Phil Villarreal's Blog, page 70
October 24, 2019
PHIL ON FILM: "Countdown"
For my full review, click here.
"The Bradwell Conspiracy" Review
Welcome to an escape room in video game form.
There's something sublimely satisfying about taking on a tight, well-crafted puzzle game. Developer Bossa Studios crafts just that with "The Bradwell Conspiracy," a brainy psychological thriller that has you scrambling to stretch your lateral thinking capabilities to the brink.
After an explosion disrupts a fundraiser for teh Stonehenge Museum, you find yourself trapped in and underground labyrinth, relying on your wits and deductive reasoning to help you make your way back to safety.
Fans of "Portal" will be at home here. The visually-inspired challenges that Bossa tosses at you make you twist your perspective and reassess the usual standards of logic in order to solve the issues at hand and advance. The mark of a worthwhile puzzle game is its ability to remain fair while also presenting a stiff challenge, and "The Bradwell Conspiracy" is up to the task.
Nothing comes easy in the game, and everything you need to find the answer is always in front of you. Relying on walkthroughs feels like a cop out, robbing you of the triumphant feeling of stumbling onto the solution on your own. When you find yourself stuck, looking up the answer inevitably leads to the resentment of not allowing yourself to persist with the trial and error that would have gotten you to success eventually.
Although the story is thin and content is relatively small -- with limited replayability in the mix -- "The Bradwell Conspiracy" is the ideal airport terminal or commuter game for Switch owners. Sudoku and crossword puzzles can't hang with the serpentine challenges that lie beneath.
Publisher provided review code.
October 23, 2019
Musical Theater Review: "Hello, Dolly!"
Few shows can touch the golden age majesty and spectacle of "Hello, Dolly!" Overwhelming the stage with brilliant dancers executing grand-scale numbers while accompanied by the thunderous accompaniment of a live orchestra, the production hammers the audience with one show-stopping stunner after another.
The challenge is to manufacture ways to keep an antiquated production relevant while staying true to the fabric of what lifted it to its legendary status in the first place.
Billed on promotional materials as "Broadway's Greatest Musical," the show has a lot to live up to. The 1964 show has been a staple for ages, and continues to thrive in revivals.
The production, spearheaded by director Jerry Zaks' creative use of screens that whisk the setting from place to place with instantaneous ease, is spellbinding. The cutting-edge tech melds seamlessly with the classical accoutrements to craft a shimmering example of how to modernize classic musical theater without ruining it.
The acting -- broad and exaggerated to the extreme -- may not fare quite as well, but the performances thrive where it counts the most. The show thoroughly belongs to lead Carolee Carmello, a three-time Tony nominee who owns the title role with magnetic gusto.
Dolly is a dynamic woman of a certain age who romps through 1860s Yonkers with a breezy, overbearing obliviousness, manipulating the satellite characters to her whims. John Bolton is a lovably cranky foil as Horace Vandergelder, a "half-millionaire" who plays the hapless dupe to Dolly's grandiose designs.
As excellent as the two leads are, they are sidelined for the show's most remarkable sequence, in which a team of high-stepping waiters pulls of meticulously coordinated routines that deliver gasp after gasp. The transcendent choreography drew riotous cheers that could match anything coming from McKale Center a few blocks away.
While the creaky old show may show some cracks, "Hello, Dolly!" remains vibrant, relevant and energetic. It's not time to say goodbye to the old standby just yet.
"Hello, Dolly!" plays through Sunday at Centennial Hall. To buy tickets, click here.
October 21, 2019
"The Ninja Saviors - Return of the Warriors" Review
Back in the 90s, all you needed for a game concept were side-scrolling levels, mindless thugs and giant bosses to take out with flying fists or bullets.
Somewhere along the line -- after 3D, open-world traversal and FPS point of view -- developers lost the exuberance of the old-fashioned beat-em-up.
Now that retro stylings are becoming en vogue, the reinvention of the brawler is well underway. "The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors" is a top-shelf example of the genre's rebirth.
A pick-up-and-play blast that boasts enough challenge to have you repeating levels all night, the creation from Natsume Atari is a satisfyingly frustrating blast from the past.
A reinvention of the Super Nintendo classic, "Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriros" retains the kinetic gameplay while lifting graphics, sound and gameplay to modern standards.
Playing as one of five android ninjas, you slash, chop and slice your way through marauding enemies in an urban dystopia. Co-op play opens up a new dimension to the previously single-player experience, adding shades of "Final Fight," "Contra" and "Double Dragon."
While further additions such as a boss rush mode, retro graphics options and storyboards or other historical data might have rounded out the package nicely, there's no quibbling about the amount of content included. If you're seeking a new throwback obsession, look no further than this lovingly crafted gem.
Publisher provided review code.
October 20, 2019
"BurgerTime Party" Review
A reimagined version of an arcade classic, "BurgerTime Party" amps up the visuals but keeps the frantic puzzle-solving moving at a rate familiar to those who fed quarters to "BurgerTime" machines back in the day.
As you scramble to run completely over toppings, dropping them from one multilevel tier to the next, eventually piling them up as complete burgers for customers who apparently don't mind that they were stepped all over by tiny creatures.
As you build your burgers, you contend with Food Foes -- anthropomorphic munchkins with dead eyes and nightmare-fueled grins and grimaces. They chase you through diabolically crafted levels filled with ice-slicked ladders, tricky conveyor belts and flame-roasted floors.
More than 100 stages are included, and you'll have more fun taking them on if you've got between one and three friends around to engage in couch co-op.
While "BurgerTime Party" has the perfectionist feel of a trial-by-error mobile game that struggles to justify its $30 price, there's no denying that the original formula still works.
Oftentimes, developers ruin a good thing by getting too cute with their retro reimaginings, but the dev team at G-mode realizes that there's no sense in messing with a proven formula. "BurgerTime Party" serves up the goodness you remember fondly from the 80s.
Publisher provided review code.
Book Report: "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II"
Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II by Madhusree MukerjeeMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Mukerjee has excellent illuminating points to make, backed up by tremendous research, but he blows just about all of his payload early on.
He tells the salacious and devastating story of how Winston Churchill worked behind the scenes to keep the Indians subjugated under the grip of the British Empire as he publicly faced down the Nazi threat. The sinister, greed and race-driven motives add a disturbing shadow to Churchille's lionized image as a staunch defender of freedom and foil to tyranny.
The messy, obfuscated history of India and Pakistan bubbles to light in Mukerjee's writing, which highlights genocides, famines and exploitation that were overshadowed by the grand opera of World War II, and thus escaped the level of global public consciousness they otherwise would have earned.
As stirring as the beginning of the book is, it fails to extrapolate the seeds to a grander vision, instead dallying on piles of academic citations and monotonous listings of obscure, irrelevant statistics. The message begins to get lost in the weeds in a series of lectures meant to put students to sleep.
In the Audible version, narrator James Adams delivers the findings with appropriate distaste, barely hidden by a prim, proper British congeniality. His words bubble with a sense of embarrassment and resentment of the despicable imperial past of his nation.
"Churchill's Secret War" ends up being too much like a textbook to rise to the level of essential storytelling. Its most staggering points could have been summarized in a lengthy article in the Atlantic or New Yorker. But its lessons are stark and true, and deserve a better mindshare than that which books like these will be able to elevate them.
View all my reviews
October 19, 2019
"Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered" Switch Review
There have been multiple awful "Ghostbusters" game adaptations, but the best one yet created is back, with proton packs charged up in order to exorcise haunting failures of the past.
"Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered" brings the overlooked classic to current consoles. I played the Switch version, which benefits mightily from the ability to play either at home in docked mode or on the go with native visuals and framerate intact. The game thrives as a double-barreled blast from the past.
Back in 2009, the original "Ghostbusters" gang got back together for a video game that served as a sequel to the two films, revisiting several memorable events and scenes from the films. The film hit nostalgic notes in a satisfying way that neither the 1986-1991 animated series nor the 2016 reboot could never approach.
In one of his last notable projects before his 2014 death, Harold Ramis penned the game script with Dan Aykroyd. Both lent their voices and likenesses to the game as well, joining Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson.
The actors' quips and chemistry is nearly as strong as the game as it was in the movies, making for a fascinating follow-up that bursts with fan service. The game is far more entertaining in co-op mode, but still manages to captivate as a single-player experience.
Developer Saber Interactive wisely stuck to the PS3/Xbox 360 version of the game, ignoring the inferior Wii edition.
Gone is the lackluster online multiplayer mode, which added little to the initial package and likely wouldn't have enough community backing to provide regular games had Saber bothered to include it.
Looking and playing as good on the Switch as it did the consoles of yesteryear, "Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered" is a welcome blast from the past, and well worth crossing your streams for.
Publisher provided review code.
October 17, 2019
PHIL ON FILM: "Zombieland: Double Tap"
For my full review, click here.
October 16, 2019
"Overwatch" Switch Review
Having established itself as a prime force in e-sports and embedding itself into pop culture, the "Overwatch" phenomenon continues to spread, now allowing Switch owners to get in on the FPS, MOBA-style action.
Following a 2016 release on PC and consoles, the game comes to Switch in impressively full-featured form, with Battle.net integration players on other platforms have come to expect.
Whether docked to the TV or in handheld form, the game's visuals can hang with the PS4 and Xbox releases in most meaningful aspects. The ideal way to play the game on Switch seems to be to dock it and use a Pro controller, but there's also something to be said for the competitive advantage that the intimacy of handheld mode offers.
The fast-moving, often frenzied gameplay is somewhat hampered by sluggish performance. It's uncertain whether the culprit is on the server side or the responsibility of underpowered Switch hardware. While not the optimal form of the game, it's empowering to be able to get some "Overwatch" rounds in on the go, whenever WiFi or a speedy hotspot exists.
Just as "Overwatch" has evolved on other systems over time, with Blizzard always pushing boundaries, smoothing out glitches and giving players more incentives to return, it's reasonable to expect the Switch version to continue the upswing.
Whatever lies in the future, the Switch version of "Overwatch" is off to a promising start. Like a lithe, mobile character in the game that benefits from fast plug-and-play action and the ability to play just about wherever and whenever. The sacrifice is stability and reliability. But things can only improve from here.
Publisher provided review code.
Publisher provided review code.
