Ryu Ga Gotoku Restoration PS4 Stream

Enjoy!

http://t.co/9m3u1OqVkx

Titanfall Impressions

Titanfall beta's over, and I have to say it's a load of fun. The first thing you'll notice from its contemporaries is the nimbleness of your character. Unlike the lumbering models of the modern military shooter you have a lot of freedom of movement. You can wall run, and double jump much like the arena shooters of yesteryear. It still works under the framework of aiming down the sight, but you can do just as well with aiming with the crosshair.

One of the potential balancing issues was with the smart pistol, but fortunately it's only effective on the AI 'minions' which give you a low amount of points. It's a good way to cut off the cool down time for launching your Titan, and this is one of the beauties of the game. Unlike Call of Duty's streak based system which gives it a bias towards more skilled players, the Titan mechs are available to every player 4 minutes or so. It lets even the most casual player a fair chance, but still allows for a high skill ceiling.

They are not a game-breaker since the players, no matter what class, have an anti-Titan weapon. The Titan's lack of the wall running and movement speed is supplanted with higher health, but not enough to causes it to be lopsided. The players can even latch and 'rodeo' onto top of a Titan and dump bullets into a weakpoint.

The map design is a bit on the small side, but allows the use of abilities of the players and the Titans. The verticality of movement is highlighted in every map, and allow for different playstyles from the run-and-gunner to the camper.

The three modes Attrition (Team Deathmatch) , Hardpoint (Domination), and Last Titan standing (Round based with 1 life as a Titan) feel like your typical suite in a multiplayer shooter, but thanks to the dynamics of the game give it a fresh take with various character types on the map. It also helps with an opening and closing cutscene to contextualize a match. The announced multiplayer campaign could potentially cause a trend in narrative for this type of game.

The performance of the game was very scalable even for a low end dual core machine I was running on. I was able to still keep up with other higher skilled players, and not become a unplayable slideshow.

Since I played the PC, I was disappointed in the lack of a server browser ,and dedicated server support. It still uses a CoD like matchmaking system so it does bring issues such as lag, mod support, and future online playability. Overall the net performance was satisfactory, but this remains to be seen in the full release.

Overall, I was impressed by the fresh take of using disparate elements into a slick polished package. Do I think it would get me to buy an XBOX One? Probably not, I'll be picking this up for PC.

Robocop (2014) Review

Yesterday I saw Robocop and was satisfied with the movie. It is a near future action movie set in the year 2028 were drones and unmanned weapons have become the United States main weapon abroad. This trend was ushered in by OmniCorp run by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) whose proposes a way to convenience the American public and congress to repel Dryphus Act which bans the use of robots domestically. The method would be to fit a human being and enhance with cybernetic prosthesis.

Enter Alex J. Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is a Detroit Police detective on the hunt for a weapons dealer Antoin Vallan (Miguel Ferrer). Injured from a car bomb at his home and planted by two corrupt cops. He is disfigured, and basically disabled. OmniCorp scientist Denet Norton (Gary Oldman) asks Alex's wife, Clara (Abbie Cornish) to sign release forms to preform surgery. After much thought she says yes, and through a gruesome process Alex is transformed into Robocop who then cleans the city of Detroit, but overrides his emotional suppression to seek out the corrupt cops who attempted to murder him.

One of the best things in the movie is the action direction who was directed by Brazillian director Jose Padilha of Elite Squad fame. Sticking true to his cinematic roots of the various set pieces are fast paced with many quick cuts. It gives you the same visceral quality as Elite Squad, but the gratuitous gore have been toned down to get a more financially viable PG-13 rating.

Another quality part of the movie is the supporting cast, as usual, Gary Oldman has a remarkable performance as Denet Norton, a scientist who threads the ethical line, and in the end exposes Omnicorp's distasteful practices to congress at the end of the movie. He views that his research should help and not hurt people. Michael Keaton does a great job as Raymond Sellars who is basically a evil version of Steve Jobs. A very marketable, yet morally ambiguous public figure. We also have Samuel L. Jackson in a small supporting role as Bill O'Reilly-esque or Chris Matthews-esque political pundit, Pat Novak. Him flipping out at the end is best monologue within the film.

I also like the subjects it touches which most of the 1987 movie's themes were there corporate corruption, the struggle between man & machine, and media control. It does modernized the mythos by adding in commentary about American foreign intervention in Iran were a ED-209 droid shoots a 13 year old kid whose armed with a knife, and suicide bombers trying to destroy the droids patrolling during a live news cast.

For the old school fans, there are some nice homages to the original. I am not going to spoil them, but when you see or hear them you'll smile. There's also some flourishes of the original's black comedy as well.

Now to the ugly parts, first thing is the pacing. This is a retooling of the Robocop series that has been modernized, but lacks the clever satire of the original movie. Instead of giving a funny but painfully true statement about American society, it beats it into your head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Funny enough, if Padilla wasn't on this project I'd imagine this would've (love his games through) been called Hideo Kojima's RoboCop. I would've expected Sellars to cough up a 15 minute monologue of how Corporatism is helping the country, but thankfully not before the final battle.

Many of the concepts in the movie are told through dialogue as opposed to the original’s showing via in movie TV Spots/Character actions, but then again this is a basic concept in movie making. I think this was the screenwriter’s attempt to convey the message to a younger audience but it backfired.

Finally and sadly though, Kinneman doesn't convey the pathos Peter Weller did in the 1987 iteration. What sold me on him was his face, but unfortunately Kinnaman doesn't emote the stoic presence Weller had. He does retain the slow stilted movement of the 1987 iteration had. Cornish also had a phoned in performance mostly due to her not having much characterization besides being the worried wife. This made the supposed emotional moments lack the intended impact.

Overall, it's a solid action movie that sloppily gets the point of the 1987 classic. A great supporting cast helps out a struggling lead, has some great set pieces, and themes for your average movie-goer to think about. The pacing does bog down, and the ham fisted social commentary get in the way of surpassing the original.

As a retooling it's great, but as a replacement it fails.