Siberia

The bear never escapes.

Through bad luck and a sequence of bad decisions a shady diamond trader (Keanu Reeves) gets into trouble while trying to make money off a Russian mobster, mainly due to the fact that the product he promised to sell has gone missing.

Nope, no diamonds here.

First things first - there's very little fighting in this romantic crime thriller, instead putting in a lot of emphasis on "romantic" through copious use of sex scenes which I suppose is meant to help the slow pace of the "investigation" part of the film.

My wife hated it saying it's a "terrible movie". With that in mind, I can only give it 1.5 candles out of 5 and probably won't watch it again.

300 / 300: Rise of an Empire

This is SPARTA!

"300" follows the story of King Leonidas, from his childhood when he is brain washed and trained like the rest of his male kin to become fearless warriors and focuses more upon his command of three hundred Spartans defending a narrow pass against the uncountable armies of Xerxes, the incredibly tall and gifted with a poor sense of fashion. The plot has a narrator which is forgivable for me in how it is used here, and it also calls for a lot of violence, decapitation, awesome FX and combat routines and a tiny bit of sex.

They probably deserved some Maccers after training to look like that!

But what it has the most is: slow motion capture. Yep. That dude getting hit by a spear? Slow mo! This guy getting hacked to pieces? Slow mo. Sex Scene? Slow mo. Guys walking / traveling from point A to B: Slow mo. That last one irritated me a little as it's basically just filler. Also filler is the majority of Lena Headey's role here. She and the council bit could have been entirely cut or at least been tied in better to the one eyed guy who basically is the one who gets shit done in the end.

Also, while the fighting scenes really take more than a few liberties in that the Spartans hold a phalanx for... oh around 60 seconds in the entirety of the film and spend most of the battle out in glorious solo combat like Highland berserkers, Leonidas' decision to "not use" the hunchback doesn't make sense. Yes, he's no good in a phalanx but that's not exactly what you guys were doing anyway! Still I give this violent and bloody film three and a half swords out of five, and wouldn't mind watching it again.

~-~

The sequel "Rise of the Empire" again makes use of a narrator, not so well this time, and follows the Athenian champion Themistocles (who ironically doesn't have the charisma of Leonidas acting wise). It also acts as an origin story about the war and Xerxes himself, how he was a normal dude before jumping into a magical pool of godliness. Erm? Also, the "bad guys" look less hideous this time around, while the "good guys" are less buff (makes sense since they aren't Spartans) - which also smells a bit like saving some cash for the props and training department.

While most of the combat here focuses on ship to ship combat it is still a brutal and bloody affair. There's also less slow mo which is better for me as you can appreciate the fight choreography more. Alas some of that goes out the window with the feats of jumping, throwing, and magical sniper-archery involved but perhaps the worst plot part is the "we need to put a sex scene in". The scene itself is nice (hello Eva Green!) but just ... story wise, you'll see what I mean. Anywho, I give it two and a half out of five heat-seeking arrows and also wouldn't mind watching it again (though the first one would be preferred).

F*** you, physics.

Sojourn at Entropia: Exploring the Peaks

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

For kicks I decide to visit the Twin Peaks mall. At least now I have 10.01 PED to my name!

Seems the player shops also follow the "Sex Sells" theorem.

At least there's a nice throne to sit on.

After some relaxing it's time to move on. I decide to go on foot to conserve some fuel. Don't worry, the VTOL is in my pocket.

Less jog, more marathon.

Eventually I find... a castle!?

Chainmail Bikini Battle!

Just for kicks I've been trying out a few other MMO's lately and have come across two that encapsulate the old motto of "Sex Sells". I'm talking ofcourse of Kabod Online and Scarlet Blade (currently in beta for the english version, also known as Queen's Blade everywhere else) and despite the years of difference between the two they are actually -very- similar. Unfortunately this doesn't make either of them any good. Let's see how they go head to head:

Story:
Kabod takes place in a world full of bored monsters who stand around surrounding sparsely populated villages for seemingly no reason. Scarlet Blade takes place on a planet full of bored monsters who stand around more populated bases with better reason: they actually live there and the player(s) are technically the invaders. Where Kabod suffers from horrible translation problems and lazy text editing at least Scarlet Blade has readable and understandable english and gives a bit more incentive to go out there and generally mass murder everything.

Time to put an end to their boredom. (MMO Site has more pics of Kabod)

Quests:
"Talk to x", "Kill x number of monsters" or "Gather x material from killing monsters" is pretty much the standard fare for both games which is a shame since it boils down to endless grind, the only difference is that in Kabod you have to finish tasks in person while in the future of Scarlet Blade you just use your cellphone (lol). They do both lead to open PvP zones though which I guess appeals to some. This is where having a solid story (Guildwars 2 / Mabinogi / Wizardry Online) really helps give the players the drive to continue playing.

Combat:
WoW standard fare for both unfortunately (ie. boring). Use highest damage skill followed by next and so on till highest damage cooldown has finished then repeat. Scarlet Blade features a ton more skill sets per class than Kabod though, but Kabod has a better in-built mechanic for the grind called "hunting stones" which drop from slain mobs which gives you a stack of 10 minutes each of legalized botting. You just set the radius to hunt in, put your potions in order and set when to automatically drink them. Then you can go play another MMORPG while you autolevel in this one. :P

Non-Combat:
While Scarlet Blade has hints of (naughty) picture puzzles and card games (both of which are ironically played through combat anyway), Kabod is purely all about the grind, I mean combat. Sure there are magic cards you can collect but that is just to enchant your gear. This is wierd considering that silly things like fishing, cooking and crafting have been in MMORPGs since Ultima Online.

Pets:
Kabod's pet system is a bit like pokemon with far less things to catch. Basically you beat up something and make it your slave. Pretty sure at some point you can buy horses too. Not too sure about Scarlet Blade's pet system, only that there is one. There are also motorbikes for your character to mount (suggestively ofcourse) and from my understanding temporary giant robots, because ... why not.

Everything is better with giant robots.

Sound:
Kabod has all of 3 (repetetive) songs from what I've heard and NPCs greet you with insane giggling or laughter. Your character is the strong silent type though and will go through combat, damage and even death without making so much as a squeek. By comparison Scarlet Blade has ok music and voiced NPCs halfheartedly speaking one generic line (followed by a wall of text) when conversed. Furthermore other than the medic (so far) almost every other class make irritating moans during battle and gets quite annoying. Who yells at a high pitch when firing a sniper rifle anyway? Oh, right. GW2 people. *sigh*

Graphics:
Given that Kabod looks marginally better than the old Knight Online and Scarlet Blade looks almost as good as Guildwars 2 it's not surprising that the newer game is shinier. Character customization in Scarlet Blade is also very much more flexible. Strangely though, as skimpy as the "c-string armor" is in Scarlet Blade your character can never go full monty (pretty close though) where as in Kabod the armor-breaking system pretty much guarantees nudity for your character and most of the monsters (mostly female) too. Not that you would care since you are afk using hunting stones by that stage.

There you have it, I'll let you decide if you want to waste your time on either of these or find something better (though really, what MMO isn't ultimately just a waste of time?). For me, they don't really rank higher than Rappelz, Knight Online or Runescape (for the sheer lol) which are themselves already pretty low on my list but who knows? Maybe for someone else these are the next best thing since sliced bread.