Director: Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead 2004)
Writer/Co-Director: Frank Miller (original comic, Sin City comic, helped direct Sin City movie)
*minor spoilers ahead, but if you already know the outcome of the Battle of Thermopylae, then it's not a big deal*
I saw it in the theater last night. I thought it was predictable at times, and a bit repetitive, but it was still watchable. They used a pet peeve of mine - speeding up and slowing down the film during action sequences. I HATE this trend with all my little black heart, because it's run approximately 300 feet into the ground by this point and less realistic than showing a normal frame-rate (then again, who goes to a movie based on a Frank Miller comic and expects realism?). I can see how that can make the fighting scenes more palatable (i.e. slowing down during the important part, when someone actually gets stabbed and killed), but they went a little crazy with it. It sounded cheesy to play rock music during certain sequences, too. And it was a little irritating when they slowed down the film during parts where nothing was really going on, like following the queen in that one shot without knowing her endeavors. What was the point?
It was still awesome how they showed highlights of a Spartan boy growing up, (though the wolf at the end of the sequence looked poorly rendered). I liked the gore from the fighting scenes, and characters' costumers were lush and beautiful. I wish I would have seen more Spartans die in the first few battles (it seemed like little, if any, did) to properly show their sacrifice, instead of most of them dying at the last stand, but oh well.
Overall, I'd give it a C+. Not terribly impressive, but watchable and a decent popcorn flick.
In the interests of at least making the forum less cluttered, you'll have noticed that the layout of the main page has been changed some.
CHANGES:
Movie Reviews merged into Reviews, for consistency's sake. Online Game Trading deleted. It has not ever been used and almost certainly never would be. Twilight Princess Forum merged into Tendo City. It's Nintendo-themed and belongs there, as a sub-forum. All Hidden Forums merged into Forum 5. All threads remain, but having all those unused forum categories was just a waste of space. Forum 5 merged into Save Tendo City! It's never used, but there's too much to just delete.
Re-arranged forum layout in a way that is more streamlined.
PROPOSED CHANGES:
Merge YouTube Videos into Ramble City. I personally don't think it warrants having its own sub-forum or category when Ramble City already has dozens of threads about flash videos. And etoven is the only person who ever makes threads there, anyway.
You know how a lot of message boards these days are using those bizarre "type in these letters below" with some gif image full of stuff that maybe you can kinda understand to register?
Well, we've got spam bots every now and then, we should prevent them but I've seen an even better method.
When we talk about ninjas, we are talking about the sweetest being ever- that is, we are talking about the being that which nothing sweeter can be conceived. So, when we conceive of the ninja in our mind, we conceive of the being that which nothing sweeter can be conceived. But consider this: Is it sweeter to exist only in the mind or to exist both in the mind and in reality-outside the mind? Certainly, it is much sweeter to exist also in reality-flipping out and wailing on guitars is much sweeter when someone is actually doing it. So when we conceive of the sweetest being ever, we are conceiving of the being that exists both in the mind and in reality. Since the ninja is that being that which nothing sweeter can be conceived and that being exists in the mind and in reality, the ninja exists in reality. Thus the ninja exists.
QED. Philosophers are idiots.
Rephrase: Since the ninja is that being that which nothing sweeter can be conceived and that being IS CONCEIVED OF as existing in the mind and in reality, the ninja exists in reality. Oh wait, that's a nonsequiter...
First of all, remember the rumor that made the internet implode? Turns out that yes, Sony WAS making the "Home" network, and yes, it's basically a fusion of Live achievements and Wii Miis. Only, it takes it way beyond what Nintendo is doing with Mii. Check that first link for a video. Now, I'll tell you right now I prefer the art style Nintendo went with. I just don't like the realistic "Second Life" look. I prefer cute little animal robots that nearly resemble old timey sprites in their width/height ratios. Other than that, the idea of a massive set of environments to chat with others and a home you can invite people back to full of decorations? Yeah, I'm all over that. Still, that's really just a secondary perk (and a chat room like the V-Chat of old).
So check the second video. THAT is a platformer I WANT to play! It's a nicely done physics system that lends itself well to all sorts of awesome little tricks worked into the game. I mean I really want to play that!
So in other words, Sony's starting to get my attention. Keep it up and maybe I might just get a PS3. Of course, announcements of dropping features like native support for PS2 games (in favor of poor emulation and paying for a team of programmers to slowly expand it's emulated games list, which seems a very poor choice to me) don't help things. BC needs to get improved, not set back a few years.
The fans are unhappy... The thing is, I never finished either one, though I have friends that have both and I have to say I loved playing them those times we could actually get together online (in fact I think I prefer the online survival with friends to playing the single player games). I guess that means I have to convince them to play, find time all of us have free, and finish it by month's end.
The problems here are the same as with Substistance. REOutbreak doesn't have an option to enter a 3rd party server's IP address, nor are the games on the PC where they would be more readily hackable. Again, I'd be forced to buy a mod chip and solder it into my system to even have a chance of maybe someone hacking in custom online play and then someone hosting a server.
The only hope here is that Sony will take it upon itself to host the servers for these games that are dropping like flies, but that's a pretty distant hope.
