What I've Been Up To.

I thought I'd put an update for those of you who do read this blog as to what I've been doing lately. I've been busy with work, which is why I haven't kept up with the Horrid Horror Movie Reviews. I've also enrolled in college... again. I'm going in for a Bachelor's in Fine Arts, and maybe try to minor in something, possible Psychology. But, I doubt that.

Anyway, I attempted to watch The Lost, a movie based on a Jack Ketchum book. Notice that the tagline says, "... Unrelenting! A vicious, abrasive film." I can agree to that first part. It was unrelenting. Unrelentingly boring. It starts off with a lot of promise (and a naked woman, but I'll come back to that) with a story about a guy who kills two women. Where it falls apart is when it cuts to four years later, he's still free, and the police want to prove that he killed those two women. Okay, sure. I can get behind that. Except the police basically try to hinder his social life, and nothing more until the last fifteen minutes of the movie, where he goes on a killing rampage because he can't get laid by one of the many women in his city that he's slept with. They don't even bother looking for evidence or talking to his friends until the last half hour of the movie. What it comes down to is 1st quarter: Story 2nd and 3rd quarter Ray Pye being a jackass, beating his girlfriend and sleeping with every woman in the city 4th quarter Story.

And when I say that Ray sleeps with every woman in the city, I mean it. The only women he hasn't done was the naked woman in the very beginning, and that's because he thought she was a lesbian, so he killed her, and the maid in the hotel dating an ex-cop old enough to be her grandfather. With nearly every woman he tries to seduce, we get to see them naked, and him acting like he's never had sex before and humping wildly. I mean, at one point, the woman he's "having sex" with just looks at him like he's an idiot. Right after that, he boinks the waitress at the diner, and another maid (the "fat one), then his girlfriend, aka "August" from "3rd Rock From the Sun." Oh, and he hasn't aged well at all. She looks like she's in her forties in this, but that could be because the film keeps putting grain filters on like a change of T-Shirts.

When he's acting "normal," he's still acting like an idiot. Remember the scene in American Psycho when Patrick Bateman films himself having sex with two women at once while making stupid gestures, mugging, and pointing at the camera? Imagine two hours of that. He's either grinning like a zombie, acting like a bastard to his friends, or doing drugs and women. All while looking like a complete creep. Oh, and why was he wearing eyeliner and a fake mole? If this is supposed to be in 1969, why is there a 2005 Corvette? And an '83 Cougar? And most importantly, with all his obvious creepiness and repulsiveness, why does nearly everywoman want him? He's not charming, he's freaky. He's supposed to be a sociopath, but he comes of as someone who was raised getting everything they want be either bitching constantly or with violence. He's a narcissist, not a sociopath.

See, what makes movies like Natural Born Killers and, hell, even The Devil's Rejects (as much as I hated that one) work is that the killers are interesting because they're frightening. While you felt sorry for Mallory Knox for being molested by her father, you loathed her for being a cruel, sadistic killer. You could almost respect the Firefly family's goal to stay together, if they weren't so batshit crazy and evil. This movie has no emotional connection to the killer, mainly because he's too emotional about himself for no reason other than he is. Beyond that, there is no character development at all, just random softcore porn for the sake of it. If I hadn't rented this from PSN, I'd film myself stepping on it, and then shaving it with an Epilator.

Speaking of Playstation, I've been playing Alpha Protocol pretty much all this week. I was going to do a "First Impressions" article on it, too. Boy, am I glad I didn't. A lot of the times, with my first impressions, I like the game, but it has flaws in the beginning, but it gets better. Alan Wake, for example, seemed too Twin Peaks-ish for me, but believe me, it gets a whole hell of a lot better. Alpha Protocol is the complete opposite. It starts off really good (save for a combat mechanic that takes some getting used to), but towards the end slips down a steep hill of suckitude. There are a few big reasons for this.

1: Bugs galore. Sometimes, you can take cover behind a wall, other times you can't. About 50% of the time that you can, you get stuck on an invisible wall that kills you by slowing you down enough to keep you from moving. It has a habit of crashing (a lot like Haze does).

2: Boss battles are impossibly difficult. I'm in one now where I'm fighting a guy who is sniping me in a tower. Okay. He also can throw five grenades at once. Sure, what ever. And he was in infinite swarm of badguys that spawn to kill you, while he's sniping and tossing grenades at you. To stop them, you have to pick a lock to another tower. But you can't, because you're getting shot at. Another has a boss in a bullet proof glass room. When you get to the door, it seals. Yet, you're supposed to know that the control to open the door is on the ground floor, despite nothing telling you about it. You also have to hack a terminal, all with guys shooting at you, of course. Oh, and they can kill you in two shots, too! Joy.

3: The characters are bland: You have four romance options, and you can do all four in the same game! That'd be great... if they weren't copy and paste characters from, say, Mass Effect. You have SIE, who is basically Jack without tattoos, Scarlet Lake, AKA Miranda without guns, Mina, AKA Tali, and Madison, AKA Liara. Your character sounds like Commander Shepard (and I don't think this is my favorite game in the Citadel). One of the badguys is pretty much Sarin from the first Mass Effect. It worked for that game, mainly because that where the characters come from. The only character that's interesting is Sis, the teenaged bodyguard with dual revolvers. Except, that's all we get from her because she's mute!

4: Stealth? AI ranges from okay to "I CAN SEE FOREVER!" When enemies can see you behind a wall that is blocked by a tall stack of crates, something is wrong.

There are way too many things wrong with it to get into now. I'll have to review. But, needless to say, the game is not that good. Well, I have to prepare for the weekend. I'll keep you all posted!