Ranting Wombat: “Everything Doesn’t Have to Mean Anything” – Editorial

Slightly confusing and possibly grammatically incorrect title got you down?

Allow me to explain; this particular rant is going to be about the fact that light entertainment seems to be disappearing from the world, and is instead being replaced by half-arsed attempts at achieving some kind of profound deeper meaning.

The most recent example of this that I have seen would have to be the movie ‘The Kingdom’ (a review can be found over in my movies section).  The movie itself was good, a mystery/thriller kind of affair with some action and an interesting concept (FBI agents go to Saudi Arabia to investigate attacks on American civilians).  Unlike most Hollywood movies, it even managed to portray the Saudi Arabians as interesting, complex characters; a different kind of attitude to what the rest of the movie biz does with Middle Eastern characters, treating them as the Nazis of the new millennium.

All good so far right?  Here we have a nice little movie, nothing overly complex but at least a little original in its setting and characters.  But then, right at the very end, we get some hackneyed attempt at a political statement that was just so over the top that it undid a lot of the good work the movie had already accomplished; I don’t want to spoil the ending, but keep an eye out for the repetition of the line “we’ll kill em all”, or something to that effect.  

The whole thing just feels like a cynical attempt to get across a message of “we’ve got things in common, it’ll take both sides to end the conflict, blah blah blah,” in a movie that was, up until that point, a fairly unsubtle, blow the crap out of anything with an AK-47, affair.  What is particularly ironic is the fact the ‘The Kingdom’, with it’s fair portrayal of Saudi Arabians being good police officers, loving family members, etc, actually does more to make the audience reconsider things about societal and religious differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures than any amount of forced ‘makes you think’ moments could.

Now I’m not saying that social, political, religious, or any other kind of commentary doesn’t have a place in entertainment or the arts; there are movies, books, songs, even games which are fine examples of both their art and of saying something of import.  What I am saying is that this kind of commentary shouldn’t be appearing ina World of Warcraft: Shake Hands With The Horde expansion pack; I don’t want to see American Pie: Stiffler’s Communist Manifesto, and nor do I want to hear the Dixie Chicks telling me I should hate George Bush in between singing songs about trains, broken hearts, and whatever the hell else country music is about.

I just wish that this trend didn’t exist where every single thing has to have some deeper meaning behind it.  A song by your latest chart-topping rapper can’t just be about marijuana and girls with large posteriors anymore; now it’s a requiem for the loss of innocence experienced by a 16 year old heroin addict on the streets of LA attempting to make it big as an MC during the late 90s, before his life was tragically cut short by falling down an elevator shaft onto some bullets in what the police ruled to be an accidental suicide.

Why can’t an action movie just be an action movie?  I don’t mind a bit of subtext with my fluff, but when they feel the need to hit me over the head with a big political message with all the subtlety of a kick to the proverbials, it just makes me feel hostile towards writers that can’t make a point without it being on the business end of a sledgehammer.  There are ways to effectively comment on a sensitive topic; a clichéd line of dialogue is not one of them. 

I guess this whole thing is just a logical extension of a problem which has plagued mankind for ages; the celebrity who believes their opinion matters.  No matter how famous you are, if you want me to take your opinion seriously, then you better have done something to make yourself worth listening to; investigate, form your own opinion, and present a logical argument…otherwise, you’re just mouthing off and embarrassing yourself and everyone who has to listen to you.  The same thing applies collectively to movies, songs, etc because, at the end of the day, these are just a way for the people behind the other celebrities to get their opinions heard too.

It’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the point being made; it’s a matter of whether you are expressing something well considered and significant, rather than just getting up on stage at the Grammy’s and screaming a single line at the end of an otherwise mundane speech; something like “Bring our troops home!” or “Visit the Evil Wombat’s Lair, it’s the greatest thing since Portuguese chicken burgers!”

Of course, if you said that last thing you can feel free to disregard this whole rant; you are obviously a person of great culture and personal intelligence, and we should feel blessed to hear the opinions of one so markedly superior to the rest of us mere plebeians, who are simply honoured by basking in your magnificent presence.   

    

- The Evil Wombat

   

(And yes, I am aware of the irony of mouthing off on a world stage about other people mouthing off on a world stage.  Hypocrites need love too.)

Stranglehold (360) – Review

John Woo and gaming go together like bacon and wasabi (try it sometime!). Woo’s movies are chock full of everything that has made gaming great over the years: hard as nails action heroes; rescuing the princess…errr, girlfriend; and of course “gun-ballet”, or as it is known in the industry which ripped it off mercilessly, “bullet-time”.So when a gaming sequel to Woo’s much-loved classic Hard Boiled was announced, with Chow Yun-Fat reprising his role as Inspector Tequila and Woo heading up the project, it seemed like the perfect melding of cinema and games.  What we got instead was a somewhat shallow action shooter with a smear of storyline and so much style that it’s impossible not to grin at the sheer absurdity of the whole thing.

The player takes the role of the aforementioned Tequila, the most dangerous cop in Hong Kong, as he travels around putting bullets into pretty much anything and everything he comes across; subtle police work this ain’t.  The story continues on from the original movie, and is also about organised crime, betrayal, unrequited love, and blowing the crap out of things.

Woo’s influence on the style of the game is obvious; it looks, sounds and feels exactly like a one of his movies.  Visually the game looks good, with the characters looking realistic and the environments being quite pretty in places; it’s no Assassin’s Creed or Crysis, but the visuals are a bit more than merely functional.  The sound is pretty good, with the music being provided by none other than everyone’s favourite Armenian metal muso, Serj Tankian (from System of a Down).

The voice-acting, however, runs the full gamut from quite good to so awful it hurts a little.  The fact that everyone speaks English feels pretty false, and Chow Yun-Fat comes across as being a little uncomfortable with some of his dialogue.  Astonishingly, many of the Chinese characters speak with American accents for no readily apparent reason, and it really is jarring to hear an old Hong Kong native sounding like they grew up in New York; they could have at least gone for a somewhat region authentic pommy accent if they didn’t want to sound like stereotypical Asian impersonators.  Thankfully enough of the voice acting is decent that the script doesn’t suffer too badly for it, although the script itself is such a hackneyed (albeit entertaining), stereotypical action cliché that you probably won’t worry too much about the authenticity of the voiceovers.  

There is nothing subtle about the gameplay of Stranglehold.  You shoot a tonne of enemies, go through to the next area, shoot some more, maybe blow something up for variety, and then shoot some other people because Hong Kong’s gaols are apparently overflowing, and arrests take too much of your valuable time.

While the concept may not be particularly exciting, how you go about it certainly is.  Feeling like an evolution of Max Payne, Tequila has the similar ability to slow down time to that original constipated hero; you’ll find yourself diving around in slow motion, firing at enemies and wrecking the world around you.  What makes Stranglehold a little more unique is in its environmental interaction.  Beyond the fact that most things in the environment can be destroyed in a fairly spectacular fashion, many parts can also be interacted with, helping the player kill their foes as stylishly as possible.

Swinging on chandeliers, sliding down stair railings, running up the back of a dinosaur skeleton (!); all of these allow you to dispatch the bad guys in a way that is both efficient (who really expects someone wielding a shotgun to come sliding through the kitchen on a trolley?) and very stylish.  Style especially is very important, as it is what allows the player to take advantage of their Tequila Bombs.

Sounding somewhat like an alcoholic drink involving Redbull, the Tequila Bombs are instead special abilities which can be used whenever enough style points have been earned.  The four abilities (self healing, precision aiming, barrage, and the infamous John Woo spinning gun-ballet of death) are all very useful and amazingly pretty to watch, and are a smart way for the developers to encourage the player to take advantage of the environment and their abilities to dispatch enemies in the most spectacular way possible.

The Tequila Bombs will also be necessary for dealing with some of the more over the top situations in the game, especially the bosses.  These bad guys will always have an advantage over Tequila unless you make extensive use of all your special abilities, and it is a hoot to be diving backwards in slow-motion, shooting rockets out of the sky as they are fired at you by a Russian attack-chopper.

Thankfully, the developer did not just focus on the stylistic aspects of the game, and seem to have tried their hardest to ensure the mechanics are up to scratch.  The camera almost never gets in the way of the action (a rarity for third-person action games), the controls (mostly) feel pretty comfortable and accurate enough, and the gunplay is entertaining in all it’s diving, slow-motion glory.

But of course it’s not all perfect; the context sensitive environmental interaction button, like all context sensitive buttons, will occasionally make a stupid decision (run up that banister? Don’t be silly; let’s dive into that laser trip-mine instead!).  More seriously, however, is the fact it all just gets repetitive after a while; the baddies at the end might be slightly tougher, but you’ll still be diving around, shooting at them in slow motion while they stand there and bleed everywhere.  The boss fights and strong level designs help a little, but it starts to feel a bit too samey after a while.  Of course there may not be enough time for this to turn into a problem, since it’s quite feasible to clock the game in well under eight hours on normal difficulty without even breathing hard.

Multiplayer is present, but unfortunately not accounted for; despite trying to get a game on a few occasions, there appeared to be none available.  If there is an opportunity to give it a go in the future, this section of the review will be amended.  As it stands, the multiplayer can’t add anything to the experience if no one is playing it.

Stranglehold is yet another game which is trying desperately to cross the multimedia divide into cinematic territory; unlike many other examples (Enter the Matrix), it even succeeds to a certain extent.  Stranglehold is easily as stylish as a big Hollywood action blockbuster, and is presented as such with the involvement of Woo and Yun-Fat in the process; being presented as a legitimate sequel to a classic movie doesn’t hurt its claim to fame either.  Unfortunately the gameplay is also very ‘cinematic’; kind of fun, but immensely shallow and too damn short.  Stranglehold is entertaining and is easily worth a rent, but forking out the cash to buy it probably isn’t worth it unless you’re a Woo fan, or desperate for some gun-ballet.

          

Graphics: 8/10 (Good looking and stylish in the extreme, but not really mind-blowing.)

Sound: 6/10 (Really good music, good sound effects and some decent voice acting.)

Gameplay: 6.5/10 (Good fun to play, especially with the slow motion and Tequila Bombs, but ultimately a shallow experience which feels too samey too quickly.)

Longevity: 3/10 (Criminally short, and with little incentive to play it again beyond achievements and a couple of entertaining set pieces.  Multiplayer does not appear to be popular enough to add much to the life expectancy of the experience.)

Overall: 6/10 (A fun game let down by an attitude of style over substance; add an extra few hours of gameplay, a couple more special powers, maybe a few more action set pieces, and this could have been a damn good game.  As it is, it’s above average, but not by too much.)

      

-Tim Sweeney