My initial reaction to seeing gameplay vids of the Wii was concern whether they could really pull off the motion controls to a gamer’s satisfaction. Basically the MC (=motion controls) has to be as accurate and fast as pushing a button on a gamepad. I had my doubts as to whether this could be achieved and unfortunately I was right.

Pointing the Wiimote at the screen is in my opinion not really part of the MC, as the IR sensor reads where you point and that’s it. It’s nothing else than a pointer. But even that supposedly simple design comes with its flaws. The actual MC is where the real letdown or should I say reality-check comes in.

Now I don’t want to presume I know how exactly the Wiimote and Nunchuk work. Honestly I don’t care. All I want is that they work how they’re supposed to, which unfortunately they don’t quite too often.

I had started playing on the Wii with sport games, where the MC was working rather well. Recently I’ve been playing several action adventures and this is where my frustration with the MC really came out. First was Dragon Quest Swords, in which you have to battle creatures while swinging your Wiimote across the screen. Horizontal would be read as vertical and vice versa. Diagonal slashing was almost impossible or sheer chance. Especially considering you have to constantly point the Wiimote at the screen for the sensor I don’t understand why the MC fails so miserably. The game turned into a tedious game of chance, but the worst was yet to come.

I just finished Cursed Mountain, which in my opinion is one of the best games for the Wii IF NOT for the disastrous MC that make the title unplayable! In this game you have to kill ghosts by performing a ritual that translates as several consecutive movements with Wiimote and Nunchuk. The idea is cool, the execution can only be described as broken! While sideswipes with both the Wiimote and Nunchuk work flawlessly every single time, the forward thrusts are a whole nother matter. Barely recognising what you’re doing in front of the screen the MC make the gameplay totally frustrating. If you’re lucky half of the time your thrusts will register, the other half your shoving your Wiimote and Nunchuk to and fro to no avail. My arms and shoulders started hurting after a while as I was more and more vigorously moving the Wiimote and Nunchuk around. Which brings me to another major gripe I have with the MC -> they can be quite hazardous to your health!

While we always get the safety screen in front of every single game (which is just about the wriststrap) and “please take a break” messages in some sport games most “regular” games like action adventures, shooters etc. don’t advise you to take a break and actually ask you to perform some of the weirdest and most bizarre gestures in order to play the game. Add to that unresponsive controls which make you exxagerate movement and you are likely to hurt yourself. I’m not talking about dislocating shoulders, but straining muscles and therelike.

Given that most gamers don’t just play for an hour the physical strain the Wii with its MC puts on the player is something we should all be aware of. Parents let their kids play unsupervised for hours thinking they’re doing something good since they’re not sitting on the couch and the Wii being a family/kid console. I as an adult already have trouble disconnecting from a game I enjoy playing no matter whether my arms hurts or not.

Unfortunately almost none of the Wii games give you the option to play the game with a different control scheme. It is very rare that you are “allowed” to play a game with either the Classic Controller or the GC Controller. In my opinion all Wii games should give you the option to chose which control scheme you want to use. That might also attract different gamers to the Wii, that don’t want to wiggle waggle through a game like a 3-year-old. Also it would give the gamer an alternative should the MC be disastrous and/or unresponsive for whatever reason.

Now that Microsoft and Sony will be releasing their own MC at the end of the year I fear sooner or later we will only have wiggle waggle games to play. I hope these companies paid attention to gamers and the market in recent years and will not make the same mistake Nintendo made in making the Wii a MC-only console.

While it is definitely fun to play certain games with MC I still prefer to play “old school” games (=non MC games) with a gamepad and I hope that never goes away!

Precious lives in her head. Living out in the world, living her real life would be too painful. She has to deal with cruelty at school, constant abuse by her mother, who treats her like a slave and beats her, and expecting her second child at the age of sixteen by her own father. She has never known love, only abuse and violence.

Whenever we think the worst is over life throws Precious another curveball. If not for the help and support of a few special people in her life her story would have gone another way. But in the end it is Precious‘ unrelenting spirit and strength that help her to go on.

There is no standout performance here. Everyone is brilliant. And I am not even exaggerating. Starting with newcomer Sidibe, who plays Precious in such a heartbreaking and powerful way that I was having a hard time separating the character from the actress. Comedian Mo’Nique plays Precious‘ abusive mom, who is more concerned about losing her man than said man’s abuse of her own daughter. Paula Patton plays Precious‘ teacher Miss Rain, who more than anyone else helps put Precious on the right track. The support and love that woman has for this beaten poor girl is at first rebuffed and only met by Precious‘ social worker, played in a hard to recognize role by Mariah Carey. These two women manage to turn Precious‘ life around, not because they have to but because they truly care.

A sickening and inspiring story. No Matter what cards life dealt her, she played them.

While we do get action and explosions, The Hurt Locker focuses on suspense more than action. Following a bomb-squad during their rotation in Iraq the film opens with the main bomb defuse guy being blown to bits and the arrival of his substitute, Staff Sgt. William James. He personifies the tagline the film opened with, “war is a drug”. The constant adrenaline rush that is deffusing bombs under enemy fire is his addiction. Some people go basejumping, swim with sharks, climb the highest mountain or jump out of planes. Others get their kick from being shot at or possibly blowing up any second.

The Hurt Locker is a mesmerizing war story and Bigelow gives it the necessary time to breathe. She deliberately takes her time establishing scenarios and situations to make sure the viewer gets the full-on experience of what these men go through. No rushes, no fancy wannabe warlike, crazy, shaky cinematography with which you’re supposedly feel right in the middle of things. Bigelow achieves that with an anobtrusive camera that is only there to capture the psychological drama. The frame is literally dripping with suspense and sweat. It feels like a documentary without looking like one. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have Richard Engel pop in any second for a narrative. Not that the film needs that.

Great performances by a (to me) unknown principal cast with some names splashed here and there for support. Not that they are really needed, but I applaud Bigelow for blowing one of her big-name-actors to shreds within the first few minutes to have him replaced by the actual protagonist of the film. Too seldom do we see this happen. Big names hardly ever die, especially at the beginning of a film. Way to go breaking with these boring conventions.

The film has some powerful scenes that are hard to shake. Addicted bomb deffuser James finds a bomb he doesn’t enjoy deffusing – inside a young boy’s body. A man lingering forever in the cereal aisle, overwhelmed by all the choices. Throughout the film we have witnessed that same man make split-second life or death decisions. That scene more than anything encompasses the whole film for me.

Less choices, albeit bigger, more important ones like life and death, make for a simpler life. No necessity for the hundreds of thousands of little details we have to face every single day in our “normal” lives. Add to that the rush of living the extremes make for an addictive cycle. “War is a drug”. And somehow we have come full circle.

“Every time you suit up, every time we go out it’s life or death. You roll the dice and you deal with it.”

I can’t wait to see the first woman win the Academy Award for Best Director. Bigelow really has a shot this time.

Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal play brothers Sam and Tommy Cahill, the former being a Captain in the Armed Forces and the latter just being released from prison. They couldn’t be more different if they tried. As one comes home the other has to leave for Afghanistan, leaving a loving wife (Natalie Portman) and two daughters behind.

The film kicks into gear when Sam is presumed dead (we find out a few scenes later that he was taken captive). Tommy is trying to help out Sam’s wife Grace every way he can, trying to step in for his brother. As one would presume the two grow close. But whether that is going anywhere is not really the point of the film, rather what Sam thinks of this situation when he returns home after his ordeal with the Taliban.

Tobey Maguire dominates the film with his performance as Sam Cahill, living through the tortures of the Taliban, committing horrible acts to make it home to his family only to realize that this is where the real struggle starts. I would have never attributed such darkness to Maguire’s repertoire. He truly surprises and shines.

While Maguire is the darkness, Portman is the heart of this film. Handling the news of her beloved husband’s death in a touching and mature way, Natalie Portman manages to keep her character real and strong with the most subtle performance I have ever seen her do. Grace focuses on her daughters and never for one second do you doubt Portman in the role of a loving and protective mother. It falls to her to keep everything together when Sam unravels bit by bit and we witness her struggle and strength in every single scene. A brilliant performance.

Jake Gyllenhaal sort of gets the short end of the stick characterwise. While he starts out as the “bad” brother he actually turns into the stable and dependable one, stepping in for his presumed dead brother in Grace’s and her daughter’s lifes. He is the strong rock opposite Sam’s unravelling, guiltridden survivor. The two brothers literally switched sides compared to the start of the film. Gyllenhaal doesn’t get as extreme stuff to do as Maguire, but his tender performance counteracts Sam’s craze and flows well with Natalie Portman’s character.

This is a gritty, dramatic, tragic and realistic film with brilliant acting about a story we all know, but unless we’re faced with it personally forget all too easily. It gives all the anonymous stories we hear and read about a face we can relate to and feel for. One of the best films of 2009. Highly recommended!

Rugby to unite a torn nation is as genius an idea as it is stupendous and newly elected President Nelson Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, is constantly surrounded by people thinking the latter rather than the former. Yet nothing can deter this man on his quest to heal his country. If only more world leaders were as enlightened a man as he is.

With the help of the South African rugby team’s captain Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon, Mandela manages to bridge the divide Apartheid had grated into South African consciousness deeper than the Grand Canyon.

This film makes learning about our history fun and entertaining. As dull and lengthy some moments can be it is mere exposition for the showdown that is the World Cup. And what a showdown it is indeed. I don’t want to give anything away, but seeing the All Blacks doing their Haka reminded me of my time in New Zealand and what a fun sport Rugby is.

Eastwood managed to bring across the feeling of witnessing history while watching Invictus. One can’t help but be totally enthralled by what is going on and touched by two opposing sides of the same nation coming together despite their differences and violent past. With all the characters involved it still boils down to Freeman and Damon to deliver the goods as the seemingly only two men ready to bring about much needed change. Both show their best performances in their careers.

Invictus is an inspirational story about integrity, redemption and the power of one man changing the world. It’s an amalgam of a biopic and a sport film. Just don’t expect a well-flowing mix, but rather one following the other.

There is brilliant acting throughout the whole film with the exception of Mark Wahlberg. But then again, did anyone expect any different?

The premise of the bestselling book by Alice Sebold got everyone hyped about the film and its content in the more than capable hands of Peter Jackson. Given his trackrecord, I am thinking of the likes of Heavenly Creatures more so than the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that made him famous, I could not help but be disappointed with the endresult.

The ill-structured narrative feels botched together as if someone had created a checklist of must-have-scenes from the book and glued them together with duct tape. The story doesn’t flow and has no room to breathe.

As if trying to make up for these shortcomings it seems like Jackson put all his attention on the visuals. He has some great cinematography, deliberately framing shots a certain way with attention to every single detail. Especially in the scenes with Stanley Tucci you can’t help but admire the director’s love for visual details. The scarce and well-timed macro shots were equally fascinating as they were disturbing.

Unfortunately Jackson overdoes (or overdoses) it in the “heaven” sequences, where I couldn’t help but feel as if I was drowning in all his visual extravaganza. As beautiful as these shots were (supposed to be) all they left me with was a rather bad taste (pun intended) in my mouth. Less is more and it seems someone needs to remind Jackson of that again.

Yep, that’s right. Telltale Games are giving out digital copies (aka download rights) to the very first episode of the Tales of Monkey Island series “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal” starting midnight September 19.

Now why would they do that y’all ask? Very simple and yet totally cool reason. September 19 is Talk Like A Pirate Day and what better way to promote the later episodes of their new Tales of Monkey Island series than giving out the first episode for free?!

The new Tales of Monkey Island series comprises five episodes. “Launch” was followed by “The Siege of Spinner Cay” which will be continued shortly by “Lair of the Leviathan”, “The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood” and “Rise of the Pirate God”.

Check out the shiny new graphics and usual funny dialogue and situations in the video below and make sure to go to the Telltale Games website to get your copy of “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal“:

Teeth can be so scary… and I’m not talking about someone’s ginormous or ugly teeth staring back at me. I watched a film by the same name, Teeth that is, and I think I will be scared for life. This is the ultimate sex-killer/horror-story for men fucking women, women fucking women, basically anyone fucking women… oh and gynecologists. Whoever thinks about entering a vagina BEWARE! You don’t know what’s really going on down there. Actually, thinking about it – this is the perfect date movie! Just be prepared to be scarred for life and scared of your sex-drive. Nightmares might occur!

So what did you watch today? Tell us. TELL US!
Okay I’ll tell you.

This time on InShort:
Chaos Theory, The Eye and Young People Fucking.

Chaos Theory

I started my boring evening of with Chaos Theory, which is a nice little film starring Ryan Reynolds (who I usually only remember cos he was in Blade III with Jessica Biel). The film is about how easily and quickly your life can turn around without you even doing anything. Basically it’s about how life smacks you in the head with a baseball bat and how people cope with it. The Chaos Theory comes into play when the lead character, who always plans out everything through list-making, takes on a different approach to life – writing different options onto cue cards and then letting chance decide on his next course of action. Hence Chaos Theory. Well worth renting in my opinion.

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The Eye

Next was The Eye starring Jessica Alba. Now before you get your hopes up I only watched the American remake of the Japanese horror film and unfortunately the only good thing is Jessica Alba starring in it. Cheap scares, a predictable story and lengthy, repetitive passages don’t really make for a good film-night. At least not in my house. Only watch this if you’re a die-hard Jessica Alba fan. All others try and avoid it!

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Young People Fucking

The final film was one I was looking forward to see at the theater. A “little” Canadian film called Young People Fucking, written and directed by Stargate Atlantis writer Martin Gero (which I only realized after the credits started rolling). This is a very interesting film, chronicling one night for five different pairings of young people trying to have sex. It’s made up like a documentary or instructional film, separated into several passages. The film goes from Prelude over Foreplay and Sex to Interlude, Orgasm and Afterglow. That should give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll see.
The acting is great. I had never seen any of these actors in anything else before. If you don’t mind seeing people have sex on screen go and rent this now! Oh and Carly Pope is fucking hot.

Now I know what y’all are saying. What are you doing watching this shit film in the first place? Don’t you read reviews? Well guess what, I prefer seeing it for myself and not buying into what other people are saying. I like to make up my own mind. But just for once maybe I should have been swimming with the masses…

This has got to be one of the worst films ever. Acting-wise, directing-wise, script-wise. There is nothing good about this film. And it has Michelle Yeoh in it. But even she was crap in it. The best thing about it is, that it kept reminding me of Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, which is a great film in my opinion.

Basically we have seen everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING!) in and about this film before. Just better. So instead of watching this (not even renting it for a drunken party with your friends to have something to laugh your asses off about!) get Children of Men and see what this film should have been like.

Deb & Sisi and now Babylon A.D.. I think I should chose my films better. Two duds in one day. That’s got to be a new record…

I knew I should have been studying. That’s what you get for procrastinating too much. Ah well, I only have myself to blame. To sum it up – STAY AWAY FROM BABYLON A. D.!

The hauntingly appealing premise of having one man on the moon to supply the rest of the world with energy opens this psychological experiment of a film. Sam Rockwell takes us through his standardized day while already laying the detailed groundwork for the breakdown later on. He is on a three-year contract all by himself with only a robot to keep him company. It doesn’t take long for things to go out of the ordinary and pit man against robot and man against himself.

I don’t want to give too much away, but one of my initial fears plot-wise was that the robot was a new HAL (see 2001 – A Space Odyssey for reference). Thankfully that turned out not to be true. Unfortunately everything else I thought would happen did come to pass. The plot is laid out before your eyes as soon as Rockwell’s character hits his first major bump. It could have been a good, solid story if only there was a bit more meat to it than was actually in the film. The resolution(s) is quite a let-down, utterly predictable after the first 20 minutes (if only winning the lottery was that easy). This film would be fantastic if it had a smack-over-the-head factor as Soylent Green did. There was no “aha” or “wow” moment when all was revealed and that took away a lot of the appeal of this film.

With that out of the way let me gush over the chilling yet stunning visuals of the lunar surface. The claustrophobic vastness in its bleak shades of grey really get to the viewer and we can imagine what life for the protagonist must be like. The interior set design is just as great and thought-through, yet won’t dazzle everyone with its simplicity.

The real treat in this film is Sam Rockwell’s performance. He truly shines in what is essentially a theater play. Two people, one set. The story lives off the dialogue and its characters. When I say two people I am definitely counting Kevin Spacey’s voicework as the robot (okay, maybe the robot is just half a person). He is the only counterpart to Rockwell’s character and a full-fledged character in his own right. You forget he is just a robot after the first few encounters between them.

Rockwell’s character goes through ups and downs as he is going through the last two weeks on the job before getting to go home after three years. Not trying to give anything away, but it is in the second half of the film that Rockwell really shows his brilliance. The stages his character goes through in isolation, faced with a mystery aboard his station, deteriorating while trying to hold on – his no-holds-barred performance is the heart of the entire film.

My initial disappointment turned into appreciation and even excitement especially where the acting is concerned. This film lives off Sam Rockwell’s Oscar-worthy performance. He makes this one-and-a-half-man-show a must see. Just don’t expect any surprising plot-twists or huge revelations you didn’t already see coming from lightyears away.

The film will be directed by Raja Gosnell with December 17 2010 being the release date. The Smurfs were created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known throughout the world as Peyo.

Now say hello to the very first CGI’d Smurf below the cut:

I am totally digging the over-the-top destruction bordering on the ridiculous. But then again what else are Emmerich’s films known for. Enjoy!