Major movie critics were allowed to see James Cameron’s Avatar in England yesterday with orders not to publish their reviews until next Monday. Funny thing about embargoes: once one site breaks it, the rest fall in line, and we can thank the Hollywood Reporter for jumping the gun and opening the floodgates.
So what’s the word? Is Avatar a $400-million piece of crap? The second coming of cinema?
The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in “Avatar,” and it’s very much a place worth visiting. Cameron delivers again with a film of universal appeal that just about everyone who ever goes to the movies will need to see.
A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world. … he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.” … The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet.
Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated.
An epic film born entirely of Cameron’s imagination, Avatar uses tailor-made technology to create the most astonishing visual effects yet seen on screen and blends them seamlessly into a mythical sci-fi story.
Game-changing – yes. Spectacular – absolutely. Occasional dodgy dialogue and dramatic imperfections – of course. But still – wait for it – a titanic achievement.
Uncharted 2 is enjoying stellar reviews, riding high with a 96 average on Metacritic and standing tall as the critical darling of 2009. In fact, the lowest score a critic could muster was an impressive 9, meaning Uncharted 2 must be damn-near perfect in every way. Unfortunately, my experience with Uncharted 2, which I played to completion, was not that of a 9-10 rated game. Quite the contrary.
Before I launch an attack on Uncharted 2, allow me to proclaim some praise where it is due.
Lush, Detailed Graphics
Uncharted 2 is one of the most beautiful-looking games you’ve ever seen. The attention to detail, set design, and tons of little touches all conspire to push the PS3 to its maximum capability. The artists and level designers truly delivered something fantastic.
Great Voice-Acting
99% of videogames have horrendous voice-acting by 5th-rate talent that would be better served by abandoning the acting and relying solely on subtitles. Not so with Uncharted 2. Here the acting is solid and lines are delivered with something akin to emotion, which is nice to hear.
That’s pretty much it for my positives. Now on with the show.
Great Graphics Do Not Make a Great Game read more…
Early reviews of the forthcoming Gran Turismo for PSP are not kind, which can’t be music to the ears of Sony, who is hoping the franchise will breath life into PSP sales. Not all reviews are bad, but the good one comes from what I call “shill-sites”, i.e., game websites who love just about everything so they can keep getting free swag and better relations with PR firms. It’s the big boys who are hating on Gran Turismo, sites like CVG, Eurogamer and IGN.
‘relying on players to make their own fun is either lazy or foolhardy. Coupled with archaic AI and the isolating absence of PlayStation Network support, this makes for a game that feels unfocused and regressive, despite its considerable technical and mechanical accomplishments.’
‘For a lot of other Gran Turismo fans, the fantastic driving is coupled with starting out at the bottom, slowly tweaking and upgrading your starter car as you compete in event after event, and gradually buying new rides to take on bigger and better challenges. And then eventually, after lots of hard work, you’ll get a car that can crack the 200mph barrier and you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something great. Gran Turismo on the PSP contains none of this, and by and large, that’s the entire problem.’
Superb car handling is the only redeeming factor for GT PSP. It feels great to drive. But that driving needed to be packaged with an actual racing game and that game isn’t here.
At GameAlmighty we aren’t in the habit of posting a lot of movie reviews, but District 9 has been of real interest to gamers for a host of reasons since news of it was first made public. So when Jack Devore over at our sister site, InfoAddict, wrote a review of the film that is so different from what we were hearing from everyone else (and discusses many of the specific things that drew Gamer’s interest), we thought we’d tease you with a little of it here in case it was something you might want to digest in full. We tend to think it will be. After all, if it sounds like you might agree with his assessment of the film, 10-15$ is a lot to waste on a “hunk of cinematic crap”, right?
Here is just a little of what Mr. DeVore had to say…
when I see District 9 receive quotes such as this…
“No true fan of science fiction — or, for that matter, cinema — can help but thrill to the action, high stakes and suspense built around a very original chase movie.” – Hollywood Reporter
…I have to wonder if I saw the same movie as everyone else. I’ve read thousands of science-fiction books, from Asimov to Gene Wolfe, Robert Silverberg to Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Clarke to Mike Resnick and everyone in-between. I also happen to be a cinemaphile, adoring the work of Akira Kurasawa, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Sam Peckinpah, Scorsese and Hitchcock.
But, according to the Hollywood Reporter and countless critics, I neither like science-fiction or cinema.
News to me.
District 9 is being held aloft like the second coming of science fiction. I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve heard or read the following statement: District 9is the best science-fiction movie of the past 20 years. All I can say in defense is, “Oh, so you haven’t seen Moon, huh?” District 9 isn’t even the best science-fiction of the past four months.
So what exactly are my problems with District 9? read more…
History repeats itself time and time again. But repetition is by no means limited to the same medium.
As we progress deeper into the first full year since the backlash over Nintendo’s E3 2008 showing, and the continuing trend of terms such as “hardcore” and “casual” ripple through gaming journalism, I can’t help but remember some history from a little rock band called Van Halen. (Maybe you’ve heard of them?)
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that the Big N has a lot in common with what some consider the progenitor of 80s hair bands.
Both Van Halen and Nintendo got their start in their current industries (music and video games, respectively) in approximately the mid-to-late 1970s. Both became famous around the mid-1980s and each group had its easily recognizable trademarks. For Van Halen it was wild finger-tapping guitar style of Eddie Van Halen as well as the onstage anctics of frontman David Lee Roth. For Nintendo it was the addicting and enjoyable creations of Shigeru Miyamoto as well as the lesser-known strategic business planning of former NOA president Minoru Arakawa.
But more importantly, both groups suffered from a severe backlash by the self-described “hardcore” crowd upon a sudden change in creative direction that expanded their markets. read more…
I’m shocked…SHOCKED! that ‘game journalism’ is being called out for a lack of integrity.
Eurogamer is under attack from the developers of recently released MMO Darkfall, insisting that the final score of 2/10 is completely erroneous. Their proof? They examined the server logs of the two accounts the devs gave the magazine for reviewing purposes and determined the critic played the game for only two hours.
When we read the hostile review by Ed Zitron, one thing became apparent: he had not played the game at all. Eurogamer readers and Darkfall players are posting bullet lists of factual errors in the story. The reviewer hadn’t even figured out the very basics of the game before he wrote about it. We checked the logs for the 2 accounts we gave Eurogamer and we found that one of them had around 3 minutes playtime, and the other had less than 2 hours spread out in 13 sessions. read more…
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