Saturday, March 29, 2014

Reviewing Berandal: The Raid 2



Minor Spoiler about the Ending of The Raid 1 below, you can view my past review here

I tried to make this a The Raid 1 spoiler-free review but unfortunately I can't since the story is a continuation, so anyway Gareth Evans is back with a sequel of the highly acclaimed The Raid, it's called Berandal: The Raid 2, here's the story so far: on the last movie we saw Rama (Iko Uwais) left the villain-infested apartment with his found-corrupt-superior, long story short he's been reassigned to capture the bigger fish of the crime network, this time it was a shady businessman Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo) and a passive aggressive mild-mannered bohemian called Bejo (Alex Abbad), to get through them Rama's gone incognito to get close to Bangun's son: Uco (Arifin Putra) which his bratty tantrum landed in jail, and after that things gone haywire, fight breaks, bodies dropped and blood flows

Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me, because...

They Put A Story on an Action Flix

In the Raid 1 there's almost zero long dialogue, the longest dialogue is probably Tama's explaining how the network works at the end of the movie, however in the Raid 2 there is a story, there's characters, there's long dialogues, and they're so... awful, the dialogues seemed sporadic and disconnected one after another and there's a LOT of unnecessary story scenes and talks which makes my adrenaline have a significant down time, I seriously don't give a crap about all that conspiracy stories, it's a FIGHTING MOVIE, I want to see people brutally mutilate one another again and if I want a drama I'll watch Xenosaga (the FMV version) , you know what makes the Raid 1 so good? it because the story doesn't need a long dialogue, instead they replaced it with....
Not you Al, you're dead in #1

Oh S*it moment 

I called this necessary, in the Raid 1 the first Oh S*it moment is when they encounter a kid in the one of apartment's hallway, this kid is a 'screamer', a living alarm that will alert everyone that there's cops abound, so he ran to tell them, and the cops go after him, what will they do? will they shoot the kid? will they captured him? will there will be another conclusion? even his status as an underage child makes every decision feels wrong, there's only bad and worse end here, what will they do? what will they do? Oh S*it. It's the first scene that get me into The Raid, the do or die, the wrong and horribly wrong case that can blows up everything in their face, also who will forgot those Easterners scene?

DAMMIT AL!!
In the Raid 2 there's nothing, no suspense, we already know Rama (or his incognito persona: Yudha) will gone through every scene until he find those bastards, you see... Iko Uwais mostly going solo in this sequel, so there's no scene risking his friend/companion/random passing people that he wants to protect, maybe that's why...

There's almost no creativity in the fight

A lot of people will kill me for saying this but the first fight scene made me questioning: Is this The Raid? it's so... plain... the second one is a mass fight, something new and it's good, but wait... where's the finishers? the movie's first half fighting scene made me yawn because almost all of it is unfinished and too many OFF SCREEN FINISHING!! fortunately the second half is better, there's at least five distinct fighters in this movie. First is Rama which has fast punch and kicks, Prakoso (Yayan Ruhyan) which has powerful hand to hand attacks, Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) and Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) a couple who use their respected tools in fights, and the last is The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman) which has similar style with Rama but also using carok (spiked knuckles).

The fighters deliver better that the fight on the first half seems to be just a filler or appetizer for the movie's second half, it's stylish, it's new, but it's NOT satisfying, when every single Raid 1 fight scene has their own unpredictable finisher (which trigger audience's applause at the end of almost every scene) The Raid 2 seems to forgot all about it, the fights on Raid 2 are fatally choreographed and bloodied to the teeth but none (except one) deliver an unpredictable finishing blow, every fights are powerful and efficient but unfortunately not intense enough, I want the finishers to be more unpredictable than the Raid 1, more fatal, bloodier and destructive enough that we'll sure the dead stay dead, I guess it was my really high expectation talking

Endgame


There's one single moment which express my disappointment and disapproval of the movie, but since it will be a spoiler I can't talk about it.  Until this time I can't still pinpoint the good about The Raid 2 because it seems scattered everywhere in the movie, I like some of the drama scene, the camera works are awesome, I like most of the fighting scene, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE FINAL BATTLE SCENE!! But despite everything I rant about above -- I will recommend it to everyone, it's a good movie, but it was nowhere near my expectation, whether I should lower it a bit or this movie needs a Director's Cut edition for people like me =))

Thursday, March 13, 2014

EXTREMELY HARDCORE, HIDEOUSLY FUN, SUPER AWESOME ROLLER COASTER WILDSTAR PREVIEW!!!!

Take a look at this Youtube video:


This is a trailer for Wildstar, it came in 2011, this is a side dish for NC's big launch of Guild Wars 2, Wildstar is not overlooked at that time but they haven't give any promises yet, just a funny trailer.

Three years later, it blow the f*&^% out my mind, with this



and this


also this:


s***, right?

Never before i saw so much snarky and snazzy trailers on MMOs, so how about gameplay? trailers will go so far as to make you play them, but in-game gameplay is everything right? well fortunately I secured three chances to play in beta weekends, so let me just summarized everything:

The Beta Client Fiasco
Before I used my mind/guns/swords/claws/weaponized defibrillator to destroy everything in my path, first I'll have use my wits, guts, patience, and little chit chat to install the client right? And it turns to the first post I wrote at wildstar forum is that I can't install the client, Wildstar has the WORST beta client ever in my history with MMOs and betas, I tried everything suggested on dev's posts and everything else the player said, NOTHING WORKS WHATSOEVER, that my best efforts is to tried the -retries command which makes my client continuously tried to search for internet connection for downloading the client, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, it's a roulette anyway, still beta, whatever, I hate your client, Carbine.

Yes!!
 After the dust from my rage settles down, the client is finished downloading and I'm ready to play, and... it runs smoothly, surprise, well okay, time to select a class... since I had totally zero knowledge on Wildstar Class (yes i've seen trailers and gameplays but that's not the same) I consulted a friend and ultimately selecting a medic, it looks awesome anyway with those Resonator, Mordesh is my first choice, who didn't like space zombies anyway?

Ah yeah, here's the story: Nexus is a recently found lost planet, it house the ancient civilization of Eldan, the most advanced beings on the universe and it will be a battleground for two faction: The Dominion is an alliance of interstellar creature which claimed Nexus as their birthright since their ancestors handpicked by the Eldan themeselves (before they disappear, why the hell is a ridiculuously advanced life-shaping ancient civilization have to disappear anyway?) to govern the universe. On the other side we have The Exiles: A band of labeled enemies of the Dominion (apparently you can't rule the universe without making a few enemies) so up their go in their respective spaceships, blow away each other in the planet's atmosphere and crash landing their refugees a.k.a us

The Fights and Paths
Did you just tired of auto attacks? well, Wildstar doesn't have that, for most parts Wildstar plays like Guild Wars 2 and some part: The Secret World, you've only got one type of weapon and your action bar has limited slot, it's up to you to mix and match your combo from your learned skills, Wildstar doesn't have global cooldowns and unless you've got CCed you're free to throw everything at the mobs, oh yeah and ALL your skills are AOE, you won't find auto target here, if a mob rolls out of your AOE field (a.k.a telegraphs, funny, some GW2 people are starting to use this word too) before you shoot them then you'll miss, and he/she/it can counter with devastating attacks, and they're smart, see that red area? get the f*** of it immediately!!! You can roll, dodge, blink, or sprint yourself out of it, and watch that you didn't run into another red, think there's only one type of telegraph? think again, think AGAIN!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!! Combat in Wildstar is so fresh, dynamic and satisfying I have a hard time holding myself back to not engage some big a** elite mob alone



Mob also came in packs and after level 10 the fights can be exhausting, I got to tried engineer and esper too and IMO Espers is so so underpowered on solo PVE, it came close on playing warlocks on WOW cata age that I have to push probably every button available just to survive, I died a hundred times too and since Wildstar is unusual in every way the game TAUNTS me everytime I died with some snarky comments like "Somebody just doesn't know when to stay dead" or something like that, it can be frustrating sometimes, but I understand the path of the game will go the distance to, anyway everyone can ress you, just like Guild Wars 2, just hope that they will put some dead icon on the map since it's so hard to distinguish dead people from dead mobs

Speaking of paths you will be selecting your character Path on the creation screen, there are four: The Settler, Scientist, Explorer, and Soldier. What is path? well since I only tried scientist, soldier and settler I can tell you this: Path is the best thing that happens in MMO today, and I'm not exaggerating, Path enriches your experience (literally and figuratively) in the gaming world, with a soldier path you can start a holdout in some place, holdout means there will be swarms of big mother(&*^^*% trying to eat you alive, all you have to do is kill them all, sometimes the holdout contains NPC that must be defended and/or they contain experimental weapons with neat killing effects that you got to try, free EXp, free loot, free killing spree!!! OK, enough, let's talk about the scientist, they have numerous probe that can scan things to provide effects, buffs, lore, exp, and loots, remember the soldier? ok, there are some scan site near the holdout points, when a soldier started a holdout the scientist can scan the thing and it can provide buff to the holdout, exp, hp regen, might, damage, everything, and everyone can participate on the holdout, again, exp, reputation, lore, loot, and path EXP



The Settler can build everything all over the place, most of them are buff stations on some town and hubs for exp and reputation, hey, remember the scientist and the soldier? well okay, let's imagine a settler, a scientist, and a soldier stumbled upon a big holdout points, which means bigger monsters, there are build site all around it and a scan site, the soldier started the holdout, scientist provide buffs, and the setllers will build a nasty laser cannon to provide support, after that it's FUN TIME, settlers also can repair some ancient Eldan structures littered all over Nexus which the scientist and explorer can activate to provide loots, ancient mining droid is one of them they provide resources for settlers and path EXP for scientists. What is path EXPs? it's a separated exp that leveled up your path, at some point it provide you with special skills, Settler for example: can build a bonfire that will provide HP regen buff for everyone who used it and since battle in Wildstar is exhausted it's nice to relax and gained some buff from it

The Lore and Conclusion
I mostly love Wildstar for their free-spirited attitude and funny (although some of it are dark humour) moments, the Dominion are ruthless psychopats and the Exiles are backstabbing bastards, but some of Exiles early campaigns hit my soft side since it was so bittersweet and makes me want to kill every Dominion in front of me, including a big mecha that vomits laser on me, Dominion campaigns have an interesting side (in a very sychopantic POV) where you escort a noble-celebrities for her quest of glory on nexus, including massacred a whole village of natives. The whole idea of Nexus settlement project is pictured so perfect all over the place and if you made a settler you'll get the gist of it as if you really helped the settlement project

I probably will preorder Wildstar if it's not because of a fatal flaw on my country's internet connection, Wildstar is so dynamic where in a battle you must dodge and sprint that a slight lag will kill you and hinder your role, I'm sure Carbine can fix bad FPS spike, client issues, nametag bugs, disappearing NPCs, and bugged events but when it's on your side (unlike FF ability lag which is a server side issue) I have nothing to say, it's a grat game, it's fun, it's guild wars 2 where you don't lose senses of role since tanking, healing, and DPSing like mad still exists, it could be greater than Guild Wars 2 if not many people getting put off by Wildstar cartoony-superdeformed design,I'll probably  will played some Open Beta to see whether this issue continues to be a hindrance or not