Posts Tagged ‘fox’
Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Into every generation a review is born, one review in all the world, a chosen one…that will play Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the original Xbox. If you haven’t already guessed I’m a huge fan of the original nineties TV show, so, was already quite excited to start playing this. TV to game conversions, similar to film to game conversions, are a rather common trend, especially if there is already a fan base behind the source material. However, again similar to film conversions, the outcomes of these games often have rather mixed results.
As you would expect you play as Buffy Summers, the chosen one, destined to take down all of the nasties that go bump in the night. One of the main highlights for me, was that the game brings in the main characters from the show. This includes main bad guy The Master who, of course, is up to no good and its up to Buffy and the Scooby gang to sort it out. Overall the story feels like a several part episode of the show and for those who are interested, the story sits within season three of the Buffy anthology. Despite being released in 2002 (season three aired in 1998) the plot of this game still ties in really well. The writers did a great job to make this appeal to fans, with characters regularly bringing up stories or incidents that happened in the TV show. If you are totally new to Buffy, on the other hand, it’s possible some of the dialogue and plot will throw you a bit as it doesn’t come across as particularly friendly for newbies. That said, the basic story is pretty straight forward and self contained: there’s a bad guy that needs taking down and you’re the good guy to save the day.
The game scores big right off the bat as the opening theme from the TV show is also in the game. Other than that the music wasn’t particularly engaging or memorable but it fit in well enough for the cutscenes and level design. The voice acting is just fantastic, pretty much every actor from the TV show lends voice talent to the game except for Sarah Michelle Gellar (reasons unknown), which is odd. Instead Geselle Loren provides the voice work for Buffy and does a fantastic job. The only problem with the voice work – and this was an issue for a lot of games from this era – is Buffy and other enemies will spurt out with the same one-liners constantly. Though its fun to hear Buffy say “Come on, kick my ass,” after hearing it several times in the same level it gets old really quick.
Friday at the Movies: Prometheus Review
So technically this has nothing to do with video games, and in the past I tried to avoid off topic articles, but then I realized I own and maintain this site and can therefore do whatever I want. As a result, here’s a movie review!
Not another prequel. That’s all I could think when I first heard of Prometheus, which started life as a prequel to the movie/series Alien. Don’t get me wrong, I love Alien and the series that followed, but prequels always exploit countless plot holes, look so much better than the originals that supposedly happened after said prequel, and origin stories such as this are doomed to disappoint. Fortunately, this isn’t as much a prequel as it is a separate story that crosses paths with the Alien series and holds its own when considered a standalone film. I need to be very clear when I say this because it seems few who went to the movie this weekend seem to understand it: this is not intended to be a prequel to Alien nor is it part of the Alien series despite having many obvious connections. In fact, this was a great sci-fi romp that is recommended for most film fans other than those seeking an Alien film.
Gaming History 101 