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The International Military seek out a leader who can save the human race from an alien attack. Ender Wiggin, a brilliant young mind, is recruited and trained to lead his fellow soldiers into a battle that will determine the future of Earth.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Ender Wiggin is the youngest and most gifted of his family, in a world living in constant fear of invasion by Giant Bug people known as the Ferricks …. Fernics … Formics (thank you Wikipedia because they only mention their name once in the film)
He must pass through a rigorous mental training consisting of Zero G paintball, mentally taxing iPad games and “Photo Realistic” space battle simulations. (So any gamers perfect weekend minus the Mountain Dew and Internet Porn.)
So Ender Wiggins is played by Asa Butterfield, at 16 years of age I never expected his acting skill to be incredible but I have to say that after watching him for the best part of two hours he … wasn’t … at all. Now I’m not sure if this was intentional by the actor appearing out of place throughout the majority of the movie, only really feeling like he fits in the film after Ender gets promoted to the rank of Commander. If this is intentional then it’s a commendable performance and one that really makes you feel as out of place as Ender does, but then I think back to Asa’s performance in the 2011 film Hugo where his performance was very similar and honestly kind of annoying.
Ender’s character was by no means the worst in the film Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff was more disheartening due to the fact that Ford just looked like he was picking up a paycheck for the whole film. This is Harrison Fucking Ford, a man that the entire planet knows can act he just shows little to know enthusiasm throughout the entire film.
A trait that thankfully the other heavy hitter in the film Ben Kingsley has managed to avoid, Kingsley plays Mazer Rackham the war hero that drove the Formics away after their first invasion, and is now charged with training Ender so that he is able to save humanity. Kingsley plays Rackham as a mysterious yet open character making him about the only character in the film I actually cared about.
Never having read the book I was left with the feeling that allot of the character development was chopped out of the film.
The leader of the Salamanders, Bonzo (Moises Arias), is the My way or the high way kind of leader that clashes with Ender on multiple encounters finally culminating in a fist fight in the showers that ultimately leaves Bonzo horribly crippled and I felt nothing. I didn’t care if he was going to die or if he’d just never walk again, my main concern was hopefully the idiot who put a step in the middle of a shower room was fired.
I came away from the film with the urge to read the book purely to see if it built up on these characters and actually made me care about them.
Anyway let’s get away from the bad, Enders game is visually beautiful both the CG visuals and the stylised set pieces are incredible. Everything gives of this very Mass Effecty vibe from the IF uniforms to the massive planet destroyer MMD ship. The visuals were crisp and vibrant, really it was the main reason why I wanted to see the movie in the first place and it’s well worth it just to see.
The Formics themselves were a race that I wanted to know more about, but I think the directors decision to limit what the viewer knows/can learn about this threat to humanity really helped you to empathise with Ender and the rest of the IF’s fear and lack of understanding about these creatures. Even know I’m sat trawling through Wikipedia articles on them just to try and gleam some more information on this mysterious race. I wanted to learn about them in the same way that Ender did, and to be honest I felt his frustration at the end of the film regarding the hefty decisions that the IF made for him.
All things said and done I’d say that Ender’s Game is worth a watch even if it’s just for the visuals. I felt it could have benefited from some heavier character development or conversely a greater focus on the actual strategy and tactics behind the epic space battles, each of which is over in less than two minutes.
Square Enix’s revamped massively multiplayer online game, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, has reached more than 1.5 million registered users worldwide, Siliconera reports via Famitsu.
A Realm Reborn relaunched in August after Square Enix addressed a mountain of issues plaguing the title since its 2010 release. According to Siliconera, it’s unclear how many of those 1.5 million users are actively playing the game, as opposed to those who registered in its previous life.
Following its re-release, A Realm Reborn faced a rocky start due to clogged servers. Speaking with Polygon during PAX Prime 2013, director Naoki Yoshida said regaining player trust was the team’s greatest challenge.
The first action-packed trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier has arrived.
And it shows Cap in fine baddie-bashing form.
The story finds everyone’s favourite 1940s Avenger now well and truly transplanted into the modern day, and dealing with all the weird repercussions that come from a 70 year time hop. Throw in the return of his wartime partner as a robot-armed sleeper assassin, a co-starring role from fellow Avenger Black Widow, and a host of explosion-y action scenes, and we’re sold.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits UK cinemas from March 2014.
Like the look of Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Let us know below!
Get ready for a visual delight. The latest X Rebirth trailer provides a montage of gameplay action that can’t help but touch the Sci-Fi fan in each of us.
The November 15th release is fast approaching!!
For 14 years studio Egosoft has been synonymous with space simulation games. Starting with the 1999 release of X: Beyond the Frontier to the 2011 release of X3: Albion Prelude (not to mention the numerous notable expansions, the most recent being the 2013 Shady Business expansion), Egosoft has pushed the boundaries of what a space simulation game can be.
But X Rebirth is Different.
All prior X Games before X Rebirth represent the layering upon layering of additional features, many of which were never part of the game’s original design. Responding to the large community of space simulation fans that flocked to X: Beyond the Frontier, the developers at Egosoft obliged the plea for more – more freedom, more ships, more realism, and more things to do. However, even before the 2005 release of X3: Reunion, it had become clear that this development methodology had made the series inherently complicated and unnecessarily impenetrable for any outsider who had not begun playing the X Series games from the very start.
The solution? To start anew.
X Rebirth represents the culmination of 7 years of work redefining what a space simulation can be.
So, onto the X Rebirth Limited Edition Box Version
The additional content for the Limited Edition Box Version of X Rebirth have been finalized!
– Updated Color X Encyclopedia (ebook)
– Art Book of Concept Art (printed)
– Player’s Manual (printed)
– Sountrack
– Bonus Videos
The above tweets were the first many of us knew of the problems that TotalBiscuit had been having for the last few days with one of his videos on Day One: Garry’s Incident being copyright claimed.
Today, we got the full explanation from the man in video form.
TotalBiscuit of course is a very popular Youtuber and a respected game reviewer. A lot of people listen to him and his ‘WTF is…?’ series was set up for the express purpose of reviewing games so that people could avoid the pitfall of buying a game that might not be for them, or in some cases just plain bad. That was the series that reviewed the aforementioned game, a review that was very critical of the game, then became copyright claimed and taken down through Youtube’s copyright claim system, with claims being made from Wild Games Studio‘s CEO Stephane that TB didn’t have the right to place ads onto the video and make money from a video containing their content.
TotalBiscuit of course is licensed to monetise his videos through the network he is a part of: Polaris, formerly known as The Game Station. Agreements were reached that the networks would police their members to ensure copyright standards were met and in return game content could be fairly used for things such as commentaries and reviews. However copyright claims can still be made by companies which will result in videos instantly being taken down and a strike issued against the account unless they can successfully appeal or, as in TotalBiscuit’s case, have a network backing them up to help get the strikes removed (TB previously got two against his account for old Sega-based content about a year back which were removed).
In the video TB makes a number of points with aid of screencaps of e-mail messages and forums posts that show that Wild Games Studio had opportunity to check out TB’s other WTF is…? videos (all monetised) and had previously encouraged people to make Youtube videos of their game. He also notes that other, less popular critical video reviews had not been removed. Only his, which of course reaches many people because of his large audience.
Kotaku have since contacted Wild Game Studios for a comment on the video and have been told that “after seeing all the negative impact today we decided to withdraw our complaint to YouTube.”
Regardless, although people might not always agree with TotalBiscuit’s opinions, he is a man who backs up his views with evidence and in the video he makes a very good case against Wild Game Studios. The studio might just have messed with the wrong man by taking down the original review…
