2011: music

Personally, it's been another extremely quiet year on the music front, especially when it came to seeing some bands live. So I'll focus on the album reviews. And you'll get not one, not two, but three top 5's!!! Exciting, no?

2011: videogames

I'll do my top 10 starting with 1, because I know no-one will read to the end anyway. So I better start with the best stuff, right?

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I played this game for about 135 hours. Which is about 15 times more than an average game these days. So yeah, you could say I like it. I don't really know what to say about it, just play it and experience it for yourself. And if you're really in a hurry, just focus on the main quest, the deadric quests and the Dark Brotherhood quests. And visit all the main holds. And take a walk from Riften to Aivarstead, and from Helgen to Rorickstead. And... oh okay, I'll stop now.

2. Portal 2

I have very little to add to my review. In short: it's great. Play it if you haven't already.

3. Mortal Kombat

MORTAAAL KOMBAAAT!!! Doo-doo, doo-doo-doo... etc. I should've done a full review of this since there's plenty to talk about, but really, this is the easily the most complete fighting game ever. Even if the game just had the story mode, it would've still made my list. It's just so good. Online is quite nice as well. I even found a character I could dominate with (Sindel), I suddenly had 13 ranked wins in a row with her. Yes, I'm that awesome. Well, against beginner/intermediate players. Because of my ranking I suddenly started fighting the pros. I lost. A lot.

Anyway, if you loved Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, you really should buy this if you haven't already. I'd recommend this game even if you've never played a fighting game.

4) Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Another game I should've done a proper review of. I picked this up as a sort of in-between game (a few weeks before Skyrim came out), and I felt like playing a stealth/scifi game. I'm very glad I picked it up. It's far from a flawless experience; I had my fair share of frustration with the stealth gameplay, the boss fights are just very out of place, and it has some clumsy gameplay elements, but it's just...special, you know? I particularly loved the music and atmosphere in this game.

You can get the game pretty cheap nowadays, so I'd urge you to pick this up and experience it for yourself. It's not for everyone, but it's a damned good game.

5) Super Mario 3D Land

Together with Deus Ex, pretty much the surprise of the year. I wanted a white 3DS, so I had to pick up a bundle with this game. I disliked New Super Mario Bros, so I really had zero expectations for this one. In fact, I was even thinking of selling it unopened. But I decided to give it a try, and...wooaAAoow. It's possibly the best Mario game since...well I'm not really a fan of platformer games in general so I couldn't say. But, I'm really enjoying it. Yes, it's very easy (I entered world 8 with around 90 lives), but it's brilliant. The 3D is also great. Yes, it's still a gimmick, but it 'works' in this game.

6) Tropico 4

Okay, so it's more like Super Tropico 3 Turbo, with many re-used voice samples and graphics, but the new mini-objectives are a good addition, and why change things when they were great in the first place? There are some minor "downgrades" though: the new radio girl kind of sucks, and the humour is a bit hit-and-miss (mostly hit though).
I've only played the game for about 10 hours, and in that time I've only done 3 story missions and a (long) sandbox game. I'll definitely spend another 30 or 40 hours on this game - when I have the time...

7) Top Spin 4

A tennis game that doesn't play like a more colourful version of Pong (see: Virtua Tennis series)? GIMME. I loved Top Spin 3 but this is definitely the best tennis game of this hardware generation. Yes, it gets repetitive after a while, but so does every sports game. Or any videogame really. Plus, in career mode, Federer is pretty much always number 1 or 2, even in 2014 haha. Biased!

8) Dead Space 2

I didn't enjoy this as much than the first one, but it still has many memorable moments, and my impression is that it's also a longer game (which isn't necessary a good thing, but still). It tries to be bigger and better than the first game, but in doing that it also lost some of the charm, you know what you mean? It's like Alien vs. Aliens. Both are great, but the first one was more creepy and atmospheric, second one was more about the action and shooting and dudebro stuff. Also, as I said earlier this year, I like quiet protagonists. So again, first game > second game.

9) Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Curse Capcom for releasing an upgrade 8 months after this game. I still haven't bought Ultimate by the way. MvC3 isn't as bad as people tell you it is (I didn't have that many online problems), but Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is still my favourite vs. game. My Hulk/Wolverine/Dr. Doom team is pretty awesome. I actually have quite a few teams I'm pretty good with, but I always have Hulk in my team. HULK SMASH etc.

10) Child of Eden

I didn't enjoy it as much as Rez, and it really should've been a downloadable game rather than a retail one, but it's still pretty good. Very uplifting and colourful. I found it to be harder than Rez (I still can't combo to the beat effectively, which makes the achievements really difficult). I plan to go back in and try to master at least part of the game in the near future.

I still have a lot of 2011 games to play, so this is just a temporary list. Still need to go through Zelda: Skyward Sword (although, after 10 hours, I'm definitely not feeling the game), Bastion, From Dust, and a whole lot of pc games I bought on Steam. And then there's the games on everyone's list that I haven't played yet: Dark Souls, Batman: Arkham City, Saints Row the Third, Uncharted 3, Xenoblade... I have a lot of catching up to do. There are also some games you might expect on the list that just didn't make it. Like Gears of Wars 3: enjoyed it, but I thought it was inferior to GoW2, and ultimately not as good as the 10 games I mentioned above.

I'll try to do some more videogame reviews in 2012, but I'm not going to promise anything.

Tennis 2011 review & 2012 preview

What can I say about 2011 that hasn't already been said?

Nothing.

Except maybe that Nadal didn't have a bad year at all. Djokovic dominated him, sure. But he still won 4 tournaments and reached 10 finals (3 GS finals - won one). How anyone can call this a bad year... the mind boggles. Maybe he should've won more, yes, but it's obvious Djokovic was just too good, even for Nadal.

At the end of the year, it's also fun to look back on the year, and see the flow of the year. Most of the year it was all Djokovic of course, but at the end, Murray won 3 tournaments in a row in Asia, and then Federer won 3 tournaments in a row (and I'm sure Federer fans will forever remember his 6-3, 6-0 victory over Nadal at the World Tour Finals). So while Djokovic was the dominant force for most of the year, he didn't do much after the US Open, which is why I can't rank his season over Federer's 2006 and 2007 seasons.

As for live tennis, the only thing I saw was one day at the BNP Paribas Open (aka Bercy). It was a bit last minute, so I only got tickets for Friday. The line-up was nice though, especially the Djokovic-Tsonga match.........which then got canceled because Djokovic pulled out. Boo. I was really looking forward to that. Still, I got to see Federer (even though it was probably his worst match in the tournament, or even in the three tournaments he won), Ferrer-Isner (I quite like Isner now, Ferrer was pretty much how I e

xpected, still like him though), and Murray-Berdych. That was maybe the "best" match, not in terms of tennis, but excitement. You had the feeling that either of them could win. They're far from my favourite players really, but it was still...watchable. I now respect Berdych a lot more thanks to this match, he's really not as dumb as people think. And he does deserve a place in the top 10. At number 9 or 10, maybe, but still!

Also, I took some pictures! 653 to be exact...trimmed them down to 160 and put them online, right here. Yes, they're pretty awful, I didn't even tag them properly and stuff. Oh well.

As for next year, I might go to Roland Garros for the first weekend, or fri-sat-sun at Bercy again. Although the World Tour Finals are right after Bercy, which means the top players will probably pull out of Bercy, or lose early so they have a few days off before the WTF. So a weekend of Roland Garros makes more sense I guess.

And now my craaaaazy 2012 predictions:

- at least 2 slams and an olympic medal for Nadal. Nadal ALWAYS bounces back. Even though, like I said, 2011 wasn't that bad at all for him.

- Djokovic is going to drop down to number 2 after Wimbledon. Nadal back to 1.

- Federer might win a slam, but he'll also not make the second week of one (my guess is Roland Garros). He'll not reach number 1 again.

- Someone outside the big 4 will win the WTF.

-Del Potro in the top 5 at the end of the year, will be in the US Open final.

-Tsonga is going to defeat another top 4 player in 5 sets.

-The young dogs (Nishikori, Dolgopolov, Tomic etc.) will upset a few players, but won't make an impact on the top 10.

- Kvitova will be n°1 for most of the year, and will also defend her Wimbledon title.

-Wozniacki won't have a good year. I see her dropping to n°3 or even lower.

I'll stop now, that's enough nonsense already!

I went to the cinema and stuff

some cinema film reviews:

Cars 2

Typical soulless Disney drivel. Okay, I laughed at all the country/racial stereotyping - oh those crazy Japanese with their crazy toilets! Oh those Italians who are all mobsters but worship their "mama"! And so on. Well that got pretty old towards the end of the film. I also wonder how many people will actually get the plot. My 4-year old cousin considered the Italian F1 car as the "bad guy". Also, is it just me, or where some scenes just real-life pictures, just overpainted in some way to look like a cartoon? If not, some backgrounds actually looked real, if it's all computer-generated it's quite impressive.

But compared to the first one, it definitely lacks "soul". I actually liked the first one (an animated Disney film I like, I know, shocking), it was simple and charming. This one is flashy, fast, and other things that don't even matter if we're talking about quality.

Well anyway, at least my cousin was entertained, and I didn't fall asleep.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I didn't really follow the hype and only saw one short trailer, and as usual it was for the best. The tv ad falsely advertises it as an action film though, and it's really not. Well, not for the first 80 minutes or so.

It's a good summer blockbuster, and it has a really nice - if predictable - build up. Caesar/Andy Serkis was awesome, just as the relationships between the apes, but the humans were rather boring. Although I always like seeing John Lithgow. And whats-his-name, Draco Malfoy, got to say the "get your stinking paws off me" line, awesome. It made me laugh out loud in the cinema. I was the only one with that reaction. Awkward.

Anyway, really liked it, and there's obviously a sequel incoming.

Captain America

Yet another Marvel film. And guess what? It's great. Of all the recent Marvel films I think I slightly prefer Thor, but this and X-Men First Class are easily 8/10 films, really fun to watch.

I can't say I really enjoyed Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, his accent was too Hollywood-german, should've just kept his native accent, with the backstory being that he can fluently speak 12 languages or something. I thought the Erskine guy had a more convincing accent. Oh, and as cheesy as it sounded, I do approve of that "people forget that the first country the nazis invaded was their own" statement.

Small spoiler next I suppose: I thought it was pretty obvious that...some dude isn't really dead, but was transported into another universe...it certainly looked like one of those transporter thingies from Thor, and a similar constellation. But maybe I've seen too many Marvel films recently heh.

Oh, a little Tem Trivia: in the scene at Times Square at the end, you can see some Roland Garros footage on one of the screens!! True story.

Anyway, I look forward to The Avengers film. 3 great Marvel films in a row, I wonder if they can make an even better one.

Cowboys & Aliens

Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde in one film! MUST SEE!!!

...It's a shame the film doesn't live up to the 'star' cast though. It's entertaining enough, but looking back at it, I could've waited until it came on tv. Also, as with most films nowadays, I tend to avoid trailers and such, and I thought the film would be action-comedy like (why so serious?). I mean, Cowboys, and aliens, what a silly combination! I really feel like this was a missed opportunity to make something like Men in Black, or Ghostbusters, there really aren't enough scifi-action-comedies out there.

So I guess part of why I didn't think it was awesome is because it wasn't what I wanted. Ignoring that, there are other smaller things that didn't agree with me. The aliens themselves look far too cartoony, or even like LOTR troll rejects, only with stupid pointless extra arms. I found it really hard to take them seriously, instead of scary evil aliens they looked more like something you find as a toy in a Happy Meal. It contrasts with the seriousness (and occasional brutal violence) of the film.

And while Daniel Craig is pretty good in this, both Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde were rather replaceable. Harrison Ford's character only has about one good scene at the end, if not for that the whole character could've just been left out. I thought the backstroy of Olivia Wilde's character was pretty predictable - plus it's also the most plothole-y part of the film if you start thinking about it. But you shouldn't, I guess, it's just a summer film right?

Overall, the flow of the film is a bit weird at times, it's definitely half an hour too long for what it really is. I still enjoyed it, but I'm not going to recommend it, especially not if they still play Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Captain America in your cinema.

Okay, that's it for the cinema reviews, I'll do some non-cinema film review next!