Game Review: Diablo III

And the heavens shall tremble.

8% crit chance increased for energy twister? Say hello to millions of gold.

I have pondered the meanings of Diablo 3 for a long time. What makes it so good/bad? What did I truly miss about Diablo 2 (Sadly, as I am a young one I have never played D1) Well- I've finally narrowed it down, after much meditation (seriously) and decided on what to post

Rating:  5.6/10

Why such a low rating? Diablo 3 was, without a doubt, the most expected game of all time, and Blizzard failed to deliver. Why was it so bad? Well in all honesty- I enjoyed Diablo 3. The thrill and anxiety of  hearing the unforgettable *Twang* as you receive that Legendary drop. Who cares if you know its going to reveal bad- everyone enjoys that deep gold laser shooting up into the sky.

After a long hard day of slaying, you return to camp to see what you have found. Crappy rare. Crappy rare. Crappy rare. Why did I pick that up? I could sell that. Every so often, you get a thrill in your heart- could it be? You review the stats that have been revealed- Holy crap!  That was an amazing item! I'm sure everyone can relate to this scenario, and especially when you're in a group of friends, its prideful to be on the top *dusts knuckles*. I, however, want to pose the biggest question of all time: the reason for my low Diablo 3 rating.

Why are you getting better equipment?. . .

In Diablo 2, the first answer that comes to mind is: To kill stronger monsters! A worthy and noble goal to those avid fans of the Hack-And-Slash game play. The difference is in Diablo 2. . . It was Different. Perhaps that sentence was a bit perplexing, but let me reiterate and send my point across- playing Diablo 2 was a different experience every game. It held a sense of childlike wonder when you went into the unknown and explored every time you started the game. That is the nostalgia we gamers feel when we play Diablo 2 today.

In Diablo 2, it was about killing the monsters. In Diablo 3, It's about the loot.

 The story can speak for itself, for every single critic out there will agree with me that it was probably the worst thing Blizzard has ever done.You don't even have one- You're goal is to chase down Ba'al and Azmodan and send them into oblivion- only to find out that the evil is now all together and you have to fight him in heaven.

The whole story can be summed up with just a few sentences, and its not even a summary. That is, legitimately, your entire plot line. You knew what characters were evil, what characters were good, and what characters were going to help you every step of the way. It was pathetic that the only surprise I had in the entire plot line was that the emperor helped me, and in hindsight, I should have caught that too.

In addition to the lack of story, the caverns and dungeons were the same every time. You knew what was (or what could be) down in every cavern- the only difference was the loot. To add to the monotony, once you get into inferno mode, your stuck with having to have a specific build. In Diablo 2, your skill tree could horribly suck- and that's okay. You could still survive and beat the game with a build that was fun- but not effective. In Diablo 3 however... That's not the case. Until you have enough gold to buy Deity-Level equipment, you can't have a fun build. Oh, and did I mention that you won't get that much gold unless you have a friend helping you or- get this -you buy gold from Blizzard's auction house. Really Blizzard? Why have you sunk that low?

So, if you're a moral gamer like me, you don't buy gold from the auction house. Hell (see what I did there?) forbid you play the game without using it though. You'll never get past Nightmare. Blizzard developed a crafty algorithm to make 99% of drops unusable. So you hit Hell difficulty- here's what you have:

Wizard: Starting on CM or Blizzard kite build
Barbarian: WW barb.
Monk: You didn't play a monk until patch 1.07
Witch doctor: acid. lots of acid. Or evil teddy bear summons.
Demon hunter: Traps and sentries.

Go on. Tell me you played something different. You're lying. Unless you got help from a friend or used the auction house, and even if you DID use the auction house, those were the only builds you did.  If you use an ineffective build- You die. You aren't even at the highest difficulty yet!

Do you know whats missing from Diablo 3 that would have made it so great? Fun. Its not there.

You *must* have a cookie cutter build unless you want to buy items from the auction house, and even if you do, most people still use the cookie cutter builds. Diablo 3 isn't a game- It's a Job. Why are you coming home from work, just to work again? It doesn't make any sense. Although it's a recent release, Torchlight 2 (will be reviewed upcoming) was a far better game, delivering what Diablo 3 couldn't and adding more to it.

Also, you have to be online to play. That's all I need to say about that subject.

-The F.A.W.X.E.

Book Review- A Memory of Light (2013)

   I know I'm a couple of months late for this one, but that's fine.
   For those of you that don't know, A Memory of Light is the conclusion to Robert Jordan's massive "Wheel of Time" epic fantasy series. And after twenty-two years, thirteen books, and the death of the original author, I now have it sitting on my bookshelf. It's been a long journey, and many fans have eagerly awaited it's release, although they've been worried about how it will turn out, for good reason.
   So I guess the big question for this book is: "Did AMoL do justice to the previous books in the series and end in a satisfying way?" The answer to that question would be: "Kind of."
   The series has been building up to this point for a LONG time, and so it's logical that the book would be 900 pages long and revolve around one gigantic battle. The book kicks off at a fairly brisk pace, finally bringing that confrontation between Rand and the others that we've been waiting for now for two books, and kicks right into the action after that. There's a lot to do, and only so much time to do it. The actual Last Battle starts around page 500 and continues until the end of the book, so that by itself will turn away many people who aren't fans of the series. A huge series has to be accompanied by a huge conclusion.
   While the way Brandon handled Mat Cauthon's character was highly criticized in the previous books, I feel like he's reached a balance with him in this book. He's not the old Mat from the Robert Jordan days, but he's closer to that while retaining some of the better aspects of the Brandon Sanderson Mat.
   Brandon handled Perrin pretty well for the first half of the book, but I feel like he slacked off with him a lot in the second half, probably because there just wasn't enough space.
   Rand was Rand. Sanderson did a great job transforming him into a dark shadow of himself in The Gathering Storm, and although he was a little too perfect in Towers of Midnight, we see that in this last book he's just as uncertain and fearful as he ever was; he just accepts that fear. Brandon did a phenomenal job with Rand's character throughout the last three books.
   Egwene was the same paranoid, power-hungry, demanding Amyrlin seat we saw in book 13, with a little bit of the awesomeness we saw in book 12.
   Elayne was annoying as always. There was nothing Brandon could do at that point to save her.
   Nynaeve was barely even there. She had one specific task in the book, and that was all we saw of her.
   I thought Moiraine would actually end up being important, but apparently I was wrong. All she does is keep Rand and Egwene from ripping each other's heads off at the beginning of the book, and convince them to march to Shayol Ghul as part of one gigantic army instead of separate people. She convinces Egwene to go with Rand's plan, and that's about it. So the past four books where Mat had to save her and the fate of the world depended on it was actually not really that important.
   Slayer was great as usual.
   Aviendha was her usual self. She changed a little when Sanderson took the reigns, but she wasn't that different compared to how much Mat changed.
   Tuon was...Tuon. What else is there to say? Her relationship with Mat is just as awesome as it was in the tenth and eleventh books.

Most of the characters were great throughout the book. The only problem really was that not all the loose ends were tied up. Not even close. Like maybe half of them. There were so many stories that went unresolved, but that's because Brandon only had so many pages to use. He did a great job for what he had, and the plotlines that were resolved were resolved in a very satisfying way. Recommended highly to WoT fans, and for anyone who can trudge through the first 13 books.

Yet another author

Hopefully, More shall be accomplished by me then by my predecessors.  I'll be reviewing more technological things. Movie reviews, Game reviews, and other things ill be more akin too. You'll still get your great music reviews from everyone's favorite Ranting Critic. Stay tuned for my first post coming soon!

Movie Review- The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

The Amazing Spider-Man has had some very mixed reviews from fans and critics, and there are several good reasons, the strongest among them being that we already saw a Spider-Man origin film in 2002 with the film Spider-Man. Many deem this movie to have been unnecessary, and there are several other good reasons for criticizing this movie.
A big reason is that Peter Parker's personality is very different from that portrayed in the comic book. While in the comic he was a quiet, bookshy, teenager who had few problems with his guardians and feared facing the bullies at school, the Peter Parker in the movie was sassy, loud, impulsive, constantly stood up to the people who gave him trouble at school, and had constant problems with his uncle. The character of Parker in this movie is WAY off the mark, and the entire film greatly suffers as a result.
While this is intended to be a reboot for out masked friend, the plotline and execution of the story follows the same outline that the original trilogy of movies followed to a tee. The villain meets the same fate at the end of the movie for the same reason that the Green Goblin, Harry Osbourne and Doctor Octopus met in the original movies. Furthermore, it was released into theaters in the month of July about a week before the release of The Dark Knight Rises, which it couldn't possibly hope to compete for.
There honestly isn't much more to say than that. Think of every cliche superhero movie you've ever seen, and you've got The Amazing Spider-Man. While it was entertaining, it was very unnecessary and redundant less then ten years after the first Spider-Man came out. 1/5 star rating. Recommended for those who are bored and can't find anything better to watch.

Movie Review- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I know I'm reviewing this movie a month late, but better late than never.
Most people have read Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but for those of you that haven't I'll briefly summarize the parts of the novel that this film covers.
Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit living quietly in the Shire, until one day he is visited by the wizard Gandalf, who used to visit the Shire when Bilbo was a boy and is known for his particularly spectacular fireworks. He invites Mr. Baggins to go with him on an adventure to recover a lost Dwarven fortress from the infamous dragon Smaug, but at first Bilbo refuses, as Hobbits are uncomfortable going on adventures or doing unexpected things. After being visited by the thirteen dwarves that are also sharing in the quest, he is convinced to go with them.
The movie, for the most part, does a good job of keeping this part of the story in line, but has some major differences in the additional parts of the movie that were not found in the novel but in the appendices for Lord of the Rings, but I'll get to that later.
The biggest thing that critics hated was that it was a slow movie that was also too long, at two and a half hours. While I can see the reasons behind their complaints, I am inclined to disagree with them. The problem was not in how slow the movie was, but rather the balance between action and the slower parts. One of the biggest issues I had with the movie was that the slow parts are VERY long, and they drag on for a long time, but the action scenes are also very long, and they begin to get tedious toward the end of the movie.
Another thing that critics had a problem with was that there was very little character development, but this is because Peter Jackson is only drawing from material found in the first six chapters of the book. He's only using material from less than a third of the book, so it is understandable that the character development was hard to see if not scant.
Honestly the biggest problem I had with this movie was that it had a hard time finding the balance between the comical and the serious. The novel of The Hobbit tends to have a very comical, ridiculous tone, while its successor The Lord of the Rings is very dark and serious, and the appendices found in the back of The Return of the King describe events that occurred at the same time as the Hobbit that had the same tone that LotR did. So Peter Jackson has to find a balance between the two, and he often comes short of success, particularly in the action scenes that involve fighting. While he made an active effort, there were some times in the film where he tried too hard, making the film suffer as a result.
So what do I rate the film? Out of ten stars, I'd give it a seven. That's 3.5/5 stars or 2.75/4 stars. It was still a fairly entertaining movie, and despite some of the major differences it has with the timeline it still follows the actual novel very well. Thorin and Bilbo have particularly good acting, and Gandalf and Gollum are fantastic as they were in the Trilogy. Tolkien fans will like the movie, and while the hardcore fans like me will probably grumble, they'll still like it. Recommended to anyone who enjoys fantasy. If you don't, then this is about as far into the fantasy genre as you can get.
Expect a rant about the differences between book and movie soon, and believe me, there will be one.

Music Review- The 2nd Law by Muse (2012)

Release Date: September 28, 2012
Length: 53:49
Label: Helium 3, Warner
Producer: Muse, Nero

The sixth album by British rock group Muse was released just a few days ago. Like most other Muse albums, this record has had some mixed reviews. Some love it, but others say it leans too heavily on Queen, something they've been accused of doing before. But you aren't here to read other people's opinions. If you're reading this, than chances are you want to hear my take on it.
The 2nd Law kicks off with Supremacy, a catchy song that has ridiculous lyrics that at the same time almost expect you to take them seriously. Great bass line, great riffs. Next up we've got Madness, a song about the conflicts in a relationship that has a pop feel similar to "Undisclosed Desires" off their previous CD. Very catchy song. Panic Station, the next track, would fit right in with a Queen album, sounding a lot like "Another One Bites the Dust." The next song is one many of us heard at the Olympics a couple of months ago. "Survival" also has a very Queen-like feel, but unfortunately lacks a catchy chorus to keep people singing along. Follow Me is a decent song that has Muse sounding like U2 back in the early 90's, right around the time of Achtung Baby and Zooropa. Animals changes the feel of the album we've had thus with an acoustic sound that changes back to an electric halfway through the song. Like Survival, this song also lacks a chorus that can listeners can really feel and hear and the last minute sounds like a riot. The 2nd Law slows down in our next song, Explorers. At almost six minutes, this song has a more progressive feel than the previous songs. While one would expect the song to speed up about halfway through, it never does. Big Freeze speeds things up a little again with a catchy guitar melody, especially near the end of the song. Mat Bellamy gives up the microphone to bass player Chris Wolstenholme for the next two songs. His voice is okay, but very different from Bellamy's style we've all grown used to. Liquid State brings back the almost metal feel that Supremacy had, but much harder. Wolstenholme's voice fits in with the song very well, and it has a fairly good chorus that's easy to follow. The next song, The 2nd Law: Unsustainable, mixes techno and dance music with some more classical elements. The only thing I didn't really like about this song is that it didn't have any singing really. A very radical change from their earlier music. Followed up is the last song on this abum, The 2nd Law: Isolated System. This brings out the classical elements briefly seen in Unsustainable, but still doesn't have any singing. The only words in this song are given by different news stations that reference the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that an isolated system based on endless growth is unsustainable. Isolated System eventually picks up about two-thirds of the way through with a more poplike beat that's added to the piano melody that's been going on throughout the song. After another minute or so, the song fades out, ending the album.
The Good:
While Muse not-so-subtly combines elements of other popular music groups like Queen, U2, and Radiohead, they do it in a way that makes something relatively new that's also very catchy, no matter how ridiculous the lyrics are. Their songs remind you of other songs, but not in a bad way. They're very catchy, creative songs that act ludicrous while at the same time expect you to take them seriously, and there's a charm to that that I can't quite explain. The 2nd Law isn't as good as some of their previous albums, but it's got a few great songs in here.
The Bad:
A good number of the songs don't have very...identifiable choruses. They can be hard to sing along to. That's a bad thing when you want to have hit songs that get a lot of airplay.
This is a concept album. A very blatantly concept album. Muse takes their 2nd Law idea with the economic collapse and apocalyptic war and shoves it in your face from the first ten seconds of the record. Because of this, The 2nd Law feels like a soundtrack. That's good for those like me that don't mind concept albums, but for a lot of Muse fans that The 2nd Law won't be anything they expected, and they'll hate it. There are times in this record when the Queen influence does show a little too much, but I'm willing to ignore that and consider the songs at face value.
The Rating:
3.5 stars. Had some good songs, but there were also a few songs that were just weak. Still recommended for everyone to try. Not everyone will like it, but it's one of those things you've got to try listening to before you can really decide honestly whether you'll like it or not.
Top Songs:
Supremacy
Liquid State
Madness

The Return of the King: Differences Between the Book and Movie

The last film adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy does a better job of following the book than its predecessor, but not as well as The Fellowship of the Ring.
The first thing you notice is that the timeline is a little different from the books due to the fact that the Frodo/Sam storyline ended in the last film with Faramir setting them free, while the book ends with Shelob's Lair and Frodo's capture by the Orcs. This is an understandable difference, and it's one of the few that can be found in this movie. The movie follows the book very well after that, right up until the Mouth of Sauron comes out of the Black Gate to negotiate with Aragorn and Gandalf. While the Mouth is killed by Aragorn in the movie, they let him go back alive in the book. I will admit that the beheading does have more of a shocking effect on the audience, and does a better job of showing that Aragorn doesn't want to negotiate with Sauron anymore. After that comes the one HUGE difference that fans have been complaining about since the movie was released in 2003, the scouring of the Shire.
I know Peter Jackson wanted to give Frodo a nice fairy-tale return to the quiet green place, but that wasn't Tolkien's objective when he wrote the book. His goal was to have Saruman destroy almost everything Frodo knew to show the reader how far the shadow had reached, and to show that Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin had grown enough to handle things without Gandalf. But before you agree with me and get mad at Peter Jackson, remember that adding that to the movie would easily add another half hour to it, and it was already a pretty long movie. That isn't enough justification for me, though. He could have put it in the extended version or something. In omitting the scouring of the Shire Jackson went against the intent of J.R.R. Tolkien and did his own thing, and I don't like it even though he had good reasons for it.
The relationship between Sam and Rosie is significantly changed from what it was in the book. When Sam arrives at the Shire after a year, Rosie is actually annoyed that he hasn't married her already. This is a big difference from the Sam that was too shy to ask Rosie to dance in the film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring. While the movie implies that Sam and Rosie are living in Bag End, it never actually mentions it. The other huge thing that should have been there is that Frodo isn't really affected by what happened to him with the ring after he comes home. In the book you have him getting sick and feeling pain from the knife wound more than two years later.
That last thing is something that wouldn't have cost Jackson much time and could have easily been added in. Other than this though, the changes are justified enough for me to still be very satisfied with the film. We'll see in December how much they change The Hobbit. Until then, goodbye.