I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the Easter eggs crammed into the Watchmen movie...heck, I try and do that for all the comic book movies I watched!
While I got some of the more obvious ones like references to The Black Freighter comic book that is an integral part of the graphic novel, the Village People appearing at the front of Studio 54, just behind Ozymandias, and the Comedian being responsible for Kennedy's assassination, there was quite a lot of stuff that I missed.
Here are two sites that highlight some of the Easter eggs from the Watchmen movie that you might have missed.
The first one is absolutely brilliant, with stills from the movie and picture comparisons!
Easter Eggs (And Missing Parts) In Watchmen's Titles
The second one is more of just a regular article, but it's still pretty good:
'Watchmen' Easter Eggs: Our Favorite Blink-And-You'll-Miss-'Em Moments
Enjoy!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Review: Watchmen: The Movie
So we ended up watching the big screen adaptation of Watchmen yesterday at the cinema. As stated in the previous blog entry, I was extremely excited to see Alan Moore’s seminal and memorable characters make the jump from the four-colour medium of comics to the big screen.
Expectations, not just from me, but from the comic book community, were undoubtedly huge. Alan Moore once called Watchmen “unfilmable”. Could Zack Snyder, the director who made Frank Miller’s “300” a critical and commercial success, defy the odds once again by making Watchmen THE most acclaimed comic book movie of all-time, just like the graphic novel was heralded as the “Citizen Kane” of comic books?
Spoiler warning: From this point on, I will be reviewing the movie and will be examining major plot points, discussing minute details of the comic and the movie as well as revealing the twists. If you haven’t yet read the Watchmen graphic novel or watched the movie and don’t want it spoiled for you, STOP READING THIS BLOG ENTRY NOW.
Still reading? Good. Let’s talk about the Watchmen movie then.
I came out of the cinema feeling pretty shallow and empty. Watchmen was a good 160 minutes including the credits, making it probably the longest comic book movie, in terms of movie screening length, ever made.
Of course, it is naïve to begin to think that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ magnum opus could be squeezed into a 2 hour movie, the average length of modern comic book movies. But the Watchmen movie seemed to go on an extra 30 minutes too long, even though I acknowledge that any shorter and you’d lose major plot points from the graphic novel.
It’s not that I didn’t like the movie. I did, for most parts. But the last third of the movie was a let-down, and it seemed to be dragging on needlessly. Was this because the end of the movie was poorly scripted? Was it because they had rushed the big reveal, the big ending, which was significantly changed from the graphic novel?
Or was it because the build-up towards the climax of the movie was extremely fantastic that when it was revealed that Adrian Veidt was the villain, the way the reveals came about just utterly destroyed what had come before?
I’m not quite sure. As I said, I was excited for most of the movie, especially the first half, but the final third of the movie just spoiled it for me, and since the last part of the movie is usually the one that you remember a movie for, it kind of soured the entire movie for me.
Maybe my expectations were too high, but as I said, by and large, my expectations were met for most of the movie. I think it was very true to the graphic novel for most parts, up until perhaps the scene where Rorschach was freed from Sing Sing and then it all went downhill from there.
But I’m being too general. Let’s examine parts of the movie that I liked and parts that I didn’t like.
The opening sequence was breathtaking. This was where it was obvious that a movie could do so much to portray the Comedian’s death than the graphic novel could. The graphic novel starts with the Comedian having already been killed by being beaten up and thrown out of his room of a very very tall building.
In the movie, we see the Comedian settling down to watch a TV program, which describes the escalation of potential nuclear war between America and the USSR. All of a sudden, someone breaks into his room and for the next three minutes, we see the vicious one-sided fight between the Comedian, an aging 67 year old man, and his assailant who not only brutally assaults the Comedian, but makes it look oh so easy.
While the Comedian is being beaten to a pulp, we’re being treated to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” playing on the TV in the background, from the advertisement of Adrian Veidt’s Nostalgia perfume. A sign of foreshadowing perhaps? Of course, the Nostalgia ad being part of Veidt Enterprises is never really mentioned, though that’s a neat Easter egg for those who had read the novel. Perhaps a bit camp, fighting to that background music but I’m sure it was deliberately filmed that way.
This fight sequence is never shown in great detail in the graphic novel, being just a simple flashback sequence of the Comedian getting his butt kicked, so it’s refreshing to see the fight in all its gory detail. The Comedian gets thrown through the plate glass windows of his apartment and plunges to his death…cue the opening title credits sequence!
This opening credits sequence was also brilliant, with a fantastic song playing in the background. We are introduced to the Minutemen of the 30s/40s, showing how they got together as a superteam and nearly each members’ fall from grace. Alan Moore fleshes out almost all of the Minutemen’s backstory in the graphic novel via “extra features” outside the main story, such as Hollis Mason’s (the original Nite Owl) biography, Under the Hood, and of course, it’s impossible to go through each individual character’s backstory in the movie, so the opening sequence does a great job of quickly showing, in 10 second segments, what happened to each character.
After the introduction of the original Nite Owl beating up a bank robber, we see the Silk Spectre being introduced to the press, with the policemen standing on either side of her trying to glance down to catch a glimpse of her boobs. We then see the formation of the Minutemen and the reveal that Silhouette is a lesbian by snogging a nurse after Japan surrenders at the close of World War 2.
We then see the death of Dollar Bill when he gets shot after getting his cape caught in a revolving door. We also see Mothman being committed to an asylum. Silhouette and her lover have been murdered in a hotel room with the words “Lesbian whores” scrawled on the wall. The Minutemen’s fall from grace lead to the formation of the second generation of heroes including the main protagonists in the movie. In the graphic novel, this second generation of heroes was known as the Crimebusters, though we learn later on during the movie that they called themselves “Watchmen”.
The next few segments in the opening credits sequence show how each Watchman is ensconced in real life events happening in America in the 60s and 70s. John F Kennedy shakes hands with Dr Manhattan on the lawn for the White House. In the next segment, we see John F Kennedy’s head snap back and then forwards in that famous assassination. The camera pans to the right where we see the Comedian was the assassin! Neil Armstrong lands on the moon and turns around, only for us to see the reflection of the Dr Manhattan already standing on the moon.
Andy Warhol is in an art gallery, unveiling his latest art of Nite Owl II, while Ozymandias is posing for photographs outside Studio 54; just standing behind Ozymandias is the Village People! We are also introduced to Rorschach who doesn’t appear on-screen, but has left behind his calling card after tying two criminals to a lightpost.
The 70s sequence shows the hippie movement where a hippie girl puts a flower in the barrel of a gun that’s pointed directly at her; soon, all of the hippies get shot. President Nixon gets re-elected for a third term, changing the course of history in the Watchmen world, and we also see the amassing of nuclear arsenals by Fidel Castro and his Russian counterpart.
It is a superb credit sequence that sets the tone for what has passed before in the Watchmen world. It does a great job considering there is so much happening in the graphic novel and to be able to distil the main plot points and cram it into a brilliant and stunning visual opening sequence is just magnificent.
The main story starts off exactly the same way the comic book does, focusing in on the smiley face pin that the Comedian wears. The camera pulls back upwards towards the window of the Comedian’s apartment where Detective Fine and his partner wonder who would want to kill a 67 year old man.
What I really love about the first half of the movie is that scenes are filmed and duplicated almost exactly the way they were illustrated in the comics. From Rorschach’s breaking into Nite Owl’s apartment and then storming out; to the flashback sequences showing each individual character’s involvement with the Comedian; to the retelling of Dr Manhattan’s past; to Rorschach’s capture and his subsequent rescue by Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II…the scenes from the graphic novel are lovingly and carefully reproduced in the movie. Way too many scenes to go through individually.
Which leads directly into the dialogue. While it’s impossible to expect all the dialogue from the graphic novel to be replicated in the movie, the script does take the most memorable lines from the graphic novel and either transposes them directly, or are largely intact, just changing a few words here and there. The most memorable quotes are:
“Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire thread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me, I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their wasists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us!’, and I’ll look down and whisper ‘No’.” – Rorschach’s first line of dialogue from both the movie and graphic novel
“Hurm.” – Rorschach
“You were a better Nite Owl than I ever was.”
“Hollis, we both know that’s bullshit.”
“Hey, watch with the language! This is the left hook that floored Captain Axis, remember?”
- exchange between the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason, and his successor, Daniel Dreiberg
“An ordinary burglar? Kill the Comedian? Ridiculous.” – Rorschach
“Um. Don’t you think that’s maybe a little paranoid?”
“That’s what they’re saying about me now? That I’m paranoid”
- exchange between Nite Owl and Rorschach
“Yes. I remember. Used to come here often. Back when we were partners.”
“Yeah, those were great times, Rorschach. Whatever happened to them?”
“You quit.”
- exchange between Rorschach and Nite Owl
“Meeting with Dreiberg left bad taste in mouth. A flabby failure who sits whimpering in his basement. Why are so few of us left active, health, and without personality disorders? Only two names remaining on my list. Both share private quarters at Rockefeller Military Research Centre. I shall go to them. I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.” – Rorschach
And all that is just from the first issue! Rorschach does have all the best and most quotable lines. I can just see the entire movie having heaps of quotable lines, just like in Army of Darkness.
There are too many memorable lines of dialogue in the movie that are taken straight out from the graphic novel, but others include the Pagliacci joke (which no one seemed to get in the movie, I was the only one laughing!), Rorschach’s exchange with Big Figure in Sing Sing prison, Rorschach’s memorable “I’m not locked up in here with you, you’re locked up in here with me!” line, the “The superman exists, and he’s American” line, Dr Manhattan’s the miracle of turning oxygen into gold line, and Rorschach’s “Never compromise, not even in the face or Armageddon” line.
There are plenty of Easter eggs throughout the movie that probably get lost on all those who haven’t read the novel before. When meeting Adrian Veidt for the first time, we see the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in the background, leaving no doubt that while this is an alternate reality from the one we know, the characters are all in New York. We see Mason’s auto repair shop, the Gunga Diner, the offices of the New Frontiersman, a right wing publication that Rorschach picks up daily.
Part of the fun of the movie, for me at least, was trying to spot as many Easter eggs as possible, things that were strictly in the background of the movie, but made up the big picture in the graphic novel. Graffiti of “Who Watches the Watchmen?” on walls, cameos of the newsvendor, the kid who sits at the newsstand reading the comic book, “The Black Freighter”, the lesbian taxi driver Joey, and a poster of “The Black Freighter” on the newsstand. They even reproduce the “War?” headline on the front page of a newspaper! I think I’m going to have to get a copy of the DVD when it’s released and play each scene back slowly to see if I can catch all the Easter eggs!
We even hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”, which is referenced in Hollis Mason’s Under the Hood, when there is this flashback sequence of Dr Manhattan intervening in the Vietnam War. When you hear “Ride of the Valkyries” blaring over the speakers and see the imposing 40 foot tall half naked body of Dr Manhattan walking over the fields of Saigon, incinerating the Viet Cong soldiers, one gets a chill of excitement running through one’s body.
Which leads directly to the music; it is an absolutely brilliant and breathtaking soundtrack. The licensed songs fit the scenes perfectly: when Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk meet for dinner, Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” play in the background. When the Comedian gets buried in the cemetery, we hear Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”. We even hear the extremely cheesy “Hallelujah” when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II make love for the first time in Nite Owl’s ship, Archie (short for “Archimedes”, Merlin’s pet owl, as Nite Owl tells us himself in a later scene).
I can’t wait for the soundtrack to get released because I’m sure I’ll be getting it!
There’s quite a bit of deliberate campy humour in the movie as well, which fits with the deliberate humour from the graphic novel. When Nite Owl and Rorschach ask when Ozymandias plans to execute his evil “mad scientist” plans, Ozymandias remarks that he’s not some “comic book villain” and he did it 35 minutes ago (in the novel Ozzy remarks that he’s not a “republic serial villain” instead). When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II spring Rorschach from prison, Rorschach remarks that he needs to first use the men’s bathroom before they can leave (though of course, Rorschach is trying to get his hands on Little Figure).
We also see the awkwardness when Dan and Laurie try having sex for the first time, with Dan not being able to…uhm…perform. Actually, that is probably a negative of the movie because Dan and Laurie have this really weird relationship in the graphic novel where it’s a balance between Dan’s impotence and Laurie’s fetishes. It’s never really dealt with in the movie at all, making very scant reference to Dan’s impotence.
When Dan and Laurie finally do have sex in Archie, when close to…uh…finishing…Laurie accidentally hits the flamethrower button and a large burst of flames shoot out from Archie’s…uh…mouth. A sexual innuendo if there ever was one! These moments of campness make it a bit hard to interpret the movie. From the graphic novel, we know that it’s deliberate, but it doesn’t really translate well onto screen. For such a dark movie, there sure must have been a few movie-goers thinking to themselves, “What the hell? Why is there an attempt of humour here?”
There are many cameos in the movie from famous figures in history to show the era which the movie takes place in. The aforementioned cameos in the opening credits title sequence of John F Kennedy, Neil Armstrong (though one doesn’t see his face behind his spacesuit helmet), Andy Warhol, the Village People, Fidel Castro, and I believe even Mick Jagger, who I didn’t catch but who’s name is in the final credits!
There are also cameos in the movie itself to show that it’s 1985, with people such as Lee Iacocca and Ted Koppel making an appearance. Of course, Richard Nixon plays an important role in the movie as the President of the United States. “Tricky Dick” as Rorschach calls him, has the unenviable task of deciding whether to empty out America’s nuclear arsenal in a pre-emptive strike against the Russians. While the actor playing Richard Nixon in the movie does look and sound like the real Nixon, it’s just a shame that they couldn’t get Frank Langella, who played the disgraced President in the Oscar nominated “Frost/Nixon” to reprise his role! That would have been icing on the cake.
I’ve been avoiding this topic for a while, but let’s get to the casting of the actors. While there are no real big-name or A-level celebrities among the actors chosen to play the roles of the various Watchmen, the casting was absolutely spot on…whoever did the casting needs a huge pay rise for choosing the best actors to reprise their respective roles in the movie!
Billy Crudup is probably the most well known actor out of the main cast of actors and he does a fine job of playing the emotionless Dr Manhattan. One does wonder whether it is Crudup’s “member” we see in those scenes where Dr Manhattan is completely nude. Crudup’s Dr Manhattan is unnervingly devoid of any sentiment and plays the part perfectly…you will believe that a god can walk this earth!
The casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach is a masterpiece. It will be an utter shock to me if I ever hear that anyone who’s watched the movie isn’t convinced or blown away by Haley’s performance. Rorschach is a misfit, an outcast and a sociopath and Haley delivers Rorschach’s psychotic lines as if he believes every single word that he says.
While Haley is brilliant with the mask on, his performance is out of this world when the mask comes off. From the little changes of facial expression to his snarling voice when he threatens his fellow inmates, this is one character you never EVER want to get on the wrong side of.
While on the topic of psychopaths, I was a bit disappointed when I found out Bruce Campbell wasn’t chosen as the Comedian (even though he was never in the running! I’m just a big Bruce Campbell fan), Jeffrey Dean Morgan played the part with all guns a-blazing. Morgan is utterly believable as a grade A asshole who has no sympathy for his fellow man and takes great pleasure in causing as much wanton destruction as humanly possible. He shows a disdain for women and loves the fact that he can cause as much carnage as he wants…and no one can lift a finger to do anything about it because he’s being paid by the government to do so! It’s just a shame that the Comedian has limited screen time, just like in the graphic novel.
Patrick Wilson, when wearing those goofy plastic spectacles, is a dead ringer for Dan Dreiberg. He is every bit as insecure as the character he plays and always second guesses himself, not knowing whether what he’s doing is the right thing to do. All of Wilson’s best scenes are when he’s playing Dreiberg and out of the costume; when he’s playing the part of this bumbling fool who doesn’t know how to reveal his feelings for Laurie Juspeczyk.
Matthew Goode is sparkling as villain Ozymandias, who is cocky, self assured is completely convinced that everything he does, all his acts of evil, is for the good of mankind. There is an evilness lurking behind the façade of his good looks and you truly believe that the smartest man on the earth could kill you with little effort if he put his mind to it.
Not quite sure what to think of Malin Akerman, who does a great job of playing Silk Spectre II, but seems to be relegated to a minor role behind all the testosterone-laden male protagonists. While she does play a major role in the graphic novel, she seems to play a bit part in the movie, with her greatest contribution (other than the gratuitous sex scenes with Dan and Dr Manhattan) convincing Dr Manhattan to save the world…by simply crying. She fits her spandex/latex costume really well though; it must be hard to move around in that costume, let alone do all those fighting scenes in it!
My favourite characters in the movie are, in this order, Rorschach, Dan Dreiberg (not Nite Owl, but his alter ego) and the Comedian. Pretty much exactly like the graphic novel!
Those are the good bits out of the way, unfortunately, like I said at the start of this review, a long long time ago, the good bits aren’t enough to save the movie, just the last third of the movie made it such that this movie will NOT be the most acclaimed comic book movie of all time.
The worst part of the movie in my opinion is the different ending from the graphic novel. In Watchmen, Ozymandias engineers the death of millions of people to save billions from nuclear holocaust. While this is the same in the movie, there is one single, major difference.
In the comic book, Ozymandias gets a team of people to DNA-engineer a lifeform, designed to look like an alien, which is teleported to the heart of New York City. The alien self destructs and kills millions, with the psychic resonations killing millions more, forcing the Americans and Russians, already on the brink of engaging in nuclear war, to declare an alliance against the would-be alien invaders, resulting in world peace.
In the movie, Ozymandias and Dr Manhattan work on solving the world’s energy crisis where Dr Manhattan inadvertently creates energy “modules” that are based on his own powers and sends them to Ozymandias’ Antartica base, Karnak, so that Ozzy’s scientists can research and explore these modules in greater detail.
Ozymandias teleports these modules to major cities across the world like Los Angeles, London, Beijing and of course, New York City, and triggers a self-destruct mechanism which kills millions caught up in the blast. As these modules were based on Dr Manhattan’s powers, it is made to look that Dr Manhattan has declared war on the world.
If you take the movie ending and dissect it, it is a sound and plausible alternative from the graphic novel ending. After all, it achieves the same ends where something catastrophic happens that forces the Americans and Russians to call for a ceasefire resulting in world peace. I’m not convinced though.
To have pretty much the entire movie follow the events in the graphic novel and then change the ending completely is just…sacrilege. Perhaps I’m just an ornery comic book fan who wants stuff to be EXACTLY the way it is in the graphic novel.
I acknowledge that Alan Moore’s original idea of having that alien lifeform ending is a bit kitsch and would be really difficult to incorporate into the movie. After all, there was this whole backstory in the graphic novel of a whole team of people (psychics, artists, writers, etc) being relocated to a deserted island who had a hand in the creation of the alien lifeform. This involved writer Max Shea’s pirate comic “The Black Freighter” and there were many panels in the comic devoted to that…of course, that had to be abandoned from the movie, so it made more sense to have a completely different ending since one couldn’t explore that same backstory in the movie without adding minutes to the movie.
But I would still have loved to see it so that it remained true to the graphic novel. Why stay 90% true to the graphic novel but have 10% completely different? I wonder what Alan Moore would say when he finds out that his most seminal work has been altered. He already hates Hollywood but this would cause him to hate it even more I’m sure.
That last third of the movie was a real let down as well, after the first part was so true and faithful and built everything up. But like a house of cards, all it takes is for one badly placed card and everything falls apart.
The movie sort of went downhill after Rorschach was freed from Sing Sing. The next few scenes all went by very quickly and it seemed as if the movie was “forced” to end quickly. Laurie’s time with Dr Manhattan on Mars was fairly short, though I suppose I don’t think the audience could have sat around for TOO long while Dr Manhattan marvelled at Olympus Mons or Valles Marineris. Even the big reveal by Ozymandias seemed…campy.
The reveal of Ozymandias’ plot just went on too quickly…I only know what was going on because I had read the graphic novel! I can just imagine how head-spinning it would be for anyone who hadn’t read the source material, because it just went very quickly from Ozzy’s killing of the Comedian, to his plot to remove Dr Manhattan from the playing field, to the framing of Rorschach and to the attack on his persona which was faked to throw Rorschach off his real scheme.
There’s nothing really specific, other than the changed ending, that I would attest to the last third of the movie spoiling it for me. I just can’t put a finger on what went wrong…it’s just a combination of different things that happened that sort of soured the movie for me. I will fondly remember the movie for the first two-thirds, but not the last.
Though I’m sure a lot of people, especially those who had never read the source material, would disagree with me, I found there was too many unnecessary things that were “highlighted” in the movie. There was too much unnecessary violence, too much unnecessary nudity and the sex scenes went on too long!
I full expected to see nudity in the movie, especially full frontal nudity of Dr Manhattan since it was certainly brought to the forefront in the graphic novel. In fact, when we first see Dr Manhattan’s “member” in the movie, there was a loud gasp among viewers in the audience. For shock value, that was unbelievable. But then they showed it over and over and over again to the point where there was no real reason why they were exposing Dr Manhattan’s member, it just seemed extremely unnecessary and gratuitous.
Speaking of gratuitous, did we really need to see an extended sex scene between Dan and Laurie with “Hallelujah” playing in the background? Sure, Malin Akerman has a nice body and I suppose they wanted that whole sexual innuendo thing of Archie spewing out fire, but I personally feel like there was no necessity to drag it out that long.
These guys are superheroes, yes, but apart from Rorschach, who is a sociopath who breaks people’s fingers and throw them down elevator shafts, and the Comedian, who kills for fun, none of the other characters in the graphic novel I would classify as vigilantes who go around hurting people unnecessarily.
And yet we see Dr Manhattan disintegrate a whole bunch of crooks in a bar (we sort of see that same scene in the graphic novel, but nowhere close to being as violent or gruesome!) and their entrails hang off from off the ceiling. We also see Dr Manhattan obliterating the Viet Cong with “Ride of the Valkyries” playing in the background, but I guess that’s war…plus it added some campy humour to that scene!
In the very first scene we see Dan and Laurie take on a bunch of muggers, Dan breaks a mugger’s arm…with the bone piercing the skin and blood spurting forth. Laurie then kicks a mugger in the shin, breaking it too with his lower leg sticking out the wrong way! Really, is there any necessity to show this at all? Yes, some people find it cool, but what is the purpose of showing those ultra violent scenes? Dan and Laurie aren’t vigilantes! They aren’t sociopaths!
We also see Rorschach use a chopper to cleave a child murderer’s head in half…you could sense that the audience was cringing every time Rorschach pulled the chopper from out of the murderer’s head and “threw” it back in again. And the scene where Larry is blocking the entrance to Rorschach’s cell; Big Figure orders his other goon, Michael, to cut off Larry’s arms. Michael does so…and we literally see Larry’s arms being cut off with an electric saw. Campy and funny, yes, but once again, unnecessary violence we don’t really need to see.
The reveal of the Comedian as Laurie’s father was an almost non-entity as well! In the comic, the reveal is built up slowly and gradually with all the clues being there for us to put everything together on our own. When it came to the final reveal, readers were left to work it out themselves and they would know exactly that the Comedian sired Laurie even before it was actually put in print. But in the movie, this was relegated to perhaps two or three scenes where Laurie’s mother, the original Silk Spectre, was arguing with her husband, Laurence Schexnayder, about the Comedian.
The audience doesn’t get a chance to put the clues together as there is a mention of the Comedian raping Silk Spectre I and about them having sex just the one time…and then Dr Manhattan reveals that the Comedian is Laurie’s real father. But the reveal has no impact whatsoever…it’s as if they’ve just decided to lampoon the reveal of Darth Vader’s fatherhood of Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back!
Of course, in the graphic novel, this reveal has much more significance. We’re shown very early on that Laurie hates the Comedian for his attempted rape on her mother. There is mention of this on one occasion in the movie but it was never brought up again. While the graphic novel showed how much Laurie hated pretty much everything in the superhero community, movie Laurie didn’t have that anger or pathos. So when it’s revealed that the Comedian is Laurie’s father, it just feels flat. I’m sure there would be audience members going: “Really? Who cares? What’s this got to do with the movie?”
Hollis Mason doesn’t die in the movie…in fact, he’s not featured at all apart from the first act of the movie when he’s catching up with Dan for drinks. He dies in the graphic novel, adding that extra level of angst in Dan, going into the final few chapters. Once again, I understand that to cram all this extra detail in the movie would just make it drag on for an extra few hours, so it’s probably good that they didn’t add this in.
I really disliked the fact that the movie script made Janey Slater out to be a villain. She confronts Dr Manhattan at the TV studio in the movie, pulling off a wig to show that she has acquired cancer from him. No sign of her doing this in the graphic novel though. It is also revealed in the movie that it was Janey Slater who hired Victor Chess, the man who made the attempt on the life of Adrian Veidt. Even though Adrian was the ultimate orchestrator, it painted Janey in the light of a villain, when she is anything but. Yes, Janey Slater was bitter in the graphic novel, but not to the point where she wanted to take revenge on Dr Manhattan, as portrayed in the movie.
There are some issues in the graphic novel that either don’t feature in the movie or just can’t be replicated on the big screen…remember Alan Moore saying that the comic was inherently “unfilmable”? There were some scenes of the “Fearful Symmetry” chapter where we see the neon lights of a seedy motel reflected in a puddle, but that’s about all we got in the movie, referencing the aforementioned famous chapter in Watchmen.
There are political nuances in the graphic novel as well as the examination of the super hero genre that wasn’t featured in the movie. The examination/commentary about homosexuality doesn’t make it to the movie either. What was most disappointing though, is there was scant reference to Dan Dreiberg’s impotence and Laurie Juspeczyk’s fetishes and trying to live up to her mother’s expectations.
Ozymandias’ costume is terrible. It looks as if it were taken out of one of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies! His genetically altered sabertooth tiger, Bubastis, makes a brief appearance in the movie as well, though probably just to appease fans, but it had absolutely no bearing or consequence in the movie at all…they might as well have done without Bubastis!
No Max Shea’s “The Black Freighter” and we because there was only a cameo for the newsvendor, we don’t get to see the funny exchange between him and Rorschach’s doomsayer-with-a-the-world-is-ending picket sign; in the comics, Rorschach tells the newsvendor that the world would definitely be ending that day but also asks the newsvendor to make sure he keeps his regular copy of The New Frontiersman tomorrow.
Speaking of the doomsayer picket sign character, we see him in certain sequences during the movie, but it’s just not obvious that it’s Rorschach at all. Plus, we never really get to see a proper close-up of doomsayer-guy’s face, so when Rorschach’s mask is pulled off in the movie, if you haven’t read the graphic novel, it’s unlikely you’d recognise who that was. We see doomsayer guy’s face often in the graphic novel so when the mask finally comes off Rorschach’s face, we instantly go: “I can’t believe Rorschach is that hobo going around proclaiming that Armageddon is at hand!”
Just a nitpick: when Ozymandias, the Comedian, Dr Manhattan, Nite Owl and Rorschach come together to form their supergroup in the movie (no Captain Metropolis either!), they actually call their group “Watchmen”. The group was never formed in the graphic novel and even when they were discussing the formation of the group, Captain Metropolis suggested that they be called “Crimebusters”.
I guess the movie script went with the group being called “Watchmen” so as to add some continuity in why the movie was called “Watchmen”.
Of course, that isn’t the reason why Alan Moore named the series “Watchmen”.
But I’ll stop here as this has been one unbelievably lengthy review of the movie compared to the source material. It has taken me over three hours to craft this review and if you’ve read the entire review and got to the end, I congratulate you.
I do like the Watchmen movie. I think it has gravitas; it’s not as good as it could have been, but it is faithful to the graphic novel, up to a certain point at least.
I just can’t take away the glaring differences between the graphic novel and the movie’s ending and the omission of some of the material from the graphic novel and plot points that added to the overall story. The movie is good, but it’s not great.
Watchmen is truly the most acclaimed graphic novel in the history of comics and still remains one of my favourite comics of all time. The number of times I’ve read the series from cover to cover! The movie though? Not quite the most acclaimed comic book movie of all time.
However, it did take a few readings of the graphic novel to get most of the nuances and appreciate what a masterpiece it was. Perhaps it’s the same with the movie where you need repeated viewings? Only time will tell on that one.
Expectations, not just from me, but from the comic book community, were undoubtedly huge. Alan Moore once called Watchmen “unfilmable”. Could Zack Snyder, the director who made Frank Miller’s “300” a critical and commercial success, defy the odds once again by making Watchmen THE most acclaimed comic book movie of all-time, just like the graphic novel was heralded as the “Citizen Kane” of comic books?
Spoiler warning: From this point on, I will be reviewing the movie and will be examining major plot points, discussing minute details of the comic and the movie as well as revealing the twists. If you haven’t yet read the Watchmen graphic novel or watched the movie and don’t want it spoiled for you, STOP READING THIS BLOG ENTRY NOW.
Still reading? Good. Let’s talk about the Watchmen movie then.
I came out of the cinema feeling pretty shallow and empty. Watchmen was a good 160 minutes including the credits, making it probably the longest comic book movie, in terms of movie screening length, ever made.
Of course, it is naïve to begin to think that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ magnum opus could be squeezed into a 2 hour movie, the average length of modern comic book movies. But the Watchmen movie seemed to go on an extra 30 minutes too long, even though I acknowledge that any shorter and you’d lose major plot points from the graphic novel.
It’s not that I didn’t like the movie. I did, for most parts. But the last third of the movie was a let-down, and it seemed to be dragging on needlessly. Was this because the end of the movie was poorly scripted? Was it because they had rushed the big reveal, the big ending, which was significantly changed from the graphic novel?
Or was it because the build-up towards the climax of the movie was extremely fantastic that when it was revealed that Adrian Veidt was the villain, the way the reveals came about just utterly destroyed what had come before?
I’m not quite sure. As I said, I was excited for most of the movie, especially the first half, but the final third of the movie just spoiled it for me, and since the last part of the movie is usually the one that you remember a movie for, it kind of soured the entire movie for me.
Maybe my expectations were too high, but as I said, by and large, my expectations were met for most of the movie. I think it was very true to the graphic novel for most parts, up until perhaps the scene where Rorschach was freed from Sing Sing and then it all went downhill from there.
But I’m being too general. Let’s examine parts of the movie that I liked and parts that I didn’t like.
The opening sequence was breathtaking. This was where it was obvious that a movie could do so much to portray the Comedian’s death than the graphic novel could. The graphic novel starts with the Comedian having already been killed by being beaten up and thrown out of his room of a very very tall building.
In the movie, we see the Comedian settling down to watch a TV program, which describes the escalation of potential nuclear war between America and the USSR. All of a sudden, someone breaks into his room and for the next three minutes, we see the vicious one-sided fight between the Comedian, an aging 67 year old man, and his assailant who not only brutally assaults the Comedian, but makes it look oh so easy.
While the Comedian is being beaten to a pulp, we’re being treated to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” playing on the TV in the background, from the advertisement of Adrian Veidt’s Nostalgia perfume. A sign of foreshadowing perhaps? Of course, the Nostalgia ad being part of Veidt Enterprises is never really mentioned, though that’s a neat Easter egg for those who had read the novel. Perhaps a bit camp, fighting to that background music but I’m sure it was deliberately filmed that way.
This fight sequence is never shown in great detail in the graphic novel, being just a simple flashback sequence of the Comedian getting his butt kicked, so it’s refreshing to see the fight in all its gory detail. The Comedian gets thrown through the plate glass windows of his apartment and plunges to his death…cue the opening title credits sequence!
This opening credits sequence was also brilliant, with a fantastic song playing in the background. We are introduced to the Minutemen of the 30s/40s, showing how they got together as a superteam and nearly each members’ fall from grace. Alan Moore fleshes out almost all of the Minutemen’s backstory in the graphic novel via “extra features” outside the main story, such as Hollis Mason’s (the original Nite Owl) biography, Under the Hood, and of course, it’s impossible to go through each individual character’s backstory in the movie, so the opening sequence does a great job of quickly showing, in 10 second segments, what happened to each character.
After the introduction of the original Nite Owl beating up a bank robber, we see the Silk Spectre being introduced to the press, with the policemen standing on either side of her trying to glance down to catch a glimpse of her boobs. We then see the formation of the Minutemen and the reveal that Silhouette is a lesbian by snogging a nurse after Japan surrenders at the close of World War 2.
We then see the death of Dollar Bill when he gets shot after getting his cape caught in a revolving door. We also see Mothman being committed to an asylum. Silhouette and her lover have been murdered in a hotel room with the words “Lesbian whores” scrawled on the wall. The Minutemen’s fall from grace lead to the formation of the second generation of heroes including the main protagonists in the movie. In the graphic novel, this second generation of heroes was known as the Crimebusters, though we learn later on during the movie that they called themselves “Watchmen”.
The next few segments in the opening credits sequence show how each Watchman is ensconced in real life events happening in America in the 60s and 70s. John F Kennedy shakes hands with Dr Manhattan on the lawn for the White House. In the next segment, we see John F Kennedy’s head snap back and then forwards in that famous assassination. The camera pans to the right where we see the Comedian was the assassin! Neil Armstrong lands on the moon and turns around, only for us to see the reflection of the Dr Manhattan already standing on the moon.
Andy Warhol is in an art gallery, unveiling his latest art of Nite Owl II, while Ozymandias is posing for photographs outside Studio 54; just standing behind Ozymandias is the Village People! We are also introduced to Rorschach who doesn’t appear on-screen, but has left behind his calling card after tying two criminals to a lightpost.
The 70s sequence shows the hippie movement where a hippie girl puts a flower in the barrel of a gun that’s pointed directly at her; soon, all of the hippies get shot. President Nixon gets re-elected for a third term, changing the course of history in the Watchmen world, and we also see the amassing of nuclear arsenals by Fidel Castro and his Russian counterpart.
It is a superb credit sequence that sets the tone for what has passed before in the Watchmen world. It does a great job considering there is so much happening in the graphic novel and to be able to distil the main plot points and cram it into a brilliant and stunning visual opening sequence is just magnificent.
The main story starts off exactly the same way the comic book does, focusing in on the smiley face pin that the Comedian wears. The camera pulls back upwards towards the window of the Comedian’s apartment where Detective Fine and his partner wonder who would want to kill a 67 year old man.
What I really love about the first half of the movie is that scenes are filmed and duplicated almost exactly the way they were illustrated in the comics. From Rorschach’s breaking into Nite Owl’s apartment and then storming out; to the flashback sequences showing each individual character’s involvement with the Comedian; to the retelling of Dr Manhattan’s past; to Rorschach’s capture and his subsequent rescue by Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II…the scenes from the graphic novel are lovingly and carefully reproduced in the movie. Way too many scenes to go through individually.
Which leads directly into the dialogue. While it’s impossible to expect all the dialogue from the graphic novel to be replicated in the movie, the script does take the most memorable lines from the graphic novel and either transposes them directly, or are largely intact, just changing a few words here and there. The most memorable quotes are:
“Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire thread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me, I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their wasists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us!’, and I’ll look down and whisper ‘No’.” – Rorschach’s first line of dialogue from both the movie and graphic novel
“Hurm.” – Rorschach
“You were a better Nite Owl than I ever was.”
“Hollis, we both know that’s bullshit.”
“Hey, watch with the language! This is the left hook that floored Captain Axis, remember?”
- exchange between the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason, and his successor, Daniel Dreiberg
“An ordinary burglar? Kill the Comedian? Ridiculous.” – Rorschach
“Um. Don’t you think that’s maybe a little paranoid?”
“That’s what they’re saying about me now? That I’m paranoid”
- exchange between Nite Owl and Rorschach
“Yes. I remember. Used to come here often. Back when we were partners.”
“Yeah, those were great times, Rorschach. Whatever happened to them?”
“You quit.”
- exchange between Rorschach and Nite Owl
“Meeting with Dreiberg left bad taste in mouth. A flabby failure who sits whimpering in his basement. Why are so few of us left active, health, and without personality disorders? Only two names remaining on my list. Both share private quarters at Rockefeller Military Research Centre. I shall go to them. I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.” – Rorschach
And all that is just from the first issue! Rorschach does have all the best and most quotable lines. I can just see the entire movie having heaps of quotable lines, just like in Army of Darkness.
There are too many memorable lines of dialogue in the movie that are taken straight out from the graphic novel, but others include the Pagliacci joke (which no one seemed to get in the movie, I was the only one laughing!), Rorschach’s exchange with Big Figure in Sing Sing prison, Rorschach’s memorable “I’m not locked up in here with you, you’re locked up in here with me!” line, the “The superman exists, and he’s American” line, Dr Manhattan’s the miracle of turning oxygen into gold line, and Rorschach’s “Never compromise, not even in the face or Armageddon” line.
There are plenty of Easter eggs throughout the movie that probably get lost on all those who haven’t read the novel before. When meeting Adrian Veidt for the first time, we see the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in the background, leaving no doubt that while this is an alternate reality from the one we know, the characters are all in New York. We see Mason’s auto repair shop, the Gunga Diner, the offices of the New Frontiersman, a right wing publication that Rorschach picks up daily.
Part of the fun of the movie, for me at least, was trying to spot as many Easter eggs as possible, things that were strictly in the background of the movie, but made up the big picture in the graphic novel. Graffiti of “Who Watches the Watchmen?” on walls, cameos of the newsvendor, the kid who sits at the newsstand reading the comic book, “The Black Freighter”, the lesbian taxi driver Joey, and a poster of “The Black Freighter” on the newsstand. They even reproduce the “War?” headline on the front page of a newspaper! I think I’m going to have to get a copy of the DVD when it’s released and play each scene back slowly to see if I can catch all the Easter eggs!
We even hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”, which is referenced in Hollis Mason’s Under the Hood, when there is this flashback sequence of Dr Manhattan intervening in the Vietnam War. When you hear “Ride of the Valkyries” blaring over the speakers and see the imposing 40 foot tall half naked body of Dr Manhattan walking over the fields of Saigon, incinerating the Viet Cong soldiers, one gets a chill of excitement running through one’s body.
Which leads directly to the music; it is an absolutely brilliant and breathtaking soundtrack. The licensed songs fit the scenes perfectly: when Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk meet for dinner, Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” play in the background. When the Comedian gets buried in the cemetery, we hear Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”. We even hear the extremely cheesy “Hallelujah” when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II make love for the first time in Nite Owl’s ship, Archie (short for “Archimedes”, Merlin’s pet owl, as Nite Owl tells us himself in a later scene).
I can’t wait for the soundtrack to get released because I’m sure I’ll be getting it!
There’s quite a bit of deliberate campy humour in the movie as well, which fits with the deliberate humour from the graphic novel. When Nite Owl and Rorschach ask when Ozymandias plans to execute his evil “mad scientist” plans, Ozymandias remarks that he’s not some “comic book villain” and he did it 35 minutes ago (in the novel Ozzy remarks that he’s not a “republic serial villain” instead). When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II spring Rorschach from prison, Rorschach remarks that he needs to first use the men’s bathroom before they can leave (though of course, Rorschach is trying to get his hands on Little Figure).
We also see the awkwardness when Dan and Laurie try having sex for the first time, with Dan not being able to…uhm…perform. Actually, that is probably a negative of the movie because Dan and Laurie have this really weird relationship in the graphic novel where it’s a balance between Dan’s impotence and Laurie’s fetishes. It’s never really dealt with in the movie at all, making very scant reference to Dan’s impotence.
When Dan and Laurie finally do have sex in Archie, when close to…uh…finishing…Laurie accidentally hits the flamethrower button and a large burst of flames shoot out from Archie’s…uh…mouth. A sexual innuendo if there ever was one! These moments of campness make it a bit hard to interpret the movie. From the graphic novel, we know that it’s deliberate, but it doesn’t really translate well onto screen. For such a dark movie, there sure must have been a few movie-goers thinking to themselves, “What the hell? Why is there an attempt of humour here?”
There are many cameos in the movie from famous figures in history to show the era which the movie takes place in. The aforementioned cameos in the opening credits title sequence of John F Kennedy, Neil Armstrong (though one doesn’t see his face behind his spacesuit helmet), Andy Warhol, the Village People, Fidel Castro, and I believe even Mick Jagger, who I didn’t catch but who’s name is in the final credits!
There are also cameos in the movie itself to show that it’s 1985, with people such as Lee Iacocca and Ted Koppel making an appearance. Of course, Richard Nixon plays an important role in the movie as the President of the United States. “Tricky Dick” as Rorschach calls him, has the unenviable task of deciding whether to empty out America’s nuclear arsenal in a pre-emptive strike against the Russians. While the actor playing Richard Nixon in the movie does look and sound like the real Nixon, it’s just a shame that they couldn’t get Frank Langella, who played the disgraced President in the Oscar nominated “Frost/Nixon” to reprise his role! That would have been icing on the cake.
I’ve been avoiding this topic for a while, but let’s get to the casting of the actors. While there are no real big-name or A-level celebrities among the actors chosen to play the roles of the various Watchmen, the casting was absolutely spot on…whoever did the casting needs a huge pay rise for choosing the best actors to reprise their respective roles in the movie!
Billy Crudup is probably the most well known actor out of the main cast of actors and he does a fine job of playing the emotionless Dr Manhattan. One does wonder whether it is Crudup’s “member” we see in those scenes where Dr Manhattan is completely nude. Crudup’s Dr Manhattan is unnervingly devoid of any sentiment and plays the part perfectly…you will believe that a god can walk this earth!
The casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach is a masterpiece. It will be an utter shock to me if I ever hear that anyone who’s watched the movie isn’t convinced or blown away by Haley’s performance. Rorschach is a misfit, an outcast and a sociopath and Haley delivers Rorschach’s psychotic lines as if he believes every single word that he says.
While Haley is brilliant with the mask on, his performance is out of this world when the mask comes off. From the little changes of facial expression to his snarling voice when he threatens his fellow inmates, this is one character you never EVER want to get on the wrong side of.
While on the topic of psychopaths, I was a bit disappointed when I found out Bruce Campbell wasn’t chosen as the Comedian (even though he was never in the running! I’m just a big Bruce Campbell fan), Jeffrey Dean Morgan played the part with all guns a-blazing. Morgan is utterly believable as a grade A asshole who has no sympathy for his fellow man and takes great pleasure in causing as much wanton destruction as humanly possible. He shows a disdain for women and loves the fact that he can cause as much carnage as he wants…and no one can lift a finger to do anything about it because he’s being paid by the government to do so! It’s just a shame that the Comedian has limited screen time, just like in the graphic novel.
Patrick Wilson, when wearing those goofy plastic spectacles, is a dead ringer for Dan Dreiberg. He is every bit as insecure as the character he plays and always second guesses himself, not knowing whether what he’s doing is the right thing to do. All of Wilson’s best scenes are when he’s playing Dreiberg and out of the costume; when he’s playing the part of this bumbling fool who doesn’t know how to reveal his feelings for Laurie Juspeczyk.
Matthew Goode is sparkling as villain Ozymandias, who is cocky, self assured is completely convinced that everything he does, all his acts of evil, is for the good of mankind. There is an evilness lurking behind the façade of his good looks and you truly believe that the smartest man on the earth could kill you with little effort if he put his mind to it.
Not quite sure what to think of Malin Akerman, who does a great job of playing Silk Spectre II, but seems to be relegated to a minor role behind all the testosterone-laden male protagonists. While she does play a major role in the graphic novel, she seems to play a bit part in the movie, with her greatest contribution (other than the gratuitous sex scenes with Dan and Dr Manhattan) convincing Dr Manhattan to save the world…by simply crying. She fits her spandex/latex costume really well though; it must be hard to move around in that costume, let alone do all those fighting scenes in it!
My favourite characters in the movie are, in this order, Rorschach, Dan Dreiberg (not Nite Owl, but his alter ego) and the Comedian. Pretty much exactly like the graphic novel!
Those are the good bits out of the way, unfortunately, like I said at the start of this review, a long long time ago, the good bits aren’t enough to save the movie, just the last third of the movie made it such that this movie will NOT be the most acclaimed comic book movie of all time.
The worst part of the movie in my opinion is the different ending from the graphic novel. In Watchmen, Ozymandias engineers the death of millions of people to save billions from nuclear holocaust. While this is the same in the movie, there is one single, major difference.
In the comic book, Ozymandias gets a team of people to DNA-engineer a lifeform, designed to look like an alien, which is teleported to the heart of New York City. The alien self destructs and kills millions, with the psychic resonations killing millions more, forcing the Americans and Russians, already on the brink of engaging in nuclear war, to declare an alliance against the would-be alien invaders, resulting in world peace.
In the movie, Ozymandias and Dr Manhattan work on solving the world’s energy crisis where Dr Manhattan inadvertently creates energy “modules” that are based on his own powers and sends them to Ozymandias’ Antartica base, Karnak, so that Ozzy’s scientists can research and explore these modules in greater detail.
Ozymandias teleports these modules to major cities across the world like Los Angeles, London, Beijing and of course, New York City, and triggers a self-destruct mechanism which kills millions caught up in the blast. As these modules were based on Dr Manhattan’s powers, it is made to look that Dr Manhattan has declared war on the world.
If you take the movie ending and dissect it, it is a sound and plausible alternative from the graphic novel ending. After all, it achieves the same ends where something catastrophic happens that forces the Americans and Russians to call for a ceasefire resulting in world peace. I’m not convinced though.
To have pretty much the entire movie follow the events in the graphic novel and then change the ending completely is just…sacrilege. Perhaps I’m just an ornery comic book fan who wants stuff to be EXACTLY the way it is in the graphic novel.
I acknowledge that Alan Moore’s original idea of having that alien lifeform ending is a bit kitsch and would be really difficult to incorporate into the movie. After all, there was this whole backstory in the graphic novel of a whole team of people (psychics, artists, writers, etc) being relocated to a deserted island who had a hand in the creation of the alien lifeform. This involved writer Max Shea’s pirate comic “The Black Freighter” and there were many panels in the comic devoted to that…of course, that had to be abandoned from the movie, so it made more sense to have a completely different ending since one couldn’t explore that same backstory in the movie without adding minutes to the movie.
But I would still have loved to see it so that it remained true to the graphic novel. Why stay 90% true to the graphic novel but have 10% completely different? I wonder what Alan Moore would say when he finds out that his most seminal work has been altered. He already hates Hollywood but this would cause him to hate it even more I’m sure.
That last third of the movie was a real let down as well, after the first part was so true and faithful and built everything up. But like a house of cards, all it takes is for one badly placed card and everything falls apart.
The movie sort of went downhill after Rorschach was freed from Sing Sing. The next few scenes all went by very quickly and it seemed as if the movie was “forced” to end quickly. Laurie’s time with Dr Manhattan on Mars was fairly short, though I suppose I don’t think the audience could have sat around for TOO long while Dr Manhattan marvelled at Olympus Mons or Valles Marineris. Even the big reveal by Ozymandias seemed…campy.
The reveal of Ozymandias’ plot just went on too quickly…I only know what was going on because I had read the graphic novel! I can just imagine how head-spinning it would be for anyone who hadn’t read the source material, because it just went very quickly from Ozzy’s killing of the Comedian, to his plot to remove Dr Manhattan from the playing field, to the framing of Rorschach and to the attack on his persona which was faked to throw Rorschach off his real scheme.
There’s nothing really specific, other than the changed ending, that I would attest to the last third of the movie spoiling it for me. I just can’t put a finger on what went wrong…it’s just a combination of different things that happened that sort of soured the movie for me. I will fondly remember the movie for the first two-thirds, but not the last.
Though I’m sure a lot of people, especially those who had never read the source material, would disagree with me, I found there was too many unnecessary things that were “highlighted” in the movie. There was too much unnecessary violence, too much unnecessary nudity and the sex scenes went on too long!
I full expected to see nudity in the movie, especially full frontal nudity of Dr Manhattan since it was certainly brought to the forefront in the graphic novel. In fact, when we first see Dr Manhattan’s “member” in the movie, there was a loud gasp among viewers in the audience. For shock value, that was unbelievable. But then they showed it over and over and over again to the point where there was no real reason why they were exposing Dr Manhattan’s member, it just seemed extremely unnecessary and gratuitous.
Speaking of gratuitous, did we really need to see an extended sex scene between Dan and Laurie with “Hallelujah” playing in the background? Sure, Malin Akerman has a nice body and I suppose they wanted that whole sexual innuendo thing of Archie spewing out fire, but I personally feel like there was no necessity to drag it out that long.
These guys are superheroes, yes, but apart from Rorschach, who is a sociopath who breaks people’s fingers and throw them down elevator shafts, and the Comedian, who kills for fun, none of the other characters in the graphic novel I would classify as vigilantes who go around hurting people unnecessarily.
And yet we see Dr Manhattan disintegrate a whole bunch of crooks in a bar (we sort of see that same scene in the graphic novel, but nowhere close to being as violent or gruesome!) and their entrails hang off from off the ceiling. We also see Dr Manhattan obliterating the Viet Cong with “Ride of the Valkyries” playing in the background, but I guess that’s war…plus it added some campy humour to that scene!
In the very first scene we see Dan and Laurie take on a bunch of muggers, Dan breaks a mugger’s arm…with the bone piercing the skin and blood spurting forth. Laurie then kicks a mugger in the shin, breaking it too with his lower leg sticking out the wrong way! Really, is there any necessity to show this at all? Yes, some people find it cool, but what is the purpose of showing those ultra violent scenes? Dan and Laurie aren’t vigilantes! They aren’t sociopaths!
We also see Rorschach use a chopper to cleave a child murderer’s head in half…you could sense that the audience was cringing every time Rorschach pulled the chopper from out of the murderer’s head and “threw” it back in again. And the scene where Larry is blocking the entrance to Rorschach’s cell; Big Figure orders his other goon, Michael, to cut off Larry’s arms. Michael does so…and we literally see Larry’s arms being cut off with an electric saw. Campy and funny, yes, but once again, unnecessary violence we don’t really need to see.
The reveal of the Comedian as Laurie’s father was an almost non-entity as well! In the comic, the reveal is built up slowly and gradually with all the clues being there for us to put everything together on our own. When it came to the final reveal, readers were left to work it out themselves and they would know exactly that the Comedian sired Laurie even before it was actually put in print. But in the movie, this was relegated to perhaps two or three scenes where Laurie’s mother, the original Silk Spectre, was arguing with her husband, Laurence Schexnayder, about the Comedian.
The audience doesn’t get a chance to put the clues together as there is a mention of the Comedian raping Silk Spectre I and about them having sex just the one time…and then Dr Manhattan reveals that the Comedian is Laurie’s real father. But the reveal has no impact whatsoever…it’s as if they’ve just decided to lampoon the reveal of Darth Vader’s fatherhood of Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back!
Of course, in the graphic novel, this reveal has much more significance. We’re shown very early on that Laurie hates the Comedian for his attempted rape on her mother. There is mention of this on one occasion in the movie but it was never brought up again. While the graphic novel showed how much Laurie hated pretty much everything in the superhero community, movie Laurie didn’t have that anger or pathos. So when it’s revealed that the Comedian is Laurie’s father, it just feels flat. I’m sure there would be audience members going: “Really? Who cares? What’s this got to do with the movie?”
Hollis Mason doesn’t die in the movie…in fact, he’s not featured at all apart from the first act of the movie when he’s catching up with Dan for drinks. He dies in the graphic novel, adding that extra level of angst in Dan, going into the final few chapters. Once again, I understand that to cram all this extra detail in the movie would just make it drag on for an extra few hours, so it’s probably good that they didn’t add this in.
I really disliked the fact that the movie script made Janey Slater out to be a villain. She confronts Dr Manhattan at the TV studio in the movie, pulling off a wig to show that she has acquired cancer from him. No sign of her doing this in the graphic novel though. It is also revealed in the movie that it was Janey Slater who hired Victor Chess, the man who made the attempt on the life of Adrian Veidt. Even though Adrian was the ultimate orchestrator, it painted Janey in the light of a villain, when she is anything but. Yes, Janey Slater was bitter in the graphic novel, but not to the point where she wanted to take revenge on Dr Manhattan, as portrayed in the movie.
There are some issues in the graphic novel that either don’t feature in the movie or just can’t be replicated on the big screen…remember Alan Moore saying that the comic was inherently “unfilmable”? There were some scenes of the “Fearful Symmetry” chapter where we see the neon lights of a seedy motel reflected in a puddle, but that’s about all we got in the movie, referencing the aforementioned famous chapter in Watchmen.
There are political nuances in the graphic novel as well as the examination of the super hero genre that wasn’t featured in the movie. The examination/commentary about homosexuality doesn’t make it to the movie either. What was most disappointing though, is there was scant reference to Dan Dreiberg’s impotence and Laurie Juspeczyk’s fetishes and trying to live up to her mother’s expectations.
Ozymandias’ costume is terrible. It looks as if it were taken out of one of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies! His genetically altered sabertooth tiger, Bubastis, makes a brief appearance in the movie as well, though probably just to appease fans, but it had absolutely no bearing or consequence in the movie at all…they might as well have done without Bubastis!
No Max Shea’s “The Black Freighter” and we because there was only a cameo for the newsvendor, we don’t get to see the funny exchange between him and Rorschach’s doomsayer-with-a-the-world-is-ending picket sign; in the comics, Rorschach tells the newsvendor that the world would definitely be ending that day but also asks the newsvendor to make sure he keeps his regular copy of The New Frontiersman tomorrow.
Speaking of the doomsayer picket sign character, we see him in certain sequences during the movie, but it’s just not obvious that it’s Rorschach at all. Plus, we never really get to see a proper close-up of doomsayer-guy’s face, so when Rorschach’s mask is pulled off in the movie, if you haven’t read the graphic novel, it’s unlikely you’d recognise who that was. We see doomsayer guy’s face often in the graphic novel so when the mask finally comes off Rorschach’s face, we instantly go: “I can’t believe Rorschach is that hobo going around proclaiming that Armageddon is at hand!”
Just a nitpick: when Ozymandias, the Comedian, Dr Manhattan, Nite Owl and Rorschach come together to form their supergroup in the movie (no Captain Metropolis either!), they actually call their group “Watchmen”. The group was never formed in the graphic novel and even when they were discussing the formation of the group, Captain Metropolis suggested that they be called “Crimebusters”.
I guess the movie script went with the group being called “Watchmen” so as to add some continuity in why the movie was called “Watchmen”.
Of course, that isn’t the reason why Alan Moore named the series “Watchmen”.
But I’ll stop here as this has been one unbelievably lengthy review of the movie compared to the source material. It has taken me over three hours to craft this review and if you’ve read the entire review and got to the end, I congratulate you.
I do like the Watchmen movie. I think it has gravitas; it’s not as good as it could have been, but it is faithful to the graphic novel, up to a certain point at least.
I just can’t take away the glaring differences between the graphic novel and the movie’s ending and the omission of some of the material from the graphic novel and plot points that added to the overall story. The movie is good, but it’s not great.
Watchmen is truly the most acclaimed graphic novel in the history of comics and still remains one of my favourite comics of all time. The number of times I’ve read the series from cover to cover! The movie though? Not quite the most acclaimed comic book movie of all time.
However, it did take a few readings of the graphic novel to get most of the nuances and appreciate what a masterpiece it was. Perhaps it’s the same with the movie where you need repeated viewings? Only time will tell on that one.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Watchmen: The greatest graphic novel of all time!
I re-read the Absolute Watchmen HC graphic novel on Wednesday evening in two sittings; wanted to make sure I remembered even the most minute detail before actually catching the Watchmen movie on the big screen, which was released in cinemas Australia-wide on Thursday.
There's a reason why Watchmen has been called, and is by and large recognised as the greatest and most acclaimed graphic novel in the history of comics: it is just absolutely brilliant. It was a tale certainly way ahead of its time...every single time I read it, I keep discovering something new!
To be honest, the first time I read Watchmen, probably some time in the early 00s, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it was a good read and it had some fascinating characters and character interactions and a wonderful twist ending (which was already spoiled for me since I'm an avid reader of Wizard magazine and they've referenced Watchmen so many times in the past), but I didn't think it was THAT special.
It took a second read for me to grasp how special and truly brilliant it was. And then a third read. And a fourth...this graphic novel wasn't just exceptional, it wasn't just brilliant; it was simple out of this world and nothing could come close to a story of this magnitude, nothing was even COMPARABLE to this!
All the little nuances and the stuff that Alan Moore crammed into the story...it all somehow added extra layers to the overall story but at the same time contributed to the overall story. You could read each individual chapter and it would mean something. You could take different parts of the story like Max Shea's pirate tale and read it on its own as well and still get something out of it.
And Dave Gibbons' wonderful art. Each panel, so meticulously and beautifully constructed. And all those little hidden Easter eggs in the background, just teasing readers to see if they can catch everything that's happening in the scene, things that would add up to a larger Easter egg that's part of the overall story!
Most stories are straightforward and you get everything in the one read. Not Watchmen. Watchmen was special; it takes multiple reads to grasp and understand the majority of the concepts that Moore has included in this 12 issue maxi-series. The political commentary, the black humour, the sexual innuendos, the environmental commentary; it was all there in those pages, one just needed to see if one could, to coin a Pokemon phrase, "catch 'em all"!
Alas, many have also called Watchmen as the comic that is inherently unfilmable. I certainly can understand that; how can one possibly reproduce a chapter like "Fearful Symmetry" on the big screen? How do you do that without losing the story's essence? A chapter like "Fearful Symmetry" just can't be reproduced on the big screen! Other scenes transferred from the comic medium to the big screen would also lose its meaning...so what would the movie look like then?
From the few trailers I've watched on TV so far, the Watchmen movie looks like it's "glamourising" the action parts of the graphic novel. The characters are larger than life and they all look fantastic on the big screen; I couldn't imagine how stupid the Minutemen would look on screen with their campy costumes, but they don't look half bad at all from the movie stills!
I definitely cannot wait to watch the movie. Expectations are unbelievably high, as one might expect, which could lead to a lot of disappointment if Zack Snyder hasn't done the right thing by the graphic novel. But hey, then again, I guess he could be forgiven; fans expectations are unreasonably high for the movie adaption of the greatest and most acclaimed graphic novel of all-time, the one that they've all said is unfilmable.
There's a reason why Watchmen has been called, and is by and large recognised as the greatest and most acclaimed graphic novel in the history of comics: it is just absolutely brilliant. It was a tale certainly way ahead of its time...every single time I read it, I keep discovering something new!
To be honest, the first time I read Watchmen, probably some time in the early 00s, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it was a good read and it had some fascinating characters and character interactions and a wonderful twist ending (which was already spoiled for me since I'm an avid reader of Wizard magazine and they've referenced Watchmen so many times in the past), but I didn't think it was THAT special.
It took a second read for me to grasp how special and truly brilliant it was. And then a third read. And a fourth...this graphic novel wasn't just exceptional, it wasn't just brilliant; it was simple out of this world and nothing could come close to a story of this magnitude, nothing was even COMPARABLE to this!
All the little nuances and the stuff that Alan Moore crammed into the story...it all somehow added extra layers to the overall story but at the same time contributed to the overall story. You could read each individual chapter and it would mean something. You could take different parts of the story like Max Shea's pirate tale and read it on its own as well and still get something out of it.
And Dave Gibbons' wonderful art. Each panel, so meticulously and beautifully constructed. And all those little hidden Easter eggs in the background, just teasing readers to see if they can catch everything that's happening in the scene, things that would add up to a larger Easter egg that's part of the overall story!
Most stories are straightforward and you get everything in the one read. Not Watchmen. Watchmen was special; it takes multiple reads to grasp and understand the majority of the concepts that Moore has included in this 12 issue maxi-series. The political commentary, the black humour, the sexual innuendos, the environmental commentary; it was all there in those pages, one just needed to see if one could, to coin a Pokemon phrase, "catch 'em all"!
Alas, many have also called Watchmen as the comic that is inherently unfilmable. I certainly can understand that; how can one possibly reproduce a chapter like "Fearful Symmetry" on the big screen? How do you do that without losing the story's essence? A chapter like "Fearful Symmetry" just can't be reproduced on the big screen! Other scenes transferred from the comic medium to the big screen would also lose its meaning...so what would the movie look like then?
From the few trailers I've watched on TV so far, the Watchmen movie looks like it's "glamourising" the action parts of the graphic novel. The characters are larger than life and they all look fantastic on the big screen; I couldn't imagine how stupid the Minutemen would look on screen with their campy costumes, but they don't look half bad at all from the movie stills!
I definitely cannot wait to watch the movie. Expectations are unbelievably high, as one might expect, which could lead to a lot of disappointment if Zack Snyder hasn't done the right thing by the graphic novel. But hey, then again, I guess he could be forgiven; fans expectations are unreasonably high for the movie adaption of the greatest and most acclaimed graphic novel of all-time, the one that they've all said is unfilmable.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Review: Grand Theft Auto IV
It's about high time I write this review, since I've clocked up so many hours playing the game since just before Christmas! In fact, GTAIV is still the ONLY game I've played on my less-than-one-month-old Xbox360! I'm literally two missions away from completing the game, and I know I really SHOULD complete the game so I can move on to another game...but I don't WANT to complete the game because it is so much fun to play!
Let's get some of the obvious stuff out of the way first. The graphics for GTAIV are far superior to those of previous GTA games...that one's an obvious one, simply because GTAIV was made for the next gen consoles and therefore if the graphics hadn't improved, something was very very wrong somewhere!
And how beautiful the graphics are. This time around, Rockstar created a breathing and living city...Liberty City is based on the real-life New York and it shows. Even though the names of the famous NYC landmarks are changed, there's no way you're not going to recognise the State of Liberty...erm...Happiness, and you'll marvel at the Empire State Building, or whatever it's called in GTAIV.
The city is magnificent to explore and I've found myself often catching a cab during the game and not just jumping straight to the endpoint, but looking around, catching a glimpse of the skyscrapers and buildings in Algonquin, looking at someone getting mugged on the Liberty City streets...everything is so realistic and you really feel as if you're fully immersed in the GTA world!
You play the role of Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Eastern Europe, where you saw and experienced some bad things in the war and want a fresh start in the US of A. Niko has heard some amazing things about America from his cousin, Roman, who has boasted that he lives a life of luxury, has a swanky place and has women hanging off each arm.
Of course, Roman is anything BUT the ladykiller he makes himself out to be. He lives in a roach-infested apartment with sleazy posters falling off the wall. Roman runs a taxi service and, just like every other GTA game in existence, you start off doing really small missions like driving people around, doing chores and favours for others while you heathily build up relationships and respect and then move on to the bigger missions.
The one fundamental change in the way GTAIV is played compared to other GTAs before it is that Niko has a cellphone. This cellphone is his portal to his life in Liberty City...he can call up a buddy to go out to eat, drink, catch a show, play pool or some assorted activity. This builds up relationships with his friends and while he only starts off with Roman as a contact, as Niko meets more people, he adds more contacts to his cellphone.
Although it may seem like a waste of time doing mundane stuff like going bowling or playing darts with a non-playable character (NPC), as the saying goes, it's "friends with benefits". Build up a relationship with Roman and instead of driving anywhere, you can call him to send a taxi to ferry you to wherever you want to go instead. Build up strong friendships with other buddies in the game and you can get a car bomb, buy weapons at a much cheaper price than from a gun store and even get a posse to join you on a mission where they will shoot, kill, steal, etc for you.
You also get to arrange dates with various women throughout the game via the cellphone! Once again, it may seem mundane going out on dates, but if you build up a strong relationship, it's "friends with benefits" again...and I'm not referring to THOSE sort of benefits in the bedroom (though that certainly applies too). You can buy clothes cheaper (big whoop dee doo), get an instant health boost or get your wanted level reduced big-time. And yes, if you manage to impress your date when you take her out, you can go up to her apartment for a bit of rumpy pumpy that restores your health to the max too.
Consequently, you will get people calling up your cellphone to organise the next mission. Your cellphone can sometimes be more of a bane than a boon...you could be in the middle of a really important mission when a buddy calls you out to visit a strip club. Do you endanger the completion of your mission or do you shun your friend? Once a friend has been shunned, it's difficult to repair the relationship and you have to work twice as hard to get them to like you as much as before.
There are a staggering number of missions in the game...even if you don't do any of the side quests and choose to ignore your buddies and going out on dates, it could still take you a long while to finish the main storyline! If you totally immerse yourself in the game, you could be playing the game for a long long while. I've spent so much time on the game building relationships and doing most of the side missions...and this is without looking for the unique jumps and hidden packages! I don't need 100% completion to enjoy the game after all!
Speaking of hidden packages, GTAIV's version of hidden packages is an absolute hoot. Hidden packages in previous GTA games in the past have included 99 red balloons (yes, it was seriously meant as a joke) but this one really takes the cake!
You can do absolutely whatever you want to in GTAIV. Feel like stealing a cop car and catching some perps? Go for it. Wanna stir up trouble by randomly beating up gang members on the street and have them all attack you en masse so you can practise your shooting accuracy? If you wanna. Grab a worker of the night and after she's "restored your health", attack her and get back the money you paid her? Errr...that was an option already available in all previous GTAs, wasn't it?
GTAIV is a worthy game in the series. As much as I've loved GTA: Vice City, I feel that GTAIV is definitely the best game in the series I have ever played. Just the scope of the game itself is mind-shattering! I've spent many hours just grabbing an RPG and blowing myself up, just to see how far Niko can fly and how realistic his limp body can crash into buildings and cars. The physics of the game is just unbelievably realistic.
GTAIV has been such an awesome gaming experience. The next GTA game, Chinatown Wars, will be released on the Nintendo DS and of course, I'm going to get it. But what I'm REALLY looking forward to is for Rockstar to start working on GTAV or GTA: Vice City 2 or whatever the hell they want to call it.
A real life Vice City full of the pastel colours and a brilliant 80s soundtrack? Hurry up and finish it and release it already, Rockstar!
Let's get some of the obvious stuff out of the way first. The graphics for GTAIV are far superior to those of previous GTA games...that one's an obvious one, simply because GTAIV was made for the next gen consoles and therefore if the graphics hadn't improved, something was very very wrong somewhere!
And how beautiful the graphics are. This time around, Rockstar created a breathing and living city...Liberty City is based on the real-life New York and it shows. Even though the names of the famous NYC landmarks are changed, there's no way you're not going to recognise the State of Liberty...erm...Happiness, and you'll marvel at the Empire State Building, or whatever it's called in GTAIV.
The city is magnificent to explore and I've found myself often catching a cab during the game and not just jumping straight to the endpoint, but looking around, catching a glimpse of the skyscrapers and buildings in Algonquin, looking at someone getting mugged on the Liberty City streets...everything is so realistic and you really feel as if you're fully immersed in the GTA world!
You play the role of Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Eastern Europe, where you saw and experienced some bad things in the war and want a fresh start in the US of A. Niko has heard some amazing things about America from his cousin, Roman, who has boasted that he lives a life of luxury, has a swanky place and has women hanging off each arm.
Of course, Roman is anything BUT the ladykiller he makes himself out to be. He lives in a roach-infested apartment with sleazy posters falling off the wall. Roman runs a taxi service and, just like every other GTA game in existence, you start off doing really small missions like driving people around, doing chores and favours for others while you heathily build up relationships and respect and then move on to the bigger missions.
The one fundamental change in the way GTAIV is played compared to other GTAs before it is that Niko has a cellphone. This cellphone is his portal to his life in Liberty City...he can call up a buddy to go out to eat, drink, catch a show, play pool or some assorted activity. This builds up relationships with his friends and while he only starts off with Roman as a contact, as Niko meets more people, he adds more contacts to his cellphone.
Although it may seem like a waste of time doing mundane stuff like going bowling or playing darts with a non-playable character (NPC), as the saying goes, it's "friends with benefits". Build up a relationship with Roman and instead of driving anywhere, you can call him to send a taxi to ferry you to wherever you want to go instead. Build up strong friendships with other buddies in the game and you can get a car bomb, buy weapons at a much cheaper price than from a gun store and even get a posse to join you on a mission where they will shoot, kill, steal, etc for you.
You also get to arrange dates with various women throughout the game via the cellphone! Once again, it may seem mundane going out on dates, but if you build up a strong relationship, it's "friends with benefits" again...and I'm not referring to THOSE sort of benefits in the bedroom (though that certainly applies too). You can buy clothes cheaper (big whoop dee doo), get an instant health boost or get your wanted level reduced big-time. And yes, if you manage to impress your date when you take her out, you can go up to her apartment for a bit of rumpy pumpy that restores your health to the max too.
Consequently, you will get people calling up your cellphone to organise the next mission. Your cellphone can sometimes be more of a bane than a boon...you could be in the middle of a really important mission when a buddy calls you out to visit a strip club. Do you endanger the completion of your mission or do you shun your friend? Once a friend has been shunned, it's difficult to repair the relationship and you have to work twice as hard to get them to like you as much as before.
There are a staggering number of missions in the game...even if you don't do any of the side quests and choose to ignore your buddies and going out on dates, it could still take you a long while to finish the main storyline! If you totally immerse yourself in the game, you could be playing the game for a long long while. I've spent so much time on the game building relationships and doing most of the side missions...and this is without looking for the unique jumps and hidden packages! I don't need 100% completion to enjoy the game after all!
Speaking of hidden packages, GTAIV's version of hidden packages is an absolute hoot. Hidden packages in previous GTA games in the past have included 99 red balloons (yes, it was seriously meant as a joke) but this one really takes the cake!
You can do absolutely whatever you want to in GTAIV. Feel like stealing a cop car and catching some perps? Go for it. Wanna stir up trouble by randomly beating up gang members on the street and have them all attack you en masse so you can practise your shooting accuracy? If you wanna. Grab a worker of the night and after she's "restored your health", attack her and get back the money you paid her? Errr...that was an option already available in all previous GTAs, wasn't it?
GTAIV is a worthy game in the series. As much as I've loved GTA: Vice City, I feel that GTAIV is definitely the best game in the series I have ever played. Just the scope of the game itself is mind-shattering! I've spent many hours just grabbing an RPG and blowing myself up, just to see how far Niko can fly and how realistic his limp body can crash into buildings and cars. The physics of the game is just unbelievably realistic.
GTAIV has been such an awesome gaming experience. The next GTA game, Chinatown Wars, will be released on the Nintendo DS and of course, I'm going to get it. But what I'm REALLY looking forward to is for Rockstar to start working on GTAV or GTA: Vice City 2 or whatever the hell they want to call it.
A real life Vice City full of the pastel colours and a brilliant 80s soundtrack? Hurry up and finish it and release it already, Rockstar!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A New Year...and a new console!
Hey all! Happy New Year to everyone!
Even though it's a new year, still don't quite have the time to update this blog regularly. I was in shock when I realised that I had three people following this blog. Wow. Even though this blog is hardly ever updated, it's still pretty flattering that there are people who are following it!
Anyway, I've never actually mentioned it here, probably because I've been too busy playing video games just prior to Christmas (and in my 10 day holiday period), but Aeris got me an Xbox360 for Christmas!
I was just ecstatic that I received that. I had been talking to Aeris about Xbox360 games and stuff but never did I imagine that she would get me one! And she didn't just get me the console, she got me the two extra games too.
I've only played ONE game on the Xbox360 so far, and it's a game that has taken up the majority of my holidays: GTAIV. Remember just a few blog entries down I was complaining about how I wouldn't get a chance to play this fabulous game on account of the PC version not being compatible to my computer and me not owning a 360 or PS3? You can just imagine how rabid I was in wanting to play the game.
And play it I did. I wonder how many hours I've already clocked up on the game...must be a fair bit! A proper review one of these days, but I don't think I'll ever grow tired of playing it, even when I complete it, I'd be dying to play it a couple more times from scratch!
Even though it's a new year, still don't quite have the time to update this blog regularly. I was in shock when I realised that I had three people following this blog. Wow. Even though this blog is hardly ever updated, it's still pretty flattering that there are people who are following it!
Anyway, I've never actually mentioned it here, probably because I've been too busy playing video games just prior to Christmas (and in my 10 day holiday period), but Aeris got me an Xbox360 for Christmas!
The new Xbox360. Spankin'!
My first Xbox360 games: GTAIV, Fable II and the Lego Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda two-pack that came with the Xbox360 Pro console pack.
The three consoles all hooked up to the TV. All that's missing is the PSP and DS! All I lack now is a PS3...
I was just ecstatic that I received that. I had been talking to Aeris about Xbox360 games and stuff but never did I imagine that she would get me one! And she didn't just get me the console, she got me the two extra games too.
I've only played ONE game on the Xbox360 so far, and it's a game that has taken up the majority of my holidays: GTAIV. Remember just a few blog entries down I was complaining about how I wouldn't get a chance to play this fabulous game on account of the PC version not being compatible to my computer and me not owning a 360 or PS3? You can just imagine how rabid I was in wanting to play the game.
And play it I did. I wonder how many hours I've already clocked up on the game...must be a fair bit! A proper review one of these days, but I don't think I'll ever grow tired of playing it, even when I complete it, I'd be dying to play it a couple more times from scratch!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Review: Boom Blox
Over the last few days, since I first purchased the game last Friday at Knox City SC, I have been playing a simple yet highly addictive and extremely fun game: Boom Blox.
Boom Blox hasn’t been around for too long, having been released a mere seven months ago be Electronic Arts, the same company that produces all those fabulous sports games like Fifa, NHL and NBA games.
I first played Boom Blox when we went to Dean and Emily’s housewarming party earlier in the year and they were playing the portion of this game that required players to remove oblong blocks from a structure carefully so that you don’t topple the entire structure over...basically, a glorified but improved version of the much loved Jenga game.
That was fun enough as it was, but then Dean and Emily tried out the other game modes which included tossing baseballs to knock down point blocks, throwing bowling balls at your opponent’s gem blocks atop a castle (last one standing wins!) and knocking point blocks into various multiplier walls to see who could get the highest score.
As more and more people arrived, we were all still hooked on Boom Blox and must have spent at least three to four hours playing it. It was such a simple game in terms of design, but the fun factor was just enormous...and it was highly addictive since none of us wanted to stop playing it!
I found out much later that the acclaimed Steven Spielberg (director of Schindler’s List, Jaws, E.T. and many many other blockbuster movies) was a director/producer of the Boom Blox game! So it had a big name producer attached to the game, but strangely enough, despite the game’s acclaim, most of friends I knew had never heard of the game prior to trying it at Dean’s place. I know I certainly didn’t know that such a game existed!
Anyway, I remembered how fun the game was so when I saw it on sale, I purchased it. Found out that Target (where I purchased Boom Blox from last Friday) is having a mega sale the three days before Christmas and the same game is only selling for $14.95, a good $25 cheaper than what we paid for it. Grrrr. Even still, it’s such a great game that it’s worth the money.
As I said before, it’s uber addictive and very very difficult to put down once you’ve started. There are over 300+ levels and even though I spent over four hours on the single-player mode alone, I was only 29% through the game!
The single-player mode had an “Explore” feature which allowed players to work their ways through puzzles. There were point blocks on structures that needed to be toppled over in as few throws as possible, the “Jenga” like structures where you had to remove as many point blocks as you could in a set time, and other such puzzles.
There is also an adventure mode in single-player where you have cutesy animal blocks called the Bahhhs (based on sheep) being invaded by the Grrrs (based on bears). The Bahhhs had a castle and you were required to throw bomb balls at the invading Grrrs and prevent them from infiltrating your castle and stealing away the Bahhhs’ precious gems!
In Episode 2 of the adventure mode, the Oooks (based on monkeys) had stolen the Bahhhs’ gems while the Bahhhs were distracted in the fight against the Grrrs, and you were required to invade the Oooks’ castle to retrieve the gems. Cue more throwing of bomb balls at the Oooks’ castle.
It is fantastic storytelling and heaps of fun. What’s really neat is that it’s also a game for kids...apart from needing to use one’s noggin to figure out some of the puzzles, there really isn’t much you need to know...after all, it’s just a matter of tossing baseballs/bowling balls/bomb balls at blocks!
While the single-player mode shines, it’s the multi-player mode that will really get most people going. It’s so much more fun competing against friends and laughing when someone accidentally topples a block structure down. It’s can get competitive, but at the end of the day, Boom Blox is really a superb party game.
The one thing that I must warn those who are interested in the game is that if you do not regularly exercise your throwing arm, it could lead to a great deal of pain and distress after a few hours of playing Boom Blox.
The very next day after playing Boom Blox for a few hours, my right arm was extremely sore and I couldn’t really lift anything heavy at all. I felt as if I were a baseball pitcher who had gone through nine agonising innings of trying to pitch the ball as fast as I could!
I just couldn’t get any strength in my throws, so when playing the multi-player mode against Aeris, I decided to try using my left arm instead. And despite playing for a good one or two hours less, the very next day, my left arm was out of action...and it still hurts like hell!
Boom Blox is a game you cannot afford NOT to get if you own a Nintendo Wii. It is one of the simplest yet most addictive games I have ever played and it utilises the Wiimote so innovatively and efficiently. Even if you are not a hardcore gamer, Boom Blox would most likely appeal to you!
Boom Blox hasn’t been around for too long, having been released a mere seven months ago be Electronic Arts, the same company that produces all those fabulous sports games like Fifa, NHL and NBA games.
I first played Boom Blox when we went to Dean and Emily’s housewarming party earlier in the year and they were playing the portion of this game that required players to remove oblong blocks from a structure carefully so that you don’t topple the entire structure over...basically, a glorified but improved version of the much loved Jenga game.
That was fun enough as it was, but then Dean and Emily tried out the other game modes which included tossing baseballs to knock down point blocks, throwing bowling balls at your opponent’s gem blocks atop a castle (last one standing wins!) and knocking point blocks into various multiplier walls to see who could get the highest score.
As more and more people arrived, we were all still hooked on Boom Blox and must have spent at least three to four hours playing it. It was such a simple game in terms of design, but the fun factor was just enormous...and it was highly addictive since none of us wanted to stop playing it!
I found out much later that the acclaimed Steven Spielberg (director of Schindler’s List, Jaws, E.T. and many many other blockbuster movies) was a director/producer of the Boom Blox game! So it had a big name producer attached to the game, but strangely enough, despite the game’s acclaim, most of friends I knew had never heard of the game prior to trying it at Dean’s place. I know I certainly didn’t know that such a game existed!
Anyway, I remembered how fun the game was so when I saw it on sale, I purchased it. Found out that Target (where I purchased Boom Blox from last Friday) is having a mega sale the three days before Christmas and the same game is only selling for $14.95, a good $25 cheaper than what we paid for it. Grrrr. Even still, it’s such a great game that it’s worth the money.
As I said before, it’s uber addictive and very very difficult to put down once you’ve started. There are over 300+ levels and even though I spent over four hours on the single-player mode alone, I was only 29% through the game!
The single-player mode had an “Explore” feature which allowed players to work their ways through puzzles. There were point blocks on structures that needed to be toppled over in as few throws as possible, the “Jenga” like structures where you had to remove as many point blocks as you could in a set time, and other such puzzles.
There is also an adventure mode in single-player where you have cutesy animal blocks called the Bahhhs (based on sheep) being invaded by the Grrrs (based on bears). The Bahhhs had a castle and you were required to throw bomb balls at the invading Grrrs and prevent them from infiltrating your castle and stealing away the Bahhhs’ precious gems!
In Episode 2 of the adventure mode, the Oooks (based on monkeys) had stolen the Bahhhs’ gems while the Bahhhs were distracted in the fight against the Grrrs, and you were required to invade the Oooks’ castle to retrieve the gems. Cue more throwing of bomb balls at the Oooks’ castle.
It is fantastic storytelling and heaps of fun. What’s really neat is that it’s also a game for kids...apart from needing to use one’s noggin to figure out some of the puzzles, there really isn’t much you need to know...after all, it’s just a matter of tossing baseballs/bowling balls/bomb balls at blocks!
While the single-player mode shines, it’s the multi-player mode that will really get most people going. It’s so much more fun competing against friends and laughing when someone accidentally topples a block structure down. It’s can get competitive, but at the end of the day, Boom Blox is really a superb party game.
The one thing that I must warn those who are interested in the game is that if you do not regularly exercise your throwing arm, it could lead to a great deal of pain and distress after a few hours of playing Boom Blox.
The very next day after playing Boom Blox for a few hours, my right arm was extremely sore and I couldn’t really lift anything heavy at all. I felt as if I were a baseball pitcher who had gone through nine agonising innings of trying to pitch the ball as fast as I could!
I just couldn’t get any strength in my throws, so when playing the multi-player mode against Aeris, I decided to try using my left arm instead. And despite playing for a good one or two hours less, the very next day, my left arm was out of action...and it still hurts like hell!
Boom Blox is a game you cannot afford NOT to get if you own a Nintendo Wii. It is one of the simplest yet most addictive games I have ever played and it utilises the Wiimote so innovatively and efficiently. Even if you are not a hardcore gamer, Boom Blox would most likely appeal to you!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Review: The Simpsons Hit and Run
A couple of blog entries below, I expressed my love for the Grand Theft Auto series of games by Rockstar Games. It was free-form entertainment and one could choose a non-linear path of the game and do side tasks, explore the city...and basically do whatever the hell you wanted to!
But what if there was a game in the vein of GTA but based on another favourite city of mine, with characters that are already part of pop culture and Americana? What if there was a game that could make you fall in love even MORE with said characters and give you a chance to live and breathe in that city?
Of course I'm going to have to buy it and play it. Cue: The Simpsons Hit and Run!
Now, this game has actually been out for several years now. It was originally released on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003, and then on PC later that year. The PS2 released it in 2004 and even the Xbox (original, not the new Xbox360) had it in 2006, so popular was the game!
I had a choice between the GameCube and PC versions a couple of weeks ago when trawling through the collection of games at the Cash Converters in Forest Hill and I decided to get the GameCube version, since I knew that GameCube games could be played on the Nintendo Wii. On hindsight, I probably should have gotten the PS2 version, but ah well.
The problem with the GameCube version, which I learned firsthand only a few days ago when I tried playing the game on my Wii, is not only did you need an original GameCube controller (the Wiimote and even the Wii classic controller doesn't work with the game), but you needed a GameCube memory card to save the game. What a bummer...additional costs I never factored in!
So I had to get a GameCube controller off eBay because it seemed impossible to find in a Cash Converters! EB Games and Game and other gaming stores did have non-official controllers, but I was a bit wary of those, not knowing whether they could actually be used or recognised by the Wii as a GameCube controller.
It was even harder finding a GameCube memory card! But as luck would have it, the Cash Converters at Knox City had the single memory card and I quickly purchased it...none of the game shops I went to had any at all!
So I could now play The Simpsons Hit and Run and boy, it was well worth the wait! It's not as free-roaming as GTA...you could decide to just drive around Springfield knocking things down and crashing into people and getting the cops to chase you if you had too high a "wanted" rating. And there are side missions where you could do favours and tasks for other Springfield-ians to get rewards and even participate in a race to unlock bonus cars. But those numbers pale in comparison to the non-linear side missions that is available in the GTA universe.
Nevertheless, you get to explore Springfield! Be it the Kwik-E-Mart or the Nuclear Power Plant, Springfield is brought to life in vivid detail. While you can't interact with every single person or every single location in the game, just seeing Springfield in 3D is a Simpsons fanatic's dream.
What's really awesome about the game is that when you CAN interact with other Springfield-ians, you get witty quips and memorable one-liners from the show. Once again, a Simpsons fanatics' wet dream. I spent much time just driving around familiarising myself with Springfield...and running down as many pedestrians as I could. Absolutely loved it when you knock someone down and Homer starts singing: "I am evil Homer! I am evil Homer!"
The Simpsons Hit and Run is simply awesome. If you're a fan of The Simpsons, there really shouldn't be any reason why this game isn't part of your collection.
But what if there was a game in the vein of GTA but based on another favourite city of mine, with characters that are already part of pop culture and Americana? What if there was a game that could make you fall in love even MORE with said characters and give you a chance to live and breathe in that city?
Of course I'm going to have to buy it and play it. Cue: The Simpsons Hit and Run!
Now, this game has actually been out for several years now. It was originally released on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003, and then on PC later that year. The PS2 released it in 2004 and even the Xbox (original, not the new Xbox360) had it in 2006, so popular was the game!
I had a choice between the GameCube and PC versions a couple of weeks ago when trawling through the collection of games at the Cash Converters in Forest Hill and I decided to get the GameCube version, since I knew that GameCube games could be played on the Nintendo Wii. On hindsight, I probably should have gotten the PS2 version, but ah well.
The problem with the GameCube version, which I learned firsthand only a few days ago when I tried playing the game on my Wii, is not only did you need an original GameCube controller (the Wiimote and even the Wii classic controller doesn't work with the game), but you needed a GameCube memory card to save the game. What a bummer...additional costs I never factored in!
So I had to get a GameCube controller off eBay because it seemed impossible to find in a Cash Converters! EB Games and Game and other gaming stores did have non-official controllers, but I was a bit wary of those, not knowing whether they could actually be used or recognised by the Wii as a GameCube controller.
It was even harder finding a GameCube memory card! But as luck would have it, the Cash Converters at Knox City had the single memory card and I quickly purchased it...none of the game shops I went to had any at all!
So I could now play The Simpsons Hit and Run and boy, it was well worth the wait! It's not as free-roaming as GTA...you could decide to just drive around Springfield knocking things down and crashing into people and getting the cops to chase you if you had too high a "wanted" rating. And there are side missions where you could do favours and tasks for other Springfield-ians to get rewards and even participate in a race to unlock bonus cars. But those numbers pale in comparison to the non-linear side missions that is available in the GTA universe.
Nevertheless, you get to explore Springfield! Be it the Kwik-E-Mart or the Nuclear Power Plant, Springfield is brought to life in vivid detail. While you can't interact with every single person or every single location in the game, just seeing Springfield in 3D is a Simpsons fanatic's dream.
What's really awesome about the game is that when you CAN interact with other Springfield-ians, you get witty quips and memorable one-liners from the show. Once again, a Simpsons fanatics' wet dream. I spent much time just driving around familiarising myself with Springfield...and running down as many pedestrians as I could. Absolutely loved it when you knock someone down and Homer starts singing: "I am evil Homer! I am evil Homer!"
The Simpsons Hit and Run is simply awesome. If you're a fan of The Simpsons, there really shouldn't be any reason why this game isn't part of your collection.
The holiday season and new books to buy and expect!
There are going to be quite a lot of new comics coming up over the next few weeks...which coincides with the Christmas shopping season, meaning that I've got to learn how to save and budget and prioritise like never before!
Brian Michael Bendis' Secret Invasion just finished...and what a series it was! The anticipation of what would happen in the next issue was just like Mark Millar's Civil War a couple of years ago and boy, was that a fantastic series and Secret Invasion certainly ended with more questions than resolutions.
Yes, the Skrull invasion was halted...was there really any doubt? But the fallout is just about to happen, and it leads nicely into Marvel's event of 2009: Dark Reign. I won't list any spoilers for those who haven't yet read Secret Invasion (and if you haven't, hurry up and go read it already!), but the gist of it is, the Marvel Universe has just become a much darker place with even MORE conspiracies than ever before at the conclusion of the failed Skrull invasion.
While Tony Stark was heralded as the Marvel Universe's saviour only a mere two years ago, with the Superhero Registration Act implemented as a result of the Civil War, he now finds himself discarded by his own government. All his plans post-Civil War failed to yield any fruition and he's failed to deliver on his promise of protecting America with the 50-State Initiative program.
So the government has sacked Tony from being the big kahuna of S.H.I.E.L.D. Wait until you see who they've chosen to be the new big boss...it's the shock ending of Secret Invasion that will resonate and create a ripple effect in all of Marvel Comics' books for years to come!
Anyway, I'll give Secret Invasion a proper review sometime down the line. Back on topic, another new title I'll be adding to my standing list is Dark Avengers, which spins off from the ending of Secret Invasion. There have been quite a number of huge releases in the TPB and HC format such as The Boys: Definitive Edition HC which collects the first 13 issues of Dynamite Entertainment's superb series.
The Boys is a guilty pleasure and the world it's set in is as realistic as it comes in posing the question: What would it be like if there really were superheroes in the real world? Garth Ennis (of Preacher and Punisher: Max infamy, and one of my favourite writers) crafts such a splendid tale of absolute power corrupting absolutely. He certainly doesn't hold back and while there are some moments in the series which are just flat out gross, it IS classic Ennis, which means fans will be treated with over-the-top humour in the vein of Preacher.
Hmm...methinks I should review The Boys sometime down the line too! It's just too good not to have a review!
The Rising Stars Compendium HC also gets released after the new year, which collects the entire series of Rising Stars, from the original 24 issue mini-series by J. Michael Stracyznski, to the three related mini-series. Rising Stars was absolutely brilliant, especially in the first third of the series where it established the world in which 113 special humans with powers lived and how they interacted with society at large.
It's a great time to be a comic book fan...not good for our wallets though!
Francis is also helping me to get the entire series of the Slam Dunk manga in English, published by Chuang Yi Comics in Singapore. 31 volumes means that it'll be a while before I can actually pay him for the order...yipes. Good reading times ahead!
Brian Michael Bendis' Secret Invasion just finished...and what a series it was! The anticipation of what would happen in the next issue was just like Mark Millar's Civil War a couple of years ago and boy, was that a fantastic series and Secret Invasion certainly ended with more questions than resolutions.
Yes, the Skrull invasion was halted...was there really any doubt? But the fallout is just about to happen, and it leads nicely into Marvel's event of 2009: Dark Reign. I won't list any spoilers for those who haven't yet read Secret Invasion (and if you haven't, hurry up and go read it already!), but the gist of it is, the Marvel Universe has just become a much darker place with even MORE conspiracies than ever before at the conclusion of the failed Skrull invasion.
While Tony Stark was heralded as the Marvel Universe's saviour only a mere two years ago, with the Superhero Registration Act implemented as a result of the Civil War, he now finds himself discarded by his own government. All his plans post-Civil War failed to yield any fruition and he's failed to deliver on his promise of protecting America with the 50-State Initiative program.
So the government has sacked Tony from being the big kahuna of S.H.I.E.L.D. Wait until you see who they've chosen to be the new big boss...it's the shock ending of Secret Invasion that will resonate and create a ripple effect in all of Marvel Comics' books for years to come!
Anyway, I'll give Secret Invasion a proper review sometime down the line. Back on topic, another new title I'll be adding to my standing list is Dark Avengers, which spins off from the ending of Secret Invasion. There have been quite a number of huge releases in the TPB and HC format such as The Boys: Definitive Edition HC which collects the first 13 issues of Dynamite Entertainment's superb series.
The Boys is a guilty pleasure and the world it's set in is as realistic as it comes in posing the question: What would it be like if there really were superheroes in the real world? Garth Ennis (of Preacher and Punisher: Max infamy, and one of my favourite writers) crafts such a splendid tale of absolute power corrupting absolutely. He certainly doesn't hold back and while there are some moments in the series which are just flat out gross, it IS classic Ennis, which means fans will be treated with over-the-top humour in the vein of Preacher.
Hmm...methinks I should review The Boys sometime down the line too! It's just too good not to have a review!
The Rising Stars Compendium HC also gets released after the new year, which collects the entire series of Rising Stars, from the original 24 issue mini-series by J. Michael Stracyznski, to the three related mini-series. Rising Stars was absolutely brilliant, especially in the first third of the series where it established the world in which 113 special humans with powers lived and how they interacted with society at large.
It's a great time to be a comic book fan...not good for our wallets though!
Francis is also helping me to get the entire series of the Slam Dunk manga in English, published by Chuang Yi Comics in Singapore. 31 volumes means that it'll be a while before I can actually pay him for the order...yipes. Good reading times ahead!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
GTAIV didn't work. :(
Tried installing Grand Theft Auto IV on my computer late last week...there were so many things to install and so many accounts I needed to create just to play the game!
I needed an account with the Rockstar Social Club, so had to register online. I then needed a Windows Live ID but thankfully, that was linked with my hotmail account, so there was no issue there. Was reading the manual and found out that because the Xbox360 was a Microsoft console, quite a lot of PC games (GTAIV at the very least) could actually be played with an Xbox360 controller!
Hmm...I've always been against the Xbox360, but that makes it a VERY attractive console to get now, not that I really play that many PC games nowadays. But there ARE some games that are only available on Xbox360 like Fable II, plus the Xbox360 games are cheaper than PS3 games! PS3 does have blu-ray but it is so expensive still and the new PS3 consoles do not support old Playstation and PS2 games, something I absolutely hate.
The one thing that is really in the Xbox360's favour is how cheap it is nowadays. Provided one isn't going for the expensive pack with the higher storage space, the Xbox360 is even CHEAPER than a Nintendo Wii nowadays! Dang it...I want one now, but I won't/can't get one!
Anyway, after the installation of GTAIV was complete, I tried the game out. First off, there are so many controls and I had to remap everything because whenever I play PC games, I use the mouse in my left hand...this is especially for first person shooters (Unreal, Quake II etc) and real time strategy games (Starcraft, etc). It took me a really long time to remap the controls. Once I was done with that, I started the game.
Or at least, I tried to. The graphics just were not coming up well at all and the game was extremely laggy...just what one wants, very laggy graphics that were glorified pixels! I went back to the main menu to change the graphic settings, but nothing was working...the graphics were just getting worse, or the game was getting laggier.
I checked the specs on the back of the GTAIV box and to my horror, the minimum required graphics card was so much more advanced than the one we had! Now, I'm sure I checked the video requirements before pre-ordering the game and our graphics card were adequate! So now I was stuck with a game that I couldn't play, and EB Games' refund policy (and probably those of most other places) did not allow refunds for PC games, presumably because there were so many types of software out there that allowed people to copy PC games!
Nevertheless, I didn't want to be stuck with a game I couldn't play, so I brought back the game to EB Games at Forest Hill on Monday evening. I explained the situation to Elizabeth, since she was the salesperson who called me when the game arrived in store and she was also the same person who put through the transaction when I went to pick it up.
I was happy for a trade-in or even an exchange for a lesser game, but to my delight and surprise, Liz said that while it wasn't customary policy, she knew me from having served me on previous occasions and gave me the full refund, logging in the GTAIV game as defective merchandise! Wow, what great customer service, I was certain I was going to be stuck with a game it couldn't use! She didn't have to do that at all since the onus was on me to make sure that my PC system requirements matched that of the game!
I'm sure I'll be going back to the Forest Hill EB games in the future to purchase my games!
I needed an account with the Rockstar Social Club, so had to register online. I then needed a Windows Live ID but thankfully, that was linked with my hotmail account, so there was no issue there. Was reading the manual and found out that because the Xbox360 was a Microsoft console, quite a lot of PC games (GTAIV at the very least) could actually be played with an Xbox360 controller!
Hmm...I've always been against the Xbox360, but that makes it a VERY attractive console to get now, not that I really play that many PC games nowadays. But there ARE some games that are only available on Xbox360 like Fable II, plus the Xbox360 games are cheaper than PS3 games! PS3 does have blu-ray but it is so expensive still and the new PS3 consoles do not support old Playstation and PS2 games, something I absolutely hate.
The one thing that is really in the Xbox360's favour is how cheap it is nowadays. Provided one isn't going for the expensive pack with the higher storage space, the Xbox360 is even CHEAPER than a Nintendo Wii nowadays! Dang it...I want one now, but I won't/can't get one!
Anyway, after the installation of GTAIV was complete, I tried the game out. First off, there are so many controls and I had to remap everything because whenever I play PC games, I use the mouse in my left hand...this is especially for first person shooters (Unreal, Quake II etc) and real time strategy games (Starcraft, etc). It took me a really long time to remap the controls. Once I was done with that, I started the game.
Or at least, I tried to. The graphics just were not coming up well at all and the game was extremely laggy...just what one wants, very laggy graphics that were glorified pixels! I went back to the main menu to change the graphic settings, but nothing was working...the graphics were just getting worse, or the game was getting laggier.
I checked the specs on the back of the GTAIV box and to my horror, the minimum required graphics card was so much more advanced than the one we had! Now, I'm sure I checked the video requirements before pre-ordering the game and our graphics card were adequate! So now I was stuck with a game that I couldn't play, and EB Games' refund policy (and probably those of most other places) did not allow refunds for PC games, presumably because there were so many types of software out there that allowed people to copy PC games!
Nevertheless, I didn't want to be stuck with a game I couldn't play, so I brought back the game to EB Games at Forest Hill on Monday evening. I explained the situation to Elizabeth, since she was the salesperson who called me when the game arrived in store and she was also the same person who put through the transaction when I went to pick it up.
I was happy for a trade-in or even an exchange for a lesser game, but to my delight and surprise, Liz said that while it wasn't customary policy, she knew me from having served me on previous occasions and gave me the full refund, logging in the GTAIV game as defective merchandise! Wow, what great customer service, I was certain I was going to be stuck with a game it couldn't use! She didn't have to do that at all since the onus was on me to make sure that my PC system requirements matched that of the game!
I'm sure I'll be going back to the Forest Hill EB games in the future to purchase my games!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The release of GTA IV on PC!
Got myself a special treat today: my pre-order for Grand Theft Auto IV finally came in so I went to pick it up at the EB Games at Forest Hill!
Now anyone who knows me knows I'm a HUGE Grand Theft Auto (or GTA for short) fan. I played the top-down original Grand Theft Auto years ago on the PC. And then I got the expansion where the setting was in the UK. I missed out on GTA 2 and that was the last of my GTA experience for a while since I came to Australia.
While I was over here, I discovered GTA III, albeit a year or more after its initial release. GTA III is the game that changed free-roaming games forever and spawned so many clones since its inception. Some of its clones were good, some were god-awful but not many reached the same heights as the GTA series. I spent so many long long hours playing GTA III...and I didn't even try to achieve 100% completion in the game!
While I was over here, I discovered GTA III, albeit a year or more after its initial release. GTA III is the game that changed free-roaming games forever and spawned so many clones since its inception. Some of its clones were good, some were god-awful but not many reached the same heights as the GTA series. I spent so many long long hours playing GTA III...and I didn't even try to achieve 100% completion in the game!
And then my favourite GTA game of all time was released in 2003: GTA Vice City. It was set in the 80s in Vice City, which was a lampoon of Miami. It had a killer soundtrack of some of my favourite 80s tunes and even the more obscure ones that I had heard little of but grew to love. It had the bright lights, snazzy "disco" colours and stereotypes of American characters that one saw in movies and tv dramas. And it had the classic GTA gameplay...what was there not to love?
After that came GTA San Andreas, which I own a copy of but have never EVER played, believe it or not. Just never had my PS2 with me when I purchased San Andreas and even now, don't really have the time to play it. Then I deliberately purchased a PSP so that I could play GTA Liberty City Stories, which was pretty awesome as well. And then my second favourite GTA game, GTA Vice City Stories was released on PSP and it had an even MORE killer soundtrack than Vice City!
GTA Chinatown Wars will be released on the Nintendo DS sometime in 2009, but that's a whole other story.
In May this year, Rockstar Games released the sequel to GTA III (well, not quite, but at least in sequential order of numbering, I guess it IS a sequel) on both the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox360: GTA IV. I was shattered...only because I didn't own either console and short of actually going out there to buy one of those next gen consoles, there'd be absolutely no chance I'd get to play this game!
So when I found out a couple of months ago that GTA IV was coming to PC, I knew I had to pre-order it. There was no way I'd be getting a PS3 or Xbox360 anytime soon (if ever!) so here was my chance to get in on the GTA IV experience, the game that so many people were talking about, just as if it were the days after the release of GTA III all over again!
So now that I have it, I can't wait to try it...I'm sure I'll have ample time over the Christmas period to immerse myself in the world of Liberty City once again. Reviews once I've played the game or have completed it!
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