Reviews
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
The WORST of the series
The Goblet of Fire movie was one of the best. It was emotionally heartbreaking, and the acting was the finest I've ever seen. This game, though, totally ruined it.
The game is level-based, with no exploration. The entire thing is about collecting shields, which is just plain stupid. And the controls couldn't be more awkward. It's impossible to aim properly when surrounded by so many enemies. When you die, you lose a chocolate frog and re-spawn. So there are limited lives, and when those lives are up, it's back to the start. It quickly goes from fun to very frustrating, as there is no camera control and the view is constantly being blocked.
Instead of casting certain spells that you decide, the spells are cast at random, so on PS2 the X button is jinx, square is charm and triangle is to summon with Accio. But with the targeting system that has a mind of its own, the wrong spell is always being cast.
The level design is horrible. Most of the levels do not happen in the movie, like Prof Moody's training, retrieving the golden egg after Ron drops it down a drain in the prefect's bathroom, and collecting gillyweed from the greenhouses while being attacked by the ridiculous enemies. It's even worse than the nonsense class challenges from the previous games.
Do not buy this game.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
It could have been worse
This film opens to a narrator instead of the writing up the screen, but the voice speaks too fast to tell what it's saying. The start of the film is slightly rushed, but we get an intense battle straight away, which is good. There is barely 5 minutes without violence of some sort.
But the plot gets a hole when Anakin gets a Padawan called Ahsoka Tano. But he is a Padawan himself, so that makes no sense. And she calls him Master. In Episode III, he was told that he was not worthy of the rank of Master, so this is just plain confusing.
I have seen better CGI animation for a movie - Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. In that, every hair, stitch and skin pore is detailed, but in this, the textures are all flat, and Obi-Wan's beard looks like it is from laminated flooring.
The voice acting is ... okay, but it could have been better. For a change, the best voicing is done for Anakin, while Obi-Wan sounds far too posh. The other voices are good enough, I suppose, but it could have been far better.
Overall, is is an enjoyable movie, but for Star Wars veterans it is a big disappointment. At the end, there are many questions left in our heads: why wasn't General Grievous in it? Where is Ahsoka in Episode III? And all that happens is the Republic getting a bit of help from Jabba the Hutt, so the ending seems a bit more like a cliffhanger.
But as I said, it could have been a lot worse.
Fainaru fantajî sebun adobento chirudoren (2005)
This is one of my favourite movies of all time
One of the first things you'll notice about this will be how amazingly detailed the graphics and animation is. It's awesome. You can see every individual hair on someone's head and the fibres on their clothes. Put this is HD and it is just unimaginably realistic.
The other great thing about this is the action scenes. They are so rough and fast that your eyes will be hooked onto the screen so as not to miss anything, but I don't think it's given anyone motion sickness. If they'd put this style of sword fights into Star Wars, that would have been even more successful. In fact, the kind of action in this is so addictive that the quieter parts are only bearable due to the stunning visuals.
All this, plus the great soundtrack from the FF7 game, and you've got yourself one hell of a movie. The plot may have you slightly lost if you haven't played the original game, but if you're reading this, chances are it's on a computer. Go on Wikipedia and search for Final Fantasy Vii. It will tell you all you need to know.