Rock Band/Indy IV

In this bumper-sized episode, we finally get to own Rock Band and after having played the hell out of it for the past few days in solo, online and local multiplayer we can give you our first impressions.

Was it worth the wait, can it live up to the hype and most importantly is it worth £180?

We also review the fourth Indiana Jones film. Nearly two decades in the making, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sees an aging Harrison Ford take up the hat and whip once more.

Was it worth the wait, can it live up to the hype and most importantly can we review it without spoiling the ending?

Of course we can. Which is why you should listen out for the warning music which signals the secrets-filled finale of this absolutely kickass episode. Turn us off if you've not seen Indy yet when you hear the Ark of the Covenant theme.

Then come back to us when you've seen it.

Rock on!

The 10 Greatest Movies Ever

If you are searching for something different from The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia, we have provided an alternative lineup. After a lifetime of lists full of the same films, vaunted as the greatest works of cinema ever, we decided to redress the balance and do our own. That's not to say we don't recognise them as fantastic films, but let's face it, the same list over and over is getting boring and we need some new blood. Each co-host cites their ten entries and at the end the ten we most agree on make it onto the final list.

This week we also discuss the future contenders for our Rock Band money;: namely Activision's Guitar Hero IV and Rock Revolution from Konami.

Grand Theft Auto IV Review

It's not all gushing praise, in fact some of us get downright angry at times over the game mechanics and other gripes about GTA. It is, however one of the biggest reviews for one of the biggest games we've done and definitely worth a listen. Besides which, this is the truth about our experience with one of the most hyped and celebrated games in history.
 
Also discussed at the beginning: new content for Guitar Hero III and some other games Tony's been playing.

Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Format: XBOX 360

This review sits beneath a landslide of amassed praise and hyperbole surrounding this game. A title has not received such unanimously vaunting praise since Ocarina of Time on the N64. I could just repeat what everybody else has said and state that this is a strong contender for game of the year and virtually flawless, but in all honesty my experience seems to have varied. In the interests of journalistic integrity I can’t just say it’s perfect. It’s not and that’s fine, nothing really is. So if you need validation for your purchase or a collection of how many incredible new features there are then look elsewhere. If, however you would like to know what “not without its flaws” means (and it has been said by many) then read on.

Before I start, may I first echo the praise for GTA IV’s central character Niko Bellic. He is a prime example of depth in a central protagonist and I never felt frustrated with the way he acted. In fact, his forthright strength of character actively left me discouraged to go on the usual killing sprees, unlike the callous Tommy Vercetti from Vice City. Niko is definitely likable and compelling and many of the characters he meets (especially at the front end of the game) are multi-dimensional and interesting and only a little clichéd. The polish on the format is definitely apparent on start-up. The weight of the character and the vehicles he drives is apparent. The impact of hitting someone with a car or shooting them is amped up and the people behave a little more realistically. You can play for ages and still notice new things. It was only after about twenty hours that I started to see repetition, which gave way to cracks and flaws in the gameplay and eventually full-blown frustration at what eventually became apparent; polish is all that distinguishes this game from the previous iterations.

This is not to say that GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas are not superb games, but they were all based around the same engine, pioneered on the previous generation’s consoles and significantly here not replaced with a new one. This is GTA as we know and love it, but also (if applicable) as we hate it. The old problems are still there. The refined mission system means that if you are (unfairly?) slaughtered on a first attempt you can reload the current task. What it doesn’t counter for are the often monumentally long and boring drives between the islands that you often have to take. The Taxi system is a masterstroke, allowing you to skip many of these for a small fee, but all too often a specific vehicle is needed, necessitating you sitting for five minutes each attempt, having the same (or at least similar) conversations with the same characters who quickly reveal their lack of dimension through the repetition of the odious things they say. Hearing it once would be fine, twice or six times is unbearable. Maybe I wasn’t a sharp enough player. Maybe I shouldn’t have died so often or lost track of my fleeing quarry, but many missions are so trial and error based that you need several attempts just to know what’s around each corner.

In the interests of constructive criticism, rather than picking at the holes in this (admittedly fantastically presented and well planned) game, I will suggest what I’d like to see in the next instalment. For instance I would genuinely like to see the old engine scrapped. It was great for the PS2, functional and fun, but for current gen consoles, with responsive and intuitive characters like Assassin’s Creed’s Altair stalking the bustling streets, we need a model that knows when not to plummet off a rooftop because the camera whipped round to an awkward angle at an inopportune moment. We need a man who knows to lock onto and shoot the thug who is three feet away and emptying a shotgun into him and not stubbornly keep aiming at the one three rooms away behind a crate despite numerous frantic button taps. These are simple things that Rockstar surely will contend with someday. I just wish it had been for this game.

A save system that would allow you to start at the warehouse full of goons at the end of a long drive, not before it, would be nice, along with the ability to get people to be quiet in the car so you can listen to the music. Speaking of which, the soundtrack needs a mention. Over a dozen radio stations and only one or two with anything good on: perhaps a little too much like real life. This is only remarkable because the previous two games have had two of the most outstanding collections of 80’s and 90’s period music in any video game ever, and what’s assembled here seems a little too much like the eclectic mix that would play in a smoky record shop run by a music elitist who loathes anything popular. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Guitar Hero, but a handful of rock songs just isn’t good enough when swamped by a deluge of reggae, electro, funk and obscure hip hop. Hell, one station is entirely dedicated to Bob Marley and the Wailers. This saddens me as I was genuinely excited about the soundtrack, but the Chatterbox equivalent talk shows always seemed to be playing the same three segments, which meant that by hour thirty, I was switching off the radio and listening to the soundtrack to Layer Cake on my iPod. Next time, Rockstar, don’t be afraid to put on more songs that people know and/or like. Obscure is ok, but nostalgia has more power than novelty.

It was around this thirty-hour mark that the weight of the game began to press down on me. I knew I wasn’t far from the end but it just seemed to be going on forever, with each gruelling mission advancing my percentage of completion a fraction at a time. The fun began to ebb and a cold determination to finish rather than enjoy it began to set in. Again, perhaps if I had taken my time, it would have been better, but the repetitious waltz of chase/hide/shoot took such a hold that I could barely tell one mission from the next. It’s not just that all the missions in this single game follow the same handful of themes, it’s that this is all GTA has ever done and once again, to be constructive, perhaps the next should include more variation, even if this sacrifices the playing time of the core story. There is still plenty to do once you finish the final mission (indeed, this is the game’s key strength) with dozens of Taxi, vigilante and assassination missions, coupled with the usual treasure hunt. But once again, though they have swapped hidden packages for pigeons, it’s the same as it always was: drive/find (/shoot if necessary). The shooting system itself has indeed been refined, but after a time every single shootout became the same. Hide behind a wall or a box, wait for the hoods to show their faces, blast, repeat. I’d have appreciated either variation or simply less of the same. Five standout set pieces would stay with me longer than twenty identikit scuffles.

The much vaunted strong point of the game is the story. True, it starts out great with a thought-provoking series of tangled relationships, and much in the way of exposing the hypocrisy behind championing the American dream whilst despising outsiders who wish to join the party. There is musing on the nature of revenge and starting over and it truly holds your attention, but again it is only to a point. At some undetermined moment the clichés begin to appear until you find yourself sitting in a car with foul-mouthed Mafiosi thinking, “I have so done this before.” Rockstar run out of steam and leave you stranded in a limp reproduction of the Sopranos all too early. Once again, if they have to shorten the story for the next instalment in favour of consistent quality and depth then I certainly won’t be complaining.

The friend system initially is great fun. Spending time with your buddies shooting pool and the like is entertaining, but eventually you find yourself with twelve people calling up and badgering you to go to a strip club with them when it’s (really) three in the morning and all you want to do is sleep. Eventually you realise that the limp bonuses that keeping everybody happy offers simply isn’t worth the hours of your time and the ignore button becomes your new best friend.

Finally the real killer of this game for me, beyond the repetition, beyond the lame back-end characters and forgiving it the engine which still can’t seem to manage to keep the frame rate consistent and a far-off vehicle visible from moment to moment, no, the real killshot for my enjoyment of this game was the frustration factor. I lost count of the number of times I roared at the screen and writhed in my chair as Niko’s speeding car clipped a lamp-post and ground to a halt allowing whoever he was pursuing to escape within five seconds meaning I would have to jump through many hoops again just to get back to that same place and perhaps catch him. The illusion of freedom was never so present in a game. You may be able to go anywhere and do anything (weathering the consequences each time, usually involving a tedious police chase) but you still have to do a hell of a lot of things to the letter if you wish to actually play the game. You can’t cunningly set a trap for the dim-witted hoods you know are going to emerge from a certain door, you have to go in the front way and hit a certain spot. You often can’t shoot an enemy off the back of a motorbike because you must get to a certain place and kill him there and you certainly can’t let any of the core characters die, much less kill them. This leaves you prey to occasionally retarded A.I. both for allies and enemies, and performing the same tasks in the same ways to appease the game mechanic. When the cries of protest at an unfair death outweigh the smiles of joy at the clever digs at American culture and the occasional original mission you have to start questioning the validity of those multiple perfect scores. So this is the tallest order to Rockstar and requires them to go back to the drawing board. How about an open-world game where you really are free?

The saddest thing for me is that of course they won’t do this. The engine they polished may be from the last generation but it keeps the current gen happy. The next instalment will use the same one, the same problems will be present and of course I will buy it on day one, because I’m like that.

I don’t regret buying this. In fact despite the seeming negative tone of this review I would urge everybody with the corresponding console to go out, buy this and play it to death. It is more of an experience than most other games. I have barely mentioned the incredibly fun multiplayer setup, the pure joy of just cruising around the city on free mode with your two best mates in the car seeing what you can jump over and the mysterious downloadable content we’ve been promised for later this year. It is genuinely worth every penny of its price tag. It’s not perfect. We should not demand perfection from our games. But it could be better and to that end Rockstar can take on board what many people have said, and perhaps next time I can truly say that this time… it was different.

Rating: ****

Iron Man

This episode is entirely focused on the new Iron Man film. Alex, Paul and Tony discuss every riveting detail of the new Marvel blockbuster. Also check out Alex's written review on the blog.

Coming very soon: GTA IV.

Synopsis:

Multimillionaire arms dealer Tony Stark is taken hostage by mercenaries while supplying U.S. troops in Afghanistan with new hardware. Mortally wounded and kept alive by a jerry-rigged heart operation, he is threatened into constructing similar weapons for his captors. Instead he fashions a crude suit of armour kitted out with flamethrowers and rockets and makes a daring escape bid. Back home in L.A. Tony suffers a crisis of conscience and decides to make an improved suit and track down all of the weapons he has supplied in the past and also take out the armies of fanatics and despots lording over many troubled war zones across the world. However a dangerous business rival has other plans.

Review:

It’s been nearly half a century since Stan Lee and the other creators at Marvel started churning out dozens of highly popular superheroes onto the pages of longstanding comic series, and yet it’s only been the past decade when we’ve seen them appear on our cinema screens. Iron Man marks the first of these that Marvel is financing themselves, and it shows. Right from the off, two things are abundantly clear; firstly that the people who put this together know their comic, its characters and scenarios, and secondly that they are all aware of how to translate the values and themes of a 1960s introductory story into a modern-day setting and make it relevant and entertaining. If every one of their previous efforts had been as good as this, then misfires like the clumsy Daredevil would have brought them truly excellent films as well as gateways to new franchises. Not that they haven’t been able to push most of their licences into sequel territory, regardless of film quality: Fantastic 4 spawned a silver spin-off and even the lumbering, misunderstood Hulk is getting an imminent pseudo-sequel.

Like the best comic book movies, Iron Man takes for granted that its audience is going to be relatively intelligent and spends little time explaining things in detail. In fact, its whip-quick pacing is one of its deadliest weapons, along with a tight script and confident delivery by all. It doesn’t pander to kids or hold back on grim moments, of which there are a surprising number. This is a superhero film set in a more real world than most of its peers. The enemies are by and large tyrannical mercenaries and fanatics in the Middle East, and the film is unflinching in prodding at several touchy issues regarding war and the shameful truth of the arms industry. It shares much with the 2005 film Lord of War in this dispassionate statement of chilling facts, yet like that film never stoops so low as to preach about the evils that are apparent to all who are looking. This is a film for adults and mature kids. The classic rock of the soundtrack makes this clear; if you’re old enough to appreciate AC/DC then you’ll get the best out of this film.

It is a movie of two halves, the first an uneasy war piece with the gritty, sun bleached flavour of David O’Russell’s Three Kings. Downey’s Tony Stark is confronted with the reality of what his weapons do, something he appears to have been ignoring, and the understanding that he has indirectly caused terrible harm. This segueways explosively to the second part where Stark harnesses his techno-genius abilities and channels them into something protective and impossible to ignore. What is interesting is that there is no morality play of right or wrong at work here. It’s not that his weapons have ended up in the wrong hands; he simply realises that they will be used by the strong to take from the weak and this deeply affects him. He does what any man would when facing the dark night of the soul; he builds a kickass suit of flying armour and goes to make amends with awe-inspiring firepower.

The iron suit scenes are all shot with the grace of a concept car show-reel with flawless and seamless CGI effects from ILM, working the impossible so that you forget what you’re watching isn’t real – or at least you don’t query it until you leave the cinema. It culminates in a mech suit clash of the titans that most have compared favourably with Transformers, but which reaches even greater heights of impact because you know there are two men in there being pummelled with motorbikes.

Despite eye-popping effects and edge-of-the-seat flight sequences it is the script and acting that carry the film the most. All too often, big budget effects movies fall back on what could be knocked together from several rejected drafts and the actors don’t seem to engage with the characters, but there is an ease here that is delightfully out of character for a blockbuster. Downey Jr was born to play the role of Stark; his troubled past, drug and alcohol addiction serve him well to characterise this flawed master of technology. Always perfectly timed with a quip or a charming one-liner he is every bit as compelling as Bale’s Batman or Perlman’s Hellboy. He plays him brash and lonely, more at home with machines than other people, with the exception of the spunky Pepper Potts, played just on the wire of damsel in distress by Ms Paltrow. Terrence Howard also makes a welcome turn as Stark’s friend Jim Rhodes, immediately making him likable and frequently exasperated by Stark’s attitude, so that when he glances at a spare suit of silver armour and War Machine fans grip their seats, thoughts of a sequel flash through everybody’s minds. Bridges’ Obadiah Stane starts off as an obvious villain complete with hirsute chin and shiny pate, but eventually surprises in his cold-hearted greed and vicious ability to do anything for an edge in the market. Ending up like Donald Trump meets Megatron, he is a true avatar for iron-hearted corporate greed.

To conclude, as the first of ten planned films funded by Marvel themselves, this is the perfect piece to open the second renaissance of comic-book movies. While not distinctly different in tone from Spider-Man or Batman Begins, this is without doubt a triumph of new attitude. We now know almost all of Marvel’s key characters and they can commence upping the ante with faithful renditions of comic fans favourites and introductions to the uninitiated. The Hulk is set to explode back onto our screens in a few months time and Captain America and Thor are waiting in the wings. However, unlike the past decade’s worth of Marvel films, where one of the key aspects of their universe was impossible due to different distribution rights; i.e. the crossover characters from one book to the other. The next few films look set to break that trend at long last. Downey’s Tony Stark may be appearing in The Incredible Hulk, and there is a scene after the credits in (some screenings of) Iron Man featuring Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury appearing at Tony’s house with a cryptic message about forming a new super-team. I walked out before I could catch this Easter egg, but it’s quite possible that as a long-time Avengers fan, I’d have cheered like a maniac. Instead I left the cinema with a massive grin on my face and Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man? grinding in my ears. For the end credits, it couldn’t really have been anything else.

Rating: *****

Alex Shaw