Film Review: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

• Publisher: Warner Bros.
• Production Studio: Lucasfilm Animation
• Release: 15 August 2008
• Genre: Action, Fantasy
• Director: Dave Filoni
• Producer: Catherine Winder
• Writers: Helen Ginroy, Stephen Melching, Scott Murphy

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, finally wrapping up the Star Wars prequel trilogy.  But not quite... as the great philosopher Yoda once said, "There is another".  That would be Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a 3D-CG animated movie serving as an inter-quel between Episodes II and III, and as a prelude to the TV series of the same name.  Which confused me, because I thought there already was a 2D cartoon of the same name and concept, but apparently that one doesn't have a "the" in the title.  But no, they decided to start over with a 3D cartoon, because [verb] it, everything has to be 3D these days.  ...I don't want to do this.  Even people who have found something to like in either The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones struggle to say anything worthwhile about this thing.  But, I set out to review all of the Star Wars movies, and since I already spent my "Get Out Of Review Free" card on the Holiday Special (Maybe some other time...), here we are.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

We open not with a text crawl, but with a narrator (Tom Kane) giving us a newsreel-style introduction of the titular Clone Wars.  I don't know about you, but speaking from a future perspective, I can't help but be reminded of the radio intros from The Legend of Korra, and subsequently, that I'd rather be watching Korra now.  But we're dropped into a battle in medias res, so at least The Clone Wars starts off better than most of the prequels.  Jedi knights Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) and Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), with their clone trooper unit, have scored a small victory against the separatist droid army, only for their gains to be double-backsies re-taken by enemy reinforcements.

As the Republic soldiers regroup, they are joined by a messenger from the Jedi Council, in the form of Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), a teenage Jedi trainee who introduces herself, by decree of Yoda, as Anakin's new apprentice.  Ahsoka has a thing where she frequently argues with Anakin over their next course of action, and nine times out of ten, she just so happens to be right.  I would get annoyed over her personality, but considering that she's dealing with Anakin frickin' Skywalker, I'll give her a pass.  Oddly though, while a lot of the performances in this movie are totally phoned in, even from what few actors were willing to come back from the main movies, the guy who plays Anakin has a more engaging performance than either of his flesh-and-blood portrayals thus far.  He's no great shakes, but he at least does have an actual range of emotions, something like what real humans possess!  Funny how his new actor was also the guy whom Disaster Movie joked about ruining Star Wars, but I digress.  Anakin and Ahsoka Metal Gear their way under the shield -- no, seriously, they hide inside a box as the shield passes over them, in plain sight of the marching battle droids, no less.  They fight the droids, shut down their shields, and one again the day is saved, or something.

On a scale of "Jar Jar Binks" to "Han Shot First", newcomer Ahsoka Tano scores... an Ewok.  Not great, but could be worse.

So, why was the Republic in such a tight spot?  Well, there was a sub-plot which kind of becomes the main plot in the second act.  Chancellor Palpatine (Ian Abercrombie) and the Senate are trying to negotiate with Jabba the Hutt, the slug-like mob boss from elsewhere in the series, for use of his territory's airspace, for lack of a better term.  (Space-space?)  Thing is, Jabba has lost his infant son, Rotta the Huttling, who was kidnapped by the Separatists in order to have Jabba join their side.  So Anakin and Ahsoka are dispatched to the jungle planet Teth to find the Huttling, while Obi-Wan goes to Tattooine, to negotiate with Jabba and buy them time.  It starts out promisingly enough, with a fight scene in which our heroes defend a walker-tank climbing up a vertical wall.  They also try to set a lighter tone with comedic moments presented by some of the battle droids, of all "people", and the results are mixed.  Here's one of their better moments:

Droid Commander: Concentrate fire on sector 11374265!
Droid Sergeant: 1137... what was that, again?
Droid Commander: [pointing] Just fire right there!

But then our heroes actually find the Huttling, and we witness this film for what it really is... a baby-sitting plot.  They stress out over keeping that... thing alive, and they call it "Stinky" because... you figure it out.  I want to die.  Also, Anakin keeps calling Ahsoka by the nickname "Snips" because... it is the will of the Force, I don't know.  On their way out of there, they run into Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and his new apprentice, Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman)  They escape the monastery aboard alien dragonflies, accidentally inspiring James Cameron's Avatar in the process, and a spaceship which the Huttling contrivedly managed to point out for them.  Meanwhile, Dooku and Ventress pay a visit to Jabba and convince him that the Jedi are to blame for abducting his son, thanks to a few contrivedly-captured voice clips of Anakin offhandedly expressing his dislike of Hutts.  With this, they hope to bring the Hutts' trade routes under Separatist control, and disgrace the Jedi in one fell swoop.  Good luck with that...

Ziro the Hutt?  More like Ziro out of ten!  ...I'll see myself out.

Meanwhile meanwhile, fearing the failure of Anakin and Ahsoka's mission, Senatore Padme (Catherine Taber) and the senate form a backup plan.  Coincidence of all coincidences, Jabba has a nephew, named Ziro the Hutt (Corey Burton), operating on the very same planet as her.  So Padme pays him a visit and appeals for Ziro to put in a good word, but her pleas fall on deaf ears, assuming Hutts even have ears in the traditional sense.  After leaving, she eavesdrops on Ziro holo-chatting with Count Dooku, confirming their conspiracy to frame the Jedi for the Huttling's disappearance, but is captured for her efforts.  In an escape attempt, she tricks one of the battle droids -- with reverse psychology, no less -- into activating her communicator, letting her send a distress message to C-3PO.  If Ziro had any common sense, he'd have had Padme blasted right then and there, but this is not that kind of movie.

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, Anakin and Ahsoka crash-land on Tatooine.  They would've had a smoother landing, but he had her turn off the ship's shields, making Ahsoka right for, oh, the five hundred-seventy-third time in this movie.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention: the Huttling has been down with a sickness this whole time, but Ahsoka cures it with the help of a medical-droid-hologram which just so happens to be on the ship which they just so happened to fly out on!  But anyway, since Dooku and Ventress are on their tail, our heroes split up, with Ahsoka taking the Huttling in her care.  Anakin turns himself in to Dooku, only to reveal that he's been carrying not the Huttling, but a decoy.  And then... everything just resolves itself!  Ahsoka storms in with the real Huttling.  But when Jabba orders our heroes to be executed anyway, a hologram from Padme comes in, exposing Dooku and Ziro's plot against him.  Jabba states his intentions to discipline Ziro for his treachery, and to sign that space-space treaty with the Republic, while our villains plot ominously.  You are now free to turn off your TV.

This is supposed to be Count Dooku, not some creepy wooden Christmas decoration.  Could've fooled me.

You may have noticed that the flow of this movie's plot feels episodic, and that was by design.  These were actually meant to be first few episodes of the new TV series, but when George Lucas saw them, he was somehow pleased enough that he had them stitched together into a feature film.  It reminds me some anime OVAs from back in the day that did the same kind of thing.  Just off the top of my head, I can think of Sonic the Movie, a failed attempt at creating a Sonic the Hedgehog anime series, but that's a review for another day.  The show which spawned from The Clone Wars, on the other hand, was quite successful, lasting for six seasons and a follow-up series, Star Wars: Rebels.  I haven't seen either show, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but based solely on this movie... what do people like about The Clone Wars?

It can't be for its looks.  George Lucas said he didn't want to have a realistic style of animation, as with Pixar or his own live-action Star Wars movies, for the sake of being different.  Instead, he did claim to draw inspiration from Japanese anime (pfft, yeah right) and British supermarionation, a la Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. [1]  ...Actually, that last one sounds about right, and not as a compliment.  The character models have this angular look to them, and there's a jerky stop-and-go flow to their movement, which make for decidedly unimpressive, even unsettling, animation.  You know, for a studio which goes to such lengths to make CGI creatures which kinda, sorta look and move realistically, they really weren't pitching their A-game this time around!  And yet, surprising as it may sound coming from me, I don't think the 2D animation of the 2003 Clone Wars was that much better, since it also had problems with over-stylising characters and moving them as little as possible.  You know, for a director who brought us the likes of Samurai Jack, he really wasn't pitching his A-game and didn't I just say that already?  Oh well, that's a review for another day.  Also, what's with all the Dutch angles?  I just noticed that all three of the screenshots I plucked for this article have them.  What is this, Battlefield Earth?

In conclusion, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a big, fat waste of time.  For all the bad stuff in the "real" prequels, there was interesting stuff in them, too.  Even Attack of the Clones had that "death sticks" scene!  But what do I remember The Clone Wars for?  Babysitting, and a sissy villain.  That's about it.  Yeah, maybe there are a few better bits here and there, but they aren't strong enough to elevate this movie out of its mire of mediocrity.  It's not Holiday Special bad, but unless you're a major fan of the TV show and absolutely need to know how it starts, there's no real reason to try this.  And don't tell me that this movie was aimed at children, because our Padawans deserve better, dangit!

Positives:
+ Visually-striking settings.
+ Anakin has better acting here than in any of the other prequels.

Negatives:
- Lame plot elements for much of the movie.
- A whole lot of problems simply resolve themselves.
- Lousy low-budget animation, by Lucasfilm's own standards.

Writing: 1 Huttling out of 5
Acting: 2 Huttlings out of 5
Animation: 1 Huttling out of 5
Visual Design: 3 Huttlings out of 5
The Call: 40% (F)

[1] Weprin, Alex. "George Lucas Talks 'Clone Wars'". Broadcasting & Cable, April 3, 2008.

Film Review: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

• Publisher: 20th Century Fox
• Production Studio: Lucasfilm
• Release: 19 May 2005
• Genre: Action, Fantasy
• Director: George Lucas
• Producer: Rick McCallum
• Writers: George Lucas (screenplay & story)

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and... I didn't like it.  I believe the words I used to describe it were "so bad, it's... meh".  Well, we've got one more prequel to go, so let's see what we do with it.

I love how Revenge of the Sith's opening text crawl starts "War!", as if desperately trying to get our attention for once.  And considering how the other two prequels bogged theirs down with mentions of trade negotiations and senate votes, I'd say they finally have my attention.  We move from that to the first scene, a long one-take of a space battle already in progress.  The Separatist army, led by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and a new villain, the kinda-sorta-droid General Greivous (voice of Matthew Wood), have kidnapped the leader of the Galactic Republic, Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).  Our heroes, the Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor) fly in to the enemy's command ship to rescue him.  Between this, the opening text, and how quickly they get both the Wilhelm Scream and the line "I've got a bad feeling about this" out of the way, it's as if this movie is trying its hardest to get back into our good graces, and you know what?  I appreciate the effort.

This sequence is basically a James-Bond style adventure, something the past two movies have tried, but failed, to accomplish.  Maybe it's because it actually embraces the swashbuckling attitude, with Obi-Wan being the go-to guy for all manner of silly one-liners.  They've even got their own "voice with an Internet connection" support guy in the form of R2-D2!  Eventually they make it up where the Chancellor is held, and fight Dooku to free him.  Anakin disarms the Count and has him at his mercy; after some internal deliberation, he simply decapitates his foe.  This exercise in less-than-noble morality does a fair job of setting up this movie's theme, of Anakin's tragic fall from grace, but more on that later.  For now, our heroes get double-backsies re-captured by Grevious, but get out of their jam by crash-landing the ship.  I don't know about you, but a certain Airplane! clip comes to my mind...

Dr. Rumack: I just want to tell you both good luck, and we're all counting on you.

When the dust settles, Anakin reunites with his wife, Padme (Natalie Portman), who tells that she is pregnant.  At first pleased by the news, a nightmare of her dying while giving birth troubles Anakin, who seeks counseling from Palpatine.  Palpatine awards him a spot on the Jedi Council, who in turn assigns him to spy and report on Palpatine, who is continuing to build his own political power.  So while the plot is still a little political in nature, something which bogged down the other two prequels, the focus has been narrowed down to specific characters, namely Anakin and Palpatine, which makes it considerably easier to get absorbed into.  One night, he meets up with Palpatine at an opera (or a Blitzball match, I couldn't tell).  When Anakin expresses his fears about losing Padme, Palpatine tells him a story about a Sith lord, his old master, who could use the dark side of the Force to prevent his loved ones from dying.  I've seen a number of online critics, such as The Nostalgia Critic and Awesome Walter, praise this scene as the best moment in the prequels, and even one of the best from all of Star Wars.  I would argue, however, that this is yet another instance of George Lucas hinting at more interesting stories but not delivering them, but there's still a lot on hand to like.  I mean, he even gets away with mentioning midi-chlorians again, and no one has yet bat an eye!  Now that's some good will.

The story benefits from focusing more heavily on just a few characters, namely Palpatine (left) and Anakin (right).

Meanwhile, the Clone Wars open up on multiple fronts, as Obi-Wan leads a Clonetrooper unit in a sneak attack on General Greivous.  Yoda has an adventure of his own, joining forces with the Wookie race, including Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), to defend against another droid front.  Back on Coruscant, Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) and some other Jedi move in to arrest Palpatine, before he can grow too politically powerful.  In the fight that ensues, Windu has Palpatine on the ropes when Anakin walks on the scene.  After some internal deliberation, echoing what he would eventually do again in Return of the Jedi, Anakin decides to disarm Windu -- almost literally -- allowing Palpatine to Force-lightning him out the window.  Newly-disfigured, Palpatine re-christens Anakin as Darth Vader, restructures the republic into the Galactic Empire, and enacts Order 66, a secret directive for his clone army to murder the Jedi Knights.  All of them.  The montage of massacred Jedi that follows is dramatic, yes, but of little value to anyone whose knowledge of Star Wars is just from the movies, and not any supplemental material made either before or after.  I, for example, recognise a couple of these locations from playing Star Wars: Battlefront II -- and before you ask, the GOOD Star Wars: Battlefront II.

Nonetheless, Obi-Wan and Yoda survive their respective assassination attempts, because plot armour.  They reunite on Coruscant and uncover the horrifying truth, that Anakin has indeed turned to the dark side, and even murdered a temple's worth of child Jedi trainees for good measure.  When they report this to Padme, she struggles to accept it, and flies off to Anakin to assuage her fears.  Obi-Wan stows aboard with her, while Yoda stays to fight the new Emperor.  If you liked the Yoda/Dooku fight from the last movie, this scene delivers many of the same goods, despite another... charmingly embarrassing one-liner:

Yoda: Not if anything to say about it, I have!

I'm just saying, I don't think Yoda used this sentence structure all the time before.  While Yoda holds his own for much of the fight, he takes one fall down into a hidden air vent, and decides now is a good time to play dead instead of finishing the job.  Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Padme arrive at the volcanic planet Mustafar, where Darth Vader has just killed the last traces of the separatist army.  They try to convince Vader to ditch his descent into the dark side of the Force, but to no avail.  He chokes Padme around for a bit, and proceeds to duel Obi-Wan.  The fight choreography retains the high-energy pace of such scenes from the other prequels, with an added bit of improbability as the combatants balance atop pieces of the collapsing base.  However, I've finally noticed a flaw in this approach: everything goes by so fast that, combined with the camera angles they chose, it's hard to tell both sides apart.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they had different coloured lightsabers, rather than both blue, because that's always been an easy indicator of telling who was who in these kinds of battles.  But, in the end, it's Obi-Wan who comes out on top.  Despondent, he leaves Anakin on the lava river's banks, legs severed and body burning, because somebody finally remembered what convection is.

As thrilling as the Jedi duels are, they aren't helped by giving both sides the same colour of lightsaber.

Afterwards, Obi-Wan regroups with Yoda and Padme as she gives birth to her twin children, Luke and Leia Skywalker, and promptly dies.  According to the robot nurse, she was physically healthy, but just gave up the will to live.  And I'm like... well, THAT's retarded!  I mean, yeah, learning that your husband went and betrayed everything you stand for would be crushing, but come on!  Did they just need to kill her off now because she wasn't in any of the next movies?  Why not just stick her on Alderaan with Leia and her step-father?  I mean, we never actually go there in canon, before it gets blown up by the Death Star!  Meanwhile, the Empire recovers Vader's body, and reawakens him in a new suit of armour.  When Palpatine informs him of his wife's death, he loudly shouts "No!", and a new Internet meme was born.  We end with the Skywalker babies being delivered to their new respective homes, ending on an homage of that classic shot from the first movie, where Luke's foster parents stare off into the distance of Tatooine, the planet's twin suns setting, or perhaps rising, on the desert horizon.  You are now free to turn off your TV.

Revenge of the Sith is, finally, the first Star Wars prequel movie I can comfortably call "good", despite the big hulking asterisk attached to that statement.  It still can't manage to shake off all of the baggage from its predecessors, such as a few odd scenes of so-called "romantic" dialogue between Anakin and Padme, but at least they actually serve the plot this time around, giving him incentive for exploring the dark side of the Force.  Perhaps the biggest problem is the chronic under-acting by many of its performers.  Yet, there are still some actors who manage to break out and have some fun with their roles, most notably Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine.  (Basically, if your name starts with a "Mc", you're in good hands.)  Yes, they delve into campy and even narmy territory once in a while, but I'll take that over dull surprise any day of the week.  And of course, the ending keeps piling on stupid moment after stupid moment.  But at the same time, George Lucas seems to be learning from his past mistakes, as there's a considerably better balance between exposition and action, and said action scenes feel more like the swashbuckling space adventure we've been starved of from the past two movies.  And last but not least, there's virtually no Jar-Jar Binks in this movie!  Yeah, he's got, maybe, one short line, and it's in plain English, not that Gungan patois.  Surely that would bode well for the future of Star Wars... if not for the fact that its eventual follow-up would be handled by a different director and writers entirely.  But that's a review for another day.  Until then...

This is IchigoRyu.

May the Force be with you.

Positives:
+ The plot is built around a distinct theme, of Anakin sacrificing what he loves for power.
+ A few good performances.

Negatives:
- Still a few weak performances.
- Multiple stupid moments near the end.

Acting: 3 out of 5
Writing: 3 out of 5
Special Effects: 4 out of 5
Visual Design: 5 out of 5
The Call: 75% (B-)

Film Review: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones

• Publisher: 20th Century Fox
• Production Studio: Lucasfilm
• Release: 16 May 2002
• Genre: Action, Fantasy
• Director: George Lucas
• Producer: Rick McCallum
• Writers: George Lucas (screenplay & story), Johnathan Hayes (screenplay)

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  I finally posted it about a month after it would've been relevant, partly because I crammed it with enough words and thoughts to make it one of the longest reviews I have ever posted on this blog.  But its sequel, Attack of the Clones, is a different animal entirely.  Next to its predecessor, I remember very little of it, which could be indicative of its own unique form of failure.

I suppose I should start with how the plot starts.  A whole bunch of planets are withdrawing from the Galactic Republic and forming their own army, with the help of the Trade Federation from The Phantom Menace.  ...Yeah, if the political doldrums from that movie didn't do anything for you, then you ain't seen nothing yet, my Padawan.  It even slogs down the opening text crawl.  But the short of it is that with the growing separatist army threatening the Republic, Queen-turned-Senator Amidala (Natalie Portman) survives a couple of assassination attempts, and recruits Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) as her bodyguards.  The two Jedi Knights chase one of the assassins across the cities of Coruscant, and we finally get shades of what these prequel movies should have been all along: swash-buckling adventures of the Jedi in their prime.  That said, my vision of this dream movie does not include Anakin at odds with Obi-Wan over his rebelliously rash decisions, but work with what you've got, I guess.  They chase her across flying cars and through alien bars, during which we get the only passage of dialogue throughout this whole film which stuck with me from day one:

Hustler: You wanna buy some death sticks?
Obi-Wan: [Using a Jedi mind-trick] You don't want to sell me death sticks.
Hustler: ...I don't want to sell you death sticks.
Obi-Wan: You want to go home and rethink your life.
Hustler: I want to go home and rethink my life.

That's our Obi-Wan!  [laugh track]  So anyway, he and Anakin corner the assassin, only for her to get silenced by yet another bounty hunter.  Obi-Wan goes off to track this mysterious new-comer across the galaxy, but before we get to see that, we have to join Anakin as he escorts Padme back to her home planet for safe-keeping.  And by "safe-keeping", I mean going on dates while exchanging dialogue that would make even the sappiest chick flick gag itself with a spoon.  Perhaps you're familiar with this infamous line:

Anakin: I don't like sand.  It's coarse and irritating and it gets everywhere.  Not like here.  Here, everything is soft and smooth.

Although, given his dialogue in the last movie, this is something we should have been prepared for.  Remember that one about angels on the moons of Iego?  ...Well, I do.  Between all this sickeningly-sweethearted purple prose, Anakin whines about how Obi-Wan doesn't respect his decisions all the time, and exposits how Jedi aren't supposed to fall in love with other people, except not really, maybe, it's complicated.  I suppose he's trying to set himself up as a tortured soul for fangirl bonus points, but his angsty charms are wasted upon me, as I keep thinking of him as a Twilight Saga reject.  Also, miss Amidala used to be a queen in the last movie, but apparently she was democratically elected, ran out her term, and then became a senator.  Umm... aren't kings and queens supposed to be kings and queens... for life?  Is Naboo a monarchy or a democracy?  Make up your mind, you dotty bint!

Anakin and Padme's so-called romantic dialogue is unbearably lame.

Meanwhile, over in the fun part of this movie, Obi-Wan tracks the bounty hunter to a mysterious factory on the water-logged planet Kamino.  The hunter, Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison), has lent himself as the template for an army of clone troopers, secretly being built for the Republic.  The two have a kerfuffle, on foot and in their respective ships, as they chase each other to the arid planet Geonosis.  There's a bit in the asteroid field where Obi-Wan hides his ship behind some debris to play dead, getting Jango off his tail.  Jango's clone-son Boba Fett, on board with his father, notably does not fall prey to the same ploy in The Empire Strikes Back.  It's a little moment, but I thought it was a clever bout of continuity.  But, in the present, Obi-Wan discovers a meeting of the separatists, led by a Sith lord named... Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).  Not the most dignified-sounding name, I tell you what.  I mean, yeah, he does get some epic points for being played by the former Francisco Scaramanga, but how can you appreciate that when his name reminds you of... your favourite Green Day album?  (What did you think I was going to say?)  And he's got a perfectly good other name, too: Darth Tyranus.  Why couldn't they just stick with that?

Meanwhile, over in the not-fun part of this movie, Anakin takes a break from glurging it up with Padme to witness a Force-fueled nightmare of his mother in pain.  Against Padme's wishes, he flies off to Tatooine, meets up with his future brother-in-law, and learns that she was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders.  He makes it to their camp, too late to rescue his mother from death by... plot convenience, and blinded by rage, slaughters the camp's remaining population.  This is a distinct turning point in Anakin's character, as his retrospective bout of wangst makes none-too-subtly apparent, but in the context of the rest of this movie, it sticks out like a sore thumb.  (An expression which I don't quite understand, but never mind.)  The generally lighter-and-softer Attack of the Clones has not yet delved into Anakin's turn to the dark side, so this scene would have fit more congruously into its sequel.  But, that's a review for another day.  For now, let me just state that the line-read he did for this scene, and quite frankly 99% of all his scenes, was simply embarrassing.

This film loves using CGI where it isn't even necessary, like entire settings for even slower scenes like this.

The two stories finally converge when Anakin picks up a transmission sent by Obi-Wan, who was captured for his efforts.  Anakin, Padme, and the droids fly over to Geonosis to rescue him, sneaking through a droid factory's assembly line in the process.  At this point, I'd like to comment on this film's over-reliance on CGI backgrounds.  The Phantom Menace had a few, but mostly saved them for more outlandish settings, such as the Gungans' underwater city.  In contrast, Attack of the Clones goes overboard with this trend, in the most unnecessary of situations.  They do this for several scenes around the Jedi temple on Coruscant, even for scenes where characters are just walking and talking in a normal hallway!  And that library set looks like it could have been built for real, and would look really impressive if that were the case, but again, it's fake.  Couldn't they have just built part of these locales physically on the set, and saved the CGI for extending them into the background?  And those steadily-swooping camera angles they use don't help these scenes look any more real; quite the opposite, somehow.  As for the factory scene I'm now coming back to, I get that it would have been dangerous to have the actors interact -- or hopefully, not interact -- with all those deathtraps, but again, couldn't they just add the smashy bits in post-prod, while building everything else?  This problem goes back to the old special editions -- the creative power offered by CGI is only as good as what you do with it, and Lucasfilm has shown a distinct lack of restraint in that regard.

Speaking of a lack of restraint, there is yet more political wrangling we have to sit through.  With the help of the newly-appointed senator Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), because [verb] you, Chancellor Palpatine (Ian MacDiarmid) is appointed emergency powers, and forms a new Army of the Republic with the aforementioned clone troopers.  They are dispatched to Geonosis, but until they can get there, Anakin and Padme get captured in turn, and are brought out with Obi-Wan to a colosseum, where they are to suffer death by space-animals.  Their escape actions are quite improbable, and their CG-assisted stunts are quite more fake-looking, but soon enough, the cavalry arrives!  Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), the Jedi Master who was sadly relegated to a non-action cameo in the last movie, finally comes into his own in Attack of the Clones.  He slices droids and blocks blaster bolts with the other Jedi, and even kills Jango Fett, all the while wielding a pimpin' purple lightsaber.  It is cool because Samuel L. Jackson is cool; that's just how it works.  Oh yeah, and C-3PO got his head swapped with a battle droid's while he was following our other heroes.  I thought it was worth a chuckle, at least until he started delving into cliched one-liners to describe his situation.

The early 2000s were a simpler time, where all a gal had to do to make herself lustfully attractive was show a little bit of midriff.  Padme shows us how it's done.

We also get more scenes with Yoda (voice of Frank Oz), who was portrayed as a computer-generated character for the first time (not including later re-releases of The Phantom Menace).  Far-removed from the over-acting floppiness of Jar-Jar Binks and the other Gungans from before, Yoda's animation is quite more subdued and refined, befitting of the character's old age.  That is, until he and Anakin square off against Count Dooku for the final fight, where the diminutive creature leaps about to clash with his human foe at eye level, occasionally breaking to deflect objects thrown his way by the Force.  It's actually quite awesome to see Yoda, a character whom we've grown to love in other ways, get an action scene all of his own.  But, in the end, Dooku manages to hold them off and escape, the Chancellor ominously oversees his new army, and Anakin and Padme get married.  You are now free to turn off your TV.

As with the last movie, Attack of the Clones has its own fatal flaw that I picked up on, and it is one of not having its priorities in order.  It wastes so much of its 2 hour and 20 minute runtime on politics and romance, both handled as ineptly as your average stormtrooper handles a blaster.  All the while, there are hints of other, more interesting stories, both existing scenes and throwaway bits of dialogue, that aren't developed nearly as well as they should have been.  For example, this film does mark the beginning of the Clone Wars, which was referenced all the way back in A New Hope, but it doesn't actually take place until near the end.  To quote Zero Punctuation (yet again), "Is this the most exciting part of our character's life?  If not, why aren't we witnessing it?"  But for what we got, I just don't feel any interest for Attack of the Clones.  Yeah, The Phantom Menace was bad; I've finally started to internalise that concept.  But it was a more engaging kind of bad, the kind that stuck with you, so I can't really stay mad at it.  A lot of the bad James Bond movies were like that too, as I have extensively documented.  But Attack of the Clones lacks anything that sets it up as "so bad, it's good".  Really, it's just "so bad, it's... meh".  And that can be even worse... from a certain point of view.

Positives:
+ A few good action scenes.
+ A decent performance from Christopher Lee's Count Dooku, name notwithstanding.

Negatives:
- Grating dialogue and performances, especially from Hayden Christensen's Anakin.
- The incessant political intrigue fails to... intrigue.
- Too many fleeting glimpses of what would have been a much better story.
- Overuse of unnecessary CGI, especially on backgrounds.

Acting: 2 Clonetroopers out of 5
Writing 1 Clonetrooper out of 5
Special Effects: 2 Clonetroopers out of 5
Visual Design: 3 Clonetroopers out of 5
The Call: 45% (D-)

Game Review: Crisis Zone

So... that last article left me a little down-hearted. I certainly didn't expect to praise something else above a Studio Ghibli movie, that's for sure. But knowing that When Marnie Was There was, potentially, the last movie they'll ever produce makes it even more bittersweet. Come to think of it, what's so "sweet" about "bittersweet" anyway? Because I'm feeling pretty dang bitter right now! Anyway in these trying times, I manage to find solace in the following words: "And now for something completely different". Let's see, where did I leave off before I got sidetracked with Indie-Cember 2 and the SDP Music Awards? That's right, I was going through the Time Crisis games! Yeah, let's get back to that.

Crisis Zone

• Publisher: Namco 
• Developer: Namco 
• Release: 
• Arcade, March 1999 
• PlayStation 2, 19 October 2004 (as Time Crisis: Crisis Zone) 
• Genre: 3D Action (Rail Shooter) 
• Players: 1 
• Save: Memory Card (80KB) 

You know your media franchise has hit the big time when you can afford to make a few spin-off entries. For Time Crisis, this would be Crisis Zone. In many ways, it follows the example of Time Crisis 2, the last arcade entry to have been released before. It's got the same cover-pedal mechanics, and the same health and time rules. That's not what sets Crisis Zone apart, of course. What does so, however, is the equipment that your player-character brings with him on his job: a sub-machine gun and a riot shield. And wouldn't you know, they figure into the gameplay itself.

To differentiate itself from the other Time Crisis games, Crisis Zone's arcade cabinet supports one player only, and uses a light-gun controller shaped like a sub-machine gun. Not having to pull the trigger for every shot you wish to fire is no doubt a good thing, especially given how relatively heavy the new controller is. In addition, each scene in each level is packed with destructible objects which build up score bonuses as you knock them down in quick succession. However, the game's difficulty is also balanced to account for the inclusion of rapid fire. Whereas most enemies in other Time Crisis games will happily go down with just one bullet, that is generally not the case in Crisis Zone. In fact, just about every enemy, right down to common foot soldiers, have their own lifebars to display how much of their vitals you have to whittle down. I don't mind this per-bullet weakness so much, except there doesn't seem to be any location-specific damage (i.e. more damage for a head shot) as in most shooters.

Destructible scenery is more prevalent here than in other Time Crisis games. (PS2 version.)

You and your team members are also equipped with riot shields. In most Time Crisis games, player-characters generally stick behind one point of cover until they're allowed to move on to the next one. But having a portable shield on hand allows your avatar (and thus, the camera) to move about more freely. It's not player-controlled movement, don't get me wrong; you're still stuck on a fixed path. Honestly it doesn't affect much as far as gameplay goes, but it's a cool development choice when you think about it, as it leads to an experience that couldn't exactly be emulated by other Time Crisis games.

As for the story, it's pretty much just another excuse plot. Crisis Zone takes place in a shopping/office park in suburban London, as it gets overrun by a generic pre-9/11 terrorist unit. They get answered by an international defence force, which surprisingly is not VSSE from the other Time Crisis games. You, the player, play as one of their number, a mister Claude McGarren (or "Croid McGalain" in the -- likely mistranslated -- arcade version). The three levels you have to liberate are a shopping mall, a park, and an office building, followed by one final boss level. Each of them lasts about six to eight minutes, so as with the rest of its arcade-based peers, it's not much for first-play length. Unlike the other Time Crisis games, you can play them in any order. I suppose this is great for those who aren't as good at the game and can't clear any particular level with just one credit, but once you're comfortable with your skills, there's not much reason to do so.

Special weapons return in the PlayStation 2 edition.

The home version of Crisis Zone came about in 2004, as Time Crisis: Crisis Zone for the PlayStation 2. In addition to the arcade mode and the prerequisite graphics upgrades, this port offers a second story, a "Crisis Mode" with stand-alone challenges, and the option to use two GunCons for dual-wielding action. Come to think of it, this came out at about the same time as Halo 2, which made dual-wielding cool again, so I wouldn't be surprised if Namco had taken cues from whatever preview material was available at the time. Another unlockable feature is the option to use alternate weapons, as in Time Crisis 3. Unlike in TC3, where alternate ammo is limited and must be replenished by shooting special enemies, the handgun and shotgun just need to be reloaded as with usual machine-gun. And remember what I said about the machine-gun being weaker to balance for its rate of fire? Handgun and shotgun rounds are strong enough to drop most enemies in one or two shots, to compensate for their lesser rate of fire. Furthermore, when you have them enabled, there are certain points where you can try out special weapons like rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and even a laser rifle. These segments are brief, but deadly fun. As home rail-shooters go, Time Crisis: Crisis Zone is another great package, and a suitable follow-up to TC3.

As for the arcade game it's based on? Meh, it's okay. The machine-gun controller gives it a different feel from its cousins in the Time Crisis series, and the levels are designed around that experience. These changes don't amount to much in the end, but then again, the formula which Time Crisis II arguably perfected didn't need to be changed any more than it was. The best way I could describe Crisis Zone is, then, "TCII with a machine gun". You should be able to form your own opinion on the game based on that statement.

Positives:
+ Plenty of destructible targets.
+ The more constant character movement makes stages feel more dynamic.
+ The home edition is loaded with extras.

Negatives:
- No location-specific damage (still).
- The story is generic.

Control: 4 SMGs out of 5
Design: 4 SMGs out of 5
Graphics: 3 SMGs out of 5 (Arcade) / 4 SMGs out of 5 (PS2)
Sound: 2 SMGs out of 5
Value: 2 SMGs out of 5 (Arcade) / 4 SMGs out of 5 (PS2)
The Call: 80% (B)

Game Review: Time Crisis 3

Time Crisis 3

• Publisher: Namco 
• Developer: Namco 
• Release: 
• Arcade, 2003 
• PlayStation 2, 21 October 2003 
• Genre: 3D Action (Rail Shooter) 
• Players: 1-2 
• Save: Memory Card (212KB) 

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Time Crisis II, which codified many well-received conventions which stuck with the rest of the series -- the "Growing the Beard" entry, if you will. So, how do you follow that up? With Time Crisis 3, obviously. It follows much of TCII's example, sharing the same two-player setup and its improvements to the life mechanics, but does it do anything on top of that to set itself apart? Oh, it finds a way.

In TC3, you play as yet another pair of colour-coded VSSE agents, but the circumstances they're dropped into are a bit different from the usual fare. The setting is Astigos Island, a place heavily inspired by Greek islands such as Mykonos and Santorini, and it is currently under invasion by the army of the neighbouring Zagorias Federation, and its general (and the game's final boss), Giorgio Zott. In terms of writing a believable story, that's already a step up from the megalomaniacal villain of, say, TCII. In the various cutscenes, your player-characters also interact with a resistance fighter named Alicia Winston. While she doesn't have any effect on gameplay, this is an improvement from a storytelling perspective, considering that the usual role of women in Time Crisis games is that of the damsel in distress. As arcade-based light-gun rail-shooters go, being a genre filled with excuse plots, I was not expecting the story in TC3 to be as juicy as it was, but there you go. Granted, the voice- and motion-acting don't take themselves seriously enough to match the story, but baby-steps, people!

Shoot soldiers in yellow outfits for special weapon ammo.

Story aside, TC3's unique selling point is its multiple-weapon system. How it works is while you're hiding behind cover, you can pull the trigger on your light-gun to toggle between one of four weapons: the Handgun, the Machine Gun, the Shotgun, and the Grenade Launcher. The catch is that, with the exception of the Handgun, ammo for these weapons is finite, and must be replenished by shooting yellow-garbed enemies (the same ones who gave you bonus time or points in previous games). This is no quick gimmick, fortunately, but rather the game is designed around this additional functionality. On the upside, the ammo-bearing mooks are just frequent enough that you should seldom run into shortages. On the downside, there are also a lot of armoured enemies which take four or five regular shots to dispatch, not to mention all the bosses. Yeah, I get the sneaking suspicion that the game wants me to use all those extra weapons. You can still use your handgun for the whole game if you're a veteran raised on the old games, but your trigger finger will hate you for it.

In addition from the extra efforts put into the story and gameplay, the content has been buffed up considerably, too. Both the arcade and Rescue Mission stories take around 30 minutes to clear, which doesn't sound like much, but is still an improvement for this series. It feels like a longer journey, too, because each stage within each act takes place in a different setting. In act one, for example, you go from a beach, to a wrecked ship, to fighting the boss on a moving Jeep. That said, TC3 seems to have copied its action setpieces from the last game. The first act's boss takes place on a set of moving vehicles, the second act takes place on a train, and the third act includes a mini-boss battle with, of course, Wild Dog. As with the home port of TCII, TC3 lets you unlock unlimited continues and ammo for both your main and sub-weapons through repeated playthroughs and other achievements.

The Rescue Mission mode adds weapon upgrades and sniper levels into the mix.

Previous Time Crisis home ports experimented with either a second story campaign or a set of extra challenges, but the PlayStation 2 version of TC3 has both. In service of the former, beating the game once unlocks the Rescue Mission, a second story starring Alicia, the aforementioned resistance fighter. Much of her story runs parallel to that of the arcade mode, so you get to experience some of the same setpieces from a different angle, but there are new experiences thrown in as well. Every couple of stages, the format switches to a sniper-based setup, where you point your scope at distant targets and move on when they're all gone. These bits finally make use of the GunCon 2's extra functions: whilst zoomed in, you can use the D-pad on the back of the gun to move your field of view around without going back into hiding. The multi-weapon system from the arcade mode also shows up in Rescue Mission, but with a twist. Each of your three sub-weapons has their own experience meter which fills up with use, and when filled, increases that weapon's damage, fire rate, and/or ammo capacity. It's a neat addition which even further encourages the use of your alternate weapons, but I wonder why they couldn't have patched it into the arcade mode as an unlockable extra.

Time Crisis 3 is yet another example of how to do a sequel right. Now that Namco knew what they were doing, they were free to experiment with new mechanics. And not only did they do so, but they managed to design the game around them, for better or worse, so they come across as less a tacked-on gimmick and more an integral part of gameplay. Having a more intriguing story than the usual arcade shooter fare is a bonus, as well. Is it the best light-gun shooter around? I'd love to say so, but there's one other game which makes a strong case for that title, and you'll find out about it soon on the SDP!

Positives:
+ The multi-weapon system.
+ A longer run-time compared to the rest of the series.
+ The "Rescue Mission" mode in the PS2 edition.
+ Probably the best story the series has ever had and will have.

Negatives:
- An over-reliance on armoured enemies.
- The action setpieces seem recycled from Time Crisis II.
- Motion and voice-acting is still a little campy.

Control: 3 special weapons out of 5
Design: 5 special weapons out of 5
Writing: 4 special weapons out of 5
Graphics: 4 special weapons out of 5
Audio: 3 special weapons out of 5
Value: 4 special weapons out of 5
The Call: 85% (B+)

Game Review: Time Crisis II

Time Crisis II

• Publisher: Namco 
• Developer: Namco 
• Release: 
• Arcade, 1998 
• PlayStation 2, 1 October 2001 
• Genre: 3D Action (Rail Shooter) 
• Players: 1-2 
• Save: Memory Card (74KB) 

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed the first game in the Time Crisis series. Despite its flaws such as the steep difficulty curve, I find it sad to remark that it's become increasingly hard to find in arcades these days. The same cannot be said of its sequel, Time Crisis II, which launched in 1997 or 1998 and is still relatively common to this day. Now, how could that be the case? And why did Namco wait until the PlayStation 2 came out before making a home port? On the off chance I'll be able to answer those questions, let's see what's changed.

Our excuse plot this time around concerns an industrialist named Ernesto Diaz, who has just finished launching a network of communication satellites into space, only as a cover for sending nuclear weapons up there as well. This time around, VSSE sends two agents (named Keith Martin and Robert Baxter) to stop him in his tracks, kicking off a series tradition of colour-coded heroes in red (for Player 1) and blue (P2) outfits. There's also an allied informant named Christy Ryan who tips off VSSE about the evil plot, but she gets captured in the opening cutscene and doesn't show up again until the final chapter. This game doesn't nearly pass the Bechdel Test, is what I'm trying to get across. Oh, and Wild Dog returns, this time demoted to the rank of mini-boss.

TCII finally adds a visual warning for shots that are about to hit you. (PS2 version.)

But where TCII fails to innovate in terms of story, it does so in gameplay. At long last, there is a visual aid to warn you when an enemy shot is about to hit you, in the form of a red ring called a "Crisis Sight", as the game puts it. It only lasts for half a second or so, but when it is on screen it stands out, and let's face it, it's better than nothing. Oh, and if you remember struggling to keep your time limit up in the old game, you're going to love this: instead of carrying over throughout the whole game, your time limit resets for each scene, and if it runs out, you merely lose one life instead of the whole game. Also, your gun's magazine holds nine bullets instead of the six from before. That's something else, I guess. I know this doesn't have much to do with difficulty, but TCII replaces its predecessor's time-based ranking with a more traditional scoring system. You get point bonuses by landing shots in quick succession, landing a series of shots without missing, and by landing shots on the hard-to-find gold-uniformed enemies who gave time bonuses in the last game. Shooting an ally character, by mistake or otherwise, docks you a few points instead of a whole life as in other rail shooters, which again helps make for a less stressful experience than usual.

The story mode is once again on the short side, clocking in at 15 to 20 minutes, and combined with the more forgiving mechanics, it makes the game feel like less of a challenge than before. The PlayStation 2 version fails to include any additional campaigns, as with some other games in the series. That's not to say TCII lacks any replay value, however. To get the full experience, you'll want to play on both the P1 and P2 sides, as they will occasionally branch off into different paths and converge later on, giving the different players chances to see scenes from different angles.

As for the home version, there are numerous unlocks to be had. For your first play-through, you'll have a limited number of continues, but this can be extended by either beating the game or using up all your continues, until you eventually unlock the Free Play option. By beating certain score and/or time targets, you can unlock alternate fire modes similar to the special weapons in later games. On top of that, there also shooting-gallery minigames to be unlocked, some of them based on Namco's old gun-game machines, and a series of "Crisis Mission" challenges which you'd be mad to attempt to earn all the medals on.

Both the first and second-player sides branch off to different paths at times. (PS2 version.)

Speaking of the home version, it is backwards-compatible with the PlayStation's GunCon, but also came bundled with a new light-gun model designed for the PS2: the GunCon 2. The GunCon 2 adds a few extra buttons, including one below the handle if you want to pantomime reloading the magazine, along with a D-pad up along the back. Even though TCII doesn't use these extra buttons for any specific features, the D-pad in particular is a very ergonomic option when used as a button to hide and reload with. As for re-creating the two-player experience of the arcades, your options are either split-screen or to link up two PS2 consoles by their iLink (a.k.a. Firewire) ports. Don't remember iLink? That's probably because it was abandoned by later models of the PS2, even before the redesigned version from 2004. Besides, this option would require you to own two TV monitors, two PS2s, two copies of the game, and two GunCons. If you're that intent on re-creating the arcade setup, you're probably better off buying an original arcade cabinet.

If I had to guess why, I'd say the lasting appeal of this game owes itself to the inclusion of a two-player option. The Time Crisis II arcade cabinet basically consists of two side-by-side machines which can either run independently or in co-operative multiplayer. Think about it from the arcade operator's point of view: you can get more income from a game that supports two people than with one, i.e. the first Time Crisis. As for the home port, it's nice that Namco went above and beyond the call, and added unlockable content to pad out the game's short running time. But TCII's lasting legacy is how it brought its series to a more accessible level of difficulty, and whether it makes the game more fun or too easy to be fun is a call best left for you, the player.

Positives:
+ New mechanics and rules make the game more accessible.
+ The two-player co-op mode.
+ The new GunCon 2, designed for the PlayStation 2 version.

Negatives:
- The new mechanics do take away most of the challenge from the first game.
- Still on the short side.
- Imperfect multiplayer options on the home version.

Control: 3 crisis sights out of 5
Design: 4 crisis sights out of 5
Graphics: 3 crisis sights out of 5
Sound: 3 crisis sights out of 5
Value: 3 crisis sights out of 5
The Call: 75% (B-)

Game Review: Time Crisis: Project Titan

Time Crisis: Project Titan
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Flying Tiger Development
Release: PlayStation, 20 June 2001
Genre: 3D Action (Rail Shooter)
Players: 1
Save: Memory Card, 1 Block

A lot had changed in the Time Crisis franchise between the release of the first game and the Summer of 2001, the general release date of our current subject. In the arcades, the sequel Time Crisis II made multiple long-lasting changes to the series formula, mostly for the better, and the spin-off Crisis Zone shook things up in its own direction as well. But neither of these games were given home ports in a timely fashion. Maybe Namco was just waiting for something better than the PlayStation to run them on, as both games were eventually ported to the PlayStation 2, another development in that aforementioned time frame. But before those games came to be, Namco and third-party developer Flying Tiger gave PSone owners one more run with the gun, with the console-only sequel Time Crisis: Project Titan.

Project Titan once again stars Richard Miller, the leather-jacket-clad one-man-army from the first game. This time around, he has been framed for the assassination of the president of Caruba, a fictional Caribbean island, and has 48 hours to clear his name. You won't be able to get a handle on the stakes outside of the opening cutscene, however. Without wishing to spoil, the game has a nasty habit of discarding plot points at the end of each of its four acts, as if this inanimate work of software had somehow come down with a case of ADD. With wishing to spoil, however, the real assassin (who looks nothing like Miller, by the way) pops up for the boss fight in act 2 and is abruptly killed in the following cutscene, at the end of act 3 we learn the president of not-Aruba was alive all along, and the fourth and final act deals with a titanium-enhanced army led by -- of course, -- Wild Dog, which is plonked upon us with virtually no foreshadowing.

The story fails to live up to its potential.

Oh, and the first act takes place on a yacht owned by Kantaris, the villainess arms dealer from the first game's second story, but it neither resolves anything from that past plot, nor does it advance the current plot in any way. It's just a total waste of a level which could have been better served showing Richard on the run from the not-Cuban authorities, for example. And no, getting to see Kantaris's low-polygon body in a bikini top does not help matters. While I'm digressing on the subject of graphics, Project Titan attempts a more detailed look than the first game, and it works for the most part. One of its nicer touches is that enemies in each of the four acts sport their own sets of costumes, each still retaining the series' trademark colour-coding by rank.

So if the story's a giant waste of time, does the gameplay manage any of the heavy lifting? Project Titan revives the rules set by the first game, meaning that you have to keep your time limit up lest you suffer death by the clock, and you have to guess when enemies will land direct hits with virtually no indication, lest you suffer death by loss of hitpoints. There is a new mechanic added from the original game, where if you can land a combo of 30 hits on enemies without missing, you'll earn an extra life. It's hard enough to get so that it doesn't break the game by offering you too many lives, but considering that none of the other Time Crisis games offer any methods of restoring player-character life, it's better than nothing. Another change occurs in the boss fights, where you can switch to different cover positions while hiding. Mostly, this is used to follow the boss as he, or it, moves from place to place. Given its limited implementation, this isn't much more than a quick gimmick, although variations on this system were eventually incorporated into later games, namely Time Crisis 4 (Arcade/PlayStation 3, 2005) and 5 (Arcade, 2015).

In boss fights, you have to follow your targets
by switching cover positions.

Project Titan once again supports the GunCon light-gun controller, and once again offers the same degree of button customisation. Regular controllers are also supported, and oddly enough, it is here that Project Titan offers its greatest improvements. First of all, it supports the analog sticks on DualShock and other controllers. But more importantly, there is a new lock-on mechanic where if you move your cursor close to an enemy, it will automatically snap to him. It can even follow arms, legs, heads, and other body parts as the targeted character moves around. This system isn't so overpowered that it makes the game feel like it's on autopilot, but it gives anyone the speed to come within shouting distance of the default record times. Yet it was never implemented into any of the other Time Crisis home ports, and that's a real shame.

The story campaign in Project Titan lasts longer than in the original, adding an extra fourth act on top of the usual three (ironically, you have fewer continues to finish the game with than before), but unlike the home version of Time Crisis, there's no additional campaign to pad out the first-play length. With that in mind, the game ends up as a niche title for only a certain kind of Time Crisis fan, namely the kind who seeks out more of the challenge of the original. Anyone weaned on the newer, friendlier entries will get turned off by its tougher conventions, not to mention the relative lack of value. If you are interested in the unforgiving early years of this franchise, I'd recommend you start out with the original Time Crisis home port first. But when you're ready to move on, you wouldn't do too wrongly to make your attack on Titan.  (Lame joke is lame.)

Positives:
+ Retains the challenge of the original.
+ Lock-on system makes the game more playable for controller users.
+ A more detailed graphical style.

Negatives:
- Lousy story, with many dropped plot points.
- Awkward voice acting to match.
- Failed to implement modern conveniences from Time Crisis II.
- Multi-cover system works, but is limited to boss fights.

Control: 4 lock-ons out of 5
Design: 3 lock-ons out of 5
Writing: 2 lock-ons out of 5
Graphics: 5 lock-ons out of 5
Sound: 2 lock-ons out of 5
Value: 2 lock-ons out of 5
The Call: 60% (C-)

Anime Review: Totally Spies!

Totally Spies!

• Studio: Marathon 
• Network: TF1 (FRA), Teletoon (CAN), Cartoon Network (USA) 
• Air Dates: 3 November 2001 - 2014* 
• Episodes: 156* 
• Creators: Vincent Chalvon-Demersay, David Michel 

*As of this writing, the 6th season has not yet aired in the United States and may or may not have aired in Canada. Concrete information on this show, including its recent airdates, is sparse.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've teased this review a number of times when I started this blog, but I've never been able to work up the material to finish it. But with the Strawberry Dragon Project's 5-year anniversary looming this month, I figure it would be a suitably symbolic time to get it out of the way. So let's do this: it's time to review Totally Spies!.

Back in the early 2000s, Western culture went through some sort of spy-fiction boom in movies, TV, and video games. I'm not completely sure why; maybe it had something to do with the James Bond franchise returning from hiatus in 1995, and it took a little more time to set in. These stories sought to copy the "exciting" surface elements of latter-day Bond, but threw the important stuff like characterisation to the wayside. This movement gave us options for both grown-up (xXx with Vin Diesel) and younger (Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz) audiences, and few if any were rembered fondly in the long run. Heck, even the Bond franchise itself ended up feeling like one of those wannabes at some point. If you wanted anything with any depth of characters or plot, you'd have to turn to sleeper hits like the Bourne trilogy (i.e. The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon). Thankfully, it was those very sleeper hits which shaped the direction of Bond itself when it came back from yet another hiatus, in 2006's Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. But for the most part, we had to console ourselves with junk like Totally Spies!.

The titular spies are three high-school girls from Beverly Hills. Their numbers are Sam (EN: Jennifer Hale, FR: Claire Guyot), Clover (EN: Andrea Baker, FR: Fily Keita), and Alex (EN: Katie Leigh / Katie Griffin, FR: Céline Mauge). Sam is the smart straight-man and unofficial leader of the team, Clover is the most boy- and fashion-crazy out of the three, and Alex is the sporty tomboy who occasionally bridges the gaps during Sam and Clover's arguments. The girls' personalities do overlap from time to time, as is common among friends (I assume), but for the most part they never evolve past their archetypes, if not stereotypes. And annoying archetypes, if not stereotypes, at that. Maybe it's just my educated masculine upbringing talking, but the way these girls blow their civilian-life issues so out of proportion makes it harder for me to sympathise with them. Clover especially is the worst in this regard -- I'm pretty sure she even complains about breaking a fingernail at some point. That's the level of intelligence we're dealing with here, peoples.

The many Clover-vs-Mandy arguments are showdowns of annoying versus annoying.

As is common for this type of "Get up, go to school, save the world" show (see also: the Mystical Ninja anime I reviewed way back when I started this blog), the episodes are framed by B-plots centred around dilemmas in the girls' public lives. Most of them feature Mandy (EN: Jennifer Hale, FR: Céline Mauge), a girl much like Clover, except snobby and antagonistic. Also she looks like Rebecca Black, but without the kind personality that made her crimes against music forgivable. (Man, I really must have mellowed out on "Friday" since then...). If nothing else, she serves to make Clover and company look good by comparison. There are also the numerous anonymous hunks whom our girls attempt various degrees of shacking-up with, but a scant few show up in more than one episode. The most recurring boyfriend prospect is the long/tan/handsome David, but he never gets the chance to have any real character development, and is essentially discarded after the first few seasons. He's basically this show's answer to Sylvia Trench. (Remember her? James Bond's on-again-off-again girlfriend from the first two movies?)

But the "Save the world" part of this "Get up, go to school, save the world" setup is the meat and potatoes of this show. The girls' civilian troubles must, inevitably take a backseat to actual international crises, delivered by their handler Jerry (EN: Jess Harnell / Adrian Truss, FR: Jean-Claude Dunda) and his organisation. Said organisation is saddled with the name of World Organization Of Human Protection, commonly pronounced as WOOHP. *sigh* ...Yeah, apparently this show's writers have a propensity for painful acronyms. If you're hoping for anything of the calibre of "Every Villain Is Lemons (EVIL)" from that one SpongeBob episode, don't. It's even more painfully unfunny then how, EVERY -- SINGLE -- EPISODE, they get summonned into WOOHP headquarters by way of getting sucked into a trap door or some such hidden hole. If you didn't have the right context on hand, you could imagine that WOOHP is in fact a police state that somehow took over the Los Angeles metropolitan area. (By the way, do you think Jerry might be a fan of Excel Saga? This show would be more interesting if our girls took orders from Il Palazzo, I tell you what.)

Furthering the episode-to-episode routine, Jerry follows up just about every mission briefing with a pre-selected array of gadgets; purpose-built devices incorporated into objects which would would look normal on a normal person of their type. And yes, this also gives them opportunities for more painful acronyms, most egregiously with the dive-helmet called the "UPWATI". I warned you there'd be more. First of all, what's the matter, never heard of on-site procurement? Like they made such a big deal out of in Metal Gear Solid? I swear, these gals wouldn't last a minute on Shadow Moses Island. Seriously, I do have some constructive criticism to this setup. My biggest problem is that it's all so contrived. Jerry always picks out the gadgets for them, without any input from the spies themselves, and they all serve a coincidentally specific use in furthering their investigation or escaping from a deathtrap. And yeah, I know James Bond did the same thing too, but he never gave the impression of being helpless without them. Said impression cannot be made of the titular Totally Spies. If I had control over this show, I'd let the girls pick their own gadgets, making them think about the situations that would present themselves ahead. Or is that too dangerously close to character development for this show? Also, can we address the vivid green, red, and yellow catsuits the spies or their superiors thought would be a suitable uniform? I guess I know why they get captured so often, then.

They may come through in the end, but our girls are generally terrible spies,
in case those bright catsuits didn't tip you off already.

From then on, episodes generally follow a pattern of investigation, infiltration, discovering the villain-of-the-day, getting caught by the villain-of-the-day, escaping the deathtrap-of-the-day by way of gadgets, and finally catching the villain-of-the-day. I'm not saying they should tie every episode to one another in an ongoing arc. And I'm not saying that monster-of-the-day (or in this case, villain-of-the-day) shows can't be good, either. Neon Genesis Evangelion was at its best when it did the monster-of-the-day thing, as you may recall me saying. But Totally Spies! just doesn't have the right stuff to pull it off. Whereas some of these shows have some kind of evil organisation tying the monsters-of-the-day together and providing the promise of some kind of climax to look forward to, Totally Spies! doesn't have this, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because the later seasons introduce a team of recurring villains known as... LAMOS. Ladies and gentlemen, you have my permission to facepalm.

 Anyway, the villains at least get some sort of backstory, usually in the form of them having been shot down for a job/role/date/whatever, and them exacting excessive revenge via some form of doomsday device, and not practical ones either. Over the course of the series, the villains use (real?) stage magic, extraterrestrial aliens, and a satellite-mounted freeze ray with intent to freeze the entire Earth over, so yeah, this show plays hard and loose with the idea of reality. You'd think I shouldn't complain about realism, as I have a webcomic which incorporates magic into an otherwise realistic historical setting. But some things are beyond my limits of disbelief suspension, like how a gourmet food critic is entitled to complain when served a 200-ounce steak.

For the record, I'm still keeping the "Anime Review" tag in the title of this article despite this show not having been conceived in Japan, but rather the French and/or Canadian studio Marathon. Coincidentally, French also uses the word "animé" to refer to animated productions as does Japanese (minus the accent on the 'e'). It's furtherly funny I should mention this, because Totally Spies! does rely heavily on the Japanese anime aesthetic for its design and art style. It's "Animesque", if you will. It's a shame they did it so sloppily though, as not only does the animation lack the fluidity of motion and dynamic scene composition I've come to associate with Japanese anime at its best, but animation and continuity errors are fairly common if you look. I'm not normally the type to look out for this sort of thing, but the one scene where Clover and Mandy are arguing with their voices accidentally switched (no seriously, this is a thing that happens) is yet another of those goofs which are beyond even my tolerance. Besides, Marathon forgot the most important lesson they should've taken from Japanese anime, and that is... not to sexualise teenagers. I mean, the other most important lesson: to have actual character development.

Between the villains, heroes, and side characters, I'm only steps away from giving this show the "Eight Deadly Words": "I don't care what happens to these people". So why do I keep watching it? Because Totally Spies! is a prime example of a guilty pleasure. If nothing else, the spy girls themselves are pretty, and say what you want about them being materialistic fashionistas, at least the animators gave them more than a handful of outfits! Plus, there are occasional shake-ups to the formula, and it is those moments which make for the series' more memorable episodes. But most of the time, it sticks to its formula, to its detriment. There's nothing that shows the girls are evolving in their spycraft over the course of the show. Such may be the curse of the monster-of-the-week format, but that's no excuse for not trying. You could also brush off its shortcomings as the curse of childrens' entertainment, but that's not a good excuse either. I'd consider Kaleido Star to be kid-friendly, and it has some of the best characterisation I've ever seen in a TV show. And whilst on the business of comparing Totally Spies! to other cartoons, let me close by reminding you that when this show came out, it competed with the Disney Channel's girl-power spy-fi show, Kim Possible, which was considerably more genre-savvy, gender-inclusive, and didn't use [verb]ing acronyms for everything. I think that says all you need to know about Totally Spies!: apparently, some of the most telling critiques come not from the work itself, but from contrasting it with other works.

Positives
+ The few episodes which shake up the formula shine even brighter for it.

Negatives
- Little in the way of character development.
- Annoying main and side characters.
- The stories adhere strictly to a formula.
- The animation is barely up to par when it isn't goofing up.

Acting: 2 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Writing: 1 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Animation: 2 rainbow catsuits out of 5
Visual Design: 3 rainbow catsuits out of 5
The Call: 50% (D)

Game Review: Dance Dance Revolution (PSone)

Previously on the SDP, it's been four long years, but my "Dance Dance Retrospective" mini-series has finally come to its bittersweet end. I guess there's nothing left to do now... but to do it all over again! This time, however, I'm going to review the different DDR games as I would any other work on this blog.

Dance Dance Revolution

• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
• Release: PlayStation, 2001
• Genre: Music, 1-2 players
• Save: Memory Card, 1 Block
• Rarity/Cost: Moderate, US$5-15

Dance Dance Revolution is a game series that has been around for over fifteen years, and each new game to come along has brought along new content, whether in the form of new songs and/or new modes, to make each successive entry better than the last. Well, in quantifiable terms, anyway. But it had to start somewhere. For American gamers, those first impressions may have been forged in the arcades, or it may have been the first Dance Dance Revolution home game we got for the PlayStation, back in 2001. Does it still hold up today? Let's take it back to simpler times, before all the speed mods, Shock Arrows, and Justin Bieber licences, and find out!

Dance Dance Revolution, and indeed all of the series' home games, are fully playable with a regular controller, but to stay true to the arcade experience, are designed with a special floor-mat controller in mind. What's always bugged me about their official controllers is that there are no Square or Triangle buttons, however the American games all use Triangle to back out of menus. This was fine for the Japanese games, which instead used Circle to advance and X to back out, but apparently something got lost in translation. And it's not like there aren't PlayStation games sold abroad which use that setup; heck, even Konami's own Metal Gear Solid games do so! Fortunately, the Select button is also used to back out, but it feels weird using that button, tucked away in that upper-left corner. I am, however, thankful for a particular option unintuitively called "Dance Mode", which toggles the ability to use the four face buttons as well as the D-Pad to hit arrows.

Even in Double Mode, the game is just as playable with a controller as it is with a dance pad.

This particular DDR game runs on the same "engine" as DDR 3rdMIX. For those who neglected to take notes when reading its entry for Dance Dance Retrospective, that means all three difficulty levels (the easy "Standard", medium "Difficult", and hard "Expert") are available at any time from the start, without hiding behind any button codes. Likewise, all the songs in the game are selectable at any point during a game, as opposed to the first version in Japan which added or removed certain songs depending on whether it was your first round, second round, or otherwise. It also includes extra modes such as the Nonstop courses, sets of 4 songs each played back-to-back, the Workout mode, which records Calories burned as you play, and the multiplayer-exclusive Unison mode.

DDR's songlist is composed entirely of 26 selections from the first three Japanese games. Just shy of half of those are licenced songs, although there's nothing the average American listener would recognise, unless he or she were familiar with the DDR franchise already. The artists featured herein are all various flavours of European dance-music acts who had essentially no presence in the States until this game. If you're lucky, you'll here a familiar sample or cover version here or there -- the immortal riff from Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" is one such sample -- but that's it. And I'm not saying these are bad songs, either, but they have their own share of '90s Europop cheese. By my money, the standout tracks are the original songs made by Konami's own artists, which explore different musical genres, and generally provide a higher range of challenge in their charts.

Your choice of character doesn't matter in gameplay terms.

Upon starting a game, you have a choice of characters who will dance in the background during your game. There are quite a few of them -- 16 in all -- however, you can only select the male or female characters (8 of each) depending on whether your controller is plugged into port 1 or 2 of your PlayStation console. And even then, they don't alter the gameplay itself in any manner. Do they let you trigger different abilities to make your experience easier or more challenging? No, they're just another layer of background animation to distract you from the arrows you're supposed to be focusing on.

DDR has all the basic elements that make a Dance Dance Revolution game good, but not much on top of them. There's a certain simple charm in booting up a game and having all its content available to you at the start without even needing a Memory Card to save to, but that statement is a tad misleading because there is no content to unlock. The replay value in this game is limited to setting high scores for all the charts on all the songs, doing the same for all the nonstop courses, and perhaps starting a regular exercise program in Workout mode. While it may be a bad Dance Dance Revolution game, if only in terms of content, this introductory entry is not a bad video game.

And finally, in honour of Rerez, a YouTube gaming channel I discovered recently, I shall close out this review, and all other reviews going forward, with a list of the positive and negative qualities which stood out to me whilst playing, watching, reading, or listening to the work in question. (It's also a handy way of planning out my reviews before I start writing them.) As always, this shall be promptly followed up by the category grades and the final call. The more things change, the more they stay the same. So:

Positives:
+ One of the first great examples of "exergaming" in a long time.
+ No need to unlock anything.
+ The inclusion of Beginner, Unison, Nonstop, and Workout modes.
+ Some of the step-charts have become unforgettably fun.

Negatives:
- A relatively small music selection, with nothing to unlock.
- Not many of the songs will be familiar to non-fans.
- Some of the music is cheesy -- "Let Them Move" especially.

Control: 5 Perfect!s out of 5
Design: 3 Perfects!s out of 5
Graphics: 3 Perfects!s out of 5
Sound: 4 Perfect!s out of 5
Value: 3 Perfect!s out of 5
The Call: 70% (C+)