For fans of the show, South Park: Stick of Truth is a faithful representation of the series. From the art style to the driving force behind characters actions, everything about this game oozes South Park. Though there are many engaging and entertaining battles, there is but one that will keep players struggling to stay in their seats-the final battle for control of the universe with Princess Kenny.
Nearly ten years ago the Nintendo Wii found its way into homes and revolutionized gaming as we know it. I know that sounds like a huge statement but stick with me on this one. A new millenium ushered in a new and exciting era in gaming. None more exciting than the moment Nintendo president Satoru …
The month, October. The year, 1985. The event, the release of the upgraded and re-branded Famicom system in the United States. A console gamers across the generations would come to know as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short. A console that ended the Dark Age of video games by systematically undoing the damage …
With the documentary rooted as independent as its subjects, Indie Game: The Movie started as a Kickstarter project and went all the way to Sundance in 2012, with aspirations gripping the palms of Swirsky and Pajot’s hands. The film primarily follows two indie game projects, Super Meat Boy and Fez, as their creators struggle through video game development, from their highest highs to their lowest lows. In between their stories, time with Jonathan Blow of Braid is spent to emphasize how life after success isn’t always what its cracked up to be. Blow talks about being confused for months after Braid came out, because many people simply took the game for face value without appreciating the plot nuances articulated in painstaking detail by its creator for years on end.
King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a documentary that follows Steve Wiebe’s attempt to break the Donkey Kong high score held by “Gamer of the Century” Billy Mitchell. Director Seth Gordon captures a classic underdog story on film that has you rooting for Steve the moment he takes on the Donkey Kong challenge, even though it means snatching the crown from Billy. More importantly, King of Kong demonstrates the importance of good sportsmanship.
Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (E.T.) is a critically acclaimed film that was release in the summer of 1982. The video game adapted from the film on the other hand, is unequivocally known as the worst video game in history. Its legendary disappointment reached mythical proportions when Atari buried a mountain of unsold cartridges in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Last year, E.T. was unearthed, increasing the game’s mythos. One lucky (or unlucky) cartridge made it to The Smithsonian, a symbol of the video game crash that lasted three long years from 1982 to 1985.
As far as most people can tell, though the actual chronology tends to get confusing, it all started with the late Andrew Brietbart. In between the right wing of American politics stomping up and down about Hollywood liberals like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie, occasionally they take a break and instead summarily hijack a beloved …
Some of the first video games I ever played were Pac-Man, Centipede, Tetris, and Pong. However, it wasn’t until I played Super Mario Bros. that I saw the true potential of gaming. It was time to say good-bye to stationary backgrounds, and hello to side scrolling platformers.
“It’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.” I had heard about A Clockwork Orange long before I ever saw it. I was maybe 13 or 14 the first time my mother mentioned it to me. She told me about seeing it in …
“Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities?” – Jack Torrance, before telling his wife that he’s going to bash her brains in. Jack Torrance has responsibilities that were given given to him in good faith by the manager …
Mention Up to someone, and it is almost inconceivable that their response will not immediately mention the montage. The sequence which opens the film has come to overshadow all that follows so completely, it almost feels like a short film appended to the beginning of the wild, raucous action-adventure that follows. The “Married Life” sequence …
Both Soderbergh and Clooney have tackled many different questions over their careers, but together, they consistently aim to understand celebrity in all of its glory and danger. The pair seem to inherently understand the allure of movie stars, and their most successful collaborations are celebrations of those we elevate above the status of “actor” and to the level of pop culture Gods.
Following the release of Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989, Steven Soderbergh was poised for stardom as the darling of the indie scene. He sat at the head table in a push to change the face of cinema. Unlike contemporaries like Tarantino, his predicted rise didn’t happen right away. He followed the popular debut with …
The most unsettling element of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (which is, by any metric, a deeply discomfiting film) is its plausibility. The film has a clinical approach that underlines how possible its central crisis is and how powerless we would be to stop it. The film has a global scope and an all-star cast, but what resonates most is the idea that this could happen. Anywhere. Anytime. To any one of us.
One of the persistent side effects of what may turn out to be Steven Soderbergh’s final theatrical release is destabilization. The film, aptly named Side Effects, is constantly forcing you to reevaluate who its characters are, what their motivations might be, and ultimately, what kind of story we are watching. In this regard, it becomes an almost perfect capstone to the career of one of Hollywood’s most prolific and versatile filmmakers.
For a period of years after the release of Pulp Fiction, mainstream Hollywood developed an obsession with structure, toying with time and pacing in ways that were often interesting and occasionally grating. The late 1990s also saw the release of a variety of pretty excellent Elmore Leonard adaptations, including Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Quentin …
For an actor so enigmatically blessed with sensitive leading man looks, Keanu Reeves has an uncanny dexterity within the action genre. Hampered by the effortlessness of his airhead turn as Ted in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Reeves spent years shedding his pretty boy persona in more arthouse and mainstream dramatic fare, only to find it right …