Battle L.A
Alien invasion? Someone get Jeff Goldblum to an Apple Mac!

On paper Battle L.A is sheer brilliance. The last 20 minutes of District 9 turned into a full film. No pointless tacked on romances or drama, just pure alien bashing. Problem is it just doesn't work. The action just isn't interesting enough and the attempts at making us connect with the characters are laughable to the point I cannot name a single person in the film.

"Whatshisface! NOOOOOOOOOOO! "

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Battle L.A follows a platoon of US soldiers during an alien invasion. That's about it. No really. Now I'm all for simple entertainment. Not every film has to be Citizen Kane. But this is taking things a bit extreme. There is a quick 20 minutes at the start of the film to establish the characters then straight out run and gun from then on. For star power we have Arron Eckhart, of The Dark Knight fame, as Sergent Micheal Nantz, he is about to retire but is called in to help run the platoon. Michelle Rodriguez also features playing, as she always does, Michelle Rodriguez.
I'll give the good points before I tear into this film without mercy. It gives what you expect. Balls to the wall, ramped up to 11, high octane action, so on and what not. The special effects are brilliant and the CGI impressive. The Aliens are genuinely interesting and we are drip fed what they look like through some clever camera work and direction. The Aliens motives are hinted at from news broadcasts which left me wanting more which is always good. They also aren't an all powerful invincible force. They fight in a conventional manner and if you replaced them with humans there wouldn't be much of a change. Its a refreshing take on Aliens in films.

"Don't probe me! Take the girl instead!"

Now for the bad. As I mentioned the attempt at characterization is just pointlessly bad. You can't give two characters five minutes in a flower shop picking out wedding flowers then expect me to care when they are horribly mutilated to death by alien techno-sorcery. Any real further attempts are stopped when the shooting starts. Problem is it starts early and rarely stops. If everything is constantly shooting, screaming and "Die motherfucker die!" then its hard to stay interested. You need contrast to make the action something to look forward too. The scale is far to small too. Its all infantry fights which is alright until its happened for the nth time. With their budget the director could have thrown couple air battles and a tank that's on the screen for more than a minute to mix things up a bit. There is no plot. Its just marines trying to save civilians and an ending that comes out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the film up until that point. It was just something to give the film an ending and Michelle Rodriguez's character a point. I like the Aliens as I've pointed out but so little is revealed of their motives or even their technology (You never see a hover platform until the end of the film) its more frustrating than interesting at times.

I thought I'd seen everything. Then I saw a missile launcher on legs.

 So. Should you see this film? Honestly, if you haven't already then no. It barely held my interest most of the time despite being the sort of film that I would love. Yes it is a unique take on the Alien invasion genre but it doesn't really do much to justify its self as a film. Its more like a game without the control. So unless all you really, really want is to see is people shooting at aliens and vice versa then don't bother.

Battlefield 3
All is fair in love and war, except camping.

Anyone who takes a passing interest in the gaming industry and plays on the PC hates EA. Fact. Be it as extreme as wishing them dead or just a mild discontent with their seemingly pointless evil, like me, we hate them. Battlefield 3 changes that. Even I want to club EA's CEO to death now. Why Origin? It is just so bad compared to Steam which at least is a good service and has good design. A website as a game menu? What the shitting dick nipples is this!?! No manual in the game's box? That's crossing the line. OK, maybe the last two are on DICE but that's not the point. The point is EA is a big poo face.

More like PeeA ammarite?

One the initial rage had subsided I had to admit, the website menu works. You can select a server then go back to browsing the net until it has loaded then you jump straight into the game. This is a blessing when your rig can barely load minesweeper and people in my area with connections over 300 kbs are burned for witchcraft.

"She watched a You Tube video without having to wait ten minutes for it load.

    So what of the game. Its beautiful for a start. Even on the lowest settings Frostbyte 2 brings home the bacon. Details are crisp and in high definition. The level of destruction impressive. Explosions kicking up loads of debris, fires turn the screen a bit red and animations are smooth and very believable. I could go on. The amount of lens flare is a piss take but. The sound is just as delightfully ass kicking.You can instinctively tell where gunfire is coming from by sound which without a surround sound system is very impressive. The small details like rocks landing, the distant cracking of gunfire and ringing when explosions happen nearby really bring it all too life. Top notch quality in the sights and sounds department. This means nothing if the gameplay is crap. Thankfully this is not the case.
  Lets start with the bad. The guns are a bit off. They sound the part for sure, its the recoil. They feel underpowered. But DICE have never done good guns. Getting suppressed is a bit too easy. Being suppressed is when bullets pass near you and the screen blurs up. It happens far to easy and takes too long to leave. The maps are big and firefights take place at long range meaning your never sure what your shooting at since you can only see muzzle flashes. This is very noob unfriendly. In my first game I didn't get a single kill since I had to clue what was going on. Jets constantly shake and don't seem to slow down when you brake. Since you have to unlock missiles and strafing runs are made dam near impossible due to the shake and speed your stuck chasing after other jets. I'll doubt they'll see much use outside the dedicated flyboys until a few changes are made.

An accurate representation of my flying but screaming, upside down and on fire.

Now the good. Its too much to list so I'll give an anecdote. Me and about 5 others had secured a flag on Caspian Border. Before Ole Starsn'stripes even reached the top of the flagpole a tank shell whizzed past and took out a nearby houese. my ears rang and debris flew everywhere. A T-80 rolled around the corner. "TAAAAAANK!" screamed Captain Obvious. We scattered. My vision blurred as machine gun fire tore chunks out of the wall I took cover behind. I heard something to my right, it was a FA-18 Super Hornet coming in for a strafing run. Part of the wall in front of me exploded into pieces as a shell struck it. The F-18 came in and peppered the tank with cannon fire before pulling up metres from hitting it. A pair of Russian jets flew by soon after in pursuit. Their engines blocked the sound of another tank shell taking out the wall of a house in front of me. An engineer ran by me and was gunned down. I took his kit and finished off the tank with the missile launcher.

USA! USA!...Is it safe to come out now?

An entirely unscripted moment in multiplayer and yet it sounds like a scene from a Call of Duty mission. So believable is the experience I found myself swearing very loudly and frequently during each game. Immersion is complete.
  Battlefield 3 is a corker of a game on its multiplayer alone. An Xp system keeps a nice trickle of new toys coming in and players are rewarded for non-combat roles like reviving, spotting and dishing out ammo. I've yet to try co-op but it offers more equipment for multiplayer and the singleplayer campaign is actually rather solid. The banter of squadmates is far between but enjoyable. It does have a few issues with the most annoying being you have to stand behind your squadmates to make them move forward. The immersion makes it far better than it is really.
  So the grand question is, is it better than Modern Warfare 3? Honestly that is a stupid question and you should feel bad for asking and not because it isn't even out yet. They are two completely different experiences. MW3 is fast paced gunplay on tight maps while BF3 slows things down a notch with bigger maps and adds vehicles and destructible terrain. Its like asking if you want toast or cereal for breakfast, it depends on your mood.
Battlefield 3 is unique. There is no other game like it on the market except DICE's last game Bad Company 2. I highly recommend it despite bloody Origin.

95% 
DICE is back and 
kicking all the asses.