Quantum Conundrum Review

Odds are, Quantum Conundrum will give you serious Portal vibes, and for good reason: The cartoony new first-person puzzler is designed by Kim Swift, one of the creators of the original Portal. While this multi-dimensional mind-boggler doesn't quite match the genius of its forebear, it delightfully says, "Laws of physics be damned!" and hands over the keys to four distinct dimensions beyond our own.

Conundrum sends you on a quest of inter-dimensional problem solving to rescue your mad-scientist uncle, who has gone missing somewhere in his labyrinthine mansion. The professor's latest invention, the Inter-dimensional Shift Device (or ISD), should prove quite useful in navigating the obstacles in each room -- obstacles like death lasers and pools of skin-melting "science juice." (On a side note, why would anyone build rooms like this? That is a conundrum for another time…)

Playing this game will feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s spent time with Portal. You move from room to room solving one environmental puzzle at a time. The only characters to be found are robots. And an unseen person on the god mic (your uncle) fills the GLaDOS role, providing colorful commentary on your performance every step of the way.

Does Quantum Conundrum have you completely confounded? Solutions for every puzzle are a click away in the Quantum Conundrum Wiki.

But Quantum's shifty abilities provide their own special kind of brain teasers. Rather than pondering portals, here you're thinking about weight, speed, and velocity -- sometimes all at once.

The Interdimensional Shift Device (or IDS) lets you freely phase into four dimensions, each changing the physical properties of your environment in different ways. For example, say you need to drop something heavy on a switch. In the fluffy dimension, everything sheds its weight and can be lifted with ease.

That's a very basic example, but as you’d expect, the puzzles become much more complex as you progress, with the IDS also empowering you to reverse gravity and bend time. Eventually you'll enter the fluffy dimension, pick up a heavy object, throw it, switch to the slow time dimension so you can hop on, then alternate reversing gravity while you ride on the heavy object's wave of inertia over some deathtrap. Quantum Conundrum stumped me a few times, but never frustrated me.

The four dimensions in Quantum Conundrum are:

Fluffy: Heavy objects can easily be carried or blown by the wind.

Heavy: Light objects become paper weights. Useful for pressing switches.

Slow Motion: Time slows to a crawl but you move at normal speed.

Reverse Gravity: Anything not tied down will float to the ceiling.

Is it safe?

Though the puzzles often dazzle with brilliant design, the interior decorating of the mansion where you spend all your time shows less imagination. You wander through the same hallways passing the same books all throughout the game, and the corridors lack detail. It doesn’t really feel like a wacky, Doc Brown-like inventor lives here.

Story-wise, your uncle communicates with you from the Netherworld during your journey, dropping hint after hint about his whereabouts. Unfortunately, the big reveal with regard to his fate ends up being pretty insignificant -- it seems like a twist is being foreshadowed the whole time, but ultimately the opportunity is missed.

Which leads me to the real let down: the disappointing ending. I'm not going to spoil anything, of course, but know that the end of your five-hour adventure lacks both climax and satisfaction. It’s neither heavy nor fluffy enough.

Source : ign[dot]com

The Artist Blu-ray Review

The Artist is a victim of circumstance. The very minute it won Best Picture during the 2012 Academy Awards, the backlash against the film began. And while there's plenty of reason to be fuming over the choice (many of the nominees were worthy of the golden statue), most of the complaints really had nothing to do with the film itself.

Rather, much of the frustration was geared at the Weinstein Company, an indie powerhouse known for winning a great many Oscars throughout the years. They turned an otherwise harmless, cute, spirited comedy into something of a sideshow, painting it with as much hyperbole as they could throw on the film. And really, no film should have to undergo such misguided hype.

At its core, The Artist is just an enormously pleasing, if superfluous, ride down memory lane, to an era of great transition, and great depression. It's a silent film, shot much like the films of the era, and driven by its lovely score, terrific silent performances and an entertaining narrative.

In the film, we follow George Valentin (Oscar winner Jean Dujardin), a silent film star whose career is shaken with the birth of talking pictures. His go-to studio doesn't want to keep making pictures with him, and in a matter of years, he's a washed-up has-been with nothing to his name. Enter Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a young starlet he met during his heyday, who's quickly transformed into a superstar of talkies. Having long had a crush on Valentin, she attempts to awaken his spirit.

Let me pause for a moment to note the film's amusing similarity to the narrative template of Doug Liman's Swingers. In that film, the main character is in a state of self-loathing following the breakup with his longtime girlfriend. Despite his best friends telling him how great he is, he continues to wallow and fall apart. Eventually (spoiler alert), he meets a young girl and bonds with her over dancing, finally escaping the clutches of a tragic fate.

In The Artist, our hero is a self-loathing man overcoming a breakup with the studio. Despite his friends (mostly Peppy Miller, who also acts like Vince Vaughn's character) telling him he's great, he continues to wallow and fall apart, losing his home and livelihood in the process. Eventually (spoiler alert, though the Blu-ray box art already spoils this) he bonds with Peppy over dancing, reclaiming his former stardom, escaping one possible, and very tragic, doom.

See the similarity? That's not really a complaint against the picture, just an observation. If the film has any faults, though, it's in the pacing. At 100 minutes, The Artist has a tendency to drag on, especially considering the simplistic, and silent, narrative.

The story also falters with the logic behind Valentin's forced retirement. If you know anything about the tragic transition from silent films to talkies, you'll know that most silent actors didn't make the leap not because the studio wanted “fresh meat,” but rather, because those stars were not trained in subtle acting, but exaggerated expression. And, in some cases, these actors couldn't even speak English. The motivation for Valentin's exit from cinema is certainly tragic, but it's not as truthfully tragic as the real story.

But don't hold these faults against the picture too much. The film is delightfully charming, riddled with wonderfully amusing performances, a terrific score (from Ludovic Bource), a great sense of nostalgia, and some of the best cinematography of the year. Director Michel Hazanavicius does a great job making the film look and feel like it was a product of the era, too. And Valentin's cute little dog steals the show more often than Snowy did in Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin.

The Artist is a touch superfluous, and some might find it lacking when it comes to depth and true meaning. But the film should provide 100 minutes of fun for anyone with a fondness and affection for silent cinema, with a dash of melodramatic romance and dancing. Is the film Best Picture worthy? That's debatable, but it's hard to debate that The Artist isn't a solid piece of classy movie-making.

The film comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The Blu-ray/UltraViolet combo pack is presented in full frame (the intended aspect ratio), mixed in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.

Shot with Super35, The Artist has an intentionally nuanced appearance. The black-and-white image has been matted to 1.33:1, and degraded to look like dated film. Alas, despite some great cinematography, this transfer doesn't really look like vintage (cleaned up) silent film, but boasts a softer, less detailed melodramatic look, similar to B&W films of the '50s, not the '20s and '30s. Also a bit troubling are the hard edges noticeable on text, both on the opening logos and text within the film. It's hard to say exactly why this happened, but it renders a transfer that simply isn't its very best.

The film's sound mix, presented in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, is equally disappointing. Silent cinema was often accompanied by a live orchestra who would score the film while the action played on screen. One would assume this mix would match that level of enveloping power a live orchestra brings, providing a mix that plays like a live concert. Unfortunately, this track does nothing of the sort. Instead, it's a front-locked, shockingly soft mix that's disappointingly subdued and overly quiet for no good reason. It's possible director Michel Hazanavicius was going for a more mono-like listening experience, but it's a puzzling decision that dampens the overall presentation.

Extras include a series of explorative making-of featurettes (totaling roughly 40 minutes, in HD). There's also a lengthy, 45-minute in-depth Q&A with Missi Pyle, James Cromwell, Jean Dujardin, and Bérénice Bejo; director Michel Hazanavicius and producer Thomas Langmann. Rounding out the disc, there's a series of trailers and a blooper reel. The disc also comes with an UltraViolet cloud streaming digital copy of the film.

It's hard to fully recommend The Artist, as some will inevitably find the film boring, simplistic or just too “artsy,” and that's partly the fault of the Best Picture label – it attracts an audience who might not appreciate the film for what it is. That said, there's plenty to adore about The Artist, and the film should manage to win over many film goers, especially longtime lovers of cinema. If only the Blu-ray looked a bit sharper and sounded more lively. Regardless, this disc is worth a spin.

Source : ign[dot]com

Quantum Conundrum Review

Odds are, Quantum Conundrum will give you serious Portal vibes, and for good reason: The cartoony new first-person puzzler is designed by Kim Swift, one of the creators of the original Portal. While this multi-dimensional mind-boggler doesn't quite match the genius of its forebear, it delightfully says, "Laws of physics be damned!" and hands over the keys to four distinct dimensions beyond our own.

Conundrum sends you on a quest of inter-dimensional problem solving to rescue your mad-scientist uncle, who has gone missing somewhere in his labyrinthine mansion. The professor's latest invention, the Inter-dimensional Shift Device (or ISD), should prove quite useful in navigating the obstacles in each room -- obstacles like death lasers and pools of skin-melting "science juice." (On a side note, why would anyone build rooms like this? That is a conundrum for another time…)

Playing this game will feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s spent time with Portal. You move from room to room solving one environmental puzzle at a time. The only characters to be found are robots. And an unseen person on the god mic (your uncle) fills the GLaDOS role, providing colorful commentary on your performance every step of the way.

But Quantum's shifty abilities provide their own special kind of brain teasers. Rather than pondering portals, here you're thinking about weight, speed, and velocity -- sometimes all at once.

The Interdimensional Shift Device (or IDS) lets you freely phase into four dimensions, each changing the physical properties of your environment in different ways. For example, say you need to drop something heavy on a switch. In the fluffy dimension, everything sheds its weight and can be lifted with ease.

That's a very basic example, but as you’d expect, the puzzles become much more complex as you progress, with the IDS also empowering you to reverse gravity and bend time. Eventually you'll enter the fluffy dimension, pick up a heavy object, throw it, switch to the slow time dimension so you can hop on, then alternate reversing gravity while you ride on the heavy object's wave of inertia over some deathtrap. Quantum Conundrum stumped me a few times, but never frustrated me.

Is it safe?

Though the puzzles often dazzle with brilliant design, the interior decorating of the mansion where you spend all your time shows less imagination. You wander through the same hallways passing the same books all throughout the game, and the corridors lack detail. It doesn’t really feel like a wacky, Doc Brown-like inventor lives here.

Story-wise, your uncle communicates with you from the Netherworld during your journey, dropping hint after hint about his whereabouts. Unfortunately, the big reveal with regard to his fate ends up being pretty insignificant -- it seems like a twist is being foreshadowed the whole time, but ultimately the opportunity is missed.

Which leads me to the real let down: the disappointing ending. I'm not going to spoil anything, of course, but know that the end of your five-hour adventure lacks both climax and satisfaction. It’s neither heavy nor fluffy enough.



Source : ign[dot]com

Uncharted and Uncharted 2 Coming to PSN

If for some ungodly reason you still haven't played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the PlayStation Network shall be your salvation. June 26th, both games from developer Naughty Dog hit the store for undisclosed prices.

No word if these digital goodies are coming to other countries, but if you are here in the United States, heads up that all the Uncharted 2 DLC is free on the PlayStation Store right now. The freebies end on June 26th, so download the multiplayer packs now if you're planning on downloading the games then.

While you wait, watch these and marvel at how awkward IGN video reviews were before we used written scripts. Mainly me. Roper was fine.

Source : http://www.ign.com

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Michael Korvac" Review

Note: Yep, we've decided to begin weekly reviews for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! For some reason we can't put our finger on, the timing just felt appropriate... Moderate episode spoilers follow.

With the Avengers movie shifting Marvel Studios' films into a more cosmically-oriented direction, it's only fitting that Season 2 of Earth's Mightiest Heroes continues to do the same for the show. The series continued its gradual build-up towards the big Kree/Skrull War conflict, but in the process introduced both a legendary Avengers foe and a very unusual team of "Space Avengers" called the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The episode handled Michael Korvac very well considering the limited, 21-minute time span. The character was always meant to be a cautionary tale of what happens when one ordinary man is given god-like power, and Korvac's gradual breakdown over the course of the episode captured that descent into madness. As in the original story, his desperate attachment to his girlfriend, Carina, providing just the right touch of humanity. The fact that so much of "The Korvac Saga" was reduced or eliminated for this episode was probably for the best.

But in the end, it was really the Guardians of the Galaxy who stole the show. Considering that the episode was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (who created the version of the Guardians the episode utilized), that's only to be expected. Hawkeye had a great line, "There's a tree and a raccoon scowling at us, man. Are we firing?" That pretty much kicked off hostilities between the two groups as they embarked on the obligatory "let's fight each other for a while until we unite to battle a common foe," shtick.

It might not have been the most clever or surprising plot, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Whether it was
Iron Man vs. Quasar, Hulk vs. Groot, or Black Panther vs. Adam Warlock, the battles were consistently engaging and visually memorable for a show that doesn't always boast the strongest animation quality. The vocal work was also particularly noteworthy thanks to all the guest stars. There was the inimitable Kevin Conroy as Star-Lord, of course. Kirk Thornton's Warlock and Troy Baker's Korvac were also particularly well done. Although, as a long-time fan of Rocket Raccoon, I can't say I ever pictured the character with a heavy British accent.

This episode may not have had quite the epic scale and sense of doom the original Korvac Saga did in the comics, but it ended on a suitably tragic note that leaves the door open for the villain's return. On a more somber note, the episode was dedicated to the memory of its director, the late Boyd Kirkland. At least Kirkland was able to go out in style with one of the better episodes the series has seen to date.


Source : http://tv.ign.com/articles/122/1224443p1.html