Crank: High Voltage

I went to the theatre the other day to watch Crank: High Voltage, it's an action/parody/humor/whatever kind of movie. I didn't see the first Crank movie so I missed out on some of the past references in the second but it doesn't matter really. I thought this movie was pretty good for an incoherent mess.

The movie has a simple premise. Chev Chelios fell out of an airplane, had his heart stolen by the Chinese triads, replaced by a battery he needs to charge often and he goes of to get his heart back. The film features a lot of over-the-top violence and when it's not busy showing you people getting shotguns rammed up their assholes, it features copious amounts of sex, tits and ass while you wait for even more violence. This movie is non-stop and the guns and tits just keep coming every second. Forget about pacing, this movie rams action and tits and ass and guns and sex and bullets and fists and electricity scene after scene after scene every minute. It's so over-the-top, the hero has to literally shock himself to recharge his temporary heart battery and stay alive. Hell, the hero even has a guy with Tourette's Syndrome and an Asian whore as his sidekicks sort of. He even talks to a SEVERED HEAD.

In the end, I can't decide if I liked this movie or not. On one hand, I found it funny and it rocked my socks off. On the other hand, it's whole instant gratification thing and reliance on gratuitous violence,tits and ass is an insult to my intelligence but hey, I was kind of expecting something like this so no disappointment here. The only people who should watch Crank: High Voltage are those who can live on violence and tits alone or those who really know what they are getting themselves into.

Left 4 Dead

Summer vacation gives me a lot of free time to play Left 4 Dead, an amazing online FPS shooter that combines my two loves namely video games and zombie movies. Finally an online zombie game. The idea of playing a zombie survival game online has been hard to do. The first real crack at this was a video game I recall called Resident Evil: Outbreak. Outbreak used traditional Resident Evil survival horror gameplay which was perhaps its biggest flaw. "Tank" controls made combat hard and the game involved the usual nonsensical puzzle solving to progress. You get to control different survivors with unique characteristics and abilities. Sadly, online gaming for the consoles was not yet fully developed then even more so since Outbreak made its debut on the PlayStation 2 which had inferior online capabilities compared to Microsoft's Xbox.

Left 4 dead is on the PC which makes online gaming a snap. It is an FPS so it's more action packed and gritty than the the old Outbreak. The horror and thrill comes from battling the zombies or "infected" as they are called as well as "special infected" which have unique mutations. Oh and unlike Outbreak which uses traditional and by traditional, I mean boring old zombies which shamble and sometimes speed walk hilariously towards you. Needless to say, they stopped being scary back in the nineties. L4d uses modern year 2000 zombies which run faster than you ever could in real life. No puzzle solving, find the key bullshit here. Pretty straightforward. Get from start to the safe house. A moron could get it which is good since this is online play we're talking about here.

About the online aspect, L4D is a COOPERATIVE online game. To get an idea how much this game focuses on the power of friendship, you could get pinned down or strangled and it is impossible to escape unless your teammates bail your sorry ass. In Outbreak, you could theoretically solo the whole damn game but having teammates along sort of, kind of helps? In L4D, loners die. Period. Which brings me to one of the best and worst aspects of L4d, the online play.

There is a co-op mode where you and some guys simply fight through one of the four levels. Yawn. The best part is the versus mode where two teams of four take turns as the survivors, who must, well, survive and the special infected who have to stop them. The team who makes it furthest or has the most health when they complete the map get the most points. Pretty simple a moron could get it. Speaking of morons the worst part of the online game as the same as the worst part of living in this planet are the people. Aside from the usual griefer assholes who derive pleasure from intentionally ruining the game for everyone there are people who simply suck. Then there are those who quit the game the minute things get tough. I can understand quitting a game when the team you have really sucks but they show some class at least, they should quit when the round is over so the team can wait for a player who actually has some balls to take the quitters place.

The bad part is the game has only 4 campaigns and only 2 are for versus mode. This month, there will be a download which adds the two other campaigns for versus and a new survival mode. This is good news. Despite the assholes, I love this game and so should you.

Summer Vacation

If there is one thing I hate about having things to do, it is not having things to do.

When I have nothing to do, I think. When I think, I think about things that piss me off. When I think about things that piss me off, I get pissed off and that is pretty much why summer sucks as much as school days. I sleep late then get up late. Next thing I know, my body clock is all screwed up and then I get insomnia.

I know I have to hike, lift weights and do other painful, mind-numbing things like updating my blog but I procrastinate. You know how people are given seven days to do something, do nothing for six days and sprint on the last day? Summer vacation is like that except its months. This summer, as I always tell myself will be different. I will form the mental discipline necessary to do productive things and shape up in my free time. I also plan to update my blog more frequently. Maybe, When I get off my ass.