Including the New York Public Library as a playable mission in the demo^[1] should have been a dead giveaway. As one of the signature setpieces in the film Ghostbusters, allowing players to take part in a second trip to this locale with familiar faces in tow, is essentially what Ghostbusters: The Video Game entails. It collects a series of touchstones for players to reminisce about, while attempting to tell a new story. Except the story reclaims entire sections of the film and its sequel, patching together plot points, locations and famous adversaries in what amounts to playing inside a world of Ghostbusters: Greatest Hits. You are constantly harangued by Walter Peck and the new Paranormal Contract Oversight Committee. You have to fight the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man (again). You get to destroy the Sedgewick Hotel (again). About the only thing interesting is the encounter with Ivo Shandor, the Architect of Dana Barrett’s apartment building from the first film, who remained a legend that was never really explored. In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, you discover how obsessed with the Gozerian cult he really was, as the Ghosbusters slowly uncover a plot designed by Shandor years ago, to bring about the coming of The Destroyer.

This brief incursion into Ghostbusters lore comes too late in the game, and it’s frustratingly obvious that the previous missions were filler to relive everyone’s favorite moments from the films. But as you play the game, its intentions are clear: this is not meant to be a video game as much as it is intended to be those Greatest Hits, as it was not designed for an audience who plays video games. Rather, it was created to placate fans of the movies that also happen to play video games.

As a result, both Terminal Reality and Atari are banking on this brand recognition to give the game a passing grade. Any critic or reviewer that has been paying attention over the last eight years would see this game for what it is: old, outdated, unnecessary. So why the relatively high scores^[2], respectable sales performance^[3] and praise as wistful recollections? The answer is simple: Nostalgia is a dangerous weapon used to great effect in the video game industry. It will beat people senseless – especially in a hobby that helped many people through their childhoods.

If Terminal Reality were feeling ambitious when they started the project, they could have made Ghostbusters into a game that stood beside other “open-world” ^[4] titles like Red Faction: Guerrilla, inFamous, and Prototype that seemed to be in fashion in the first half of 2009. The entire concept behind Ghostbusters is ripe for exploitation with this formula, where side-missions can be completed while following the main plot to key story-driven missions in the streets of New York City. Even the films themselves establish such a framework: the Ghostbusters are either starting out (Ghostbusters) or making a comeback (Ghostbusters II), completing small tasks on the way to fighting a greater evil. The entire film worked towards a final confrontation. This should be familiar to anyone who’s ever played a video game.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is not just another example of the lack of ambition on the part of game designers to develop a captivating product, but of the industry at large: stuck in the past assuming that the weight of intellectual property and the familiar will bear heavily on the opinions of those that play their game. Ghostbusters: The Video Game is not just old because it reuses scenes, jokes and events from the films, but also because of its unwavering approach to the game’s objectives. Its linear design is based on the most rudimentary of movie-tie ins. While the actual “ghostbusting” remains fun until the end, it’s hard not to view Ghostbusters: The Video Game as anything more than a third-person shooting gallery with proton packs. In this regard, the game fails on two fronts: it cannot provide an engaging framework for a game, and it cannot provide an engaging enough story to excuse the simple mechanics.

I was hoping for something like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, where the creators clearly took the source material to heart, and created a brand new adventure that may have borrowed from the original films, but didn’t overtly copy them. Instead, the game carried the spirit of the original source so that it wouldn’t seem out of place next to the films that inspired it. Ghostbusters: The Video Game had the potential to do this as well, and would have made the limitations of the game a little easier to tolerate. The story and script were handled by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis – the writers responsible for the original films – and the best they could come up with falls hopelessly short of these expectations.

Ackroyd often said in the interviews promoting the game and his involvement with it that Ghostbusters: The Video Game is “essentially Ghostbusters III“^[5], or the sequel that everyone wanted but never received. And to revisit the same locations so predictably says a lot about their opinions and assumptions of the fan base. The fans want wish fulfillment, they want cheap thrills. They want the security blanket of their youth. And they got it.

The dialogue will make you laugh, and the sarcastic delivery of most lines will certainly bring you back to watching the movies as an impressionable youth. The fluidity of the dialogue is also impressive. Either the actors are drawing from experience, or more time than usual was spent in the studio. In either case, it suits the game and presents a playful atmosphere reminiscent of the films. Any scenarios intended to invoke fear are always undermined by a one-liner or wisecrack from one of the team, which is something the films did so well. However, the cutscenes between levels felt long, as if the development team were trying to assemble a movie. Except it doesn’t actually work when the game is already stripped to the bare essentials.

Apart from the infiltration of Ivo Shandor’s hidden island laboratory, players have seen everything else before. There is precious little information offered to substantiate the lore presented in the previous films. Reusing old plot points with different characters is common practice. To take Ghostbusters: The Video Game as the third film would therefore be a mistake, as I doubt any studio would support such a horrible script. And this is yet more evidence of the divergence between video games and their clumsy and pleading comparisons to the film industry: a bad plot in film is a pretty good plot for a video game, even as we “turn our brains off” as the reviewers love to justify. No one should play video games because they want to watch a movie. They would be wasting their time, and that of everyone else when they start complaining about the lack of interactivity afterward.

The depth to the system in Ghostbusters: The Video Game is through upgrades that can be purchased with money earned on each mission: better traps, four types of particle beams, modifications to the PKE meter. In other words, the most callous and unimaginative reason to ask someone to keep playing your game.

I’m willing to give Egon the benefit of the doubt for some of the weapons that were invented specifically for this game – the character was clearly a wizard with technology. They also keep with genre conventions to some degree: Boson darts are the shotgun, the freeze beam slows enemies, etc. However, simply pausing the game will allow the purchase of these upgrades. In fact, there is one mission where a new technology is suddenly activated on your proton pack in the middle of a mission, meaning you had been carrying it all along. I can understand the need for a certain technology to be available for a particular mission, but the mission progression should be designed so these upgrades could be purchased or handed out at the beginning of each. Allowing this kind of freedom to access new technology at any time removes the need for a planning phase. Even in such a linear game as this, the addition of something so simple would at least give the illusion of challenge.

Trapping ghosts is still satisfying right until the end. The game really makes you work for it. You feel the bend and pull of the makeshift equipment in your hands. With the “Slam Dunk” modification to the trap, ghosts can be captured in one shot if you Slam a ghost near a trap. In either case there is an exaggerated feeling of relief when the ghost is finally caught. You have to take a few seconds to regroup, even though there are five other ghosts floating around above you. The moment has to be savored. There are so precious few of them in this game.

A dynamic of the game that only reveals itself later on is teamwork. This isn’t as necessary at the beginning, where fallen teammates were an inconvenience during a boss battle. In the later missions, there are multiple ghosts requiring attention from your particle thrower, and even then they will require more than one person to knock it into submission. During these encounters, you need your teammates to survive. Even though a ghost may be seconds away from being trapped, you have to drop everything and revive your teammates or you will die attempting to do everything yourself. An example of this is in the Museum mission, where you must manage the ghostly possession of civilians as well as your own teammates, all the while attempting to capture the ghosts that are responsible. It’s a harsh lesson, but one that was clearly presented by the films. The war against the supernatural in New York City is not a solo effort.

In fact, starting with the fight against the Librarian partway through the third chapter, the game starts to show promise. Aside from the constant direction and commentary from your teammates, the encounters with large ghosts and mission bosses are challenging as you manage damage and try to recover teammates. It can be a frustrating system as you attempt to compensate for the middling squad AI, but at the end of each battle there is a sense of accomplishment. It’s like repeating the last 10 minutes of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II each time. These encounters are the reason you keep playing.

And yet the game really starts to break down in the last act when travelling towards the final encounter with Shandor. It becomes difficult in the way you have to manage projectile enemies, swarming enemies, ghosts that must be trapped, and larger monsters. This is a sharp spike that throws off the previously established rhythm of the game. It is no longer about “hunting” ghosts, but fending them off with random blasts of particle beams just to get some space to do your job.

The final showdown with the mayor of New York City – possessed by the ghost of Ivo Shandor, no less – provides a two-stage battle that evokes something startlingly similar to the conclusion of Ghostbusters II. Though Terminal Reality must be given accolades for this encounter, as it is an extremely satisfying, drawn-out fight in the spirit realm, instead of the lucky shots at the end of each film that were favored in the name of pacing. The game’s plot had genuine closure, and all was right with the world (again).

So it’s quite puzzling as to why Terminal Reality assumed that multiplayer would be a big draw for people after the main game was completed, when all it really amounts to is a collection of random task-based missions that can be played co-operatively. It was wasted effort, considering that it had no hope of competing with more attractive options for online play at the time. And Terminal Reality wasn’t even responsible for this component of the game; it was contracted out to Threewave Software. Assuming that this freed up more time to be spent on the single-player campaign, the overall package doesn’t show it.

Nevertheless, there are the collective opinions of the press that must be resolved. If anyone took the time to consider what was being offered by the game, it would be very hard to justify the 78% average that the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 versions have received. Reading any number of reviews^[6] will yield the same sentiment: if you like Ghostbusters, this game is for you. But what if I like video games? No one dared look at this game critically, or in depth beyond pointing out obvious faults – it was perfectly acceptable to give the game an average score an move on, business as usual. There is no need to desecrate happy childhood memories. But sometimes there is.

Make no mistake: Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a tie-in to the films. The producers of the video game said as much: the release of the game was intended to coincide with the anniversary of the theatrical release of the first film, and the remastering of the films on Blu Ray. And yet any other movie tie-in is automatically approached with contempt by the video game press, as if these other video games were the reason the industry overall was being cheapened. Except that’s exactly what’s happening in this case. It’s just that no one wants to see it.

A recognizable piece of intellectual property can be made into a good video game – there are already a number of examples from recent years – but they, too, suffer the same fate of being intellectual property first, and a video game second. The most recent case of this is Batman: Arkham Asylum, where the general sentiment was “a Batman game that isn’t terrible.” How special developers Rocksteady must feel!

If players are happy to “play Ghostbuster”, Ghostbusters: The Video Game certainly succeeds on that crude level. But why should it get a passing grade just for fan service? It’s the same reason why video games should not be given the right of way because it supplies “a good story”^[7]. These are games, and should be judged as such from the beginning. Giving these types of games an acceptable grade assures that we we will see more of this half-hearted approach, proving once again that we are destined to recycle the same material with better graphical fidelity. Being satisfied with “good enough”, assures a future of being fed leftovers from the trough of nostalgia.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game isn’t long, and so despite the numerous faults that have been pointed out here it doesn’t take long to finish. The thrill of wrangling ghosts and capturing lasted until the end, even with the spike in difficulty. The production is also well done: Atari spared no expense in obtaining the music and original actors (they even dug up William Atherton to play Walter Peck). All the earmarks of a work inspired by these movies is there. But this is looking through the Ghostbusters Yearbook, and we’re all grown up now, and the Ghostbusters are old friends that aren’t as interesting as your remember them. Ghostbusters: The Video Game could have put a familiar face on the proven, comfortable sandbox/”open world” formula. Bust ghosts with your pals Venkman, Stanz, Spengler and Zedmore. But do it inside the structure of a game that is well-equipped for such a theme. Invent your own story. Save the city of New York again, on your terms.

So the question for the player becomes: Am I interested enough in a recycled story to continue?

Even though Ghostbusters: The Video Game takes place in 1991, the game is still stuck in its own past as a hopeless artifact of the 1980s. A retread referencing old jokes, old plot points and forever doomed to be a nostalgic curiosity. If Terminal Reality had worked on making a video game instead of a finely polished homage, there might have been something in Ghostbusters: The Video Game worth praising. As it stands, nostalgia is the selling feature and weighs heavily on the game’s proceedings. For some, that is obviously enough. However, complaining about a lack of advancement in video games, while cuddling with one that is mired in our collective childhood means there is really only one person to blame. And there will be no sympathy.

“If you loved the films then this is the game that you have been waiting for.” – Extreme Gamer

“If you’re a fan of the movies this alone is largely enough to look past the game’s failings.” – Total Video Games

“If you dug the movies, there’s no reason that you should be disappointed with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.” – IGN

Reading the recommendations^[1] for Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) is infuriating; the reviews that avoid hauling out these useless tropes are in short supply. Though I can’t blame the reviewers entirely – it’s a function of the industry, and we’ve been programmed to tolerate it. The video game industry has an entire sector dedicated to parading our childhood out in front of us whether repackaged (just look any major XBox Live release), or bundled on some compliation disc. And it always seems to garner a wistful response from the video game media.

Yeah, I remember those times, too. They were great, weren’t they?

And we all know what happened with The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After the initial euphoria wore off from years of waiting, we saw these endeavors for what they really were: cash-ins by creators who had lost touch with their creations a long, long time ago.

So why Ghostbusters? When you think about it, it’s been close to 20 years since a proper Ghostbusters game has even been made^[2]. Ghostbusters is the next logical target, waiting like some vein of precious metal to be exploited. Is Ghostbusters: The Video Game intended for the demographic of gamers who are slowly losing interest in the hobby because it no longer speaks to them? Digging up a beloved franchise is the easiest way to draw this audience back in; it’s clearly working for Hollywood lately^[3]. There was also plenty of turmoil surrounding who would actually publish Terminal Reality’s tribute. Originally to be published by Sierra, the merge of Vivendi with Activision in 2008 ejected Ghostbusters: The Video Game into publishing no man’s land. The internet erupted with righteous fury. It was obvious why people wanted this game: it represented their youth, a comeback of sorts for a franchise that never seemed to get the treatment it deserved.

The game was eventually picked up by Atari, and released last month. Which also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the 1984 theatrical release of Ghostbusters. I think the whole thing was staged.

From the outset, Ghostbusters: The Video Game has nostalgia working to its advantage. Like video games themselves, Ghostbusters was created during an era of consumable culture, of iconic characters, action figures and Saturday morning cartoons. That’s why Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Transformers and G.I. Joe still resonate with us. It provided characters and worlds that were so distinctive, entire product empires were built upon them. We were being exploited then; we just didn’t realize it. And now they’re back for more.

Ghostbusters II (1989) for DOS was my first (and last) video game experience with the franchise. I remember the game being frustratingly difficult, but it still managed to give the impression that Activision had created a kind of simluator. You would go on ghost busting missions, collect slime for experiments, earn money for new equipment – but limitations in technology resulted in a game that felt patched together with action sequences and needless puttering around in the laboratory screen. The game structured the missions around the main plot points of the movie, but the effort to design something different than the usual action game was there. Or maybe that’s just me being nostalgic.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game starts with you as the nameless “Rookie”, following around the veteran Ghostbusters Ray, Egon and Winston. The developers spared no expense in recruiting the film’s original actors to reprise their role in the game. The animated sequences and one-liners will elicit a laugh or two. At first, I couldn’t stop staring at the flashing lights and details on the proton pack. It was hypnosis. I couldn’t believe they had created the proton pack exactly as I had imagined it. But before critical blindness induced by nostalgia is allowed to set in, the game introduces its brand of action.

The structure of the mission included in the demo feels uncomfortable at first. You are hunting a ghost; the game doesn’t present you with a steady stream of opposition. Instead, you walk around staring at your PKE meter and wait for the arms to go horizontal. This was clearly the more faithful approach, but the presentation doesn’t make for an exciting video game. The controls are typical of third person shooters, but stripped of all recent conventions like leaning, taking cover, and crouching. Because you aren’t using a conventional gun, the game uses an “overheating” mechanic similar to Mass Effect, where fire must be controlled with bursts from the particle thrower. The manual venting option allows you to cool down your proton pack instantly, and follows a rhythm reminiscent of the active reload in Gears of War. There are other types of beams that can slow down or stun enemies, but these are just ornaments dumped into the game along with paid upgrades to make it appear deeper.

As a game, Ghostbusters doesn’t really have a lot to teach you. You are expected to go through the motions, listening to Egon’s instructions or Ray’s reactions to what’s happening. You fire the particle thrower and you destabalize ectoplasm. Yes, this is a Ghostbusters game.

I’ll admit, Ghostbusters still managed to hit me where it counted: it tapped in to that feeling of being 10 years old and wanting to be a Ghostbuster, to strap on a proton pack with the quack scientists that somehow managed to save New York City. Once again, nostalgia is wielded by the video game industry to great effect, making the game seem better than it actually is.

The initial impressions of the design clearly showed it was dictacted by a philosophy that only required it to be passable. Fans would be placated as their favorite characters and memories of the films suddenly materialized on screen to interact with. This tempted me to reject the game as so much patronizing bullshit. This skeleton of a design that wanted to push all the right buttons left me feeling that maybe this was the start of another trend, where nostalgia itself is a feature of a video game.

And then they got one thing so undeniably right.

What does it feel like to trap a ghost? Ghostbusters: The Video Game makes sure you know. I surprised myself with how positively I reacted to the action; it was the most fun I’ve had with a video game in years. (And this includes blowing up large buildings with perfectly placed charges in Red Faction: Guerrilla). The game lets you feel like you are wrangling a ghost at the end of your proton beam. Moving the ghost into position over the trap, the failed attempts, working together with the computer-controlled AI – Terminal Reality has constructed the essence of trapping a ghost. This was the film’s signature moment. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man will be what is remembered, but capturing ghosts was what we wanted to do when we were younger.

Ghostbusters then becomes an interesting specimen in the video game industry’s assault on our nostalgia, because it captures the moment that matters while making it feel so legitimate.

This is a Ghostbusting simulation. And it is the only one of its kind. For that I have to give the team at Terminal Reality some credit: they may not have laid the groundwork for an exceptional game, but I take their homage to the fabled franchise of our youth as an act of sincerity. If only Hollywood could be as respectful of our memories.

I can only speculate whether this sentiment is built to last for an entire game, or will fade after the tedium of the rudimentary combat and repetitive missions set in. Even though I already know the answer, I feel I owe it to my 10 year-old self to give Ghostbusters: The Video Game a fair chance. And that’s probably what Atari was banking on.

My first exposure to Gears of War was a commercial that aired in late 2006 featuring Gary Jules’ cover of “Mad World”. It was an awkward insertion of a popular song for what appeared to be a grungy, blood spattered action game for emotionally stunted adult males. If I heard that song in, say, a Final Fantasy commercial, that would have been entirely justifiable – predictable even – for the series’ melodramatic tendencies. But watching these juiced-up football players bedecked in pock-marked bulky armor fight off what appeared to be zombies, or insects, or insect-zombies to such a mopey tune was a jarring spectacle. What message was the advertisement sending me? Was I supposed to feel sorry for these battle-weary soldiers pressing on in some city decimated by war to defend the human race? Were these men actually sensitive to the death and destruction around them? My first response was that it was merely a ruse to get me to think this game would be something different. It wouldn’t be about killing endless waves of the faceless alien invader; rather, it would explore the human condition and man’s response to being thrown into a war he didn’t want to fight, but was damn well expected to end.

After about two solid hours of playing the game, I stopped thinking so hard about this. Gears of War is not a statement about the atrocities of war in modern times. The arrangement between Gears of War and its player is much simpler. The game inscribes upon the player the desire to fire a gun – repeatedly and with extreme prejudice. It encourages hooting and hollering and much chest-thumping after each challenging firefight. It revels in the act of shooting a weapon so much that it becomes the only reason you come back to the game. And the game leaves you no other choice but to love it in return.

Gears of War has become a kind of figurehead for the “hardcasual” movement – genres traditionally for the hardcore adapted to be accessible – to the point where anyone who likes it must obviously be a brickheaded cretin and have no taste in video games. It’s always the fate of any successful title, and feels a little more petty every time it happens. But to dwell on that point is to miss the game’s biggest strength: it allows itself to be picked up by almost anyone and have its essence immediately tapped by the Player. That this experience can be enjoyed by the hardcore and casual alike is a feat worth recognizing.

Halo ushered in a new age of shooters that were adapted for the console; Gears of War is the only shooter I have played since that managed to create controls that I feel perfectly comfortable with. Cliff Bleszinski has mentioned that he was inspired by the shooting controls of Resident Evil 4, but Epic has not just improved them as they have perfected them, creating a template that all console shooters should adhere to from this day forward. Playing the PC version allowed the use of Mouse/Keyboard, and I did try it for a short while, but I found myself switching back to my Xbox 360 control pad. They felt jittery and their cold precision took me outside of the game. I felt like I was cheating myself of the experience of playing the original game as it was intended.

Gears of War isn’t just about running into an area and shooting everything in sight. Well, not totally. Yes, the game is on rails as you are coralled through corridors into each new area. But Gears breaks up this motion by employing a duck-and-cover system that slows down the action into bite sized exchanges of gunfire. Working with this mechanic is the Crimson Omen, which is just a fancy name for a damage indicator at the centre of the screen. Take enough damage in a short period of time, the screen turns red and you’re dead. This seems to be a pretty ubiquitous concept in the design of modern shooters, but in the case of Gears of War it’s entirely appropriate. It allows the focus to remain on shooting, because instead of constantly referencing a health bar the primary objective is to survive – instant death could be at any moment. It’s another example of how the game forces you to live in the moment. You’re getting shot at – take cover. Find a good position to return fire. Move on to the next objective. It implies an urgency in the game’s pacing. You don’t want to stop the forward momentum.

Much criticism has been directed at Gears for being unoriginal, and not much of a challenge since taking cover isn’t always required on the lowest difficulty setting. That may be true, but where Gears excels is the delivery. The repetition in the dive-for-cover, crouch, peek, aim, fire, crouch, fire pattern in each encounter makes it second nature, to the point where the game takes on a natural rhythm. I have yet to see a more meticulously crafted refinement of the genre. Every one of the game’s features revolves around shooting a gun, or facilitating the act of shooting a gun. Take cover and aim, or take cover and blind fire to suppress an enemy. It makes reloading an active distraction. Instead of reflexive button pushing, Gears introduces the “Active Reload” where you can reload faster or gain damage bonuses for a perfectly timed reload button press. Mess up the timing, and it’s precious seconds before your gun is usable again. It makes you want to focus on reloading to get it right.

Of course, there’s the Lancer. The Lancer represents a landmark in weapon design. It is a gun that I used for the entire game. Even when it was out of ammo, I used the pistol. I didn’t want to drop it for fear of losing this essential appendage. Never before has a weapon’s melee attack been so incredibly satisfying. In first person shooters, melee is often just using the butt of the gun to push enemies back, to buy some time and get a good shot. It might even work. With the Lancer, there is a genuine feeling of comfort knowing that the chainsaw bayonet is always available for an instant kill. Successfully biting the Lancer’s chainsaw into the flesh of the Locust, their black blood spraying across the screen with Marcus providing the guttural growl and the chainsaw buzzing, always buzzing, until the Locust finally falls. These types of theatrics are simply externalizing something that was felt by every PC gamer since using the chainsaw in Doom, and as such are completely necessary.

The setting of Gears of War might as well be in the Warhammer 40,000 universe; the trivial reasons behind the conflict on the fictional world of Sera and the character design for the Gears are clearly influenced by it. By the end of the game you get the impression that maybe the Locust weren’t invaders, but were always there, awakened by bloodlust to exterminate the encroaching humans. The Gears are just dirtied-up Space Marines sent out to do the heavy lifting – and clearly enjoy it. Having the player portray the anti-hero Marcus Fenix, who makes it clear from the start he has no respect for authority, simply reinforces who this game is aimed at. For co-op, the game introduces Dom: a long time friend of Marcus and his wingman for the entire game. While two more members of Delta Squad are added later – the sarcastic Baird and showboat Cole Train – you spend most of your time in game with Marcus and Dom.

Both the appearance and behaviour of these characters are parody of actual humans, and yet they work because of the game’s subject matter. As a result there’s a certain charm to the way the characters are exposed in the game. Marcus is always grumbling about being the Army’s errand boy. Dom grounds the game with humanity in his quest to search for his missing wife. Baird always has a wisecrack and often saves the day with his mechanical know-how, and Cole Train is either talking smack or cutting loose with a “Whoo!” that would make most pro wrestlers blush. These attributes are instant gratification, and do not require any further investment in the characters. Because Gears of War fully subscribes to the less talk, more action approach. And it does that so very, very well.

Gears of War presents a bleak landscape that has been decimated by war. There are only a few colors on its palette that are all too familiar to those experienced with the id software school of level design. There are plenty of destroyed buildings and burned out cars to create a vast supply of cover, choke points and sniper nests. When the game goes underground into the realm of the Locust, the same drab tones are punctuated by lakes and rivers of bright green imulsion, an apparently valuable substance that was never fully explained. The way Gears of War weaves in and out of these locales is as seamless as the way you duck in and out of cover.

The flow of this game is almost perfect: there is barely time to breathe, but you never feel overwhelmed. The action is brilliantly paced in between the spartan in-game cutscenes that deliver only the bare essentials, so the game gets you back into the action where focus belongs. You get the feeling that it is only you and your squad fighting this war, and this ridiculous situation is made worse by the nature of the missions you are forced to go on. Retrieve this item, repair this structure – as if Delta Squad was really just a gang of intergalactic repairmen. But these are reasons that were thrown into the mix because the player needs an objective in this type of game. Simply taking territory and killing everything on the map isn’t incentive enough for players, according to Epic’s designers. Because they studied video games, and they want to show the player that they understand the needs of the action gamer. They want the player to feel like they have accomplished something, represented by a boss battle or blowing up some random piece of machinery. This dangling carrot – or even the prospect of a payoff – helps drive the action forward.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always result in the most satisfying encounters. Much has been said about the inclusion of a driving mission that features another appearance of the darkness-loving Kryll, where you are tasked with driving a vehicle that cannot move and use its weapon at the same time. I can see what Epic was trying to do here: create a driving mission that actually has some tension in it, so the need to keep driving is always there to disguise a set of shitty, unresponsive controls. I could shoot a Lancer all day long, performing Active Reloads to the tune of The Presets’ “Let’s Go”. Seriously. The natural flow of the game was broken by a very clumsy sequence that serves only as an irritating obstacle that must be surmounted before the shooting and chainsawing can resume.

The squad in this game is essentially Marcus and Dominic. Cole and Baird show up from time to time for the larger setpiece battles, but you will always be depending on Dom to watch your back. For the most part, Dom’s AI is serviceable. He will defend objectives, take cover when necessary and try not to get himself killed – too much. So when depending on Dom becomes hazardous (or pointless), the use of cover and less brazen tactics will assure survival in the single player campaign. When incapacitated, squad mates resuscitate themselves when all Locust are cleared from the area anyway.

What’s more impressive is the adversarial AI. In fact, it is often shockingly methodical. Just when you think you have the perfect position and start taking pot shots at the Locust, they suddenly see what’s happening to their comrades and come after you. They will suppress and flank – just like your own squad is doing – to get to your position. They will pick up weapons from their fallen brothers, and will often be equipped with the same things your own team is.

This was a brilliant design decision by Epic, because with it they have effectively dispelled all preconceptions about First Person/Third Person shooters as merely exercises in target practice. The Locust are equals on the battlefield and behave as realistically as you would expect in the context of the overall game’s mechanics. They will all at once seem organized and efficient, while brandishing the kind of fearlessness that is frightening in any enemy. With that said, what really bothered me was the Locust’s uncanny ability to sense when I was aiming the Longshot sniper rifle. In well hidden positions, I very rarely could get more than one shot off before they all started ducking or running right towards me, even if members of my squad were the more immediate threats.

This frenetic exchange of tactics results in a new kind of firefight; conflicts that broach new realms of intensity. I could probably stop writing at this point, and simply say that Gears of War is about firing a gun in a series of well-orchestrated firefights that make you feel like thumping your chest or barking like a wild animal after each battle is won. It brings out both the best and the worst in people that play video games. But this game deserves more than that. So I must continue.

Gears of War establishes its formula early on, because it wants to give casual players the most complete representation of the game so they won’t be intimidated by the introduction of new features or a change in pace. All of the tools available in the war against the Locust have been used by the end of the first Act. The player then hands themselves over to the game’s story, where they are exposed to various setpieces, more challenging areas to fight in, bigger monsters to kill and the frat boy banter between the members of Delta Squad.

The extra levels in Act 5 for the PC version of the game lead in to a battle with a Brumak – a creature previously only revealed through the game’s cutscenes. It feels gratuitous in the context of the overall game, but the buildup to this encounter is almost palpable, to the point where there is no other choice but to include the Brumak in a money shot that almost overshadows the endgame sequence (almost). Defeating the Corpser was only pushing it into imulsion; fighting the Brumak was a legitimate contest. It’s a shame that because of the callousness of Microsoft and Epic owners of the Xbox 360 version of the game will never get to experience this. Though the game’s AI is once again the reason for the encounter’s difficulty – Dom would often get himself stomped by the Brumak after running right up to it.

After the fight with the Brumak, the resolution of Gears of War starts with a battle to get onto a freight train carrying the Lightmass bomb that has managed to elude the grasp of the Gears. It’s not a very subtle metaphor for the climax: Marcus and Dom must fight their way through the cars of this speeding frieght train on a collision course with their final objective.

RAAM, a General in the Locust army, is waiting with the bomb. It’s actually a bit of surprise, because the last time this character appeared was in the game’s first Act when he killed off Kim, which made Marcus the leader of Delta Squad. It’s strange plot device, as if Epic was trying to tie the beginning and end of the game together. I never felt I was out to get RAAM in the game; I was always in pursuit of the next objective. But the fight with RAAM is necessary for closure. It is also incredibly hard. Not just because I was constantly worrying about whether Dom was going to get his ass curb stomped again, or trying the avoid the Kryll immediately drawn to any position I took up. This final confrontation is made difficult because you can’t just pull out The Best Weapon (there is none), take cover and chip away at RAAM from a distance. This fight forces you to use every single tactic you learned while playing the game up until this point. Killing RAAM is a fitting end to the game, because it makes you feel you like you have defeated the game itself, and all it has to offer. It is a perfect culmination.

At the very least, Gears of War positioned itself comfortably next to Halo as an original, exclusive and highly bankable IP for Microsoft’s console. But it also brought accessibility to a genre with an unassuming execution of controls, refined game mechanics and deliciously simple objectives. I didn’t realize how much I loved Gears of War until I started explaining the game to others. These wide-eyed, passionate and often one-sided conversations would basically be reduced to the following statement: Gears of War will make you feel like a man.

I have a list of my favorite games of all time always in my mind when I play. It is constantly referenced and compared as I gain new experiences through video games, though it is rarely updated. Gears of War helped me get past my contempt for the trends of video game culture and its influence on modern video game design, and accept the game for the achievement that it is. The shameless machismo and gun pornography may capture a different audience, but the polished production and unwavering focus on its goal assures Gears of War a position in the halls of video game legend.

The film’s focus is on a high-profile bank robbery where a number of hostages are taken, including a preteen African-American boy who was with his father at the bank. In one scene, the captives are asked to hand over all phones and electronic devices by the leader of the group robbing the bank (played by Clive Owen). The boy happened to be playing a Sony Playstation Portable®, and is ready to give it up. In what is supposed to be an act of kindness, showing our antagonist may be human after all, Owen tells the boy to “Keep it”. I wouldn’t have been so hasty if I was him – those PSP®s can watch movies and play music, too! But that was just the set-up for what follows.

Later on, the boy is seen playing his Sony Playstation Portable® in the bank’s vault. Owen’s character sits down to talk with him, and asks to try out what the kid is playing. We are then shown a scene that is clearly modelled after Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The player is shown as a gangsta dressed in West coast garb cruising in his convertible, who proceeds to blast someone at the side of the road in typical gangland fashion. The player gets out of the car to pump a few more bullets into his victim, blood spattering the wall and pavement. The words “Kill Dat Nigga!” flash on the screen, and the player places an armed hand grenade in the mouth of the other character, showering the scene with gore in some kind of finishing move. The entire scene lasted 30 seconds. I have to admit I was a bit shocked.

The obvious criticism about this situation is that Owen’s character immediately knows how to play, yet is asking about the game. It hints at how forced this commentary feels in the context of the film. Some dialogue loosely paraphrased from the scene:

Robber: “What’s the point of this game?”
Boy: “Rob people. Kill people.”
Robber: “And you like this?”
Boy: “Sure. Just like my man Fitty says, ‘Get rich, or die tryin’. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

Clever kid. In another startling display of social conscience at the end of this exchange, Owen’s character confiscates the game and says that he wants to talk to his father about allowing the boy to play it. This scene can be interpreted in a few ways. First, the commentary on video game violence. Yes it was a gratuitous display, but with mainstream film you are dealing with the uneducated. You have to be hyperbolic when making a point like this, because people still do not get it. The majority of parents do not understand that video game violence exists or is that accessible, or feel that it is “harmless” to impressionable young kids. I still see parents buying San Andreas for kids clearly too young to play it. It’s easier to give them what they want rather than explain why they can’t have it (yet).

Secondly, a complete stranger has taken it upon himself to determine what is appropriate for the boy, and to talk to his father about it. This is reflective of what the vocal minority of parents against violent video games are asking of the U.S. government in their creation of legislation to regulate video games.

Lastly, Lee is commenting on the “Black-on-Black” gang violence that is so prevalent in major urban centres, and how it has been glamorized in games, films and movies. I’m sure the reference to 50 Cent was intentional – his own game Bulletproof was released late last year. In the aftermath of the robbery, the boy and his father are questioned by Denzel Washington’s character, the detective leading the case. The boy boasts that he was never scared during the whole ordeal, even after being exposed to extreme violence first-hand, hinting at the desensitization of youth exposed to this kind of lifestyle.

An article in the Hollywood Reporter is a good summary of how the game sequence was created for the film, though it incorrectly labels it as “machinima”. The way I understand it, Machinima are movies created using existing games and working within the confines of their control schemes; otherwise, it’s just computer generated animation. Spike Lee apparently wanted this “game” to be as graphically violent as possible – in fact, the “Kill Dat Nigga!” screen wasn’t added until the game had been inserted into the film, as he wanted to add some additional “weight” to the sequence. I think the most important part of this exercise is the delivery: he used the medium itself to send the message. This isn’t the first time Lee has used to convey his opinions about video games and gangsta culture, either: Clockers showed a young boy enamored with the drug dealing scene in his housing project playing the ficticious 3D action game “Gangsta”, which allowed him to shoot people while on a bike.

Nevertheless, there is a time and a place for this kind of activism. How about contacting the ESRB next time, Spike? I’m sure you could dream up some killer commercials about the rating system that governs games that are inappropriate for minors. In the framework of this film it was an unnecessary product placement. And when I say product placement, I mean the PSP® (who really wants a PSP these days, anyway?) and the agenda of anti-video game activists. While it didn’t take away from the rest of the film, the method of relaying the message was far too overwrought to be taken seriously.

Ask anyone which chapter of the Indiana Jones trilogy is their favorite and they will name Raiders of the Lost Ark (mine) or The Last Crusade. I have not met a single person who told me that they felt The Temple of Doom was the best, as it is largely considered the weakest of the trilogy by both fans and critics. Why? While it may suffer from being the middle movie in the trilogy, the film stands solidly on its own as a typical Indiana Jones adventure. Part of the problem is that you can’t help but compare it to the other two chapters in the Trilogy, and as a result seems terribly out of place due to its unfamiliar cultural backdrop. After watching it recently I’ve collected some of the reasons how this movie dissociates itself from the Indiana Jones oeuvre, and likely influences its standing in the minds of viewers.

• The story behind the adventure is not familiar. While I can’t verify the accuracy of the story behind the Shankara stones, most critics seem satisfied that it adapts enough Hindu legend to be based in reality (well, as much as retrieving the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail might). Part of the Hindi pantheon (Shiva, Kali) were also represented in the film, and it may have been tough for Western audiences to associate with. Furthermore, the story itself actually takes place in 1935, a full year before the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In hindsight I see no real purpose behind doing this, and in that sense the entire film can be easily detached from the rest of the Indiana Jones mythos, much like the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that nobody remembers.
• The introduction sequence ties in perfectly with the main story. Unlike Raiders which has Indy acquiring an idol that has nothing to do with the rest of the plot except to introduce Belloq, and The Last Crusade which followed a similar approach by giving us a glimpse of Indiana Jones as a teenager and how he got his whip, his hat, and the scar on his chin. The Temple of Doom starts with an exciting escape from Chinese gangsters, which leads to India where the adventure begins. Spielberg is confident that we are familiar enough with the character that we can get right into the adventure. I never had a problem with this approach, but perhaps some viewers expected a little more background. We’re introduced to a lot of new characters in a very short period: Lao Che, Wu Han, Willie Scott and Short Round.
• The gross-out factor. The beginning of Raiders had a great scene between Indy and Satipo (Alfred Molina) where they are completely covered in tarantulas. Of course, there’s the famous snake pit where Indy and Sallah retrieve the ark, and Indy and Marion are ultimately trapped. The Temple of Doom is famous for going completely over the top with things to make audiences squirm. There’s the royal feast scene where delicacies such as “snake surprise” and “chilled monkey brain” are eaten, a room full of insects, a man removing someone’s beating heart with his bare hand, and the blood drinking ritual. It certainly upped the ante, but was it necessary? If I remember correctly The Temple of Doom was part of the reason the Film Ratings Board introduced the PG-13 rating.
• The adventure itself was a selfless act of heroism. This is one of the reasons why I think The Temple of Doom is as great an adventure as the other two, because not only does Indiana save the village itself, he helps the slave children escape and return to their families. While it falls in with the typical “dashing Westerner saves poor foreign village” plot contrivance, it shows that Indiana Jones is human, and is not always obsessed with placing his archaeological finds in a museum. Whether he believed in the power of the Shankara stones or not, he saw how much it meant to the residents of the village to have their stone returned.
• The leading lady is overly feminine. Kate Capshaw’s Willie Scott provides a sharp contrast to Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood, in the way she reacts to being dirty, covered in bugs, threat of death, etc. The incessant whining and screaming is annoying, but I think the intent was to provide comic relief in what would typically be a dangerous situation. I consider this to be one of the movie’s weak points, as it basically undoes whatever progress was made with Marion’s strong leading lady in the first film.
• The single-serving sidekick. I will always remember Jonathan Ke Quan as Data from The Goonies, but we first saw him in the role of Short Round in The Temple of Doom. It’s made clear throughout this film that Indy and Short Round have a father-son type bond, but if they are so close, where is he in The Last Crusade? Better yet, where was he in Raiders? Short Round wasn’t ever really in distress (Marion, though she could take care of herself, was Indiana’s prime motivator for his actions in the latter half of Raiders), and he provided valuable assistance in the escape from the mines in the last part of The Temple of Doom. The producers probably liked this dynamic, because it was used again in the relationship between Henry Jones Sr. and Jr. in The Last Crusade, where Indy’s father unwittingly aided their escape on many occasions and provided some comic relief throughout the film, just like Short Round. In the case of The Last Crusade, the relationship was probably easier to accept because it was actually Indy’s father, instead of some kid he found on the streets of Shanghai. Besides, back then it probably seemed innocent; now I’m sure there would be some special interest group with something to say about their relationship in the film.
• There are no Nazis. One of the most despicable (and recognizable) groups in history was well-represented in the first and last films in the Trilogy. As such, it’s easy to dislike them in the context of the films and the period of history that the story takes place in � there is no question they are the “bad guys”. It is made obvious in The Temple of Doom that the worshippers of Kali and the Thuggee Murder Cult are evil people through example: the scene where Mola Ram removes a man’s beating heart from his chest only to burn him alive is meant to be proof of that. The audience is meant to assume this is why they are so reviled in Hindu culture, but their motivations are not made entirely clear in the film itself. Instead, we are led to believe that their goal is to recollect the five Shankara stones and plunge the world into eternal darkness. It’s too simple and made to play out like an isolated event where the world around them returns to normal, not being any wiser. This is further to my first point about providing a recognizable setting.
• X Doesn’t Mark the Spot. Both Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade follow a treasure hunt approach to finding the lost artifact at the end. The Last Crusade even moreso, because of the number of clues that have to be followed and the climactic braving of the four challenges to reach the Grail itself. In both films, the audience participates in Indiana Jones’s quest, following each step that leads to the relic in question. In The Temple of Doom, it is known almost immediately who is holding the Shankara stones, and where they are being kept. However, this is just a small part of Indiana’s quest. Ultimately he is doing this for the village: to return its prosperity and its children. It’s a very noble – and human – objective.

When taken as a stand-alone film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom does its best to culture its audience. Indiana Jones is an archaeologist � he’s well traveled and not exclusively interested in the relics of Western religion. Indeed, even the remains of Nurhaci that make an appearance at the beginning of the film hints at real depth behind the character’s field of study. The Temple of Doom doesn’t follow the winning formula of the first and third installments of the trilogy, and for that reason I’d consider it the most well-rounded. Though it is unfortunate that shock value was used to present the themes and adversaries instead of a more educated approach, you can’t fault the producers for that � it was meant to be entertaining, after all.

Let’s recap. After a great debut with the action-heavy Blade (1998), the series became mired in trying to develop some alternate telling of the vampire myth and completely ruining the backstory developed across several Marvel “Midnight Sons” titles in the early 1990s. I’m pretty sure Blade: Trinity (2004) was universally reviled by both comic book fans and moviegoers alike.

Daredevil (2003) was probably the worst comic movie I’ve seen out of this recent batch, and it amazed me that Elektra � easily the most uninteresting comic book character adapted on screen – somehow managed to get her own movie. I’ve got nothing against Daredevil the character. In essence, he is almost exactly like Batman in the sense that he is self-trained and doesn’t really have any “super powers”. He is also a character with a deep inner conflict � something that wasn’t even hinted at on the screen in favour of portraying some lame love story. With the “romance” between Jean Grey and Logan and the manufactured love triangle of Rogue, Iceman and Shadowcat in The Last Stand, the X-Men series is drifting far too close to this territory.

Hulk (2003) was an overemotional mess, and clearly the result of what happens when you put a sentimental director behind a character hell-bent on breaking things. How hard can it be to please audiences with explosions and wholesale destruction? Every summer blockbuster with less polished scripts can manage to do it. Ang Lee complicated the issue and ruined it for fans and moviegoers expecting action � not a story of a man’s resentment of his father. Or gamma-irradiated poodles.

There isn’t much I can say about Hellboy (2004) that I haven’t already. It is probably the only comic book movie that knows it’s a comic book movie. Relative to everything that was released before or since, the approach seems brilliantly simple.

The Punisher (2004) was not necessary. It felt like Marvel was greedily branching out too much, too fast � riding the comic book wave as it were. Once again the character’s obvious reason for being is lost in a screenwriter’s attempts at reworking the Punisher mythos. This isn’t a stand-alone novel. The work has already been done developing the universe and the character over hundreds of issues of comics. Why do comic book adaptations insist on distancing themselves from the source material?

Constantine (2005) was forgettable, inoffensive fare: neither terrible nor especially thought provoking, it could have easily passed as any other action film aiming to capitalize on occult themes. It was nice to see another one of DC’s comics make their way onto film instead of Superman and Batman, but the producers made too many mistakes for it to be considered a good comic book movie. Keanu Reeves was simply the wrong choice for the titular character – while he may have pulled off the whole disaffected/sarcastic/devil-may-care (literally) personality, he was too clean. He may have “seen things”, but it wasn’t reflected in his appearance. Rachel Weisz and Keanu Reeves on the whole were too pretty and seemed out of place on the gritty streets of Los Angeles shown in the film. Though the biggest mistake was the liberty taken with the character of John Constantine – the line between anti-hero and the morally ambiguous self-serving low life from the comics was clearly drawn, and completely undercuts the nature of the character. Instead, we get the usual tale of a selfish man redeemed by self-sacrifice.

I�d consider Sin City (2005) on the same level as Spider Man and X-Men in terms of cultural events, but as a comic book movie it felt gratuitous and unsophisticated, despite its origins as a comic book specifically aimed at mature readers. It most definitely conveys the same feel as Miller�s minimalist art, but as much as the script tries to tie everything together the whole production was as if a bunch of fanboys had come together to play with their favorite property. I couldn’t get over the absurd amounts of makeup the actors had to wear, because while readers of Miller�s comics might understand the exaggerated features it probably looked more comical to the average person. And to this day I still do not understand why Quentin Tarantino was given so much attention as “Guest Director”. Yes, Rodriguez and Tarantino are pals � but get out of film school, guys. You�re professionals.

Last year’s Fantastic Four came across as a “me too” team movie in the wake of the X-Men, executed with far less taste. I mean The Thing wore a foam rubber suit, and Jessica Alba still cannot act to save her life (except when she’s invisible?). I only wish I could say the movie intended to be this tongue in cheek. Instead it soils the legacy of one of Marvel’s most lovable superhero teams.

When I heard Ghost Rider was going to star Nicolas Cage I cried. Not because he is one of the worst actors in Hollywood today, but because I knew this movie would never do the character justice. I remember drawing flaming skulls and winding chains in my math notebooks back in 8th grade after the character made his return in 1990. I caught the trailer for this latest comic adaptation before X-Men: The Last Stand. I can tell they fucked around with the continuity of the series. Johnny Blaze is the main character of the film, but his appearance is modeled after the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider that I grew up with. I also noticed that a “Western” Ghost Rider makes an appearance � no doubt to tell us that these powers have been inherited by more than one person. Even though the Ghost Rider lineage began with Johnny Blaze the stunt motorcyclist, and the “Western” Ghost Rider was simply another unrelated Marvel series. But I’ll leave that to the experts behind what I’m sure is a well-researched script.

So what is to become of the comic book movie?

This summer’s Superman Returns, like Batman Begins, is aiming to restore the franchise to its former self by essentially overwriting what happened during their increasingly nonsensical and idiotic sequels. One can only hope.

What continues to astound me is how the medium has been treated in its transfer to film. While it’s nice to see them being taken seriously as money making ventures, there comes a point where the film’s ties to the original format are permanently broken by inserting too many characters, plot contrivances or intellectually stunted lessons in morality. They’re comic books. They thrive on exposing us to fantastic things that could never be realized without multi-billion dollar budgets. The stories are already there, archived for use in any screenplay. And yet somehow the visual medium of film, including the enormous leaps and bounds the world of special effects has made, cannot seem to capture the feel of these things.

If we can expect a sequel after the funeral pyre that was X-Men: The Last Stand, it can be considered a turning point for the series. Similar to what happened to Batman with Batman Forever, the previous two films by the same director had successfully established a universe (despite its liberties with the comic books), created characters out of familiar icons and weaved an adequate storyline that can be enjoyed by comic purists and casual moviegoers alike. With the third installment, we have a new director who clearly wanted to make his mark on the series and added his own “creative vision” to the franchise. The work had already been done for him up to this point, and yet coming on to a project of such popularity and magnitude would probably feel overwhelming for someone still trying to make a name for themselves. Joel Schumacher at least had a track record before picking up the Batman franchise with Batman Forever. He selected two popular actors at the time to play the villains (to this day I have no idea why each Batman film requires two villains – at least Batman Begins handled this tactfully) threw a few cans of neon paint at Tim Burton’s world of perpetual darkness and called it a day. Three Batman actors and two directors later, the series seems to be back on track after the serious, grounded-in-reality Batman Begins.

Assuming the X-Men can continue their momentum after the latest installment, can we presume the same treatment of the series?

The reasons are obvious for directorial duties changing hands � Singer took the offer to work on Superman Returns (ironically, it was originally Brett Ratner’s project). The change in the tone and pacing of the film from its predecessors is immediately noticeable. Ratner does the origin of Jean Grey and introduces a completely new character in the first 10 minutes of the film in scenes that are completely unrelated. These two characters, who we are led to believe are important through these flashbacks, are only touched upon in the movie that follows. While Jean Grey is a key figure in the story, the reasons behind her apparent madness are never fully explored. She merely became another one of Magneto’s hired hands, despite her ability to annihilate the entire universe. I kept waiting for her to spread her flaming wings and actually destroy something, but instead we were treated to the killing of Professor X in an anticlimactic scene that only results in the destruction of her childhood home. In a story arc that is widely accepted as a classic, and absolutely brimming with material, the Dark Phoenix Saga was largely ignored in favour of explaining Jean’s newfound powers as some kind of psychological problem.

Angel was one of the original members of the X-Men team, and yet he was relegated to the role of pouty benefactor to his father’s estate. His father being the man who invented a “cure” for the mutant gene and the premise behind the conflict for the film. Angel was infuriatingly underused, because with such an obvious mutation he could have significantly benefited the mutant cause given his position in society. It would have dovetailed nicely with Beast’s post in the U.S. Government as liaison for Mutant Affairs. Instead, we are given an eye-rolling scene at the end where Angel swoops down to save his father, who in only a few scenes earlier had insisted he be injected with the so-called cure.

To this end, the series has come full circle: in first chapter Magneto finds a way to turn everyone into mutants; in The Last Stand an antidote has been created to make all mutants “normal”. Rogue was used as a catalyst for Magneto’s assault on Ellis Island; I found it strange that her inner conflict to take the cure was not at the forefront of this installment in the series. Up to this point the relationship between Rogue and Iceman was certainly strained � and yet we have a drawn out scene where Iceman takes Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat ice skating? The priorities are all wrong.

Character development was never really a strong point of the first two films, and introducing so many new mutant characters in this chapter simply exacerbated this shortcoming. The romance between Wolverine and Jean Grey felt forced. Pyro was limited to snivelling sidekick, and Juggernaut is not intimidating at all in his lycra pants and bondage costume. What’s worse are this character’s attempts at comic relief that defuse every scene. Surely someone told Vinnie Jones he wasn’t on the set of another Guy Ritchie film!

I wasn’t particularly impressed with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, either. Considering the power and profile of the mutants to join the ranks within the comic books, the mutants that joined Magneto’s cause in the film seemed too much of a ragtag bunch to ever be deemed threatening. I also noticed that the “evil” mutants were mostly of ethnic decent. Even Magneto � a survivor of the Holocaust � was sure to play up his heritage. It just felt cheap, as if Magneto had no other reason to fight against the mutant oppression. It made the subsequent stand off between six X-Men and Magneto’s mob of Brotherhood mutants that visibly outnumber them seem all the more absurd.

Magneto’s displacement of the Golden Gate Bridge was probably the best scene in the movie – if only because it was such a brazen act of mutant chest-thumping when he could have just as easily stolen a boat. Still, with this dramatic entrance (complete with an instantaneous change from daylight to darkness), there seemed to be an unconcerted effort to attack the lab at Alcatraz. If the cure was such a crime to mutants, how could Magneto simply stand by and watch his obviously unprepared army be cut down ruthlessly? Surely the entire site was covered in manipulatable metal! Though I suppose it was more effective to watch Magneto and Pyro launch flaming cars at the X-Men and the U.S. Army (who I�m sure were extra careful not to shoot any of the “good” mutants in the face of such adversity).

The short length of the film further exaggerated its many problems. It was as if Ratner was afraid of boring the audience with explanations. The film felt like it was a series of action setpieces loosely strung together on the premise that a cure for the mutant gene would be reason enough for the actors on screen to be fighting. After two strong entries audiences have come to expect more from the series. After killing off a total of three characters, it was clear Ratner and screenwriters Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg wanted to leave their mark, but copped out at the last minute with Magneto’s little chess trick and Professor X “waking up” after the credits (I knew that body without a mind would serve a purpose). This basically tells us that the cure may not be one at all, and the battle that just took place was of no consequence.

X-Men: The Last Stand was disappointing not because it was a bad film. Ignoring the plot points, if the same approach was taken for the first film in the series I doubt it would have received the same acclaim and even reached the point of two sequels. Rather, I was disappointed that what started off as a deftly orchestrated take on one of Marvel’s longest running and most popular series was essentially squandered on a director playing with mutant action figures. There is no substance to this spectacle; it only confirms the suspicions that there will be another sequel, with the events of its precursor reduced to mere inconveniences for the cast of characters.

I saw the trailer for Doom a couple weeks ago and I cringed. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I read the reviews as they rolled in after its release on Friday, which were more or less a bloodbath.

When I first heard that a movie was being made based on Doom, I thought it was some kind of industry joke. I figured that Hollywood would tack on the subtitle “Knee Deep in the Dead” and call it a day, letting fans wait a decade before the project fell into the overflowing pit of development hell. Then I saw that The Rock would be starring, which brought the movie into the realm of frightening possibility – it’s not like the guy has a reputable career to maintain. You can look forward to him starring in John Woo’s rendition of Spy Hunter in 2006.

Doom is a first person shooter that has no real story; the player is simply asked to single-handedly dispatch a horde of Hell-spawned demons that have overrun a base on Mars. This provides very little framework for a film in the traditional sense; naturally, the filmmakers have to fill in 95% of the movie with a manufactured plot to push the action forward. Which is why many were afraid this movie would have about as much to do with the original game as Super Mario Brothers did with its source material.

Unfortunately, when a producer sees a culturally resonant property like Doom they get all excited and want to shoehorn in as many references as possible that end up alienating the casual viewers as much as they annoy the ones that actually “get it” in the first place.

Getting back to creative liberties with the plot. There is talk of mapping the human genome on a distant science facility. A very timely bit of research, considering this was actually done last year. There are the expected character archetypes and accompanying clever nicknames for the soldiers in the team that are to take on the evil demons. There is a 15 minute “FPS” sequence that lets audiences experience the video game…without playing it. I think there is a scientist named “Dr. Carmack”. Was Doom simply intended to be pieces of fan service strung together as proof that they can create a film based on our beloved PC game?

The most important part of a “nod” to fans is subtlety. It’s key if you want to maintain credibility. You want the hardcore to feel special, because they’ll appreciate the effort you put into hiding it for them. Some of my favorite examples of this include the scene in X-Men 2 where Mystique is on a computer that shows references a few X-Men that aren’t in the films, and hints at some storylines from the comics. Or in Spider Man, where one of Peter Parker’s professors, missing an arm, is identifiable as the Lizard (and we learn he is in fact Curt Connors in Spider Man 2). Nobody makes the viewer process these kinds of things to get to the next part of the film – they’re in there to establish substance in the film’s world, not define it.

All the makers of Doom had to do was watch Aliens and they would get a pretty good idea about how to do it right. Why not copy this proven formula instead of falling back on a poorly written screenplay full of well-worn cliches that obviously discredit the entire film? Doom should have been the next great science fiction action movie. All the elements were there – no one said it had to be deep or harbor some overcomplicated storyline.

I’m not against movies being made based on games – I just want to see them done right. There’s always potential for great storytelling, as long as the game provides a solid foundation for a capable screenwriter to build upon. Take Alone in the Dark, for example. While its cartoonish graphics would never achieve the intended effect compared with modern entries in the horror genre, it provided a suitably creepy atmosphere for an adventure game at the time. It could have been a good movie had it been handled properly. Instead Uwe Boll – a man insistent on cashing in on video games as Hollywood’s great untapped resource – completely decimated this opportunity, and is contributing to the stigma of video game movies being instant failures.

Video games as a cultural force are still being absorbed by modern day society, so to see that movies based on popular games are being made at all is a good indication of its acceptance as a worthwhile undertaking. As the game industry matures, perhaps we’ll start to see them being taken more seriously as they are translated into other forms. Then maybe we’ll be given something worth our time, instead of the hastily constructed, throwaway films that simply act as a painful reminder of the big-budget development process for the games these movies are based on.

throw the walls into the fireplace

Short answer: I loved it. This movie was woven from the same fabric of the Star Wars I remembered. It tied everything together, and left nothing to criticize except minutiae that can only be dreamt up by fanboys such as myself. Which is largely going to be the content of this review, if I can even call it that. The usual warning against spoilers applies, but I’m sure the only people reading this are the ones who have seen it anyway.

ILM made me believe again

I’m not going to drag out any Jar Jar Binks jokes. He wasn’t in this movie, and I’ll leave it at that.

I don’t think I was mentally prepared for what was shown during the opening scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin are piloting their fighters towards the capital ship where Palpatine is being held captive. This whole sequence reached new heights of realism, and I felt my stomach drop as the camera panned out from one cruiser to an entire battle. The movie was populated with exotic locales with equally stunning visuals, the most tantalizing being the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk. I’ll get to that later.

The “romance” of Anakin and Padme

I still don’t buy it. It seems like an extremely unbelievable relationship, where Padme still allows herself to care for a man that single-handedly exterminated a tribe of sandpeople. He’s also far too brooding and aggressive, making me wonder if Padme wasn’t emotionally unstable herself. Even though the delivery of the “love has blinded you?” conversation was like receiving a beating from an enraged wookiee, this theme makes its way into almost every bad thing that happens in the movie. I suppose the spirit of the conversation is acceptable, but Lucas could have thought up a much more subtle way of presenting it.

Aside from those stilted attempts at romance, Hayden Christiansen does a much better job in this film conveying Anakin’s inner conflict. There are a few powerful scenes, in fact, where he did a fantastic job without saying any lines at all.

Parallels, Parallels, Parallels

This is a classic device that Lucas loves to employ in these films.

The most powerful scene in the film was when Anakin defied Mace Windu’s orders and went to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s quarters. He watches Windu and Palpatine locked in combat, with Palpatine pleading for mercy – and Anakin’s help. Knowing that Palpatine can help him, Anakin must choose to stay loyal to the Jedi order, or save Palpatine and begin his journey to the Dark Side. I felt this joined perfectly with the end of Return of the Jedi, where Anakin must make another, similar choice: save his son by killing his master, or lose his humanity to the Dark Side forever. Now that I’ve seen Episode III, throwing Palpatine down that electrical shaft must have felt pretty good for Anakin. If you think about it, Palpatine is the reason he’s in that armour.

Despite General Grievous’ limited screen time, I found his character to be one of the most interesting. He was developed as a villain who enjoyed collecting the lightsabers of slain Jedi as part of the Clone Wars cartoon series. Grievous is mostly a machine (built by the separtists for all we know), but still retains some living tissue. I found this comparable to what happens to Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader at the end of the film.

At the end, you see Owen and Beru Lars holding baby Luke as they look over a dune into the twin Tatooine sunset as Luke did in the beginning of A New Hope. While it was a nice gesture to fans, it felt like they were trying too hard to squeeze that one in.

The Cutting of Appendages

We had a good laugh over this one after the movie. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but suffice to say that a Jedi that doesn’t lose his hand in the Star Wars Trilogy is lucky indeed.

• Count Dooku loses both hands to Anakin Skywalker
• General Grievous loses two arms to Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Mace Windu loses his hand to Anakin Skywalker
• Anakin loses another arm (and his legs!) to Obi-Wan Kenobi

Not enough Kashyyyk

Perhaps the new expansion for Star Wars Galaxies will pick up where the film left off, but I felt that this location was far too underdeveloped considering it’s the home of one of the saga’s main characters. Moreover, we only learn Chewbacca’s identity when Yoda leaves – and that’s only because he refers to him by name. Based on the novels and comics, Wookiees were a highly oppressed race. Even the recent Republic Commando explores the capture and enslavement of Wookiees by Trandoshans. Revenge of the Sith does nothing to address this, and instead treats Kashyyyk as simply another planet contended for by the Republic and the Separtists.

The visuals of Kashyyyk were impressive, and it was fascinating to see Wookiee technology in action. I’m just disappointed there wasn’t more of it.

The Instant Aging of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

I thought the scene where Mace Windu battles Palpatine was brilliant. I learned in the comic books (Dark Empire, specifically) that using the Dark Side rapidly ages you. It becomes evident that Palpatine was stronger in the Dark Side than we anticipated, but I imagine that he used quite a bit of his power to remain hidden from the eyes of the Jedi and disguise his true intentions. Could it be that this sudden release of Force lightning drained his powers, such that he could no longer maintain his disguise? This also lends a bit of realism to Anakin’s condition at the end of Return of the Jedi, where it looks like he aged about 40 years.

Order 66

The chilling scene where Palpatine gives the instruction to eradicate every Jedi really resonated with me. Going into this film, we knew that the Jedi are all but extinct during the time period of the original trilogy. Though the logistics of killing all of those Jedi at a time where they were everywhere was hard for me to grasp. And now I know.

The clones were Palpatine’s idea all along. Programming them with this “back door”, if you will, Palpatine was able to execute every Jedi at once, essentially eliminating the possibility of a Jedi resurgence. Brilliantly done.

The Lightsaber Duels

Was it just me, or were the duels just so evenly matched that they became boring? I believed the emotional exchange between Obi-Wan and Anakin before their duel, and Anakin’s paranoia making him hurt the woman he loved. All of this was building up to Obi-Wan’s near-tears confession on the banks of that river of molten lava, with Anakin broken and his eyes filled with hatred. The climax of this battle was worth it, but I was expecting a battle that was more furious and emotionally charged. After all, this duel is what long time fans of the series were waiting for.

To be honest, I doubt anything could have come close to the duel between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul at the end of Episode I. This suprised everyone, and for good reason. As Lucas himself has said, the original trilogy showcased the lightsaber skills of old men. The prequel trilogy was meant to illustrate lightsaber battles of Jedi in their prime. Perhaps the novelty of the lightsaber has worn off, and it became little more than swordfighting, but I still think the lightsaber duels in Revenge of the Sith could have been injected with a little more excitement.

The reconstruction of Darth Vader

The movie made it feel like he went right from the shores of a molten river to the operating table – with spare parts waiting. Did Palpatine run a body shop too? I would have also liked to see where the inspiration for the body armour came from. Clearly the clone troopers were based on the Mandalorian armour worn by Jango Fett. It wouldn’t have been that hard to slip something in.

“NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!”

Revenge of the Sith may catch a lot of flak for this completely over-the-top scene, but if you remember in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke says the exact same thing in response to Vader’s startling revelation that he is Luke’s father. Furthermore, I didn’t find this reaction as important as Palpatine telling Vader that he had killed Padme in anger.

“My wife and I have always wanted to adopt a baby girl.”

This line from Bail Organa stuck out in my mind because it was in one of the last scenes in the movie. I was curious to see how Lucas would explain how the homes of Leia and Luke were determined. It’s clear why they needed to be separated – but why did Leia go to Alderaan to be a politician (clearly taking after her mother), and Luke sent to live out his young life as a simple farmboy on Tatooine (somewhat following the path of his father). I was disappointed to learn that it was simply a matter of Bail Organa saying “we want a baby girl”, and Yoda saying “put Luke with his family”. It just seemed too haphazard, and this is one of the scenes that could have used more dialogue. Was Luke sent to Tatooine because of his Force-sensitivity? Obi-Wan, an equally powerful Jedi, exiled himself there to watch over Luke. This was probably a wise choice given that the Empire wouldn’t be troubled by an outer-rim planet run by the Hutts. I would have even been happy with Bail Organa saying “we’ve always wanted a child.” Lucas picked the wrong character to start talking about specifics.

The construction of the Death Star

The Death Star prototype was hinted at in the final scenes of Episode II. Anyone that’s read Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy knows about the Death Star prototype in the Maw installation. Tarkin personally oversaw its construction, and I’m assuming that’s who was on the bridge of the ship with the Emperor and Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith. However, as we know from the Star Wars timeline, there’s at least 20 years in between Episode III and IV, and I find it hard to believe that it took that long to build after seeing the second Death Star built in the 2 years between Empire and Jedi. Taking the Jedi Academy Trilogy as fact, then, which Death Star were we looking at? The prototype? Or the one that would destroy Alderaan? In any case, this was a great way to tie up the movie. Like the newly appointed Vader, the Death Star was ominously waiting to utilize its power to terrorize the galaxy.

Judged by the standards set by its prequel predecessors, Revenge of the Sith is the strongest of the three. Indeed, it suffers from the same calibre of acting and draft-quality dialogue, but there was a certain cohesiveness to the film’s presentation that kept it running along smoothly, satisfying even the jaded Star Wars fan in me that was fearing the absolute worst. Now that the story arc of Anakin Skywalker is complete, I doubt that Lucas will leave this series alone. There’s already confirmation of a cartoon series and live-action TV series in the works, and making another movie could certainly be done as long as it follows a new set of characters. While I wouldn’t put it past Lucasfilm to recreate Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia in CG for Episodes VII and beyond, there’s something about the original trilogy that branded the actors into our fan subconscious, and it would be hard to accept anything else. I’d be more interested to see the results of a reconstructed Jedi Academy, as described in the novels and games. There’s plenty of room there to cover many different themes and storylines, while still drawing from the mythos that will keep fans interested. Though thinking of the dramatic possibilities in a film about a bunch of misunderstood, angst-filled Jedi initiates leaves me a bit queasy.

born to die one thousand times