The Evil Within - Game Review

The Evil Within Review

 

The problem with most games these days (with a few exceptions) is that the story the game is trying to tell is out of balance with the actual gameplay. The Evil Within is no exception, sadly. Even if it's gameplay is pretty amazing.

It seems to me that The Evil Within does almost everything right gameplay wise, and almost everything wrong story wise. I do have to give credit to the creative horror and oddly charming style that Japanese games carry with them, especially this one. To give context to the story, The Evil Within is about Detective Castellanos and his detective crew Josef and Juli Kidman. The game starts out with the 3 people investigating a mass murder at a mental hospital. After looking around shortly, Detective Castellanos gets knocked unconscious and after waking realizing that he's in a nightmarish place with horrifying creatures that act like zombies. The Evil Within is innovative, but the story is not all completely there. There were often times when something in the story was left unexpanded upon and pointless. Because of this you're left confused about the story almost all the time. A story in a game should give you motivation to fight for the main character's cause. In The Evil Within, there just isn't any motivation, or really any cause in the first place.

 There was ONE cool plot twist in the middle of the game, but they barely expanded on it, which was just so disappointing. There are also journal entries written by the main character Sebastian Castellanos, that the game will occasionally force you to read. These journal entries are all very interesting, and I would have rather seen them made in to a cutscene, giving players a visual since most people these days would just out and not read any of it. People don't want to read while playing a videogame!

To top off the bare and dry story, are the voice actors. Oh my god, the voice actors. They sounded calm and cool all the time, like they were having a casual conversation no matter what was happening. It reached an extent where it was entertaining only because it was funny, and not immersive. There wasn't any motion capture, so I imagine it was difficult enough to give credible facial expressions to the character models anyway. I would always laugh every time Detective Castellanos dropped an emotionless one liner like, "Tell me, am I going crazy?". The animations seem whacky sometimes too. Either the animation would make the character models move too fast, or too jerky and it made it look weird. There were also a couple of instances where the lip syncing was off when the characters were speaking.

Besides the story being bland, the gameplay is pretty great. The level design in this game is really well laid out. You fight lots of zombie creature and boss fights are also plentiful and fun. The boss fights I liked particularly because they usually took advantage of the level design in a cool way. They're also extremely hard. The character models for the zombies and the bosses are all horrifying and weird, with things like barbed wire wrapped around their bodies, or a spear or a knife in their heads.

To fight all these cool enemies, you'll pick up guns along the course of the game. There is also a pretty nice upgrade system that you can use at checkpoints to upgrade your guns, or your health and ammo. This game does deliver spectacularly when it comes to immersion. It's always so atmospheric at all times, with creepy background music and brutal sound effects that are nice to listen to. This game is really hard. One of the hardest I've actually played in quite a while, which makes defeating bosses and clearing levels so much more satisfying. There are actually a lot of creative enemies, like invisible enemies that only appear when hit, and the game just stops using them all of a sudden. It was a good and clever idea, but it was just used only a few times.

This game just didn't have the right balance of story and gameplay. This game is on the cusp of greatness, it just wasn't as good as it could have potentially been. The gameplay is some of the most innovative I've played in a while, and it was fun to play overall.

+ Creative and fun combat                        - Story goes nowhere
+ Horrifying and brutal                             - Lego Star Wars had better voice acting
+ Atmospheric and immersive                  - Sometimes awkward animations
7.8/10                                               - No motivation to fight for the main character

Whiplash - Movie Review

Whiplash Review

 

The Oscar-nominated film, and personally one of my favorite movies, Whiplash stars Miles Teller  and J.K. Simmons. This is no High school musical.

So Whiplash is about a 19-year-old Jazz drummer Andrew Neuman, trying to get into the best Jazz band in his college. He eventually does get in, but not without being constantly hounded with verbal and physical abuse from his instructor. Andrew yearns dearly to become a successful musician, and must peruse his goal, even if it prevents him from having a social life. He must trudge through his instructor's cruel teaching methods for success.

There are a couple scenes that are sick, and this movie is intended to be dark. It's even reflected in the cinematography, as it's always night time, or it's cloudy when it's day time. Shadows are cast with the camera lighting that appears tinged green or a warm, haunting orange. There are absolutely no bright, happy colors in this movie. I like that people are still remembering to use the camera to their advantage, by giving the movie a subtle undertone.

The acting in this movie is phenomenal. The talents of Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons were just popping on screen. J.K. Simmons is the menacing guy that everyone hates. The person that makes everyone suck in their breath when he walks into a room. Miles Teller was also great at being the antisocial person, he will drag himself through personal hell to achieve his goals.

This movie has the best intensity in a movie I've ever seen. It was so thrilling that I actually started sweating during one or two scenes. The emotional and psychological hell that his teacher puts him through just winds up like a jack-in-the-box until you're on the edge of your seat. The story is paced well, and the connections you can draw to this movie is insane. There is at least one relatable thing in this movie where you can say 'I know what that feels like' or 'I've been there.'

I have to say though, the only flaw in this movie is... that there are no flaws whatsoever. This movie gets a check for everything you need to look for and find in a movie. The cinematography was taken advantage of, the tone was implemented well, the acting was superb and it was the most intense movie I've ever seen. Like, Jaws level of intensity. The musical score was good, the Jazz theme was used well and it was super relatable.

10/10

Mad Max: Fury Road - Movie Review

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

 

I had not seen any previous Mad Max movies before this one, so I didn't know what to expect. Turns out it was actually a well paced movie, with colorful thrills and an abundance of action.

Mad Max: Fury Road doesn't necessarily require suspension of disbelief per say, but rather suspension of reason. There are a lot of things in this movie that make you ask "Why?" instead of "How?". This movie does take place in a bizarre world, with a lot of bizarre people. It's only habitants left fight for resources in gangs and groups. In this world, everywhere is a desert wasteland dystopia. Max rides solo, until he's captured by one of the groups. The 'War boys' in the group are all part of a cult started by their leader, and are also all deathly sick. They use Max's blood to get stronger. I won't spoil how exactly, but Max ends up with Furiosa, an imperator trying to smuggle the leader's unhappy wives out of the group. The rest of the movie is them being pursued by the leader and other different war parties.

Mad Max: Fury Road's Story is very easy to follow and laid back. Perhaps a little too laid back. There are no gigantic game changing plot twists that weren't predictable. The what little story there is, is told well and it sends the message it tries to send. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron killed it on screen, both portraying characters the audience wants to learn more about. Unfortunately, they never really go anywhere with the characters past, which was disappointing at times.

The Visual effects in this movie are amazing. George Miller somehow took a barren dystopia and made it colorful and interesting. There is also a ton of action in this movie, usually with people in cars, which is kind of thematic to Mad Max. The action is super entertaining, and there weren't jump cuts every half a second ( a la Taken 3). Like I said, this movie is odd and bizarre, which can sometimes be good. There are a few odd things that are nice touches, like an electric guitarist who plays every time there's an action scene. About halfway through this movie, I did start to feel like I was watching a two hour action sequence, and I kind of wanted some dialogue.

Mad Max: Fury Road was pretty easy to review. It has a little bit too simplistic of a plot, but it does have great action. I would have liked to have seen more character development worked in to it though.

                                                 -Character development non existent

+ Great action                           - Action scenes occasionally drag on

+ Eye popping visuals

9.2/10



The Visit - Movie Review

The Visit Review

 

The Visit is the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan. Now, if The Visit was a horror/comedy like Scary movie, I would give it a 10/10. But... it's not.

The Visit is a fairly simplistic movie about these kids visiting their creepy grandparents for the first time in Pennsylvania. I had a great time with this movie, don't get me wrong. But that is an entirely different story from being well made. The Visit, with its advertisements plastered all over Google and YouTube, is entirely marketed as a horror movie. For an hour and 45 minute movie, I was only truly scared about 5. If I'm being modest. And that was only towards the end of the movie. The other 100 minutes are utterly hilarious.

This movie is absurd, but it works. I'm never really a fan of the whole 'found footage' shebang, but it makes more sense in this movie than other movies. The entire time I was watching this movie, I couldn't stop thinking about the tonal confliction. There were funny parts where I wasn't sure if I was meant to be scared or not. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering a medium rare steak, but getting a medium steak. I mean, it could very well taste good but it's not what you ordered. This movie was probably made with a razor thin budget, so it is going to make a few bucks no matter what. The entire cast mainly consists of two child actors and two elder actors, which is a ballsy move for any movie. I didn't have too many problems with them, they all did their part and convinced me of their role.

However, the 13 year old boy actor further enhanced the tonal confliction in this movie all the time. In a creepy moment, he would often drop a one-liner and ruin the moment by making it sort of funny. I can tell that the boy is meant to be used as comic relief, but there are way too many times he 'relieves' the audience. The movie isn't scary enough for him to be adding all these funny comments anyway. The 15 year old girl actress sounded like Thelma from Scooby Doo, or the annoying girl from The Magic School Bus who's tagline is "According to my research...". Whenever she talked she sounded like a know it all, which did get annoying by the end of the movie. I will give credit to the climax of the movie, the only part that was genuinely creepy. There was even a plot twist that I was so not expecting. Mainly due to the fact that the movie had already from the start lowered the bar in terms of plot development.

Overall, I did have a blast with this movie. I also had a good time watching Robocroc and Sharktopus 2. To sum it up, The Visit did display the characters thoughts and feelings well, It just didn't give the audience the emotions they were probably intended to feel.

+ Hilarious!                                  - Tonal confliction

+ Good plot twist/climax             - Plot needed to pick up pace

+ Realistic premise is creepy

6.9/10