GREAT DIRECTORS MAKE WORST MOVIES

I watched the movie Bad Lieutenant (from the legendary director Werner Herzog) yesterday and I'm still angry. I usually don't like movies about junkies, but movies that are like made by people on drugs are even worst.

Mr. Herzog, whatahell are you thinking? Weren't you retired?

Baaaadd trip

Don't get me wrong, the movie is kind of interesting, but suddenly there is a completely random scene (mostly involving iguanas) that ruins everything. Of course, the fact the movie doesn't go anywhere only makes it a waste of time.

It's not smart, it's not serious, it's not wild. It's just crazy bullshit. It tried to be some kind of Herzog's Mulholland Drive, but it only keeps the lowest level Nicolas Cage reached in Ghost Rider.

Now here is a gallery of terrible movies that stained the name of (supposedly) great directors:

- Lady in the Water, by M. Night Shyamalan. Let's do the math: one excellent (The Sixty Sense) plus one good movie (The Village) and one OK (Unbreakable) against one bad (Signs) plus two terrible (Lady in the Water and The Happening)… hmm… well, Shyamalan, looks like the balance is not great. The Last Airbender is your chance to: 1) redeem yourself (if you keep up with the great original series' spirit) or 2) fall in disgrace and provoke eternal rage of millions of fans.

EDIT: The Last Airbender is OK.

Worthy of Uwe Boll

- Black Hawk Down, by Ridley Scott. I confess, I loved Gladiator. And I, of course, have the most respect for the director of Alien and Blade Runner. Said that, it was expected Scott wouldn't fall on this unbelievable patriotic mambo jumbo that Black Hawk Down is. The speech of Josh Harnett's character to his dying comrade about being a hero is simply outrageous.

You killed 1000 Somalis to save a few American soldiers – good job!

- Planet of the Apes, by Tim Burton. We can overlook everything wrong in this remake, but the end is so absurd that the movie deserves only to be forgotten. A commercial success that proves (as Burton's Batman) that marketing worth much more than content. Luckily, there isn't much space for a sequel.

EDIT: Oh my, looks like there will another Planet of the Apes soon!

EDIT2: I saw Burton's Alice in Wonderland = and it sucks! It's like a recycled Alice in Wonderland, without all good stuff and with an "epic" battle scene in the end to try to spice things up. Even they puting all the weight of that weak story in Johnny Depp's shoulders, it sucks.

A great movie, if you are a monkey

- Southland Tales, by Richard Kelly. The promising director of the surprising good Donnie Darko made one of worst movies I ever saw.

Two words: epic fail

- Windtalkers, by John Woo. Talking about Nicolas Cage and his taste for disgrace… I wouldn't ever put John Woo in my list of great directors, but this Windtalkers is so bellow his other movies that it needs to be featured here. Woo managed to transform a well produced WW2 movie (with and unusual theme: the Pacific theater) into a poor eighties-like action movie where the hero kills alone hundreds of bad aimed enemies.

Rambo in WW2

- War of the Worlds, by Steven Spielberg. That's what happens when a veteran like Spielberg tries to copy Roland Emmerich: he might actually succeed (and make a terrible movie in the process).

Just ugly

- Sucker Punch, by Zack Snyder. Nothing can go wrong when you put some hotties brawling in a beautiful imaginary world, right? Wrong! You need to spend at least a few dimes hiring someone to write a minimal story. The movie is just cinematographic masturbation. Without a happy ending, I must say. How could you do that after Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead, Snyder?

There is nothing here

CONCLUSION: even the masters can fail and when it comes to remakes made by great directors, stick with the oldies.

L4D and L4D2 next DLCs

Here are some suggestions for the next L4D and L4D2 DLCs.


L4D Update - “L4D1 1/2”:

• A new campaign that explain how the characters made it to South and how Bill sacrificed self to help the others.
• Only for those who has L4D2: you can activate a “L4D1 1/2 mode”. All L4D2’s new weapons (including melee) and special zombies in L4D1! This would have 3 effects:
1. Owners of the both games would resume playing L4D (as L4D2’s new features made the previous installment kind of obsolete).
2. Owners of only L4D2 would be tempted about buying also the previous installment (I would!).
3. Owners of only L4D would be persuaded to buy L4D2 to improve their game and being able to play the new mode with their friends.

L4D2 Update - “L4D2 Plus”:

• You can activate a “L4D2 Plus mode”. Your party will have 6 players (I always though 4 players are not enough). This would work in every campaign except for “The Passing". Increasing the number of characters in game will increase the difficulty. Of course, the two new squad mates are our old buddies Francis and Zoe (as Bill is dead and Louis is fucked-up).
• A new campaign with zombie Bill as the finale boss. He is smarter than the other zombies, and he knows how to use weapons. Possible new “common uncommon”: zombie dog (any other suggestions?)
• Fans of L4D2 would also love a bonus campaign where you play with the Night Riders.

Movie review: WALTZ WITH BASHIR

I’ve been away from this blog for a long time, but there is a movie that impressed me so much I need to write a review.

I just watched the best animation of all: Waltz with Bashir. It is not only one of the most beautiful movies I ever saw, but also the most chocking. Much more visually impressive than the Avatar blockbuster and much deeper than The Hurt Locker (just to mention the major Oscar nominees this year).


It’s like an Israeli “Apocalypse Now”, “Full Metal Jacket” and “Schindler’s List” all together.


The movie broke me. It is a masterpiece for the eyes and ears, a catharsis for the soul and a confession for the next generations.


Trailer:

The greatness of a person (or a people) it’s the size of his self-critics.

MY MOD HISTORY – PART 1

DEADLOCK, mod for Making History Gold

With all these “Never Finished Projects”, you may think I can’t accomplish anything. I will dedicate the next post to my game modifications (mods).

Deadlock is my current project. It's a mod for the game Making History Gold. Let me tell you a little about MH.

At the first look, MH is not exactly attractive. The presentation is simple, the graphics are outdated, but if you like war games, there is a great possibility you will be hooked by this one. I use to test every single game I have opportunity to get my hands on, from the blockbusters to the indie stuff and no video game made me stand in front of the computer more time than Making History.

For short, the game is based on WW2, and you command one country through the history events. Any country. Depending on your influence, the history can be change (Germany can win the war, USA can be obliterated or even Haiti can become a world power).

A cool feature of the game is the support for “scenarios”. Players can actually make their own version of the war and upload it in the game’s site.
I downloaded, played and enjoyed the custom scenarios but… why keeping the game in WW2? Why not changing the game deeper? So I decided to make not a scenario, but a mod, Deadlock: a WW1 conversion for Making History.

Main Features:

- All countries of the WW1 era, including their flags, art set, politic map, armies and foreign relations.
- New units, including Assault Infantry, Lancers, WW1 tanks, WW1 planes, Airships, Seaplane Tenders and Torpedo Boats. New 3d models.
- Units’ stats, economy and provinces adapted for WW1. More than 30 new cities.
- New technology tree.
- Important events of the WW1, like Russian Revolution, Arab Revolt, Irish Easter Rising and Finnish Civil War.

Some images comparing the original game (WW2) and the mod (WW1):

Game lobby for France

Map of Europe

Fighter researches

Tank researches

You can follow the mod progress in these links:
Making History HQ - More than 5,000 downloads!
Mod DB

NEVER FINISHED PROJECTS: TF2 CBG

TEAM FORTRESS 2 CARD/BOARD GAME


I was keeping this project quiet until it’s done to show to the Valve guys. Unfortunately, I had some disappointments in sending suggestions to game developers. It looks like creative geniuses are not very willing to receive outside ideas. Anyway, in my days of addiction for Team Fortress 2, I conceived a card game. 

“TF2 CBG” is the 3rd card game I designed. The first one was “Mana”, back in the middle nineties, based on AD&D (something like “Spellfire meets Magic”). The second was “Warcraft III Card Game” (see Never Finished Projects – Part 3, posted September 21, 2008). And, believe it or not, there are 2 other card games I’m planning right now.

Basically, this game is to be played one-o-one. One player is the RED team and the other is the BLU team.

Each player has two decks, being one the “Loadout deck” (thanks, PaperStab!) and the other the “Teammate deck”. The loadout deck is made by up to 40 Weapon and Maneuver cards choosen by the player. The teammate deck is composed by 9 fixed cards, the Teammates, one for each type (Demoman, Engineer, Heavy, Medic, Pyro, Scout, Sniper, Soldier and Spy).

There is a possibility to use miniatures instead of the teammates cards in the board, which make it much smaller.

Weapons are attached to a Teammate and Maneuvers are spent to make an instant effect.

There is a board (“map”) with the dimensions of at least 6x9 squares, and its configuration depends on the game mode (Intelligence, Control Point, Payload and Arena). There can be different map configurations for each game mode (like Badlands, Well, Granary, etc., all for Control Point mode). Intelligence maps are won capturing the enemy’s Intel 3 times. In Control Point maps, win the player who hold all CPs. In Payload maps there is an attacking player that needs to push a card to the enemy base. And in Arena maps, starting rules are a bit different, the teammates can’t respawn and the bases don’t offer protection, so the player with surviving teammates wins.

At the start of a round (Setup Phase), each player draws one card from each deck. He can spawn the teammate in his base and attach a weapon card in any of his teammates that accept that weapon.
In the Mission Phase the player can move his teammates, attack, and use Maneuver cards.

Each killed teammate goes to the bottom of the teammate deck. Each weapon or maneuver card lost is remove from the game. If the custom deck of both players ends, the game is over in Stalement (except in attack/defend maps, like Payload, when the defender wins).

Teammate card have the following stats: Speed, Health and Melee Damage.
Weapon cards have: Damage per range and may have special features.

The attacks are made by rolling a 6-side dice. The damage is dealt comparing the result of the dice with the maximum damage of the weapon for that range. For instance, if you roll a “5” and the maximum damage of that weapon for that range is “3”, you will do 3 of damage. Rolling a “6” means “critical”, and always delivers 6 of damage.

Well, this is the basics. I managed to cover everything of the video game in the card game. In the list of the maneuvers, you can find cards like: Rocket Jump; Double Jump; Ubercharge; Cloak; Teleport: Entry; Teleport: Exit; Sentry Gun; Compression Blast; Rocket on the Feet; etc.

Example of a maneuver card:
Stick Grenade Jump
- Duration: instant
- Replaces: attack
- Requires: Demoman with Stick Grenade Launcher
- Roll a [4] die. The Demoman can move that distance and receives 2 of damage. This movement passes though any obstacle.


Here is a preview of how should be the teammate cards:




And the basic weapons: