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Reviews
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Actually a great show but was way too long
I went into this film prepared to be disappointed. I found myself actually entertained for the most part. However, Way of the Water is far from perfect and it's pitfalls are it's length and some poor writing.
It's a three-hour film that really could have easily been reduced to 2 hours and still kept the plot coherent. Without getting ahead of myself, the plot needs a bit of exposition.
Sully the main hero from the first film now finds himself a father of a brood of five children. Three of them are his own with Neytiri who are human-Navi hybrids identifiable by them possessing human shaped hands with five digits whereas the Navi have four. The fourth is an adopted hybrid who was born from the comatose Navi avatar body of the deceased doctor Grace from the first movie, the father a mystery and the fifth is Spike, a human adoptee whose father is actually the villainous Quaritch.
Speaking of Quaritch, the humans have resurrected him with previously unmentioned cloning technology, this time in the form of Navi hybrid, along with a squad of other dead soldiers brought back as hybrids. While this plot point is a bit hard to take in, it serves as an important game changer for the human faction since these hybrids don't trigger an immune response from the planet's fauna and freely wonder around untouched.
With Quaritch now at the head of a second human invasion of Pandora, Sully is compelled to flee from the forests to the sea tribe Navi for refuge. Here is where another weakness of the movie kicks in. It's obvious that they wanted to move the film away from the forest so they could show off all the beautiful sea and it's creatures.
So they have Sully, a trained marine in his former human life, make like a coward and flee from the forests where he had previously been waging an effective guerilla war for a year against the second human invasion. Sully's decision here makes no sense as we get a bit of exposition from a human general that Sully's attacks on their activities has been devastating.
One skirmish with the Navi hybrid Quaritch is all it takes for Sully to split with his family, effectively abandoning his adopted forest tribe to the mercy of the human invasion, you know the tribe that took him in and made their leader?
Act 2 is where the film's pace hit a speed bump. Much of act 2 is spent focused on Sully's hybrid children as they face bullying and ostracization due to being outsiders, mixed race and also unadapted to sea life. Sully's character is largely reduced to disciplining his children especially his 2nd son whom is treated as a constant source of trouble. Neytiri too suffers a similar fate as she is reduced to a largely background character in the second act.
At the same time Quaritch's hunt for Sully starts becoming all Vietnam-like as he burns sea tribe villages to try and flush Sully out. All of this predictably builds up to the meat of the movie, the set piece battle that James Cameron so loves and cares for and this where James's work once again shines true.
This is a good film that could have been great if not for the 2nd act that any good writer could easily shaved down whilst still keeping the plot coherent. If there's any other positives i can say, it's main message of the importance of family and a father's struggle to do anything to protect them, even as it costs him, a positive male role model that is frankly missing in today's woke films.
Mat Kilau: Kebangkitan Pahlawan (2022)
Pure nationalistic jingoism
First and foremost let me say i am not the target audience for whom this movie was made so naturally Mat Kilau failed to hit all the spots for me. The fact is though one make a film like Mat Kilau and still hit the right spots with non-target audience. As a non-Caucasian I enjoyed foreign patriotic movies like Mel Gibson's 'The Patriot', 'Braveheart', 'Glory' even though i am not American or Irish as those films were well made.
Mat Kilau though is pure adulterated extremist propaganda aimed at a particular segment, that being the Malays of Malaysia. There's nothing wrong with that as one can still make such films and as long as they are well made, I am the sort of person that can still appreciate the effort. Mat Kilau's failings though are too numerous to ignore or give a pass.
Firstly the story. In a nutshell, the movie is based on a real life anti-colonial Malay rebel who resisted the British in Malaya in 1890s. Telling this story should have been straightforward and embellishment for the sake of entertainment is too be expected and in fact needed! Where the film fails terribly is the writing and casting department.
Mat Kilau for one is Gary Stu who embodies everything the modern Malay surpremacist dreams about. He's a devout Muslim and every 2nd sentence out of this character's mouth is some form of nationalistic nonsensical rant about driving out the evil British and how Allah alone is all they should depend on. Mat Kilau comes across as single-minded and bland with nothing else to his character other than his extreme nationalistic and religious views.
It's actually up to his fellow freedom fighters to give some more development as the spouse of one of them is against his involvement in the rebellion.
The next big problem is how everyone who isn't a Malay is a traitor working for the British. The token Chinese character is helping the British. The two Borneo mercs whom the British employ are the only assets capable of holding their own in combat against Mat Kilau and his friends while the British colonial Sikh troops employed by the British come from the same school Star War's stormtroopers.
This leads us to the next big problem, the movie's villains. The chief villain is British officer Captain Syers who is such a comically evil character that it's hard to seriously see him as any threat. Whilst the aforementioned Mat Kilau is a Gary Stu who can do no wrong and hardly breaks a sweat as he slaughters waves of Sikh soldiers, Syers is Saturday morning cartoon bad guy whose every line of dialogue is equally comically written. His lines are so bad, it borders on cringe. As the commander of the British effort Syers advocates measures that are literal genocide as his Sikh underlings commit mass slaughters of Malay civilians. If the real life British were this inept it's a wonder how they defeated every Malay rebellion against them.
What's more Syers here is shown as a stereotypical blonde-haired devil with-check this out BROWN EYES-but they clearly hired some clown to do his make up as the actor who plays him has dark hair, is not even British and doesn't even attempt put on a semblence of an English accent. The poorly done fake blonde hair coupled with the actor's obvious real brown eyes ends making Syers look like a literal clown.
Then there's the fight scenes... every fight scene is an extended drawn-out affair whether it's Mat Kilau and gang mowing down waves of Sikhs soldiers, or 1-on-1 duels with the Borneo mercenary duo, the main Malay fighters always taking a chance to strike a cool pose in the middle of a fight!
For the record the real-life Mat Kilau's rebellion was eventually defeated when British pressure compelled the local Malays to betray and surrender the rebels. This is a huge point to make cause it needs reminding that every non-Malay in this film is either a traitor or helping the British. The fact that the real-life Mat Kilau and his friends were turned in by other Malays stands in huge contrast to the drug-addled written copium of this film.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
A proper respectful homage to the 1980s movies
Like many fans of the 1980s movies I was very disappointed by the 2016 movie which not only ignored the previous movies but also managed disrespect them. The toxic comments from the director aside, the 2016 movie was also a box office failure which thankfully killed off any sequels by the people who made it.
When i heard then that the son of the director of the 80s movies was making a new Ghostbusters movie, I was both hopeful and tentative. I saw the trailers but avoided getting my hopes up and when i finally watched Afterlife, i was quite surprised at how good it was. So much that i even teared up at a few points due to the respectful and loving way that Afterlife treated the original cast of the 80s movies.
Afterlife is everything that the 2016 movie wasn't in that it's actually good and respects the previous movies. I actually watched it twice and plan to get the Ultimate Collection when it releases and have no plans to use the download code for the 2016 movie. That Afterlife completely ignores and erases the 2016 movie is a huge plus in my view.
Arcane: League of Legends (2021)
A triumph in animation that will be the barometer for decades
Not gonna lie, i tend to look down on most Western animations as i am avid anime fan. Often times alot of original Western animations are targeted at kids and often treats it's audience as such. We can only look at the slew of 3D films being pumped out every year targeted at kids. Amongst the few gems that have broken the mold have been Avatar: The Last Airbender and the sequel The Legend of Korra.
So when I heard that League of Legends, the popular online game was getting an adaptation, my bar was set very low as almost all adaptations of video games have been really bad or a passing average. Coupled with being a Western animation, I had no expectations, nor was i in a rush to watch Arcane. For the record i had played LoL years ago in college but had stopped about 6 years ago.
But when i finally summoned up the interest to play the first episode, I was immediately hooked and binged Act 1 and 2 in a single day before waiting impatiently for Act 3 to drop.
Arcane is without a doubt, objectively the best animation to date, surpassing even my favourite animes. It scores high in practically every category; animation, story, characters, writing, action, pacing. It's the rare gem that has gotten it all right.
And the kicker is even if you don't know a single thing about League of Legends or even games, this show will draw you in and hook you and you won't want to stop accept to take it all in and digest it.
When the last act ends, you will be in anguish knowing that season 2 won't drop in 2022.
Thor (2011)
Surprisingly good.
First off I am not a Thor fan nor i am a comic book fan. I went into this movie with no expectations, expecting another popcorn fest along the lines of the Ironman movies. Therefore I was quite pleasantly surprised by Thor. Whereas most comic book movies lack plot or storyline, Thor actually engages the viewer with the classic tale of loving father and the wayward son finding his way along with all the typical action requirements of a comic book movie. I can't vouch for Thor's faithfulness to the comic of course but that it still managed to entertain this none-fan is a testament to the movie. Whilst not perfect it's certainly more entertaining than that other popcorn flick, Battle LA which deserves a Razzy award.
If you know nothing of Thor, go watch this movie and be entertained as Thor certainly does. The only issue I may like to mention is the poor use of 3D. The cinema I went to only had 3D for Thor and I was thus forced to watch it in 3D. Having previously being wowed by TRON LEGACY in 3D I can say that the 3D work on Thor was quite lacking. Also I feel that 3D is been unnecessarily pushed onto EVERY movie with the slightest amount of action, and Thor's problem is many of it's action scenes don't need the 3D treatment. My advice is watch this in normal 2D and save yourself some money.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Not as bad as people say it is
First off I didn't play the games so I went in with no knowledge of the storyline. Secondly I'd taken the liberty of reading the IMDb reviews and after separating the AstroTurf from butt hurt gamers, I went in with modest expectations.
These modest expectations were largely fulfilled, or one could say my expectations were so low that I was actually entertained. Lets be straight, pretty much every movie based on a game has stunk. I've seen such classics as Doom, Hit-man and Max Payne get absolutely ruined by studios who never played the games, so perhaps it was fortunate for me not to have been a fan of the PoP games.
Essentially what Prince of Persia: Sands of Time boils down to is Pirates-of-the-Caribbean in ancient Persia and I suspect that's what they were aiming for, nothing like beating the franchise to death in another new franchise. Prince Dastan is easily a stand-in for Will Turner,a street urchin wanting to be something more than his low-born background. There's the high born damsel-in-distress Princess Tamina, clearly projecting the aristocratic Elizabeth Swan, only thing is Tamina spends a lot of her time whining which actually makes Lizbeth rather more tolerable if you re-watch Pirates. Then there's mysticism, magic, supernatural elements and a creation myths thrown in regarding a magical dagger created when a young pure maiden made a plea to the gods who were angry and wanted to kill humanity with a sandstorm and a dagger that can turn back time.... oh man this fecal matter is BANANAS! This convoluted stuff certainly reeks of all that Aztec gold curse cum sea god-imprisoned-in-mortal-form who loves tentacle Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Is all that wrong? Well it wouldn't be except the direction of the action sequences are so familiar that even the addition of park four sequences from the games adds little that one hasn't already seen, assuming you've already watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
In the end, I was mildly entertained, certainly at least more entertained than Clash of the Titans or Percy Jackson. In both those movies, I came out wondering, "What the fudge was that bovine excrement?" With Prince of Persia, I came out thinking,"Rather tasty but could have used less sugar."
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
God awful bad, should win a Razzie for 2010
I haven't read the book, wasn't planning on, but I think I might since I was so god damned pi$$ed about forking over my hard earned cash for this movie, that my friends advised to read the book which is far different. So here's the deal with the whole Percy Jackson craze. After Harry Potter showed you could do a lucrative venture from making movie adaptations of popular children's' books, others have hopped on the bandwagon and here we have Percy Jackson.
Having already read all the Harry Potter books, I could not help but notice the numerous carbon copies they have put into Percy Jackson. Lets see boy living with deadbeat relatives or relative in this case. Check. Has special abilities. Check. Gets carted off to school/summer camp for special kids like him. Check. Has a female and male sidekick. Check. Is being hunted by evil forces. Check. Did I miss anything? I guess we can hand it to the Percy Jackson creator for setting it in the US instead of Great Britain.
That's not to say the movie couldn't have been much better that the subject material. I am told the book is GOOD. Well if the book is GOOD and the movie SO BAD, I guess we can all blame Chris Columbus here. The fact is the Harry Potter movies are usually watchable but here the Percy Jackson movie adaptation is god awful bad. The acting from the young stars is stilted, wooden and cringe inducing. Percy's reaction to seeing his mom die and immediately forget about it once he lays eyes on Athena's half breed daughter are some of the worst FACEPALM parts of the film. By getting Columbus to direct the first film, one wonders if they were trying to emulate the Harry Potter success.. oh heck they are trying to. Sadly... it doesn't work. AT ALL PERIOD
Max Payne (2008)
Boring as hell, wait for it to air on free TV.
I only ever played the first game but I came into the cinema expecting much shooting and bullet time mayhem. Boy was I in for a major disappointment. Max Payne has to be the second worst movie adaptation of a computer game after Dungeon Siege. It's so boring and slow that you could take five toilet breaks in the first two thirds of the movie and still not miss anything. It's just that boring. The action in the end probably only amounts to 12-15 mins of the total movie length. There's only three or four bullet time sequences in the whole movie and that's about the only entertaining part of it because the none bullet time action sequences are poorly choreographed and bland. There are a lot of useless characters like Bravura and Mona Sax, whom if you completely removed them from the movie, the plot would not suffer at all.
The movie in my opinion is both improperly marketed and written as it comes off as gritty detective crime drama rather than the bullet time action filled game that it is based on. It doesn't help that in Australia the movie posters scream that it is 2008's Sin City. If you played the games and loved them, I suggest staying away from this as it will ruin your experience. If you don't know anything about the games, well then you might be entertained a bit. Were this movie marketed as an urban crime drama and NOT based on an action game where the hero goes from level to level mowing down enemies, it probably would be more accurate because that's what this movie really is, a gritty urban crime drama with a very slow and long build up to the ending. But hey if that's your cup of cake then fans of such genre would enjoy this snoozefest. But as a fan of the game whose main selling point was the Matrix-like bullet time action, it fails... badly.
Shrek the Third (2007)
Poor addition to the series
I'll be straight and say it now ahead of the rest of my comment, the third installment in the Shrek movies is inferior to both of it's previous titles in the every way. It's quite a disappointment to have this title made the way it was. Everything about it is predictable but that's not the bad thing, both of the earlier Shrek movies were fairly predictable but were successful in executing it in a funny, comedic and sometimes suspenseful manner. Shrek the Third completely fails here. It is predictable without being funny, comedic or engaging. Shrek and Fiona also both suffer from character derailment and act unlike themselves from the previous movies. In Shrek 1, we saw Shrek easily beat up shinning knights in armor, take on crossbow tooting elf goons in the second film, but here in the Third he easily gives up when confronted by a few soldiers. Meanwhile Fiona has become practically useless. Other parts of the story are so contrived. Fiona, her mom the queen and several other fairy tale girls are locked up halfway through but do nothing to escape until the end when the Queen conveniently knocks down the jail walls with her head. Heck why didn't she do it earlier? It's almost as if the writers stuck them in there and couldn't think of a way to get them out and ended up with this instead.
And then there's the villain, Prince Charming. I honestly think it would have been better if they created a new villain from scratch because Prince Charming was portrayed as a vain airhead in Shrek 2 and it's so unbelievable when he easily turns a tavern full of depressed fairy tale villains to his side with a few words. Even more insane, at the end, the lost heir Arthur, also with a few naive words, convinces said tavern villains to throw down their weapons and make up.
Ultimately, this leads to the rather poor and naive message of the movie regarding what people think of you and how it does not matter what other people think as long as you know yourself. Well guess what? Pretty much all the world's mass murderers, dictators, serial killers etc etc acted like that.
All in all, I felt my money was wasted on this movie. The only upside is that I watched it on the same day I caught Transformers: The Movie which allowed me to see just how much of a mish-mash, half-cocked job they pulled on Shrek the Third. Don't watch this movie people, especially Shrek fans. You WILL be disappointed.
Transformers (2007)
Quite pleasantly surprised
When I first saw the teaser trailers a year ago, I had reservations. A mecha live action movie with big Hollywood production? I could so easily see that being ruined by Hollywood executives. So I went into this movie with no expectations or hopes, which may account for my high rating. For the record I was a casual fan of the original TV series, and never followed the various offshoots like Beastwars etc etc.
For starters the transformations are a marvel and truly fun to see for all the different robots. The transformations never comes off artificial or cartoonish like The Hulk movie disaster was. And the action whether it was between Autobots and Decepticons or against humans is well done and quite suspenseful in some instances, though some of the slow motion parts seems to be hashed from 300. Nevertheless, I found it fairly entertaining and a welcome break from the huge plethora of CGI kiddy movies we are being inundated with nowadays, so it's refreshing to see what was essentially a cartoon given a serious treatment and look. There is violence and death in the movie of both humans and Transformers, though I privately wished there was more gore in it.
Of course there are flaws. A bit too much time is spent on the romantic development between the human characters. This results in some of the Autobot interaction seeming out of place and hard to relate to. Indeed, I did not find myself grieving much over the demise of some Transformers. I think more time should have been spent on the character development of the Transformers, especially the rivalry between Optimus Prime and Megatron.
All in all, I am quite impressed and satisfied with the movie and hope that a sequel is in the works, and that the sequel will have more gore and action and not get it's violence watered down like Die Hard 4.0.
Mech Commander 2 (2001)
A good attempt at creating a strategy title in the genre
I never played the first MechCommander, and had only ever played the simulation games in the series, so naturally I approached this game with reservations. Despite my preference for the simulation combat of the Mechwarrior titles, I found MechCommander fairly enjoyable and worthwhile.
MechCommander 2, as the name suggests is an RTS game set in the Battletech universe of which the Mechwarrior and MechAssault series also originates. You command a unit of mercenaries who are working on the strife torn Carter V. A number of different factions are contesting Carter V, namely House Liao, House Steiner, House Davion and the local rebels, though later on Davion will join forces with the rebels. There's no need to worry about which faction to side with since you do no get the freedom to choose your missions. Rather you are lead down the game's one track story that sees you work for all the factions one after another. Ultimately you end up working for former enemies and fighting against former employers. I was disappointed of course by this since I expected more freedom ala Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries which I played before MechCommander 2.
Like any RTS game, you control your team from an isometric map view though you can fully rotate and zoom the camera. At the very least, you are able to buy and sell mechs, equipment, customize the mechs etc. You also have the ability to train new skills for your subordinates such as light/medium/heavy/assault mech specialization. Weapon and ECM specializations also exist, allowing you to strengthen your pilots abilities since your enemies and missions will become tougher naturally.
During missions you are also awarded points that you can use to call in various types of reinforcements. This is especially important since it can really make the missions easier. The reinforcements range from being able to call in artillery pieces, repair trucks, air strikes, probes, etc. You can even insert a pilot into mechs that have been taken out, allowing you to salvage and use them during the mission itself. Naturally, a limit on the points prevents you from doing all of the above during a single mission.
A high point of this game is the acting which I found good and very believable unlike Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance. I also did not find one FMV scene where they copped out on the budget and used terribly done CGI backgrounds like the closing movie for Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance did. All the actors appeared to be on actual sets.
It's a shame that they haven't made another RTS title in the genre since MechCommander 2, as I feel that they were doing a good job and going down the right path. With RTS games like Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War allowing you to zoom all the way in to see your troops in all their exquisite detail, it's a wonder they haven't done such an update of the RTS Battletech genre. Even if you are only casual fan of the Battletech games, it won't hurt your wallet to collect this.
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance (2000)
Could have been better without the FMV scenes
Already one can see where the rot in the series started once it was in Micro$oft's hands. One can't help but think that Micro$oft spent more of the budget on the FMV scenes and actors rather than the game itself.
Seriously, the acting is bad. Way bad. Think of all those B-Grade movies. The fact that pratically every mission has FMV cut scenes with the actors is torture. Unfortunately, you have to listen and watch the FMV scenes in order to get the mission objectives.
The game itself is fairly alright. You get all the previous mech action you had from previous titles. The game trusts you in the roll of the last surviving member of a ruling family and you must fight against great odds to retrieve your right to the ruling throne.
I think much more could have been done with the game if they completely did not do the FMV scenes and spent the money on the engine, game play and the soundtrack. Especially the soundtrack, which is a gigantic step back from the previous titles. Think 'M16-rifles-to-stone-spears' kind of step back.
MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (2002)
An okay title, but not the best of the series.
Ever since the Mechwarrior franchise was taken over by Micro$oft, various aspects of recent titles have been lacking. The back story and soundtracks have suffered greatly over the course of what, three titles? Anyway, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, released in 2002, was the last installment in the series and as of 2007, there has been no word of future titles in the series. MechAssault and it's sequel don't count since they are arcade, action titles for the masses who are unlikely to get over the 1 hour learning curve of the Mechwarrior titles.
The back drop of Mech 4: Mercs is the Federated Commonwealth civil war between Davion and Steiner. At first the player, who is given the callsign Spectre, can take missions from either faction but doing so earns you positive infamy points with that faction and negative infamy points against the other. Ultimately, how your reputation fares with both factions will lead the player down one of three alternate endings.
The game play will be familiar to many fans of the series. As a merc commander, you earn C-Bills for successful missions, salvage mechs, buy, sell, and customize your mechs and their equipment to your liking and hire additional lance mates. A low point here is the relative ease at which you can salvage mechs, which was incredibly hard in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. In Mech 2: Mercs, you had to score a head or cockpit kill to stand a sufficient chance of mech salvage. If you blew the mech apart in normal fashion you were unlikely to get any salvage at all other than some remaining weapons. Additionally, salvaged mechs in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries seem to have some instant free-of-charge repair ability as they appear fully repaired in your bay once salvaged. In Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, you had to spend money repairing salvaged mechs. This all results in much to simplistic game play. After the first five missions, you'll be rolling in C-Bills.
The game is disappointingly short, with none of the depth or length or Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. Any long time fan can finish Mech 4: Mercs in two days on Veteran difficulty, due to the somewhat weak AI. The only time the player will be in trouble is when the enemy mechs gang up on you. One-on-one, no one should have trouble.
If there are some things I truly dislike about Mech 4: Mercs, it's the voice acting of Spectre. That's right, the VA for the player's character is terrible. At times when he should be showing concern or worry regarding the status of fallen comrades, he sounds like a bored man reading his lines, lacking completely in any realism. In fact, the other VAs, especially Castle's VA seems quite good. I think attaching a voice and a picture to the player was a mistake since it forces you to form a mental picture of your character's... well..character.
The soundtrack is another disappointment. Whereas the soundtrack for the Mechwarrior 2 titles was superb and still held in high regard today, in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries you get the same two or three tracks that play occasionally throughout the game and none of them can hold a nail to any of Jeehun Hwang's scores. By the way, he was the one behind the music in all Mechwarrior 2 titles.
All in all, if you've played all the previous titles, you can see the series going downhill slowly. Even the inclusion of Solaris 7 tournaments, which by the way was started in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, can't appease this disappointed fan. This title is only for true hardcore fans of the series and is a good example of what happens when big companies with only profit in mind, take over a popular genre from the company that previously made it popular, and then give it a slow death.
Come on Micro$oft, do something with the damn license or sell it.
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (1996)
One of PC's best mech sims
A review that is ten years late. Well as of 2007, mention 'mechwarrior' and a good number of people will think MechAssault. But before MechAssault there was Mechwarrior, and unlike the arcade-action style of MechAssault, the Mechwarrior titles were simulations with a short learning curve that most MechAssault kids today probably would be too disinterested to try, which is to say tad disappointing.
Regardless of the state of the series now(the last PC title in the Mechwarrior line was in 2002), Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries is one of the gems of the past that helped push the video graphics card industry forward.
A prequel rather than a sequel to Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, the player occupies the role of a mercenary mech pilot, who has recently been rendered freelance following the game's spectacular intro movie (even the later titles intro movies pale in comparison IMO).
The game introduced many new elements, such as the ability to salvage destroyed mechs and a huge range of customizable options for your mech. Even the more recent Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries has less detail for mech customization than this title did.
A wide variety of missions are available, some are randomized, short generic ones with simple Search and Destroy tasks and others are longer, multi-mission arcs that have a strong, canonical back story to them. A fairly novel mission is where the employers are actually bandits who hire mercenaries and ambush them at the drop site to steal their mechs. An even more unique arc involves assisting one of the Great Houses in capturing a Clan OmniMech intact, but when the last mission to hand the mech over to them comes, your drop ship pilot suggests keeping the mech for yourself, thus giving you the mid-mission option of breaching your contract and forfeiting your big pay in exchange for a sweet Kodiak mech.
If one is patient and takes the time to read the various news reports, then you can get a good update on the background story and info, namely reports of mysterious pirate attacks that leave no survivors. This of course takes place before the Clan invasions, so it's little mystery to fans who the attackers are.
If you choose the proper missions, then you actually get taken down one of the best arcs, where you get captured by the Clans and held as a bondsmen before escaping with the help of captured pirates. Ultimately, the game's story leads to a series of well written missions against the Clans, including the canonical Battle of Luthien.
The game's soundtrack is another solid part of the game, something which the last titles, Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance and Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries were badly lacking.
If you get tired of all that, you can hop over to Solaris 7 and take part in mech tournaments. A particular fan favourite is the match that takes place inside a giant skull big enough for mechs to fit. These tournaments were revived in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, which unfortunately didn't have the giant skull battlefield.
Any series mech sim fan will enjoy Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries without a doubt, as long you can get over the dated graphics. Fortunately for long time fans of the series, back in 1996, Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries's graphics WAS top notch.
Hitman: Blood Money (2006)
47 returns once more, this time taking on a shadowy organization in the US
Whenever I hear people talk about how bad ass Splinter Cell is, I go,"Sam Fisher? 47 and the ICA would bugger him and superiors over and over every time." But enough comparisons there, ironically in Blood Money, the ICA, the agency that employs 47 is getting taken down left and right by a mysterious organization called the Franchise, and this time around 47 will have to face other assassins.
It's worth pointing out that a tie-in occurs here that connects the third mission,"Curtains Down" with the events seen in between missions and the last mission of Hit-man:Contracts,"Hunter and Hunted". Essentially, the events that occur in "Hunter and Hunted" are immediately after "Curtains Down" in Blood Money.
Moving on, Blood Money is an upgrade in every way from the earlier games. A new engine with better graphics, upgradable weapons, a notoriety system that assesses how easily you may be spotted in later missions,the ability to conceal bodies in containers or throw them over the rail into the river etc. A splendid addition is the ability to grab people as human shields before knocking them out, thereby saving you on anesthetics.
The game also plays on the mind, because as the you complete more missions, the game's menu screen changes. Initially it shows a funeral with lots of people attending. As you complete more missions, it becomes apparent that the guests are the targets in the missions,and they began to disappear after each mission. Ultimately as you approach the last missions, we see that it is 47's funeral that is shown in the background.
Plotwise, Blood Money has all the aspects of the earlier games. The targets in the missions all have their own background info, so you aren't just killing some random person without knowing why someone wanted him/her dead. Some missions don't relate to the main plot and personally I feel those missions could have been left out in exchange for more main plot-related ones. The game follows a somewhat similar path to Contracts, with the missions told as flashbacks during an interview between a reporter and a scared and wheelchair bound man.
Some new gimmicks mentioned earlier, namely concealing bodies in containers can actually become quite repetitive later in the game. It's almost as if there's a body-sized box in every corner waiting for you to use to hide a body. Another repetitive addition is the post-mission newspaper report. At first it is interesting to read about your exploits in the media, and how you played the mission can affect the wording of the report. Too many living witnesses or being caught on camera can result in a sketch in the report and mass murder gets you labeled a terrorist. Ultimately it becomes repetitive and you can see a pattern in the manner of the reporting that can be boring later on.
Another aspect that disappointed me about the Blood Money is that it mostly takes place in the US. Previous Hit-man titles saw 47 as a globe trotter performing missions in Hong Kong, India, Middle East, Russia, Romania, Malaysia etc. Those games had numerous indigenous dialog that really added to the games' atmosphere. In Blood Money, there's only two missions that don't take place in the US. While playing Blood Money, I felt like I was watching lots of Hollywood movies due to the varying American accents. Blood Money has everything from hood talk to southern redneck accents. Of course other gamers might not have a problem with this. It's obvious that IO Interactive may have been targeting a specific group with it's choice of mission settings.
On the upside, I did feel that that the voice acting was quite well done, especially Alexander's VA. On the downside when it comes to voice acting, it seems that they didn't make enough voice sets for the guards. They all sound the same. When I grabbed a Middle Eastern-looking bodyguard as a human shield in the "House of Cards" mission, I was surprised to hear him yell out with an American accent.
Moving on, the game's missions are a reflection of earlier titles, namely the multi-path solutions. And it goes further here with the ability to make hits look like accidents. Most can be achieved with a simple push over the rail or a mine blowing something up causing it to fall on the target. A few can be quite innovative, like sabotaging the stage pyrotechnics to burn the target during the performance. Too bad even if the target gets killed in an accident, the post-mission newspaper reports still report it as a hit.
All in all, a good game with some minor flaws. Fans of the series and stealth games will still love it.
Hitman: Contracts (2004)
A real psychological trip, don't be put off my the disjointed missions
What can I say? Been a fan of the Hit-man games since Codename 47. The greatest aspect of this series is that it requires more thinking than FPS shooters, but doesn't bog the player down with non-sensical rules of engagement like the Splinter Cell series. Additionally, there are a multitude of ways to complete each mission, which unfortunately itself may be problem which I'll mention more later on in detail.
Well, first of, Contracts starts of confusingly with the end of the first game after Mr. 47 has broken Dr. Ortomeyer's neck. After evading/slaughtering the SWAT teams storming the sanitarium, we next find Mr. 47 stumbling in a room, bleeding. And before you know it, you are of on the second mission, a rather disturbing one at that, replete with S&M leather freaks in a slaughterhouse club run by a horribly obese, bedridden man whose disturbed brother has tortured and killed a young girl while listening to oldies on vinyl records. The missions from here on are all generally dark, always taking place at night and on more than one occasion in stormy weather.
Some people have complained about the disjointed missions which seems to lack cohesion and relation. But therein lies the beauty of Contracts. In between each mission as we see more glimpses of the wounded 47, it becomes apparent that he's recalling past missions in his mind and it is from his point of view that we are playing the missions. Some of the missions are remakes from the first game while a select number are original in Contracts. Some aspects of the remade missions are different and may require a different solution than what was used in the first game, that's if you've played Codename 47.
Which brings me to the next aspect which I mentioned earlier, the multiple methods of getting the job done. Unlike Splinter Cell's generally one track solutions, you have the freedom to do what so ever in the game to get the job done. If all-out assault is your cake then so be it, you just won't be able to achieve Silent Assassin ranking to unlock other weapons in the game.(which itself might be pointless due to the lack of an equip option prior to missions) Then again the game was made to beaten while achieving Silent Assassin ranking in all missions. Unfortunately, some solutions are not obvious without a bit of trial and error as well as curious exploration. For example in the mission, "Meat King's Party", the obvious solution was to gain entry to the target's room disguised as either a guard, waiter or chef. However later with a bit of exploration, I discovered an open roof window above the target's room, from which I could also have easily used a silenced weapon to shoot from.
It's also worth mentioning that obvious solutions that work on Normal difficulty, might not work on Expert and Professional. As an example, donning a SWAT officer's outfit in the "Asylum Aftermath" mission worked on normal difficulty setting but when I attempted to use this same method on Professional, the enemy easily saw through the disguise. Ultimately, it would take dedicated fans to beat the game on higher settings. So if you blasted through the game on normal and thought nothing much of the game then I suggest you do so again on the higher settings.
In the graphics department, the game has seen some major overhauling with the addition of reflective surfaces and lighting effects which only help to accentuate the dark nature of the missions.