I Already Typed Up My X ’07 Experience Once

And I don’t feel like typing it again.

So instead, I direct you to this.

Downtown

The only thing of note today was going with the Wife further into the downtown core to visit a magazine that she has done some work for recently, and which I may also end up possibly contributing to. Other than that, a pretty quiet day, with more Persona 3.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Oh, you bastard you are DONE.

Hanger 18, on Expert, as of today. I have once again achieved that state of happiness so intense that violent nausea is a side-effect.

Next up…

And this bird you cannot CHANGE!!

X ’07

I am tired. I will write about X ’07 on Friday when I make a similar post for GameAxis. In the meantime…

A Ferrari was available for spins around the block. I took one. He was accelerating to over 100 km an hour in seconds. I thought I was going to die.

More pictures and comments when I make my proper post about this on Friday.

And yes, I played Rock Band. Multiple times.

And it was BEYOND awesome.

Monday At Home

A little bit of writing here and there, but mostly, today is the day I prepare myself for my fateful visit with Dark Scourge of Gaming, Microsoft. They have an event for the press called “X ’07″ and I got an invite to go down and check it out on the western edge of downtown. Time to keep my bile and cynicism about the company in check and play nice-nice with the PR folks while scarfing down free food and taking their swag.

More on that tomorrow after I’ve returned.

Sunday At Home

Persona 3 continues to dominate the PS3, although I finally also got around to watching Underworld: Evolution and boy am I glad that this thing only cost 1/5 of a postage stamp. On the one hand, it’s definitely a nice show case of just what high def is capable of. The images are obscenely crisp, with tons of detail visible everywhere, and a quick comparison of the images as replayed in the standard definition video extras–compared with their HD source in the movie proper–is pretty distinct difference. This is definitely the kind of movie that would probably do well as a “reference film” in that you show it off on your TV to people whenever you want to explain what high definition video can do for an image.

On the other hand, the movie itself is pretty bland. It is by no means a terrible movie, the production values are through the roof, the visual effects are passable and the performances never really go sour… and yet for all that, the movie failed to really engage me or pull me in. It had some really interesting ideas–as did the first film–which suffered from being too crowded in with other ideas. At times it almost felt like the film really should been two or even three separate movies, taking more time to fully develop the themes and characters. On the one hand, you had a continuation of the revelations made at the end of the first movie, and this idea in itself, of a hybrid vampire/werewolf, could have carried an entire film exploring the neat consequences of such an idea. On the other hand, there was also a heavy component of “lore,” exploring the origins of the vampires and the werewolves, and this, too, should have been explored in a movie of its own, rather than having the two try to collide head on, but instead missing, and settling for an uneasy jostling between each other from one minute to the next, which never really resolved either idea in a satisfactory manner.

Kate Beckinsale continues to do her slinky, Lara Croft-with-fangs gimmick and is definitely easy to watch, but aside from a few emotional moments that don’t really feel “earned” she doesn’t much to do in this movie other than look attractively dangerous–or dangerously attractive–and shoot guns. It’s probably just a personal prejudice on my part, but I think the film probably could have benefited from more character development and fewer set-piece action sequences.

Rain & Noodles

Saturday was a pleasant, quiet affair with a little shopping trip into downtown so the Wife could stock up on some art related materials. It rained and we walked in it, and I had to remind myself that here, when it rains, it only lasts for an hour or so, and is not a torrential downpour that renders umbrellas useless as the wind blows it in from the side. We ate at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown that had food good enough for even the Wife to approve of. Apparently she was amazed at the quality of the Cantonese food there which, while certainly available in Singapore at similar quality, would not have cost us the $12+ our entire meal totaled up to between the two of us. Then again, she had a good feeling about the place the second she stepped in realized that the service was horrible and smells coming from the kitchen were hideous. This, it would seem, is the sign of quality food in Asia.

Also, I finally managed to get up to 93% on Hanger 18, which, at current progression, means I should actually complete the song sometime after the next American President is sworn in. Or, possibly never, if the potential vortex that is Rock Band sucks me in, never to return to Guitar Hero.

The Opposite Of Excitement

In that laundry was done, articles were written and forums were read.

Sheriffs In Town

Being originally from Edmonton and living on the north side of the city (where there were many, MANY stables) it was not unusual on summer evenings to be walking around, slurpee in hand, and notice a few folks slowly trotting down the street on horses.

I just didn’t expect to see the same in Toronto, and I sure didn’t expect it to be the police. But, it would seem, Toronto has actually maintained a Mounted Unit, and today, on Queen Street West (which was also drowned out by teens screaming at Someone Famous at the MuchMusic Building, I don’t know who) I actually saw a couple of cops riding their horses in a leisurely fashion. They even jumped into action when some guy tried to beat the traffic lights while making a left turn, and somehow, incredibly, failed to notice that two police officers on freakin’ horseback were watching him do it. The cops issued a ticket, or at least, one did. The other cop sort of tried to pretend nothing was happening while her horse urinated on the street. For several minutes.

Aside from that, we did a bit of shopping for art supplies, ate at a new favorite restaurant in the neighborhood, and then settled down to a bit of work writing reviews and playing Persona 3. I have many, MANY things to say about this game, but I’ll wait until I’m done.

Yay For Free Movies

Today I was pleasantly surprised when I went down to the post office–with slip in hand–to pick up a package that was delivered which I unsurprisingly slept through. I wasn’t expecting anything at the time, but when I got home and opened it up, it turned out be five free Blu-Ray movies from that offer the Blu-Ray Disc Association is having to promote their hopeful pretender to DVD’s throne. Part of the deal was that each of the five movies came from a particular “tier” where various selections (I think it was by studio) were available, so here’s what I ended up with:

My first–and only–theatrical viewing of Species occurred in the mid-90′s when I was living for a year in Thailand. The Thais have a strange way of censoring movies. They don’t make cuts, they merely go for the film reel itself and block out objectionable portions, since they didn’t seem to have much of a ratings system at the time. As a result, viewers in a theater with scenes of nudity can expect to see either a) black bits of “paint” or “marker” blocking out the naughty bits, or b) something akin to vaseline smeared on the screen to blur everything out. When I saw Species, it was the latter.

So now here, once again is the movie, in High Def glory, and I picked it largely because Species has… in the immortal words of the South Park credits, “That chick from Species.” Only this time without vaseline.

This one is kind of a downer for me in light of recent events. I initially picked up Black Rain because it was the only film on the list that was directed by Ridley Scott. Now it turns out that it’s about to become a collector’s item. As of two days ago, Paramount, the studio that owns the film, has “defected” over to being HD-DVD exclusive, and will no longer be producing movies in Blu-Ray. This is unfortunate, because with them on the “Blue Side” the format war was actually shaping up to be pretty one-sided in favor of Blu-Ray and many were predicting that Christmas might be a clear cut end to it. Now, thanks to a rumored $150 million “incentive” from Microsoft, they are dragging out the format war, confusing consumers, and making this disc a soon to be rare, out of print collector’s item. I am not happy about the callous way Microsoft is making consumers suffer so they can “save us” from the format war by introducing downloadable content via Xbox Live and Windows Vista, but what can ya’ do…

I’d seen the first Underworld and while it was an uneven and not amazing film, it had some slick cinematography, some very interesting ideas, and, of course, Kate Beckinsale running around in a latex bodice, dual-wielding a pair of pistols with near infinite supply of bullets. Ever since I’d heard of the sequel, there had been a curious part of me that actually wanted to watch it, but didn’t want to buy it. And every time I went down to the video store to rent movies in Singapore, I kept finding other films that I had a stronger preference for watching, so Underworld: Evolution continued evade my semi-apathetic curiosity. Now, for the price of a postage stamp, I can safely justify a “purchase” so I can watch this relatively guilt-free in the “I spent money on this” department, even though the film student in me is still probably drooping its head in shame at this vacuous, guilty pleasure.

This movie on the other hand, I am EXTREMELY happy with. Being a fan of most of Tim Burton’s work (I’m still trying to pretend Planet of the Apes never happened) and the amazingly tedious work that Henry Selick had done for The Nightmare Before Christmas, this kind of animation is a treasure to me. It’s kind of like a high-budget, much more polished version of the Christmas specials I used to watch by Rankin/Bass as a kid such as The Year Without a Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We’d rented this film, loved it and wanted it, but for some reason they were never selling the Region 1 version of the DVD in Singapore. Now however, we’ve got it in High-Def which is a much better proposition anyhow, so I guess it all worked out in the end. The only thing I am left wondering about now is just how many more films is Tim Burton going to stick Helena Bonham-Carter in.

And finally there’s this.

Because it was either this or Pearl Harbor.