Monday 4 October 2010

Plants VS Zombies (2009-10)


Rating 5/5

Designer: George Fan
Art: Rich Werner, Enrique Corts
Sound and Music: Laura Shigihara

Plants VS Zombies has lots of zombies and references to eating brains so it gets a pass as a horror game. It's perfectly kid friendly without any real gore or blood.

I adore Plants VS Zombies. Even my husband, who usually wouldn't play anything other than Zuma, got hooked and finished it. The game is adorable and addictive. My toddler son loves the end credits song with the dancing zombies and even attempted to say "Sunflower" as his first word (came out more like safa, but still a good effort). I finished every single challenge in the game on the Mac I then got and beat the iPhone version as well as the X-Box 360 version which I think is the best one so far. Much as I enjoyed replaying this game so many times, I think I'll give the upcoming Nintendo DS version a pass. If you haven't played it yet, you really need to give it a go. The iPhone version is the cheapest, but lacks features. The X-Box 360 version is the best one in my opinion. You can try a simplified web version here, but it doesn't do the full experience justice.


The iPhone version is technically impressive. There were some slowdowns when there were too many enemies on screen in later levels, but on the updated version on the iPhone 4 I barely noticed it. Considering the game has been so faithfully recreated on the iPhone, it was disappointing that the mini-games, endless mode and zen garden were removed. The mini-games still appear in the main story mode, but not in their own category with extra levels and trophies. I suspect they were removed to encourage players to buy the more expensive computer versions. The prices of plants in the shop haven't been adjusted, so now instead of earning lots of money in the Zen Garden and mini-games you have to grind for money in story mode levels which is slow and dull. One quick fix would've been to simply lower the prices of plants. I finished story mode twice and was still a few plants short.

The achievements were a nice addition, but I wish there were more of them and that they were a bit more sophisticated. A few of them are nice (finish a night level without mushrooms or a roof level without catapults), but there aren't enough of them. More achievements were added in a free update for the iPhone version which was nice.

Another problem across all versions is the fact that even though there's a huge variety of plants, some of them are overpowered and once you figure out which ones, you won't touch any of the others and the game will become ridiculously easy. It's still quite fun playing with each new plant and find out on your own which plants are more effective, but once you figure it out, it really hurts replayability. I wish there was a hard mode with more aggressive attack patterns and less plants slots so you would have to be far more careful in choosing which plants to pick. The endless mode on the PC/Mac/360 provided this kind of frenzy in the later levels, but I wish the main game also had a bit of that. As it is now I rarely lose a level or even get close to that. As a result it's a fairly relaxing experience rather than an adrenaline rush.

Another problem is the lack of scoring. It doesn't matter if you conquer the level or just about scrape through, your efforts won't be recognized. A ranking system would've been nice and would encourage people to replay levels for a better ranking. Ranking score will depend on how much sun you have left in the bank, how many of the plants you planted have survived, how many lawnmowers you still have left and how fast you cleared the level. Using the rake to kill the first zombie will hurt your score. Maybe add a special bonus objective for each level that goes towards the main score. Suddenly it's not about surviving the level, it's about mastering it. Obviously the ranking will also affect the cash reward for beating the level.

It could be argued that this would make the game too hardcore, but I disagree. A separate hard mode is optional, no one is forced to play it. And a ranking system can also be disregarded by people who just want to plough through the game.

Damn it. I almost managed to get through without any gardening puns. Sorry.


The 360 version uses a game controller instead of a mouse or touch screen, but it works just as well. It has additional co-op and VS modes that worked out much better than I thought they would. The most interesting thing about playing this game with a friend was our approach to strategy with both of us favoring different plants and attack patterns.

Anyway, it's a great game. I just hope Capcop will finish porting it everywhere (I think they're making a version for microwave ovens soon) and get on with making a full sequel.


PS: It looks like some people find this post by googling for a solution for the night level without mushrooms achievement. So here's a short guide. Don't bother with it before you finished the game once and unlocked lots of plants. Then from the quick play menu select the first and easiest night time level. Don't use any mushrooms, obviously. Use sunflower (and double sunflower) to pick up sun and use a combo of cheap and expensive plants. Corn is useful to slow down enemies. Use the squash on tougher enemies and those who get too close. You may want to use the garlic in the middle so then you only need to worry about defending four lanes instead of five. Lastly, make sure you buy the garden rake to give you more time to plant sunflowers. I always go for two rows of sunflowers at the very end (ten in total). Good luck!

Sunday 3 October 2010

Fritt Vilt / Cold Prey (2006)

Rating: 2/5



Writers: Roar Uthaug, Thomas Moldestad, Martin Sundland

Director: Roar Uthaug

Cast: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Endre Martin Midtstigen, Viktoria Winge, Rune Melby


I had high expectations for Cold Prey. Foreign language horror movies usually feel fresh compared to the deeply formulaic and repetitive American ones (which are still quite entertaining for the most part, I must add). High Tension, Quarantine and Inside were refreshing and fun. The Cold Prey movies had very positive reviews, so all in all I was quite looking forward to seeing them.


Well, I'm afraid the original Cold Prey was a moderate disappointment. It was all done efficiently and effectively, but didn't really shine at any point. The only thing it missed in order to be a traditional American slasher was people speaking in American accents. It's clearly a deliberate effort. One of the characters keeps throwing one-liners in English and both the first and second movies feature songs in English for the end credits (and I'm willing to put money that the upcoming prequel follows that tradition). It's not a Norwegian take on the American slasher formula, it's a pseudo-American slasher movie with Norwegian actors.

There is nothing here we haven't seen before: A masked unstoppable boogeyman with a traumatizing childhood experience, a group of friends who get stranded with the killer, friction between the characters over mundane issues like commitment and readiness to have sex, almost everyone gets killed until it's up to the final girl to confront the villain. Even the snowy setting has been done before.

So what do we have left? Are the killings extremely gory and creative? Hardly. Is the buildup toward a kill suspenseful and scary? Not really. With that said the cast is quite likable and the movie is entertaining enough throughout as long as you lower your expectations and don't expect too much.

--Mickey

Tuesday 31 August 2010

À l'intérieur / Inside (2007) Review

Rating 4.5/5

Writer: Alexandre Bustillo

Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

Cast: Béatrice Dalle, Alysson Paradis, Nathalie Roussel, François-Régis Marchasson, Jean-Baptiste Tabourin


Known in English as "Inside", "À l'intérieur" is a great little nightmare. I watched a dubbed version which hurt the immersion, but in a way that made the movie easier to watch. There are lots of nasty and disturbing incidents in the movie and when you think things can't get even sicker, they do.

The premise is quite simple. A pregnant women is being stalked by another mysterious woman who seems to be after the unborn baby and she is willing to do anything to get it, and I mean anything. And no, she's planning to wait for a natural birth... The scenes involving the two women are fantastic and truly horrifying. I found myself contemplating to stop the movie at some points, which is very rare for me. It didn't help that I was watching it alone.

While the premise is cool, it's tricky to fill a full length movie with it. The solution the movie-makers went with was getting a bunch of other people get involved in the conflict and get killed violently to bring up the body count. On the one hand these kills were quite well done, but on the other hand it made the movie feel like a generic slasher movie in places and it hurt the atmosphere built in the scenes involving just the two women.

With that said, the movie overall still works. It's full of suspense, action and long moments of disturbing violence. I loved being thrown out of my comfort zone into this insane roller coaster.

Not for everyone, but if you like your horror movies genuinely dark and disturbing this one is an unmissable little gem that runs circles around its Hollywood counterparts. IMDB doesn't list any more movies from the creators, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, which is a shame.

--Mickey

Sunday 29 August 2010

Piranha 3D (2010) Review

Rating 4/5

Writers: Peter Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg

Director: Alexandre Aja

Cast: Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell, Steven R. McQueen, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Kelly Brook, Adam Scott



Is Piranha 3D a good movie? If by "good movie" you mean a masterfully directed good plot featuring deep and interesting characters who face intriguing conflicts, it's not a good movie. But if you by "good movie" you mean lots of crazy gore, violence and boobies, then it's probably the best movie ever made by man.

Piranha 3D is another great movie from Alexandre Aja. I loved his The Hills Have Eyes remake, High Tension was fantastic and I even kinda liked Mirrors for the most part. Here Aja shows us that he can also be funny.

The non-violent segments are utter rubbish. I know they are there to move the story along and put the violence in context, but I would almost prefer the movie to be nothing but little fishies eating lots of naked guys and girls, roll end credits. Why even try to pretend that the characters and their obnoxious little story-lines matter? The purpose of a plot and characters in a horror movie is to make us care for the characters so when they're in danger we're in suspense because we don't want to see them get hurt. Piranha fails miserably in that department and I found myself wishing the "talkie bits" will finish already and let us get to the good stuff. Blah blah blah, I like this girl, blah blah blah, she dates this jerk who hates me, blah blah blah, I'm a single mom cop. Shut the fuck up. Nobody cares. The movie only manages to make us care for two characters: the two young children, but that's cheating. You stick a puppy or a child in a movie and they get instant sympathy without any need to establish an interesting character.

That is not to say that I didn't like the actors in the movie. I just wish they did less talking and more dying.

But that's the bad stuff out of the way. Sit through that crap and you will be rewarded. There are small and delightful moments of violence in the first half of the film, but when all hell breaks loose you get one of the longest and bloodiest orgy of death and gore ever depicted on the big screen. It's over the top, cheesy, trashy and ridiculous and I loved every moment! Being gay I couldn't really care for the abundance of boobies one way or the other, but I must say that Piranha 3D has the best ever use of 3D for bobbly underwater boobies. Eat your heart out James Cameron.

--Mickey