Now i am going to start by saying that its been a good long while since i have properly sat down and watched a movie especially one that goes for two hours and i heard an interesting thing from a friend the other day that i agreed with and that is the people of today live on 5minute videos and that they have lost their patience with film. Here is what i have to say.
3:10 to Yuma is cowboy western film starring Christian Bale [as Dan Evans] and Russell Crowe [as Ben Wade]. The character of Dan is having bad luck trying to make a normal life for himself, people are after him for his dept that has come about because of the dept collectors. Dan by chance runs into Ben who is a seasoned thief with a twisted sense of what is right and wrong and through another twist of fate they are paired up, as Dan must take Ben as prisoner and his to put him on the 3:10 train to Yuma.
Now i dont want to give any more away as this films intrigue lies not in the main story but in the character build up and the two main characters battle for good and evil. In this aspect the film delivers and what drove me to continue watching was every step that both main characters began to unveil themselves slowly throughout the film.
Moving onto the all important sound design. The sound element was very seamless even considering my ear for sound. I could definitely tell that there was some use of foley but it was of the highest standard and added so much grit and complexity to the sound scape. The dialogue was either well recorded or well mixed as i could barely tell what was onset and what was in a studio but i am pretty confident that both definitely happened at some point because i am going to assume that being on a location like the one that they were on would be amazingly noisy. So thumbs up for sound!
Visually the film did exactly what it needed to. I wouldn't say that it looked mind blowing but i dont think it needed to and it might of taken to much away from the characters on screen. So in that aspect it was great it was odd to say but amazingly seamless which was perfect. Same can be said about the editing as it kept mostly wide and clean which again gives much credit to the cinematographer. It was edited like a spaghetti western and there were very few noticeable digital SFX.
All up I had a great time watching this film and it made me question a few things a decent film should but i am not going to give it a rank. All i am going to say is that this film is not a film for the action junkies or the hard core drama types. This film is a blend of both with every use of genre played to the overall advantage of the film. I did not feel like there was any scene in particular that was meaningless nor was there any film that really shone brightly. That is the kind of film it is.
As for people who feel that their attention span is dieing... its not it cant die but dam well it can dwindle and mine has but give yourself a push and a shove and you will be reminded that nothing can compete with two hours of a good build up.
Enjoy films!
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Fallout 3
Fallout Fallout Fallout!
It says that i have played 42 hours of that game... for the PS3, not to mention i had finished it on 360. I think i spent way to much time on that game but rightfully so because it is well made, full of content and doesn't look to shabby either.
Lets being as many of you should know Fallout 3 is a game based in post apocalyptic world where half the world is mutated and the other really doesn't feel like its far from it. You are... who ever you want to be male, female, good and bad and you were born in Vault 101. Now to give you much more story than that is probably telling you a subjective perspective of the game because the moment you leave the vault the world opens up to you in a big way and you can just go! And i suggest to go, in fact get lost instead of following every direction that the game tells you too.
So lets start talking about the gameplay! YAY! This game feels like Oblivion which isn't a bad thing and the actual gameplay is probably not its strong point as very often the game works in odd ways and enemies run at you with the balls of steel of you average brainless thug. Which of course you pull out your gun, baseball bat or your fists and use your Vats [a combat system allowing you to stop time and target specific enemies and body parts] and do your very best to make body parts fall off for your enemies. Which might i add is very satisfying. I don't even like violence. What the gameplay does though is create this amazing atmosphere with the items and objects that you interact with though out your journey. Most of the cupboards, desks, boxes, people and so on and so on will have items that directly relate to the world that you are walking through and after you pick up these items you find out the food is covered in radiation, the mechanical parts you use to build weapons and other things and the tapes/ notes keep telling stories that go beyond the games main story arch.
This leads me on to the story side of things. This game delivers on that element as and that's what really drives the game.
I guess it should considering its an RPG but some RPGs use leveling as a way to trap the player in countless hours of gaming while Fallout uses clever and always building story which drives the atmosphere forward. Notice a theme yet? Its atmosphere and that's what really gripped me. The main story arch was gripping and definitely drove me to playing through the game but the atmosphere created in all the side quests, is what made me put in the hard hours. Every little short story in this game drove it forward, from saving the the first town to saving slaves and mind you with all these stories there is a choice and there are different ways of playing them. This bounces off my first point that this game is what you make it, run through the main story and/or spend hours playing the side quest but do them as you would normally or go crazy with some role playing!
Now on to visuals now the visuals do exactly what they need to do and that is to keep adding to this amazing atmosphere. When looking at the landscape, even though its just the wasteland everywhere they have made a great effort to make every part of the wasteland a little different which made me more and more excited to find new areas. And on ward and upward when it comes to visuals the character models and the objects all help and not distract from the game which i think is fantastic. This is not to say that graphics were mind blowing but more that they did a great job adding to this atmosphere of this game and they could have done more but i would definitely been frustrated if on console the draw distance or the frame rate were to suffer because i wanted to see every hair on that one guys face.
Onward to audio! The audio elements of the game were not exactly epic and blockbuster in the sfx department as some of the weapons didn't have a bigger punch that they could have needed and the sound didn't reverberate in different locations as the awesome audio from "bad company" has shown us. Which is a bit of a let down for me as i believe that you can tell an awesome story just by hearing the audio effects in particular spaces. Like a the reflective sound of a cave compared to mechanical re verb that comes from a underground railway. But to be honest this didn't pull me away from the game and more just disappointed me in retrospect. The elements that did shine was a lot of the voice acting, music and ambient effects. Though the voice acting didn't always match the vision or on the odd occasion the mood, it was spoken quite well and was believable for the most part and also had some grate backing talent! Also the script they read was another thing that kept pulling me deeper into the story. The music and ambient effects were quite amazing as well! All the distant and subtle music cues created (in a way that a friend of mine said) the idea that the music is like a ghost of the place that was. Which is exactly what you want in a post apocalyptic game.
To rap up, this game does everything it needs to do to tell the story and put the audience into the world that is Fallout 3. I would highly recommend this game but with a word of caution.... make sure you play everything in this game as you only get out what you put in!
It says that i have played 42 hours of that game... for the PS3, not to mention i had finished it on 360. I think i spent way to much time on that game but rightfully so because it is well made, full of content and doesn't look to shabby either.
Lets being as many of you should know Fallout 3 is a game based in post apocalyptic world where half the world is mutated and the other really doesn't feel like its far from it. You are... who ever you want to be male, female, good and bad and you were born in Vault 101. Now to give you much more story than that is probably telling you a subjective perspective of the game because the moment you leave the vault the world opens up to you in a big way and you can just go! And i suggest to go, in fact get lost instead of following every direction that the game tells you too.
So lets start talking about the gameplay! YAY! This game feels like Oblivion which isn't a bad thing and the actual gameplay is probably not its strong point as very often the game works in odd ways and enemies run at you with the balls of steel of you average brainless thug. Which of course you pull out your gun, baseball bat or your fists and use your Vats [a combat system allowing you to stop time and target specific enemies and body parts] and do your very best to make body parts fall off for your enemies. Which might i add is very satisfying. I don't even like violence. What the gameplay does though is create this amazing atmosphere with the items and objects that you interact with though out your journey. Most of the cupboards, desks, boxes, people and so on and so on will have items that directly relate to the world that you are walking through and after you pick up these items you find out the food is covered in radiation, the mechanical parts you use to build weapons and other things and the tapes/ notes keep telling stories that go beyond the games main story arch.
This leads me on to the story side of things. This game delivers on that element as and that's what really drives the game.
I guess it should considering its an RPG but some RPGs use leveling as a way to trap the player in countless hours of gaming while Fallout uses clever and always building story which drives the atmosphere forward. Notice a theme yet? Its atmosphere and that's what really gripped me. The main story arch was gripping and definitely drove me to playing through the game but the atmosphere created in all the side quests, is what made me put in the hard hours. Every little short story in this game drove it forward, from saving the the first town to saving slaves and mind you with all these stories there is a choice and there are different ways of playing them. This bounces off my first point that this game is what you make it, run through the main story and/or spend hours playing the side quest but do them as you would normally or go crazy with some role playing!
Now on to visuals now the visuals do exactly what they need to do and that is to keep adding to this amazing atmosphere. When looking at the landscape, even though its just the wasteland everywhere they have made a great effort to make every part of the wasteland a little different which made me more and more excited to find new areas. And on ward and upward when it comes to visuals the character models and the objects all help and not distract from the game which i think is fantastic. This is not to say that graphics were mind blowing but more that they did a great job adding to this atmosphere of this game and they could have done more but i would definitely been frustrated if on console the draw distance or the frame rate were to suffer because i wanted to see every hair on that one guys face.
Onward to audio! The audio elements of the game were not exactly epic and blockbuster in the sfx department as some of the weapons didn't have a bigger punch that they could have needed and the sound didn't reverberate in different locations as the awesome audio from "bad company" has shown us. Which is a bit of a let down for me as i believe that you can tell an awesome story just by hearing the audio effects in particular spaces. Like a the reflective sound of a cave compared to mechanical re verb that comes from a underground railway. But to be honest this didn't pull me away from the game and more just disappointed me in retrospect. The elements that did shine was a lot of the voice acting, music and ambient effects. Though the voice acting didn't always match the vision or on the odd occasion the mood, it was spoken quite well and was believable for the most part and also had some grate backing talent! Also the script they read was another thing that kept pulling me deeper into the story. The music and ambient effects were quite amazing as well! All the distant and subtle music cues created (in a way that a friend of mine said) the idea that the music is like a ghost of the place that was. Which is exactly what you want in a post apocalyptic game.
To rap up, this game does everything it needs to do to tell the story and put the audience into the world that is Fallout 3. I would highly recommend this game but with a word of caution.... make sure you play everything in this game as you only get out what you put in!
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