Id like to state I am a long time fan of the Soul Calibur game line. That is why it hurts me to say that this game really let me down. Let me also say, that while I did hope good things for this game, I did not have my expectations at an insane level. I thought this game would be a good continuation of the series, but I didn’t think it’d be the best game ever or anything of the sort.

Let me start with the good. If you are just looking for a fighting game to play with friends, this is a good choice. The graphics have certainly made the jump to next gen in a big way. They are smooth and crisp and yet still retain the look of the other games in this series. The roster is once again large, with a diverse line up of fighters. This is a plus as it keeps the casual player from getting burned out, while letting true fans of the game continue to play as their favorites, letting them build up their ability as one or two characters.

Now for the bad, and sadly, there is a lot.

The biggest problem for me is the new story mode. SC has typically included massive story modes. In SC2, Story Mode took hours to fully explore. I say explore, because the mode involved you moving from point to point on a map. Scattered around were secret ways, dungeons with levels of fighting, and more. In SC3, you had more of a “Pick your own adventure” type deal. But, it was still large, and had replay value so you could see all the different ways. In SC4, you play through five fights. The cuts scenes are nothing more than a look at a landscape(literally, they pan across a background, your character not even in the scene) up until you beat the mode, at which time you get a very short, unsatisfactory video of your character doing something. On top of this, the handling is not nearly as good as the last few games. Instead of skill and practice meaning something, it seems this game is a button masher. People who have never played a Soul Calibur game, can pick this up, and manage to beat vets by simply smashing the horizontal and vertical hit buttons. Response time is slow sometimes to the point of it being frustrating as it seems like the game didn’t even notice you pressed anything.

In closing

(+)Large Roster
(+)Great Graphics
(-)Shotty Controls
(-)Leaves you feeling like the game was rushed
(-)Pitiful Story Mode

Final Say: It’s just not up to the level a Soul Calibur game should be. If you want a good fighting game to keep around that you can play at a party or with a bunch of people, this one isn’t that bad. But if you are a die hard Soul Calibur fan, your hopes will be bashed in harder than it is to kill Night Terror on expert.

A very generous 5 out of 10

Having said that, I was actually pretty excited for this game. I enjoy the Smackdown games, but with no real competition for my video game dollar, that series has grown pretty stagnant for the last few (several?) releases. For TNA Impact!, I had hopes that it would be as good as No Mercy for the N64 but fears that it would be as bad as WCW Thunder. As these things usually turn out, it was right in the middle.

The first thing you should know about this game is that it is a pretty good first attempt at a wrestling game but it isn’t the polished package that you get with Smackdown. That makes sense because Yukes has had several iterations to add and test features for the Smackdown series and this is Midway’s first real shot at it. You won’t find a huge roster and a ton of match types here. In fact, you won’t even see a wide variety of moves for the different wrestlers. It very much feels like Midway wanted to put out a game to show that they could do it and then worry about adding the real features in the sequel.

The first thing you’ll notice with this game is that the graphics look really good, as you’d expect from a game using the Unreal engine. I did notice in the create-a-wrestler mode that some of the textures took a second to draw in properly, but they looked pretty sharp once they did. This is on the XBox 360 version, so maybe the PlayStation 3 preloads some of that to the hard drive. But from my limited experience watching TNA, the wrestlers all look like their real life counterparts and the level of detail is pretty high.

The next thing you’ll notice is the roster. I’m not going to beat around the bush here, it’s pretty small with only 25 guys. The worst part is that a lot of them have to be unlocked in the story mode. With a roster that small, I really question the decision to have to unlock so much of it. Midway has announced that there will be downloadable roster updates, though they haven’t said if they’ll charge for them or not. One slightly puzzling decision is a complete lack of female wrestlers in the game. Normally I don’t play the women in a wrestling game, but with TNA’s strong focus on its Knockouts division, you’d think it would it be in the game. Adding to this mystery is the fact that there is a Knockouts gauntlet match included on the game disc.

The limited initial roster is only a problem if you want to only play exhibition matches, though. The reason is that the story mode is only for created wrestlers. Of course, that leads to a whole other set of problems, specifically the fact that you have to unlock most of the moves and (hopefully) some costume pieces for your created wrestler. So your first play through will feature a pretty generic looking wrestler using some pretty generic moves. I mentioned that hopefully you can unlock new costume pieces, because there aren’t many to start with, but I haven’t actually unlocked any yet. Also, while you will unlock moves during the course of the story mode, don’t expect too much. I’m sure I haven’t seen all the moves in the game yet, but there is a whole lot of repetition going on. It seems like every guy will do a DDT, for example.

The story is pretty basic, but I’m enjoying it so far. The background is that you’re a TNA star named Suicide. You quickly rise through the ranks and win the World title when you were told to take a dive. Since you didn’t do as you were told, you get beaten up and left for dead in Mexico. Why you were transported from Universal Studios in Orlando (you’ll hear that phrase a lot) to Mexico is a mystery to me. But you’ll wake up in a Mexican hospital with no memory and your only way back to America is to win a wrestling tournament. That’s where the game starts. Eventually you’ll make it back to the States to get signed by TNA and I assume eventually win the World title again and get revenge on those who wronged you.

One thing I like is that the story views the wrestling as an actual sport, with you having to win matches to move to a better promotion or to earn your spot in TNA. It really is a little touch, but I appreciate it. Actually, this game seems to do a lot of the little touches right. I got a good laugh out of a sign I saw in the crowd that said “.9 Muta”, which if you’ve ever read a wrestling review on the internet should at least make you smile.

At this point, I want to mention the controls. Since it has been years since I’ve played a wrestling game that wasn’t named Smackdown, it was tough for me to get used to the new controls. You’ve got a punch button, a kick button, a lock up button, and an action button. Another button is used as a “Strong modifier”, making your attacks more powerful. The button placement doesn’t feel natural to me, either. I’m used to games making more use of the X button (on the 360, remember) while the Y button is for stuff that isn’t used as much. So I’d expect the lock up button, which is the one you’ll probably use the most to be on either the A or the X buttons since those are most commonly used in other games. Nope, lock up is Y, punch is X and kick is A. Because of this, I still do a lot more punching then I plan on. I wish I could remap the controls, but this is a fairly minor complaint and something I’ll get used to pretty quickly.

One area this game really shines is the reversal system. Every move can be reversed, even reversals. This is done very fluidly and can lead to some chain wrestling sequences that would make Kurt Angle proud. The biggest drawback to this game that I can see is replay value. The story is engaging and the voice acting is pretty decent but I’m not sure if there will be any benefit to going back and playing through it a second or third time. In the Smackdown games, there are so many different storylines that you have to play through a few times to see them all, but unless there is a big surprise, TNA Impact! won’t offer that kind of longevity.

So, overall this is a good first attempt by Midway and I’m curious to see what they can do now that they’ve got the basics down. No, it isn’t as good as the latest Smackdown game, but they haven’t had ten years to perfect the formula, either. I bought the game knowing this, but I also wanted them to have good sales so there would be a sequel with more features. And really, I’m not disappointed with the purchase. I’m having a good time playing it and once I finish story mode, I’ll play it some more with my friends, so I’d say it was a pretty good purchase. But, if you aren’t a big TNA fan or a big wrestling game fan and you only plan to play through it a single time, I’d suggest renting it or at the very least waiting for a price drop as $60 is on the high side for a game lacking so many features that are expected in a wrestling game today.

Actually, let’s start out by me admitting to really enjoying the first two Mummy movies. I tend to like Brendan Fraser (this is goodwill going back to Encino Man), so I was predisposed to liking these movies. I thought the Rick O’Connell character had a lot of possibilities and even hoped for a series of movies in the Indiana Jones vein. What I got was more Mummy movies, while not bad, were not quite living up to the lofty expectations I had on the series. So, I enjoyed the first one quite a bit and I thought the second one was pretty good, too. My only real issue with the second installment was the kid.

It’s no secret that when a kid is introduced in a series, be it film or television, it doesn’t bode well. The Mummy Returns was no exception. I didn’t want to see the adventures of Rick O’Connell and Son, so I was pleased when I found that the son was all grown up in the third installment. My wife was a bit distracted by the fact that the kid had aged 10-15 years but his father hadn’t. That didn’t bother me, all I cared about was not having a little kid running around getting in the way.

The plot basically involves the retired Ma & Pa O’Connell longing for the life of adventure that they’ve given up. The British government wants them to return a precious artifact to China and they agree since Jonathon (Evie’s brother from the first two films) owns a nightclub there. Forunately, their son has dropped out of school and is busy digging up lost emperors in China, too. In a minor quibble, I’m not sure the Emperor qualifies as a mummy, but I’m far from an expert on the subject. So, the O’Connells all get together, the Emperor comes back to life and just like old times, they’ve got to stop him. And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

The effects were pretty good and the locations were suitably exotic. The acting was what you’d expect from a ripoff of the old serial movies: things were over the top, but not too cartoony. Now, this isn’t going to go down as a cinematic masterpiece, but I didn’t feel ripped off for paying to see it and that’s really about all I ask from a summer popcorn flick. I just want to sit there for 90-120 minutes and be mindlessly entertained and this film didn’t let me down in that department.

Ultimately your opinion of this movie is going to be flavored by your opinion of the first two. If you didn’t like them, I doubt this film will change your mind. But if you did enjoy them, then you’ll be alright with this one. True, it stumbles a bit (they could have gotten by without having Evie in the film at all, really), but if you don’t try and take it too seriously, you should have a good time.

With all that having been said, I was obviously looking forward to the new X Files movie. The basic story (some minor spoliers ahead) is that Scully is now a doctor working at a religious hospital. Her patient is a young boy that has some sort of brain disease that can’t be cured, except maybe it can be if she injects him with stem cells. The FBI comes to her to find the missing Fox Mulder to help them with a case. Since this is an X Files movie, Mulder eventually agrees to help and he and Scully are taken to FBI headquarters.

It turns out that an FBI agent in West Virginia is missing and a psychic pedophile priest (alliteration for the win!) has been having vision concerning her whereabouts. These visions lead them to an arm that doesn’t belong to the missing agent. Scully doesn’t like the priest because he’s a pedophile but Mulder, well, he wants to believe. The FBI continues to work with the priest at Mulder’s request, but they get nowhere fast. Meanwhile, more women are being kidnapped. This just leads to more searches in snow covered fields that lead to more severed body parts.

While all this is going on, Scully is faced with the problem of how to cure her patient of an incurable disease. She does a ton of research on stem cell treatments and just as all if about lost, she notices an article about a Russian scientist that was working on attaching severed dog heads to other dogs, creating some kind of two headed wonder dog. The surgery pictures of the dogs match up with the wounds on the recovered body parts and she realizes what’s going on. It turns out the whole thing has been done so that this Russian scientist can save the live of another Russian guy that’s got terminal cancer by putting his head on a woman’s body. That’s logical, right? But the bodies wear out pretty fast, so they have to have a steady supply of women to change out the bodies. As you can imagine, the FBI put a stop to it at a critical moment and that’s the end of the movie.

Ok, so that might have been an acceptable two-parter of the television series, but it is not a compelling movie. Even at matinee prices I felt like I overpaid. There are a few problems here. First, the movie has an identity crisis. This movie is set in the bleakness of winter, which does a good job setting the tone, but its tough to relate in the middle of summer. The writer also went to great pains to reset the Mulder/Scully relationship. If you remember the early seasons of the show, Scully was a skeptic that was there to balance out Mulder. But over time, she saw lots of fucked up stuff and had to start believing, even if reluctantly. But for this movie to work, she had to be a skeptic again so they made the priest a pedophile so now she hates him and won’t believe a word he says.

You’ve also got the problem that people like the X Files for two things: conspiracies and monsters. Since this movie had neither, that’s a problem. Yes, there was some “weird science”, but it was almost an afterthought. The experiment was the cause for the missing women, but it wasn’t treated as that big a deal. Because of that, I’ve got to deduct major points for the lack of anything really creepy.

The redemption for this movie was in the question of ethics and morality in the comparison between Scully’s stem cell treatment and the Russian doctor’s experiements. Both are playing Frankenstein and both are doing it to save lives, but one is relatively acceptable (as long as you’re not a right wing nutjob) while the other is grotesque. But does that make one right and the other wrong? Well, if you take the kidnapped women out of the equation, I mean.

Overall, this was a disappointing flick. Like I said, I could have put up with it as a throwaway episode of the series, because I know that writing 22 episodes a season, a few aren’t going to be so great. But when you’re writing a movie and have the time to focus on just that one script, well, you’d better have your shit together. This movie did not have its shit together. So, if you’re home and it comes on tv, give it a shot, but certainly don’t pay to watch it.

The story is better in Ultimate Avengers, but I never disputed that. I happen to like Mark Millar’s comics, so it should come as little surprise that I liked the story in a movie based off his comic. The story in Superman/Doomsday was not so good, especially considering that one of the characters named in the title wasn’t even in the last half of the movie.

Since the statute of limitations on spoilers has run out on Superman/Doomsday, let me explain the plot. Doomsday comes to Earth and starts tearing shit up. Superman goes to stop him and seemingly dies in the process. Now, that’s the end of Doomsday’s involvement in the movie. From there it is revealed that Lex Luthor was building Superman clones that he could control. To make matters worse, the clones were reckless and tore some shit up. Meanwhile, back in the Fortress of Solitude, Superman’s robot butler has dug up Superman’s body and is getting him healed up. Superman wakes up and sees the mess the fake Supes has been making, but is too weak to stop him. So, the real Superman wears a black version of his outfit that supercharges solar rays or some bullshit so he can go fight. The real Superman wins and returns to Metropolis and all is right with the world.

I think that if this were viewed as part of the Superman animated series the story wouldn’t be as disappointing. But based on the name alone, you’re expecting a retelling of the Death of Superman storyline and that’s totally not what you get. At least in Ultimate Avengers you more or less get the original Ultimates story.

Where Ulimate Avengers really falls short is the voice acting and animation. The voice acting in DC animated shows has always been good, and I think that Superman/Doomsday lives up to those expectations. The same goes for the animation. The DC cartoons have always had a cool, stylized approach that is continued in Superman/Doomsday. In Ultimate Avengers, the animation is on par with your typical Saturday morning cartoon from the 1980’s. In fact, on my Ultimate Avengers 2 DVD, before the movie starts there is an ad for the old TMNT show and the animation quality is pretty similar. As for the voices in Ultimate Avenger? I’ll just say that the acting is not good and leave it at that.

And there you have it, my reasoning behind saying that Superman/Doomsday was the superior movie. It clearly wins on two of three metrics and is only penalized on story due to expectations based on the name.