Battle of the Five Armies: The Hobbit Part 3 First View Impressions.

So on Monday I got to see the 5 Armies a few days early at a local theater during a marathon of all three movies. I still can't understand people being mad that there are 3 movies instead of 2. Its three more hours that we get to spend in Middle Earth for goodness sake, and its all good. Perfect? No, but its really good! Heck I really wanted more in the third movie, since seeing them all in a marathon made them all feel like one big movie, 5 Armies felt like the second part of Desolation. Which in the end made me realize that the burning of Lake Town and Smaug's death would have been better at the end of Desolation instead of the Dwarfs vs Smaug, because it feels like there was even more that could have been in 5 Armies that was too short or got cut out.

One part that disappointed me was when the White Council goes so save Gandalf. It was paced awkwardly, had too much of Elrond and a VERY well hidden stunt man dressed as Sarumon, flailing their weapons at a CG ghost men, and not enough of Galadriel being awesome. It just felt too short and probably could have been extended to better act as the opening action sequence, in exchange of Smaug's demise.

Now let's talk about Thorin. I love how he becomes obsessed with finding the Arkenstone to the point that he starts to think the others have betrayed him. But even watching all three films at once, his change into obsession seemed to happen too fast, but more importantly his redemption was too fast, and just seemed to happen as soon as the plot needed him to help save the day instead of it being motivated by something important.

Speaking of the battle itself. Well simply put there was way too much CG. Instead of enjoying the action, my subconscious brain was constantly in a battle of trying to decipher between the real and the CG. Also Legolas is crazy over powered, to the point I wondered how he didn't just kill all the orcs by himself. Remember when he killed that Olliphant all by himself in Return of the King. Nothing that crazy, but there were times Legolas was taking after God of War.

Dang I really sound like I didn't like this movie. But I did, I really did. I think it may just be that seeing it all in one go like that. I think they could have cut down on the action and added in more character moments to make the big dramatic scenes in this finale more poignant.

I want to go see it one more time in HFR, which my showing was not in even though it was in 3D, which sucks because the HFR is really what made the 3D in the last two movies work. Then I'll be able to give a more fully formed opinion.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Brief Thoughts

Well.....you can teach an old dog new tricks, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop shitting on the bed because he's way too old, and he needs to be put to sleep.

 AW really wants you to know how special and innovative it is because it added a double jump, something that's been in Video Games since forever (Hey at least they're not bragging about their Fish A.I.), and which might might just add some much needed variety and verticality to the campaign level design.

Sadly only a handful of levels actually give you the double jump and only one towards the end seems to be designed around it. And even more sadly that level is neigh unplayable because every enemy AI knows your location at all times, so they pin you down and keep you from moving anywhere.

 Everything else is just your standard COD corridor, and even when the game does let itself be good, it only lasts about 10 minutes before it tears the control away for a painfully tired QTE action sequence. At least when a Metal Gear game takes control away, you know it because you're in a cut scene instead of fake QTE "gameplay". Speaking of Metal Gear, the story in Advanced Warfare is actually ok, and maybe would have been awesome if the Kevin Spacey (The only interesting character,)  was onscreen more, or if they let any of their other characters be....characters. Unfortunately the story just ends up being a much less fun, engaging and thought provoking version of the story in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Oh and multiplayer? Well Silenced Assault Rifles are still overpowered, sub machine guns kill faster at close range than shotguns, and Killstreaks ruin the kill the fun at every possible opportunity. At least Snipers are kinda useless now, so no more no-scoping or awkwardly getting sniped in such a CQC focused game.

Also, unlike Titanfall, AW's new traversal mechanics feel like they were tacked on instead of organically built into the gameplay from the beginning. So basically it's the same as the old COD, but now people can move through levels even faster, so its even more hostile to newcomers, and people who don't play all day.

But hey at least its better than Ghosts!

Score

Breakdown

Bisectable Bosses  0 out of 10

Number of Titans, which is such a better form of the killstreaks that's actually organically entwined with the core design and doesn't just interpret the natural flow of gameplay 0 out of 12

In Comparison to Ghosts, 1,000 out of 10

Overall Score

7 Kittens our of 1 Badass Zelda Gameplay Trailer