Quick Look: Battleship

@Eviternal said:

Scheissenbedauern (German, literally "shit regret"): the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected.

the Germans seem to have a lot of words like that (i.e. Schadenfreude) Conclusion: Germans are assholes.

@Impossibilium: For some people HD images, aliens, marines and explosions are not enough to make a movie enjoyable. Especially when the writing's not very good. Opinions.

Battle: LA was fucking garbage. The primary reason to watch any movie is entertainment and it failed horribly on that front. And how can you talk about realism about a movie about alien invasion lol

Some genuinely interesting ideas at play here.

@avantegardener said:

Some genuinely interesting ideas at play here.

Agreed, hopefully the developer can evolve them in another game with a better IP.

@twstdsniper said:

The Explosions in the Sky mention earned Patrick much more respect from me than he already had.

Then he lost all credibility (what little the band name carries now due to namedrop overuse) for mentioning Mogwai USA when he said Battle: LA was shit. When it is in fact awesome.

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

Do you want to see a movie that overstays it's welcome and is filled with war movie cliches? Do you want to see lazy written characters? Do you want to see hammy dialog wrapped up in an terrible summer blockbuster? Battle: LA is your movie.

And you say those things like any of that matters at all. None of those factors detract from the primary reasons to watch the movie. The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD.

If you know a better movie that does the same thing, I'll be interested to know. And no, Aliens isn't the same thing.

To normal people, those are the reasons to avoid a movie. Ya know, because those are the qualities of a shitty movie.

Also, what the fuck? The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD? I think you might want to play a video game if those are the reasons you pick for watching movies. Like, say, Resistance or even Halo or Gears.

If you want a quality alien invasion movie, how about The Thing? Or Men in Black? Or Independence Day? Or, hell, the fucking Jimmy Neutron movie. There, I listed 4 movies (in descending order) that are about aliens coming to Earth that are better than Battle: LA. They may not have a ton of action, but as I stated before, if you are looking for quality entertainment about humans shooting at aliens, play a video game.

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

Do you want to see a movie that overstays it's welcome and is filled with war movie cliches? Do you want to see lazy written characters? Do you want to see hammy dialog wrapped up in an terrible summer blockbuster? Battle: LA is your movie.

And you say those things like any of that matters at all. None of those factors detract from the primary reasons to watch the movie. The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD.

If you know a better movie that does the same thing, I'll be interested to know. And no, Aliens isn't the same thing.

To normal people, those are the reasons to avoid a movie. Ya know, because those are the qualities of a shitty movie.

Also, what the fuck? The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD? I think you might want to play a video game if those are the reasons you pick for watching movies. Like, say, Resistance or even Halo or Gears.

If you want a quality alien invasion movie, how about The Thing? Or Men in Black? Or Independence Day? Or, hell, the fucking Jimmy Neutron movie. There, I listed 4 movies (in descending order) that are about aliens coming to Earth that are better than Battle: LA. They may not have a ton of action, but as I stated before, if you are looking for quality entertainment about humans shooting at aliens, play a video game.

Not one of those movies fulfills the basic criteria I listed. It was a simple premise I asked you to come up with, aliens vs marines. The SF equivalent of Blackhawk Down. Still waiting ...

And if you can't enjoy a movie based entirely on it's auditory and visual spectacle then you need to lighten up and broaden your horizons. Or buy better HT equipment. There's a time for watching Godard movies and Ken Loach movies (and I have seen a lot of both) and there's a time to watch things blow up and aliens get shot. Especially on Imax whose reason to exist is purely superficial.

You know, just like Independence Day, whose sole saving grace amongst the bad script and weak characters is massive destruction on a large scale in surround sound (the opening notes used to be a HT benchmark incidentally) and SFX detail. You could have gone with the original War of the Worlds or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers if you were throwing names around, as both of those are more valid choices for cinematic alien invasion integrity than Independence Day.

The majority of the video game market revolves around pointing a gun at something with no deference to a decent plot and barely-there characters (like Gears, Halo and Resistance) but you still play them don't you? Movies are exactly the same. It's pretty sad that you need to have that explained.

@Eviternal said:

Scheissenbedauern (German, literally "shit regret"): the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected.

As a German I take offense to your rape of my language... I´ve never heard anybody use that word here.

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

Do you want to see a movie that overstays it's welcome and is filled with war movie cliches? Do you want to see lazy written characters? Do you want to see hammy dialog wrapped up in an terrible summer blockbuster? Battle: LA is your movie.

And you say those things like any of that matters at all. None of those factors detract from the primary reasons to watch the movie. The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD.

If you know a better movie that does the same thing, I'll be interested to know. And no, Aliens isn't the same thing.

To normal people, those are the reasons to avoid a movie. Ya know, because those are the qualities of a shitty movie.

Also, what the fuck? The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD? I think you might want to play a video game if those are the reasons you pick for watching movies. Like, say, Resistance or even Halo or Gears.

If you want a quality alien invasion movie, how about The Thing? Or Men in Black? Or Independence Day? Or, hell, the fucking Jimmy Neutron movie. There, I listed 4 movies (in descending order) that are about aliens coming to Earth that are better than Battle: LA. They may not have a ton of action, but as I stated before, if you are looking for quality entertainment about humans shooting at aliens, play a video game.

Not one of those movies fulfills the basic criteria I listed. It was a simple premise I asked you to come up with, aliens vs marines. The SF equivalent of Blackhawk Down. Still waiting ...

And if you can't enjoy a movie based entirely on it's auditory and visual spectacle then you need to lighten up and broaden your horizons. Or buy better HT equipment. There's a time for watching Godard movies and Ken Loach movies (and I have seen a lot of both) and there's a time to watch things blow up and aliens get shot. Especially on Imax whose reason to exist is purely superficial.

You know, just like Independence Day, whose sole saving grace amongst the bad script and weak characters is massive destruction on a large scale in surround sound (the opening notes used to be a HT benchmark incidentally) and SFX detail. You could have gone with the original War of the Worlds or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers if you were throwing names around, as both of those are more valid choices for cinematic alien invasion integrity than Independence Day.

The majority of the video game market revolves around pointing a gun at something with no deference to a decent plot and barely-there characters (like Gears, Halo and Resistance) but you still play them don't you? Movies are exactly the same. It's pretty sad that you need to have that explained.

Considering the universal panning of the movie, it is clear that you are in a minority.

Stop arguing as if you are the voice of reason, and realise that you appear crazy.

This game actually seems alright. Might look into it if it ends up being cheap at some point. Seems like with a bit more time this could have been legitimately fun.

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

Do you want to see a movie that overstays it's welcome and is filled with war movie cliches? Do you want to see lazy written characters? Do you want to see hammy dialog wrapped up in an terrible summer blockbuster? Battle: LA is your movie.

And you say those things like any of that matters at all. None of those factors detract from the primary reasons to watch the movie. The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD.

If you know a better movie that does the same thing, I'll be interested to know. And no, Aliens isn't the same thing.

To normal people, those are the reasons to avoid a movie. Ya know, because those are the qualities of a shitty movie.

Also, what the fuck? The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD? I think you might want to play a video game if those are the reasons you pick for watching movies. Like, say, Resistance or even Halo or Gears.

If you want a quality alien invasion movie, how about The Thing? Or Men in Black? Or Independence Day? Or, hell, the fucking Jimmy Neutron movie. There, I listed 4 movies (in descending order) that are about aliens coming to Earth that are better than Battle: LA. They may not have a ton of action, but as I stated before, if you are looking for quality entertainment about humans shooting at aliens, play a video game.

Not one of those movies fulfills the basic criteria I listed. It was a simple premise I asked you to come up with, aliens vs marines. The SF equivalent of Blackhawk Down. Still waiting ...

And if you can't enjoy a movie based entirely on it's auditory and visual spectacle then you need to lighten up and broaden your horizons. Or buy better HT equipment. There's a time for watching Godard movies and Ken Loach movies (and I have seen a lot of both) and there's a time to watch things blow up and aliens get shot. Especially on Imax whose reason to exist is purely superficial.

You know, just like Independence Day, whose sole saving grace amongst the bad script and weak characters is massive destruction on a large scale in surround sound (the opening notes used to be a HT benchmark incidentally) and SFX detail. You could have gone with the original War of the Worlds or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers if you were throwing names around, as both of those are more valid choices for cinematic alien invasion integrity than Independence Day.

The majority of the video game market revolves around pointing a gun at something with no deference to a decent plot and barely-there characters (like Gears, Halo and Resistance) but you still play them don't you? Movies are exactly the same. It's pretty sad that you need to have that explained.

You know it's a terrible movie when the CG aliens are the most believable characters in the movie.

I love the big brother-kid brother vibe that Ryan and Patrick has. Made their endurance run very enjoyable too.

So, is this one of those rare examples of a game being better than the movie that it is based on? It certainly seems like it. Not that it had a long way to go, considering the source material, of course. Still, this actually seems half decent, if only for the strategy element. It seems worth a rental at any rate, especially if it is as short as Ryan and Patrick suspect. I am at least intrigued.

The Battle Command idea is very good in concept, gotta agree with you chaps there. There's something very interesting about the attempt to contextualize the otherwise just dumb scripted war action moments a CoD or BF singleplayer campaign offers in a more meaningful way.

Who knows, maybe it'll lead to a fascinating combination of the stream-lined, adrenaline-fueled action of a pure shooter and the amazement of seeing a Blackhawk go down with the crew scrambling to parachute out at the last moment or an aircraft carrier crashing on the beaches of Wake Island in a BF multiplayer game.

@Smokey_Earhole: Did I say anywhere that the movie was the greatest thing on the planet? The movie is what it is.

It was an ok way to spend the afternoon. The effects are fine and the plot, while admitting full of cliches is serviceable for what the film is. It is a typical summer action movie. Nothing more, nothing less. As with the game, I was entertained and engaged.

Will it be memorable outside of the Blu Ray release, more than likely not, but it isn't the worst thing I've seen recently. Point is, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

And yes, it has been readily available for about a month.

@NeilRapalee: I never said it hasn't been available? I saw it too in cinema. Also, never quite understood the sentiment that because worse things exist, then utterly superfluous stuff like Battleship gets a pass. Sure, worse things exist, but so does things that are magnitudes more interesting, engaging and entertaining. Why not go for that instead.

Now I don't need to see the movie.

Also, not seeing too many battleships in this "Battleship" game.

@Smokey_Earhole: If you were so dismissive of this project then why did you go see it?

I got in free since a friend works at the theater so I went and saw it. Theaters, even in the States have had the print for a month though that comment on availability was based on the other mention of a person asking if it was out.

I have seen the only other movie I care about in theaters currently (The Avengers) and going to see this was a good way to waste a rainy Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. Seriously is it that hard to comprehend that I didn't hate the movie. I even acknowledge what it is.

As for getting passes, a movie that isn't offensive gets a pass to me. That offense could be terrible special effects or just out of place characters or even a crappy plot. While this movie isn't great on any front, it isn't as bad as some are making it out to be and nothing about it is offensive. If anything the movie is just generic.

Sure there are better movies and yes, people should go see those first but let's be real here, this is a typical summer popcorn movie. It isn't masquerading as anything else. If someone is looking to turn their brain off and see "crap go boom" then this one fits the bill with zero need for anything from the audience. Not to mention that there are so many free ways to see this movie (Coke has a promotion, the video game, the Kre-o building sets, etc...) that for essentially a free to watch movie, it was a lot better than I expected as it wasn't boring and wasn't completely atrocious.

It is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm done. Back to work. End Rant.

I think they are reading too much into the battleship mechanic, seems like the ships weren't getting hit that bad. The rest of the game looked like the worst kind of Call of Duty/Halo clone

Considering it's a game based on a film that no one was expecting to be great, It seems all right. There's probably not going to be that many people buying this one but at least the developers have got an interesting mechanic at the core of the game.

Remake this game for Wii-U with a proper budget, make it look less generic and put that command screen on the wii-u pad screen at all times so you can real time manage your ships in the heat of a FPS fun battle....HOLY CRAP!!! i'd play the hell out of that

"a studio faced with ost... obsessively a shipped project"

So close! Almost got it right for the first time. Keep it up, you'll get it right one day!

Edit: Nope. False alarm. "Obstensively a shitty game"

Legitimately, this looks fun. 
The shooting looks kind of mediocre, and obviously the game didn't have a large budget so some of the graphics stuff (like every soldier wearing mask so they didn't have to animate faces) are weaker than they could be.
 
But damn. The core concept behind the gameplay is solid. Playing a shooter game while ordering around the ships in a strategy game seems really awesome. If there was a pc version, I would buy this game in a heartbeat on a steam sale for 5 bucks or something, and I would have fun for a day.
 
I hope that the ideas this game presented don't get lost, and that someone makes a big budget proper game with some of these concepts.

Am I the only one who was really confused as to why the mini gun thing got MORE accurate as you fired, instead of less?

Does anyone else disagree with the Battle LA opinion of Patrick? I thought that movie was fucking tits

Kudos for doing something interesting in your doomed to be mediocre at best movie licensed game.

Skip movie indeed.

So the new video player seems to cause the video to artifact randomly, then sharpen suddenly. Is this some sort of video compression thing to make it buffer faster temporarily or just a weird thing of the player?

Games like these are the reason I wouldn't make a good game reviewer. I guess it's supposed to be bad because it's a licensed game and everyone says it's bad, but, hell it looks good to me. Seems like a perfectly competent CoD clone with some cool mechanics and fun game play.

Oh, and if we're gonna bitch about long load times, we're gonna have to consider taking that GOTY award back from Skyrim...just sayin'.

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

@Landon said:

@Impossibilium said:

Do you want to see what it might be like for a squad of marines to fight aliens in a realistic way? Do you want to watch marines and aliens blowing shit up for 90 minutes? Battle: LA is your movie.

Do you want to see a movie that overstays it's welcome and is filled with war movie cliches? Do you want to see lazy written characters? Do you want to see hammy dialog wrapped up in an terrible summer blockbuster? Battle: LA is your movie.

And you say those things like any of that matters at all. None of those factors detract from the primary reasons to watch the movie. The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD.

If you know a better movie that does the same thing, I'll be interested to know. And no, Aliens isn't the same thing.

To normal people, those are the reasons to avoid a movie. Ya know, because those are the qualities of a shitty movie.

Also, what the fuck? The technical execution of a squad of marines fighting aliens in surround sound and HD? I think you might want to play a video game if those are the reasons you pick for watching movies. Like, say, Resistance or even Halo or Gears.

If you want a quality alien invasion movie, how about The Thing? Or Men in Black? Or Independence Day? Or, hell, the fucking Jimmy Neutron movie. There, I listed 4 movies (in descending order) that are about aliens coming to Earth that are better than Battle: LA. They may not have a ton of action, but as I stated before, if you are looking for quality entertainment about humans shooting at aliens, play a video game.

Not one of those movies fulfills the basic criteria I listed. It was a simple premise I asked you to come up with, aliens vs marines. The SF equivalent of Blackhawk Down. Still waiting ...

And if you can't enjoy a movie based entirely on it's auditory and visual spectacle then you need to lighten up and broaden your horizons. Or buy better HT equipment. There's a time for watching Godard movies and Ken Loach movies (and I have seen a lot of both) and there's a time to watch things blow up and aliens get shot. Especially on Imax whose reason to exist is purely superficial.

You know, just like Independence Day, whose sole saving grace amongst the bad script and weak characters is massive destruction on a large scale in surround sound (the opening notes used to be a HT benchmark incidentally) and SFX detail. You could have gone with the original War of the Worlds or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers if you were throwing names around, as both of those are more valid choices for cinematic alien invasion integrity than Independence Day.

The majority of the video game market revolves around pointing a gun at something with no deference to a decent plot and barely-there characters (like Gears, Halo and Resistance) but you still play them don't you? Movies are exactly the same. It's pretty sad that you need to have that explained.

Yeah....no. Movies are not the same.

At least with video games I am taking part in the action. A game doesn't have to have a great story if it's at least fun to play, which is completely different from a movie. Why would I want to spend two and a half hours staring, mouth agape, at things shooting at things knowing I care for none of characters or how any of it will end. See, with a video game I can skip all the cut scenes and still have a relativity good time trying out different guns or fighting different enemy's, but with a movie I am forced to sit through all that terrible dialog and exposition until something starts to shoot at something else.

Just admit you like a terrible movie.

You can tell the fps shooting is a bit too straightforward and lacks depth, deep story, or characters with any depth; BUT that ship moving RTS aspect is very interesting. I'd even say that, unless there are serious glitches, the game deserves better scores then it is getting from game critics.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say Double Helix should make it own game under its own IP that uses this idea more effectively. There are obviously competent people working there who brought in a game on time and do a decent job under what must have been difficult circumstances. If they made enough money off this contract work to attempt it I’d like to see this idea fleshed out with a more robust game with a full story and three dimensions characters.

It's only just dawned on me that you guys in the US have only just got this game as well as the movie this week, it's been out in Europe for over a month or so i wonder why such a big delay??

Hahaha "Fuck your deck chairs!"

"That weapon ain't going to fire itself. Shoot. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!"

I'm guessing the only take.

Patrick, you say "ostensibly" sooooo much. I think it is your favorite word.

Damn, if only they had a bigger budget...

This looks better than the last medal of honor game

Holy shit, the game looks VERY inventive. If I have some cash floating around, I'll give this a shot.

Seems cool, I'm willing to play it at some point.

Who actually buys these games?

the streaming service on this site is a huge burden on latency; youtube is far more efficient

@DjCmeP said:

To be honest this doesn't look that bad and I don't get why Ryan and Patrick had to start shitting on the game right away when they started playing it.

It's the only reason they even played the game. Quick Look games usually fall into two categories: games they are actually interested in, and games they think are going to be bad. Battleship fell into the latter category, and as a result of playing the game they realized it's kind of not bad.

Ryan + Patrick = Recipe for Quick Look disaster.

Wait just a second... this is actually a real thing?

Well, at least it looks prettier than Battle: Los Angeles...

This was a pretty decent endurance run. Not the best one though.

Battleship is better than Game of Thrones. How do you deal with that fact?

What's the conversion of movie cash to Brad Bucks?

@Th3_James said:

Who actually buys these games?

I spent the entire quicklook thinking this myself!! Who specifically buys movie tie-ins?

Surely it has to just be mothers, right? Mothers who know their kids like video games but have no idea what videos actually are, who walk into a retailer and buy this junk because it's on a stand somewhere and the cover is recognizable to them as a thing they've heard of?

"Well I don't know what a Diablo is, but hey isn't Battleship that new movie with Rihanna?"