BlackGeekdom

Black Panther Movie Poster – (yes, I know its fake but its still cool)

This post was written by Lobo on November 29, 2011

Hunger Games Trailer

Well well well…..Now, this is actually a decent trailer. I had no idea this series of books existed until a movie was announced and I had to ask a friend, Hanako (Confessions of a Grown-up Fangirl), about it. My interest was not piqued. Then, they released that sorry teaser that told you nothing about the movie. I still was not interested. However, a new full length trailer was released. After watching it, I’m interested. It looks interesting and looks good. We’ll see.

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Posted under Trailers

This post was written by Bedlam on November 14, 2011

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Xbox 360 Review: Battlefield 3

Article first published as Xbox 360 Review: Battlefield 3 on Blogcritics.

Battlefield 3 was released on October 25, 2011 to much pomp and circumstance. The game is a first-person shooter and direct sequel to Battlefield 2. It is the 11th game in the Battlefield franchise, which has its beginnings on the PC.

The developer, EA Digital Illusions CE, called DICE, used the new Frostbite 2 game engine. Visit the game’s official site for more information about the game engine. It features a single player campaign, co-op, and online multiplayer. This review covers the single player campaign.

You play as several different characters throughout the campaign. Staff Sergeant Henry Blackburn is the main playable character. The vast majority of missions are played with Blackburn. You also take a turn as Russian agent Dmitri “Dima” Mayakovsky for two missions.

For the vehicle missions, you play as Jonathan “Anvil” Miller and Lieutenant Jennifer “Wedge” Hawkins. Miller is a Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Tank Battalion. Hawkins is the first female playable character in the Battlefield series of games and the weapons specialists officer during the Tehran airport mission and engaging the People’s Liberation and Resistance fighters.

The single player campaign begins with the interrogation of Blackburn in New York City concerning some missing Russian tactical nuclear bombs, commonly known as “suitcase nukes.” You play as Blackburn as he recounts his missions in Iraq hunting down high ranking members of the PLR, which he claimed led to his team’s discovery of a bunker containing one tactical nuclear device controlled by the leader of the PLR. Subsequent missions with Blackburn and his unit deal with the investigation in the location of two missing nukes that were not in the bunker.

The entire single player campaign can take about 6-8 hours, depending on the difficulty level. Though the campaign is not long, it is not short on action and variety. The missions range from piloting a tank in a desert operation against PLR forces, to a dogfight in over Iraq against PLR fighters, to sniper support of a Marine squad as it hunts down a high value target. The missions were varied enough to keep me interested throughout the entire game.

One issue with the gameplay is that it does not give you the opportunity to explore, and there are no rewards for exploring buildings or locations. There were times when I ventured into an empty room or in dark corners hoping to find some special weapon or cache of grenades or maybe some intel that would be important to the story, but no such luck. The action moves you forward constantly. However, the game’s strengths are its presentation and design.

The graphics in the game are spectacular. There are times during the air and tank missions where the game looked extremely realistic. The sound design and music added to the depth and feel of the game. The character models at times could be glitchy, and sometimes the characters’ skin would not resolve properly. Also, occasionally the vocals and character model’s lips would not be in sync, which is disappointing because the voice acting was solid. The lack of expression on the faces of the character models when they were emoting could be unnerving at times.

Combat was also designed well. NPCs were not just distraction and cannon fodder for the enemy A.I. You weren’t left to lead the charge all the time or take out every enemy on your own. The enemy A.I. was smart enough to try and outflank you or charge and melee you if you got close enough.

The controls were okay. The only time I had an issue with the controls was during the Tank missions. I do not imagine that piloting a tank would be the easiest thing in the world; however, my frustrations with steering caused me to toss my controller several times. Sometimes the tank would not respond and other times turning was just sluggish beyond tolerance.

The designers took enough time to make each weapon sound and feel different. From my experience with first-person shooters, shotguns are powerful but useless in fast-pace action games such as this, but the shotguns in this game were excellent, even at range.

Overall, the game is beautiful to look at and the single player campaign is fun to play. There are times when you just want to take a moment and admire the craftsmanship taken in the design. Even though the campaign takes 6-8 hours, it’s well worth it.

It’s easy to tell that the single player campaign was not the focus of this release considering it is on the second disc and the first disc has the multiplayer features and games. To me, the appeal of playing the single player campaign is being involved in multiple aspects of an overall battle, and seeing how all the parts of the battle are connected. I think that has always been the appeal of the campaign in previous games and is continued in this one.

If it’s a great, immersive, and dynamic single-player campaign you seek, don’t spend your money on this game.

Battlefield 3 is rated M (Mature) by ESRB for blood, intense violence, and strong language. This game can also be found on: PC and PlayStation 3.

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Posted under Games, Reviews

This post was written by Bedlam on November 8, 2011

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Online Gaming’s High Costs

Article first published as Online Gaming’s High Costs on Blogcritics.

The video game industry is becoming a group of money hungry capitalists. Why has this become an issue for me? Recently, I played Battlefield 3. Before I purchase games, I like to rent them from Gamefly to test them out. If I’m going to pay $59.99 for a game, I like to try it first. Battlefield 3’s single player campaign is okay, but it isn’t the best experience in the world and isn’t worth spending the money. However, Battlefield 3‘s achievement, from what I gather in the online community and from DICE and EA Games, is that the online multiplayer is top of the line and a wonder to behold.

I fire up the game on my Xbox 360 and prepare myself for some multiplayer action. Imagine my surprise when I was prompted by the game to enter my online passcode. What? I figured there must be some mistake, so I read the fine print. In order to enjoy the online multiplayer experience of Battlefield 3, you have to have a one-time use online passcode that comes with each new copy of the game. If you don’t have a new copy, you have to pony up 800 Microsoft Points, which is about $10. I see this as a money grab by EA.

The people affected by this are those who either purchased the game used or rented it. Both are huge markets. It means that in addition to paying for the Xbox Live Gold membership to Microsoft to play online, i’d have to pay an additional $10 dollars to play Battlefield 3 online. Seriously? I’m renting the game to know if I’m going to buy it or not and my purchasing decision rests on the idea that I get to try it out online first. I’m sure I’m not the only person. To me, that means that EA is leaving money on the table. What would you rather have: $59.99 from me or $10 dollars? According to their own marketing, they could easily get the $59.99 once I play multiplayer on-line. Too bad, I was looking forward to spending my money on a new game. Guess I’ll wait for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

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Posted under Articles, Games

This post was written by Bedlam on November 2, 2011

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Quick Review: American Horror Story

I was not going to watch this because I’m not really into horror but I decided to give it a look. Four episodes later, I’m still watching. Something about the show is compelling. Watching the characters deal with what’s going on in the house draws me in. The show follows the Harmons as they have made their move from Boston to the Los Angeles to get a fresh start after a miscarriage and Dr. Ben Harmon’s extramarital affair with a student. The house they purchased is known locally as the “Murder House” because of all the murders that have occurred there since it has been standing.

As the weeks go by, you start to figure out who is real and who isn’t really there. It’s interesting that the maid Moira looks like an old lady to women, but to men she’s a hot young number who can’t keep her hands off Dr. Harmon. Dr. Harmon is treating a young man who seems to be a part of the house, but Dr. Harmon thinks he’s an actual patient. Ben and Vivien’s daughter Violet has bonded with the young man, Tate Langdon who isn’t all that nice a person.

If you like horror stories you’ll like this show. The subject matter in the show creeps me out just a bit. That’s why I watch it during the day time. Not that I’m scared, I just hate having bad dreams.

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Posted under Reviews, Television

This post was written by Bedlam on October 27, 2011

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Quick Review: Once Upon a Time

“Once Upon a Time” is a new show that premiered on ABC on Sunday night. The show follows bail bondsman Emma Swan as she comes to a town called Storybrooke to bring the son, Henry, that she gave up for adoption back to his adoptive family. According to Henry, the book of fairytales that he’s carrying around actually happend and the evil Queen cursed them all to forever live in Storybrooke as regular people. We learn that Emma Swan is the daughter of Snow White, now a teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, is the only hope from freeing the characters from Storybrooke.

I thought the show was fairly entertaining and thought that some of the performances are great. Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin and Tony Amendola as Gepetto are the highlights of the cast. The writers would do well to keep them as involved in the story as possible. The effects were good and I like how they flashback to before the curse and to the present time. The only problem I think this show will have is that I don’t think it’s going to garner the ratings numbers that it will need to survive on ABC. It’s a shame because on a channel like Syfy or USA or even a comparable show on the BBC would do well. But a big network like ABC is going to demand to big a number. Sunday night is a good night for the show especially since it might be able to pull some of the Desperate Housewives viewers.

I think the show is worth a look even if you aren’t into fantasy.

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Posted under Reviews, Television

This post was written by Bedlam on October 27, 2011

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The Thing Russian Trailer

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This post was written by Bedlam on September 29, 2011

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Trailer: Soul Man

Looks cool.

SOUL MAN™ Teaser 2 Guillaume Ivernel (Blacklight Movies) from Blacklight Movies on Vimeo.

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Posted under Animation, Movies, Trailers

This post was written by Jarrell on September 28, 2011

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Quick Review: Terra Nova

Last night, Fox premiered yet another science fiction show, Terra Nova. The show has a lot going for it; the main thing is that it’s produced by Stephen Spielberg. (side note: Brannon Braga is also a producer and show runner, and I won’t count this against it) The show starts out in 2149. Earth is dying due to pollution and overpopulation. Fortunately, scientist discover a rift in time leading to an alternate Earth timeline 85 million years in the past. So, we decided to save humanity by sending qualifying humans through the rift to resettle in Terra Nova.

I can tell the producers put emphasis on the production value of the show. There aren’t any standout stars so you know salaries are low. Stephen Lang might be the biggest star, but he is basically reprising his fantastic character from Avatar, with a few tweaks. I’m not going to compare the show to Avatar, because that’s not what this show is. The set is gorgeous and the effects are nice. What bothers me most is that they decided not to use well known dinosaurs. Apparently, they thought it’d be more interesting to create dinosaurs “that might have existed” as opposed to ones that we know, especially due to Mr. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies. I know I wasn’t the only one thinking, “I’ve never heard of that dinosaur.” It took a little will power to not get on the internet to look up these “new” dinosaurs.

For a premiere show, I thought the story was well done. Luckily, they did explain that it was a separate reality from the future they left, which easily dismissed the complaints that people like me who overly criticize time travel in movies and T.V. shows in a couple of lines. A couple of the reveals in the show, which I’m not going to spoil here, were obvious and I wish that they weren’t. My hope is that this show doesn’t turn into Lost where more questions are raised than answered, or The Event where questions are asked and answered every episode, but the story never gets developed beyond the first episode.

All in all, the show was good and worth tuning in next week. We’ll see if it has longevity.

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This post was written by Bedlam on September 27, 2011

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Tags: 3 Fists, Reveiws, Television

Quick Review: Deus Ex Human Revolution

Every since I got the Xbox 360 up and running, I’ve been playing the heck out of video games. Mainly, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the only game I’ve played that I felt like I needed to write a review. I’m not fan of pure RPGs but Human Revolution isn’t a pure RPG in my opinion.

You play Adam Jensen head of security for Serif Industries. Serif is a company that provides augmentations to individuals. There’s an explosion and your girlfriend and her research team are killed and you’re left for dead. You awaken and because of the extensive damage you suffered Serif has decided to give you augmentations to fix the physical damage. After you get back to work, your goal in the game is to find out who was behind the attack and who killed your girlfriend.

As a player you can decide what type of character Jensen will be. It isn’t as simple as choosing a class in most RPGs, but there are basically 3 types of play. You can be a Hacker, Stealth player, or you can blast your way through the game like an FPS. The best thing about this is that it lends itself to tons of replay value, which is always good for games. You don’t have to commit to anyone of these since I found myself doing a combination of Hacker and Stealth. It’s important to at least think about it because you upgrade you augmentations using Praxis points. I’ll just say that you should get the Icarus landing upgrade quickly because any fall from any height will apparently kill you.

I like the openess of the game. The augmentation system is realatively easy to understand and not that complicated, especially if you decide early how you want to play the game. The game rewards you for exploration. You can avoid conflicts and get through an entire area without ever having to put someone down. The graphics were good, and the voiceacting was passable…..except Letitia the Trash Lady. Just watch for yourself.

The only major problem deals with the boss fights. The game gives you a lot of opportunities to avoid conflict either by stealth or talking someone down. But then the developers put you in a locked room with a boss that you can’t reason with or conversate with. I thought that this would have been a perfect opportunity to show off the games’ Social Enhancement augemtation. It would have bneen cool to be able to at least have the chance to talk your way out of the fight. Players who chose to go either the stealth path or hacker path of augmentations will find all the boss fights difficult since you will be outgunned. One thing I did, which I don’t know if the developers thought of this, is that I would take hacked turretts with me whenever I could and put them in a room with enemies and let the turrent take them out. I even took a turret into the next to last boss fight and being outgunned was no longer a problem. That’s another great thing about the game; it rewards you for thinging outside of the box.

Except for the boss fights, Deus Ex Human Revolution is a great game with stunning visuals. The gameplay is nice and the artwork is good. If you have the chance to play this game you should. I would even recommend it as a purchase.