Archer

"Archer" is an animated spy comedy bmade by FX Network. It stars Sterling Archer - an irrational sociopathic superagent, who works in a spy agency run by his mother.
The third season started airing recently and although I didn't like the show much at first, I'm really starting to enjoy it. The animation style is kind of rigid but the dialogue and voice acting bring the whole thing to life. Story is a little too sex-oriented for it's own good but I guess the creators though secret agent business to be too sexy to leave that aspect out. Being a fan of "Harvey Birdman: Attourney at Law", this is as close to this humor that you can get after Birdman got cancelled.
Yeah and the creator of the show (Adam Reed) was the voice behind Shark in "12 oz. mouse", which makes him a hero in my book.
http://youtu.be/WqH4Bpe7Mjk (can't embed it for some reason)

Saiko

Age of Empires Online

Given the popularity of free-to-play games, somebody eventually came to the idea of taking beloved games and making free versions of them. Behold Age of Empires Online, a beloved historical real-time strategy turned into an online game, which you can download and play for free.
Well, it's not bad. The good old Age of Empire play mechanics are all there and to make the whole "online" thing work, they turned it into some sort of blend of massively multiplayer role-playing games and real-time strategy. How it works is like this - every player has a persistent capital, which levels up and maintains your skills and equipment. There you receive quests and "sail off" to actually play the missions. The system works, but it gets dull and repetitive pretty quickly. The quests are short yet numerous and they always begin in pretty much the same way. Also, having your upgrade system in capital means that you use the same set of technologies and troops in every mission unless you repick them between quests.
There are more problems. While you could say that Age of Empires franchise started off as educational, AoE Online is simply a game with a historical setting. All the enjoyment of building up a civilization from the stone age and making it flourish is replaced by a family-friendly looking MMO, where you simply rush through piss-easy maps to level up. In the process you gather magic items which you equip or sell. Seriously...
And what's with the cartoonish visuals these days? Are they so much cheaper to make that every game has to use them? It worked in Team Fortress 2 because they were ironic but otherwise it just makes a game childish. I can't stand to play Settlers VII because of the similar style (also, the game keeps calling me a princess), although the gameplay itself is pretty interesting.
There are two more major faults with AoE Online. First, it uses Games for Windows Live, which should be a crime. For example, if you lose your internet connection for a second, the client throws you out of the game and you lose all your mission progress. Secondly, the game has an awful payment scheme. Usually, free-to-play games have some premium content which has cosmetic effect or helps you progress more quickly. In AoE Online, payments give you great advantages over non-paying players in competitive play, making it pretty much impossible to win matches if you don't cough up a buck. Also, the prices are outrageous - 100 $ for six months? Are you fucking kidding me?
So yeah, overall a decent game but brought down by some huge problems.

Saiko

Game of Thrones

So guess you've already heard about this show... I mean, it's even on Fox Life now. As a diehard fan of the books and after waiting eagerly for the series for years, I should be angry that the best fantasy around is turning into a cash-in pop icon. But I'm not. Bringing George R. R. Martin's epic soap opera to the TV-screens is no easy task - huge cast, various locations, costumes, weapons and armor, battle scenes... When reading the books, I often found myself thinking this would make an awesome series (as it would be impossible to fit into movies), yet I was sure nobody would undertake that effort. And only HBO could pull it off. I wouldn't call the final product spectacular but it's defeneatly more than competent, which is saying much.
There are a few things to nag on - some cast members are quite bland (Sansa, Catelyn, Jaime) and the production values fall a bit short in HD (bored extras in the background, fake beard of King Robert). The books were presented from the standpoint of a handful of characters and the series has added some awkward dialogues between supportive characters to further explain the background - these don't feel right.
But this is just a fanboy wail. If you haven't watched "Game of Thrones" yet, you should do so or wildlings will eat your toes.
The second season is in the works but who knows when it will air. Note that the series is actually called "The Song of Fire and Ice" and "Game of Thrones" is only the name of the first book. So do they call the second season "Clash of Kings"? I doubt it...

Saiko

Might and Magic Heroes 6 (demo)

It's not so common fashion these days to release a game demo before the actual game. Luckily, the new Heroes of Might and Magic game did just that. Releasing in October, the demo is already available. Not sure why they messed up the title though... they don't like the word "of"? Apparently, it will continue with the storyline of "Heroes of Might and Magic 5". Well, sort of, as it's a prequel.
As most PC gamers older than 20, I used to like HoMM 3 a lot. 4th game wasn't all that popular, so HoMM 5 tried to be just like the 3rd. I tried hard to like it but for me, it wasn't anything special, although the "town screens" were really cool. HoMM... sorry, MaMH 6 looks to be just more of the same, eventhough the developers are now hungarians (Black Hole Entertainment) instead of Russia-based Nival. The good old core game is there but the whole process is way more streamlined and full of little unchallenging annoying battles on every corner (same problem as in "King's Bounty"). I played Black Hole's first game "Armies of Exigo" way back in 2004 and while the graphics were really nice, the game itself was a lame "Warcraft 3" clone.  Their next game, "Warhammer: Mark of Chaos" also didn't get that a very warm welcome, but both of these games had amazing opening cinematics.

Now let me reveal one of the greatest secrets of gaming industry - usually the cinematic trailers are not made by the same people who make the games. So if a trailer is really good, it doesn't say anything about the game itself. What's more - buying a good CGI trailer means less money for the game development, so the alarming trend is to dedicate funds to trailers (as it makes for good marketing) and develop crappy games. There are exceptions, of course, such as Blizzard.
As for Might and Magic Heroes 6, I think I'll try the final version but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Saiko

Melancholia

"Melancholia" is the latest film by Danish "national hero" Lars von Trier. It stars Kirsten Dunst as Justine and Charlotte Gainsbourg as her sister Claire.
The movie begins with Justine's wedding. After a failed party, her husband leaves Justine and she falls into heavy depression. Claire attempts to nurse Justine back to health, while the rest of the world is obsessed with a huge "hidden planet", which is moving towards Earth. Rightfully so, because it happens to hit Earth and destroy all life in the Universe.
Lars von Trier has a very unique handwriting when it comes to making movies. Beautiful and well composited wide shots are mixed with shaky handycam closeups, making his films both powerful yet very personal; sotrywriting seems to ignore conventional rules, still the flow is flawless. However, there isn't much in "Melancholia" that hasn't already been seen, it's like "Antichrist" without horror. Also, the social awkwardness  of a failed celebration reminds too much of another Danish film - "Celebration" ("Festen") from 1998. And the whole "big planet comes and destroys everything" aspect isn't as dramatic as it was probably planned.
If you've seen Antichrist, then you remember how the movie focused on one couple so heavily that all the other character's faces were blurred out. Watching "Melancholia", you can see why - most of support characters are stereotypes and caricatures. Although Kiefer Sutherland has a very powerful presence, anchoring the unpredictable actions of mentally unstable main characters. While watching the film, I couldn't remember, where I had seen the actor who played the shy groom. Wikipedia helped, that was Alexander Skarsgård, main character of HBO's "Generation: Kill".

Should watch that again. In high res....

Saiko

Glemm's design

So now Saiko's Food n' Guns has a proper design.
Many thanks goes to glemm, whose blog you can find at http://m6te.blogspot.com/.

Saiko

From Dust

"From Dust" is a so-called god game from Ubisoft, in which player takes control of the prime elements to help a tribe survive and reach it's goals. Depending on where you direct your followers, player gains various abilities to manipulate the nature even further and can even call tsunamis and build mountains. It happens to be a very charming and technically impressive game. Yet the gameplay feels kind of shallow, as if there should be more to do in this game. You start a level, direct your tribe where they need to go, use some new abilities, build a few hills, next level, rinse, repeat... There isn't much challenge (except the last level which I haven't beaten yet, arrrgh!) and the whole experience feels a bit empty. Then again, the game only costs 15 euros at release and it's a download-only title, so it shouldn't be viewed as a full game.
Now to the really bad part...
The PC port for "From Dust" is just awful! A player controlled world-manipulating game with water physics and majestic world sounds exactly like something that PC-gamers want to test their new graphics cards on but alas, we can't. Not only that, there are no graphics options other than resolution, which is crazy. The game looks jagged and textures are muddy, there has been reports of locked FPS and screen tearing. And to top it all off, the game requires a constant internet connection despite Ubisoft officially claiming otherwise before launch. I'm pretty sure the reason behind all this was incompetence and not cruel intentions but this was enough for Steam (as online distributor) to offer refunds to people who bought the game.
I don't know what's wrong with Ubisoft. Their neglect to PC gamers and insisting always-online DRMs are getting constantly worse, as are their games. Think it through guys, consoles aren't getting any younger and the next next generation is far from sight! At the same time, new PC parts are getting better and cheaper. The PC crowd will rise again, and ignoring them is not a bright idea. I mean, have you seen what GTA 4 (also originally a very crappy port) looks like these days?

Rant over, I rest my case.

Saiko

Way Back

Recently I happened to watch "The Way Back", a 2010 film by Peter Weir ("Master and Commander", "Dead Poets Society") starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell. It tells the story of a group of prisoners who escaped from Siberian Gulag and walked all the way to India.
Movies about struggling to freedom seem to resonate well with almost everyone ("Shawshank Redemption" still being number one of Top 250 at imdb.com) but "The Way Back" isn't particulary involving. You don't get to know the characters very well and the escape itself is so brief and confuzing that you're stuck with thinking "this is it?". However, it appears that "The Way Back" is somewhat of a slow burner and it gets better when the long journey goes further. The viewer feels the hunger, exhaustion and mental stress of the ragged band of escapees as they reach China, only to find out that China too is taken by communism. Cold and merciless Siberia gets replaced by a vast dry desert and just surviving becomes a real test of strength and willpower.
Still, the whole movie seems like somewhat of a missed opportunity. It jumps impatiently from one sequence to another and doesn't ever really pay off. The characters remain foggy and their motivation for pushing themselves to the very limit makes little sense. The whole project might work well if it was all an epic true story that simply needs to be told but this is not the case. "The Way Back" is simply "inspired by" a tale of some guys who might have escaped Gulag at some point. As a work of fiction, the movie unfortunately doesn't hold water.
Yet, it's not a bad a movie. "The Way Back" is still a quite human story about survivalism and the crimes of Communism. Plus, Saoirse Ronan gives a strong performance and Colin Farrell tries to be a russian thug. That's something worth seeing I guess.

Saiko

Limbo

Danish 2D platformer "Limbo" was released last year for XBox Live Arcade and was very well received. It depicts a small boy waking up in limbo (a mythological place between heaven and hell) and tries to survive in this surreal and hostile environment. Now the 1-year exclusivity has been lifted and us PC gamers (also PS3 gamers) got a taste.
Damn...
There was some discussion awhile back (spawned from ignorant rantings of film critic Roger Ebert) whether computer games can be art or not. Well, the artistic value of "Limbo" can not be ignored. At first you may think it's just an artsy-fartsy black-n-white Super Mario remake or whatever but it's not the case at all. "Limbo" has a soul and a very unique eerie atmosphere, yet it makes absolutely no compromises when it comes to it's execution: perfect sound design, masterful use of light and shadows, intriguing puzzles, good animations... The main problems are the game's short length and a very abrupt ending.
The talent and dedication behind this game should not be ignored and I'm very much looking forward to Playdead Studio's next projects.

Saiko

Beavis and Butt-Head

It's hard to believe that Beavis and Butt-Head will actually be returning. You don't see a lot of shows returning after a 14-year (!) hiatus. Also, judging from the footage presented here, it's pretty good. Apparently the whole concept has aged well and the new stuff seems to be a nice blend of old and new.
In case you didn't know, Beavis and Butt-Head were pop icons back in the 90-s. The main stars of this MTV show (people used to watch MTV back then) were two sociopathic teenage boys, who only cared about scoring (which they never did), heavy music and nachos. In addition to spending their time on playing with dead animals and the like, Beavis and Butt-Head reviewed music videos. Usually their evaluations fell into two categories - "this rocks!" or "this sucks!". Mainly the latter.
It was fucking awesome and I can't wait for the new stuff. The creator of the show - Mike Judge - has been busy with "King of the Hill", "Office Space" and "Idiocracy" in the meantime so here's hoping that his wit is as sharp as ever. The new episodes premiere on October 27th.

Saiko