I, much like many of you, have been playing the crap out of Modern Warfare 2. If I were a more kind person, I might help kill the endless Modern Warfare discussion by swapping it out for another game I've been playing like Torchlight. However that ain't my style son. Besides, I always need something for my next blog. So let's get goin'! 
 

Modern Warfare 2 

 
I had a lot of fun with this game. Shocking, right? I think it's pretty alright. The campaign was very short, yet sweet. As one who gets frustrated very easily, I rather enjoy a shorter and more manageable campaign to a longer, more drawn out one. A lot of times during the single-player I got the same feeling I did when I watched the original Die Hard. As ridiculous and detached from reality as the events in this game are, I had no problem, and actually took great joy in, removing myself from reality. If I could shoot down a helicopter with three sniper bullets in real life, I sure as hell wouldn't be here right now. I'd probably be at a carnival winning over-sized bears with that absurd accuracy.            
 
Of course, there's some multiplayer in this game. Which, needless to say, I've also played the crap out of. As someone who enjoyed copious amounts of split-screen multiplayer with my chums, it felt good to finally get online on my own. You know, against people who aren't sitting four feet from me.  
 
I find great satisfaction in leveling up and unlocking new guns. Even if I only use the M4, it's nice knowing I have options. Something about how the guns feel just makes getting a kill that much more rewarding. I've become way in to this experience and will likely continue playing this for many moons.  
 
As fun as all that is, I still find myself a tiny bit disappointed in this game. At least for me personally, it was a victim of it's hype. I went in expecting a mind blowing experience like the first Modern Warfare, but just got more of the same. While there isn't anything wrong with "more of the same", it was a touch disappointing to be able to say; "Yup, it's Call of Duty."    
 
I have not delved in to spec ops yet, but if you would like to do that, or if you just want someone to play online with, my PSN ID is WeUnsweatThem.   
  

Burnout: Paradise 

 
This is an old game. With that out of the way, I love it. The driving feels really good, and the wrecks are face-melting to watch. The problem I have with a lot of driving games, is that they punish you fairly steeply for a crash. Here, however, I felt far more comfortable knowing that crashing was god damned nuts. I enjoyed wrecking and seeing the debris and scrap metal fly all over the place.  
 
The sense of speed is in full force with this game. When you're tearing down the highway holding down that boost button, you feel like you're about it crash through the God Barrier and drive right into the eye socket of Hercules. Flying off ramps at these speeds could not feel more satisfying. The flashes of cameras, the view, the feeling of "OH CHRIST AM I GOING TO LAND THIS!?", it's all very soothing. The game also dumps a fair number of collectible style items in the form of shortcut gates and billboards for the smashin', but I didn't find this offensive. Mainly because just driving around is a lot of fun in this game. Usually when a game says here, find 400 of these, I say, no thank you. Here, I was more than happy to try and track down all these flashing yellow sons of bitches.  
 
My main gripe with this game would have to be the freedom. There's a delicate balance that I think needs to be struck between structured play and free roaming. While in open world games you generally want free time to explore, I found it a little disorienting in this case. The game starts you off with a very basic tutorial, and then dumps you off with a; "Alright it's a driving game, GO!". I do enjoy the free-will and all, but I kind of wish it gave me a little push to do something specific once in a while.  
 
Lastly, why are other racing devils like myself easily wrecked, but as soon as I touch a pedestrian car, I'm gone. My car will flip to the moon before it takes down a station wagon. I'd hate to see what would happen if I tried to hit a bicycle.   

Wrap-up

I've been thoroughly enjoying my gaming recently. Tons of great titles out that I haven't even touched yet. Come Christmas I'll be picking up Uncharted 2, along with Demon's Souls and Little Big Planet, so expect thoughts on those sometime soon. In the mean time I will continue to play and enjoy Torchlight. I'll probably throw in a little bit on that next time around too.   
 
So keep checking back folks, more from DanielJW coming soon to a screen near your face.  
 

Assigned to make a video for my Media Arts class in school, so here it is!  
 
     
Enjoy friends!

With this wonderful season of brand spanking new video games, I'm playing... mostly old ones. Partially due to the fact that I wanted to catch up on the story for a newer, very well liked game. That said, I've been having fun with them for the most part. So please, kick back and read ahead as I spin you tales of gaming.  
 

Brütal Legend 

 
I finished this fella up last night. I don't think I can say a lot that hasn't already been said. The story is wonderfully engaging and funny, however the game play, not so much. I found that I was more often than not frustrated to the point of turning the game off with a lot of the stage battles. The controls weren't able to keep up with what I felt I had to do. But no matter how many times I threw the game across the room, I happily skipped over to grab it again to see more of the story. 
  
I would almost feel better about this game were it an animated film. All I really ended up playing the game for was the cut scenes anyways. All this voice talent packed into a movie written by Tim Schafer would be incredible. Come Brütal Legend the movie, sign me up, please! 
 
Perhaps it was less of a "the controls were bad" issue and more of a "you're bad" issue. I've never been the best at RTS games but damnit I tried! It shouldn't be this difficult to the average person, especially given it's target audience. If it wants to draw in people with Jack Black and metal themes, than make a game that caters to that audience, not Age of Empires with chrome and ladies. Sexy, sexy ladies.  
 

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 

 
Cinema! I feel like I'm playing too many games that either should be or feel like movies. In Uncharted this is a good thing. A lot of the action is very filmesque and feels out of place in a good way. The game is still essentially shoot-em-up hard ass Nathan Drake rolling through some jungle ruins, but  these cinematic elements are certainly welcome. In fact, those are the only things about this game that are welcome. Gun fights, platforming, please leave the room, I want some alone time with quick-time events and camera angles.   
 
I have never been enraged by a game more than I was during the gun play in Uncharted. The enemies soak up bullets like a Sham Wow in a tea cup. Not only was I consistently running out of bullets, but the enemies were riddling me with theirs. Laser scopes, bum rushing automatons with shot guns and flanking men with assault rifles barreled down on me and my piddly little pistol throughout the entire game. On top of that the grenades are entirely useless. Spending the time to mangle your arms into unthinkable positions to aim a grenade with six-axis in the middle of a battle is impossible and inviable. Yet, enemies toss grenades like Tom Brady on a good day. 
 
Though the platforming was generally done surrounded by stunning environments and beautiful scenery, it could not hide the utter genericism of the climbing. It wasn't done particularly horribly and controlled competently, but was just straight-up grueling. The environments often made it hard to distinguish what you could jump to and what you couldn't. Nor did the game do a very good job of pointing you in the right direction. Any time I have to turn on my laptop to consult a guide on where my next jump should be, is a strike against the developers.   
 
However I hear Uncharted 2 fixes some of those issues and it's gotten pretty OK reviews, so I plan on giving it a shot around Christmas time. 
 

Wrap-up 

 
That's what I've been doing for the past few weeks. I just picked up Burnout: Paradise for $20 at my local Wal-mart, and I'll be grabbing Modern Warfare 2 come November tenth. If you liked whatcha' read here, than you should totally check back in with me later for my thoughts on those games. Spoiler for my next blog;  
 
 
That's all for now folks. See you on the flip-side.  

I bought some more movies. Including, but not limited to the following:
  
 These purchases come along with the other DVD's I recently picked up including; Stand By Me, One Hour Photo, Moulin Rouge, Rocky Balboa, Coraline, and Edward Scissor Hands. So as you can see, finding $5 DVD's lying around in Walmart and Future Shop has prompted me to finally start building a collection. Some of these I had previously seen, some I had not. Those I had not we're generally wonderful treats.  
 
Being someone Relatively interested in Film as a career I have deemed it necessary to brush up on general knowledge and understanding of "classic" works (IE, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Pulp Fiction, Anything and everything Alfred Hitchcock). Anyone with any suggestions on things I should check out would be great, I do have a list but I really have no way of prioritizing what I've got on it, so suggestions of what is really good would be appreciated.   
 
Aside from that I'm currently travelling a bunch. Right now, residing in a creepy old room in my grandmothers house filled with ceramic babies and carved sculptures of elephants. Here for two nights after a five day romp at ye olde cottage. Which was great, it's nice and relaxing. I shot a bunch of video which I'll probably end up cutting into something at somepoint that'll you'll eventually be able to find somewhere. Tomorrow I leave here, and get a day of rest before heading to Ottawa for more video shooting and micellaneous fun. Assuming all goes well I'll get my crappy firewire to import video properly so I can show you all the wonders of my escapades.  
 
I'm continuing to debate picking up a PS3. I've got a keen interest in BF 1943, and Fat Princess since I got to play it at one of my chum's homes. In the meantime I've been playing some Red Faction: Guerilla, and Topple for my iPod. Red Faction has been tons of fun, albeit I really just smack dudes with my hammer...I'm not much for actually doing missions. Topple continues to be frustrating, and level eight is impossible, I don't care what you say.  
 
So that's DanielJW recently. I look forward to the end of this travelling and regaining the remainder of my generally relaxing summer. Hope you've all been having good ones too. 

One Hour Photo  -  3/5

  

I can say...I really didn't expect a hell of a lot when I started watching this. I like Robin Williams in a lot of the things he does, and it was $5 so what the heck, why not. I was pleasently surprised. Throughout the movie I found they did a really good job of keeping the very eerie atmosphere. Never once did I feel like I could relax. Partially from Robin William's fantastic effort, and the very bland colour palette. Very subtle touches kept drawing me back into this movie. There's a very strange and conflicting balance between sympathy and disgust, it really made me think about what I'd just watched when it was over. 
 
One Hour Photo follows Sy Parrish, who develops film at the SavMart. He does his work with the utmost pride and precision, memorizing all the faces, and styles of photo he gets from every regular customer. Be it baby pictures or amateur porn. His favourite customers however, are the Yorkin family consisting of Nina , Will, and son Jake. He grows into an obession with this family, creating extra prints of all their photos for himself. He falls deeper into his fantasies of being a part of their family, when he discovers a shocking secret within the mother and father's relationship. I suppose I'll leave it at that, so as to not give too much away. 
 
Like I said, I believe Williams did an amazing job in this film. Every mannerism had something incredibly strange about it, giving him a creepy feel before you even know his story. Even his dedication to his job, and the way he talks about his work gives off this vibe thats something is wrong, especially how he talks about the other photo developers who take less care in their work with such disturbing hate. The shots of the processing machines going have a very morbid feeling about them, and nearly everything in this place is white, not to mention the entire film is full of very bland and dark colouring. All these elements really came together well, and helped to create a great atmosphere that I felt nervous looking at. In my books, a good thriller / horror atmosphere is one that'll make you scared on it's own. 
 
During the movie you get various insights into Sy's mind. You find out why he does the things he does, and his justifications for them. This really stood out for me, because they did such a good job fleshing him out and hitting a cord with people that in the end, you're almost trying to defend his psychotic actions. There are just so many relatable traits to Sy that I begun to think about points in my life when I was Sy, the lonely and jelous guy watching the Simpsons every night. 
 
As far as the cinematography went I loved it. Great job of keeping everything low-key, but still a little off. Just enough that you notice it, but not enough that it's punching you in the nose. Simple little off center angles and symmetrical shots add to the creepy. Colours were well done, I can't stress that enough. I loved the presentation of this entire film, I thought it was really really well done.  
 
My few quibbles with would include the lone jump scare of the film. The horror elements were so low key, that it did a good job keeping you on your toes and frightenting you with simple things. The jump scare, all though done well, seemed very out of place and unneeded. It took a lot away from the constant on-edge experience for me to have it just slammed in my face all at once. My only other problem with this film being the end. I don't want to say much about it, I just found it to be very strange and unsatisfying.  
 
Overall I really enjoyed it, definitely worth my $5, and I'll likely watch it several more times. While the actual film creation and cinematography was done well, a few sloppy moments like the jump scare did a good job of taking away from what I thought was the core theme of the film. The brilliant story telling was capped off by a lackluster ending, which is sad because of how immersive I found the film up to that point. Although these may seem like minor issues, they were pretty crippling moments for the film. Breaking theme so drastically and ending on such a low note really brought this down for me. My final word, I recommend it, despite the slip ups. 3/5