Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is the new PS3 exclusive from Quantic Dream and it is not like any other game I have ever played!

It revamps and totally advances the style of an oldish game called Fahrenheit which was also made by quantic dream, however that game wasn't as directly interactive as Heavy Rain.

When I look at Heavy Rain I see it more of an interactive movie, or "Interactive Drama" as the developers call it, rather than an actual game. This is because the entire game is like a quick-time event where you press the right button at a certain time. However when I say that, you may be thinking about the Resident Evil 4 quick-time events but this isn't like that at all! Rather than have it tell you to press a certain button at a certain time, it asks you to press a selection of buttons in different ways depending on the action.

For example, at one part of the game, you have to disinfect someone's cuts. You do this by slowly moving the right analogue stick in the direction it asks you. Do it too fast and you cause pain to this person.

Another example is when you are grabbing something or preparing for a run up to something, the game asks you to press and hold one button, then while keeping hold of that the character takes a step back, then you press and hold another button, while keeping hold of the first, to take another step back, then release the two to take the run up.

It is fantastic! It is so immersive and the storyline is brilliant. There were numerous occasions where I was on the edge of my seat, and even parts where I didn't want to do certain actions because I felt so strongly for the character.

There is also no game over! You play 4 main characters, each have their own sections throughout the game, and if you kill one of them, the story continues but changes to that character is dead. Kill all of them off and that is one of the endings. This games the game so much re-playability as every action you do takes the story in a different direction. Not drastically but it gives it variation. It also allows you to play again to get all the trophies too!

It has a fantastic and emotional storyline and brilliantly executed controls. The only problem I have with it is that the sound kept cutting out now and again, but pausing and unpausing the game fixed it.

Seriously, if you have a PS3, then get this game! It's like nothing you have ever played before!

District 9

So I had the pleasure of finally watching District 9. Now, a lot of people seem to think it's Peter Jackson's film, HOWEVER he was only the producer. The film is actually that of Neill Blomkamp as he was the director. Obviously Peter Jackson will have had input as all Producers do but I won't divulge into that as quite honestly, I don't know how much input he had.

Anyway, onto the film itself.

It has a VERY different take on your average alien film. First off, it's not about an alien invasion. It's rather the Aliens came to earth accidentally and landed because they ran out of fuel. Us humans being territorial and all that jazz intervened and decided that they had broken their ship and were here to stay, so they imprisoned them in a large shanty town-like place called District 9, where they live.

The aliens are portrayed as animals who have a thing for cat food, and the humans aren't portrayed much better tbh. The humans go in trying to get the Aliens, or Prawns as humans call them, to sign eviction agreements as they want the aliens gone from Johannesburg.

So pretty much it's a nod to concentration camps and essentially racism. All the Aliens want to do is go home. They don't attack humans unless they are under threat, and even then they seem pretty harmless.

I thought it was very well done as you sympathized for the aliens rather than the humans. Also the visual effects were very good! The Aliens looked very real as did the hovering mothership.

This film was rather weird but very good non the less! Check it out if you haven't already, and I will certainly look forward to seeing more films by Neill Blomkamp in the future...

10 Reasons To Chain Smoke

Hey guys!

So I've been working on a new film called 10 Reasons to Chain Smoke. We began filming yesterday and it's going pretty well! I also have an awesome cast too! We have a guy from Emmerdale who is fantastic! A right laugh which is always great to have on the shoot. We also have a girl from my drama society who is pretty awesome too.

So two days of filming have been done. Got a couple more lined up for next week! Hopefully we will get everything sorted by then as we still have a fair few things to shoot. Time is against us as we can't really film over easter due to the lack of staff at Uni but it's all good :D

I'll get a trailer together once we have enough footage

9

I have just watched the film called "9" which is about some cute little sackboy-esque robotic creatures who apparently hold this scientist's soul.

So the world created machines, and the machines turned on them and destroyed the earth (Kinda like Fallout 3) and it's up to the little sackboy creatures to carry on living with the scientists soul inside them.



Sounds pretty good, but obviously a metaphor for Global warming and war. I have to say it's a pretty good one too! And the film itself was rather good.

The CG work was fantastic and it looked absolutely stunning in 1080p HD too I might add.

It is a CG animated film but I have to say, it does carry a 12 rating so it's best not a good idea to take young children in to see it as it can be quite scary for them, with things such as cocoon like creatures with a mangled baby dolls head wrapping characters in red thread.

But overall this film was great! And if you like post-apocalyptic worlds or simply some good Sci-Fi then check this out!

No Tomorrow

Since November, my group and I have been working on a short drama called "No Tomorrow" (Originally titled Isolation). It is about a girl called Charlie who is alone in a town which is crawling with Hooded figures.

She doesn't know what's going on or where everyone is, so she returns home to find it empty. She eventually runs into James, a young man who is suffering from Amnesia. Together they try to figure out what is going on and to try and escape from the hooded figures.

The film came about when we had to watch 28 Days Later and come up with a short Drama that explores the themes of it. I realized I wanted to write it.

I chose to get rid of the zombies and explore the theme of terror and isolation. I refused to work on anything with zombies as they are hard to look real, especially with no budget, so I chose hooded figures instead.

The story was inspired by the likes of Silent Hill and Donnie Darko as I wanted a mystical fantasy world, but one that doesn't spell everything out for you.

But here it is, after 4 months in the making, here is "No Tomorrow",

Turn up the volume though as it is a bit quiet for some reason...

Quantum of Solace

Ok, so I just watched Quantum of Solace again. Not watched it in a while, and because I watched Casino Royale yesterday I felt I had to follow it up with Quantum of Solace.

Well, I had forgotten just how BAD the editing is! I mean, fair enough it's a fast paced film, but that DOESN'T mean that they needed to have stupidly quick editing! I mean come on! We actually need to see what's going on!

The opening sequence is probably the worst for it. All we get is EXTREMELY quick cuts to different parts of the action, but they are so quick, if you blink you miss it. Kinda makes you a bit sick with so much flashing before your eyes! I feel sorry for anyone suffering from epilepsy as the start will send them into a seizure!

Overall the film is alright, but does not even compare to Casino Royale!

Bond 23 should be better as Michael G. Wilson (the producer) had said that in Quantum of Solace, they experimented with the fast editing, but once they had done it, it was too late to change it back, so they left it which made the film suffer a bit.

But Bond 23 is on the way! Production is due to start sometime this year and the film should be out by the end of 2011!

Evaluation!!!

It's time again to write an evaluation on the creative process on my film "No Tomorrow" (originally titled Isolation). Check the trailer below



But yeah, evaluation time. So I have to write about what I did, how I thought it went, problems encountered etc etc... It's gonna be quite easy to do I must say as quite a lot of things happened. I also get to say how much more work outside my role I did. Should be good. 600 words down and I got another 800 to go!

I'll post something more interested later.

Gonna learn a dance

Hey guys, I know it's been a while since I last posted. Been a bit busy.

I have decided that I want to learn the following dace:

I just wanna learn the opening part first by the end of the week. Just for something to do because i think it's pretty cool :D

Gotta apologize to my house mates, the thumping is cos I was attempting the running on the spot part lol.

So yeah. It is my aim to have this learnt by the end of the week....better do some more practicing I think lol.