The Revenant Thoughts

So I went to see The Revenant recently that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy (among others) and is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Powerful acting and visuals made the whole thing a fairly pleasing experience and I'd shortly like to share a few thoughts on it all.

The first thing I noticed right away is that the acting is really solid all around, at no point was I put off or taken out of the experience by bad acting. Very rarely do you see a movie where everything is this "tight", which made it all the more impressive. DiCaprio is of course the main attraction in this movie and the man sure delivers an unforgettable performance to be remembered for a mighty long time. Truly remarkable.

Beautiful shots and visuals were also offered, while it's a brutal movie it's never afraid to show of the beauty of the natural world. I don't care who you are but when you watch this, regardless of the brutal conditions, part of you will consider leaving civilized life for untouched wilderness because of what you'll see here, of only for a moment. Overall outstanding visuals that you don't really see in other more mainstream movies.

Now I don't only have praise for this movie, there was a subplot with the Indians that were hunting for the chief's daughter that wasn't that well developed or interesting. I guess it motivated them to hunt for the "heroes" and so on but they felt uneven as they at times were hellbent on killing everything and at times appeared rather peaceful. Really the one aspect I don't feel was well done for this movie.

Furthermore, I'm not really sure it's a movie that you need to watch more than one time. Yes I'm happy I went to see it, like I'd recommend watching this piece of art at least once in your life, but I can't really do more than that. Reckon it's hard to make one man's journey that interesting but once you've seen it there's not really enough to keep you going back. Guess not everyone really likes to watch movies more than once anyway but I do and if you're like me you might not wanna invest in owning this movie later on.

Still, I liked it for what it was and I'm happy it exists and that I got to see it. Movies like this doesn't come around very often so do go see it, especially if you're tired of the usual Hollywood take on "true events".

E3 2015 Thoughts and Winners

Best E3, like, ever! It has to be said before going more in-depth, it was a great show and many unbelievable surprises. It was so much fun seeing old and new games doing their best to impress. With that said, lets get to the meatier stuff! Do note that these are my opinions and I do focus on the stuff I was personally interested in.

I started watching Bethesda's E3 conference at 5:00 am Finnish time, and I'm glad I did. They started off with Doom 4 which was looking really good. Cannot complain about neither graphics nor gameplay, it was fun to see. They had a bit of stuff I didn't care about in the middle, like the Elder Scrolls online thing but they also showed off a lot of Fallout 4, and what can I say about that? It looks damn good, gameplay looks very fun with combat that they've actually put effort into this time around and they have a crazy amount of customization options. Lets just say it's hard to say that Fallout 4 isn't your kind of game because there's just so many options on how to play it. I suppose I should also mention that I can't wait to see more of Dishonored 2, I loved the first game so I do also expect great things from this game.

Moving on, the next conference I watched was Microsoft. I seem to be quite alone in this but their conference was pretty boring. Sure, they had good stuff like announcing backwards compatibility and, yeah. Don't get me wrong they showed games like Halo 5, Gears 4 and Forza 6 but those are franchises I've never been very fond of so they were pretty forgettable. The one game I was interested in that they showed was The Rise of the Tomb Raider (silly title though) but that demo was really disappointing. Very linear, scripted and the same old "shit breaks" kind of set piece gameplay that's just not very fun. They did the same with when they showed off the reboot as well, I thought that game was going to suck big time yet it's one of my favorite games from that year.

However, if we're talking about an outright bad conference, lets check out EA. If you wanna go to sleep, this is where it's at. They were smart saying every now and then how long until the reveal of Battlefront 3, because that was really the only reason to watch their show. Sure they had the new Need For Speed which looked neat enough, but it was really Star Wars: Battlefront 3 that people were most excited about. They also showed off the new Mass Effect: Andromeda game, but there's not much to talk about there either, EA really should've waited to announce a few of their projects because it seems like they aren't even nearly ready to talk about their games yet. Better luck next year.

Maybe it was because I had just watched EA's snoozefest, but Ubisoft had a really good conference, or shall I say an entertaining one. With a good host and good games to show off, with highlights being The Division and Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Curiously enough with only a brief CGI trailer for Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, though I suppose that by now everyone knows what AC is. And lets not forget For Honor which also looks really interesting, new IP with a more realistic take on sword battles. Overall, good job to Ubisoft!

Next up, my personal favorite of E3 2015, Sony. Where to start, the first thing they did was reveal The Last Guardian which people have been waiting for forever. Almost unreal to see it again, and no mercy was given as they showed off a new IP, Horizon: Zero Dawn, with some impressive looking gameplay. The announcements kept coming, Final Fantasy 7 remake in the works and Shenmue 3 is also to be revived. Finally, they showed off more Uncharted 4 gameplay which looked really grand, more open and so detailed. To think that they still have plenty of studios still working on unannounced titles is really exciting. Sony really won me over this E3.

Nathan Drake in action!

As far as Nintendo and Square Enix goes, I don't have much to say. Nintendo's show was cute, sure, but I don't really saw anything worth of note. Square Enix then again showed stuff like Just Cause 3, but their speakers were so dull I just couldn't feel enthusiastic about their games. Seriously, if they don't care about what they're talking about then why should I? Charisma is really important in these situations, next time I hope they have speakers that actually care about our amazing medium.

Final words then, so this year Sony "won" E3 for me, however this year it was so great that I can't really say someone had the best show. All I can say is that EA, Nintendo and Square Enix still have a lot to learn, the rest all had good stuff going on. In the end it's the gamers that won, we will be getting so many quality experiences in these coming years it's insane. Hope you, yes you reading this, are just as excited as I am to be a gamer in this day and age!


You can also find me on twitter @crazycat690

E3 2014 Predictions and Wishes

E3 is soon upon us once again, and boy is there reason to hype. Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo all have reason to bring the big guns. The new consoles have been out now for about half a year, so this E3 will be a deciding point for many gamers. What else can we now do to handle the wait then hype some more?

Nintendo haven't been much of a presence on E3 since the release of Wii U, but they still have a desire to make their fans happy so don't expect them to show up empty handed. Say what you want about Nintendo but they are good at keeping secrets, wouldn't be surprised if they announced a new, grand Zelda game that the Wii U really need. Also I don't think the fans would mind perhaps a Super Mario Galaxy 3, a fan favorite to surprise? Nintendo could use the spotlight.

Microsoft then again have been hyping their stuff big time. Some stuff has also been leaked early, like cover and some info about the announced Halo 5: Guardians. Lately, they've been announcing new and good changes to their console, Xbox One, stuff they could've said at E3 but they might be clearing room to talk about games. Which is a smart move, they could do with some more popularity considering their situation. What I would expect to see from MS is a demo of Quantum Break, a lengthy trailer of Halo 5, a teaser of Gears of War 4, Sunset Overdrive trailer and then some more surprising announcements and some less surprising announcements with the usual exclusive content for certain games.

Then we have Sony, now I must admit I'm personally most hyped over Sony since I've been playing Playstation since a wee lad. I feel like they will bring good stuff to the show this year, they want to stay number 1 right now, eye of the tiger and all that. I wouldn't expect much as far as announcements for the console itself though I suppose I could see a demo of their VR project Morpheus thing and see how it separates itself from the competition. Maybe along with an announcement of Media Molecules game we'll see a demo of their game with Morpheus.

What I expect from them on a gaming note is that they really show off Uncharted 4, it will likely be used to show off the graphical powers of the Ps4, and I for one expect to be impressed. Other than that I think we'll see The Order 1886, Driveclub and Deep Down, you know, the announced stuff. When talking about the surprises I would hope that they're ready to re-introduce The Last Guardian, but not only that, also Agent, and the optimist in me would also not mind seeing Eight Days as a Ps4 project. Finally there's this older franchise that's been rumored to make a return for a long time now that I hope to finally see, which is Syphon Filter.

Of course we also have Ubisoft and EA which I which I will bring up last. Ubisoft have spilled the beans on a lot of stuff they will show like Far Cry 4, AC Unity and The Division, but I would still expect a surprise from them at the end in some form or another. EA on the other hand is kind of a wild card, not really sure what they're up to, could be really good, though they also have the biggest potential to disappoint greatly. Having new Star Wars games, like Battlefront 4, to show they really need to show something good to meet the high expectations from eager fans. They're also rumored to have already have a new Battlefield game in the works, scheduled for no later than this year, while some would be happy I'd imagine many would be angry with them releasing a new BF game one year later while BF4 is according to many still not very functional. Also making it an annual franchise like CoD which is so often trash talked by BF fans and EA alike.
 

If anyone want to share their hype go ahead, I do encourage discussion, not just one-sided talking.