostly had to fall back on the usual franchises for their boss fix. On the bright side though, they got Dark Souls, and Dark Souls alone is enough to keep them coming back to some truly epic boss encounters for months on end! The sequel to surprise hit, Demon's Souls delivered staggering foes that were even more punishing and intricate than its predecessor, but after finally slaying one of these bad boys, you once again felt an unparalled sense of accomplishment, especially when you can still see the blood of other players strewn about the landscape so liberally, and to make a great deal even better, Xbox gamers could now join in on the carnage after being left out by the PS3-exclusive Demon's Souls. Dark Souls is tough as hell, but in a real extreme, teeth-cutting way, it's still a fair experience that demands only the very best of boss battling sensibilities. No bosses came close to thrilling gamers in 2011 quite as much as the super challenging Dark Souls, that's for sure!

- The Impending Lawsuit Award (Best Use of a License)

- Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)
- The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (PC)
- Alice: Madness Returns (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
- The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WINNER: Batman: Arkham City (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

WHY: Are you really surprised? Even though Star Wars: The Old Republic finally brought the world an authentic, immersive Star Wars-themed MMO, Batman: Arkham City took the perfect interactive Batman experience, and somehow, someway, made it even more perfect. Players were given a much larger area of Gotham City to explore, while more of Batman's triple-A foes showed up to the proceedings, each with their own separate story arcs and agendas. Never has a Batman game been delivered with such authenticity, such chilling faithfulness to 70+ years of the source material, and such a huge sense of scope. Not only is this game every Batman fan's wet dream, even more than its predecessor, but it's also the perfect game for players who don't know anything about Batman, or don't even care for the acclaimed DC Comics franchise normally (and God help you if you don't like Batman, because you have issues!). Even considering how many new Bat-fans were no doubt converted by Christopher Nolan's excellent Batman films, even more of them were no doubt converted by this game. Superhero games are surprisingly lacklustre at the best of times, but Batman: Arkham City has once again changed that. Here's hoping that other comic book properties start stepping it up in turn!

This concludes Part 1 of the Brentiverse 2011 video game awards! Check back later for Part 2, and for the first posting of the movie awards as well!

"Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary" Game Review

2012-01-10T23:07:00.001-08:00

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED ANNIVERSARY
(ON XBOX 360)

PLAYERS: 1-2 (KINECT OPTIONAL) (2-16 VIA SYSTEM LINK) (2-16 ONLINE)

OTHER SYSTEMS: NONE

GENRE: FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER

PUBLISHER: MICROSOFT

DEVELOPER: 343 INDUSTRIES, CERTAIN AFFINITY

RATING: M

WARNINGS: BLOOD AND GORE, VIOLENCE

POINTS OF INTEREST: HDTV CAPABLE (720p, 1080i, 1080p), 3DTV SUPPORT, XBOX LIVE ONLINE CAPABLE (ONLINE MULTIPLAYER, ONLINE CO-OP, DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT, FILE SHARING, VOICE CHAT)

SAVE CAPACITY: 18 MB MINIMUM, XBOX 360 HARD DRIVE

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 15, 2011

WHAT I LOVED:

- The excellent new lighting upgrades, environmental detail and both HD and 3D television support effectively revitalize the original Halo game for those who may have missed it back during the previous hardware generation!

- Many of the campaign's high points are still quite enjoyable to play today, and both the engaging story and excellent soundtrack are just as appealing ten years later!

- It's cool to switch between the original 2001 visuals, and the extensively updated 2011 visuals, with either the press of a button, or a simple voice command if you have Kinect.

- The story is noticeably expanded with all-new cutscenes and Terminals to track down during the campaign, which better tie the original Halo's story into its sequels, and lay the groundwork for the upcoming Halo 4 quite well!

- The ability to use Kinect to scan environmental details, weapons and enemies to read up on in a library feature is a great idea for expanding your knowledge of the Halo universe, should you have a desire to do so.

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH:

- Level navigation is a major pain in the ass, since, even with the updated visuals, level designs all look too similar, and the game doesn't do a good job of pointing you in the right direction, leaving you to waste a lot of time wandering aimlessly.

- Checkpoints feel glitchy and unreliable, a flaw that REALLY should have been fixed in this remake. Many times, checkpoints just won't trigger, unfairly kicking you further back into a level than the game should when you are killed.

- The Kinect voice commands aren't terribly useful, and with the exception of scanning objects for the library, none of them are a good substitute for a standard button press on the controller.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

2012 is sort of an interesting year in the sense that I'll be revisiting BOTH of the two very first game reviews I ever wrote this year, back when I just had a private webspace to muse in during high school in 2005. The first of these was The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap on the Game Boy Advance, which I'll soon be revisiting and typing a revised review for during Zeldafest. The second was Halo: Combat Evolved on the Xbox, a game I was eager to talk about at the time, since up until that point, I never really bothered to hop aboard the Xbox bandwagon during the full start of the last console generation back in 2001. I was content to spend most of my gaming time on Japanese RPGs upon my PS2, whilst not neglecting the Nintendo brands I already loved on the GameCube, simply utilizing my Game Boy Advance whenever I was to take my gaming on the go. Thus, I felt I had no need for an Xbox, which was mainly sustained on shooters, driving games and sports games, none of which I really cared about at the time, and only shooters is a genre I've since picked up and gotten into in adulthood. During the fateful Christmas of 2004 however, when I had received a shiny new DS to muck about with, my little brother happened to receive his own Xbox, and with it came Halo 2. I'd sampled the original Halo game at my cousins' house the previous year, which I relayed to my girlfriend at the time after explaining that we had finally adopted an Xbox after she'd happened to buy one for her little brother that same year. I mentioned that we only had Halo 2, and skipped the original Halo, leading to her surprising me with the original Halo game for my birthday just a few weeks later, so that I, too could enjoy my brother's new Xbox. It was sweet, but I wasn't sure what to make of it, since the only shooter I'd ever really owned, played and gotten so deeply entrenched in as to max everything out completely, was Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. Could Halo possibly be that good? Well, I suppose it was, because while Goldeneye 007 may have been the first shooter that I really dove into and played extensively, Halo: Combat Evolved was the game I credit for starting my love affair with shooters, and consequently, it officially began my relationship with the Xbox brand, which thus shared my attention with Nintendo and PlayStation as an equal to this day. Anyway, when I was finally given time to play Halo 1's campaign, and not just mess about in local multiplayer skirmishes with my cousins (Xbox Live was a fledgling service that most people hadn't adopted at the time, unlike now, when just about every Xbox 360 owner I know seems to have an account on it), I finally saw what the fuss was about. After joyfully completing the campaign of Halo 1, I immediately nicked my brother's copy of Halo 2 when he wasn't looking and played through that as well, giddily taking on hordes of Covenant aliens with a varied arsenal of weapons, vehicles and mission environments at my disposal which, at the time, represented the cutting edge of first-person shooter gaming on a console! This is why I ultimately chose to make Halo: Combat Evolved the very second game review I ever wrote, and along with a now ex-girlfriend who also happens to love the series, I preordered Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary at my local games retailer the second I was able. Formally announced at Microsoft's E3 2011 Press Conference after numerous leaks in the media, this high-definition remastering of the original Halo game promised to bring back the game that launched the Xbox, with a full visual makeover, the addition of both online play on Xbox Live as well as Achievements, Kinect functionality, and an expanded storyline that also included hidden Terminals to track down during the campaign, which would help set up more backstory, while also laying the groundwork for the upcoming Halo 4, which is coming to the Xbox 360 towards the end of 2012. I was interested to see if my opinion of Halo Anniversary would change from when I was a teenager, after playing an enhanced version of the game as an adult, especially since Halo Anniversary is the very first game by new series developer, 343 Industries (which seems to be commonly abbreviated to 343i), after the original series developer, Bungie, left the Halo franchise to work a ten-year deal with Activision. After playing through the game, I can say that my opinion on Halo 1 sort of hasn't changed, but sort of has too. On the one hand, I still love this game, and I still think that it's a lot of fun. The story is still awesome, the soundtrack is still incredible, and it's surprising how enjoyable even the original Halo arsenal of weapons is to wield against the alien scum plaguing the game world. On the other hand though, many elements of Halo 1 have not aged gracefully since 2001 and the original Xbox generation, and they're all the more noticeable in 2012 when you play this game on an Xbox 360, even with the new HD gloss and Achievements added in to spice up the campaign further. Halo Anniversary really makes you appreciate all of the subtle tweaks and rebalances in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach especially, since the weapon imbalance is now really noticeable, the vehicles suddenly handle terribly, the bad AI really sticks out, and the repetitive, sprawling level design is all too easy to get lost and turned around in, making navigation much more difficult than it ever was in the Halo sequels and prequel. To make matters worse, one of my main gripes with the original game back in my review of it from 2005 is STILL a persistent problem in the HD remake, and that's that the game's checkpoints seem to be glitched, and often trigger at random, giving no rhyme or reason to your progress and how far back you're kicked if you die throughout the campaign's stages. This is a really irritating flaw that 343i really should have fixed! That said though, Halo Anniversary doesn't strive to impress per se, it strives to remind us of how the series began, providing a great new way for Halo fans to relive the original game for nostalgia's sake, made easier by some added bells and whistles. It's true that you could spend a lesser $15 to download the unaltered original Halo game directly onto your Xbox 360's hard drive via the Xbox Originals service, but the added perks to Halo Anniversary are worth paying the extra cash for if you really love the Halo series, especially since Microsoft is pricing the game at a rather reasonable $40. This could have been a lazy remake which 343i could have farted onto the shelf after slapping HD capability on the original Xbox game's graphics and calling it a day, but the package is put together surprisingly well, with more features than you'd expect, making this HD remake a clear cut above most others. There are still disappointments and missed opportunities in Halo Anniversary as a remake of Halo 1, and again, despite the visual update, Halo Anniversary leaves the gameplay completely unchanged from the original Halo game beyond the addition of Achievements and some new hidden easter eggs, so you'll have to put up with a fair amount of dated game design if you want to give this game a go. If you can take this as a celebration of the series' origin, and not a modern, fully-loaded Xbox 360 shooter (I'd direct your attention to Gears of War 3 if that's what you're looking for), you should find that Halo Anniversary is a strong remake package that's worth the attention of any Halo fan.

Gameplay: 6/10- So, if by some miracle you're an Xbox gamer that's somehow never played a Halo game before, allow me to tell you how Halo Anniversary is played. You take control of Spartan-117, better known by his military rank, Master Chief, a super soldier fighting alongside humanity in a war against a fanatical alien conglomerate called the Covenant. The story campaign, easily the bulk of Halo Anniversary's package, is broken up into ten levels, which you progress through by moving about from one point of interest to the next, either shooting or avoiding Covenant foes that stand in your way. I barely mentioned those OTHER alien foes in my original review of Halo 1, the Flood, since I was worried that it would be a spoiler, but now, the presence of the Flood is common knowledge, so I can also safely reveal that you'll be battling against those parasitic monstrosities during the second half of the game as well. The arsenal of weapons and foes is at its most minimalist in Halo Anniversary, since this is a remastering of the very first Halo game after all, so you won't get nearly as many enemies to attack, and nearly as many guns to wield. The human arsenal is very basic and familiar, with your expected helping of Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Rocket Launcher and Sniper Rifle, which Bungie never even bothered to give a proper name to way back in 2001, and 343i hasn't changed things up there. The human guns are best defined by the absurdly overpowered Pistol, one of the most memorable elements of Halo 1, since it carries a fair bit of ammo, and immediately kills any enemy that you can pop in the head. Even if you go for a body shot, only about three or four bullets puts them down too, and since 343i is very reverent of the original game's legacy, they've left this bad boy in the game exactly as it was in 2001, for better or for worse. The Pistol was re-introduced in Halo: Reach, the stellar series prequel from 2010 if you weren't aware, albeit a rebalanced version. This is the original super awesome Pistol that avid Halo fans associate with the first game though, to the point where it's even what Master Chief was given to wield on the game's box art! Wow! Anyway, complementing the human guns are Covenant guns, and these are also the most basic weapons that have gone on to define the Covenant's arsenal throughout the series. The Covenant's sticky Plasma Grenades complement the humans' standard Frag Grenades (you can switch between them with a tap of the B button), and from there, you've got your chargeable Plasma Pistol, your rapid-firing Plasma Rifle, and... well, honestly that about sums it up. You'll see glimpses of weapons that are useable in future Halo titles like the Fuel Rod Cannon and the Energy Sword, but Master Chief was never able to use them in 2001, so he's not able to use them in Halo Anniversary unfortunately. More current Covenant enemies like Brutes and Prophets are also not in the game at all, with gradually upgraded versions of the same recurring foes sustaining the Covenant forces. You get your basic Grunts that are weak and cowardly by themselves, but tougher in numbers, your Jackals that deflect most bullets with their sturdy shields and are best felled with melee attacks (done by pressing Right Bumper), and of course, your Elites, the Covenant CO's that wield stronger weapons and take much more punishment to put down. Big, armoured Hunters also show up every now and again, but they're just tossed in with the regular forces as much more manageable foes, unlike the follow-ups that have pretty much made them powerful and ruthless to the point of being bona fide minibosses. This enemy variety seems simplistic, and honestly, it kind of is, but again, we have to remember that this was the very first Halo game from 2001, and that means putting aside all of the improvements from later in the series that we've probably come to take for granted, even if the Flood never really moved past its own trifecta; Infection Form (the little crawlies that kamikaze charge you in great numbers), Carrier Form (Flood blobs that explode and split into Infection Forms, damaging what's around them when they're shot), and Combat Form (intelligent Flood that wield both human and Covenant weapons, also sporting a deadly melee assault). Speaking of improvements that we've come to take for granted, this brings me to the vehicles, and to be honest, you never noticed it before back in the original Xbox generation, but they've been improved IMMENSELY in subsequent Halo titles. Honestly, in the original game, they kind of sucked, and it's more noticeable than ever now that Bungie had gradually improved them in three succeeding Halo titles, and 343i, again, is preserving them exactly as they were in 2001 for Halo Anniversary. The vehicles are unbalanced in the sense that they provide ample protection for Covenant in the case of the swift-moving Ghosts, high-flying Banshees and tank-esque Wraiths, but if Master Chief hops into any of these, or the handful of human vehicles (since this is Halo 1, you're limited to Warthog jeeps and a Scorpion tank at one point for the human side), you'll find that he's extremely poorly shielded, and is a sitting duck to enemy fire on top of that, since every vehicle in the game handled like a clunky shopping cart back in Halo 1, and as expected, this is the case again in Halo Anniversary. When I was allowed to take command of a Scorpion tank in the fifth level for example, I kept fuming at the game because of how many times I died while trying to navigate that massive tin can around, which seemed to have all of the protective capacity of a wall of tissue paper. I'm sorry, I AM driving a tank, right?! The Scorpion is still powerful, but its armour is pathetic in the original Halo, especially on Heroic and Legendary difficulty, not to mention that its shells are MUCH less accurate to boot! Even in Halo 2, the Scorpion was improved so much, but as much as it's stiff and clunky to drive, that's nothing compared to the Warthog. Honestly, when you climb into a Warthog, you'll be convinced that Master Chief chugged an entire flask of hard liquor, or is driving with a blindfold, because the handling is godawful. The final challenge of the campaign forces you into a Warthog jeep to escape an exploding facility under a time limit, and while this would have been pretty manageable in the follow-ups, it is RIDICULOUSLY cumbersome in Halo 1 when you have to deal with the piss poor vehicle control, but I'll elaborate more on this in the appropriate paragraph. It just doesn't make sense to have the vehicles so clumsy though, and even the Ghosts and Banshees slide and swerve around wildly like Master Chief has the instruction manual held up to his face while he attempts to pilot them, and they're not even touching the ground! On the bright side though, vehicle segments aren't terribly common, and most of the time, you'll be battling the Covenant in wide open environments or narrow corridors. Unfortunately, this also brings attention to two other problems that were much easier to tolerate in 2001. These are both points of contention that I had even when I originally reviewed Halo 1 back in 2005, and I expected to be dealing with them yet again in Halo Anniversary, but these two flaws have only become more irritating than ever unfortunately, especially considering how far first-person shooter games have progressed on consoles in ten years, after Halo paved the way for them. As impressive as the sprawling, lengthy levels would have been to someone who had just taken a chance on the fledgling Xbox console in 2001, the level design has now become one of Halo Anniversary's most persistent problems in 2012. The levels are very large, but by today's standard, the design is repetitive and banal to the point of feeling really lazy, and it's an element of Halo Anniversary that is REALLY stuck in 2001! Even though Halo Anniversary sets you loose in a wide open environment with plenty to explore, everything looks the same, and the level design is rather poorly varied. Granted, Halo 1 was a launch title for the original Xbox, so it would have been easier to swallow back then, but now, these open environments are extremely irritating to navigate at the worst of times. There's no compass or objective indicator, or anything that points you to the next point of progress, so you're often left to waste minutes on end just wandering about aimlessly like a dumbass, often getting turned around and lost continually because everything looks EXACTLY THE SAME! 343i occasionally tries to add in some displays on the flooring in the indoor areas to help point you in the right direction if you're playing with the updated graphics enabled, but they can't do this in the outdoor environments, which are even larger and even more confusing to slog through. Even the various firefights can feel repetitive in the especially lengthy missions, and this is yet another highly dated design element that really makes you appreciate how varied even the more average FPS games can often be nowadays. This flaw is compounded by another flaw, and one that I think 343i actually could have, and should have ironed out in this remake, and that's the infamously glitchy checkpoint system. Checkpoints have absolutely no consistency in Halo Anniversary, just like in Halo 1. There's times where the game will throw three checkpoints at you within three seconds of each other for no reason at all, and there's other times where checkpoints will just never trigger, even after you've shot your way through three Covenant patrols and hiked a considerable distance through your current level. Unfortunately, the latter case is a big problem, especially on Heroic and Legendary difficulty where it's all too easy to die, since if Master Chief is killed, you'll be kicked ALL THE WAY BACK to your last checkpoint, which may force you through certain frustrating sections continually. You do have the option of bypassing whatever enemies you can, and doing so can sometimes prevent checkpoints from being triggered, but this is a dated flaw that really had no excuse not to be fixed, since it essentially amounts to a glitched problem with the game that doesn't need to be there in the remake, as it's not nostalgic, it's just irritating. It may sound like my opinion of Halo 1 has really soured since I became an adult, but that's not necessarily true. When the campaign is fun, it's really fun! It's just that not all of it has really aged well since the original game's release in 2001, and some of these dated elements can be really tiresome, especially to people who don't really know what they're getting into, should they be like me and not have joined the Xbox community right away, possibly missing the original Halo game in the process. If you go into Halo Anniversary knowing that it's trying to preserve the series' legacy, warts and all, then it comes with the territory and you'll know that, but playing through this campaign may mostly do wonders for renewing your appreciation of Halo: Reach! On the bright side though, at least the addition of Achievements give you more incentive to master even the more dated challenges in Halo Anniversary's campaign (and yes, every last Achievement is earned exclusively in the campaign), and there's a few new goodies to track down too, specifically hidden Skulls, which have become a series tradition since Halo 2, and Terminals, which are newly added into this game after debuting in Halo 3: ODST. If you're a Halo fan, you already know this, but if you're not in the loop, Skulls can be located in the campaign to activate extra challenges when you replay any level that you've completed. Some Skulls are harmless, like making Grunts burst with confetti when they die, and some are even beneficial, such as giving you infinite ammo, but many of them exist to provide a sadistic new challenge for the most die-hard of Halo gamers, such as disabling your HUD and auto-aim, making explosions twice as ranged and powerful, making you expend twice as many bullets when you fire your weapons, and even forcing you to restart a WHOLE level from the beginning if you die, which is truly unforgiving when you consider Halo 1's sprawling, repititious level design! The Terminals, thankfully, are much less masochistic, and they basically exist to provide all-new backstory from the perspective of one of the pivotal story characters, 343 Guilty Spark, the monitor of the Halo world that the game takes place on. Even the normal cutscenes have been expanded and given new plot elements when you see them with the updated graphics enabled (they're identical to their more simplistic Xbox counterparts when playing with the classic graphics), though the Terminals will be especially interesting to Halo fans, since not only do they expand the story of Halo 1, but they also lay some teasing groundwork for the events of the upcoming Halo 4, which will start the series' new 'Reclaimer Trilogy' later this year! Should you happen to have a Kinect, you can also use its voice recognition by saying, "Analyze!" to activate an analysis mode that lets you scan weapons, interesting environmental features and enemies when you then say, "Scan!", in order to read up on them in a library section from the main menu. Yes, Halo Anniversary marks the very first Xbox 360 game that I've reviewed which happens to be compatible with Kinect, though the Kinect support is limited, and it's not even advertised on the game box at all, only being mentioned in a tiny blurb in the instruction manual, with the game itself telling you which voice commands can be used. The Kinect support is very limited, and it feels like something that was mainly mandated by Microsoft, and not necessarily the vision of 343i, but I suppose that 'not terribly useful or necessary' is better than 'frustrating and broken'. You can use certain voice commands like, "Grenade!" to toss a grenade or, "Reload!" to reload your weapon, but there's a slightly delay between you speaking the word and the game recognizing it, and sometimes it doesn't even recognize the word over the noise in the game too. Thus, it's usually better to just stick with the buttons, since you don't want to die in a heated firefight and get booted back considerably because Kinect wouldn't read your voice properly! You can also use voice commands to pause and unpause the game, cycle between the updated and classic graphics, and turn the 3D visuals on and off if you happen to own a 3D television, but while the options tweaking beats sifting through the Options menu continually, the graphics cycling and pausing still don't really make good substitutes for just tapping the Back button or the Start button respectively. Again, the Kinect features aren't broken or bad in any way, they're just sort of redundant, though I do kind of like the scanning feature, even if it's completely asinine that it deactivates itself after about ten seconds or so, forcing you to start barking at Kinect to turn it back on because you're not done scanning things. As I said, the bulk of Halo Anniversary's package is the campaign, and the game's multiplayer suite is actually considered to be under Halo: Reach on your Xbox Profile, not under Halo Anniversary! Thus, you're basically paying your $40 pretty well entirely for the campaign, since you have the option of just downloading Halo Anniversary's remastered maps separately to play on your Halo: Reach disc via Xbox Live Marketplace at a much smaller price. This brings me to one of the most surprising missed opportunities in the remake; The multiplayer. 343i pretty much immediately threw in the towel when it came to trying to surpass Bungie's incredible work on Halo: Reach's multiplayer especially, most apparent when you consider that they enlisted a whole other development studio, Certain Affinity, to try and replicate Bungie's multiplayer programming, with 343i focusing entirely on Halo Anniversary's campaign. Rather than simply make all of Halo 1's multiplayer maps playable online, there's simply a small collection of six maps from the game that are treated as an expansion to Halo: Reach's multiplayer, not as their own multiplayer suite. This is a real let-down, and if you're crossing your fingers for Firefight Mode, I'd release them, since there's only one new Firefight mission, inspired by the second level of Halo 1, and it's also treated as an expansion to Halo: Reach's Firefight missions, not as its own independent Firefight Mode. In a sense, Halo Anniversary doesn't even really have multiplayer, so if you were hoping to finally take the original game's local-only multiplayer online exactly as it was in 2001, well, you're shit out of luck, friend. You could view the combined $40 package as going towards a Halo: Reach map pack and a remastered Halo 1 campaign with a few added goodies, but it's still kind of disappointing that there's no real independent multiplayer mode on offer here. Halo Anniversary also yet again limits the campaign co-op to just one other person, and they have to be on your Xbox Live friends list if you want to play with them online, since there's no campaign matchmaking in Halo Anniversary, despite both Halo 3 and Halo: Reach featuring it, while also allowing you to play their campaigns with up to four players at once. It's a little more nostalgic to just have a friend pick up a second Xbox 360 controller and play split-screen co-op with you, but being able to play Halo 1's campaign with a full squad of four players online feels like yet another missed opportunity that wasn't meant to be. As much as I find myself annoyed and occasionally even infuriated by Halo 1's blatantly dated design elements and 343i's stubborn desire to leave them completely intact, I still must respect the vision behind this package though. Halo Anniversary preserves the game as it is, challenging gamers to accept the series' origin for what it is, even if that origin hasn't always aged gracefully. Halo 1's design is showing a lot more cracks in 2012, but that's not to say that the game isn't fun during its better points, and it does benefit from the updated graphics and additional goodies, so while it's the same annoying campaign from 2001, at least Halo Anniversary gives you a much better way to play it than just pulling the unaltered Halo 1 off of Xbox Originals, with no added bonuses. Even if this is a dated game experience, at least it's a game experience that 343i clearly put a lot of heart and dedication into reviving in the most faithful way possible, and I suppose you have to respect that.

Innovation: N/A- Being an HD remake of an Xbox game from 2001, Halo Anniversary really doesn't strive for modern convention. This is a game meant to tickle the nostalgia of longtime Halo devotees, but thankfully, it does so very well, even if it means swallowing a fair bit of dated design flaws in the process.

Controls: 8/10- The original game's controls are adapted reasonably well to the Xbox 360 controller, though Master Chief's increased sluggishness compared to more recent Halo games will take a bit of getting used to after likely spending so much time with this series' follow-up titles. Chief no longer jumps nearly as high, and he moves rather slowly, with no ability to sprint, which makes slogging through the massive, empty levels even more of a chore. At least the button assignment isn't difficult to keep straight. As with most other Halo titles, you move with the Left Thumbstick, aim your target reticule with the Right Thumbstick, press in the Right Thumbstick to zoom in with appropriate weapons, press in the Left Thumbstick to crouch, turn your flashlight on and off with Left Bumper, melee attack with Right Bumper, toss a grenade with Left Trigger, fire your gun with Right Trigger, jump with the A button, switch between your guns with the Y button, reload and interact with points of interest with the X button, switch grenade types with the B button, pause the game with the Start button, and switch between the classic and remastered visuals using the Back button. Should you possess a Kinect, you can also use voice commands to toggle the old and new graphics, toggle the 3D graphics, reload your gun, toss a grenade, or scan something into the library, but if you don't have a Kinect, you don't really lose anything, as the Kinect controls are pretty redundant and minimal. There's absolutely no motion control either, and the peripheral only makes use of its voice recognition in Halo Anniversary. Again though, if you have yet to drop the investment on a Kinect, don't sweat it, because its implementation feels a tad gimmicky, and it really doesn't add anything to the experience. The standard controller is just fine, but even if the button placement is never an issue, it may be a bit jarring to suddenly have to deal with the vehicles' surprisingly clumsy, generally poor handling from Halo 1 again. Warthogs, Ghosts, Banshees and Scorpions all clunkily careen around all over the place, with surprisingly poor mobility and defenses, and it's all too easy to accidentally eject Master Chief from your vehicle in the case of the Warthog and Ghost especially, because you flipped it on some tiny piece of terrain. Again, at least vehicles don't come into the campaign often, but man were they ever improved in follow-ups, because they're borderline useless in Halo 1!

Graphics: 8/10- Like I said, it would have been really easy for 343i to phone in an HD gloss upon the unchanged 2001 Xbox visuals and call it a day. Thankfully though, they put in much more effort than that, and what could have been a lazy, cash grab HD remake is instead a surprisingly solid package visually. This is mainly because, rather than just shoehorning HD capability onto the original graphics, 343i actually tweaked the entire campaign's visuals from the ground up, bringing them more in line with the designs in Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. The environments are very extensively updated, featuring surprising amounts of added detail that really bring them to life a lot better than the plain-looking designs of 2001, and this is easily seen when you use the Back button (or Kinect) to cycle between the classic and remastered graphics at your leisure. Seeing the immense improvements to the updated graphics compared to their Xbox inspiration is really incredible, and it's very commendable to see how much added effort 343i put into revitalizing the visuals in Halo Anniversary! This doesn't change the fact that level designs are still too repetitive and overly similar, making them needlessly difficult to navigate, but the developers have really risen to the occasion with the new graphics, and there's really no reason to play the campaign without them enabled, especially since they add in new story sequences! The fact that you can play the game with up to 1080p HD graphics and even in 3D if you've invested in a 3D television is all the more impressive as well! With that said though, even though 343i has done a very impressive job in helping Halo 1 make the leap to Xbox 360-caliber visuals, Halo Anniversary still falls short of the system's top visual offerings, and even Halo: Reach had superior graphics to Halo Anniversary in some respects. It looks impressive, but the Xbox 360 has still done better. That said though, you really have to commend 343i for not half-assing Halo Anniversary's visuals, and with this much effort put into updating the graphics for 2011, Halo 4 is sure to really be a visual stunner when it arrives toward the end of this year!

Presentation: 10/10- Again, 343i really knocked it out of the park here, because Halo Anniversary is beautifully presented as a package that the developers clearly poured a lot of heart into. The small, but very noteworthy addition of being able to freely cycle between the classic and remastered visuals during main gameplay (though not in cutscenes unfortunately), as well as the new menus that neatly present the added goodies from Terminals to Skulls to library information all goes toward making Halo Anniversary come off as a much more polished product than most other HD remakes, especially since it actually redid all of the graphics instead of just taking the same graphics and giving them HD capability. The new cutscenes are highly appreciated, and the teases for the direction of Halo 4's story should really be great for getting fans pumped to see what's next for the series, now that 343i has taken over for Bungie!

Sound: 9/10- The music in Halo 1 hasn't aged a day, and it still marks one of the very best orchestral soundtracks that's ever been featured in any console shooter, period. 343i wisely left the original soundtrack untouched in Halo Anniversary, which was a good move, because the music was one of the best and most timeless elements of the original game, and it really doesn't need to be changed. I felt an undeniable sense of glee as I once again heard the original Halo theme sound in the background while I navigated menus and experienced the most epic, memorable moments of Halo 1's campaign all over again, and the other tunes have remained equally appealing even over ten years later as well! Even if 343i left the music alone though, they actually beefed up the sound effects a bit, which is appreciated. Weapons sound much more powerful and surge with a huge amount of added weight and power, compensating very effectively for the somewhat weak-sounding weapons in the original Xbox game. One of the potential gripes that some purists may have with the updated sound effects is that they remain updated even when you're playing with the classic visuals, so they'll still remind you that you're playing an Xbox 360 remake even when you're looking at the standard-definition 2001 graphics. The voice acting has also remained unchanged since 2001, even the more shaky delivery that's sadly much more common in Halo 1 than it is in its sequels, which all feature MUCH better voice acting, and this sometimes creates a rift in quality, since the new scenes specifically for Halo Anniversary obviously feature new voice recordings, which are leaps and bounds better than the original voice acting all of a sudden, something that can, again, take you out of the illusion of re-experiencing Halo 1. Another more disappointing element of that, which will no doubt piss off purists, is the more menacing and monstrous Grunt voices from Halo 1, which actually made a comeback in Halo: Reach, and that they are sadly gone again in Halo Anniversary, even when you play with the classic graphics. They've been replaced with the more comedic, silly Grunt voices from Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST, and that will make some people upset I'm sure, since the alteration is kind of inexplicable, especially when 343i has gone to such lengths to preserve the rest of Halo 1's gameplay elements, for better or for worse. You can still experience the original more monstrous Grunt voices in Halo: Reach, but I don't get why 343i suddenly made the Grunts sound like goofs again in Halo Anniversary when they didn't sound that way in the original Halo 1, even though, to be honest, I actually prefer the goofier Grunt voices, since I find that the original voices make the Grunts sound too much like the Elites, which doesn't really make sense. Still, it's another reminder that you're playing a remake, and I'm sure that many purists will take issue with that, however miniscule it will be to everyone else.

Story: 10/10- If there's one element that has really stood the test of time in Halo 1, it's the storyline. In my opinion, this was what really made Halo 1 into the groundbreaking Xbox launch title that it was! The plot was just amazing, and it's been expanded upon beautifully from this origin point, which still marks one of the best Halo stories of the lot! 343i has made the story even better with the addition of the new Terminals and all-new story cutscenes as well, which better ties Halo 1 into its follow-ups, and starts fueling the fires of speculation for the plot direction of the upcoming Halo 4 while it's at it! If you aren't familiar with the original Halo game's plot, which still has the same progression in Halo Anniversary obviously, allow me to explain for you; The game begins in the 26th Century, with humans waging a galactic-scale war against a fanatical alien conglomerate known as the Covenant. To help turn the tide on the Covenant, the humans have started a super soldier program to create highly enhanced fighters called Spartans, one of which being John-117, a.k.a. Master Chief. After spending a while in sustained hibernation, Master Chief is awakened to a Covenant attack on his craft, the Pillar of Autumn, and is forced to make a quick getaway onto a shuttlecraft, which takes him to a mysterious ring-like structure in space called a 'Halo'. Landing on the surprisingly natural landscape of the planet-like Halo structure, Master Chief learns that the Covenant are desperately trying to gain control of the ring world's higher functions for unknown purposes. Racing the Covenant to Halo's inner workings, Master Chief must discover the mystery of the ring, and put a stop to the Covenant's mysterious campaign before disaster strikes the galaxy! That's the gist of Halo 1's backstory without spoilers, but it only gets better as the plot goes on! Even though I knew all of the turnouts, all of the emotional moments still had impact, and all of the shocking moments still took me to the edge of my seat, right up to the quite literally explosive finale! Even if the gameplay has become a bit dated, this story is as incredible as it ever was even ten years later!

Difficulty: 7/10- Even on the Normal difficulty, Master Chief's less impressive mobility and defenses make him quite easy to defeat compared to the Halo games that would succeed the first. Explosions will immediately take his health down to almost nothing if they don't kill him outright (and on Heroic and Legendary difficulty, they almost always will, even at full strength), and even in vehicles, it's pretty easy to shred through his shields and health. The overwhelming amounts of enemies and weaker player character make Halo 1 noticeably tougher than its follow-ups, and that hasn't changed in Halo Anniversary, so be ready for a stiffer challenge that hasn't pulled any punches since 2001!

Replay Value: 7/10- The campaigns of the three other Halo games on the Xbox 360 are all much better and more replayable than that of Halo Anniversary, but at least the new hidden goodies and Achievements provide reason to replay the game, even if the multiplayer is technically a separate entity existing as an expansion to Halo: Reach, rather than standing on its own. That's disappointing.

Extras: 7/10- Again, it's nice that 343i clearly went to considerable effort to throw in some new goodies, and tracking down hidden Terminals and Skulls will still effectively keep Halo gamers busy along with the Achievement roster, which only has a couple of doozies, and shouldn't take too long to fully conquer for Halo veterans. Even on a pretty standard playthrough, Halo Anniversary is more generous with its Achievements than most of the other Halo games on the Xbox 360, and that, paired with the weaker multiplayer package, gives Halo Anniversary less perks and replay incentive compared to Halo: Reach in particular. Once you track down all of the hidden easter eggs, the extras kind of dry up, but I suppose that the winking speculation of the Terminals in regards to Halo 4 is an extra in and of itself that should keep fans effectively tided over while they wait for the franchise's next proper entry later this year.

Conclusion- As a remake package, Halo Anniversary exceeds expectation. 343i has gone the extra mile to place this game several notches above most other HD remakes, between a stellar presentation, some really fun extras and expanding upon the story in some really neat ways. Unfortunately, even if the presentation is even better than it was on the original Xbox in 2001, the gameplay hasn't totally stood the test of time. Most of Halo Anniversary's campaign is still fun to play, but the frustrating level navigation, unbalanced gunfights and terrible vehicle handling are much more noticeable and problematic now, since this series has continued to improve itself across four follow-up efforts. Again though, Halo Anniversary is not striving to impress a modern crowd of gamers. It seems to be meant exclusively for people who love Halo as much as the developers clearly do. Yes, there's missed opportunities in the package, from its pitiful multiplayer offering to its dated gameplay elements to the rather redundant implementation of Kinect, but when you stack up how much effort has clearly gone into the package of Halo Anniversary, it's not only a great way to re-experience a beloved first-person shooter classic, but it's also proof positive that 343i is quite serious about maintaining Halo's immense quality standard. Bungie, God bless 'em, did great things for this series, but after playing Halo Anniversary, I'm confident that this franchise is in the best possible hands with its new developer, since this is a studio clearly comprised of people who genuinely love Halo, and they're clearly dead set on delivering the best Halo products possible! Even though Halo Anniversary worked at making me appreciate how far the series has come since its beginnings in 2001, it also assured me that 343i is bound to deliver a fantastic game when Halo 4 finally arrives, which is assuring, since it's my second-most anticipated game of 2012, only behind Mass Effect 3, and I'm really hoping that it lives up to its promise in starting a new Halo trilogy! If Halo Anniversary is any indication though, 343i is going to do their damned best to make Halo 4 one of the best Xbox 360 games of the year, and I'm really stoked to see what they bring to the series going forward! So, I suppose the lingering question is, if you own an Xbox 360, is Halo Anniversary worth your money? Well, it's only $40 on the bright side, which is $20 cheaper than the average Xbox 360 game at launch, and that's great, since Microsoft appears to have wisely learned their lesson from charging a ridiculous $70 for Halo 3: ODST at launch, a game that really should have been a DLC expansion in the end, understandably sparking a fan outcry with the Halo community being so blatantly screwed over. $40 is a much better value for a game like this, one that's clearly meant exclusively for Halo fans, and those eager to become Halo fans. Honestly though, if you want to get into the Halo franchise, I wouldn't start here, because this isn't a real testament to what the series has done with the FPS genre nowadays. If you've never touched Halo before and want to give it a try, do yourself a favour and put down your hard-earned cash on Halo: Reach instead. It's much more current, it's a much meatier package, and when it comes down to it, it's also a noticeably better game, on top of being a prequel, requiring no prior knowledge of the canon. Halo Anniversary works best as a game for the fans, who either want to experience the series' origin after having missed it the first time, or who want to relive the game that launched their love of the Halo franchise, and probably of the Xbox brand in general back in 2001. While you can download the unaltered Halo 1 onto your Xbox 360's hard drive via Xbox Originals for only 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15), I'd advise shelling out the extra dollars for this remake if you have the disposable income, since the vastly improved presentation and added story bits, on top of the expansion maps and new Firefight mission to add to Halo: Reach included here, are well worth the budget retail price tag. You could cheap out and just pull the original game off of Xbox Originals, but you also get what you pay for. Besides, 343i has put lots of work into this remake, and if you're worried about it being a lazy HD cash-in, you can put those worries to rest, because the package is given a pretty generous amount of added features that 343i didn't necessarily have to implement if they didn't want to. If you love Halo as much as they do, you should buy the game and reward that hard work. It's true that Halo 1's campaign hasn't aged well in several respects, and it can't hold a candle to Halo: Reach in particular, but as a nostalgic throwback and a testament to the dedication of 343i, Halo Anniversary is a winning HD remake that Halo fans should definitely pick up and experience while they bide the time for Halo 4. The more frustrating, outdated aspects may simply renew your appreciation for the follow-ups, but maybe that's part of the vision too. Halo Anniversary may not be a pitch-perfect gameplay experience, but as a celebration of Halo's legacy, it simultaneously honours the past while showing promise for the future, and I suppose that makes it a damn fine anniversary gift indeed!

FINAL SCORE: 80% "GREAT!"

FINAL VERDICT: "Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is more impressive as a package than as a game, since 343 Industries' development efforts are much easier to appreciate than the rather dated, occasionally frustrating campaign from the original Halo game. As a great way to scratch that nostalgic itch for Halo fans though, as well as a show of good faith that 343i is going to do this series proud after Bungie's departure, this is an HD remake that's much better than most, and longtime Halo fans would do well to add it to their collection!"

"Mario Kart 7" Game Review

2012-01-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

MARIO KART 7
(ON 3DS)

PLAYERS: 1-4 (SINGLE-CARD DOWNLOAD PLAY), 1-8 (MULTI-CARD PLAY), (2-8 ONLINE)

OTHER SYSTEMS: NONE

GENRE: KART RACING

PUBLISHER: NINTENDO

DEVELOPER: NINTENDO, RETRO STUDIOS

RATING: E

WARNINGS: COMIC MISCHIEF

POINTS OF INTEREST: MII PLAZA COMPATIBLE, NINTENDO WI-FI CONNECTION ONLINE CAPABLE (ONLINE MULTIPLAYER, CUSTOM COMMUNITIES), STREETPASS CAPABLE (STAT TRADING, MII SWAP, SCREENSHOT EXCHANGE), SPOTPASS CAPABLE (STAT TRADING, MII SWAP)

SAVE CAPACITY: 1 AUTOSAVE ON GAME CARD

RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 4, 2011

WHAT I LOVED:

- The same addictive brand of Mario Kart racing is back and realized better than ever on a handheld platform, with brilliant new tracks, and cool twists on old favourites!

- The online play is MUCH improved compared to Mario Kart DS, and Mario Kart 7 even comes with its own built-in Mario Kart Channel and custom community option to immensely extend the online multiplayer suite like never before!

- New implementations like being able to drive with the 3DS's gyroscope and navigate both in the air and underwater allow a neat new way to play Mario Kart!

- The return of Coins is a great idea, especially when they can be put towards new parts with which to customize your own unique kart to race!

- Some of the new unlockable characters are really cool!

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH:

- Item balance is still an issue in the single-player, even if it's not nearly as bad as Mario Kart Wii.

- The roster of drivers is drastically shrunken down compared to the last few Mario Kart games at only seventeen playable racers, and some of the omissions are rather surprising (Waluigi, Toadette, Baby characters, etc..).

- Mission Mode from Mario Kart DS has been removed, hurting the long-term value of the single-player gameplay.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

It took some time, but the 3DS has finally gotten off the ground, something I knew that it would do if people would just BE PATIENT! The system recently surpassed the final sales figures of the preceding DS hardware in the same period of time, and this is thanks largely to two Mario offerings that came to close out 2011 for 3DS; Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, the latter of which I recently got a chance to play through extensively, and the former I received for Christmas recently, with a review coming sometime later when I actually get to sit down and enjoy it. Now, to date, I've really enjoyed three 3DS games so far. I very much loved The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition, and Star Fox 64 3D. These are all excellent games that any serious gaming 3DS owner should pick up. Unfortunately, they have one disappointing thing in common; They're all remakes of games that I've already played and enjoyed on other systems. Thus, I knew that I wasn't going to hate them, and they were a pretty safe bet when it came to getting some early mileage out of the investment I dropped on the 3DS back on launch day. The only truly original 3DS exclusive that I've played to date is Steel Diver, and to put it nicely, it wasn't very good, as you may recall from my rather dismal review of it from back in July. For most of 2011, I had only teasing trailers of upcoming 3DS exclusives to keep giving me ammo with which to defend the revolutionary portable that I knew would eventually come into its own. Finally, that faith has been rewarded, since Mario Kart 7 is the first original 3DS-exclusive game that I've played through and really, really loved. This latest entry in one of Nintendo's most popular multiplayer-driven brands, which has always accompanied each new console since the original Super Mario Kart on SNES and each new handheld since Mario Kart: Super Circuit on the Game Boy Advance, had some big shoes to fill, since I can easily declare that Mario Kart DS, the series' last handheld offering, is by far my favourite to date. It shed the shruken-down presentation of the GBA's Mario Kart: Super Circuit and the party game goofiness of the GameCube's Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, to deliver an engaging and highly customizable kart racing experience that offered the largest package in the series to date, while also introducing online play to a flagship Nintendo brand for the very first time. This was probably the DS game that I played more than any other, taking it everywhere and maxing out every possible stat while completing every possible challenge during my late high school years. Mario Kart Wii followed it in 2008 after I graduated, and while I still enjoyed this game a lot, I much prefer playing it with friends instead of alone, as I repeatedly noted when I reviewed it, since the single-player gameplay is really tenuous, due to an erratic difficulty curve and really poor item balancing that makes each race feel like luck is involved when it comes to winning, and that's really frustrating when you're trying to unlock things especially. MK7 essentially feels like it's trying to take the best elements of MKDS and MKWii, and blend them together, while also making some added effort to take advantage of the 3DS's unique capabilities, including gyroscopic motion controls, StreetPass and SpotPass functionality, and 3D-enabled visuals. Unfortunately, the package also feels smaller than MKDS, which is a let-down, but understandable when you consider MK7's development cycle. You see, the game's development ran into a snag, since Nintendo brass wanted it on store shelves worldwide by the 2011 holiday season, to help floundering 3DS sales, and since development of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword ran into overtime, most of the staff that was to work on MK7 was pulled away to finish that up, so that the Wii would have a big holiday season offering ready after several delays pushed this game out of its original 2010 window. To make matters worse, most of the Mario crew was already unavailable, since they were trying to wrap up Super Mario 3D Land so that it could launch worldwide for the 3DS during the 2011 holiday season as well, again to help boost troubled 3DS sales (which this and MK7 thankfully did in spades). Since MK7's development team was severely understaffed and facing a serious deadline, Nintendo had to enlist the help of Retro Studios to finish the game, whom Nintendians know as a very popular developer under the Nintendo umbrella that was responsible for the immensely acclaimed Metroid Prime Trilogy and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Even if the final set of features was bound to suffer due to time constraints, MK7 was still in the best possible hands, and even though it has a few less features compared to MKDS, and noticeably less playable racers compared to MKWii, it's still a continued refinement of the series' familiar gameplay that yet again raises the bar for track design and online functionality. I think it's debatable whether this or Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is truly the system's best multiplayer offering, especially since there's a surprising missed opportunity or two amongst the undeniable improvements to the online multiplayer package in MK7, but MK7 is still definitely one of the best multiplayer offerings that the system has yet delivered, if not THE best. Even if you're just playing by yourself though, MK7 is an engaging, addictive and fun kart racer that will continue to remind 3DS owners why Mario Kart even now remains at the top of the kart racing genre that it originally pioneered!

Gameplay: 9/10- When you first rev up MK7, you get a default roster of eight racers to utilize in several familiar modes, which are expected faces; Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Koopa Troopa and Toad. You can race in the Grand Prix, which is yet again divided into eight Cups (four for all-new tracks, and four for returning retro tracks, marking sixteen of both old and new locations to race in for a grand total of thirty-two tracks), try to top your best speeds and create Ghost Data to share with other players in Time Trial mode, attack other players or race for valuable Coins in Battle Mode, or lastly, you could hop on Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and race both players on your 3DS Friends List and strangers from around the globe in a neverending battle for online supremacy! If you've played MKDS, you may have noticed that I didn't mention that game's Mission Mode. Well, I'm afraid that it's not present in MK7, an unfortunate casualty of the game's constrained development cycle. Even if Mission Mode was beneath the quality of MKDS's other gameplay modes, it was still a great way to extend the appeal of just playing the game by yourself, a luxury that is more limited on the more multiplayer-focused 3DS follow-up. If you're a skilled Mario Kart player like myself, it will take you no time at all to get a Gold Trophy and a one-to-three Star rating in all of the Grand Prix challenges, thus unlocking all nine hidden characters, and the Mirror Mode that lets you race on every track backwards. I don't want to spoil the game's all-new hidden characters, since several of them are pretty surprising and cool, but a couple of them are Mario Kart mainstays that I'm surprised weren't just available from the get-go, specifically, Wario and Daisy, who are pretty old hat to Mario Kart fans at this point, making me question why you have to unlock such familiar racers. Some of the omitted characters are pretty surprising too, especially considering the generous roster of racers available in MKWii. Familiar series mainstays like Waluigi, Toadette, the various Baby characters and Bowser Jr. are nowhere to be found, which is a bit odd and disappointing. To compensate though, you are once again allowed to race with your Mii once you fulfill certain conditions, and as with MKWii, other Miis that are saved in your Mii Plaza may show up in the background on various tracks, or sometimes appear as Grand Prix opponents too! Still, when you see some of the neat new characters that you're able to race with, any character omissions are a bit easier to swallow, especially since you get the same incredible level of kart customization in MK7 that was present in MKDS. You'll have to work for it a little more now though, since you must collect Coins during races to unlock new Kart Parts. Oh yes, remember Coins from WAY back in Super Mario Kart from the early 90's? Well, they're finally back in MK7, and they serve mostly the same function as they did in this series' original SNES entry. Coins are littered around each of the game's tracks, and you can collect up to ten of them per race. When you have ten Coins, your kart's speed will increase slightly. Coins you collect are accumulated, unlocking new Kart Parts after you finish play modes with them, which will allow you to create blends of bodies, wheels and gliders (more on these in a bit), to produce an original combination of racers and vehicles, giving you an incredible amount of customization over the kind of rig you want to speed and drift along the game's awesome track designs with. Be advised though that you'll get Coins taken away from you if you fall off the track and must be rescued by Lakitu, or if you get nailed by a powerup item, which, as usual, are collectible after driving through ? boxes scattered around the tracks. If you got frustrated by the incredibly rampant spamming of items by the CPU when playing the single-player modes of MKWii, which virtually sucked any element of skill out of each Grand Prix race, as I did, allow me to offer you some good news; The item balancing is improved somewhat in MK7. The CPU racers during Grand Prix challenges are far less likely to continually nail you with a flurry of Lightning Bolts, Spiny Shells and Bloopers, and there's also less rubber-banding than MKWii especially to boot, allowing races to be better dictated by skill over luck, as they should be during the single-player challenges. The chaotic, ever-changing nature that the powerups create when playing locally with your friends allows people to laugh, joke around and have a great time, as well as not feeling like they're so easily out of the game after flubbing a turn and spinning out, or getting nailed by the wrong obstacle. Unfortunately, when you're playing by yourself, the random chaos of the powerups is much more of a pain in the ass, especially when you're trying to ace the toughest 150cc Grand Prix races to unlock characters and such. Again, it's not as bad as the series' previous offering on the Wii, but even with the item balancing improvements in MK7, you'll still need to deal with instances where you'll race a perfect run, holding 1st place throughout an entire track, only to get nailed by a Spiny Shell, a Lightning Bolt and an Invincibility Star all at once right at the end, making you finish in sixth just because you're unlucky. These kinds of instances may tempt you to chuck your 3DS out an open window in a fit of rage if you're not a good-humoured player, but at least you'll have to put up with them less this time around, even if those damn Spiny Shells that home in on racers in 1st place can still really try your patience if you're a skilled player. You do get three new items in MK7 to turn against your competitors too, and all of them are pretty fun to use. These three new additions include the Fire Flower, which lets you mash L or X to continually launch fireballs forward or backward from your kart, which bounce off walls like Green Shells and make racers that they hit spin out, the Tanooki Tail, which lets you again mash L or X to swing it around your kart, knocking away both projectiles and other racers that get too close to you, and finally the Lucky Seven, which gives you seven random items to use at your leisure, though you'll drop all of them if you fall off the track, or get hit by a projectile. While you must still avoid falling into bottomless pits and lava pools, you don't have to worry as much about Lakitu continually bailing you out of certain doom at the cost of some Coins, since MK7 adds two new ways to travel around each track. During certain segments. The first of which is, you can now drive off a launch pad (noted as a blue strip with arrows scrolling on it) to open a hang glider atop your kart, allowing you to steer through the air, sailing over obstacles, or perhaps diving down quickly onto the ground to get at items, or perhaps get some added speed over heavier racers that don't move as well in mid-air. The gliders are a really cool new addition, and they add some increased strategy over customizing both the weight of your kart, and choosing a racer that isn't too heavy either, since lighter racers obviously move easier in the air, though they're also knocked around quite simply too. The second new method of navigation in MK7 is being able to drive underwater, since falling into the briney deep will now simply cause a submarine turbine to extend from the rear of your kart, whereas in previous games, Lakitu would have had to pull your waterlogged keister out of trouble. Underwater driving adds another cool new dimension to the game, since driving underwater can sometimes lead to valuable shortcuts and hidden ? blocks and Coins that may turn the tide of a race in your favour. The exaggerated Mario Kart physics are again given new dimensions of strategy, since heavier racers now have much more underwater control, as trying to steer around in the deep will cause your kart to turn on two wheels, also extending the time you remain suspended after driving off a jump. The new addition of gliding in the air and being able to drive underwater adds new dimensions and paths to some of MK7's returning retro tracks as well, making them feel refreshing to re-experience again with a few added secrets. You may have to modify your strategy when racing on Daisy Cruiser from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for example, now that the open floor panels will simply allow you to continue down flooded corridors, and you will have to pay more mind to the winds of Maple Treeway from Mario Kart Wii, now that several sections allow you to utilize your kart's glider to drift through the air. The old tracks are made fun to drive on again with subtle tweaks like this, but MK7's best tracks remain its all-new ones. Timing your presses of the R button for speed boosts while contributing to the beats of the background tunes in Music Park is nothing short of dazzling for example, and it can be easy to miss all sorts of nifty hidden paths when you get lost in the moonlit beauty of Shy Guy Bazaar. Expected all-new versions of series mainstays like Mario Circuit, Bowser's Castle and a newly multi-sectioned version of each Mario Kart's traditional ultimate challenge track, Rainbow Road are also on offer in MK7, and they're a huge amount of fun! MKWii was a tough act to follow in terms of excellent track design, but somehow, MK7 yet again raises the bar, outdoing its predecessor to deliver the finest new tracks in the series to date, made all the better by the game's incredible visual prowess and subtle, effective use of the 3D effect, but more on that when I talk about the graphics. Again, it won't take you long to ace all of the Grand Prix challenges and unlock all of the hidden characters if you're good at Mario Kart, but these Grand Prix races are still great fun while they last, and from there, you can continue to challenge yourself mainly with the Time Trial mode and the online play. The Battle Mode can still be enjoyable with the right crowd, and you can play with either Balloon Battle or Coin Runners, either attacking other players to eliminate their balloons with items, or trying to collect as many Coins as possible in an enclosed area, but it still lacks appeal compared to the main racing component. The Battle Mode is a bit better than it was in MKDS and MKWii, but you'll still rarely play it compared to the main racing, especially since the survival element of Balloon Battle has been removed, with players now just attacking each other under a time limit to see who can eliminate the most balloons, rather than trying to be the last racer with balloons still on your Kart. Battle Mode still feels like a weak link, but Time Trial and online play are made all the better when they're paired with the 3DS's StreetPass and SpotPass functionality. Thanks to StreetPass, you can now put your 3DS in sleep mode and carry it around with you on your daily business, trading Ghost Data with other 3DS owners that have played MK7, and allowing you to race them via the Mario Kart Channel. You can even mkae yourself a little profile and share your online wins and losses via StreetPass as well. While StreetPass may be the best way to do it, you can also collect Ghost Data and community mods via SpotPass as well, should you pass by the appropriate wireless hot spot. The mods are pretty simple, and they don't allow you to freely switch items on and off like they do in, say, Super Smash Bros., but they do let you create for example, a Grand Prix for other players where every powerup is a Mushroom, or perhaps a Special Cup roster where you can only defend yourself with Green Shells. These communities can be created and swapped freely via the in-game Mario Kart Channel, which is always offering new player creations and data to keep further wringing value out of the game, and it really is excellent! Just the ability to exchange Ghost Data is an ingenious use of StreetPass that will constantly motivate players to take their 3DS's everywhere with them, but when you throw in the game's own Mario Kart Channel, it really hammers home how much the online component has improved in MK7. You can now race with up to eight players online over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, less than the twelve player cap that MKWii allowed, but more than the four player cap that MKDS forced you to work with, and as long as you all have your own copy of MK7, you can race with up to seven other players via local wi-fi as well. You can set up a race with up to three other players using just one copy of MK7 via Download Play, but your buddies will need to bring their own MK7 copies if you want to play with more players than that locally. Also, as with MKDS, if your 3DS doesn't have a copy of the game, and you're using Download Play, you can only race as a generic Shy Guy, and you won't be able to customize your kart, but you'll still get every track and Battle Mode arena available to you, something that wasn't doable with the weaker Download Play functionality in MKDS (which only let you race in the Mushroom Cup or Shell Cup), a definite plus. The local multiplayer works much the same as MKDS and MKWii, with one player hosting by creating a room, and other players joining while the host sets everything up, and when you play online, you can now easily set up matches with anyone who happens to be online on your 3DS Friends List as well, a HUGE improvement over MKDS that makes playing with your friends online MUCH easier now! MK7 also easily lets you re-challenge players that you've just raced with, something that you couldn't do in MKDS either. The online play is vastly improved in MK7, yes, though it's still not perfect by any means either. There's still shortcomings in the community mods, you still can't add players to your Friends List that you meet online thanks to those confounded Friend Codes' limitations, and there's STILL no voice chat or any real easy way to communicate with your buddies while setting up online matches, and that in particular is something that I hope this series' inevitable Wii U offering to come fixes, because Mario Kart is really behind the times in lacking voice chat functionality now. Still, Nintendo has really outdone themselves with the online features that ARE on offer in MK7, especially when you consider that this is a handheld game! You may lose Mission Mode, you may have to put up with some unfair powerup use that ruins otherwise perfect races for you, and you'll find things to pick at in the online play, but even if MK7 feels like a less fully-featured package than its DS and Wii predecessors, it still offers the most polished and refined gameplay elements that the series has yet seen to date, in both its console and handheld entries, while offering one of the most enticing multiplayer suites that the 3DS has delivered to date as well!

Innovation: 8/10- MK7 still plays pretty similarly to previous Mario Kart games, especially the last couple on the DS and Wii. Again, some disappointing high points from those games are removed, like the Mission Mode from MKDS and the ability to race with motorbikes from MKWii, but MK7 still offers plenty of new ideas on top of its expertly refined track designs and kart customization. This latest game offers plenty of new ways to race, since you can now glide through the air, chug along underwater and even move into first-person view and steer your kart with the 3DS's gyroscope via a simple tap of Up on the Control Pad! The various new ways to race add more thrills in discovering shortcuts and planning out which path will best allow you to race past your opponents, and the refinements to the online play result in one of Nintendo's most polished online multiplayer offerings that they've ever delivered on a handheld system! StreetPass and SpotPass are well used to continue adding long-term value and challenges to the game, and the all-new addition of Mario Kart communities gives you some added control over changing the rules to create more new ways to take on friends and strangers online via the game's built-in Mario Kart Channel! MK7 still doesn't change the core fundamentals of what makes this series what it is, but it also understands that it doesn't need to fix what's not broken. The Mario Kart formula has endured very well over the years because it's so approachable and so enjoyable, and why mess with that when so many core gamers and casual gamers alike still enjoy it so much?

Controls: 10/10- The extremely tight controls are better than ever in MK7, and those who (somewhat unfairly) griped about the high sensitivity of the Wii Wheel in MKWii may be happy to know that the 3DS's gyroscope has had its sensitivity turned down a bit, though not by a huge amount, so it still reads even slight movements pretty well. You may be surprised to know that utilizing the system's motion controls is actually pretty effective in MK7, much more than you'd expect! To date, I would say that this game offers the most responsive and intuitive motion controls of any 3DS game thus far, even better than the gyroscopic piloting in Star Fox 64 3D! When you press Up on the Control Pad, you shift the viewpoint to first-person, allowing you to tilt the 3DS left and right to steer your kart. You can even use the gyroscope in conjunction with holding the R button to drift along each track, building up blue and orange flames under your kart's wheels for speed boosts, and it's more thrilling than ever to be able to pull this off! It's true that you'll probably have an easier time racing against the CPU using just the Circle Pad and face buttons, but when you feel like experimenting or want to enjoy yourself with your friends, I think that the gyroscopic controls are actually highly immersive and surprisingly fun to use, especially since they really suck you into the experience in a way that previous handheld racers could never hope to achieve! You may want to dismiss the motion controls as a gimmick if you're the jaded type, but trust me, the gyroscopic controls are MUCH better than you'd think! Still, should you wish to, you can just navigate the awesome racetracks in MK7 the old-fashioned way by steering with the Circle Pad, though it can still be used in conjuction with the 3DS's gyroscope for the best of both worlds of control too. You can use either A or Y to accelerate, either L or X to use a powerup item, with B serving as your handbrake to round things out. It's all very responsive and very easy to use, even for someone who has never played a Mario Kart game before, and even if you've played every Mario Kart game to date, you'll be able to adapt to these controls very quickly, whether you're steering with the Circle Pad or the gyroscope in the end.

Graphics: 9/10- MK7 is definitely one of the better-looking 3DS games that's arrived on the system so far, in some respects even coming off as visually superior to MKWii, which is very impressive! In fact, considering how well the tracks from MK7's Wii predecessor are replicated on the 3DS, with a handful of added details no less, is a real testament to what the system can really do! It's not QUITE up to the 3DS's top lookers so far, like Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition or Super Mario 3D Land, or if you want to dig into the upcoming lineup, there's plenty of real stunners to come that have proven to do much more with the 3DS's visual capability from the trailers. That being said though, MK7 is very flashy, colourful and eye-catching, and the new tracks especially just look phenomenal, making it easily one of the best-looking 3DS titles of 2011! The dazzling new version of Rainbow Road is truly captivating in all its deadliness for example, while the rain-slick environments of Neo Bowser City are impossible not to marvel at as you drift through their neon-drenched corridors. The 3D effect is also well-utilized when it comes to adding immersion to the various tracks, with sunlight appearing to beam out of your 3DS as the camera pans around during track introductions, while bubbles appear to drench the screen as you leap out of an underwater path. Retro tracks are given some enhancement with the 3D effect, such as leaves appearing to blow slightly out of the screen in Maple Treeway, or flashy objects now whirring and flipping around with an added sense of depth in Waluigi Pinball (an ironic choice of retro track, since Waluigi isn't even in the game). In fact, while use of the 3D effect is subtle, the increased depth makes it remarkably easier to judge distance and location in three-dimensional space when you're drifting around curvy pathways and gliding through the air, and along with Star Fox 64 3D and Super Mario 3D Land, this is the other really effective case for a 3D presentation effectively enhancing the way one can play a video game! There's a few more noticeable 3D tricks, with the most obvious one being Bloopers, which appear to spit ink directly out of the screen and into your face when the 3D Slider is cranked up, a very fun and kooky use of the system's 3D capability to be sure, but most of the time, it sits in the background and adds subtle enhancement more than anything else. When you shift the view to first-person, that's the best time to appreciate how much the 3D sucks you into the game, since tracks appear to stretch out in front of you as you race through them, expertly crafting the illusion of actually being there in the game. I think this more subtle use of the 3D is best, since obnoxious 3D would have just gotten in the way during heated races anyway. MK7 is neither the system's top graphical showcase or 3D showcase even now, but it's still one of the best ones to date on both counts.

Presentation: 9/10- MK7's menus feel less stylish than those in MKWii, though I do like how your select screen is incorporated into a garage that leads into the kart customization, done in a simple and intuitive slot machine format that shouldn't be difficult to grasp even for a non-gamer. The presentation of the tracks, especially how the sunlight beams out of the screen via the 3D effect during track flyovers is great, and the incredible amount of detail in the tracks themselves, especially the all-new ones, is highly impressive. You can sometimes tell where corners were cut here and there due to time constraints when it comes to putting MK7 in a polished package, but it's still another example of how Nintendo makes their games so eye-catching that they're just as much fun to watch as they are to play!

Sound: 9/10- The music that accompanies each track is scored pretty faithfully from their original tunes in the retro tracks, and all the all-new music is quite a lot of fun too, generally catchier and with more energy than the music that accompanied MKWii, which sometimes felt a bit too low-key for a kart racing game. The music is much catchier and more lively in MK7, and it's definitely worth plugging in some headphones to really take in as well! The sound effects are typical Mario Kart fare, from the tiny whirring of each kart's engine to the familiar crunching of shells, sliding of wheels and the various cartoony ambience that comes with the obstacles dotting each racetrack. None of the sound effects feel like a huge leap over MKDS, though they do sound with some added clarity due to the 3DS's increased sound memory compared to its last-gen predecessor. The voice clips are also generally the same stuff that you hear in every Mario Kart game, with every character exclaiming wildly as they zip around each track, and crying out in shock after they've been hit with an item. Each character has a few cute lines that accompany wins and losses, but it's the same minimal selection of voice clips that often accompanies most of Nintendo's first-party efforts.

Story: N/A- As usual, there's absolutely no story in MK7. No context is given as to why the various denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom (and Donkey Kong) decided to go kart racing together, but it hasn't been given before, so why would Nintendo start now?

Difficulty: 5/10- The challenge level is generally pretty fine-tuned in MK7, since while the 50cc Grand Prix challenges are generally not too difficult, effectively easing you into each new track design while allowing you to get reacquainted with old favourites in the retro tracks if it's been a while, you'll need to drive extremely well and effectively utilize shortcuts on tracks to come out on top in the 150cc races! The game will make you work for its unlockable characters, but Mario Kart veterans should find the game engaging without being too punishing, even if the item balance is still sometimes a bit suspect. The real challenge comes from dominating opponents online over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, but since you gain and lose VR points according to how well you place in online races, you'll usually be matched up with opponents that are around your same skill level, so you won't grow bored of the online play, but you won't sustain too much humiliation either.

Replay Value: 10/10- As with any Mario Kart game, MK7 is designed to be extremely replayable, and this game yet again offers loads of reasons to come back. Even with less playable racers and Mission Mode getting the axe, you still have an excellent online multiplayer suite that will allow you to continually challenge players worldwide, as well as continual community efforts and Ghost Data to collect and race against via StreetPass and SpotPass. There are always new challenges to discover and new races to conquer thanks to all of these features, so MK7 will never stop finding reasons to keep you glued to your 3DS!

Extras: 9/10- While a couple of the unlockable characters aren't that exciting (all that trouble just to get Wario and Daisy... Whoop dee doo), most of them are awesome, and again, I won't spoil them, because many of them will be quite unexpected! As I've repeatedly mentioned, the lack of Mission Mode hurts the package, but the StreetPass and online functionality keeps on giving in its stead, so you'll always find an excuse to keep racing, especially thanks to the continued support of the in-game Mario Kart Channel!

Conclusion- MK7 falls just short of being as grand and impressive a package as MKDS was back in 2005, but it still expertly refines the familiar gameplay and makes it better than ever, once again keeping the Mario Kart franchise on top of the kart racing genre! The new tracks are loads of fun, the returning favourites are made better than ever, and the unique capabilities of the 3DS are all very effectively utilized, from the gyroscope to StreetPass to the improved online functionality. It's difficult to argue that MK7 offers one of the best multiplayer offerings on the 3DS to date, and this is a game that will continually reward you for seeking out new challenges on it, whether via the online play or via StreetPass. The 3D effect is given just the right touch, and while the reduced roster of racers compared to MKWii is a bummer, you still get loads of opportunities to customize your kart and tear up the track however you wish. I would have added a bit more to the package, but considering what's on offer here, it's still impossible to argue that MK7 represents the most polished and engaging package that the series has yet delivered! Like I said, this is the first original new game built from the ground up for the 3DS that I really enjoyed, and the game that finally gave me an added taste of what the system can really do beyond enhancing games that I've already played on other platforms. I still sometimes cursed like a sailor after being nailed by an unavoidable Lightning Bolt that caused me to tumble into a bottomless pit mid-glide, or an equally unavoidable Spiny Shell that narrowly cost me an otherwise perfect run for 1st place on a 150cc race, but these are small issues that one must put up with to really dive into the Mario Kart experience, and thankfully, these powerups ruining the game experience are much less common than they were on the Wii's offering. The series will inevitably continue on the Wii U once Nintendo launches it, and I'm sure that a new Mario Kart game will be able to do even more with the formula that's unattainable on the 3DS, which will probably stand mainly on the 3D effect and StreetPass functionality once said Wii U Mario Kart arrives. Still, for now, MK7 represents much of the best that this series has to offer, even if its quest to blend the best of the DS and Wii games has resulted in a few sacrifices from the feature set of both. There's no Mission Mode, no motorbikes and several regular Mario Kart characters are surprisingly sitting this circuit out, which was all the more annoying to me when I recall that Waluigi was my best racer in MKDS, and he's inexplicably absent here, but the new racers are even more unexpected and just as much fun, so it could be worse. Just the fact that you can race as your Mii should likely compensate for any disappointing character omissions anyway. When you try to recall how effectively a game like MK7 just keeps on giving though, it's difficult to really dwell on its flaws and disappointments all that much, especially since they're so tiny compared to what the game does right when it comes to refining the gameplay. Avid Mario Kart fans like myself will find things to pick at, but it's difficult to care when you continually have incentive to get mileage out of your 3DS with this game, dominating the online races, scouting for unexpected new thrills on the Mario Kart Channel, and continually collecting Ghost Data with StreetPass. Again, I'm pretty excited to see where the series will go from here on the Wii U, but for now, any 3DS owner, be they a casual or hardcore gamer, or somewhere in between, must definitely give MK7 a try. Whether conquering the rankings by yourself, or entertaining rivalries with your buddies that also sprung for a 3DS, MK7 never stops giving you reasons to take to the racetrack, and even after it's helped tide you over as you wait for the many bigger and more ambitious 3DS releases on the way in 2012 and beyond, you still won't want to put it down. 3DS owners, your addiction has arrived!

FINAL SCORE: 91% "AWESOME!"

FINAL VERDICT: "Some downscaling to make Mario Kart 7's ambitious holiday 2011 deadline is evident here and there, with missing regular racers and an inexplicable omission of Mario Kart DS's Mission Mode. Still, it's difficult to care when the gameplay is so excellently refined, the new and returning tracks are as fun to race on as they are, and both the built-in Mario Kart Channel and StreetPass functionality never stop giving. Super Mario 3D Land may be considered the 3DS's killer app, but Mario Kart 7 is the first game that 3DS owners will never, ever want to put down!"

"The Adventures of Tintin" (3D) Movie Review

2012-01-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure

Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

Rating: PG (U.S.) PG (Canada)

Warnings: Adventure Action Violence, Some Drunkenness and Brief Smoking

Length: 107 Minutes

Studio(s): Paramount, Columbia Pictures, Nickelodeon

Points of Interest: Available in IMAX 3D; Inspired by comic strip, "The Adventures of Tintin"; "The Adventures of Tintin" video game available on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, iOS, Android, and 3DS

WHAT I LOVED:

- The motion-capture animation is quite simply stunning, and of much better quality than many competing films, making The Adventures of Tintin one of the most visually captivating movies of 2011!

- Andy Serkis steals the show as the perpetually drunken Captain Haddock!

- The action sequences are very well-done and often very breathless, making The Adventures of Tintin a much more exciting film than many would suspect!

- Tintin fans will be pleased to see how well the essence of the original comic strips and cartoons are captured in the movie!

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH...:

- The 3D in the movie is not that great, and a massive missed opportunity.

- Bumbling Interpol officers, Thomson and Thompson are sorely underused, and not given much to do when they do appear onscreen, which will disappoint fans.

- Though it's marketed as a family film, Haddock's continued drinking and the surprising moments of violence at certain points may be inappropriate for a lot of young children.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

This is bound to impress someone, since I'm still a young man, but I knew who Tintin was long before this movie was even announced! I remember watching the old French-language cartoon during my high school French classes, and being familiar with the original comic strip, since I have family members that were longtime fans of the series. The Tintin stories have been published since 1929, and Steven Spielberg has had the rights to a film adaptation since original Tintin creator, Herge's death in 1983, finally managing to get a Tintin movie off the ground with the help of Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson. Shot entirely in a studio using cutting-edge motion-capture technology, The Adventures of Tintin is an extremely ambitious adventure film to close out the year, and it was one that I was very excited for, especially when one considers the creative team behind the piece! With Spielberg directing, Jackson producing, John Williams doing the musical score, and the writing being done by Doctor Who's Steven Moffat, Shaun of the Dead's Edgar Wright and Attack the Block's Joe Cornish, you know that you're very likely to produce something truly spectacular! When you round out the cast with the likes of Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, all the better! Tintin is definitely bringing all of the biggest guns in Hollywood to the proceedings, and I'm happy to report that for the most part, the movie is very well-done, even if it could use a few tweaks before the inevitable sequel, with three films having already been envisioned by both Spielberg and Jackson. This original film takes inspiration from three specific Tintin stories; "The Crab With the Golden Claws" (1941), "The Secret of the Unicorn" (1943), and "Red Rackham's Treasure" (1944), and blends them all together into an original new adventure, comprised of a mix of characters and scenarios from these three stories. Whether you've loved the Tintin series for a while, or have never even heard of it before, you should be very pleased with the final product of this movie, which is a remarkably fun and fast-paced adventure with no shortage of thrills and excitement, whilst effectively utilizing the mo-cap visuals to create a human, and yet exaggerated world of animation and life. Despite being marketed as a family movie, Tintin harkens back strongly to the less family-friendly original shorts, so you're going to run into several surprising moments of violence, not to mention the fact that Tintin's companion, Captain Archibald Haddock, is expectedly drunk throughout the entire film, so you may want to leave your younger children at home for this one, despite the marketing. That being said though, even if there's missed opportunities and a few elements that don't work, Tintin is a visually stunning and relentlessly captivating adventure that anyone with a taste for big screen spectacle would do well to check out.

Characters: (7/10) - Our lead character is babyfaced reporter, Tintin, who ends up racing some unsavoury types for clues to treasure in the movie, after a seemingly innocent purchase of a model ship. Tintin's stubborn desire for the truth at all times reflects his personality from the original comic strips quite well, even if it makes him a somewhat bland, underdeveloped hero. Tintin is a noble protaganist, but there's not a whole lot to him either. He's surprisingly understated compared to the more fantastical characters that he's often surrounded by. Even Tintin's own canine companion, Snowy has a much more interesting personality than him, and he's a little white dog! Since even the original strips were light on rounded personality for Tintin as far as I can remember, this is to be expected, and at least we have other characters to compensate for this. Though the drunken sea captain, Archibald Haddock is Tintin's companion throughout his adventures, including the ones that this movie takes inspiration from, they're meeting for the first time in this movie, with Haddock being the only person that can decipher the clues that lead to the Unicorn's treasure. Haddock is easily the best character in the movie, a destitute drunk with a slurred one-liner for every circumstance, and an off-the-wall solution to every problem that he often tends to botch in a stupor. Haddock injects personality where Tintin comes up short, and his duties are often fulfilled by Tintin's pooch, Snowy before his introduction. Other characters that you'd think would inject more personality into the movie are Thomson and Thompson, a bumbling double act of Interpol officers that are hilariously oblivious to everything around them, making you wonder how they became esteemed Interpol officers in the first place, but I guess that's part of the joke. Unfortunately, these two aren't given much to do beyond being awkwardly intercut into scenes to add comic relief that doesn't necessarily need to be there. They can still be fun, but they could have been used to greater effect beyond fumbling around for throwaway jokes whilst having almost no bearing on the storyline. There's a character arc where they try to pursue a pickpocket, but it's shoved into the background, and doesn't really amount to a whole lot. Thankfully, the filmmakers seem to be aware of this, and have promised extended roles and better use of Thomson and Thompson in the sequel, so I'm happy to hear that! This brings me to our villain, Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, a falsely accused art collector in the original strips, though in this movie, he's very clearly an antagonist from the get-go. Sakharine is good enough as a villain, but he also unfortunately lacks menace. While he often appropriately seems to always be one step ahead of Tintin and Haddock, he comes off as more of a disgruntled nerd than a serious threat. I know that this is a family-friendly movie (or it's supposed to be), and you can only do so much when it comes to making Sakharine a deadly bad guy, but it stinks that Tintin is up against a foe that never really seems to instill a sense of dread in the audience. This is made worse by the fact that the movie's climax is rather weak, but I'll get to that later. The characters in the movie have plenty of personality for the most part, even if it's rather ironic that the weak link here is Tintin himself, sometimes stubbornly optimistic and intrepid to the point of feeling a bit bland as far as action heroes go. At least any disappointments in the characters are almost exclusively made up for by the likes of Haddock and Snowy in particular though.

Acting: (8/10) - The performances in Tintin are generally pretty sharp, even if the actors are sometimes let down by the occasional faults in the script. Jamie Bell is well-suited to the role of Tintin, but his performance isn't given a lot of room to breathe, since Tintin's personality feels so flat. It's optimistic and easy to get behind, sure, but he's a flat hero all the same. There are a few moments that try to change this, but there's only so much you can do without betraying the spirit of Herge's original works I guess. Thankfully Snowy, who is entirely comprised of CGI and sound effects, compensates by injecting any charm necessary into a scene where Tintin's repetitive determination fails to provide it. As I said, the real star of the show here is Andy Serkis, who is yet again delivering a truly superb performance as Captain Haddock, after stealing the show as simian uprising leader, Caesar in this past Summer's awesome Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This marks two highlight performances for Serkis in 2011, since, just like Caesar, Haddock's supporting role completely steals the show and runs away with the movie, carrying it forward in Tintin's stead, much like Snowy does in the first act, before Haddock appears. Daniel Craig does what he can in the role of villain, Sakharine, but like I said, he somewhat lacks menace, and doesn't come off as a truly terrifying villain. That's not a fault of Craig, since he does better than most other actors would in the role, but even if Sakharine always seems to be an expert planner, you never get a sense that Tintin is in any real danger when up against him, and that sucks away some of the movie's potential thrills, only further hammered home when you're inevitably let down by Tintin's unfortunate anti-climax that closes out the film, obviously baiting sequels in the process. I was really excited to see the double act of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the role of Thomson and Thompson, and the two sound virtually identical, so you can tell that they're really putting lots into their performance. Again, Thomson and Thompson aren't given a lot of bearing on the movie, and their awkward placement in the proceedings prevents them from being as funny as they could have been, making them feel like somewhat of a waste of Pegg and Frost's talents, and natural chemistry with one another that they've displayed continually, starring together in movies like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Paul. I hope that Pegg and Frost return to the roles in the sequel, and that they're put to better use. Again though, at least Andy Serkis dominates the performances as Captain Haddock, and one excellent character in a slew of decent ones is still a pretty solid deal, especially since he's drunk for almost the entire film, which will no doubt amuse independent adults. As funny as this is however, it may rub parents the wrong way if they're taking their young kids to the movie, so you may want to leave your littler children at home if you're concerned about Tintin's surprisingly rampant drunkenness in the Haddock character. Just warning you.

Stunts: N/A

Special Effects/Animation: (10/10) - Tintin's action scenes are generally completely spectacular in every way, and I was surprised at how breathless they can really be, even with the movie's effective use of the mo-cap to add a cartoon exaggeration in a way that shooting the movie in live-action wouldn't effectively allow. To say that Tintin is a great-looking film is an understatement, because your jaw will consistently be on the floor when you see the incredible detail in the environments, characters and scenarios, especially when you consider that this entire movie was shot in a studio, even when it jumps between a considerable amount of locations across the globe. The 'dead eye' look that's a common problem with motion capture characters is actually surprisingly minimal, though it is apparent at times with Tintin himself, who looks phenomenally realized on the big screen, don't get me wrong, he just doesn't always feel like he's a fully living personality, and this is made worse by Tintin's inflexible character persona. Characters like Haddock and Sakharine are much more expressive, and look much more lifelike. In any case though, the animation is stunning, and I would easily consider Tintin to be the best-looking animated film in recent memory, since its highlight scenes are nothing short of captivating, even outdoing recent visual stunners like Legend of the Guardians and Rango. If you're seeing the movie for its visuals, you're definitely in for a treat! As far as the 3D goes, I did shell out the extra money to see Tintin in IMAX 3D, and I can tell you that, unfortunately, it wasn't really worth it. I was really let down by the surprisingly weak 3D in Tintin, which is never really put to effective use for the most part. It just sort of hangs there. There's a few neat atmospheric scenes, and a few cool depth effects during a slow-mo sequence or two, but that's about the extent of the well-utilized 3D in the movie. It's brief, and it's nothing that you haven't seen before. Honestly, it feels like Tintin is in 3D simply because all animated movies must be shot in 3D nowadays, with only this past March's Rango boldly defying the convention. It pains me to say it as an unapologetic fan of 3D, but you may want to seek out the 2D version of Tintin if you could care less about a 3D presentation, because you're really not missing a lot if you go that route.

Set Pieces: N/A

Costumes: N/A

Story: (7/10) - In blending various elements of three Tintin stories together, whilst simultaneously acting as an origin story for the partnership between Tintin and Captain Haddock, continual companions in the original strip, but meeting for the first time in this movie, certain elements of the plot have been tweaked from their original incarnations. Sakharine is an obvious antagonist for starters, unlike in the original story, Haddock wasn't present during Tintin's previous adventures, which are cleverly referenced in newspaper clippings around his apartment (and yes, these are actual Tintin tales that they are referencing), and the subject of one of the stories, The Crab With the Golden Claws, only features in a mere cameo towards the climax, with the rest of the story mainly focusing on The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham's Treasure, with the former being the subtitle of the movie in European markets, though oddly not in the North American release. Anyway, the movie picks up with Tintin having plenty of daring adventures under his belt already, as an intrepid Belgian reporter. After a seemingly innocent purchase of a model ship, he is set upon by various parties who are desperate to seize the ship and seek a clue hidden within it, which points to a lost treasure. After Tintin is caught up in the dangerous campaign of Sakharine, a wealthy collector with a vendetta, he teams up with the drunken Captain Archibald Haddock to try and beat Sakharine to the treasure. The story is generally pretty exciting, but it mainly fires on all cylinders during the first half. The movie's second half is unfortunately much less interesting plot-wise, though it does contain some of the movie's real highlight action sequences to compensate. The climax however is pretty weak, plus the denouement is dull, and obviously serves as little more than sequel bait on top of that. Despite te problems with the plot, Tintin remains a pretty solid adventure, but those with high expectations after looking at the creative team behind it will probably expect more. It's a good adventure story, and a definite improvement over Spielberg's infamous 2008 misfire, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though it still falls well short of the standard set by Raiders of the Lost Ark, so don't go in expecting the animated equivalent of that, because you're not going to get it.

Length/Editing: (8/10) - Tintin is generally pretty well-paced and extremely well-polished, as expected in a movie directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. The runtime is pretty well at the sweet spot for a movie like this, but towards the end, Tintin starts to suffer from pacing problems, made worse by the let-down of a climax that it unfortunately delivers. It's a movie that feels like it rapidly runs out of steam as the final act starts kicking up, even if the first two are generally pretty breathless and exciting, making the runtime just fly right by for the audience. The last portion of the movie is much less interesting to sit through though, and that's a real bummer, since it feels like Tintin kind of overplayed its hand and used up all of its tricks before it gets to the finale, which it's supposed to save most of them for.

Genre Appeal: (8/10) - If you're looking for a visually stunning animated adventure, Tintin pretty well delivers in what it sets out to do, even if some of the shortcomings are rather surprising when you consider the creative team behind it. The weak 3D is really disappointing, and the less interesting final act drags down the lasting impression of the adventure, but if you're going for the visuals and/or the exciting action scenes, you should be reasonably pleased here.

Re-watch Value: (6/10) - Tintin is best seen on the big screen, since that's where you can best appreciate its incredible visuals. It's not quite the same on home viewing I'm sure, but avid fans of the character will probably want to pick up the Blu-Ray when it arrives, especially since they'll inevitably have to re-watch the film to gear up for sequels in the years to come.

Conclusion- Tintin is a flawed movie, but I still had a lot of fun with it. It's not a pitch-perfect big screen realization of Herge's highly beloved characters, but it's a very worthy effort, and it holds plenty of promise for the sequels that the team seems dead set upon, with Peter Jackson already claiming that he's getting to work on Tintin 2 after he wraps up the two-part Hobbit films that are coming at the tail ends of 2012 and 2013. You might expect the massive talent behind Tintin to deliver a better product, but I'd simply advise you to lower your expectations. Like I said, don't walk into this expecting it to be the animated Raiders of the Lost Ark, because that's unreasonable, and you'll only have yourself to blame for being disappointed. Tintin is merely a great adventure movie instead of an excellent one, and there's definitely room for improvement in follow-ups, but the movie still justifies them quite well, setting up a breathtaking world full of running gags, personality and character. Andy Serkis's highly enjoyable turn as Captain Haddock is worth seeing the movie for alone, and that's not even factoring in the absolutely stunning visuals, which I still easily appreciated on an IMAX screen, even if the 3D was a real let-down. In fact, one of the main requests I'd level at a sequel is to REALLY improve the quality of the 3D. Considering the excellent and unprecedented quality of Tintin's incredible visuals, it's all the more disappointing that the 3D is not used to better effect, and it's one way that the sequel could easily improve on the original. Thomson and Thompson also feel like a missed opportunity, since I delighted seeing them on screen, on account of them being my two favourite characters from the original strips I read and cartoons I watched, and I hope that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost get more effective material to work with in the sequel. It's easy to notice what needs to be tweaked, since the 3D isn't that good, the characters sometimes need work and the final act really suffers from pacing problems, but when you consider the package of Tintin as a whole, it's still difficult to argue that's a very impressive movie. Fans of the original Tintin media will be pleased to see how well even subtle elements of Herge's original works are translated onto the big screen, even with that fancy CG/motion-capture gloss over it, and newcomers will get a great introduction to the character that may not be the best work in the series' history, but is a great primer to convert a new series of fans, and I suppose that counts for something, since the Tintin stories are highly beloved for a reason, by me and many others. If you've already seen the extremely impressive Mission: Impossible and Sherlock Holmes sequels, and are still looking for a captivating action blockbuster that's safe to bring your family to (for the most part, use discretion with your younger children, since Tintin is not shy about alocholism and violence at times), I think that Tintin is really worth seeing, especially if you can easily appreciate the fantastic visuals. If you're a Tintin fan wondering if you should see the movie, I also highly recommend it, since it's not a perfect Tintin movie, but it's still a really good one that's clearly made with a lot of heart by a highly talented team of filmmakers that are very evidently Tintin fans themselves. You'll have the urge to nitpick, especially towards the end, but try your best to stifle it, and you should have a great time, even if you might want to save yourself the 3D surcharge if you have the option of seeing the movie in 2D. Even if I can easily pick at several elements of the movie, I'm still very excited for the sequel, especially considering that comic book movie sequels often tend to be generally superior to their originals. It may be as late as 2014 or 2015 before Tintin 2 comes to the big screen, according to the filmmakers, but I'm sure that it will be worth the wait, so even if they're not without their shortcomings so far, I'm happy to stand behind the continuation of Tintin's big screen adventures!

FINAL SCORE: 77% "GOOD"

FINAL VERDICT: "The Adventures of Tintin fires on all cylinders from the get-go, even if it starts to come apart in its weak final act, on top of some surprising problems with the characterization and the inexcusably weak 3D presentation. Still, even if it's a flawed beginning for Tintin's big screen adventures, it's still a pretty captivating and entertaining one, so whether you're going for the excitement or the visuals, as a fan or a newcomer, you should have a pretty great time!"

"Young Adult" Movie Review

2012-01-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

YOUNG ADULT

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Starring: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser

Rating: R (U.S.) 14A (Canada)

Warnings: Language and Some Sexual Content

Length: 94 Minutes

Studio(s): Paramount, Mandate Pictures

Points of Interest: None

WHAT I LOVED:

- Charlize Theron's performance as a bottoming out alcoholic divorcee clinging to her glory days is excellent, and keeps the movie briskly moving forward!

- The writing is really quite exceptional, managing to find the occasional bit of humour even in such a dreary subject.

- The movie doesn't fall back on cliches, which is quite refreshing, considering the state of movies like this one nowadays.

- The amount of detail put into the subtext and atmosphere of Young Adult is really surprisingly impressive, and a definite treat for analyzers!

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH...:

- The movie lacks resolution, which seems to be somewhat intentional, but it has the aftertaste of feeling like it hasn't really accomplished anything when the end credits roll.

- This isn't nearly as funny as director, Jason Reitman and writer, Diablo Cody's last team-up effort, Juno.

- If you don't like analyzing a movie, the plot of Young Adult is kind of impenetrable, and it's difficult to really get a concise final opinion on it.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

Oh goodie! Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody have teamed up again! Their last effort, Juno, closed out 2007 with a bang, and kickstarted the career of Ellen Page, so surely their next effort will be just as enjoyable, right? Well, I've got to be honest with you. I had a hard time really grasping how I felt about the final product of their new movie, Young Adult, for a while actually, which doesn't often happen to me. Generally, I'm pretty sharp at telling how well-made a movie is, and how I feel about it by the time the end credits roll. YA however proved to be a more challenging piece for me to absorb. On one hand, this is a good thing, because it really draws attention to the open-ended interpretation and immense amount of detail put into the movie's creative subtext, which defies dumbing itself down with predictable cliches so that it's easier for the audience to process. On the other hand though, YA will probably leave most viewers confused and wondering how to feel about it, much like I am. This is because the movie's conclusion and buildup lacks any kind of real resolution. To put it in simple terms, YA feels like more of a character study than a plot-driven film. If you love character studies and analyzing personalities, this means that you will really love this movie, because there's loads to analyze here. If you're coming for the story though, you'll probably be disappointed, because YA achieves the rare feat of having an extraordinary amount of detail in its presentation and message, and yet at the same time, its plot is so small and inconsequential, never really achieving anything definite in the end. It sort of makes YA's commentary moot when the movie sort of fails to achieve any kind of closure, even though that seems to be the idea that Diablo Cody was going for when she wrapped up the script. Some might accuse YA of being clumsy and pretentious, but I think that the latter criticism holds more water than the former, since YA is more strangely put together than clumsy to me, and there is a difference. Yes, some people will get a bit bothered by the movie's pretense, which is bound to happen in any quotes, 'feel bad' movie, but, like I said, you don't see a movie written by Diablo Cody, and expect a bunch of hackneyed, predictable content. So, I will say this about YA. I found the movie moreso intriguing than enjoyable, though I didn't hate it at the same time. I smiled at the funnier bits, and I definitely appreciated the incredible performance of Charlize Theron in the lead role. That said though, compared to Juno, YA is much less funny, and offers much less comfort to the audience. You almost feel uncomfortable at times watching and giggling at the movie, because it's basically about a human trainwreck. This is a movie that you watch to appreciate the vision over being entertained, but it's a good vision, despite some of its flaws, so if you want something a little different and easy to study for a while so that you can offset the onslaught of flashy blockbusters that the end of 2011 delivered, YA is worth checking out.

Characters: (7/10) - YA really knows where its priorities are, since there's only two characters that are really given any kind of attention. There is of course our lead, Mavis Gary, a former queen bee of the high school circuit, battling a divorce and alcoholism, while she stumbles into her childhood hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, a fictional little nowheresville. Most of the movie centers on Mavis, though we also get our key supporting character in the mix quite a bit as well, Matt Freehauf. Matt is forced to walk on crutches for the rest of his life (think you might have hit that symbolism a little hard there, Diablo), after a group of high school jocks cornered him in the woods and beat him to the point of shattering his legs and... permanently curving his penis. Ok, I have to get this off my chest now. I call bullshit on the penis-curving. The movie keeps trying to wring sympathy out of this penis-curving injury that Matt has sustained, claiming that he can't really take a lover anymore, or that he has to, "piss and cum sideways for the rest of his life." Elementary sex ed knowledge however dictates that this isn't really scientifically, physically or medically possible! Maybe the injury is just poorly explained in the movie, but getting a literal, permanent "penis curve" doesn't really work, because there's no bones in the penis. I know that referencing bones in relation to a penis is common, but it's one of the most ironic sexual colloquialisms in existence, because the penis actually doesn't have a skeleton, it's just a flexible tube of flesh and muscle most of the time. Warped erections may be possible from muscle damage, but the penis is not perpetually solid, nor does it have bone structure, so you can't permanently curve it, especially not with blunt force. Again, maybe it's just not explained well, but Matt would have you believe that there's a permanent curve in it, and whenever he gripes about it, the men in the audience will facepalm rather than exhibit sympathy, because Diablo Cody clearly doesn't have a great understanding of how a penis actually works, should she be meaning the character to be truthful! Ok, phew, that feels better. My point is, Matt as a character somewhat fails to create pathos, because his injury and the circumstances behind it are so far-fetched. He even claims that the people who assaulted him got off scot free once it was made apparent that Matt wasn't a homosexual, which doesn't make any sense. I suppose one possible explanation is that he's lying or exaggerating about what happened, but like I said, the character in general feels obnoxious and like Diablo Cody's trying too hard to get a rise out of the audience. Thankfully, Mavis is handled a lot better. Unlike Matt, Mavis's character turns and mannerisms are subtle. She's a much better realization of the age-old Hollywood rule, "Show, don't tell", and that makes her character much more enjoyable to watch and analyze. Mavis reveals surprisingly little about herself throughout the movie, other than that she was popular in high school, and ghost writes a young adult literature series that is on the brink of cancellation. The rest is said by her unspoken actions and living habits, and this chance to study such a sad sack of a human being is where YA really shines best. The object of Mavis' affections, her ex-boyfriend, Buddy Slade, who is now married and has a child, is also given some added screentime, but he's more of a plot device than a full character. All he exists to do is try to take Mavis' destitution in good humour, and give her something to go after while she's lounging around aimlessly in her hometown. Beyond Mavis and Matt, none of the other characters really register, which can sometimes be a problem with these character study movies. This is a drawback of YA that would have made the movie a failure, were it not for the incredible performances of Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt, and I'll get to these in the appropriate paragraph. YA may succeed as a character study, if we're to take the movie as an account of Mavis' descent into alcoholism and despair, but as a character-driven drama, it stumbles frequently, since it doesn't really give meaning or personality to any other character, and the one character that IS given added development, consistently comes off as a nuisance. Thankfully, Mavis alone is enough to carry things, which is why it's wise that the movie generally tends to focus on her and only her. Too bad those scenes with Matt weren't more interesting though.

Acting: (8/10) - YA is definitely a movie to see if you want to appreciate some exceptional performances. Charlize Theron dominates the piece in the lead role of Mavis Gary, a late thirtysomething woman who is drowning in depression and liquor, faced with the impending extinction of the only real accomplishment she's ever made in her life, after her husband (whom we never see beyond a quick photograph) has left her. In a fit of desperation, she returns to her hometown to try and rekindle a romance with her ex-boyfriend, Buddy, who is now happily married with a new baby. Patrick Wilson plays Buddy with his usual easy charm, but since the focus is so heavily on Mavis, he really isn't given a lot to do. He just seems to be going through the motions for much of the movie, but it's not really his fault, because he's playing a bit of a shallow character. Theron is generally there to pick up the slack, but the one actor I truly feel for is Patton Oswalt, who is saddled with the movie's irritating supporting character. Oswalt actually does a pretty great job in the role of Matt Freehauf, considering what he has to work with. He has to take an asinine injury and an equal dependence on clinging to his high school years, the antithesis of the popular queen bee, Mavis, and somehow make that appealing. Oswalt makes Matt tolerable, even if the heavy-handed writing sometimes makes the character feel grating. Oswalt is a very talented comedian, and anyone else in the part wouldn't have succeeded so well, so rather than getting an irritating supporting character that we hate, we get an irritating supporting character that we manage to mostly tolerate, so it could be worse. None of the other actors really seem to leave any impact one way or the other unfortunately. Elizabeth Reaser does virtually nothing in the role of Buddy's wife, Beth, since she's given even less to do than her onscreen husband. Most of the movie entirely centers on Mavis, which could get Charlize Theron some more attention during Award Season, since she's forced to carry an entire movie, which also happens to be a cliche-defiant 'feel bad' film on top of that. Theron is an excellent actress though, and this further proves that. She tells us so much about Mavis even when she says very little, and you can tell that she has put loads into perfectly realizing this performance. If you're a fan of Theron, you must absolutely see this movie for her performance alone!

Stunts: N/A

Special Effects/Animation: N/A

Set Pieces: N/A

Costumes: N/A

Story: (6/10) - This is the point of YA that is probably really going to divide people. The subtext of the plot is brilliant, and the amount of detail is impressive, so from an analytical viewpoint, YA is superb. From the viewpoint of telling a story on the big screen though, YA sort of falls apart, because the story itself is kind of minimal, and at times even directionless, despite Mavis' obsessive quest for Buddy, which she just abandons at several points to go drinking with Matt, more than once. YA is a great character study, but as a comedy and a drama, it feels lacking, because there's lots of character development to munch on with Mavis, but not a lot of plot to wash it down with. Anyway, I've already mostly described what the movie is about. Young adult literature ghost writer, Mavis Gary, is bottoming out after her divorce, and is now faced with the impending cancellation of her book series. In a last ditch effort to make something of her life, she travels back to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to try and restart a relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Buddy Slade, who now has a wife and child. Mavis is continually under the delusion that Buddy is unhappy with his new life, but the final resolution here and everywhere else feels rather unsatisfying. I was surprised that a movie with as much impressive character detail as this one could leave so little an impression in terms of its story. Some will feel that the story is not necessary, and that the movie is more about following Mavis around as her life comes apart at the seams, but those actually expecting a plotline, will no doubt feel let-down by the final product here, which doesn't really waste much time having a structured 'story'.

Length/Editing: (8/10) - Jason Reitman's direction once again captures a good length for YA, without it overstaying its welcome, and considering the movie's tendency to meander around, he still manages to capture a reasonably good sense of pacing. Were it any longer, and in the hands of a lesser director, YA would probably feel like an aimless, shiftless mess, so like Juno, it's kind of a testament to how well Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody work as a team. Sure, Juno is still a better movie, but at least YA is still put together with a reasonable amount of polish, and the 94-minute length is pretty reasonable.

Genre Appeal: (7/10) - Again, as a character study, YA is very well-done and a must-see. If you're going in expecting a straight comedy or a straight drama though, you'll probably be let-down. While there are still several bits of inspired humour, YA lacks humour compared to the more entertaining Juno, so it doesn't really stand well as a comedy, even a dark comedy. Likewise, as a drama, the movie lacks structure and a real sense of emotion with most of its characters, so unless you're only really invested in learning about Mavis, you'll probably feel that much of YA's attempted sentiment, especially from supporting character, Matt's end, feels hollow. If you're mainly watching the movie for Charlize Theron though, you should enjoy YA as a real testament to her talents, and how well she can make just about any kind of character come alive.

Re-watch Value: (7/10) - If you get a kick out of analyzing complex characters in these movies, YA may merit some subsequent viewings, and if you love either Diablo Cody or Jason Reitman, it probably still deserves a spot in your DVD collection, even if it's not quite up to the standard set by movies like Juno, Up in the Air, and Thank You For Smoking.

Conclusion- YA is a bit of an odd duck, as is generally expected with anything that Diablo Cody has written, and Jason Reitman has directed. The vision is undeniably creative, but as a writer, Cody's defiance against traditional storytelling structure and techniques can be both her greatest strength, and her most unfortunate weakness. Sometimes, Cody's tendency to be a maverick can result in great movies like Juno, which firmly stand apart by taking a predictable premise and making it both surprisingly creative, and highly entertaining, even during its darker moments. On the other hand though, sometimes Cody's stubborn desire to defy any known convention can also make her movies bogged down by impenetrable storylines that are just too difficult to invest in because they're so surreal, and that's when you get movies like Jennifer's Body, which is generally agreed to be, to date, Cody's biggest written misfire. I still don't know how I feel about Jennifer's Body to be quite honest, even after attempting a review of it when a friend and I saw the film out of morbid curiosity back in 2009. YA avoids the dreaded Jennifer's Body syndrome of just being weird and twisted to the point where it's impossible to really wrap your head around the whole spectacle, but it falls well short of the standard set by both Cody's and Reitman's previous works too, because it still suffers from a lack of narrative structuring and resolution, especially with most of its cast failing to make any kind of impression. All of this movie's eggs were put into Charlize Theron's basket, and thankfully, she wonderfully rises to the occasion to deliver yet another hallmark performance that may get her some more awards to take home when the season kicks off. As I've repeatedly said, if you're a fan of Charlize Theron, and you're seeing YA for her, you should be very pleased. If you just love dissecting a complex character piece, YA should also give you plenty to sink your teeth into as well. Ironically though, YA doesn't really succeed as a comedy or a drama, even if it's an excellent character study, so if you're approaching this unconventional movie with conventional tastes, you'll probably feel let-down by the final product. As my motto goes, know your expectations! YA is a movie driven by plenty of character commentary and an excellent lead performance. If you're willing to put aside a bias towards a certain genre and go for those reasons, you should reasonably enjoy YA. If you're not in the market for either of those things though, move along. December brought many other great movies to the big screen this year that you could be watching instead, so if you could care less about interpreting your movies, there are far better uses of your valuable time on the big screen right now.

FINAL SCORE: 72% "GOOD"

FINAL VERDICT: "Young Adult is a movie driven almost exclusively by the excellent performance of Charlize Theron, and all of the commentary she brings to a character bottoming out in alcoholism and despair. If you enjoy picking apart character studies like this, and appreciating a great lead performance while you're at it, Young Adult has plenty to say, but as far as conventional genres, plot and character arcs go, there's surprisingly little here, leaving Young Adult squarely for the studious moviegoer. If that's not you, you're probably better off seeing something else."

Brent's Most Anticipated Video Games of 2012!

2012-01-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

With my most anticipated movies counted down, let's talk about video games! While most of 2012's movie calendar has been laid out, as with any year, the video game calendar is a little more... vague. Developers have been rather wishy-washy about when their upcoming games are arriving this year, or if they're being pushed to 2013 and beyond, which is an expected side effect of releasing games in a year that is launching new gaming hardware. In fact, we have TWO new gaming platforms confirmed for 2012, specifically, Sony's new handheld, the PlayStation Vita, succeeding the PSP on February 22nd of this year (February 15th for those who preordered the 'First Edition' bundle), and Nintendo's new console, the Wii U, which is expected to succeed the Wii before 2012 is up.

Unlike last year, I'm not going to do a separate list for Vita or Wii U's games, and which of those I'm most looking forward to, but rather, just incorporate any that I'm highly anticipating on this list. I did a separate list for 3DS games last year, but that's because Nintendo announced that platform with a literal MOUNTAIN of game announcements following it at E3 2010. Vita and Wii U are playing their cards closer to the chest in terms of their game libraries, so I don't have enough to work with there. Still, I'm sure they'll be great platforms full of incredible design opportunity, and I'm very much looking forward to both!

As usual, allow me to reiterate the rules. This is my PERSONAL OPINION, so don't tell me that I'm wrong, or that I missed a game or whatever. These are just the games that I'm looking forward to the most this year, so obviously, they won't include games in genres that I don't normally play or care for. Also, as usual, I can't account for delays and surprise announcements. Every year, games get pushed to the following year unexpectedly, and it seems that at least one of my top ten games ends up being delayed from the year I list it (in 2009, this was BioShock 2, in 2010, this was Mass Effect 3 AND The Last Guardian!). Every year, especially at functions like E3, games are announced for release that are being developed in secret, and are not yet made known to the public, especially by companies like Nintendo, who are good at keeping their lineup under wraps. I obviously don't know about these games, so even if they end up being better games and ending up my favourites of the year, I obviously won't be listing them here like some sort of freaky prophet.

Ok, with that out of the way, let's get to it! Here's the ten games I'm most looking forward to in 2012 that have been confirmed for a (tentative) 2012 release at one point or another, and yes, I just kept it to ten games this time, so no ties like on the movie list. Anyhow, let's get started!

#10 - Darksiders II

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release Date: June 2012

WHY: In January of 2011, I played a happy little game called Darksiders on my PS3, which one of my friends kindly gave to me for my birthday. I gave it a merely modest 70% score when I reviewed it, but even so, I couldn't stop stressing how much fun I had with the game, how entertaining it was, and why, despite the modest production values, everyone who loves enjoyable action-adventure games should actively seek it out and play it, even if it was a pretty shameless clone of other games. Darksiders is simultaneously an almost exact clone of both The Legend of Zelda and God of War, and it even outright steals weapons from other games, including the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII, and the Portal Gun from Portal. Still, Darksiders proved that just because a game isn't original, doesn't mean that it has to suck, or that it's not fun. While I'm hoping for a little more originality in Darksiders II, I have every iota of belief that it will also be a lot of fun.
One of the best parts of the original Darksiders for sure was its premise. You took control of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who was tricked into jumpstarting the end of the world, and thus, you explore the ruined Earth trying to clear your name, braving puzzle-filled dungeons and challenging vicious monsters. In the original game, you played as War. In the second game however, you're taking control of a different horseman, Death, in a storyline that takes place concurrently with the events of the first game. Death is also trying to get to the bottom of who is out to frame War, and he's got a whole new arsenal of whoop-ass to make your own! Publisher, THQ has promised bigger dungeons, more varied gameplay and even more exciting enemy encounters in the sequel, and considering how enjoyable the original was, I'm very excited at that prospect!
Darksiders II probably won't be a standout game for 2012, but I'm sure it will be one of the more enjoyable action-adventure offerings all the same, especially after we've exhausted all the possibilities of the two Zelda games that we were lucky enough to receive in 2011. THQ also claims that Darksiders II is even on track to be a launch title for the Wii U! That just gets me even more excited to play this game!

#9 - Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Platform(s): Vita
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release Date: February 15th

WHY: The main reasons why I'm excited for this game are twofold; It's Uncharted, and it's exclusively on the PlayStation Vita. I absolutely LOVE the Uncharted series, as if my glowing reviews of the first two games weren't any indication already (I haven't yet started playing the third, which I received as a Christmas gift), and the prospect of taking it on the go is very exciting for me, especially since it will be a prequel to the trilogy of PS3 games.
According to recent news reports, the Uncharted prequel is launching a week early alongside the exclusive 'First Edition' bundle for the Vita, which will give the most dedicated of Sony fans a chance to purchase the system a week before it's more widely and publicly available. That's great news for me, because I want something really great to play with my Vita right out of the gate (as in, something that isn't Little Deviants). The game will also be the first Uncharted game to support touch control, utilizing the Vita's front and back touch pads for a whole new way to control Nathan Drake. I'm not particularly privy to the plot, and I don't think anyone currently is, but so far, the series has always suceeded in delivering high-quality storylines. In fact, since the Uncharted prequel has already received perfect scores and high praise from several import reviews (the game is already available in Japan, where Vita has launched), I have all the more reason to be very excited!
Even if Naughty Dog will be handing development duties to Sony Bend for the Uncharted prequel while they continue work on upcoming PS3-exclusive, The Last of Us, it seems that Vita's first blockbuster, and Uncharted's first foray into the portable gaming realm, is coming together beautifully! I've already got my first edition Vita preordered, and I just put down a deposit on this gem today, so I'm very excited to get an early start on some treasure hunting via Sony's promising new handheld!

#8 - Paper Mario 3D (Working Title)

Platform(s): 3DS
Genre: Turn-Based RPG
Release Date: TBA 2012

WHY: I had a tough time deciding where I should place both the still-untitled new Paper Mario game, and Luigi's Mansion 2, both scheduled to hit the 3DS in 2012, on my list. Luigi's Mansion 2 just barely slipped out of my Top Ten of 2012, but I should still give it an honourable mention, since I've been hoping for that game to materialize for over ten years, and it's looking great from the previews. The new Paper Mario game got a spot on my list though, and for good reason! Despite the considerable amount of fun I had playing through Super Paper Mario on my Wii a few years back, I sort of missed the turn-based RPG format of the original two games on the N64 and GameCube, since Super Paper Mario turned the series into a platforming/adventure game hybrid. Thankfully, that original RPG format is coming back in the series' new 3DS installment!
Not much is known about the storyline, but tidbits have been revealed about the gameplay, such as Stickers that will power up the abilities of Mario and friends, and a return to the turn-based battle system, which most effectively takes advantage of the 3DS's 3D effect to produce a really cool sense of kooky depth during enemy encounters. Paper Mario's new 3DS installment is said to be quite far along in development, which is lent credence by the incredible detail in the trailers, though much of the text still seems to be in Japanese, so we may not see this game stateside until the Fall unfortunately. Still, there's room for pleasant surprises, and regardless of how long I have to wait, this is another series that has never really disappointed, so I'm confident that it will keep performing very well during its own debut on a portable gaming platform!

#7 - Tomb Raider

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release Date: Fall 2012

WHY: I'm going to come right out and admit that, while it's always sort of intrigued me, I've never really been a considerable fan of the Tomb Raider franchise. I've always longed for time to try and get into it, but to date, I've only properly played through one Tomb Raider game (Tomb Raider: Legend on the Xbox, which I played through and reviewed in 2007), though I did download Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light onto my PS3, and have yet to start it, so I suppose I actually own TWO Tomb Raider games. In the case of Tomb Raider: Legend though, I liked it well enough, but it still didn't motivate me to rush out and play more Tomb Raider games. That may change however, now that the series seems to be getting another reboot, one that goes further back in time to show Lara as a nineteen year-old, marooned on a desert island, and forced to survive in the wilderness.
This fresh new direction seems to be something that the series really needs, and the focus on this new game is more on survival than actually raiding tombs. You'll begin the game without any weapons, protection, food, water, or real skills, and you'll need to hunt for these things on your own. You'll also have to endure fragile environments, a game that doesn't make any effort to hold your hand, and a more in-depth combat system with more dangerous foes. No more easy auto-targetting like in previous Tomb Raider games I guess.
This new Tomb Raider reboot brings to mind one word; Harsh. This is a game that doesn't screw around, and strives to create a feeling of uneasiness and desperation from the get-go. Considering how hyper-capable Lara Croft is in the other Tomb Raider games, this is immediately interesting, and if the game lives up to the hype, it may rocket the floundering Tomb Raider series back into the triple-A limelight, which it hasn't really held since the original PlayStation era, and the launch of the movie adaptation that's largely credited with getting Angelina Jolie famous. We can only hope, but Tomb Raider so far seems fit to give a once great series a much-needed return to greatness, and I'm itching to have my greatest excuse yet to take part in the adventures of Lara Croft!

#6 - Xenoblade Chronicles

Platform(s): Wii
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date: April 2nd

WHY: First, there was Xenogears in the late 90's, a one-off RPG for the PlayStation that was supposed to be part of an epic six-episode canon, but failed to really get off the ground due to its massive, impenetrable storyline, and the fact that it was overshadowed by many other games during its heyday. The series was then rebooted in 2003 with Xenosaga: Episode I - Der Wille Zur Macht on the PS2, where it finally found success, even enough enough to join the PS2's Greatest Hits catalogue! Unfortunately, Episode II's release on the PS2 in 2005 was met with scathing feedback by fans and rather poor sales, forcing the Xenosaga series, again planned for six parts, to end prematurely in 2006 with Episode III. Four years again passed, and the Xeno property made another attempt at a reboot, this time as a real-time RPG designed exclusively for the Wii, giving it a welcome blockbuster RPG that the system is absolutely starved for! Japan got it, then Europe got it, then Australia got it... Then Nintendo shrugged at North American gamers, refusing to commit to a release in North America, and leaving us gamers out in the West envious of our European and Japanese peers.
Finally however, that dark time is over. Xenoblade Chronicles has been confirmed for a LONG overdue North American release in early April, and I couldn't be more excited! Even with the Wii seemingly on its last legs, with the looming threat of Wii U on the way before the end of the year apparently, I still plan to preorder this and pick it up on launch day, especially with the glowing reviews that the game has been receiving.
This rebooted Xeno RPG does away with most of the heavy religious themes of the previous two canons, instead appearing to focus instead on two warring worlds that exist on the bodies of two enormous creatures, one biological, and one mech-like. When a young man appears to attain the legendary sword thought to have been wielded by his world (boy, that's a trippy thought), an epic quest unfolds to keep the power out of the wrong hands. I refuse to look at the rest of the plot, since I obviously don't want it to be spoiled, but that's all I need to know to take up some quality RPG time with my Wii, which I've really only gotten a chance to do with various Virtual Console downloads, and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years off of WiiWare, and I guess that Tales of Symphonia sequel to a lesser extent.
Thanks to the wealth of import reviews, I already know that Xenoblade Chronicles is amazing, and easily one of the system's best RPGs to date, retail or digital download. I'm just happy to FINALLY have a triple-A RPG to play on my Wii this year, but when it's an RPG with all the praise that Xenoblade Chronicles has been getting, that has me more pumped than ever to finally have a few more last rides with my Wii before I take home my own shiny new Wii U (yes, I've already decided I'm buying one. Does it really surprise you?).

#5 - Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Platform(s): 3DS
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date: TBA 2012

WHY: It's obvious to most of my regular game review readers now, but in case you're a more recent follower, allow me to state it again; I LOVE the Kingdom Hearts series! I, and lots of my friends, have always been a huge fan of the Disney/Square Enix RPG mash-up, and while the current canon may be getting really... really... really bloated, it looks like it's FINALLY approaching a climax in the long-overdue (and still formally unannounced) Kingdom Hearts III, thanks to this new 3DS installment that will take protaganist Sora, and his anti-hero BFF, Riku, to all-new, much trippier Disney worlds, so that they may become keyblade masters in time for the final battle with current antagonist, Xehanort.
As you can expect, Square Enix and Disney both have been largely mum about the game's plot beyond this, but that's generally how it goes. We have seen glimpses of a few all-new worlds though (the most prevalent of which being inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pinocchio, and even Tron: Legacy!), and Square Enix is branching out beyond the Final Fantasy series with their latest crossover effort in the game, this time incorporating characters from sleeper hit DS RPG, The World Ends With You (and seriously, if you own a DS or 3DS, grab a copy of that RIGHT NOW if you haven't already, because it's incredible!).
Aside from having all-new ways to navigate each world, Kingdom Hearts 3D is introducing YET ANOTHER new branch of enemies to go along with the familiar Heartless, in the form of Dream Eaters, which are a side effect of worlds that have grown dormant and separated by other worlds after they were rescued from the Heartless in the previous games. Apparently, you're even able to train these foes and use them in combat, which is good, since I'm not sure if Donald and Goofy are accompanying our heroes this time around.
Even though it's a handheld game, Kingdom Hearts 3D looks like it has all of the scale and myriad features of one of the series' console entries, and it may even surpass the immense quality of the excellent Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep on the PSP if it lives up to the hype! In any case, as a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, you can imagine that this game would appear somewhere on my Top Ten of 2012, but I don't take it lightly when I say that this could very well be the best Kingdom Hearts game yet, on top of giving me yet another highly welcome 3DS-exclusive to keep sinking time into!

#4 - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action
Release Date: TBA 2012

WHY: As much as I'm looking forward to it, and would also like to give it an honourable mention, Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater, which is going to be released on the 3DS in March apparently, didn't crack my Top Ten of 2012. This is largely because it's a remake of a game that I've already played to death on the PS2, though don't get me wrong, I'm still excited for it. One Metal Gear game however DID make my list, and it's one I've been waiting with bated breath for since its announcement at E3 2009!
Initially announced as 'Metal Gear Solid: Rising', that game was actually quietly cancelled after development failed to get off the ground. Still, Metal Gear creator, Hideo Kojima is not a quitter, and he was determined to get the game finished! Outsourcing development to bold Japanese developer, Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Vanquish, and the upcoming Anarchy Reigns), work began anew on the Metal Gear spin-off starring fan-hated Snake wannabe-turned-badass cyborg ninja, Raiden. The story was moved to take place after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on the PS3 (it was originally planned to take place BEFORE MGS4), the final chapter in regular protaganist, Solid Snake's storyline, and has dropped the 'Solid' in the title to distance itself from Snake's various adventures. This is because, rather than being a stealth-focused game, Metal Gear Rising is now an intense hack-and-slash title!
Platinum Games is known for doing really manic, violent stuff, and I think that they are truly the perfect talent to be working on a game like this. As fantastic as Platinum Games is though (seriously, pretty much every game they've ever developed has been met with large acclaim from critics and community alike!), for some reason, their titles don't really seem to sell. Work on a Metal Gear title, a series that consistently sells through the nose, is sure to be a big break for the developer, getting them a lot more recognition, and hopefully many more opportunities to work on big blockbusters like this.
Even if this wasn't a Metal Gear game though, Metal Gear Rising just looks to be one of the most promising action games of the year to me, period. It looks very fast-paced, stylish, and like it's going to give me a whole new way to enjoy the Metal Gear franchise. I may be trading in my cardboard box for a ninja sword, but that doesn't mean I'm not eagerly on the edge of my seat, waiting for publisher, Konami to FINALLY drop a release date (it's only confirmed for 2012), so I know when I can pick up this bad boy!

#3 - Kid Icarus: Uprising

Platform(s): 3DS
Genre: Action
Release Date: March 23rd

WHY: I'm already getting the impression that I'm going to be spending LOADS of time on my 3DS in 2012, since that seems to be the system that's had the most quality exclusives announced for it so far. In fact, in a way, I'd love to be one of those Nintendo-bashing idiots that kept doomsaying the system last year after its somewhat slow start, because as we ALL know, the Xbox 360, PSP and PS3 both had flawless launches with absolutely no widespread defects, and a massive library of games out of the gate. Morons. Anyway, 2012 is really going to be the year that the 3DS truly comes into its own, and this also happens to be the year that we'll finally be getting the system's first announced game, flagship title, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and I couldn't possibly be more hyped for it!
For those who aren't longtime Nintendo devotees, Kid Icarus was a series that produced a cult classic first entry on the NES, a sibling title to the original Metroid game that released on the system around the same time, along with a more obscure Game Boy sequel, before it completely faded from existence. The series' following kept pressing Nintendo as to when they'd make a new Kid Icarus game, but entire decades passed with absolutely no activity for the series. Hope was kindled anew however when 2008 came along, and Kid Icarus protaganist, Pit was included in the all-star Nintendo crossover game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. With speculation about a new Wii game growing rampant, Nintendo instead threw a curveball by announcing that a new Kid Icarus game was indeed in development during E3 2010, but it would be coming to the handheld that they'd just announced moments earlier instead; None other than the 3DS! Whereas the original games were upscrolling platform games as well, this new game would be a blend of flight and ground-based action.
Kid Icarus: Uprising pretty much looks like one of the most ambitious 3DS games that's yet been announced. The action looks incredibly intense, the way that the 3D effect is used looks nothing short of stunning, and the system even seems to be making use of the 3DS's ability to use augmented reality cards! There's even online multiplayer! Wow, Nintendo is really serious about bringing this series back in style, and as one of many who has long awaited the return of Kid Icarus, it looks like the Big N has yet again taken fan expectation and done us one better. I've got a lot to enjoy on my 3DS in 2012, but it looks like I may just enjoy Kid Icarus: Uprising most of all!

#2 - Halo 4

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date: Fall 2012

WHY: I was quite sad to see Bungie depart the Halo series after Halo: Reach arrived on the Xbox 360 in September of 2010, a game that went on to become my second runner-up for Game of the Year that year for being as amazing as it was, but on the bright side, this has opened the way for a promising new in-house Microsoft developer, 343 Industries, to take the reins of the franchise. Though 343 has already delivered an impressive remake of the very first Halo game from 2001 (a game that I will be playing through and reviewing very soon), their work will truly begin when they kick off the start of a new Halo trilogy towards the end of this year, starting with Halo 4.
Halo 4 was a surprise announcement at the tail end of Microsoft's E3 2011 Conference, and it's been confirmed for a release exclusively on the Xbox 360, despite increasingly rampant rumours that the system's successor is right around the corner, even though Microsoft hasn't formally announced what many people unofficially dub, 'Xbox 720'. As with last year, the Xbox 360 is kind of light on high-end retail exclusives that have been made known to the public, lending credence to the fact that Microsoft will likely debut a new system soon, but at least I can look forward to still having something to play on my Xbox 360 towards the end of this year, beyond my traditional Call of Duty purchase anyway. Regardless, I really love the Halo series, and I'm thrilled to see that it's soldiering on with an all-new trilogy that once again starts Master Chief, with a new look and everything!
Much is unknown about what form Halo 4 will take, though Microsoft has already confirmed the game's release window and platform, and has promised a whole new story arc against a new threat post-Flood. Might the Covenant return? I guess we'll have to wait and see. I don't have much definitive information on Halo 4, but really, I don't need any. It's the start of a new Halo trilogy, and it will be the chance for 343 Industries to really show off what they can do! This is THE Xbox 360 release to anticipate in 2012, and to me, I'm only looking forward to one game more!

#1 - Mass Effect 3

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date: March 6th

WHY: Mass Effect 3 was one of the two victims of delays that saw one of my most anticipated video games of 2011 slip into next year, along with The Last Guardian on the PS3. The Last Guardian is running into development issues, and its release seems to be up in the air for now (especially with Gamestop terminating preorders, forcing Sony to assure fans that the game isn't axed at this point), but thankfully, BioWare has finally sorted out the release of Mass Effect 3, taking the time to implement a brand new co-op mode, impressive Kinect support in the Xbox 360 edition, and a reworked storyline after the original story was leaked online following a closed beta. Yeah, I don't know what idiot thought that was a good idea, because it's forced us to wait several more months for the final product while BioWare rewrites the plot, citing this as the largest reason for the game's delay. Thanks, dipshit.
On the bright side, this has allowed Mass Effect 3 to rocket to the very top of my most anticipated games of 2012... Yes, I'm aware of the fact that I STILL haven't played through Mass Effect 2, which, embarrassingly enough, was my second-most anticipated game of 2010, only behind Final Fantasy XIII... Which I also haven't yet started... and which has a sequel arriving at the end of January. I really need to step up my gaming. In any case, back on topic, Mass Effect 3 is the conclusion to BioWare's revolutionary sci-fi RPG trilogy, bringing all of your decisions from throughout your carryover saves to a head as the final battle is fought against The Reapers for the fate of the galaxy.
While the game is sure to be fantastic on any of its three platforms, the Xbox 360 edition especially stands apart, due to the impressive Kinect support that's been implemented to help compensate for the game's delay. You can now issue commands to your squadmates by using your voice, and speak dialogue prompts instead of just selecting them on the screen. It may sound dorky, but I'm really excited to act out Commander Shepard's voice as I make pressing decisions during the dialogue scenes. Any and all footage I've seen for Mass Effect 3's gameplay has also been incredible. It seems like a truly action-packed finale to the trilogy that is sure to bring the story to a very satisfying conclusion! I'm obviously not going to read the leaked plot information, so even if elements of that were left in, I can still enjoy the game as it was meant to be enjoyed; Not knowing what fate the climax has in store for the Mass Effect universe.
Also, yes, I promise that I will have played through Mass Effect 2 by the time the third game comes out. I would have done it sooner if my previous Xbox 360 hadn't broke and become junked, killing my save file from the first game, which I haven't yet found time to replay. Now that I've replaced that with an awesome new Xbox 360 Slim though, I can get back to one of my favourite sci-fi RPG properties of all time. Its long-awaited conclusion easily stands as my most anticipated video game of 2012!

Several games narrowly missed a spot in my Top Ten of 2012, and while I already gave honourable mentions to Luigi's Mansion 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater, I'd like to also extend them to several other games that just barely slipped off of the list, including BioShock Infinite (PC, Xbox 360, PS3), Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Xbox 360, PS3), Gravity Rush (Vita), Tales of Graces f (PS3), Ninja Gaiden III (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U), and Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS). It's going to be another busy year for gamers, especially since there's probably a boatload of games that haven't even been announced yet! Did I miss any that you're looking forward to? Do you agree with my picks? Are you as excited about Vita and Wii U as I am? Feel free to leave your comments below, and tell me all about what you're looking forward to most as a gamer in 2012! Here's to another great year of gaming!

Brent's Most Anticipated Movies of 2012!

2012-01-01T11:16:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!

Happy New Year! Happy 2012! Things are going to be done a bit out of order regarding my traditional countdown of my top ten most anticipated movies and video games of the year. Normally, I post the awards first, and do the lists afterward. Since time has gotten more and more short in recent years though, I ended up having to do the most anticipated lists towards the end of January in 2011, and that seemed sort of excessively delayed. So, I'm going to post the most anticipated lists first, and the awards after.

In any case, I'd like to remind everyone that in the case of this list, my most anticipated movies of the coming year, that this is MY PERSONAL OPINION. Don't go telling me I'm wrong, or I missed a certain movie, or a certain movie should be higher or lower or whatever. This is just what I'm personally looking forward to the most, since, as a movie and game reviewer, it's often a point of interest for many people.

2011 was the year of the franchise film, with sequels, 3D and other studio-friendly decisions dominating most of the year. 2012 however, seems to be taking a few more risks, with less proven cinematic properties and less prevalent follow-ups. The follow-ups that ARE coming however certainly look quite impressive. Without further ado, let's get to which movies have grabbed my attention the most, and which have me the most excited!

#10 - John Carter <3D>

Genre: Sci-Fi Action-Adventure
Distributor: Disney
Release Date: March 9th

WHY: The very first teaser that I saw for John Carter, I have to admit, didn't really grab my attention. I also had trouble wrapping my head around the premise, which felt sort of dated, since it's from a series of action-adventure stories that began in the 1910's, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the guy who also happened to create Tarzan. It's about a confederate soldier, who gets transported to Mars, which is called 'Barsoom' by the populace apparently, a fictional representation of the planet that now has oxygen and hospitable weather conditions by the look of things... somehow, and ends up fighting a war with the planet's nations as this messianic figure. Sounds a little cheesy and surreal, doesn't it?
Thankfully, the second trailer was a lot better, and it finally sold me on this movie. The sense of atmosphere on Barsoom is actually pretty incredible, and while I haven't yet seen the trailer in 3D unfortunately, the visuals in the movie are truly stunning. To make matters even better, the film is helmed by Andrew Stanton, a Pixar director who brought us Finding Nemo and WALL-E, having written and directed John Carter to follow them. Considering that those are two of the most emotionally charged animated movies ever made, I'm confident that he can bring the same level of charm and dramatic appeal to this movie as well. This marks the second Pixar director branching out into live-action, after Brad Bird recently turned so many heads with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and I have to say that I'm pretty excited to see such an engrossing movie like John Carter in IMAX 3D when it arrives in March! I still have a bit of apprehension about John Carter I'll admit, which is why it just barely cracked my Top Ten for 2012, but I'm still significantly excited about this one, even if it's mainly because I just want to get lost in the incredible atmosphere of Barsoom. I'll keep an open mind about the plot in the meantime.

#9 - Snow White and the Huntsman

Genre: Fantasy Action-Adventure
Distributor: Universal
Release Date: June 1st

WHY: I've stood by the belief that the stereotype about Hollywood running out of ideas is not true. It's not that Hollywood has no new ideas, it's actually loaded with them, as the annual Black List of favourite unproduced scripts routinely proves (last year, that Black List delivered us Hanna and Crazy, Stupid, Love, two of the year's best movies). The problem is that studios just don't greenlight them, and in a way, that's moviegoers' fault, because they pay much more to see a sequel or franchise film than they ever would an original idea in most cases. In 2012 however, this has reached a new low. How? Due to the fact that we have TWO Snow White movies coming out within less than three months of each other. I will give you a moment to facepalm.
The first, Mirror Mirror, which is a comedic Snow White story, looks... not so good. I'll probably end up seeing it anyway, but I doubt I'll be terribly impressed with it. It looks stupid, quite frankly. After witnessing that trailer, I didn't even bother loading up the preview for Snow White and the Huntsman right away. I was confident that I would be similarly let down, even with the talents of Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron as the huntsman and evil queen respectively involved. I mean, a fairy tale-inspired movie starring Kristen Stewart? Really? Kristen Stewart is seriously what Hollywood considers fairest of them all??
One night though, I swallowed my pride and took a look at the debuting teaser for Snow White and the Huntsman... and my jaw hit the floor. A dark, badass, and vaguely sexy spectacle of violence, murder and anarchy, Snow White and the Huntsman actually looks... great. The visuals are stirring and twisted, Theron's performance as the queen is excellent, and there seems to be plenty of large-scale battle sequences and dark sorcery on display. A dark, blockbuster fairy tale for the modern age? It sure looks that way!
Like John Carter, I was initially skeptical of Snow White and the Huntsman, but the teaser really won me over, so much so that this movie has quickly climbed into my Top Ten of 2012. It goes to show you just what a great trailer can do for a seemingly flimsy concept! I never thought that I would get this excited for a movie about Snow White of all things, but I'm convinced that this could very well be one of the most gloriously violent and memorable Summer blockbusters of the year! There's still room for disappointment, which, again, is why this movie didn't place higher, but if Snow White and the Huntsman lives up to the teaser, June's really going to kick off on a high note this year!

#8 - The Expendables 2

Genre: Action
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: August 17th

WHY: 2010's The Expendables was a truly amazing action movie. A throwback to the gloriously excessive and high-powered action movies of the 80's and 90's, The Expendables finally did away with the excessive grit and realism dragging down many more modern action films, finally reminding the genre of what it does best. Action movies are supposed to be fun, and The Expendables recaptured that sense of fun that's been lacking in action movies that aren't genre-friendly blockbusters with fantasy, sci-fi and/or superhero subgenres in them lately. For this reason alone, I'm quite excited about The Expendables 2!
The roster from the original movie is back, with extended roles for Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger to boot. Arnold even brandishes his own machine gun towards the end of the debut teaser, and I was very happy to see proof positive that he'll be joining the action to some degree this time around, after virtually merely having a walk-on cameo in the first movie. Much of the plot is being kept secret, but we do know that Willis's Mr. Church is forcing Barney Ross's team on a new mission, and when one of the Expendables doesn't make it, the fight becomes personal. The teaser is light on details and heavy on promises for more balls-to-the-wall action. That's all I need to hear, especially with new additions, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, and Chuck Norris joining the ensemble. Yes, Chuck Norris is in this movie. Let the onslaught of memes begin!
The Expendables was a movie I loved as sort of a guilty pleasure, but it was an excellently-made guilty pleasure for action movie fans like me, and the sequel shows plenty of promise in living up to it. The nixing of Rambo 5 still stings, but I doubt I'll mind when I get to enjoy this kick-ass movie instead!

#7 - Wreck-It Ralph <3D>

Genre: Animation
Distributor: Disney
Release Date: November 2nd

WHY: If you're not a movie nerd like me, chances are, you're not yet aware of Wreck-It Ralph. If you're any kind of nerd though, you probably should be. Why? Because Wreck-It Ralph is about video games! Specifically, it's a Disney movie about a vintage arcade game villain called Wreck-It Ralph, growing tired of his repetitious role of continually being beaten by his nemesis, the game's player character, Fix-It Felix Jr., so he goes on a journey to prove he can be a good guy, meeting other zany video game characters along the way.
Wreck-It Ralph is a different direction for Disney's in-house animation studio, that's for sure, and it's another attempt to appeal to the gaming crowd after going to so much effort to revive Tron lately. Unlike Tron however, Wreck-It Ralph seems like it's played to be cutesy, and a charming throwback to the golden age of gaming, rather than the cutting edge of today's technology. In any case, since I love video games and movies, and they're coming together in an original new storyline, I'm pretty pumped for Wreck-It Ralph!
It's too early for trailers to start showing up, so I haven't seen any footage, but I have seen some of the promo art, and the movie looks pretty sharp from that perspective. The premise alone is enough to get me pretty excited about this movie though. Hopefully it will be good enough to start proving to all of those crybabies out there that video games and movies CAN co-exist!

#6) Prometheus

Genre: Sci-Fi Action-Adventure
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 8th

WHY: Acclaimed Alien director, Ridley Scott is returning to sci-fi! His first sci-fi movie in many years is Prometheus, which was originally envisioned as a prequel to the Alien films, before it was redesigned as its own independent universe and story. As with several other movies making my Top Ten of 2012, the plot is mainly being kept under wraps, but we do know that it's about the crew of a starship traveling to an advanced alien planet to seek the answers to the origin of humanity.
The intentionally vague teaser showed what looks to be a pretty epic movie shaping up here. None of it makes any sense, but it all looks incredible. Ridley Scott is going big or going home, and with so much promising up-and-coming talent like Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender in the film, along with already big stars like Charlize Theron in the cast, you know that Prometheus is bound to be a very impressive piece! I'm not normally a sci-fi nut, at least, not a huge one, but Prometheus got my attention in a big way, and even if there's unfortunately little I can say about it at this point.
The movie being so unfortunately shrouded in secrecy is why I didn't place this movie higher, on top of the fact that I've actually never seen any of the Alien films (I know, that's awful of me). That said though, I'm sure many can agree that this is shaping up to be one of 2012's highlight blockbusters in the making!

#5 - Brave <3D>

Genre: Animation
Distributor: Disney/Pixar
Release Date: June 22nd

WHY: Pixar sort of took a break from being the most thoroughly magical animation studio on the planet last year, since their sole project was Cars 2, a sequel no doubt mandated by Disney to make big money so that their future projects can be financed. Cars 2 was still a decently entertaining movie if you don't expect Pixar's usual work, but it was expectedly beneath the studio's other films. Thankfully, Pixar is back with a big, new original project in 2012, and that project is Brave.
Brave is the first Pixar movie to feature a female protaganist, but that's not the only reason why I'm very excited for it. The movie is a return to the somewhat darker, deeper stories that the studio has done in recent years, such as Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and even Toy Story 3. Unlike those movies however, which marketed themselves as being kid-friendly despite their heavy adult themes, Brave seems to be cannonballing into the adult audience rather proudly. There's very little in the initial previews that suggests in any way that Brave is trying to appeal to kids. It feels like a story that's very unapologetically adult. This may irk parents, who will no doubt complain about Brave scaring their children because they don't know any better, but it has me excited, because it feels like Pixar is not limiting themsleves to a family audience this time around. They're really stretching and seeing just how far they can go.
Brave looks like it's shaping up to be a mighty impressive film too! The humour is funny, the adventure looks exciting, and I think that the protaganist, Princess Merida, trying to pursue a "manly" profession in a world where women are to undertake merely "elegant pursuits", immediately comes off as very likeable and charming. Again, I haven't seen the trailer in 3D yet, and I hope that Pixar continues to raise the 3D bar, after not really doing much with it in Up and Toy Story 3 (though they did a bit better with the 3D in Cars 2), but regardless of how the 3D turns out, I'm sure that the movie itself will be breathtaking!

#4 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey <3D>

Genre: Fantasy Action-Adventure
Distributor: Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, MGM
Release Date: December 14th

WHY: Does this one really need an explanation? It's The Hobbit! Not only is it The Hobbit, but it's a version of The Hobbit that's being done in two parts, and being more concretely incorporated into the Lord of the Rings arc. Peter Jackson is returning to the helm, the familiar actors are reprising their roles, and Martin Freeman looks to be playing an excellent, younger Bilbo Baggins. The movie already debuted a teaser, and it looks like it's shaping up incredibly. Now this is one two-parter that I can get behind!
I'm a little worried about Hollywood starting to abuse the two-part trend, after Harry Potter pioneered it, and Twilight unfortunately (and redundantly) lept on that bandwagon. Thankfully, The Hobbit is another story that may justify it, especially since an increased effort is being made to tie it into the three Lord of the Rings films, compared to the original novels, where The Hobbit mainly stood alone as a kids' story, while Lord of the Rings was independently geared more for adults. The movie still looks a bit brighter than the rather grungy Lord of the Rings movies, but I'm sure that The Hobbit will be just as impressive all the same.
I'm not sure exactly how the two movies will be split, since it was originally suggested that the first movie would be an adaptation of the book, while the second would be an original new prequel that bridges The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but now it seems that The Hobbit is just being done in two parts, with the bridging idea being peppered all throughout the story. It's also apparently being done in 3D, though I haven't seen the trailer in 3D yet, so I can't comment on how well this may be turning out. Like Brave though, even if the 3D is lacking, I'm sure that the rest of the movie will be amazing all the same! You really can't go wrong with this cast and crew!

#3 - The Amazing Spider-Man <3D>

Genre: Superhero Action
Distributor: Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Marvel
Release Date: July 3rd

WHY: When I heard that Spider-Man 4 was scrapped, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire were booted, and that the Spider-Man films would be rebooted with a new director and a new actor portraying the web-slinger, I was initially kind of livid. I thought it was basically a cop-out response by Sony and Marvel after the negative fan feedback from Spider-Man 3, and the inexplicable distrust in Raimi's direction with the fourth movie, which would have had John Malkovich portraying The Vulture as its villain, with Anne Hathaway rumoured to be playing Black Cat before, rather ironically, being cast as Catwoman in the new Batman movie. Ahhh, what might have been...
Despite the fact that I was initially pretty pissed about the Spidey reboot, I've warmed up to it since watching the teaser that screened before Captain America: The First Avenger back last Summer, and keeping up with the production. The movie aims to go back to Peter's high school years (despite the fact that new Spidey actor, Andrew Garfield is 27. Weird.), telling a more dark, humanized take on the character compared to Sam Raimi's bright and vivid, 1960's-inspired Spidey trilogy. Mary-Jane is nowhere in sight, and even Uncle Ben seems to be alive and kicking for the most part. We're REALLY going back to basics here, aren't we?
The Lizard is apparently our bad guy, but beyond that confirmation, and both the character's and love interest, Gwen Stacy's association with Oscorp (if you're not a Marvel geek, that's the corporation that Norman Osborn, a.k.a. the Green Goblin, runs), most of The Amazing Spider-Man's plot is, of course, being kept secret. A sequel has already been given a release date in 2014, so it's pretty safe to say that Sony and Marvel are very confident in this movie. After keeping a close eye on the production, I guess they have good reason to be. I hate to admit it, but I'm getting pretty excited for this killer new take on Spidey!
Spider-Man is one of my favourite superheroes of all, probably second only to Batman, and the reason why Amazing Spider-Man fell short of my #1, where you'd expect it to go (at least, in any other year. You'll see in a moment), is that this rebooted direction may not turn out as well as I, and other Marvel fans may hope. Some of the marketing seeming to go for enticing the Twilight crowd is legitimate cause for concern. Hollywood, I'm warning you now, if you get Twilight in my Spidey, heads will roll. That being said, I'm hoping for the best and slowly getting used to the idea of Spider-Man getting rebooted. The 3D presentation may be pretty awesome too when I think about it! I am nothing if not optimstic, right? As much as I love Spidey though, I love a couple of other properties even more, and they too will be having some big entries this year...

#2 - Skyfall

Genre: Action
Distributor: Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, MGM
Release Date: November 9th

WHY: It's been too long. Far too long. Finally though, I have a new James Bond movie to look forward to, and it won't be hampered by the WGA Strike like Quantum of Solace unfortunately was back in 2008. 007 is back, and Daniel Craig will be continuing to raise the bar in the role! In fact, it looks like 007 is going to be traveling a bit closer to his roots in this new film, since a new, younger Q, the gadget man, is apparently joining the cast, with rumours of Miss Moneypenny still circulating. What's really intriguing however is that M, Bond's superior, is going to be getting increased billing, since the storyline factors heavily into her past.
Skyfall is yet ANOTHER movie that has most of its plot being kept under wraps by the studio, but we do know that 007 is going to get pulled into some sort of trouble that's related to M, and that premise has me very excited, because I've always loved M, and always wanted to know more about what got her to the position that she now holds at MI6. All that aside though, I'm just thrilled to have a new Bond movie on the way, especially since the new, gritty direction of Daniel Craig's 007 is actually one of those small handful of dark, realistic action movie stylings that has been pretty successful in my eyes.
I had Daniel Craig and Judi Dench tiding my 007 fix over last year, when I played through the very impressive and cinematic Goldeneye remake on my Wii, but that being said, you just can't beat the real big screen 007 experience. Since I've been head-over-heels in love with the James Bond franchise since I was a little boy, I'm beside myself with glee over the coming of Skyfall, which stopped just short of #1 due to what is admittedly unfair competition...

#1 - The Avengers <3D>/The Dark Knight Rises

Genre: Superhero Action/Superhero Action
Distributor: Disney, Marvel Studios/Warner Bros., DC Entertainment
Release Date: May 4th/July 20th

WHY: Ok, ok, I know, I'm cheating. Two movies tied for first, and normally, I'm pretty rigid about only doing TEN films on these lists. Really though, this is an impossible decision. I just can't decide which of these two I'm more stoked for. The first is the long-awaited team-up movie that's been set up since 2008 for Marvel's cinematic universe, and the second is the also long-awaited finale to Christopher Nolan's highly acclaimed trilogy of Batman films that has, once again, been talked about since, again, 2008, when its predecessor, The Dark Knight dominated the big screen. I've been looking forward to both of these movies for a painstaking four years, and really, let's see you decide which one is a bigger deal, especially if you're a superhero movie fan like me. It can't be done! They're both equally deserving of the #1 spot! In any case though, let's break it down.

WHY (THE AVENGERS): Marvel Studios has delivered five movies over the past three years, which have ranged from great (Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk) to awesome (Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor), to outstanding (Iron Man). It all comes down to this though. For Marvel lovers like me, this is the movie that will finally make good on all of that teasing, and all of that setup from these past five movies. Finally, some of Marvel's greatest superheroes will be united on the big screen in the same movie, fighting the same villain, and working as a team. This is the movie that us Marvel fans have been waiting for! Sorry, Spidey, but it's true!
Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Hulk are joining under Nick Fury's command, along with fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Black Widow and Hawkeye, to take on Thor's rogue brother, Loki, as he begins his campaign to dominate the planet. That's all I know, and that's all I need to know. Not only is this an ingenious throwback to the origins of The Avengers on the comic panels in the 1960's, where they were also formed to battle Loki, but it finally allows these great actors to play off of each other in a true, unprecedented superhero ensemble film. Superhero ensemble films may have been done already, most notably with the X-Men movies, but these guys normally work alone, unlike the X-Men. Thus, seeing them forced together against a common enemy is real cause for excitement if you dig Marvel heroes like I do.
The Avengers has already debuted a couple of teasers, one after the credits in Captain America: The First Avenger, and another proper theatrical teaser since then. Both look extraordinarily impressive, and both effectively show off the scale of the movie. This is going to be the biggest superhero movie yet in terms of spectacle and scale, and I couldn't be more excited to see the fruits of Marvel's labour finally come together in a grand showdown of awesomeness! I'd like some better 3D this time around than what I got in Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, but, once again, even if the 3D isn't great, I'm sure I'll love this movie. Superhero blockbusters just don't get any bigger than this, which is why The Avengers is easily one of my two most anticipated movies of 2012!

WHY (THE DARK KNIGHT RISES): As I said, if I love any superhero above and beyond the rest, lately, it's been Batman. You just can't beat Batman. In fact, Batman has enjoyed a massive amount of success lately, most notably thanks to the new Batman: Arkham video games, which were good enough to get Game of the Year nods (no small feat for superhero games, a subgenre which is mostly full of crappy shovelware), and of course, Christopher Nolan's excellent rebooted Batman trilogy, which is so amazing that it actually did the impossible, and successfully banished the horrible memories of 1997's Batman & Robin from us Batfans' heads, the movie that pretty much killed the former Batman film franchise. It's bittersweet to see this trilogy come to an end, but it looks to be a great end indeed.
The Dark Knight Rises is picking up a surprising EIGHT years after the conclusion of The Dark Knight, and Gotham City seems to have changed quite a bit. As expected, most of the storyline is a closely-guarded secret by Nolan, WB and DC brass, but what we can establish is that Batman doesn't seem to be around anymore, and Gotham is about to face a new threat thanks to Bane. Bane is an immensely powerful, beastly psychological terrorist who represents the ultimate physical challenge for Bats, on top of possessing a devious and highly intelligent criminal mind that's more than enough to bring Gotham City to its knees. Complicating things further no doubt is the introduction of Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, a new vigilante with unknown motives.
The Avengers will likely be one of 2012's biggest movies for its visual spectacle, but The Dark Knight Rises has it beat in terms of its psychological and philosophical ramifications. That doesn't mean that we won't be enjoying plenty of kick-ass action scenes as well, but where Nolan has always excelled is the new depth he brings to a character that we thought we knew, and a world we thought we understood. It remains to be seen how Bane and Catwoman figure into Nolan's grand vision, but you can colour me very excited!
Again, I'm sort of sad to have to deal with this trilogy coming to a close this year, but it will always have a special place in my heart for righting the numerous wrongs that had plagued the Batman franchise between the mid-90's and mid-2000's, across all entertainment mediums. Christian Bale may be hanging up his cowl, but it looks like he'll be doing it in style, and as amazing as it sounds, this movie may meet, or even surpass the legendary standard of The Dark Knight back in 2008! All this considered, it's no wonder why I had to allow this movie to share the spot with The Avengers for my most anticipated movie of 2012!

Which movies are you most looking forward to in 2012? Can you do what I couldn't and decide whether you're more excited for The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises? Do you have a different list of movies altogether? Have I lost all credibility as a movie geek for not including The Hunger Games, which just barely got bumped out of my top ten? Are you as excited as I am to see the Twilight series FINALLY bite the dust this year?! In any case, let's talk about the movies you're most looking forward to for 2012, and how you feel about the movie industry going into this year! Leave me your comments and tell me all about what's gotten your attention the most! Once again, Happy New Year, and please anticipate my Top Ten Most Anticipated Video Games of 2012 being posted soon!

"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" Movie Review

2011-12-20T12:50:00.001-08:00

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry, Rachel McAdams, Kelly Reilly

Rating: PG-13 (U.S.) PG (Canada)

Warnings: Intense Sequences of Violence and Action, and Some Drug Material

Length: 129 Minutes

Studio(s): Warner Bros., Village Roadshow, Silver Pictures

Points of Interest: Inspired by novel series, "Sherlock Holmes"

WHAT I LOVED:

- The storyline is brilliant, and the character writing for Holmes and Moriarty's conflict is outstanding!

- In terms of action, scale and surprises, the sequel once again exceeds expectations, actually ending up superior to the original movie in several respects!

- Stephen Fry is a scene-stealer as the brilliant and hysterical older brother to Sherlock, Mycroft Holmes.

- Jared Harris is pitch-perfect as Holmes archnemesis, Professor Moriarty, capturing all of the outward class layered around the sinister motives stemming from a core of murderous rage and sociopathy.

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH...:

- Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler is pushed to a mere cameo, and new female lead, Madame Simza feels like a waste of Noomi Rapace's talents, since she isn't given much to do.

- Moriarty's actions and theft of the radio device at the end of the first film are all completely forgotten in the sequel, which is a surprisingly sloppy error in the canon on the part of the writers.

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

Even after a continued high of excitement since I exited my home city's new IMAX theatre after enjoying the superb fourth Mission: Impossible movie, I was still even more excited to reunite with my family for another holiday movie excursion, this time, to see the sequel to a movie we all immensely enjoyed in 2009, Guy Ritchie's original new take on Sherlock Holmes. If you haven't been following my movie critiques since 2009, allow me to reiterate my opinion of that movie. I've never read a single Sherlock Holmes story in my life, only having a passing familiarity with the character from the acclaim of his mysteries originally written by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but that was perfect, because it allowed me to take the first new SH movie on its own merits, and it was AWESOME! It was really different from the elements of the characters and stories from the original Doyle writings that I did research on, having a focus on stylish action over intrigue and mystery, but it was easily the biggest surprise hit of the 2009 holiday season, producing a novel, fun and really exciting action blockbuster that definitely deserved sequels, and wasn't shy about setting up for them. Now, almost two years to the date, the second SH movie has finally come to the big screen, fully titled, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, marking the last movie that I hadn't yet seen on my list of my most anticipated movies of 2011 from last January (it placed #5 if you don't recall). Most of my immediate family came along to see the film, and upon exiting, we all had varying opinions of it. Some of us thought it fell short of the original, and some of us thought that it exceeded the quality of the original. While my father, my brother and my brother's girlfriend fell into the former camp, my mother and I fell into the latter. Yes, against all expectation, I thought that SH2 turned out to be the rare kind of movie sequel that actually surpasses the original, but that being said, I think your opinion on this second movie will depend on what you're prioritizing with it. It's true that the increased scale means a storyline that feels less tight and focused, and more intricate and potentially difficult to follow. If you can keep up with the storyline, you'll easily appreciate how incredibly written it is, but if you have trouble following fast-paced plot and dialogue that doesn't constantly interrupt the proceedings to explain itself (a fault of many American-made movies nowadays, in my opinion, interrupting the momentum to appease a lazy, quick-fix audience that isn't willing to put thought into anything), you may find the sequel's storyline to be a bit disjointed and frustrating. The action is definitely improved in terms of intensity and choreography, though the novelty of Guy Ritchie's stirring new action stylings in these films has now worn off, so while the action is definitely manic, destructive and unpredictable, it probably won't wow you in the same way that the original's action sequences did, which may disappoint those expecting the same sense of discovery in the sequel, which follows the stylistic template of the original very closely. Where SH2 shines best however, in a way that most any viewer can appreciate, is the incredible conflict between Holmes and his archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty, which serves as the film's backbone, and, as the title suggests, bears what is almost a twisted, shadowy game of wits between the two, a cat-and-mouse mystery with Europe hanging in the balance, as it were. So, one must approach SH2 with a certain sense of priorities. As with any inspired sequel, direction must be taken, and sacrifices must sometimes be made in the name of the best product possible. So, while SH2 may not feel as taut and novel as the original, I still feel that it's a rare superior sequel, since the scale is larger, the mystery is much more intricate and surprising, the style is given more flexibility in the more ambitious action scenes, and best of all, the villain is a much deadlier and more unpredictable threat, one that truly feels like he could very well best the legendary intellect of even Holmes himself, creating a greater atmosphere of suspense. If you're willing to accept that director, Guy Ritchie isn't fixing what's not broken (a wise decision, in my opinion), and sacrificing some of the original's focused direction for a successful gamble on a larger, more awe-inspiring film, then you should likely agree that Holmes and Watson's second 21st Century Hollywood mystery is even more riveting and impressive than the first!

Characters: (10/10) - While the sequel is stuffed full of fun, interesting characters, several of which are carried over from the first movie, the two characters at their most enthralling and enjoyable are Holmes and Moriarty, both given a flawless and multi-layered rivalry worthy of the scale of these two characters. As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to incorporate a character's archenemy into a movie, you'd better really nail that incredible character scale, lest you ruin the momentum and acclaim of the entire franchise. Archenemies are archenemies for a reason, and Moriarty is Holmes' greatest and most dangerous enemy for several reasons that are all beautifully captured in the sequel. Of course, the true danger and sociopathic genius behind Moriarty is not revealed up front, but in pieces, and before I get into that, let's dicuss the other pivotal characters that comprise the film, shall we? Watson is back as Holmes' partner in crime-solving, Dr. John Watson, and despite being now happily married to his new wife, Mary, he hasn't lost a beat since the first movie. Still apathetically dismissing Holmes' eccentricity and still wielding a surprising amount of combat aptitude, Watson is yet again as enjoyable a secondary character as ever, feeling like a true partner to Holmes and not just an inconsequential sidekick. Seeing these two meet again and pick up exactly where they left off, bickering and sarcastically dismissing the mannerisms of the other man when they're not showing surprising moments of respect and admiration for one another, just like an old married couple. These two had some of the best cinematic chemistry among any mainstream movie characters of 2009, and in 2011, they're still a hoot to watch together on the big screen, having lost none of their appealing chemistry with one another. Holmes' new wife is given slightly more screentime in the sequel as well, even though she spends most of the movie not on her intended honeymoon (the timespan of which quickly becomes Watson yet again being forcibly teamed up with Holmes to stop Moriarty), but instead in the care of Holmes' rich, equally intelligent, and yet hilariously lazy older brother, Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft is easily the best addition out of the sequel's new characters, since his coasting on his intelligence and comfortable lifestyle never stops being a frequent source of hilarity when it's placed in contrast to the horrible hardship that Mycroft's brother and his loyal companion are experiencing on their quest to bring down their greatest foe. There's even a hilariously gratuitous nude scene that really hammers home just how little Mycroft does for himself when his geriatric butler isn't at his service, and I encourage you to look forward to it. Even if he basically amounts to a sidelined comic relief character, Mycroft is brilliantly implemented, especially with Stephen Fry's exceptional performance making him all the more entertaining (more on that in the next paragraph). This nicely compensates for some of the disappointing character downscaling in the sequel, even if it's necessary to prevent the movie from becoming too scattered. Characters like Irene Adler and Inspector Lestrade return from the first movie, but they're barely given more than cameos, having no real bearing on the plot, and that's a shame. Even the new female lead, Madame Simza, a fortune teller targeted by Moriarty's crew of criminals, feels like she isn't given a whole lot to work with. She's handy with a knife, and a charismatic gypsy who has a way with words, but she's constantly overshadowed by the movie's other characters, especially in the action scenes, and that's a real bummer. Thankfully, the characters still lose no points with me, simply because none of the character writing quibbles matter when you stack them up against how flawlessly the Holmes/Moriarty conflict is executed. The foundation of the entire movie is the grand scale of a grand game of wits played by two of the most devilishly brilliant minds in 19th Century Europe, one working for each side of the law. The true scale of Moriarty's plans runs very deep, and has a rather surprising and prophetic vision behind it, but of course, the grand mystery wouldn't be very much fun if I went and spoiled it for you, so I simply encourage you to look forward to it, much like Mycroft's naked rear end (I'll leave whichever leaves a greater lasting impression for its sheer horror up to you). Anyhow, what's most interesting about Holmes and Moriarty is that despite them being the greatest of enemies, they are set up and developed with these truly brilliant scenes that demonstrate an amazing mental clashing and oddly palpable respect for the achievements of their main rival, simply through the expertly-written character dialogue that permeates this entire movie. Even if Europe hangs in the balance, it seems that these two legitimately, albeit subconsciously enjoy squaring off against one another. One of the best scenes in the entire movie is when Holmes and Moriarty finally meet in the flesh for the first time, exchanging pleasantries, congratulations and shared admiration, but at the same time, you can always see that they're subconsciously sparring and almost indicating an odd self-awareness of each other's role. It vaguely reminds me of the highly intricate between Batman and The Joker, archenemies who almost seem to concede that they need each other to be given meaning. Moriarty even mimics Heath Ledger's Joker at one point during this introductory scene, speaking about the result of two complementary forces colliding, confessing that Moriarty's respect for Holmes' intellect is the only reason that he's still alive. In truth though, it goes much deeper than that. Just like The Joker, it almost seems that Moriarty gains no real satisfaction from his ambitions unless he can simultaneously outwit his greatest challenger, a sentiment that Sherlock undeniably shares. His obsession with stopping Moriarty doesn't seem to stem from a simple desire for justice to be served, but moreso to prove once and for all that he truly is the greatest mind in Europe. The true game beneath SH2's surprisingly extensive storyline amounts to this simple, yet endlessly deep conflict for intellectual supremacy between Holmes and Moriarty, and it is excellently done. Even if you can pick at the other characters and who might have needed more screentime, it's all for the greater good when you see that the fundamental conflict of the movie is done so perfectly. Not since The Dark Knight has the scale between two legendary enemies been captured so effectively in all of its depth and open-ended interpretation!

Acting: (10/10) - Once again, each actor is clearly having an outstanding amount of fun in their portrayals, and Robert Downey Jr. is even more manically entertaining and borderline psychotic as the increasingly more unstable Sherlock Holmes. Even his diet has really gone South in this sequel, and it's great to see him even more off his rocker than before! Jude Law yet again complements Holmes' eccentricity as the rational, "straight man" companion, keeping the duo grounded before they descend too far into cartoonish mayhem via their fast-paced, thoroughly weird interactions with one another. As with the original, the sequel isn't shy about drawing out plenty of goofy humour between the banter of Holmes and Watson, and they're yet again a delightful pair of protaganists to have pushing our movie forward, even if the spotlight has shifted to Holmes over Watson this time around, to emphasize the development of his conflict with Moriarty. Rachel McAdams returns only briefly to the role of Irene Adler, but Kelly Reilly is given even more hysterical sequences to light up since, like her husband, she's often the straight woman in a series of hilarious mishaps, made even worse when she's forced into the care of Sherlock's hysterical layabout brother. Speaking of Mycroft, Stephen Fry is a highlight in the role, stealing every scene he's in. As amusing as Sherlock can be, it's truly impossible not to giggle and laugh out loud when you really see Mycroft in action, especially when it's heavily implied that he's even smarter than his younger brother, though amusingly coasts on his intelligence, doing the bare minimum and loving it. It's a stroke of genius to put a lazy character like Mycroft into the mix as comic relief when you have the stakes upped more than ever for our struggling heroes. He could be a valuable asset in the battle against Moriarty, but, no, he'd rather walk around his country home in the nude while Europe teeters on the brink of destruction. That's Mycroft! The other main addition to the good guys' camp is Madame Simza, the new female lead to essentially replace Irene Adler, though like the first movie, the female lead is unfortunately the weak link. It's not Noomi Rapace's fault, since she takes what little she has to work with and injects the character with a respectable sense of clever, action-packed fun, but the writing barely gives her anything to do. She's a character that, like Adler, feels like more of a plot device than a fully fleshed-out character. The movie attempts to inject some depth into Sim by making her brother a key instrument in Moriarty's grand plan, but it still gives the knife-wielding fortune teller an aftertaste of feeling rather flat. Bummer. Of course, once again, that doesn't really matter much when you're going to be spending so much time in awe of the Holmes/Moriarty conflict, which brings me to Jared Harris in the role of Moriarty. Harris' Moriarty portrayal could very well be one of the best villain portrayals of 2011, which is saying quite a bit, as there were many impressive bad guys on the big screen this year, from Tom Hiddleston's Loki in Thor, to Michael Fassbender's young Magneto in X-Men: First Class, and obviously Ralph Fiennes' climactic return to the Voldemort role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, among many others. Still, Moriarty may just have them beat. The immense scale of the character is captured beautifully, and Harris expertly carries out an undeniable outward respectability in Moriarty's character, cleverly lacing it with just the right degree of unflinching criminal content and a grand, Machiavellian sense of nihilism. In many ways, Moriarty's mind is as twisted and endlessly brilliant as that of Holmes, and audiences will have a delightful time trying to untangle it, particularly when it finally clashes with the mind of Europe's greatest detective. The rivalry between these two is captured perfectly, as they square off in a deadly, subconscious game of wits where every citizen, every location, every object is a playing piece, and no less than all of Europe is the prize for victory. Professor Moriarty is one of the most beloved villains in literary history, so if Harris' portrayal failed, this entire movie would have failed. Thankfully, that's not the case. Harris easily rises to become likely the best actor in the entire film, delivering a flawless Moriarty portrayal that captures every layer and nuance of this complex villain, doing justice to the grand scale of Holmes' greatest foe. Thanks to the expert talents of Downey Jr. and Harris, along with the excellent supporting cast, every performance in SH2 sings, but the bulk of the appeal lies in the devious mental sparring between its hero and villain for sure!

Stunts: (10/10) - Ritchie's action choreography may be similar to his original SH movie, but that doesn't make it any less appealing, even if some of the novelty is lost. Seeing Holmes mentally envision how he would take down a target before an action scene unfolds still comes up once or twice, though with surprise twists that make them more than a gimmicky diminishing return from the original film. The stunts and action has vastly increased in scale and power in SH2, with some highlights that the trailers teased including a fiercely explosive battle on board a speeding train, a slow motion sequence involving a barrage of cannon fire devastating a forest that our heroes are trying to escape in, and naturally, a tense climactic final duel between Holmes and Moriarty that serves the ultimate test for both their brains and brawn. I won't spoil how this scene unfolds, but I will tell you that even beyond this superb final battle, the climax of SH2 in general is outstanding. I can't talk about it without spoiling the story, but trust me, this movie ends on a note twice as riveting and intense as that of the first movie! I also don't want to spoil the numerous brilliant action scenes throughout SH2, so just look forward to the excellent stuntwork that is yet again on display!

Special Effects/Animation: N/A

Set Pieces: (10/10) - Ritchie's steampunk-styled take on 19th Century England is back, and this time applied to other locations as Holmes and Watson pursue Moriarty around Europe. You'll see the same style applied to places in France and Switzerland, among other locations. The cinematography seems to range between bright colours and dark, gritty palettes, sometimes seemingly at random, but that doesn't mean that SH2 still doesn't look quite impressive. The set pieces in the action scenes are real highlights especially, many of which I, and the trailers already mentioned, but the rest, I'll leave for you to discover.

Costumes: (8/10) - The costume work is about the same quality as it was in the original, which is to say, above average, though sometimes lacking a certain memorable charm. Holmes is still ditching the deerstalker, in favour of his various eccentric disguises, which apparently now includes cross-dressing. Yep, if you always wanted to see Robert Downey Jr. in drag, now is your chance! Moriarty's more dignified villainy never breaks that air of respectability he harbours in the intellectual community, one that seems to shield him from suspicion even when he's the most dangerous criminal mind in Europe, but it's still pretty amusing to see what kind of funny disguises Holmes can come up with when the situation calls for it. I also liked the gypsy getups of Madame Simza for what it's worth, though the vibrant wardrobe of Adler has taken a hit in terms of appeal the second time around unfortunately, making worse the fact that she isn't in the movie for very long.

Story: (9/10) - SH2's plot is much larger and more intricately-woven than the storyline of the first movie. On the one hand, this does justice to the large-scale rivalry between Holmes and Moriarty. On the other however, it makes the plot more difficult to follow for those not prepared for the sequel's large scope. This is one of those movies that you'll be lost in if you leave to go to the bathroom, or doze off for a moment, so you really need to be paying attention throughout the whole thing, piecing together some of the story elements yourself, since SH2 won't spoonfeed them to you, and where would the fun in that be anyway? Well, in any case, the movie picks up a short while after the conclusion of the original. The original movie would have you believe that SH2 is a continuation picking up immediately afterward, but this is not the case. In fact, the conclusion of the original film, where Moriarty kills a police officer and steals Lord Blackwood's radio device, seems to be entirely forgotten in the sequel. Considering how excellent the rest of the story is, this is kind of a sloppy canonical error, but I guess that's a minor nitpick. Anyway, Holmes has become obsessed with tracking the movements of his old flame, Irene Adler's mysterious employer, Professor James Moriarty. Holmes deduces that Moriarty is the common element behind a series of bombings that has left tensions at an all-time high between France and Germany. After he foils another bombing attempt, Holmes is invited to meet Moriarty, who threatens the newly-married Watson and his wife's safety, should Holmes' investigation into Moriarty's affairs continue. Sensing a double-cross, Holmes intercepts the honeymooning couple, and Watson ends up whisked into yet another case where Europe itself hangs in the balance. Teaming up with a gypsy fortune teller and her village, Holmes and Watson must race against the clock to unravel Moriarty's grand plan before the entire civilized world pays the price! That's about the gist of the story without spoilers. As I warned you, it's large, detailed and demands your undivided attention. If you can keep up with the plot and understand all of the finer nuances of the writing though, you'll agree that SH2 is a thoroughly brilliant sequel that completely outshines the original in terms of its size and ambition!

Length/Editing: (10/10) - Ritchie's expert direction once again propels SH2 to the ranks of some of the year's finest action blockbusters. The movie's runtime is just over two hours, but it will whiz by quickly thanks to the movie's excellently manic pace, and fast, but not disorienting editing. Even if it's a lengthier movie than most, as with many high-end action blockbusters, you don't want to miss any of it for a bathroom break, or you're going to be hopelessly lost trying to untangle the massive plot. You have been warned! Thankfully, SH2's bigger runtime is justified thanks to its effective sense of gradually building stakes and momentum, not to mention just how much fun the whole affair is!

Genre Appeal: (9/10) - If you love highly enjoyable action movies, SH2 is guaranteed to please, though the equally excellent Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol does present some very tough competition in the December movie calendar. I strongly recommend making time to see both movies over the holidays (or even in January if you must), though I will say that MI4's liberally cartoonish, contrived proceedings which are played intentionally for cartoonish popcorn movie satisfaction, are complemented by SH2 having the same sense of fun, but in a package that demands more thought and attention from the audience. Unlike MI4, SH2 demands that you NOT turn your brain off, lest you be unable to keep up with its fast, ever-escalating mystery. The huge storyline that leaps from location to location, and scenario to scenario, challenging the audience to keep up, is in stark contrast to the easily-digestible popcorn presentation of MI4, which is itself a globetrotting sequel, albeit in the opposite hemisphere and in a package easier to take in, plus in the modern era instead of the 19th Century for what that's worth. MI4 is an easier action blockbuster to watch, but I think that SH2 is a more rewarding action blockbuster to watch, since its plot feels more satisfying to wrap your head around if you're willing to try and keep pace with it. Again, both are excellent films, but both are for different states of mind, so keep that in mind when choosing which to see when!

Re-watch Value: (10/10) - If you really love these SH movies, you'll definitely want to add this sequel to your Blu-Ray collection when it's made available there, and enjoying it subsequent times in the theatre is not a tall order either! You'll catch plot elements that you missed during repeat viewings, and come just a little closer to understanding the whole grand design of Holmes and Moriarty's conflict every time you relive this great movie. It's a movie that rewards subsequent views by sticking little touches here and there that you probably won't notice the first time around, so yes, this is a sequel sure to have plenty of long-term value!

Conclusion- You need to enter SH2 with a certain amount of brain activity if you want to keep up with its large-scale plotline, but if you're willing to invest the mindpower into tangling the various threads of this movie's expertly-written storyline, you'll find that SH2 is yet another highly thrilling and entertaining action blockbuster for your consideration this holiday season. Again, MI4 is tough competition, but SH2 complements it nicely by requiring more brainpower to invest in, but also providing a movie that's a joy to continually relive, uncovering just a bit more about everything that went into a sequel this massive and detailed. SH2 is just as impressive as MI4, but for different reasons, and that's great, because you get two equally credible action blockbusters that offer two very different experiences to keep tantalizing you back to the movies over the course of the holiday season. What a treat! Whether or not you consider this sequel or the original the superior film is a matter of your personal tastes, but me? I thought it was better than the first one. I thought it was larger, more engaging and has the virtually flawless portrayal of Holmes' greatest nemesis to consider. Even if you feel that the original is better though, it's still difficult to deny the impressive amount of depth and spectacle that's gone into the second movie, making its mystery and action highly entertaining throughout. I'm not sure where the series would go in a third movie, but should one happen (it's rumoured to have already entered the scriptwriting stage), I'm anticipating what else the cast and crew behind these great movies can do with another original Holmes mystery. Like the original, SH2's vision is very different from the original works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so, as I said in my review of the first movie, if you're a Holmes purist, you're probably still going to feel that Ritchie's direction doesn't sit quite right with you, especially now that the BBC is screening that very impressive new TV series, Sherlock, unlike in 2009, which is more friendly to the fans of Doyle's original works. If you're willing to get past the obligation to pay attention constantly, and once again accept that Doyle's characters have been upgraded (though fundamentally, still faithful) for the moviegoers of the 21st Century, SH2 is yet another extraordinarily impressive December movie to help close out 2011 on a superb note. Even if you might have a hard time absorbing the entire plot on the first go-around, the movie rewards subsequent viewings with all of its extensive attention to detail and subtle touches, and the excellent handling of the Holmes/Moriarty conflict, not to mention the stellar performances by both actors involved, is worth paying to see alone. What makes SH2 such a winning sequel is that it has such a bold, confident vision, and then does whatever it takes to make that vision come to life, without sacrificing the charm and entertainment value that went into making the first movie such a success. Some may prefer the more tightly-focused original, but even if that's true, you can't argue that the sequel is still a mighty impressive follow-up!

FINAL SCORE: 96% "AWESOME!"

FINAL VERDICT: "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows casts a wider web of conspiracy, action and scale than the original, determined to do justice to the infinite depth of the Holmes/Moriarty conflict. Some unprepared for the dense plot may find the second mystery more difficult to follow, and the novelty of Guy Ritchie's direction has expectedly worn off now, but many, myself included, will still feel that this is a rare superior sequel due to how effectively it pulls off its considerable increasing in scope, especially considering how flawlessly Jared Harris brings Holmes' greatest nemesis to the big screen!"

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" Game Review (X360)

2011-12-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3
(ON XBOX 360)

PLAYERS: 1-4 (2-18 VIA SYSTEM LINK) (2-18 ONLINE)

OTHER SYSTEMS: PC, DS, PLAYSTATION 3, WII

GENRE: FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER

PUBLISHER: ACTIVISION

DEVELOPER: INFINITY WARD, SLEDGEHAMMER GAMES, RAVEN SOFTWARE

RATING: M

WARNINGS: BLOOD AND GORE, DRUG REFERENCE, INTENSE VIOLENCE, STRONG LANGUAGE

POINTS OF INTEREST: HDTV CAPABLE (720p, 1080i, 1080p), RENDERED IN DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 AUDIO, XBOX LIVE ONLINE CAPABLE (ONLINE MULTIPLAYER, ONLINE CO-OP, LEADERBOARDS, DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT, VOICE CHAT)

SAVE CAPACITY: 5 MB MINIMUM, XBOX 360 HARD DRIVE

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 8, 2011

WHAT I LOVED:

- The same signature brand of Call of Duty action is back and still fun!

- The new Spec Ops mode, and dedicated Spec Ops Survival mode, are great fun, especially when playing with your buddies!

- The multiplayer is as addictive as ever, and its tweaks are quite appreciated!

- The campaign has some really neat standout moments, as usual.

- The addition of the Call of Duty: Elite online network will really give hardcore players a whole new level of depth and precision planning to play around with in their continued quest to master the multiplayer arena and leaderboards!

WHAT I DIDN'T SO MUCH:

- The game experience is pretty well unchanged from the two previous Modern Warfare games, and the campaign even takes a step or two backwards in overall quality.

- The AI of both allies and enemies is really lacklustre, especially for an Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty game!

- Unless you're a ridiculous Call of Duty addict that plays these games with every iota of free gaming time you have, paying a $50 subscription fee every year for the full feature set of Call of Duty: Elite isn't really worth it (especially on Xbox 360, when you're already paying an annual subscription fee for Xbox Live Gold to play online!).

AND HERE'S THE FULL REVIEW:

Well, it's that time of year again, and there's no more putting it off. Before 2011 comes to a close, I have to fulfill my duty to review the latest Call of Duty game, which has pretty much been professional mandate for me, since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came out in 2007, and turned so many heads. Since that time, this series has become ridiculously popular, to the point where it's a cultural phenomenon amongst gamers. Publisher, Activision has been capitalizing on this more than ever before in 2011, where Call of Duty has now sponsored its own line of vehicles, and its own charity. Yes, the series has become THAT acclaimed! Even a lot of non-gamers readily recognize and play CoD in their spare time! Thanks to this immense following, which leads to one of these games being what my handful of gaming buddies all want to play online 99% of the time, I've paid the full $60 asking price for every new addition to the series that's annually arrived since its popularity boom. As per tradition, I chose the Xbox 360 version of our latest CoD game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (and most of my gaming friends bought the PS3 version instead this year, go figure). This game is meant to end the progressive story arc of the Modern Warfare line of CoD games that began with the original MW title in 2007, the game that launched this series' runaway popularity, and finally got it out of its stagnating WWII rut. This game also happens to be the guinea pig title for Activision's new online network, Call of Duty: Elite, which is essentially CoD's answer to Battle.net or Halo Waypoint, creating a service dedicated to networking, matchmaking, stat tracking and vital strategizing so that players can maximize their playing potential in the CoD series. While MW3 is the official guinea pig, the service also seems to be compatible with last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops. Anyway, as expected, I got a virtual mountain of requests and nagging to play this game from the second it saw an official retail release. I was ready with my preorder and picked up my copy on launch day, but I had to ignore the nagging for a bit to take care of several other priorities in my game reviews. Thankfully, that wait period is over, and I've now had time to really dive into MW3's three game components; Beating the single-player campaign, taking on the Special Ops, and trying my best to tear it up with the series' hallmark online multiplayer suite. After playing the hell out of this game, I have good news and bad news about it. The good news is that it's still a really good game of CoD, and well worth the attention of fans. The bad news however is that MW3 is a step down from Black Ops, and frankly, it's also an unfortunate sign that the current series formula is beginning to stagnate a bit, just like with the series' original WWII games before the original MW bailed the series out of rehashes. This could be a side effect to Infinity Ward losing their co-founders after they were fired by Activision brass for apparent "insubordination" during the development of MW2 in 2009 (they've since founded a new studio, Respawn Entertainment, and have a mystery game in development), a blow that saw Infinity Ward bleeding employees out of solidarity, to the point where this game had to enlist not one, but TWO codevelopers (Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software) to finally finish it. To make matters worse, MW3 also released into a VERY heavily competitive shooter market this year, especially in the Fall window, where it's competing against Resistance 3, Gears of War 3, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Killzone 3, SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals, Rage, Goldeneye 007: Reloaded (Activision's own pointless HD redo of one of last year's best Wii exclusives), and most of all, Battlefield 3, among others, for shooter gamers' attention. I say Battlefield 3 especially, because Battlefield publisher, Electronic Arts was directly marketing Battlefield 3 as a "CoD Killer", trying to dethrone Activision's all-star shooter franchise from first-person shooter supremacy. EA tried the same thing last year with its Medal of Honor reboot, which... failed, but Battlefield 3 has done much better on the sales charts, and has received much greater acclaim. Medal of Honor might have barely grazed CoD, and Battlefield 3 may have just been a flesh wound, but it seems that EA at least has also noticed that the series is becoming vulnerable from its lack of innovation and creativity since 2007, and the next EA-published "CoD Killer" game may just end up being the killshot. Food for thought, Activision... Anyway, back on topic, MW3 is fun if you like shooters, but it's nothing new. It makes some welcome refinements, and die-hard CoD fanatics will appreciate the addition of Call of Duty: Elite (even if forcing a subscription fee to unlock all its features is a bad idea), but after tearing my way through the awesomely destructive battlefields of Gears of War 3, and playing around with the superbly creative high-powered weapons arsenal in Resistance 3, MW3 just seems really... tame in comparison. There's still some neat standout moments in the campaign, the Spec Ops mode is still an engaging challenge (especially when you play with your buddies), and the online multiplayer can still be pretty addictive, but the current, unchanged, annual CoD formula is starting to show its age more than ever now. If you love this series, you'll still love MW3, but for a franchise at the top of the shooter genre these days, it's really disappointing that MW3 so badly fails to stand out compared to the (extensive) competition.

Gameplay: 8/10- Just like every CoD game in recent memory, MW3 is divided into the single-player campaign, the co-op enabled Spec Ops mode, and the online multiplayer arena. Let's start with the campaign. As with any CoD title, you take control of a soldier, in this case, you alternate between Sergeant Derek 'Frost' Westbrook in the American perspective, and a Russian defector simply called 'Yuri' in the British perspective, with one-off characters thrown in every now and again, undertaking a mission to pretty much shoot anyone that isn't on your side. As usual, the CoD games are dead simple to play in single-player, since you just move from checkpoint to checkpoint, shooting any enemies that get in your way. Ammo and weapons are very plentiful, and unless you're playing on Veteran difficulty, you almost never have to put thought into anything. You just move through each mission, shooting everything. Occasionally, you'll need to follow the lead of your allies without arousing suspicion, or approach a point of interest and hold the X button to trigger the next location, but as usual, the campaign is very, very straightforward, despite all of the attempts at spectacle. As with the previous two MW games, MW3 attempts to really mix things up with explosive, unpredictable obstacles that give the illusion of an ever-changing battlefield, but it's less successful and inspired than its two predecessors, and the experience still feels confined and linear, even when a few of those standout scripted moments really work well. Like MW2, there's some scenes in the game that are a bit hard to watch, and you have the option upon first placing the game disc in your Xbox 360 and starting it up to censor these potentially offensive images, and it won't ask you again (though you can toggle this in the Options menu I believe). It's nice that Infinity Ward is still being considerate of people who may not like to see things like civilian casulaties and such, but if you're offended by war images, why are you playing this game in the first place? Besides, MW3's 'shocking' imagery is nothing compared to the infamous 'No Russian' mission in MW2, where you go undercover in a group of terrorists that gun down a whole airport full of innocents. Like I said, compared to Gears of War 3 and Resistance 3, MW3 already feels pretty tame and predictable, and I still have yet to try the majority of other shooters competing with it in the crowded Fall release window! I wish I had more to say about the campaign, but I really don't. Truth be told, most of it failed to register in my memory. It's just not that interesting compared to the competition, and the series' previous games, which is a real disappointment, because this is the climax of the MW trilogy in its current form, and on the note of the campaign, it goes out with a whimper. There are some really neat moments, like a covert assault on a sub from underwater that results in a hectic attempt to flee by speedboat as shit generally hits the fan afterward, and a brief zero-g sequence during an airplane hijacking that feels really inspired, but these moments are really rare in a series that did them so well before, even last year in Black Ops! When they do show up, they're very brief and immediately forgotten to boot! This is all the more disappointing when I recall that I considered Black Ops' campaign to be one of the best and most creative in the series to date, only to have it followed up with a campaign that feels predictable, and sometimes even dull in MW3 the next year. Sure, you can man an AC-130 gunship and launch rounds at tiny pixelated targets, or hunt down various pieces of hidden Intel for Achievements and the like, but this has all been done in the previous games. To make matters worse, the AI of both allies and enemies has taken a SERIOUS hit in MW3! In the two previous MW games, hell, even in the first two CoD games that were set in WWII, Infinity Ward crafted challenging and smart AI that consistently forced the player to think on their feet and adapt to the various unpredictable challenges, which helped to offset the confined linearity of the campaign progression. In MW3, it feels like every NPC in the game, both allies and enemies, took a whole whack of stupid pills. Allies will dumbly push you out of cover, run right in the way of your gunfire (which may result in the game booting you to the last checkpoint because you fired on a friendly, due to THEIR stupidity!), and more often than not, they're cowards who will just hide behind cover while you do all the work. When many of your allies DO shoot, they also happen to be lousy shots, missing every enemy they try to aim at, again, forcing you to do all the work. Sadly, the enemies are no better. Enemies will often run out of cover and charge right into your line of fire, eager for you to end their miserable lives with your happy torrent of bullets, they spam grenades in lieu of real strategy (I was SO happy when sister developer, Treyarch finally STOPPED their AI from doing this in Black Ops, only to have Infinity Ward START doing it with their own AI in MW3!), hide behind cover and not do anything, just like your equally boneheaded allies, and they'll usually ignore your allies to make a beeline for you, because you're the player character, and it's YOU that gets booted back to the last checkpoint if you die, which you can still avoid by just following the NPCs' example and hiding behind cover until your injuries recover, as with most of today's shooters. What happened to that amazing AI that Infinity Ward pulled off so well in the previous two MW games?! The lacklustre AI contributes to MW3's campaign feeling like a rote disappointment, because it just gives the gunfights an aftertaste of feeling really brainless below Veteran difficulty, and even on Veteran, you can exploit the programming pretty easily if you're skilled enough. Because the NPCs are so horrendously dumb, and the supposed 'highlight moments' have mostly been done in previous CoD games already, it rapidly sucks the fun out of playing the campaign. Once you beat it on Veteran and get all of the Intel and available Achievements, you'll never go back to it. It's such a noticeable step down from the campaigns of the last few CoD titles, especially the previous MW titles, and that's really a shame. What happened?! This feels like an early Treyarch effort, not a triple-A CoD offering by Infinity Ward! Originally, it was Treyarch that had a problem with less interesting campaigns and really dumb AI, while Infinity Ward excelled with huge single-player creativity and really engaging, competent AI, but now, after Treyarch fixed so many of their issues and rose to the occasion so well with Black Ops, while Infinity Ward fell from grace with all of the problematic campaign elements in MW3, it seems that the developers have switched places. I guess this means that Treyarch will have another great campaign for us to play through in Fall 2012, but it still sucks to see Infinity Ward miss the mark so badly in MW3's single-player campaign after the work they've done before. Again though, I'm not totally going to blame the Infinity Ward development team, because I'm sure they tried their best with what they had to work with, on CoD's expectedly tight biannual development schedule for Infinity Ward no less. I'm sure that losing so many employees, including the co-founders, probably badly hurt the studio's integrity, so I think our lacklustre MW3 campaign is probably largely Activision's fault, for firing Infinity Ward's two founders for such a dumb reason, which caused the employee bleedout in the first place, even though MW2 was a massive success. MW3's campaign is still above average as far as the FPS genre as a whole goes, but stacked against the rest of the CoD series, it's a weak campaign. Thankfully, Spec Ops mode is much better, and it carries with it a lot of the same addictive challenge that was present during the Spec Ops mode of MW2. These one-off missions are set up to take place sort of concurrently with the events of the game's single-player campaign, where you assume the role of a nameless soldier trying to complete an objective in a location parallel to those of the campaign. You can take on Spec Ops with a friend locally, should they pick up another Xbox 360 controller and hop into a split-screen game with you, and you can push that number up to a maximum of four players if you're playing in a system link with several Xbox 360's, or online over Xbox Live. Certain missions require that you play with additional players, but most of them can be played alone, and all of them are nice and challenging, featuring improved enemy AI to boot (albeit only slightly improved). As with MW2, you can earn up to three Stars in each Spec Ops mission, depending on how fast you completed it, how accurate you were with your shots, and the difficulty you were playing on. What's better is that you can now earn EXP and rank up, just as in the online multiplayer, within the Spec Ops mode (though Spec Ops and multiplayer don't share rankings). Just like when you play online, you can earn more gear and perk options to play with in Spec Ops, adding a welcome bit of added strategy when you try to deduce the perfect loadout for each of the varied and engaging Spec Ops missions. As enjoyable as the main Spec Ops missions are though, what's most fun is to get a team of four players together to play Spec Ops Survival, a brand new addition to MW3. This tasks players with challenging wave after wave of enemy soldiers, who come with increasingly more powerful and aggressive weapons and support (including things like attack dogs and helicopters), until everyone is dead. You can revive allied players, and continue shooting at enemies with your sidearm while you're 'downed', but once you're eliminated, you're out of the game permanently, until the Survival match is over. Yeah, this isn't really a huge innovation, since it's just CoD's version of Horde Mode from Gears of War, or Firefight Mode from Halo, and it lacks the impressive array of depth in the various Zombies missions from Black Ops, but Survival is still a fun play mode that's all the more enjoyable when you join up with a team of allies over Xbox Live, each with your own varied set of loadouts to try and last as long as you can. Co-ordinating strategies and how to spend your in-game funds (which are awarded to you as you kill enemies) on new equipment, weapons and support, is even more enjoyable in Survival than it is in the online multiplayer in many respects. Of the three cornerstones that comprise MW3's package, the Spec Ops component is easily the best, far outclassing the weak campaign and rather predictable multiplayer suite. Yes, playing Team Deathmatch on Xbox Live is as addictive and time-consuming as it ever was, as is the satisfaction of maximizing your rank, achieving Prestige, and doing it all again, and again, and again. As before, you get custom perks and weapon loadouts that you unlock as you gain EXP from enemy kills and objective accomplisments, increasing your rank, and allowing you to customize both the aesthetics and capabilities of your custom multiplayer soldier in greater detail. MW3 brings back all of the familiar modes that you've seen before in previous CoD games, including the mainstays of Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, along with more CoD-centric modes like Search and Destroy, Ground War and Headquarters. One all-new mode that's actually rather inspired is 'Kill Confirmed' mode, where killing an enemy player doesn't count until you've collected a 'killed' player's dog tags. This is a really cool mode that adds a really amazing new element of strategy to the game, forcing players to be more careful and covert when taking down enemies, lest their kills be denied by an opposing player waiting in ambush, ready to kill their ally's quarry and steal back their team's dog tags, denying the enemy team the kill. You can use dog tags to bait players most notably, and a seemingly easy snatch and grab may just end up being the death of you! Like Survival, Kill Confirmed is another cool new way for players to co-ordinate and come up with advanced multiplayer 'plays' in ways that they can't do in most competing FPS games. This is made all the better by the fact that Killstreaks have been replaced with Pointstreaks, though Deathstreaks, temporary perks that are given to players continually killed by enemies, are unchanged from their introduction in MW2. With Pointstreaks, you can choose whether to get 'Assault Package', 'Support Package' or 'Specialist Package'. The Assault Package gives you offensive ways to attack the enemy team when you kill a certain amount of opposing players without dying, like attack helicopters and predator missiles, though as with previous CoD titles, your streak disappears when you are killed yourself. With Support packages though, your streak carries over even when you are killed, and this gives players the ability to use functions like recon, radar jamming and SAM placements. Specialist packages give you a perk of your choosing from either class after every other kill, but they're reset when you reach a killstreak of eight. I think that this is a superb idea personally, since the ability to carry Support packages allows players who don't fanatically watch their kill/death ratio, who are less skilled at direct combat, or in any case, just find themselves getting killed constantly, to still have a good way to support their team. Another tweak I really liked is the fact that your weapons now level up through frequent use, gaining attachments and benefits from simple kills, rather than completing Challenges like in previous CoD titles, though you can still get big EXP bonuses for Challenge completion as well. If you don't speak CoD, Challenges are what they state, EXP bonuses for doing special tasks like killing enemies a certain way, or using a certain piece of equipment a certain amount of times, among other things. You unlock new Challenges as you rank up, as usual. Anyway, the fact that weapons level up separately now means that you can intuitively become more proficient with your weapons of choice, and it encourages you to actually get good with each weapon, rather than just using a weapon for a Challenge, and then forgetting about it. The more you bother to get good with each loadout, the more weapon attachments you'll get to enjoy. When all is said and done though, despite the cool new Kill Confirmed mode, MW3 is still pushing the exact same bloody multiplayer that the series has had in place since 2007. Frankly, it's getting a tad long in the tooth now, which is all the more noticeable when Activision releases a new CoD game EVERY YEAR, especially when the numerous competing shooters that have come out this Fall have done so much more with their own multiplayer suites in several respects. It's still addictive, but it just feels like more of the same now. The new maps aren't anything unlike previous CoD titles for the most part, and the weapons arsenal is almost identical to that of the two previous MW games. Maybe the inevitable DLC will add some new modes to make MW3's multiplayer a little more interesting, but for now, beyond the CoD brand, there's so little separating MW3 from competing shooters' multiplayer. Of course, I'm sure it will still dominate Xbox Live (and PlayStation Network and the dedicated PC servers) until 2012's CoD offering hits the shelf, which goes to show where gamers' values lie (brands over innovation, natch), but even if Spec Ops is still pretty enjoyable, the campaign is a let-down, and multiplayer is approaching the need for an overhaul pretty quickly. On the bright side, Party Chat for communicating specifically with those on your Xbox Live Friends list is restored in the Xbox 360 edition of MW3, after it was inexplicably taken out of MW2's Xbox 360 version, yet fully present in the PC and PS3 versions, but that's small consolation when you consider how little the multiplayer has changed. Like the campaign, Black Ops felt like a more novel product when it came to the multiplayer, and there's still a lot of people playing that online even after MW3 was released, for good reason. Again, to be fair, MW3 is still an above average shooter that's great fun to play, despite its gameplay flaws. The whole MW line is just losing steam on the third go-around though, especially when two Treyarch-developed CoD games following the same format came out between installments. Also, as expected, when you need to enlist not one, but TWO codevelopers to finish your game (apparently other Activision developers like Beenox and Neversoft had to assist with bits and pieces as well), you know that's a bad sign, especially when your franchise is getting to the point where it's stubbornly refusing to take risks. Some welcome refinements are made, but, enjoyable as MW3 can be, it's still the same old CoD, so don't expect any surprises, or even a lasting impression compared to many of the numerous other competing shooters that 2011 delivered.

Innovation: 4/10- MW3 makes an attempt at some refinements and new game modes, but compared to many competing shooters, it really lacks novelty at this point. Spec Ops Survival was already pioneered as Horde Mode in Gears of War, and then again in Halo as Firefight Mode, not to mention that MW3's weapons and pointstreak rewards aren't really anything new, and even the idea behind Call of Duty: Elite has already been done by both Blizzard Entertainment (for Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo), and Microsoft (for Halo). The best innovation in the game is Kill Confirmed Mode, since it genuinely provides an engaging new experience that changes how you approach a CoD match. It's also nice that Support Packages now allow less skilled or less careful players to continue assisting their team, even if they have a habit of getting killed a lot. That said though, MW3's campaign is surprisingly rote as far as this series goes, and the online multiplayer is pretty well entirely unchanged from MW2 especially, beyond the fact that weapons now level up independently, and you can change the style and streak of your kill rewards. Beyond these small refinements, MW3 offers absolutely zero new ideas, being a token climax to wrap up MW2's cliffhanger ending, and considering the 'been there, done that' aftertaste of the campaign, even that isn't achieved particularly well compared to other CoD games, particularly Treyarch's impressive Black Ops from last year, which still didn't really change the CoD formula, but at least it injected plenty of creativity and surprises into the gameplay experience. Again, MW3 is still fun, and it will still entertain the legions of CoD gamers out there, but it is not creative, surprising or innovative in any real way beyond a tweak or two. It just has an aftertaste of feeling like a warning sign that Activision may want to give the series another overhaul, lest it lose its throne to another, more novel FPS franchise.

Controls: 10/10- MW3 keeps the same Xbox 360 control scheme that the series has maintained since CoD 2 way back in 2005. It's simple, intuitive and easy to work with, as usual. If you're not familiar with it, it's probably the most fundamental FPS control scheme that you can imagine. You move with the Left Thumbstick, aim your target reticule with the Right Thumbstick, aim down your sights by holding Left Trigger, fire your weapon by pressing down Right Trigger, throw a grenade by pressing Right Bumper (you can hold Right Bumper to cook off a grenade too, but don't hold it for too long!), press A to jump, press X to interact with points and interest, switch your gun for one on the ground, or manually reload, press Y to change between your primary and secondary weapon, and press B to crouch, or hold B to go prone. You also use the various directions on the D-Pad for specialized equipment like killstreak rewards, and campaign-sensitive actions like bombing runs. If you've played one CoD game on the Xbox 360, you're already familiar with these controls, and they still work really well. They don't need to be changed.

Graphics: 7/10- This is another area that was kind of a let-down in MW3. Like the gameplay ideas, the visual engine is really showing its age in 2011. The game still looks solid, but the Xbox 360 has seen the release of several noticeably better-looking shooters this year, including Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3 and Rage, to name a few examples. If you want to blow that up to Xbox 360 games in general, MW3 is vastly outdone by the numerous visually superior offerings on the system this year. Heck, I think Black Ops pulled off better graphics than this last year! MW3 is far from terrible-looking, and it still effectively captures war-torn global locations, explosions, and various vehicle screening effects during the campaign. The visuals just sort of aim for the middle and stay there though, which makes MW3 continue to feel like it's beneath the series' usual standard. There's still some cool visual standout moments, the framerate stays stable throughout, and the load times are not that lengthy. Still, like I said, the MW graphics engine is showing its age now, and MW3 merely looks good, instead of great like most CoD games do.

Presentation: 8/10- The series' same basic, but intuitive menu setup is back for selecting your game mode and matchmaking for online play, and it's pretty much ripped directly from MW2 in particular. The shock value of the previous two MW games has really gone down in the seemingly tired MW3 though, and as much as some moments of spectacle still ring true, the series doesn't really wow you in terms of its cinematic appeal compared to the last few CoD titles. It's still more finely presented than your average FPS, but there's no real surprises in the presentation.

Sound: 9/10- Thankfully, one area where MW3 does consistently maintain the CoD standard is within its sound. Every vehicle, weapon and explosion still sounds as powerful and pronounced as it always has, and playing this game on a DD 5.1 surround system is still going to wake your neighbours for all the right reasons. The soundtrack is still pretty solid, though it's inferior to the music in Black Ops (surprise), especially since the guitar riffs feel really out of place in a game that's supposed to convey a sense of chilling wartime atmosphere. When I'm desperately trying to push through overwhelming odds as New York is destroyed all around me, hearing a rockin' guitar track makes me feel like I'm playing a campy, self-satirizing shooter, not a gritty, immersive shooter that takes itself seriously. Thankfully, the great voice acting is still present, and as usual, some Hollywood talent has lent their voices to MW3, including William Fichtner, Idris Elba, and Timothy Olyphant. The audio still effectively sucks you into the experience, and even if the visuals don't make MW3 look like a top-of-the-line CoD product, at least it still sounds like one.

Story: 5/10- As a climax to the MW arc, MW3 feels like a weak conclusion. Even in MW2, the storyline had its share of plot holes and unrealistic elements, but these feel worse than ever in MW3, which feels like WWIII as told by Hollywood, not as predicted by real experts. As you can imagine, MW3 picks up almost immediately after the conclusion of MW2, with WWIII having officially erupted. While the now-disavowed Task Force 141 soldiers attempt to take the fight directly to Russian ultranationalist, Vladimir Makarov, an American platoon, Delta Force Team Medal, tries to fight the good fight back on North American shores, and then European shores. Yes, apparently after a successful invasion of ALL OF NORTH AMERICA, the Russian army has now successfully invaded ALL OF EUROPE, over a completely obvious terrorist act that was obviously not the work of anyone but a well-known terrorist. Ok, I'm pretty sure Russia's army is not nearly that big. Hell, I'm pretty sure CHINA's army is not nearly that big! So, as with the previous MW titles, MW3's plot cannot be taken seriously, because it's preposterous. It's true that you don't play these games for the storyline anyway, but considering how seriously the MW games take themselves, you'd think they'd make more of an effort to deliver a story that isn't ridiculously contrived and so obviously unrealistic.

Difficulty: 5/10- Thanks to the bunnybrained AI, MW3's campaign is easier than the last few CoD titles, even on Hardened or Veteran difficulty. There's far less strategy involved, and it's now much easier to kill enemy soldiers, who also funnel in from spawn points in unending numbers (another thing that Treyarch finally ditched in Black Ops, only to have Infinity Ward start doing it in MW3!). The increased challenge of the Spec Ops and Spec Ops Survival modes still keep the challenge at a nicely-paced level that isn't too difficult or too easy, but the more brainless campaign will completely fail to challenge CoD veterans. At least they can still cut their teeth a little more in the addictive Spec Ops modes though.

Replay Value: 10/10- Even if MW3 takes a couple of surprising steps backwards for the franchise, it still offers plenty of reasons to continually revisit it, including the appeal of continually maximizing your rank and Prestiging in the online multiplayer. Between your usual set of Achievements (which are still, thankfully, exclusively within the campaign and Spec Ops, with only one or two unattainable without multiple players), hidden Intel in the campaign's levels, independent ranks and challenges for both Spec Ops and the online multiplayer, not to mention the continued challenge of dominating the leaderboards on Call of Duty: Elite, CoD fans will still get their usual heap of reasons to keep consistently popping this game disc into their Xbox 360 until the next CoD title comes out at the end of next year.

Extras: 10/10- Still generous as ever, MW3 is stuffed to the brim with hidden challenges for players to discover and conquer, not to mention the inevitable DLC offerings that will keep people coming back as well. Call of Duty: Elite is easily the biggest extra, and it's an online community that, frankly, I'm surprised Activision didn't get going on sooner. The service is great for die-hard CoD fanatics that spend every waking moment of their free time mastering these games and dominating the online arena within them, but that being said, you need to pay a $50 subscription fee every year to unlock all of the network's features. This kind of rubs me the wrong way, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It feels like a ploy to milk more money out of the hardcore fans, especially since similar services like Battle.net and Halo Waypoint are absolutely free, offering all of their features out of the gate. This subscription fee is even harder to swallow if you're playing the game on Xbox 360, since you already have to pay an annual $60 to Microsoft for an Xbox Live Gold membership renewal, or else you can't play online. This means that, every year, you must pay $60 for the new CoD game, $60 to renew your Xbox Live Gold membership, and another $50 to access the rest of Call of Duty: Elite. That is ridiculous. You can still get much of the communal elements au gratis, so at least you're not FORCED to pay for Call of Duty: Elite, but if you want all of the insider tips and exclusive perks, you'll have to shell out an annual $50, which is annoying. Needless to say, unless you're a fanatical CoD player that absolutely must master every iota of the franchise, Call of Duty: Elite's full feature set isn't really worth paying a yearly subscription fee for, especially not for Xbox 360 owners who are already paying an annual fee to play anything online on Xbox Live!

Conclusion- MW3 is still a good game, don't get me wrong. I still enjoyed it, and I've still had a ball playing the game online with my buddies while I try to achieve whatever accolades I can in the campaign and Spec Ops. That said though, MW3 is still a tired game, perhaps a victim to Infinity Ward's employee bleedout, but regardless, it's still a tired game. The series in general is starting to feel a bit tired now. Activision is shoving out a new CoD game every year, alternating between Infinity Ward and Treyarch to develop them, and since the series really took off in 2007, it hasn't really changed beyond its setting and a handful of refinements between installments. It's a crying shame that MW3 is the title that Activision has debuted their new Call of Duty: Elite network with, since MW3 feels like a testament to the series starting to run out of gas a bit. The community is still going strong, and there's still legions of players playing this game online on Xbox Live, and the dedicated PC servers, and PlayStation Network, and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, but the games themselves have lost something. The series has become more about the brand than the actual quality of the experience, and Activision seems to be somewhat coasting on the success of the CoD name now. It doesn't matter if they compromise or phone in a CoD experience, because if it says CoD on the cover, millions of people will buy it and play the hell out of it. I think this sort of arrogance that Activision has laced the CoD brand with nowadays is what divides people so aggressively on the series. As with anything that reaches this landmark level of popularity, there are few people like myself who merely have a passing admiration for the series. With most of the gaming community, you are either head-over-heels in love with CoD, or you hate it with every fiber of your soul. I can sort of understand where this hate comes from, because it must be frustrating for non-fans to play and enjoy other, more creative and ambitious shooters, only to have the gaming community at large ignore them in favour of just blindly creaming all over MW3 simply because it's CoD. Even I've felt a mite of frustration to see so many people hailing MW3 as the best shooter of this year, simply because it's CoD, when in reality, I can think of a good handful of shooters that came out in 2011 that are generally much better, more ambitious, more fun and more creative games. Many of these great games failed to sell, simply because MW3 had already monopolized the market from the brand name. After feeling so let-down by the final product of MW3, this reality feels even worse to me. I like CoD, even if I can see why people hate it, and I don't want it to suffer a humiliating destruction like Activision's Guitar Hero brand did last year. If the franchise were a rock star, like Guitar Hero was, it would be that really amazing rock star that changed the genre forever with its landmark album in 2007 (the original MW), catapulting its name to global stardom and dominating the genre that it had now made its own! Since then however, CoD has gotten a sagging waistline and a bit of a drug habit, its ego bloated on the mindless adoration of fans worldwide, and its masters caring less and less about the integrity of its commercial material. MW3 is kind of like the live performance that the CoD rock star shows up drunk for. You still have a grand old time, and CoD is still good at what it does, but afterward, you can't help but worry that poor CoD is headed for a fall if something is not done to right its direction on the tracks of superstardom. No one wants to see CoD, beloved by legions, suddenly making the headlines not for its sweet, sweet music, but instead for a stay in jail time after punching out a paparazzi in a European nightclub, or a forced stint in rehab after it crashed its Lambourghini into an orphanage with at least three sets of blended illegal narcotics in its system, with two hookers in the back seat, and its underwear on its head. Someone please help poor CoD before that happens! Ok, with that vaguely hilarious metaphor laid out, let's get to my conclusion. MW3 is an enjoyable shooter that's still better than many FPS games, but beneath what the CoD series normally delivers. The game is dragged down by a lack of creativity, really lousy AI, and a weak, predictable campaign, but it's still fun where it counts, and you'll still lose countless hours to the multiplayer especially if you really enjoy these games. As far as which version is best, the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are all pretty much the same, though you get a couple of added perks on PC and Xbox 360. The PC version looks and sounds the best on a high-end machine, as usual, and the advantage of aiming with the mouse still adds a lot more intensity to gunfights. The Xbox 360 version gets DLC a month before the PC and PS3 versions do as well. It could be said that the PS3 version likely has the best online package if you're gunning for Call of Duty: Elite though, since you don't get the compromised, yet still hacker-filled dedicated PC servers, nor are you forced to pay ANOTHER annual subscription fee to renew your online playing service like you are on Xbox 360. The DS version (subtitled 'Defiance') is a complementary story that takes place during events that lead up to the main MW3 campaign in the other versions, but it's severely limited by the shortcomings of the DS hardware, so while it's a functional FPS, it's a dull one too. The Wii version of MW3 is also unfortunately awful compared to its console competitors, riddled with bad controls crippled by serious lag issues, numerous bugs (especially in the online play), dark and muddy graphics, and the better part of the PC/Xbox 360/PS3 features missing, including Call of Duty: Elite. Even if you're the rare CoD fan that only owns a Wii and nothing else, the Wii edition of this game is not good, and you're better off skipping it. Just stick with the surprisingly solid Wii port of Black Ops, because it's leagues better. So, I guess Treyarch is up again for 2012. Hopefully they can better sustain my love for the CoD franchise while Infinity Ward gets their shit together and decides their next move for 2013, because even if MW3 still entertained me and is still a good shooter, it's the first CoD game I've yet played that sort of left me wishing for more...

FINAL SCORE: 81% "GREAT!"

FINAL VERDICT: "Modern Warfare 3 is still a great shooter with an especially addictive online multiplayer suite and Spec Ops mode, as usual, but it also seems evident that the series has lost a bit of steam here. The game is still fun, but Infinity Ward has taken some odd steps backwards too, including surprisingly lousy AI, a weak and mostly uninteresting campaign, and a disappointing lack of new ideas compared to previous Call of Duty titles. Maybe it's victimized by Infinity Ward's unfortunate employee drain since 2009, but it's still beneath the quality standard that Call of Duty usually consistently delivers, even on an annual basis."