Movin' On Up Monday, March 12, 2007 : 12:00 AM By: Chris

It's old news now that Sony is coming out with something called Home and another something called LittleBigPlanet. By far, these two pieces of software are the most promising non-theoretical attributes of the PS3. Home doesn't really appeal to me. Animal Crossing is about as deep as I go into the whole alternate digital life thing. However, I can see how it could be immensely entertaining for some people. I think (and the world wide blogotubes seems to agree) that the real fun lies with LittleBigPlanet. I really can't applaud Sony enough for finally starting to branch out of their stereotypical GTA/sport game zone and trying something creative like they did with LocoRoco. Good co-op games are hard to come by and it's great to see a new one with real promise. All that being said, am I considering buying a PS3? The answer is no, for now at least. While Sony is on the right track, there are simply not enough good games out there or on the horizon to warrant a $600 piece purchase. I'd actually be much more interested in the black 360 if the price drop rumors are true.

Last week I talked about the Resident Evil films and gave my general opinion of them. But I did not just conjure that opinion out of the blue. No, there are specific reasons why I harbor that resentment. Here are a few from the first film. I'll warn you that spoilers follow (but how can you spoil something that is already rotten?)

1. The Alice in Wonderland theme - when a film alludes to another artistic work it is most effective when it is subtle yet powerful and relevant. Here, the writer doesn't have the talent to cleverly weave in the overtones so he smacks you in the face with them. The main character is actually named Alice and the antagonist is named Red Queen. Doesn't get any more overt than that.

2. The mansion - we all know that Resident Evil games always start you out in an area mostly devoid of technology and then you ultimately progress to a freaky high-tech lab. In the movie the mansion is present for about 5 minutes and the rest of film is in a lab complex. Way to miss out on a major and interesting element of the games.

3. The laser hallway - Granted, a hallway similar to this does actually appear in a RE game. However, the movie version makes no sense. The movie hallway starts out with single laser beams that people can dodge through various acrobatics but then switches to a massive latticework of lasers that nobody could possibly ever dodge. Why didn't the hall just start out in impenetrable laser-wall mode instead of toying around?

4. The action - Many movies are guilty of this crime - it is not entertaining to watch people just stand and shoot guns, no matter how high-tech they are, if you don't care for the characters at all. Furthermore, quick-cut fight scenes are non-engaging and highlight the inability of the choreographer and actors to stage a compelling fight. RE the movie has both kinds of action in spades.

5. The soundtrack - In the games you hear a spectrum of music. As you creep through a dim, cramped hallway you may hear the groan of a cello with a dreary piano melody. Or you might hear an epic orchaestrated peice during a big action segment. But in the RE movie you will hear brain-numbing hard rock motifs throughout most of the film. Marilyn Manson may have his talents, but composing a movie score is definitely not one of them.

6. Michelle Rodriguez - Is it just me or does she play the same tough-gal role in everything she does?

7. The Umbrella logo - This logo is plastered everywhere. Every crate, every computer screen, many walls and floors, and so many other items sport the Umbrella logo in this movie. I'm convinced that the creators knew they were straying so far from the roots of RE with this movie that they felt they had to put this logo all over the place to try to convince the audience that this is, in fact, suppossed to be RE.

8. The main monster - Is it Tyrant? Surely it's got to be a massive mutated humanoid like the ones that always cap off RE games, right? The RE movie creators laugh at your silly thoughts. The penultimate baddy in the RE movie is...a licker. That's right, a commonplace monster that you encounter within the first ten minutes of RE2.

9. The zombies - In a display that shows that the movie creators probably did not play more than 1 hour of a RE game, the zombies in the movie are literally dead. This is unlike the games, where the "zombies" are actually very sick, living people that can persist despite a lot of bodily damage. Alright, I'll concede that that's a bit on the nitpick-ish side.

10. The old cliche - your comrade is bitten by a zombie and thus is doomed to become one. What do you do? WHAT. DO. YOU. DO?! This plot device was done right in the original Dawn of the Dead but I think the RE movie makes a convincing case for why it shouldn't be used ever again.

Ten is a nice number so I think I'll end there. To be fair, I'll point out something good.

1. The title font is quite stylish.

I'll end what I think is the longest newspost I've ever done by pointing you to The Outer Circle, created by Gamer's Pair of Dice founder Steve Napierski. Outer Circle has hit the big two-year mark and is celebrating with a massive run of guest strips. I just happen to have contributed such a guest strip. Congratulations to Steve for keeping two quality webcomics going strong.