Zone of the Enders, AKA The free game that came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo

Zone of the Enders,

AKA The free game that came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo

If you’ve ever wondered what a game based on Neon Genesis Evangelion would be like, look no further than Zone of the Enders, the story of a teenager from Space Japan who needed therapy years ago and suffers a mental breakdown thanks to the horrors of war. Also, there are giant robots and they fight each other. Sadly, Zone of the Enders is unable to reach the lofty heights of its inspiration storywise, which is all the more disappointing as the producer was Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear, which is renowned for its plot and characters. Speaking of Metal Gear, this game is infamous for selling very well, but the vast majority of players buying it solely for the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, only to trade this game in en masse once the full version was released.

In the distant future, Jupiter is under attack from the evil despot Nohman and his army of mechs. 14 year old Leo barely manages to escape a robot attack that kills his friends when he stumbles across Jehuty, a mech intended for battling Nohman’s forces. Now it’s up to Leo to transport Jehuty to the military so it can be handed over to a trained pilot, after a quick stop to pick up his love interest Celvice, of course.

The big issue with the plot is the character of Leo. The protagonist of Neon Genesis Evanelion, Shinji, is notorious for being whiny, irrational, incompetent and generally a bag of neuroses, and Zone of the Enders mimics this for Leo. Unfortunately, it goes a step further and throws grating voice acting and poorly justified angst on top. Leo’s big issue is that he suffers from survivor’s guilt after he chose to save himself instead of helping his friends, and because of this he refuses to fight the enemy forces because he doesn’t want to be responsible for the death of anyone else. So far so good, except the rank and file enemy mechs are unmanned drones and by refusing to fight them, he’s only getting more people killed through his inaction. He continues to complain even after a level which involves hacking into one of the enemy mechs and piloting it through an energy field that’s fatal to organic life forms. He should have remembered this and taken solace from it, but he doesn’t, seemingly forgetting it for the sake of the plot. Only the boss robots have pilots, and all but one eject safely after their machines are defeated. The one exception is Viola, the main antagonist, who is fought three times over the course of the game, and chooses to die after the final battle, as she’s fatally injured and her mech is falling apart. To be fair, her death scene is surprisingly well done, possibly the one time the plot achieves the dramatic tone it’s going for. It helps that Leo shuts up for a bit while Viola waxes lyrical about destiny, choice and her own impending death.

The gameplay involves Jehuty flying across a map of Jupiter and touching down in marked areas to clear them of enemy mechs. There are several patrols in each area, with each patrol consisting of two or three enemies, and when enemies start to battle you, other nearby patrols can join in if they’re close. To battle an enemy, you must lock on to them before attacking, and your distance from the enemy will determine your attack. Getting up close will make Jehuty bash the enemy with its sword arm, while distant foes can be shot at with a short laser burst. Jehuty is surprisingly agile for its size, and nippy too thanks to its booster engines. The properties of its attacks can be changed by attacking while moving to activate a sword lunge or homing laser. Holding down the attack button will charge up an energy ball or spin attack, two powerful attacks with the drawback of leaving you vulnerable while you charge them up. All these abilities are tied to one button, so it’s quite impressive that the controls remain simple and intuitive to grasp, with sausage-fingered confusion leading to death being an unlikely occurrence. These tools will cover almost everything you’ll need to do in combat, with the rest being covered by your subweapon. By default, you can press O to grab an enemy or object and throw it away from you, but your other options include a decoy that draws enemy fire away from you (Essential for avoiding a particular boss’s one hit kill attack), mines and a healing shield. The combat doesn’t get dull despite the limited moveset because, although it’s not particularly fancy, every move has a purpose. There is no ability that you’ll never use, so it pays to battle often so that you can get practice using each of your skills.

The combat forms the bulk of the gameplay, but that’s not all you’ll be doing. There are some occasions during which you’ll have to save cities under attack from enemy robots by destroying them before they trash the place and kill civilians. This is easier said than done, as trying to fight carefully isn’t easy when you’re piloting a giant robot, meaning that you pose just as much of a risk to the city as the enemies do. While you keep a patrol occupied, others will continue to attack unmolested, meaning that you’ll have to either defeat enemies quickly or employ a hit and run strategy, dashing around the entire area to distract numerous enemies. In addition, any damage dealt to the cities is permanent, which can be annoying when you are required to save an area you visited earlier in the game. In particular, the first rescue mission takes place in the area where you fight the first boss, a robot so big it almost covers the screen and belches fire everywhere, meaning that it’s almost impossible to do well when the rescue mechanic is introduced, as the entire city’s most likely been burned to ashes long before the objective even comes up. There are also a few occasions where it’s unclear where you need to go next and end up wandering the map aimlessly through trial and error until you stumble across your next objective.

Despite these annoyances, the central gameplay is enjoyable enough that the game doesn’t suffer too much for it. It’s pretty short too, and while this might normally be a bad thing, in this case it’s a positive as the game doesn’t wear out its welcome too much, and ends up being the perfect length for what it is. If it were much longer than it is, the flaws would have likely mounted up and tarnished the rest of the experience to a greater extent.

Graphics: 6   The cutscenes haven’t aged well, but fortunately the in-game graphics hold up better.

Sound: 4     The bad old days of PSOne / early PS2 voice acting, cheesy but not quotable. Shudder.

Gameplay: 7      The combat may be basic, but it is fun despite that.

Lifespan: 5    The story lasts 5 hours with little replay value. On the plus side, there is a secret 2-player mode.

Overall:        The story and characters may not be very good, which is disappointing considering the pedigree behind it, but the gameplay is fun enough to overcome this issue. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy giant robots fighting?          6/10

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Release Date: April 29, 2016

Films are like buses. You wait ages, then two films you want to see come out at once. Captain America: Civil War is the 13^th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the first film of Phase 3. To kick things off with a bang, Cap is joined this time around by Iron Man, most of the other Avengers, and even two new heroes in the form of Black Panther and Spider-Man, both making their long-awaited MCU debuts here ahead of their own films. As you might be able to gather from the cast list, the film serves as a sequel to Avengers: Age of Ultron as much as it does Captain America: The Winter Soldier. You may also remember that I liked Winter Soldier a lot, and Age of Ultron not so much. Therefore, I’m pleased to report that Civil War sticks closer to Winter Soldier tonally, while letting Age of Ultron influence some of its events, thus serving as the best of both worlds.

No plot summary again, as it’s a new release. However, it is difficult to discuss some things without making allusions, so although I won’t give away any explicit details, you might be able to infer things based on what I say. If you want to be as spoiler-free as possible, I’d advise not reading this until you’ve seen the film, just in case.

Despite what the trailers may imply, the entire film isn’t built around superheroes fighting each other. The film takes its time establishing why the characters feel the way they do about the situation, and their experiences in previous films also helps add to this. For example, Cap’s dismantling of SHIELD after HYDRA had infiltrated it means it’s perfectly sensible for him to distrust some sort of overview system, in case something similar happens again. Likewise, Tony Stark would want control to keep him in check because the last time he performed scientific experiments unsupervised, he created Ultron, and even before then he used to be a weapons manufacturer. It’s made clear that them fighting each other is the last resort, done only when all other options have fallen through. I also appreciate that the film has the guts to take its central concept to its logical conclusion, and avoid having the two sides reconcile while decking some CGI monster’s face in, as it means the central conflict is relevant throughout, and not just an excuse to have Captain America and Iron Man fight each other. The Marvel films have been around long enough by now that we, the audience, have gotten to know these characters well, and they can start to tell stories such as this one that rely on the shared history of the characters, and have them mean more to the audience thanks to that history. It’s a lesson the other recent movie where superheroes fight each other would do well to learn.

There was that one scene where Ant Man fought Falcon, remember? What movie did you think I was talking about?

You may think that with such a large cast list, the film would struggle to balance everyone without having someone overshadow everyone else or be shafted. In a pleasant surprise, this is not the case. Everyone gets a bit of focus and a reason to be involved, with nobody appearing for the sake of it. Some characters offer different aspects of the Sokovia Accords and how they’ll be affected by them. Others, most notably Spider-Man and Ant Man, serve as comic relief, but are capable of being serious when necessary. Even more impressively, Cap isn’t pushed out of his own film by having to share it with the rest of the Avengers, always remembering that it’s his name that’s in the title. There are two plots running alongside each other, the Winter Soldier plot that follows on from The Winter Soldier, and the Accords plot that happens as a response to the events of Age of Ultron. Unlike many of these kinds of films, the two plots here complement each other well and blend into each other, thus avoiding a stop-start feel whenever the plot focus switches, and keeping a smooth pace throughout. It’s thanks to this pacing that, although the film is 2 ½ hours long, it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

The new characters are particularly worthy of praise. After two Spider-Men that portrayed one half of the character better than the other, we have in Tom Holland an actor who nails both Peter Parker and Spider-Man (Turns out we didn’t need Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to perform the Fusion Dance after all – or maybe they did and Tom Holland is the result?) Everything we need to know about the character’s personality is established in only two scenes via the medium of Show Don’t Tell, and without any expository dialogue or yet another retelling of his origin story, a blessed relief as Spider-Man’s origin story is common knowledge, behind only Batman and Superman. 

(There is one thing that I should mention here. Spidey refers to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as "A really old movie." This line makes you old as the hills as it is, but it gets worse. Peter Parker is 15 in the film, which is set in the present day, so 2016. Peter Parker was therefore born in 2001. The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. Putting these together, you realise Peter Parker is so young, he hadn't even been born yet when the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy started.)

Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther is excellent, his character established in a comparable way to Spider-Man, but with a more prominent role as the neutral third party of the Civil War. This role is a natural fit for a foreign diplomat to play, and in his very cool-looking costume, he proves to be more than a match, carrying himself with dignity and grace, but also fury tempered with skill. Like Spider-Man, Black Panther’s character develops naturally in the film, without it needing to pause to introduce him. The upcoming Spider-Man and Black Panther films just became very exciting prospects after Civil War. Also worth noting is the enigmatic villain Zemo, played by Daniel Bruhl. He may just be an ordinary man without any superpowers, but he’s one of the Avengers’ most dangerous foes yet despite this, posing a challenge of a different sort. He’s also capable of subverting clichés and offer some new twists, with one particularly cruel one near the end that I won’t spoil. Best of all, unlike most Marvel movie villains not named Loki, he doesn’t die at the end!

War, War! What is it good for? Making kick-ass movies like this, apparently. Civil War is definitely as good as Winter Soldier, if not even better, bringing the MCU’s best series to an end with aplomb.

10/10

You have no idea how happy I am to be doing a positive review again.

And finally, a short, sad story of how friends became enemies. Like this if you cry every time.

Ratchet and Clank (2016)

Ratchet and Clank (2016)

Release Date: April 29, 2016

This week, we’ll be looking at a new release! Ooh, aren’t we fancy? Anyway, Ratchet and Clank is the film adaptation of the popular Playstation game series, which serves as a loose adaptation of the first game in series, covering how Ratchet and Clank first met and their quest to save the Solana Galaxy from the evil Chairman Drek. Naturally, as a big fan of the games, I was highly anticipating the film, despite the poor track record of films adapted from videogames. Does Ratchet and Clank buck the trend? Well…

It was said you would destroy bad videogame films, not join them! Bring balance to the Tomatometer, not leave it on rotten!

It was supposed to be different this time. It was animated, they remained faithful to the game, the game developers were involved, the characters even kept their voice actors from the games, but the future refused to change. As of this writing, the film is languishing at a poor 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s what the professionals think, but what do I think?

Admittedly, bad is a strong word, and I think that low Rotten Tomatoes score is pretty harsh. I fail to see how this film is so much worse than the likes of Tomb Raider or Resident Evil, which somehow managed to score higher. I enjoyed this film more than any of those ones, with the possible exception of the second Resident Evil, which had the Nemesis in it, and the Nemesis is cool. Maybe being an animated film not made by Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks counts against it? Nevertheless, this is by no means a diamond in the rough.

No plot summary this time because the film is new, but as an adaptation of the first game in the series, you should be familiar with the plot if you’ve played that. Having said that, there are a few twists from the original to avoid it being a straight adaptation, which I appreciated for keeping things fresh. If you go back to the first game today, it’s very different from the later games in a few ways in terms of both gameplay mechanics and tone. You can’t play the film for obvious reasons, so the most relevant difference here is the personality of Ratchet, who is the first game is much more of a selfish jerk. Thankfully, the film gives Ratchet his more friendly and cheerful personality from the rest of the series. There is also a bit more character development for Captain Qwark, who gets some exploration of his personality and what drives him to act like he does, which he didn’t in the game. Other changes in the film are ones that draw from what later games added, such as the inclusion of Dr Nefarious, who wasn’t introduced until the third game, but has become a series mainstay since then.

The animation is excellent, very colourful and packed with alien species and little details in the backgrounds, even if the film spends a bit too much time in metal corridors when there could have been a bit more variety in settings. Even more impressive is that this was done on a pretty low budget of $12-20 million, some of which would have gone to marketing and paying the voice actors. The animation isn’t at the level of the big boys, but it’s very impressive that it comes fairly close on a fraction of the budget. The voice actors also go a great job. Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark and Dr Nefarious keep their voice actors from the games, which is a wise choice for several reasons. First, they’ve been voicing the characters for over a decade by now, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Second, it maintains goodwill from game fans. Finally, it saves money on hiring big name stars. Hiring James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye to reprise the roles of Ratchet and Clank respectively was probably a fair bit cheaper than it would have been to cast, let’s say, Michael J Fox and the guy who plays Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. Of course, the marketing department needs to put someone’s name on the poster, so the supporting characters are voiced by the likes of Paul Giamatti (Sans hilarious Russian accent), John Goodman, Rosario Dawson and Sylvester Stallone. I have no idea how on earth they got Sylvester Stallone in particular, and the phone call offering him the role of Chairman Drek’s robotic henchman Victor Von Ion is one I would pay to hear, but they all fit in well and are able to play the characters without their voices being recognisable and therefore distracting. Finally, it’s quite clear from all the in-jokes and references that there is a real love of the source material here. A lot of films adapted from video games change so much that they feel like adaptations in name only, seemingly ashamed of the source material, but this is definitely not the case here. A lot of these are the kind of things that fans will have extra appreciation for but aren’t critical enough to leave general audiences in the dark. There’s even one bit that may or may not be a subtle hint towards a Playstation cinematic universe (If you want to see how I would go about that, watch this space.)

Now for the bad. Even though I praised some of the changes made to the plot, it still borrows liberally from Star Wars, featuring an orphan on a backwater desert planet finding a robot that gives him a great quest to save the galaxy from a madman with a planet destroying superweapon, but I’m not going to be too harsh on it for this, since the game had the same plot, so the blame lies on the source material, not the adaptation. Besides, it’s still more self-aware that the plot’s been done before than Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Ratchet and Clank also spend surprisingly little time together, Clank having more screen time with Elaris, the long-suffering, underappreciated mission control of the Galactic Rangers. More hurtful is the pacing. The film gets off to a bad start, taking a good 20 minutes to get going, which isn’t helped by the overly long sequence of involved studios that seems to segue into the film’s opening more than once, almost exactly like in the Family Guy episode where Peter and Brian attend Alcoholics Anonynomus, except it’s not a joke, and a fourth-wall breaking meta joke that might have been funny if it came later, instead of being the very first joke of the film. Fortunately, the pace picks up later on, so the rough start isn’t as damaging as it could have been. There are also a few details that needed more explaining. For example, why is Chairman Drek blowing up planets to build a new planet from the remains? I know why from the playing the game, but it’s not explained in the film, so newcomers won’t be any the wiser for a motive than “Because he’s the bad guy, duh.”

More seriously, the film isn’t particularly funny. This is terribly disappointing since the games had a lot of hysterical scenes, such as the Nature’s Mysteries TV series, Dr Nefarious’ malfunctioningand love of soap operas, and the running joke of stranding characters on asteroids with no way of escaping, but the film doesn’t compare to any of those. There are some laughs, (I particularly liked the passive-aggressive computer on Clank’s escape pod and Captain Qwark on the poster for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) but the most they can muster is a chuckle. Some jokes would have been funnier if other films hadn’t beaten this one to the punch, such as the funny-looking-character-eating-cereal scene being done better in Deadpool, or the location subtitles being sporadically funny here, compared to the more consistently funny ones in Team America.) At worst, there are some jokes that keep getting dragged out even though they weren’t funny to begin with. Fortunately, the delightful overacting of Captain Qwark and Dr Nefarious means they continue to steal every scene they’re in on the strength of their performances alone.

Ratchet and Clank is decently entertaining for children, but there isn’t a whole lot here for those of a double digit age unless you’re a fan of the games, and even then it’s not a sure thing. Despite the obvious amount of effort and care from everyone involved that went into this, there’s just something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on, and the film feels like less than the sum of its parts because of it. That sentence pained me more to type than being on the receiving end of a RYNO blast ever could.

6/10

No tears, only dreams now.

So, does this mean Warcraft is the new Chosen One since that seems to have decent hype and a lot of money behind it, or is Angry Birds the new Chosen One since it comes out first? Personally, I fancy Warcraft’s chances better, but everything indicated Ratchet and Clank was supposed to be a sure thing, so I’m not optimistic either way.

It could have been worse though. I’m surprised Sony weren’t involved, but I’m also glad, as a quick look at what their film division has been up to recently indicates they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and are just throwing any old shit at the wall in the hope that something will stick. Have you seen the plans for the Amazing Spider-Man films, before they were cancelled? It’s shocking how bad they are! Praise be to Civil War for putting Spider-Man in and saving us from them. (Which reminds me, Captain America and Iron Man stop fighting because they both have a best friend called James. There’s your Civil War spoiler.) Sausage Party reeks of desperation, a minute long Family Guy cutaway stretched out to feature length. The new Ghostbusters is set to be this year’s Fant4stic, a disaster in the making using progressive values as an excuse for laziness and cynicism. Having an all-female cast means we don’t need to try and make a good film, and if you don’t like it, you’re a misogynist, so your opinion is invalid. The director’s already throwing a tantrum over on Twitter, and the damn thing is still several months away. He’s probably cracked from the realisation that his career and the careers of almost everyone involved will be toast by the end of the year. The sad part is, when the film inevitably crashes and burns, the wrong lessons will be learned and Hollywood will be convinced that the film failed because of the female cast, as opposed to being terrible, which means no more female casts ever again, which sucks. An all-female Expendables film could be good, once I’ve decided whether Sigourney Weaver or Linda Hamilton should be the leader. They could call it The Expendabelles! I'll just wait for some royalties if they use that name.

And then there’s Emojis: The Movie. They’re making a film about emojis. Fucking emojis. Let that sink in. Some bright spark out there saw emojis and thought to himself “Hmm, I’ve just had an excellent idea for a film. We’ll do a film about Emojis. Who’s popular at the moment? We’ll get them to do voices, put Gangnam Style on the soundtrack and after the credits we can include a scene with the bird from the Twitter logo and the Facebook F so we can do a social media cinematic universe. I’m a fucking genius, I am! Just for that, I’m going to treat myself to snorting cocaine from a hooker’s cleavage using a curly straw! All of the high, none of the nose ruining!”