A Softpedian's Blog

As promised, I’m back with my conclusions after seeing the last chapter in the Saw “saga”, Saw VII aka Saw 3D.

Trailer

In my opinion a trailer can do wonders for a movie. Trailers for Inception and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga”Hoole didn’t leave any room for doubt – those movies were a success. Saw’s trailer looked promising, but it used scenes that are not relevant or even present in the movie and I really hate that. (I’m talking about the cinema scenes and Jill’s nightmare)

3D

While I get the whole 3D fever, the few extra bucks were really not worth it. The effects are there, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t notice them that often and they surely didn’t leave me… breathless. Maybe I was too lost in the movie’s intense action to actually see them or Step Up really left its mark on me, but until proven otherwise I’ll stand by me opinion.

Tradition

Most fans have probably noticed that in the latest Saw movies, some sort of tradition was created for some elements. For example, those who were REALLY wanted to escape… well, they eventually did. Happened in all the Saw movies, but, as you might have guessed and maybe even noticed, it does NOT happen in Saw 3D. Bobby Dagen and all the people he tries to save die, despite all their efforts and determination. The only… exception is the trio in the beginning, but even those teens don’t fit the picture. In the previous movies, the person in the first trial often made an appearance later in the movie. Again, that’s not the case of Saw 3D.

Final Conclusion

Saw 3D is, most probably, a must-see for… the fans. You shouldn’t go see it if you haven’t seen all previous flics. You shouldn’t take your girlfriend to this movie and you shouldn’t see it either if you can’t handle the gore. The best part about this movie is, in my opinion, the way it leaves no loose ends, because if you have seen the entire saga, you’ve surely noticed them. Aside that, you shouldn’t have a lot of expectations because you might end up very disappointed. To be honest, I had my share of expectations and, although a lot of them were not met, I think the movie put a decent ending to the saga.

Well, I’m going to start by stating the obvious: this is my subjective opinion and probably most readers will disagree… When I first saw the Tron trailer nothing really impressed me, except maybe Olivia Wilde’s bad hairdo. On the other hand, people around me didn’t seem to agree, so I… “went along” and, when offered the chance, got tickets for Tron Night.

What’s Tron Night? A 20 minutes preview of Tron “aired” in 3D two weeks before the official release. I didn’t expect those 20 minutes to offer an impressive experience, but, in exchange, they offered nothing (Last warning: This is my personal opinion, ok?). I mean the most exciting part of those 20 minutes were the scenes you can easily see in the official trailer.

Inception’s TWO minute trailer left me a LOT more intrigued than Tron’s TWENTY minute teaser. Music: boring. Story: boring. 3D: pretty boring (yeah, it doesn’t look that bad, but it I’ve seen a lot better – and I don’t necessarily mean Avatar). There are a few interesting ideas lost somewhere inside the movie, but imho it’s impossible to judge an entire movie based on someone’s good intentions (poorly put into place).

On the bright side, tomorrow I’ll see the final Saw, Saw 7 and, since I’m a huge fan of the series, the experience will (hopefully) not disappoint me. I’ll surely be missing Jigsaw in the Halloweens to come, but “all great things must come to an end”. Saw was surely one of the longest franchises to keep me… screaming for more!

My ranting ends here. I”ll soon be back with my impressions on Saw. For those who aren’t… “Tron haters”, here’s an article they’ll surely find a lot more interesting: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Tron-Night-2010-Movie-Promises-to-Be-Brilliant-163584.shtml

Fallout New Vegas Box Shot

As we approach the end of October, we receive more and more games that need to be reviewed. Civilization 5, Sonic 4, Enslaved are already online and Medal of Honor will be released in a few days – meanwhile, we’re going to publish a few diaries.

Fallout New Vegas just came through the mail and it looks pretty awesome, if you ask me. I’ve been playing it for about 15 minutes and I’m impressed, cool graphics, no bugs and an interesting concept. It’s nice to see this type of FPS/RPG games gaining so much ground… To be honest, I didn’t expect STALKER, Mass Effect and now Fallout to receive such positive reviews, but, on the other hand, I’m not that big of a fan. Don’t get me wrong, I love FPSs, but combining them with RPGs is not something I can appreciate as much as other might.

Anyway, while playing Fallout, I couldn’t help but notice how much the graphics have been improved. Of course, they’re not “Crysis material” and, for now, they shouldn’t even think about going that far. All things considered, it’s great to see RPGs going from poor to awesome graphics. It was long overdue and the fans surely deserve it.

But enough about that, let’s get back on track. As I was saying, the MOH and Fallout New Vegas reviews will soon be online and be prepared for the… Vanquish review, of course. Hopefully, it will be online in a week or so. The schedule is still under debate, as newly arrived Lionheart: Kings Crusade must also be reviewed… As I was saying… so MANY games, so little time!

Next month, we’ll also post two overdue (unfortunately) reviews: one for Serious Sam Second Encounter HD – which recently went “live” on XBLA – and Lego Universe. We’ll start working hard on those reviews as soon as we’re finished with the ones we’re facing right now, “the big guns”.

In the end, a short clip I’ve made during my first 15 minutes of playing Fallout New Vegas. I’ve removed the gameplay part, as I’ll leave it to the in-depth review to reveal its beauty

Alpha Protocol

Last month the guys at SEGA were kind enough to send us a review copy of their latest “hit”: Alpha Protocol.

We found the game very promising and, as you probably know, we rated it with a 9 (out of 10) and started a series of Alpha Protocol diaries.

But that’s all in the past (and in my previous post for that matter), now let’s talk about what’s ahead…

SEGA contacted us again with a GREAT idea that we kept under wraps until now: a surprise competition!

We initially thought about making it a blitz-contest (and keep it online for this weekend only), but heck, that would have taken the fun out of it.

So, in a few hours an exclusive competition will start will Alpha Protocol as our main star.

It

Last week, the guys at Sega were kind enough to send us a copy of Alpha Protocol, they’re latest RPG release.

As you can imagine, the reviewing team was all over this as soon as it arrived and now a review is online. And for those who are just interested in the numbers: Alpha Protocol scored a 9 out of 10, so it’s definitely a game worth playing, especially if you’re into espionage and such…

So, here’s the review and if you’re interested in reading a step-by-step series of articles, detailing some of the less known facts about Alpha Protocol, feel free to have a look at Softpedia’s Alpha Protocol diaries

On the other hand, if you’ve never heard of this game, here’s a little incentive:

Either way… Enjoy!