Bioshock Infinite Review

Don't understand why gamers whined about the Mass Effect 3 ending, but praise the Bioshock Infinite ending... Seriously, that was "the twist"? I'll call it the Star Wars moment, so those not finished it won't know exactly what I'm talking about, but those who have will.

Maybe I'm hyper intelligent (which I actually refuse to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary) but I figured it out almost immediately from the start of the game.

The rest of the story was simply nonsense. None of the major enemies had the least bit of redemptive features. Most of them didn't even behave in accordance to the games story - logic. Bioshock had you actually feel for some of the characters, even if they were turds. This one I had no remorse in killing anyone, and no interest in learning more about them or their role in Columbia.

Sure, the relationship between you and Elizabeth is well developed, but it had to be. It doesn't excuse the rest of the crap.

As to the rest of the game...

The design is flawed, on many levels. For example, they give you a power and a door to unlock with the power and then YOU NEVER USE THIS MECHANIC AGAIN. Now, I'm no designer, but that's an incredibly basic design mistake. Another power is so brutally overpowered you rarely need any others.

There's NOTHING new in the level design. There's no actual puzzle solving. There's no thinking involved, for example, like in Portal. You just run through the levels and shoot.

You walk through corridors, then the area opens up and enemies come from off screen. They shoot at you, you shoot them back. If your shield disappears, you run away and then run back and shoot them back. On numerous levels I was walking around trying to find the last guy to kill so I could proceed. Fucking Star Wars Force Unleashed had that, and people sooked about it then, but just because Ken Levine and co do it, it's somehow acceptable? I don't think so!

I mean, fuck, the game has got a crouch function THAT DOES NOTHING! Use the button for something else... oh, that's right, there isn't anything in the game apart from shooting so there's actually no need for any other function. You can't interact with anyone, you can't interact with anything apart from what the game deems you to be able to act with, so there's no reason for it do anything, except crouch.

Yeah, ok, it looks pretty, but so does my cock, but there's no line of gamer nerd writers lining to suck my cock like they are Ken Levine's, so fuck you.

And to think, I could have purchased Sims 3 University Life and Sims 3 Pets have virtual keggers and with naked skin mods, directed my own XXX version of Animal House...

Bioshock Infinite gets 3.5 "fuck you gamer nerds" out of 5 "fuck you gamer nerds"

Four Word Reviews on Twitter

Considering the amount I watch and listen to, I thought you all might like to see more of my stuff but in smaller amounts, so I've created Four Minute Reviews on Twitter.

The rules are simple - Four words on games, films, music, television... maybe even other things.

The order will be Type: Name: Review, so for example:

Film: Black Swan: Great film enjoyed thoroughly

Simply follow me on Twitter, or search for the #fourwordreviews

In Sydney? Look for me in Time Out!

If anyone reading this is in Sydney, be sure to pick up Time Out magazine as I'm now writing game reviews for them.

My first review will be of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

CD reviews coming!

I've been doing a fair bit of CD reviewing for inthemix lately, so thought I may as well start updating my website with them.

I'll start with some of the newer ones, and hopefully will work backwards and get them all up by June.

If you visit FunkyJ.com and click on Music Reviews you can read all the 2008 reviews.

Thoughts on "Up & Out"

Last night I went to see "Up & Out" by Christian Marclay at ACMI after winning free tickets from PBS.fm

Christian Marclay interests me because he's a turntablist in the artistic sense - using records and the experience of listening to and playing with vinyl to recontextualise sound, beyond what a normal DJ - even DJs like DJ Kentaro.

He also plays around with sound and vision in mashup style.

His film "Up & Out" is a mashup of the vision from Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni and the sound from Blow Out by Brian de Palma.

It was interesting, but I thought it could be done better... it was simply the sound of "Up" over the vision of "Out" and whilst there was some good congruency at times, it got old pretty quickly.

The start was the best, with the score of "Out" creating a sense of apprehension with the tape loop clicking over the strings of the opening track, whilst the vision shows a bunch of face painted freaks cavort over the screen. Gives the already odd on screen action a really spooky, malevolent edge.

I only watched it for about half and hour though - the film nerd in me enjoyed it, but the rest of me thought two things - a) I could do this and b) I could be doing something better.

I understand the thought behind it, especially as both films deal with voyeurism and things not being as they seem and politicising technology, but personally thought it was a bit weak.

I would have liked to see a little more thought put into it - splicing the sound of one into the other at opportune times, a proper mashup with a bit more thought to it.

The best mashups, musically at any rate, are the ones that not only mash incongruent pieces of music but make them enjoyable as stand alone pieces. The Grey Album works because not only is it mashing two incongruent artists like the Beatles with Jay-Z, but each individual song can be played and enjoyed on it's own. You don't need to know anything about Jay-Z's '99 Problems' or the Beatles 'Helter Skelter' to enjoy 99 Problems on the Grey Album.

"Up & Out" needs knowledge of both original films, and maybe even knowledge of both Antonioni and de Palma, to work. In this sense I feel it suffers. To make it work as a film it needed dialog from Blow Up to come in at opportune times.

Future Music Festival

I must admit I was a bit dubious when I first heard about the Future Music Festival. Dance music festivals organised by out-of-towners tend not to do as well as our home grown shows like Enchanted and Stardust. People not from Adelaide tend not to recognise Adelaide’s fickle musical nature.

There were quite a few attractive women

Sure, the line up was huge, but other events, Two Tribes for example, had impressive line ups and yet never attracted too many people in Adelaide. Add the fact that it was on the same weekend as the Fringe Opening and Womad, and one could be excused for thinking that it might not do as well as it would in other states.

However, I am more than happy to report that Future Music Festival was an absolute success. The set up at the Garden of Unearthly delights was excellent, one of the best set ups I’ve experienced in Adelaide. I’ve heard varying reports about the numbers, from between 4 and 6,000 people, but the place was busy and bumping from the moment I got there. There was even a line up to get media passes!

MC Conrad

First up was dnb maestro LTJ Bukem, and there is nothing better than listening to MC Conrad’s dulcet tones wax poetically over Bukem’s cruisy dnb on a nice, sunny day. Although Bukem’s label Good Looking Records hasn’t released an album in years, Bukem plays new stuff unlike any other dnb DJ on the scene today. The crowd were really enjoying it, with most dancing on the slight incline of the park, and a few kicking back under the shade.

MPK & Patch

Being a breaks lover, I spent the rest of my time in the So Co Cargo area. Patch and MPK played a wicked set of harder dancefloor dnb to an eager home crowd, playing Pendulum and other crowd favourites; although I thought it was unfortunate that the only 2 dnb acts on for the day clashed.

Ali B

Ali B stepped up, and started playing some bass heavy breaks. He had some sound problems, apparently his monitor wasn’t working too well, but that had little effect on his mixing. I didn’t know many of the tunes, although I spotted some Stanton Warriors, Bassbin Twins and Drumattical Twins in there. Towards the end of his set he got a little funky, playing Slyde amongst others, and this seemed to fill the room a little more.

JDS

JDS stepped up next, and I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not a fan of his signature tune ‘Purple Funky Monkey’, but his set consisted of much harder, more dancefloor breaks orientated tracks that just grooved along. If I knew only a few of Ali B’s tracks, I knew even less of JDS, but that doesn’t bother me and didn’t seem to bother the crowd either. I’d much rather hear new music and find out what it is after the fact.

Princess Superstar

During this time I wandered about, and caught a bit of Princess Superstar on another stage. I actually enjoyed what I heard her play, but I’m sure I heard one of the tunes she played at least 3 times on that stage during the entire day as I wandered past. Maybe I’m just getting old and it’s all starting to sound the same to me.

Rex The Dog

Much to my disappointment, Rex The Dog wasn’t a synthesizer playing German shepherd, but instead a rather first-class (but merely human) performer playing on synths and turntables. He played lots of really cool, techno-electro breakbeat driven stuff which the crowd really got behind. Chris Lake followed and there was barely breathing space in the small So Co Cargo area, but that made Chris’s bump and grind techno funk even more enjoyable.

Chris Lake

But if there was a crowd for Chris Lake, there was a horde for Carl Cox! One of the biggest names in dance music for the last 10 years, Cox always goes off in Adelaide and this was no different. Playing off a Mac notebook on what I assume was either Serato or Final Scratch, the big man of the music scene simply smashed it!

Carl Cox

I was simply too smashed to continue the night (I had been at Womad all weekend too) but the Future Music Festival was a huge success, and the promoters did an amazing job. The sound was clear and crisp wherever you were, and although there were many people, it never felt claustrophobic. I look forward to next years event!

More cuties

More photos at inthemix.com.au

Big Day Out 2007

Another year, another big day out, and another disappointing Boiler Room line up. Sure, all the acts that played this were top notch, but I don’t know, maybe the all-dance events like Good Vibrations, Field Day and Parklife keep scoring all the crowd pullers, but I wasn’t too impressed with the Boiler Room this year and spent a good deal of my time seeing bands.

Having said that though, the Herd were the first band I saw, and testament to the draw of hiphop, especially in Adelaide, they had the Boiler Room packed and pumping in the early afternoon. They have such energy and vitality on stage, and bringing John Schuman out for their cover of Redgum’s “I Was Only 19” was a very pleasant and welcome surprise.

The floor thinned out considerably for Digital Primate, which was a shame because he was really good. Playing his own tunes, with his rappers jumping up next to him and kicking some delicious rhymes, he was better suited for a later time slot. Also at this time I decided to get a drink. What a farce that was! Lining up for 30 minutes in the hot sun just to get tickets to go line up again for a drink? From a logistics perspective I can see why they did it – only a few places that deal with cash so no money goes missing from the bars, but from a punters point of view the idea is almost as stupid an idea as trying to prevent people wearing the Australian flag.

Spank Rock surprised me. I knew MC Spank Rock was a no show, but I expected the Spank Rock DJs DJ Devlin and DJ Darko to be far more hiphop orientated than they were. They only did a couple of their own tunes and played a lot of dance orientated stuff in mashup style, mixing up Mylo and AC/DC and the Rocky Theme, with Pacerock hyping the crowd rather than rapping to the music. They reminded me of the Nextmen or Z-Trip, and I really wonder how different they would have been if Spank Rock had made it.

I went for a wander after this, managing to catch My Chemical Romance, who, I grudgingly admit, were rocking the crowd far beyond my expectations. I’ve never really listened to them, and what I’ve heard on the radio I can’t say I like them, but I didn’t run away with my fingers in my ears screaming “You Suck!” at the top of my lungs like I have to other bands in the past.

Making my way back to the Boiler Room for Peaches, I was not disappointed by her on stage shenanigans. Sucking water out of fake boobs during Shake Your Dix, ripping off her tight black jumpsuit to reveal porn style electric pink underwear, she dominated the audience with her sexy style and on stage presence. And I love how many instruments they swap for every song – I much prefer to see people playing samplers on stage than relying on DAT backup tape.

Needing a rest, I wandered over to the Lilly Pad, and managed to catch King Kapisi, New Zealand’s king of hiphop. I don’t care what people say about Scribe, King Kapisi wipes the floor with him. Better rhymes, better attitude, just simply better.

After Kapisi came Afra & the Incredible Beatbox Band. And my word, they are aptly named! Beginning with the Shadow’s Apache, made famous by Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band, the proceeded to box out various beats from Michael Jackson to James Brown, and classic hiphop like ‘Let Me Clear My Throat’. The Japanese rapping was pretty cute too, and these guys are the best beatboxers I’ve seen to date. Although I’m seeing Rhazel next weekend, so my opinion is open to change.

After Afra, I went and checked out the Streets, who played far too much of their slow stuff, so I went to see Jet instead. I must admit in the past I’ve not liked Jet, thinking them to be too derivative, but seeing them live really made me appreciate their sound a little more.

Speaking of sound, Muse blasted some awesome rock, but not knowing too much of their stuff I sought out something I knew and could bop along to. Enter You Am I, another Australian band I have never given much credit to, but on the smaller Green Stage they seemed much more intimate and comfortable than last time I saw them.

Tool kicked off their set with probably the only Tool song I could identify as them, but I stuck around for a while and enjoyed the heavy rock, until hunger got the better of me and I went to grab some food. Here I was subjected to the wailing of Her Latest Flame, which made me glad I don’t go out to see local bands anymore. I understand you’re an angry teenager, but do you have to scream about it? Listen to the other bands on the line up – Tool and Muse didn’t produce eardrum busting yelps!

After dinner, it was time for the Violent Femmes, and I was happy as a pig in mud dancing and singing along from the first note of ‘Please Don’t Go’ to the last I heard, ‘Add It Up’. I loved the fact they played ‘Country Death Song’, one of my all time favourite Femmes tunes, and Brian Ritchie was great on the Xylophone for ‘Gone Daddy Gone’.

Leaving the Femmes before the end of their set was a heart wrenching decision, but I had a job to do. I had to go see Crystal Method to see if they’d disappoint me for a fourth time. In the past they’ve been average or simply downright crap. The ease I got into the Boiler Room confirmed my suspicions that the Crystal Method aren’t as popular as past BDO closers, but I grudgingly admit they played an alright set. Recognising their own remixes of Prodigy, New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, along with their own ‘Born Too Slow’, and capping off with their squealchy and tough ‘Keep Hope Alive’, they exceeded my expectations, but my expectations were pretty low.

All in all it was another great Big Day Out, but there was nothing absolutely mind blowing this year, like two years ago when I heard Wolf Mother for the first time.

To see the bigger versions of these photos, go to www.ringo.com

All in all it was another great Big Day Out, but there was nothing absolutely mind blowing this year, like two years ago when I heard Wolf Mother for the first time.
To see the bigger versions of these photos, go to www.ringo.com