レビュー：ポータル２ (Portal 2)

２００７年に販売された「ポータル」は今まで無かったゲームでしたね。
ＦＰＳで拳銃を持っているのに玉は打てない。その代わりに青とオレンジのリングを撃って 時空移動をしながらさまざまなパズルをとくゲーム。でもやっぱり「ポータル」はゲームというより実験って感じがしましたね。

いろいろ面白いパズルもあり、ゲームの展開も面白かったですが。。。やっぱり短いし地味でした。

誰かに「ポータル」知ってる？って言われても「あああ、面白かったね。それ」って返すぐらいですね。

正直「ポータル２」ではあんまり期待していなく、単に新しいギミックとパズルが増えただけと思いながら遊んでいると。。。こ！これはああ！

ゲーム業界だけではなく、映画、テレビ、アニメ、さまざまなジャンルにわたって「ポータル２」は人類に一度の名作といっていいぐらいでしょう！！！！！！

「ポータル２」は前作みたくいろんなパズルなどで頭を使わせますが。。。今回はそこがメインじゃない！なんと今回のポータルはストーリーが新しいキャラクターたちが登場！！！

紹介しよう！「ポータル２」の新キャラ！！ウィートリー！！！(Wheatley)

有名英国コメディアン、スティーヴン ムーチャントが演出するロボット目玉、ウィートリーは今までにはなかった、とてもチャーミングで笑えるキャラクター。
彼が 「ポータル２」での一番キャラですね。
最高に書かれた対話とスティーヴンの話術でプレイヤーはこのキャラクターと恋に落ちます。


そしてなんと前作の悪役！グラドス　(GLaDOS)　がなんとあなたの仲間に！？

 そうです！！！今まであなたを殺そうとしてきたグラドスがなんとあなたと手を組んでAperture Scienceをまた元に戻そうとするのです。
前作を遊んできた方には絶対ありえない展開！でもすさまじいストーリーがこれを可能にするのです！！


まだゲームを遊んでいない方のためにネタバレはしませんのであまりストーリーやらキャラクターやら細かく語れないのですが、このゲームはとにかくすごい！！

 
ストーリー自体は意外と普通なターミネーター風のものですが（パソコンが全人類を破壊しようとするやつ）でもやっぱりキャラクターこの作品を引っ張っていますね。
いろんなキャラクターが出てきてそれぞれ自分の悲しい過去、未来の希望などを背負ってそれをベースにキャラが育っていくのが普通ですが、「ポータル２」のキャラクターは過去も未来も無く今だけです。

ほかにストーリーで有名な作品、ファイナルファンタジー、ゼルダ、メタルギアソリッドなどありますが、キャラクターが多く、世界も広く、とてもすべて覚え切れません。ですが「ポータル２」の登場人物は５人しかいません。ウィートリー、グラドス、タレット、クラップ・タレットとプレイヤーです。
そしてプレイヤー以外のキャラクターは全員機会です。だから別に子供のころに親が殺されたとか、さらわれた皇女様を助ける運命などありません。ただ作られた使命をはたしてればいいのです。

「ポータル２」のキャラクターたちはとてつもなくシンプルで覚えやすい、そして愛らしい。今まで作られたゲームの中だけでなく、映画、アニメ、テレビでもこういうキャラクターは非常に少ないでしょう。

 
これほどシンプルなキャラクターでストーリーを進ませるには非常にむずかしい物だと私は思っています。さらにこんなＳＦロボット作品を作るなどもってのほか！！

「ポータル２」はほんとにすばらしい作品です。遊んで絶対後悔は無いでしょう。
まだ遊んでない人はぜひお勧めです、いえ、遊んでください！！！

Toy Story, and the growth of characters, thanks to the villains.

An alternative title for this would be: Why Toy Story 3 isn't as good as 1 or 2.

Many people watch Toy Story 3 and say that the ending was amazing and made me cry. My response to that is, just watch Toy Stories 1 and 2 and then watch the ending of 3, and you'll still get the same heart warming feeling if you watched the full length feature of 3 (I mean, the only person that would watch Toy Story 3 without 1 and 2 would be a mad man... or something living under a rock for 10 years.... or a baby that wasn't born in our generation and watched them after watching 3).

You see, the problem with Toy Story 3 is that it's clear cut. The story goes on with a good start where the toys would rather move onto another child so they could be played where as Woody doesn't want to let go of Andy. A very strong theme.... but this whole theme goes out the window when Lotso is revealed as the evil strawberry-scented Teddy Bear.

Toy Story 2 also had an evil antagonist, the Prospector!! but his true identity wasn't revealed until the end and the battle against him was resolved rather quickly so you can't really point fingers and say, "This all happened because of you Prospector!!!".  The Prospector wasn't the true cause of Toy Story 2's complication, it was Woody and his combat against fame and fortune for his true love of his owner Andy.

Enough about Toy Story 2 and back to 3. You see, Lotso is pretty much the reason the toys are in this mess. It's his fault they can't leave the day care center and it's his fault the kids treat their toys so badly... or so I think. I can't remember that far back but I remember Ken taking over the place in the end and everyone being happy and stuff... so I believe Lotso was mind controlling toddlers over the world to drool on their toys... or something like that. 

The problem with this is that, it really breaks the formula of Toy Story altogether. Toy Stoy's main theme was the feelings and emotions of inanimate objects. The whole meaning of Toy Story was to get people feeling and crying over these plastic items. To grow the imagination, and to imbed the thought of :


"What if?" 


What if this keyboard was alive? Would I treat it the same way I do now? Would I hesitate when I try to throw it out to replace it for a new one? 


It doesn't just have to be about things coming to life, it can be anything:
What if Aliens are watching us?
What if Atlantis still exists?
What if I can fly by shouting "To infinity and beyond"?


Toy Story 3, destroys this idea by saying "THE  BEAR IS EVIL!!! BLAME THE BEAR!!!!"

Toy Story 1 was about Woody's jealousy against the new toy, and Buzz's acceptance of the truth. Leading to the climatic ending of Woody and Buzz flying together into the moving van. The evil kid, Sid was also a key character that actually helped Woody and Buzz resolve their differences. So without Sid, Woody and Buzz probably would of never gotten along even at their new home. 

Toy Story 2 turned the table, and placed Woody into Buzz Lightyear's boots, being exposed as the icon Cowboy Woody, and not the toy. Leading to what Woody would say to Buzz at the end of the film, "I know Andy's going to grow up, but I would never miss it for the world". Woody probably would of never said this if wasn't for Al and the Prospector. The Prospector stopped Woody going back to Andy allowing the conflict between him and Buzz. This made Woody to realise his true purpose as a toy. If Woody had just gone home without even considering going to Japan, then Woody probably would of spent the rest of Andy's life fearing that one day he would get thrown out. 

In Toy Story 3 however, you can just cut out the whole Day Care Center part (removing the bear, the main and probably only antagonist in the film), and throw Woody into Bonnie's room and still end up with Andy giving his toys away to her. 

No matter how cool watching toys rein-act mission impossible, it still has no affect on the story nor the characters. 

The great thing about the first 2 films is that, the evil characters were never part of the problem, but more the solution. The toys already had an conflict between each other way before the evil characters were even introduced. Because of this, Toy Story 1 and 2 is not clear cut, you can't say that Sid and Al are the reason for all this conflict, because it isn't. You can't point fingers and say "He's the one!! If we defeat him everyone would be happy again!!" that's what made Toy Story so great. 

The Toy Story series are an amazing piece of art, and Pixar are probably one of the greatest film makers in the world, and with that, I tip my hat to you Pixar, bravo. (but watch out, Snowy Entertainment is going to catch up!!)

Review: Sucker Punch

If you sum up the plot for Sucker Punch, it's pretty much about a girl in a mental institute... and that's what Sucker Punch is, a very sick and confused little child.

The movie tries to copy Inception in a way. The movie takes part in 3 levels. The real world (probably), the imagination world, and the imagination world of the imagination world. Basically the girls believe that they're in a brothel rather than a psychiatrist hospital. The doctors try and treat the patients through song and dance, but the girls think it's part of their role as a stripper. Baby Doll, the main character in the movie can enter her own new dimension when dancing, so when the other girls think she's dancing in her torsolette she's actually fighting off dragons in her other own imaginary world. Eventually all the girls try and work together to escape the whorehouse/psycho ward and be free.

The idea itself is great but the plot is very weak. The dialogue is pointless and it never explains why any of this is happening apart from the fact that everyone in the film is crazy. The actors are all horrible and they don't really do a good job of setting up the characters and most of them just seem to go with the flow. They never tap into each of the characters feelings and just miss so many opportunities to make a bad story good.

Sucker Punch, like all of Zack Snyder's films, is not your average Hollywood film. It has all the elements to be an Hollywood film, lots of action, weak characters, horrible acting, boobies, but some how it's something a little different.

The film itself knows that you're all here to watch women in negligés shooting Nazis in the head (which were entertaining mind you).... but it sometimes remembers that it's a movie and tries to put in complications and twists in the worst possible times.

You never really know if the people behind the film are really intelligent or just really stupid. There are multiple scenes in the movie with very strange action sequences.
For example, in one scene one of the main characters spins her shotgun and reloads only to use it to club the other guy to death. Anyone who would watch this scene would think that she would fire the gun (like in terminator) but she didn't.
This may have been done initially to, like the title says "Sucker Punch" the audience.
This was a very interesting idea since they never explained the meaning of the title "Sucker Punch" but someone I feel like I'm looking into it a bit too deeply. If they went into all this trouble to "Sucker Punch" the audience, why couldn't they improved the plot as well?
Also it didn't really work in most scenes, and just made everyone around me go WTF?

Sucker Punch is an great experiment. It tries to do stuff other movies never do like explaining half the film though visuals and not dialogue, but the sad thing is that it also wants to be a movie at the same time.

英雄＊戦姫 春パイ祭り

大槍葦人さんの最新作「英雄＊戦姫」の４月１日限定プロモーションバナー春パイ祭り！！！
大槍葦人さんの作る作品は大変気に入っているので、とにかくどこかに保存しないと不安でどうしようもありません！！さらにJAVAのスクリプトなのでウェブじゃないと保存できない。。。ということでここに貼り付けましたｗ

すみません、根っからのオタクなので。。。興味ない人は目をつぶっておいてください