Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

I have mixed feelings about Silver Linings Playbook. To be sure, it had several laugh out loud moments that felt more meritorious than the cheap laughs achieved in most modern comedies. But the drama was somewhat confusing, and it could either be the case that the writers created a deep and subtle psychological struggle or they were utterly conventional. The main character, Pat (played by Bradley Cooper), has recently been released from a mental institution to which he was dedicated after committing a violent act towards his wife's lover. His motivation throughout the film is to improve himself and regain the affection of his wife. Along the way he meets a similarly eccentric woman, Katniss (played by Katniss), with whom he agrees to help in her dance contest.

Here is why I say the drama is confusing: from the beginning, Pat's quest to woo his wife seems to be a lost cause, and one can reasonably expect that at some point he will become romantically interested in Katniss. [SPOILER ALERT.] He does, but not explicitly until the very end of the movie. It's as if he realizes what the audience has known the entire movie: he doesn't have a chance of reconciling with his wife, but there's a readily available female right in front of him (who happens to be like 15 years younger, but whatever).

I'm also unsure how I feel about the plot element created by Pat's father (played by Robert De Niro) who is a compulsive gambler and decides to put a high stakes bet upon the dance performance of Pat and Katniss. It is reminiscent of the fact that people place wagers on the outcome of events they otherwise have no interest in. Is it the case that the plot absent the betting lacks an adequate amount of tension that the writers feel that they have to add more by having gambling involved? There is an argument to be made that it is: we all know Pat isn't going to get his wife back (as if his success as a dancer had any bearing on it) and they don't expect to be serious competitors but want to pass a minimum score (stipulated by the bet). So, the jury is still deliberating whether this was a legitimate tactic or a cheap way to create more tension.

Lastly, Chris Tucker once again demonstrates why he deserves an award for best supporting actor. We look forward to his next buddy cop film.

Finest Fights: Gorgeous (1999)

Life has been busy for you pals at Code Redd Net. We apologize for our inattention and promise to be more prolific once the academic busywork winds down. In the meantime, please enjoy this fantastic fight scene from Jackie Chan's Gorgeous. It may not be our favorite Chan film, but this is certainly one of his best scenes.

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Finest Fights: CZ12 (2012)

For over two years, Code Redd Net's Finest Fights series has brought you the very best of action cinema available on the web. For real, I mean it, we started this business over two years ago. Finest Fights rolls on this week with a selection from Jackie Chan's latest, and potentially his last, action film.

In limited release today is Jackie Chan's CZ12, aka Chinese Zodiac. Though I haven't seen the version being released to North America, I purchased a copy of the film on DVD from my local Chinatown market. It's not very good. There's about 20 minutes of quality material near the end of the film, but the rest of it is decidedly mediocre. It's not Tuxedo bad, but it's not far off from it either, and at least the Tuxedo was short. CZ12 is overlong, meandering, and childish. This is by far the best scene in the entire film, but it's not nearly enough to save the rest of the film. But I suppose that's what Finest Fights is for: bringing to you the best in action cinema, condensed and filtered for optimum enjoyment. Look for a full review of CZ12 soon.

Jackie Chan in... CZ12 (2012)

Here's the North American release trailer for Jackie Chan's latest film, CZ12 aka Chinese Zodiac. Might be better than The Tuxedo. We'll see.

PS3 Review: Mirror's Edge (2008)

There's not much else to first-person gaming besides shooting. Outside of a few experiments with the perspective in other genres (including my sentimental favorite, "First Person Football" from ESPN NFL 2K5), it's a technique that has stayed with bullets through thick and thin. While Mirror's Edge may not be a total departure from the FPS model, it's certainly the best first-person action game on PS3 to actively discourage gunfire. Your character doesn't even come equipped with weaponry: you have to pick one up from a disarmed governement thug. Instead, the focus is on parkour techniques, finding creative ways to navigate the urban landscape while outrunning or tracking down corruption.

You play as Faith, a "runner" in an unnamed but thoroughly dystopian city. The city is a bright, gleaming, sterile metropolis, and this facade hides a totalitarian state in total control of supposedly democratic elections. Faith is one of many runners actively working with an underground resistance group to expose the state and free its subjects. Most of this story is told through animated cinematics between missions, though in-game cutscenes occasionally push the plot forward as well. It's a fairly well paced plot, though there is often not enough emphasis placed on the narrative stakes to make actions seem meaningful. As a result, I often felt as though I was merely encountering the next urban jungle gym, not racing against time to rescue Faith's sister, for instance. A voiceover guide helps to stress certain story aspects as you run about the levels, and he is particularly useful in underlining the offscreen urgency of any situation, but it's not enough to sufficiently work in larger narrative consequences.

Thankfully, however,  Mirror's Edge makes up for the failings of its story with first-person parkour. The key here is an almost total immersion into the first-person view of Faith, even with in-game cutscenes, as when Faith is thrown off a roof by a former professional wrestler. In terms of presenting this perspective, Mirror's Edge makes a wise choice in completely eliminating any kind of on-screen display of your health, bullets remaining, objectives completed, or direction. You get the impression that you can only rely on your wits and athleticism, though there are ways that the game "cheats" this impression: on the normal difficulty setting, objects leading you through the levels will be colored red (this can be turned off on harder difficulties). Not only is the presentation clutter-free, there is a similar simplicity in terms of controls. Essentially, you rely on your jump button to get through virtually all obstacles, though you also need to maser a few other buttons to slide, roll, and so on. Thus, progression is more about timing, perception, and momentum than acquiring a powerful weapon. Speaking of which, as I alluded to earlier you can go hand-to-hand with your adversaries and fire weapons at them, but the game is designed to make this decision seem generally unwise. Instead, you're actively encouraged to run away from trouble. Running in this sense means navigating crowded urban environments as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, levels in Mirror's Edge are a bit hit-or-miss: many of the rooftop stages are bland in terms of obstacles and design, whereas the interior levels paradoxically provide more freedom in navigation as well as visual variety.

Any game that lets me recreate a stunt from Who Am I? makes me happy.

What Mirror's Edge gets right is a sense of movement as well as verticality, and does it better than just about any other game out there. Nothing else I have ever played has equaled the sensation I felt in leaping over a guardrail and onto a moving subway car. Too bad, then, that the game is so short. Thankfully, however, there's a slew of time trials to complete once the main game is over, and the additional difficulty settings add considerable challenge on a second or third pass through the game. Still, despite its short length and substandard storytelling, I can easily recommend the game on the strength of its more visceral moments.

Movie Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)

If I didn't know any better, I would think that Iron Man 3 was intended to be a satire on the hypocrisy of US foreign policy, or, possibly, a propaganda piece. Examining the protagonists and antagonists reveals many interesting similarities, as does comparing the actual US government to that in the film.

Let us consider Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce), who is portrayed as the "bad guy" because he seeks to influence the vice president by offering a cure to his daughter's disabilities (as well as assassinate the president in order to put the vice president in a more powerful position). Why? He wants the US government to be involved in more conflicts so that he can make money as a military contractor. This is, indeed, evil, but how different does that make him than Tony Stark/Ironman? Stark is a rich playboy who made his billions as a...military contractor. Both Killian and Stark make money by selling weapons and other war materiel to governments that kill hundreds of thousands of people. Is there really anything that morally separates them? If there is, it seems that the film would have you believe it is the fact that Stark saves the president of the United States. I'm not sure why it is the case, but it seems that Hollywood would have us believe that the lives of government officials, above all the president, are much more important than those of the rest of us.   

Also interesting is the movie's apparent commentary on the US government. Similar to reality, the fictional government engages in various forms of euphemisms, changing the name of Col. Rhodes' armored suit from "War Machine" to "Iron Patriot" since the latter is considered better for public relations. This is all part of making war, one of the most destructive and death-inducing activities of mankind, more acceptable to the public. Likewise, the US government prefers the term "collateral damage" when the US military causes the deaths of civilians, and "enhanced interrogation techniques" for actions that used to be known as "torture."

Currently, the US government intervenes in the affairs of many countries with very little protest from Americans, even though nearly all Americans wouldn't stand for a foreign government doing something similar here. Does Iron Man 3 condone this hypocrisy? In the film, Iron Patriot breaks into the homes of foreigners, threatening them with guns. This scene is portrayed in a comedic manner as if the rights of foreigners are of no consequence. Or, when he breaks into a garment factory, the women working in it express their gratitude as if he is their great liberator, rather than a foreign invader. It almost seems like something out of a recruitment commercial, that whatever the military is, it is above all  a "global force for good."

Ultimately, though, I don't think the creators of Iron Man 3 had any intention of making any political commentary; they simply regurgitated common ideas: foreign intervention is virtuous, the military-industrial complex is an acceptable way to become rich, and the president's life being threatened creates instant drama, even if we have no other reason to care about him besides the fact that he is the president. The goal here, rather, is to milk as much money as possible from the Avengers franchise, nothing more. They will likely continue to churn out superhero movies as long as their revenues are greater than expenditures. And that's ok; not every film has to be an Oscar winner. But one would hope that movies would have at least some consciousness of the world in which they are being created and not simply acquiesce in being apologists for US foreign policy.

PS1 Review: Spider-Man (2000)

Here's another entry in our unofficial"Classic Games We Never Got Around to Reviewing" series. You may recall earlier parts of the series, including reviews of TimeSplitters 2 and NBA Street Vol. 2, two classics we never reviewed because we were lazy teenagers. But Thrasher is back at it again, taking a look at Spider-Man for PS1.

The 2D era was not kind to the wall-crawler, and at the time it probably couldn't be otherwise. To me, Spider-Man for the PS1 proved that the franchise belonged in all three polygonal, blocky dimensions. There's many commendable elements at work in this one, but first and foremost is the presentation. Though the story is a kind of comic book "greatest hits", structured as more or less a slew of cameos from villains and heroes of the Marvel Universe, it's culled together nicely as a narrative, in fact quite similar to the ways in which the recent Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have managed their respective rogues galleries. In Spider-Man, Peter Parker witnesses an impostor Spider-Man stealing one of Doc Ock's experiments: not only is Spidey framed for the theft and hunted by the police, but he must also fend off the challenges of villains such as Venom, Rhino, Scorpion, Mysterio and Carnage. It's a somewhat episodic approach that keeps the game from becoming repetitive. However, what's really worth recommending here is the superb voice-over work, particularly the voices for Spider-Man, Venom and J. Jonah Jameson. The writing is strong as well, effectively capturing the comic book's balance between humor and seriousness.

Faithful also is the translation of Spidey's powers from comic panel to Dual Shock. Playstation web-swinging was in its very infancy here, only to find a kind of perfection a few years later in Spider-Man 2 for the PS2, but the foundation built with this this game is a solid one. Unfortunately, it's not as tight as it could be: though you can manually aim when swinging from building to building, too often your web-shooters will be unresponsive when leaping out impulsively. Same goes for wall-crawling, as the controls occasionally go a bit haywire when changing direction, particularly on ceilings. Part of the problem is unquestionably the camera angles chosen by the game. You have limited control over what you see around Spider-Man, which can compromise your ability to engage in combat by obscuring your enemies with obtrusive angles. In terms of controls, Spider-Man is clearly a first try as there's quite a few kinks and glitches to work around, but there's also more than enough novelty here to keep things amusing. Also, the game is a bit short, but I suspect that's almost always the case when a game is this much fun to play. There's a shocking amount of replay value on this disc too, provided you don't just enter in the cheat codes:  vintage comic book covers collected throughout the game, unlockable costumes (each with unique abilities and enhancements), training simulators and a "What If?" mode that makes playing through the game a second time highly entertaining. Nowadays it may seem a bit crude and basic in comparison with current generation superheroes like Arkham City, or even in comparison with later games in the Spider-Man franchise, but Spider-Man for the PS1 is still a fantastic game in its own right, well worth taking out for another spin on your backwards-compatible PS3.

PS3 Review: 007 Legends (2012)

This one's a bit late. I had originally planned to review 007 Legends in tandem with my review of Skyfall last fall, but you know, things happen. Better late than never, I guess. Keep your eyes peeled for more 007 coverage from your fellow spy enthusiasts at Code Redd Net.

I liked the first Die Another Day game I played better. You know, Nightfire.

I had been hoping for a game like 007 Legends for a long time. It seems like an easy project: to collect the best action set-pieces from the best James Bond films in one game and to serve it up in a competent shooter with a few multiplayer options. From Russia With Love had the right idea, successfully converting the classic '60s spy film for PS2 in the Everything or Nothing model. It was a solid Bond game that captured the look and feel of the film while simultaneously bringing it up to speed with the more stunt-heavy recent Bond films. 007 Legends also has the right idea, as it incorporates the most spectacular scenes from five Bond films and ties them into the plot of Skyfall: those films being Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, Die Another Day and Moonraker. This is an excellent idea well suited for today's generation of games, but 007 Legends falters somewhat in execution.

The game has a real flimsy narrative excuse to revisit all these old missions. It begins with a cinematic adapted from the pre-credits sequence in Skyfall, where Bond is shot by another agent while fighting an adversary on the roof of a speeding train. As Bond hits the water, he is reminded of his previous encounters with Goldfinger, Blofeld, Jaws and others. The game proper begins with a scene from Goldfinger in which Bond finds that girl dead, covered in gold paint. What makes this recreation of Goldfinger odd is that you play as Daniel Craig instead of Sean Connery, and you have access to a smartphone device and other contemporary technology/weaponry.  This is in contrast to the architecture, as well as the design of the surrounding characters, virtually all of whom retain their 1960s clothing. It's an odd inconsistency in art direction spread throughout the entire game, and it never feels quite right. I would've liked to have seen a total commitment to each era, all the way down to its rudimentary gadgets, or a total process of bringing-up-to-date rather than the hybrid nostalgic-contemporary setting provided instead. That's not to say, however, that the structure of 007 Legends is without benefit: those five Bond films, bounded together, make room for considerable variety in setting and gameplay mechanics. Throughout the game, you switch between several styles of gameplay, including the straightforward shooting portions, stealth segments, sleuthing, vehicle combat, and fisticuffs. Unfortunately, these styles are highly organized and segregated in your missions. In other words, a bit of hand-to-hand combat is always bracketed by a cinematic that cues up the switch to this style, and stealth often becomes mandatory to mission completion upon entering a particular room rather than being simply a strategic choice with consequences. Nonetheless, each mission draws on particularly strong action scenes from its respective film to keep the game moving at a commendable pace.

I was also impressed by other improvements over the previous GoldenEye: Reloaded, particularly a dramatic increase in replay value. Whereas more recent Bond games have suffered from a weak single-player experience that did not invite multiple playthroughs, 007 Legends has a strong set of weapon upgrades and unlockables for multiplayer, based on finding objects and overall mission scores. Furthermore, I was impressed by Legends' customization options. Like most modern first-person shooters, on the default option health regenerates after a few seconds: thankfully, though, Legends gives you the option of switching to an old school system in which health does not regenerate and you must rely on body armor spread throughout the level. This is a nice addition that makes the game considerably more challenging, in many instances artificially so as body armor is unevenly distributed in these missions. Multiplayer support is fairly strong, though the lack of AI bots hurts this feature substantially, as online multiplayer is sparsely populated.

Overall, 007 Legends is only a fair-to-middling entry in the franchise, one that does a decent enough job with a promising idea but nothing more. It's much better than the other Bonds released in the last few years, yet nowhere near the level of PS2-era shooters like Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, or From Russia With Love. Fans of the super spy should give it a spin with a weekend rental, but this is probably not one you will want to own.

The Winback Diaries: CANCELLED

I was really looking forward to writing up this diary: unfortunately, my PS2 is getting real old, and as a result it has started to refuse those blue PS2 discs. Winback is one of them. I can get to the menu, the options, and the mutliplayer modes just fine, but my PS2 will not load up a new single-player campaign. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I must cancel The Winback Diaries. This is a sad day, as my PS2 of 10+ years has failed me for the first time. I was looking forward to the opportunity to give you a detailed account of the lasers, the gratuitous boxes, the dialogue and the fashion dos and don't of our favorite counter-terrorist unit, S.C.A.T. and their adversaries, the Crying Lions. The only solace I take is that in my research prior to starting the diary, I was able to find this image of our favorite boss character in Winback, the always colorful Leon. It's not much, but it's still a fantastic image.

And hey, you can always take another look at our retro review of Winback if you want to know what our adolescent minds loved about it back in the day.

#Sarocozia

What You Want in The World is Not Enough N64

We love TWINE for the N64, as you know, and more than that we love games with replay value. TWINE has some fairly challenging time cheats you can beat to unlock additonal characters, weapons, maps and modes for multiplayer (w/ bots or without, though we prefer with). I have managed to get through most of them, though there are still a few that have eluded my grasp. If you take a look at GameFAQs portal for TWINE, you'll find a bevvy of tasks that seem nearly impossible to complete. If you want to prioritze them, I suggest tackling the following challenges, all of which will add fantastic maps and a nice weapon set to spice up your multiplayer options:

Unlike Renard here, who obviously feels no pain, beating
 these time cheats requires a high threshold for pain (at least
for emotional pain).

• The Air Raid multiplayer map. This is by far my favorite map in TWINE. A bit small, but totally worth beating the "Masquerade" level on Agent in under 3:05. If you need help in doing this, here's a video to help out:

• There's also the "Wildfire" weapon set, which you earn by beating "City of Walkways II" on Agent in under 3:00. Now, at least this one is on Agent: had it been on double-o, that helicopter at the end would have prevented even the most seasoned agents from earning this unlockable. Take a look at this if you need a spot of help:

• Finally, you can play the excellent Forest multiplayer map by beating "Night Watch on 00 Agent in under 2:20. I know this sounds insane, and for the longest time I believed it to be impossible, but watch this video and it will, at least, seem somewhat possible. I got it eventually, but you have to keep trying because Gabor appears in random places, and usually at the most inappropriate moments. This level is one of the best for Capture the Flag matches, so it's a must-have:

Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

I found this review by Sam Staley of Star Trek: Into Darkness to reflect my own thoughts on the film. (And, of course, there is Mr. Plinkett's video review that shows how almost all of Into Darkness was ripped off from previous Star Trek movies.) Staley begins by stating his reaction was "ho hum." Why is this? Because Into Darkness lacks what makes science fiction most appealing as a genre, specifically dealing with matters of "individual autonomy, technology, free will, and the role of the State." Classic science fiction stories, such as those by Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Robert Heinlein do these things, as does the Star Trek television series.

The very first episode of Star Trek explores the question of how important human freedom is when Captain Pike encounters aliens with such fantastic mental powers that they not only are telepathic but can affect humans' brains so much as to cause them to see illusions (kind of like the Holodeck). These aliens capture Captain Pike and try to pacify him with the illusion of being back home on his farm with his favorite horse, a picnic basket, and a beautiful woman. The question thus presented to the viewer is: if you could indulge in all earthly pleasures (though artificial) to your heart's content, but would physically be trapped in a cage and studied by aliens, would you? Another interesting issue that Star Trek deals with (and which Into Darkness touches upon) is the Prime Directive, which is the principle that Star Fleet should not interfere with the development of more primitive cultures. (I wrote on this issue from a libertarian perspective here.)

But, states Staley, "nothing in Into Darkness rises to the level of meaningful social, political, or philosophical commentary." At best, it is a sign of how far we have come since the '60s, when "a biracial kiss was a big deal," a racial group could be openly denied equal protections under the law, and the Cold War potentially threatened thermonuclear war. But it is certainly not the case that the Western world is problem free or that moral issues involving technology are gone. This is clearly so when one considers the surveillance state, drone warfare, crypto-currencies, and so forth. One hopes that writers and artists will create content that grapples with such issues.

And this might be the biggest issue with Star Trek: Into Darkness: it is simply an action movie held in a futuristic setting. Star Trek didn't become the phenomenon that it is by doing action sci-fi well, but by presenting and wrestling with the political and social issues of our times (as well as future and past times), and allowing us to imagine what space exploration might be like. It's not that Into Darkness is a bad movie, but that it falls short of what we hope to see from Star Trek.

PS2 Review: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002)

My first exposure to the Hitman franchise came through the form of a demo disc that I got through a demo copy of the official Playstation magazine. In the beginning it was an experience not unlike learning to play Splinter Cell, where you gun down many enemies because to this point in your gaming career, you never learned how to be stealthy. Unlike Splinter Cell, this was a viable option in Hitman 2, at least on the easier difficulties, as Agent 47 tends to be much better armed than Sam Fisher. But this gaming experience was obviously quite different than the stealth tactics of SC: you are out in the open, wearing disguises to pass security. Also, Hitman 2 offers much more of an open-ended gameplay than the early SC titles.

This demo of the first mission of the game offered so many options of how to infiltrate the Mafia Don's Italian villa: did you want to take the clothing of the flower delivery man? How about the grocery delivery boy (which allows you to smuggle your weapons in the grocery crates)? Or you can sneak in as a bodyguard, though you'll be the only one whose bald with a bar code tattooed on his head. What then? Did you try to get to the Don's bedroom to off him with a golf club? Strangle him in his office? Snipe him with the rifle in the garage? Out of all the demos I've played, this might have been the one I played the most because of all its opportunity for experimentation.

Does the full version live up to the demo? Yes and no. Without a doubt, there are other missions in the game that have an open-ended character, where there is more than one way to skin that cat, but many of them don't. The latter group seem to have very few options, if there was, in fact, more than one, and they would be very specific and difficult to figure out. If you lack the patience to figure it out (or have too much pride to look it up online), you'll often find yourself getting a "Mass Murderer" rating for your performance (which is another issue: it often seems like there is but one method to achieve the coveted "Silent Assassin" rating for each mission). It was also disappointing that the demo offered features that didn't appear in the full version. One was actual names for the guns in the game ("Beretta" became "9mm pistol" and "Desert Eagle" became "Deagle"). Another was that 47 could punch people, which needed refinement, but was tossed out in the final release. Hand-to-hand combat skills seem like something necessary for an elite assassin, but they didn't find their way into the game until Hitman: Blood Money.

This isn't to say that Hitman 2 isn't a great game; far from it. It is a solid action game that offers an exceptionally high amount of replay value for this genre and also requires a relatively higher amount of patience to master (the very first FAQ offered on GameFAQs.com for this game literally advises the player to "Kill everyone in site [sic]."). But if the player takes the time to learn how to play the game as Agent 47 would do things, it can be a rewarding experience.

The Hitman franchise features an iconic character who isn't just a generic action star who blows up every vehicle he gets into and causes the ladies to swoon. As far as video game characters go, he is unique and one of the most recognizable with his bald head, black suit, red tie, leather gloves, and twin silver .45 pistols. He is an antihero, but one we can feel justified in supporting.

Thus, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin seems to be a complete package: an intense and interesting character, the uber-interesting world of global assassins, widely varied and open-ended gameplay, the option for 1st or 3rd person perspective, high replay value, a masterpiece of a soundtrack by Jesper Kyd, and an engaging story (if you can manage to follow it). It is a classic and deserves one of Code Redd Net's highest recommendations.

The Winback Diaries, Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

You know how much we love Winback: Covert Operations. If you don’t know how much we love Winback, please, dig in the archives and find out. There’s nothing out there that can match its wall-hugging tactical combat, its love for exploding boxes, and its beautifully awkward voice-overs. But it’s been a while since I played through it, and I can’t really remember if I ever finished the game on its hardest difficulty setting. This is my attempt to document the journey, a true labor of love, a real mission into the heart of man. Join me for a trip back to 2001, when commandos had yet to figure out the advantages of shooting and moving at the same time. I’ll try to introduce you to the story and its characters as best I can, but this mainly going to be a series of reflections on the game as I progress through its box-laden levels and its joyously absurd conversations.

Note: For those of you more familiar with the N64 version, you really missed out on something special. The Ps2 version of Winback has two things going for it: first and foremost, it has some of the best voice-overs in history; and second, PS2 has a vastly improved multiplayer component, specifically BOT mode. If you still have a PS2 hanging around, do yourself a favor and snag a copy of it immediately. I’m sure Amazon can hook you up with a cheap copy.

#Sarcozia

Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

Before you get to the start menu, Winback opens up with a lengthy video to set up the highly emotional plot. It’s a doozy, too: renegades storm a nondescript office complex – which, you’ll notice, is completely box-free (Figure 1) – and exploit the poor or nonexistent perimeter defenses. This is later referred to as the Center for Space Development, a government agency responsible for protecting a satellite weapon. They do an especially poor job at protecting it.

Figure 1: The Center for Space Development, or CSD. As yet no boxes.

As you can see (Figure 2), even in the cinematics security personnel for the CSD, as well as their as-yet-unnamed adversaries, have a hard recognizing the dangers inherent in not moving while being shot at. This will become a common theme throughout the game. Because the nameless ne’er-do-wells have superior numbers, however, they win out. Betrayals also happen, and two nattily-attired fellows, including one clad in a goddamn orange trench coat, step out from inside an army truck.

Figure 2: Perimeter defenses.

Finally, someone speaks, and it’s none other than our boy, Kenny Coleman, leader of the “Crying Lions,” a terrorist organization from the mysterious land of “Sarcozia.” Like any foreign national villain worth his salt, Kenny demands justice for his homeland for some vague atrocities. You won’t believe this, but the Secretary of Defense is upset. Thankfully, however, a bright young man named Advisor arrives to deliver some useful exposition in a voice about as confident as mine was in tenth grade Speech. With the help of his loyal Advisor, the SoD decides that he will not negotiate with terrorists and sends for the S.C.A.T. squad. The real game begins.

Stage 0: Tutorial

Now, for me playing Winback is like riding a bike, but just for fun I decided to give the Tutorial a run through. I’m glad I did. Jean-Luc’s training is conducted by fellow S.C.A.T. squad mate Steve, the first subject in a recurring feature of the Winback Diaries, and it’s called…

Winback's Fashion Faux Pas!: Steve

"That's good, Jean-Luc. You're doing well."

S.C.A.T. headquarters must have everything but a mirror. He’s already going grey up there, so why make it worse by dressing in a disastrous grey/navy blue commando gear combo too? Steve, what were you thinking?

The tutorial at S.C.A.T. headquarters is short but effective. You will find out later that the interior decorator for S.C.A.T headquarters also designed the CSD. Steve has an annoying habit of always patting you on the back, whether you managed to silently subdue an enemy from behind or you simply managed to touch you back against the wall. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well,” he’ll say. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well.” When you get through all the controls and weapons you’ll be using on your mission, Steve challenges you to a boss fight. He’s pretty easy to beat.

[Incidentally, as kids Chicken Man and I wanted to pen a sequel to Winback. It was an alternate universe kind of thing, where Kenny and our hero, Jean-Luc, opened a girlie club called “Honeyz” when Jean-Luc’s career as a stand-up comic had stalled. Kenny loved the ladies and tried to help a down-on-his-luck Jean-Luc figure out what he wanted in life, besides hyphens. I’m not sure it would’ve made for a particularly thrilling game, but neither did anything Winback 2, so who knows, we may have had something brilliant.]

That’s all for this edition of The Winback Diaries. Join us next time to meet the rest of the S.C.A.T. team. Little did they know that someone in their midst had plans to sabotage the mission all along. All he needed was a stick of chewing gum...

Game Boy Review: James Bond 007 (1998)

Our first Game Boy review, and no better way to do it than to take a look at one of the most curious games in the James Bond franchise. Keep your eyes on Code Redd Net for more 007 coverage in the very near future.

It's always nice to play something a little bit different. Ever since GoldenEye broke out on the N64, the 007 franchise has stuck fairly close that first-person shooter model. Sure, there were a few misfires with third-person action, such as Tomorrow Never Dies, and a few hits, such as the inimitable Everything or Nothing, but overall the series has stayed within a pretty limited range of first- and occasionally third-person shooters. James Bond 007 for the Game Boy has its fair share of action, no question, but it's much more Zelda or Pokemon than anything else, as there's far more puzzles to solve and items to collect than thugs to gun down.

008, not 006.

Most of the plot and dialogue is recycled wholesale from old Bond films, including key villains Oddjob and Jaws, and there's just enough of a simplistic gun smuggling subplot to tie it all together. On your travels to find the source of the smuggling, and to locate the missing 008, you stop in mainland China, Marrakech, the Sahara Desert, Tibet, and a super-secret final base. Most of your time in-mission will be spent in trying to track down the right people and to collect the right keycard or item. Some of the puzzles you have to solve range from absolutely dumby-proof to esoteric, and many times an ally will only hand over the proper keycard when you've spoken to him twice, which can be quite irritating to find out after spending an half hour wandering around the level once again. Too often the puzzles to be solved only require persistence and not intelligence. I found that running alongside the walls would often yield the location of secret switches much more efficiently than solving the riddles by wit. Combat is kind of odd, too: pressing the select button brings up an inventory where you can assign an item to either the A or B button, such as a pistol, a rocket launcher, a very un-suave machete, or a pair of fists. Shooting can be difficult and slow, and bullets seem to take an hour to reach their target. Though later stages require more ammunition in order to get through the levels, earlier stages have a bit more variety to recommend them. I particularly enjoy laying the fisticuffs down on the streets of Marrakech, then ducking into the casino for a game of Blackjack. For me, this is the principal appeal of James Bond 007: you don't just shoot baddies, you go undercover, you partake in a little high-stakes gambling, you have to find a way to survive without water in the Sahara. There's not much to do once you beat the game, and it won't take long to do so, but upon completing your mission the game rewards you with passwords to unlock the gambling mini-games. So, not only do you have a solid, if unspectacular, Bond experience for your next flight or bus ride, you also have the best baccarat simulator around. It's worth picking up if you're a Bond fan with a mind for something different.

Blu-rays We Love: Spider-Man (2002)

Last time we took a look at the excellent DVD for Rush Hour 2. Now we move on to the Blu-ray re-release of Spider-Man, a film we reviewed in the formative years of Code Redd Net, which at the time I boldly described as" the greatest super-hero movie I have ever had the privilege of seeing." Chicken Man said the film was "a totally rad experience if your sitting in the front row." Perhaps the movie doesn't hold up as well as  you might hope, but it's still fun to watch 11 years later, and there's plenty of bonus features on the disc to make it a worthwhile addition to your Blu-library.

The most obviously dated element in Spider-Man is CGI Spider-Man. It's not totally embarrassing or campy, at least not yet, but technological advancements in the technique have clearly come a long way since then. The blend of live-action and CGI is not terribly smooth when it comes to human imaging. For instance, the early scenes of Peter Parker's transformation into Spider-Man are particularly jarring in their transition from actor to computer avatar. Nevertheless, it's not too distracting. What I enjoyed about most about Spider-Man on this most recent viewing was its tone: a fine blend of humor and seriousness, in about equal measure. Unlike the recent Amazing Spider-Man, which unwisely hit fast-forward on the origin story, Spider-Man prolongs the first appearance of its properly-costumed crime fighter until just prior to the start of its second hour. When Amazing Spider-Man went straight to the crib sheet, it lost the emotional backbone of the story, what makes Peter Parker's personal tragedy so significant. Spider-Man does a fantastic job of  inviting sympathy for the awkward teenager, played with appropriate dorkiness by the inherently dorky Tobey Maguire. While Maguire does an admirable job in his dual role, it's the rest of the cast that really stands out. Particularly noteworthy is Willem Dafoe's turn as Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin, a role which gives the actor ample opportunity to pull faces. Even James Franco is pretty good as his spoiled son, Harry. Spider-Man may not have aged gracefully, but it's still a completely solid film that remains enjoyable on a second or third or even fourth viewing, which is why you buy something like this on Blu-ray, right?

Tobey Maguire as Spider-Lee

In terms of the Blu-ray disc, you get all of the bonus features from the initial DVD version, and there were plenty of those, plus some new things to go along with it: namely, a "Spider Sense Trivia Challenge" and the "Spider-Man Cutting Room Floor" feature, both of which add tremendous value to the disc. Most significantly, the Trivia Challenge is a game played over the film in which you must answer a series of multiple-choice questions. These questions range from plot details ("How much was the reward for lasting three minutes in the ring with Bonesaw McGraw?"), to production history, to questions regarding Spider-Man's comic book history. It's hit or miss with most of these questions, as they appear in a seemingly random order not at all tied to the plot of the film. Because the questions appear to be in a random sequence each time the trivia game is activated, I was often asked questions about plot details that had yet to be revealed (fortunately, they are not significant enough plot points to be considered spoilers). Also, since the questions are timed to appear every minute or so, they often appear over very exciting visual sequences. While this is not too much of a problem if you've seen the film before, it would've been nice if the questions were more plentiful during the film's more expository, and less spectacular, scenes and didn't distract me from a fight scene. Still, though, there's enough questions about the tensile strength of spider webs, for instance, to keep your interest while watching the film. The game keeps track of your score based on the number of correct answers and the amount of time elapsed in answering them, and rewards you with a ranking at the end of the film. I was given the rank of "Superhero-in-Training" and treated to a 15-second montage from the film of Spider-Man swinging around the city in his hokey wrestling outfit. Not much of a reward, but it's nice to be ranked based on your performance. Even though the questions do get repetitious at times, I think this is a decent first effort at integrating elements of Scene-It into a single film, something that I believe could immensely enjoyable when fully implemented.

There's also a "Cutting Room Floor" feature which allows you to clip segments of the film and re-edit them into a short sequence with new music and sound effects. I was able to splice together Spider-Man's cage match with Macho Man Randy Savage with scenes of Peter Parker crying in his room, punctuated by comical sound effects and a somber musical score. It's a lot of fun, even though the interface for cutting the scenes can be cumbersome, and making changes later in the process can be quite difficult. This is definitely a feature I would love to see on future releases of Jackie Chan or Jet Li films, for instance, so that I could cut together all the fight scenes into one montage, but it works well for Spider-Man.

Finally, as indicated above, the Blu-ray includes all the bonus features from the original Special Edition DVD release in 2002. Of the three commentary tracks, only the one featuring the VFX crew is of any interest: director Sam Raimi does too much narrating and too much talking about himself on his track, while Tobey Maguire and J.K. Simmons' track gets awfully quiet for long stretches of the film. HBO's making-of featurette and E! Entertainment's "Spider-Mania" are typical Hollywood puffery, though the "Spider-Man: Mythology of the 21st Century" piece is a nice and thorough historical look at the character's cinematic development. Besides these longer extras, there's also an archival selection of theatrical trailers, TV spots, webisodes, screen tests, cast and crew profiles, and an outtake reel. All in all, it's a swell package that's worth picking up if you, like me, somehow lost your old DVD copy of the movie.

Tony Jaa's The Protector 2 Teaser

Good news, guys: embedded below is the official teaser trailer for Tom Yum Goong 2, also known by the English title The Protector 2, sequel to one of Tony Jaa's best films (nothing, in our opinion, has topped Ong-Bak). You can learn more about the film, which is nearing completion, from those informative folks at City on Fire.

Book Review: Dexter in the Dark (2007)

This is actually a review of the first three books in Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series: Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, and  Dexter in the Dark. In regard to their similarity to the Showtime series based on the character, the first season is loosely based on the first novel, but other than that the books and show are separate story lines with distinct canons. Is one better than the other? Without a doubt, I can easily say I prefer the TV show. The writers masterfully create a suspenseful plot that constantly builds towards a climax. But, in each of the novels that I've read, I'll find myself around 2/3 of the way through without feeling much tension at all, wondering how Lindsay is possibly going to be able to write a complete story in the remain pages. I'm frankly quite amazed at how little can happen over the course of 300 pages (now approaching 1000 pages after 3 novels).

Another difference is the character of Dexter. Though largely similar in both media, there are big differences. While Showtime Dexter seems to grow more human-like with each season, Lindsay's Dexter mostly retains his psychopathy. [Note: Let us recall that a psychopath is not "a crazy person who hurts people without remorse." Rather, a psychopath's defining characteristic is a diminished capacity to feel emotion and to empathize with others.] TV Dexter treats foster father Harry as his main guide and companion while book Dexter has a greater emphasis on the "Dark Passenger." The latter becomes a central problem in Dexter in the Dark, as the Dark Passenger leaves Dexter, essentially robbing him of his essence and making him seem rather emasculated. And in taking away that essence, Lindsay took away what is appealing about Dexter. It is reminiscent of a piece I read in Entertainment Weekly, which criticized some cop show I don't remember the name of because the main character was perhaps too flawed and not all that good at his job. The author asked the question, "Would we be as interested in a show like Breaking Bad if it was about the 6th best meth cook in Albuquerque?" Without the Dark Passenger, Dexter loses what makes him interesting. But more than that, it makes the Dexter the man simply a conduit through which the Dark Passenger operates; it seems that the title character should be about the demon rather than the possessed.

Not at all unlike the TV show, Dexter's foster sister Deborah is superbly irritating, even more so. When every one of her sentences is laden with profanity, tension is lost because at no point does she seem more excitable than any other. It is all but impossible to feel any built up tension if there is no where to build it from.

Character development in the novels also is fairly weak. While the show allows us to see the supporting characters in scenes absent Dexter, I don't recall this occurring in any of the books. We lose the richness they offer to the Dexter world and they become little greater than extras.

As such, I cannot recommend Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, even to those who are fans of the show. It strangely feels like one is reading a fan-fiction, one by the time you reach the end feel that it is not about the "real" Dexter.

XBOX 360 Review: Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2007)

SC:DA was Sam Fisher's foray into the next-gen era. Was it any good?  Well, the most noticeable jump in quality is in graphics; the impression left on me was reminiscent of how I felt when I first saw the reveal trailer of the original Splinter Cell. The game play and animation remained largely similar to Chaos Theory, at least in most circumstances. Sam shows us the versatility of his skill set in various, short-lived, situations. You control him building land mines, hacking emails, skydiving, and swimming. Strangely, though, this doesn't seem to break up the monotony, which I didn't feel in any of the previous games. There are two reasons for this:

1. The missions are the shortest they've ever been.
2. Almost half of the game is spent at the JBA headquarters.

And being slightly monotonous, it was hard to feel the climax of the story; indeed, major plot events largely had no built-up anticipation and caught me by surprise. One thing that kept me interested in the story, though, was Sam's relationship with JBA member Enrica Villablanca. Was he just seducing her as part of the mission or did he actually have sympathy for her? But even this aspect of the story isn't fully developed or resolved. To be sure, there are several dramatic parts not seen in the other games and this is an improvement in the series. But for being a game with multiple outcomes based on player decisions, these happen seldomly and only really change one major element of the story. The ending (or endings) itself was disappointing and left too many loose ends and questions.

One of the other features worth mentioning is the return of the Mission Rating system from Chaos Theory. Unfortunately, it seems to provide more of a hassle than benefit, especially for those struck with the Curse of Completionism. Previously, the ranking system made a bit of sense: your rating would decrease for obvious blunders such as getting identified as an intruder or setting off alarms, but would also provide some added challenge by prohibiting lethal attacks if one wanted a perfect rating. DA goes overboard on this. Sam's bread-and-butter tactics, like shooting lights and and knocking out guards, now incur a penalty, as do breaking locks and forcing hacks of keypads. Though it may seem cool by forcing the player to essentially become a ghost, in practice it is an exercise of saving the game after every minuscule action and nearly endless trial and error. Trying to get past multiple guards in well-lit rooms has more to do with luck than skill. All of this works against having an engrossing gaming experience by reminding you that you are limiting the tactics in your toolbox for no other purpose than getting a "100%" to display on a screen.

In sum, SC:DA for the XBOX 360 was not my favorite entry into the series. Not that it is a bad game, but having nearly impossible expectations for 100% completion somewhat lowers replay value. Strangely, having missions where it's conceivable to make it through without being seen makes it much too easy if one decides to use a gun. Thus, there are really only a couple of ways to play.

Stay tuned. I will finish off our Splinter Cell review series with a comparison between the XBOX 360 and PS2 versions of Double Agent.

Finest Fights: The Defender (1994)

For almost two years, Finest Fights has brought you a carefully curated selection of action cinema's best battles. Perennial favorite Jet Li returns in this installment, lifted from the finale of The Defender (1994).

This is not a particularly good Jet Li movie, but the conclusion is fairly wicked. All that stuff with the gas reminds me of the final boss in Rise to Honor, always a good thing to be reminded of. Speaking of which, why not?

Finest Fights: Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000)

Finest Fights returns to present you with some of Bruce Lee's best work, in full and uncut, as it was presented in the documentary A Warrior's Journey. This is a long clip, but totally worth watching in full. If you've never seen this before, grab some popcorn and settle in.

True, this is more Enter the Dragon than Game of Death, but
you get the idea. Gex 64. Time flies, man.

"I hope you don't mind us moving our man, so that the two of us can have more room to groove."

Give These PS1 Games Some PS3 Love

At Code Redd Net, we don't like to forget about the classics. That's why we're particularly fond of hardware that supports backwards compatibility, because we tend to favor games that last. Though current models of the PS3 do not play PS2 games, unfortunately, they nevertheless play PS1 discs. Something is better than nothing, I suppose. While there's certainly a score of outstanding PS3 games worth your time out there, you should always keep in mind the cavernous catalogue of excellent PS1 games waiting for you just in case there's a little downtime on the system's core software market (and they're almost always cheap, unless you really groove on RPGs). You don't even need a memory card to save your progress because the system creates a virtual one for you, not to mention an option to smooth out the pixel-heavy graphics. Bearing all this in mind, here's a short list of five phenomenal PS1 games not only worth your time, but worthy of your piggy bank as well.

Spider-Man (2000)

This is the first Spider-Man game to get it right, not only in all three wonderful dimensions, but in tone as well. In terms of capturing the feel of the comic book and cartoon character I remember, nothing else comes close to this 13-year-old. Despite lacking name value in the voice cast, or perhaps because of it, Spider-Man has aged very well: every character and every note sounds right. It's a bit short, say, about four hours, but what it lacks in breadth it more than makes up for in density. There's also a tremendous amount of extras to make bonus plays worthwhile if the nostalgia factor isn't enough for you. Controlling the webhead can be cumbersome at times, and the camera occasionally goes haywire, but it's no big deal. Future games in the series may have perfected the webswinging and combat, but that was only possible because the foundation that this game built was so solid. Featuring one of my favorite last levels, which I may or may not have actually spoiled in the screen grab above.

Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy (1999)

That oncoming train you see there is no doubt the best way to win a multiplayer game of Sick Fix: Chicken Man and I used to have a ball trying to produce the most spectacular wreck in that subway level. Multiplayer included, for the longest time Skate and Destroy was the premiere skateboarding simulation for those looking for an alternative to the zaniness of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. That position was taken over by the skate. franchise, and deservedly so, and as a result the "realism" of Skate and Destroy now seems dubious at best. Still, though, I love the rhythm of this game: there's much more emphasis on precision and angle than in its button-mashing brothers in the genre. Conceptually, too, there's a lot of interesting ideas no other skate game has tried to emulate, either before or since. For instance, after a two-minute session expires, security guards try to catch in the act, and you can use this extra time to earn bonus points before you escape, or you can be given the taser. Finally, Skate and Destroy has unquestionably the freshest soundtrack of old school beats on the system, a soundtrack we even honored with a Code Redd Net Award.

The World is Not Enough (2000)

N64 TWINE is a better game, but its PS1 brother has enough unique features to recommend it for fans of the franchise. As I mentioned in my review, the best part of PS1 TWINE is the "Russian Roulette" level, where you can gamble like a true addict, much to the consternation and cell phone distress of MI6. Plus, there's a significant number of film clips that set up the levels nicely. For whatever reason PS1 always lagged behind its Nintendo competitor in the first-person shooter department, so TWINE is the probably the best of an admittedly limited bunch.

Smasher regains his strength by having a soda and a sandwich
he found on the ground. This makes sense in a beat-'em-up.

Fighting Force (1997)

Here's another PS1 game with a superior N64 relative, though in this case the disparity in quality is much more minute. Fighting Force in its original PS1 incarnation may have a plethora of loading screens in addition to being more difficult than the N64 version, but for the sake of convenience this one is a completely satisfactory substitute. Furthermore, Fighting Force is one of the last true beat-'em-ups ever released, without a doubt the best one in the post-Streets of Rage, 3D era. It's not perfect, but I have a hard time imaging a more enjoyable co-op experience outside of PS2's Everything or Nothing. And clocking in at just under two hours to complete, Fighting Force never becomes tedious or over-long. If you want a mindless brawler for your PS3, this is your only choice.

Jet Moto (1996)

For a long time the only PS1 games I owned were a Playstation Magazine demo disc and Jet Moto. That I was content with this situation should attest to how enjoyable Jet Moto was and still is (that demo disc was beautiful too, and I miss those things). Jet Moto, it should be said, was an amazing game for 1996. I still think the graphics are decent, and I'm amazed that the tracks, intricate as they are, can support up to 20 racers at the same time. But what I remember most about Jet Moto was how fast and how difficult it was: not only were the races crowded with opponents, not only were the bikes almost uncontrollably fast, but the courses were laden with obstacles and cliffs. I still have not made it past the second round of the season without using cheats, thanks in no small part to a series of particularly brutal levels in the bayou. It's difficult, certainly, but it's not frustrating. No other game, even on PS3, can really keep up with this one.