We moved to Tumblr.

As you may have noticed, our blog has been collecting dust, we are not dead.

In the light of trying to blog again, we have moved to tumblr.

Visit Respawn Point at:

http://respawnpoint.tumblr.com/

2012 (2009) - Movie Review

The Year 2012 - Back story

Lets start from the beginning about the whole controversy regarding the year 2012. It is said that their is going to be huge event occurring in the year 2012 that will affect the lives of everybody in the entire world. Based on my readings and overview, I have heard the following:

1.) The world is going to end.

2.) The world will be govern as 3 different branches of government.

3.) The world will rid of the human race.

4.) Sidd will go outside and get a life.

There is a lot of talk, I personally think its all just hype. You remember when they said the world was going to end in the year 1599, 1701, 1850, 1979, 1999?

I don't either...lol...but what I'm trying to say is, they said, "The world will end," throughout history. Has it happen, sure why not, it may have happened plenty of times before our faggetry raided and polluted the Earth, but to accurately analyze our doom? Come on... :\

And so, all the hype, media attention, and controversy lead us to various films, cartoons, flashes, and other types of media about 2012. And the biggest one is the recent theatrical film, 2012

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2012 is a science fiction film was written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. The story as a whole is obviously the destruction of the Earth, but I honestly think the real challenge the film had to face was storyline, which...actually did pretty well to my opinion.

This film has a multiple set of characters and story lines happening at same time. I usually do not enjoy this method of film at all, but to my surprise, it was well done because all the characters came together at the end and it made sense.

The first set of characters is a group of scientists and political people that predict the odd occurrences happening all over the world. The second is an average family who's father works for a very rich person as a limo driver. And finally, the last group are rich people. All characters have their own set story that intertwine with each other along the way.

Towards the end of the film, we see a logical live action portrayal of "The Arc" being seen just as the bible or some myth/legend story said. Where all animals get into this big boat and survive the big flood. Well, you will see something like this, but in a modern depiction.

The film was greatly done, the cgi effects are unbelievable and astonishing. It makes a person feel very little in the world and leaves the audience in shock that if this really were to occur, we are all doomed. An exciting movie to leave someone thinking, but please don't take it seriously, the world will end when it does. This is only a movie!

Sidd approves of this film :)

lol, sorry I haven't blogged in so long <3, been busy with college ya know. I only worked out today for the first time in a month and I gained weight. >.<

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – Quick Review

In a world where most gamers will never get to experience the pure joy that was Super Mario RPG, we must all suffice for this spiritual successor. Will it be full of the great JRPG action, fantastic support characters, and amazing story we’ve come to expect from the original title? Well, not really. I find the dialogue to be a bit childish. No, sorry, it’s really childish. Is this a big problem? Not really. I just find it a bit off and really just shows the new kind of Nintendo we’re dealing with. Or maybe I’ve just matured over it all, don’t know. Well what does it do right?

Gameplay.

Like the previous Mario & Luigi titles, this DS title uses what it’s given in spades. The X, Y, A, B interface control different elements and all focus on whichever character they have been assigned to. The brothers are controlled using the lower two buttons, A + B, while the now playable character Bowser uses the top two buttons, Y + X. This allows for more input from the player when both attacking and defending. Each enemy and boss has it’s pattern of attacks and it’s up to the player to find each tell and plan around them. Maybe the enemy lifts his leg toward a certain character, expect that attack and jump, punch, or maybe don’t do anything respectively. It’s a great addition to the tired old turn base system that I love so dearly. (The Pokemon series could learn a thing or two from it.) New specials for your characters are found by the traditional Mario styled platforming outside of the game. Since, throughout most of the game, you’ll be inside of Bowser, the plumber duo will have to accomplish certain tasks to help their villain turned home through his obstacles. These small mini-games throw in a little change that is needed after so many battles. Leveling up allows for the player to choose a certain quality and add a few more points through a slot machine style number generator. With a keen eye and some good timing, the player can often land the highest points each time (also helps to check each one to see which has the highest gain.)

As I had already said, the story is a bit childish (as well as the main villain) but with the familiar cast of characters and the amazing gameplay quality, there is no reason you shouldn’t own this title for your NDS.

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Must Play!

As close as you’ll get to Super Mario RPG in handheld form.

Halo 3 ODST – Game Review

The Xbox Live servers are going to be on fire this weekend. Halo 3 ODST finally dropped down into stores this week, with a new campaign, new characters and enemies, new guns (and the addition of an old favorite), as well as a new match type that changes the way you play Halo.

Campaign

The campaign starts off with an introduction to your main character, The Rookie. A silent new recruit who everyone believes if very wet under the ears. You are also introduced to the four other ODST members. Buck, a main contributer to the main story line of this title, takes on the role of leader, even if other members find reasons to dislike him. Romeo is always carrying his trusty sniper on him and arguing with Buck as mentioned, Mickey is the explosives expert of the group, and Dutch is the all out assault trooper. Each one has a different way of playing (well as much as you can get out of the Halo gameplay), and you experience them through your travels as the rookie. The ODST group is dropped down in their HEVs (Human Entry Vehicles) on a mission to assault Regret’s ship (Halo 3 villain.) Just as they were going to land, Dare (a UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence agent and person of interest to Buck) changes their trajectory and forces the squad to drop into New Mombasa. The Rookie is unlucky enough to crash into another HEV on his way down and stays unconcious for six hours. From this point on you take control of The Rookie (who plays like a weak Master Chief.) You’ll notice right away that you have the same SMG from the past two titles but it has been silenced (adding to the feeling of being a human and not a Spartan) as well as the return of the Halo 1 pistol (though it much more balanced.) You won’t be capping everything in three shots or less, but if you play it right, the pistol can be the most deadly and sought after gun in the game. Other balanced guns include the Shotgun and Plasma Pistol. The Shotgun has been amazingly weakened and may take every shell on one load to kill a single brute, while the Plasma Pistol has returned to it’s supreme grace of homing and removing all shields that cover the victim (a welcomed friend to the pistol.) The Plasma Rifile, Carbine,  and Assault Rifile make a return to the game, while the deadly Battle Rifle of Halo 3 has been removed (again probably for balance.) The ODST members cannot dual wield their guns as Master Chief does, but they do get to carry one extra grenade each. Also, the energy shield of the past games have been replaced with a stamina meter and health bar. The stamina bar acts like the energy shield if you only had quarter of it at all times. The stamina makes the ODST more realistic, as you begin to hear them breathe harder during tough fights as they try to recover. Now, before you say that the ODST are a bunch of weaklings, they do have one tool that can help out in the dark new stages of the title. VISR mode allows the player to see through the darkness and even highlight key targets or items around them. Enemies will have a solid border around them as well as key items glowing with a distinct shine. The troopers also use their VISR to show their next checkpoint or whichever position you need to go.

New Mombasa plays out like a large sandbox, in which, The Rookie plays hide-and-seek with his fellow members beacons. It can be quite frustrating having to walk these long distances with a shotty radar and nothing really to do. You’ll encounter a Covenant group at times, but it never becomes a really heated battle. You can also search for the audio tapes located at random glowing terminals throughout New Mombasa (sorta like Bioshock’s tapes) that tells a side story of what happened to New Mombasa. Once you reach the beacon you must search for some clue as to what happened to each of your ODST companions. (For some reason picking up the said item and acting like a complete child with it is how The Rookie finds clues.) Once found, you take control of that trooper and play through his role during the six hours The Rookie was out. Each segment has it’s own enjoyable moments, but really makes the game feel like just an expansion of Halo 3. The truly great moments in the game are found toward the end of the title when you really take control of The Rookie and get to show off what you can do. I don’t want to really mention all the details but you do discover a new alien creature (later called The Engineer) and it’s questionable if the creature is on your side or on the Covenants. It’s also nice to know that the AI in the game still has no clue how to control a vehicle (often the biggest moments in the game as well as the hardest.) If the AI is driving you, be prepared to be flipped over or stuck on the oddest things, only to likely be killed by the Wraith that you should have been avoiding that entire time. Also if you’re driving, it’ll most likely make that particular level three times longer then it should be. The AI does not, NOT, know how to control the gatling gun in the warthogs. I’m sorry but you don’t have to pace your fire..you just hold the god damn trigger!

All around a more enjoyable campaign than Halo 2 as well as Halo 3, though those two were much longer. The true shine of Halo 3:ODST is covered in the next section.

Firefight

The true reason to buy Halo 3 ODST is the new gametype, Firefight. You choose your trooper of choice (starting with the Rookie) and face off against an unbelievable amount of Covenant soldiers. Think Left 4 Dead survivor mode with a Halo twist to it. The troopers are given seven lives to start and must share them amongst the players. The maps vary from wide open spaces to tight quarter sections, all based on game maps. Windward (one of the later stages in the campaign involving Romeo’s story) is my favorite of all the maps. It’s the perfect mixture of indoor and outdoor segments to allow an even map all around, plus you start off with a sniper. Gameplay is measured through sets of three stages, separated by six reinforcement drops. The last of the reinforcements drop is always the hardest, normally involving two hammer brutes (maybe four depending on your difficulty) and a collection of jetpack flying Brutes. After the last drop, the troopers are given two additional lives as well as a chance at a few more if they achieve a certain amount of points during the 60 second bonus round. During these bonus rounds, all skulls are turned on and only grunts are spawning.

You might be saying, “Oh that doesn’t sound too difficult..” Well try racking up the points with the skulls on. Lucky Throw for instance makes any passing grunt a potential death, as grenade after grenade explodes around you. Maybe you were unlucky and Black Eye was activated. With Black Eye, you must melee just to recover your stamina, an almost impossible act when playing on Legendary.

The only tips I can give for those brave enough to join the firefight is:

1. Conserve your pistol ammo. You can get away with using the submachine gun and using Covenant dropped weapons. Especially when sharing the ammo between other players over co-op.

2. Plasma Pistol is your best friend. Believe me, if you want to clear out a group of Brutes, nothing is better than the Plasma Pistol and Pistol. It’ll even earn you the achievement.

3. Learn how to get around the brutes for assassinations. Very important for those troubling Brute Captains and Hammer Brutes.

4. Avoid view of vehicles on Legendary. They are killers!

Join the firefight today!

Theater ODST

Two words: No Rewind.

The f$#k Bungie? Alright maybe..maybe I can understand not putting it in. I did read about the trouble the devs had putting it in the first time. But really…why couldn’t you just copy it from Halo 3 Mythic? You eventually got it right the first time guys. :/ It’s really hard going through a 3 hour firefight match only to notice you skipped the part you wanted to record by accident…

Halo 3 Mythic

ODST comes with two discs. The first involves everything listed above, and the second disc covers the best feature of the original Halo 3, the multiplayer. The original 21 maps on a single disc as well as the new addition of Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore.

Finally! A remake of Midship from Halo 2. One of the more enjoyable maps (really anything from Halo 2 was enjoyable..except for the campaign mode) from the previous title and is every bit as the original. From jumping to the top of the map, to the placement of every single weapon, as well as design. A perfect remake unlike that terrible remake of Lockout.

A very tiny map compared to most. Citadel has most of the best weapons just out in front of the players spawn, ready for the opposing teams to fight over. Rockets for example are smack dab in the middle of the map, similar to the Halo 1 map Prisoner.

The largest map of the three. Longshore is like playing on a harbor. It even has a few boats on the underside that you can knock into the water.

I can’t say much about these maps since I never actually get to play them (thanks Bungie), but I can at least say that Heretic is a welcome addition to the otherwise boring maps that have been released. Something about the Halo 3 Multiplayer just makes me dislike it more and more over time.

Amazing trailer with Live Action characters of the series. Why hasn’t this series become a Live Action movie yet? Jesus Hollywood sucks.

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Rating: Must Play!

It’s a bit on the short side, but the introduction of Firefight is just something that no Halo fan can pass up. Plus that addition of the Halo 3 Mystic disc, makes it cheaper than buying up all the map packs separately. You have no reason to buy this title and enjoy it. Unless you hate Spartans. O_o!

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 – Game Review

Haven’t played the original Dirt yet? You haven’t experienced the raw joy of winning the Le Mans in Grid? THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! You have another chance now so don’t screw it up! Dirt 2 brings the excitement of rally fun with the great gameplay of Grid and makes one hell of a racer.

What’s back from the original? Pretty much just the style of the game. A few weak points from the original was it’s lack of enthusiasm in the actual rallying. It got you into the race, did the track notes and the course maps great, but if you weren’t racing, you weren’t doing anything. Really, don’t get me wrong I loved Dirt, but this new title just does everything right.

What’s new in Dirt 2?

The addition of a cast of real Rally drivers from the likes of Ken Block (as you can see blasted on the cover poster), Dave Mirra, Travis Pastrana, and many others that you can befriend throughout the game and partner up with.

Profiles can be filled in with your name (if you’re lucky and have a simple name) so that the rally stars can call you by your name during the menu selections and races. It’s a cool addition compared to Grid when they only used nicknames (which you can still do if your name isn’t listed..)

Menu selection has become surprisingly realistic. Again like Grid, the menus move to certain areas depending on what you choose. For Dirt 2 you move between the outside section, littered with your fans, your car, and the Rally set up and inside of your trailer, where you can choose to play the dirt tour, multiplayer or check the options. Dirt Tour is shown off a world map and lets you choose which region you’ll be racing in as well of which course type you want to play.

Great music plays during the menu selection screens as well as after you win your races, getting you nice and pumped for the next race. Music like “Little Sister” by Queens of the Stone Age, “To Lose My Life” by White Lies, and others.

There are a few different game types including rally, rally cross, trailblazer, land rush, last man standing, gate crasher and throwdowns, and raid.

Rally: This game type follows the generic time trial with the track notes for when turns are coming up and what speed you should be going to make it. You can choose who you want to read the notes (between some chick and some guy) and how detailed they are about them. I actually love how they react when I suddenly decide to do a barrel roll in the car and hear them continue to read the notes.

Rally Cross:  The main attraction of the Dirt series,  lets you race against the many legends in the game and share some paint with them.

Trailblazer (my favorite of them all): A mix between a time trial and a normal race. Each racer starts at a certain interval after the racer before them and is timed throughout. The racer with the fastest lap time wins and it’s just amazing for those speed junkies who like knowing that their doing good when they overtake another racer who started a few seconds ahead of them.

Land Rush: A little bit like King of the Hill. The racers follow two laps on a course that’s been breaken up into five sections. Depending on the time each racer passes a sector they are given a place. First place offers 10 points, second place offers 8 points, etc. During the second lap, racers can either hold on to their respected position on that sector or dominate a section and win first place. Racer with the most points wins.

Last Man Standing: As the name says, you need to be the last racer still on the course. Staying out of last place is the goal as every 20 seconds a new racer is eliminated. Stay infront and stay victorious.

Gate Crasher: This fun, mini-game of sorts, is great for learning the turns of each course as well as just being enjoyable to play. The gates are placed throughout the twists and turns and you must drive your car through them to break it. Each break adds +2 seconds to your time and the racer with the most time wins.

Throwdowns: Seems like someone’s been winning their races and the pros have noticed. In certain regions, the pros of the rally world will challenge you to a one-on-one in their specific specialties. Winning means earning some respect and a new life long friend.

Raid: It’s like the Rally Cross of the truck world. Everyone gets their own gigantic truck (or tank if you’re using the Hummers) and races with the full force of the beasts. Pretty entertaining to see the pick-up trucks going sideways.

Each new race is unlocked on your map and lets the player travel to such hotspots as London (Battersea Power Station), Morocco, China, Japan (Shibuya), United States (Los Angeles, Baja, and Utah) and Malaysia. Each offering up a unique experience to get your car dirty.

Now lets talk about the beautiful cars the player gets to choose from.

- Subaru Impreza WRX STi n14 (Best for Rally/Rally Cross.)
- Subaru Impreza WRX STi n12
- Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
- Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X (Great for Gate Crasher.)
- Mitsubishi Eclipse GT (Love this car for Trailblazer.)
- BMW M4 Coupe Motorsport
- Pontiac Solstice GXP
- Nissan 350z
- Colin McRae R4
- Hummer HX
- Toyota FJ Cruiser
- Mitsubishi Racing Lancer
- Chevrolet Silverado CK-1500
- Honda Ridgeline Trophy Truck
- Dodge Ram Trophy Truck

As well as a few more cars, trucks, and unlockables. Each car will have to be bought (besides your initial Impreza, driven by Colin McRae. RIP.) and will needed to be upgraded depending on what race it will be used in. Each new rank (Rookie, Pro, All-Star) will also add on upgrades to make your car fast enough to hang with the big boys. You’ll even get to outfit your cars with windshield and dashboard toys. My personal favorite is the 360 Avatar that hangs by it’s leg and dangles around as you make your turns. Finally a good use for them!

All those races won’t just count for your paychecks, as a new level up system has been added to the game. Each new level unlocks a new race and large milestones may unlock a new country to visit or one of the bigger events like the X-Games or World Tours. Depending on what difficulty you put it on, ranging from easy to hardcore, you’ll earn some extra green and may have more of a challenge. The difficulty also determines how many instant replay saves you get.

Multiplayer also gets some love with the level up system as you race in pro mode or just fool around in the unranked races. (Sort of like Call of Duty or Halo..which is a nice add on for people who want to achieve something.) The multiplayer is well rounded and fair, but I’ve seen some weird things happening while racing. Cars would start floating as they race down the track and sometimes disappear. Hopefully a patch can fix it, even though it never effected the races badly. Along with the multiplayer races are the tournaments in which a certain task must be accomplished. This week for example is a time trial on Battlesea Power Station. Everyone is ranked by the leaderboard and thrown into ranks such as 1st, 2nd, top 10%, top 100%, and earn points to up their multiplayer rank.

Any problems with Dirt 2?

Just a few that seem like they could have been added on quickly.

My first problem is the lack of cars. It was a similar problem in Grid but both games have such great gameplay that it feels like a minor trade off. Also I really can’t think of another car that would qualify under the Rally flag besides just the older Evo generations and maybe the Dodge SRT.

My second problem involves that wonderful instant replay that Codemasters has created. We can see the new trend of being able to record and even edit (thanks Uncharted 2 <3 you sex ps3 exclusive I’ll end up having to waste money on) in game clips for such purposes at Machinima movies and just showing off. But, those great gods that have given us lowly mortals such a fantastic racer…didn’t even give us the option to record our crazy stunts! Instead I get to rewatch my own performance..and share it with no one! That great barrel roll I landed a mile away from the finish line will never be seen because of this! Unbelievable Codemasters! I expect more from you!

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Rating: Must Play!

You get a great experience out of this game that I never really see in racing games before them (I’m talking about you Need for Speed!) I’d like to see how this game is going to compare to NFS: Shift even though they’re two different racing styles. Maybe EA has actually remembered that racing isn’t about pimping your car. :3

District 9 - Movie Review

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(This following blog post is written in a personal perspective view, it is fan made to be like as if I am in the world of the movie, but I am still living in the same area as a college student.)

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Web Log Entry #0146

Title: Regarding the District 9 Situation

Time: Friday April 11, 2010 10:03 P.M.

Well, the aliens were around ever since I can remember. I was born about 5 years after they crash landed at Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982. My dad told me about how the whole world literally stopped what they were doing and focused all their attention on the  massive spaceship which was just simply hovering over the city like God finally came to Earth.

Its pretty interesting to be in the first generation of children to encounter aliens because we tend to feel a bit more comfort-able then our parents do. We been living on Earth with the aliens all our lives that we just saw it as a natural occurrence. As me and my friends grew up, we were told to refer the aliens as Prawns. They looked like humanoid insects, kind of like a cockroach, but that's my opinion. None the less I’m probably more uglier anyway.

My friends and I would literally have a whole line of discussions about the future of Earth itself if the aliens were to continue to live here. We would predict that either we or future generation of kids would go to school with aliens someday and many other surprising changes in order to co-exist with the aliens. I honestly wouldn’t want to go to war with them. Based on the news reported to us about their weapon design, I would never want to mess with that, especially the gravity gun…I hear someone got killed by a pig when it was launched from the gun. I would never want to mess with that.

Well, as my dad told me, he said that the military cut their way into the spaceship and found a mass amount of Prawns just nearly dying of starvation, so they setup an area below the spaceship and called it District 9, and sheltered the Prawns until they can raise them to good healthy condition.

It was suppose to be the beginning of a bright new future for mankind and the Prawns, working together to live in harmony, paving the way for a better tomorrow, however, it never turned out that way. District 9 became a slum for the Prawns and was boxed up with fences and high military guards.

People are wondering what is going on? The media is telling us one thing and the illegal underground news feed is giving us real horrifying stories about what we the human society is really doing to the aliens. It was said that they were experimenting on the aliens, trying to figure out how humans can use alien weapons, and even murdering them, all in the name of research and advancement. Now that's fucked up, your destroying a person’s life.

And then came an organization called MNU, Multinational United. I personally believed they were a bunch of faggets thinking they can do whatever the hell they want with the aliens without their given rights. I mean come on now, their spaceship isn’t working, they got no where to go, and now they want them to move 200 miles away from the city. They planned to move them to a new shelter and call it District 10.

While MNU tried to evict the Prawns out of District 9, something happened to one of the workers. I don’t remember what his name was but he was in charge of the operation. I think his name was Wikus van de Mery? Or was it Merwe? Names really don’t mean anything nowadays, but anyway, we were told that he had sex with a Prawn and got infected that made him mutate into a Prawn. Everybody was shocked by the images of him having sex doggy style with a Prawn, which was literally in every magazine, newspaper, and the internet. It was actually pretty hilarious when people made comics, parodies, flashes, etc etc. The best was AmazaFAIL’s new song, “Prawna Lover”.

Then come the conspiracy theorist talking about the mysterious control ship that fell off the mothership, I can’t believe they made an entire 20 minute documentary about some mysterious object falling from the mothership. Then there was one about how Wikus was actually tortured into being a research specimen for MNU, one clip they showed of him firing the alien weapons looked pretty real…but then again it may have been edited with special effects. Later it talked about him escaping from the secret lab 4 stories under MNU.

I honestly don’t know what to believe, the year is 2010, the spaceship that was hovering over south africa was said to have started and left earth shortly after. Maybe Wikus managed to escaped MNU and ran away to the spaceship. Not sure why he left 1.9 million Prawns on Earth, should have taken them with him or something. Now the population is 2.5 million in District 10, where they were all moved to, and their clearly here to stay now, since the spaceship is gone. Or maybe it wasn’t Wikus, maybe whoever was the pilot of that ship finally got it to work and left to get help. However…if the underground source is right and the media was lying to us the whole time, I wonder if they would wage war on us?

Who knows what the future might hold. Until then, I should just stop thinking about current affairs and just focus on my school work and how I’m going to shoot this film for my final exam. Hope my friends are available Wednesday Night. Damn…its getting late, there's so much I wanted to say, but I blanked out, I always seem to do this, maybe I’ll write down main ideas and topic focuses before I make a blog before hand.

Anyway, goodnight and thanks for reading my fellow subscribers. <3 All 6 of you.

Log End….Saturday, April 12, 2010 2:15 A.M.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - Game Review

One thing I loved about my birthday this year was the fact that the sequel to a game I absolutely loved was released. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is puzzle game that takes you far and beyond the brain activity you're used to. It makes you think really hard to solve one puzzle, and then tricks you with a simple answer for the next. Professor Layton and the Curious Village was a great DS game, and this new sequel is no less than magnificent in all ways.

The game begins with the introduction of the story- a murder. What would a mystery game be without MURDER?! Apparently, Professor Layton receives a letter from his mentor about a mysterious box that is rumored to be cursed; the "if you open it you die" curse...haven't heard that before...

So Professor Layton, being the wonderful Englishman he is, decides to take a trip to Dr. Schrader's house to make sure all is well since the dude hasn't been answering phone calls. He takes Luke along, his trusty apprentice, and they head into their next mystery.

I don't like spoilers so I refuse to release more info about the storyline, as it does have its twist and turns and it surely does have its laughs. I will tell you that our beloved Flora does make a cameo but I will leave it at that since other people do as well.

The sequel does not disappoint with the different levels of puzzles and interesting new Look & Finds. After rebuilding a camera (you get the camera parts by answering puzzles correctly), the feature to take screen shots of certain areas is available allowing you to go into Layton's briefcase to solve look & find puzzles.

Another nice addition is a sort of mini game that can be played whenever you need a mind break. During the game you meet a cook who has a hamster in his kitchen, yes i know its disgusting...but you feel bad because the hamster is very overweight and you feel the need to help him lose weight. By solving puzzles correctly you get little toys and healthy snacks for this hamster which you then set-up on a board to make him walk to each item with-in 3-steps of him. It's a good mini-game and a little tricky.

The last new addition to the briefcase which has little to do with the story line i the ability to make tea. Yes, you read that correctly..Layton and Luke can now make tea for the people they are interviewing. The trick is, they all want something specific and the only way to make the tea is by unlocking the ingredients by answering certain puzzles correctly. Each tea has a distinct quality to it. Some teas make you feel better, others make you feel refreshed..one even makes you feel beautiful (I wish I had that one).

I feel the new add-ons to the briefcase a re important to the game's success. I know that I have spent a large amount on a puzzle and was happy with the outcome of it leading to a piece of my camera, or a new ingredient...or a POOL for my hamster (which I named Noodle). The add-ons give you a sense of accomplishment besides the normal picarats you get from puzzles.

The game puts a new twist on the puzzles since you can now open the Memo Pad separately a-top the puzzle making it easier to work on a difficult puzzle and be able to switch between your notes and the actual puzzle screen.

All in all, I love this game. I play it when ever possible, not only because of the puzzles, the hamster, tea time, and a mysterious box that is rumored to kill those who opens it...but because I'm just head over hells in gamer love with Layton! There...the cats out of the bag!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Movie Review

Before I review the movie, let’s talk about the book a little bit and don’t mind my fake and poor British accent.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the 6^th book in the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling. Like all Harry Potter books, it had many people in excitement upon its release date four years ago, July 16, 2005. The great part about Harry Potter was the fact that it introduced an entire generation of children into reading. However, it didn’t stop there; the series gave these children a sense of vision in creativity over the course of their lives in literature.

There are countless of fan fictions, fan films, scripts, plays, and even a dictionary relating to the Harry Potter series. Rowling has literally changed the lives of many children and adults around the world and I am certainly impressed to see the power of literature at work.

Here is an example:

 

But, why am I talking about the book instead of the movie? Everybody already knows about what happens in the book, how it differs from the movie, and how great the book truly is to all Harry Potter fanatics. However, what some people didn’t know about was the mischief behind the selling of the 6^th and 7^th book. You see some people thought it would be hilarious to dress up in black clothing, get a loud speaker, a friend with a camera, and of course have the internet as their audience, to witness something pretty messed up.

This person in black ninja like clothing also inspired many people around the globe to perform the same stunt on the 7^th book release. What he did was this, got a list of important facts, went into a crowded book store, lifted his microphone, and simple said, “Attention Customers, SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE!” If you heard the spoilers on that release date, I feel your pain. <3

And now for the film review:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince continues the story of telling us a bit more about Tom Riddle, who is later known as Lord Voldemort, and his past life and how he came into Hogwarts as well as progressing to be one of the darkest wizards Dumbledore ever encountered. In order to defeat Voldemort, they needed to know the past, and the only person able to give that information was Voldemort’s favored teacher in Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn who has a profession in Potions. Dumbledore and Harry visit him at his house to get him to go back to Hogwarts to teach, at first he refused, but eventually gave in and prompted for a raise in his salary.

Surely I thought the story would strictly be about Voldemort, however branched off into another matter. As ordered by the Voldemort, Draco was selected for a special assignment, to kill Dumbledore. Draco’s mother, Narcissa Malfoy, and Bellatrix Lestrange, the first female Death Eater, went to Snape’s home. Narcissa pleaded to Snape to protect Draco from harm, and Draco was not able to kill Dumbledore, he would do it instead. Snape said he will protect Draco, but Bellatrix suggested that an unbreakable vow would insure his words were true.

So, basically, the movie had two plots working with one another, one was where Dumbledore and Harry were seeking to find the truth in the past to defeat Voldemort while the other is where Voldemort was ordering Draco to kill Dumbledore. An interesting film, I never read the book, I seem to have been miss informed about life considering I lived in the era where Harry Potter was created and never heard of it until the 3^rd movie came out. Anyway, great film, glad I watched it twice, missed a few things the first time I watched it, and the second time cleared up everything. Go watch it! Sidd Approved ^^

 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Quick Review

Ever felt like yelling “Objection!” or “Hold it!” at your Nintendo DS? Ever wondered how the court system (loosely) works? Ever just want to play a game where you barely have to do anything? Well here you are! The Ace Attorney series is here with the first installment featuring Phoenix Wright.

Phoenix Wright is a new spiky haired attorney fresh out of law school. He’s still wet behind the ears, but his boss Mia Fey is teaching him the ropes as he defends his friend Larry Butz, Mia’s little sister Maya Fey, and even a famous actor William Powers, all of whom have been unrightfully accused of murder. As Phoenix you find out alibis, collect evidence, and most importantly, find out whose lying about what. You’ll face off against the prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, whose every action leads him closer to victory…no matter what. As Phoenix you’ll need to challenge every new twist that Edgeworth throws at you.

I really fell in love with this game after the first stage. Collecting evidence, asking suspects questions that lead into details that were hidden and challenging cross-examinations. Not only is the gameplay dead simple yet challenging, but the humor in this game is outrageous. Every character has some little quirk that makes them unique. Detective Gumshoe for instance is involved in almost every case and it a bit of a dimwit, yet has moments where his true character is revealed, but again he’s mostly just there for laughs. Each section is broken up into trials or when key information for the trial is collected and these moments can become pretty intense. You’ll start playing the “Who did it?” game throughout each trial. The music is great for making those true moments shine as long with each time someone speaks. A slam to the table, a yell, or even a funny gesture all make the dialogue box shake in some manner. A great visual effect if you ask me. Altogether, this series seems like they took an anime director and told him to recreate Law and Order. o_o

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Rating: Must play!

Notes for the bloggers

Alright, let me throw done some guidelines for the bloggers of Respawn Point.

First off. If you’re posting on this blog and you’re not using Microsoft Live Writer…go download it. It’s probably the best tool for blogging and it makes adding images a breeze.

Pictures for your post must be at least 400px in width. Height should have a base (200, 300, 400, etc.) and any movie posters or game posters of the sort should be 600px at least (with the exceptions of like..DS games which is 400px by 400px).

If you feel that all you need is text wrapping around your image then that’s fine as well, but I would make the image at least 200px.

Moving on. Seeing as how most of us have been rating our respective subjects with high ratings ranging form 5/5, 10/10 and others, I feel that we need to just simplify our ratings to a yay or nah.
For example: The Transformers post that was just posted minutes ago by Sidd could have been given a “Must See!”

Any problems leave a comment and if you just don’t feel like doing any of this then I’ll just continue editing them as I have. x_x Just please don’t be afraid to blog…I really appreciate your inputs. Thanks and happy blogging.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen – Movie Review

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) is an action pack CGI/live action film that continues the story about the raging war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, but takes us back into an earlier time in history where an ancient race of transforming robots landed on Earth. These ancient robotic beings travel to the far reaches of space in hope drain energy from stars and convert them into a resource material called Energon in order to power the AllSpark (seen as the cube in the previous movie). In this ancient era, the Dynasty of the Primes are the ones in power of the weapon they called the Sun Harvester which they use to drain the stars in the universe.

The Dynasty agreed they will only take the stars of uninhabited solar systems, basically stars with planets that have no living organisms; however one of the members in the Dynasty came to Earth and wanted to drain the sun while there was still life on the planet and was later named and known as “The Fallen”. For his own views and hatred toward the planet Earth and its inhabitants, began to construct the Sun Harvester, but was stopped by the Primes. In order to save Earth from The Fallen, the Dynasty of the Primes sacrificed themselves and hidden away the Matrix of Leadership, the key that powers the Sun Harvester machine.

And so, many generations later, The Fallen returns to Earth to finish what he started in order to gain Energon and build up his army.

Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeouf, who in the previous film becomes involved in a war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, has grown up and was heading to college. In order to maintain his relationship with Mikaela Banes, played by Megan Fox, they would have to have to communicate through webcam chat over the internet (which is amazingly popular trend to do when couples, friends, or relatives are far apart from each other).

Before he went off to college, he noticed that he still had a piece of the AllSpark and when he touched and looked at it, the AllSpark fragment reacted and gave Sam some sort of symbolic map to where the Matrix of Leadership is located. The fragment became too hot for Sam to hold onto and fell to the floor burning its way to the kitchen where it reacted to metal and made everyday electronic kitchen machines into transformers and caused a heck of a mess.

So skipping ahead a bit, Sam travels to college. They show us the typical university college life which I still have to witness for myself if this is what really goes on (x.x), with typical weird roommates, hot college guys and girls, parties, and of course class lectures with 100-200 students in an auditorium. This is the scene that cracked me up the most. A teacher walks in eating an apple and talks about physics. He takes a bite, drops the apple, and kicks it to a hot young lady at the front row who says thank you and the teacher replies “Finish it for me”. The way the angles in those shots played reminded me of an adult film-like setting, so I nearly bursted out laughing, covering my mouth as hard as I can while the audience in the theatre room was quiet as hell. The woman next to me gave me a dirty look (They eventually walked out in the middle of the movie x.x).

Anyway, during class, Sam had a weird occurrence of reading the entire class text book in 5 seconds and going nuts claiming that the teacher was wrong. With a freak-out during class, he walks out and wonders what is going on with him and what the symbols he is seeing mean.

Now without spoiling a bunch of things for the movie, I will stop here about the story telling, the film is amazingly awesome, a great movie to watch that has LOTS of action and transforming ^^. There are many scenes that will leave you laughing pretty hard and really get you into the movie that you won’t even have time to eat your snack because you don’t want to miss ANYTHING!

10/10 Great Job at creating this movie!

Oh I forgot one thing…the CGI on Megan Fox is amazing, it’s too real to be real!

Prototype – Game Review

Have you ever played a game and felt like, “Wow this game would make a perfect fucking movie!” or “The story is just what I want in my games!”, and then had to get subjected to a faulty reality? Well that’s how I felt when I played Prototype.

So here’s the low down. You the player get to control Alex Mercer, our protagonist (or anti-hero as you’ll quickly learn), who has been stricken by the story tellers ultimate resource, amnesia. Alex awakens to the sight of two doctors ready to open his presumably dead corpse in a morgue located in the basement of the genetic engineering company GENTEK.  After a clumsy escape by the reawakened Mercer, he quickly finds that his body isn’t truly his own. A virus that was released in Penn Station had infected his body, giving Mercer the ability to leap tall buildings, run faster then cars, strength that rivals the strongest tanks and the ability to shapeshift into any human he consumes. This virus, later called Blacklight, is now infecting all of New York City, and it’s up to Mercer to both find his origins and to stop anyone who gets in his way.

Alex Mercer is the true bad ass of all anti-heroes. Think if Spawn was remade today and Mercer would still kick his ass! Standing between the military forces trying to control the infected and the infection that’s trying to spread, Mercer fights for whatever force will give him more answers. There are levels in which you’ll disguise as a soldier and control tanks, helicopters, or just carry a gun and will need to kill the infected targets, while other situations will call for Mercer to sneak into a military base, destroy a certain weapon, or just kill a group of military forces alongside some infected. It helps that Mercer has all of New York City as his playground. Abilities like his air dash and glide make traveling over buildings a breeze, and his previously mentioned speed and jumping abilities help to get Mercer out of any situation. There is just something special about being able to run up the side of a building only to leap miles into the air and fly off into a new direction. It’s probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. But of course that’s not all! For whatever reason, the infection has given Mercer the ability to parkour like a master! What is parkour? Parkour is a discipline with the aim of moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible using principally the abilities of the human body. (Thanks wikipedia o_o) So you have a few taxis in your way? Well Mercer will just smoothly skip over those like they’re nothing! It really makes getting around much easier as well as making enemy encounters a lot more maneuverable.

So what goes on in the actual gameplay? Well like any sandbox game, you get choices. Do you want to go straight through the main story and beat the game right away? Or do you want to play one of the many mini-games scattered throughout NYC and earn Evolution Points to beef up your character? EP is gained through mostly anything that you could think of. Killing a soldier, consuming a civilian, blowing up a building, completing a mission, blah blah blah. All these points begin to add up and can be used in the upgrade tab to give Mercer new abilities. Been looking at the hook shot arm? Well just need a few more EP! Want that new dive bomb technique to take down anyone in your way? Almost enough! You’ll quickly see that you really need to earn that EP, as the cost of most moves begin to skyrocket in the later parts of the game. The mini-games often revolve around kill so many enemies in such such amount of time, or reach all these checkpoints in this amount of time and are rated by bronze, silver, and gold. Gold of course giving the most EP out. What about the main story though? Well…I want to get into a little bit of why I sorta don’t like it…

Alright, so Mercer doesn’t know who he is, but he can find people that do…right? Yep! That’s just about the general point of the game. You see scattered throughout the game are civilians that are part of the Web of Intrigue. These people are highlighted when spotted by a red head symbol, and when they are consumed a short (highly detailed) cut scene is shown revealing some part of how these people are involved with Alex Mercer or the infection. This is great and all, and I love how it mixes gameplay with real life photos, but it also takes away from the main story telling. I really like when developers take a chance on things like this, but not when it takes away from the main storyline. Every time I went for a new mission I felt like it was just some minor character like Dana A. Mercer (Alex’s younger sister) or Dr. Bradley Raglan telling me what new task I have to complete and then off I go to kill hundreds of people just to do it again when I have to start the next mission. The only real change was the few boss battles that occurred throughout the game (I believe it was three), and those often just involved finding a pattern in which you could defeat the boss without getting completely frustrated. Seriously though, what’s up with the character’s AI? They just find ways to completely piss off the characters. It’s either they won’t stop cheaply hitting you (I’m talking to you four legged infected hunter things!) or that they react in the oddest ways and point you out in a crowd. I found times where tanks would blast me with their cannons even through I was still disgused and wasn’t spotted at all. Also on the combat note, why is it that I can’t defend myself at all? Mercer gets two upgrades throughout the game, a defensive shield that only comes up when he’s running, and a full body armor that makes him literally unable to navigate around anything but halves the damage of most attacks. Why can’t Mercer just throw up his arms and defend himself? At most you get the ability to duck to the side. Yeah that doesn’t work very well when the guy attacking you affects the entire area around you. Also what’s with the weak ass special powers? Sure the claws are great, the hammer arms are bulky and slow but powerful, and the hookshot is great for long distance…but the muscle arms are completely worthless and the blade that is showcased everywhere (look at the game’s cover!) isn’t given to the player until the end. Weren’t we suppose to be given hundreds of powers or something?

What I would have liked to have seen is an option that reveals Mercer’s entire ability and gives the player control of at least 50 abilities that could be mixed and matched so that each Alex Mercer didn’t just feel like a clone to everyone. If I want two long blades on each arm, BAM! That’s what I get (with a limit of course as to how much can be added.) What about if I wanted to launch out multiple tentacles in a wide range? Great! But it’ll cost you energy or something. I’d just like to see this kind of option in the next Prototype…and with EA you know that’s going to come sooner or later. I don’t want to end on a bad note, I just wanted to exclaim my distaste for certain decisions in thie game. Battle can be hectic but tamed with some experience. You get the story you want even if it’s not completely how I would have liked it. Your powers are enough to show your a badass, but never makes Mercer feel like he’s yours. Is Prototype a great game? Definitely.

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Rating: 4/5

Pros: Amazing detail to NYC. Parkour is stylish. Alex Mercer is such a fun character. Great story hiding in the brains of every civilian.

Cons: Often too hectic battles. Main campaign never feels like it’s really telling the story. Enemy AI is frustrating. Cutscenes are amazingly detailed…but in game graphics not so much.

The Legendary Starfy – Game Review

Nintendo has done it again with yet another simple (yet addictive) game. I first heard of The Legendary Starfy at my job. I'm known for walking up to random kids with a DS asking for game recommendations, but this time the kid wouldn't even look at me and he his mother said "Don't bother, he just took it out of the package". There and then I knew it was a must-have game.

The game begins with it’s main character Starfy, the Prince of Pufftop, taking a nap (I love it already) when suddenly…BOOM! What would you do if a space bunny suddenly crashes through your roof waking you up from your peaceful slumber and being followed by three not welcoming creatures? Choose to help him!! Of course! Even though he has no recollection of who he is or where he is from. Who knows, maybe it’ll lead to a great adventure, it always seems to. I side with his friend, a cool clam named Moe, who tries to tell him it’s a waste of time to try to save some random bunny who just destroyed the castle. Once again, OF COURSE Starfy isn’t going to listen…if he did then we wouldn’t be graced with the wonderful adventure of a game! Starfy has his ways of traveling. He can walk on land, swim underwater, or launch out of the water for a high flying jump. He also spins in defense against enemies or to blow up bubbles for the treasures inside. By defeating bosses he finds pieces of a crystal that somehow helps his space bunny friend regain his memory. The crystals also unlock the space bunny’s ability to transform Starfy into other creatures to help battle bosses- I have yet to reach any transformation but will update with them as soon as I do.

Most of the game is played underwater, which makes sense if you’re familiar with the story, which you probably aren’t since Nintendo chose to keep this franchise in every country but ours since its 2002 debut…which is disappointing. During those previous games he “accidently” falls into the ocean below his castle in the sky (so cliché) and makes friends with all the underwater creatures who help him find his way home (aw so cute!). I really think the franchise would’ve done great in North America from the start, but the game is already being spread through summer camps and playgrounds as the next top game.

The game should be popular with all ages and gamers alike. Its platform is much like Kirby with a floating, bouncy feel. I like it better since I never really felt attached to the Kirby franchise. Maybe it’s because my brother would use Kirby to beat the crap out of me in Super Smash Bros when he “wasn’t even trying”. Anyways, the game is getting a lot of attention due to its familiar style and loveable characters who are always do-gooders. The game is very much like Super Mario Bros for the DS with its side-scrolling world and the map with dots representing the worlds and lines that are made to connect them once they’ve been completed. This game also has hidden treasures like clothes and 3-d figures which makes collectors happy with those features. There are also hidden levels to be discovered, leaving this game with endless possibilities and no let down with the amount of game-time.

My favorite feature is probably the link-up function. During any given moment a fellow game player can link-up with your DS and help you defeat a boss to get through a level. Not to forget the mini-games.

I really have no complaints about the game. Okay, maybe one…why not take advantage of the touch screen more? But really…no need for it. As it follows the Kirby and Mario games- it doesn’t need touch screen, the game play and the lovely characters and places in the game make up for the almost completely ignored function.

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I give it a 5/5 and look forward to completing it myself!

Next up: The Sims 3 (Jeff would be proud LOL)

Check back for a new addition to the Blog…Book Reviews!

Plants vs. Zombies – Game Review

We all know a bout Pop Cap, the little indie game company that gave the world such cell phone games as bejeweled, and the widely popular Peggle. Well the masters of bored housewives games have now struck gold with their newest game, Plants vs. Zombies, a tower defense game that takes the new hottest villians on the block, zombies, and faces them against cuddly looking plant life. (Seriously, zombies have been coming up a lot recently. Not complaining :3) Tower defense games mostly populate the internet browser world of flash games, and consist of the user building an army of different types to defeat another army of different types, and to otherwise keep that secondary army from passing your defenses. Simple enough concept that Pop Cap has taken to a completely different level.

You thought it was going to just be a simple day. The sun is shining, your grass is cleanly cut, oh and a horde of zombies are calmly waiting to eat your brains across the street. Guess it’s time to do some gardening! Plants vs. Zombies makes you think quick on your feet as you choose between 48 different zombie fighting plants to face off against the crafty 26 types of zombies. Each new level in Adventure mode brings a new plant to your arsenal and a different variation of zombies to kill. With 50 levels in the adventure mode and multiple mini-games, puzzle modes, and survivor stages, you’ll never stop planting.

Something about this game just pulls you toward it’s creativity. First off I just love the zombies (and if you know me then you know I just love zombies.) Their are so many different shapes and forms that they come invading on your lawn in. From the normal zombies, to the traffic cone zombie, to the pogo zombie, and others like the bungee zombie. It just adds so many different levels of challenges to this game, but with those challenges come the different types of plants like the sunflower, the peashooter, and the repeater. It’s just a downright fun game that’ll have you enjoying every new add-on you get. Endless puzzle mode, survivor mode and the great Zen garden all help give this game longevity even after you’ve unlocked everything else.

I haven’t even mentioned one of the funniest parts of the game. Your good buddy throughout this entire ordeal, Crazy Dave. Dave will who up right from the start stating the obvious zombie invasion and just starts off with the craziest lines you could think of. When it finally comes down to defending your lawn, the best tip I could give you is to keep your sunflowers protected. Earning sun is the only way you can win against the undead intruders. Each plant has some amount of sun before they can be planted. The sunflower costs 50, the basic peashooter costs 100, the frozen peashooter costs 175, the walnut costs 50, the tallnut (n_n best character) costs 125, and it goes on and on. When you unlock the night mode and pool mode in adventure you get two plants that cost no sun, since during these events sunlight doesn’t naturally fall.

Alright, now to move on the few flaws. It’s a Pop Cap game so you know that it will have a repetitive nature to it (if you stick by it’s sense of humor and cute characters or not…) If you can stick by this game until the end you’ll find that the difficulty really doesn’t rise up at all. Sure the last boss can be a bit difficult the first time around, but he’ll be easy once you know all of his moves. Certain mini-games can be a bit challenging as well, but nothing that can’t be handled. You can also play the adventure mode over again with a harder difficulty, but if you’ve unlocked all the plants and have learned the basics of the game you still won’t find it to be difficult. I’m not going to knock it though, this game is unbelievably fun and with just those two flaws I really don’t see why you wouldn’t pay ten bucks on Steam to own it.

Plants vs Zombies Music Video that follows the credits of the game. It’s similar to last years hit title Portal’s ending song and is just as enjoyable. n_n

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Rating: 4/5

Pros: Great Humor. Best Tower Defense Game I’ve ever played. Lovable Characters. Thriller Zombies. :3

Cons: Can be repetitive if that bothers you. On the easy side.

Fast Food Panic! – Quick Review

If you’ve ever played Cooking Mama and have said to yourself…”What the f%#@ is the point of this game?!”…Then Fast Food Panic is for you. Fast Food Panic is a game for both the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo Dual Screen (which is the version I played) and as obviously stated, it’s a cooking game. But, unlike Cooking Mama, you’re not just cooking for the pure enjoyment of letting it go to waste! No no! You’re cooking for your own little restaurant, with your own paying customers, and your waitress that runs the front of the house. You as the chef have a dream of having the greatest restaurant there is! This gives the game a goal to reach toward, unlike the stated competitor.

Alright, no more bashing Cooking Mama. Fast Food Panic starts off by giving the player a great manga like style fresh from Japan. It makes beating each level more enjoyable only because you know that afterward you’ll be enjoying a funny little short with your two main characters. Getting through each level to get to those shorts involve pleasing your paying customers. During the first stage the inspiring chef is introduced to sushi, which is easy enough to make. Two swoops with the stylus from a rice container (this game sometimes demands perfection when doing some tasks…for example if you don’t place the tip of the stylus just right you may not scoop up anything), a bit of pushing together to form a nice rice patty, and then a little memorization game for the two toppings and there you are! A nice sushi dish for your parturient. How well you preformed creating the dish will effect how much joy your customer gets from it. Each step in creating the dish is rated from bad, good, great, and perfect. It’s not hard to achieve a perfect, but accidents do happen and as the player will learn, this game can become very hectic very quickly. Different types of customers ranging from your average people, to critics, to the fatter customers who will order up 5 meals at a time, all help give this game a different challenge. Even the front of the house chips in with it’s own problems. It seems the customers have finished eating so you’ll have to tell the waitress to clean it up. Oh a mouse is running a muck? Call the waitress! Some guests have arrived! Don’t forget to greet them! Sometimes she’ll even scream for help that will trigger a brief mini-game that can include, ringing up the total bill, cleaning off a table, putting away the dishes, or even delivering food. All these of these events add to the joy meter that must be filled before the time runs out to beat each stage.

This would be the perfect little title for the Nintendo DS if it wasn’t for a few big flaws…

The first being the actual length of the game. This game only gives you fifteen stages. Fifteen! That’s nothing for a game like this! Most player will be able to breeze through this game in just a day and it’s really a sad fact! Sure you can play a harder difficulty if you haven’t already, but it just doesn’t seem as enjoyable without the expectation of a new challenge.

The next problem with this game is the lack of multiplayer! How am I suppose to play against my girlfriend if their isn’t even an option for it! We both loved this game but it just seems to spit in our face!

Last but not least…the mini games. They’re so passable that it just seems like they threw them in. I understand that the NDS was meant to be played with the stylus but when all you’re doing is furiously rubbing at the screen with no real reward at the end…why do it? The game is just making an excuse to scratch up the screen. Not all of the mini games are bad of course just a few really spoil the bunch.

Fast Food Panic…you could have been so great! Why, why did your developers gimp you so badly? It’s an enjoyable game, but don’t pay full price for it!

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Rating: 3/5

Pros: Strong gameplay elements. Enjoyable art style.
Cons: Way too short! Lackluster mini games! No multiplayer!

Land of the Lost (2009) – Movie Review

Land of the Lost is originally a kids television show that aired back in 1974. It was produced by the Krofft brothers, Sid and Marty. The characters that starred on the show were the Marshall family, Rick, Will, and Holly Marshall, who were on a ordinary expedition when suddenly something went wrong and found themselves falling randomly into a waterfall. When they awoke, they came to a strange world where they came face to face with dinosaurs, primate called the Pakuni (which were kind of interrupted as early forms human beings) , and the lizard species, the Sleestak.

A remake of the 1974 series was done in the early 1990’s which became one of my FAVORITE kid shows. I always wanted that DAGGER. >.< They only changed the names of the characters with a few more additional characters to the cast.

Now, in mythology or in science fiction, there came a time when people have talked about early human lifestyles and what type of other species that existed. I’m not too familiar with the subject, but they were labeled as the reptilian humanoids. Basically there saying that back in the day, human beings weren’t the only superior race with the ability to dominate the Earth. However, there are thousands of articles portraying another story saying we evolved from them or the unknown wars that early human beings won in order to continue to survive up until now.

In many cases, I do remember reptile like human beings used in video games during my SNES era. A great example would be Chrono Trigger, where you travel to nearly 10,000 BC (I think) to help Ayla, the prehistoric warrior fight the mighty lizard king that threaten to kill off the human race.

Anywhoooooo…

Land of the Lost in 2009 became a big budget film starring Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall, Anna Friel as Holly Cantrell, and Danny McBride as Will Stanton. The film is directed by Brad Silberling. If your a fan of the original TV show, this is a definite must see film due to the fact that most of things that occur during the film is based off the 1974 TV show.

The story starts out on television broadcast as Matt Lauer is hosting the Today show and is interviewing Dr. Rick Marshall. He discusses his research and asks him to explain it a little more in detail. Rick explains his theory on time warps and how it will save the world. After hearing about Rick’s theory, Matt was speechless and like everybody else, he labeled him as a nutcase and he's out of his mind. The interview went from bad to worse when Rick nearly attacked Matt.

Since that interview, Rick has been laughed at, and was nearly pushed down the latter in the science field to a teacher at George C. Page Museum where he gave his presentation about a device that can work to create time warps, the Tachyon amplifier. When all seemed lost for Rick, a very attractive woman came to his classroom and confronted him about his research. She introduced herself as Holly Cantrell and encouraged him to go back into his research. Rick had opposing decisions to whether or not continue his research and to create the device, but after a long night, Rick developed the Tachyon amplifier.

With no time to waste Holly and Rick traveled out to seek out a signal which the amplifier can detect and exert the particles which cause a tear in time and space for developing time warps. They get a strong reading in a cave and see that it is a tourist attraction, The Devils Cave. They meet up with the tour guide, Will Stanton and they head out into the cave in a raft.

As they are traveling in the cave, the device reacts to nearby particles and cause the cave to shift in the water path’s movement. The raft was traveling on its own downward as Will claimed he doesn’t know what is going on. Eventually the raft is lead into a waterfall as everybody onboard it fall.

Our main characters wake up in a parallel world where many things from 10,000 BC to anything from modern time where piled like garbage around the sand. The view of the sky looked as if they were on a different planet.

Holly is amazed by the accomplishment and looks toward Rick and asks him what this all means now.

Rick promptly is proud of his accomplishment and entering the Land of the Lost and proudly shouts, “Yes…I know what this means, MATT LAUER CAN SUCK IT!”

Aside from everybody else that was watching the film, I enjoyed it very much. I knew this film was going to be awesome for me at least since I knew the entire back story and it was really fun to see something from my childhood brought to life in a parody like CGI film. I admit, there are parts in the film that seemed like…ugh or meh…but it was all for the randomness I guess. And there were hilarious parts such as the GIANT Enemy Crab. xD

All in all, I give it a 3 out of 5 based on only the film ALONE.

FanBoy Statistic – 5 out of 5