Monday, March 16, 2009
Patter Merchant revival, Doves, and RE5!
So the Patter Merchants is making a comeback pretty soon folks! So far we've done a few workshops together in the new Patter Merchant line up that were to do with voice, movement and text analysis, the workshops have been good fun and interesting, pretty soon we will start on the rehearsals for our scenes (which start this Friday) so I'm looking forward to that. I have to say the process of this Patter Merchant group has been more enjoyable this time round as the workshops have let us have a little bit of bonding time and sorting the scenes has been a bit more straight forward. I won't say too much about what scene I'm doing just now I'll keep that for a bit later on, but hopefully it will be a good one.
On a different front, note, thingy, I bought Resident Evil 5 last Friday there when it came out and I very pleased to say that I think its an excellent game, after playing the somewhat infuriating demo, I was relieved to see the game itself is far more forgiving and playable. There of course been some naysaying (when isn't there?!) about the gameplay and control mechanics, and that the movement is a bit too slow and you can't run and shoot, ok fair criticism, but personally I find the movement in the game to be largely fine. The gameplay itself is great, as largely follows the same format as RE4, with the third person camera view in front of you, the zombies are again very similar to RE4 as well, as they have been infected with the Los Plagas virus and charge, stalk, try to infect, kill, stab you, just the usual niceness you'd expect from an infected livestock. The action in the game is of course RE5's strongest point, the action zips along at a great pace and the graphics are nothing short of stunning, with some of the best most realistic looking character models yet seen (the character Captain Josh Stone looks lifelike!). Also having a partner with you in the game, Sheva Alomar (looking good!) also keeps things fresh and the inventory sharing system actually works very well, you can quickly grab or stash items and share them between the main character Chris Redfield and Sheva. My only criticisms of the game so far are yes I have to admit there movement is a bit quirky at times, when you auto aim at something sometimes you spin round and face the wrong way! Also those chainsaw zombie guys are a real pain in the ass to kill, you constantly run away from them before they chainsaw you to death. Apart from all that Resident Evil 5 is an excellent sequel to the superb RE4, it may not last quite as long and it isn't quite in the same league, but it is a damn good game. Thankfully it is a game I can see myself playing again unlike say GTAIV, RE5 has more to offer in that respect and keeps the great name of CAPCOM. They know how to make a good game.
And on a different note last night I went to see Doves at the ABC and they were pretty bloody good also, the played a fine set list of material along with some new songs which are from their forthcoming album Kingdom of Rust, which isn't out until April and yep they were pretty good too. The lead singer bassist Jimi Goodwin provided little moments of banter in between songs (not much though) I liked the bit where they were about to play Pounding and he said to the audience "How do you say it here? Is it Poonding?!". Also I liked the moment where they played the theme from Knight Rider and little bits of Golden Brown, although I was hoping they would show more back projection of them going to the pub whilst waiting to go back on stage for an encore. But a very good gig from one of the best British indie rock bands out there. And well that's enough for now.
On a different front, note, thingy, I bought Resident Evil 5 last Friday there when it came out and I very pleased to say that I think its an excellent game, after playing the somewhat infuriating demo, I was relieved to see the game itself is far more forgiving and playable. There of course been some naysaying (when isn't there?!) about the gameplay and control mechanics, and that the movement is a bit too slow and you can't run and shoot, ok fair criticism, but personally I find the movement in the game to be largely fine. The gameplay itself is great, as largely follows the same format as RE4, with the third person camera view in front of you, the zombies are again very similar to RE4 as well, as they have been infected with the Los Plagas virus and charge, stalk, try to infect, kill, stab you, just the usual niceness you'd expect from an infected livestock. The action in the game is of course RE5's strongest point, the action zips along at a great pace and the graphics are nothing short of stunning, with some of the best most realistic looking character models yet seen (the character Captain Josh Stone looks lifelike!). Also having a partner with you in the game, Sheva Alomar (looking good!) also keeps things fresh and the inventory sharing system actually works very well, you can quickly grab or stash items and share them between the main character Chris Redfield and Sheva. My only criticisms of the game so far are yes I have to admit there movement is a bit quirky at times, when you auto aim at something sometimes you spin round and face the wrong way! Also those chainsaw zombie guys are a real pain in the ass to kill, you constantly run away from them before they chainsaw you to death. Apart from all that Resident Evil 5 is an excellent sequel to the superb RE4, it may not last quite as long and it isn't quite in the same league, but it is a damn good game. Thankfully it is a game I can see myself playing again unlike say GTAIV, RE5 has more to offer in that respect and keeps the great name of CAPCOM. They know how to make a good game.
And on a different note last night I went to see Doves at the ABC and they were pretty bloody good also, the played a fine set list of material along with some new songs which are from their forthcoming album Kingdom of Rust, which isn't out until April and yep they were pretty good too. The lead singer bassist Jimi Goodwin provided little moments of banter in between songs (not much though) I liked the bit where they were about to play Pounding and he said to the audience "How do you say it here? Is it Poonding?!". Also I liked the moment where they played the theme from Knight Rider and little bits of Golden Brown, although I was hoping they would show more back projection of them going to the pub whilst waiting to go back on stage for an encore. But a very good gig from one of the best British indie rock bands out there. And well that's enough for now.
# posted by kenny @ 9:56 pm 
