Movie Bytes: The Thing (1982)

Directed By: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, David Clennon

What It’s All About:
A group of scientists enduring the harsh winter conditions of Antarctica discover an alien life-form that is capable of assimilating any living creature. The “thing” infiltrates the base and minute by minute the surviving crew members fall into a sense of paranoia, wondering who is human and who has been infected.

The Verdict:
The Thing is quite possibly the most important Sci-Fi horror film since Alien (1979), seamlessly creating an atmosphere of true terror and paranoia. Kurt Russell truly shines as the leading man, and boasting some truly gory and terrific special effects for it’s day, The Thing is a movie that has stood the test of time.

4/5

Movie Bytes: The Lovely Bones (2009)

Directed By: Peter Jackson
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci

What It’s All About:
Based on the best selling novel of the same name, The Lovely Bones tells the story of Susie Salmon, a fourteen year old girl that is raped and murdered. Stuck in-between death and the afterlife, Susie watches as her family deals with her disappearance. Her father becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to his daughter, and Susie is stuck between wanting vengeance towards her killer and wanting her family to move on from their tragic loss.

The Verdict:
When watching The Lovely Bones you can’t help but be captivated by the story that unfolds on the screen, yet the constant mood swings between a light-hearted movie and a dark thriller offer enough juxtaposition to pull away from the immersion. There are some real stand out moments in this movie, yet the constant changes of tone and themes simply don’t mesh well with the source material. Stanley Tucci’s performance is outstanding, and Mark Wahlberg has his shining moments. The Lovely Bones is certainly worth a watch, yet it could have been so much more.

3/5

Movie Bytes: Brothers (2009)

Directed By: Jim Sheridan
Starring: Tobey McGuire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal

What It’s All About:
Sam (McGuire) and Tommy (Gyllenhaal) are brothers. Sam is a marine on his fourth tour in the Middle East and Tommy has just gotten out of jail. Sam is believed to be killed in action when his helicopter goes down, and the movie tells the story of Tommy growing as a man, becoming responsible and helping his brother’s family function. Sam is actually alive, and once he returns home, the psychological trauma takes his toll and himself, his family, and his brother.

The Verdict:
Brothers is a harsh and realistic look at the effects of war not only on the soldiers, but the families who are left behind. McGuire puts in a stunning performance that will hopefully lift him out of his Spiderman fame and realise he is a shining force when placed in a dramatic setting. Natalie Portman is stunning as the widow struggling with the loss of her husband. Beneath all this sadness there is deep understanding of the human condition, and Sheridan isn’t afraid to show that every family has it’s own issues. A great film, great cast, and a wonderful yet sad story to be told.

4/5

Movie Bytes: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Directed By: Sam Raimi
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao

What It’s All About:
The story follows loan officer Christine Brown (Lohman) who tries to impress her boss and refuses a loan to a sick gypsy woman. The woman places a curse on Christine, that after three days of torment and horror, will then devour her soul to the depths of hell.

The Verdict:
Sam Raimi is back to this true form, making horror films that are as easily terrifying as they are laugh out loud funny. Alison and Justin have great on screen chemistry, and with some truly scary moments this is another movie to put along the likes of Raimi’s highly successful Evil Dead movies. Scary, funny and intriguing, Drag Me To Hell should be one to add to your collection if you love over the top, campy horror flicks.

3.5/5

KingHit Studios: G.I Joe Rise Of The Cobra Review

For those of you who don’t know I make independent films. I don’t have any equipment or training, but I have some short film ideas that I’m hoping to film late 2010 once I get a HD camera. It’s more of a hobby for me rather than a career aspiration, so to start off with my friends and I have been making a few webisodes.

The Super Fantastical Awesome Movie Review Show: Starring Heller & Budz is a movie review show in which we choose a movie we found terrible, and rip it apart. The latest episode is a review of G.I Joe: Rise of the Cobra, a film which was so bad I sit in the shower for hours trying to scrub it out of my mind haha!

The full review can be found at our website : www.kinghitstudios.com but here is part one for you guys to check out.

Game Bytes: Borderlands

Read the full in-depth review HERE

Developed By: 2K Games
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Players:1-2 (split-screen)
Online: 4 Player Co-Op

What It’s All About:
Welcome to Pandora, a bandit-ridden wasteland that draws the attention of off-world scavengers for one reason: The Vault. The Vault is a mysterious structure that is believed to hold the most powerful and wealthiest treasures in the universe, and everyone from scavengers to fortune seeking global corporations wants to get their hands inside. This is the setting you will find yourself wading through with Gearbox’s latest title Borderlands, a FPS meets RPG.

What It Did Right:

• Great character development
• Unique art design
• Reward system
• Fantastic Gunplay

What Brings It Down:

• Vehicle Control
• Lonely, anti-social single player experience
• Cock slap of an ending

The Final Verdict:

Borderlands succeeds as a perfectly balanced combination of the RPG and FPS genres. Along with it’s unique gameplay style, it boasts an art design that makes Pandora come alive and will keep calling you back to the bandit ridden wastelands. With satisfying character development and an impressive arsenal of weapons, this game will keep you busy for a long time. There are a few places that the game could be improved, especially when it comes to the anti-social and lonely nature of it’s single player experience. All in all, Borderlands is a great title that is well worth checking out.

8/10

Borderlands Review

Written By Stephen Heller

Welcome to Pandora, a bandit-ridden wasteland that draws the attention of off-world scavengers for one reason: The Vault. The Vault is a mysterious structure that is believed to hold the most powerful and wealthiest treasures in the universe, and everyone from scavengers to fortune seeking global corporations wants to get their hands inside. This is the setting you will find yourself wading through with Gearbox’s latest title Borderlands. While the lands of Pandora are hostile, they are filled with a rewarding and unique experiences that leave you with a sense of something new, but it’s not always smooth sailing.

Pandora is a desert wasteland, but it manages to bring with it a unique and eye-catching visual style. Not quite cell-shaded but definitely cartoon feel graphics will remind you of similarly styled titles, laying somewhere in between No More Heroes or XIII, and adds an edge that makes the game truly stand out and feel alive. The devil is in the details, and Borderlands is never one to skip on the little things. Some areas of the Pandora map do look alike, but there are enough distinct differences to ensure that the world doesn’t just blend together and become a blur.

It’s not only the setting of Borderlands that makes for a interesting journey, it’s the one of four characters you will making the journey as that will keep the title fresh as each character brings their own abilities and charm into the journey. The Hunter can release a vicious bird of prey, The Soldier can deploy a bad-ass machine-gun turret, The Siren can go into stealth mode and stalk their prey and The Beserker goes bat shit crazy and delivers skull crushing punches to his enemies. These abilities are unlocked early into the piece, but you will continue to upgrade your skills, and you will customize them strategically to suit your playing style.

Upgrading your character’s skill set is one of the most rewarding experiences in Borderlands. It’s simple, kill enemies and complete missions to earn EXP points, this in turn levels you up. Upon completing bonus missions or simply hitting certain levels you will also be granted Skill Points that can be used to upgrade your skill set. Along with improving your skill set and leveling up you will gain weapon proficiency as you use different types of weapons. That’s not to say that a Beserker can’t use a sniper rifle, yet when he has better ability using a rocket launcher why not capitalise on that opportunity?

While leveling up and increasing your skill set is one way that Borderlands constantly rewards you, looting is just as much fun! Cash, guns, ammo and other bits and bobs are dropped by enemies, found in containers, piles of rubbish or given to you as a quest rewards. Borderlands ensures you are never short of new toys, especially when it comes to the weapons of the game. Guns are put into categories such as Pistols, Combat Rifles, Rocket Launcher etc, and each class feels perfectly weighted and distinct. The shooting mechanics are right on the money, everything feels just as it should which makes it fun to blast your opponents down with each and every weapon in the game, and there are an impressive number of them. Each weapon has some variables to take into consideration such base damage, fire rate, accuracy etc and certain weapons have some exciting, unique features. Shotguns that shoot rockets anyone? How about some incendiary guns to set some bad guys on fire? These are just some of the fun ideas that Borderlands throw into the mix with their weapons.

You’ll be quick to utilize the vast abundance of weaponry as you soon realise that 99% of the general population of Pandora is hostile. Enemies are varied and interesting and will be sure to keep you on your toes. There are the human bandits that have shields and guns, Psychos who light themselves on fire and run at you, the dog like Skags who are ready to bite your jugular, Rakks that are giant bat like creatures, the list goes on. You’ll literally encounter hundreds of each enemy type and this goes a long way to keeping the game feeling fresh and full of variety.

You’ll also be quick to notice that Pandora has a whole lot of room to wander around in, so luckily you gain the ability to get into some vehicles and drive around. Some areas are more fun to walk around on two legs, but there is nothing like some vehicular manslaughter to bring a smile to your dial. The problem is that the handling of these vehicles are somewhat touchy, and there are a number of strange physics issues, especially when cashing into rocks and walls. It’s not a deal breaker, but it certainly is an issue.

The other issue Borderlands presents to us is that it’s simply not as much fun to tackle this journey alone as it is with a group of mates. Borderlands performs like a completely different title when played online. The pacing, the frantic combat and the fun factor is all brought to a new high, and once playing multiplayer you simply cannot go back to traversing the lands alone. Thankfully for those who don’t have online access there is a split screen option, and I’d suggest you make good use of it so you can enjoy this game as it was intended to be played.

The driving force of Borderlands is the incentives of leveling up, killing enemies, gathering loot and playing with guns. There are a number of quests that try to put a reason on why you are going to point A, collecting item and taking it to point B but the main reason is to level up. The few friendly characters who do offer quests often have a sense of humor that will stick in your mind long after you’ve left them behind and headed onto the next area. The fact that these characters are few and far between further go to prove that this is meant to be a multiplayer experience, a social experience. For the single player out there, Pandora is a lonely place.

The Final Verdict:

Borderlands succeeds as a perfectly balanced combination of the RPG and FPS genres. Along with it’s unique gameplay style, it boasts an art design that makes Pandora come alive and will keep calling you back to the bandit ridden wastelands. With satisfying character development and an impressive arsenal of weapons, this game will keep you busy for a long time. There are a few places that the game could be improved, especially when it comes to the anti-social and lonely nature of it’s single player experience. All in all, Borderlands is a great title that is well worth checking out.

What It Did Right:

• Great character development
• Unique art design
• Reward System
• Fantastic Gunplay

What Brings It Down:

• Vehicle control
• Lonely, anti-social single player experience
• Cock slap of an ending

8/10

Movie Bytes: Paranormal Activity (2009)

Directed By: Oren Peli
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat

What It’s About:
The story revolves around Katie and Micah who are experiencing paranormal events in their home. This activity has been following Katie for most of her life. Filmed as a documentary, Micah places a video camera in their bedroom as they sleep at night in an attempt to find out exactly what is happening.

The Verdict:
It’s the things you don’t see, the suggestive terror that lurks in the house that makes Paranormal Activity a scary movie. Unlike similar style horror films like The Blair Witch Project or Quarantine, Paranormal Activity sucks you into Micah and Katie’s world, and have yourself thinking “is this real?”. Believable situations that never seem over the top along with honest characters are the reason why this movie works so well. The ending is a little of a let down and manages to slash away the terror, but all in all one of the better horror films of 2009.

3/5

Gaming Bytes: A Boy and His Blob (Wii)

Read the full in-depth review HERE

Developed By: WayForward Technologies
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Players: 1
Online: N/A

What It’s All About:
A Boy and His Blob is a 2D Platforming re-incarnation of the classic NES game featuring hand drawn graphics and all new motion controls.

What it did right:

• Hand drawn graphics and smooth animations
• 40+ levels plus challenge stages
• Great puzzles

What brings it down?:

• Bloated control scheme
• Lacking any replay value
• Frequent loading screens break immersion

The Final Verdict:
A Boy and His Blob is a fantastic homage to the titles roots on the NES, featuring 2D platforming at it’s best. A gorgeous game to look at, the only downfalls are in the bloated control system and staggering load times that really break immersion. If you want a platformer that has more than just running and jumping, A Boy and His Blob will keep you entertained for hours.

7.5/10

Updated Format: Reborn Online

Hey Guys!

Turns out people are actually reading the blog so I’ve decided to do a few format changes.

Movie Bytes are short and direct movie reviews. I hate giving away crucial plot lines or delving too far into events that will spoil a movie goers experience, so I thought this was the best way for me to offer a critique on the latest and greatest films. I won’t just be doing new release films, as the weeks go on there will be a good mix of old and new, and I hope my reviews help you to decide if a movie is worth seeing or not.

Game Bytes are just like the Movie Byte reviews, short and direct analysis of a game without giving too much away. At the start of each review I will put a a link to a full, in-depth review for those of you who wish to delve into the nitty gritty of the latest and greatest games. Hopefully hosting both formats will keep many people interested

Hope you all like the new format and as always, feedback will be appreciated