Resident Evil Degeberation

There are only two CG movies that I watched so far, Final Fantasy Advent Children, and Resident Evil Degeneration, and I must say the both were not what I could call a great experience, but they were okay.
while Advent children did not have a well-written plot, the graphics and the characters smooth motion kept me distracted. Honestly, Final Fantasy 7 never did have a good story, even as a game(personal opinion, so please don't hate me for it), but I find it understandable why people were making such a big fuss over it. It was probably the first RPG game that offered the player a good gaming experience. I myself, still can't find an RPG game better than FF8 which was the first game in the series for me to play, even though 10 was a hundred times better both plot wise, and battle wise.
It wouldn't be fair of me to compare RE to Advent Children since they both obviously belong to a whole different genre. Besides, Square Enix had a past experience with production of a CG movie.
to tell the truth, I was glad Capcom decided to make its own movie for the resident Evil series. The American production of it never did the plot any justice. It was mainly about that Mila flaunting that body of hers, and showing as much skin as was possible, and even if there was a presence of an RE character, it would be a side character to that Mila who I came to abhor. The movie did not seem at all as a horror movie, and it never, for even one second, made me feel that I was watching a movie that is based on the popular series Resident Evil.
I watched only the first two movies, then gave up and decided not to watch the third one because I already guessed that it would be centered around that bitch.

Now on to the juicy bit:
when I saw the trailer for the CG movie, I was about to cancel the download. Though the voice acting was great, the characters seemed to be a little too stiff. I think for the most part, motion actors weren't involved.
The character design, however, was fantastic save for one tiny little detail...take a look:

RE2:

RE4:

RE Degeneration:


okay, can I ask one very small question without sounding like I'm freaking out...WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
I'd shoot myself in the head if Capcom kept this image of Leon as it is in the future games. Leon is my favorite character ever since RE2, and I'd really hate to see this major transformation. He looks like a zombie! and what's the deal with that constant frown? He was frowning the whole movie. I have nothing against frowning men. My love for Ichigo Kuorosaki from Bleach says as much, but that type of facial expression does not suit Leon.

Anyways, moving on to the plot:
The plot was great, but it still needed to be worked on. I can understand the reason why William Berkin injected himself with the g-virus, but Curtis Miller was another issue. I wasn't actually convinced of his reason for throwing away his life like that. Berkin was already dying. He had nothing to lose, and he wanted to avenge himself, but Miller's move seemed unjustified enough.
other than that, the part where the virus spreads in the air port, and the part where the leading characters get trapped in Willpharma were more than great.
My personal favorite moment was when Clair Redfield tries to defend herself against the zombies with a red and white umbrella, and muttering: "Never saw this coming!"
The irony!

That's enough for now. I'll wait for the new RE movie before I continue my bashing.  Judging by how bad RE6 was, I doubt I'd find anything of interest in the movie.

Silent Hill Homecoming

It's not really like me to write a review about something without seeing it to the end, but I've decided to do so for two reasons. One: there's something in the game that's keeping me from finishing it. Two: I'm planing to write another review if my expectations were proved wrong after beating the game.

Let's start by explaining something about the Silent Hill series. Most of the people I talked to thought that as much as the games were terrifying, they were also utterly stupid because of the plot twists.
In reply to that, I'd say that the plots are not as superficial as they seem. In fact, those people are taking them a little too literally. The series reflect the Japanese concept of horror, that which lies in the person's own sub-conscious. You need to understand that most of the main characters there have a certain guilt that becomes manifested in the town of Silent Hill.

The second thing I wanted to address is the movie. Usually, I don't like movies which are based on video games or vise versa. For me, the movie would ruin a once perfect game. The biggest example of that is the horrendous Resident Evil movie which turned the story from a horror plot to that of selling semi nude pics. After the movie came out, the series just lost it. Resident Evil games are still good action games, but they somehow lost their essence.
The same goes for Tomb Raider which due to demands of realism became nothing but a random game that has nothing special about it save for its graphics.

I'm afraid Silent Hill is taking the same turn for the worst. Being a video game addict, I can never have a new game lying around without finishing it in 3 to 5 days max, but Silent Hill Homecoming will probably take me like forever.

After buying the game, I immediately took a quick look over the small box's content, eager to read about the new plot. I noticed that the crew working on this game in particular had not a single Japanese name among them or so it seemed until I realized that team Silent had little to do with this installment.

Graphics:
Almost every Silent Hill game had spectacular graphics. The way the characters are designed and their interaction with the surrounding environment look realistic enough. To tell the truth, I expected Homecoming to have the best graphics given the fact that it's on the PS3, but it was the same as it's predecessors...a bit worse actually.

Gameplay:
Boring, and I can't stress that enough. The enemies are just a drag to kill thanks to the stupid aiming system, specially those monkey things. Don't get me wrong, I like a challenging game, but you need to have a battle system that encourages you to keep going. The new targeting system just didn't do it for me. It bugged me. It made me hate using guns. Besides, Alex's responses seemed a little slow. He dodges after recieving the attack. He attacks in the wrong direction in spite of my pressing the target button, he opens doors after he makes me go though one hell of an anger fit. In addition to that, controlling Alex's movement is stiff, hard, and only old games used this way of moving a character. It makes me feel that I'm driving a car, not controlling a character. There's also the issue of the camera too. Most games would give you the reverse option, but this game didn't have it.

Music:
The only good thing I could think of. Akira Yamokak is a genius and he's one of my favorite composers. This piece in particular is mesmerizing:

Actually, it's the one thing that makes me go back to playing this game after giving up on it.

Plot:
Too early to judge now, but I bet it's a good plot...as always.

All in All:
I'd give it 6 out of 10, but even that is not totally conclusive. I'll re address the topic after I finish the game, I have to, I must. Otherwise, it would be like spending 200 RS on nothing.

Top 5 Bleach Endings

I have Bleach fever these days so bear with me.

Here you go:


5-Mad Surfer
Kenichi Asai



4-My Pace
Sunset Swish



3- Kansha
RSP



2- Houki Boshi
Younha



1- Life is Like a Boat
Rie Fu

Top Five Bleach Openings

This is my personal opinion. I need to point out that my preferences keep changing according to my mood swings.

5- Ichirin No Hana
High and Mighty Color
Opening #3


4- Alones
Aqua Timez
Opening #6


3- Rolling Star
YUI
Opening #5


2- Velonica
Aqua Timez
Opening #9


1- *~Asterisk
Orange Range
Opening #1

New Bleach Movie

I heard about the new Bleach movie Fade to Black months ago, but I didn't give a damn for two reasons. one: I was losing interest in Bleach. And two, I didn't like the other Bleach movies.

I stopped following the series after the gang started their endless battles with the espada. I have all the respect for Kubo-sensei and more, but the story started feeling a bit boring for me at that point, so I decided to stop watching the series until the fights are concluded or until Kubo starts presenting a new arc.

I must say that the last filler arc revived the blind admiration I have for Bleach. It was as most fans said the best Bleach filler ever.

Memories of No Body was not that good, and to tell the truth, I did not like Senna's character that much

Diamond Dust Rebellion was worse. and to add to that, its story totally contradicts the current filler involving the Zanpaktu rebellion. According to the filler episodes, and I know they don't count as the main story, Zanapktus are souls born from their wielder's soul. that's why they share common traits with them.

This new movie, and I hope I'm right though I doubt that, seems to have a good plot. Besides, it involves the two main characters of the series unlike the previous movies where the focus is either given to a new character or a side character.

Here are the trailers: