Nick Prosch online

(Long) Weekend of the Dead

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 | Games, Reviews, Series | 4 Comments

This weekend was affected by an all time Zombie high. First, Rockstar released their brand new Red Dead Redemption add-on “Undead Nightmare” and FOX aired a new Zombie series called “The Walking Dead“. This alone made my weekend, but both the game and the series really kicked off big time. It is too early for a full featured review, but so far I enjoyed myself a lot riding one of the horses of the apocalypse making sure I don’t waste ammo by just giving headshots and after that relax by eating a greasy pizza and watching “The Walking Dead” pilot with Zombies that scared even a veteran like me.

“Undead Nightmare” is great value for money as you can get it for 10 bucks. It’s a very well done Zombie apocalypse set in the Wild West, which is pretty much awesome by itself, buit is supported by Rockstar quality storytelling and gameplay! It just feels great to jog into the sunset after clearing another town of the flesh eating infestation!

Talking about “The Walking Dead” I gave the pilot a shot because I saw some pretty breathtaking Zombie make up that looked very promising.

The last time I tried to watch a Zombie series it failed after a few episodes (Dead Set). The pilot of “The Walking Dead” did not disappoint at all, it was very well done, thrilling and quite repelling in a positive way – f*ck, these Zombies are really scary folks! Let’s hope the rest of the series can keep up with the high standard the pilot sets. Tonight I’m going to continue with the first real episode and some gyros – yummy!

“Undead Nightmare” and “The Walking Dead” – both highly recommendable for the Zombie affectionate

Tags: gaming, horror, red dead redemption, rockstar, survival, the walking dead, zombie

Review: Resident Evil Afterlife 3D (2010)

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments

In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice continues her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation that reaches new heights. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead finally takes her to Los Angeles, but when she arrives the city is overrun by thousands of Undead …

I love me my Resident Evil, games and films alike. So this one was a sure big screen title for me as well. What a pity my “friends” asked me to join the first screening – but only reserved tickets for themselves. Hypocrites. Fuck You. Thank god my wife also holds some good zombie action in high esteem, my trustworthy Resident Evil 4 “use the fricking rocket launcher” wingman. Salazar sure didn’t expect that! One shot and he was a gonner! Back to the review then …

This film did pretty much everything just right:

• great actresses/actors: Milla Jovovich as Alice, Ali Larter (hot hot hot!! – as seen in Heroes) as Claire Redfield and sitting in a prison cell … wait for it … here it comes … almost there … Prison Break‘s main character Wentworth Miller as Chris Redfield – how kewl is that?
• great choreography (that is English for “moves” )
• great technical realisation – I liked the 3D in this film better than the massively overhyped Avatar
• awesome soundtrack! At some point I said so my wife “This background noise reminds me of A Perfect Circle, humming ‘disconnect and self destruct one bullet at a time …’ and a few seconds later the song really kicks in to reveal a frickin’ kewl remix of APCs The Outsider playing alongside the final boss battle: Wesker – I was in 7th heaven.

Don’t take me wrong – if you are not into the Resident Evil thing (and don’t know kewl muzik like APC) you won’t experience the excitement I got an hour ago. Still, it might be a good action flick apart from recent mass bullshit. Give it a go.

8.5 / 10 – An awesome end of days zombie film with hot chicks. A must see for the genre affine.

Tags: a perfect circle, action, horror, prison break, resident evil, survival, zombie

Review: Resident Evil 5 (PS3)

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | Games, Misc, Reviews | No Comments

Oh, how I longed for the day Resident Evil 5 would hit the stores. I totally fell for RE4 – one of my favourite games of all time. Now part 5 is finally here, and I ran through it twice already, currently beating the “Veteran” levels. I read some reviews, but generally couldn’t agree with them, either because they were complaining about the wrong things or missing out some important details – just my 50 cent worth …

Okay, here we go, my review is intended for RE4 veterans. RE5 is basically RE4 in high res. Sounds good? Well, pimping graphics is not enough to deliver a good game. In fact a lot of kewl things from RE4 just got kicked out of the game, I guess this was done due to the massive coop team feature.

What’s new and good:

• hey, it’s Resident Evil – okay, this one doesn’t count…
• graphics/environment/the setting (RE4′s Spain setting was even more scary, but they did a great job bringing fear to Africa’s broad daylight!)
• the controls – a lot of people complained about the new RE5 controls (strafe while walking, turn while running), but I think they are very smart – you just have to get used to them (some people complain about not being able to move while shooting – this handicap is a stylistic device to increase fear just as the fact that you can hardly see your surroundings ’cause the cam is just behind you.)
• weapon / inventory system in real time (look, zombies approaching!) – more realistic and increases tension.
• weapons can be assigned to up/down/left/right keys for quick access, this is something I really missed in GTA4 (bloody weapon cycling!).
• teamplay – even though I rather play alone (the fear thing)
• weapons that are maxed out (again, pimping your weapons is something I missed in GTA4!) sometimes unlock new weapons

What’s new but not really RE:

• you can select any chapter to replay it
• all ammo/treasure is transferred, thus grinding is way to easy
• you can train a certain chapter until you know it by heart, making the game less horrible (in the sense of the “survival horror” genre)
• you can hardly die (your partner can rescue you while you are dying, you really have to try hard or be plain stupid to die in a normal fight) – this takes away a lot of the thrill a survival game should provide
• infinite ammo – come on … the infinite rocked launcher of RE4 was hilarious, but every weapon?!

What’s missing:

• the MERCHANT! (impossible, inexcusable!) “Welcome stranger, what are you buying?”
• you cannot buy treasure maps – so you have to look for the last piece of treasure for ages – could be a pro as well
• weapons that are maxed out don’t unlock their extra special feature (remember the 200 rounds shotgun? hmm…)
• you cannot combine treasures any more to get a more valuable object (I guess this was removed due to the chapter replay option, it would have been far to easy to obtain valuable treasure this way)
• last but not least: the atmosphere. RE4 scared me big time. The only game that really scared the wits out of me is “Fatal Frame” aka “Project Zero”. Compared to those games RE5 is quite boring. The first run is fun, but after that (and after you get comfy with the chapter replay) you just play the game without any adrenaline pumping though your veins. A big let down IMHO.

To sum it up: still a fun game to play, nice next gen fx, but the new coop teamplay lead to a lot of survival horror element cuts. What’s left is a decent horror shooter, nothing more, nothing less. I guess RE will never get to me again like part 4 did, even thought RE6 is said to be completely different to RE4/5. Let’s wait and see…

7/10 – good, different, but not fit to hold a candle to the ingenious predecessor

Tags: horror, resident evil, sequel, survival