Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience

5 Responses to “Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience”

1. P. Pittman
   11/04/2009 at 6:25 am

   I played this for about 2 hours only to realize I had been doing the same exact thing I was since the beginning of the game. It was pretty cool to be playing co op mode on PS3 as many games only offer one player campaign. But, it couldn’t save this game.

   The animation of the characters is pretty cool and close to the movie. In other words, Rorshach moved like Rorshach and Night Owl moved like Night Owl. The sounds and lighting effects give the game a nice touch too.

   What really lacks is the gameplay, as well as the cut scenes. The animation in the cuts scenes and voice acting was really bad. The repetitive game play seemed SUPER repetitive. I mean, I enjoy hack n’ slash games like this. I’m a fan of Dark Kingdom, Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. All three have a co-op mode and have repetitive hack n’ slash game play, but the game play and variations in scenery and other little things make those games far more superior.

   I gave it an honest shot and was excited to play it, but the game just lacks a certain playability. Save some time and pass on this one. Oh, and I rented it before I bought, which I am extremely glad I did. A couple perks of buying it are exclusive artwork, and the Director’s Cut of the movie itself on Blu-Ray. Save some money and just buy the movie by itself, or wait til around Christmas for when they release the Ultimate Collector’s Edition of the movie… Tons of cool extras with that.

   I would recommend these titles over this one any day:
   
   Batman: Arkham Asylum
   
   Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
   
   Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Or wait for the second one to come out!)
   
   Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires (Better to rent this one than buy, or wait til it goes down in price)
   Rating: 2 / 5
2. Joey Glowey
   11/04/2009 at 8:03 am

   Game Review:

   I downloaded Part 1 of The End Is Nigh when it first came out in March and was able to beat it with a friend in a couple of hours before seeing the midnight showing.

   As a fan and a gamer, I was sorely disappointed.

   The Cutscenes are done the way the Watchmen Motion Comic would be if Dave Gibbons had decided to wipe his butt with it. They look flat out horrible.

   The Gameplay is your standard beat ‘em up action game. You’ll end up mashing buttons in an effort to not die, but you’ll soon discover that hitting the right buttons over and over again is the only strategy this game holds. Overall, it’s repetitive.

   The Story will have any fan of the graphic novel gouging his or her eyes out, but, as long as people remember that it’s the product of the movie and not Alan Moore’s masterpiece, it can be considered passable.

   The Audio is nice. Having the actors (at least two of the actors) from the film is comforting. The street thugs, however, have some of the worst written dialogue in history. You’ll want to hit mute after hearing them say the same things over and over again.

   If you really don’t know if you can believe my review, try this:

   Download the trail of The End is Nigh Part 1 and play it for two hours straight. That is your game in a nutshell. Repetitive.

   Movie Review:

   Like I said before in my review of the game, I saw the movie on 3-6-09 at 12 A.M. As a fan of the graphic novel, I had mixed feelings when I left the theater. While Zach Snyder had managed to keep some of the things fans love about Watchmen intact, he forgot about some of the things that made Watchmen special in the first place.

   What’s good:
   
   Zach Snyder has managed to explore sections of Watchmen that I couldn’t have dreamed of. Fans of Watchmen will have fun for the first 2 hours when they see that their precious graphic novel has been faithfully translated without little left on the editing room floor. Performances by Jackie Earl Hailey, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, and Billy Crudup are spot on, and the majority of the little details (Nixon being president, Veidt merchandise littering the streets of New York) are well executed.

   What’s bad:
   
   Sheeple (not fans) will be more concerned about the blue penis hanging in front them than what’s actually going on in the movie. Snyder forgot some things that will confuse the sheeple (Example:Bubastis, aka the blue lynx tiger hybrid, is not explained. Not even a little bit). As for a completely faithful adaptation to the graphic novel, fans will find that the original source material will deteriorate before they can say Karnak. The last 45 minutes or so will pull the rug out from the acne ridden fans of Watchmen and leave them crying because there is no squid. Malin Akerman’s portrayal of Silk Specter II is as horrible as the character’s written lines. People who see the movie hoping that Laurie will be a strong upstanding woman will only come to find that she is nothing but a whore (more so than she is in the graphic novel, that is). I have mixed feelings about Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias. Terribly written, but executed to the best of his abilities.

   What’s new in the Director’s Cut:
   
   The extra 24 minutes isn’t anything special. Other than the subplot with Hollis Mason’s death, the Director’s Cut features some scenes that, for the most part, shouldn’t have been shot in the first place. One scene that was cut took place in the Fire Rescue scene struck me as too ridiculous to comprehend. As a little girl walking onto the owlship looks at her mom and says “Is the man in the rocketship Jesus?”, a small part of my soul died. A lot of the extra scenes are slow motion shots that don’t add onto the movie at all (the lighting of a cigarette). I think that the extra scenes with Hollis Mason are enough to make you feel like you get your money’s worth.

   Overall:

   Games that expand on movies are great, but games that come with movies are better. If you don’t mind playing the demo for two hours and you think repetitiveness is fun, then, by all means, buy a copy for yourself, but if you are just looking for some extra Watchmen, buy the standard Director’s Cut and look up the videogame walkthrough on youtube.
   
   Rating: 4 / 5
3. Doug Kokkeler
   11/04/2009 at 8:09 am

   Everyone knows that the game is not great, but if you are a Watchmen fan this is a must buy. The Blue-Ray extended movie is great and while the game is not the best it adds to the Watchmen universe and is a must for Watchmen collectors.
   Rating: 4 / 5
4. Ahmed A. Bader
   11/04/2009 at 9:53 am

   Closely adapted from the original graphic novel (apparently one of the best novels ever; I only found out about it from this film), “The Watchmen” is a very different superhero movie. It’s dark, bleak, and extremely R-rated. It focuses less on the action (although there is enough to keep it exciting), and much more on drama, thought-provoking themes and ideas, and character development. It is also very long (three hours for the director’s cut). All of this combined may be very off-putting for some folks.

   Without prior knowledge or experience with “The Watchmen” novel, I found the movie quite interesting at the very least. The plot is long with some slow melodramatic parts, but it is still mesmerizing and interesting. The story is brilliant and well-told; it presents a very original, poignant, and clever insight on superhero lore. Characters are deep; acting has a few dull moments, but much of it is still great. Writing matches the novel for the most part. Photography is brilliant (some scenes are downright beautiful and invoking). Production design (sets, props, costumes, creatures) is good; a little similar to the novel, but I think they made a lot of things better and even expanded on some areas. Special effects are top-notch. Music score and soundtrack is good too.

   The disc is good. The video has some graininess, but it is still a very clear, clean, sharp, and detailed picture. Color and contrast are good. Sound quality is excellent. This set includes a whole bunch of extra features (webisodes, a commentary, one or two featurettes, and a maximum viewing mode that you watch as the movie is playing) and a digital copy. The “Tales of the Black Freighter” remains a separate disc that you need to buy separately, if interested (the “Ultimate Edition” will include this feature in with the movie, and it comes out this winter).
   Rating: 5 / 5
5. K. Pring
   11/04/2009 at 11:59 am

   This is a great package overall, for starters you get the blue-ray movie with all the special features etc (which in and of itself is the price of the game) and on top of the movie is the game. The game itself acts as a prequel to the movie, with movie scenes based in comic form. The special feature of the blue-ray and the game fill in many gaps in the making of the movie and the concepts of the book.

   The game play starts out slow, Nite Owl and Rorschach start with very basic moves but quickly works into a great variety of attacks and defensive moves that has the characters taking on hoards of people with relative ease. Each character collects tokens and find hidden areas for their upgrades. It is a challenging game with some decent replay value, the controls are easy but the camera angles, not so much, but if you can get over that hiccup then the game is a nice look at the Watchmen’s world and some of the altered parts of it that made the history of their world so radically different from ours.

   Overall, I’d say it’s a good deal and great buy.
   Rating: 4 / 5