First Impressions: LA Noire

LA Noire, the newest game by Rockstar, has built itself a lot of expectation with its revolutionary motion scan technique and its sheer size, supposedly taking up a full 25GB layer of a Blu-Ray disc (3 DVDs on the Xbox 360). Promises of new graphical fidelity and a huge new narrative built around the already successful Rockstar open-world model captured the attention of many video game players and even drew some from the cinema crowd, and the all-around hype has placed the game near the top of the list of most anticipated games of the year. At the time of this article, I’m not even halfway through the game’s story and still making my way up the ranks of the police force, so I don’t have a full game to reflect on. However here is my take on the game so far.

Occasional Movie Review: Thor

 

In the realm of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is nearing the end of his reign as king. His decision to pass the title to his eldest son Thor (Chris Hemsworth) causes envy in the younger Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who, in the hopes of removing him from the throne, manipulates his brother into recklessly starting a war with an old and powerful enemy. Blind to Loki’s betrayal, Odin banishes Thor to Midgard for his heedless arrogance, casting all of his Asgardian power into the hammer Mjolnir and sending them both to Earth. His apparition takes scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) by surprise and, unbeknownst to her, his proximity puts Earth and everything she knows at risk. Thor struggles to deal with his banishment and dual existence, striving to defend Earth and Asgard from what he has wrought and to reclaim his power as the God of Thunder.

The Importance of Portal 2

I already talked at length in a previous post about what makes the first Portal such an important landmark in the video game industry so I’m going to try not to backtrack too much into the same arguments here. Portal was a fantastic game and a huge surprise to players everywhere, but it was a small treasure, far from a full game experience and its praise and acclaim quickly turned into a clamouring for more. Four years later, Portal 2 is the fully realized sequel to the original adventure into Aperture Science, and it attempts to expand both on Chell’s journey and on the success of its predecessor.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

In the frozen waters of the South Pole, Sokka and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe are bickering on a fishing trip when they stumble onto a strange, glowing iceberg housing the figure of a young boy inside. Breaking it open they discover Aang, a rambunctious and bafflingly conscious kid with strange arrow tattoos all over his body. They take the child back to their village where the tribe elder is shocked to discover that Aang is, in fact, a young monk from the Northern Air Temple, the last survivor of a civilization believed to be extinct. More puzzling still, Aang is surprised to hear about his people’s fate when the villagers ask about his mysterious appearance, and is completely unaware that the Fire Nation has been systematically taking control of the other territories across the world, beginning with their eradication of the air nomads nearly a hundred years ago. The Water Tribe is struggling to grasp the gravity of this child’s discovery when Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation attacks the village and abducts him, claiming Aang to be the lost Avatar, sole connection to the spirit world and centre of balance and harmony in the world. Sokka and Katara give chase, setting in motion an ambitious journey to restore the Avatar and bring peace back to the four nations.

Great Characters in Television: The Entire Cast of Firefly (and an Appeal to Browncoats)

In the year 2517, humankind has expanded outward throughout the galaxy after depleting all of Earth’s resources. As more and more planets were terraformed and colonized, the Alliance, a sort of interplanetary government, sought to unify all the worlds under one rule. Naturally resistance broke out, pitting the freedom-seeking Independents (affectionately titled “Browncoats”) against the Alliance, invoking a brutal civil war which decimated the Independents’ numbers and violently set straight any and all opposing the Alliance’s power. The Alliance swept in and took control of the more civilized inner-planets to create prosperous, flourishing worlds but doing so left a large number of abandoned isolated colonies in the outer reaches of the universe to govern themselves, often eroding into crime and decay, many times falling to mob-rule. 

The Importance of Portal

It doesn’t take much to put together that I’m a video game addict. My copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has logged a total playtime long enough that I’m too embarrassed to post it on this blog. I’ve likely completed as many games as I’ve read books, and for as long as I can remember my bank account has been regularly suffering at the hand of new Playstation releases. So it’s safe to say I have a sizeable investment in the industry, which I am truly proud of. I really think the video game is culminating into its own true medium, comparable to film or literature, and capable of real emotional response.

Occasional Movie Review: Rango

Rango tells the story of a domesticated chameleon with an identity crisis who has his terrarium (and his life) abruptly shattered when he is ejected from the backseat of his owner’s car. Left dehydrated and abandoned on a desert highway, the lizard stumbles upon an Old West-style town called Dirt, inhabited by a collection of rustic creatures who rely on a steady economy of water for business and survival. As the lizard infuses himself into Dirt’s society and becomes the town Sheriff, the water runs dry and it’s up to him to find out where the water has gone, and discover who he really is beneath his camouflage.