50/50

While we all wait with bated breath for Nancy’s Moneyball review, I figured I might as well right something about the other movie everybody’s probably already seen by now. In 50/50, Adam, the proxy for screenwriter Will Reiser, finds out he has cancer in his back. He’s only 27 years old and seemingly quite healthy, so that’s a bit of a surprise. But so is this movie, which manages to find plenty of humor in what seems like entirely depressing material. Or perhaps the bigger surprise is that a movie that features Seth Rogen in a key supporting role can find a way to bring real tenderness and truth.

Adam’s a pretty sympathetic dude. He’s not getting any from his girlfriend, but he’s OK with that. He seems to be the one guy at the public radio station he works at that really takes the job seriously, spending hours working on a report on a volcano while Seth Rogen just busts out a story about the best burgers in Seattle. And then he’s got cancer on top of that. There’s not too much to this story, it simply follows Adam and the important people in his life as he deals with his disease. As we’ve all seen in Breaking Bad and other cancer stories, the disease affects more than just the person it inflicts. And so it is that we have to watch Adam’s girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) struggle with the disease and his mom, Anjelica Huston, desperately try to become a bigger part of Adam’s life. Most significantly, Adam starts spending time with fresh-faced psychologist Katie (Anna Kendrick, playing the same part she seems to always play).

I referenced Breaking Bad because 50/50 does a few things that seemed very reminiscent of that show. When Adam gets the prognosis, the scene plays out very similarly to that part of the Breaking Bad pilot. Not that there’s really anything wrong with that, I just really like Breaking Bad and I’ll take any opportunity I can to write about it.

It’s inescapable that 50/50 is based on the real-life experiences of Will Reiser and Seth Rogen. I don’t know for certain what parts of this story are based on reality and what are invented, but I could guess. Seth Rogen, I’m guessing, is just playing himself, which is to say he is playing the same stoner slacker character he usually does. The movie has some scenes that were pretty raw. Some of them were done for the comedy, and they delivered hearty laughs that this year has been missing. Others are more emotional, and they’re surprisingly affecting. Particularly, a scene in the hospital had me choked up. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really good here, perhaps good enough to warrant awards attention, if you care about that sort of thing.

But its probably the comedy that I’ll remember about 50/50. The scene trying to use cancer as a pick-up line. A great turn by Philip Baker Hall. That greyhound named Skeletor. There’s a lot to love. This is a pretty special movie.

Shadows of the Damned

Shadows of the Damned is an embarrassing game. It is a collaboration of two of the greatest game developers Japan has to offer, Suda51 (No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil). Despite that, or perhaps as a result of that, a significant proportion of Shadows of the Damned is dick jokes. Not really clever ones either. Stuff like your bone-shooting gun being called “the Boner.” That weapon gets upgraded twice. Its upgraded names? The Hot Boner and the Big Boner. Yeah, Shadows of the Damned isn’t exactly a title that makes you proud of how far gaming has come. But, if you’re willing to laugh at that kind of stupidity, you’ll find Shadows of the Damned a pretty entertaining ride.

The awesomely-named douchebag demon hunter Garcia Hotspur comes home one day to find his girlfriend Paula murdered/kidnapped by the creepy Lord of Demons, Flemming. Garcia follows Flemming into the underworld, hoping to save Paula. Along with him is his floating skull companion, Johnson (hur hur), who can transform into a torch, guns and even a motorcycle. It’s a weird game. Some aspects of the underworld are actually pretty disturbing, like the twisted backstories of each boss, which you get to read from giant storybooks. The game is helped out a lot by its strong voice cast, Garcia and Johnson actually do have some rapport. There not really likable, but that’s kind of beside the point. It’s not quite grindhouse, but it has those kinds of sensibilities.

Mechanically, Shadows of the Damned is akin to a quicker Resident Evil 4. Shooting feels pretty much the same, with the familiar over-the-shoulder lazer sight aiming in full effect. Johnson can turn into three guns, modeled after a pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun. They are each upgraded several times over the course of the story and can be further upgraded using in-game currency. The controls feel tight and faster than even Resident Evil 5. Add in some solid enemy variety and a few interesting boss fights and you got yourself some solid gameplay.

Shadows of the Damend really comes down to whether you like the way it’s written or not. If you can get into its world, characters and dialogue, it could rank among your favorite games of the year. For me, I found the overly-indulgent stupidity distracting. In one turret sequence, Garcia kept yelling “Taste my Big Boner.” You see, the Johnson had turned into the Big Boner, a massive gun, and Garcia was holding it at hip level, shooting demons. I get it, neither of the guys developing this had a track record of great storytelling, but come on. You can’t make the same dick jokes over and over for a whole game and expect me to laugh.

Gears of War 3

There’s always been more to the Gears of War franchise lurking under the surface. Sure, the games themselves seemed like mindless macho brosturbation, there were the artsy trailers. There was the fact that the world seemed to have so much lore, but we only saw a little of it. After all, you play as simple COGs in the massive gears of war. Gears of War 3 finally takes the story where it has always yearned to go, making it one of the most satisfying campaigns of the year. Couple that with one of the most complete multiplayer suites and you’re in for quite a time.

Times are bad in the Gears universe. The war between humans and locust took a turn when the last city, Jacinto, was sunk, flooding the locust. The remnants of humanity managed to take brief salvation on an island, but their hopes for peace were dashed when the lambent, locust mutated by the planet’s mysterious fuel imulsion, attacked. With no military or government left, our heroes are now adrift on a helicopter carrier, just trying to survive. So, to recap: the world’s dying, there’s a three-way war going on, humanity is fucked.

And it’s taking a toll on our heroes. Marcus is haunted by regret and remorse about his past. Dom, who has lost his children and wife to this lengthy war, is in a fragile mental state. Cole is going through a mid-life crisis, realizing his days as a professional athlete really are gone. Baird’s still kind of a dick. Anya’s on the team now too and just about everyone from the first two games is back to some extent, as are a few newcomers. Most importantly, we’ve got Jace, played by Friday Night Light’s Michael B. Jordan and Sam, played by Uncharted 2‘s Claudia Black.

Gears of War 3 has a substantial campaign that’s a real delight to play through. I give a lot of credit sci fi author Karen Traviss, who was able to turn down the bro-isms and find the depth in the characters. My only complaint about the campaign is that it felt a little to padded out with needless sequences. A few too many times I had to go get fuel or go flip a set number of switches, which hurt the games pacing. Notably, there’s a lengthy detour with a character played by Ice T that is awesome, but adds literally nothing to the story but time. But in the end, the game is fun and I can’t really complain about getting to play more of it.

The shooting in Gears of War 3 is simply the best of any third person shooter. Everything feels just right. There’s enough of a variety in the campaign enemies to keep you interested and keep your tactics from getting stale. I found hardcore to be the best difficulty for me, it was challenging but never truly frustrating. I played with AI allies, and I imagine it’s even more fun with three real human coop partners. That’s right, the game is up to four player coop. I told you, this game has all the multiplayer you could want.

Horde mode, Gears of War 2‘s biggest contribution to gaming, returns with new tower defense mechanics. You can build and upgrade barriers to keep your team safe against the waves of AI enemies. There’s another, new coop mode too: beast mode. It’s like reverse horde mode, ala Left 4 Dead. You play as locust beasts, from the lowly tickers all the way up to berserkers, and try to kill a group of AI humans. Beast mode is a neat addition and surprisingly fun to play, give it a shot.

All the versus modes are back, with the addition of a new casual option. This means I can play without just getting mercilessly shotgunned in the back, but I fear I’ll get kicked out of casual eventually. In the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun. There are plenty of characters and weapon skins to be unlocked, although there’s also an absurdly expensive collections of skins you could just buy too. But don’t do that. It’s almost as bad as horse armor.

Hands down, Gears of War 3 is the best game in this already stellar franchise. The story is easier to follow, more emotional and gives closure to most (read: not all) of the plot threads. The multiplayer is just about everything I could ask for. Get some friends together and have some fun. If nothing else, enjoy playing the only game in which Ice T rides off into the sunset giving you the finger.

Crysis 2

It could be easy to forget that the first Crysis was more than just a tool for benchmarking your PC’s power, it was an interesting FPS that combined Far Cry with aliens and super suits. While I enjoyed the original, it was another computer game that I lost interest in and never finished. But I did enjoy it enough to give Crysis 2 a shot when it was made cheaply available to me. And I was happy to find a perfectly competent, pretty game waiting for me. Wait, isn’t that exactly what I said the first game was more than? Oh bother.

Crysis 2 opens with a bang. You’re Alcatraz, a member of a team of soldiers on a submarine heading to New York City. Because there’s a war going on between the military, a PMC and aliens. The game doesn’t do that great a job setting the stage, or really explaining much at all. But your sub sinks and you’re miraculously saved by Prophet, the squad leader from the original game. He gives Alcatraz the super suit and tasks you with reuniting with his scientist buddy. Things escalate from there.

The entire game takes place in New York City and I really enjoyed the urban setting. It was a great change of pace from the tropical setting of the first game, although the environment doesn’t substantially change like it did last time. The skyscrapers look great and make quite a spectacle when they come tumbling down. The city streets do make the game much more linear, basically taking you from combat arena to combat arena. You do have options for each battle, which the game makes a point of explicitly telling you, which is a bit weird. You pop up your binoculars and are told “here is a good place to snipe” and “here is a good place to sneak around.” It’s a bit weird, but I guess you don’t have to use the binocs if it really bothers you.

There’s a lot of politics and side switching going on in Crysis 2, and after a while I just started ignoring it. The game never really made me care about what side I was fighting for and I didn’t really worry about who lived and who died. What I did like about the story was the absolutely brutal beating Alcatraz takes. In most games, the main characters get beaten and shot without showing any wear and tear in the cinematics. In this game, it often takes Alcatraz a while to just get back up after a heavy hit. People look at you like you shouldn’t be alive. It’s made explicitly clear that without the suit, you would be dead a hundred times over. That’s great.

The suit is a bit streamlined compared to Crysis 1 as well. Instead of having a speed or power mode, you automatically use suit power to sprint and jump farther. That just leaves you with stealth and armor, the most useful powers from the first game. Armor lets you take more damage, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Stealth lets you go all Predator and sneak around, so long as you don’t run out of power. Both can be upgraded using organic tissue gathered from dead aliens. I found stealth became a little too powerful with upgrades, and I was able to bypass battles if I wanted. But the suit powers elevate the games otherwise standard gameplay. The gun selection is not that interesting, although the ability to customize weapon scopes and add-ons returns. And there are a few alien weapons, although they’re not that exciting. The shooting is exactly as tight as you would expect it to be.

Crysis 2 also includes a more robust multiplayer mode, as it is a first person shooter and therefore must vie for Call of Duty‘s thrown. While the suits do make things a little different, I just didn’t care about playing this game online. But I guess if you think you’re really good at the game it could be a fun way to destroy your ego.

Ultimately, Crysis 2 kept me entertained through its campaign. It plays absolutely fine. It looks great, although perhaps not groundbreaking. I played it on PC, but the console version is probably fine. This is totally acceptable entertainment, and suitable for a long weekend. More importantly, if all the games coming out these next few months have captured your attention, it’s totally fine to put this one on the back burner for a while.