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Written by Andrew Armstrong

What you think of a movie has a lot to do with the expectations that you set before you even hit play, or before the previews start to roll. The marketing behind the movie is a big contributor to this expectation, along with your personal opinion of the genre and actors, among other things. As a viewer, I find that my expectations for a movie have way too much bearing on what I think of the movie. This isn’t saying that if a movie is really good and I’m in a bad mood, I will miss the fact that it is a good movie. As far as my personal enjoyment though, it’s way too critical an issue for comfort. This also causes some really bad second viewings, which is actually what brought this rather depressing realization about myself to mind.

I just re-watched Hereafter (finishing not ten minutes before typing this sentence) and it made me realize I must have been in a really good mood when I first watched this movie. It’s not that it's a bad movie; in fact, I would put it in the 3 or 4 star rating if I had to write a review for the site. (Due to the fact that I like to have a reason or point to my writing, and Hereafter is a couple years old now and neither terrible nor amazing, this is the closest thing to a review you are going to get anytime soon.) Anyway, with Hereafter I only ended up caring about half the movie. Plain as bread characters tended to drag down a cool and unique take on pretty morbid material, with some good talent attached: Matt Damon starred and Clint Eastwood directed (this movie is racism-free). Going into it, I must have been in a pretty good mood, and wasn’t expecting too much, not really aware of what Eastwood could do behind a camera. A four star rating is decent for any movie, but I remember walking away thinking it was the best thing I had watched in awhile.

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Written by Andrew Armstrong

While writing the Lego Batman 2 review, I was struck with how many Lego-branded games actually exist. It made me think: “At what point does a series cross over to its own genre?” There have been 12 Lego games in the franchise including Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter, and although they have been making strides lately with Lego Batman 2, for the most part these games all follow the same formula. It’s hard to call these games simple brawlers anymore; when you say “It’s a lego game”, it’s a pretty strong indication of what that game is.

It’s weird how things like this work. For example, I don’t really consider Final Fantasy to be its own genre; it is merely the prime example of a JRPG. The number of games in the Final Fantasy series is up to somewhere in the mid-twenties, and they all follow the same formula. For the record, I have played about the same number of Lego games as I have Final Fantasy, that being two each (10 and 13 for Final Fantasy, and Batman 2 and Star Wars Original Trilogy for Lego). Defining the genres is the reason FF isn’t its own genre. I’m just waiting for the day we get a non-Lego game that uses the same formula, and we say: “It’s a Lego game.”

We’re already starting to do this with Ubisoft games, as the company undergoes a kind of “Assassin's Creeding”. Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, and the rumoured Prince of Persia reboot are all beginning to look the same. In five years, are people going to start referring to games as being an "Assassin's" game? It's a really weird thought for me. Games outside of Ubisoft (namely the Bethesda title Dishonoured) look like they could fit under an "Assassin" genre.

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Written by Pat Vis

The fall release window for video games is about to be upon us. Much like the travelling of the salmon, once every year nearly every video game publisher decides to put out their games. All at the same time. The reasoning behind this splattering of releases is to grab some off those all-important Christmas time sales. I can’t blame this school of thought, even if my bank account is screaming for mercy by mid-November. With that in mind, let’s take a look a few games that I’m looking forward to this fall, shall we?

BORDERLANDS 2

I’ll be honest here, I didn’t enjoy the first Borderlands all that much. I enjoyed the loot and the gameplay, but the whole experience fell flat when you didn’t have anyone to play with. Thankfully, I know have multiple people to play co-op games with (much of this has to do with me not living in the middle of nowhere anymore), so I won’t encounter the loneliness inherent to playing a co-op game alone. Based on what has been shown, Borderlands 2 has me interested enough to give the franchise another shot.

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Written by Pat Vis

As Andrew stated in his review of In Time, we here at the Basement Life try to keep our reviews topical. And since there is only of us here (unless you want to write for us), sometimes things slip by us. Lord of The Rings: War in the North was one of those things that slipped by us or, more particularly me. When it was announced, War in the North sounded like a quick cash-in on the Lord of the Rings franchise. Combine that with a poor release window of November of last year, it slipped right under my radar between Batman: Arkham City and Skyrim.

I recently bought War in the North and while it may not be the greatest game I’ve ever played, I’m a bit surprised that it has little to no press. War in the North takes place during the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it takes a lot of its style from the Peter Jackson films.  You play as one of the heroes of the North, a group of three who fought Sauron’s forces in northern Middle Earth. There are three characters to pick from: Eradan, Farin, and Andriel.  Each takes up the typical rpg roles, with the ranger, champion, and mage. Every character needs to use melee combat, so the abilities play in with how you approach the combat. The ranger can turn temporarily invisible and sneak up on enemies, while the mage can up her defences temporarily to make nearly invulnerable for a short time.