Video Game Review: Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

Sega Genesis

Jurassic Park was a big deal when I was a kid. I saw it over summer break when I was 10 or 11 years old. The movie completely blew me away as no other movie had ever done before. After seeing it I constantly had Jurassic Park on the brain. I got the toys, the clothes. I even managed to convince my parents to get me the book. When school resumed, this was the first question everyone would ask each other: "Did you see Jurassic Park?"

It was a no-brainer that there would be a video game adaptation of the movie, and is it turns out, there have been several. Some good, some not so good. But as a proud Genesis owner back in the early 90's, there was no question in my mind. I was getting the game. Even if I had heard it was terrible, I was going to get it. I loved Jurassic Park that much.

I had been following the game's production very closely. I subscribed to several video game magazines back then, and I basically wore out the pages reading the articles on this game over and over again. I was so excited. Not only did it look amazing, but you got to play the game in two separate ways. As Dr Grant, and as a velociraptor. I was totally sold.

When I finally did get the game, I played it religiously. I explored every nook and cranny of the game with both Dr Grant and as the raptor. No stone was left unturned. I could probably beat the game in my sleep. I was an unquestioned Jurassic Park expert. Even though the game is pretty short and relatively easy - I still managed to find a way to maximize my time with the game and to stretch out the experience for as long as humanly possible.

Eventually, of course, I ended up getting new games. Jurassic Park was pushed to the background. I think I either traded my copy in or gave it away. It didn't matter to me back then - I'd played the game so much I didn't think I would ever have the desire to play it again.

Twenty some years later, the desire returned. But I had traded away my copy and had no way to play it. I always looked for it when I would go to used game stores, but could never find a copy. Enter my cousin Ryan. He is an avid reader of this blog, and offered to loan me his old Genesis games to play and review. Jurassic Park was one of those games. I was ecstatic. All my years of searching, and I finally had my hands on the game.

Would the game withstand the test of time, however?

Of course, the game looks primitive when compared with games released in today's day and age. But that is to be expected. I think the game still looks pretty good, especially when you consider it is well over twenty years old. The environments all look good. The dinosaurs look like... dinosaurs. Dr Grant is recognizable as Dr Grant. Some of the animations are a bit choppy, and there is a significant amount of lag/slowdown from time to time, but it never really bothered me that much.

Music and sound effects are top notch. The raptors sound like they do in the movie, all the little sound effects sound as they should. My only complaint is the T-Rex didn't sound like it did in the film, but that is a minor complaint. The musical score works with each level. It's not an outstanding score by any means, but it does the job.

Gameplay is typical side scrolling shooter fair.

If you play as Dr Grant, you must traverse the island, making your way from the crash site of your Jeep to the Visitor's Center. You face off against a wide variety of dinosaurs along the way, most of which want to eat your face. Weapons are mainly of the non-lethal variety. Tranquilizer guns, stun grenades, knock out gas. I guess it is good that you aren't just running around slaughtering every animal on the island. If you linger, though, the dinosaurs will wake up and start coming after you again. Some of the weapons are lethal, however. Rocket launchers, hand grenades. Those dinosaurs aren't surviving an encounter with one of these. Occasionally you will tangle with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but take not that he can't be killed. You can only stun him and run by before he recaptures his wits.

The levels are nice, and give a pretty wide representation of environments in the park. You've got your typical jungle levels, a power station, a rafting level, a pumping station, mountainous terrain, volcanic tunnels, and the Visitor Center itself. Each level looks and feels different, so there is no sense of repetition or deja vu as you play the game. My personal favorite level is the rafting one. As Grant, you must ride the rapids as you make your way back to the Visitor Center. You don't just ride the raft however, you must jump out of it from time to time on to dry land, collecting gasoline for the raft's motor and picking up other essential supplies. There are a lot of paths you can take on this level, and also a ton of hidden secrets to find. It's just a really fun level to explore for me.

The only part of the game I really struggled with was the controls. Grant moves in a really herky-jerky fashion. For the most part, it didn't bother me in the game. But there were times (the pump station, cough cough) when this became a very glaring flaw. I died many times due to the shoddy controls. I'm not gonna lie, I did become pretty frustrated with the game at this point.

Make it to the Visitor Center, and complete one final level to escape the island and complete the game.

Escape is not the number one thing on your mind when you play as the velociraptor. After escaping from your pen, you pick up the scent of Dr Grant. Your whole quest involves stalking him through the game in an attempt to eat his flesh. Unfortunately you must contend with a horde of dinosaurs trying to block you from your prize, in addition to to enemy soldiers looking to keep the dinosaurs at bay. Where are all these soldiers during Grant's campaign? Hmmmm....

The velociraptor mode feels more like a side quest than anything. It can be beaten in a fraction of the time it takes to complete Grant's campaign. Mainly you just run from left to right, leaping over or killing anything in your path. There is one level (once again, the pump station) where precision jumping is needed to advance. And again, it is very frustrating. The raptor moves in a very jerky fashion, and it can be hard to get her to do exactly what you want her to do. I died many, many times on this level. It turned out okay in the end, though. It added a little longevity to the raptor portion of the game. Without the having to play the pump station over and over again I would have likely beaten the game in fifteen minutes, if that.

Even though killing Grant is your main objective, you still escape the island when you beat the game. I remember being so excited for the sequel when I was a kid. Hoping that in the second game you'd wreak havoc on the mainland as a velociraptor. But alas, that was not to be.

While I did have fun with the game, and it brought back a lot of great memories, I do have to admit that it is very short. And there is not much replay value here. I beat the game twice - once with Grant and once with the raptor. And I'm good. I have no desire to play any further.

I enjoyed myself, I had a nice stroll down memory lane. There is no denying that for its time, this was a really, really good game. Playing it now, I still like it. But not as much. There's just not a whole lot of substance here, no real reason to keep playing after you've beaten the game. And the game itself was over and done with, both modes of play, in under two hours. I can't imagine paying top dollar for a game such as this in this day and age - and then being done with it in under two hours. And the controls, man. The controls really could have used a little fine tuning before this game's release.

This is a good game, no doubt. And it pulls enough sentimental value with me to get a solid grade. But I question whether it is a true classic. It's no Mario Bros, it is no Contra. Heck it isn't even Judge Dredd or Taz-Mania. It's a solid game, but without the Jurassic Park license, no doubt it would have been forgotten by me a long time ago.

Overall:

B

Video Game Review: Flower

Flower 

PlayStation 3

Flower is a lovely game.

It feels weird using that word to describe a video game. Lovely. But it is appropriate. I can't think of a better word to describe the game, actually.

When I first gave Flower a try, I didn't know what to expect. It had been out for several years and I was familiar with hearing the name, but as far as what the game was about or how it played, I had no clue. I was told it was a "relaxing" game, but that seemed odd to me. How could a game be relaxing?

It is true, though. The game is very relaxing. There is no combat, no death, no conflict. As far as story line goes, I don't think this game even really has one. You may ask: a game with no combat and no story line - how does this work?

The concept of the game is hard to explain. I tried to look at it while playing it as a unique kind of flight simulator. There are 6 stages in the game, and at the beginning of each stage you start out as a lone flower petal hovering in the air.

The game only uses one button. Basically, any button on the controller that you want to use (for the record, I used the R1 shoulder button). This button moves your flower petal forward. How you control the flower petal - whether it be moving it up, down, left, or right - depends on how you tilt the controller.

There really is no better way to describe it than as a flight simulator. Tilt the controller left, the petal goes left. Point it down, it goes down. Pull up, and you lift into the sky. There is a little bit of a learning curve with how to control your flower petal, especially since so many PS3 games don't utilize the motion sensors in the controller too often, but it really isn't that difficult.

The purpose of the game is to collect stuff. As I mentioned, you start out each stage controlling a lone flower petal. You must fly around and touch other plants and flowers, and they add petals to your uh... character? Can you call it that? Think of it as a snowball effect. The more stuff you touch and the more stuff you collect, the bigger your whirling collection of petals becomes.

Each stage has certain goals you must collect to complete said stage. A very simple example - say you enter a stage with an open field. In this field are 3 glowing yellow plants located at opposite ends of the field. Touch one yellow plant, and a dozen red flowers bloom up out of the grass nearby. You must collect these. Then go to the next yellow plant, touch it, and another collection of red flowers blooms nearby. You must touch all the yellow plants and collect all the red flowers to move on to the next area. This is a very generic example, but an effective one. Basically all you do in this game is fly around and collect stuff.

It sounds boring, but it really isn't. As the game progresses, the levels get bigger and you have to start searching harder to find what you are supposed to do in order to advance. Again, there are no enemies or no fight scenes in this game. Anyone could pick up and play this game and excel at it, depending on if they can handle the controls while flying or not.

While the game is fun, where it really shines is in its audio and visual effects. They are clearly the stars of the game. This game is simply gorgeous to look at, and I don't throw around that term lightly. Each stage is bright and vibrant, with colors popping all over the place. Even if a stage at first seems dark and gloomy, it is your goal to bring light and color to the area

For example, in one stage that takes place at night, there is a flower you collect that makes the whirligig of assorted flower petals you control shine like a beacon. You can use this light to brighten the area, touching light posts to turn them on and bringing illumination to the area. Another area in the game turns your petal collection a bright color, and you become a paintbrush of sort. If you swoop down and fly through the grass, you paint the grass with whatever color you decided to become.

If an area seems dead or colorless, the more you collect, the brighter you make it. If there is a large area of dead grass, chances are that you can make it green by collecting everything in the area. If there is a story line to this game, I guess it is that your character flies around bringing light and life to everything it touches. It's on a mission to make the world a more lively and beautiful place.

The colors in the game are amazing. It really feels like you are picked up and transported to another world at times. You know the movie Avatar - how the world of the Na'vi is so brightly colored and glowing and beautiful and amazing looking? This game manages to replicate that feeling of awe and beauty, but on a much bigger and more immersive scale.

You haven't really played Flower unless you've truly immersed yourself in the game. When you play this - turn off the lights, put on some headphones, and dive in. The feeling of flying through the air, light as a feather, is amazing. Up in the air, riding the breeze, ducking down to the ground and skimming through the grass. It is truly awesome. The worlds you explore are well designed, the goals you must complete are simple but clever. It is one of the most immersive games I have ever played.

The game is short, however, and easy to boot. Expect to easily finish this in one night. If I had shelled out 50 or 60 bucks for this, I probably would have been very upset and it would have affected my final score greatly. But hey, I got it for free so I can't complain.

As a game, Flower isn't the best thing known to mankind. It's short, there is almost no challenge to it. No story line to speak of. As an experience, however, it is epic. Great graphics, fun controls, a giant, beautiful world to explore. You definitely feel like you are a part of something bigger when you play this game. Whether or not you like the game depends on if you think a game with no action or story line is worth playing. I don't see how you couldn't like this game, but I am sure there are some who don't.

It has my stamp of approval, however. If some day a game manages to combine the graphics, atmosphere, and immersion effect of Flower with a powerful story line and cutting edge combat and controls, it would be the perfect game. Instead, we just half to settle for a glimpse of what the future of gaming has in store for us.

Overall:

B+

Video Game Review: Sword of the Berserk: Gut's Rage

Sword of the Berserk: Guts Rage

Sega Saturn

This is a game that I bought over 15 years ago, despite not knowing anything of what it was about. I just so happened to see this game in a bargain bin at a used video game store. It was dirt cheap, like in the 3 or 4 dollar range. My Dreamcast collection was looking sad at the time, so I bought the game for shits and giggles.

I played it and had a decent time with the game. But it was short and I was through with it in one night. It didn't leave a big impression on me. Looking back, all I can remember about it is that there were lengthy cutscenes and a lot of sword slashing battles. The game got shelved, and little did I know it would be 15 years before I ever picked the game up to play it again.

A lot has changed in my life since I last played this game. Back in 2000 or 2001 I was living with my parents. Now in 2016 I am married and on my own. Older and wiser.

My standards apparently have raised because while I recall liking this title back in the day, I didn't enjoy it playing it again 15 years later. The game really hasn't aged well. Graphically, it looks fine. Yeah this is an early Dreamcast title, but things don't look too awful. There are nice environments, detailed characters.

The voice acting is decent. I recognized several famous voices from other video games. For example - both Colonel Campbell and Liquid Snake are voices in the game. The music is fine. The sound effects are fine. Everything is fine yet unspectacular. Where the game stumbles in my estimation is in its gameplay.

This is a hack n slash title like God of War or Heavenly Sword. Normally I like these types of games, but Sword of the Berserk feels broken. There are no lock on attacks, so unless you are facing in the exact direction of your enemy, you will miss with your attack. This happens a LOT over the course of the game, and it is very annoying because it takes your character a second or two to recover from swinging his sword, and this leaves you vulnerable to attack.

Combat isn't terrible deep either. It is mainly just dodging enemy attacks and mashing the attack button over and over again. The game does give you items to use in combat. There are potions that restore your health, guns that do massive damage, and smoke bombs that cause moderate damage and help you break away from enemy attacks. One of the few bright spots in the game for me is the fact that you have a meter that fills up as you dole out damage. When the meter hits the top, you go into a rage where your attacks are extra powerful, and nothing the enemies can do will hurt you. When you think about games like God of War and Dante's Inferno that have this feature, it doesn't seem like anything too original. But when you realize that this game came out long before any of those titles, you realize that Sword of the Berserk is a little bit of a trend setter.

I mentioned that swordplay feels broken at times, and one area where it feels especially broken is in close quarters combat. Your character uses a big ass sword as his main weapon, however this sword hits the wall when you are fighting in close quarters. While your character recovers from the brief after shock of hitting the wall, again the game leaves you vulnerable to attack from your enemies. There are areas in the game where you must fight hordes of enemies in tight quarters, so this can be very, very annoying.

There isn't much variety in the gameplay. Most levels consist of big fights where you must destroy giant respawning swarms of enemies to move on. As I played the game, I learned that in some places you don't even have to kill all your enemies. You can just run to the end of the stage and move on to the next area without swinging your sword even once. Seeing as how there is no incentive to staying around and fighting the enemies (no experience points, weapon upgrades, etc) I ended up doing this quite often to save time.

At least boss battles are interesting. Each boss requires you to use different strategies and techniques to beat them. Some of these require a little trial and error, which I didn't mind. There is one boss in particular - this giant black dragon cat thing that is really, really difficult to beat. I wanted to chuck my controller at the wall several times while fighting this son of a bitch. Eventually I found the winning combination needed to beat him and move on, but it took quite some time.

Those are your three basic stages. Running from enemies, fighting swarms of them, and battling bosses. There are some quick time events thrown in to keep things interesting, but these are few and far between, and none of them are difficult. Towards the end of the game, there is a stage where you must run through a corridor while it collapses behind you, avoiding obstacles along the way. This is very frustrating to pass and feels poorly designed. If you run out of lives, you must fight the game's previous boss over again. This happened quite often to me. Once again, this game made me want to chuck my controller at the wall.

Speaking of poor design, the save system here is abysmal. The game saves automatically, but you really have to pay attention or you won't even notice it happening. And if you happen to turn off your game when it hasn't saved in a long time, you will find yourself having to play through old stages to make it back to where you left off. The game is about three hours long give or take, and it only saves about 3 or 4 times throughout the entire duration of the game. The worst thing in the world is dying during a boss battle and then having to replay long chunks of game to get you back to the boss fight.

The game is very story driven, and I find that I enjoyed the story more than I did the actual game. It's about a swordsman named Guts who is traveling with a magical fairy and a seemingly autistic woman. On their travels, they encounter a kingdom infested with a sickness that turns people into violent zombie like creatures. Guts is enlisted by a seriously evil dude who is in charge of the area to go retrieve an item which supposedly will eradicate the Mandragoran scourge. But in a twist surprising to no one, the evil dude wants the item for himself to turn himself into some kind of all powerful super being. At least, that's the basics I got out of the story. Some of the cutscenes are quite lengthy, and I found my attention drifting on more than one occasion.

As I said, the best part of the game is the story - and even the story isn't that great. I read after the fact that the game is based on a Japanese manga series, so it looks like this is just a small chapter out of the adventures of Guts and his traveling companions. Even though I wasn't that crazy about the story, I am sort of interested in checking out this manga now. Just out of curiosity.

I think it is a fair assessment to say that I got what I paid for with this game. It was a bargain bin title. I only paid 3 or 4 bucks for it. I don't think I expected it to be great when I bought it. And its not. Was it worth the money? Sure. I played through it twice. Put about 6 or 7 total hours into it.

I don't think I'll ever play this title again. In fact, I feel as if I am probably going to trade this game in now that I am done with it. Usually I like to hang on to my games when I finish them because I never know if I am going to feel the urge to play them again. But I just can't see myself ever wanting to play this again. I'm good with letting it go.

This is an occasionally fun, mostly sloppy and annoying game. I was able to derive a little bit of entertainment from the title, so it is not a complete failure. And I think back in 2000 or 2001 when I played this I enjoyed it and had a good time. So there's always that. But yeah, this game is not for me. At least not anymore.

Overall:

D

2016 Movie Ranking Countdown: May

The month of May has come to an end, and it is time to pick the top 5 favorite movies that I watched during this 5th month of the year. These top 5 will move on to my end of the year ranking list where, after a brutal 10 movie cut, I shall rank in order my 50 favorite movies watched in 2016.

There is not much to choose from in May, as I've only watched 7 films this month. 2 will be eliminated, and 5 will move on.

I've seen this miniseries (which I shall from here on out refer to as a movie) a handful of times over the years, and I generally find that I've always enjoyed it. I had just finished reading the book version of It when I decided to give the movie another watch. It had been about 5 years or so since I'd last seen It, and I wanted to know if my reading of the book would change my thoughts on if I liked it or not.

Understandably, they had to change a lot of things to fit the 1000 page book into a 3 hour made for TV movie, so a lot of content was dropped from the novel. I didn't mind this though, and accepted the changes and alterations to the plot that they made. It is a well cast movie, especially in the area of Pennywise and the kid versions of the Losers Club. The adult versions of the kids I was meh about, with the exception of a few.

The way they adapted the story of the book was decent - with the first part of the miniseries mainly focusing on Mike Hanlon's phone calls, and each person's flashbacks to their initial memories of It. Then the second part was about everyone coming to Derry and tracking down It and killing it once and for all.

There are some scary moments, some moments that have not aged well at all. But I enjoyed myself a lot here. As far as book to TV adaptations go there have been a lot worse than this. A LOT worse. I thought this was pretty good.

I visited California earlier in the month, and during my vacation I happened to pass through the Big Sur area on a trip down the coast. Fascinated by what I had seen, I searched for Big Sur on Netflix after I returned home to see if there were any documentaries or travel shows about the area. The only thing to come up was this movie.

I decided to give it a go, despite its one star rating. I should have known better. The movie was terrible. Like, excruciatingly bad. It's about a beatnik author named Jack Kerouac (apparently he is very famous, although I had never heard of him) who spends time at Big Sur to unwind and get away from the "real world". The movie cuts back and forth between his time at Big Sur and his life in the city, where he is a big drinker and womanizer. Often there are voice overs of Jack reading from his novel while collage scenes play out on the screen.

The movie, I am sorry to say, is garbage. Its a confusing mess with unlikable characters and obnoxious ramblings by some dickwad who thinks he is a lot smarter and insightful than he actually is. I liked the scenery in the movie, but that was it. I'd have to say this ranks as one of, if not THE worst, movies I have seen all year. Suffice it to say, it will not be making my top 5 for this month.

Last year I had decided to watch the first two Star Wars prequels, then the TV show the Clone Wars, then Revenge of the Sith in order. Well, the cartoon is taking longer than I had expected to watch, so I decided to go ahead and watch Revenge of the Sith even though I am only on season 4 of the Clone Wars. I just had a really odd urge to watch this movie which I can't explain.

I've always considered this the best of the prequels, the only one I have ever legitimately enjoyed while watching. And this definitely still holds up. Sure there are silly moments with the special effects and the CGI. The acting still isn't wonderful. But on the whole I find this to be much, much better than its predecessors.

The action is better and less corny, the plot moves along at a faster and at a more cohesive clip (get that taxation of trade routes shit out of here), and I just find that I had a really good time watching it. Yeah, the prequels still as a whole suck, but at least they managed to make one decent movie out of the bunch.

I actually had watched this movie a month or two ago, but had forgotten to add it to my list. My only choices were either to not include it on the list at all (which I never really considered) or throw it into the month of May, although I didn't actually watch it in May. So I have decided to go ahead and add it as a May movie. It's my list, I can make up the rules if I want!

I found this movie to be pretty good. It is a fast paced thriller that keeps you guessing with strong twists and turns and a fast moving plot line. It mainly focuses on an escaped convict who returns home to hook up with his ex, who he is devastated to find has been seeing another man in his absence. He confronts her and things go terribly wrong.

Events lead him to the house of a seemingly random stranger. He tells the woman that his car has broken down, and she invites him in. Then, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. I won't spoil the twists, but the movie definitely takes a few unexpected turns along the way.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about the movie was the fact that the female lead made a lot of questionable choices throughout the film, mainly in how she handles the man who comes to her door in the middle of the night. It is like everything that a woman on her own should NOT do, she does the opposite. But still on the whole it was a solid movie.

It is a little surprising that I never watched this as a kid, seeing as how obsessed I was with the first two TMNT movies. But I was a big fan of Shredder and some of the story lines from the cartoon. When I saw that this movie was moving away from all that (No Shredder, no Krang, no mutant opponents like Baxter Stockman or Rocksteady and Bebop) and had instead decided to focus on time traveling back to feudal Japan, my 12 year old self became supremely annoyed. Plus I had read reviews that the movie was bad.

I never went to see this in the theater, never even got it when it came out on home video. Somehow I completely managed to avoid watching this until I reached the ripe old age of 33 - 21 years after the release of the film.

Unfortunately, the reviews I had read about the movie being bad were true. This was pretty terrible. I was willing to give it a chance, but I just couldn't get into it. The jokes are bad, the story line is uninspired, and the characters and fight scenes are all just as meh as you can be. They had a good thing going with the first two TMNT movies, I don't know why they strayed from the formula here. Shortly after this movie came out, TMNT's popularity faded immensely. I can't help but think that this movie had something to do with that. Thanks a lot, TMNT 3.

You ruined the Turtles for me.

I wasn't sure what to expect of this coming in. I am not a huge Dicaprio fan, nor am I a big fan of "man vs nature" type movies. There are some that I like, such as Life of Pi and Castaway for example. But on the whole I tend to get bored with this genre of film.

It turns out that there is much, much more than man vs nature to this title. The movie is extremely immersive, great location, great atmosphere, great set pieces. You feel like you have actually transported back in time when watching this movie. The acting is great, in particular Tom Hardy's character, who I thought outshined Dicaprio.

I'm a fan of blood, gore, and violence and this movie definitely delivers the goods. The Indian attack, the assault by the bear, the big fight at the end of the film: all awesome. One scene where Leo has to cut open a dead horse Luke Skywalker style and shove himself into its steaming corpse to survive a cold night was particularly awesome to me.

I expected to be bored by the movie. Didn't expect a lot of dialogue, didn't expect much action. I just thought it would be Leonardo Dicaprio trudging around in the snow for 2 plus hours. But this movie had it all. Great location, great acting, great violence and gore. The revenge plot isn't overly innovative or original, but I enjoyed that as well. This is the first time all year I watched a movie where I thought "hey this could actually win my end of the year ranking."

Will it? Maybe. There's still a lot of 2016 left, though.

I'm a big Rocky fan, plus I have heard that this movie was excellent, so it was a no brainer I'd be watching this movie as soon as I could get my grubby mitts on a copy of it.

The film follows Adonis Creed, the bastard son of famed Rocky rival Apollo Creed. Despite having a troubled youth, he grows up to be an exceptionally bright young man who discovers he has a talent for boxing. He leaves behind a promising business career to follow in his father's footsteps in the boxing ring.

He starts at the bottom of the heap and works his way up with the help of his reluctant mentor Rocky Balboa. Stallone is at the top of his game as an old, broken down Rocky who is going through health problems. Michael P Jordan is amazing as Adonis as well. It is a superbly acted movie with a fun root for the underdog plot line. The final scene of the movie is very intense and keeps you on the edge of your seat. You can't help but root for Adonis the whole way through this film as he is one of the most likable characters you ever meet in a movie.

The film is an up and down emotional roller coaster, and definitely left its impression on me. I'd recommend this to anyone, regardless of whether they are familiar with the Rocky series or not. Just as I thought the Revenant was the only film I watched so far that could possibly win my end of year ranking, along comes Creed. Great movie that I plan to watch again before the year is out.

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What is moving on this month? Well, the pickings are slim with only 7 movies watched in May - and 5 moving on. If you read my write ups at all, you should know this is a no brainer. I hated Big Sur and TMNT 3, and there is no way in hell those movies are moving on.

We shall see Creed, The Revenant, All Good Things, Revenge of the Sith, and It and the end of the year when I rank my top 50 films watched in 2016.



Here's all my combined top fives from each month so far for the year:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Cake
American Sniper
Predator
Friday the 13th Part 2

Locke

Evil Dead

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Elysium

Snowpiercer
Room
Manson Family Vacation
Deadpool
Goodnight, Mommy
Unforgiven

Big Driver

The Martian

Pixels

JFK: The Smoking Gun

Crimson Peak
It
Creed
The Revenant
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
No Good Deed


Here's to a great June of movie watching! I really want to see Captain America Civil War, and I have had a weird craving to watch Zombieland and the Perfect Getaway lately. But who knows what will randomly catch my interest on Netflix?

Video Game Review: Tomb Raider 3

Tomb Raider 3

PlayStation

When I was a teen in the late 90's, Tomb Raider was a big thing for me. While a lot of the media focus tended to be on Lara Croft's physical appearance, I couldn't have cared less about that. I was all about the 3D environments (which were relatively rare in this age of gaming), action, exploration, and thought provoking puzzle solving that came with the series.

The original Tomb Raider was great. The second game was even better in my mind. I expected the series to grow and continue to get better with Tomb Raider 3. However, I find that it took a slight step back.

The first thing to note is that the controls are exactly the same as the previous titles in the series. Running, walking, swimming, side stepping, jumping, hanging onto ledges, and the lock on style gunplay are all identical to everything we've already seen from Tomb Raider in the past. There are a few additions to what Lara can do in this game, but nothing game changing. For example, you can hold down the right shoulder button while running for a brief burst of speed. Woot.

Lara also can pilot new vehicles. There's a paddleboat, an ATV, a handheld submersible thingamajig. While nothing too spectacular, these do offer a slight diversion from your normal running around style of gameplay.

What this all really amounts to is that as far as controlling Lara, nothing much has changed. This is basically the same game as Tomb Raiders past, only with new environments.

These new environments are pretty cool though. You start in the jungles of India. You've got greenery everywhere, quicksand, ancient temples, rivers full of deadly piranha, and - of course - bad guys out to claim the treasure before you can. Some of the atmospheric effects in this level are cool. I like the occasional rainfall. The coloring in the sky on on the ruins is beautiful. It just all feels really authentic. Pixelated, yes, but fun.

When you finish with India, you can actually select which level you want to play next. Each one is broken into three or four stages. First you've got the South Pacific, which is a cool level. It is the most India-like level in the game, however. Again, lots of clear water and green jungle ruins. This is different from India in the fact that it is more of a primeval setting. Angry villagers, hungry dinosaurs (!). There's even some white water rafting. And the sunset-y colors are pleasing to the eye. I like this level.

You've got London. You travel across rooftops, you explore the city's underground and subway tunnels. You poke through buildings and a museum owned by one of the major villains in the game. I'll admit to not liking London much. It is home to some of the hardest levels in the game, and a lot of your tasks seem to be particularly obscure. Where do I go? What do I do next? asasasasjlaslrtrgfddfg!!!!

And then there is Nevada, which is probably my favorite level in the game. First you explore a desert area, looking to find your way into Area 51. When you do get into Area 51, you lose your weapons and have to sneak around the facility, using the other prisoners to beat up the guards and do your dirty work for you. Eventually you get your guns back, and explore the rest of the facility. If you guessed that an alien spacecraft would pop up in Area 51, you guessed right.

All three of these levels can be played in any order. When you finish them, you are shipped off to the fifth and final level of the game: Antarctica. Expect snow, expect underground caverns. Expect minecarts. Asshole minecarts. Seriously, fuck these things. The whole area has kind of a "the Thing" feel to it, which is cool. Beat this level and all its stages, you beat the game.

I love the classic Tomb Raider gameplay. I love the levels. They are all fun to look at and very cleverly designed. Where the game goes off course for me is in its difficulty level.

The first two Tomb Raider games had some difficult moments, but nothing too overly challenging. Some of the puzzles took a while to solve, but after a little poking and prodding things would become pretty self evident. This game, however, not so much.

First of all, we'll start with the difficulty. Beware of cheap deaths, because they are going to happen. A lot. Running along, not a care in the world: bam. The ceiling collapses on you. The ground drops out from below you. A previously dormant grate blasts fire at you and burns you to a crisp. Fine. This is Tomb Raider. If you've played the other games at all, you should be used to stuff like this happening.

But they seem to happen a lot more than usual here. Throw in the fact that this game has a save system that limits the number of times you can save, and this makes things even more frustrating. Imagine you've been playing a half hour or so since your last save, trying to hold off and not waste a save crystal when - oh crap - something cheap and unexpected happens and kills you. Now you've got to go back and play the whole last half hour of the game over again. And this happens quite a bit in this game. My stats at the end of my playthrough said I had been playing for about 15 or 16 hours. I seriously doubt this. Throw in the number of times and I had to reload from my last checkpoint, and I bet it took me 30 to 40 hours to beat the game. Not that I mind a game that takes a little longer to beat, because I don't. But not when the only reason it takes so long to beat is because the game is screwing me over and over and over again and I keep having to backtrack over old ground. It is ridiculous, and at points I had to simply turn off the game and stop playing I was fuming so badly.

If I had to offer a bit of advice for future players, it would be to not worry about running out of save crystals. I tried to hoard mine and then when the last level came around I had about 15 of them saved. It would have made the game that much easier and enjoyable for me if I had just used them more liberally earlier in the game. Don't worry about running out. Because I was - and then I ended up not having to worry at all.

My other complaint is that the levels - while they may look nice and are otherwise brilliantly designed - often have a lack of direction to them. I usually don't like having to use walkthroughs to help me through a game, but I feel as if it was unavoidable here with Tomb Raider 3. Soooo often would I get stuck with absolutely no freaking idea of what I was going to do next. The levels are so big. Switches and items on the ground are so easy to overlook. I don't have any idea how in the world I managed to beat this game back in '98 or '99 without the help of the internet. I was completely lost at many points in this game, even with internet guides holding my hand every step of the way.

Couple that with the difficulty, the limited saves you get, and all the cheap deaths, and it really really detracts from the fun factor of this game. There are a ton of fun stages, but there are also a ton of stages that are a complete pain in the ass. Like, for example, all of London.

That being said, I do like the game. It holds a sentimental place in my heart, as do the first two titles in the Tomb Raider series. It is the last old school Tomb Raider game I owned. My brother played it, and actually did pretty well in it, which surprised me because he had never shown an interest in the first two games. I also used to bring the instruction booklet of this game to high school and read it at my desk so that other kids would see it and start talking to me about it (yeah I was a pathetic nerd, tell me something I don't know). Somewhere along the line I ended up losing the manual, so you can look directly through the case of my copy of the game and see the disc. I never did find out what happend to it.

It's not my favorite game in the series. In fact, I would rate it below Tomb Raider, TR 2, the 2013 reboot, and the Prince of Persia-esque PS2 versions of the game... well some of them anyway. But even with all its flaws, I still hold a soft spot in my heart for the game. Sure its frustrating. Sure it can be downright rage inducing at points. But it is a really good entry in an iconic series. I can't say it is a classic. I can't say its great. But I can say it is really good.

Overall: 

B

Video Game Review: Goldeneye 007

Goldeneye 007

Nintendo 64

Everyone knows that Goldeneye 007 is considered an all time classic, certainly one of the best games ever released for the Nintendo 64. But I can admit to not being too excited about this game when I first heard about it. This was back in the mid 90's. Some video game magazine ran a large 15 page preview on the game. They outlined the levels, the weapons, the gameplay, the controls, everything. The game looked like it might be okay, but I was not a big James Bond fan back then, nor did I know anyone else who was. I never thought in a million years the game would end up being as big a hit as it did.

When it came out, I rented a copy and played it over the weekend. I liked the game, but I wasn't able to finsh it as I couldn't make it past the damned jungle level. I think that the level is a walk in the park these days (especially on Agent mode, which I undoubtedly was playing back then), but I just couldn't finish it. I ended up renting the game one or two more times, finally finishing the level and completing the game both times.

I thought that was it, that I would never play the game again. Usually when I rent a game that many times and play the crap out of it like that, I don't bother to buy it. But with each renting of Goldeneye, I fell a little bit more in love with the game each and every time. Plus the multiplayer mode was a ton of fun, and I wanted to have a copy of the game handy if and when I had friends over.

So I bought it. The game was still relatively new and I paid full price for it. So it was kind of a waste of precious resources (especially for a 15 year old) renting the game three times and then paying full price for a new copy of it. But it was well worth it.

I played the hell out of the game, not only in single player mode but with friends as well. I became a multiplayer champion, the kid that everyone hated to play against. In fact, often times I would be ganged up on by people so they could take me out first when we'd play. Even going 3 against 1, sometimes they were still not successful enough to take me out of the game.

Multiplayer was a ton of fun. It offers pretty standard player vs player battle mode (up to 4 people could play at a time), but there were a ton of levels, a lot of different weapon modes to choose from, and a few variations of battles to pick from. I remember the man with the golden gun (one hit kills) being a fun mode to play. Finding secret hiding spots, ambushing players... walking around, having to constantly be on the lookout for proximity mines... keeping tabs on where weapon caches and bulletproof vests would respawn... the game was just an absolute blast to play with my friends.

I also became quite good at the game in single player. I beat the game on the three main difficulty settings, unlocking the secret levels and each and every hidden character in multiplayer. Man, it was an incredibly difficult task. To this day, I don't know how I did it. I struggle now to get through the game on Secret Agent difficulty, but I will get to that later. Still, it was quite an accomplishment. I don't know if I could do that today, even if I invested all of my time into playing this.

Over time, the Nintendo 64 gave way to a new generation of consoles. This game got shelved. Unlike a lot of other titles I put away when I am done playing them, I still would pick up Goldeneye every few years or so and give it a good play through.

I'd say it has been at least five years since the last time I played the game. I had wanted to play an N64 game for my next review, and it was a no brainer that I was going to pick this.

Right away, I was able to pick up the game and get into the swing of things as if I had just played it yesterday. The control scheme is very accessible, the game easy to handle and play. Although the game is 20 years old (damn, I am ancient) - it still holds up relatively well. The graphics are vibrant and colorful. Your weapons damage the environment, enemies react to where you shoot them. This was groundbreaking stuff for 1997. The characters look, for the most part, like their film counterparts. But what really stands out to me is the game's music. Goldeneye has a classic soundtrack that I found myself humming along to one more than one occasion.

The level design is classic, this isn't just a "shoot everyone" brainless first person shooter. Each stage has missions and objectives you must complete before you can move on. No two levels are alike (well, except for a couple later stages in the game where you revisit old haunts) and each stage seems to have its own life and personality. Every level of the game feels new and fresh, and that is something that can not be said for a lot of games. The variety in the stages and the various tasks and objectives you must complete in each one definitely keeps you interested and wanting to play more and more each time you finish a stage. Plus, when you play on higher difficulties, new objectives in each stage open up, giving the game even more replay value.

On my most recent play though, I set out to beat the game on Secret Agent difficulty, which is the second of two difficulty options presented to you at the beginning of the game. Apparently, on my last several play throughs I must have played the game on just plain old Agent difficulty, because holy crap I had a tough time beating this game. I was fine until the level with the bunker, when a nearly endless supply of enemies would gang up and slaughter me time and time again. I must have spent two or three hours trying to beat this one level, which I could never remember having problems with in the past. And it only got harder. The tank level (don't get me started on that), the level where you start in the elevator (I forget its name), and the god damned Aztec level. Ugh, please kill me now. And to think, I beat this game as a teenager on the difficulty ABOVE Secret Agent. How I did that, I have no fucking idea.

As classic as the game is, I was able to find a few flaws with it that people probably don't think of when they bring this game to mind. I'm sure a ton of people play the game on Agent difficulty, which is pretty easy. But the jump in difficulty from Agent to Secret Agent is soooo steep. The thing that irritated me the most: definitely the respawning enemies. So many levels send an endless flood of foes in your direction, to the point where it starts to become very tedious to finish a level. You can clear a room, check it, and advance to the next room only to have an enemy appear out of nowhere behind you and start shooting the living crap out of you, taking out half your health in the process. This irritated me immensely. As you progress in the game, the enemies do more damage and become sharpshooters as well. Sometimes you get blasted the second you step around a corner, without even a split second to react. It can get very frustrating at times.

Still, there is no denying that this game is amazing and is still a great classic. Playing it brings back so many memories to my mind. Great single player mode, great challenges. Kicking my friends' asses in multiplayer. Experiencing this game as a teen in the 90's definitely changed my opinion on first person shooters and what they were capable of. I had only played games like Wolfenstein and Doom at this point in my life. This was a total eye opener for me. Shooting people in the foot and seeing them hop around in pain, shooting them in the head and killing them instantly - these were things that you just didn't see in the mid 90's. You could shoot out windows, destroy items sitting on tables. Even shooting the differently textured walls and floors and hearing the different sound effects was a thing of beauty back then. Not even doing the missions, just walking around and firing at things to see what would happen was an amazing experience. Plus it transformed me from someone who couldn't care less about Bond to a big fan. I wouldn't say hardcore, but I do love the series.

It's just a really great game. If you had asked me what I would grade it coming into my most recent play through of the game, I would have said an A+. No question. Playing it again in 2016, nearly 20 years after its initial release, I was able to spot a few of the game's flaws. The respawning enemies and frustrating difficulty on the non Agent difficulty levels definitely brings it down a wee bit for me. I'm all for a challenge, as long as the challenge is fair. But this was just ridiculous in some spots. The point of playing games is to have fun, and there were definitely many spots in the game where I was just getting pissed off rather than having fun.

I won't let my chuck the controller through the wall moments ruin my memory of the game though. Goldeneye is a classic. Its impact not only on the genre but on my life as a young adult in general is something that can not be denied. Maybe I didn't have quite as much fun as I thought I would, plus I don't have anyone to play multiplayer with so that whole aspect of the game was skipped over for me, but it is still amazing.

Overall:

A

2016 Movie Ranking Countdown: April

Another month, another 5 movies will move on to my ultimate movie ranking list at the end of the year. I watched 12 films in the month of April, so narrowing it down will be a little bit harder than usual. Which 5 will move on and what will be left in the dust? Let's find out!

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I watched this movie late last year and it ranked in my top 3 favorite movies of the year, if I remember correctly. The movie was so good that as soon as it ended, I considered firing it up again and immediately watching it one more time. That NEVER happens with me with movies. I didn't watch it again, but instead decided to wait a few months to give it another shot. See if I would like it even more with it being not so fresh on my mind.

Turns out that may have been a bad mistake. This is still a great movie, but that sense of wonder and "wow did I just see that?" which I experienced the first time around was not present on my second viewing. I had a hard time getting into it, I thought things moved a little too fast. I wasn't as enchanted by the world of Mad Max as I was the first time. In fact, I hate to say this, but I pulled my phone out about 10 minutes into the movie and started playing games. No, Dan! Noooooo!

But luckily I pulled my head out of my butt, and I put the phone away and started paying attention during the second half of the movie. It may have been too little too late though. While I did enjoy the second half, and I started to notice things I hadn't the first time around, it was really like I was only watching a half of a movie. I tend to zone out everything around me when I am playing on the phone. Which is a shame because this is an amazing movie, and as a result of my foolishness it may miss out on cracking the top 5 for this month. I haven't made up my mind yet though. Let's see how these other movies stack up.

I've been on a big Stephen King kick lately, and when I noticed that this short story from Full Dark, No Stars had been made into a movie, I had to see it. This is by far the story from Full Dark, No Stars that stood out to me the most. It is about a female author whose car breaks down while returning from a book signing. A good Samaritan stops to help her, but quickly things go wrong and she finds herself raped, beaten, and left for dead in a drain pipe. When she wakes up, she goes on an epic quest to find her rapist and would-be murderer and track him down to kill him.

There are twists and turns along the way, but I won't spoil anything if you haven't seen or read the story. The movie does change some things from the book, but I actually liked the changes here. This is a very worthy movie version of a very disturbing short story. Even though it is only a made for TV Lifetime movie (which I didn't realize until after watching this), it was still quite good.

I'm a fan of the Maze Runner books, but the first movie was only just okay by my standards. I had heard the second film was good, so I decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be true that this film is better than its predecessor. It is sleek and beautifully filmed. Great action scenes, nice looking scenery. It is fast paced, it is intense. And it has a lot of really great appearances from actors from nerd shows that I like to watch. Want to see Littlefinger square off against Gustavo Fring? You have come to the right place.

I really, really wanted to love this movie. But it turns out I only just liked it. While it is true that the film is very well made and is infinitely better than the original, there is just something about it that screamed forgettable to me. Once again the urge to pull out my phone and play games in the middle of this turned out to be too strong to resist. I don't know what is wrong with me. I am either playing games while watching movies or falling asleep. I wish I could just enjoy things like normal people do, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards for me.

It may still make my top 5 for the month, just because I realize how well made the movie is. I liked it enough to revisit it at some point later on in the year, so it has that going for it.

I've read the book version of the Martian. While it is funny and has some really tense moments in it, there were quite a few pages filled with boring techno babble and science chatter. While it made the book seem scientifically accurate, like the events in it could have actually happened, it also was enough to bore me from time to time.

I figured the movie version of the Martian would play out very similarly, and I was not mistaken. Visually the movie is a masterpiece and one of the best looking films of all time. I like the cast, I like the characters. I am not a huge Matt Damon fan, but he was great in this, as were all of the supporting characters. Ned Stark is a bad ass here.

The problem I had with the movie is the same problem I had with the book. It tends to drag in parts and get bogged down by scientific gobble degook. If you have ever seen Apollo 13, this movie is very similar to that one. Except instead of 3 guys trapped in space, it is 1 guy trapped on Mars.

Despite the lulls in action, I still enjoyed myself. I think it could have been a little better, but overall it is a really solid movie. And the end made me tear up a little bit, so it has that working in its favor. Usually I don't cry in movies, so when a film can elicit such a reaction from me, it has done a good job.

I had heard this movie was terrible, so I had very low expectations for it. I came in expecting it to suck, but at the same time I was prepared for the chance that I would like it. I think my low expectations actually served in my favor here, as I truly did enjoy the movie.

It has a great cast, a fun story line. And it is a story line I can relate to, growing up hanging out in video game arcades and playing a lot of the same games that these guys did. Pac-Man, Centipede, Millipede, Defender, Space Invaders... hell yeah! If aliens ever invade Earth using characters from these games as their attack vessels, sign me up to fight them off!

I am sure that by no means is this a world beating film. I am sure that, watching this in a different context, the sappy love story and outrageous plot would have put me off to the film. But I don't know, I just had fun watching this. It's not meant to be an award winning film, it is meant to entertain kids, families, and people like me that grew up with these kind of games. I liked it a lot.

And visually it is really stunning too. I wouldn't be surprised to see this make my top 5. Which is funny when you consider how critically bashed this film is, and you compare it to the heavyweights it is up against.

I referenced in my Big Driver evaluation that I've been on a Stephen King kick lately. One of the reasons I am so into his work again all of a sudden is partly because I have recently read 11/22/63 and watched the Hulu miniseries. The story is about a man who goes back to save JFK, and it really got me thinking about the assassination and all the conspiracy theories.

When I saw this on Netflix, I decided to give it a chance. This is a documentary that deals with JFK's last day alive. Why he is in Dallas, what he did leading up to the assassination, and the assassination itself. This was a nice little miniseries, but it was nothing earth shattering for me. This didn't dive into any conspiracy theories, didn't speculate much on why it happened. It was more of a fact based narrative explaining the events of that fateful day.

It was good and I enjoyed myself watching it, but it left something a little to be desired for me when I was done with it.

After watching the Day JFK Died, I was still starved for more information on the Kennedy assassination. Searching for JFK on Netflix, I found this documentary as well. This is more of what I was looking for in the first place.

Why was Kennedy killed? Who could have done it? Who had a reason to do it? Why was the trajectory of the bullets so screwed up if they were fired from 1 gun? Why did people on the street smell gunpowder if the shots were fired from such a high vantage point with the wind blowing out?

This was the documentary that dealt with all the conspiracy theories regarding the assassination. Some of these theories were pretty interesting, some were stupid. I thought the theory about him being accidentally shot by a Secret Serviceman going for his weapon was an interesting theory, especially since it was backed by a ballistics expert, but I have read about this theory since watching this documentary and it has been proved false.

I enjoyed this a lot, and it really got me thinking as to what could have happened back on November 11, 1963. It is a mystery that may go unsolved in our lifetime. If it ever gets solved.

I watched this movie last year, in 2015. I fell asleep about halfway through it and missed a good chunk of it, but I still ranked it on my list. I believe it got a somewhat middling ranking if I remember correctly.

I decided I owed it to this movie to go back and watch it again this year, while attempting to actually stay awake for the whole thing. I succeeded in my goal, but I didn't really enjoy the movie as much as I thought I would. Sure there are some genuinely scary events in this movie. It is rare when a film can scare me or creep me out, and this one was able to do it on a few occasions.

I just think that knowing the twist of the film, plus having seen most of it so recenty, kind of ruined it in my mind. I wasn't able to get into it like I was hoping I would be able to. I kept pausing it and doing other things, and I think it took me over 3 hours to finish a film which really isn't that long to begin with.

I gave it a chance. I do like the film, but it is too similar to other things I have seen to really stand out too much in my mind.

I've always been intrigued by the premise of this film. It has Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is a big plus. It's about zombies: another plus. But for some reason I had my doubts.

Just because Arnold is in this doesn't mean it is an action movie. In fact, it is far from it. The film is mainly a psychological drama. Arnie is dealing with the impending death of his daughter, who has been bitten by a zombie. There is no cure for this. She is going to die and there is nothing he can do about it.

Usually when I watch movies like this where there is this kind of impending shroud of doom surrounding the characters, I get really into it. But for some reason I just wasn't feeling this movie. It's not the characters, it is not the acting. As far as I can remember the movie seemed to be pretty well made. I just couldn't really get into it, and now that I think back on it, I can barely remember anything about it. Maybe I just wasn't in the proper mood to watch it.

Some other day, some other time, perhaps.

This isn't typically my kind of movie. FBI vs drug cartel. Lots of shootouts and elaborate scheming.

But I had read in the Entertainment Weekly that this was supposed to be a really intense, hardcore movie. I like Emily Blunt. I like movies that put me on the edge of my seat. Why not give it a shot?

The movie gets off to a really good start. The FBI raids a drug house, they find dead bodies in the walls. People are shaken, they puke. A sense of dread and foreboding settles in. I am like - okay, this is gonna be good.

Unfortunately the rest of the movie doesn't hold up to the strong beginning. Emily Blunt's character is drawn into some kind of a plot to battle the Mexican cartel. There is a lot of elaborate scheming and double crossing going on. Benicio Del Toro's character is a double agent, or something. There is a big conspiracy uncovered at the end. Emily Blunt's facial expression never changes.

I just felt very "eh" about the whole movie. This is a subject that doesn't particularly interest me. I kind of got bored after a while. I started doing other things and only half paid attention. The movie didn't grip me like I had expected it to. I recognize that it is a well made movie, I just wasn't feeling it for some reason or another.

That's several movies on the list now that I have recognized as well done films, but for some reason or another I haven't been able to get into. I think its an attention span problem on my end, but who knows?

This is something I have wanted to see for a long time, if only because it stars the actress who plays Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones. In this movie, she travels to Japan to track down her sister, who has vanished into the "suicide forest" thing they have over there.

The movie delivered some legitimate scares. Just the whole forest thing itself was creepy, not to mention the fact that the whole movie takes place in a foreign country where nothing is familiar. That makes the whole thing just a little bit more unsettling.

I really liked the movie, although I did think the ending was kind of stupid and didn't make a whole lot of sense. If it doesn't make the top 5 for this month, you can blame the ending.

I was surprised to see that this movie got harsh reviews from the critics, because I had a good time. My tastes are weird. I like Pixels and the Forest which everyone seems to hate, yet I didn't really care for Sicario, Maggie, The Others, etc.

The last movie I watched in April!

I came into this movie not really knowing what to expect. I knew that the trailers for the film looked good, but as far as its actual story line, I had no idea what it was about. Something with ghosts.

The story revolves around a girl named Edith. She sees ghostly visions of her mother warning her of a place called Crimson Peak. Some of these ghost scenes are kind of creepy. Again, I don't scare easily but some of the scenes put me on the edge of my seat a little bit.

She meets some dude played by Loki from Thor - you know, the guy that all 20 to 30 year old chicks seem to go nuts over. Turns out he and his sister are running some kind of black widower scheme where he marries women with money and then they take the money and share it between the 2 of them. The sister gets upset because Loki is falling in love with this woman, and that's not part of the script. Edith finds out that the place where she and her new family are living is called Crimson Peak.

Fights break out. Stuff happens. You are led for most of the movie to believe that ghosts are the main antagonists in the film, but they aren't. It was a good movie. Not sure if I liked the very end, but I think the movie as a whole was solid enough to earn an entry into my top 5 for the month, especially seeing as how I watched a ton of movies I couldn't get into.

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It's a tough call, but I must choose only 5 from the list to make my ultimate year end ranking.

The 5 moving on are:

Big Driver

The Martian

Pixels

JFK: The Smoking Gun

Crimson Peak

It was a really, really tough call. I wanted to include Mad Max. I really did. I also wanted to include the Forest. Even the Scorch Trials probably deserved to move on. But 5 and only 5 were selected.

4 months into the year, and here are my top 20 movies so far, based on me pulling 5 each month:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Cake
American Sniper
Predator
Friday the 13th Part 2

Locke

Evil Dead

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Elysium

Snowpiercer
Room
Manson Family Vacation
Deadpool
Goodnight, Mommy
Unforgiven

Big Driver

The Martian

Pixels

JFK: The Smoking Gun

Crimson Peak