Singing My Heart Out
From the moment I first watched The Little Mermaid, I never stopped singing. And when I saw my very first Karaoke Revolution game, I was hooked.
Instead of going out to a bar and waiting for it to finally be your turn, you can sing your heart out in the comfort of your own living room – as many times as you want!
KARAOKE REVOLUTION VS. LIPS:
I’ve enjoyed both of the most recent Karaoke Revolution games and prefer them to the latest version of “Lips”. Though the music video background of “Lips” likened the game to real-life karaoke, I disliked that my karaoke character was my Xbox360 avatar, particularly because I don’t actually HAVE an avatar. So, instead of ME singing, it appeared that my logged-in boyfriend was singing, for example, “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, whenever my character chose to pop up. And this was not very often, since one sings to a music video background. Clearly then, there was no stage venue, no audience, etc, which I had come to view as an integral part of any karaoke game. A much greater turnoff was the emphasis on the on-line aspect of the game. Lips taunted you any time you played by displaying a complete list of both the free songs AND all of the 200-something downloadable songs that you could sing — if you only paid the $2 or so each. (Bad song. “Eh” song. Ooo! I love that song! Oh damn. Don’t have it.) Almost as annoying was finishing a song and being informed of your ranking, in comparison to anyone else who had ever played the game (which, let me tell you, is a pretty low ranking at first, compared with the other thousands of karaoke singers who have had the chance to play and perfect the game the two months before you got it on GameFly). But, hey, there’s an easy way to get a top ranking! Buy the newest karaoke downloads for the game so that you can be the first to sing it!
CAVEAT FOR KARAOKE REVOLUTION:
There was a brief period of time when I hated both of the latest Karaoke Revolution games with a fiery red passion and retreated to the basement to break out the regular Xbox version. We had bought a brand new LCD TV, and this caused the sound to go all out-of-whack (audio didn’t match with visual). No matter how much I messed with calibration, it never came out right, and I’d throw a tantrum every time I finished a song and was basically informed that I sucked. (This was especially maddening in the American Idol version when it’s actual judges who literally tell you that you suck.) Thankfully, my boyfriend, the tech handy-man that he is, rigged up a different sound system and made my karaoke life happy again. (But I’m sure this is not a strictly Karaoke Revolution issue. It would happen with any karaoke game. If it happens to you, seek help immediately!)
KARAOKE REVOLUTION: AMERICAN IDOL ENCORE 2:
PROS: The whole fun in this game is singing for the American Idol judges and completing the American Idol tournament. It’s nice to get a little feedback after a song (and almost feel like you’re a real contestant!) Yes, some of the responses are fairly predictable: Paula always loves you, Simon always hates you, and Randy thinks “you da man, dawg!” But, it’s all in good fun. And it makes it all the more special when Simon actually calls your performance “ok,” for once! I like the variety of songs and variety of difficult levels. It’s also nice that both versions allow you to buy downloadable songs, which I’ve done a few times. (I LIKE most of the songs that are already included.) And, as mentioned before, I like the possibility in this game of various avatars and venues. I also like the variety of levels to this game, from “easy” to “expert,” allowing any singer from “in the car and shower only,” and up, to enjoy this game. And, if you find the judges nerve-wracking, you can sing a quick song without them, or even sing a song in good old-fashioned “karaoke” mode.
CONS: Many of the achievements are based on on-line tournaments, which you will find, are very hard to come by (if you are even interested in such a thing.) The venues, being all “American Idol” venues, are rather boring, compared to the other Karaoke Revolution games. The Avatars are also a little mechanical and boring. Perhaps I didn’t look into it enough, but it seems that you mostly pick from pre-determined characters with uninteresting names and crazy, spastic dancing (for example, boogying on down in “Twist and Shout” movements, while singing ballads.) As you can imagine, it was difficult to become very attached to your character.
KARAOKE REVOLUTION (2009):
PROS: Unlike its American Idol counterpart, this latest version of Karaoke Revolution has fantastic venues and amazing character creation. You can build venues from the ground up. (Be sure to check out the “Area 51”, “Zombie”, and “Space” achievements!) Besides clothing, hair color and style, eye color, and skin tone changes, character creation has brought detail up a couple notches. It allows you to adjust age, body size, and all aspects of face structure. Could I get mine to look like me? Not exactly. But it was fun to play with and get close! (Or create my rockin’ evil twin!) The character movements in this game were a bit more fluid and the audience was more fun and believable.
My favorite part of the game was the “career” mode, consisting of completing 3 puzzle discs of increasing difficulty level. Not only did I get a lovely “high” from advancing level titles (“local celebrity”, “legend”, etc), but I enjoyed the challenge each puzzle piece presented. Some pieces required you to sing a particular song, while others required various genres and amount of points completions in a variety of formats (single song, 3-or 5-song medley, and 3-or 5-song sets). I enjoyed being pushed beyond my comfort zone, and I loved that the career mode led me through many of the achievements. Instead of having to search for achievements, I picked them up throughout the course of my career.
CONS: None. Great game! My karaoke favorite!
Reversing the Sands of Time
Everybody has made mistakes that we wish we could take a mulligan on, but life is not a game of golf, nor is it a video game inspired movie involving turning back time like Price of Persia: The Sands of Time. Jake Gyllenhaal and Ben Kingsley star in Disney’s movie version of the video game of the same title developed by Ubisoft.
The movie begins with a young boy (Dastan) being captured by Persian soldiers for standing up to them when they were about to execute another boy. As they are about to execute him, the king stops them and takes the boy in as a son for showing bravery and standing up to the guards. Fifteen years later, the child, now an adult played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is storming a holy city that was supposedly supplying weapons to Persia’s enemies. During the siege, he dismounts a rider that was attempting to flee the city to protect a special dagger that turns back time when the sands inside are released. Treachery is afoot when Dastan is framed for a murder he does not commit and is forced to flee with the dagger and princess who was sworn to protect it.
I haven’t played the video game version of Price of Persia: The Sands of Time on which this movie was based, but I have seen gameplay footage of it. I have also played Braid which has a Mario Brothers sort of feel to it with the same concept of rewinding time to where you made your mistake so you can replay it without having to restart the level. The movie definitely had the feel of a video game to it from Dastan’s leaping from rooftop to rooftop and running up and off of walls which made for a very fun experience.
A couple of things bothered me about the movie though. Several times throughout the movie, there were times where a bad guy would come out of nowhere that didn’t make any sense for him to be there, or Dastan would slip into somewhere stealthily without anybody noticing, and also skipping how he did it. We were just to assume that everything went all smoothly. To compare it to modern times, he snuck into a hearse surrounded by guards who would recognize him on sight, and he wasn’t wearing any disguise, save for a veiled cloak.
What I did like was the interaction between Dastan and the princess transitioning from a point where they strongly dislike each other and give each other grief when they get the opportunity to eventually falling in love. Like I said above, I thought the whole turning back time a few moments earlier to correct a mistake was a very neat concept to play with. There was also plenty of sword play, dagger throwing and all around action in there. If you’re a video game lover, this is one of the better movies adapted from a video game that have been made.
I’m Attacking the Darkness!
Think back to your childhood. What was one of your biggest fears growing up? Was it spiders, snakes, robot monkey squirrels? Maybe it was being afraid of the dark. This past week, I’ve been playing the latest release from Microsoft Studios: Alan Wake which centers around darkness.
Alan Wake is about a writer who is struggling to finish a novel after not having written anything since his last best seller two years ago. The game is narrated as if you were playing through a novel and hearing a voice to sort of guide you along. You even get to collect pages of the manuscript throughout the game which give you a glimpse into what will be happening very soon. The main character (Alan) and his wife are taking a vacation so he can get away from writing and relax. Little does he know, his scotophobic wife has planned a meeting with a doctor who specializes in helping artists find their creativity. He doesn’t like that idea, and his anger leads to the disappearance of his wife. That’s pretty much where you step in.
The quick tutorial at the beginning of the game is really neat, because you start off in a dream where things happen that don’t make sense, but you get a feel for the game by learning that you use light to overcome the darkness that shrouds enemies called “the taken,” and even to heal your character. Each chapter after the first begins like it was a television series with “previously on Alan Wake,” and a cut scene with a song to end the chapter. There are little things to collect throughout the game that serve no purpose as in a lot of other games that draw out the need to keep playing the game to finish it to 100%. In order to get the full effect of the game, you should play at night when you can definitely appreciate the darkness and creepiness.
I wasn’t too fond of the controls for the game. A lot of games have trouble getting the animation of jumping correct, and Alan Wake is no different. One thing I can’t stand in games is when you definitely see that you have the clearance to get over an object, but the game wasn’t designed to let you get over the object. Sprinting is also difficult, because the sprint button is also the same as the dodge button, so when you mean to sprint, you actually do a quick dodge and then start running. Dodging and avoiding attacks are also a little awkward, but there is a neat slow motion animation when you successfully dodge an attack, although turning your character around can be quite time consuming.
So far, I have been getting a lot of enjoyment from the game. I really like the dark aspect to it. Anything dark and creepy gets my attention and really makes me want to play the game. From what I have seen, Alan Wake has been getting good reviews and high scores which says a lot coming from the bigger name critics. It’s definitely one of the more interesting games I’ve played this year.
Shrek Forever After Review
Shrek Forever After is the final chapter of the Shrek series featuring Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, and Antonio Banderas. The movie begins with a flashback to when Princess Fiona was still locked up in the tower waiting for her true love to rescue her. The king and queen of Far Far Away were ready to strike a deal with Rumplestiltskin that would free Fiona in exchange for their kingdom, when the deal was interrupted by a messenger telling them their princess had been rescued. Rumple’s dream was crushed until he came upon Shrek, who was having a very bad day from dealing with the same old routine day in and day out. A deal is made between them that would lead to Rumple taking control of Far Far Away and putting Shrek in a position to save not only himself, but the entire ogre race.
This happened to be my least favorite of the Shrek movies. It was still a very good movie to watch, but it didn’t have quite what I was looking for after seeing the previous three movies. My favorite was Shrek 2, mostly because of all the references to other movies and television shows. Of course, the clip that I like the most is when Puss in Boots climbs inside Shrek’s shirt and bursts out like a chest burster from the Alien movies. This movie didn’t seem to have too many of those moments and kind of left me hanging.
The situation that Shrek was in with pretty much living a Groundhog Day situation where he lives every day in almost a complete copy of the day before, and the day before that made me sympathize with him. One thing I don’t want is for my life to become a series of indistinguishable days and nights. Life pretty much puts the majority of us in that situation now with having to get up and go to work everyday, and coming home to have dinner, watch a little television, play a video game, go to sleep, rinse and repeat. That’s a rat race I hope to escape in the near future.
Overall, it was a fun movie and I did enjoy it. We didn’t see it in 3D, as I didn’t think it would really be worth seeing in 3D. I am also a cheapskate, which is why we went to the early bird special and didn’t pay extra for 3D or a later show. Spoiler alert! I did like how it was set in an alternate reality for most of the movie. That happens to be one of my favorite settings for movies or shows that have run a long time and need a bit of a shake up.
Robin Hood Review
It has been almost two decades since there has been a remake of the tale of Robin Hood; the most recent being Robin Hood: Men in Tights. This year, we are given another telling of the hero who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, but not the way most of us are accustomed to. Russell Crowe stars as Robin Hood with Cate Blanchett as the Maid Marion in the telling of how Robin Hood came to be the hero of the common folk.
The story begins with Robin Longstride as an archer fighting for Richard the Lionheart’s crusade against France at the end of the twelfth century. Fighting along side him are Little John (Kevin Durand), Will Scarlet, and Allan A’Dayle. After a discussion with the king, they fall out of the king’s favor and flee the battle, and set a course for Nottingham where they meet up with Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and Maid Marion. It is here where the legend of Robin Hood begins to unfold and the movie ends with what we are familiar with from other movies.
I thought this movie was better than what I have heard coming from the bigger critics. It wasn’t at the same level as the Gladiator, but that is a very lofty goal to reach for, and no other Russell Crowe movie should be expected to be of that caliber.
What really made the movie for me was the main villain, Godfrey (Mark Strong). Every time this character was on the screen, it made me dislike him even more than the last scene he was in. He had a great interaction with William Marshall (William Hurt) where he were in a hallway together and Marshall told Godfrey to choose carefully where to place the dagger in his back. Godfrey showed Marshall a ring that Marshall originally was wearing and walked ahead with the same gesture Marshall gave to him with arms open exposing his back to Marshall to send the same message back.
As with most movies I tend to like, there was a great score to go along with it. Again, the best parts of the score came when Godfrey was on the screen. Strong makes a good villain.
Overall, I would have to say this is going to challenge Iron Man 2 as my favorite film of the summer. I would also like to say sorry to Kevin Costner and Cary Elwes. Your Robin Hood’s were good and funny, but Russell Crowe is the better man in tights.