Tomorrow I’ll be constantly reminding myself that I’m an adult and adults don’t go out and buy things they want just because they want them. Instead, they post trailers of them on websites, gush about how they want them, feign restraint, and get meta in an introductory paragraph. Currently, I’m in chapter two of The Witcher and I’ve promised myself that I won’t even considering buying the second, due out tomorrow, April 14th, until I finish the first. If the first game is any indication, I need to get on with that as the second game fixes a lot of the problems with the first and there aren’t many to be had with that one.

The world of The Witcher is incredibly deep and going on the journey with the fantasy version of Philip Marlowe in the form of Geralt of Rivia doesn’t hurt.  Having read The Last Wish (the game series is based off a popular Polish book series) and taking into consideration my play time with the first game, I can safely say that this is a world that any ardent sword & sorcery RPG fan will definitely want to get into.

If that wasn’t enough, check out this short made with the game engine by CD Projeckt Red.

It feels good coming out of my Skyrim-induced coma. My vitamins D and C deficiencies are becoming a thing of the past and I’ve been noticing new little gaming gems out of my peripheral vision like Gunpoint. The video will explain it all for you.

There are apparently better comparisions for gamers with more experienced palettes but for me, I’m rushed back to the days of Spy Vs. Spy for the NES, at least in terms of setting up traps along multiple rooms. There’s a definite hesitance to believe I have the mental chops to tackle this game’s crosslink mechanic that’s not dissimilar from the apprehension I felt before giving Portal a shot. But as designer/coder Tom Francis points out, he’s going about the solutions in the most complicated way possible and we probably shouldn’t worry about being dumb. If they do decide to charge money for this, I can’t wait to pay money to feel stupid.

Gunpoint will be available for PC (and maybe other platforms) in the distant future.

There’s a part of me that feels guilty about admitting this. After all, we here at the Breach are nothing if not the pinnacle of movie reviewing professionalism, providing the entertainment starved masses with sharp, timely, movie and video game reviews that delve deeper than those of our brothers in blogging. So it is with that buttress of professionalism supporting my love for you all that I must fully admit that I was completely fucked up on tequila and beer while watching Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s confirmation of everlasting love, Gigli.

From my lucid understanding of what I saw, Ben Affleck plays Larry Gigli, a mob enforcer that doesn’t look like a mob enforcer but does in fact look like Ben Affleck on a good day and thereby rendering any chance intimidation a non-factor. He’s not very good at his job from what I gathered but he’s given points for threatening to tumble dry a business owner in one of his own dryers unless he pays his protection dues.

Somewhere along the story, Gigli kidnaps a mentally challenged guy played by Justin Bartha who you might remember as the guy who didn’t get to have any fun in The Hangover because he was stuck on roof. The mentally challenged fellow’s name is Brian and he’s some prosecutor’s brother and mobsters do stuff like that because mobsters gotta mob.

Since Gigli sucks at his job, they send in Jennifer Lopez’s character who is a lesbian. I know this because even in the midst of having my vision catch up to me, I kept hearing the word “lesbian” and people would point at Jennifer Lopez. I can’t remember her character’s name and you can’t make me research this movie so I will call her character Rosie O’Donnell as they are both obnoxious individuals who happen to be lesbians.

So Rosie, Larry, and Brian are all chilling out in his apartment waiting for orders…that’s pretty much it. Even though we get Mr. Rogers-like guest appearances from Christopher Walkin, Rosie’s suicidal lesbian lover (not actual Rosie O’Donnell, the character’s), and Al Pacino in this movie, somehow, this movie is goddamn fucking terrible. I need to cuss as hard as I can when I make my opinion known, sorry.

The dialogue almost sobered me up.  Try having at least 4 shots of tequila taste in your mouth, rinsing it away with a refreshing Corona only to almost throw it back up when a leg flapping J-Lo tells Affleck “it’s turkey time” to let him know it’s time to insert his butt chin headed penis into her fleshy folds of vagina.  Yup.  Sobering.  But if you didn’t pick up on the fact that a man with a penis is having sex with a lesbian, this movie is probably for you because you don’t know definitions of words.  You see, he fixes her that poor little broken human being who thought she liked vagina instead of penis.   If you’re offended by that, surely you can distract yourself to the hilarious rap stylings of Brian and his rendition of Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back.”  It’s funny because he talks funny.

If anything, this movie should be studied in a lab as it has managed to be painfully boring, offensive to lesbians, offensive to mentally challenged people, offensive to Jennifer Garner, and offensive to people with eyes because Ben Affleck’s face really does look like a young man’s recently shaven ass and you have to look at it the entire movie.  I mean really, I can have fun with any movie being as drunk as I was and the only reason I didn’t turn into the dad from Chronicle is because of the company I had around me and the fact that we were talking about other stuff that wasn’t J-Lo’s explanation of why vag is beautiful.  If anything, Gigli makes a case for turning off Netflix every so often and enjoying other people’s company for a change.  Then again, “turkey time.”

I’d like to thank everybody here at Mediabreach for putting up with my shenanigans but I’m going to be taking a vacation in the mead filled halls of Skyrim’s various cities soon. Bethesda has been keeping the hype caravan going over the course of this last month by posting videos depicting various behind the scenes goings on. I love that stuff as much as the next guy when it come to games but this video is making want to storm Bethesda’s gates and plunder me a copy of it so that I can play it already.  So please, enjoy this slice of Skyrim’s day-to-day business as much as I did:

There’s a large, gaping hole left in a weird, over looked film genre, I think. I’m not even sure it could be referred to as an official “genre;” I just feel as though I haven’t seen a movie like Ghostbusters in a long time.  I’m talking about a movie that takes a generally scary topic, ghosts in that instance, and injects humor, irreverence, distinct visual style and still manages to keep a palpable degree of horror at the surface of it all. An American Werewolf in London is in the same ball park but they’re playing cricket instead of baseball…which doesn’t really work for my irreverence arguement as cricket is just silly. Hell, I think that even Ivan Reitman might’ve been so taken aback by what he, Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd made that they just had to copy it in the form of Ghostbusters 2 because they didn’t know where to go after the first one. I’ll begrudginly acknowledge Evolution but only because David Duchonvy keeps his “I can wear James like a puppet whenever I want” award in his pocket at all times, I’m sure.

Set in Norway, the found footage / mockumentary-styled film known as Trollhunter has us following 3 film students from the university of [insert Scandavian word] as they investigate the bear poaching stories that have been all the rage as of late. They narrow down their search to one, grizzly-looking mofo by the name of Hans (Otto Jespersen) and proceed to pester the shit out of him until they can get an interview. After tailing this dude, making note of his odd behaviors (throwing tires all over the gorgeous, Scandavian countryside, for instance) they finally get the balls to follow him into the woods in the middle of the night where they experience the terror of their first troll.  And it’s from here on out and through these kids that we get shoved into the secret world of troll hunting.

Trollhunter might be a good contender for being this generation’s Ghostbusters. It does so many things right that I don’t even know where to begin. If this turns out to be an incoherent mess of circlejerkery, then yeah, it’s like all my other reviews but I promise to use complete sentences this time. I’m still making up words like “circlejerkery” though.

Considering that a good portion Scandinavians unashamedly profess their belief that trolls are in fact, very real things that affect their day to day lives in all manner of ways, it comes as no surprise that this movie keeps its mythology deliciously tight. There are different troll species and you will learn about them, why they act the way they do, why they look the way they do, what kills them AND the fun as fuck pseudoscience behind it. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll have your hands proping your head up with a big, dumb grin on your face whenever one of these exposition-loaded scenes pop up. I immediately went back to my childhood and wanted Ray Stanz to go over other entries in ghostly nomenclature other than that “class 5, full roaming vapor” blurb during these scenes in Trollhunter. That grounded sensation of being part of a world that has a distinct set of rules, even if those rules are grounded in structured insanity, feels so good here.

Monster design can be sorted into the “feel good” folder here too.  They all walk the fine line of goofy-looking and horrifying quite well, betraying an oafishness when they think nobody is looking and violent psychosis when on the trail of would be victims.

The sensation of immediate danger provided by such comedic looking predators is helped by some fine quality found footage camera work and par to great acting.  Tense scenes lose nothing in translation, fear is universal, though I’m sure I missed a few subtle comedic cues here there.  That’s not a problem with the Hans, fortunately.  Things have chewed on this guy quite literally, making him grizzled but never over the top.  Most of the comedy will come out his “and not a single fuck was given” attitude against a screaming hoard of trolls. And because the story provides its own logical reasoning behind said work – film students shot this – all you found footage haters can set up a perfect Scorsese-esque shot of you kissing my ass; this narrative style of shooting works in many cases and Trollhunter proves that.  But really, it’s okay if you don’t like it.

...even I don't like everything.

Overlooking the obvious things not helping American audiences not embrace this like the found footage style of shooting and being in a foreign language, Trollhunter doesn’t have a lot working against it.  The dry humor may be a bit to dry for some – a kink in the armor of my Ghostbusters comparison-a-thon and sometimes the pacing will have folks who need it go and refill their Adderall prescriptions.  But if you sit there and argue against the humor behind Norway’s surplus of gravel, I don’t want to know you.  Approved and recommended.

This is a flick where everything good about movies comes together in a wonderful, though just shy of sublime, kind of way.  Steve Carell brings his signature awkward warmth to create Cal Weaver – poster child for the modern, dispassionate gentleman perfectly at ease with wearing New Balance sneakers with a pair of khakis (I’m no clothes horse but I shuddered when I first saw this on screen) and a shirt and tie.  He’s the kind of guy just waiting for midlife crisis to hit him but his wife has one hit her first.  Julianne Moore as Emily Weaver could have easily been written as somebody to hate and a lesser actress could’ve let the role down as written.  Luckily Moore instills a need to identify with a character who, along with her spouse though he doesn’t know it, lost herself somewhere in the middle of all the day to day drudgery professional and parental life affords.  There’s spoilery reasons as to why that hits them a bit harder than most so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s not for shallow bullshit reasons that Emily slips up.

The way Jacob Palmer finds himself mixed up with Cal is at first, a bit unbelievable.  The manner in which Jacob offers his services is seemingly too altruistic a move for the character; meeting what Ryan Gosling made when he first hits on Emma Stone’s Hannah, the dude just seems like a sleaze that’s probably riddled with crabs who have syphilis.  Yet despite that, you accept Jacob approaching this schlub of a wrecked man and wanting to help him because Jacob never actually does anything could be construed as mean spirited.  Sure, he’s a womanizer but he’s respectful and though he’ll badger a girl until she walks away, he knows to let her walk away…which only happens once in the movie.

There are two things that keep this movie from falling into the pit of rom-com Heigel Hell.  Actually, make that three things.  Obviously the first is that Katherine Heigel is nowhere to be seen.  Secondly, touching on the topic of talent again – the three leads all brought their A game obviously – the supporting cast includes performances that feel at home in both dramatic and comedic fashions.  Notables are Marissa Tomei who plays a less pathetic and funnier version of the character she played in What Women Want.  Emma Stone continues to balance adorably hot with spot on physical and verbal comedic timing in a way that should only be allowed in men’s daydreams.  I really don’t know how she does it.

Oh wait, now I get it.

The Bacon known as Kevin makes an appearance as somebody you should hate but never really do but probably the biggest props to secondary roles go to Analeigh Tipton and Jonah Bobo.  The baby sitter, Jessica Riley and the son, Robbie Weaver, respectively put on some great performances.  Even though Tipton’s resume is a bit green, she does awkward, lovelorn teenager quite well.  Bobo’s a child actor and the rough edges show – a lot of his performance doesn’t feel quite natural – still, there’s something undeniably charming about the kid that assures he’ll improve his craft.

The third thing is that plot stays interesting.  You can phone in most Hollywood love stories and it’s true that this has its share of those moments but those moments are saved by the actors performances every time.  Clever plot points pop up just when you need something a little extra to keep the movie from losing its audience.

The only notable kink in the movie is that even though there some truly clever moments in plot development, there are some very awkward set pieces that pulled me out of the movie.  The last scene in particular was just so damn silly that I wanted it to go away.  It was like a kid who just discovered his sense of “humor” and wants to impress your friends with it, that kind of awkward; just lock it in a room until it settles down.  And on a whole, the dialogue is top notch but there are some tired pieces of word candy getting spurt out every so often as to remind us that yeah, this is still a Hollywood love story.

I can forgive all those little nitpicks because Crazy, Stupid, Love manages to be likable while  humorously looking at problems that anybody long term relationship can understand.  Sometimes good things just get broken if you don’t keep up with the maintenance schedule.  There aren’t bad guys in situations like that, just people in a shitty situation and this movie understood that.  So, yeah, definitely see this if you had been wanting to see this or need a date night movie.  You could probably wait until it came out on Netflix otherwise but as it stands, approved and recommended.

From everything I’ve gathered, this year’s Pax was pretty rad as it usually tends to be.  When you aren’t a giant P.R. campaign for the business end of games, that tends to be the case I suppose…*cough*E3*cough*.  Anyhoo, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot in terms of surprises.  Counter Strike: Global Offensive was announced but I’m just getting into that franchise; I don’t know if it’s quite for me yet.  The brains behind Portal, Kim Swift, announced another new first person puzzle game to be published by SquareEnix.  And I just happened to find a trailer for this game while writing this.  Guerrilla writing folks!  So I guess we can start there.

Quantum Conundrum

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Airgtight Games
Platforms: Windows, 360, PS3
Release: Q1 2012

My first reaction to this is that based on the art style, it looks like something that would’ve come out during the last generation of consoles and there’s really nothing wrong with that.  Game play wise, it looks like Portal with an even greater emphasis on physics based puzzles.  Couple that with this being a downloadable title and I think I’m sold.

Hawken

Publisher: TBA
Developer: Adhesive Games
Platforms: TBA
Release: TBA

That’s a lot of “TBA’s” in the header there but you need to repeat this to yourself while watching the trailer: “This is an indie game made by 9 dudes.”  If you can understand that, then you can let stuff like release dates slide.  Even if this turns out to be vaporware, I’ll be impressed with what I’ve seen.  It’s an FPS with mechs and caters to my laziness by being downloadable. [via Reddit]

Prey 2

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Human Head Studios
Platforms: Windows, 360, PS3
Release: March 2012

This is essentially the same trailer we’ve seen floating around for awhile but with the added bonus of its developer, Chris Rhineheart, providing commentary.  If you don’t feel like watching the trailer again, this is Rhineheart telling you that everything in the trailer is possible during gameplay.  Betcha feel like watching the trailer again, huh?  Good, it’s in three parts. I never played the first Prey so I’m happy to hear that I don’t even need to think about the first one in order to play this.  Blade Runner in space with aliens?  Fuck yes.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Platforms: Windows, 360, PS3
Release: November 11, 2011

I haven’t watched this trailer.  I know it has the red-headed bizarro of Patrick Dempsey that is Todd Howard singing sweet siren calls of all that is good about Skyrim amidst is gloriously beautiful game play.  But I’m not going to watch it.  I can’t drool for this game anymore; my salivary glands need a break.  But by all means, you go right ahead and watch it.

Minecraft Beta 1.8

Publisher: Mojang
Developer: Mojang
Platforms: Java platform, Java applet, Android, iOS, 360
Release: I really don’t know anymore.

Originally scheduled to be released on 11/11/11 along with Skyrim, 1.8 was set to seriously overhaul the core gameplay of Minecraft by adding a more adventurous set of goals to the virtual sandbox.  Now, the update is going to be released in parts (1.8.1, etc.) sometime throughout now and whenever.  Y’know at this point, if you’re not into the game, you may never get into it.  But if the prospect of raiding dungeons, NPC villages, and having ravines and vast oceans to explore interests you, borrow a friend’s account and take it for a spin. [via IGN]

TrackMania² Canyon

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Nadeo
Platforms: Windows, OSX
Release: September 14, 2011 (WIN), n/a (OSX)

Holy shit does this look fucking great.  “I-Have-To-Buy-A-New-PC” great.  What I’ve done to my PC’s WASD keys because of the first game could count as abuse were computers sentient.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to get into this franchise and this piques your interest, go set up a steam account and download the first game because it is very free.  Don’t worry, if my ’07 family friendly PC can handle that game smoothly, yours can too.  Then we can both be sad because our PC’s can’t handle this beautiful beast of a racing game. [via Gamespot]

This is the kind of thing you want to start your morning off with – validation that your perfectly natural crush on a girl half your age is normal. Actually, I didn’t need that as both Emma and I were born in the same decade. I’m just happy Jim decided to work out his feelings in a youtube video so we could all laugh uncomfortably together.

Even better is the fact that Emma Stone’s the one that posted this. I love a girl that can take creepiness in stride and even laugh about it.

James Cameron’s Aliens is better than Ridley Scott’s Alien. Check out that shit stirring! But really, everybody falls into either one of those two camps when it comes this franchise. I happen to prefer the more actiony sequel but I won’t prevent anybody from stating otherwise; the first is a fine thriller. But you can’t make a video game about the first one…well you can but it’s called Amnesia: The Dark Decent and you’ll have to invest in econo packs of underwear to play that (plus it’s not about Xenomorphs.) Suffice to say, I’m over the moon about this game and trailer two here will demonstrate why.

I’m fucking GIDDY.  This is also probably the only game that I’m keen on seeing how it works with Wii U’s controller.  Any version of this game can’t come out soon enough but spring 2012 works, I guess.