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.

PS2 Review: NBA Street Vol. 2 (2003)

Much like TimeSplitters 2, which we only got around to reviewing a few months ago, NBA Street Vol. 2 is another one of those games that we've somehow neglected, even though we have such fond memories of it. Since Chicken Man already gave us the word on the inferior sequel, NBA Street V3, it's time this nominee for our Best Sports Game award got some shine.

It's not just NBA Jam with chain nets and rusty backboards: NBA Street Vol. 2 is what the best of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater can do for arcade-style basketball games. By that I mean the trick system of Vol. 2, which includes (but is certainly not limited to) stylish crossovers and dunks, puts its emphasis on the combo potential of any situation: use any of the four turbo buttons to fake out the defender by dribbling between his legs and finish by passing the ball off the backboard to a skyward teammate for the slam, for example. The more moves you combo up, the quicker you can launch one of those all-important Gamebreakers, supermoves that embarrass your opponent as well as significantly altering the score of the game. At times these Gamebreakers can more than live up to their name: too often the point-swing induced by a successful Gamebreaker can virtually eliminate any chance for the opposing team to win the game (subtracting, say two points from them and throwing four your way), and this is especially troublesome considering that for even moderately talented players Gamebreakers are quite easy to attain. It's not enough to hurt the game, but it can make it way to easy when playing against the CPU as opposed to human players.

Nevertheless, the genius of this combo system is that every offensive or defensive move can be linked together for maximum points: a rebound, pass off the head, crossover, and three-pointer performed uninterrupted earn more points towards that Gamebreaker than when they are performed separately. Though it's obvious from playing Vol. 2 for even a few minutes that this is an offensive-minded game, the balance struck between offensive flash and defensive toughness is strong. Blocking in an especially useful technique, and learning the art of the block is essential to getting wins on the harder difficulty settings. Steals have also been substantially upgraded from the original: whereas defenders were relatively helpless to stop a point guard's ankle breakers before (not unlike the And 1 mixtapes of lore*), in Vol. 2 the same combo system that enables those tricky tricks can be utilized by the defense to stop them cold. Balanced in this sense, Vol. 2 is real smooth, effortless to play, and continually rewarding in repetition.

*There's a few things you could do to stop this nonsense: 1) put
your hands up and play defense like a normal person, 1a) make
 him take an outside shot which he probably won't make,
or 2) just reach out and punch him in the junk.

Among the various game modes offered in Vol. 2, Be a Legend is the real meat and potatoes of the game. Here you take a created baller and put together a team to travel the country, getting to know the nation's asphalt courts better while building up your player's streetball legend. This mainly involves playing games according to local rules, which may prohibit Gamebreakers, limit you to only dunks, and so on. What's really intriguing is that you earn your street handle based on your player's development: in my case, my baller was nicknamed "String" because he could handle the rock. This is one of the more novel elements in Vol. 2, because it's entirely dependent on how you play the game, and it's not something arbitrarily chosen at the outset. There's also NBA Challenge, which is a more straight-up NBA Jam mode where you go from region to region playing every team in the league. Here, however, the emphasis is on a created team as opposed to a created player. This is where most of the legends can be unlocked.

Speaking of legends, Vol. 2 has all of 'em: Wilt Chamberlain, Pistol Pete Maravich, Elgin Baylor, three Michael Jordans, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Dr. J, and so on. It's an extensive roster pieced together from league history. Strangely enough, Vol. 2 brings back many of the "street legends" from NBA Street, even those that were clearly meant to be stand-ins for real life players: for instance, Dr. J wannabee Stretch returns, though, thankfully, the fake Yao Ming boss from the first game did not make the cut. For the most part, I don't mind the inclusion of these fictional characters (except for Biggie Little, who's annoying), but they seem an odd fit in a game so preoccupied with real legends.

And though the first Vol. 1 was pretty bland in terms of presentation, Vol. 2 has style in spades. Not only do the courts and the players look fantastic (though their movements are somewhat stiff and ugly), but the music is much better this time around, generally sticking with non-lyrical beats during the games. Unfortunately, this means that all the words come from the mouth of announcer Bobbito Garcia, an infuriating personality that may, and I do mean may, have been tolerable 10 years ago. His particular word-vomit salad includes bad singing, bad punning, and rambling, nonsensical challenges whenever you have a shot rejected. His voice is one of the last things you want to hear when Shaq knocks you down in the paint. Thankfully, though, he can be turned off. Vol. 2, however, cannot: take Bobbito out of the mix and you have one of the PS2's finest basketball games.

Spidey Varial

Said it before, but I'll say it again: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is the best PS1 game. There's so many reasons why, and I could list them all day, but one of the more novel features is the playable Spider-Man character, long before Amazing Spider-Man refashioned the superhero into a hipster poser photographer/skateboarder.

Looking a bit husky there, Spidey.

You can unlock the webhead in THPS2 by beating up on Career mode with your created skater. When that's all done, you're treated to this spectacular footage:

Movie Review: xXx (2002)

Vin Diesel's infiltration of Code Redd Net continues this week with one of his earliest star vehicles, the beautifully idiotic xXx.

What if James Bond was, like, into motocross and stuff? Well, here you go: xXx is perfect if you ever wanted to see a secret agent bust drug cartels while doing superman seat grabs. Vin Diesel plays an extreme sports exemplary and all-star faux-renegade, recruited by the NSA to infiltrate some Eastern European gangsters. He does all the things Bond does, but does them to the tune of early aughts nu-metal. How do we know he can shoot a gun? Because he broke his leg once pretending to be Matt Hoffman, and spent a few months playing first-person shooters, at least that's what he claims. Obviously, xXx goes for that coveted young male demo by washing every spy movie plot point down with Red Bull: he gets his gadgets from a nerdy white guy who follows him around like an obsessed fan (resulting in one of the all-time great screen grabs*), his globetrotting is limited to places where he can find some rad powder or surf, his language is as colorful as PG-13 allows, he seems to prefer strippers over supermodels, and all the upper-middle-class spoils enjoyed by 007 (Beluga caviar, Vodka martinis, BMWs/Astin Martins) get swapped out for lower-class equivalents, your Playstations, Vans sneakers, Corvettes.

*I love everything about this photo.

As I may have already indicated, it's impossible not to read xXx alongside or against the Bond film from the same year, Die Another Day, one of the more schizophrenic and bloated entries in the series. Whereas DAD had plenty of poorly conceptualized and executed CGI sequences, xXx has aged much more gracefully in that department. Though often implausible, the motorcycle/snowboard chases come across quite clearly, and they make sense in their own stupid way. Similar scenes in DAD don't work because the digital Surfing Bond is so obviously phony: xXx, however, has the good taste to hire a few X-Games athletes as stuntmen to give the scenes weight. It's also easier to stomach Diesel's admittedly insipid one-liners than the nonsense innuendos of Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry. Strange to say, but with a decade's perspective, it's clear that xXx did what DAD did that same year, and did it better.

Finest Fights: The Protector (2005)

Remember that series where we post videos of our favorite fight scenes on YouTube? This is it. Get ready for some rumbling in non-Canadian metropolitan areas.

It's like Touch of Evil (1958), but with way more Muay Thai.

Movie Review: Fireball (2009)

It's not a bad idea to mix Muay Thai and basketball, but only in equal parts, please. Conceptually imbalanced, Fireball has too much Muay Thai and not enough basketball, and way too much shaky cam. Problems arise mainly from the plot: Tai, recently released from prison, finds out his brother has been left in a coma by a rival team of underground roundballers. He decides the only way to get back at them is to join another team for the upcoming tournament. So far so good. Once the tournament gets underway, however, we are introduced to the rules of this hybrid sport: 5-on-5, anything goes, first to score or last team standing wins. That takes away the most significant dramatic device available in basketball: the clock. Without it, there's no real drive to the "games," no narrative urgency, no countdown to keep things moving, and all four contests shown in the film involve a lot of mindless martial arts and conspicuously little basketball. It's like a poor man's Ong Bak, except the guy who substitutes for Tony Jaa gets to hold a basketball while he strikes his opponents. You only have to make one shot to win the game, yet nobody seems able to get a decent layup or short jumper. Also, why even dribble the ball if there's no rules? Why worry about traveling when lead pipes can be brought in off the bench? Sure, the Muay Thai itself is not bad, but the novelty of the concept unquestionably lies in the integration of Muay Thai techniques with those of basketball. Because the game has no rules, and only a single basket can end the game, offensive and defensive strategy mainly involves beating the stuffing out of someone else and then trying to dunk the ball, only to be rebuffed at the last minute by a running knee or a spin kick because nobody playing in these games understands the fundamentals of ball movement. As a result of such contrivances, much of the editing during the fight scenes is choppy and discontinuous, and the ball, inconsistently documented, warps around the court seemingly without rhyme or reason. It's rarely clear who is about to score, or even how close they are to the basket, so the whole thing comes off as a series of big fights that end when someone simply finds the nerve to sink a five footer. Even the fight scenes lack the kind of spirit or inventiveness of Jaa's best work, and this is not helped by the headache-inducing cinematography that blurs most of the moves beyond recognition, to say nothing of appreciation. There's really nothing in Fireball to recommend. In this case, it's not the ingredients that make for a bad flavor, it's the recipe.

Movie Review: Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Despite my evergreen enthusiasm for trashy action movies, this is my first encounter with the Fast & Furious films. I more or less managed to ignore them for the last 12 years: but mid-afternoon boredom, coupled with a few decent reviews and a respectable aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes, prompted me to give this one a chance. And, for the most part, I was glad I did.

One of the more plausible sequences, for real.

As a rule, franchises don't mature easily. Except for James Bond, most either limp into their toddler years and/or slowly embrace the starless and cash-strapped straight-to-video market. Yet here we are with Fast & Furious 6: more expensive and star-studded than ever despite being old enough to start kindergarten. To its credit, this is one series where prior knowledge of the previous movies is practically unnecessary. In fact, it may actually be beneficial. Just know that Vin Diesel plays a former ex-con street racer done good, a regular Robin Hood with hydraulics, and his merry band of thieves includes buddies like white boi Paul Walker, Tyrese, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster. In their last adventure, our gang toppled a capitalist's empire and made off with the loot, scattering across the globe to enjoy the good life. Dwayne Johnson plays a super buff military man in need of Diesel's assistance: turns out one of the crew has seemingly returned from the dead to work for a smuggler, and for some reason INTERPOL desperately needs the help of these street racers and import fanatics to take him down. They agree in exchange for amnesty and full pardons, naturally.

Thankfully, there's little time wasted in developing the story beyond that. Johnson shows up in the first 10 minutes, gives the group their marching orders, and then off they go into a world of CGI-fueled chases and car hops. For the first hour of the film, I was very pleased with this breakneck pace. Extended, expertly planned, gravity-defying driving sequences make the time fly right by, even though the artificiality of the special effects is sometimes too transparent. They are bracketed by necessarily exposition-laden scenes that at least have the good taste to be funny, and even if it's mostly childish humor (a recurring bit centers on the size of Tyrese's forehead), it's a welcome thing indeed to see a movie so aware of its stupidity and willing to exploit it. Speaking of which, there are some chase sequences in here that should be kept forever in the annals of excessive movie stupidity, particularly the entertaining tank heist near the end that features more than a single instance of Superman-style carjacking, a thoroughly impractical method that is intellectually and kinesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, a tepid, hammy Act II really slows the pace down with plot, of all things, but once that's out of the way, it's right back to cars fighting much bigger vehicles in all kinds of wacky, unexpected situations. For summer popcorn, this is a good time.