Rainbow Six Siege

By: Robert Murphy

An enemy group is hold up tight in a securely fortified room, but then the door gets ripped down and out go the flashbangs and systematically your enemies get dropped one by one and your team stands over them victorious. That's how a good match goes anyways but this is the extremely invigorating feeling that comes from playing Rainbow Six Siege. The reboot to the long standing Rainbow Six franchise now pits players against an unknown terrorist threat that has every nation in the world coming together in order to combat them. The world's top agents are at your fingers tips, all you have to do is put them to work.

Siege is no joke when it comes to gameplay as it puts players into environments meant to make you aware of anything and everything that could possibly happen to them because it most likely will. Outside of the regular attack and defense style objectives, teams of five must attempt to keep every shred of themselves intact as they maneuver through various scenarios. If you think you are safe in a certain spot then you're dead wrong; walls, windows, floors, rooftops, it can all be taken down in an instant with any number of the gadgets players have at their disposal. This is all the thrill however as it is just as invigorating to destroy as it is to try and hunker down with a group and stop yourself from becoming a red blood smear on the side of the wall. It is an indescribable rush and one that I haven't felt from a shooter in so long since so many modern shooters are going the fast paced route, Siege wants you to go slow, to think tactically and strike hard.

What adds to this tactical way of playing is the attention to detail surrounding the games audio tracks, and no I don't mean some epic level song, I'm talking about the sounds of the players. Every level features some sort of scenario or interesting aspect to it but what players will be paying most attention to is those footsteps made by an enemy climbing up the staircase or the sound of glass shattering from an unknown window. Paying close attention to these details can lead players through a successful match or spell their certain demise. 

The chaos though comes from the variety of "Operators" that Siege has brought together from around the world in these matches of attack and defense. There are twenty characters in total and each of them brings their own unique skills to the table for the variety of game modes and they're even divided into the categories they would best serve players in such as Doc for defense and Sledge for attack. Digging further into these two characters and why they're suited for these tasks; Doc carries a handy revive gun that launches needles into your fallen allies which is a handy tool in a game where life can be taken away so easily and Sledge makes for an excellent offense operator with his sledgehammer that can be used to knock down any wall that isn't specially barricaded. The list goes on just like this and each operator is uniquely fun to play as with all their little gadgets to test out, the only problem being getting to your favorite operator before someone else picks them first. 

The maps you will be treading across are just as diverse as the characters that will be running through them, Oregon is a personal favorite of mine where you travel through a half constructed group of apartment buildings that looks like a drug den. But, the missions themselves do lack a bit of diversity to them, like when it comes to attacker missions that boil down to finding a certain objective and either retrieving or destroying it. The defender missions do shake things up a bit by causing pure paranoia as you defend against all avenues of danger but even still you're just playing the same game mode from a different perspective. And then the solution doesn't always wind down to whoever complete the objective but rather whoever eliminated who first. 

The fan favorite Terrorist Hunt mode however proves to bring back the true nostalgia players out there who remember taking down a series of AI controlled enemies throughout a map without them eliminating you first. While the game mode is definitely a welcomed blast from the past the difficulty settings could do with some altering considering Normal mode can almost be completely all by yourself. The AI won't take advantage of the features that make Siege the exceptional shooter that it is so players will need to bump it up a notch to Hard mode for a more satisfying challenge and then of course Realistic mode proves to be just what you would expect, one bullet and you're ready to drop.

As for the rest of the game, there isn't much to say when it comes to the single player element and that's not a bad thing considering it was never the main focus for it to begin with. The ten single player training missions serves as a way to ingratiate players into the various game types, tools and challenges that they will end up facing throughout their collective game play experience. The challenges are relatively quick and painless to get through and doing all of them earns you a fair amount of Renown, the in-game currency that unlocks weapons, characters, skins and more. There is also a hidden eleventh mission that puts all your skills into action but it's underline message to the audience will leave fans second guessing the lack of an interesting single player story or a cooperative one for that matter. 

Despite these minor few short comings, Rainbow Six Siege is the type of shooter that I have been missing for years now. The raw game play is simply fantastic as it blends realistic or as realistic as you would want it to be without you pulling out your hair or throwing your controller across the room. The shear chaos of destructible environments; shooting through walls, up through floor boards, thermiting through barricades, it's all a mixture for success as it couples with the tactical game play elements of stealthily moving through a level trying to take out enemies without awakening a hornets nest. In the end, what more could you really ask for?

Good:

- Paranoia inducing and chaotic gameplay action

- Massive amount of destructible environments

- Variety of Operators and their toys

- Beautiful maps

Bad:

- A single player element that hints that there could have been much more here

- Diversity in the game modes

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Inherent Vice

By: Robert Murphy 

You know that feeling, when you sit down to watch a movie and you have some idea what to expect from it? Well, Inherent Vice is one of those movies that will take your expectation and throw them right out the window. Based off of the similarly titled book, Inherent Vice tells the story of local private investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who has a bit of a reputation along the sandy streets of fictional Gordita Beach. This pot smoking/hippy investigator is put on a new case by his former girlfriend, Shasta Hepworth (Katherine Waterstone), to find her new rich boyfriend, Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), who has gone mysteriously gone missing. What else is a man to do but except the case from the long lost love of his past, rolling up another joint and putting on his sandy beach hate, Doc sets out to find real estate shark Mickey Wolfmann but it won't prove to be all that easy as clues from the most unlikely of places pie up around him and you begin to get the feeling that he may be in over his head. 

This 1970's mystery or rather comedy or maybe it was a spy story, I'm not sure which Inherent Vice was by the end of it. Whatever the case, the story is less about plot and more about the ride and experience, that cliche sort of notion you would expect a free will hippy movie to express. But, it really is the sort of feeling you get as you watch Doc set out on his way after his ex's missing boyfriend that may have gone missing due to foul play from his wife and her young boyfriend. As he roams the streets though, he meets some of the strangest people you would ever expect to meet and clues to his missing person link to various other cases he gets set out on along the way. Spies, backstabbers, drug smugglers and even prostitutes will all help Doc on his way in a tangled web of lies and a mystery that still has me scratching my head hours after I watched it. Whether it be from the faceless organization known as the Golden Fang or from alleged narc for the FBI, Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson), who somehow in his years of saxophone ended up stuck watching a freedom group for the feds. 

Other key clues to Doc's little mystery come from the love/hate relationship with the closest thing he has to a partner, Detective Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), who is referred to by Doc as "Bigfoot." The detective though is really no good friend of Doc's and appears repeatedly in the story due to the intersecting moments of Doc's and his investigations. Bigfoot however is one of my favorite character for Inherent Vice despite his liberal rights violating approach to his job and those around him. He is the perfect opposite to Doc and his attitude and this makes Doc's character even more light and funny especially when the two of them interact. A favorite moment of mine occurs when the two meet up at a local diner to talk about their case and Doc proves to be quite a capable mind despite his many years spent living in a cloud of pout smoke. You almost might think that he use to be a cop himself but his free spirit and lack of hygiene probably kept that from happening. 

This bringing me to my next point which is, I loved Joaquin Phoenix and his portrayal as private eye Doc Sportello. The Doc character feels like something right out of a cartoon and is played much in the same way, right down to the way he saunters around town, gathering clues and dressing in different disguises. It's almost like a mix of the madness/genius of Jacques Clouseau and The Master of Disguise were brought together and Joaquin's wide eyed adaptation brings all together. There were moments where I questioned if the character just makes it up as he goes along or if he really was some sort of fractured genius whose just eccentric. But whatever it was, I thoroughly enjoyed watching along while he "solves" the case, one clue leading him to the next, moving him forward on his journey through this strange era of American history. 

The hazy and drug trip riddled plot of Inherent Vice makes you wonder just how much any of what goes on during the story is real or if it is all a delusion dreamed up by the thick layer of pot smock left inside Doc's brain. But, even if that were the case I still would have loved Inherent Vice, it has a grungy and dirty feel that makes it seem so genuine and real with it's storytelling. Add on top of that, the 1970's were such a rich time and was filled with paranoia, pot heads, hippies, freedom fighters, civil rights movements and just so many other mixing ideas, it's a dizzying cocktail to say the least and most every aspect of this gets shown here. 

In conclusion, Inherent Vice may not have a clear cut and "cased closed" feel to it by the time you see the credits roll but the ride sure was an interesting one that won't have you complaining much about it. I personally want a few more watches with the movie to see if I can gleam anything more from another go around with the story and I think some of you out there may feel the same way. There really is a whole lot to take in as you're watching and as you try your best to soak it all in, the movie ends and you craving it again or scratching your brain wanting to figure one or two things out. It's this rich and crazy story that makes you hungry for another piece and that's what makes Inherent Vice something special. 

Good:

- The performance as Doc by Joaquin Phoenix is top notch

- Supporting characters such as Josh Brolin and Owen Wilson also deliver solid performances

- A movie that begs to be watched again and again just so you can try and get some sort of closure that probably won't come, there's just so much and it's a really rich story

Bad:

- The heavy mixture may not be for everyone, some will undoubtedly criticize the lack of an "ending" that I thoroughly enjoyed

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10 

The Expendables 3

By: Robert Murphy

For a long time I would laugh and gruff at the idea behind The Expendables movies for the sheer fact that it is hard to combine so many big names on one picture but after the first movie I was pleasantly surprised and once again was proven wrong about big names in Hollywood not being able to share screen time. The latest addition to this film trilogy, The Expendables 3, seeks to add even more names to it's already full roster and returns for another go for the old dog  group of mercenaries. At this point though, Sylvester Stallone should change the title because we seem to see more people joining in on the film rather than being killed off.

Fresh out of prison, literally and fictionally, we see Doc (Wesley Snipes) come to rejoin Barney (Stallone) and his new team as they break him out of a prison transport after a 8 year lock up in God only knows where. But this isn't the only familiar face that comes out of the wood work oddly enough as the team gets a chance to meet another member of Barney's old team alongside Doc as a routine supply raid turns south. Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) plays our resident bad guy who was allegedly killed by Barney a long time ago when he found out that Stonebanks was turning into the very people that they often were sent to kill. Needless to say this reunion is not only shocking but also devastating as Stonebanks proceeds to make things personal and unloads a rifle round into Caesar's (Terry Crews) behind to make Barney go on the war path. This though is just the tip of the iceberg now that Stonebanks is back, he has been making a lot of noise and frankly pissing off some important people, this include the United States government and cue Bruce Willis...oh wait, no that's not Bruce that's Max Drummer (Mel Gibson), our new CIA spook who wants to see Stonebanks six feet under, for good this time. This is something Barney is more than happy to accommodate, he would have done it even if he wasn't asked too but with Caesar in the hospital it leads Barney to set out and make a new team for a most likely suicide mission against Stonebanks. 

Stonebanks or rather Gibson was someone that I absolutely loved in the film, he may have had some stumbles over the years and taken some professional hits but God did he acts his heart out in this role. Gibson was meant to play a villain in my mind as he plays the cross and demented Stonebanks beautifully, you could just tell that he wanted to prove a little something since his name hasn't been on a major title in a long time and I'm grateful for the performance.  You could also probably tell by this point in The Expendables franchise that things are far less stern and serious than they were in the first movie, it seems that with every new addition things became lighter and more fun with all our big name actors making one liners from past movies and generally just being more humor based with action taking more of a backseat. This really shows in The Expendables 3 with the jokes about Wesley's previous jail time, they jokingly talk about it being for tax evasion or later when we once again see Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) make a "Get to the chopper" reference. Mel Gibson's new and welcomed addition to the cast in replacement of Bruce Willis also allows for some humor which was nice because I never cared for the stern and effortless antics of Willis in The Expendables. 

My faults for the movie honestly came from the addition of Barney's new team that he forms after firing his old one. This team actually was meant to take the word "expendable" literally and were never expected to survive the assault against Stonebanks and neither was Barney. This group included two MMA fighters, Mars (Victor Ortiz) and Luna (Ronda Rousey) which works out fine, then there is our resident Twilight pretty boy Smilee (Kellan Lutz) which I guess is okay and then a lacrosse player....Krug (Ivan Kostadinov). This team was honestly idiotic in retrospect because it was just pointless to even have them in the film to begin with especially when we knew they wouldn't be left to die or be killed and Barney's old team were going to come back in the end to save the day. The script for the movie just was not harsh enough to let the group die in the end and Barney and the whole team would inevitable all team up in the end to save the day, so really you could have gone to the restroom for the entire part where the "new" team was established and wouldn't care. The one thing that the younger faces did do for The Expendables 3 was add some more snickering and jokes about just how old fashioned Stallone and the others are. For instance at one point the new group complete dismisses the "wild west" style plan that Barney comes up with and replaces it with a better/more technology driven plan filled with gadgets and devices rather than blowing in the doors and shooting wildly. 

When you get right down to it I think that what I said before rings true, things are getting to be less and less serious when it comes to The Expendables movies and you have to judge it less as an action movie and more of a comedy with a lot of action in it. Stallone has been realizing more and more that it's better to make jokes about the age factor that many of the cast suffer from as well as throwing in one liners and references to their combined careers. Because when you get down to it, Mel Gibson raises a good point in the film that I think rings true and that's "How hard is it to kill 10 men?!" and you know what it really shouldn't be that hard. It's simply crazy near the end where there are tanks, soliders and helicopters all trying to kill Barney's team and none of them even get remotely hurt, so you just can't take this seriously. I myself though enjoy laughing along especially in this installment for The Expendables but this should probably be the last call for the franchise or at least I hope. 

Good:

- The action is still here and was extremely awesome

- The wit and humor strewn throughout the film was top notch

- Gibson's Stonebanks was a stellar villain and a role I think Gibson was meant to play

Bad:

- The new/younger team were just plan pointless having around

- It may be curtain call time for The Expendables movies but they went out on a good one here

Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10