The Pirate Reviewer's Blog

Let's make it clear!

2011-12-08T14:17:00.001-08:00

I fucking hate Twilight!!! I will never EVER review that piece of shit of a saga! Even my shit and the toilet share a better love story than that crap! If I hear anything about glittering vampires ever again, I'm going to buy me a rifle and not rest until I find and kill Stephanie Meyer for starting this shit.

Shit happened!

2011-12-08T13:33:00.001-08:00

A lot of shit happened to me lately. I haven't posted anything this year, literally. But I have my reasons, and I will reveal some of them to you, my still faithful readers. First of all, I lost my former YouTube account after I was stupid enough to upload some videos owned by a local television. They found them immediately and flagged them, so the ass-licking bastards over at YT deleted my account, along with ALL MY VIDEOS! Yup, I basically lost six months' worth of game recordings. I obviously felt like shit afterwards and I completely screwed the site, changing it completely. I will get to work and fix the Playthroughs page, which only confuses people, as none of the videos work anymore. OK, so after losing that YouTube account, I decided to stop posting stuff to The Pirate Reviewer's blog, fearing that I might record things and lose them all over again. In the meantime, I graduated from high school (exams made my postpone my return to this blog) and enrolled into college. I now study Journalism, to be precise. So, I never got to revive this blog. Until now!I logged into Blogger to post something in a Romanian blog that I've got, and somehow I saw something I had been missing for all these months: The Pirate Reviewer's Blog! I already made another YouTube account, named "The Pirate Reviewer", and I also have an account over at hd-share just in case. So, now I'm back! So... what?! Well, I'll start reviewing things again and posting videos again, but first I'm going to make something clear: I'M ONLY POSTING IN MY FREE TIME, SO THE VIDEOS MIGHT NOT BE AS FREQUENT AS YOU WISH THEY'LL BE. Also, I will post my future videos both to YouTube and to HD-Share to make sure they aren't deleted again. Yours faithfully, THE PIRATE REVIEWER!PS: There's a poll below. Please vote what I should do next!

Blog issues

2011-03-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

This is the new template. I think it works better that any previous templates I've used, mostly because it's so simple. Working on the logo right now, and afterwards I'll be recording the rest of the BTTF Playthrough for anyone who still watches my videos.

Two things

2011-02-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

First, I've uploaded a new video (this one is intended for my personal collection) - my proof that I've completed Assassin's Creed II 100%. It's important for me, I don't know how important it is for you. I finished AC II now (as in the 19th of February) so I'd remind myself the story and get in the mood for AC Brotherhood. But.. Ubisoft had to fuck everything up again. The release date is not February 16th, nor February 22nd. It's MARCH 22nd. Swear all you want, they don't care. I can't wait to see their faces when they see the sales charts (I mean, come on, only hardcore fans with a lot of cash at their disposal would buy this game after having it spoiled by console players who posted videos of it all over YouTube).
The other thing I wanted to tell you today (good news this time) is that Back to the Future the game episode 2, named "Get Tannen!" is out.. and so is my playthrough of it! At least one part, as we speak and another one in the editing - again, as we speak.
Have a nice day!

Check this out!

2011-02-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

On my wishlist for 2011, along with playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood coming out for PC in February 16th, as some sites say, or 22nd, as other sites say (yeah, I waited THIS long instead of getting an XBOX.. that's how avaricious I am!), I've just added watching "Pirates of the Carribean: On stranger tides!". Of course, that's after I accidentally bumped into the trailer on YouTube (I hadn't searched for it, as I was sure the movie would be stupid and senseless without two main characters). Check it out and regret you haven't earlier! It looks great! At least there's no more Davy Jones in it! Now we have Captain Blackbeard (or Bloodbeard, I couldn't make out exactly what Jack was saying at that part).

The Butterfly Effect

2011-01-30T13:11:00.001-08:00

This is a complex review, of all three movies. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

1. The Butterfly Effect(2004)
This is the original Butterfly Effect, staring Ashton Kutcher. The movie is about Evan, the main character, having a bunch of blackouts during his childhood. After the blackouts, Evan wakes up in weird circumstances.
First of all the movie shows Evan and his friends, Lenny, Kayleigh and Tommy as six year olds, then as thirteen and finally in their twenties. At six, Tommy has a blackout while filming a movie with Kayleigh and her dad. When he wakes up, he stands next to Kayleigh, naked. At thirteen, the kids turn into a bunch of junkies, smoking and doing all kinds of stuff, definitely over their age. I mean, would a 13 year old be as evil as Tommy and put dynamite in a woman's mailbox? Seriously. This is when Evan has another blackout. When he wakes up he finds Lenny injured and the others very agitated. Evan then visits his father, Jason, who has the same problem as his son. A genetically mental disorder that causes him to go back in time by concentrating on images or, in Evan's case, on stuff he wrote in a bunch of diaries. He has another blackout and when he wakes up, Jason tries to strangle him and gets killed by the guards. Later on, Evan meets up with his friends, except Tommy, and, as they walk into the forest, they see smoke in the air and run to its source only to find Tommy there, who had caught Evan's dog and wants to burn it. Evan jumps at Tommy and the kid hits him with a piece of wood, knocking him out cold. He has another blackout and he wakes up only to find out his dog's been killed because Lenny couldn't untie the bag while Tommy was distracted.
Afterwards, the movie fast-forwards to the characters being in their twenties. Evan had been gone from the city ever since after the dog burning moment and became a student. He shares the room with a fat rocker dude with a weird haircut and who screws girls most of the time he appears on screen. Evan's life is perfect, he didn't have anymore blackouts for the past seven years and stuff. Everything changes when he goes back in his old town to meet Kayleigh. He finds her working at a restaurant. After their conversation, the girl runs away (he had brought up painful memories) and the next day news of her suicide reach him. In order to save Kayleigh he goes back in time by concentrating at the diaries. He goes into the past several times, at critical moments, and so the blackouts are explained. Each time he saves someone just to affect someone else's destiny. At some point he even manages to blow himself up and he wakes up in his twenties without arms and legs and with Kayleigh hooked up with Lenny. He probably would have stayed like that, since everything was OK for the others, but then he found out his mother was dying of lung cancer thanks to the fact she started smoking a lot after he had blown himself up.
The final trip back in time differs according to the ending your version of the movie has. Evan gets admitted to the sanatorium after failing to destroy the dynamite when he went back in time. At the sanatorium, back in his twenties, Evan wants to change everything and goes back one last time. The first version, the sad ending, shows him going back to the day he was born and killing himself. The other version, which has three versions itself, shows Evan going back to the day he met Kayleigh and scare her away from him. Then a final scene is shown, with Evan and Kayleigh crossing each other's paths twenty years later or so. The first version shows Evan stopping for a moment and then going further without looking back at Kayleigh. Another version shows Evan stopping and then following Kayleigh, and the last version shows Evan stopping and talking to Kayleigh, inviting her to dinner.
Overall, The Butterfly Effect was a great picture and I enjoyed watching it. It had a great story and the end didn't leave space for a sequel.. so, thankfully there isn't one, since if there actually were one it would suck terribly. I don't think they were stupid enough to make a sequel but it's worth checking out.. (goes to Google and types in The Butterfly Effect 2).. shit, there isn't A sequel.. there are TWO! What have I gotten myself into?!
So, I'd give The Butterfly Effect (the first movie) a well deserved 9.5/10. It's a great movie and, I believe, a must-see for everyone who watches movies. Don't miss this one, you'll regret it.
For those of you who only saw one of the endings, here's a treat:

The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)
This movie is terrible from all points of view. I mean, it doesn't have the impact the first movie has. It doesn't have the atmosphere of the first movie and, worst of all, it doesn't have any of the characters of the first movie. So, then, how the fuck is this supposed to be a sequel?! Well, easy. Just call it "The Butterfly Effect" and put a big "2" next to it. There, you've got your sequel. Now let's get the money and put it away in a Cayman Islands bank account before the fans demand it back.
So the movie is about a guy called Nick. He and his girlfriend, Julie Miller (hmm so there is a tie to the first film.. Kayleigh's father's family name was miller), played by Erica Durance aka Lois Lane from Smallville, celebrate their anniversary (a few years since they've been together, don't ask how many, I don't know and it's not important). A secondary plot involves Nick's failure at getting promoted instead of another guy called Dave Bristol.
So, anyway, when Nick and Julie return home, along with their friends, Trevor and Gina, one of the car's tires blows up and a truck hits them, causing everyone to die but Nick.
Some time passes, Nick wakes up. Later, when looking at a photograph of himself and Julie, everything in the room begins to shudder and shake, while the people in the photograph begin moving.
A year later, Nick has a headache and a nose bleed, screwing up a presentation at work. As a result he is given a week's suspension. Back home, Nick looks at photographs from Julie's birthday and somehow manages to transport himself back to the moment just before the fatal accident. This time, he knows how to avoid the accident and he awakens in a new timeline where Julie is living happily with him. However, in this reality, Nick's life is ruined when he is fired for backing up his friend and now work colleague Trevor.
Up to now, I haven't found anything interesting at this guy at all. I mean, he does mention Jason (the guy from the first movie, Evan's father) during an internet search, and we do know for a change that Nick's father could also time travel, but that's all. Otherwise he's a selfish bastard. You'll see. He is happy with Julie (but poor now that he lost his job), but no, he wants the money too. He goes back in time and steals Bristol's file so that he would get promoted.
It works, as he wakes up the vice-president of the company, but now he had split up with Julie and lives as a bachelor. Of course, Julie has a new boyfriend and Mr. Selfish isn't happy with that. Also, Trevor and Nick end up on the wrong side of a shady investor, and the company is broke. Nick confesses everything to his mother, who tells him that he can't 'control everything'. She says his father also tried to control things and ultimately committed suicide.
Nick transports himself to the scene from the start of the movie, hoping to finally fix everything by breaking up with Julie. However, he didn't bank on how upset she would be - and she confesses to being pregnant and speeds away in his car. Fearing a similar accident as the original, Nick speeds after her, but ends up facing an oncoming vehicle himself. He opts to save Julie rather than himself and drives off the cliff.
Of course, of course, he suddenly leaves his selfishness and cares about his friends now. The self sacrifice in order to save others cliffhanger always fucking works.
A year later, Julie lives in NY with her and Nick's son. The movie ends with the baby looking at a picture of his parents and their friends and the environment becoming unstable, thus meaning the kid also has his father's problem.
Overall, The Butterfly Effect 2 was disappointing. It has no relation to the original, apart from the same syndrome. Heck, I could make a movie on HIV and then make a sequel with totally different actors, cook up a cliffhanger story and say it's the first and successful first movie's follow-up. Which isn't true at all and only robs people of their money, as this film did. If I were to give it a mark, I wouldn't give it anything above 6/10. That's as good as it gets.
Now I should think I'm done with The Butterfly Effect.. but no way, there's still part 3.

The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (2009)
Up until now, they only named the movies "The Butterfly Effect". Now they added in "Revelations", just for the sake of changing something.
So.. is this movie good or does it suck just like it's prequel? We shall see.
The third film features a guy called Sam Reide, who goes back in time, in his own body at that moment, and witnesses murders in order to tell the police the murderers' names afterwards. In order to do the time travel, called "jumping" in this movie, he undergoes a full ritual. His sister, Jenna monitors his brain functions as he sits into a tub full of ice and water. Apparently there are some rules in this movie. Just watch, don't alter the past (wait, wait, wasn't altering the past in order to change the present the point of these films in the first place?!).
So, anyway, for him going into the past to witness murders is ordinary routine, until Elizabeth, Sam's murdered girlfriend Rebecca's sister arrives, telling him that the man that's due to be executed for Rebecca's murder, Lonnie Flennonds is actually innocent and offers to pay him in order to find the real killer. Sam turns her down, but goes to speak with the man who tutored him on time travel, Goldburg (Kevin Yon), who reminds him of the cardinal rules: he's not to alter his own personal past, nor travel in time with his body left unsupervised. We learn that a fire that claimed the lives of Sam's parents had claimed Jenna's life too, but Sam altered time so that Jenna survives. After Goldburg's departure, their buxom bartender Vicki (Melissa Jones) seductively offers Sam a buttery nipple; he and Vicki have sex, but upon seeing Rebecca's photo, he cannot continue.
He agrees to help Lonnie, but without time traveling. After visiting Lonnie in the prison and getting accused by the later of murdering Rebecca, Sam decides to go into the past. Once back in 1999, he runs into a drunk Elizabeth and asks her to lock herself in the car while he goes inside the house to check on Rebecca. When he gets there, he finds her dead. Meanwhile, Elizabeth also gets killed.
After he gets to the present, Sam finds out he "created a serial killer" and that 8 women were killed by the so-called "Pontiac Killer". So he goes back in time to try and find out the killer's identity during the third murder, of one Anita Perez. He hides in the close but is caught by her boyfriend and beaten up. Back to the present he starts questioning how come Anita didn't die.
I'm going to skip the rest of the story since I don't intend to spoil everything, and I'm going to get to the final scene and my opinion on the movie.
In the end, Sam goes to a warehouse, where the killer's HQ is supposed to be, and finds Goldburg dying. He then runs into a trap and.. surprise.. Jenna is there to save him. We find out Jenna could time travel as well and she followed him all along. The dead women were all women he fell in love with. Apparently, in her mind, Jenna thought she and Sam could love each other.. not as siblings but the other way around. Sam realizes he had made a big mistake when he saved Jenna, back when their house went on fire, and returns to when he was 15. His parents get away this time, but he holds the door to Jenna's room, preventing her from exiting. Therefore, Jenna dies and everything is fine. Then the movie fast forwards to a few years later. Sam has a wife and a little girl, named, ironically, Jenna. The family is at a barbecue and, while the others are distracted, young Jenna throws her doll on the grill, and smiles as it catches fire.
My final conclusion: a fair movie, and a good conclusion to the series, even though it wouldn't surprise me to see a Butterfly Effect 4 coming out in 2012, just to keep the three years thing going on. Unlike in the second movie, you get to like Sam, as in the end he tries to make things right. Of course, I wasn't really keen on the cliffhanger ending: sacrifice one life to save many lives, but whatever. That's just my opinion. I'd give this movie a well deserved 8/10. Heck, you'll hate me, but this one is even comparable to Butterfly Effect 1 (it doesn't get 9/10 not because it lacks Ashton Kutcher, but because of certain inconsistencies). The movie has plot inconsistencies, like: a guy can time travel and practically teaches someone else how to do it? That's bullshit! The guys in the first two movies had a brain anomaly that allowed them to time travel. So how the heck do you teach someone to do this? By sharing your fucking tumor with them? This is one thing I'll never understand in this movie. How the fuck do you teach someone to time travel, when they clearly explained the god damn thing is genetic and it comes with a brain tumor? Jeez.
I'm done getting angry over this stupid matter. Here you go. 8/10. Now leave me alone!
And here's something to cheer you up. Straight from the official soundtrack. Listen to the music while reading my final opinions. You'll like it.

4.Overall opinions
Overall, the third movie was a lot better than the second one, but the first movie still remains my favorite out of the trilogy. It had everything. A guy traveling to the past in order to make everything better for everybody, a great plot, the guy's ability to time travel is thoroughly explained, etcetera, etcetera. The only thing that bothered me about The Butterfly Effect 1 is the ending.. or rather the endings. I don't understand the need to film so many endings. I mean, OK, maybe people wouldn't like the guy dying, so there's need of an alternative. It's not like alternate endings for the sake of a sequel weren't done before, right? But why so many alternates? I think out of the three meetings in the street, the one where Evan follows Kayleigh would've made everyone happy. Anyway, I'm glad I found all the endings on YouTube. Saved me from downloading hundreds of versions of this movie to see them (what, you don't really think I'm crazy enough to buy another DVD just to see the other endings, right?)
The second movie was a total waste of money. I mean, the story was all right, but it could've been better developed. First of all, Nick was a selfish bastard. Everything was all right when he and Trevor got fired. They could've found themselves new jobs and live happily with their women. But no! Mr "I want to be rich and powerful" just had to fucking go back in time just to get promoted instead of the other guy, Bristol. Also, I don't know why, but I don't believe Nick when he tells Gina he cares about his friends and would do anything to save them. I just can't believe this guy. And the final scene, where he crashed himself into the cliffs, I don't get it either. Couldn't he just return to his side of the road and stay there as a fucking responsible driver? Jeez! Maybe he killed himself knowing that somehow he will get selfish again. Anyway, I don't want to think about this movie anymore. The characters are feelingless and I'm left cold after seeing it. Full stop.
The third movie, well, it was decent, comparing it to the second. I mean, even if the story had BULLSHIT written all over it ever since we find out about "the rules" that you can't change the past, when the purpose of going back is exactly to CHANGE something, not to just watch. Also, as I already said above, the thing about someone fucking teaching someone else to time travel is impossible, as he would need to transfer the other guy his FUCKING BRAIN TUMOR! It's not as easy as going into a tub full of ice and water and concentrate at a date and then go out cold and wake up at that exact date. It's just not possible! And the girl being able to travel as well. that's even more bullshit! Why not end it like "the butler did it!". That would've made me happy, even though then the movie would've been too predictable. True, I wasn't expecting the girl to be the killer. I suppose that might just have worked if they didn't involve her time traveling as well. So what, did she like steal her brother's tumor while he was out cold and decided to go back in time and make sure he doesn't love another woman than her? Wow, that's so much shit served on a single plate that I might just reconsider that 8/10. Come to think of it, the second movie at least made sense, despite the main character being a hypocrite. But this one rips the effect out of the god damn butterfly. It's just stupid.
OK, I guess I contradicted myself, but that's that. I said my opinions. I think the third one, as stupid as it is, leaves a better impression on viewers (at least it left on me) because the main character is not a selfish hypocrite who says he cares about his friends but when everyone is nice and well he goes back in time just to get promoted instead of his colleague. That's my opinion, if you agree with it, OK, if you don't you are free to express your own.

X-Men Movies

2011-01-24T02:23:00.000-08:00

1. X-Men (2000)
The first X-Men movie was a hit. I mean, seriously, seeing Professor Xavier and his team of mutants in real live action was something great for the time. The film started off with Rogue (Anna Paquin, seriously? I am angry on the producers for this choice of cast, she doesn't look like Rogue at all) nearly killing her boyfriend and leaving home. She is taken to a small cold town in Canada, where she meets Logan aka Wolverine, portrayed by Hugh Jackman. After Wolverine beats up a few guys, he leaves in his truck, only to be followed by Rogue. Eventually he agrees on taking her along. On the way.. wherever they were going, they get attacked by Sabertooth, who works for Magneto. Wolverine gets beaten up, but Cyclops and Storm show up and scare Sabertooth away, taking Logan and Rogue to the X Mansion. Logan wakes up on a bed, bandaged, even though his wounds are already cured due to his mutant ability to regenerate. That's when he meets Jean and falls in love with her, only to find out she's Scott's girlfriend. So, the movie develops with senator Kelly (the guy who wants to introduce a Mutant Registration Act, making every mutant reveal his/hers identity and abilities) being kidnapped by Magneto and turned into a mutant with a certain device he invented. Upon reaching the X Mansion, senator Kelly dies. That's also when the X-men find out of Magneto's plan to use his weapon in order to turn everyone into mutants. His target is the UN meeting on Ellis Island, so he kidnaps Rogue and goes to Liberty Island, placing his gun in the torch. Inside the Statue of Liberty, the X-men fight Magneto's minions. Once Logan deals with Sabertooth, he manages to get to the torch and tries to save Rogue, but Magneto stops him. Scott hits Magneto with his eye-laser or whatever the thing he shoots from his eyes is called, and Logan saves Rogue by letting her absorb his energy. He comes back to normal to find out all's well and Magneto is in a plastic prison. The movie ends with Xavier visiting Magneto.
Overall, this was a great movie to see at the time. It was great having a real live Wolverine and real live X-Men. I even liked their choice for professor Xavier, Patrick Stewart. My only dislike is.. Rogue. Again, bad choice. I can't see Rogue in Anna Paquin at all.
Something else about the movie: there's a problem with the plot. Wolverine doesn't recognize Sabertooth, even though in the cartoons they are old enemies.

2. X2(2003)
The sequel to the first X-Men and probably the best in the series, X2 continues the story where the first film left off.
First off, we see Nightcrawler attempt to kill the president of the USA, but reconsidering at the last moment. Then enters William Stryker, who has a plan to exterminate all mutants. He kidnaps Professor X and takes him to his base at Alkali Lake. He makes a copy of Cerebro, the computer Xavier uses to find mutants, and connects Charles to it, having his son, Jason, who can implant thoughts into other people's minds, make him find all the mutants and kill them.
Storm, Wolverine, Nighcrawler (who is now an X-man), and Jean join forces with Magneto and his minions and go to Alkali lake to save the Professor and Scott and to take down Stryker. They succeed in their mission, but the barrage where the base is built is about to collapse and the X-men have limited time to get out of there and to the jet before the whole place gets filled with water. Stryker's fate is sealed, as we see him left there, tied up, when the water comes over him. The jet fails to take off on time, and Jean sacrifices herself in order to save the others.
Well.. this is said to be one of the best sequels ever made. Of course, it's a well known fact that sequels usually suck. But not this one. X2 is a great movie, continuing the story in a great way.

3.X-Men: The last stand (2006)
This movie is a waste of potential. They could've cooked up anything for it. Anything. They could've brought Apocalipse as the main villain. They could've brought Sentinels. But no. Again the fight between Magneto and the X-men. This time, though, the conflict focuses on some pharmaceutical company that invented a cure for mutants. Magneto wants to destroy the cure, saying that mutants don't need it, as being a mutant is not a disease. He gathers an army of mutants and devises a plan in this direction.
Meanwhile, Scott is near Alkali Lake, thinking of Jean, when she suddenly comes out of the water.. alive?! Professor X feels the massive power coming from Alkali Lake and sends Logan and Storm there. They find Cyclops' glasses floating and they find Jean collapsed on the ground. They reach the conclusion that she killed Scott and they take her back to the X Mansion. Professor X tells Logan that she has a dual personality: the Jean they all know and love and an evil, uncontrollable personality, The Phoenix. Xavier also says Jean's power is unlimited. Soon after, Jean seduces Wolverine, and when he tries to convince her that she's not herself, she runs away. Later, Xavier meets Magneto at her house, each trying to get her to their side. Inside the house, Jean aka the Phoenix, pulverizes the Professor and leaves with Magneto.
The final battle takes place on Alcatraz Island, where the few X-men left (the others ran away after an attack on the X Mansion) face Magneto's army. I almost forgot.. we see the Juggernaut, as one of Magneto's minions in this movie. Also they never mention the Juggernaut is Xavier's brother. Not at all. Anyway, Big J (I'll call it that because it's shorter) tries to get the kid (a kid that has the power to "cure" mutants) and kill him, as he was ordered by Magneto, but Kitty (played by Ellen Page) stops him and saves the child. The X-men manage to give Magneto the cure (I forgot, The Beast appears too in this movie, but they let the Nightcrawler go, he is nowhere to be seen in this film). Wolverine faces Jean - The Phoenix one last time. She comes back to normal for a second and asks him to save her. He responds that he loves her and then stabs her.
The end scene shows the X-men standing next to the graves of Scott, Jean and Professor Xavier.
After the credits (yeah, this is what you cinema geeks missed out, as you never stay through the credits, fuckers!) we see Professor X waking up in Moira's house. This is, I suppose, a way to say "there will be a sequel". But no sequel was ever made, as the next film doesn't have anything to do with this storyline.
My impressions on part 3.. average. They repeated themselves with the Magneto fight and the Jean - Logan part ended way too fast. I mean, for a mutant with unlimited power, Jean aka the Phoenix went down way too easy.
One more thing.. ROGUE?! Where the fuck is she in all three movies?! NOWHERE! She doesn't have the part she should have! She just stays away. In part 3 she goes to take the cure and become human. I'm sorry, but this character wasn't developed at all. Shame on you, Stan Lee. And I saw "Jubilee" in the credits but I didn't see her in the movies whatsoever. What the hell?! At least this was a decent X-men movie. Just wait to see what's next.

4. X-men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
The movie shows Wolverine's story from when he was a little kid to after the moment he became Weapon X and lost his memories. There. I said the whole story in one line. This movie is not as good as the previous ones. Maybe because it's not about the X-men anymore. I know, I know, Stan Lee is an asshole, he never finishes what he starts. He fucked up Spiderman the same way, just because some people said Spiderman 3 sucked. Hell, no. I liked that movie. But Stan is a fan guy. He is too influenced by what fans want. I think a fourth Tobey Maguire Spiderman movie would have been great, but no, Stan Lee decided to go for a reboot with another actor as Spiderman.
Marvel did the same with X-men. They fucked up the series after movie 3. Of course, Wolverine is still Hugh Jackman (great, at least they left Wolverine alone) and Xavier, though he only appears in one scene, is still Patrick Stewart.
The movie shows young James and Victor, in 1855. James kills his stepfather only to find out he was actually his real father and then runs away. His brother, Victor, joins him. Afterwards, they are shown fighting in the Independence War and then fighting in the World Wars, before being recruited by a younger William Stryker into a team of mutants that have a certain mission. During one of these missions, James (Wolverine, but not yet) sees his brother Victor trying to kill an innocent man and stops him. After this incident, he leaves the team and settles in a small community, living in a small cottage with a woman he loves and working as a lumber jack. Stryker finds him and asks him to join him for a certain project, but Logan declines. Afterwards, Victor kills Logan's girlfriend and runs away. Logan finds him and fights him only to get a good beating. Afterwards, he joins Stryker again, willing to take part in an experiment that would give him the power to kill Victor. This is when he receives his Adamantium skeleton. After the operation, he overhears Stryker tell the general that his memories were going to be erased and his DNA used for Weapon XI. That's when he runs away, naked, and reaches a barn. Two old people find him there and help him out, giving him clothes and food. Stryker's men find him there and kill the old people, but Logan gets away on a motorcycle.
We also see how Cyclops is captured from his school and taken to Stryker's island.
Logan interrogates one of his old teammates about Stryker's island's location and he is directed towards another mutant that got away from there, Gambit. Well, at least they show him in this movie, as in the other X-men movies there was no Gambit...
Gambit takes Logan to the island, where he encounters Victor once again, but does not beat him. He finds out his girlfriend was actually a mutant that can manipulate your thoughts when she touches you, but he helps her save her sister. Afterwards, Logan faces Deadpool, a mutant given the powers of everyone who was on Stryker's team, including Logan's regeneration powers. Eventually, with Victor's help, Logan defeats Deadpool and destroys the whole place. The movie shows Logan holding his girlfriend in his arms and leaving the island, but then Stryker appears and shoots Logan with Adamantium bullets, making him lose his memories.
AFTER THE CREDITS again (in your face, cinema geeks who leave the moment the credits start rolling) we see Gambit rushing Logan away from the island. Logan approaches his girlfriend's dead body, not remembering who she is, and then leaves.

Overall, I liked the X-men movies, but I don't like the direction Marvel is heading with them. The next movie, due to be released in 2011, is called "X-men: First Class" and it's due to feature younger X-men, portrayed by different actors than the original series. I probably won't like that change, but whatever.
Another movie coming in the X-men series is "The Wolverine", due to be released in 2012, starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine again. That's good news, but I don't know what's it going to be about, since everything was told about this character already.
Oh, well, we shall see. There's still time until 2012.

Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy)

2011-01-23T16:01:00.001-08:00

Released back in 2005, Fahrenheit is a game made by Quantic Studios and published by Atari. Quantic Studios is also the maker of the PS 3 exclusive "Heavy Rain". If you've been asking yourselves what's with all the PS 3 exclusives coming out recently.. well.. Sony has to sell their consoles somehow, right? And if the console sucks at least the games should be good enough to get us to buy it.

OK, I'll talk more about Sony in another post. Right now, my concern is Fahrenheit. The game is about a man who murdered someone in the bathroom of a restaurant. OK, so what's with that?, you'd ask, but wait, there's more. Apparently the killer was in some sort of trance and didn't commit the murder voluntarily. So he becomes a fugitive from the police and he tries to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, two detectives are trying to catch him and make him pay for his crimes. Of course, things will change as the story progresses, but I won't say anymore because I really don't want to spoil the story. It's a great game and it's worth playing it, so go ahead and play it if you haven't yet. I've got one little problem though. Indigo Prophecy?! That's the american title. Of course there's an Indigo child involved and the colors Orange and Purple as well.. wait.. Orange + Purple = Indigo? Now that's some logic!!
OK, onto serious things now. Graphics. Well, for 2005, the game has decent graphics. The characters are well designed, as well as the backgrounds and the rest of the surroundings.
The gameplay. Well, this is where things get fucked up. I suggest changing the controls because I personally can't beat the key pressing sequences (and the game IS FULL OF THEM) by pressing the arrow keys and the keys on the numpad. It's just impossible. I guess the W,A,S,D scheme for controlling your character wasn't popular back then. Oh, well, I replaced the arrow keys with W,A,S,D and the numpad keys with the arrow keys and I managed to do the sequences properly.
OK, I got heated up again, so let's get things straight. First of all, you control four different characters in this game. Two of them only a bit and two of them in the most part of the game. The controls are simple. You move around using the arrow keys (or W,A,S,D if you change your keys like I did). A few actions appear on top of the screen when available and you have to drag your mouse accordingly in order to select them. So far so good. The game consists of a lot of action sequences which involve... pressing the right keys at the right time and sometimes really fast. They're fun for a while, but then they get annoying.

Watch the picture above. 1 and 2 are the circles that show which keys to press. The first circle means the arrow keys (or in my case WASD). The second one means the numpad (or in my case the arrow keys). When one of those rectangles light up you need to press the corresponding key. In this case, the left rectangle from the left circle lightened up, so I would press A and you, provided you didn't change the keys, the LEFT arrow. Of course, these rectangles will light up real fast and thus you'll have to train your fingers really hard to get all the sequences right. Oh, yes, and number 3 on the picture is your life bar. You can find lives through the game, so no problem with that. There are other sequences as well, where you have to tap the left and right keys alternatively in order to keep balance or, when playing as the female detective, to breathe in order to avoid getting scared (she's claustrophobic).
I almost forgot. If you get your hands on the uncensored version, get ready 'cause there's a sex scene in which YOU control the character. You know, for the kids. Thanks David Cage. We really needed that.
The soundtrack is amazing. I liked the epic music they played while I had to concentrate on what keys to press. Overall, the whole soundtrack is great and it blends really well with the game.
My overall opinion is that, besides a few cliffhangers and the game getting repetitive with its action sequences, Fahrenheit is a great game. Even if it was released in 2005, it's way better than some of the games released nowadays. Fahrenheit also has that bit of Sci-Fi that you can't get rid of in games released recently. But that's not an impediment, because the way the Sci-Fi is integrated in the game makes it up for it.

GRAPHICS: 9/10
STORY: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 8.5/10
SOUNDTRACK: 9.5/10
OVERALL: 9/10

Back to the Future Chapter 1 Playthrough Complete

2011-01-21T07:48:00.000-08:00

The title says it all. I have completed the Back to the Future Playthrough as of now. The next playthrough is going to be of part 2, coming this February. I am also considering making another one until then.. but we shall see about it, I won't promise anything.

Scooby Dooby Drew!

2011-01-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

Since I took a break these days, I had the time to play a few games as well. I took on Nancy Drew Shadow at the Water's Edge. You'll say the series is targeted for female gamers, but wtf does it mean I can't enjoy a good mistery or what? I know that game's been out for a few months now, but I never had the time or desire to play it. First of all I was busy with my daily routine and second I had to do finish the Sherlock Holmes playthrough in my free time. Anyway, let's leave the past to the past and welcome 2011 warmly.
So, Nancy Drew. This game left me the impression of a Scooby Doo case (as you could see from the title). It starts off like this. You're Nancy Drew. You came to a japanese ryokan (a traditional inn), sent by mr Krolmeister, who awarded you for the success of the previous case (Trail of the Twister). As the story progresses you see ghosts and stuff making you think the place is haunted. Then there's this fortune teller who has you differentiate fake from real.. and finally, at the end of the game I'm left with the impression that THIS was a Scooby Doo case, staring Velma and missing the other characters. Jeez. I can't reveal more as it would mean spoiling the end, but the outcome is exactly like a SD case.
Also, I'm disappointed in the "two endings" thing. You really shouldn't bother saving the game and trying to finish the game both ways (there's a line choice to say to the culprit in the end, and based on that, you'll see a different ending). There's no big difference except for the bad guy having another fate.
All in one, it was a good game, I enjoyed the puzzles (yet there was A LOT of Sudoku to do - I don't complain, I like it) but I hated the final puzzle (the Nonogram). I never liked it, in fact. I've met that kind of a puzzle in Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy. Fortunately there was a little trick to get rid of it without solving it in that game, but I won't reveal it! I mean, why should I? You have brains, figure it out!
Her Interactive does a really great job with these games, and I would suggest you guys to support them (as well as Telltale games who release Back to the Future games nowadays). Seriously, buy the game, it's only 20 bucks.
Finally, I think I could easily give this game a 9/10 rating. Good work, Her Interactive and keep making games like this! They're awesome!

Wrapping up

2010-12-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

The playthrough is complete. Happy Holidays! I think I'll cook up a few movie reviews these days and then, probably in 2011, my new playthrough will be posted. The new one is on Telltale's Back to the Future game. But I'm currently on a break and I won't start working on it until after the holidays. Sorry.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-26T16:51:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive, thanks for the question, and yes, I'm done with the Sherlock Holmes playthrough. No, I didn't drop it, I COMPLETED it! There are 26 parts uploded and 2 more are being uploaded right now. In a few hours, part 27 will be up and tomorrow I will upload the last part, 28. Jeez, I really overdid myself. I did no more than 10 parts in one week.
Anyway, hope you've spent Christmas better than I did. I had a fucking tootache and my night wasn't the best of all.. but hey, at least I had SOME fun.. right?
OK, I'm very tired now, so I'll go to sleep (as soon as the next part is up and ready), but first, I have a request from you guys. Go to the Playthroughs page (link over there, at the top, I'm too lazy to make a URL right now) and check out if I gave the proper links to every part. Thanks! Also, starting January 2011, I'm doing a Back to the Future playthrough! Stay tuned! And if someone already did one, fuck you for being first. That's all I had to say right now.. good night (at least it is where I'm writing from) and Happy Holidays (I'm so getting drunk at the New Year party).

Updates

2010-12-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Sorry for not posting anything for.. a whole month?! Well.. I've been busy. Anyway, the Sherlock Holmes Playthrough is nearly done, I've uploaded more than half of it already. My goal is to have it done until January 1st 2011, but I can't promise anything.
Second of all, some movie reviews are coming up real soon. First of all, I'm reviewing a masterpiece, probably the best movie of 2010, "Inception". And then, maybe, I will talk a bit about Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part I. Stay tuned! Also, there's another Top 10 coming soon (Top 10 Movies of 2010). See ya!

Surprises in House MD

2010-11-23T05:21:00.000-08:00

BUT BEFORE! CHECK THE PLAYTHROUGHS PAGE!

I finally got to see this! At the end of this episode House is happy and Wilson is miserable. Now that's what I call a twist of fate.
Interesting, though, how House tries to get over the lying to Cuddy thing, but is forced to apologize in the end.
Of course, we find out more about Taub's marriage going downwards, and the cast making fun of the fact that an old guy (the hospital's chairman of the board) is getting married with a girl 20 years younger than him. Jeez, I mean, even Cuddy gives them a few weeks before the divorce =)).
The case wasn't the focus of this episode as it was in "A Pox in Our House", but it did play a big role, since House was confronted with a guy's faith in God that made him crucify himself every year in exchange for his daughter getting rid of cancer.
ONE THING I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND: And I couldn't understand it the whole season! House can walk without his cane in Season 7! How come? Only because he finally got together with Cuddy his leg got miraculously cured?

OVERALL: Decent episode. 8.5/10
By the way, FOX is really starting to annoy me. The next episode is due to air in... January 10th, 2011! This is stupid! There's still a month till Christmas! What's with the damn break?

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 Videogame

2010-11-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

Platform: PC
Release date: November 19th, 2010
Leaked on the internet: November 16th, 2010
Finished by me: November 20th, 2010
Type: Third Person Action

So, let's talk of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1, the game. First of all, I am disappointed at EA GAMES' light approach over this project. They decided to make a WAND SHOOTER. You heard well, A WAND SHOOTER! People started calling it Call of Potter: Modern Wandfare on the internet and with good reason!
The story is poorly treated. I could see short cutscenes now and then, but they're not very relevant. It's just bits of talking part they had to use so that the level transition would make sense. It's kinda like in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, in which they weren't focused on the actual story of the game and the whole point was to get past a few stupid levels. Of course, the levels consist of a few things that happen in the book, but never mind that, as the movie was bad as well (Mike Newell probably made it that bad because he wasn't allowed to split it in two parts like David Yates did with part 7).
Now back to The Deathly Hallows. The story, as I was saying is not treated as it should have been. But then again, if you want to see the story, watch the damn movie. We don't care about the story, we just want to sell our game. And since shooters sell... well... here's our product!
The gameplay... well.. three words about it. Harry Potter shooter. That's all. I hate it. I mean, a few shooting scenes were indeed needed in the game, but making the whole thing a shooter.. that's something else. It may have made a few fans happy but it didn't manage to please me. Sorry. Also.. a few serious spells that don't take as much time as enemies need to kill you to perform would have been better. I mean, Expelliarmus was nearly impossible to cast without taking damage first. Had to use Stupefy or Impedimenta. The exploding spell, Confringo, sucks as well, because you need a certain distance from the target or you'll hit yourself as well. It's not that this game has a health bar that decreases (many shooting games don't anymore and use the same feature as this one), but I hate taking damage. It makes me look like your ordinary gamer. And that clearly hurts my ego. So how do you die if there's no life bar? Easy. The screen turns black and white and you fall to the ground. So make sure you go into hiding whenever the colors start fading.
The music is great, suitable for a shooting game at least. And maybe suitable for Harry Potter as well.
Graphics.. well, I had the same problem as I've had with Harry Potter 4 before. The maximum resolution they allowed me to play at is 1024x768 even though I use 1028x1024 and my PC supports even 1920x1080. It's stupid, but anyway. Despite the resolution, the graphics are quite decent.
Thanks to the inconsistent story, the game is quite short and it ends when Dobby the house elf dies.

Story: 7/10 (just because it's Harry Potter, but the story was badly exploited).
Graphics: 8/10 (because I can't change resolution)
Gameplay: 5/10 (totally not Harry Potter except for a few parts)
Soundtrack: 9/10 (saves this game from total shame)

Final score: 7,2/10

Update your URL!

2010-11-05T03:58:00.000-07:00

The new URL of the site is:
http://thepiratereviewer.co.cc

Issues with the domain name...

2010-11-05T03:39:00.000-07:00

Since I've been having issues with the .tk domain provider, I decided to move the site from that domain (it doesn't work anymore thanks to your non-existent support, assholes - gee, good thing I spend a few hours a day working on the fucking playthrough just to get my domain deleted because of the lack of visitors!) and register it somewhere else. I will give you the address soon.

Brand new design!

2010-10-20T05:59:00.001-07:00

I have just modified the good ol' blog theme and got it a new design. Hope you like it!

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper Playthrough

2010-10-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPVfyR4jC6M
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDQYKXg0Pnk
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0BCMfyU4pI
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F61Tx9Amlm8
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXUAT80DyU
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwiBZF4MFUs
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9J-EL8aXQ

And more parts coming soon!
I have waited this long to post the playthrough so that I'd have a few videos to show. I won't stop playing when I get bored, like I did with Broken Sword IV. That was a unique case. Sam and Max 305 was coming and I couldn't miss the opportunity. Meanwhile, my hard drive got fucked up and I had to format it. And you know the rest. I did not want to reinstall Broken Sword, so I thought I should pick another game. And since this playthrough will surely last until The Testament of SH comes out, I thought about Sherlock Holmes.

Sam and Max 305 Playthrough Complete now!

2010-09-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Finally some updates

2010-08-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

1) A little note concerning my Mafia 2 review
I did give it a 10/10 and I do consider it a must play, even though it lacks the good ol'freeride and it doesn't have multiplayer (but that's not a drawback since Mafia 1 didn't have multiplayer either) which may be annoying for someone whose friends are all a bunch of gamers and like playing games together. In my case, though, I didn't really care about this little inconsistency, since I spend very little time on the Multiplayer in any game I play.
I've seen complaints that the game is too linear... well, it should be like that. If you want to do hundreds of side missions before getting 100% go play some GTA. The lack of outfits... well... I guess I could do with a leather jacket, a few shirts, a casual suit and a tailored suit. I mean, it's not like you were expecting rapper clothes in the fifties, right? OK, maybe I should be fair and square and give it a 9/10 just to mix up with the other reviewers on the internet. Anyway, I'd never give this a 4/10 as Eurogamer did. I think they exaggerated. I realize that nowadays only FPS games get good scores on gaming sites. WAKE UP PEOPLE! WHERE IS GAMING AS WE KNEW IT? A GOOD GAME DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A FPS! THESE ARE FOR IDIOTS WHO CAN'T SOLVE A CHALLENGING PUZZLE! Not that there's been anything challenging in Mafia 2, though. Played it on Normal, barely died a few times, the cops are easy to get rid of, way easier than it used to be in GTA IV and the missions are quite short. I mean, 15 hours of overall gameplay (even less for some people) is not what you come up with after working 7 years on a game that only has story mode incorporated. I admit, I didn't see the negative parts of this game in my first review. I was just enthusiastic. But now, having woken up, I'll give it it's correct overall mark: 8.5/10.

2) Broken Sword Playtrough Delayed!
Broken Sword the Angel of Death Playtrough is delayed as of now. I like calling it "delayed", but it's very likely I'll just drop it and only continue it on special request (which I don't think it will be coming any time soon). What am I going to do instead of this? Well... Sam and Max season 3 finale is out now, so... don't you dare go to sleep 'cause "The City that dares not sleep" is fresh out of Telltales' labs and I'm ready to exploit it and show it to you guys and girls.

Mafia 2 Review

2010-08-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU !!!

The year: 2003. Gathering of Developers releases a game made by Czechs, about the 1930's. Or, to be exact, about the Mafia and how it operated back then. Everything took place in the city of Lost Heaven. That game followed the story of Tom (I won't add Angelo, that last name might be a fake one, made up by the feds later), a cab driver who has the "luck" to meet up with a couple of Don Salieri's goons that he has to rescue from their pursuers. This event and the fact that by his actions Tom made a lot of enemies lead to him joining The Family and doing stuff for Salieri. Stuff that involves killing people, sabotaging race cars, rescuing damsels in distress etc. Eventually, Tom and his best friend, Paulie realize that the boss is treating them like simple pawns, even after they "took care" of Salieri's nemesis, Morello. Therefore, they decide to do something on their own, so they rob a bank without the Don knowing. Of course, Salieri eventually finds out about it and orders them to be killed. Tom, on the other hand, has a wife and daughter to protect, so he confesses everything he did on behalf of Salieri to the police in return for his family's safety. In the end, though, he is shown a few years later, in a different town, being found out by two goons who send "Mr Salieri's regards".
This was it, the main character being dead at the end of the game, the future of the Mafia series was kinda dark. But the producers weren't done yet. A few years later, a lot of small game companies, including Gathering of Developers fusioned into 2K Games. A website was launched, announcements went all over the internet and people were waiting for Mafia 2 for more than four years. Then, in August 2010, it finally came out. SO! Is it the best game of 2010? We'll see.
Mafia 2 follows the story of Vito Scalleta, a young man who came to Empire Bay with his family, immigrants from Sicily. Once in Empire Bay, he befriended Joe Barbarro, a guy who did what he had to do in order to survive: things like stealing from people's homes, or robbing stores. After one of these robberies, Vito is caught by the cops and is enrolled in the army, as the world is in war (WWII). He is send to free Sicily from Mussolini's troops. The campaign is a success, yet Vito is sent back home with an injury, after three months. He returns to find out his father passed away while he was gone and that Joe got rich in a short time. Of course, Joe confesses working for the Mafia, the Clemente family to be exact. There they meet a guy called Henry, who gives them a dangerous job. Vito has to break into a federal institution and steal gas stamps which then he has to sale to gas stations before midnight, as the expiration date is "tomorrow". After this operation, someone turns Vito in and he is sent to prison. In prison he meets Leo Galante, an old man working for Frank Vinci, another family boss. During his time there, Vito learns how to fight, as Leo runs an underground fighting club. Leo manages to get Vito out of prison earlier than he was supposed to be released. Now there's an advance in time, we're in 1951, when most of the game takes part. Vito finds out his mother died while he was doing his time, and his sister doesn't want to have anything to do with him, thanks to the fact that he is involved with the Mafia and kills people. At some point, Vito and Joe find out Clemente was screwing with them and they go to take their revenge on behalf of Carlo Falcone, head of the Falcone family. After taking Clemente out, Falcone wants to go after the Vinci clan as well. At this time, Henry changes sides, as his former boss, Clemente had been killed, and is sent to kill Leo Galante, now released from prison. Vito gets to Leo first and manages to save his life by convincing Henry not to kill him.
Being tired of getting orders from the Family and wanting their own money, Vito, Joe and Henry plan to start selling drugs (and in the same time making competition to their boss, Falcone, who had been doing the same thing and got rid of Clemente in order to avoid competition). [This action is similar to Tom and Paulie robbing the bank in the first Mafia game. They want more money so they do something without the Don's permission]. In order to obtain the drugs, they borrow 35000 bucks from a loan shark. They have to pay back 55 grand. They use the money to buy drugs off some Chinese dealer. On their way back to the car they're attacked by some fake cops (which turn out to be feds later). But the three amigos escape the feds and manage to sell the drugs. Unfortunately, Falcone finds out about their business and wants his cut, leaving them with too little cash, obviously not enough to pay the loan shark back. To top it all, when Vito arrives to a park where he is supposed to meet Henry in order to do a job that will get them enough money to pay the loan shark, he sees his friend butchered by a bunch of Chinese guys. He and Joe follow the Chinese and waste them in their bar. Later on, the leader of the Chinese reveals to Vito that Henry was a rat, and he sold them all out to the feds.
Then Joe and Vito get the job to eliminate a guy who ratted out his Family and head to their target. The target is none other than Tommy Angelo, whom they eventually whack, after delivering the message. They get their payment but it's not enough to pay the loan shark. When they finally pay their debt and Vito goes to report to Joe that everything's OK, he finds out Joe is nowhere to be found. Eventually Vito tracks his friend to a construction site, where he is being tortured by Vinci and his men who want to know why the Chinese Triads are on to them. Vito and Joe manage to escape Vinci, but Joe is hurt, so Vito has to take him to the doctor.
In the final mission, Vito gets a phone call, asking him to go to Falcone's Observatory, as the boss wants to talk to him. On his way there, a car parks in front of him, and his old friend, Leo Galante calls him in, asking him to make things straight by killing Falcone. So Vito goes to the Observatory and gets ambushed. His best friend, Joe, holds a gun to Vito's head, but eventually decides to help him get rid of Falcone. After completing the job, they both get out and are taken away by Galante in two different cars. On the way to the "celebration", Vito sees the car carrying Joe take a different turn and then the credits roll.
SO IS IT OVER?! I guess so, since there's really nothing else to do around there. Of course, there are a few side missions and stuff to collect, but the game is really linear. Jeez, they left space for a sequel. I sure want to know what happened to Joe! But I hope this time I won't have to wait seven fucking years in order to find that out.
Anyway, back to the review. The story is awesome, kept me hooked up to the PC for 14 hours and a half - as long as it took me to finish the game. Of course, I didn't finish the game in one continuos play. I mean, who'd be nerdy enough to do that?! I finished in in three days. It's still a lot of time dedicated to playing a game, but it was totally worth it. I loved it. The first mission takes you to the army, then you get to the city, then you get to the can (that's what they call the prison) and then back to a more modern city. The evolution of the main character is something interesting to observe. I won't get into details, but you should be real careful at his actions. One last thing about the story - it's structured on 15 chapters that can contain one or more missions in each of them.
The soundtrack is amazing. And I mean both the 40's and 50's radio songs and the orchestrations. I just loved the atmosphere they made.
The graphichs are stunning. OK, they kinda remind me of GTA IV, but here they're far better and the characters are far more realistic.
The gameplay is great. This game has the best cover system I've ever seen in a shooting game. The AI is not as stupid as it usually is in a shooter. Your friends actually help you killing your enemies and your enemies actually TRY to kill you instead of shooting blindly in your direction. I had fun playing this game. I also notice your health meter gets refilled every time you get back into cover. That's good (I guess it only happens in Easy mode, I don't know, haven't tried the other difficulties yet). The driving is great, I loved driving 40's and 50's cars. I missed good driving in a Mafia videogame ever since the first Mafia came out. OK, maybe The Godfather I had decent driving but in Godfather II (FUCK THAT GAME!!!) the driving was a joke.
Fun fact! Jack Scalici, one of the game creators was asked in an interview if you're the boss in this game and he replied, I quote, "being the boss is boring". That's a punch in the face of the EA Games team that made Godfather II. I totally agree with Jack. Being the boss is boring. I'd rather grab a gun and perform the hit myself any time than having to send the guys to do it and manage my family and shit like that.
One thing they forgot to add in this game is robbing a house. There was a mission like that in Mafia I and I would have liked to see Vito and Joe stealing documents or cash from some asshole's safe. Anyway, the game has diversity when it comes to the missions, so I haven't got any reason to complain.
What else is left to say? Ah, yes, for being the best game of the year, Mafia 2 lacks a feature that's going to piss a lot of gamers. It doesn't have multiplayer! I'm OK with that, my friends aren't exactly hardcore gamers, at least not as I am, so I'd rather play by myself any time. Other people may have a problem with the lacking multiplayer, but I don't.
Overall, I LOVE THIS GAME! It's the best game ever! The shooting scenes are awesome (WHERE'S THE FUCKING SAWED OFF SHOTGUN?!), the driving is awesome and the story is great, except for the finale, as I don't understand what happened to Joe and I'm looking forward to Mafia 3 if it will ever come out.
One more fun fact before the final judgement. On some hungarian site, I found a comparison between Vito Scalleta and Marlon Brando in his youth. Check it out here.

Story: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Soundtrack: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
--------------------
Overall: 10/10 --> PERFECT! This is a must-play for all gamers!

PS! There's a new Mafia type game, set in the 40's coming soon. It's called LA Noire, you can check it out here, but don't get any hopes up, it's being published by Rockstar Games, so it might not be released on PC, because these guys, for some reason, hate the PC as a gaming console.

Broken Sword The Angel of Death Playtrough

2010-08-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

While I'm eagerly waiting for the release of Mafia II, I decided to make another one of my famous playtroughs. This time, I'm playing Broken Sword The Angel of Death, the fourth game from the BS series, one of the best adventure games ever made and my all time favourite series of games. I have three parts up to now. The first two are in 720p HD and the third one is in 1080p HD. The rest of the videos that will come out will be in 1080p as well. Enjoy!

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjIt9AfAKUA
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBeteW4Tq4c
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CHVv22zlcc
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LbVNhj21Y8

By the way =))

2010-08-17T13:59:00.001-07:00

Fun fact!!!

Why did Van Damme refuse to appear in “The Expendables”? Easy. Because he’d get his ass kicked by all the other guys. Well, actually that’s not the real reason. Apparently, Stallone wrote his role so that he gets beaten up by Jet Li. WOW, I WISH I COULD GET BEATEN UP BY JET LI! But hey, Van Damme is too busy playing mom and dad with Romanian whores, right?

Now, why did Chuck Norris refuse to appear in the movie mentioned above?! That’s because he would have made Stallone look like a Barbie doll when they faced off, so “Rambo” decided not to cast him =)). Nah. Actually, Chuck refused the role, probably for the same reason. He likes Sly and doesn’t want him to look bad.

Also, Kurt Russell turned out a role in this movie and Wesley Snipes had to turn down Sly because of some legal stuff.

Heck, I know another guy who would’ve done a great role in this movie. No? Nothing? Al Pacino, dudes! The guy’s a freakin’ genius!

Tom and Jerry meet Sherlock Holmes

2010-08-17T13:48:00.001-07:00

Care to watch a totally different Tom and Jerry? Do you want to see Jerry as Sherlock Holmes’ mouse and Tom as a messenger cat trying to catch him while causing destruction everywhere? Do you want to see Tom and Jerry team up to solve the case and stop the culprit? Do you want to see characters like Spike and Tyke or Droopy and Butch and some other MGM guys all in the same movie?

Then this is the perfect choice for you. Watch Tom and Jerry meet Sherlock Holmes. It’s awesome. I laughed all along the 46 minutes (yeah, guess WB chose to keep it short, guess money is a big problem everywhere nowadays) and I still laugh when I remember some of the hilarious scenes, even though the whole thing seems like a reenactment (hope I wrote that right :D) of the supposedly upcoming sequel to Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, in which Professor Moriarty builds a big piece of shit of a laser weapon only to break through the Tower of London and steal The Crown Jewels. I won’t be surprised if this is going to be the plot of the next Holmes movie. Overall… watch it! It’s totally worth it! And once I find a kind enough site that allows me to stream the whole thing in HD I will convert my version of the movie in 1080p HD (believe me it’s close to HD but not quite - I think it may already be 720p, based on the size) and post it here. IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT GUYS!

Ok, I’m done here. I gotta go, Kane and Lynch is installed and ready to go! LET’S SHOOT SOME DAMN COPS!!!

WOW! Just WOW!

2010-08-17T13:38:00.001-07:00

Can you believe the internet?! The new Kane and Lynch game, ”Dog Days” is supposed to be released in August 20th. BUT! It’s been posted on Torrents ever since… TODAY. Guess IO didn’t put too much effort in the DVD protection. That, or Reloaded got themselves a digital download. But that’s unlikely since the only place digital downloads are available right now is Steam, and they don’t release the game until the 20th. THE INTERNET ROCKS!!! Download link below.

http://www.newtorrents.info/torrent/36764/Kane.and.Lynch.2.Dog.Days-RELOADED.html

My impressions on Mafia II Demo

2010-08-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you might be surprised there's no video as I previously promised... but the thing is, my fucking bucket of a video card isn't good enough so that my game recorder could give out an acceptable framerate. I set the game to 800x600 resolution (yeah, I know, that's humiliating) and it still didn't give me more than 8 FPS. Otherwise, the demo worked perfectly for me with max settings (1280x1024 resolution).
My impressions on this are... well... THIS IS THE BEST GAME I'VE EVER PLAYED IN MY LIFE! I can't believe it! You can actually open the fridge and choose to get a beer, a burger or a bottle of juice. Also, you can screw around with the faucet or flush the toilet. That's what you do indoors. Outside (I used a time patch, download link at the end), after bypassing the 10 minutes time limit set by 2K Games, I drove a car, went to the tuning garage and... well.. tuned it. I even set the licence plate to display my name =)). You can also buy clothes or food while in town. There are gas stations (yeah, like in the first game - this is what makes the game feel way more realistic than GTA IV - you can wake up without any gas and that's it, you're fucked) from where you buy gas and... surprise surprise, you can open your car's hood and FIX THE ENGINE! You heard it well! If you crash too much and fuck up your engine, the car stops, you have to go to the hood, open it up and fix it. The cops are as annoying as usual. Once you do something wrong they're on to you. One star means they want to fine you, two stars means they want to arrest you and three stars means they're gonna shoot at you. At least that's how I understood it.
The shooting is absolutely awesome! The cover system is amazing! Way better than in Kane and Lynch where if you're in cover and shoot you immediately get out of cover and have to press the cover key again. Kicking doors is usual for Vito (the main character), or at least it was while I played the game. Of course, it's way more polite to open them nicely. The demo mission was funny. I laughed out loud when one of the guys called your target "Porky" because he was fat.
What really killed me was the ending. I mean... you're in front of a police blockade, trying to get your injured friend to a doctor. And then they argue about stopping or not and the screen goes black and you hear the sounds of a car accelerating and... TO BE CONTINUED.
Nice one. Now I want to see the full game even more.

Mafia II Time Limit Bypass Patch:http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O773E0AR

Notes:
1)The Kane and Lynch II Demo Multiplayer video was cancelled. Sorry.
2)I will try to see if I can record some of the demo anyway.

Kane and Lynch II: Dog Days Demo Playtrough

2010-08-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is going to be yet another series of videos. My notices here are: I suck at shooters, the Fraps framerate sucks and... enjoy if you can. The demo is awesome, can't wait for the full game to arrive. Also, when I finish these videos, the August 10th demo videos will be released as well.
So, let's rock:

Single Player
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj3aaBC8cGs
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noa9IBr7oSI
Multiplayer:
DELAYED. Sorry, I've got a bigger fish to catch right now.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men Review

2010-08-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is a 3rd Person Shooter, developed by IO Interactive, the same developer that made the hit series ”Hitman” (lol, nice word usage over there). This time, though, you don't play as the famous silent assassin and you don't have time to plan a strategy and walk through the levels as quietly as possible. No, no. In this game you'll be too busy shooting everything that moves.
You take control of Kane, a former member of some organisation called The7 (no more details, I don't want spoilers!!!), which supposedly doesn't exist anymore. But things go totally wrong when, as he is taken to his execution day, Kane is broken out of police custody by his former organisation and made to retrieve something (it's never revealed what exactly does Kane retrieve) in exchange for his family. Yeah, the old "we kidnapped your wife and daughter and we won't give them back unless you do something for us" cliffhanger is present in the game. God dammit. Eventually, the organisation doesn't respect it's part of the deal and Kane goes on rampage along a gang of people who are supposed to help him take down his enemies and rescue his daughter. The confusing part is, though, that the game has two endings and there's gonna be a sequel released in a few days. I mean, what ending is the sequel going to follow?! Jeez!
Now on to the gameplay. I gotta say, this game is awesome. The best shooter I've ever played in my life (though I haven't played a lot of shooters in my life :D). You can cover behind walls and stuff (the physix is not as great as in GTA IV but it'll do) and you can command your allies to attack, find cover or follow you. That's useful, since the AI goes wherever the heck it wants in this game.
The graphics is great for 2007, the year it was released in, so I've got no comment here. Except for the looks of the characters. Why the fuck are both allies AND enemies dressed THE FUCKING SAME?! That's at the later levels, like in Havana. The only thing that differentiates allies from enemies is a red hat the enemies wear. I mean, who the fuck has the time to check if the guy wears a red hat or not?! I need to shoot or get shot! Jesus!
The multiplayer is awesome all the same. I didn't have time to test it at it's full potential but I liked what I've seen.

Story: 8.5/10
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Multiplayer: 9/10
__________________
OVERALL: 8.62/10

The DaVinci Code Videogame

2010-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

The DaVinci code was a money-making novel, written by Dan Brown, who for some reason likes getting The Church angry by his work.
In the DaVinci code, professor Robert Langdon (if you don't know who that is, it means you live in a cave!) reveals that The Holy Grail is actually Mary Magdalene who was Jesus Christ's wife. And the fact that Jesus had a child. And the heirline went on until the present. I don't know if there's any base in all the stuff I mentioned or it's all pure theory, but anyway, the point is the novel ended up being exploited by money-hungry amator film makers (Ron Howard's movie is at least mediocre despite it has Tom Hanks in it) and game makers. Yeah, The DaVinci code videogame was released in 2006 by 2K Games.
The game featured the good ol' Slayer Engine, developed by The Collective and used in other famous games such as Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb (the last Lucas Arts game I ever praised them for) or Mark Echo's Getting Up: Content under pressure, a game published by Atari, in which you control a guy that draws graffiti everywhere.
Anyway, back to The DaVinci code. The graphics are average. Hitman Blood Money was released in 2006 and it had way better graphics than this.
The storyline is, of course, that of the movie. Except now there are a lot more clues to find and apparently there are 3 cryptexes (hope I wrote it right) instead of one.
After the first few minutes of gameplay I was disappointed. First of all, I noticed that left clicking makes the character punch. Then I thought "hey, that's cool, it means I get to kick some ass!", but no. The fighting is a piece of shit and I hope NOBODY EVER INTEGRATES THAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IN ANY UPCOMING VIDEOGAME! It's ridiculous! Instead of actually fighting you get to press buttons?! BUTTONS? Like for defend, you have a sequence of 3 to 5 buttons to press. WHAT?! It would have been even better without those fucking attacks, they're only making the player waste his time, there's no entertainment in pressing buttons and then pressing buttons again. Seriously, this game loses 2 points for the lame fighting.
You can control either Robert Langdon or Sophie Neveau, in turns. The perspective is third person, and, surprisingly, the game is in widescreen. Weird choice.
The first time I played this game I encountered a weird bug. Every time I finished a level, the cutscene played and after the cutscene ended the game would just crash. Then I had to start the game again and load my savegame which took me to the next level. Weird. The second time I finished the game (that is a few days ago, for this damn review), I didn't have that problem.
The soundtrack is great, despite all the negative feelings I have towards this game.
Oh, and I almost forgot, I hate the controls. I mean, was it really that hard to use the mouse for more activities than the stupid fighting?! Like some inventory? No, we have Q for that. Really convenient, right near W which is for moving forward. Also, the gameplay doesn't feature jumping or any other stuff. The invetigation parts, where you actually use the mouse are stupid because your mouse crosshair stays at the middle of the screen and you have to slide it around to find and get what you need. JEEZ WAS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO COME UP WITH BETTER CONTROLS?! DID THEY DO A POINT AND CLICK GAME AND AT THE LAST TIME THEY DECIDED IT WOULD BE BETTER TO MAKE A REAL ADVENTURE?! FUCK THIS GAME AND FUCK 2K GAMES FOR PUBLISHING IT!

OK, I really don't want to get all mad and rant at 2K Games anymore, because they're releasing you know what in less than a month and that's going to be the real kick-ass game of 2010! That is until November when Assassin's Creed 3 will be released. So, the final judgement of this game:

STORY: 8.5/10
GAMEPLAY: 5/10 (you know why!!!)
SOUNDTRACK: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 7/10
FINAL RATING: 7.3/10 (That's TOO HIGH!!!) Wait, we gotta deduce the 2 points for the fighting system! So that's a 5.3/10.

Sam and Max Playtrough

2010-07-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

My thoughts on the Prince of Persia Saga

2010-07-20T04:36:00.000-07:00

We all know the good ol' 1989 original Prince of Persia, in which you had 60 minutes to get to the Princess' room or vizier Jaffar would marry her. That game was originally released for Apple II and then it was ported to consoles like NES, Sega CD and the old PC which at the time used DOS as the operating system. Of course, many of us younger people played it on a Win95 Pentium I and a lot of people got to play it on 486 as well. This original game had a sequel, called "Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame". It was released in 1993 and it was ported to various consoles, which include the Playstation 2 (but only in 2003).
In 1997, Red Orb released Prince of Persia 3D (yeah, we're talking of the beginning of the 3D gaming era, so it's not surprising the title contains 3D in it. This game was only released for PC and Sega Dreamcast.
In 2003, Ubisoft picked up the series and boy they did a great thing! They released Sands of Time, an awesome game, where we, gamers met a new Prince of Persia, that could, amongst other cool things, wall-run or rewind time. Oh, the awesomeness! This was released on PS2, XBOX, PC and a few handheld consoles.
Ubisoft continued the Sands of Time series with a new game, released in 2004, "Warrior Within". A lot of gamers say the Prince is EMO in this game, and I did notice the controls kinda sucked, mainly because the camera can't be controlled at your own will and sometimes there are weird positions.
The best game of the series so far (even better than Forgotten Sands, despite all the new powers The Prince has in that one) is The Two Thrones, the finale of the series, released in 2005. This game ended the series properly, tied in every storyline there was and gave the Prince his happy ending. A multiplayer mod for this game was released in 2007, and it kicked ass! There were a lot of handheld PoP games released by various producers (including Ubisoft) during the last few years, but the next big project is the 2008 Prince of Persia. Oh, God! They fucked up the whole series with this one. I personally think a 1/10 is a mark too big for this game. First of all, you can't die at all. Then, the battles suck and are not challenging at all. Then the Prince is changed. Yeah, you play as a different Prince. THIRD OF ALL, IT SUCKS ASS!!! Anyway, it had a few console ports itself, but they're not worthy of talking about.
Last, but not least, the 2010 prequel (yeah, I told you, they had already wrapped up the story in The Two Thrones) to Warrior Within , "The Forgotten Sands", in which The Prince (yeah, he returns) has a lot of new powers. I won't get into details because I already spoke of this one before (boy it was buggy!)
Overall, the Prince of Persia series was a great gaming experience, and I liked it very much. I'd always replay any of the games (except for the 2008 PoP which I won't play again because I don't feel like replacing my monitor again). The best of the series remains "The Two Thrones", because it's the most elaborate game in the series, and it wraps up everything, you kill The Vizier and that's all. The Forgotten Sands just lacks essence, despite all it's cool stuff.
That's all folks, next time I will talk about something on the next list :D.

Mafia 2 Preview

2010-07-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS GAME!!! IN FACT, I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR IT EVER SINCE THE FIRST MAFIA GAME ENDED BACK IN 2003! In the meanwhile, I got fed up with the stupid EA series - The Godfather, which SUCKS (not the actual Godfather story, but the game[s] made by EA) - so it's gonna be great going back to the fifties and doing jobs for the Don. I like what I've seen in E3 footage, so I expect the game to be good. Release date: August 24th. Demo will be available in August. GREAT! CAN'T WAIT FOR AUGUST!!!
Here's some YouTube gameplay (guess this is some promotional gameplay they released):

Next list

2010-07-16T13:29:00.001-07:00

-> Dr Who adventure games + BBC Rant (seriously, I'm not dropping this)
-> Batman: Arkham Asylum (best super hero game ever - probably it will be a while until I get to do this review, as I have to finish the game first and I just started playing)
-> The DaVinci Code Game (probably my next review - and be prepared for a BIG RANT against 2K Games for some reason)

And I gotta stop here, 'cause if I add to much to the list I'll end up not doing anything at all.

A few words on The Bucket List

2010-07-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Bucket List is the story of two old men (portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman), of differen social statuses. Edward Cole (Nicholson) is a rich businessman, while Carter Chambers (Freeman) is a mechanic. The two guys meet in hospital. At some point, Chambers writes a "bucket list", of things he wants to do before he dies (both men have cancer), and Cole sees him and comes up with a great ideea: what if they actually DO those things for real?! So they end up doing extreme sports and visiting the world, thus knowing each other better. When Chambers takes Cole on a surprise visit to his daughter whom he hasn't visited for years, he gets angry and yells at Carter, thus ending their friendship and tearing "The Bucket List" apart.
Later in the movie, Chambers dies of cancer and Cole goes to his funeral and holds a speech in his memory. The final scenes show the urns that contain both men's ashes being placed on top of the Himalaya along with the restored Bucket List.
Overall, director Rob Reiner made a great comedy/drama movie that can be watched by anyone. It's a great movie, worth a 9.5/10 in the least, and I reccomend it to you.

Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood Review

2010-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Call of Juarez Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first CoJ game. This one was released in 2009, three years after the original came out. Since the producers already finished any possible plot hole, they needed to come up with something else. A game with totally different characters?! No, that would suck. Instead, they made a prequel. Yeah, it's not like everything past-related was explained at the end of the first game, right?
This game literaly doesn't have suspence at all. Seriously, I already knew everything that was gonna happen even before it did. Well.. not exactly everything, but 90% of the story is already revealed in the first game.
Anyway, this game features great graphics, as the previous one did, it features an interesting main menu in which you get to creat a password-based account (well I shouldn't complain, all new Ubisoft games have that). I think the password is optional, but I added one anyway (wouldn't want my little brother to start playing and fuck up my savegames). You can also play on the UPlay servers provided you own an original copy of the game.
One letdown is there are no more cheats, since there's no console, and thus I'm supposed to use a trainer if I get stuck. And the trainer usually makes the game crash. So... I tried my best not to use a trainer and I succeeded, at least until the final two or three chapters.
The characters in this game are the Mc Call Brothers. You can either play as Thomas (jumping and using a lasso to get to high places) or Ray (gunslinger bad-ass, still unable to climb anything without help). There are also a few levels where the game forces you to use a certain character, but mainly it's your choice.
What I didn't really like about this game, though, are the duels! I FUCKING HATE THOSE DAMN DUELS!!! You need to move around easily to have your enemy in sight (otherwise the screen gets blurry and when the gong sounds you're fucked) and to move your hand (by dragging the mouse) until near the gun. Only near the gun, because if you get it too close, your character will refuse to take the gun. Yeah, you can only take out your gun and shoot after the gong is heard. And the enemy is always faster than you! Jeez!
Back to the story, there's also a third brother, called William, who is some sort of a preacher. He befriends an Apache who came to make a deal with Juarez. He dies in the end, as Ray says at the end of CoJ 1.
It's good to note that, as bad-ass as he is, Ray isn't actually loved by women. Apparently Thomas "steals" a woman Ray likes and thus Ray threatens him not to do that again or else. Of course, when they meet Marisa (the future mom of Billy and wife of Thomas, duh!) they fight over her again, but then they calm down, finding out she's Juarez's wife.
Note that I don't even try not to spoil the story. That's because if you play the first CoJ before the second one, it will be spoiled anyway.
Finally, this game is no longer an "Adventure/Shooter" game. It turns out it's plain shooter. But it's a good game anyway.
IT'S DEFINETLY HUNDREDS OF TIMES BETTER THAN CS 1.6 AS A FPS! I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW PEOPLE CAN STILL PLAY THAT POS FULL OF GLITCHES AND WITH STONE-AGE GRAPHICS INSTEAD OF THE NEW, COOL FPS'S ON THE MARKET. AT LEAST TRY CS: SOURCE. JEEZ!
Ok, now I'm ranting about something completely different. This means I should end my review now, before is too late.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10
STORY: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 9.5/10
SOUNDTRACK: 9/10
OVERALL: 8.6/10

Call of Juarez Review

2010-07-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Call of Juarez is another one of Ubisoft's masterpieces. It's a first person western adventure/shooter game set in the late 19th century. This game was released back in 2006, but it features graphics worhty of a 2008/2009 game. The great graphics and the first person posture makes you feel like in the actual Wild West. Another cool innovation is that you play as the good guy, and respectively the bad guy.
The story revolves around Billy Candle, who left to search for the Gold of Juarez but came back home empty-handed. He got called "candle" after his mother, Marisa, gave him a medallion with a candle on it.
Once Billy returns to his hometown, he gets into a lot of trouble when he tries to get to Suzy, a childhood friend of his now turned prostitute, in order to "say hi". After escaping the citizens, who apparently lack pussies so much that would kill for half an hour of sex with Suzy, Billy gets to his parents' (Thomas and Marisa) farm. Thomas is actually Billy's stepfather, but that's another story. Once he gets there, he finds both of them dead and runs away. Meanwhile, Reverend Ray, an old gunslinger turned preacher, angered on the ignorance of people burns down a saloon and rescues the city that has been taken over by miners. Afterwards, he is called at Thomas and Marisa's farm and sees Billy run away from the two corpses. This is where the main plot of the game starts, as Ray will follow Billy, thinking that he killed Thomas and Marisa (Thomas being Ray's brother).
Both playable charaters have their unique features. Billy can jump around and use his whip to get to high places, while Ray is a bad-ass gunman who shoots every bandit in sight.
So, back to the story, Billy runs away from Ray and gets to a farm where he previously worked at, and from where he got kicked out for falling in love with the boss' daughter. On his way to the farm, Ray is approached by some fake deputies and convinced to take over the farm. After this, the deputies, actually bandits, kidnap the girl and run away with Ray following close-by. Ray and Billy encounter eventually and the kid gets shot and falls in the river.
That's all the story I can talk about right now, because otherwise I'd spoil everything (not that I haven't spoiled stuff already) and you wouldn't have any reason to play the game anymore. Well... unless you own an original copy and can play in multiplayer mode.
Bottom line, a lot of stuff that happened before is explained and the story is properly concluded in the end.
There are also a few cheat codes that you can type in the console (press ~ to reveal console). I'll just write them down so you wouldn't say I'm an asshole for keeping them to myself (not that there's no Google to search for them anyway):

Cheat.God(1) - Enable God Mode
Cheat.God(0) - Disable God Mode
Cheat.MagicAmmo(1) - Enable Infinite Ammo
Cheat.MagicAmmo(2) - Disable Infinite Ammo
Cheat.GiveRifle() - Give Rifle (duh)

And a few more cheats that you can find on the web, but these are the only ones I used. Yeah, I did, and I'm not afraid to admit it.
The soundtrack is awesome, it completes the wild west image of the game.

Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10 (for the fact the first person climbing is not the best ideea)
Story: 10/10
Soundtrack: 9.5/10
Overall: 9.5/10 (aka AWESOME)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Preview

2010-07-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

3D? Seriously? OH SHIT NOT THIS ONE TOO!!!
First of all, this is a trailer for both parts 1 and two of ”The big one”. It's OK, I guess they don't want to spoil the moment the story is split at, though my guess still stands up: part 1 will end when Xenophilius Lovegood tells Harry, Ron and Hermione about the Deathly Hallows. It's only a guess, but I'm 80% sure I'm right.
Before talking about the movie at hand, I'd like to adress a big fuck you to Summit Entertainment for releasing Twilight: Eclipse this summer and therefore making the Harry Potter release date set to November. I mean, what kind of a sick producer pushes his actors to such intense work? Twilight: New Moon was released back in November and... what the fuck eight months later a new movie is out? BULLSHIT! It takes at least a year to complete a movie like that! I'm telling you, Summit forced the team to work their assess hard and finish this piece of shit that fast!
Anyway, back to Harry Potter now. I hope The Deathly Hallows will be better made, since it's in two parts. I mean, The Half Blood Price was fair, but it lacked a lot of important movies. Like why the fuck aren't we shown ALL THE DAMN memories?! What about the Gaunts? No need to talk about them, just skip to little Tom Riddle at the orphanage?! That's bullshit! Sorry, but HBP is not getting a rating better than 7.5/10 from me. So let us see The Deathly Hallows! God, please make sure this movie is better than the others! I really don't want to get my shotgun and go all the way to England to shoot David Yates if it'll suck.

Next list:

2010-07-03T16:07:00.001-07:00

The Bucket List Movie Review
Dr Who Adventure Games (and BBC rant)

(order pending)

Prince of Persia: The forgotten sands (PC)

2010-07-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

This is another one of Ubisoft's masterpieces, following a great series of four... no three great Prince of Persia games. Why only three? BECAUSE PRINCE OF PERSIA 2008 IS A PIECE OF SHIT AND WILL NOT BE COUNTED BY ME AS A POP GAME!
First of all, the first Prince returns in this game. Apparently this game is a prequel to Warrior Within and The Two Thrones and it's story happens right after The Sands of Time.
So far so good, I won't talk about the story too much, because that would mean spoiling it and I don't want that to happen. The plot revolves around The Price who goes to visit his brother Malik. When he gets there he finds Malik's palace invaded. Malik then decides to free King Solomon's Army, an army formed of sand creatures, to repel the invasion. Unfortunately,the army turns against Malik and now The Prince has to save his brother and the kingdom. In order to do that, he is aided by the Djinn, who gives him four powers at different points in the game. These powers are amazing, yet by the end of the game you need piano skills in order to be able to switch between the powers as fast as it's needed.
The first power is the rewind. No need to describe it. It's The Prince's good ol' time rewind, just that this time he doesn't need The Dagger of Time to do it.
The second power you gain is freezing water. Yeah, you heard me right. You can solidify water for a few secons, so you can use it to swing across a gap or something like that (I hate the waterfalls at The Last Climb!!!).
Then there's that power whose name I keep forgetting. The point is you jump and then press CTRL to charge at an enemy that is on a platform further than you could normally jump to. This gets crazy when vultures come in, but I won't get into details that much.
Last but not least you can "remember" parts of the castle that are destroyed but were there in the past. This means pressing a key to fix a broken pathway, wall or something like that. It's not a piece of cake, trust me.
The final battle is completely crazy. You're in a middle of a sandstorm and you need to fight Ratash, the leader of the Sand Army. He is ginormous and has a seal on his chest that's the only vulnerable point you can hit, while making sure he doesn't hit you with his hands or the other enemies that appear on the screen don't kill you.
You can also buy upgrades, like magic powers - whirlwind, stone armor, fire trair and water trail, or lenghten your life bar, get extra energy orbs, etc.
The soundtrack also feels like Prince of Persia. It completes the game.
So... I guess it gets a well deserved 10/10 like AC 2?
Well... NO! Because it's full of fuckin' bugs! Doors are not opening. When I climb a column so I'd be able to face the other column I need to jump to, the game crashes and I get a screen that makes no sense and that you can only escape if you waste an energy slot to rewind!
So, the final judgement (without the picture, sorry):

Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 9/10
Soundtrack: 9.5/10
OVERALL: 8.8
BUT! Because the beta testers are a bunch of motherfuckin' bastards, I deduce one point from the overall.
OVERALL OVERALL: 7.8/10

Call of Ctulthu (I think that's how you spell it) Mobile

2010-07-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah, well.. I'm reviewing a mobile game for the first time in my life. Of course since it's a mobile game I should have started my review with "THIS GAME SUCKS!". But it's not the case here. This game screams "Lucas Arts" from the bottom of its lungs. And I mean the OLD ADVENTURE GAME Lucas Arts not the current LEGO BULLSHIT and INFINITE STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES THAT DOESN'T COME TO PC Lucas Arts. Yeah, the game looks just like the good ol' Lucas Arts point and click adventure games from the 1990's. And it's played like one. All it lacks are the buttons at the bottom of the screen, labeled USE TALK TO and stuff like that.
Here's a little trailer:

Overall, the game was good, I enjoyed it, yet I got stuck a lot of times and needed to take a look at a walkthrough I found online. Eventually I.. um... finished it (or not?) and I got some sort of a To Be Continued thing. Well.. here's where every good thing about this game goes to an end. Why? Because a sequel was never released even though the first game is out since 2007. WHY? I don't know, the producer's site is down for some reason.
Anyway, the game has it's good sides, like an awesome story that keeps you hooked up, great character designs (Lucas Arts!!!) but it also has bad sides, like a bug that appears at some cell phones only (including the PC emulator LOL) or maybe at some versions of the game, anyway. You need to talk to a guy at the store. And when you do that, the game crashes. It happened to me every time I tried to get over that part on my old cell. Luckily, it worked well on Alcatel OT 800 and on a good ol' Nokia, so I managed to beat the game.
Anyway, I'd give this game a 9/10. It deserves it, at least for the courage to make a cell phone point and click adventure game.

Percy Jackson and The Olympians Quick Review

2010-07-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The lightning thief is a movie based on a novel, the first one of the Percy Jackson series, written by Rick Riordan.
The first thing I noticed is the movie starts with an argument between Zeus and Poseidon (played by Kevin McKidd, aka Vorenus from ”Rome”). Zeus states that Poseidon's son stole his Lightning, the most powerful weapon that exists and that he has a 14 days deadline to return it or there will be war.
In the book there's a little suspance, since it starts describing Percy who is god damn 12 not fucking 18 like in the movie, and how weird things happen to him.
I don't blame Chris Columbus for spoiling something that could have been kept a secret for at least 15 - 20 minutes of film, but for changing the characters' ages. And why the hell did he cut out Mr. D, the camp director? He was an interesting character.
Anyway, I suppose it's not fair criticising the movie because the director had a different vision, so let's see what can we make of this movie.
As a fantasy movie it's not bad at all. As a movie, in general, it's good to watch when you don't have anything better to do. This is one of those movies you could watch with your family in a Sunday evening with the popcorn and soda/beer ready. Me, I liked this movie, despite all the negative critics it gets because of the changes Columbus made to the story. I'd gave it a 8.5/10 without exagerating. I guess the 5.8 (LOL) it got on IMDB is based on the fact I overlooked, so I guess I gave it an extra point because Alexandra Daddario is so hot!!!

Game Preview: The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

2010-06-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, here it is. A teaser for the new Sherlock Holmes game Frogwares and Focus are going to launch in Q4 2010 (oh, man, just the end of 2010?!). Anyway, as Frogwares states on the forum which I will not link to right now because I accidentally closed the tab and I don't know the address anymore, this will be Sherlock's most dangerous investigation ever. Wow! Now I'm really anxious to find out what's it all about. Hopefully we'll see a new trailer soon, because this isn't satisfactoy. I mean, too little detail is given here.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood E3 Gameplay!!!

2010-06-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

A few words on Shrek Forever After

2010-06-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is a kids' movie and game, therefore I won't criticise it too much. The point is, the film is your basic Shrek comedy dose. It's good to hear Mike Myers as Shrek and Eddie Murphy as Donkey again, and it's AWESOME hearing Shrek's roar!
OK, so my impressions on this film is that it's a fair movie. I saw a lot of negative rants on the internet stating that this is the worst movie in the whole series... I don't know, guys, really now, this is just a kids' movie, don't take it so seriously. It's an ordinary comedy. I just sat back and laughed.
I guess the source of these negative reviews is the fact that this movie is slightly different from the others. This time there's no Prince Charming as the archenemy and Far Far Away is not the good ol' happy kingdom everyone used to know. Besides, it only refferences Shrek 1, making it a prequel of Shrek 2 and 3, but wait! There are Shrek babies, so it can't be a prequel!!! AGGGHHH!! I don't get it anymore! This movie simply states that Rumpelstilskin wanted to make a deal with the queen and king of Far Far Away to save Fiona from her curse (the curse plot ended along with the first movie) in return for Far Far Away. They're about to sing the contract, when a soldier comes and tells them Fiona has already been rescued.
OK, this movie's story goes like this: Shrek misses the times when he was a scary ogre living in his good ol' swamp and scaring people the whole day. Everything culminates at his babies' birthday, when he breaks down. Rumpelstilskin hears that and proposes a contract to him. Therefore, Shrek, without knowing, gives the day he was born in on one more day as a scary ogre. The rest of the story, I'll let you find out by watching the movie.
The game is a stupid RPG beat'em up style. How characteristic for Activision. But wait! Instead of talking about the game, I'll rant about Activision's fuck-ups next time! Oh, yeah, they fucked up Marvel! Well.. not quite. Not exactly fuck-ups, just a few bad games made by them. Two games. Shrek the fourth and Spiderman Web of Shadows. Two in one. Or should I review even more? We shall see. Later. For now, The Pirate Reviewer's signing out.

Assassin's Creed II

2010-06-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

I have few words to say about this game, as there's not that much to discuss, but to praise.
First of all, the graphics were improved and the setting changed. Now the Animus takes the player into renaissance Italy, where you control Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young man who travels around the country to avenge his family, killed by conspirator templars. Eventually, Ezio becomes an Assassin and learns about the Pieces of Eden. His archenemy is Rodrigo Borgia, also refered to as "The Spaniard".
The enemies are, again, city guards and personal guards of the high noblemen you have to kill. This time, though, the game is not linear, as the first one was. I mean, in part one all you have to do is go to the city, investigate a bit (like informer challenges, pickpocket or interrogation) and then proceed with the killing), but here the ways you get to your targets and kill them are more elaborate. Plus, I had a hard time passing the Assassins' Tombs levels in order to obtain the six seals necessary to open the grating that guards the armor of Altair.
And now we come to Dominic, as I forgot to talk of him. This time he actually escapes from Abstergo along with Lucy, who takes him to a secret warehouse, where she and two other guys working against the templars get him to enter a home edition of the Animus and control the previous subject's ancestor, Ezio.
The gameplay is slightly modified, as you get new weapons (even a pistol, which surprisingly sucks), and you can FLY! Yeah, you can fly in renaissance Italy. That's because you're a friend of Leonardo Da Vinci and he lets you use his flying machine for a certain purpose.
The music.. well, let's just say Jesper Kyd doesn't disappont us.
What else? The story is very elaborate. I also like the finale, where Ezio... well... let's not make any spoilers and get straight to Dominic, who now has Assassin powers and defeats a bunch of Abstergo soldiers who come after him. I have one little problem here. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY ATTACK HIM WITH PIPES?! WAS IT TOO FUCKING HARD TO GIVE THOSE GUYS GUNS?! THEY'RE IN THE FUCKING 21st CENTURY! Well, the lack of guns can be explained by the fact that they were now allowed to kill Dominic, but still... a stun gun was too hard to get? That way they only got their ass kicked. Also, the Ubisoft guys did an interesting thing here. The end credits scroll while you fight the Abstergo guys so you won't get bored. Nice!
Another thing I want to add is that they finally decided to add subtitles to the game, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE DISABLED BY DEFAULT!!
Ok, I'm done. The conclusion: this game is COOL!
Let's see the judgement!

GAMEPLAY: 9,5/10 (for the annoying action camera)
SOUNDTRACK: 10/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
STORY: 10/10
OVERALL: 9,8/10 (or 10/10, but not perfect)

Assassin's Creed 3 Trailer

2010-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

The new Assassin's Creed game, called "Brotherhood" is due to be released sometime this November, as you will see by watching the trailer below, released yesterday at E3 2010.

EA Games Fuckups!

2010-06-11T15:19:00.001-07:00

Once in a while, a game developing company reaches it's heights - 90% of it's game are great, enjoyable creations that people praise and honor all over the internet and beyond. But... soon after this happens, a flow of shit floods the company and they become unable to release anymore good games! Check out EA GAMES FUCKUPS below to convince yourself I am right.

A lot of old EA GAMES productions are great. I played them some time ago on an older machine and enjoyed them unlike what happens with the newer games, which I play on a better PC and therefore get better graphics and stuff. I'll try and cover a few examples of good game series turned bad below.

1. Harry Potter
The first three games were great for the time. I mean, the characters were kids, so the games were supposed to be fun and easy to play. I liked all three of the games, and I suppose they each deserve at least 8/10.
Game four was the worst in the whole series. Turning the franchise into a stupid RPG (this has become a bad habit today for a lot of game creators), the game only allowed you to do missions, fight magical creatures and bosses. A lifebar doesn't exist, your HP being measured in numbers (100 being maximum and 0 minimum). You can't explore Hogwarts, which is a major letdown. Eventually I got to the lake part which I couldn't pass, and since I didn't want to use a trainer I gave up playing the piece of shit called Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire Videogame. Also, to be noted that the game FORCES you to use 800x600 resolution. What a shitload of fuck! It's hardly worth a 5/10 thanks to the fact that it's a Harry Potter game.
Harry Potter 5 is, by far, the best of the series, because despite the overhead RPG style view that was kept, the graphics were improved, the story was better told, and you could explore Hogwarts once again. It was fun making fun (lol) of Umbridge and causing destructions and stuff. The ministry of magic part is too easy, as even a five year old won't die at the final battle, but overall this game is 9/10. Part six is another disappointment to me, because EA tampered with the designs and now the characters'eyeballs are getting out of their heads. Also, the final part isn't well developed anymore, as you don't get to walk through the cave with Dumbledore (as I imagined you would), but instead all you do is fight the Inferi from the island. Anyway, part 6 is worse than 5 but way better than 4, so it gets a 7/10 from me.

2) Need for Speed
Need for speed is a great racing series. I will start my review with Need For Speed Underground, because before that they were simply racing games without a storyline. I have no complains, the graphics are getting better and better until the new NFS's! I totally hate Need for Speed Pro Street because the races are moved into a closed circuit. I mean, it's a god damn computer game! Nobody gives a shit that you do illegal street races and cause deadly crashes! Still, the game isn't that bad and it gets an 8/10 because it's got great graphics.
Now for the worst NFS of all times! Need for Speed Undercover! Oh my god! That game is simply uncontrollable. The car controls are a joke! The graphics suck even with all the options set to maximum. The only good thing about it is an innovation. They made movie-like cutscenes. Like real pictures filmed with a real camera. Cool, right? At least it gains one point for this piece of shit. Let it be a 6/10 from me.
Need for Speed Shift once again goes into racing circuits, and as far as I've heard it has great graphics and gameplay, but I have to play it myself before I state any opinions.

3. FIFA
The FIFA series is a football simulation game. What makes it great is that EA got an official license from FIFA to make these game, therefore stoping the competition from making a better game than theirs because they can't use the original team names and players! Jeez! This is bullshit!
Anyway, I don't want to talk to the games in this series separately, as there's nothing special to say about each particular one. EA tries to bring innovations in every new game and that's how they fuck it up. For instance, in FIFA 08 some controls are changed (you switch players with Q instead of S by default). Then they add Be a Pro - a game mode in which you can play as one single player and not control the whole team. In FIFA 09 and FIFA 10 the controls were so fucked up that there were tutorials posted all over the internet, which showed how to set controls to be just like in the previous games. There's so little I have to rant about these series, so I'll just stop now.

4. The Godfather
Now we get to the real piece of shit! The Godfather series! The first game was acceptable. You start off by creating a character and dress him up, and then you do missions that cover the first movie. Driving cars, shooting guns, taking over rackets and finally becoming DON. The game earns a well deserved 8/10.
The Godfather II is the masterpiece of shit that made me write this whole EA Fuckups thing in the first place. The graphics are a joke, the car controls are a joke, it's like they make fun of players. At least the shooting is great, and therefore the multiplayer is the same. Now for the story. It seems you are already a DON, but you play as ANOTHER character, so it doesn't make sense. How did you become DON in the first place? Before it took me a whole game to reach this rank and now I simply have it?! I think it was better fighting to achieve the rank of DON than being already DON at the beginning of the game. The game is a piece of shit. You can hire guys that become your family members, take over properties and make sure they aren't conquered by enemies. So the game barely gets a 6/10.

In conclusion, EA fucked up with it's recent releases. Of course, now you'll argue with me, bringing Burnout or The Sims as good examples, but those are just a few titles. So there are good and bad sides. I only spoke about EA's bad sides here, so I guess the good ones are still to be spoken about. But not now. I have other plans next.

Assassin's Creed Review (part 1)

2010-06-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's summer. School's over.. and that means more time for games! Hell yeah! So what came trough my twisted mind while I was enjoying a can of beer on my couch, watching South Africa vs Mexico in the World Cup opening match? Yeah, you're right. I decided to review another game. This time it's a series of game, so I'll divide the review in two parts. Part two should be coming later (maybe next week), as I haven't finished Assassin's Creed 2 yet. So, let's get to business.

Assassin's Creed is a third person action adventure game, developed and published by Ubisoft. The main plot involves a man, Dominic, being held by a corporation and forced to see his ancestor's memories in order to unveil a certain event that happens in the final memory. I know it sounds complicated but I really don't feel like spoiling this game and any detail I give makes it easier for you to realize what happens next. Your character is Dominic's ancestor, Altair, which you control via some device called "Animus". Altair is a high-ranked Assassin, until he fails a mission because he disobeys the Assassins' rules. This is when he is turned back into a novice and sent by Al Mualim, the master, to perform nine assassinations in order to recover his rank. The rest of the story and the conclusion you can find out by playing the game.
The gameplay is difficult for someone who doesn't play games too often and is not used to pressing a large number of buttons simultaniously. I have a problem with the controls, and it repeats itself in Assassin's Creed 2 as well. THEY USE FUCKING SYMBOLS TO TELL YOU WHAT BUTTONS TO PRESS! JEEZ! What's the point of telling me the button to press if I have to memorize each button's symbol anyway?! Another minus is that the game doesn't have subtitles, making it tough for a non-english speaker to understand the storyline. T
Second of all, aren't you supposed to stay incognito and kill your targets by using stealth? I mean... one of the three Assassin rules clearly states an Assassin has to act silent and remain anonymous. I can guarantee that at least once or twice you will get caught by guards. If this happens you'll have to fight a shitload of bastards until you can run away and become anonymous again. It's ridiculous. If for instance I attack a guard on the ground and I stay there to fight him, more and more will come! It looks as if I killed all the guards in the damn city, but then other ones appear.
I also want to criticise the Dominic parts when I'm left to wander around the lab and eventually go to bed. All I do is walk around like a fucking prisoner in his cell. At some point I read emails from laptops, and then I go to bed. That's all. There's one point in the game when the doctor stands with the back at you, looking out the window. You MUST go behind him and steal his pen at that moment. It's your only chance to be able to read his emails. I think the Dominic parts should have been taken care of much better. I mean, why can't he do what he does in the end earlier?! It could have been his task to decode... . But no! He reads fucking emails before going to bed! Isn't there any privacy in this game?! I guess not.
I was talking about the controls a bit earlier. I'm kinda angry they didn't let the Prince of Persia controls. Those were better. Anyway, I got used to these ones too, so it doesn't make any difference to me right now.
The graphics are great. I ran the game maxed out, at the resolution of 1280x1024 (I don't want to go higher because this is my screen resolution and I don't think my PC will be able to handle high resolutions like 1920x1080). The fact that the game is in widescreen is great as well. Makes me think I'm watching a movie.

Graphics: 9,5/10
Soundtrack: 9/10
Gameplay: 8,5/10 (for the lack of subtitles)
Story: 9,5/10
OVERALL: 9,12/10

A few words on Alice in Wonderland

2010-05-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

I don't have time for a full, professional review right now, so I'll limit my speech on Alice in Wonderland (2010) to a few words.
First of all, calling this film "Alice in Wonderland" is completely wrong. The more suitable title would have been "Alice in Underland". Even the characters welcome Alice in Underland, not Wonderland.
Seriously now, how many Tim Burton films have you seen recently?! I can say a few words about this director:
1) Johnny Depp is in EVERY ONE of his movies.
2) All his movies have a dark and bloody theme, so it was a big surprise to me when I found out he was going to do an Alice in Wonderland remake.
3) Despite all that, he is a fuckin' genius! Tim Burton rocks!
Now, back to Alice in Wonderland. I think the actors do a great job. Johnny Depp fits perfectly as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter was a great big-headed queen, despite her desire too cut people's heads off. The choice for the main character, Mia Wasikowska as Alice, is also well inspired. I had my doubts when I first heard the blue caterpillar talk, but a second later I was sure I recognized Alan Rickman's voice. Yeah, even Stephen Fry does voice acting in this movie (he provides the teleporting cat's voice).
The story is easy to follow. Alice is now 19 and her family forces to marry some rich lord. At her wedding, right before having to say yes, she sees the good ol' white rabbit again and follows it. She yet again falls in the rabbit hole and finds herself in Underland. She can eat a special cake to become bigger and drink some potion to become smaller (maybe it's vice-versa, I don't know, I'm confused too). At first, the rabbit thinks he brought back the wrong Alice, but then she is proved to be the right one. There's a prediction Alice will slay a dragon (can't remember it's name right now), and thus defeat the Red Queen once and for all. The rest of the story you'll have to find out by yourself, as I'm really in a hurry right now and I have to end this prematurely. I won't even add a final judgement. I'll just say that I'd give this movie an 8,5/10.

GTA IV Review

2010-05-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Grand Theft Auto IV (or 4) continues the series of action games created by Rockstar Games back in the late 90's and continued until the present. This is probably the original sequel to GTA III, as the other PC ones, Vice City and San Andreas are just like an expansion, like, using the same engine, but adding better graphics, and they only complete the story of GTA 3 and therefore are not called GTA 4 and 5, but in fact they're named after the cities the action happens into.
In GTA IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a russian imigrant who came in America for an apparent reason (his cousin's description of the country) and for a hidden reason that I'm not going to reveal right now.
The game installs along with Windows Live, for multiplayer gaming, and Rockstar Games Social Club, which probably has the same purpose. I don't know exactly, I wasn't interested in trying it out. Besides I couldn't try the multiplayer even if I wanted to, because I got my game from torrents and if you don't have the original game you can't use the multiplayer feature.
When you start the game, you can either begin playing with the graphics settings the game automatically selects depending on your computer's capabilities, or you can go to Options and then the Graphics tab and modify them as your like.
The graphics are good and live up to people's expectations. The characters are well designed and their personality is reflected by their looks, in the first place, and then by their actions.
The controls in this game are great. I could say they're way better than in the previous games. Despite that, the helicopter controls suck. I prefer the San Andreas ones over these ones. I just can't do anything with a helicopter because as soon as I take off, I crash. That's why the final mission was impossible for me to complete. And that's a big surprise, as all the other missions are easy to accomplish without any cheats. The shooting is better than in it's predecessors. I am glad they now let you hide behind items\walls, to cover during a gunfight. That way my character doesn't take that much damage from enemies' bullets. The weapon selection sucks because there's no Minigun (my favorite gun in GTA!) and a lot of other guns I used to have in previous GTA's are gone (OK, there are new weapons in Episodes from Liberty City, but that's another story). Also, I'm disappointed in the clothes selection. There aren't enough clothes to choose from, and the existing selection is not very satisfying, at least not to me.
The story is great, the characters' lines are well made-up and the jokes... well, let's just say I laughed out loud every time Niko made an ironical comment. The only thing different from the other GTA's is the finale. Usually, the main character becomes rich and powerful, and kills all his enemies, but in this one the ending is a bit different. Since I hate spoilers, I won't do one here.
The things I liked most in this game, even though I never took advantage of them are: being able to make friends and go out with them, to eat or to play darts or pool or bowling, to make girlfriends and date them (even though I only went 100% with the first one), and to ride in cabs wherever you want. I only took a cab when, for instance, I couldn't get past a mission and I failed it a lot of times, and I didn't want to go all the way back to where the mission starts.
I also need to specify this game makes you choose who to kill at some point. I recommend looking up this info on the internet before shooting. When you get to choose between A or B, you need to find out which one gives what advantages and make your decision based on that. In the final part of the game, you get to choose whether to make a deal with one of your enemies or go to his location and kill him. Either way, the ending you get will not be the one you expect.
Overall, GTA IV is a great game and I enjoyed playing it. Now I thought I should give Episodes from Liberty City a shot. That one is a game that somehow fills some blanks left by the original GTA IV. It consists of two games, "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony". You can get it from Steam as a digital download, or from torrents, as I did.

Graphics: 9,5/10
Soundtrack: 9/10 (for radio tracks and a great main theme)
Gameplay: 9,5/10
Story: 10/10
Overall: 9,5/10

Game Previews

2010-05-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

1. Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light
Gameplay trailer:

Well, I've seen the gameplay trailer above myself and I'm left with only a few words about this game: THEY FUCKED UP! How can you turn Tomb Raider into a fucking RPG?! HOW?! I'm so pissed I could go over to Crystal Dynamics and shoot every last bastard working there! There was one game series I liked and they FUCKED IT UP! First Ubisoft fucked up Prince of Persia with that stupid joke of a game that wasn't even titled, released back in '08, and now Eidos fucks up Tomb Raider! How very convenient is that?!
By the way, guess who brings us the next Tomb Raider game on PC! Aw, yes, I just noticed, the game is not called Tomb Raider anymore! Just Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light! That's great! It means the producers know this is going to be an epic fail and don't want Tomb Raider to be connected with it.
2. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Ubisoft preview with commentaries:

Well, it's a good thing Ubisoft realized they fucked up and now they try to make up with the fans by releasing another Prince of Persia, called The Forgotten Sands. As far as I could see, the game is promising, except for the Prince's face. I'm sorry, but to me, Prince of Persia ended with The Two Thrones. The pile of shit that is Prince of Persia 4 (2008) helped me to draw this conclusion. Anyway, we're a few days away from the release date, so... the waiting is killing you, right?

Tomb Raider Underworld Review

2010-05-15T14:36:00.001-07:00

Crystal Dinamics made, as usual, a masterpiece out of this Tomb Raider title. The graphics are awesome, they feel more realistic than in Legend or Anniversarry, and the controls are a bit better. I don't like that the game is full of puzzles you need to solve in order to proceed further. I wouldn't mind, but the game is totally unlinear and you need to walk around for a lot of time in order to find the proper way to solve them. It's also complicated to move around without getting lost at least a few times. I personally had to use a video walkthrough to get over some scenes. Clearly, Underworld is far more challenging than Legend and Anniversary. Another thing that caught my atention is the way to set the game difficulty. You don't simply choose easy medium or hard. This time, there are a few options like how much damage Lara takes (little, medium or much), the ammunition quantity and stuff like this. Interesting. I guess there might be some sado-masochist who likes to see Lara getting killed and therefore will choose her to take much damage. I admit it, I chose little damage. I'm not as much into challenge as I am into the story development. For me, good graphics + good story means a good game. Of course, some puzzles won't hurt anyone, but let's not exagerate. This game has way too many puzzles. The enemies are easy to kill, yet you can also lose health depending on the damage settings you choose. Inevitable, the game benefiths of the regular bugs, like Lara's legs being half inside the ground. Of course, that bug doesn't last that much, but it's still there, so... we have a minus!
The motorcicle controls are the same as in previous games. I don't know about you, but I didn't really like those. Sorry. Also, the Mexic area was hardcore. Had I not watched a video guide there was no way I could find my way through that jungle. And that's not the only hard level.
The story is mediocre by my standards. I'm sorry to disappoint those who liked this game 100%, but I think they could have made a better story. I mean, if Avalon is really under the Arctic Sea, then why the fuck did Lara go through so much trouble trying to get there?! In the end, it feels like it was all for nothing. The whole game had one single purpose: to find Thor's belt and hammer. Full stop. Once that was done, I had to go to Avalon, as it's position has conveniently been revealed to me. Also, killing Allister (sorry, if you don't want spoilers don't read my reviews) felt kinda random. I was expecting to see him again in the Underworld, but shit! I had no such luck! From the story's point of view, Tomb Raider Legend was the best. It was also great doing stuff outside jungles and underwater realms! But wait! The programmers realized continuing on that basis was a pain in the ass, so they came back to jungles and underwater realms in Anniversarry and Underworld!
The soundtrack is awesome, as I expected it to be. The graphics, as I said below, are way better than before. The controls are quite the same (small differences, don't fuck up gameplay so it doesn't matter).
So, I guess I said enough about this, therefore I'll go on with the final judgement! (OOPS NOW PEOPLE WILL SAY I COPY FAT MAN JUDGETH!! NEVER MIND! FUCK THEM! I'M JUST A GOD DAMN FAN!).
Graphics: 9,5\10
Story: 6,5\10
Gameplay: 9\10
Soundtrack: 10\10
Personal option: -1 point for the extreme difficulty of the puzzles and for the lack of more urban areas.
Overall: 8,7/10 - 1 point = 7,7/10

Prison Break: The Conspiracy

2010-04-30T03:35:00.000-07:00

OK, this isn't actually what you'd ordinary call a review. I'd rather not call it a review because if I do, then people will start bragging that I don't know what a review is. No, no, no. I know exactly what a review is, but in this case all I want is to share my opinions on this game.
First off, I'm disappointed because you don't play as Michael Scofield. He did a lot of stuff and could have done even better in the game. On the other hand, company agent Tom Paxton has a completely different story and he only watches the cons escape. Maybe it's not 100% bad playing as Paxton, but we gotta admit it, Prison Break isn't Prison Break without Michael Scofield. Also, some character designs are totally different from how the characters looked like in the series.
The graphics are great. Makes you feel like you're actually watching the series, as the characters look very close to real people. Maybe I'm overreacting a bit because I haven't played too many next generation games until now, but this is my opinion.
The voice acting is good. Some of the original cast provided voices for their characters (including Wentworth Miller for Michael, Dominic Purcell for Lincoln, Peter Stormare for Abruzzi and others). The soundtrack is poor, though. Just a few tracks Ramin Djawadi composed for the series are heard now and then. And a few background tracks.
The gameplay is mediocre, in my opinion. I didn't like the way the camera was centered on the upper half of the playable character's body. I mean, if you make a third person make it complete, right? The fighting is easy (well, it was for me, as I chose the easiest game difficulty), I don't even know where my health bar is. They don't show it to me at all. There are certain key sequences that you need to press (thank God I have fast fingers!) from time to time, when a certain action happens, and there are also stealth scenes where you have to stay clear of guards, maintainance staff, cameras or searchlights (fuck those searchlights they're so god damn annoying!). And that's about it.
The story is based on season 1 of the original PB series. Tom Paxton, a company agent, is sent to make sure Lincoln Burrows dies on the electric chair. For that he must find out what is Michael Scofield planning and stop him. During his search, Paxton is betrayed by the company who will end considering him disposable. Now Paxton has a hard choice to make. Keep helping the Company and end up dead or change sides and break out of prison with Scofield's gang. You can see what happens if you play the game. I don't wanna spoil everything here.
OK, now for the final scores:
Gameplay: 7/10
Story: 9/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Graphics: 9/10
Final mark: 8.2/10
Gamespot
I don't believe it! Gamespot gave this game 2.5! Well, what can I say?! Gamespot assholes, go back to your Counter Strike and stop giving bad marks to good games! You don't have to rate the game so low just because of the stealth, jeez!

I'm back!

2010-04-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

I'm back from hibernation!!! Good day to everyone and now hear me out for a brief moment. From now on I review GAMES. OK? I'm back at games now. But first! THE FIRST TRAILER FOR THE TESTAMENT OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, the new game by Frogwares, due to be released in Q4 2010 is HERE!!! Watch it below:

My top 10 movies of 2009!

2010-02-14T05:03:00.000-08:00

This is my personal top 10 of the best movies in 2009. I don't ask you to share my opinion and I don't care if you disagree with it. This is my top of preferences, so if you have another one, feel free to post it in a comment or somewhere else.

Sorry for the bad quality. I'll work my ass out to make higher quality movies next time.

[CANCELLED] The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

2010-02-13T03:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this review is cancelled. I had no time nor desire to talk about this movie so I decided not to do it.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2010-01-26T08:00:00.001-08:00

No, I'm not crazy nor drunk, that's the title of the movie released by the Romanian company "Media Pro Pictures" last Christmas. I wrote this review in February, as I didn't have time to do it before, but, anyway, you should just be grateful that I actually wrote it.
I watched this movie a while ago, so I'll try to explain the plot from what I remember. It's like this. A kid lives with his mother - the father left them - and the mother gets out of work a bit too late to reach the stores on time and buy her kid a present. Therefore, she tells the kid they'll go to the mall together the next day and buy a present from the money Santa left them. They reach the parking lot and their car breaks up (it's a fucking Dacia 1310 what would you expect?!), so the mother calls the repairmen and lets the kid wait for her at the mall restaurant. The repairmen were very funny, and in my opinion, their best scene is when they blow the engine and the hood flies away.
Back to the kid, he meets a gipsy guy who's up to no good and always gets into trouble by stealing from customers. The guy's name is "Gipu" and he always gets angry when he is called "Gicu". So the first kid, called, I think, Horaţiu, goes with Gipu through the mall and get into some trouble. At one point, they get separated and Horaţiu meets up with a guy dressed as Santa, called Ion (played by the Romanian Elvis - Ştefan Bănică Jr). This guy is part of a band of robbers who are there to steal some jewels. If at first Ion is a big fat jerk, he turns out to be a real nice guy in the end. Then there's this new security guy, played by Pavel Bartoş, who is a bit stupid and messes up a lot of times. The security guy - Marin - and Ion have a quarel, as Ion stole his girlfriend some time ago. Their fight is very funny, specially when Marin acts like a gay ninja.
As you'd expect from a Home Alone like movie, there are a bunch of bad guys, all dressed like Santa Clause, which want to kidnap the kid, because he heard their plan of stealing the jewels. The plot is full of funny stuff and in the end it has a happy ending, as all christmas themed movies should. I won't spoil more of the story, because you may just want to see the movie, so I'll get on to the final marks.

So, here I go:
Story: 8/10 (because it kinda has a lot of cliffhangers and it copies Home Alone)
Acting: 8/10 (because all actors get into their roles surprinsingly well, but there are certain flaws)
Fun factor: 9/10 (because I laughed a lot when I watched it)
Originality: 7/10 (copying Home Alone is not what it takes to get aknowledged by critics, but it still has some original stuff in it).
Effects: 8/10 (not too many effects in this movie)
Soundtrack: 9/10 (even Ştefan Bănică Jr contributes with a song).
Overall: 8,16/10

Conclusions:
This is a fair movie. It's a step ahead for Romanian cinematography, which, ever since the 1990's kept going downwards.

Jeremiah (2002)

2010-01-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

After my abrupt decison of cancelling the freewebs site, I decided I should write my reviews right here. As of now, all my reviews will take place on this blog and nowhere else. That is due to the fact that freewebs has a shitty page editor which loads hard as shit if you don't have a very good internet connection, which I have to admit, I am lacking right now.
Anyway, let's get on to the review. I know I planned to release it on January 22nd, so it's too early to write it according to my standards, but it's a pleasure to me to write on my good ol' blogger blog I haven't been using for a few months now. Well, that time passed! It's long gone! Now, this blog turns into my own review shrine.
Jeremiah was a science - fiction show aired by MGM (Metro Goldwin Mayer - the worst producers that could have done this show in my opinion! They suck at getting along with people for too much time). It stars Luke Perry, well known from the Beverly Hills 90210 show as Jeremiah, the main character, and Malcolm Jamal Warner (from Malcolm and Eddie) as the other main character, Kurdy, Jeremiah's partner along the series. I can say this is one of the few SF shows I liked, except for Star Wars, of course. That one is so awesome that no SF can go before it. But let's leave Star Wars for now.
In "Jeremiah", the story focuses on the main character, living in a post-apocalyptic world. A world that has been struck by a disease called The Big Death (apparently created by people), a disease which wiped out everyone over the age of poverty and left children take care of themselves. Jeremiah searches for his father, who went to a place called Walhalla Sector. A lot of background story emerges during the episodes, as we find out more about the characters, despite the fact that every episode has it's own main story. Anyway, let's get back to the main plot. Jeremiah and Kurdy reach Thunder Mountain, former military base, now refuge for people that want to form a new civilisation and restore the world as it used to be before The Big Death. At the end of Season 1, Walhalla Sector's secrets are revealed, and finally Thunder Mountain defeats them. Season 2 focuses on a "new enemy". He stays against Thunder Mountain leading the new world. Apparenly his name is Daniel, but, in fact, that turns out to be just a name. OK, that's enough spoilers. All that's left to say about season 2 is that Sean Astin joins the cast, as Mister Smith, a guy that can talk to God. This new character turns out to be a great addition to the series. At least I liked it.
The only minus I've got is that the producers didn't get along with MGM anymore and dropped the show when Season 2 ended. Damn!
The Soundtrack is composed by Tim Truman (got Looking at Forever - season 2 intro theme - in my playlist) and it's made out of some great songs.

OK, now for the marks:
Story: 9/10
Acting: 8/10
Effects: 8/10
Soundtrack: 10/10
Overall: 8,7/10

Nothing in a long time, eh?

2010-01-25T02:46:00.000-08:00

I've been lazy lately... or not really. I made a reviews site, on freewebs (and now I regret my choice, because they managed to piss my off high time by undoing every editation I'm making to the home page. IT SUCKS! JEEZ! I HATE FREEWEBS! Anyway, for anyone who wants to see my freewebs site, it's address is: www.thepr.webs.com. Of course, the review blog is locked and you need to make an account on my site before you can read my reviews, but I don't think that should be a problem for you people.

Just trying a random widget...

2009-11-07T12:22:00.003-08:00

I'm a big anime fan, specially a Naruto fan, so I thought I should give this one a try.
Look:

A movie's game

2009-07-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

I'm 100% disappointed by movie games. I played the latest "Harry Potter" game (torrent of course, so don't ask!), made for the upcoming movie. I can say this loud and clear, with not a bit of shame in myself: the game SUCKED! I hated what they did to the Harry Potter games ever since part four. The first three games were fine with me... I mean the characters were kids for God's sake, the engine was fit. But starting with game four, everything went to hell. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire was the greatest disapointment: movie and game (the books were all great, nothing to comment). While the movie lacked key scenes and details, the game was a total mess. They made like a few levels you could choose from the main menu and play them one by one until you unlock them all. I hated this game. I had to use a trainer in it. The only fucking Harry Potter game I used a trainer in. Damn it! And I thought I was setting a record. In part five, I was happy to see that I could yet again roam free around the castle. Of course, the camera was crap (as it is in part six too, believe me, nothing changed), the controls suck (well, the spell controls are good, but the rest suck) and since we're talking controls, I noticed a huge problem nobody gave a damn about: neither in part five nor in six the character could jump. What the hell?! What kind of a wizard is Harry Potter if he can't jump?! The story is definetly worth a very big F. This is because they only make a resume of the story when they could put in a lot more gameplay. You can extend the story a lot in the game, it doesn't have the two hours time restriction. But NO! They shorten the story in the game and they even skip important stuff or change it! They were too fucking lazy to design anything but Hogwarts and a little scene at the Burrow (when I saw that I nearly threw my monitor out the window!). That scene fucks the whole movie/game. I mean, isn't there a lot of story already?! Why add a sensless battle at The Burrow?! They can't burn it down! It's an important location for part 7, which I sense it would suck more than this one did. For this game, I would have expected a bit more gameplay at the memories scenes (like a walk in the forest or some spell casting or something) and way more action at that cave Harry goes to with Dumbledore. Also, they didn't do Diagon Alley nearly at all! Where are the stores?! Where is Gringotts?! No, they just showed the stupid shop... where a ritual takes place! They completely changed the story! This is supposed to be an action-adventure game! But the game has completely no action (except the fact that you have to collect some stupid crests to finish the game 100%). The graphics sucked even if I set all options to maximum. They tried to put the actual faces on characters to make them look more real. Well, it obviously didn't work. So, EA Games guys, quit your jobs and go take a walk!
So, my final marks for these loads of rubbish (so I wouldn't call them different) are:
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2/10 because the crappy levels, because you took away my only pleasure in the Harry Potter games - wandering through Hogwarts. And because it's far too fucking difficult!
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 5/10 because the stupid controls, vague story telling, crappy graphics, no action, too easy to play (just look at those duels!)
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: 4/10 because they added some story parts and made the whole story look stupidly simple instead of concentrating on the events in the book. I have a lot of points to express, but I'll keep them until further notice. Also, too few locations. The game is poor. It's obviously commercial crap, not intended to please fans but to irritate them.

Overall deduction: These are commercial games made for the purely purpose of getting money out of them. Had they thought about the fans they would have worked harder.

Future expectations: I think this applies for the movie too, so that part 7 will be better. Instead of adding stupid scenes like the battle at The Burrow that do not exist in the book, CONCENTRATE ON THE EVENTS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN THE BOOK! THAT IS YOUR SOURCE, PEOPLE! SO FIRE THE SCRIPT WRITER AND GET TO WORK! WE WANT TO SEE SOME REAL HARRY POTTER OUT THERE!

Currently playing:

2009-06-06T15:36:00.001-07:00

The "Runaway" series.

Impressions on SH5

2009-06-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

I played through Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper, and now, as I finished it, I can say a few things about it:

The graphics have improved from the other games, mainly because of the new PhysX by nVidia. Characters look more real, even the movements are according to their physical or psyhical state. Their clothes look more realistic. And now a minus at the character point. The faces. I mean, Frogwares should've worked on new faces. There are a few new faces (of the characters that are included in the storyline), but through Whitechapel I could see a lot of familiar characters, and, to my astonishment, I could see a few Arsene Lupins amongst the other people. I noticed a lot of people mind their own businesses, so I minded mine too. I also consider it a major disadvantage that you can't walk around Baker Street anymore. Only through Sherlock's apartment, and then through Whitechapel. It's nice to have good ol' Barnes back, even though he just opened the bookstore in this game, as the events take place before "The Awakened" and "Nemesis". Also, it's notable that the system requirements aren't too high.
The control is great too, except for the fact that you can switch to Third Person too. I think that's a feature we can live without, as I only played the game in First Person (much more realistic!). IF and only IF in Third Person view Holmes could be controlled by keyboard, I would've accepted it. But like this, no way!
The story. Well, what can I say about the story?! The plot is very well made, consisting of a lot of REAL facts about Jack The Ripper. A great Holmes adventure whatsoever.
Last, but not least, a big bug! I've been in Mitre Square, that's a dark level if you didn't know. And there, Watson had to turn on a flashlight to see better. He did so, but instead of seeing better, everything got darker! With a capital D! I struggled an hour to win that level. Couldn't find my way in the least! Also, I asked Technical Support about this, but they didn't answer my question, not even after a whole week of waiting. I'm thinking I should return them my game from Torrentz and claim my money back because of this!
Anyway, I kept my conclusion for the final part. This game is a masterpiece when it comes to adventure gaming. It has all it takes for a Sherlock Holmes adventure and it also has the right environment for the story. Whitechapel is brilliantly designed to fit with the sinister story. So, go on and catch Jack The Ripper! You won't regret it!

BTW

2009-05-23T14:01:00.001-07:00

I heard Frogwares released Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper. See if you can find a torrent and give me the link. I don't care if it's a slow download, I can live with it. If I find one first, I'll post it. And don't you ask the nice people on Yahoo! Answers to find it for you as I did with Secret Files 2! That's cheating! And I'm the only one allowed to cheat here!

Got it, blowing my brains up now!

2009-05-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

Got "Secret Files: Puritas Cordis" english version. I found a torrent, even though it's veeeeeery fucking slow! Never got over 150 KB/s. Took me 2 damn days to complete the download! Now I installed it (careful, if you mount the images with something else than Daemon Tools it won't work, you'll get a message that the image is invallid even in Alcohol, despite the fact that the image ia .mdf file (Alcohol specific), so don't try anything else than Daemon Tools to mount it. And don't come mocking at me that it works with something else than that! I tried it! Maybe you're just smarter than me. And one more thing. Even though the installed version is approximately 2.5 GB, the uninstalled version that you will get through the torrent is 4.4 GB. Strange, don't know why, so don't ask.
Here's the torrent:
Click to get Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis ENGLISH PC DVD!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

2009-05-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

Things are totally fucked up now! I finished Secret Files: Tunguska as I said it before, and now I tried to play Puritas Cordis. Yet I got screwed! Some idiot posted the "english version", but as soon as I was done downloading, it prooved to be... the German one! I can't find the english pc game anywhere! Damn! I knew I should've learned German! If anyone can help, any message is helpful!
UPDATE: Found a torrent for this game. But it's the fucking GERMAN VERSION AGAIN! NOOOOOO!!!!! Here's the link, though, if you guys know german:
Geheimachte 2 torrent
Comment here!

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper

2009-05-02T05:02:00.000-07:00

See trailer here.

It's true, ladies and gents! Frogwares releases Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper this month. Wait for further notice!

Secret Files series

2009-05-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

I found another great adventure game series besides Broken Sword and Syberia (and yes, I don't mention Dreamfall because my personal opinion is that it sucked!). It's called "Secret Files" and it has been around for a while, but I just didn't think of playing any of them. The first game, "Secret Files: Tunguska" has got medium quality graphics, according to it's release date. The story is interesting, making you want to play it up until the end, without moving away from your computer. At least it made me play it like that, even though I had to leave my computer, as you can't win money if you don't work. Part two, "Secret Files: Puritas Cordis" looks great, and as far as I played it (the English demo only, because I don't know German and thus I can't get the full game yet) it's very interesting, maybe a bit more than the first one. The english full version won't come out until May 8 2009, that is in 6 days from now, so until then you can play a demo (the damn Germans released the game in their own language in August 2008!) consisting of the prologue and the first chapter of the game. The demo can be downloaded here. Notice: it has approximately 900 MB, so may the patience be with you if you have a slow internet connection!

Request for help

2009-04-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

I'm desperately trying to find "Secret Files: Tunguska". If anyone knows where could I get it from, please tell me by commenting this article.

Art of Murder II: Hunt for the Puppeteer

2009-04-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't play too much of the first Art of Murder game, because I didn't really like it. I mean, it wasn't running too good (veeeery slow), possibly due to the fact that it's been a while since I last upgraded my good ol' buddy, the PC.
On the other hand, I played the second game in the series, "Hunt for the Puppeteer", which had me impressed. I needed a little help at some point, but it wasn't very difficult, so it didn't take me too much to finish. The quality is reasonable, the graphics deserve an 8.5, maybe 9, the gameplay is also easy to understand, yet I didn't like the producers' choice of mouse cursor. The story is interesting, but I would've liked a dfferent ending (well, you can't have everything, can you?!). I had a problem watching the cutscenes. They were very slow. It's like, the game worked perfectly, but the cutscenes don't. I thought it might have been because the game uses Bink Video by Rad Game Tools, and thus Bink Video might need a special codec or something. Poor Noob Me. I was wrong. I googled my problem and found out of specific settings that are needed to be done in order to have Windows run the cutscenes correctly. So, even if Art of Murder: FBI Confidential sucked (in my opion only, so don't criticise me!), part 2 was a success! I'd give it an overall of about 8.5/10.

House M.D

2009-02-23T03:33:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to make sure you didn't bury me already, so I came up with a new thing to post here. I mean, you all know "House M.D", the show made by Fox which currently airs it's fifth season. I watched a few episodes and I can say it's a great show. With capital G. In a personal top I'd put it on third place, as nothing can be better than Lost and Prison Break. I recommend you to watch House M.D if you didn't already, you won't be disappointed.

Note: edited out the pics, were taking too much space.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

2008-11-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

Prepare for action as Lara Croft gets ready for a new adventure! Eidos launched Tomb Raider Underworld a week or two ago, and ever since then I found it on various pirate sites that I'm not going to mention here. The team who cracked the game has a name that starts with "R", but that's all I'm gonna say about it. I'm not a snitch.
Anyway, I thought I should delight you with some pics and maybe a video of the game.

Here's a trailer too:

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened Remastered

2008-11-24T05:54:00.000-08:00

I've heard everything now! A "Remastered" version of Sherlock Holmes The Awakened was released last month by Frogwares... well, I can say that's the last game I played before my old PC died (RIP, old friend), since I currently use a wreckage of computer to type my entries on the blog and surf the web for game info.
I liked the improved graphics, the in-game hint system for dummies (sorry about that last part, I couldn't hold myself), and most important, a 3RD PERSON PERSPECTIVE! WOW! Now that's awesome... not! Let me tell you some news! 3RD Person Point and Click is not what fans meant by asking for a 3rd Person Sherlock Holmes! The perspective in Remastered is the same as the one in Dracula: Origin, and it sucks all the same. I liked the first person (that you can use too if you wish) perspective. It made everything feel too real. And I was impressed to see that the Watson teleporting glitch was fixed. Oh yeah! That's a relief! That glitch really made fools of the producers. You could see the videos all over YouTube... it's great that they removed it. Really great.
You should give the game a try, you'll see that it's worth it. The Remastered version is a masterpiece! If any producers would listen to what users have to say about a game and release a patch/a Remastered version, the game industry would definetly grow... sadly, all the recent games are purely commercial, so... don't expect the producers to care about your opinions.
Here's a YouTube video in which the game's features are explained:

Regarding the next chapter...

2008-11-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

The next chapter of the online book "To 221 B Baker Street" will soon be out. I can't give up a release date, as I'm not sure when I'm going to finish it. Right now I have a little lack of ideas, but I promise it's soon going to appear on the books website (haven't checked it for a lot of time, I hope freewebs didn't delete it :D).

Later edit: I had a sudden stroke of inspiration and I wrote CHAPTER II: SECONDS FROM EXPLOSION. It's available on the site. You know how it works. Click on the "To 221 B Baker Street" link on the navigation bar, and then click on the name of the chapter you want to read.

A new chapter has been released!

2008-08-27T03:25:00.001-07:00

I finally wrote the next chapter of "To 221 B Baker Street". It's available on the site.

Soon, a new chapter will be released!

2008-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

Possibly tommorow or on Wednesday, I will write a new chapter in the "Sherlock Holmes" book on the site, so stay tuned!

I have started to write a book.

2008-07-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

It's available on this site for whoever wants to read it. By now only the prologue is written, so you'll have to wait for the other chapters. They will appear too this year. (:D)

Upcoming SH game

2008-07-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

After the success with Sherlock Holmes vs Arsene Lupin (aka Nemesis), Frogwares are preparing another SH game! Sherlock Holmes versus Jack The Ripper!
Jeez, this is so weird! First they made Sherlock Holmes the main character of a horror story in The Awakened, then they made him face an enemy as smart as himself - Arsene Lupin - and now this! He must face Jack The Ripper! I sure hope the game will be a lot better then the other two, where... well, let's just say I couldn't make any difference between the cutscenes and gameplay (both sucked, obviously). I generally like First Person games, but this one made me reconsider. They could at least make Dr. Watson move properly. I mean, he teleports! You don't believe me?! Watch the video.
Dr. Watson teleporting
Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper Screenshots
And don't be fooled by the title, "The Awakened", it happens in "Nemesis" too!
The story is the games' only forte... in a negative way! In "The Awakened", I only read about the villain in documents. If I hadn't read those papers, I wouldn't have known who is he! And in "Nemesis"... well, this game had a better ending, the villain's real plans not beeing mentioned until the very final. I sure hope Sherlock Holmes versus Jack The Ripper has a better story than the other games.
The best story in Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes series was in "Secret of the Silver Earring". At least there you didn't know who you were after until the final cutscene. And YES, it was actually a CUTSCENE!
OK, one more thing and I'm done.
My advice for Frogwares:

1. Stop putting Sherlock Holmes in the same game with known villains from his era. The only one who could make people buying the game would be professor Moriarty!

2. A bit more outfits for Sherlock Holmes (like the classic coat and holmes hat instead of the regular suit and hat) would be great.

3. More faces for characters. I'm getting sick of seeing the same characters everywhere!

4. This is not crucial for the game to be a success, but... think about making the Sherlock Holmes games 3rd person. And fix the teleporting characters problem! It's annoying and people make fun of it!

That's all, folks!
The Pirate Reviewer

My blog

2008-07-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

I thought for a lot of time if it is a good ideea to open a blog of my own... I mean, there ARE a lot of assholes on the internet who only visit blogs to swear in the comments if they don't like what the writer said in his article, right?! Believe me, if anything like that happens on my blog, I will make it private, ok?! Until my next post, Sayonara!!!