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El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

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El Shaddai is video game based off the Book of Enoch.  It came out in the summer of 2011 for most major platforms.  I decided to give it a try when the price dropped to two bucks on the Xbox Live store, but was it worth the reduced price?  I think so, but two dollars is probably as high as I would go.

The game pretty much works like this.  You run in a straight line, and then when you get to an open area people pop up and you hit them a bunch of times and then you run some more.  What makes this game interesting is the story since it is based of the Book of Enoch, which is not Biblical canon for most Christian groups, but is viewed like ancient historical fiction.  The game also has great visual style, and every new chapter shows you something cool, but sadly the game still is just you running and then hitting stuff, so it gets old.

If the game is ever on sale again it might be something you want to take a look at.  It might help you kill some time, or you could just read the Book of Enoch, and call it a day, your choice, but I do applaud the people that made this game for trying something different.  It was just a shame they couldn’t vary the gameplay a bit.

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Is The Search for Spock Successful?

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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is the first Star Trek movie directed by Leonard Nimoy, and even the though it is the third Star Trek movie it is really the second movie in a trilogy of sorts that ends in the next movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  So how does Nimoy fair in his directorial debut? Not bad, but not great.

This movie directly follows Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan‘s plot, so Kirk’s son is checking out the new Genesis planet, and Kirk is home mourning the loss of Spock, when Spock’s dad rushes in to Kirk’s apartment and asks why he left Spock’s body on Genesis, and why they didn’t meld minds at the end of Spock’s life to do some kind of Vulcan mind backup.  They soon discover that Spock backed up his mind in Dr. McCoy’s head, so they get McCoy, steal the Enterprise because Star Fleet is going to trash it, and are off to save Spock.  Also, Christopher Lloyd plays a Klingon trying to take Genesis as a weapon.

That is the type of plot you get when you realize killing off Spock, a major draw to your franchise, is a bad idea, so you have to unkill him, and the plot is really the weakest part of this movie.  The actors do a great job with what they are given, but the story really is just a way to bring Spock back from the dead.  Nimoy does a pretty good job as the director, and it is not hard to see why the kept him on to direct the next film.  He is definitely better then Shatner, but we will get to that later.

This movie is pretty good, despite just being way to have Spock back, and we all know that without Spock we couldn’t have had the latest Star Trek movie, so it is an important film for that reason alone.  It is not the best Star Trek movie, but there are much worse.

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Walking Dead Season 3 Wrap Up

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I wasn’t going to write this post, since I don’t know how much I can share without spoiling things, and I have mentioned the Walking Dead on my site before, but my wife said I had to, and it is best not to argue with your wife when it can be avoided.

Season 3 ended on a high note.  It was tense and full of action just like we all wanted it to be, but there are still some moments that make you scratch your head, and make you think that just possibly the writers are making it up as they go along.  I think that can be said for the whole season as well.  The show has such epic highs that we tend to gloss over the fact it can be uneven at times, and even make the zombie apocalypse boring here and there, but then they have an episode like this to wrap up the season and all is forgiven, and it will be a painful seven months until the show returns.

<Spoilers>  I like where the show ended up.  With Woodberry and The Prison merged, and The Governor no doubt out raising his new army somewhere. </End Spoilers>  It is an ending that lets you feel this season is over, but still interested in what is going to happen next season, and I am.  It may be that the only way I will be able to wait the next seven months out is to re-watch the show from the beginning.

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Watch Out When Fire and Ice Meet

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Fire and Ice is a 1983 movie directed by Ralph Bakshi.  It was the Online Film Critics Society, 99th greatest animated film of all time.  It was also a major box office bust.  What did I think of it? Meh.

The plot is that there are two major strongholds: Icepeak on a giant moving glacier led by Lord Nekron and his Mother, and Firekeep in the mountains with the volcanoes led by King Jarol.  The people on the giant moving glacier are declaring war on everyone else, and captured the princess of Firekeep, Princess Teegra, to try and force Firekeep to surrender.  Meanwhile a young man, Larn, finds the princess and hopes to rescue her.  It is pretty much a Conan rip-off, except animated, and nobody wears any clothes.

This film does uses the technique of rotoscoping, where they film live footage and then pencil over it give it a smoother look in action scenes, and it gives it that Conan comic book brought to life vibe.  Sadly this movie lacks any real substance, and is just watching a bunch of mostly naked people run around and do heroic things.

I hear that they are thinking about remaking this movie, but I don’t see why.  It seems you could make any barbarian movie, and have it be just as good without buying the rights to this film, and everyone would be happy.

If you are hard up for barbarian action, or a big fan of the Conan comic books and want to watch something with that esthetic then this might work, but I would skip it otherwise.