Iron Man 3 review: Why I hate Michael Bay

A guy with his dog walk in a park, time is late afternoon, location is random urban environment. The guy stops, goes for the dog’s collar and unlocks the line. The dog jumps and breaks into a run…. Then they both EXPLODE in a huge fireball, engulfing everything in its path, causing secondary explosions of nearby trees, rocks, benches and culminating to the spectacular Überblast of the park’s pond.

This image is a pretty accurate summary of most Michael Bay films. The dogma here is: “Dissilio, ergo sum”. Nothing is more important than the non-stop attack of the viewer’s senses with images and sounds cranked up to 11. Realism, continuity, acting, even chemistry and physics are out of the window. And sometimes this works, unfortunately most of the times it’s just a waste of money and an excellent reason for some serious comedy.

You may now ponder upon the question “Dafuq has Michael Bay to do with Iron Man 3?” Allow me to elaborate.

Iron Man 3 is a hybrid film, one part action comedy and one part Transformers 2, the bad parts of that movie – hence the Baysplosions title for this entry. For the first half of the film we see Starks struggle with the events that took place in the Avengers encounter. He appears anything but “super”, has frequent panic attacks and is disassociated from everyone around him. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he challenges the Mandarin just to get in on the action – War machine…ehm, apologies AMERICAN PATRIOT, was having exclusivity on the guy – and ends up in the bottom of the sea with his Thunderbird mansion on top of him.
Still, could be worse... It does get worse. Witness the first AI that …falls asleep!!! After that we get to see Tony Stark become MacGyver and 007 in an attempt to rescue Pepper and the president of the US – who used to be an international terrorist until he got “yippee kiyay-ed motherfucker”. After that things go downhill really fast. Mercifully before we hurdle ourselves to the mindless roller coaster of CGI chaos that will ensue soon after, Sir Ben Kingsley speaks! And everyone in the theatre just lost it!! We could not stop laughing, it was EPIC, a most unexpected performance from such an actor and it’s a genuine show stopper.

For the second part of the movie –or the last part, say last 35 minutes – Shane Black goes all Bay on this one and directs his own version of Transformers, courtesy of the 40+ suits Tony has built in his spare time. What a strange coincidence then that the Mandarin has created a shitload of supercharged minions using his highly experimental, unstable and potentially explosive gene manipulation treatment. Yeah right… (Come to think of it, why didn’t Stark called in on one of his suits earlier on, when he was captured in the Mandarins villa…even more, why didn’t he send a suit to save Pepper from the Mandarin since the suits are encoded for her as well!) Also, this thing with the “human bomb” factor, where have I seen that before…where…

And in this mayhem of a finale EVERYTHING explodes – with the biggest and dumbest explosion that of a container falling on the peer and creating a fireball the size of a football field! [I know that the whole peer was covered with oil barrels but come on people, get real!!! Shit just doesn’t blow up like that!]

This is the closing part of a trilogy – or so it would appear, RDJ claiming that he will not put on the MK48 suit – that has left us with both positive and negative memories. The main thing, however, that we gained from the Iron Man movies is a new type of super hero, the “IDGAF-knowitall-spoiled-brat-genius-philanthropist-playboy-I’m-only-human” hero with a razor-sharp humour and even quicker comebacks than Robin Williams on his good day. Iron Man is Marvel’s answer to DCs best detective in the world in a black spandex. Just like Batman in the “Dark Knight” trilogy, Tony Stark is a mere mortal without any superhuman powers, who uses his wits and billions of dollars to become a super hero. The only difference here, RDJ is born for this role, Christian Bale is trying to fill the shoes of the Batman, but somehow falls short of the expectations we have from such an iconic character. The Iron Man trilogy is a one man show thanks to the captivating performance of RDJ, this third part being a true tour-de-force from a great actor that acts not a scripted character, but his real life. At least his life while on drugs and alcohol..

The movie opened to a whooping 193M international box office weekend, equalling the Avengers opening and making a firm statement: Comic book movies are the current blockbusters, forget cop/thriller/action films. Even sci-fi films have to up their game if they want to reclaim their throne of ultimate blockbuster.

Waiting for this one now, will see it with sunglasses though if J.J. Abrams insists on using SO MUCH GODDAMN LENSE FLARE!!!!!

The Hobbit - A semi-unexpected experience

 Have you ever met with an old friend after many years, went out and
had a great time reminiscing about the good old days, while also
making plans for the future, making sure that it won't be another 10
years until you meet again.

This is how I felt yesterday (last week by now) revisiting Tolkien's Middle Earth in
Peter Jackson's "The hobbit", the old characters being now an integral
part of my life.

For those of you who have lived in a whole in the ground (see what I
did there) for the last 70 years, the Hobbit is the predecessor of the
LOTR trilogy. It's the story of how Bilbo met Gandalf, 13
dwarfs (with names as funny as equally easily forgettable) and how he
travelled to the east seeking Eremor. I will not go into further
details about the plot, read the book people!! Interestingly enough,
the book by itself does not provide enough material for 3 movies.
Especially for 3 three-hour long films. Jackson found a truly genius
way to get around that, he added bits and pieces from Tolkien's "The
Silmarilion" - the official how-it-all-begun bible of Middle Earth.
That is truly inspired and will have all Tolkienians drooling over
mentions of Ungoliath, Morgoth and Ballrogs. What's not so inspired is
the arbitrary expansion of screen time for characters from the book
that never had more than 2 lines of mention. I know this will not
affect the uninitiated at all, they may even find great, the fact that
we get to enjoy more of Radagast the Brown, but for me
and probably for all the hard-core fans of the book, it is equally
damaging and offending as having Elves in the battle of Helms Deep.

Speaking of pointy ears, the elves in this film have a small part,
mainly that of gay vegetarian musicians - Moby?! - that are so far up
their own asses, they could not be bothered to slay a few thousands of
Orcs and help the few thousands of dwarfs  to reclaim their ancestral
home. But what the fuck...they are elves, their robes are so pristine
and ironed, one would expect to see them on a fashion show, not in
battle!

The movie resembles the first part of LOTR in more than one aspect.
They both start of at a torturous slow pace and build up momentum as
they go along, all the way to the epic last confrontation/battle right
at the end. The one major difference between the LOTR saga and

The Hobbit trilogy is the picture quality. But what a difference it
is!!! The 1080p BRD version of LOTR was by in-itself a visual
masterpiece, even more when viewed on the proper TV screen. The 48fps

 3D version of The hobbit makes Avatar look Avatar-ded(sic!). In LOTR we had Moria, here we have the Goblin kingdom - and the Goblin King, personal favourite figure from Disciples II.

The Goblin kingdom sequence is also the one containing the most CGI rentered
scenes, truly testing the limits of the HFR technology. For me it failed to
deliver a clear image in comparison to analogue, propped stunt work VFX shots or
even compared to some 2D 24fps CGI action sequences - the "Matrix: Reloaded" freeway chase scene comes to mind. The camera movement is so fast, it creates motion blur and chopping, not to such extend mind you, to deem the whole thing unseable, but still quite irritating and confusing. I preferred the 2D Moria escape sequence, it was much more detailed, fluent and clear than this one here, still I will leave it up to you to decide. Bear in mind that HFR 3D technology is in baby steps here, hopefully by the 3rd instalment we will see some truly mind-blowing action sequences in all their 3D glory.

The main protagonists once again are the insanely beautiful NZ landscapes. That place is out of this world, I'm inclined to believe that Tolkien has travelled there before writing his books. I can't explain it differently; this furthermost south island IS Middle Earth - "Middgard" in the Norse mythology. And wait until you see it in HFR, you'll be picking your jaws up from the carpet.

Returning to the actual acting taking place by animated objects - eeh, I meant actors... - it is non-critical to any aspect of the film. Sir Ian MacKelen is the one outstanding character there - pun SOOOO intended - but the rest of the cast might as well been CGIs, would have drastically cut production costs. It is the same argument as with the 13 Oscars from LOTR:III, all the noise but nothing to say, not a single actor nomination. In Hobbit the argument is even easier justified, having the 13 out of the 15 main characters buried under a ton of prosthetics, hair and armour. THE HAIR...all the hair...I would not have thought that one man could have so much hair on him... Might as well have the Ewoks in Middle earth!!

Concluding this week’s movie rant - I will consider it a major victory over my procrastination if I deliver a review within 5 days of viewing  a movie - "The Hobbit - An unexpected journey" is an expected patchwork of ambition, vision, visual greatness and acting mediocrity. Like all the first steps into the unknown, be that a new continent, new filed of science, a new love or just a new technology, it takes courage, determination and above all an "I-don't-give-a-fuck" attitude towards criticism to take that step. Jackson's latest opus displays these qualities in spades, proving that the fire of adventure still burns bright and strong in us, even if we come out of the most orderly, secure and uninteresting hole in the ground. In the end "The Hobbit" is just a story about stepping out of your comfort zone and experiencing the world with all its aspects. Fuck the comfort zone, live your life!!

Careful what you wish for…

…in this case you might get it but also ask for a refund. Yes, oh yes...I haz returned!! Like the original Dr. Who time for me has no meaning whatsoever. So, let us begin with what promises to be the first of many posts (if I don't get lost in an endless marathon of DIII/HL2/and-or WOW).

This post is about movies, on in particular but with another one crammed in there for good measure.

I saw TDKR last night [update: when I started writing this entry, it was September, I was in Greece and my life was far more complicated than now] and actually saw the last projection of the film; the multiplex will stop screening it today. It took me a while but I finally managed to see it before it disappears from cinemas and goes in the BRD queue.

Having waited for this for almost a year, following the news up to its release and witnessing the build-up for this film I got memory flashes from another similar build-up for a highly anticipated film, SW:Ep.1. Alas, the similarities don’t stop there.

I will try to present the TDKR review as a comparison between this movie and SW:Ep.1. If the comparison doesn’t add up, or you believe that it’s wrong/out of place/biased etc. feel free to bitch about it in the comments. This is my answer to your comments:

Both movies started their advertising build-up almost 1 year before release. Both movies were presented as the “movie-to-end-all-movies”, the biggest thing since, well...anything. Both movies faced technical challenges during or after production – Bane’s mumbled voice for TDKR was a major flaw in the initial trailer screening, SW:Ep.1 had to cope with it’s insane amount of VFX shots and digital camera shooting, forcing distributors to screen the movie only in few cinemas that actually had the technology to process the film, i.e IMAX.

Both movies were part of a trilogy, one being the final part and the other the opening act – to a coming disaster, but who could expect that. The fact that TDKR is the final instalment in a trilogy is obvious throughout the entire movie, mostly through the acting of its main characters – Bale, Cain and Oldman are playing as if they are so fed up with their characters that they can’t wait to get this over with and do something else. Hopefully, they will do something else and will forget about the embarrassment of this final act in TDK. Similar to SW:Ep. 1 Natalie Portman played as if she was on some sort of muscle paralyzer, throughout the whole film she had only one expression and that was: “What the hell is going on here? Who am I, what am I doing here?”

Having read the TDK comic series from Frank Miller, I was expecting something more for the movie adaptation, at least some involvement of Superman in there, some sort of mentioning of the “Judge Dredd” type of justice Batman decides to deliver in Gotham. I guess that Nolan found this too heavy for the audience and went on a different approach, fine, have it your way – TDK was one of the best films I’ve seen, but it had very little to do with the graphic novel. This approach was also adopted from Lucas on SW:Ep. 1. Instead of showing the birth of the most powerful and iconic villain in movie history as a dark and twisted process, he decided to make it a roller coaster ride in CGI Disneyland. The result was appalling to all SW fans, who wanted to see young Vader destroy entire cities with just a flick of his finger. Lucas tried to salvage Vader’s bad-ass image in Ep. II+III, albeit with so much over-the-top-and-out-of-place nonsense, that he made it even worse, culminating in the death of Padme FOR NO APPARENT FREAGIN REASON!!!

You were the chosen one!!

Going back to TDKR, the script was full of holes, gaps and absurd ad-hoc decisions (Why in the world would Bruce disavow Alfred just for one comment, even if that comment was so out of place! He’s the closest person he has to family and family is the drive behind the whole Batman character! That, and revenge of course). The problems with tracking the bomb are ridiculous, the convenient timer is laughable, no auto-pilot on a Bat-wing is just the icing to the cake of childish script errors. The overall feeling one gets from the script is of haste, of not putting the proper amount of will to make it better, more believable, tighter. To the script writer’s defence, this was not the worst script I have seen this year, the honour for that complete and utter train wreck goes to “Prometheus” – to which hopefully I will come back to in the future, if I can be bothered.

The few things I liked in TDKR were Christian Bale’s not-over-the-top acting, Anne Hathaway’s ass, Tom Hardy’s ultra-cool voice as Bane, the return of stunt based V FX and not so much CGI, Anne Hathaway’s ass on the Bat-bike, the Bat-wing. For a movie that concludes a great trilogy, it feels like a rip-off, so many inconsistencies in it, I truly believe that Nolan just wanted to go on to the next project.

I’ll leave you with this upcoming trailer of my Trek dose (MEDICINEEEEEE!!!!)

The inevitable return of the great white dope

And after this nostalgic walk down my teen years in the ‘90s it’s time to get this thing rolling again. In the last few months since my last entry a great deal of events took place – so many in fact that I will not go into details here, maybe on another blog.

The geek-concerning facts are as follows:

I have basically stopped playing Diablo III since June. I finished hell, went in inferno and stopped at act 2. The latest update promised that it would help ease the transition between act 1 and act 2, guess what, it didn’t help much. What it did actually do was take away 7K damage that my wizard did due to attack speed items. Thanks Blizzard, that’s exactly what I wanted from this game. The RMAH is a failure so far –at least in Europe, since we Europeans don’t tend to stick our credit card in every available purchase hole. If nothing really impressive happens in the next few months, I’ll switch back to WOW, but NOT in a freekin panda!! My worgen rogue is in stand-by mode.

To all new arrivals

The Internet is buzzing with news from up-coming games, gamers are on the edge of their seats and summer is on the way, making you feel like you’re about to cheat the love of your life if you play games with so much sun out there- yes, we have that here in Greece, we have oodles of it...

Let’s see what will be dropping in in the next few months. We covered Diablo III extensively all ready, what I forgot to mention in that article was the fact that Rockstar is going head to head with Blizzard on the 15^th of May. They will be releasing the 3^rd chapter of their bullet-time, neo-noir game saga Max Payne in an attempt to snatch some mullah from Activision’s

[Money Grabbing Claws of Greed :

Legendary armour, +10 to all geek stats,

+20% chance of getting a gazillion gold from devoted mindless drone-gamers,

-100% to social life of players, global productivity and seeing daylight again]

Rockstar will be using the

[Badass/Kickass: Dual handed Uzis of Mayhem:

+10 to health, speed and inches of your penis,

+5% chance of breaking your shoulder while trying to imitate bullet-time in your room,

No reload.EVER.]

to do that. Guns, guns, guns and more guns will be the order of the day, with some splendid choreography and tight controls for side dishes. For dessert you may choose between the all new and ground-breaking cross-game Multiplayer mode, allowing players to use characters from GTA V on their roster, and a story coming out of a Jason Statham movie. Check please!!

Tera is coming out tomorrow and it will be an interesting diversion of the present MMO’s out there, having the most fluid and characteristic combat mechanics from every other MMO currently out there. Oh yeah, also featuring spooky campfire storie mode too…I will wait for this one to inevitably convert to F2P, and then I’ll give it a try. It can’t be worse than STO…nothing can be worse than that!

This came to my attention earlier today

It will take about half a year to see if Treyarch can redeem themselves from the atrocity that was COD:BO. Seriously, I felt physically sick playing that game…

Sniper Elite V2 is coming out on 04/05 promising to “Change history with one bullet”. Killing Hitler sounds very interesting – I’m sure P.K. Dick would have written something quite clever and mind-blowing about that alternative history line. Having played the Sniper Elite I can say that this game is the closest thing you can get to feeling like an actual sniper. Give it a try.

I also read this today

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/02/bioware-force-pushes-back-against-swtor-doubters/

My next entry will cover what I think about SW:TOR so far, starting from the beta to my awesome level 50 Sith Assassin and my girlfriend's level 37 puny, pathetic Twillek Jedi sage.

I'll leave you all with this image, I'm the guy on the right :)

Diablo III open beta – Give me back my Soul-stone!

This has been one freaky Sunday… It would have been one freaky weekend, but Blizzard did not allow me to wreck my Saturday playing Diablo III, due to the accursed error message 3003. Yep, for the whole day I could not log in to my account and enjoy the mayhem and slaughter of the open beta. Apparently, me and a couple of hundred thousands of others judging by the torrent of FUUUUU comments in the game’s forum. Finally I managed to fight my way in the servers and clocked almost 2 hours of game time with all five available characters, killing the Skeleton King a dozen times over.

 My favourite classes so far are in diminishing order: Wizard-Demon Hunter-Witch Doctor-Barbarian-Monk. The game – for those of you out there that live in a cave for the last 4 years – has 5 classes only, unlike the 7 from DII. Two classes are for long range attacks – Wizard and Demon hunter – two are for melee damage – Barbarian and Monk – and the last one is a hybrid class (see Necromancer) the Witch Doctor who’s doing ranged, melee and 3^rd party damage (let’s put it this way… he’s a chicken-shit coward that hides behind a group of expendable cannon fodder minions).

Yes, there is no Shaman! For all you fur-loving gamers that are into “interspecies erotica”, you need to wait for the DLC to get your bow chica bow bow with mighty Shaman in “sheep form”…sorry, I meant bear form. I believe that in the DLC Blizzard will add a Druid-like class, I’m willing to bet that they’ll name it “Animagus” or “Allomorpher”, and another class like “Inquisitor” or “Catafract” – the ACTUALL Paladin class, not the half-breed curiosity we now call Monk.

Playing with each of them was a delight and a frustration at the same time. Take the Wizard for example. She – of course and it’s a she, what else did you expect? – is by far the fastest class in the game. The “mana” resource for this class, i.e. arcane power, is the fastest replenishing resource compared to all the others – Monk and Barbarian have the slowest, due to the fact that it’s “quid-pro-quo” (kill a monster=get more fury/focus). The wizard is therefore a moving machine gun on the battlefield. Instead of a staff, she should be carrying an MG4-SAW… Due to the fact that open beta allowed players to level a character only up to level 13, I did not get a chance to see some of the more diverse special attacks from each class. So, for the first low levels all classes have the same pattern of abilities. A single-target focused attack that requires low resources, a stronger, multi-target attack with a stun/slow effect and an AOE interrupt with a relatively long cooldown, that you need to use when you’re getting zerg-rushed.

Speaking of which, I never felt like that in the beta. Perhaps it’s the difficulty level, perhaps it’s the fact that this game is WAY more user-friendly than its predecessors, but I never felt like hitting the panic button and using all my CD’s. I may be mistaken on this, but the game looks much easier than D I+II. There was no “Butcher” moment from the original Diablo, the kind of feeling when you shit your pants and run around like a headless chicken trying to find the BFG around the corner to bring this huge mother down. The end boss of the beta – the Skeleton king, which I think was also in the original game – was nothing but a well-staged choreography, it felt fake and safe. I even killed him with only one more player in my party and me being level 8, the other player being level 13. There was no danger, everything was on auto pilot, like a roller-coaster ride in Disneyland – and not even the Space mountain, but Pirates of the Caribbean.

The differences between D II and D III extent also in the abilities tree, the gameplay, the stash, the battle.net configuration… It’s a long list, so let’s get cracking.

Here is the result from my open beta experience in two parts: What I liked and what I didn’t like and some suggestions for improvement for good measure.

Part 1: WHAT I LIKED

I liked the fact that I can see another Diablo title on my PC after almost 5 years. I cannot stress that enough; it’s like unexpectedly meeting an old college buddy you haven’t seen in years. This, however, can also be a bad thing – especially if the said friend has changed so much, that you hardly recognise him/her.

I liked the new graphics of the game, the addition of physics with destructible environments and the close-up on your character when you access your inventory. Now I can admire in detail my battle-suited character in all his/her 3D glory. This was missing from the previous games, but WOW is now showing the way forward. WOW unfortunately will also have a saying with the size of the spaulders in this game, so prepare your selves for some ridiculous moments when you pick up your level 65 rare towering spaulders of the mammoth – in ACTUALL 1:1 mammoth size! 

I liked the fact you don’t have to destroy your mouse anymore, now the attacks can be done by holding down the mouse button continuously until you clear the room or run out of mana. This is also very useful for when you’re playing in the same room with someone that doesn’t see you directly, only hears your insane clicking and rushes to your aid, believing that you just had a stroke. No more need of that anymore...

I loved the new stash+gold system. Remember when you wanted to give that special bow to your Ama that your Barbarian character have found, but couldn’t do it, unless you had friends playing with you that would act as “mules” for the transfer? And all of the time you felt like: “What if I give this to him/her and he/she never gives it back to me? ÖHSHIT!!!”. Well, that is now a thing of the past. You will never need to have a mule for that. The stash and the gold of all your characters is unified in one single account. If one of your characters find a super-fantastic-kickass loot item that he/she can’t use – which is most of the time the case with Diablo – then you can simply put it in your stash, log off from that character and log in with the one that is able to use it. Presto, instant transfer. Also the gold pool being shared between all your characters is another great idea, since your lowbie characters can benefit from the hoarding of your main character. They can start off the journey clad in the finest armour money can buy.

I liked the new battle.net configuration that allows players to open a game from single player to a public game and go on a killing rampage with other like-minded loot hunters. This function is very simple to use, allowing pairing of players instantly – like the LFG function in WOW – and it gives you the impression that D III is a quasi-MMO game. It’s not of course, but it could have fooled me…

PART 2: WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

I hate the new visual presentation of the game, NOT the graphics, the whole visual feeling of the game. For Mephisto’s sake, it’s BRIGHT!!! Seriously Blizzard? A bright and happy dungeon-crawler?? Ok, I get it that most teens out there like to puke rainbows, but I do not want to see rainbows in a Diablo game! I want the game to be dark, bleak, ominous and claustrophobic even in the over ground levels. This is a devastated land that’s been scorched, ravaged and bombarded by demonic hordes, but from the levels I’ve seen in the beta, my impression of the game was more of a WOW-like environment, rather than the previous Diablo titles. I like WOW, it is – still, 7 years after its release – a visually stunning piece of code, but Diablo is a completely different beast. Please, for the love of Siddhartha, make the game more dark!!! (We’re gonna be up to our asses in fuzzy, furry, rainbow-puking cuteness with MOP for WOW, let us retain a last shred of decency with D III).

Like I mentioned earlier on, I hated the game’s difficulty curve – or better put, its lack of one. This however remains to be fully tested in the actual game, when I will have a chance to play the entire campaign and try the next difficulty level. My one objection: I am not 20+ any more, I have a job and –alas!- limited game time, so I would appreciate if the game would deliver its full potential in the initial run, not after a life-consuming 40hr+ grind. I will try to play all five classes to cap level, but I am seriously contemplating the idea of playing all the way to infernal difficulty. (To do that I’d probably have to break up with my girlfriend, lose my day job and not come out of the house until New Year.)

Another thing I did not like – and one that is a truly terrible omen – is the new save/load system. There is no save/load system. There is no corpse run anymore. There are however checkpoints…This means that if you die, you start again from the last checkpoint. This is almost the same as the previously used corpse-run mechanism, with the plus point that, it allows you to get back to the last fight with your character ready, and not trying to break up the gang-bang that takes place over your skeletal remains. The bad feeling I get from this is the dreaded new trend in gaming: cross-platform compatibility. IGN and Eurogamer feature the game being also available in console format…that alone makes my skin crawl. Now imagine something even worse, PC players playing together with console players. It will be like the equivalent of playing ARMA II with X-Box COD players. Yeah, that’s not gonna end up well…Please, say it isn’t so!!!

What I found most annoying, disturbing and aggravating were the players in the beta weekend. No one would even open the in-game chat and say a word to the other party members. When I engaged in conversation and asked my party what’s with all the cold shoulder treatment, their response was “rush is rush”. I understand that we had a limited amount of time to play the game, but the purpose of any beta test is to exchange opinions about the game, point out weaknesses and strong points and provide constructive feedback in order to improve the retail release version. HOW do you expect to do that when you’re rushing like a freegin bull in a china shop, not saying a single word to other players, with the single thing in your mind to make all the achievements of a beta run – achievements, which by all probability will get wiped when the final version will go live? This was one of the most hostile beta environments I have encountered and I sincerely hope that players will change their attitude after 15/05, otherwise the multiplayer part of this game will be a very harsh, unfriendly and ultimately useless addition to the game.

Speaking of achievements, there is one thing that made a great impression on me from this early point in a game which will include a real money AH. Players would offer gold in the THOUSANDS on the general chat channels, just so they would get a particulary difficult or rare achievement. EVEN in the beta, there are people who are willing to pay for a short-cut to the grind, or perhaps for a better set of gear. Imagine the possibilities with real money… (KA-CHING!!!!!)

Concluding this extended presentation of the D III open beta weekend I will leave you all with the following scenario:

Middle age WASP comes home from work in suburbia USA, goes up to his teen son and says: “Hey sport, wanna fire up the old X-Box 360 and go-a-demon killing with the old man in Diablo III? – YEEEAH dad, this is gonna be awesome!! We gonna pawn all them bitches and get all the cool achievement unlocks for my XBL account DeN00Bpwner13!” A universal facepalm the size of Azura’s wrath 1^st boss isn’t enough to express my dismay for this…That is NOT the Diablo you want to play. Considering the current BBFC rating of 15 that I’m seeing in Eurogamer, Amazon and other websites, unfortunately my previous scenario is not looking so far-fetched.

I will play the game, I urge all who read this to buy the game and play it - with me if you like, my Battle.net gamertag is Methos - this was not a bashing of a highly anticipated game. More like a desperate "PLEASE DON'T FUCK THIS ONE UP Activision!!" plea. See you all on the 15th. 

The Avengers – Dr. Banner and Mr Hyde

Just returned from watching the latest Marvel Comic movie “The Avengers” and since I still have the experience fresh I decided to share it with y’all.

Word of advice#1: Do not watch this in 3D, it’s completely useless and it does not add anything to the visual presentation.

Word of advice #2: Walk in the theatre AFTER the first 90 minutes of the film. It’s a BIG ASS film, almost 2 ½ hours, but the film we all wanted to see, the film that is awesome and mind blowing and makes you want to be a super hero, starts AFTER the 90^th minute. 

Up until then the script is a complete waste of time, having the team stuck on the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying HQ-fortress playing with Loki and –mostly – with our patience. Nothing happens to advance the story, the protagonists have quarrels among them in an attempt to add depth to their characters – unnecessarily since we all know that this is a comic-based movie, not a finish social study from Aki Kaurismäki. We just wanted to see Hulk “smash” and Iron Man be as witty and bad-ass as usual.

Mercifully, they are. Hulk does smashes, Iron Man is bad-ass beyond badassery itself and Nick-“I-had-enough-with-this-motherfucking-snakes-on-this-motherfucking-plane”-Furry is…well he’s the usual Samuel Jackson. The great surprise is Hawkeye. For no apparent reason the character of Hawkeye has an extended part in the story, performing some of the most spectacular acrobatics in the movie, but also some of the most useless. He is saved only by the presence of Natalia Romanov, the sex-trap of the film. But seriously, for a film such as this, with all the geeks drooling over it for the last months, did the producers actually needed a hot chick to attract such an audience? Geeks would watch this movie even if it didn’t have a single shot of anything female in it, be it a woman or a cat!

And we didn’t go to the cinema for the script either. Let’s face it, with a god already in the team and an opponent that is also a god, the script writer had its hands full when trying to sneak in a team of 4 humans with no special powers while maintaining a plausible story. He failed. Black Widow, Hawkeye, Cap and-even-Iron Man are obsolete and useless. Thor is Loki’s brother, they’re both gods, they should fight this one out and leave the rest of them – especially Captain America, he looks completely out of his waters throughout the whole movie –out of this.

But hey, if that would be the case, there would be no movie. And then Hulk would never have said the epic line:

“Puny god”.