Tangled VS Megamind VS Despicable Me (2010)

So today we have a 'face off' of sorts....

Tangled - By disney, a re-envision of the old tale of Rapunzel, classic disney princess/prince affair.

Megamind - By Dreamworks, the story of a troubled supervillain trying to find himself

Despicable Me - By newcomer 'Illumination entertainment' , another story about a supervillain, but this time trying to out supervillain another supervillain.

Films will be rated on Story, Comedy, Graphics, music and general how much i liked it (overall)

Lets begin then.

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Tangled (2010)

Tangled is without a doubt the prettiest of the 3 films, like.... seriously seriously pretty, the enviroments, character detail, lighting... things like hair and water look amazing.
That said, I thought that the humor in tangled was the worst of the 3, with comedy fairly slapstick in most cases, Granted its supposedly a childrens movie, but so are the rest of the films in this post, and so are all of the pixar films and they still manage to keep a good balance between childish slapstick humor and subtle adult jokes.
Something i didnt actually know until about 10 minutes before i watched the film is that it is a borderline musical ,now this isnt exactly a bad thing, but I guess I wasnt completely mentally prepared for it - Or i thought i was... and i wasnt. The film really reminds me of old school disney films like Beauty and the Beast, Happy endings, animal companions and the occasional sing and dance - This makes sense as the logical progression for Disney however (I hear princess and the frog was a flop)

Oh. Id also like to add that it sort of felt like the main character was based loosely on Miley Cyrus or something.

Best Bit? Without a doubt the Lantern scene which the film builds up to for the first half hour or so. Really Beautiful.



The scores:

Story : 5/10 - Fairly predictable Disney affair, I also felt the pacing was a little slow... Maybe because there wasnt actually much story to begin with

Comedy : 3/10 - As mentioned earlier, not much comedy here other than slapstick

Graphics : 10/10 - Amazing

Music : 8/10 - Its a musical, so i was kind of on edge during any song in case a housemate came in, the music is generally decent and fits the scene well, the tavern song was lol.

Overall : 7/10 - Its a good film, but I felt the lack of comedy let it down a little, However, Id say the film is actually worth watching JUST for the graphics. If you have a spare 90 minutes, grab a HD version and enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megamind (2010)

I saw megamind last, So its still pretty fresh in my mind.
Im not really sure what, but I felt like something was missing from the film, Something felt out of place but I cant really put my finger on what, maybe the voices? Maybe the characters were unlovable? Im not really sure..
The story starts fairly strong, and then kind of loses its way after a while before trying to find itself, of course everybody watching already kind of knows where the story is going to end up and how the story will end, The plot is actually vaguely like the episode of Dexter's Lab where he 'Fires' Deedee and then spends the rest of the episode trying to hire a new sister.
As sort of mentioned, I think the characters were a little...crap... Cant really say why, the main character was kind of unlovable and dumb, which is unsurprising because apparently his voice actor is Will Ferrel, who is also unlovable and dumb.
The film is pretty funny, about 50:50 slapstick:adult, this film also I think rocks the best music, because its hard not to enjoy a film where old famous rock songs are played.
Uh....more or less sums it up i think? I didnt really expect much from Megamind and whilst it didnt really shock me with anything but kept me entertained throughout.

Best bit? I cranked my speakers for the finale when Welcome to the Jungle came on for the final battle...



The Scores:

Story: 7/10 - Could have been more original, I feel like I've already seen this film somewhere else with different characters somewhere.

Comedy: 7/10 - Pretty funny with lots of variety

Graphics: 9/10 - I watched the 1080p version, And it was very pretty, yet somehow upstaged by Tangled in 720p, this may have scored higher had I not seen Tangled prior

Music: 9/10 - ALL ABOARD!~

Overall: 8/10 - A good animated film, brought down by a few little smudges here and there. Definitely worth a watch.

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Despicable Me (2010)

I sort of stumbled into watching this film, taking a break from my work to stroll into the lounge where my housemates had just started watching it, my brother said it was a really good film so i dropped what i was doing and went to watch, it was a good call on my part.
In my opinion, I'd say Despicable Me is the best film of this bunch, im a bit of a sucker for cutesy films, comedies and bizarre shit, and Despicable Me seems to tick all the right boxes.
It feels like the writers and animators really tried their best to make the film hilarious, both in a bit of a slapstick way - with the little yellow minions acting similar to rabbits (from the rayman series) - and in a very clever way, the way the characters interact with each other is really good and entertaining in itself, add in some clever dialogue and the main characters voice/accent and its golden ("I SAID COOKIE ROBOTS. NOT BOOGIE. WHY ARE YOU SO OLD.")
Another great asset the film has are that you will fall in love with most of the characters, the main, the minions,  the girls, the pirahnadog, its about the opposite to the feeling I had towards the characters in megamind.
The story is very simple but with a few twists here and there (he fly to the moon, he shrink the moon, he take the moon...) but story is arguably the weakest part of the film.

Best Bit? Its really hard to think of a best bit, I feel like the film was pretty consistently great all the way through and didnt really peak and drop like other films. So i guess i'll just put a picture of Gru and the girls on the rollercoaster



The Scores:

Story: 6/10 - Very simple as mentioned before, and whilst its probably the film's main weakness, it is by no means bad

Comedy: 10/10 - I laughed out loud, a lot. From the easy laughs like the failed Dart gun and failed bank presentation to the more obscure stuff.

Graphics: 8/10 - Slightly simpler graphics compared to the other two films, yet by no means bad, animation is still top notch but stuff just isnt as detailed as the others.

Music: 6/10 - It was alright, nothing too spectacular, but it all went with the film just fine. I did feel a little awkward watching the end dance though, it felt a little forced...

Overall: 10/10 - A very very enjoyable film, and one which I'd happily watch again in a few months maybe. Give it a watch for sure.

The Path (PC)

So, again under the guidance of my 1001 Video games before you die book, I went to check out 'The Path'
Touted as an artsy indie game, the game is more of an artpiece than a game...

I dont really think I can explain it in a better way than the official description/blurb thing

~~~~~

There is one rule in the game. And it needs to be broken.
There is one goal. And when you attain it, you die.

Six sisters live in an apartment in the city. One by one their
mother sends them on an errand to their grandmother, who
is sick and bedridden.
The teenagers are instructed to go to grandmother's house
deep in the forest and, by all means, to stay on the path!
Wolves are hiding in the woods, just waiting for little girls
to stray.

The Path is a game about growing, about changing, about
making choices, about accepting the consequences of these
choices. A game about playing, and failing, about embracing
life, perhaps by accepting death.

~~~~~

This game is easily one of the strangest and oddest psychological horror whatever games ive played, seeing you running lost around a dark misty forest, searching for god knows what, whilst the black borders of your screen seem to grow and pulse around you. Flickers of light, ghostly illusions, camera noise and blurring make this a very surreal, almost dream (or nightmare) like experience.
The music, whilst not terrifying, is unsettling, a piano melody accompanies by sharp strings and sounds of a racing heartbeat.



It is... I suppose, a game which should be played... Its a unique experience alright, but dont be expecting much fun.

Dont expect to understand much either.

Oh, and try not to fall into the grave

Dark Energy Exposed

So... I discovered the source of dark energy

http://www.mengsbizarreadventure.com/uploads/thesecret.gif

So im 22 now

-_______________-"

Had a sort of interesting birthday day i guess, had an awesome dream (So much party and fun that MVC3 was on in the lounge but the xbox had gone into standby mode because there was so much fun to be had elsewhere)
Woke up at 2, did abit of work, watched some anime, then went to the girls house for 'Oscar night' which was basically just watching the oscars and realising that I havent seen hardly any of the nominees or know any of the actors.
I also realised one of my friends has tits which more or less come out of her stomach

The only presents ive gotten so far are from the girls (because its tradition in our house to give birthday presents late i guess) , they got me a pendulum T-Shirt and the book '1001 video games you must play before you die' which is pretty interesting. Ive already started ticking off the stuff ive already played in the contents page.
The only absence ive noticed so far is 'Ristar' on the megadrive, I feel thats a game which should be in a list of games to play before you die, certainly more than... uhh.... *flipflipflip* 'Maximo' on the PS2 (the spiritual successor to Ghosts and Goblins)

In the book though I found out about the game im about to link below, 'Cursor*10' , and after a little play, its short but definitely something which should be experienced. its very unique :)

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html

If i find any other internet based web games mentioned in the book, I may forward the links to y'all if i deem them worthy.

Spaztastic phone

I dont get it.

Sometimes it goes from max battery to 0% battery [BATTERY LOW WARNING] over the course of an hour , Sometimes it lasts 12 hours, sometimes I can leave it on for 3 straight days....

I find it pretty ironic also that it has gps tracking systems and all this shit, however the only time you'd need it is if you're lost somewhere and by that time the batteries would have probably died anyway :|

Cant actually remember if I showed you guys actually, its the phone I got for christmas randomly because my parents couldnt think of anything to buy me - Ye ol' Sony ericson Satio. Beasty fuckin' camera.

Building a valley village (minecraft)

Started yesterday at some point whilst listening to some studio ghibli soundtrack - it may have been spirited away or Nausicaa or something, but it basically gave me the inspiration to start working on the highly mountainous region shown in the 'before' picture below.

I wanted to make a small village or something, with connected caves, rope bridges and so on, the type of village that might exist in a valley.

Its not yet finished, but in 2 days ive turned this....



Into this...



Its actually pretty shocking for me, just seeing these 2 images side by side. Whilst building you sort of just... do it.
Clear dirt and stone out of the way, its just casual shit, and then when you take a step back and admire your handywork....

I still dont really know what to name this area though (I like to keep my world signposted at the minecart stations at least)
Probably futile to even ask since I never get a response, but if anyone has any ideas for a name for the area, drop a comment in the thread or in the chatbox on the right.

Marvel VS Capcom 3 and Ghost Trick (DS)

Marvel Vs Capcom 3

Hopefully a game which needs little introduction, certain followers will know I travelled around 3 hours to go home for a 5 day weekend, almost solely to play MVC3, and oh boy did I play

I think in the time I was home i completed the game somewhere around 12-15 times, finished it once on Very hard, and played about 10 hours of Local Multiplayer with my brother and one of his friends (who called me legendary) - This was before I even knew how to play the damn game (the first day), as in like.... I was occasionally losing games (at a ratio of about 5 wins to 1 loss mind you).
By the end of my stay, pretty damn untouchable, but still losing occasionally to Very Hard CPU because they actually know how to block, im pretty sure they cheat to some extent, cant even fucking cross them up with assists :/



My Team of choice generally consists of Wesker and Felicia, with either Sentinel (if i feel like being lame) / Wolverine (15 button bnb combo makes me feel really cool) /  Captain America (simple, but effective, and his shield can be an asshole to block)
So -generally- its Wesker B, felicia A and Wolverine B
My secret to success? crossups and other annoying bullshit, wesker is just a teleporting gun shooting asshole with big damage potential (and his counter hyper is fucking godlike), Felicia can set up her own high/low unblockables with her kittycat hyper, and wolverine just berserker slashes and is all over your shit - I'd also like to add Lv3 XFactor and Berserker Charge ( down down  -> 2 atk) is hilarious.

If it wasnt suggested btw, The game is fucking awesome and everything I was expecting, fast, fun, skillful and flashy, with a huge character list where everyone has SOMETHING to contribute (although I have to say my least favorite characters are Arthur, Haggar and Modok - but thats just personal choice and they arent bad characters in any way)

The lag online is also pretty reasonable, way better than the netcode in SF4 anyway, I was playing anony in Florida without TOO much lag.

Ghost Trick (DS)

Over my stay at home I also started and finished ghost trick on the ol' DS.
Made by the people who did phoenix wright, I was expecting something special, I had already played the short online PC demo that they had on the website, and was excited to finally have a chance to play it.

Its not the longest of games, and the story - I felt - Wasnt as good as Phoenix Wright, but it is definitely a great game, the way that the story comes together and slowly presents itself, and the way the past keeps coming back to reveal stuff (plenty of 'oh god that woman was....' or 'that place i was in earlier was...' moments)

The gameplay is fairly simple, but works, and the countdown til the victims death is a nice touch to get you worried.
Its sort of hard to talk too much about the game without spoiling it, but there are a good deal of twists and turns as you go through, some of them welcome, some notsomuch.

I'd also like to add that the best character in the game is without a doubt 'missile' the dog which is introduced in the 2nd or 3rd chapter, I cant remember the last time I saw such a cute character in a game.

Basically, if you have a DS, you should give this game a go, its not too long (about 10-15 hrs) and is a great ride.

Best Before (theater show)

So tonight, keeping with the feeling instilled in me from my London adventure, I decided to - on a whim - go with my friend to the Warwick Arts Centre to see a show called 'Best Before'.
Most definitely not your average theatre performance, the majority of the show revolved around a screen populated by maybe around a hundred small blob avatars, everyone in the audience is given a proper 4 button and Dpad control pad to control themselves with, and then the game sort of plays itself out, the audience has to make decisions and these decisions impact how the show flows:

soldier? profession? take drugs? have sex at 15? take heroin? Vote to imprison those who took heroin? Find a partner? Have a child? Spend your money on a house or car? Invest in the stock market? Take part in a gun rampage?... Those are just some of the choices presented during the show, all things of course have results and side effects, such as if you become a candidate for presidential election - will the audience frown upon your anti-immigration and pro-firearms views? (they sure did to me :< )

The show is apparently international, but only do a limited amount of shows, as such I imagine very few people will ever get to see the show, which is a huge shame because it was very entertaining and very unique.

Tonight, I was Dan, a male who had sex at 15, took cannabis but turned down heroin, married once but then got a divorce because my wife tried to force me into having a sex change, tried getting a job as a games tester but became unemployed due to recession, was a candidate for presidential election but came last in the polls (with 8%), was hospitalized once for contracting a disease, joined the army and was sent off for duty, took part in a gun rampage but managed to evade police/prison and survived to about 103 years old.

The below video will probably help give a better idea of what the show is like, it was good fun.

Burning 4 hours in London

So after my long weekend at home, I decide its time to head back to my university house...
However the train station had other ideas, apparently 'super offpeak' (the ticket I had) is only valid before 3:30pm, or after 8pm (or on a weekend), I had arrived at.... 4pm. Well shit.

I did the expected, and went straight to piccadily circus trocedero funland, arguably the largest arcade in the country. They have quite a few new machines there that i've never seen, 'lets go island' (the sequel to lets go jungle), Some game involving a golden gun, a few driving games, a 4 player 'casual' family shooting game (which actually looked really fun) and Elevator Action death parade - which was FUCKING BROKEN >:( , so mad, i really wanted to play it too, the cab was actually fully working aside from the coin mech, tempting me by closing its door and running its startup animation and shit.

I Ended up spending about £4 on DJmax Technika (im pretty sure ive already taken a picture of this at some point, a google search will probably find you all the info you need to know), I also spent a pound on.........



ATATATATATATATATATAATATATATA-em-up, Fist of the North star game. Shit is so fun, If you havent played it before you're missing out. (basically the pads come out and light up and you have to punch them at the right time, and then you do special techniques and there are weird gimmicks and shit that happen (eg. only hit the lit pad, and 2 come out , or time all your hits perfectly). I really wish i had watched Fist of the north star, if only so I could understand the references to the special techniques and stuff better, the only one i know is the 'hundred crack fist of the north star' used in episode 1 (which is in the game)

After wasting an immense amount of time in the arcade, I went out and checked out tokyotoys, full of anime merch, The trocedero is actually a hub for anime nerds after their... fanfiction writing contests or whatever the fuck it is they do, on a regular basis you'll see small groups of teens in cosplay outfits - Tokyotoys actually sells these outfits, although im pretty sure they're ridiculously priced (they have a hatsune miku costume ^^). In the short time i was in the trocedero, I saw a haruhi, a naruto, some other ninja, a bleach captain... and some other guy clearly in costume but i didnt recognise it.

I passed by the HMV gamerbase and was really tempted to just go in and rent out a console/PC for an hour or so, they actually had MVC3 to play but I dont think they had any arcade sticks so I would have been playing like a scrub (saw some MW2, COD4, MGS:O and some weird asian CS ripoff being played)

Out onto the street then, where I witnessed a beatboxer doing a street performance, going from RnB tracks (drop it like its hot and some other stuff) to fucking... dubstep and drum and bass. I actually took a video and may upload it to youtube or something at some point (but its 150mb so I cant really upload it here without some good compressioning)



Had some lunch, abused McDonalds free toilets, wasted some time walking around, and then it was time to head back to the station, so I decided to go through Trocedero again and go to the basement (where there is a link to the station), and apparently the tunnel is where the local dancing/breakdancing community like to get their practice in, the whole tunnel was lined with people in dancing clothes, boomboxes every 2 meters and people doing flips and spins and the robot and all sorts of crazy shit. It was pretty awesome to watch

The day we almost got burgled

So im sitting at home playing MVC3 with my little brother, when I notice an indian guy walking up to the door, didnt think much of it, then a second guy came to the door... and then nothing happened.... The first got out a phone and started talking to someone whilst walking away from my house. It was at this point I noticed a white van and a white pickup had become parked outside our house....
The men and their vans/trucks disappeared, and all was back to normal.

Maybe im just being paranoid here, but im pretty sure thats a setup for a burglary. The people just across the road from us were actually robbed a few weeks ago, in broad daylight in the middle of the day, this whole ordeal happened at 2pm on a tuesday, on my brothers half term - but they probably didnt consider that factor, Without my visit home for marvel and my brothers half term, the house would be very empty for another 2 hours, just perfect for them to steal everything, load it up and piss off.

Pretty scary stuff tbh, we've informed the police and are looking into getting a new alarm system fitted ASAP because our current one is broken, we should be fine for this week at least, but who knows... I kind of dont fancy being robbed...

Da Warudo

http://www.sendspace.com/file/medwws

My minecraft world , still lots of WIPs , 30mb

Still one of the best comics of all time

ugh. Seminar set....

So come week 8 or 9 of this term (its currently Thursday Week 5), we have to do a 20 minute presentation to a small audience of about 20 students and some lecturers, fully assessed and all that shit...
just got my presentation topic,

(Neuroscience) - 'The role of food-entrainable circadian clocks in the hypothalamus'

It could be worse, i mean i could have what my friend got - 'properties of tunneling nanotubes in the nervous system', but at the same time, Im not really sure if i can talk for 15 minutes about circadian clocks in the hypothalamus, From what i know, i think its basically eating habits (eg. you get hungry at around 1pm, 7pm, but you'll probably rarely wake up to have a full meal at 3am, despite there being an equal 6hr gap there)

Guess i'll just have to try doing some research and seeing what happens (instead of playing League of Legends and minecraft constantly)

Summarizing how i feel about my course in a word

Saw this whilst looking over my lecture notes, good to see the me from half a year ago feels exactly the same as I do now.

one world party

Went to a club/event thing last night, lots of ethnic dance acts and stuff, followed by the entire student union being turned into a massive club (including atriums and such, 4 rooms)

Best part? Chocolate fountain! But i cant insert a picture because it wont let me rotate it for some reason...

Runner ups?
Irish dancing soc and Japanese Soc's performances


^ Irish dancing because the girls were hot and 'bouncy'


^ Japanese soc because it sounded like they were dancing to Tsugaru from DDR