Vagrant Rant

1 Apr

Game Review: Bioshock Infinite

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Xbox 360. Tagged: 360, bioshock, infinite, PS3, Review, xbox. 2 Comments

I picked up this much-hyped game a few days ago amidst a flurry of other titles. Suffice to say the other games fared a little better.

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Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Developer: Irrational Games
Rating: MA15+
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At least the case looks good.

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Well this sucks.

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I have waited for Bioshock Infinite to arrive on store shelves for a very long time. It was announced years ago and as the third in an incredibly revered series of games, I wasn’t alone in expecting big things. But now that I’ve played it, I barely think it’s worth wasting words on. In fact, you can skip the review if you want; just please don’t buy this game.
Continue reading

27 Mar

Movie Review: Oz the Great and Powerful

Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: Film, great, oz, powerful, raimi, Review, sam. Leave a Comment

Man, there is a lot to say about this one. I saw it two days ago, though it’s been in Aussie cinemas for a couple of weeks already.

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Starring: James Franco, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis
Director: Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-Man)
Rating: PG
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Expectation is a funny and powerful thing when it comes to movies. When I first saw the trailer for Oz the Great and Powerful, I was quick to dismiss it as a stylistic rip-off of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Considering that film got precisely two things right (Johnny Depp‘s performance and Danny Elfman‘s score) I wasn’t optimistic and didn’t make any plans to see Oz at all. A couple of intriguing reviews later, though, and I was ready to give it a chance. What I got was something quite unexpected and something that arguably does Alice better than Alice.

25 Mar

Top 5 Tomb Raider Moments

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, PC, PS3, Xbox 360. Tagged: Best, croft, lara, moments, raider, tomb. 2 Comments

I am quite fond of Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics’ latest effort, the rebooted Tomb Raider (You can read about just how fond of it I am in my review here). While playing through the game I came across quite a few memorable moments worth mentioning and thought they deserved their own post. If you haven’t played the game yet, I recommend that instead of reading this, you go and play it right now.

21 Mar

Game Review: Tomb Raider

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Xbox 360. Tagged: 360, croft, lara, PS3, raider, Review, tomb, xbox. Leave a Comment

I actually finished this game around two weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy I couldn’t even capture screenshots, let alone write it up, until now. It released officially on March 5th.

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Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Rating: MA15+
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It’s a hard knock life.

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Brutalised.

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It’s barely fifteen seconds after you select “New Game” in the new Tomb Raider that our heroine Lara Croft receives her first injury. After fifteen minutes she’s been burned, impaled through the side and has had disagreements with countless hard, jagged surfaces. An hour in, it’s a wonder she’s still alive. But she is, and this is the important thing, because Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have re-imagined the decades-old gaming icon as a desperate survivalist in a much grittier setting than the old version ever had to contend with.

21 Mar

Despicable Timing

Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: 2, Despicable, Me, Trailer. Leave a Comment

So I feel the overwhelming need to post this new trailer for Despicable Me 2, which just debuted a matter of hours ago, because it has relevance.

In my anticipated 2013 movies list that went up only this week, I had only a teaser to link to. Now there is this. Suffice to say I am even more keen for this movie now!

Props for the use of a decade-old Eminem song.

“Bottom.”

19 Mar

Ahead: 2013

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, Movies. Tagged: 2013, Games, Movies. 4 Comments

Here are two more lists for you to disagree with at your leisure.

So just over a year ago year I got all excited about the pile of new movies and games that were coming out in 2012 and posted a pair of top ten lists to order my anticipation. As it turned out, I didn’t even end up watching some of the movies on the list and an embarrassing amount of the games I wrote about didn’t even come out in 2012. Here’s hoping I’ll be a little more accurate with this year’s equivalent.

For the sake of neatness, I’ll only count movies/games that are coming out after the month of March has run its course.

MOVIES

10. jOBS (Teaser)
I’m curious, OK? I don’t actually think Ashton Kutcher is the worst guy in the world and, even if his turn as the late great Steve Jobs sucks, this movie is still going to be talked about quite a bit and I want in on that conversation.

9. World War Z (Trailer)
Zombie movies can be great, they can be decent, or they can be so bad they’re good. In my lifetime I have never come across one that is just bad, and so I will happily watch the eerie World War Z when it hits.

8. The Great Gatsby (Trailer)
Baz Luhramann’s latest pulls out so many Moulin Rouge stops in its trailers that it kinda demands to be watched on style factor alone. Which I suppose is Luhrmann’s deal in the first place. Leo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams sweeten the deal.

7. Pacific Rim (Trailer)
On face value I can’t really believe that this movie is actually happening. It looks like Battleship meets Real Steel, and while the latter movie was surprisingly decent, the former, well, it kinda sucked. Everything changes, of course, when you realise that Guillermo del Toro is directing. Colour me hyped.

6. Despicable Me 2 (Teaser)
If there was ever a non-Disney, non-Dreamworks animated feature that surprised me enough for me to rate it among my favourite animated movies of all time, it’s the hilarious and heartfelt Despicable Me from Illumination Entertainment. Now a sequel is well on the way and while it will struggle to top the first one, you can bet I’ll be at the cinemas in week one to make that call for myself.

27 Feb

The Golden Difference(s)

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, PS Vita. Tagged: addition, difference, improvement, Persona 4, Persona 4 Golden. 4 Comments

There is quite a lot that has changed in Persona 4 Golden since it was just Persona 4 on the Playstation 2. So much so, in fact, that I thought the changes deserved their own article. For those who have played some or all of the original game, this list may help you decide whether the revised game is worth getting at all. I’m going to try to be exhaustive here but may miss a few.

Indeed, kitten.

I’ve divided the list into three sections: the small changes, the medium-sized changes and the big changes.

27 Feb

Game Review: Persona 4 Golden

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, PS Vita. Tagged: Game, Golden, Persona, Review, Vita. Leave a Comment

This Vita gem was scheduled to be released in Australia today, but it has already been in stores for a couple of days. The Americans got it last November and I imported it back then so I could finish it by our release date. Easier said than done, but here we are.

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Platform: PSV
Developer: Atlus
Rating: M
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From the unhinged people who brought you Catherine!

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It’s a hectic week.
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High school life never slows down. My teachers are irritating and they keep picking on me to answer questions I have no idea about. I have to attend drama and soccer practice as regularly as I can, because they improve my expression and diligence. I should try to help out my classmates who need to find all manner of trinkets, but exams are coming up so I really should study. I should also make time to hang out with friends, but things don’t pay for themselves, so I have to work hard at a part time job. Oh, and I need to fuse a decent Persona so I can beat a grotesque shadow monster when I next go inside a TV at the local department store.

Such is the bizarre equation of Persona 4 Golden, a truly fantastic entry in one of gaming’s most unique RPG series.

25 Feb

Oscars 2013 Reactions – Almost Live!

Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: 2013, Academy, Awards, Oscars, Reaction. 5 Comments

So I missed the live broadcast of the Oscars this morning on account of work, but I’ve been pretty successful in keeping a media blackout going, so I shall now watch the recorded version and write my thoughts on the big awards here as I see them, then post them tonight. How exciting!

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz

This one was arguably pretty open but I was still surprised that the favourite, Tommy Lee Jones, didn’t win. Very pleasantly surprised, that is, because Christoph Waltz was AWESOME in Diango Unchained and I had pretty much assumed that the Academy would ignore his turn because he had already won quite recently. Two wins from two nominations!

23 Feb

K-Packaged

Posted by vagrantesque in K-Pop, Music. Tagged: Album, Best, ep, K-Pop, kpop, mini, Music, packaging, worst. Leave a Comment

Yes, looks like another K-Pop post. But this time I’m not writing about the music. I’m even not writing about the people who perform the music. Today I’m writing about just how damn shinily those Koreans wrap up their products. Because it is, quite frankly, on another level, and it is, quite honestly, ridiculous.

At the end of last year I touched on just how important presentation can be to me in my Top Ten Game Cases of 2012 list. I’m the kind of person who genuinely got goosebumps at Apple’s colour-soaked iPod Nano ads from the latter part of the last decade. Good presentation is like a drug to me; it’s a weakness, God knows it really is.

Anyway, yesterday, this happened:

No really, I can explain.

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