~phil's blog

So I followed up on my post-holiday movie list, sat down one day, and went through Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 all in one sitting. Nothing more needs to be said about Ocean’s 11, because everyone’s seen it, and it’s still a great film. Ocean’s 12 just doesn’t feel right – it’s not a heist movie without Vegas, is it? The plot is a little complicated at times, and the ‘lol we actually stole it halfway through the movie’ ending just feels a bit like a ‘fuck you’ rather than a happy ending with them getting away with the goods. Thankfully, Ocean’s 13 brings everything back to normal – It jumps straight into the setup of the con and stays that way for the entire movie with no fussing around. The funky music is back, Vegas is back… it just feels… exciting. Like it should, then.

I’ve also blasted through a good 60% of Jak II in a day, now I have my shiny new Samsung 22″ widescreen monitor to play it on. I would hook it up to the PC, but it won’t fit on the desk… bawww. I’ve played the first half of this game before, and it does take some determination as a player to actually put up with the glaring problems the game has. The vehicle system needs to die in a fire, the camera controls can be shoddy, you have to do each mission several times because they made it too hard and decided not to implement a checkpoint system… but ignore those issues, and the game is alright. Dax still brings the funny, although a bit racier (think Banjo-Tooie compared to Banjo-Kazooie, but without blatant dongs and gay jokes all over the place), the graphics still look alright for a PS2 game, and some gameplay elements can be quite fun when they’re not frustrating the hell outta you.

And as a final note, I became more of a Tonks obsessive. Annoyed about the fact there’s no decent Tonks merchandise (apart from a crappy bust), I went about making my own poster. If anyone knows a good place where I can get some A2 stuff printed well, then let me know – click the poster for a bigger version. Enjoy!