Shmee.Me

June 22, 2015June 22, 2015

Shmee Takes A Trip To Jurassic World!

For some movies it doesn’t matter how well or poorly reviewed they are, they are going to be successful anyway. Jurassic World is like that. The hype was so deafening, and it had been so long since Jurassic Park III came out that the nostalgia for a those movies was flowing hard. Jurassic World was going to be hit. It was just a matter of how big of a hit. Turns out it was massive. Luckily it was also a pretty decent film. Not the classic of the original Jurassic Park, but still pretty good.

InGen is up to its old tricks and has opened a new park Jurassic World on the same island as the original. This park however has opened and is quite successful, but not as successful as the company wants it to be, so they have created a new dinosaur to stir up attendance. It of course gets loose and starts to eat everyone and everything.

The premise for this movie is just silly. Every time InGen has tried to make an attraction with one of these animals it has gone horribly wrong, so there is no way they would be willing to try again. Let alone try and find someone to insure them. Not to mention making super dinosaurs that have the same skill set as the Predator alien seems like a bad idea. Still they do, and people get eaten, and I have to admit it is still fun to watch. Which means when they make the next movie featuring dinosaurs in space I will probably be back.

As far as the acting goes in this film there is nothing to write home about, but the writers didn’t give the actors anything to work with, just bad clichés. Bryce Dallas Howard is the cold by the numbers business woman that just needs to lighten up, and Chris Pratt is the cool guy that will show her the way. Oh yeah! And Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins get to play the kids that try not to get eaten; they are very important because without them how would Howard’s character learn that she needs a family to be complete?

With the story and acting slightly below bar that leaves it to the dinosaurs to make up the difference, and they deliver. Jurassic World’s dinos are the best looking yet. Finally a Jurassic movie that has better special effects than the original. They are spectacular, and a joy to watch. You will believe that they have brought dinosaurs back to life.

Jurassic World was dumb, and had a silly story, but it had it were it counted – that being great dinosaurs! There will be another Jurassic Park movie, and I will see it. I just hope they can tighten up the story and script. If I am going to see raptors in space it had at least better make sense. Until then, Jurassic World is worth your money for its popcorn fun.

June 19, 2015July 8, 2015

Shmee Goes Looking For The Wolf Among Us!

So if there are two things I like, comic books and adventure games are high up the list, so you would think that when The Wolf Among Us, based on the amazing Fables comic book series and developed by one of the best adventure game companies out there Telltale Games, came out in 2013 that I would have been all over it. I would have been except for the fact I have no patience, so waiting for episodes to come out is not my thing. I fully planned on getting it once the entire season was out, but I never got around to it. I kept talking about how much I wanted to play it though, so recently my brother got sick of hearing about it, and he bought it for me. I am very happy he did because it is downright delightful!

The game is set in the world of Fables. Characters from fairytales have fled their lands and are now living in New York City, but these are the darker characters from the original stories not the Disney versions. It takes a special kind of person to keep them in line. You play as Bigby Wolf (Big Bad Wolf), the reformed killer who is now the Sheriff for the Fables in their little corner of NYC, Fabletown, and you have to track down the killer who is preying on storybook call-girls.

Like I said The Wolf Among Us is a darker version of the story characters than many people are used too. If you are thinking this is similar to ABC’s Once, you would be wrong. The world the comics book created is vivid and real, and the video game does an amazing job of recreating it. I also love that they didn’t try to modernize it. The comic books are from the 80’s, and that is the decade that this game is set in. It works wonderfully. It is like video game 80’s noir. Just as I hoped it would be.

Now calling it a game might be pushing it. The Wolf Among Us is more like a choose your own adventure story. You can’t really lose because you will always end up at close to the same place, but how much you know, and how “good” your ending is will depend on how well you do your detecting. Even if it isn’t “gamey”, it is incredibly engaging, and there isn’t much like it out there. Telltale is in a class by themselves when it comes to modern adventure game story telling.

So here I am reviewing a game that came out in 2013 and you should totally play it. If you are 18+ that is. The Wolf Among Us is not a game for kids. If you are in the right age bracket though, this game should not be missed and it might be the best thing I have played so far this year. That includes the incredible Witcher 3! The Wolf Among Us is just so, so good.

June 18, 2015June 18, 2015

Sign Up With The Kingsman: The Secret Service!

So lets say you are Matthew Vaughn, and that you just saved the X-Men franchise with First Class, but since Singer has returned to X-Men for Days of Future Past what do you do? Work on a new comic book franchise of course, and the more British the better! That is how we got Kingsman: The Secret Service. A fun spy move from a guy that you can tell loves fun spy movies.

The story is about young man, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), who is given the chance to join the Kingsman. An elite private spy organization started by a bunch of wealthy English men with no heirs thanks to World War I with the desire to stop large scale warfare from happening again. This new recruit will have to prove that despite his lower class upbringing he is just as good as the upper crust of British society, and maybe, just maybe, save the world.

Even though the poor kid from the streets that proves he as just as good if not better than everyone else story has been done to death, Vaughn managed to keep this light, and delightfully over the top. Vaughn made sure to cram everything he loves in to this movie. Crazy action, in your face violence, and silly characters. His excesses also keep this movie from being great. While it is good fun, it is hard to get too emotionally or thoughtfully invested. It is just Vaughn showing you stuff he likes. Luckily he likes cool stuff.

Colin Firth deserves a lot of credit for making this film enjoyable as well.. He is able to play “Galahad”, one of Kingsman’s best spies, with so much British charm that the movie lights up every time he is on screen, so with him guiding the young main character, there is no way this couldn’t have been good. New talent Taron Egerton does a good job, but pretty much he just has to do his best to be amazed all the time, and then react to the stuff going on around him. With the next movie he will have to do more.

The fight coordinators deserve a special shout-out as well. There are some great fights in the film. They are well captured, and filmed in a way that you can see what is going on. Really good work. I can’t wait to see how they up the ante next time around.

I enjoyed my time with Kingsman: The Secret Service. It kept me entertained the whole way through. It managed to be light hearted and hyper violent all at the same time. It never quite gets to that upper level of amazing films, but that doesn’t mean you will not have a good time. Though if blood offends you, you may need to get your spy fix somewhere else.

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015

E3 2015 Press Conference Wrap Up!

There was a lot of news that came out of this year’s E3 press conferences, and I think it is one of the better years I have seen. Everyone had a major announcement or two, and I am really excited about the year to come. I am going to try and go through the press conferences in chronological order, but we will see. He we go!

Bethesda:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE2BkLqMef4

Oh man Bethesda had a good show, and they had three epic games to show off: Doom, Dishonored 2, and of course Fallout 4. Any one of these games pretty much every publisher would kill to have, and Bethesda showed them all, and better yet they are not that far away with Fallout for coming out this year, and Doom and Dishonored next year. Great work guys. There is a reason they are one of my favorite game makers.

Microsoft:

This was Microsoft’s year to get back in the fight, and I think they did a great job. They showed off all their major franchises, and four of them are coming out this year: Fable Legends, Forza 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and the one they a banking on Halo 5, but by far the biggest news was that they figured out how to make backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games work, and as I can attest to it works pretty well. Oh yeah HoloLens looks crazy cool. I think I may need one. Microsoft’s problem is that they are not showmen. If Sony would have had this lineup they would be dragging Microsoft’s dead carcass around. Still it was a good year for the boys in Redmond.

EA:

EA was doing its best to show that they are not the evil empire any more, and they did a pretty convicting job by showing me two games I want. No, need! Star Wars Battlefront, and Mass Effect: Andromeda. They also had a long boring section in the middle where they talked about sports and stuff, but pretty much they just needed to show Star Was and Mass Effect, and they did, so I will love them. For now.

Ubisoft:

Ubisoft did a good job of pretty much just showing that every game they make is on its way back to the market. Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, South Park, Assassins Creed, and whatever else. If Ubisoft makes it, it is on its way to you. Plus the show was put on by the amazing Aisha Tyler, so they get a lot of points for that.

Sony:

Sony was in kind of a weird position this year. All of its games are coming out next year, but if there is one thing Sony knows how to do it is put on a show, and they did a wonderful job. Their theme this year was definitely we will have the games you want. Remastered Final Fantasy 7, check; Shenmue 3, check (Kickstarted anyway); Hitman, check; all your favorite Sony games, check. Considering that nothing was coming out this year, or was multiplatform, it was still an amazing show. It was fun to watch. If Microsoft would have had this show they would have been graded an ‘F’, but Sony played it just right, “We will have your games!”.

Nintendo:

Their conference was pretty much: “Hey you guys like Star Fox right?!!!” Luckily we do, but that was pretty much all they had. Mario Builder looked cool, but not exciting. The Wii U is going to need some games stat!

Square-Enix:

Square-Enix probably had the most new games to show, but pretty much all I cared about was their amazing Hitman trailer. It looks like the Hitman I have always dreamed about. Wide open areas with tons of different contracts to take out (not on dates), and all sorts of great gear to use. So good. Oh yeah there was some other stuff, but that was for other people, Hitman was for me, and it comes out in December!

AMD:

They pretty much had to release a new high-end video card, and they did! I can’t wait to see the benchmarks. Until then, they did what they needed to do. So good for them. nVidia needs the competition.

Like I said this was a great year unless you were Nintendo, and there are so many great games coming out. It is customary to declare a winner, but I am going to say the gamer was the winner this year. We are getting what we wanted from everybody, so no losers here! Again, unless you were a Nintendo fan. You lost. Sorry.

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015

How To Play Xbox 360 Games On Your Xbox One!

I plan on doing a big E3 press conference round up after all the major players have gone, and since Nintendo and AMD/PC Gamer still have to go today, I am going to hold off on that until tomorrow. Though one piece of news that came out of the Microsoft conference that you can play with now if you are part of the Xbox One preview program is the new backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games. That is of course if you have one of the very few games that work with this new feature. The list is as follows:

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
BattleBlock Theater
Defense Grid
Geometry Wars Evolved
Hexic HD
Jetpac Refuelled
Kameo
Mass Effect
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero
Small Arms
Super Meat Boy
Toy Soldiers
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Viva Piñata
Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise

Not a great list to be sure, but it is good enough for a test, and I had a few of the games, so I thought I would give it a try. First up I tried Mass Effect. I found the game box and slid in the disk, and then my Xbox One told me it needed to install an update for that game to work. Now by update they mean the entire game, so seven and a half gigabytes later I was off and running. You still need the disk to play it, but it is running off your hard drive. When you start the game you are then greeted with a Xbox 360 boot screen and the game loads. Once you are at the game’s menu and you hit the “Start Button” and the game looks for your saved games it will ask you to sign in. Since the game is running in a virtual machine it doesn’t sync your Xbox Live info, or at least not yet, so once you sign-in you can get all your game saves off your Cloud saves storage. It works quickly, and for the most part there is no difference playing your game on the Xbox One versus the 360.

I then played Perfect Dark. Since this was an Xbox Live Arcade game, and there was no disk the game showed up with all my uninstalled games and demos to the right of my installed game collection in the “Ready To Install” area. I just clicked on it and waited. Perfect Dark was only two-hundred and forty megs, so there was much less wait time. This time when the Xbox 360 VM booted it remembered my login info, and my Cloud saves were there waiting for me. So even though you do have to sign-in to the 360 VM at least it remembers you. Again the experience between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One was identical. It is just running on a different box.

I do wish that the games could just download the virtual hard drive wrappers for the games on disk instead of having to download them from the store, but it is better than nothing, and it is much better than having to stream them from the internet to play them. If Microsoft can up the backwards compatible list of games quickly, and streamline the Xbox Live sign-in. This is definitely a great new feature. It is just a shame that it took two years for it to happen.