Game review: Plants vs Zombies

Okay, so this game came out months ago and I'm behind the times as usual. But I freaking love it!

Made by PopCap games, it has a simple pretense: Zombies are attacking, and you have to defend your house! You do this by planting various protective plants in square on your lawn--like "Wall-nuts" that the zombies have to gnaw through, and "Melon-Pults" that bombard the zombies with watermelons. There are different levels to work through: daytime, night time, with a pool, and a roof level with catapulting plants. You have to use different plant strategies for the different levels--the nighttime ones can be really hard, since gravestones will pop up and regurgitate zombies behind your lines of defense.

It's a basic "defend your castle" sort of game, but what makes it so fun is the goofy-ass zombies and plants. There are conehead zombies, football zombies, and Zombie Bobsled Team: "Zombie Bobsled Team worked hard to get where they are. They live together, eat brains together and train together to become a cohesive zombie unit." I love it! There's also a "zen garden" for plants you find or buy while playing, that you can water and feed to gather coins from to buy more stuff. My favorite is the "Tree of Wisdom"--when you feed it, it gives you advice, and at different heights, you can make the zombies look different--or, you know, explode like pinatas. Whatever.

PopCap also parodied all those stupid Evony ads bouncing around (on the right). Their promotional "music video" below is how I first heard about the game, and it's hilarious:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince review number 87,353,343

Okay, so 87 million might be an exaggeration, but not by much. But I'm going to toss my opinion out there anyway!

I'm not going to shy away from spoilers, since I'm assuming most people know how things end. You've been warned! If you don't know what happens at the end of the story, don't read this review.

To give a little context: I've read all the books, and see all the movies. My favorite out of all the movies is the third--I'm not a huge fan of the first two. This is partially because of the terrible acting and cheesiness (the end of the second one makes me cringe), and partially because it looked so different from how I pictured it. The first two were also so obviously kid-oriented; I think the latter ones do a much better job of balancing the humor and magic of the books with the darker aspects. So even though the last three movies haven't been as faithful to the books, I like them a lot better.

The movie hit all the important points for this particular storyline: Slughorn and his altered memory, the trips into the Pensieve, Malfoy's scheme with the vanishing cabinet. Harry finds the used potions book, and uses the sectumsempra spell; he accompanies Dumbledore to get the Horcrux, watches Snape's apparent betrayal, and discovers the Horcrux is a fake. Sometimes the ways we get there are different--most notably, we see Malfoy's experiments with the cabinet and can see all along what's coming, even though none of our main characters would have knowledge of it--but the main points are all there.

The side plotlines of the relationships were fiddled with; Ron and Lavendar are hilarious, but Harry and Hermione bonding over their unrequited love for Ginny and Ron was created out of whole cloth. Harry and Ginny's relationship is boiled down to one kiss, essentially, and that's about it. Tonks calls Remus "sweetheart" at one point, but other than that there's nothing about their relationship at all.

A couple of other scenes were added, particularly a scene Bellatrix and Fenrir Greyback show up at the Burrow and lure Harry out of the house. Although it didn't happen in the book, I thought it was a good addition--mostly because there was so little actual action in the book until the very end. The fact that the Weasley's house is torched is going to cause problems later, though, I think.

Speaking of problems ... I'm interested to see how the heck they arrange for Harry, Hermione and Ron to find the rest of the Horcruxes, considering 99% of Harry's conversations/Pensieve trips with Dumbledore were completely left out. We don't see young Tom Riddle visiting the old lady with the Hufflepuff cup, or his mother and her family in their squalid hut. There's also nothing about nonverbal spells, Bill and Fleur, the Dursley's, Kreacher or the house on Grimmauld Place. Sirius is mentioned once, in passing. I know a lot of things would have to be left out; it's a very long book. But I'm not sure how they're going to weave all the pieces together for Deathly Hallows.

My biggest problem with the movie, though, is that the end felt very, very rushed. There was no battle in Hogwarts; Harry's duel with Snape was all of two spells. Snape tells Harry he's the half-blood prince but not why--not that it seems important in the scope of the movie. Dumbledore's memorial service is completely left out, as is Harry's ending conversation with Ginny.

All of this isn't to say I dislike the movie; I thought it was pretty good. It was very visually interesting, and it was funny and suspenseful. I'm not just sure how they're going to bridge the gap between this movie and everything that happens in Deathly Hallows.

Oh, one last thing--Tom Felton, the guy who plays Draco, does a great job.

Movie review: Enchanted

Twenty minutes in, and all I can say so far is that Amy Adams' squeaky little princess voice is making me want to break something. Well, and James Marsden is pretty hilarious as the overblown Prince Edward.

The movie starts out with a cartoon sequence, where Giselle is singing along with her little forest friends about "true love's kiss". Then she meets Prince Edward, they plan to get married the next day, and instead his evil stepmother shoves her down a well that pops her out a manhole in Times Square. Soon Edward, a sarcastic chipmunk, and the evil stepmother's henchman follow.

Giselle meets Robert, an uptight single father planning on proposing to his girlfriend. Instead he ends up having his girlfriend think he's cheating with Giselle, his divorcing clients think he's messing with them, and then going on a fairy-tale singalong trip through Central Park.

Most of the humor comes from the consequences of fairy tale actions in the big city--like when Giselle uses her magical princess singing powers to summon birds, rats, and cockroaches to clean Robert's apartment. Sometimes the juxtaposition of cheesy cartoonish antics against real life is a little cringe-inducing, and there are few surprises in the plot. But it's a good, fun family movie.