I have not blogged for sometime; I’ve just fell out of the habit, but I thought I’d update this because it is the end of summer, and I have more than a few topics to cover. Since my last blog in July, I’ve seen a couple movies, went through a little bit of a moving dilemma, and have been playing copious amounts of games in my off-time from work.
Life
The craziness of getting my own apartment with my girlfriend and our friend escalated earlier this month when my girlfriend said she was going to take the semester off and stay back in town. I was shocked and saddened by this news, seeing that the main reason of getting the apartment was for us to move in together. I was going to be stuck with my friend Jessica who, although is great and fun, does not share the awesomeness of my gal. Luckily Liz came over last week and said plans have changed once again, and she will be attending this Fall.
Summer Camp is sucking; I’m at my wits end. Most of the staff has left to go back to getting ready for the next school year – most of them are teachers, so I’m left with only a few co-works to watch a bunch of kids who for the most part are really big assholes and have never lifted a finger or done anything in their life. There are a few who have manners, clean up after themselves, and are genuinely nice children, and they are extremely refreshing to have around. My last day is tomorrow which I cannot wait.
Movies
Since my last blog I saw a couple movies, two in theaters and one with Liz through netflixs.
The Amazing Spider-Man was awesome. I really liked the dynamic between Mary Jane and Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield did a much better job in my opinion than Toby McGuire. I thought the plot was pretty solid and did a good job re-telling an origin story without making it boring which I think is quite a feat for this movie seeing as it rebooted a series that has a trilogy already.
Fantastic Planet was a really weird old French Sci-Fi movie and an allegory for a Czechoslovakia invasion in the 1960s. The film takes place on another world where there are two species, the Om which resembles humans and are seen as savage vermin, and the Traggs which are a humanoid blue fishlike race that tower over the Oms and keep them as pets. The two factions war against each other throughout the movie. The animation is very bizarre and leads to some out of this world landscapes along with bizarre fauna and flora. I also really liked how the Tragg language had entirely different terms for units of measurement.
Batman: Dark Knight Rises: I saw this about three weeks after it was released. I thought it was a really well choreographed movie, like all of Nolan’s movies. Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway stole the show with their performances which is surprising because I was a little hesitant about both of them. Michael Caine’s performance was ruined for a me by a movie called, The Trip that I saw last year where there was a good 15 minute section of the two actors trying to impersonate Caine’s sad/serious voice. I still dislike Bale as batman, and this was just a pet peeve, but I was fixated on Batman’s open mouth and tongue every time there was a close up on his face. The ending, I thought was a little overdramatic too… But I loved the parts with Bane and Catwoman, so all is well. Good end to the trilogy.
Other movies watched this Summer:
The Avengers
Prometheus
Video games
Now to the main point of this whole blog, the videogames I have been playing. Since my escapades with the first two Assassin’s Creed games from my last blog, I have played 5 more games, and bought a couple too. Here are some quick thoughts on those games
3rd Platinum of the Year
My friend Erik helped me finish up all the Lum medals in Rayman Origins, so I was able to snag my 3rd Platinum of 2012.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Ubisoft managed to improved the combat, and make some changes to the free roam, but the game felt more like an expansion to Assassin’s Creed II. I liked the optional sync side quests that each mission had in it, some of those were very challenging. I probably should have spent more time with the recruitment feature, but the campaign was so short and easy that the feature was never really necessary.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations
Even shorter than Brotherhood, this one lasted 7 hours, they made climbing extremely fast and added zip lines all over the place which is great and made traveling very fast and fun. Still it felt more like an expansion pack, and the city seemed even smaller than Brotherhood. Everyone hated on the tower defense mini-game, but I didn’t mind it; I only had to do it three times though.
Tales of Vesperia
The game has a never ending plot. I could never go five minutes without a cut scene as I played through the story. The environments and enemy design were really good, but I ended up becoming fairly bored as the game stretched on and on. I don’t think I’m a big fan of the Tales series. This game seriously had a slow start that lasts for about 15 hours though.
Cave Story +
A fun little game I picked up on Steam four months ago. I just never had the time to finish it until last week. It’s extremely charming, and I love this Metroid influenced shoot-em’-up.
BulletStorm
I bought this game this week during the Best Buy sale for $5. It’s a fairly short shooter campaign filled with dick jokes, some slightly funny most not; however, it is a really fun FPS to just run around blowing people in half with a shotgun or kicking them into cacti. The early level environments are also very colorful and well crafted which I thought added something to the game that most FPS’ don’t have.
Rhythm Heaven Fever
I got this for $5 at the Best Buy sale too. I love the charm of the game, but I just cannot do rhythm games for the life of me especially this one. I’m only on the second remix, but I might have to put this down. Luckily I didn’t invest too much in it.
Other Games Beaten over Summer:
Batman Arkham Asylum
Eternal Sonata
L.A. Noire
Mass Effect 3
Dark Souls
Sonic Colors
Modnation Racers
Final Fantasy XII
Rayman Origins
Castlevania: OoE
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Assassin’s Creed
Assassin’s Creed II
So that is what is happening… I should try to update this a little more.
I could not agree with you more on The Amazing Spider-man. I admired the way Garfield gave Parker that socially-awkward approach compared to whatever approach McGuire tried to convey. I’ve yet to watch TDKR, however it’s possible I’ll end up watching it on DVD/BD (it has nothing to do with the events related to Aurora, CO, just to clarify). I recently saw The Watch (mainly because my mother and sister wanted to see it). It wasn’t that great of a comedy in my opinion.
As for gaming, I recently earned a new Platinum as well. Infamous 2, which makes it my 5th so far. I’m currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles and I’m enjoying it so far. Other than that, that’s pretty much it.
Congratulations on the Platinum. That is one I will probably never achieve.
Spiderman was alright, just hope the sequel is much better and Garfield gains some weight. TDKR was great though, but Avengers will still more enjoyable of all the summer movies I’ve seen.
I liked the Amazing Spiderman a lot more than the Raimi Spiderman movies. In addition to being a solid reboot, a lot of elements including the “500 Days of Summer” esque romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy was believable. On top of it, Garfield plays Peter Parker better than Tobey’s lame emo-antics.Likewise, Gwen Stacy is easily a more likeable character than Mary Jane.
I had few minor quibbles with it.I didn’t feel as strongly about the antagonist and didn’t like how they killed Uncle Ben in almost an anti-climatic manner.
TDKR was an entertaining watch too. Hathaway and Hardy stole the show. I was glad to see Caine get some importance this time. Bale is OK. His underwhelming presence is compensated by how good Nolan does these Batman movies. I’d say it was a satisfying end to the trilogy and I’m particularly glad he didn’t try pulling out anything pretentious at the end like he did in Inception.
I personally liked Prometheus too despite numerous flaws.
I really need to play Tales of Vesperia one of these days. I’ve heard people rave about it while some including you have passed it off with a “Meh!”. Games that generate such different responses naturally attract me.
Congrats on the Platinum and good luck for the year ahead.