Greystone's Weekly Picks 10-12-09

Gaming with Greystone:

Gamer Review:

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

Resident Evil 5: Well it’s time to jump back in the saddles boys and girls and kill us some zombies. As any RE fan knows RE5 is far from being the 5^th title in the series due to the many split offs but it, like the other 4, follows the more direct storyline. Ever since a couple years back when an old friend of mine got me to play RE4, I’ve been waiting on a 5^th. RE4 is still held in high regards as one of my favorite games ever. I loved it so much I went back and bought the first 3 thinking they’d be just as awesome and that I’d really get into the stories but I couldn’t even make myself play through the first one. The bad graphics and terrible controls should have popped in my mind being PS1 games but I thought I could see past all that. Turns out I was wrong. The only PS1 game I can still make myself come to play is Metal Gear Solid and even that’s pushing it but that’s another story. Now I will say I was fortunate enough to have played the remade version of RE1 on the Gamecube. That was also a really great game and made me wish they’d remake 2 and 3 like that as well. But I’m rambling on and it’s not even about the game I’m reviewing.

RE5 is hard to classify, I guess you could say, because while it has very strong qualities it also gives you that “been there done that” feeling whilst playing it. Being such a fan of RE4, playing RE5 wasn’t that big of an adjustment. A few of the controls were switched around but nothing you couldn’t get use to and it generally felt the same as RE4. The inventory system has also been revamped. Where in RE4 you could buy items to give you a larger inventory thus making it to where you hold more weapons, health herbs, etc.; RE5 only gives you 9 slots. At the beginning of each level or upon restarting after being killed, you’re able to fill those 9 slots with whatever you have stored in your main inventory and then are forced to make due with whatever else you get in that particular level. Which when you think about it sounds bad but that’s one of the perks of having Sheva as a partner is you can make her be your mule and carry whatever you want her to. Plus they did away with having weapon attachments taking up inventory slots and thus having you carefully arrange your inventory like in RE4, which use to be a real pain.

Back when I first saw that the game was going to give you a partner, I had mixed feelings and was a bit hesitant. Having played it, I kind of liked having Sheva around. But she does have her pros and cons. While she can be dead accurate, she wastes a lot of bullets shooting at more general areas like the chest rather than head shots. When I went through I only gave her the basic pistol letting her pick up all pistol ammo and have at it, while I had the shotgun and such. I also let her hold on to all the health items because she was good about healing herself around me thus healing us both instead of wasting them solely on her. Unfortunately, she’d tend to use a stronger health item to heal a not so threatening wound rather than use a single green herb that she also had.

Another good thing having a partner allowed you to do was have 2 player co-op campaign, which once my friend and me played was really fun. One of the bad things is that the game doesn’t allow shoulder switching. So if you’ve gotten use to always aiming over Chris’ right shoulder and then jump on with a buddy and are forced to play as Sheva then you’re forced to now constantly aim over her left shoulder. But in general both characters are the same and neither provides any different skills from the other. Visually, RE5 is one of the best looking next generation console games I’ve seen. Also the quick time events are back like in RE4 but thankfully aren’t quite as grueling except when fighting the giant, which on harder difficulties really gets on your nerves (especially the PS3 version because of the red circle and pink square looking similar). This was actually one of the few games that I played on both PS3 and my somewhat newly purchased Xbox 360 and honestly I couldn’t tell a difference. Perhaps the load times were shorter on 360 due to me installing the game on the hard drive but that’s probably it.

Really the only thing that disappointed me about the game was how blatantly similar the game play was with RE4. I mean it was like the only thing they changed was the character designs and level settings. Like in RE4, you’re making your way into town by car, the first person you really encounter tries to attack you like in RE4, the enemies used almost exactly the same weapons, enemies both talked in different languages you didn’t understand, both have parasite things popping out of their heads, both have chainsaw wielding people, have big giant guy with thing you have to shoot on it’s back, you work your way from town into a secret underground lab, etc. etc. I mean yeah I understand if you have a good formula you don’t want to change it but you don’t necessarily need to do it verbatim (that’s my big word for the day). About the only difference was that this time the girl with you was able to help you kill enemies rather than you walk her around the level telling her to go, stop, and hide.

Overall I really enjoyed RE5 and I give it 4.5 Boop BOOPS out of 5.

A Greystone Production

Greystone's Weekly Picks 10-8-09

Hello everyone. As it may be evident, I haven’t posted in quiet some time but I hope to try and change that. If you’ve read any of my other posts you know I like to talk a fair amount on comics. Unfortunately I’ve somewhat lost my appeal for them, I believe mainly due to the lack of good stories. So I'm going to concentrate more on video games and movies/TV series. I'm sorry to leave you with such a short post just starting back but I'm writing this somewhat late and will hopefully have a lot more for you soon.


Greystone’s Flicks:

Reviews:

Watchmen Motion Comic: As you can see I have quite a list of things I’ve seen that I feel like commenting on. And just having finished that last sentence I had to chase my cat out of my room as he was trying to secretly throw up behind my computer whilst I was at it. Now where was I…ah yes the Watchmen Motion Comic. Well back when Watchmen was fixing to come out I decided to pick up the Motion Comic in my excitement to see the film. I had also previously bought the graphic novel and read through it so I knew nothing would really hold any surprises for me. I never finished the Motion Comic because although it was interesting seeing the comic frame for frame with added motion and voices, the thing is 2 discs long with like 5 hours of viewing because it shows frame for frame and you have to watch it slower than if you were to read it yourself. Something else that kind of put me off to it was I started to realize that EVERY character in the movie was voiced by the EXACT SAME PERSON! Yes, 1 man does the voice of every man, woman, and child. But still if you’re a die hard Watchmen fan I’d find it hard for you not to pick up.

Watchmen: I’d have to say that Watchmen is probably my favorite movie of 2009 thus far. I thought it was way better than 300 and right up there if not perhaps better than Sin City. Now I figure if you’ve read the comic that you should love the film and if you haven’t you probably won’t enjoy it as much. But I’ve heard dislikes from friends of mine from both parties which really surprised me. Maybe I just have a strange taste in movies which would be true but it doesn’t make me love them any less. One of the things I loved so much about it was its pretty much constant following of the comic except for a few things, which I thought was done better in the movie. But it was also a bit more graphic/violent than the comic in certain scenes that I thought was a little much. Either way, despite a few scenes I found the movie to be, like the graphic novel, a work of art.

Dragonball GT: So I’ve been buying all the recently released seasons of Dragonball Z which has each season comprised of 6 discs of every episode of that season; rather than the 12 set DVD volumes they use to have (some years back) that took up a whole shelf space because they only put up to 4 episodes per DVD and each costing $20. So for all the fools out there who bought every volume back then, I bet you’re feeling pretty retarded about now but at least you have some pretty DVD art* to look at. Well I’ve been revisiting my childhood by going back through the DBZ series and finally seeing some of the episodes I never caught on TV like half of the Freeza Saga.

Anywhozzle, they also decided to do the same with Dragonball GT which is the series following the events of DBZ, so of course I had to pick those up as well. Having finished the 2 seasons of DBGT, I didn’t really enjoy it as much as DBZ. I mean I was looking all forward to Super Saiyan 4 Goku kicking some serious butt but as always after he reaches a new peak in perfection, someone else comes along and pwns him like he was still using his Kaioken technique. And poor Vegeta gets taken down as soon as he reaches level 4, feeling happy he’s finally able to match Goku again. And the thing that really upset me was that you only see Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta for 1 episode and then his fusion time runs out and they can never fuse again despite trying the rest of the episodes. But the Dragonball series is definitely one of the most popular animes out there and it’s easy to see why.

*A reference made that only those who know what I’m talking about, know what I’m talking about. Because out of those 12 DVDs you’d have to buy, each DVD’s side of the case has a piece of a picture. Then when all 12 DVDs were lined up side by side it made a somewhat cool picture which pretty much depicted what went on during that season.

Lost: So I’ve recently, within the last couple months or so, discovered that Lost is one of the best things made since television and if you think I’m lying then see for yourself. And if you still think I’m lying, I want you to say it to my face so I can hit you up side the head and leave YOU stranded on a deserted island. Honestly it’s a little hard to explain without having watched it yourself but it shows the story of the passengers from a flight that went down somewhere over the Pacific and stranded them on a “deserted” island. That’s right…air quotes around the word deserted. Because they soon find that they are not alone. But the story is just freaking fantastic and its awesome seeing how all this stuff is tied together. The writers of Lost should have won freakin Oscars for that stuff. Actually I think they probably won a couple Golden Globes or something. I've watched all of seasons 1-4 and am desperately anticipating the 5th one which should be coming out around December, I believe. I command ALL to watch it!

PS: It is CRITICAL that you start at Season 1 episode 1 because if you don't you'll probably be Lost. LMAO. Ok so it wasn't that funny but I didn't care how corny it sounded.

A Greystone Production