For my 300th
post on this blog, I thought I’d turn the tables. Getting your opinion across
as a reviewer is one thing, but to admit when you got it wrong is something
else. I’ve been into all kinds of nerdy films and video games over the years
and I’ve made more than a few missteps as a moviegoer and as a gamer. Here we
go…
10. Giving a perfect 10 to Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction as my first review in 2008
Most
followers of this blog will know that I started it back in October 2013, but
long before that, the very first entertainment review I ever wrote was back in
2007; Insomniac Games’ Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction had been
released and after playing it through to completion, I found that I could write
reviews and publish them under my profile on Gamespot. Being a mega-fan of the
platforming franchise at the time, I wrote a crazy hyperbolic set of
paragraphs, slapped a 10 on it and went back to play through it again for the
fourth time. This is low on the list as I was 13 at the time and very selective
in what I liked and disliked; Ratchet and Clank was by far my favourite
franchise and the moment any piece of information or new game came out, my eyes
were trained on it like a hawk. Ironically enough though, this was just the
start of my dive into the review-writing scene and would later culminate in the
blog you’re reading right now.
9. Making
Metal Gear Solid 4 my entry point into the series in 2008
When I had
the PlayStation One, I happened to pop in the original Metal Gear Solid to give
it a go. But my impatient young self didn’t appreciate the game’s focus on
story; I sat there getting bored of the extended opening cutscene, reset the
console and popped Spyro 2 back in instead. Some eight years later, I started
following Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, a highly touted PlayStation
3 exclusive; after watching a 15-minute-long demo of Old Snake sneaking through a Middle-Eastern warzone. It looked like an awesome game and I bought it on
release; it has gone on to become one of my favourites as you’ve seen in my 200th post, but the story at the game’s centre was another matter… While I was able
to follow the central plot of Snake looking to stop Liquid’s plan well enough,
the background surrounding it went over my head completely. Luckily Kojima and Konami slipped in a free encyclopedia via the PlayStation Store to fill new
players in, but be that as it may, it would have been much better to play the
previous games in the series to get the full experience first. Had I done it
this way, the emotional moments of MGS4 (of which there are many) which have
landed with a stronger impact.
8. Starting
off the Terminator franchise with T3: Rise of the Machines
The
Terminator franchise is widely regarding as one of the best science fiction
franchises in all of cinema, but this label only applies to the first two films
in the series. Everything after that is either competent, or in the case of Terminator Genysis, total rubbish. While visiting a relative many years ago, me
and my brother happened to notice Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on the
shelf. We watched it and were blown away by the action sequences; overall, I
liked the film a lot at first but the problem was that I saw T3 without knowing
that there were two far superior films that preceded it. I would eventually
watch The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day further down the line and
would eventually understand why everything after the second film is considered
below par. Watching T3 first gave me the wrong impression of what was once a
serious and often thought-provoking look at mankind’s future, the vision that
James Cameron had for his creation that gradually grew more tainted as the
instalments went on. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the sixth Terminator
film; they should just lay the franchise to rest.
7. Buying
into PlayStation Move in 2011
Back when
the Nintendo Wii came out and achieved massive success with the casual crowd,
Sony and Microsoft responded with their own takes on the motion control craze.
Being a PlayStation owner, I quickly jumped on the hate bandwagon for the
Microsoft Kinect, which led the Xbox brand astray for five long years. Then I
turned around and made the rather hypocritical decision to purchase the
PlayStation Move controllers; at the time I believed them to be extensions and
improvements of the Wii’s existing technology, while stubbornly dismissing the
copycat mindset and questionable shape of the devices. PlayStation Move wasn’t
crammed down people’s throats the way Kinect was, but it certainly never became
a fledgling part of the PlayStation brand like Sony hoped. I had the two
peripherals for about five or six months, before returning them to the store
for a fraction of the price I bought them for. Never again would I join the
motion gaming scene outside a couple of quick sessions at parties and other
events. I’d say we’re all better off going back to the arcades with DDR…
6.
Purchasing Bionic Commando in 2009
Capcom’s Bionic
Commando has lain dormant for just under a decade and the game I’m about to
talk about is the likely reason for this. Having played the far superior Bionic Commando Rearmed the year before, I was eagerly awaiting its 3D counterpart and
being able to transfer unlocks (a new weapon and skin) into it. This was the
only time I felt manipulated into buying a game regardless of its overall
quality and Bionic Commando 2009 was mediocre at best, with a painfully forced story and frustrating gameplay that took a lot of the fun out of swinging
around the ruins of Ascension City. Even the unlocks offered by Rearmed were
cosmetic at best, adding little to the overall package. Buying this title at
full price is one of my biggest regrets and from this I learned to gauge
popular opinion about a new product before putting down my money for it.
5. Seeing
Disaster Movie in cinemas
I don’t
often see bad films in cinemas, but long before I started reviewing them, I had
a feeling that when a film was bad, it was bad. my little brother wanted to see
Disaster Movie in 2008, having already seen the equally terrible Epic Movie the
year before. So, we went to see it and walked out feeling very cheated indeed;
even other audience members seemed downcast at the utter trash that was Disaster
Movie, the midpoint of the Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer franchise that has
practically ruined parody single-handedly. Giving money and supporting films
like this is the worst thing you can do when it comes to bad films because you
give filmmakers approval to make more of the same rubbish. It’s a shame I
didn’t learn that lesson until further down the line; more on that further down
the list…
4. Praising
the Hobbit Trilogy between 2012 and 2014
Of all the
reviews I’ve written on this blog, it’s the Hobbit Trilogy that I disagree with
most fiercely looking back. It’s obvious to most film-goers that due to
production troubles and stretching out the length to three films that The
Hobbit pales in comparison to Lord of the Rings, firmly placing An Unexpected
Journey, Desolation of Smaug and Battle of the Five Armies in the same camp as the Star Wars prequels. It’s baffling how Peter Jackson apparently forgot all
the skills and lessons he learned in the original trilogy, but at the time of
their release this didn’t seem to concern me. I let my love of the Lord of the
Rings Trilogy get the better of me and issued average to good scores to all
three films. Today I’d give no more than 3 out of 5 stars to all three films in
the trilogy. One of the best written breakdowns of why the Hobbit films didn’t
work is Just Write’s “Why the Hobbit sucks” on YouTube, which I highly
recommend watching. As for Peter Jackson, I have hope he’ll create another hit
with the upcoming Mortal Engines at the end of this year.
3. Playing
Half Life 2 backwards in 2007’s The Orange Box
In 2007, I
bought The Orange Box for PlayStation 3 and as my first time jumping into
Valve’s exceptional development prowess it was the perfect entry point into the
Half Life series. I started playing with Team Fortress 2, then moved to Portal;
so far so good. Unfortunately, I then made the very poor choice of continuing
from right to left with the five games and while I got into the first chapter quite
well, I was very unprepared for Half Life 2: Episode 2’s mine chapter. “This Vortal Coil” scared my younger self to no end, whether it was the barnacles
giving me a massive shock from the ceiling or the antlion warriors spewing acid
at a distance, I wanted out of the tunnels as soon as possible. Had I played
Half Life 2 to start off with, I would have been well-accustomed to the
renowned shooter series and better equipped to deal with the countless alien
hazards in Gordon Freeman’s path. Instead my OCD pressed me into playing Half
Life out of the intended order, a mistake I won’t make again when getting into
a new franchise.
2. Not
making the most of Toronto International Film Festival in 2015
Back in
2015, I took a trip to Toronto, Canada for a study abroad exchange; I headed
over in 2015. But a big trip like this takes quite a bit of planning and I got
caught up in that before realising that the Toronto International Film Festival
was on during my time in the city. Without the proper planning or purchasing
tickets in advance, I had a hard time finding films to watch given how popular
the event is for residents of Canada and beyond. I managed to knock out one
review for The Assassin from Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien but never
managed to get into any other screenings. As both a regular movie-goer and
critic, this was very disappointing as I could have taken the opportunity to
expand my portfolio with films that I rarely saw under general viewing. If I
ever happen to go back to Toronto when TIFF is on, I’ll be sure to go for a
full pass to take full advantage of the early screenings.
1. Passing up Kingsman: The Secret
Service for Jupiter Ascending in 2014
By far the
biggest mistake I’ve made in entertainment came back in 2014. Two big films
were out in theatres in February; Kingsman: The Secret Service from Matthew
Vaughn and Jupiter Ascending from the Wachowski brothers. Dismissing Kingsman for its campy looking trailer and remembering the latter from their work on the
Matrix films, I convinced my band of nerdy uni mates to go and see Jupiter
Ascending, knowing we’d be in for a visual treat. How wrong I was to make that
move… I passed up a slick and stylish spy flick for an ill-conceived, poorlywritten bag of sci-fi schlock. Sometime later, we all watched Kingsman: The Secret
Service and were positively blown away by its fantastic action and witty script. Afterwards, one friend rightfully pointed out that we should have seen
it on the big screen and I agreed without hesitation, feeling more than a bit foolish
afterwards. From then on, I would never completely dismiss a film again.
So, there
you have it, the biggest missteps I’ve made throughout my time as an
entertainment fan. With all that said, what’s in store for the future of The
Cainage Critique?
The blog will turn five years old on the 28th of
October 2018 and I’m looking to do a full-blown redesign, an update with a new
logo, style and overall presentation. At first, I was thinking about migrating
the blog to WordPress like I did with my other blog: For the Road, but now I’m
looking more into SquareSpace. The website has received a lot of attention for
its professional website designs and I think that would be a good fit. Of
course, moving to a more professional website brings its own changes and here
are some that I have in mind…
A. A more free-flowing style of reviews
If you’ve
been following my reviews for a while, you’ll know they use a very structured
style with different sections talking about different aspects of a film or game;
this differs from traditional reviews which are more free-flowing. For the
redesign I’ll be having a crack at this myself, bringing future reviews more in
line with shorter editorials you see on mainstream outlets. Doing the same
style can get tiring for readers and I wanted to move away from it after an
extended period of using said structure
B. Possible collaborations with fellow
reviewers
Partnerships
and one-off team-ups with fellow reviewers and critics are all the rage these
days, so I’ll try and reach out to some people I know for a couple of
collaborations, be it a review, feature or something else entirely; it’s a
great way of getting more traffic to both websites collectively while also
playing your styles off each other, be it for one review or a continuous series.
C. An entrance into YouTube videos and
criticism
This is a
tentative one; having seen many incredibly well produced and complex critique
videos posted on the site, I’ve been thinking of getting into the YouTube scene
myself with a capture card and recording microphone. What would I do on the
platform? Either developer or franchise retrospectives for less-talked-about
gaming franchises and maybe a film breakdown or two. It does take a lot of
time, effort and commitment to put videos out on a regular basis, so I’ll see
how it goes if I take this route.
Thanks very
much again for reading. I’m hoping you’ll stick with The Cainage Critique as it
evolves into something different in October. See you then…
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