Just Dance 2 review

Just Dance 2 had me from the moment I started playing the first song, which if I remember correctly was A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, one of my favorites. And that’s a lot to say considering I was expecting this to be complete garbage and something I got to keep my girlfriend and friends entertained during parties with its gimmicks. Who would’ve thought this would be one of the most fun rhythm games I’ve played and a must for parties.

The whole point of Just Dance 2 is to lose your inhibitions; it’s all about looking silly while recreating the moves seen on the screen. The Wiimote is held in the right hand and used to perform the moves. Why isn’t the balance board used is beyond me but that’s not a big deal considering I don’t have one and the motion controls are pretty accurate even without motion plus.

The most surprising thing of all is that performing the moves with just the remote doesn’t feel random at all, there’s always some level of technique required to nail the moves. Screwing up will result in no points and waving the control around randomly isn’t going to cut it, you have to do the exact moves or you’re just going to flat out fail. Another interesting thing is that real life dancing skills will translate into the game, for example I have a friend who is a pretty great dancer and was able to pretty much nail every move and perform from head to toe almost exactly like the dancers on the screen, the difference in the score was notable.

The song list is also fantastic and diverse. There are many genres and styles covered in this 40 song list. From 80s classics such as The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian and Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go , international tunes from India and Africa, old school classics like Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas and Harry Belafonte’s Jump in the Line and more recent hits such as Outkast’s Hey Yah and Rihanna’s S.O.S. The variety of songs is impressive and while there are a few turn-offs, for the most part there are more hits than misses.

Graphically, Just Dance 2 is a great looking game. The neon-looking dancers and song specific outfits and backgrounds all look fantastic. It’s a nice touch that both the choreography and background match the style of the song, for example there’s a desert and pyramids in the Walk like an Egyptian stage, the dancers have mullets and short shorts in Wake Me up Before You Go-Go and Kris Kross’ Jump has a ghetto-looking background and the lyrics will appear in graffiti during the song. Though it’s lacking a bit on the menu presentation and design, Just Dance 2 is an overall great looking game.

The choreography is also excellent and more often than not, hilarious to perform and see your friend performs. Duets, which feature two dancers to follow, are probably the funniest part as both dancers have unique choreography and more often than not will have you striking hilarious poses. The only downside to the choreography is that it requires plenty of space to perform, especially duets as spins and crossovers are usually part of the routine.

The game itself lacks depth but that’s not really important and the lack of a single player career mode doesn’t hurt Just Dance 2 because playing alone is not the point of the game, it’s all about playing with friends and it works wonderfully well at providing a fun, accessible and hilarious experience. As far as “casual” Wii games go, Just Dance 2 is one of the best.

GoldenEye 007 Wii Review

The 007 videogame series has had a rough time since it hit its peak with Everything or Nothing back in 2004: GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was at best a mediocre FPS and at worst a tedious exercise in frustration, From Russia With Love was decent enough to play all the way through but utterly forgettable, Quantum of Solace was a step in the right direction but it was held back by glitches and a frustrating campaign and Blood Stone… well, Blood Stone just downright sucked. Thankfully, Activision has hit the jackpot with this remake of the classic N64 game, which comes closest to provide a superb 007 experience.

Now, let’s be honest for a second. Goldeneye 007 has aged poorly. Most people hold it in high regard because of nostalgia, but considering the advancements in the genre over the years, it stands as a nearly unplayable first person shooter today. That’s not to say it’s a terrible game. When it came out I was among those who went batshit over it. But truth is, nowadays it stands as nothing but a piece of videogame history.

The great thing about Activision’s Goldeneye remake for the Wii is that it doesn’t rely on nostalgia. It improves on absolutely every aspect of the original and it’s a fantastic game on its own right. In fact, it would’ve been just as good without the Goldeneye name backing it up.

The story pits Bond against the Janus organization, which has taken over the Goldeneye satellite and plans to use it to steal all the money from the bank of England. While this sounds awfully similar to the original game’s (and movie) storyline, the locations, characters and several scenes have been reworked to fit Daniel Craig’s version of Bond so it feels grittier and modern, which is a welcomed addition.

The single player portion provides an exciting globe-trotting experience and features a strong variety of gameplay elements and enemy types. While most of it consists of shooting levels, there are also vehicle and stealth missions, Quick-time Events and boss battles. The gameplay is pretty refined and borrows a lot from Infinity Ward’s and Trechyard’s Call of Duty series, especially from Trechyard’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex as the controls are for the most part the same, but tweaked to make them more fluid. While there’s a variety of control option including Gamecube and Classic Control support, I always felt at ease with the Wiimote + Nunchuck combo as they’re very fluid and consistently accurate. I’d go as far as saying that they are only second to Metroid Prime Trilogy as the best fps controls on the Wii.

One of the best things about the campaign is that it’s challenging. I died… a lot. Now that might have been because I suck at fps and videogames in general but it was mostly because the game’s difficulty is very balanced, it’s never too hard, but it’s never easy. The enemy AI in particular is really well made, they are smart and react accordingly to your actions, taking cover and running from place to place to find the best spot to take you down, among other things. The best thing about it is that the gameplay is so well designed that I can only remember a couple of occasions where I felt that my dead was the game’s fault and not because of a poor decision I made.

The multiplayer aspect was what people remember most fondly about the original Goldeneye and for the remake it comes back with all the gameplay refinements present in the single player campaign, as well as new modes, weapons and characters. While the offline is rather disappointing in that it doesn’t feature AI bots, it still is enjoyable. The online is among the best the Wii has to offer, there’s a highly competitive community so it’s never difficult to find a match in any of the modes and none of the games I’ve played so far suffered from any lag so it’s pretty smooth as far as I’m concerned. The variety of modes is also nice; Golden Gun mode in particular is amazingly fun. And the XP progression and unlockables make it really addictive too.

Graphically, Goldeneye stands shoulder to shoulder with first party Nintendo games as an excellent looking game. The levels are rich in detail and the character design and animation is also excellent. The game is also really colorful, which is a nice contrast to the grey-looking style of the Call of Duty series and most modern FPS. The voice acting, which sees Craig and Judi Dench reprising their roles from the movies, is also well done.

Goldeneye is not without its flaws. The frame rate tends to drop quite a bit when things get hectic, it suffers from long loading times and the original music is forgettable. But for everything it does wrong, it does twice as much right. Eurocom has made an excellent job at updating the venerable shooter and making this remake not only one of the best for the Wii, but also of this generation.

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition - Wii review Revisited

I'm revisiting some of my old game reviews from back in my Gamespot and Giantbomb days and reposting them here. Some of them are over 3 years old so the games are not very current. I do plan on reviewing Donkey Kong Country returns and Goldeneye 007 for Wii sometime soon, so there's that.

The first one to respost is going to be The Godfather: Blackhand Edition for Wii, an excellent game from 2007 that i'm replaying now. So without further adeu here it is:

THE GODFATHER: BLACKHAND EDITION
WII
2007

The Good: Great gameplay – Superb voice acting and soundtrack – Plenty of mission variety – Huge city to explore, without loading times – stays true to the spirit of the film

The Bad: Outdated graphics – Manual aim is not very good – No Al Pacino

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Based on the 1972 classic film "The Godfather", EA brings The Godfather: Blackhand edition to the Wii with surprisingly good results that stay true to the spirit of the film.

The story is basically the same as the film, but there are new parts specifically designed for your character. These don't change the core story too much and stay true to the film and book for the most part. You'll play as your created character, who didn't appear on the movie but played a key role in the story. Your father was killed by Barzini when you were a kid and now your mother wants you to work with Don Vito Corleone who sends you with Luca Brassi and you start as an enforcer for the family, but by the end of the game you'll be the Don of 1940's New York City. It's a shame though that one important part of the story (Michael's exile in Sicily) is nowhere to be found in this game.

Needless to say, you'll use both the Wiimote and Nunchuck combo to play this game. Throw punches by swinging the remote forward (like in Wii Sport's Boxing), move with the analog stick, get your gun out with C, lock on with Z, fire your weapon with B, run by holding A which can also be used to interact with the different objects and move the camera with the D pad. Also you'll get to do different executions by doing specific gestures and many of them are very, very cool to watch (throwing a bad guy out of a window, breaking his neck or shooting him to death for example).

The Gameplay is, for the most part, great.

Some of the early objectives include taking over business for the family, dont think the owner will give you his business just like that though, you'll have to intimidate them; which means punching their faces until they give you what you want, if done right he (or she) will pay you weekly. It's really fun to take over business, though it gets old after sometime. Don't think that's all there is to the gameplay though; there are a lot, and I mean a lot of mission variety to be found: you kill drugdealers, destroy enemy compounds, scort the members of the family to safety, do favors and kill enemy mob leaders. It's really fun because there's a lot of variety in there plus you'll get to recreate some of the most memorable scenes from the movie such as the baptism and Sonny's ambush scenes and it does a great job at that.

The Game's version of New York city is massive and you're going to have some really great times exploring it during your time with this game. During playtime you'll visit Little Italy, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Midtown and Hell's Kitchen; each belongs to a family (Corleone, Tattaglia, Cuneo, Barzini and Stracci). The city is very detailed and it's just plain fun explore it. There are many buildings in the game where you can walk in and make yours and and there's a nice variety of places to see (bakeries, barbershops, banks, hotels) and also many buildings taken directly from the movie such as the Corleone compound.

You will use several cars to do travel through the city and also meet a lot of pedestrians which you can kill (much like the GTA series) this will increase your heat, which will make the police go after you and kill you, this however can be avoided by bribing the policewhich means they'll also fight in your side. Other gameplay elements include: Hiring your own crew to blast your way through the game, and after every mission you'll get respect points which will be use to buy new skills such as being able to plant a bomb in the car or increase the ones you already have like health, its a nice touch that gives it a small RPG feel. There are also tokens hidden in the city which are used to get new clips from the movie.

Shooting is not the only way to kill the enemies

The graphics are good, but not as good as they should've been on the wii, the fire and weather effects look nice but most of the buildings and car models look blocky and sometimes just plain ugly, it's not the worst looking wii game, but it is certainly not the best. The characters models however look just like their movie counterparts. The sound is great too and it blends old music with new one making you feel like you're actually part of the game; the voice acting is also phenomenal, many people from the original cast lend their voice to the game including: James Caan, Robert Duvall and there are even some parts where you'll hear Marlon Brando before he died, the only disappointing thing is that Al Pacino is nowhere to be found.

Overall this game is great, there are a lot of missions and it's strangely addictive. This game grabs you by the balls and doesn't let you go until you're done with absolutely everything. It doesn't hurt that there's barely any competition on the Wii. But this one is great in its own right and it's a must for every action fan who owns a Wii.

The Girlfriend Experience review

The Girlfriend Experience

2009

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh is certainly one of the most interesting directors working today. Whether he is making big summer blockbusters like Ocean’s 11, Epic bio-pics like Che or crazy indie flicks like Bubble he always achieves some degree of success. The Girlfriend Experience, his latest experimental film is another triumph for the director, who’s able to find the most human side in the most messed-up of characters.

The film follows the trials and tribulations of Chelsea (played by porn actress Sasha Grey), a New York City escort who is paid to provide her clients “the girlfriend experience” where she acts as girlfriend for lonely men for a short period of time. This period may or may not involve sex as part of the experience depending on her customer’s needs. She has to balance her work with her relationship with her boyfriend (Played by Chris Santos).

The story is presented in a non-linear fashion and is told via an interview between Chelsea and a reporter, a conversation with a fellow escort friend and by herself as she narrates her blog entries. This storytelling method proves to be confusing as it makes the story hard to follow, but after the first hour or so it’s easier to connect the dots and enjoy it.

Soderbergh and his writers (who also wrote Ocean’s 13) do a great job in letting the audience understand the characters and their problems. You never feel disgusted with Chelsea as she is shown as strong, smart and not ashamed of her job yet you cheer for her to get out of that lifestyle and make a transition towards a more stable life and relationship. You also never feel sorry for her customers when you know you probably should because for the most part they’re pathetic men. The way their stories are put together and evolve makes you feel sympathy for all the characters, you certainly won’t but at least you’ll understand them.

Technically the movie looks very amateurish, you can tell Soderbergh was just messing the hell out of some cheap cameras and editing software yet it’s composed of some pretty great looking shots and the editing, though a bit rough, gives it a great style that fits the tone of the movie really well. Some of the shots, especially the camera movements reminded me a lot of Hideaki Anno’s Shiki-Jitsu and Love & Pop, which is not a bad thing.

Perhaps the most surprisingly good thing of all is Sasha grey’s performance. If you’ve seen a porno movie before you’ll certainly notice that it takes absolutely no acting talent to be in one which is why I wasn’t expecting much from her, but I was blown away by her role. She portrays Chelsea as strong, intelligent, likeable, emotional yet not vulnerable but most of all human, she is not the sex doll some of her clients see her as and Grey does a fantastic job at revealing her inner emotions.

My only complain with the movie and the reason it’s not rated higher is because it lacked closure, which left me immensely unsatisfied as I felt there was a final act missing and the final scene is all kinds of ambiguous. Yet despite that I still strongly recommend this movie, it's beautifully well made and surprisingly well acted and best of all, unlike most experimental films it doesn’t feel pretentious at all, it truly is a fantastic movie.

Machete review

Machete (2010)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Machete is one of those meta-ironic movies that are just too awesome to be true. It’s a real movie based on a fake trailer that features the most random list of actors you can ever think of and the result is a goofy movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still manages to entertain the hell out of its audience.

Machete stars Danny Trejo, AKA that Mexican guy you’ve seen in every movie ever albeit with a lead role for (I’m pretty sure) the first time, as Machete Cortez, an ex-Federale whose family was killed and now lives as an illegal in the United States. He is hired by a mysterious man to kill a racist senator (played by Robert De Niro in his best role since the 90s) but is soon set-up and finds himself not only trying to clean his name but also in the middle of an ongoing war between the senator’s anti-immigrant vigilantes and the pro-immigrant Network.

He's one angry Mexican

Danny Trejo is not the best actor in the world, but he does a fantastic job as Machete, perhaps because he is not playing Machete as much as he is Machete. But he is not alone, co-starring are Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez who do a fantastic job playing their characters and being hot when needed and Robert De Niro being eerily accurate as a racist southern senator. 

The cast also includes the most random collection of forgotten stars with varying degrees of success; Cheech Marin is hilarious as Machete’s brother and priest, Jeff Fahey is functional albeit not great in his role as the senator’s right-hand man, Lindsay Lohan is unsurprisingly bland yet surprisingly hot as Fahey’s daughter. But the most surprisingly good performances come from Don Johnson and Steven Seagal as a racist border vigilante and a Mexican drug lord respectively. Seagal’s best days might be past him but godamn does he nail the Mexican accent and he is pretty much the best thing about every scene he appears in.

But it’s not only the cast that makes Machete the great movie it is. It’s the fact that it pretty much nails the style it was going for. The film pays homage to the exploitation films of the 70s and early 80s as well as the ridiculously cheesy and gory action films of the late 80s and 90s, but it takes it a step further and is gorier, cheesier and more ridiculous than any of the films it pays homage to.

Rodriguez direction is what allows Machete to be all those things and not be a bad movie. Yes it’s ridiculous, but it knows it is and never takes itself too seriously. The action scenes in particular are hilariously over the top. There are decapitations, boobs, crucifixions, guts being used as a rope, stabbings, boobs, martial arts, shoot-outs, boobs, explosions and much more.

Did I mention boobs?

Machete is not for everyone, those who are looking for a serious action movie will certainly not find it here, nor is it meant to be watched as one. It’s great for what it is, a one and a half hour cheesy and gory journey with actors who are all in the joke and having fun. And that’s just what it is, just plain fun.