Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD - DVD/Movie Review

Pure, unadulterated insanity.  There’s your review of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD (from now on known by the not-much-of-an-improvement-really acronym ATHFCMFTD).  Regular readers will know that I dig the Aqua Teens; it’s one of my favourite shows, due mainly to the non sequitur humour and sheer, unbridled craziness.  Now the guys have gone feature length and MA15+ rated, and what few rules there were while located on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim have been discarded faster than Carl’s back hair.

The movie begins with a side-splittingly hilarious take on the old school “Lets all go to the lobby” cartoon; let’s just say it involves indecent exposure, vehicular infanticide, and metal band Mastodon, and leave it at that.  From there the movie delves into the origins of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (including another original member AND their creator), and their quest to stop the Insane-O-Flex, an out-of-control exercise machine which has taken Carl captive, and which threatens the existence of the universe.

All the usual suspects make an appearance during the course of the absurd plot, including the Mooninites, the Plutonians, the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future, and many more (including numerous quick cameos of various minor characters); even more importantly (minor spoiler alert), the Aqua Teens finally get to meet Doctor Weird.  GENTLEMEN…BEHOLD!

Anyway, all of this adds up to a movie with a plot which almost makes a twisted, illogical kind of sense (but doesn’t really), with characters that do incredibly random things and, honestly, the whole thing is just completely nonsensical; and that is exactly what ATHF fans wanted.  Unlike so many feature length cartoons based off successful series, this movie is both faithful and superior to the source material, and the lack of censorship found on TV means that there are now no holds barred; the swearing, sexual humour, and just plain crudeness flow thick and fast.

I’ll say again what I said during my reviews of the ATHF series; if you’re one of the people that just don’t ‘get’ Aqua Teen Hunger Force, you’ll probably struggle to find more than the very occasional smirk here.  If you are a fan, or if you’re willing to try watching something new with an open mind, then I can’t recommend this movie more.  If you’re a fan of the Aqua Teens, or simply have the required bizarre sense of humour, this movie is essentially perfect in every way; if not, why would you bother watching it in the first place?    

     

Film: 10/10 (Sheer brilliant insanity)

Special Features: 8/10 (Deleted scenes, alternate endings, a complete feature made from cutting room floor footage, and a stack more)

I rate ATHFCMFTD (bloody hell…): 10/10 (Aqua Teen Hunger Force reaches feature film perfection, but only for those who actually find it funny.)

   

- Tim Sweeney

Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath (PC - Expansion) - Review

(A very hearty thank you to GamingSA for supplying Kane’s Wrath to me for review)

    

The greatest gaming villain of all time finally gets a game focused solely on him; well, an expansion more precisely, but it still counts!  Kane’s Wrath, the inevitable expansion pack for Command and Conquer 3, is here and it’s going to fill in all those gaps in the C&C back story, as well as giving us so much Joe Kucan action that’s it is almost too much to handle.

Kane’s Wrath begins with a 13 mission campaign, played as the Brotherhood of Nod; the quasi-religious terrorist nation headed by the titular goateed one.  Beginning immediately after the end of C&C2: Tiberian Sun, and finishing up at some point past the end of the most recent game, the primary purpose of the campaign is to obviously fill in some of the glaring gaps in the storyline; how is Kane still alive? What happened to the Brotherhood after it fragmented in the last game, and how did it reunite? Just what happened to those stupid looking GDI mechs from Tiberian Sun, and what were they thinking designing such a dopey looking unit in the first place?

Which brings us to the second major change to the game: the introduction of ‘factions’.  Each team now has two sub-factions, which have new units, new support powers, and often a very different way of playing.  The Global Defence Initiative get a faction which is into old-school experimental technology (including the stupid looking mechs, who make their ungainly-looking return), and a faction with hard-as-nails elite units; Nod has the pyromaniacal, infantry focused group and the high-tech cyborg faction; and the alien Scrin get hit-and-run psychic powers and slow, steamroller teams.  Honestly, most of it has been done before in other games, but at least these additions bring a bit of variety to the three available armies (which look a little lacklustre these days when compared to the multitude of different factions found in Dawn of War and other games).

Speaking of Dawn of War, the most significant change to the C&C experience brought about by Kane’s Wrath is the inclusion of a new, Risk-esque “Global Conquest” mode.  Here the player is given a map of the world and charged with building bases and armies with which to conquer/defend cities (depending on faction), and of course wipe their enemies out.  Again this has been done before (see Dawn of War: Dark Crusade or Soulstorm for recent examples), but it nonetheless adds a welcome element of strategy to C&C3, and is a great deal of fun.  The presentation is top-notch, and the whole thing manages to feel tactical and deep without diluting what is essentially a game about speed and quick thinking.

Apart from these new features, everything else remains pretty much true to Tiberium Wars.  Graphically the game is pretty much identical, with the only real changes being to the new units introduced (including the rather impressive new epic units) and the occasional pretty environment.  The game still plays in much the same way, and if you weren’t sold on C&C3 (or its earlier incarnations for that matter), then Kane’s Wrath isn’t going to be the game that brings you into the fold.

Nonetheless, Kane’s Wrath is a welcome addition to the Command and Conquer franchise.  Being an EA series, there was always going to be at least one expansion pack made to distribute to the masses; thankfully, Kane’s Wrath comes across as more than just the shameless grab for cash that it could have been.  Instead, this expansion pack adds some new content, a fun new campaign which should please the story enthusiasts, a great tactical game mode, and of course a massive amount of Kane!  It may not set the world on fire in the originality stakes, and it almost certainly won’t attract any new players to the franchise; but, then again, expansion packs aren’t really known for that, are they?

                 

Graphics: 7/10 (Cutscenes are as brilliantly hammy as ever; otherwise the game is identical to C&C3.  Pretty, but hardly graphically intensive.  Oh and the Steel Talons recycling of the old Tiberian Sun mech units is amusing, but they’re still stupid looking.)

Sound: 7/10 (Some new music (including what sound like remixes of some franchise classics), but still essentially the same; thankfully this isn’t a bad thing, as the unit sounds and SFX of Tiberium Wars were fine.)

Gameplay: 8/10 (Pure, fast paced RTS action, now with added sub-factions and new units for extra fun; still superbly balanced, and the addition of a new campaign and Global Conquest are icing on the cake.)

Longevity: 7/10 (Singleplayer campaign is of a decent length and difficulty, and straight multi is still a good deal of fun, but the real meat is in the Global Conquest mode; adding an infinitely replayable, strategic campaign was a stroke of brilliance.)

Overall: 7.5/10 (A well executed expansion pack with many solid features, but only one real stroke of genius that significantly changes the way the game is played; even then there’s nothing particularly new or revolutionary here.  Despite this lack of real originality, Kane’s Wrath has a lot to offer to the fans of Tiberium Wars; just don’t expect it to change your mind if you aren’t one of them.)

      

-Tim Sweeney