Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is the new movie directed by Guillermo Del Toro, also the director of such films as Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, and Hellboy. I've seen all the previous mentioned films and I think this is his best to date. The movie just feels tighter than his previous efforts and I really can't think of anything to criticize here. I think if you are going into it expecting a light fairytale type movie you will be dissapointed. What we have here is a mashup of a few different genres. Fantasy, political drama/war movie and horror all get mixed together but it works surprisingly well. It has a lot of cringe inducing scenes but they are all used carefully to support characters in the movie and not just for shock value. The movie is very intense throughout and I would not recommend taking the kiddies to it.

The acting in the movie is top notch by the whole cast. One standout is the evil captain who is so despicable he will make your skin crawl by the end of the movie. All the other actors are great and for a fantastical movie I was never distracted by the acting.

Speaking of distracted I want to mention the special effects here as well. A lot of the time with this kind of movie I will be taken out of it because I'll be thinking about how phony the effects are. This never happened while I was watching this film. All the effects, and there are quite a few fx shots, are blended expertly with the rest of the movie. There are some CG elements but it was never overused and it seemed like they did most of the main fantastical creatures using more traditional fx techniques. The faun and the crazy pale thing with eyes in it's hands are so well done and creepy that they might just be visiting you at night for a while.

Overall I would say this the best movie I have seen for a long time. It has a lot going against it (it's in Spanish, limited release, limited marketing) but I hope people turn out for it and make it a success. Interesting movies like this that do new things and push filmmaking deserve to be rewarded. So, this weekend when you are torn between watching the umpteenth movie starring Eddie Murphy in a fat suit or Pan's Labyrinth, please make the right choice and support this film. It's up for a couple of Oscars, I hope it takes some of them home.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Alright. So, this game was cool. Having played the first Fire Emblem on the gba a few years ago, I knew what I was getting into. To be honest, I skipped through most of the dialogue, so I can't speak for the story. Something about betrayal and/or heirs to a throne of somesort. I think a little bit of intrugue too......and maybe a Demon Lord.

This woman has a problem with stabbing people.

Most of the story in the game is revealed through characters conversing thusly above. The character designs in this game are really well handled, and the 2-D sprites are animated smoothly during fight scenes.



The gameplay is what Fire Emblem is all about. You command a squad of characters, each with their own unique abilities, on a quest. Combat takes place on a grid, similar somewhat to chess, and you take turns moving your men around and attacking the opposing forces. If one of your characters should die, they cannot return, and are gone from the game for good. This has pissed me off more times than I care to say. After spending alot of time leveling up your characters into the ultimate baddasses, it sucks to lose any of them. The only way to get that character back is to restart the chapter you are on, at the beginning. So every time one of my characters fell, I had to weigh the cost of starting over vs. is he worth it? IS MY WIZARD WORTH IT...?



I can't really think of anything bad to say about this game, except for that the story was kind of long winded and text heavy. So if you are okay with all that, you would like this game. Four Pistolwips, okay?

World of Warcraft

So Joel calls me up last nite and wants to know if I want to play World of Warcraft. I'm not too into online games, nor RPG's (strategy RPG's notwithstanding), but seeing as how i was watching LOTR and playing Fire Emblem when he called, i figured I'd give it a shot. After downloading the ten day trial game and creating our characters, we were off.

There were several classes of races that you could choose to be. We both settled on Night Elves; I named my character IamDaWizard. Joel made a comment early on, that when we start playing, i needed to "get into character" and really be an elf. I almost stopped playing right there. But...I'm glad I didn't because its actually kind of fun to play. I dont really care for the art style of the characters, but it didn't really matter once I started running around the world itself.



Basically, you choose a server on which to play, and everyone on the same server is in the same world. You embark on short fetch quests and earn experience points and gear for your trouble, and you can do the quests alone, or join up with other online players. Of course, being online, you have your share of asses that enhabit the realm. One guy kept running up on us and wanting to fight. We'd see him every once in a while running around, dancing, and bothering other players. I should have acted like an elf and popped an arrow in his ass or whatever it is elves do. They do that, don't they?

It was weird playing with a keyboard and mouse, because i never do. Alot of the time I'd just be walking into trees or falling off cliffs, but i started to get the hang of it after a while. Eventually we met up with Joel's brother Jon-Mark and off we went to get some more missions, when suddenly Joel's real life intervened and he had to go eat dinner. That was fine with me, because i was getting hungry at the time too. I ran around with Jon-Mark for a bit, killing all the animals we could fine, but soon after, I logged off and made a pizza.

Overall, I'd play it again.

I like Guild Wars

I've been playing Guild Wars now for quite a long time. I never thought I would get into paying MMO's because I always viewed them as a major time-suck and to be honest I really don't have tons of time to play games. I was in the mood for a new fantasy RPG one day after playing nothing but first person shooters for awhile so I decided to give it a try. I was always kind of intrigued by the screenshots and I really liked the fact that there is no monthly fee so I went to the local Fred Meyer and picked it up.

So now, after over 100 hours put into it I'm close to finishing my second (technically the third) campaign "Nightfall". I have to say that I've had tons of fun playing this game it's probably the best value for money that I've ever had from a computer game. I go through periods where I don't play that much but I always seem to go back when I have a minute and get sucked back into the world. I've found a really cool guild but I mostly just solo which is also a lot of fun. It is a really nice change of pace from playing shooters all the time. I was really tired of the time wasted trying to get those to run on my computer. There is always a new shooter coming out that has the latest and greatest graphics but it's getting to the point where I can barely run them on my rig. I liked Guild Wars because I can run it smoothly, it looks great, and it's stable for the most part. I don't have to mess around with my computer setting every time I want to play.

Anyhow, if you have any kind of curiosity about this genre of game I suggest you try Guild Wars out. It is however my first MMO and I have plans to try out the uber-popular World of Warcraft in the next week or so. I'll be back with my impressions of that game but it's going to take a lot to pull me away from the GW universe.

DS Lite shortage

I just got off the phone with two Fred Meyers, a Best Buy, EB Games, Gamestop, and our local Gamecrazy and all of them have been out of DS Lite's since Christmas. I sold my original DS brick several months ago, and have yet to replace it with the Lite; so here i am with about 8 DS games and no hardware to play it on. I guess they got snatched up by all the good looking people in the picture above. Why would you take your shirt off to play video games?? And plus, the girl on the right looks like she escaped from a mental hospital. Girl, snap out of it...!! I will trade you precious medical treatment for your DS Lite...!

Mouse Guard - A Return to Honor

Writer/Artist: David Peterson

(Spoilers within)

I only bought two things at the comic book shop this week, Astonishing Xmen and Mouse Guard. And although i love the former, it was the latter that i was excited for.

This issue concludes David Peterson's six issue miniseries, and is by far the best of the bunch. The three Mouse Guard are finally reunited, as Black Axe begins his attack on Lockhaven. The art in this series has always had a cineramic quality to it, and more than once i found myself staring at the panels, soaking up all the details. The fight scenes, in particular, are very kinetic.

There is a panel midway through the book, where a mouse is conversing with a bumblebee. In his hand he holds an urn, from which churns smoke that has a very faint impression of the artist's fingerprints. As if he smudged the ink with his fingers to create the effect of smoke. You can almost picture David Peterson hunched at his drawing table churning out each page of this comic.

Overall, this series has one of enjoyable things I've read all year. Five Pistolwips.

Pick up the trade when it drops in April, and pick up the next Mouse Guard series beginning in July.