Stubs - Help!

HELP! (1965) Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Directed by Richard Lester. Written by Charles Wood. Story by Marc Behm. Produced by Walter Shenson Songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Music by George Martin and Ken Thorne. Run Time: 92 minutes. Color. UK. Music, Comedy, Action, Adventure.

1965 was, as Paul McCartney referred to it on that year’s Christmas fan club record, “a really big year” for the Beatles. But it was also a year that saw the group in repeat mode. They were still the biggest thing on the planet, but 1965 was in many ways a lot like 1964 had been. The year started with “Another Beatles Christmas Show” ending its run on at the Hammersmith Odeon Theater. And another number one single on the charts, “I Feel Fine”. During the year, they would put out more hit singles, do three more tours (the UK, the US and Europe), two more British studio albums and like the year before, they would make a movie, HELP!

The Darkness II

The Darkness was a really amazing game to play, and with the release date of its sequel getting closer, I became really excited to play another great experience, even with a change in developer (Digital Extremes worked on this title as opposed to Starbreeze). To keep myself interested, I even read a free comic that helped to remind me what happened in the game I played a month earlier. While The Darkness II proves itself to be a decent follow-up, there are some things that should have remained in the dark.

Two years after the original game, Jackie Estacado has officially become Don of the Franchetti family and also found a way to push back The Darkness within him. When he's attacked at a restaurant, Jackie is forced to unleash his dark powers in pursuit of his attackers. Through an informant of his named Johnny, who is an expert on The Darkness, Jackie learns of the Brotherhood and what they plan to do once they get their hands on this demonic force. Meanwhile, Jackie still thinks about the death of his girlfriend Jenny two years ago, and has been the entire time to the point where he sees hallucinations of her and times they've spent together.

The Jenny subplot bothered me as the game went on, for a few reasons. First off, Jackie seeing visions of his dead girlfriend from a couple years back is really unhealthy, and makes you think he should be sent to a mental hospital (which you actually do a few times, more on that later). Second, even though the prequel comic, Confession, had Jackie say he still thought about Jenny, it still came off to me like he had moved on from the event and that his recap of the previous game was more like a last goodbye. Finally, the game seemed to revolve around Jenny the more the story went forward, to where she is involved in a very unexpected plot twist after the credits roll, which only seems to serve as setting up a possible The Darkness III. Overall, Jackie's character felt like it had taken a big step backwards compared to what happened in the last game and its supporting material. On the subject of mental hospitals, the main story takes a break a few times to place Jackie in such a place, where Jenny is alive and he still obsesses over her. These sequences proved to be hilarious, though up until an explanation is given about this place you are left to wonder the first couple of times whether the events of the game are a dream or reality.

An interesting game mechanic that this game introduces is the concept of quad-wielding, or the ability to control two guns and two Darkness tentacles at the same time. This I found made me feel a greater sense of power than I did the first time controlling The Darkness, and also allowed for plenty of variety in terms of slaughtering enemies. Enemy encounter is another thing though. While I won't complain about the linear level design, I played on Thug difficulty (the lowest setting; the highest is Don) and a few times I felt a little overwhelmed by the enemies I was made to fight, especially in the Vendettas campaign (more on that later). This game has a nice Skill Tree system, where you can use Darkness Essence from foes to purchase Talents at appropriate Shrines (the first of which is the ability to eat hearts!), giving you the ability to sort of customize Jackie's skills. Two particularly helpful Talents can only be found in the Limited Edition of the game, which I played for this review, and in fact one later Talent you can access (in both versions) is Darkness Armor, which from what I could see on the screen is similar to its comic book counterpart.

Speaking of aesthetic, this game has really impressive graphics, giving it the appearance of a comic book similar in style to the one the games are based on (in place of the first game's more realistic appearance). This is paired with an equally amazing soundtrack that may be on par, if not better than, the music of its predecessor. The voice acting from the named characters is just as good, even with Jackie's change in voice actor.

The ability to summon an army of Darklings is dropped in this game in favor of accompaniment from a singular Darkling, who wears a Union Jack flag and speaks in a British accent. You even get to control him a couple times during the story, where he aids Jackie further by viscerally executing enemies whilst opening a door or getting him out of a tight spot. I found the Darkling itself to be another source of entertainment, though there is some potential missing from its solo sequences (I can't quite think of what that potential could be, but something felt missing).

Once you complete the main story, you can also go through a Vendettas campaign, a separate story that takes place during the main one, where you get to play as one of four people under Jackie's wing who each master a power of The Darkness in some form. There's even a Hit List option, where you can replay missions from the story as well as a handful of new ones, though some can only be played online. Having played as all four characters, I can say that while this concept is interesting, all of them play very similarly, despite having their own Talent Trees, and the Vendettas option is overall somewhat underwhelming.

And that's one word I would use to describe this game: underwhelming. Yet I would also use this word: amazing. This game takes a step forward with some of its amazing mechanics, but the other aspects of the game are underwhelming, particularly the Vendettas side-plot and the whole idea of Jackie being unhealthily obsessed with Jenny after seeing some character development from the trauma. Despite all this, I would still say to give this game a go because of the more positive aspects, including the sheer power you feel from quad-wielding. If you are a big fan of The Darkness comic you will be happy to see concepts from it finally show up here. Either way though, if you enjoyed the first game, prepare for disappointment.

The Expendables - This Movie Isn't

When I had first heard of The Expendables in 2010, I couldn't help but be a little curious when I saw the sheer number of action stars involved in the project. With a cast ranging from Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis to Jet Li and Mickey Rourke, how could you not be? However, it would be a couple of years before I finally saw this picture after purchasing the DVD. Thus far, I do not regret doing so.

The gist of the plot is as follows: A group of mercenaries known as the Expendables are hired by the CIA to eliminate a dictator on a small Caribbean island. Besides a couple of subplots, one of which has bearing on the events of the movie, this is basically all that happens. For the most part the smaller plot points of the movie are difficult to follow, not helped by the fact that a few of the actors, such as the aforementioned Stallone and Rourke, mumble a great amount of their dialogue.

On the other hand, the action scenes are simply amazing to watch. There are explosions abound, usually after some spectacular feat on the part of the mercenaries. I especially praise one scene with an Albatross vehicle, which provides a feast for the eyes as a cloud is spectacularly ignited by a single bullet to annihilate a group of mooks over a long pier. Equally praiseworthy are the scenes involving either guns, such as one where Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) blasts through grunts like a knife through butter thanks to some special bullets, or combat involving martial arts, including a scene where Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) knocks out a group of people on a Basketball court for personal reasons, ending with a knife through the ball as a warning. Segments such as this display the amazing fight choreography, as also shown when Yin Yang (Jet Li) displays his fighting prowess about halfway through the movie against Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren).

As I watched the film, I noticed a surprising amount of humor thrown in, which helped make some of the scenes less serious and offer some balance. These instances are well-timed, but the cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes even funnier thanks to some real world context in the jokes. On the other side of the scale, the action can get very bloody since those on the receiving end of bullets tend to pop like meat balloons or otherwise have their insides splatter all over the place.

To sum up the experience of this movie would be very simple: The Expendables is a true action movie through and through. While the story does seem to be pushed off to the side, it allows the action elements, the meat of the movie, time to shine. With an all-star cast and music that helps drive them along, it creates an experience worthy of at least one viewing. If you're a fan of 80's action flicks or have a familiarity with at least one of the actors attached, you surely won't be disappointed.

[OLD] Secret Agent Clank

After developing Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, High Impact Games would return to the Ratchet & Clank series to release a second game for the PSP, Secret Agent Clank, which as the title suggests stars Clank in the main role. The game is a take-off of the in-universe Secret Agent Clank series introduced in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and is noted for having a James Bond theme, as it takes elements of a spy movie and runs with them. While I found it more enjoyable than the last PSP venture, I still found something off about it.

A priceless gem known as the Eye of Infinity has been stolen from the Boltaire Museum and it appears Ratchet is to blame after words spoken against Clank. With the Lombax in prison, Clank believes his friend is innocent despite evidence to the contrary. As Clank sets out to free his friend, a conspiracy unfolds as he discovers the real culprit. Meanwhile, Captain Qwark is writing a "biography" of sorts, consisting mainly of fantastic stories.

Aside from the consistently good voice acting and music, some changes have been made to the gameplay from the last installment. You are still able to upgrade weapons and select from a small wheel of weapons during battle. These weapons are more based on spy gadgets and work rather impressively, although I ran into a problem with one item that you can't refuel via vendor, the Blackout Pen; this gadget is used to disable cameras and deadly lasers with giant blobs of black ink, but you must refuel them using very special and sparsely placed crates that resemble an ink well. The armor system has also been removed, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though you now must use Bolts on weapons for both Clank and Ratchet.

On this topic, there is a much greater variety of gameplay here than in previous Ratchet & Clank games. In addition to playing as Clank a majority of the time, there are also times where you can be Ratchet in prison fights, the Gadgebots in small puzzle segments, and Qwark as he tells an odd story. The Gadgebot segments can really get you to think sometimes, especially in certain sections later on, and the Qwark sections can be entertaining or frustrating depending on how you play them. On the other hand I found the Ratchet sections a little difficult compared to the other character-specific portions, but they are possible to get through after a number of tries. There are also times where you have to play a small rhythm game, but they don't exactly work properly due to the lack of any actual rhythm.

While the game has an interesting story, you can actually see some of the plot twists coming from a mile away (except for the big one which I will not spoil), though this doesn't take too much away from the overall experience. Near the end though, I ran into some trouble with the final boss. Since the game up until then is relatively easy, it's a bit jarring to see the difficulty suddenly spike up a bit to the point where it's nigh unbeatable. All I can say regarding this is good luck.

Secret Agent Clank is a fairly enjoyable Ratchet & Clank game, even if a few screws are loose. There is an extra bonus from having a save of the less enjoyable Size Matters, though it's only a set of skins, and just a basic knowledge of what happens throughout that game is all that's needed to understand the continuity between the handheld games. If you're looking for a decent handheld Ratchet & Clank experience, I would direct you to this game instead of the previous one. When I return to this series, time marches on.

The Darkness II: Confession (Comic)

On last year's Free Comic Book Day, Top Cow released a comic in order to promote The Darkness II; this same comic would also be given away for free at the following San Diego Comic-Con. Though I picked one up at the time, I decided not to read it until I actually finished playing The Darkness, which I discussed previously. With the new game coming up soon, I decided to go through it when it came closer to the release date, and it doesn't disappoint.

After Jenny's death in the first game, Jackie can't stop thinking about her, and the story begins with him at his late girlfriend's grave. Admitting he wasn't honest with her about what he does, he decides to tell her everything that happened to him recently. The talk in question is a very thorough recap of the events of the 2007 game, ending with a scene that reminds you what Jackie is and does.

Along with being thorough, the recap of the first The Darkness is extremely faithful to the source material, which is good for those that haven't played the game in a while and want a quick reminder of what occurred the night of Jackie's 21st birthday. Some of the dialogue is even from Jackie's narration in the game. This is backed up by some fantastic artwork, which really works with the subject and captures the atmosphere of the source material perfectly. At one point there is a rather interesting panel layout dealing with one pivotal scene that seems to fit the tone quite well.

If you already own a copy, read The Darkness II: Confession if you want a good reminder of what happened previously without having to replay the game. If you don't own a copy, I would suggest obtaining one as soon as you can. If you have already read The Darkness: Levels, this is a better read for purposes of reliving the story of Jackie Estacado. The amount of effort put into this one-shot is amazing, and the equally amazing artwork is something that shouldn't be missed.

Ghost Rider - Worthy Of A Penance Stare

Ghost Rider is a comic book that I have only recently gotten into with the 2011 relaunch during Marvel's recent Fear Itself crossover event. I enjoy this iteration of the superhero, especially for its humor and badass artwork, and I was able to understand the history further with Cycle of Vengeance, a one-shot comic which reprints the initial appearances of each of the previous three Ghost Rider series (I highly recommend it for newcomers to the series). Before I became a follower, I was on the fence when a movie was released based on the character in 2007. With a sequel, Spirit of Vengeance, on the way this month, I decided to watch the original to form my own opinion of it (the subject here is a rental of the Extended Cut). Needless to say, now that I'm more familiar with the comic, I am not a fan of this movie.

Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) is a stunt performer with his father Barton (Brett Cullen), who is a smoker dying from cancer. It is then that Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) arrives to make a deal with Johnny, ensuring that his father stays alive. Despite being healthy the next day to his son's surprise, Barton dies while performing a stunt, after which Johnny runs away only to meet up with Mephistopheles, who states that with his end of the bargain fulfilled, the one who signed it is now cursed to be the Devil's personal bounty hunter. Years later, Johnny (Nicolas Cage) continues to be a stuntman, surviving a series of increasingly dangerous stunts to much curiosity. What follows is a series of curbstomp battles as Johnny, now the Ghost Rider, is tasked to take down Blackheart (Wes Bently), a demon who wants the powers of the spirit of vengeance for himself.

The plot as a whole is sleep-inducing, particularly because we don't actually get to see the title character until about halfway into the movie, since that time is devoted entirely to the Ghost Rider's origin story, and the journey towards that first appearance is very uninteresting, unlike other superhero movies such as Iron Man or Captain America, the latter of which is entirely about the origin story. After the Ghost Rider does finally show up, he isn't utilized very well and his appearances are limited, stripping the film of any expansion on the aforementioned one-sided battles or more potentially awesome shots. As a bonus the original Ghost Rider, Carter Slade (Sam Elliott), is incorporated into the plot, but his transformation is made entirely pointless when he leaves after riding with Johnny, which ultimately wastes an opportunity to make the final battle against Blackheart more suspenseful.

Since Nicolas Cage is reportedly a huge Ghost Rider fan, you'd think he would put a lot of effort into playing the title character, right? Actually he continues acting how he usually does, ranging only between dull surprise and chewing the scenery. This was somewhat off-putting to me since Matt Long, who was younger Johnny Blaze, seemed to have a better performance than Nic Cage in the little screen time he had.

Adding to this, there is plenty of inconsistent logic throughout the film. For instance, Carter Slade mentions to Johnny that the demons present cannot tread hallowed ground, yet eventually even the Devil himself is shown to be able to tread hallowed ground. Some of the inconsistency also covers how Johnny is able to become the Ghost Rider. Even though it's established that the spirit of vengeance can only come out at night and when there's evil around, Carter was able to transform, as well as Johnny in the same scene, even though there was no evil around. What takes the cake though is that despite the Ghost Rider embodying the element of fire, he is able to conveniently show up underwater to immediately win against a water demon even though water of that scale would totally cancel out fire, supernatural or otherwise.

If there's one good thing about this movie at all, it's the special effects, especially the ones used for the titular Ghost Rider. The way his skeletal body is rendered looks fantastic, even if it does look a little fake, and the fire effects are equally impressive. The same can be said about the original Ghost Rider and the demons Johnny encounters; overall, the effects aren't too bad.

Since now I'm more familiar with Ghost Rider's origin in the comic, I noticed that changes were made between it and the film adaptation. For example, in the movie Mephistopheles goes to Johnny and makes the deal that he can make Barton "healthy as a horse", whereas in the original comic Johnny, whose father is already dead, makes a deal with Satan that his adoptive father, Crash Simpson, wouldn't die from a deadly disease, presumably cancer (which to me makes for a better twist). Because of this change to the deal, in the movie's version it seemed more like the Devil was trying to come up with an excuse to own Johnny's soul, while in the comic's version his soul belongs to Satan because of his exact words, which bonds him to the spirit Zarathos (the name of the demon that forms Ghost Rider). Origin aside, Nic Cage's performance of Blaze comes off as more of an idiot than the Johnny in the comics (or at least what I've read), who took his situation more seriously and wanted to be rid of his curse.

Ghost Rider is a promising package, but it doesn't really live up to much of anything. The acting of the main star is a little off, the fights are boring and too short, and the logic within it eventually begins to crumble as it goes on. The best part out of the whole thing is the effects, but that's not enough of a reason to watch this movie, not even if you're a Ghost Rider fan. Needless to say, I have much less of a desire to see the sequel than I already did.

NeverDead - Much Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The background color of the box art here clearly indicates the quality of the product.

When I first saw a trailer for NeverDead, it looked like it might be a fun and unique title. With a unique premise and a song written by Megadeth specifically for it, I couldn't help but be curious. Once I got my hands on it however, I ended up playing a game that not only failed to live up to my expectations, but also a product that feels like not enough effort went into it to balance the mess that it truly is.

First, the story. 500 years ago, Bryce Boltzmann faced the demon king Astaroth. After failing in his task, he is cursed with immortality and a demonic eye. In the current age, he ends up working as a demon hunter for a living, doing so for money and sport. When demons invade a city, he teams up with private investigator Arcadia of the organization NADA to remove the threat. Along the way, many clues hint at the possible revival of Astaroth, with the fate of the world in the balance. As it turns out, the resulting plot is very cliche and manages to cover a lot of the basic tropes of this genre to the point where I was able to guess the plot twists based solely on who was important enough to get a name. When the twists actually do come up, it doesn't really come as much of a surprise and I felt completely underwhelmed.

The characters are also as flawed as the story, but not in any enjoyable sense. Since Bryce is immortal, I never once felt worried about him no matter how many bits of his past are revealed. While he is supposed to be a wise-cracking demon, he comes off as more of a failed mixture of Duke Nukem, Marcus Fenix and Dante; Compared to them, his pool of one-liners is very small, extremely repetitive and groan inducing, his attempts at being serious make him look more like an a-hole, and weapons end up not being creative enough or exciting (more on that later). To balance out his immortality, they have him protecting his mortal assistant Arcadia, though she feels a lot like the love interest in a story that eventually starts to care for his life despite how she first feels about him. Otherwise, the villains come off more as cardboard and feel thinly developed. What doesn't help is the generic script and only somewhat passable voice acting.

Throughout the game, Bryce will come across a range of guns and swords to use in combat. Unfortunately, these weapons fail for their own reasons. To begin, the guns are all of the generic ones that gaming veterans will no doubt be familiar with by now. We've got the bare basics, from the pistol and submachine gun to the grenade launcher and shotgun. While they do operate fine on their own, the game insists on having you dual-wielding the whole time. This may not sound like a big problem, since games like The Darkness and BioShock made it fun, but this game seems to like making the reticles separate while in motion, meaning that I had to stand perfectly still and wait a couple of seconds to get the kind of shot I actually wanted. The process proved frustrating, especially considering one bigger flaw: you can't lock onto enemies with the guns.

Sure, you can zoom in and aim that way, but Bryce moves a lot slower than preferred in that time considering what goes on in each area. You could say that the destructible environments would justify the lack of an ability to lock on  to aim, but if the sword can do this with ease, why not allow the guns to do this as well? On that note, I found the swordplay to be much more reliable in combat despite needing to lock on and slash with the right stick, mainly because most of the time I could actually tell that what I was doing had any real effect on the enemies in front of me. While you can't switch between swords like you can the guns, although that process is slow and painful, collecting new swords at least makes it stronger and I was able to feel some satisfaction from that.

While the environments are all beautifully detailed, they are also incredibly small and cramped, which sounds like a winning combination when the game throws a vast multitude of enemies at you. The demons, while impressively detailed, all have absolutely unimaginative names that hardly match their appearance. When you've got demon types named Puppy, Spoon, Panda Bear and Hippo, maybe it's time to get more creative. While clearing rooms of enemies to advance isn't something new or anything to get worked up over, I once again mention Devil May Cry, this game manages to make it annoying. Most of the time enemies spawn from wombs that you have to kill, meaning that there can be a potentially infinite number of enemies unless you stop it from generating one to three enemies every so often, which is a pain to do when multiple wombs are in an area to help make the levels feel more claustrophobic than necessary. What doesn't help at all is how often they love to evoke the game's main mechanic: the inability to die.

Yes, instead of dying, Bryce's limbs can be decapitated from damage or holding certain buttons. This game mechanic is the big pitch for the game and sounds like it could be used to help solve puzzles or make the game more challenging since you have to retrieve your limbs by combat rolling past them. Unfortunately it adds another layer of frustration since your decapitated limbs fly off way too far, sometimes to the other side of the room. A secondary mechanic that should have relieved this is the ability to regenerate limbs on the spot once you've lost them, though it's pretty flawed too. This mechanic is determined by a gauge, the speed of filling determined by how many limbs are attached. It refills too slowly in the most dire situations however, and even when you do regenerate completely you'd  better be prepared to suffer through this all over again. These mechanics when combined with the inability to die and sheer size of enemy waves more often than not turn the game into less of a fun experience and more into something of an exercise in frustration.

Now, when you kill enemies you gain experience points, or XP. XP, rather than leveling up, is used as the game's currency for buying skills that Bryce can use. Buying skills isn't a bad thing really, like in Devil May Cry when Dante's new powers become dormant until you use them. Here however, skills require slots, some of which take up more than others. Not only was this part of the system annoying, but also what some of the skills do; some come in handier than others, though one of them is not letting the gun reticles separate! When I found the right combination of skills I was able to squeeze some sense of enjoyment out of the game, but not enough to overcome other frustrations.

As I had mentioned earlier, Arcadia is Bryce's mortal companion who can die and serves as one of the only two ways to ever fail a mission (the other being when your lone head is sucked up by a Grandbaby enemy and you fail at timing something from a sports simulation game properly). When she is about to die, Bryce has the ability to heal her by holding down a button near her body, and this is much easier said than done. A lot of the time when this kicked in I was completely decapitated and waiting for my body to regenerate, only to have my head cut off repeatedly and almost fail to make it to her in time. While struggling with getting to her, she'll also repeatedly say lines about how dying is annoying, which was simultaneously confusing as well as an accurate barometer of how I felt at the time while playing.

The game's music, aside from the one song I wanted to hear, is also very forgettable even if there are a couple of good guitar riffs here and there. The variety it tries to introduce is also off-putting at times and just sounds plain goofy. I also noticed that the sound mixing was off, since at several points I couldn't hear what the characters were saying and thus failed to notice some instructions on what to do next even with subtitles on. While I know the player can remix the sound levels of the game, I don't believe they should have to in order to get the best experience.

I realize that I have gone this far without discussing the boss battles of the game. Most of them are piss easy, including the first major boss related to the story, executing strategies that are pathetically easy to get around thanks to them telegraphing their moves. The penultimate boss however, much like the final section of the game, is easily one of the most annoying thanks in part to his moveset and how hard it is to get a bead on him, causing me to fall back on using two guns I had planned on saving for other purposes. This battle however has nothing on my experience with the final boss. The very last boss in the game was so frustratingly hard and broken, while also involving and exploiting every flaw of the game, that I ended up going temporarily insane with rage and then subsequently breaking down into tears over it. As a result, I ended up immediately exchanging this game for SoulCalibur V, which incidentally enough came out on the same day.

It is very hard for me to recommend NeverDead to anyone except those who really want something unique if incredibly flawed. If it were up to me though, I would tell you not to touch this game with a 50-foot pole. The worst thing about this game for me personally however is that Megadeth, my favorite band, now has their name permanently attached to such a sub-par production. I almost feel as if this game wouldn't have gotten as much attention or sold as much if not for this fact, although I need to point out that the big song they wrote for it is barely present at all.

If you're like me and Megadeth is a big motivation for playing, then just avoid spending $60 on this game and instead buy the album, Thirteen (stylized TH1RT3EN), that has the theme song on it and loop it forever. The song alone is shorter but light years more enjoyable than the game it was written for.