Oh the Alien Franchise. You've come so far since the ultra atmospheric Ridley Scott opus that defined the way I, and many other film viewers, look at horror and sci-fi in general. Unfortunately all that forward momentum has been steadily clawed back by the third and fourth movies in the series with Alien Resurrection failing to even keep pace with the overtly action oriented Aliens by inundating the viewer with a middling plot, ridiculous, motivationless characters (or caricatures) and an entirely unfrightening depiction of the Aliens.
To this day I still get a charge out of the way Alien blended sci-fi and horror while keeping the story relatively grounded. Sure there was a freaky alien and they were flying around in space but all the characters were basically space truckers. The alien itself was the first other species that mankind had come across which meant that there was a minimum of jargon and sci-fi tropes that the audience is supposed to put together through exposition or contextually. The space setting, however, provides the perfect location for a monster thriller. There really is nowhere to run. Alien Resurrection has ostensibly the same setting but there's nothing left to the tense atmosphere of the first movie. The sets and hallways are all so huge there always seems like there's a place to go. The plot itself is fairly wrote as well. Evil military scientists try to clone Ripley in order to get a clone of the Alien Queen so the can use it as a weapon. It's a lot of the same plot other Alien films have had but this one feels a lot like they tried to make Aliens again only with even more gratuitous action and less interesting characters.
All the main characters are apparently battle hardened bandit badasses and Ripley herself has be reborn as an ultra-strong, part-alien, one-liner spouting killing machine. She just roams around the movie being a deux-ex machina which is always great for maintaining suspense. All the other main characters seem to be one note shells as well. There's the dude in a wheelchair, the crazy black guy with all kinds of gun gadgets, the secret robot, the backstabbing scientist. Nothing even remotely surprising happens and all the characters seem to do well is shoot at the Aliens and be gritty. Ron Perlman and Winona Rhyder stand out, though Ryder comes off as a little whiny and fragile for reasons that I either missed or were never articulated. Perlman's presence in this movie is more indicative of the overall quality. It's campy and feels much more like a B-movie with standout one liners like "Who do I have to Fuck to get off this boat" and "Since when are you in Charge? - Since YOU were born without BALLS!" I would have expected a movie with Joss Whedon's name in the writing credits to have a lot better dialog but I guess the need for punchy, action movie dialog won out over witty exchanges.
All in all, the movie is more disappointing as a continuation of the Alien Franchise than it is as a mediocre action/sci-fi/horror flick. The relative quality of the other movies in the series makes the expectations for Alien Resurrection much higher than it could have really hoped to achieve. I probably would have been much more accepting of what this movie has to offer if it didn't purport to be part of a franchise I have a deep fondness for but with the whole package presented as it is I couldn't help but find it severely lacking.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Saturday, May 08, 2010
AaaAAa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
I've been on a certain type of gaming kick the past while. Low narrative and high mechanics has been what I've been focusing on (fortunately, Steam has enabled this with a tonne of great deals). So when I heard about AaaaaaaAAaaaaaaaAaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity I was interested.
The game itself is a unique concept. It's a basejumping game (which is this kind of activity) that plays like a first person flying game. I keep thinking Star Fox when I look at it though there aren't any enemies or plot to speak of. You just start on top of a building and throw yourself off. Apparently in the world of AaaAAaA!, reality is some Jeff Minter-esque acid trip with floating buildings and inexplicable catwalks and spinning iron I-beams. It makes things very convenient for basejumpers by providing a a crazy obstacle course towards the ground to anyone who jumps off a building. The objective is to make it to the ground or landing pad while racking up points which one gets by "kissing" and "hugging" buildings (approaching and staying close to buildings), hitting plates that are worth points, spray-painting certain buildings, and engaging spectators by giving them thumbs up or flipping them off, depending on whether they're fans or protesters. Mostly it's just falling stylishly, though.
There are about 80 levels in the game and they manage to do some cool stuff with a wide variety of difficulty. You start off pretty basically just plunging down linear corridors of buildings. As you go they make you weave around a lot more but also expect you keep up with the other score mechanics to reach certain point plateaus. At some of the more advanced levels you're diving through extremely narrow needle-eyes of obstacles while appropriately gesturing to spectators and spraypainting the right buildings. If you can't keep all of these things up you'll probably smash into a building which will either kill you straight out or send you flying out of control.
Honestly, I'd really like to be able to describe this game but between the crazy visuals and sound and sense of humor it kind of has to be seen at the very least to be understood (so here's a video). This game has really got its hooks in me. I like games that have simple mechanics but are able to do complicated and challenging things with them. If you're flying through some of the tougher levels, looking for the right route that will take you next to the most buildings with the most spectators and score plates you end up feeling your way though with a lot of instinct and twitch reactions to what lies beyond the next corner.
All the mechanics are enough to make this game worthwhile but the sense of humor really adds a level to the character of it. In addition to unlocking levels you can unlock videos which are mainly just preplayed levels with the WEIRDEST voiceover. The level of bizarreness of these reminded me of some of the cut-scenes from Amped 3. There's one titled "Grandma" which has a woman's voice describing how to make cookies, which is normal enough until she tells you to add your sons ashes to the mix and some male voice starts freaking out in the background. There's also a video that helps you meditate and another that I guess is supposed to be a failed take on the meditation one that has the narrator tell you that there's NO REASON to think that there are insects crawling all over your head and crawling into your nose and mouth. It's a super dark and bizarre sense of humor but it's played over the top enough to really work for me.
The game is $10. I think that's a hell of a deal for what you get here. Unfortunately it is such a specific style and type of game it really helps to know what you're getting into.
The game itself is a unique concept. It's a basejumping game (which is this kind of activity) that plays like a first person flying game. I keep thinking Star Fox when I look at it though there aren't any enemies or plot to speak of. You just start on top of a building and throw yourself off. Apparently in the world of AaaAAaA!, reality is some Jeff Minter-esque acid trip with floating buildings and inexplicable catwalks and spinning iron I-beams. It makes things very convenient for basejumpers by providing a a crazy obstacle course towards the ground to anyone who jumps off a building. The objective is to make it to the ground or landing pad while racking up points which one gets by "kissing" and "hugging" buildings (approaching and staying close to buildings), hitting plates that are worth points, spray-painting certain buildings, and engaging spectators by giving them thumbs up or flipping them off, depending on whether they're fans or protesters. Mostly it's just falling stylishly, though.
There are about 80 levels in the game and they manage to do some cool stuff with a wide variety of difficulty. You start off pretty basically just plunging down linear corridors of buildings. As you go they make you weave around a lot more but also expect you keep up with the other score mechanics to reach certain point plateaus. At some of the more advanced levels you're diving through extremely narrow needle-eyes of obstacles while appropriately gesturing to spectators and spraypainting the right buildings. If you can't keep all of these things up you'll probably smash into a building which will either kill you straight out or send you flying out of control.
Honestly, I'd really like to be able to describe this game but between the crazy visuals and sound and sense of humor it kind of has to be seen at the very least to be understood (so here's a video). This game has really got its hooks in me. I like games that have simple mechanics but are able to do complicated and challenging things with them. If you're flying through some of the tougher levels, looking for the right route that will take you next to the most buildings with the most spectators and score plates you end up feeling your way though with a lot of instinct and twitch reactions to what lies beyond the next corner.
All the mechanics are enough to make this game worthwhile but the sense of humor really adds a level to the character of it. In addition to unlocking levels you can unlock videos which are mainly just preplayed levels with the WEIRDEST voiceover. The level of bizarreness of these reminded me of some of the cut-scenes from Amped 3. There's one titled "Grandma" which has a woman's voice describing how to make cookies, which is normal enough until she tells you to add your sons ashes to the mix and some male voice starts freaking out in the background. There's also a video that helps you meditate and another that I guess is supposed to be a failed take on the meditation one that has the narrator tell you that there's NO REASON to think that there are insects crawling all over your head and crawling into your nose and mouth. It's a super dark and bizarre sense of humor but it's played over the top enough to really work for me.
The game is $10. I think that's a hell of a deal for what you get here. Unfortunately it is such a specific style and type of game it really helps to know what you're getting into.
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