Monthly Archives: June 2013

This Is The End the Review

Movies

There is nothing quite like a great, wild comedy. It’s a tough genre to make really well but in recent years the Judd Apatow crew has been able to turn in some really memorable stuff. This Is The Endis the wildest and craziest movie in recent memory.

From the central minds of Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, This Is The End is the story of the end of the world, as seen in Los Angeles. To be more precise, James Franco’s house during a party. It’s the true end of days and watching this go down with more celebrity cameos and comedy guys of my generation than you can almost count made this movie seem a bit more special to me. It’s a crazy cast with all funny guys playing themselves, turned up a notch. Just seeing the likes of Danny McBride mock Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Seth Rogan and Jay Baruchel as each other is a scream. There’s a certain amount of real world weight that really works here, it kind of feels like you’re watching a documentary.

While the movie cranks up the crazyiness at every turn (a ton of horrible deaths, absurd and backstabbing behavior, hell spawn walking the Earth and demonic possession!), Jay Baruchel keeps things grounded compared to everyone else. While Seth Rogan holds down the good vibes too, Jay is more unknown and that let’s him stick more to the honest straight man. Now everyone isn’t perfect, which the movie explores, but it’s Jay the sees the movie through starting with his LA visit to hang out with Seth.

Describing any of the funny parts would really ruin the movie as most of it needs to be seen to be believed. That said, the cameos are some of the best parts. Michael Cera steals every scene he’s in, Emma Watson is a real treat to see in a movie like this and there’s a few people they kept a secret that leads to great gags. It’s a movie that deserves and revels it’s R rating so be aware that there is horror violence, adult (haha) situations and a boat load of cursing. It also helps to know the actors, you’ll understand the characterizations and absurdities right away which I think makes the movie work so well.

I had a great time watching This Is The End, made better watching with a big crowd. I’m pretty amazed that they wrote such a movie and got major funding for it. There is some really fantastic special effects that really helps sell the end of the world to the audience. Congrats to the cast and crew for making such a great movie.

Xbox One does a snap kick

Games

I was right, the only thing that MS could do about its DRM plans for the One, that raised absolute hell, would be to reverse their stance. They did it today. It’s going to work just like the 360 does now. Internet connection needed at set up and that’s it. No 24 hour check in. It now sounds like the Family Share plan is out the window which is a real shame as that’s a real game changer for the industry, a real progressive step (which is what I thought the 24 hour check in was mostly for). Now it sounds like Valve is working on just such a program for Steam, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m hoping they end up putting that feature on the back burner and introduce it sometime later in the consoles life. Maybe wait and see how it works and is received on Steam? Could be good to have in the back pocket to bust out to add another bullet point feature to the box. I think it should be there at the start, but I can at least hope it comes to fruition in the future.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/19/4446060/xbox-one-drm-used-games-online-restrictions-180

First day of E3: Fisticuffs

Games, Tech

There’s no other way to say it, Sony just drop kicked MS into next week. That’s with MS having a good show earlier today. They showed a lot of games that I’d like to play and that’s a good thing. But there was complete silence about anything else. The fears that gamers have about XBONE DRM are still high and mighty.

Sony shows it’s games and then says, we have none of that DRM that our competition has and the system is $100 less. That’s insane. I don’t know how MS spins this. Each guy has a few exclusives so that’s kind of a wash really. But the draw to everything else Sony just dropped can’t be understated. They’ve learned from the PS3 launch, they are completely in the good graces of gamers. I really, really, don’t know how MS can combat this. There has to be people in MS HQ sweating bullets. Billions of dollars are on the line here and it looks like Sony just stole a huge portion of xbox fans. Nintendo can just be Nintendo and wiggle their toes in 2nd place
happily. I’m legitimately shocked. The PS4 is pretty ugly though. I think I just want a XBONE controller for my PC.

The only thing MS can do is scrap their DRM plans. Say, “we were just thinking about this stuff, we didn’t really lock it in…” Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m sure MS will say the price is more for the One because of Kinect, which is understandable for the hardware. But the rest? Nope.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 prelude

Games, Uncategorized

E3 is next week and nothing positive has changed on Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’s kinda gross to be honest. 24 hour online “check in”, weird used games policy…it’s a mess. They might have some good ideas somewhere in there, but the message is pretty lost and being overlooked by everyone. It’s a terrible place to be in for MS, it’s a really shocking image of a man in a suit with his black loafers jammed into his mouth. So this E3 is super important for everyone. Here’s my take a few says ahead of E3.

Nintendo
With hardware that many consider an overpriced joke with an anemic software line up, things have looked dicey for good old Nintendo. In recent weeks, Microsoft has pretty much been selling how honest and simple the Wii U is to people. It plays games, it can do a few other side things but it’s really straight forward now. No weird rules, no one watching you, it’s just a game system. Now they just need to release games for it. That is of course coming. The Nintendo stable is being worked now, Mario is in the works, Mario Kart, probably a Smash Bros. game, Animal Crossing. Nintendo is doing direct videos to it’s fan this year and all they need to do is give dates for the games that their fans are waiting for. It’s been a rough 8 starting months, but I think Nintendo is going to right the ship. A nice little price drop wouldn’t hurt either.

Sony
Smart move letting MS take egg on the face. Let their biggest thorn in their side twist in the wind while you get your ducks a row for the show. Now I think Sony is going to have some online DRM too, but it’s hard to really know how much. There’s been no real word on what Sony is up to, it’s all been doom and gloom rumors about Xbox One. Now, if they tell people they aren’t going to be strangling games like Microsoft, they will have a leg up. Sony has some serious talent in it’s software studios, they got the best console indie support so Sony is really in a place to pounce. Show games we haven’t seen, show the hardware, give a date and price (I’m thinking $400 is the likely sweet spot). The PS4 is poised to be the good guy of the Next Gen.

Microsoft
They have to climb out of the hole they dug and I don’t this company is capable of doing it. Their PR has been a complete disaster. It’s these new policies that have gotten them there and I don’t really see them changing them much. Sony must have had these same conversations with publishers and developers so that makes me wonder what Sony’s stance on online DRM is going to be. Now, if Microsoft adopts the way Steam prices and puts stuff on sale, it’ll win a lot of people back. They’ve announced that all games will be able to download or buy in stores at retail on the same day. Now if they keep ridiculous pricing for downloading games over time, it’ll be a dead service. Steam does 2 or 3 big sales a year with a lot of great titles for insanely low prices. Group buys, bonus material out the wazoo. Plus all the sales sprinkled about over the year. People love Steam for the value and convenience. The XBOne [i[could[i/] be the Steambox of the living room before Valve can get their Steambox out. A lot of the XBOne new policies are similar to how Steam currently works, but the value looks completely in MS’s favor. That’s mostly conjecture at this point, but MS has not been one one value these days. MS has to make the right moves and this is one of them. So that leaves us with this: They have to show a ton of games. Exclusives will be pretty important. You gotta give reasons for gamers to want to go anywhere near this hardware, because right now it looks like they are losing a large portion of good will and fandom that they’ve been striving for these passed 13 years.

It’s an uphill climb. They have to show new games to get attention and pricing that makes sense software and hardware wise (it cannot be sold for a penny more than the PS4 does. It’ll be killed if that happens). It’s a hard sell.

Good luck next week fellas.