aspro said:

Bad news for NIS - their new DS Disgaea game debuted at #42 in Japan.

NIS is in a precarious position financially, so they need all the breaks they can get.

Mario Kart with Wii Wheel sold well though in the 8th position.

Is it the text adventure game? I'm not surprised it didn't sell too well. Disgaea belongs on the tactical grid, not a novel!

gamingeek said:

POP Wii

Wow! It does look good! I didn't really like the PoP series but really liked the first Sand of Time game.

Hopefully this is like that and they're more generous with the save checkpoints. I hated dying and starting all the way back to the beginning in Two Thrones.

gamingeek said:

Updating now.

What the heck is that? Oh, Windwaker! Didn't notice Link with the shrunken screentshot!

gamingeek said:

What's Ubisoft doing on Wii?

Bullshots?

Also, UK election game is real.

http://www.downingstreetfighter.com/

Screw Super SFIV! I'm going to trade that in and get this instead!

gamingeek said:

Bulletstorm

 Gotta say the GI cover story didn't do it any favors (unintentially).  Game looked as generic as can be.

aspro said:

Gotta say the GI cover story didn't do it any favors (unintentially).  Game looked as generic as can be.

Yeah. Like I mentioned, their past games are very arcadey, like the Serious Sam games. Just shoot stuff up with a onslaught of enemies coming toward you with maybe a few weapon upgrades in between.

I hope it's not like that. I hope it's got game design, linear-driven story, etc, like a modern FPS. I hope it's like Gears of War, since it's from Epic.

CastleVania: Harmony of Despair (?)

ASK_Story said:

Wait-a-minute!

Is that real?!

Don't know yet.

So I watched the new A Nightmare on Elm Street last night, I am a big Freddy fan, I think NOES is one of the all time best horror franchises. I went into this movie hoping for something interesting and new. It's the first time Robert Englund is not Freddy, while nothing will ever replace his portrayal of Freddy at least I expected a new direction. While the movie at times tries to go in a different direction it never feels like it fully commits, it tries to straddle a line between being a remake of the original and trying to be a new take on Freddy, the outcome is a movie that ends up being rather pointless.There will be minor spoilers ahead, I will talk about general plot points and pacing of the film. Later I will get into specifics, I'll warn you.

I felt it started off well as it had Freddy doing what Freddy does best, screwing with teens in their dreams and killing them. I felt Haley was doing great as his Freddy was menacing but still had some humor to him. You could tell he loved messing with his victims and took pleasure in it. The movie was moving at a good pace until the middle when it hit a lull. The story shifted focus into Freddy's past and this is where they started to loose me. I have issues with the actual plot but besides that the movie started to become boring, I shouldn't be bored in a Nightmare film.The film is littered with homages to the first Nightmare movie but not one of those scenes is any better, they are all poor imitations. Most of the new kills aren't all that inventive either, they are basic "me slash you" Jason kind of kills. I felt this movie never tried to do anything special, it never tried to leave it's own mark. It seemed completely content with telling some weird half remake of the first NOES while using all the modern horror movie cliches. Almost every few minutes there is a "BOO" scare, you know the one with a loud noise and something flashing on the screen. That rarely happened in the old Nightmare movies, we is this happening every two seconds here. The film is really dark, almost devoid of colors, yeah you can argue that hey it's a horror movie it should be dark but this is not the way to do it. I didn't feel like any of the sets or locations had any personality. That is a sin in a franchise where so many locations are iconic, like Nancy's house. In this film it's just any other house. The movie had no personality, I'll put it that way.

I will be going into major spoilers ahead:

SPOILERS

The entire angle about whether or not Freddy was innocent was pointless. Of course he isn't innocent, he is Freddy *bleeping* Kruger. I didn't like the preschool angle either, it put the focus of the story on this abandoned school rather than the house or the boiler room. It also killed the mystique about Elm Street and Springwood, instead of a town of parents killing a sick man, it was a small select group of parents from this specific preschool. The movie makes sure to show you that all the kids have been killed, what the hell are they going to do with the next movie? I also didn't like the child molestation focus. He is a child MURDERER, that is why he continues to kill after he dies. This Freddy didn't have the same motivation to kill the kids like the original Freddy did, according to the story they created wouldn't this Freddy rather just molest the teens in their sleep. The original Freddy is a guy that just likes to kill, he loves it, he enjoys it, he takes pleasure in it and he wants more. While it may be an attempt at a different kind of Freddy, they spent the first half of the movie making him act just like classic Freddy only to make him a pissed off that he was caught child molester in the end.

Jackie Earl Haley does a decent job as Freddy. Again at the start I felt he was perfect, he was menacing but still showed personality. By the end when he was one on one with Nancy and having to say long lines and carry a full scene, I felt it didn't work. I felt like I was watching Jackie Earl Haley in another pissed off character performance. It stopped being Freddy, sure he was dressed as Freddy but all I saw was JEH doing what he does best, being angry. I honestly can't see JEH Freddy ever being the dream master that Englund was, sure he can look angry and slash at people like the best of them but I can never see him do the elaborate dream set pieces and carry the entire movie like Englund was able to. He doesn't have half the charisma that Englund's Freddy does. While this is not Haley's fault, I didn't like the new makeup either, I don't think the new face allows to show much range of emotion.

The cast of kids were ok. There were no stand outs like Heather Langenkamp or Johnny Depp in the first film but overall better acting I would say. The teens don't act like normal teens at all. The entire movie they seem miserable and not just cause Freddy is haunting them, it feels like their entire existence is miserable. All of them seem to have only one parent, there is no explanation at all nor is there any depth to it. From the opening scene they are constantly freaked out about going to sleep, there was no gradual easing into it, no slow realization that there may be a boogeyman. Remember in the first NOES where the teens go to school, talk on the phone, even have a sleep over, there is none of that here. No depth at all. I also don't like how the movie only focused at one kid at a time at the start. Because of that Nancy doesn't become relevant until like 40 minutes in, and she is supposed to be the main character. They totally dropped the ball on that character.

As I said before I hated all the "BOO" scares, I didn't like how it felt like a by the book modern horror movie. The usual overuse of CG blood and gore. That classic scene where Freddy's face comes out of the wall is now a horrible CG Freddy. You'd think the effects would get better over time but they are not in this movie. This might seem minor but it's something that bugs me, the lack of the theme song. To me movie theme songs are extremely important as they can put you in the mood of that particular movie more so than any actor or set. Once you hear the Star Wars theme it's a Star Wars movie. Once you hear Indiana Jones theme it feels like an Indiana Jones movie. I don't know why but they felt like they didn't need to use the NOES theme, instead they did something sort of similar but ultimately totally forgettable. Which is what most of this movie was, forgettable.

END SPOILERS

I will say that this movie will be hit. I think this new generation of teens will eat it up as it fits the formula for modern successful horror perfectly. It's not horrible by any means. With this series you can tell horrible, there are some bad bad Nightmare movies, this isn't one of them. It's not good either. It's rather pointless. At least the bad ones are remembered for being bad, the good ones for being good, this I won't remember at all.

Ravenprose said:

EDIT: IGN is stealing your ideas, GG!

+1 for awesome nostalgia