The Vault: Manhunt

Manhunt (2003)

This week, I decided to revisit a game that always intrigued me but I never gave much of chance back in the day. The game is Rockstar’s Manhunt and it’s an odd one. I have memories of being so excited for this game to come out and then when it did my brother and I pooled our money together and convinced one of my parents to buy it, not that they were ever restrictive of what we played. To

To us, it looked like Grand Theft Auto (I guess there was only three back then) if it was a murderous horror movie and for some reason that got me excited, but not in a creepy way. When I finally did play it I had very mixed feelings. Here I was expecting something like a scary, action-packed sandbox game and what I got was a difficult slow paced stealth game built around levels. I probably played it for no more than a few days before giving up on it entirely and never even beat the first level, but times have changed.

I started playing this again around Halloween and was quickly reminded of why I originally gave this up. This game does try your patience early on and it’s still my opinion that the beginning section is one of the game’s most difficult hurdles. All you want to do is leap out and hack people apart, but that’s not what it’s all about. Manhunt is all about strategy, how you are going to accomplish your kill and how you’re going to avoid being noticed. It’s tough to get into if you’re an impatient person like myself, but if you can you’ll be able to work into a rhythm and appreciate the appeal of a good stealth game.

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Goodbye Happiness

Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness

I was a little hesitant to listen to Hello Sadness, the fourth/third album from Los Campesinos. I am someone who really enjoyed Hold on Now, Youngster… and We are Beautiful, We are Doomed, but found Romance is Boring to be disappointing. If this album was another disappointment, it would be hard for me to be optimistic about Los Campesinos’ future. But, on the other hand, it’s been a while since I listened to something by these folks. It turns out I missed them. And Hello Sadness, ironically, is enough to give me hope.

If the title didn’t tip you off, it’s probably safe to say that this collection of songs wasn’t inspired by good times. No, the imagery here is dark, the themes miserable – but with that signature Campesinos sardonic wit. It’s all a far cry from the jittery excitement of the first couple albums, but it’s exactly the direction the band had to go in; you can’t sustain something like that. As members have come and gone, the band has pushed lead singer Gareth more into the foreground, and this album is more personal and confident for it. The guy’s pretty good at this.

The rest of the band is still great, of course. There’s plenty to love here for fans of guitars, female backup vocals and more guitars. Yeah, the band’s a little less expansive then it used to be, and you can hear it on this record. However, this is still unmistakably Los Campesinos; the songs still build to amazing highs from humble lows. They’re still a delight to listen to. Or maybe I should say, they’re a delight to listen to again.

Favorite Tracks: “By Your Hand,” “Every Defeat is a Divorce (Three Lions),” “The Black Bird, The Dark Slope”

Descent Into Sadness

The Descendants

I can’t really think of many directors who could possibly get me more excited for one of their releases than Alexander Payne. Maybe it’s a bit strange to get excited for a guy who’s made a career for himself by directing low-key, character-driven drama/comedies, but the guy’s style really works for me. Then on top of that, it’s been seven years since he released his last film Sideways, a gap in which Terrence Malick has released not one, but two films. So after such a long absence, it’s a small wonder seeing how his latest film The Descendants provides us with another small, human story, starring the always dependable George Clooney.

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Free as a Bird

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Here I am living in a post-Oasis world now with two albums that are kind of like Oasis but still not Oasis. The first release was from Liam Gallagher’s new band Beady Eye (basically Oasis minus Noel) which sucked. Now we have Noel’s solo venture which although much better is still nothing compared to his work with the group that put him on the map. Noel’s new album (recorded primarily by himself) is produced marvelously with some pleasing sounds and moments, but the songs are fairly forgettable. His songwriting seemed in as good as form as ever on the last Oasis album, so maybe he really does need Liam to make it all work?

Most of these songs sound more like Oasis b-sides than anything else which is fine just not particularly exciting. The songs are lush, big, and drenched in reverb with some really beautiful instrumentation but it never amounts to anything notable. There are no big hooks or catchy chorus lines it’s all just a rambling collection of very average progressions. If you were to strip these songs down they wouldn’t even be worth talking about, but Noel’s lucky to have a talented producer like Dave Sardy.

I’d comment on individual tracks if I could separate them in my mind,,”The Death of You and Me” is the only song I can ever clearly remember and it’s nice enough. Looking past the so-so compositions Noel is definitely gifted at creating a mood. Not to get all mushy but he really does put genuine emotion into his songwriting and performance, more so than Liam with Beady Eyes and it shows. Now that this has been released I’m just counting down to the big Oasis reunion. I’m positive that it’ll happen someday, they may hate each other but they are brothers. The only question is how long could it take for a reunion to happen? I for one can wait, give them time to cool off and come back with some better music than what they’ve given us on these two post-Oasis albums.

Favorite Tracks: “The Death of You and Me”, “(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine”

Immortal Kombat

Immortals

Last year I went and saw Clash of Titans and liked it which probably made me one of five people who actually liked it. I suppose I have a genuine love for Greek Mythology so I get excited simply seeing it attempted on screen, or so I thought. In my original review of Clash I stated that I’d enjoy seeing a different character attempted on screen. My suggestions were either Bellophron or the story of Theseus and look now, it’s a little over a year and what we do have? A movie about Theseus… And it sucks. Why did someone like me who so closely follows reviews go see a panned movie? Once again I have a genuine love for the genre, plus Jon and I made a vow that we’d go see it… No matter what!

Going in I wasn’t very familiar with the story of Theseus aside from him defeating the Minotaur in the labyrinth so I can’t really vouch for how closely this follows the actual myth, though I’ll assume not very. Even reading up on Wikipedia I can see some glaring errors just in how the film handled it’s villain Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). Hyperion is portrayed in the film as a mortal king when in the myths he was a Titan, which means he in no way resembles his mythological counterpart. I could probably find holes like that ’till the hydra comes home but I’ll try and concentrate only on what is presented on screen and not any outside information.

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Whovember: Nancy’s Top Ten

Almost totally forgot to do this. Wah-oh. I went through a pretty big Who phase back in the day and definitely consider myself a Who-er on the Who/Zeppelin debate. Not that I ever thought that debate was intelligent. This was fun considering I haven’t really visited my who collection in quite a while.

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Whovember: Colin’s Top Ten

I know this is completely coincidental, but this week actually turned out to be a pretty good one to do Whovember, since it marked the release of the Quadrophenia Deluxe Edition reissue, so that’s something. Anyways, The Who are probably my favorite band of all time, so doing a list like this certainly wasn’t easy considering how deep The Who’s discography is in terms of quality. So I kind of just tried not to over think it too much.

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