The Dark Knight Rises Review

The Dark Knight was always a film that was going to be hard to match let alone top. Going into the cinema I would've been happy that it even matched up to the first in the series, Batman Begins. Forget all that though, my expectations were blown away. The casting was brilliant, with the newbies, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway and Marion Cotillard all putting in tremendous performances, as well as the usuals providing stellar performances with an extra mention for Michael Caine, who I thought put in an absolutely marvelous performance as Alfred. Anne Hathaway was a real surprise to me though. All I've ever seen from her is dull rom-coms, but she brought an exciting, funny and sexy edge to Catwoman, which was way better than Michelle Pfeiffer's in Batman Returns. The fact that she was true to the comics was brilliant. She looked amazing (You know, in a non-pervy way).

I had my doubts about how good Bane would be as a lead villain. I wasn't sure that it would match up to the magnificent Joker of the previous film, but I was very wrong. Nolan's interpretation of Bane was brilliant. Of course, nothing like the comics, but who cares when he fits so well into this story? Tom Hardy looked and played the part. I had issues with his voice at first, but you got used to it as the film progressed.

The story was, once again, a brilliant one. It had twists and turn the whole way throughout, carried along by the once again amazing protagonist and antagonist. The ending was beautifully crafted and answered everything you needed. I walked out of that cinema past content. Infact I wouldn't have changed a single thing.

Another mention has to go for the music, wonderfully crafted by Han Zimmer. Honestly I think they would've been half the films, without his unbelievable work. He adds something to every scene whether it be tension, frenetic pace or pure shiver down your spine moments.

So that's that. A fantastic ending. Is it my favourite trilogy of all time? Yes probably. I can't think of another trilogy which has been this consistent through all three of the films.

Thank you Christopher Nolan for your fantastic work on these films and for also ruining any other Batman film that WB inevitably push out of productions. Now I hope to see you direct Bond 24, or anything for that matter. Can you make a bad film? I think not.  

5 Reasons why the Spiderman trilogy sucked

1) Tobey Maguire
He just wasn't a very good Peter Parker or Spiderman. He just seemed to be whiny and annoying. And god, that 'emo' phase from Spiderman 3. He just didn't play the part well at all.


2) The costume designs were pretty bad
This is mainly for the first one. I didn't like the Spiderman costume. I don't know why, I can't quite put my finger on it. Something just bugged me about it. As for the green goblin, that one is fucking awful. He looks like a villain from a really bad saturday morning cartoon. The green goblin is supposed to be terrifyingly scary and he just wasn't. The venom costume is just plain lazy. They've just turned the already bad spiderman costume black. Very lame.

3) Badly done villains
Like I said about the green goblin. It just isn't scary enough. He doesn't carry some of the most iconic weapons and gadgets from the comics. Dr. Octopus was probably the best, but still he wasn't russian. Hence taking out the whole of his backstory completely. Then the atrocious villains from Spiderman 3. None of theme were developed enough. Sandman was boring and badly acted. James Franco just wasn't right for the hob/new goblin and Venom didn't have enough time and sucked. I wasn't even sure that that was possible.

4) No Webshooters
This one really pissed me off. Raimi basically dismissed the fact that Peter was a genius and a science wiz. It just doesn't make sense why he would choose to do that. For me, he's taking a lot of character out of Peter Parker just by choosing to do that.

5) It's not funny enough 
The best thing about Spiderman for me it's the humour of Spiderman compared to the nerdyness of Peter Parker. The trilogy didn't have that. Tobey Maguire played the same part for both of them, which shouldn't have happened. The whole point is that Peter Parker feels comfort in the suit and becomes confident, hence taunting the villains. This didn't happen, which was disappointing.

Rezzed - Day Two

I got there on the Saturday morning before it opened so I could really have time to go on everything. As soon as it opened I went to play Krater. I was actually quite surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's like a cross between Torchlight and Borderlands. It plays just like Torchlight, a point and click, top down RPG, but with the style of Borderlands. The 20 minute demo I played was really interesting. I won't buy it now, but if it was ever on sale I would definitely go for it. 

I then played some indie games on show. One of them was Drunken Robot Pornography (yes I know). It played quite well. You had a jet pack and massive robots kept appearing and you had to take them out and you would get points. Not the deepest or most enticing game I've played, but for what it was, I enjoyed it. Another indie game I played was Guacamelee. A 2D sidescroller, where you play as a luchador on a quest through dual worlds to save El Presidente's daughter. I was pretty impressed with it actually. It plays like Shank, but with less edge. The puzzles are quite cool and the characters are funny. I also played Gateways. Okay, this is a 2D platformer kind of like Terraria, but instead of copying Minecraft, it's copied Portal. It doesn't play badly really and the puzzles are quite challenging. 

At the end of the day, I finally got my hands on Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was set up, so the Gearbox guys were playing as the Aliens and we were the marines. We got absolutely owned. They were too good. We had no chance. It's very good though and I was quite surprised at how it managed to keep the suspense and tension in the multiplayer. It certainly shows good signs for the single player when it's released. 

Okay, so now onto the conferences. I didn't go to all of them on day two because I wanted to play more games and the lineup wasn't great. 

First of all, it was Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Indie Panel. Basically, it was their take on doing a panel show, which was actually quite funny. Questions like 'what game was that quote from?' and 'Can you make a new game character out of chewed hubba bubba?' helped make it a very enjoyable hour.

It was then time for the developers of the upcoming Prison Architect, showing the rise and fall of Subversion and showing more of Prison Architect. The stuff on Subversion was really cool, they were telling us how they had built all the very cool tech, but how it actually sucked as a game and they didn't want to release shit. So kudos to them for that. Then onto Prison Architect which looks very impressive. The premise is that you have to make a prison that will cater for the inmates. Simple really, but just like the Sims it looks like it'll come with it's difficulties. A day one buy for me really after the showing. I think it looks brilliant. 

Up next was Dean Hall talking about DayZ. He told us a bit about the game and then for the most part, it was a Q&A which really helped enlighten me about the game. I'm not really feeling it at the moment. I don't really dig the premise. I can feel myself getting bored just fending off zombies, with no real objective. 

The last conference I went to was Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Gamejam. It turned out to be really cool. It was all the developers from all the conferences who were told to develop a game in an hour with the theme of resurrection with disastrous, but hilarious outcomes. We had scientists vs jesus, a board game that came to nothing, a game that couldn't be played at all and various amounts of technical difficulties. 

So that was my weekend with Rezzed. It was brilliant, totally worth the money. I really hope they do it next year, I'll definitely be go if that is the case! 

Got any questions? Comment below or email me at mcmillen.starsky52@googlemail.com

Rezzed - Day One

My day started with a bit of Serious Sam 3 survival mode which was quite enjoyable if difficult, just like every Serious Sam game. I also played some Borderlands 2, which was fantastic. Definitely my favourite game at the show. I really can't wait for it!

The first conference was from Indiestone, the developers of Project Zomboid. They came to speak about the do's and don'ts of making video games. It turned about to be very entertaining and funny as well as being factual. They spoke about the problems they had developing the game including bomb scares (I know), budget limits and lack of time. They also spoke about the benefits of being an indie developer, including getting to craft the game all on your own, whereas at bigger studios you barely make an impact. It was a very cool conference and a great start to the show!

Next up, The Creative Assembly to talk about 25 years in the business and Total War: Rome 2. During the show, we got to see a before alpha trailer of Total War: Rome 2 which looked very impressive, especially due to the fact it needed a lot of work. They spoke about their console team's new game, well just about. They said it was going to be using the Alien IP and that's about it. Still, ALIENS!!

Now it was time for possibly the coolest guy to ever grace gaming. Yes, it's the guy who brought Duke back from the grave, Randy Pitchford. We got to see a playthrough of Borderlands 2, which as you know, I think looks unbelievable. During the demo, Claptrap was on form. Very funny and just like the original, the comic relief. Some of the new skills look cool and intuitive. Also, Randy announced that there would be splitscreen co-op and online co-op at the same time, which I thought Borderlands really needed.

Peter Molyneux was next. I was bracing myself for all of the promises he was about to give me. However, he was actually very cool. He spoke more about his new studio, 22 Cans and his new curiousity game. This looks really cool. Basically, you have a cube of 6 million little squares. Everyone hacks away at it to get to the middle, where there is a special 'something' that he was hush about. I think it looks good, apart from the fact that it could be over in seconds and that would be it. I look forward to downloading it though, you never know, it could be me!

The last conference of the show was from the guys behind Natural Selection 2. Now I hadn't really seen much of this before today and wasn't sure what to expect, but they gave a really solid show which enticed me from the start (probably due to him being Australian).

So that was my time at day one of Rezzed. Did any of you go? Comment below or email me at Mcmillen.starsky52@googlemail.com