Richard's Online Journal
[25/05/08] Kingdom of the Crystal Dull
Waaaaaaaaah! (thumps sobbing head against desk)
Now I know how the Star Wars fans felt when Jar-Jar’s face appeared that first time. This movie is horrible on every level, including the eighth level of Hell I felt myself slipping into when I saw the name David “Jurassic Park 2” Koepp appear in the opening credits. I would rather defend the works of Erich Von Daniken to James Randi than have this be an official episode of the series. As the ants chomped on Cate Blanchetska’s bodyguard, all I could think was ‘Take me with you!” I preferred… I pref… I preferred…
I preferred National Treasure 2: Even Dumber Than Da Vinci Code to an actual Indy film. For this, Lucas and Spielberg can never be forgiven. Never!
The only thing that could possibly feel longer than the movie itself is a list of all the ways it sucked. I’d type one, but I’m busy trying to concuss myself into believing it’s still a trilogy, not a quadrilogy whose newly added plot holes need safety barriers around them to prevent in-cinema fatalities. The characters. The science. Gawky lovestruck Marion. Mutt so much as daring to touch the One True Fedora in a clear bid for a spin-off where the stunt double doesn’t get more face-time than the star. Ray Goddamn Winstone.
Horrible, horrible, horrible. But still better than Temple of Doom…
As far as I’m concerned, this is the Never Say Never Again of the Indy films; the original Casino Royale to Broccoli’s Bond films. The fourth film was the movie version of Fate of Atlantis. And it was awesome, with some extra awe thrown in for good measure.
You remember it too. Right? If we all believe, maybe it’ll have happened…
At least it didn’t feature return performances from Willie and Short Round.
Posted by Richard on Monday 26th May
I would like to see Ray Winstone digitally inserted into a very special edition of Temple of Doom.
Indy: Legend says that when the stones are brought together, the diamonds inside them will glow.
Short Round: Diamonds?
Willie: Diamonds!
Mac: WHERE’S ME GOLD?!
Posted by Enduro Man on Monday 26th May
“I’m busy trying to concuss myself into believing it’s still a trilogy, not a quadrilogy”
It’s funny how often I find myself doing that. It’s that or “two films not three, two films not three.. I must not fear, fear is the mind killer..”
Still, as long as it’s not as bad as Temple of Doom I’ll go and see it, if only to say I’ve been.
Posted by Nick on Monday 26th May
I kept trying to tell myself that at least it’s not as bad as Temple of Doom, until the big car chase, when I had to face up to the fact that it was worse. True, it doesn’t have the Willie Scott/Short Round double whammy, but the good bits in Temple of Doom, like the opening, are so much better than anything than Skull throws up it’s not even funny. Not to mention that it’s possible to make sense of ToD.
Posted by Sören Höglund on Tuesday 27th May
“Da. Am psychic with no powers of psychicness, comrade. Will be takink over world vith Crystal Skull ve cannot control and speaks for self. Is good plan, da? I’m Russian, incidentally. Hence my accent.”
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 27th May
I’m wondering why the Russians passed up on a slightly-used, but still potentially world-conquering, Ark of the Covenant. Just open it up, close your eyes, and hope your enemies keep theirs wide open!
Posted by Enduro Man on Wednesday 28th May
And broadcast it on youtube.
Posted by Nick on Wednesday 28th May
Best. Rickroll. Ever.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 28th May
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is official! Yay!
Posted by Therlun on Wednesday 28th May
Yep. The word ‘Huzzah!’ is definitely called for. And ‘Woo!’. With a little ‘About damn time!’ thrown in for good measure.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 28th May
I haven’t actually ever played BG&E;.
Posted by William Main on Thursday 29th May
Slap!
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
Me neither.. sounds like I should then, eh?
Posted by Nick on Thursday 29th May
Yep. It’s not the best stealth game, it’s not the best combat, it’s not the best action adventure, blah blah blah. What it is is a really, really enjoyable hybrid, with excellent cinematics, fun characters, and some absolutely wonderful stylistics. It’s very, very French.
If you don’t love it from the orchestral fight scene at the start, I query your ownership of a soul.
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
It also has great music.
No normal looped background music. It appears if something happens (fighting, a jumping course, special action scenes etc.) and as ambience music in special locations (the bar has “propaganda” playing from the music box).
Posted by Therlun on Thursday 29th May
The music is wonderful. I got Ubi to send me a disc of the soundtrack back on release.
Just don’t go in search of it if you’ve not played the game, because one of the tracks and its name have major spoilers.
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
Picked up the game today at my local store. Yeah it’s pretty good. Must of missed it when it came out. ¬_¬
Posted by William Main on Thursday 29th May
Don’t worry, everyone did. Ubi did a terrible job marketing it, and everyone was busy looking at Prince of Persia anyway.
(For later reference, the Slaughterhouse area absolutely blows, but keep playing; it gets better again almost immediately afterwards and doesn’t let up until the end.)
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
Graphical errors seem to be a problem. The game seems to be having problems with the windows bar; the bar flickers on the bottom of the screen, and sometimes the game window flickers at the top. :-(
Posted by William Main on Thursday 29th May
Doh. Any patches?
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
One but it doesn’t make any difference. I’ll try tinkering around with the graphics settings.
Posted by William Main on Thursday 29th May
Erk. I played the demo on PC, but got the full thing on PS2. It was in a sale about five minutes after appearing on the shelves, sadly…
Posted by Richard on Thursday 29th May
More quality Ubisoft PC port support? =(
Posted by Nick on Thursday 29th May
What first got me interested in BGE was the advertisement that was displayed as you ran the Sands of Time installer. I hate admitting that, since Ubi’s in-game advertising annoys me almost as much as EA Trax. A brief but glowing review in CGW led me to pick up a copy weeks later, at a much reduced price. I didn’t realize what that meant, at the time.
William: Disabling one of the compatibility boxes usually does the trick.
Posted by Enduro Man on Thursday 29th May
Yeah, I got it on sale for the X-Box what turned out to be fairly soon after release too. I got bogged down in the first big warehouse thing with all the conveyers, and never got around to getting back to it. By the time I did, the X-Box was gathering dust somewhere with no cables, and the damn game doesn’t run on my 360…
Posted by Cradok on Thursday 29th May
There’s a post up on Kotaku about how Rayman is Ubisofts best selling franchise. And then pets.
Sorry Sam, Prince and the other one.
Posted by Cunzy1 1 on Friday 30th May
What a horrible, horrible way of ending a Futurama marathon this movie was… Still, I did manage to find my dear Fate of Atlantis box again.
Posted by gnome on Tuesday 3rd June
Don’t worry. New Futurama in a month or so.
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 3rd June
I concur… perhaps if I’d known in advance that the film featured both a flying saucer and a wedding I might have saved myself the pain.
Posted by mark on Monday 26th May