Only Pink Robots Can Drag Me Away! The "Rock Band 3" Review

I need to do a positive review. I'm soundly oddly enough like my "nemesis," and frankly, it sickens me. So, I sold Saw 2: Flesh and Blood, as well as a few other things to buy the Keyboard bundle of Rock Band 3 at less than half price. And, well, I have a lot to say about it.

First off, the flaws. Okay... the flaw. Yes, seriously, I can name one flaw in this game, and it's the character creation tool. I tried to make me, and I look like I'm about to punch someone. I tried to make Madam Binkie, and she looks less Asian, and more like a miniature Sarah Palin. This is because, like Guitar Hero, you start off with a base head shape. Unfortunately, they got rid of some of the more used head shapes, and opted for the more "typical" ones. This means that everyone in the game has an oval head. The facial features are difficult to edit, and some of the features seemed specified to people who aren't Asian (I'm white, but I have Asian friends). Where are the Asian Eye and Nose sets? Some characters got axed, too (R.I.P. Quentin Lance and Penelope McQueen). But, the Duke of Gravity is back, and better than ever! Now, he has EPIC MUTTONCHOPS!

While the soundtrack starts off slow and very easy (and kind of boring, admittedly, on guitar), it picks up, and is well balanced for all of the instruments. Harmonies come back from Green Day: Rock Band and The Beatles: Rock Band, and are very well utilized. Of the 83 tracks on disc, only a few don't use keyboards or harmonies. One doesn't use a guitar! But, the big one left out is the Keyboard. When it is used, it ranges from very well to "why is it even here for only ten notes?"

And, that's a shame, too, because the Keyboard is one of the best additions a music game has ever made, next to, you know, the whole band! It feels a little gimmicky the way it's used in the early songs for less than a quarter of the song. At the same time, it introduces you to it slowly, and by the later songs, where all of it is keyboard run, you'll be glad it did start like that.

Especially in Pro-Mode. I played with two different friends, including Binkie, who both play piano. It took both of them a little bit of getting used to playing Pro-Mode. The complaint I've heard is that if you miss a note, you don't hear the note you did hit, and I'm inclined to agree with this. But, once you get set on it, and stay committed to it, you'll be playing something that feels extremely natural. After lots of practice, that is. Frankly, I can't wait until the string Pro-Mode Guitar comes out so I can learn some of these songs on that. Though, I may start easier, like on "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" not "Beast and The Harlot." Or "Roundabout."

Oh, back to the song list. As I was saying, the early songs are a little on the boring side on guitar. But, again, this is to introduce you to the game itself, and make Pro-Mode's curve a bit easier. Playing these songs as a band, though? A lot of fun, especially with harmonies. One of my highlights is over at my friends' place, singing "Bohemian Rhapsody," and his roommate walked over, picked up a mike, and did the bass harmonies instantly. Was it ridiculous? Yes. Was it fun? Hell, yes, and that's all that matters! How many games out can you say are that much fun, that you don't care how stupid you look?

If you're used to the RB2 menus, these will take some getting used to, but, like the rest of the game, is worth it. Every player has their own menus, and the song categorization is a lot simpler. Drop in, Drop Out gameplay is introduced, and it works great. The lack of structure in career mode, i.e. no real tour mode, is a bit jarring, but the fact that you don't earn cash to buy items is a lot better. Instead of money, you unlock items, and can change them when you want to. It feels like an award instead of a chore.

For your money, Harmonix has always known how to due the music genre of games. Rock Band 3 is no exception. Yes, it has a few hiccups, but overall, it is an improvement over an all ready amazing game. Harmonix, my hat's off to you all.

Over All: A-

+ Great Soundtrack

+ Keyboards and Harmonies!

+ Queen!

- Keyboard feels a little underused

+ But that can be fixed with DLC

- Face generation is bad

+ Pro Mode is a much awaited and needed challenge

+ A True Party Game

All Right, Game, We Get It! You're Over! The "SAW 3D" Review

So, I thought I got out of this. I was wrong. I didn't get out of it, because I got a call while over at a friend's house to play Rock Band 3, saying that I had to see this movie to review it. Wouldn't you know it, though? I was right. Not just about Saw 3D being a bad movie, but about everything in it: how it would end, who would die, and, most importantly, that in its own 1-Up-Man-Ship, it would be a comedy.

Cary Elwes returns as Dr. Lawrence Gordon, from the first movie. His acting was terrible in that one, and even worse in this. At one point, he gets up to thank a fellow survivor who wrote a book, and is recording a session with the other survivors. His line? "I... want to thank you... for... putting... us... on... your... promotional... D... VD!" Jigsaw Kramer, there were more breathless pauses in that one line of dialogue than in William Shatner's career! Even worse, the anticipation of him returning is not only soiled by this, but also the fact that he's only in this scene, the beginning, and the very ending. That last part, too, is so obvious that people were tossing it about since Saw 2!

The gore in this seems like an afterthought, much like the 3D effects. A lot of the time, the 3D gore doesn't fly to the audience, it stops and disappears once it reaches the camera. Even then, it looks pixelated and bland, or in one instance, the animation is literally 3 frames of movement total. One second the object is falling, the next, without anything in between, the object is in your face as if by teleportation. The gore if laughably fake. One trap utilizes a rubber face. I can tell because the woman's jowls flap more than a Richard Nixon Impersonator's.

Oh, let's talk about the traps. They fall into two categories: clever, but not functional for the movie's plot, or they wouldn't work. Most of the traps are set up so either someone has to die or the person cannot pass the test. Jigsaw's whole purpose was to teach people that life is worth living by putting them in near death situations. Yet, now, all his traps result in someone's death. What happened to, "Those who do not appreciate life do not deserve life. " or "I don't condone murder and I despise murderers?" Hell, Jigsaw even scolded Amanda in the third movie for doing just this!

The one that wouldn't work involves a car held up by jacks while accelerating to 90 MPH. As soon as the car hits the ground, it takes off, killing four people, despite the fact that the jacks aren't completely retracted, which would split the tires at that speed. Hell, I doubt the car would even go straight. Also, of all the things that could've been done to hold the guy in the seat, they seriously thought gluing him was the best idea? Glue?!

Like the past two and half movies before this, SAW 3D has no reason to exist other than milking a long dead cash cow. It's so bad that it actually ends up being a parody of itself, even though it's meant to be serious. If you don't believe me, take this part into account. One scene has a guy yelling at Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's girlfriend (he has one and I don't?!). The guy rambles about how he knew when he first saw her that she was crazy. He then randomly yells, "CRAZY!" as if he has echolalia, or that was his cue for his next line. That alone should some it up for you, but if you're really desperate, wait for it to come out on D... V...D!

OH! ***SPOILER ALERT!!!**** Why does everyone who survives Jigsaw's traps become an apprentice?

Low Budget and Popular? "Paranormal Activity 2" Review

The first Paranormal Activity movie set the bar on "fauxumentaries" by making them popular again. It did this by recording an everyday house that's haunted by a demon, and giving it a twist ending, though one that a child probably did in Adobe Photoshop... CS1. With its popularity, no doubt was a sequel going to be made, such was the case with The Blair Witch Project, a movie that inspired people to film up their faces while snot ran down their noses.

As gross as that image is, in my opinion, its still better than Paranormal Activity, mainly because if you paid attention to the movie, a plot hole becomes perfectly clear: If demons don't get attached to people, why is it attached to a person? Maybe that's why it's scary? I don't know. Frankly, I found it dull and amateurish. Oh, and atrociously boring. Yet, save for being dead tired and slightly stressed out, I was actually excited about the second movie. Finally, I don't have to waste mustard by boiling it with water to make myself nauseous!

There is exactly one good thing I can say about Paranormal Activity 2: it's actually better than the first movie. I can say this because, unlike the first movie, this actually had one scary moment. Seriously, it has exactly one! Most of the movie is either talking of jump scares that anyone who watches a lot of horror movies can see a mile away. Is there any horror fan out there who is still scared by jump scares, though? Surprisingly, the one scary scene in the movie is a jump scare, but is only scary because you're expecting something else in the jump scare line. The reason you're expecting that, too, because the same scene happens every five minutes. Another scene is repeated a lot: the same shot of the swimming pool vacuum cleaner. The same exact shot.

I know the movie is low budget, but stock footage? Really? Another scene has two teenagers talking while on white towels. Look closely towards the bottom edge of the screen, and you'll see a flat edge that flutters. That flat edge is a page from the script. What's more is that the movie features the return of the two main characters from the first movie, including stock footage from the first (which makes sense in context to the movie). We're supposed to take this seriously, yet one can't help but notice that one of the characters put on fifty pounds between the end of the first movie and a scene in this one (which would be roughly three hours). Even harder to avoid is the fact that every young woman in this movie wears a low cut shirt. The movie could have had the title Paranormal Activity 2: Cleavage, and it would have made sense.

The story is made weak by the fact that they explain why the events of this movie and the first movie are happening. The reason does make sense, until you think back to how certain characters in the first movie didn't know about it, but they had to have known because they were told in this one, which is a prequel. It seriously doesn't help that the dog and baby are the most interesting characters in the movie, because everyone else is incompetent or boring. Even the events happening to the family are pretty bland, relying on the same parlor tricks over and over, or in one instance, teeth from a gumball machine. The only way it could be scary is if you had a homeless bum wearing them.

If you really want a scary movie, how's this? A fake documentary that takes place in a house where one room has a guy standing in the corner, who everyone ignores, through out the whole movie until the last ten minutes. In the last ten minutes, he disappears, and the husband of the house is killed. When the police ask the family how it happened, the family mentions that maybe Henry did it. So, they knew he was there? Who was he? Why was he there? Was he kidnapped and forced to stand there? Was he demented, or was the family? What's wrong with this picture? It's a bad idea, but it's still better than Paranormal Activity 2.

Game Over, Man! Game Over: The Saw II:Flesh and Blood Review

The worst game I've ever played up to this point has been Bullet Witch, an XBox 360 game about a witch with a gun as a broomstick (I guess it's really a boomstick),which controlled like throwing a brick with an remote controlled car engine attached to it, then trying to steer it. Graphically, it looked about as on par as an Xbox game, but that slid due to it being one of the first next gen games to hit the market. The controls, though, didn't have that excuse, and the fact that an enemy goes from being easy to killing you in one hit in the course of one level made Bullet Witch and indelible mark of horrendous gaming on my mind, where it's been the butt of several jokes for four years.

How was I to know that Konami, one of my favorite game publishers, would publish its successor? What's more is that I didn't even know that it'd be a sequel to a game that I secretly liked (despite the fact that the game was terrible). I should've known that this was going to a bad trip to Jigsaw's basement when I paid a whopping total of $9.00 for it (admittedly, I sold some stuff, but the point stands). Reader, prepare yourself for Saw II: Flesh and Blood.

The story follows Michael Tapp, the son of Detective Tapp from the first movie and game, as he... um... he does... something. Seriously, as hard as I'm trying to as I write this review, I cannot tell you what the story is! All I can tell you is that Michael is a giant jerk who screws over anyone at the drop of a pin, and Jigsaw wants to teach him a lesson. But, the beginning of the game, we play as Campbell, who did... something, and needs to get to an elevator before someone else does. The end of the game depends on how you complete the first chapter. Should someone die in the first chapter, you get a different ending. At least, that's what it's supposed to do. Instead, it killed me, and I had to start over. This is especially annoying as you go through the game trying to keep someone alive, only for them to die in the end because you saved someone else in the beginning of the game. It makes your efforts seem completely futile, and is not clever writing in the least bit.

Let's talk about the writing real quick. As we all know, lately, games are incomplete without "Trophies" or "Achievements," depending on what system you have. Saw II is no different, but, unlike Saw, you don't get an award for stupid things such as, well, dying or standing for five minutes. You do, though, get an award for letting someone die. This is more comical due to the fact that you can't save him in the first place. You get an award for something you have no say in whatsoever. That's about as dumb as getting a prize for not dying engulfed in flames in Katamari Damacy, even though you can't do that in the first place. Fittingly, one of the images for a Trophy after you beat the game is a guy in an elevator flipping the player off. It's the most appropriate image I've seen in any game, oddly enough.

First of all, it's appropriate due to the fact that it retcons everything. It retcons the movies, the first game, and even itself. Seriously, after I beat a level, not five minutes later, it told me that I never played that part. So, what exactly was I doing last level if that never happened, watching Yahtzee Croshaw make a pompous ass of himself? Actually, that's a distinct possibility since he's about as enjoyable as a Jigsaw trap (ZING!).

Secondly, it's appropriate due to the fact that this game is as far away from a game as it could get. Here's what I said about the combat in the first game: "I don't know if this was intended by story or if this was a glitch, but Tapp moves slowly when he attacks. Even with a light weapon, like a knife, he moves like he's in Jell-o. This means that before you complete the attack, the guy you're fighting hit you first, even if he's using a Nail-bat. What you'd have to do is press the "Attack mode" button, press attack, and run up to the guy while attacking. Even then, you'd be lucky to get the attack in without getting hurt first." How did Zombie Studios remedy this? By making almost every bit of combat a quick time event. It's hard to get into a game when the game stops everything so you can fight a random Joe Schlumbob. When it isn't a quick time event, you're fighting a guy who runs blindly at you, so you bullfight him off of a cliff or into a wall. The first time this is done it clever, but after five more times, adding two more for a guy who runs up to you to strangle you with razor bladed arms, it gets dull. Quick.

Oh, and there's one hit kills in this game. Such as the guys above who hug you to death. You have to avoid them, and, in one case, while solving a puzzle. This lead to an amusing moment where I was solving a puzzle, but the guy walked up next to me. The camera cuts to him staring at me for five seconds, as if waiting for me to finish before he killed me. This is made more amusing because after you get past these two guys, you play their tapes, in which you find out that they needed you alive. So, why the hell are they trying to kill me? Are they just Lenny from The Grapes of Wrath, seeing me as a new pet bunny and losing control over there cuddling? Another guy runs full force at you, trying to impale you, while screaming "Save me!"due to him having spikes that impale him when he hits me. Imagine, if you will, a guy holding a gun out while a gun is strapped to his chest, and will go off by remote control. What does he do? He screams for help while shooting at everything that moves. Do you want help, or not? I don't think Jigsaw's victims in this deserve the traps, they're just not sane!

The puzzle make a return with some new additions. These new additions wear out their welcome pretty quickly because they're repeated ad nauseam. The new, first person lock picking game is annoying. You either guide the lockpick through moving tumblers or move the tumblers so a moving lockpick can go through them. Like the first game, the puzzle pieces are randomized, so roughly %90 of the time, the puzzles are unsolvable. Another issue is that some of the puzzles have some weird objectives, such as being told to get the board to light up in one color when the actual objective is have all of the lights light up. Another puzzle puts me in a room to get a combination based on symbols. Only one of the symbols is numbered, so I had to guess the other two numbers on the combination lock, which was across an unjumpable gap and no other way around. Making this ever more annoying is the fact that when you're injured, a delightful red ring wraps around the screen and makes everything darker so you cannot see two feet in front of you with a flash light on. Keep in mind that the entire game is in darkness.

Sound is barely existent at point, and I wish that it stayed that way. Voice work is awful, and laughable. One tape has Tapp literally screaming "WHO IS JIGSAW?!" with the same gusto that William Shatner screamed "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Though, I'd like to hear when a trap has screwed me over instead of just magically dying for no reason.

Konami has done some fantastic horror games, Silent Hill, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow... Saw II is not one of them. It's not even close to being a good horror game at all. Sequels are supposed to improve on the game. I hope that Zombie studios realizes this before they make a new Saw game. Scratch that, I hope they don't even bother.

Overall: F

+ Unintentionally funny

- Unintentionally difficult for the wrong reasons

- Bad voice acting

- Makes what was wrong in the first game worse

-/+ "JIGSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!" KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!" remixes are inevitable

Whisky Tango Foxtrot: The "Medal of Honor" Review

Judging from the title of this review, you may go into this thinking I hated the game. It makes sense, what with the Taliban multiplayer debacle, and the fact that I hate Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the most "realistic" war game. Guess what, Infinity Ward, making a main character die does not a realistic war game make. But, that's a different rant for another day. Oddly enough, I got roped into this game by a friend who had to review it. My reservations were obviously not unfounded by blind doubt, but through experience of playing previous "Medal of Honor" games, namely Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, a.k.a. "the glitchy game that blocks off your only path to progression." Add to that the Taliban controversy and CoD Jaded syndrome, and you know why I had my doubts.

Before I go on, I didn't play the multiplayer, and I'm glad I didn't. It's a completely different game, taking out some of the gritty combat moves that make the single player game stand out.

That being said, the game is one of the most realistic war games I've ever played. Combat doesn't just take shooting well, but running and sliding to cover, and strategic thinking, as well as relying on your battle buddies. That doesn't even scratch the surface of how realistic this game. One has you laying down cover fire so your team can dismantle a machine gun bunker, then calling off a rescue squad after being surrounded by Taliban and Al-Qaeda soldiers, but fighting until the last round is expelled, taking out as many Insurgents as possible before potentially dying. That's just one of missions, and its pretty nail biting.

The weapons feel natural, but seem a little too accurate. I got more head shots with a M60 than an M-4. Wait... speaking from experience, that's pretty true. Alright, more intentional head shots. At the same, the power seems about right, and the sound is amazing. It's a shame that graphically, its a mixed bag. The people look pretty good, the environment is appropriately desert-like, but the explosions are pixelated and grainy.

That isn't what you play the single player for, though. Is the game fun? Yes, yes it is. It's as fun as the Fiesta is green. Nevermind the banter of your buddies, the game is fun from the first step to the last building you clear. If there is anything bad to say about it, it's that at 4 hours, it is very short. I usually don't complain about a game being too short. In fact, the last time I did was with Soldier of Fortune: Payback, and that was because it was so comically bad, that it was almost good. The problem with this game being so short is that it cuts down on the replay value, too.

Much like every game I love, I went into this one, thinking it was going to be horrible. It proved me wrong, and I'm happy to admit that. If the journey was longer, I'd suggest this at full price, but as it is, I can only say wait for it to drop in price. Once it does, get it (or rent it now). It's is a battle worth fighting.

Overall: B

+ Realistic military combat

+ Apaches!

+ A Nailbiting, intense campaign

- That's over before you know it

- Mixed bag graphics

SCDG: Same Controls, Different Game

25 years ago, Nintendo ruled the electronic world with a simple control: A four-way directional pad, and four buttons: Start, Select, "A" and "B." With it came Mario, where "A" made him jump, "B" made him launch fireballs, and Start paused the game. Very few games deviated from that scheme, sometimes switching it up. Never once was a game called a "Mario Clone."

Today, you have a game with a free moving camera, is in the "Action" genre, and you use two buttons for two different attacks, light and hard, the game is instantly labeled a "God of War" clone. A first person shooter uses the two bumpers for firing a weapon, it's a "CoD" ("Call of Duty") clone. Frankly, people, this needs to stop, and for a very good reason: it's not at all true.

Take a look at the controllers for the "Top Tier" current generation systems (XBox 360 and Playstation 3). Two bumpers and two triggers are on top. Two analogue sticks by the bottom, four face buttons, Select and Start, and a D-Pad. The D-pad is used for selecting different weapons now, instead of moving. So you have four face buttons to work with, and four top buttons. A total of eight, buttons, and it seems that people think that just because they aren't mixed up, they must be stealing the controls from another game. What about the atmosphere of the game? The graphic and sound style? How do those compare?

The main reason a lot of games have the same controls are because those controls work. They feel comfortable, and in some cases, natural (Borderlands had some amazing console controls). If a team has perfected how they work, and it shows, changing it up will show some individuality, but at the expense of comfort, and potentially just covering up how much the game isn't different at all. I know what I just said a paragraph ago, so let me explain this.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow has been getting flack for being a God of War clone due to its controls. This couldn't be further from the truth. The layout is close, but the style is different. While Gabriel Belmont only has one main weapon and four secondary weapons, Kratos has, essentially, three main weapons that he can freely switch to, and four secondary weapons in the form of spells. At the same time, the atmosphere of the two games are starkly different. LoS has a fantasy atmosphere in contrast to GoW's more brutal, ancient war atmosphere. Unfortunately for another game, Dante's Inferno seemed to have copied that a little too closely, as well as the control scheme.

But, here's where it gets tricky: Dante's Inferno was a good game. Call me crazy, but I didn't care that the controls were the same, nor that the graphics were close. The environment and the story made it work. It was so new, and frightening, to see Hell come alive with such vivid detail, that I didn't care that it was GoW in Hell. Does that mean that every game that does the same control scheme is a GoW clone, if it's in the same genre, but has its own identity away from that? Well, consider this: God of War was once known as the Devil May Cry clone while in development, but after release, due to its identity, was absolved of that title. Why can't we do that now?

Ultimately, who cares if the control layout is the same? Is the game fun? Do you enjoy playing it? That's the important part. Why should we feel the need to compare games, and take away any original identity that they have? Are we that critical that we have to say something is like something else so we don't enjoy it as much? What it comes down to is this: If you like the game, stop trying to say that its like another game. Trust me, I've played a lot of games with the same control layouts, and they still played differently, for better and worse.

Love Bites: The "Let Me In" Review

As a general rule, remakes are unnecessary movies. The story has already been done, why do it again? Its cheaper to just stick to the original. Sometimes, though, this can't be done, hence unnecessary American remakes of movies (namely J-Horror) that most Americans won't even understand due to cultural differences. Part of the reason I normally avoid doing a HHMR on a foreign movie (Kaiden being the exception) is because it may not be scary to me because I'm not of that culture. Figuring that I'm not completely out of the loop with movies, I knew that remakes of Let The Right One In and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were on their ways, and figuring that they're only two years old at most, the question of "why?" rears its head.

To make things worse for me, Let The Right One In is a vampire movie, and I've hated them since before Twilight. So, believe me when I say these sentences: I really did not want to see this movie. But, I am glad I did.

Let Me In is, in fact, a vampire love story. 12 year old Owen is an outcast who is bullied, and normally plays by himself (that is when he isn't watching his neighbors or eating Now and Laters while singing the jingle). While watching his neighbors through a telescope (yes, he has issues, but at the same time, he's going through puberty, and his neighbor is pretty damn hot, not that that isn't any less creepy), he sees two new people move in: an older man and a 12 year old girl named Abby. Despite Abby telling him that they can't be friends, they become friends (and more). What Owen doesn't know is that Abby is a vampire, and her "father" is killing people so she can feed.

While this seems like a schlock plot, it's pulled off surprisingly well. Both children are creepy, but its when we start to see Abby's true colors that we get a sense of how much worse she is than Owen. She's manipulative to her father, but does care about Owen.

This is also done in a stark context to how we first see Owen: as a voyeur watching his neighbors have sex. Despite this, how his relationship with Abby seems purely innocent. One scene, she strips down completely (due to being covered in blood after a major event) and slips into his bed, without him knowing of her nudity (it's not a sexual context, either). When Owen realizes this, Abby asks him if that's "gross" and Owen responds, rather confused by this, "No?" He's confused as to what he's feeling, because while he knows what "most people would do," to him, Abby is more like a very close friend than an object that he sees most women being treated as.

Another stark contrast is we can relate to Owen due to who we see in the movie. Those who have strong emotions for him, both negative and positive, we see their faces. Not once do we see Owen's parents' faces. They seem like vague shadows that are supposed to influence him, but are too caught up with themselves to even notice Owen. It was an extremely good tactic, and it works very well.

On the other side, we see Abby, her "father," and bullies. The bullies are about the only bad part of the film, due to the fact that they seem to pick on him for random things. I still don't know why they were worried about what he was writing when they were teasing him for not wanting to swim, and making him piss himself. You know, that's what I would have picked on him about! You know, if I was a douchebag.

Finally, the important thing: is this horror movie scary. Let me put it this way, I had to "squee" during one scene. I won't spoil it, but let's just say it involved fire and not sparkles. Another has a bloody vampire hugging someone, which comes off as bizarre, and weirdly emotional. While it is scary, it isn't in your face scary. It builds up slowly, and makes you want to see what happens next. Even if what happens next isn't pretty. That's what horror movies are supposed to do. People, take notes when you see this.

Let Me In, while still not a brilliant reason for remakes, is not only one of the best efforts of a remake, but one of the best horror movies of recent times. It's October, and it has actual vampires in it! Stop wasting your time, waiting for yet another Saw sequel, and watch this. You will not regret it.

Over all, I give it 5.5 Bloody Vampire Girls.