Comic-Con 2007

Today I had the pleasure of attending Comic-Con 2007 and at the show I got to get my hands on a few games and see some footage from a few movies. There were other things that I could mention relating to my experiences but I think the following are the most interesting. The following games and movies will be touched on in order.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3)
Zack and Wiki: Search for Barbaros’ Treasure (Wii)
Clive Barker’s Jericho (360)
Shoot ‘Em Up
Be Kind Rewind

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
After waiting in line for a while I was able to get my hands on a demo of Uncharted for the PS3. The very first thing I noticed was how long it took me to get used to the controls. Part of it must be the fact that I haven’t really played any shooter games recently, but it felt a little loose while running around. The gun usage was well executed but I could never quite figure out how to aim while staying behind cover. I had to either blind fire while crouched or stand up and aim more accurately. The health system was pretty much your standard regenerating health that seemed like it would make the game too easy but it was still quite easy to die when I got overwhelmed. I was most impressed by the graphics in the game although I had to stand a bit too close while I was actually playing. I love the way the game uses a lot of color and keeps the bloom to a minimum. I am certainly a lot more interested by the game than I was before I got my hands on the demo.

Zack and Wiki: The Search for Barbaros’ Treasure
Zack and Wiki has been one of my most anticipated third party Wii titles for a while now and I was very excited when I got my hands on the Wii Remote to play it. The first thing that stood out to me was the game’s design. It isn’t obvious at first glance but the game is completely point and click and controls almost as if you were playing an adventure game on the PC. You pretty much have a pointer you can use to interact with your environment and solve puzzles. The game looked nice but once again I was pretty much tethered to the television so I wasn’t able to take in its complete beauty while playing it.

Clive Barker’s Jericho
Jericho is kind of like a squad based painkiller. Unlike most squad based games, each character I was able to use felt completely different, making it instantly obvious the benefits to using each character. One of my characters had a semi-automatic pistol in her right hand and a katana in her left hand. One other had a sniper rifle while the other had a huge gatling gun. I didn’t get much use out of the character using the gatling gun though because it takes a while to get spinning and isn’t very accurate. While I am a little disappointed to see yet another game using the regenerative health system that has become all to common now days, the setting of the game was nice and the combat satisfying. I can’t wait until I can play it in a dark room so I can take in all the atmosphere the game has to offer. While the game demos were each out on the show floor in a situation where only one person can play at a time, the impressions from the following three movies was from a presentation from New Line Cinema in a massive hall that can seat hundreds of people.

Shoot ‘Em Up
I was very excited at the possibility of seeing Clive Owen and the director of Shoot ‘Em Up at the event and I could hardly contain my excitement when their event kicked off. For those of you who just want the word on if the movie delivers or not, let me say that the movie footage I was shown was 100 times better than anything shown in the trailers. I will try to describe the footage as best I can but be warned, the following passages contain spoilers for the action sequences which really could make the movie less enjoyable for a first viewing.

WARNING ACTION SEQUENCE SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The first clip I was shown starts out with Clive Owen’s character, Mr. Smith, sitting on a bench on a dark street while eating a carrot. A pregnant lady in a yellow dress runs by him screaming for help followed by a man who comes squealing around the corner and right into Mr. Smith’s car. The man gets out of his car and follows the lady inside an abandoned building and shows Mr. Smith his gun as a form of a threat. Compelled to save the woman from this situation, Mr. Smith follows her inside and takes down her pursuer. Soon afterwards, a bunch of men come through the door at the far end of the building to stop Mr. Smith. Smith sees a tank of oil and shoots it, causing a pool of oil to form underneath it. He takes a running start and slides into the oil slick, causing him to slide across the room at an alarming rate, shooting the men behind him as he goes. When he finally reaches stops sliding, he gets up and runs forward. He then proceeds to kick down the two les of a table that are closest to him, run up the table, and through two windows and into a pile of trash. Right after landing, he unloads multiple shots into all the remaining men.

In another clip I was shown, Mr. Smith is confronted with a ton of enemies all racing up a spiral staircase towards him. He strings up a guy he just killed and sends him down the middle of the stairs. He then grabs the rope and slides down the entire length of the stairs, while shooting in a circle, killing all the men.

Finally the third clip showed Mr. Smith in a car chase scene that was too badass to describe.

END SUPER CRAZY ACTION SCENE SPOILERS

NO MORE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

There were a few questions from the audience after we saw all the clips but most of the answers were pretty much what I expected. I did find it interesting that they mentioned that in the scenes when they needed a crying baby, they would purposely not feed the baby on time to make sure he was crying.

Be Kind Rewind
After the Shoot ‘Em Up footage was over, New Line introduced a trailer for a new Jack Black movie. I watched the trailer with low expectations because I am not exactly a fan of Jack Black but I was quite amused. In the trailer we see that Jack Black’s character and a friend own a video rental business and they are running into some trouble. The customers are coming back with the videos that they rented complaining that they don’t see any picture. Jack Black’s character, Jerry, then walks into the door and makes some hand motions in front of the TV, causing it to react as if someone had put a magnet in front of it. His character’s colleague immediately realizes that Jerry must have demagnetized all the tapes himself. To solve the problem and keep their cash flowing, the pair decide to film their own versions of many of their favorite films to a great result. I thought it was especially funny that during part of the preview, some FBI agents come in and want to arrest the pair for copyright infringement and Jerry just says that they couldn’t see it because they erased it.