Video Game Review: The Last of Us

Never have I ever played a game where I legitimately felt an emotional connection with characters. I mean, how lame is that? 'Cause like, y'know, they're not real. So lame right?

Seriously though, if there's a game this year, it's this game. And I probably say that about every bloody game I write about, but no, this game will become a classic. It proves that video games aren't just about flashy bang gun violence (even though there's a lot of that in this game), but can be about true engaging story telling.

20 years after an epidemic of mutant cordyceps sweeps across the world turning people into mindless husks, much of civilization is in ruins. The story follows Joel who works as a smuggler unwillingly tasked with escorting Ellie, a teenaged girl, across country to a resistance group called the Fireflies.

On this journey they are faced with the never ending danger of the hostile world as it is after the pandemic; infected humans, hostile scavengers and bandits, even cannibals.



What I did like.

As mentioned before, this game attaches you to the characters. As if you are Joel and you are escorting Ellie. There are times where I've caught myself waiting, just so that Ellie can catch up with me. It's definitely the little things.

Example: Ellie cannot swim, and when hopping on debris to reach to the other side of a rushing sewer, I stopped myself when I got to the other side, turned around and watched Ellie make her way across, just in case she didn't make it. Even though it's a game and I knew she was gonna make it, I still watched anyways because the attachment made me worry.

The chemistry between Joel and Ellie are second to none, there are times in this game, I admit, that got me choked up. If there's anything that this game proves, it's that video games aren't just games anymore, they're stories, stories as good as any book or movie out there.

Ellie will stop to notice the environment from time to time, and even though she swears like a sailor and has seen her fair share of violence, she's still a child at heart. Not only are you protecting her, but you're also seeing the world through her eyes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the survival aspect of the game. Depending on how you handle situations is well tied into how much supplies you had. If there's a situation where you are swarmed by enemies, you can go one of two ways, guns-a-blazing or sneak it out. Both are equally as challenging in any case.

America 2033 is a cruel world and I felt that the environment was beautifully captured. Think I Am Legend. The world is dilapidated and over grown with plants and the like, while hidden in the bowels of buildings, the infected lay in wait for their next meal. Wonderfully well lit, a little bit of graphical tweaking goes a long way.



A huge problem with a lot of video games I find that is that the AI is too predictable or that they're just out right awful and always in the way. Naughty Dog (producers of the game) seemingly found the solution. AI is usually a hindrance, but when going around with Ellie, she actually helps out. If I'm in a fire fight and I run out of bullets, she'll hand me some. If I'm too distracted with shooting people in front of me and there's a baddy flanking (another smart AI perk) me, Ellie will point that out by shouting where he is, or in some cases, she will even take care of him for me.

The little things. Oh man, the little things. Example: Normally in games if an AI is around you sneaking as well, they'll just phase right through the character, like a game glitch. When you're sneaking around all crouched and what not, Joel will always have his hand to the wall, if Ellie is around, Joel's hand will move around Ellie, protecting her.



What I didn't like.

This is probably just me, but games that are very story driven generally don't have much replay value aside from the "visit here and find 6 relics". But since I am not an achievement hunter I don't care for these things. To some this may by an issue, but for myself, when I beat a game, I never touch it again, unless it's something really good. (Mass Effect)

At first the controls feel a little stiff as if you don't have complete control of the character. It felt really sluggish, but over time I got used to it.

There's the option to upgrade your weapons at work benches as the game progresses, but the times you come across work benches is so infrequent that it makes me wonder why weapon upgrading was a component in this game. Even though you upgrade your weapons, they still feel the same.



Naughty Dog knows how to make a good game. Remember when you first got a Playstation and Crash Bandicoot was one of the launch titles, that was Naughty Dog. Over the years they have definitely matured as shown in their current gen video games, most notably in the Uncharted series and most recently, this game, The Last of Us.

The Last of Us, albeit late to the party, is absolutely one of Playstation 3's significant titles that must be played.

Concert: Metric

Ho boy, The Saskatchewan Jazz Fest is back in full swing this year. Last night I had the privilege of seeing Metric for the third time in my short life time.

Opening up for Metric were Saskatoon's favourite dance beat bands, We Were Lovers, and for sure they set the mood of the night with their mad catchy songs. After We Were Lovers were a two person group, Data Romance, hailing from Vancouver who gathered in the crowd quite nicely with their two manned big sounded songs.

I was afraid that the concert was gonna get rained on, but luckily everything cleared up half way through We Were Lovers' set.

I gotta give it up for Metric because they're the one band that I've been listening to from the get go that has remained consistent in their music and their live shows. That's definitely not a bad thing, because 1. if they were getting too wild with 'trying out new sounds' and what not, they'd probably lose me and 2. their live shows are dazzling and so full of energy courtesy of the lovely lovely Emily Haines. Who I mean, dang. I love her, and you wouldn't know it at first glance but she's pushing 40 years old.

Seeing as Synthetica was their most recent album, much of the show was based around the new songs. But of course they had a handful of throwbacks like Empty from "Live It Out" and Dead Disco from "Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?" closing out their set.


Video Courtesy of Youtube user https://www.youtube.com/user/blindspirit?feature=watch>blindspirit

They put on a great show and you can tell they definitely feed off the energy from the crowd and vise versa. It was essentially an infinite loop of hype and excitement.

Review: Top of the Hops 2013

This past Thursday, my friend and I hit up Top of the Hops for the first time. It's simple, you just pay for admission and then you can buy as many tickets for food and drinks as your heart (or stomach) desires. Each ticket was $0.50 and drinks were anywhere from two to six tickets. These drinks could be stingy or generous, it all depends on which booth you went to.

The crowd was filled with a variety of ages and personalities. Some people, were there to pre-drink for parties while others were genuinely interested in trying new/different products like myself. I was able to try many different beers and wines that I would not have otherwise thought of trying for a small price. Some beers are new to Saskatchewan or some cannot even be attained in the country. I ran into friends too, where we were able to make recommendations to one another. It's quite the social event, I plan on going again next year!

Yours Truly

Movies: Oblivion

That new Tom Cruise joint. Sure people think he's a tad silly in real life, but you have to admit, the guy puts out good movies. Oblivion was no different.

Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic film that takes place in 2077 after earth had been left in ruins thanks to a war against the alien Scavengers or 'Scavs'. Although humanity won, earth was left heavily scarred by the use of nuclear warfare against the Scavs. With the earth so polluted with radiation, humanity, or what was left of it, abandoned earth to colonize on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), one of the last drone technicians on earth, discovers a crashed spacecraft which ultimately makes him question what is he actually doing on earth and what actually happened during the war.

I went into this movie not knowing a whole bunch aside from the fact that it looked pretty in the trailers. Damn did it ever look fine on the big screen, but it was no mistake. Joseph Kosinski, the director of Tron: Legacy just so happened to be the director of Oblivion.

I just want to say that I am so happy that this movie wasn't in 3D. Like most movies, it doesn't have to be. I would have to say that this movie was the most visually appealing movie I've seen this year, especially for creating a post-apocalyptic world.

There were a lot of nature and wide shots in this film, which would seem kind of risky, but it did a bang up job of convincing me for two hours that this is the world around me.

Audio? Even better than the visuals. Up until the credits, I didn't know M83 scored much of the soundtrack. Best way I can describe the soundtrack is, it was a mixture between Inception, Tron: Legacy and Mass Effect. Like a sci-fi Hans Zimmer.

Plot? At first it was a tad confusing and sometimes predictable but what didn't make sense was very nicely tied together at the end of the film.



Should you go see it? Hey (wo)man, if you liked Tron: Legacy, you should give this film a chance, even if the plot sounded kind of hokey, at least go for the eye candy. It's a handsome looking movie. If you do decide to watch it, just turn off your head and leave the questions for after the movie. It's science fiction, you just gotta flick the brain off sometimes y'know?

Review | Stars

Let me level with you guys, I never did listen to Stars’ two most recent albums. I kind of fell off after ‘In Our Bedroom After The War’. I guess after my soft rock phase I went through a screamo phase. It’s really hard keeping up with music, frankly it’s a pain in the butt.

Stars recently rolled through town and decided to go check them out for nostalgia sake. I thought it was gonna be bogus since I didn’t know any of the new stuff. Man was I wrong. New songs or not, Stars knows how to put on a show.

What I love those most about a band is how well they can put on a live show. If you don’t got the energy and just stand there and sing while your band stands there and strums, then I’m gonna go night night. But Stars had it all. It was a spot on performance, especially from Torquill Campbell, the male singer, the man is lunatic. I hope to be that good looking when I’m 40.

But what really did it for me was how sincerely thankful this band was to play in Saskatoon. Sure bands say it all the time “Saskatoon, you’re honestly our favourite city to play in. Thank you” then they jet. But Stars would thank the city, then recall times they’ve played here, tell a story or two about the city and how they have some history in it. Additionally, you can tell that they are truly thankful to the fans and how lucky they are to do what they love. And you really can’t knock on a band for that.

I’m kinda just gushing right now. It was a beautiful show and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Video Game Review: XCOM Enemy Unknown

XCOM Enemy Unknown is a turn based strategy game available for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Not a lot of games of this kind of genre out there nowadays. If you've ever played Final Fantasy Tactics, it's something like that. But instead of spending four rounds walking a maximum of two blocks per round just trying to get to your enemy so you can hack them up with your whack ass swords.

Taking place in a near future as an alien invasion begins, the world's nations group together to create the XCOM (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit) project which is tasked with protecting earth from the imminent alien invasion. You play as the commander who commands a squadron of up to six soldiers who vary between skills and classes.

XCOM Enemy Unknown is something of a reimagined remake of the original XCOM games, which were initially released in the early to mid 90s. These games were hailed as masterpieces, so it's only assumed that when somebody wants to remake a game that's being called a "masterpiece", well, you'd better not muck it up.

On the upside, XCOM Enemy Unknown is nothing short of fantastic.

How fantastic? Well it's my favourite game of 2012 (and 2013, so far) and I'm not even a big fan of turn based strategy games. How can a video game make me a fan if I dislike its genre? Well let's find out.

What I did like.

I enjoyed the level of difficulty in this game. It was made in such a way that being gung-ho is a bad idea. But I suppose that's why it's a strategy game. On top of that, you're never really stuck with six set characters, your squad consists of recruits that you must hire.

A squad of six

Each recruit starts as a rookie, but as they level up, they're assigned one of four classes.

• Assault Class
• Support Class
• Sniper Class
• Heavy Class

Each class has their advantages and disadvantages, but to really make a great squadron, you'll definitely have to mix it up. Because I mean, if you have a team of six heavies, it doesn't really help out since they're not too accurate at long or close range. And if enough enemies converge on you, then you're kinda boned.

As mentioned before, this game is turn based strategy where each move has to be carefully laid out. Every turn I made was made with extreme caution, because you never know what's hiding behind the fog.

Bomb disposal battle type

Even if you were to lose, it sucks because you lose all the squad mates that you had brought along (when they die, they stay dead), you still feel the need to keep going. Sure you might rage quit, which I did on numerous occasions (and when I do, I won't play a game for months at a time), you'd come back, because nothing is ever hopeless in this game and everything is entirely doable. Granted you will have to make some decisions that may not be for the best, but you can't win 'em all right?

Soldier memorial

Even though XCOM didn't really have a story line, I still liked it. It's straight forward. It's "Hey aliens are here, you're now an anti alien army, go fight them and learn from what you salvage after battles so that you can become stronger, so you can take down the mothership".

That's it.

No disappointing plot twists or surprise endings. A lot of games try that nowadays, but they almost try too hard. And the result is a silly story.

But what I did enjoy the most out of it was, it's a good time killer. Got an hour to spare before you gotta do something important? Play some XCOM, before you know it. You're ready to leave. Or your late.

What I didn't like.

Only two things really bugged me about this game.

One being, the money management system. The game runs on something of a date system, and at the end of every month, you're granted some funding from nations that are all aboard on your XCOM project. You get this money and you gotta spend it wisely.

Do I purchase new gear for my soldiers? Should I get more ships to defend continents? Should I start up another satellite uplink so that I can deploy satellites over nations?

The list is never ending.

And on more than one occasion, I always feel like I've made a bad choice.

Example: I'll buy a satellite for a nation, because if there isn't a satellite monitoring the skies of a nation, the panic levels increase across that nation. If the nation reaches full chaos, they will back out of the XCOM project and you will lose certain perks that come along with that nation.

That being said, satellites sound like a sound choice right? Usually they are. But then all of a sudden you're next invasion consists of some baddies you've never seen before and they just absolutely demolish your team because you're under equipped.

So that's my problem. Every decision has its pros and cons. But that's just the nature of the game. It's like real life. Except not really.

XCOM Situation Room

The other thing that annoyed me was that even though your attacks were based on your character's aim and accuracy, even with a high accuracy percentage and some decent aim, it still all feels like it's left up to chance.

I can be two square tiles away from a bad guy, and still miss.

It's moments like that where I wanna shake the plasma outta my monitor. But as I said, maybe that's just the nature of the game.

If you wanna change it up, definitely try out XCOM Enemy Unknown. I'm not a big fan of strategy games and if it can make me a huge fan out of it, then it's definitely worth something to check out. And besides, it's available for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, so you really don't have any excuses.

Movies: Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino has such an aura around him that whenever most people hear that he's making a new movie, they’re immediately interested. From such films as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Volume 1 + 2 and Inglorious Basterds, it’s safe to say that he’s made quite a name for himself.

Set in the mid-1800s in the deep south of The United States, the movie follows Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter, and Django, a freed slave whom Dr. Schultz trains to become a bounty hunter, as they head on a journey to rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from a cruel plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

First off, every single actor in this movie is phenomenal. And to have this calibre of actors in a Quentin Tarantino film makes the film even better. I could really go on and on about the actors (mostly Christoph Waltz because he's the finest), but for the sake of the wall of text, just take my word for it. The acting is A+++++ and it deserves every award it gets.

If you're unfamiliar with Quentin Tarantino films, they have a tendency to jump all over the place, between groups of people and/or between points in time. Such as Kill Bill, as the Bride goes through her kill list, the film doesn't go in chronological order, but that's just Tarantino's style.

Django Unchained has to be his most easy-to-follow film since the events take place in chronological order and there are only a handful of characters you have to keep track of. Inglorious Basterds was pretty bad for that in which characters would be introduced out of the blue and killed off in the next scene. (Still a great movie though).

I'd say something negative about the film, but there really isn't anything. Maybe the length of the film, which sat at 2:45. But it is what it is and unlike The Hobbit, I was all attention all the time.



Every review that I write makes it seem like every movie is super awesome great time, and the truth is, this year has been pretty damn good for movies, but if there’s one movie that I’ve written about that you must watch, it’s Django Unchained. Which is my favourite movie of 2012.

Case and Point
Django Unchained is: why I watch movies.

Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I'd just like to point that I'm not crazy about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I did thoroughly enjoy the movies. Well from what I remember at least, it’s been a while. So after the nine year wait (nine years already? Man…) The Hobbit finally graced its presence on the screen, and in select theaters, in 48 frames per second.

All movies up until The Hobbit were shot between 25 - 30 frames per second. With 48 FPS, it allows for a more fluid look of the film, almost lifelike, which takes a lot of getting used to. With the added clarity, at some points in the movie you can tell that the actors are on a set rather than a scene in a movie which kinda takes away from the feel of the movie. But with that all being said, you can still go see The Hobbit in regular 24 FPS in other theaters, which I might actually do.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey and a band 13 Dwarves (Nori, Ori, Dori, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Bofur, Bifur, Balin, Dwalin and their leader Thorin) who take on the quest of reclaiming the Dwarven land: The Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug.

Initially the movie was to be only two parts, but a few months before the release of the movie Peter Jackson had announced that it would be three films. I can’t say whether or not this is the best of ideas since The Hobbit is only one book compared to the LOTR trilogy.

But I think the whole reasoning behind this was the added back story of who's doing what at any given time and/or the development of the characters in this film. From what I was told, the dwarves were seen more as one entity rather than 13 separate dwarves.

I wasn't a big fan of the 48 fps, it seemed distracting and like I had mentioned before, it added another level of clarity in which you can tell when they were on a set and when they were on some landscape which kind of takes away from the film’s feel. But that being said, I somewhat got used to it, so visually, the movie was beautiful. It is exactly what you would expect of a Peter Jackson film.

The Hobbit is definitely a lot easier to follow than LOTR seeing as there aren't as many characters you gotta keep track of. LOTR, I got confused pretty easy. I should just rewatch those damn movies.

Some scenes in the movie seemed unnecessarily drawn out, like when Bilbo meets Gollum for the first time. But maybe it was necessary? I never read the books so I can’t say for sure. I'm just a guy who goes and sees movies.



Seeing as An Unexpected Journey was the first of three movies, this film was a good stepping stone to what we can expect in the next two. This movie introduced such characters as Smaug and the Necromancer, a man who can conjure the dead, both of which are played by Benedict Cumberbatch, you might know him from the UK TV show Sherlock or the bad guy in the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek into Darkness.

So should you go see it? Definitely, if you’ve seen all the LOTR films, you may as well keep the ball rolling. But if you do go see it, do yourself a favour and just watch it in regular 24 FPS. 48 FPS is pretty distracting.

Case and Point
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is: experimental.

Concert: Red Hot Chili Peppers

After 30 years of being a band, touring the world countless times, a handful of member changes and ten albums you would think Red Hot Chili Peppers would see signs of slowing down in their age.



But after last night, RHCP proved that they still got it as much as they ever had had in the prime time of their youth.

Last night I had the opportunity to see Red Hot Chili Peppers once again in concert. Last time I had saw them was the first time they came around in 2006 during their Stadium Arcadium tour. I was seated to the right of the stage on the second level. It was pretty high up but I still could see everything just fine. But I still envy those people who were on the floor dead center.

This time around was the "I’m With You" tour that was written with their new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer who was the backing guitarist for RHCP for some time.

I admit I was a little hesitant to go since I’m a bit of a stickler for original bandmates and stuff. Prior to Klinghoffer was John Frusciante, the one responsible for a lot of RHCP’s sound. I was thinking that it just wasn’t gonna be the same without Frusciante. Nope, I was wrong. Klinghoffer gives the same amount of depth and emotion that Frusciante does when playing the guitar, which is critical to the sound of Red Hot Chili Peppers. On top of that, there's also Anthony Kiedis' pitch perfect spot on singing or Flea's god like prowess on the bass or Chad Smith's masterlike skills on the skins. Without any of that, RHCP would just be another band with a standard 4/4 power cord riff.

The set list blew me out of the water. I was under the assumption that it was gonna be all new songs from their I’m With You album, but instead they had an even ratio that ranged from old school (Give It Away, Suck My Kiss), to the Californication/By The Way (Californication, Can’t Stop, By The Way, etc.) days, to their new stuff, which I won’t lie, I didn’t listen to that album too much.

Red Hot Chili Peppers definitely don’t show any sign of slowing down. The band members excluding Klinghoffer, who is only 33, are of the age of 50 or over. You’d think at that age you’d see signs of wear and tear but absolutely not, they gave it 110%, which just goes to show that RHCP will one day definitely be one of the greats, if they’re not already.

Movies: Skyfall

I feel like I’m too young to review a James Bond movie. So if I were to say Daniel Craig is a damn good Bond, I’d probably be stepping on a lot of toes. So let’s just keep it between Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, the Generation Y Bonds.

In my eyes Pierce Brosnan, will always be the Bond. I grew up with his face plaster to the name, whenever somebody says Bond, I think Brosnan, but that being said, they’re both great Bonds but in their own way. So I won’t draw comparisons between the two, rather I’ll just review Skyfall as if it’s part of a brand new trilogy of movies unique unto its own.

Unlike Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall doesn’t follow the story line of the former, instead it is its own new story. In a sense it was a mini reboot of the Bond series within this era in that it introduced all the pivotal types of characters to the movies before the Daniel Craig era, that being the gadgets, Q, the classic cars and so on.

After a failed mission with the apparent death of James Bond and the retrieval of a hard drive containing a list of national agents that are working undercover within various terrorist cells around the world, MI6 falls under the attack of a cyber-terrorist organization with no clues as to who is heading this terrorist organization.

Bond, completely off the radar thanks to his apparent death, discovers this via news and returns back to duty. In a newly relocated MI6, Bond is put back in the field to find and eliminate the leader of the organization behind the attack.

Of the three movies, Skyfall felt like the Bond movie. The others I felt like they were trying to humanize Bond a lot. Which is ok, not that I have a problem against it, but it felt like it lacked a certain charm that most Bond movies had.

Easily, this was the best of the series. It captured all the necessary Bond moments, like the car chases, the action sequences, the lovely women. But to top it all off, the villain, was truly a villain. Instead of some sort of white collared, “just wanna get rich” villain.

Bardem played Raoul Silva, an ex-MI6 agent turned rouge, on a little revenge trip, looking for those he felt had betrayed him while in captivity. Ranging on genius, Silva’s tactics were always precise, making him consistently two steps ahead of MI6. This guy was a villain, like an, “I just want the world to burn” kind of villain, which is exactly what this series needed.



Should you go see it? Totally. If you've ever seen a Bond movie, and were kinda ho-hum about the last two, this will definitely make up for it. For it is, more or less, a homage to what Bond films should be.

Case and Point
Skyfall is: what GQ would be if they had a gun collection.

Movies: Silent Hill: Revelation

You know those movies that come around every so often that are so bad that they're funny? Silent Hill: Revelation is one of those movies.

I don't know what it is, but movies based off of video games are usually horrendous. I don't know what possessed me to go see this, but I did anyways. Maybe it was because the first Silent Hill was ok.

So, Silent Hill: Revelation follows Heather and Eddard Stark Harry Mason, Harry Mason being the husband of Rose from the first movie, as they try and settle into a new town under the guise of Sharon and Christopher Da Silva.

Why are they on the run? Because a cult from Silent Hill is looking for Heather and they wanna bring her back so that she can be the capsule for the cult's new god... or something like that.

Day one, Heather goes to school and meets Jon Snow Vincent, then she returns home to find that her dad is missing and finger painted on the wall with blood, a message: "Come to Silent Hill". So then begins the adventure to Silent Hill, so that Heather can retrieve her father and figure out the truth behind everything.

That's the shorten version of it. The entire movie I was completely confused, the plot was messy and a lot of the actions from the characters in this movie didn't make sense.

For example: two Silent Hill Cult guards walk into a horrified, rusty emergency room with a man on a gurney. Inside this ER, are creepy nurses that cannot see, and only respond to sound. So these guards roll this gurney in causing all sorts of audible ruckus, stirring the nurses.

When the nurses wake, they slash at anything and everything.

You'd think that being a guard, in Silent Hill, for however many years, and knowing the location of this room, you would know that there are blind psychopath nurses that slash at any sounds.

You'd think when pushing the gurney into the room, they'd do it with extreme caution so that they don't get stabbed and mutilated.

Nope. Instead they ram the stupid gurney into the room and start screaming at the nurses trying to push them back with their hands and cattle prod acting like they're SWAT in a giant riot. But of course, the nurses overwhelm the guards and do what they do, which is stab and mutilate.

What did you expect? Was this your first time coming into contact with these nurses? Who hired you?

Anyways, that didn't make sense and to think that this was just one scene. Try and hour and a half of this stuff.

I guess on the upside, if you stop trying to make sense of the movie, it becomes really funny, but unintentionally, because this is a scary spooky horror movie.

But what makes me the most sad is that Sean Bean and Kit Harrington are fantastic actors. They have the chops and you can see that in Game of Thrones. In this movie they seem like B-Movie actors trying their hardest to mask their English accents.



Should you go see it? No man, just go to Hi-Tech Gametraders, fork over the same amount as you would for a ticket and play the game(s).

Case and Point
Silent Hill: Revelation is: as confusing as realizing that girls don't have cooties anymore.

Review: Mizuno Neo Estrela

I just received these Mizuno's this past month, so I seemed fitting to do a review for all of those players looking for new indoor boots.

Marketing
Not this boot specifically, but the Neo series looks to find the consumer who wants a lightweight leather boot. This one weighs in at about 6.5 oz, I remember owning Vapor III's and IV's (lightest at their time) which weight between 7-8 oz. You can actually feel the difference in weight from wearing a standard cleat to putting these on. The Neo shoes were made by slimming down their classic Morelia model. The shoe is currently being worn by Hulk. The model I have is one tier lower (Japan exclusive) using a full grain leather instead of a kangaroo leather. The Estrela also has HG (hard ground) studs and are meant for artificial turf.

Fit
I went up with a half size larger than usual. They have a normal width, I didn't need them to widen at all. That being said, the shoe only molds to your foot. It won't really stretch.

Breaking In
It only took me a couple of sessions to break in. I have played three small sided games and kicked balls around Forest Park twice. I will mention that the sole is kind of stiff at the start, so do some running around your first couple of times wearing them rather than juggling and shooting balls. The quicker they break in, the sooner that they are match ready.

Price
I paid $160 for my pair, which I thought was quite affordable for a top level boot. For most lightweight boots regular price you are usually looking at $200 minimum.

Positives
There are many positives. To begin with, the boots are affordable for being a high tier product. Another positive is that it is both lightweight and leather. On top of that, the leather is soft. Lastly you can wear them straight out of the box, there is zero stud pressure.

Negatives
The only disappointment I have found so far is the support system. It is no more than a thin insole, but not as bad as the F50 adiZero lightweight insoles. They are still comfortable but comparing it to a Nike Zoom Air, it really doesn't compete. If you are a defender (or just wreckless) and think you may get a lot of studs to your feet, I would recommend a boot with a thicker upper.

Conclusion
This boot was a test to see how I felt towards Mizuno and lightweight cleats in general. So far, I am happy. I would like to see Mizuno enter the North American market in the next couple of years. To speak on lightweight boots, I enjoy them but have found that it is not a top priority anymore when making purchases. If you play soccer and are looking to try something different, I recommend you look at the Mizuno line. I enjoy mine so far, and my brother seems to love both of his pairs.

Yours Truly

Movies: Looper

So this review is long time in the making.

I went to go see Looper a few weeks back with JJ and his friend. I really wanted to see it, but I didn’t make any active plans to gather people to actually go see it. Luckily JJ asked if I wanted to join, so I did.

The film follows around “Joe” who is a looper, which is a specialized assassin that contracted by the future mob. In the future, where time travel is possible and pretty much banned right away (butterfly effect and stuff like that), it is near impossible to kill and dispose of a body.

So what the future mob does is: they grab the hit, throw a bag over their head, executioner style, send him back in time (even though it’s illegal, but it’s the mob, what do they care?) to a specific location where a looper will be waiting. Once the hit appears, the looper simply kills the hit and disposes of the body.

Once the future mob is finished with a looper, they “close the loop” by finding the looper’s future self, grab him and send him back to the past where the past looper eliminates himself. Closing the loop leaves the looper with a handsome amount to retire with so they can get on with their lives and do whatever they want.

But for Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) here, future Joe (Bruce Willis) is a little too crafty for that. So crafty that future Joe manages to escape, which is bad news for past Joe.

I’m so bad at describing and explaining things, Looper is probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever have to explain. But that’s done with.

Looper has such a great, great, great story. Explaining it is more difficult than actually understanding the movie when you watch it. There probably hasn't been a good time travel movie since Back to the Future. But what probably gets me the most is that this is a unique story line. Not a remake, which seems to be every movie this year.

Without giving too much away, the way they utilize certain time travelling elements with the movie is pretty damn unique. The movie does take a turn that you do not expect at all. All of a sudden it becomes a whole different movie, which I definitely did not anticipate. But it takes a good turn. Like a right turn into a Tim Hortons drive thru with nobody in line. A good turn.

But that being said, after the movie, JJ noticed a handful of loop holes that could probably be debated until the end of time. Like the ending of Inception. But it’s one of those things I really can’t say because it’d take away from the movie. Which is sort of a bummer, because I’d like to tell you more but I just can’t!



Should you go see it? Absolutely. It’s a smart movie but not overwhelmingly confusing, it's not like an episode of Lost. Although my feeble attempt at explaining it doesn't help. So just go watch it, then you'll get it.

Case and Point
Looper is: metaphoric.

Movies: Dredd 3D

Bloody remakes galore in this latter part of the 21st Century. Dredd being one of them. Sorry Dredd 3D. Because it’s in 3D. They should’ve just emphasized the D’s in Dredd, to signify it was in 3D.

DreDD 3D

Dredd 3D is a remake of the 1995 film Judge Dredd. But in a way, it’s not quite a remake. It’s more of a same-universe, same-name, no-story-relation kinda thing. You know how I am with explaining things. Very poor.

This movie stars Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, Olivia Thirlby as Judge Anderson and Cersei Lannister Lena Headey as Ma-Ma.
In the future, North America is a wasteland with new cities built on top of the old called Mega Cities. The only policing forces in these cities are Judges who act as the judge, jury and executioner.

Judge Dredd is tasked with evaluating a sub-par Judge in training, Judge Anderson whose doo-doo test scores were overlooked due to her keen psychic abilities. Bear with me here.

The two go on call to a slum mega structure apartment called "Peach Trees" which is ran by a gang overlord named "Ma-Ma". Upon hearing that Judges are in the premise, Ma-Ma locks down the apartment complex and orders the execution of these two judges.

Dredd 3D was as action/popcorn movie as a movie can get, which is a dang wonderful thing. I love these kinds of movies; it was just like The Raid: Redemption, just turn off your head and watch the movie.

There wasn't any forced romance in the script or any wannabe mind melting plot twists in the movie, it was a straight forward plot. Go in, do your job, get out. That's it.

In terms of an action movie, it's 18A or Rated R for a reason. The action sequences usually ended with très brutal results. And frankly, if I mention any of them, it'd spoil the movie, spoiling it more so than me actually telling you the ending.

This movie didn't really have to be in 3D, the only parts in the movie that really utilized the 3D were the scenes where people would get high off of "slo-mo".



It was pretty in 3D. But really not necessary. 3D in general isn't necessary. Man I hate 3D.

But in the end, my favourite part of the movie is Judge Dredd's frown progression. It goes from neutral line to extreme lost faith in humanity arc.



Anyways, if ultra-violence and gun fights are your thing. This movie is your jam. I enjoyed it, and for a matinee movie, definitely worth the price. Shoot, I'd go watch it again.


Case and Point
Dredd 3D is: what you'd watch after waking up in your jeans.

HS x VG: Tekken Tag Tournament 2

Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the latest in the Namco Bandai Tekken series.

My brother and I (whom you probably know and don’t even know it, because everybody knows him, because I get the whole “Are you Chester’s brother?” line probably once a month.) are secret fighting gamers.

In a saturated world of competitive FPS gamers, I’ve always seen the competitive fighting scene very niche. Hell, when I went to go pick this game up, it was sitting a glass showcase behind the cash register surrounded by Xbox 360 and PS3 copies of NHL 13 in its own lonely little corner.

If there are fighting gamers out there, this review is for you. For those who have absolutely no interest in fighting games, you might not know what I’m rambling on about.

Anyways, TTT2 does not follow the Tekken canon at all for it is a comprehensive compilation of everything in the Tekken universe, such as characters that were in the previous games that have since died in the story or old fighting stages from the previous games ranging back from TTT1. Honestly, I don’t know squat about the story lines of fighting games because frankly, who follows them?

We’re in it for the action and bragging rights.

What I did like.

Tekken 6 was intensely addicting for me. I could play it for hours on end, honing what little skill I had. This time around, TTT2 improves upon the gameplay of Tekken 6, not changing much of the move list (which is a good thing) and introducing the game mechanic of tagging.

TTT2 is a tag fighting game, with options to play 2 vs. 2, 2 vs. 1 or 1 vs. 1 like traditional Tekken.

With 2 vs. 2, players have the option to switch between two characters on a team, such as tag is, like wrestling. Press a button and your other character will swap out. Then you can throw down crunchy combos for maximum damage. But if you be so bold, you can combine combos between the two characters with the tagging system.

Certain moves allow players to tag their partners seamlessly to allow for more face pumping. Some people in this world are so good at this that if you get caught up in these combos, you could pretty much die from the drop of the hat. It’s a cruel world.



The online mode has been improved 10 fold. Before it would be like matching making in a FPS server where you would have to wait around until the game found you a match, granted you still have to wait for the search to complete, but while you’re waiting you get put in practice. I’m all for this. It’s a great way to kill time and to loosen up before your next online match.

But if you prefer, you can create lobbies where other online players can connect to depending on your search criteria like, I only wanna play against people who don’t have microphones and people who live in my region.

Region selecting helps with lag issues. You don’t wanna play against some dude located in London, too far away, so the connection between matches might not be so nice. Which leads me to my next point, in Tekken 6, the lag online was so bad. Lag does not fly in fighting games.

Tekken is based on timing, and with lag throwing you off, you could be in the middle of something, next thing you know you’re dead. Not rad.

TTT2 definitely fixed the latency issues. Even in online matches where I would have full bars, my timing would still be off. Totally not my fault.

There are also a slew of little things that I love in this game. So I’ve made a list.

• Your move list can be locked on screen when practicing moves; you can also traverse through it while in game play. So you don’t have to pause the game, go down a few paces, select the command list, open it up, find the move you were working on, memorize it, then try it out. A little cumbersome I’d think
• There are also little icons that indicate what type of moves do what in the command list. Such as, “you can do a seamless tag swap out with this move” or “this move is a ground smash”, just little things like that.
• You can throw in your own soundtrack in this game. So if you don’t wanna listen to the in game music, you can upload your own playlist and have so and so song play in so and so stage.
• They put back the regular arcade mode. 9 stages, 3 boss fights, that kinda thing. Tekken 6 had just a never ending arcade mode where you would fight and fight and nothing would get accomplished. No ending movie, you had to unlock that elsewhere.

Yeah I’m kind of swooning over this game, it’s basically the only game that I’ve been looking forward to in the past few months.

What I didn’t like.

Load screens are still prevalent in this game. Granted the wait is still a little less, but having to load up everything, every time, is a bit annoying.

This will probably be something very minute to most people, but in the character customization mode, nobody has their own unique hair options. Everybody has the same select hair types. I want my Kazuya to have a pompadour. Now he can’t get it anymore. How am I supposed to strike fear into other players if my Kazuya doesn’t look like this?

The tag combo system is very tricky to get used to. Having to switch your mindset to each characters move list is taxing. It’s probably just me, but if I’m playing a character for a bit and I switch to another character, I’m still trying to do moves that my previous character has, but the commands won’t register with my current character. Basically I’m just flailing around until I realize I’m somebody else.

Fighting games are definitely not everybody’s cup of tea. But if you’ve been keeping up with Tekken, this is definitely one to pick up. It basically improves everything about Tekken 6, which was already a swell game.

Most might think fighting games are just a bunch of idiots button mashing to win, but actually they’re amazingly in-depth. More so, you wouldn't think it, but I Tekken easier to play than Street Fighter, which is extremely technical. Ask my brother if you run into him. That’s his jam.

If you are interested in fighting games but don’t really know if you could commit, check this one out anyways. You can still rent video games at Hi-Tech Game Traders. But like all things, practice practice practice.

Fighting games are fun and competitive, they don’t make me wanna take my PS3 and suplex it through a table off the top turn buckle, unlike FPS games.

But if you don’t give two hoots about fighting games then carry on.

HS x VG: Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs, a title formally known as True Crime: Hong Kong.

After Activision had pulled the plug on True Crime 3, Square Enix took the reins, with United Front Games on the development side of things.

Sleeping Dogs is something of an open world, good cop, bad cop game. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop who must infiltrate the Sun On Yee, a Hong Kong triad gang, and rise in ranks in order to take them down.

But like all undercover cases in video games, Wei Shen becomes emotionally invested.

This game is basically "Donnie Yen: The Official Video Game"

What I did Like.

Despite this game taking place in Hong Kong, much of the dialogue is scripted in English. That being said, the makers of this game definitely didn’t forget about the Hong Kong fact. Much of the word play was a mixture between English and Cantonese, (don’t worry there were subtitles) at times it did seem a bit forced, but eventually you got used to it.

With the Cantonese, it definitely did help with the feel of the game. Much of the interaction with characters in the game was in English, but as you are running around on the streets, everybody speaks Cantonese.

The voices behind this game were all notable actors. Emma Stone, Kelly Hu, Lucy Liu, James Hong, even Robin Shou (Liu Kang from the Mortal Kombat movies). All solid voice actors, and you can really tell.

I’ve never been to Hong Kong before, but this game seemed to me that it did a bang up job on capturing the environment.

From the posh downtown to the seedy areas, all in a compact world.

You will probably read a lot of reviews mentioning that this game is a GTA clone. And technically it is, but it definitely feels like all the good parts in a GTA game. It’s a combination of Yakuza and GTA in which you have the environment and gameplay of GTA and the fighting mechanics of Yakuza.

While brawling in Yakuza, you utilize the environment a lot. The same went for Sleeping Dogs, albeit, it’s probably five times more brutal. You can grab a guy, drag him to a fan and chuck him into it then watch him get sliced up. My favourite one had to be throwing a guy onto a pallet of swordfish heads. Rugged.

The music in the game was quite good, for it did a great job on capture moods. Not much else you can really hope for with music. I suppose there was the radio as well, a few channels that ranged from Classical Chinese music to UK dance music to classic rock. Different strokes for different folks.

There a few things you can do in this game aside from missions. If it peeks your interest, you can go to a bar and sing karaoke songs or you can find a local street race and win some cash or participate in a fight club.

The story was quite surprising. I didn’t think it would too substantial, but it was the main reason why I kept playing. Like all good games should be. It reminded me of a good Chinese movie. And I’m a damn sucker for Chinese movies.

What I didn’t like.

My inner traditionalist kind of wishes that this game would have been completely Cantonese, with the odd exception of Wei Shen speaking English to his cop subordinates from Interpol, but alas it wasn’t. When they meshed the Cantonese into the English speaking Triad members, it felt really forced.

Pardon my language.

“Dogeyes? He’s a pok guy. That lok chat is worse than puk gai.”

With subtitles on you will see this.

“Dogeyes? He’s a (mother fucker). That (cock) is worse than (shit).”

But luckily, it doesn’t take away from the game too much. You get used to it, and I’m just glad that they kept the Cantonese aspect in the game.

A lot of the side missions were extremely repetitive. Mucho chase sequences, whether it be in cars or on foot. After a while it got pretty old. The first times around it’s a rather exhilarating. Shooting a car while it explodes in slo-mo then jumping from your car to another car to hi-jack it. Not too shabby. But after doing it for 15 times in a row, you get kinda tired of it.

The fighting mechanics in this game took a lot of getting used to. I was still sorta stuck on the Yakuza game play, where it would be: square for attacks and triangle for heavy attacks, but this one it’s square for attacks and hold square for heavy attacks and triangle is counter.

First time around I was jamming square and at the end of the combo I’d hit triangle expecting a heavy attack combo finisher, but what it actually does is, it puts Wei Shen into a defense kinda mode where he will pose, waiting for a baddy to hit you. But if the baddy doesn’t hit you at the right time, it just leaves you open for attack. Kinda sucky.

But like the Cantonese and English meshing, you got used to it. Actually after a while, it wasn’t so bad. I was kinda salty at dying all the time because I was screwing everything up. But as your skills got better, you become unstoppable.

If you’re looking for a game that is something new, definitely check out Sleeping Dogs. It’s not too long of a game if you just do the story, but if you are a completionist and wanna do everything, there’s no doubt in my mind that this game could range up to 30+ hours.

This game does a spot on job on capturing the fictitious seedy world of Hong Kong triads, and it more or less feels like you’re playing a movie. You won’t wanna turn off the game until you figure out the next piece to the story and in my mind that alone is worth the purchase.



Bonus because I like this trailer:

Movies: The Dark Knight Rises

On Wednesday I got to watch the wonderful conclusion to the Nolan Batman series.

Did it live up to the hype? It certainly did. But of course everybody asks, "Well, will it be as good as The Dark Knight?"

No.

Heath Ledger did a bang up job on The Joker and I don't think anything can really top that. So let's just... like... leave it at that. The Dark Knight Rises is its own movie and a good ass one at that.

The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is currently laying low, without spoiling anything from The Dark Knight (also if you haven't watched The Dark Knight at this point, then you're just being silly), because Gotham City is in peace time and they don't need Batman right now.

Then Bane (Tom Hardy) comes along and starts messing with stuff, essentially throwing Gotham City into disarray with the whole notion that the rich must be knocked down several pegs. So now Batman's gotta CLR the rust and get going so he can stop this Noob-Saibot-Mask-Wearing-Terrorist-Mastermind-Beefcake.

Like most Christopher Nolan movies, he shoves you in media res and expects you to figure it out as the movie plays out. Granted it wasn't too hard to understand, but some things just didn't make sense up until the ending of the movie.

Even for a two and a half hour movie this movie felt very "straight to the point". Like conversations. I'm used to listening to characters banter about so and so until they actually get to the point.

One thing that I wanna pick at is: Christopher Nolan must be messing with us. When his characters talk, they always seem like they have to pop out, not only in actions, but also vocally.

Every time you hear Bruce Wayne talk, he's fine.

Every time you hear Batman talk, he sounds like he's been trapped in a desert for eight months and all that he had to sustain himself with was 100 cartons of cigarettes.

This time around we have Bane who sounds like an old eccentric billionaire talking through a 1940s AM radio station.

It was to the point where every time Bane started talking, all 13 of my IQ points had to adjust itself to understand Bane and his radio play filter voice. Basically 79% of the time Bane started talking, I would miss what he would say.

But hey, it's a fresh take on Bane right? They could've just copped out and just made Bane have an angry muffled growl the entire time.

At first I thought the addition of Catwoman was gonna taint the movie a bit. But Anne Hathaway played it off very well. Maybe it's just me but I've had a crush on her since Get Smart.

Catwoman was something of a middle point in regards to morals. On one hand she's a cat burgler, who will do whatever it takes to get that $$$. But on the other hand, she will only steal from the extremely wealthy. Sorta like Robin Hood, but instead she takes from the rich and gives to herself.

What I love about every Nolan movie is how you're left in a suspense with a dash of confusion throughout the entire film, but by the end of it, he ties everything together.

Naturally TDKR was no different.

Everything I had said earlier were the only gripes I had with the movie. Aside from that this movie was bueno with a very satisfying ending to the series.

Of all the rebuilds of Batman, The Dark Knight series truly captures the darkness that surrounds Batman. It's the closest a comic book movie can get to reality without having the over-the-top comic book feel.



Should you go see it? Absolutely.

Comic book movies always suffered from this stigma where they would seem too over the top and cheesy or that they'd be horribly off from the original material making the die hard fans lose a part of their souls every time somebody mentions it.

The Dark Knight series shows that comic book movies can be done extremely well if you spend the time into such a thing as opposed to just making a movie about whatever just for the sake of making it.

Case and Point
The Dark Knight Rises is: The unofficial film of the 99%.

Movies: The Amazing Spider-Man

There's no denying that this summer is the summer of superheroes. The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider Man.

I will say this now, The Amazing Spider Man is definitely no (The) Avengers, but that being said, it's still a good watch.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a friend saying that there were advanced screenings of The Amazing Spider Man for 8:00PM. I didn't think I had anything to do yesterday, so I agreed to go.

The Amazing Spider Man is a reboot of the Spider Man film series, starting off with new cast and directors. Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker / Spider Man and Emma Stone plays Parker's original love interest, Gwen Stacy. So it's the whole origin story all over again, but this time with The Lizard as opposed to the Green Goblin like the first trilogy.

The Lizard is an excellent stepping stone for the first of this series, he's not too critical of an antagonist, but is still crucial to the development of Peter Parker's story.

Remember this show?



Well the first bad guy was The Lizard. So there we go.

This movie did a way better job of portraying Spider Man than the previous trilogy in the fact that he is more of a wise cracking smart aleck than some sort of introverted teenager.

Also, he made web shooters. They weren't natural web shooters like the other movies. That always bugged me.

Hell, even the fighting scenes in the movie felt more like Spider Man than the last movie despite it being 85% CGI. His fighting style was a lot like a... well, a spider. Instead of kicking and punching, Spider Man was all over the place, completely utilizing his environment to his advantage as he should be.

In its own way, this movie subtly set the tone of what's to come in this new series of films. The most significant of it all had to be the nonchalant introduction to OsCorp, which is Norman Osborn's (The Green Goblin) company.

So you know The Green Goblin is gonna pop up. Maybe the next movie? Maybe the one after that.



Alright, maybe I compared this movie a lot to the original series, but that doesn't mean you absolutely have to watch the original series to like this movie.

It stands on its own as it should, seeing as it is a reboot, with new characters and stories.

Should you go see it? Definitely. Instead of Hollywood butchering most adaptations of novels, movies or video games, this movie will give you the same feeling as if you were reading the comic books.


Case and Point
The Amazing Spider Man is: as close to reading a picture book you can get without the reading part.

Saskatchewan Jazz Fest: Feist

This past Saturday I had the greatest honour to see Feist perform live in concert for the second time. The first time I had seen her in Regina, being dead set in the center this time around, it was so much sweeter.



Feist has this certain charm about her in which she looks like a doll on stage, but she goes hard when the time calls, like some sort musical Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. She's truly a lady who loves her job.

Feist is accompanied by several new live band members for her Metals tour. The most notable being the back-up singers, these ladies are actually a band themselves: Mountain Man.

As Feist was going along, these ladies were almost like 21st Century doo-wop revival singers. And by that I mean they were dancing the entire time as they were singing. It was a nice little addition to the live show.

The majority of the show were songs from Feist's new album, Metals. I won't lie to you, I wasn't a huge fan of Metals, but seeing it performed live did the album a great justice.

But on top of all that were some of her other songs from previous albums such as Let It Die or The Reminder. Most of these songs were re-done live which made them sound like new songs. I'm guessing they were done this way so that they matched the mood of her Metals album, which is a bit darker.

But when she played some of her old songs, in their original format, the crowd ate it all up. Such classics as My Moon, My Man or Sea Lion Woman.



(This video belongs to shuabert via YouTube)

If a live show isn't interesting, then you may as well stay home and listen to the albums. Leslie Feist knows that, and sweet baby does she put on a good show.

Durr Movies: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Alright, normally I try to stay away from being crabby when watching a movie, even more so when I'm reviewing it. But not today.

Today I review Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the film adaptation of the 2010 book of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith.

I should've stuck to my gut and abstained from watching this movie, but my brother wanted to go watch it so I impulsively went along.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter tells the fictitious untold story of Abraham Lincoln. Before Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States, he was a vampire hunter. Taught in the ways of vampire hunting by Henry Sturges, a veteran vampire hunter, Lincoln learns the skills needed to exact his revenge on the vampire that killed his mother.

Probably 75% of the movie is a flash back. I assumed when the narrator (Lincoln) rambled on about his "untold story", that it was just gonna be a 20 minute scene where he sees so and so get killed and then showing honest Abe getting all angry and what not.

Nope, the entire movie was his origin.

So the entire movie, I was kinda just sitting there thinking, "this is a really long flash back". I blame the narrator's wording.

It might as well have been a flash back because the scenes in the movie moved so bloody fast. At one point you see Mr. Lincoln swinging an axe with kung fu fluidity, next he's in Illinois looking for work. The segue with the scenes was brutal. It was a keep up or die, I mean, not that it was hard to follow this movie at all.

I think the problem was that this movie tried so hard to be blade, but it couldn't pull it off.

The fighting scenes were highly stylized in that every. little. thing. had. to. be. bullet. time.

It drove me insane. Every axe swing, every decapitation, every gunshot, was all slowed down. Like, I realize that this was super cool at one point, but I think we've passed that point. It was almost as bad as if a movie were to parody the famous bullet dodge scene from the first Matrix.

You can do better dang it.



Should you go see it? Probably not. Just buy the book, it'll benefit your brain.

Case and Point
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is: like getting dumped; it gets worse the more you think about it.