Bastion XBLA Demo Review
Quite a unique experience. In the game you start off as “The Kid”. He wakes up and basically everyone and and everything has been destroyed/vanished. So “The Kid” needs to restore his world which is “Bastion”.
At first glance you’re kind of like meh… You’re this kid with a hammer, arrows, and a whirlwind special move. Pretty basic stuff… But then the world starts coming alive as you walk through it. Literally the ground and the walls start to build themselves into this extremely cool world.
One of the things that really drew me into this game however was the Narrator. With literally every move you make, every thing you destroy, and every thing you touch the bloody Narrator is talking about it! You fall off the ledge, “The Kid better watch his step…” You destroy something, “Didn’t take long for the Kid to become a pro at smashing stuff.” It really gives a new twist to gameplay like this.
It’s classified as a RPG, but I’m not sure it really qualifies as one. Sure you make a few decisions, “Should I build this or that…” “Use this weapon or that weapon…” ect… It felt very straight forward.
I was intrigued enough to finish the demo. However, with the price of 1,200 MSP ($15.00) I didn’t fill compelled enough to buy it. If it ever drops in price to 600 MSP again (Just missed it in the Countdown to New Years sell) I will definitely be picking it up.
Download the demo, give it a shot. It’s quite unique. XBLA & PC Exclusive for now.
Salt Review
For those of you who don’t know what Salt is, basically it’s an movie starring Angelina Jolie who play’s an CIA agent named “Evelyn Salt.” The CIA have this guy in custody named “Orlov”. He’s this Russian dude who claims he’s got info on an terrorist attack fittin’ to happen, and that Salt is really an Russian spy a.k.a. an sleeper agent in America’s government. This is all in the commercials, so don’t worry I’m not ruining anything for you. At this point, Salt’s all like, “Say what…?” And from then on the movie starts to get crazy.
Angelina Jolie did an excellent job portraying the character. She’s always been an pretty good actress, and we knew she could do action/adventure stuff from her run as the Tomb Raider. But this was REALLY well done. Salt was basically the female version of Jack Bauer from 24 as far as action goes mixed with Jason Bourne. Yeah, it was that good. When 24 the movie comes out, I can only hope they set the standard as high as this movie did.
Liev Schreiber was also in this film as Salt’s CIA boss, “Ted Winter.” Some of you may know him from film’s such as Defiance, Sabertooth from Wolverine Origins, and The Manchurian Candidate. Me and my sister still like to call him “Cotton” though for his role in Scream haha. It also starred Chiwetel Ejiofor of Red Belt, American Gangster. And an nice appearance from Gaius Charles a.k.a. “The Smash Baby!” (Friday Night Light Fans/Travis you know what I’m talkin’ about haha.)
There is an lot of mayhem in this movie, and amazingly they managed to keep it clean. There was very subtle cussing and it lived up to it’s PG-13 rating without making it feel like an kids show. And they managed to pull off the action in an very 24-ish/Bourne Identity kind of way along with lots of parkour scenes. Those who have seen Liam Neeson’s Taken can get an idea of how the action went in this film. It does have it’s dark moments at times and goes for some shock value. There were a few scenes in the film where people in the theater gasped at what was happening on screen. I think that’s a good thing though, it preserves the realism effect.
The movie really takes you on an ride as you follow the story of Salt and the whole time you’re trying to figure out is she really an terrorist or was she framed? I’d give this film 5 out of 5 stars and would definitely go see it again.
Limitless Review
The primacy of the film is about an pill that gives you full access to 100% of your brain power rather then just the normal 20% and if you stop taking it you return to the average joe you once were.
If any of you guys watch the show “Chuck” you know Chuck is an spy who has what they call an intersect inside of his brain which makes him basically the smartest guy in the world. He knows basically everything almost, especially if it’s government or CIA related. If you’ve watched every season, you find out Chuck’s actually dying from having this said intersect in his head and his father makes him this watch which injects this drug into his veins to keep him from dying from all the knowledge he’s obtaining. Well that’s basically what this movie is, Limitless is Chuck via an pill minus the spy/CIA/government stuff.
Anyways, the film stars Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, and Abbie Cornish (Some chick who looks just like Charlize Theron). Coop plays this character named “Eddie”. Eddie’s this writer with an book deal, but has writer block. He comes off as an bum in the beginning of the movie, has potential, but instead wastes everyday doing nothing productive. Until one day he runs into his ex-brother in law, who gives him this pill called NZT. Of course it’s on the “up and up”, FDA approved and hitting the streets as an behind the counter drug next year… Of course we’re not gonna believe the shady brother-in-law in the cheap suit though.
Anyways, Eddie keeps taking these pills and he’s getting smarter and smarter by the day. Learning multiple languages, doubling his money in no time. You get the idea. Problem is, just like when Chuck loses access to the intersect if Eddie doesn’t take the pill he starts reverting to his old self and suddenly all the knowledge he’s gained overnight is gone. Other things happen when he quits the pills cold turkey as well, he gets black-outs, can’t remember what he did for 18+ hours. His life is just rapidly going by and he’s no idea what the heck just happened when he snaps out of it. He’s not “addicted” to the pills by any means, and he has an plan to get off them. He just has to stay alive and out of jail long enough to do so.
I don’t wanna ruin the movie so I’m not going to say much more, but it’s an excellent film. It never gets boring, at least not in my opinion. There’s some really good action in it as you can guess some people will be trying to kill him. The acting and directing was fantastic. Great story, especially how it ends. I’d say check it out.
It is PG-13, but if you’ve never watched “Chuck”, have no idea what an “intersect” is, I can see how some may think it’s some sort of “drug” movie. But really it’s not. It’s more about using your full potential and knowing that with great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, I just quoted Uncle Ben from Spider-Man ; ). Here’s the trailer:
