Media Filled Weekend

I had the most restful and wonderfully simplistic weekend, filled with, you guessed it, games, movies, and beer.

It all started Friday at the end of work when a co-worker surprised me with a free beer, the first Stella Artois I ever had; very nice, good tasting beer. The only downer was that it was from a can, and therefore had that aluminium after-taste.

Throughout the rest of the weekend I ended up having some Sleeman Cream, Keith's, and Coors Light. I didn't go overboard mind you, but it was a good time.

I also checked out some "Making of" documentaries. I finished watching Empire of Dreams, the documentary that came with the Star Wars Trilogy DVD Set. It was very comprehensive and revealed a good bit of info I didn't know, such as all the trouble with the Director's and Writer's guilds that Lucas had after releasing The Empire Strikes Back and how that prevented him from hiring Spielberg to direct Return of the Jedi. The documentary has appeared on TV, so you might be able to catch it there.

I also checked out the G4 Special on the making of Jade Empire, as well as the making of Halo 2 doc. that came with the Limited Collector's Edition. Interesting enough, that last doc. tells me one thing, Bungie was very disorganized, a bit lazy, and screwed up their original vision of Halo 2. That being said, seeing as Halo 2 is a superb game, it makes one wonder what it would've been like had they been able to create the game the way they wanted.

I also watched Predator 2 with Danny Glover. I always found the ending to that film a little strange, seeing as how it took the barbarian king of Cali. resorting to "boy scout" tricks to beat the Predator in the first film, yet Danny Glover could take one down with brute force (and I suppose a little luck). Still doesn't seem perfectly believable, but whatever; good fun.

Game wise, I played a lot of Doom II, mostly on Saturday. While there're certainly some fun moments, id really messed up the level design in it. Too many damn pits and the atmosphere, the dread and surprise of the original classic masterpiece, was totally absent.

I also tried the Star Wars: Battlefront Demo, which was the Battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi. Star Wars: Battlefront is the best selling Star Wars game of all time, however I just couldn't get into it. Granted playing from the Imperial side and blasting the shit out of those %$&^#^$ Ewoks was a joy I can't begin to describe, however I found the controller setup not to my liking and it honestly seemed rather boring without any intensity or feeling of anything at stake. However the game's single player is supposed to be shitty, and its team-based Multiplayer is apparently where the game is at. Perhaps I'll get a chance to try that, but since the sequel's due out Nov. 1st, and it looks like it's going to feature a really good single player mood where you control a group of elite clone troopers (possibly ARC Troopers), I may just wait for that. There'll be a demo on the Revenge of the Sith DVD.