MJ's Blog

Blogger.com should really send out monthly emails to remind me to blog every so often because I really suck at remembering to actually put my thoughts down. So here we go with super quick summerising time:

Games:

Quantum of Solace - quick and simple. Kind of like a dumbed down Call of Duty 4 with meh graphics. Can’t really recommend at full price, so maybe best to rent or wait for some Credit Crunch style reductions. Either way it is better than the film.

Little Big Planet - bought it, put it in, played for about 2 hours and never picked up again. Doesn’t really have the WOW factor.

Mirrors Edge - nice. Very nice. Seems to be really short though - already more than half way through after a couple of hours. Some of the moves are quite tricky and the combat can really suck if there is more than one bad guy.

Far Cry 2 - addictive as hell and with a semi-respectable plot. Oh and the fire is really sexy in that it burns anything in its path. Multiplayer was a bit meh but has picked up as more people have put the game in their greasy hands.

Battlefield Bad Company - funny. The dialogue not the gameplay you understand. The weapons are bid and loud and the set pieces are fun if not a little repetitive. Never seems to end though - there is always one more mission. Multiplayer is respectable and lag free.

Films:

Quantum of Solace - oh dear. No plot and some non-stop camera flipping made it quite difficult to follow. Not as good as Casino Royale.

More next time kids. Remember to play safe now.

I knew it and so did you deep (oh so deep) down. Mac users are officially sexier than Windows users according to Adult toy seller Lovehoney, whose Google Analytics feed suggests that more Mac users use their site compared to Windows users. The Mac community spent longer on the site than Windows or Linux users but when it came to dropping some cash for some playthings the Linux community came in tops with an average spend of £48.55 compared to Mac users £40.38 and Windows users £34.59.

It appears that someone forgot to tell Microsoft that HD-DVD was more doomed than the next Sly Stallone remake because they just dropped the price to $129.99 stateside. As well the ultra cheap high def drive Microsoft will also chuck in five discs, which makes it a very nifty deal, assuming you only want to buy five high def discs until the next high def format (read: Blu-ray 2) drops. Amazon went temporarily crazy earlier and started selling the unit (*giggles*) with six discs for only 60 of your American dollars. Of course this reduction hasn’t made its way over to the old UK, so I will just keep on saving for that Blu-ray player (read: PS3). I’ve really got to see Superbad in high def.

In other slightly Microsoft related news Bioware dropped news of new downloadable content for Mass Effect, which will supposedly set us back 400MS points, last for around about 90 minutes and pleasure us with 50 more Gamescore. While this may sound like Pimms o’clock I would rather hand over 400MS points in exchange for a working Autosave system but that would be worth at least 1000MS points no doubt.

Sunshine is a beautiful piece of science fiction, which contains plenty of action and drama. The director (Danny Boyle) has assumed a clean and developed future, unlike some other films (see Blade Runner) that have set themselves in a bleaker future.

It is the story and not the setting that creates the bleakness as the crew of the Icarus 2 are on a mission to re-ignite the sun and save humanity. This really is humanities last chance as 7 years earlier Icarus 1 disappeared when on an identical mission.

During the final stages of Icarus 2’s mission they discover Icarus 1 floating in space and the teams physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) decides it is worth the risk to save the payload from the first mission. However as the team deviate from their original plan errors start creeping in and crew members start losing their lives.

When the crew docks with the Icarus 1 they discover that the ship was sabotaged and the crew all burnt to death. The culprit for the sabotage is Captain Pinbacker (Mark Strong) of the Icarus 1, who manages to follow the crew back to the Icarus 2. Pinbacker then begins sabotaging the Icarus 2, whilst the remaining members of the crew fight on and prepare to deliver the payload and in the end only Capa is left to manually detonate the bomb.

The film is well produced and deals with some interesting subjects such as addiction to (sun)light, as members of the crew are often seen staring at the stunning colours produced by the sun. There are some other notable performances from Mace (Chris Evans) and Corazon (Michelle Yeoh).

We are soon to move into 2008 and vacate 2007 but not before I look back at some of the best (and worst) and most surprising (and most disappointing) films to come out this year. I’ve just included films that were released in the UK in 2007, not any of those sneaky films that are out in America but have yet to make the trip to Blighty.

The Contractor is a particularly odd film because it is rated a 15 and therefore you would assume it would deal with some fairly adult subjects but in fact it is actually aimed at a much younger audience. The plot is fairly simple, James Dial (Wesley Snipes) is brought back out of retirement to kill a terrorist who he failed to kill years earlier an incident he has never been able to forget. What could possibly go wrong?