Ahh, my first 360 game review. Playing games only on the PS3 until about  a week ago, I missed out on a lot of great RPGs designed by Bioware…the two that come to mind are Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. I got my first taste of Bioware when I played through Dragon Age: Origins FOUR times (I did get a nice Platinum trophy for that one, too), and I loved it. So when I received my 360 last Thursday, I quickly popped Mass Effect onto the top of my Gamefly queue. I’ve had a few days to check it out, and so far I am totally loving it.

What Mass Effect does is that a fast-paced third person shooter and add to the gameplay possibilities by making it into an RPG. The story is basically about a human who is drafted into an intergalactic organization and must stop an alien from unleashing terror across the galaxy. First off, the main character, last name Shepard, can be a male or female, and there are a variety of different classes to choose from. Like an RPG, the classes are all distinct, ranging from warriors (the soldier, with automatic weaponry and heavy armor) to the “mage” characters, who are able to manipulate machines or create force fields. You can create a party of three out of seven characters (three human, including the main character, and four different alien species), but you can only directly control the main character. However, you are able to bring up a menu during combat to order your allies on which action to take. So it’s basically your typical fantasy RPG in a sci-fi environment, and the combination is pure awesome.

Since the story takes place in space, there is no huge country to explore, like in Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls. Instead, the main hub is your flagship, the Normandy. From there, you can access the galaxy map and determine where to travel to. There will be side quests to take, which will give you the name of the system to go to, but you have to explore the planets of that system in order to find the right one. Generally, there are between four and seven planets in a system, and one of those are typically the one you can land on. The other planets can be quickly scanned right there from space to see if there are any resources available, which will only give you some XP and cash. This process of exploring different system, scanning uninhabited planets, and landing on them all gives you this great feeling of exploration, and you will feel like you are on the bridge of the Enterprise, giving out orders.

When it’s time to land on a uninhabited planet, you start off in a heavily armed lunar rover of sorts. This tank can then travel across a limited section of the planet where there are “anomalies” that are detected, and require you to go over for a closer look. These can range from crashed probes to extinct civilizations to pirate hideouts, so it is generally a fun time to go exploring outside of the main quest.

Now let’s talk about combat. Each character can carry four weapons with them into battle: assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and pistol. As you level up, you can give each character proficiency in particular weapons, so that even though all characters will have four weapons equipped, you will only use the ones that you have leveled up. One of the great things about the combat is that there is no ammo to worry about, since all the weapons are energy based. However, these weapons will over-heat if fired too quickly, so that’s something you will have to keep an eye on. Also, since it is the future, characters have energy shields, which will take damage and be depleted before any health is lost. On the other hand, the enemies have these shields too, so it kind of goes both ways. Some characters will also be able to use special abilities while in battle. For example, characters with a proficiency in particular weapons can unleash powerful attacks, and other abilities allow for other actions, ranging from lifting and tossing opponents to turning robotic enemies on each other.

This game, while it feels like a sci-fi shooter, is in fact an RPG. Some parts of the game are tedious, as you have to wander around large cities going from point A to point B. There are quests, from the main one that drives the story forward, to the side quests where you help out the little people, whether you are getting someone’s data backed up out of their computer, or you are talking to a hooker’s customer (who happens to be a military general) so he stops spreading rumors about her because she doesn’t love him and does not want a true relationship with him. Also, like many RPGs, there is quite a bit of voice-acting and dialogue to sit through. The voice acting is pretty nice, and the story is very well-written, so I enjoyed it all. If you like a good RPG, you won’t mind this too much (I sure don’t), but it’s just a warning that the intense combat comes with some mundane questing in between.

One of my few complaints about the game is the downtime. For starters, the load screens are long…very long. To make matters worse, when you take an elevator to get from one area to another, there is no load screen, even though that’s what is going on. Instead, you have to stare at the screen for about thirty seconds as your party travels the elevator in silence, and does not move. Secondly, I have noticed quite a bit of lag in the game, where at times it will become somewhat choppy. Granted, this is a tad-bit older game, so I’m hoping that some of these simple cosmetic problems are better in Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is a great RPG. It successfully melds role playing into a sci-fi universe, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun to go about and explore the galaxy. The engaging story is well-crafted, and your influence on it allows for several playthroughs. Another interesting concept to note is that the character from this game can be ported over to Mass Effect 2, meaning that certain aspects of the game (choices you made, your character’s biography, and personal relationships) will be right there from the start to shape Mass Effect 2. My only regret is getting to check out this gaming marvel now, because I am so excited to jump into Mass Effect 2 that I will not be giving this one a second run-through.

I received Lost Planet 2 in from Gamefly today, and actually got the chance to put a little over an hour into it. I’m still a little on the fence with it, but it is definitely too early to make a final verdict, especially since I haven’t actually gotten to play with anyone online yet. Still, here’s what I have seen from the campaign so far.

The campaign mode of the game is interesting. There is technically no “single player” mode that you just continue from the last save point. From the campaign menu, you can either jump into someone else’s campaign, or you can create your own campaign. If you start your own, you can start it at any point you wish, up to any point you have already unlocked in the game. The campaign mode supports up to four players, and they can be online buddies or AI. I played two campaigns…one with the AI and one with the online. Unfortunately, no one decided to join in my game, so I was basically getting my butt kicked around. That was one of the first annoying things…it’s hard to play online with random people. I can see it being a lot of fun with some friends who you know will be playing alongside with you, but if you’re hoping to have someone join your game, you could be in for a bumpy ride.

So on to the actual gameplay. I played the original game a long time ago, and remember very little of it. Basically, you are on a planet infested with aliens, and you have to shoot them up. Oh yeah, and space pirates. So your enemies are alien creatures and space pirates. Guns and ammo are plentiful, and come in a variety of choices from normal machine guns and shotguns to large infantry guns which you can remove from battle suits and wield on your own.

The health system of the game is interesting. You have a said life force, and also a bank of T-Energy. T-Energy can be found all over the battlefield, as it’s either stored in containers or bleeds from enemies. So long as you have T-Energy, pushing start will regenerate your health, at the expense of T-Energy. So if you run out of the T stuff, then you will not be able to regenerate health. Also, if you run out of T-Energy your health will gradually decrease, so definitely make sure you have an ample supply of the stuff. Also, there are no lives in the game per say, but “battle points.” So long as you have enough battle points, you will be able to respawn at a marker after you die. However, run out of battle points and it’s game over.

The game controls are pretty tricky, and take some getting used to. For example, R3 is the reload button (not square), and if you want to crouch, you have to constantly hold down L3. Switching alternate weapons (grenades) is a bit odd also, as you have to hold down the triangle button and then press L1. Oh yeah, and pushing L2 and R2 will cause the camera to turn 90degrees to one side, which gets annoying fast, so you don’t want to be pushing those buttons. One of the more interesting controls is the fact that square lets you use a grappling hook device, which allows you to climb up and down ledges, which was fun.

All in all, the game is promising. A four-player online co-op campaign where you and friends bust up aliens (and there are some pretty big bugs out there too!) There is also a competitive mode with different character classes and other stuff, but I didn’t delve into that yet. One of my biggest complaints is the game install. It’s a huge 3GB install, and after it’s installed (which took my PS3 about 15 minutes), there are still a bunch of long load times. I mean, come on, if you’re installing game data onto the PS3 directly, there should be no need for long load screens. Dynasty Warriors Strike Force did it, and it is one heck of a smooth game, with almost no down time. One of my other complaints isn’t directed at the game necessarily, but at my standard def. TV. I can’t read any text in this game. I hardly know what weapon I have equipped, and when I looked at the five character classes for competitive mode, I couldn’t tell what each class was. It was pretty bad and frustrating…almost on par with the frustration I have with playing Sacred 2 on a standard TV. I really need to upgrade…but I digress.

As I said, the game is promising, but I’m still on the fence. I’ll definitely need to pop some more time into it and check out the online modes before I decide if I like the game or hate it.

As you may know, I had some real issues with the AVP demo that came out two weeks ago. While the demo proved the game had a good premise and some great ideas, complex controls and the fact that it was impossible to get a game going left me a bit concerned for the final product. Well, I received the disc from Gamefly on Thursday, and have since then given most of the different game modes a whirl. Unfortunately, the demo gave a very accurate pretense on how the finished game would be…a game with great ideas, but executed badly.

First off, the story/background to the game is virtually non-existent. The game takes place shortly after the events of Alien 3, but I would not have known that had I not read it somewhere online. There is no background story at all, and the cut scenes, while looking and sounding good, do little to explain what the heck is going on. Im going to take a stab at it and say that humans find some ancient Alien/Predator temple and start creating mutant Aliens. The Marines and Predators come in to put a stop to it, resulting in a three-way battle royale to be the last species standing.  There are three single player campaigns (Marine, Alien, Predator), and each three tell the same story through the respective species point of view. For example, as an Alien you are defending the hive from the invading factions, and as a Marine you are called in to clean up the mess. That being said, I’ll start this review up with the single player campaigns.

The first one I played through was the Aliens. The campaign starts off with you (an Alien) chained up in some research lab, and you must break out and go on a killing spree. The Alien’s gameplay style is that of stealth. The Alien must stick to the shadows, crawling on walls and ceilings in order to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. While this makes for a unique FPS experience, it can get frustrating quickly, as the camera tends to get confused on where you are, and can make for a spinning, sickening screen. The Alien has three main attacks: a light attack (claw), a heavy attack (tail), and a lunge attack. Also, if behind an opponent (or standing over a downed opponent), the Alien can perform their instant kill grapple move, which will result in a head being severed or a chest being pierced. Another weird thing about the Alien is that some of the humans are unarmed civilians, and instead of killing them you harvest them by opening their mouths so a facehugger can latch on. I say its weird because there seems to be no point to it. In the AVP game on the Jaguar I used to play, Aliens could harvest human players, but it was either for health or extra lives. The only thing is that you get a trophy for harvesting every civilian in the game, but otherwise there is no point to not killing them. The Alien can regenerate health by hiding and avoiding damage, which will result in the slow healing of the health bar. In the end, the quick, stealthy gameplay of the Alien proved to be the most fun.

The second campaign I played through was that of the Marine. You start off as a rookie Marine who’s squad crash lands on the planet, and you must fight for survival as you make your way to the temple. The Marine’s controls and gameplay are similar to any FPS you have ever played…you walk around, collect guns and ammo, and kill anything that moves. This is the most familiar mode, and I highly recommend playing through as a Marine first to get used to the game. One thing I didnt mention in the Aliens campaign is that every character has a blocking system. Holding L1 and R1 together will cause the Alien, Predator, or Marine to block incoming attacks. If a character attempts to hit with a light  attack, blocking it will deflect it, allowing you to counter with an attack. This is probably one of the lamest features of the game. Imagine, an Alien is running at a Marine. The Marine throws his hands up, and the Alien’s claw gets deflected. As the Alien stumbles back, the Marine counters by pistol-whipping the Alien, causing it to fall to the floor. The Marine then opens fire, killing the xenomorph as it struggles to get up. This melee combat system is extremely lame, and makes online death matches extremely cheesy and lame (not to mention the single player campaigns very easy.) But enough of my rant on the flawed melee.

As I said, the Marine is your basic FPS gameplay. You start off with a pistol, but can pick up a pulse rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, smart gun (like a chain gun with auto-targeting) and flamethrower along the way. You can only carry three guns at a time, so you will constantly be switching off weapons as you run out of ammo. All weapons have a secondary fire which have different effects. For example, the pulse rifle can fire off a grenade, and the sniper rifle will zoom in. The Marine’s health system is similar to that of Resistance: Fall of Man. The health bar is made up of three sections. If you avoid damage for a certain amount of time, a damaged bar will refill on its own. However, if a bar completely loses all its health, it can refill automatically. Instead, you will need to use a stimpack, which can be picked up across levels and will refill all health. The Marine campaign was decent, but there was nothing really unique about it… it’s just your standard FPS.

The Predator campaign was the last one I played through. At first I didn’t enjoy it, but as I played more I got more into it. The Predator, like the Alien, requires the player to use stealth. However, unlike the Alien, the Predator is extremely slow. You definitely get the impression that you are hunting when playing as the Predator. Early in the game, the Predator relies heavily on melee combat. There are four different weapons the Predator can collect (shoulder cannon, throwing discs, mines, and a spear), but they only appear as the story moves along. The shoulder cannon uses energy, which can be replenished by hacking into Marine computer terminals throughout the level. The other weapons have unlimited ammo, making them useful in that respect. However, they are slow, so it is not smart to run into a room and expecting to have guns blazing like the Marines. Also, like the Aliens, the Predator can grapple enemies from behind for a one-hit kill.

The Predator has a similar health system to that of the Marine, in which they can obtain health packs throughout the level and use them when necessary. Like in the movies, the Predator has unique vision abilities, as well as the ability to turn practically invisible. The Predator’s vision is extremely helpful. You can use it to scan the entire map in front of you for key locations and items you can pick up. Also, by pressing the circle button you can alternate between normal vision, “thermal vision” (to make it easier to find Marines), and “Alien vision”, which allows you to hunt down Aliens easier. The invisibility action is performed with the push of a button, but I rarely saw it work. If I was stationary and invisible on a ledge, a Marine who walked into my field of view would usually spot me and attack. One cool thing that the Predator could do was that he could lure enemies out. After targeting an enemy, you can select a space in sight, and the Predator would say something mockingly (like in the movies) and the enemy would walk over to where you selected. This makes it easy to separate a pack of Marines for some easy kills. The Predator campaign starts off slow and difficult, but once you get the varying controls down and start picking up better weapons, it gets better.

Now lets move on to the online modes. AVP offers a variety of online games, but my favorite by far was the co-op survival mode. In survival mode, you and up to three buddies can join forces as a squad of Marines who must face off against ever-increasing waves of Aliens in a confined space. There are plenty of ammo and health pickups which respawn frequently, so you will rarely find yourself out of ammo. The survival maps tend to be very dark, making it an intense and frightening experience as you and your buddies constantly spin about looking for the closest xenomorph. This all sounds like its a blast, but there is one major flaw which really kills this mode in the end…there is no respawning. Once your Marine is down, he is down and out until the other Marines are dead. So once you die, you basically keep watching your teammates play until they eventually all die. It’s not a lot a fun at all. Now compare this survival mode to that of Uncharted 2. In Uncharted 2, once a player “dies”, there is a small amount of time in which another player can rush over to him and revive him, allowing him to continue the fight. And if it so happens that the player cannot be revived and ends up dying, they will respawn at the start of the next wave, so long as at least one player survives to finish off the current wave. This means that just because you died, it doesnt mean your out for the remainder of the game. Unfortunately, this simple and fun revival mode did not make it to AVP, meaning that you will likely spend some time floating above your friends, secretly hoping they all die soon so that you will be able to start a new game so you can play again. This was a really bad move by the developers, and it really kills the best online mode that AVP has.

So if I said that the survival mode was the best, yet I bashed on it pretty hard, how do the competitive modes pan out? Not very good at all. The basic competitive mode is your typical Deathmatch. Up to twelve players can compete to become the guy with the most kills. Unfortunately, it wasnt very fun. The demo deathmatch, while hard to get into, was fun since everyone was just learning the controls and whatnot. However, now that the game is out and people have been playing for a few weeks, players have quickly learned to spam the melee blocking, meaning that there are plenty of cheap deaths to go around. Inexperienced players will easily fall to the one-hit cheapness of a stealthy Alien player, and who ever heard of a Marine pistol-whipping an Alien to death?! The melee combat is extremely lame and unrealistic, and unfortunately it follows over to the online play, making it a lot less fun.

There are some other modes, including an infestation mode where eight players try to survive to see who the last Marine standing is. The game starts with seven Marine and one Alien players. Each time the Alien makes a kill, that player respawns as an Alien. The basic gist of the mode is to be the last Marine standing when the remaining seven players are Aliens. Unfortunately, these online modes, while having potential, were executed poorly, making an extremely frustrating experience that is not a whole lot of fun, and does nothing to add to the replayability of AVP.

The Aliens and Predator franchise have been hit or miss. By themselves, they are pretty solid (with the exception of  Alien: Resurrection.) When combined, like the AVP films, they are usually failures, or if nothing more just a cheesy action-fest with no story. Sega took the AVP franchise and attempted to make an awesome game, boasting three single-player campaigns and a variety of online modes. However, the lack of story or depth in the campaigns, the inclusion of a melee combat system for all species, and the lack of revival in a co-op mode made the game barely playable. Fans of either series should get a guilty pleasure breezing through the campaigns, especially the Aliens one. FPS fans might enjoy the Marines campaign, and be intrigued by the differentiated competitive combat.

But I cant stress this enough…fan or no fan, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!! I received it on Thursday, and will be returning it by Monday. The campaigns are over to quickly and the online modes are only frustrating. I guarantee that you will not want to spend any more time with the game than you have to. That being said, I do recommend the game for a couple of days rental for fans of the franchise.

As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a hard time getting a match going in the AvP demo that launched on Thursday. I tried throughout the weekend at random times, and was unable to get another match going. Today I tried again, and I finally got into a match. I basically set it up and while it searched for a match, I walked into the other room and played around on the computer. After about six minutes, I began to hear other people on their head sets, which meant that I had finally gotten into a game.

First off, I must correct a previous statement. In my other post, I complained that you were unable to choose your character in the demo, and that both times I was assigned to be a Marine. That is only half true. You are able to choose your own character, but you have to be quick. For some reason, the developers didnt want an 8-Alien or Predator battle royale going down, so once the first few Aliens or Predators are selected (I do not know the exact number), the remaining players are automatically assigned to be Marines.

So upon getting into the demo, I quickly realized that I was able to choose an Alien, and did so. The Alien’s controls are off the hook. The Alien is very quick, and not only that, but you are able to jump onto walls and ceilings. As it was my first time playing as an Alien, I quickly feeling disoriented by running all over the place. Eventually I got the hang of it and realized what was going on. The Aliens two main attacks are melee, either with its tail or claws. There is also an option to grapple other players, but I was unable to figure out how. While there is a control scheme displayed while the match loads, it was impossible to read on my standard def. TV (yet another reason for me to get my hands on an HDTV.) The Alien could also “hiss”, but I couldnt figure out what its purpose was. I thought that maybe it was how the Alien regained health, but that was not the case. The other neat feature of the Alien is that it has some kind of heat-vision, where it can see other players through walls. Seeing how the Aliens have this and the Marines have the motion sensing equipment, I can only assume that the Predator has something similar.

Overall, I had fun playing around with the Alien, but I will admit I am no expert. There are a lot of unique controls which must be mastered in order to be successful as the xenomorph, and I am far from grasping it all. Still, it was fun, and definitely offers a unique twist and play style/strategy for a FPS competitive death match. I’ll feel better about it once I get some more hands-on time, which will be next week when I get the game in from Gamefly. Hopefully the final game will be more smooth and have less hassle than the demo had…

Ive been anxiously awaiting the release of AVP. I love the Alien/Predator series, and played the AVP game on the Atari Jaguar back in the day at my friend’s house in middle school. The game is right up on my Gamefly queue, so I will definitely be snagging it when it releases in two weeks. However, the demo released yesterday on the PSN, and I was excited to get my hands on it and try out the three races (Alien, Predator, and Colonial Marine) in the deathmatch demo. Unfortunately, the demo is plagued with failure, and I have been unable to enjoy it.

Apparently, the game servers were not prepared for the amount of people who downloaded the demo yesterday. As a result, it has been impossible to find a game to join. I tried at four different intervals to get a game going yesterday, and succeeded in getting two matches total going. After each match was over, the initial host left, so I was booted out and then unable to find another game. This inability to find a game to play is very annoying and frustrating. I hope it gets fixed so I can start checking out the game more.

My other complaint is with choosing a race. Both times I was unable to choose a race, and was stuck playing as the Marine. This is upsetting because the Marine is the least original. Playing as the Marine is just like playing any other FPS. While the Aliens crawl around and go in for melee kills and the Predator stays invisible and hunts, the Marine plays as you would in any other FPS.

But enough of my complaints. From what I did see and experience, it was a blast. It is a very intense FPS, and very fast paced. The Alien players are able to move extremely quickly, and can climb walls and hang from ceilings. Their main attack is melee based, and playing as the Marine I suffered several tails through the torso and eating of my face. The speed of the Aliens is what allows them to get up close for these devastating attacks. Oh, and in case I didnt make it clear, these are one-hit kills. So yeah, the Aliens are nasty.

I didnt see much of the Predator, and from what I did, he was just invisible. Well, not totally invisible, as you can faintly make out his outline. However, I killed quite a few Predators, and I didnt meet death from any, so I dont know how their attacks are. What I do know is that many of the Predators stronger weapons are scattered throughout the map, and you have to track them down to use them.

The Marine, as I already mentioned, seemed to be normal. His default weapon is a machine gun, and you run around and shoot enemies. Like the Predator, the stronger weapons (like a shotgun) are scattered throughout the map and you have to pick them up. The other thing the Marine has is a motion sensing device (a la Aliens) which can be used to find enemies. While this may be an advantage, from chatting with the Alien players I found out that they can hear the motion tracker (if you remember from the movie, its loud, and gets louder as enemies get closer), so its not an entirely awesome advantage for the Marines.

Overall, the game was a blast. The demo map is a space ship interior that is covered with Alien hive matter. As I frantically ran about looking for other players to kill, the creepy environment, the uncomfortable silence (there was no background music), and the motion sensing beeps all gave me the feeling of being in an Aliens movie. I actually did pretty good too, as in my first game I came in first in kills, and my other came I came in third. However, I think that is because the game had just came out, and normal controls of the Marine are definitely less complex than learning how to control an Alien or Predator. Once in game there was absolutely no lag, the only technical problem being actually finding a game to join. I really enjoyed playing it, and I cant wait for the finished product with the three single player campaigns and multitude of online modes (including death match, co-op survival, and some other more interesting competitive modes.)

I only hope this demo is fixed soon so I can get a crack at playing as an Alien or Marine.

I could have sworn I did a review of Dead Space, but I could not find it in my archives. What I do remember about it was that it was horrible. I was not a fan of the slow gameplay or the controls. However, many people online have said how awesome it was, and one friend in particular mentioned that the final game was better than the demo. Now, I needed to have a game in from Gamefly to last me until AVP comes out, and I decided to try Dead Space. So far, I have not been disappointed.

The game is a classic space-survival story. A crew is sent to work some routine maintenance on a large spaceship, and arrive to find that the crew of the ship are missing. It becomes a game of survival as you and your small crew must survive a creature manifestation aboard the large ship.

The gameplay is pretty awesome. Its a third-person shooter, and you have an array of weapons and melee moves at your disposal to eliminate your adversaries. However, one thing I did not like was that the main character (Issac) takes up a large portion of the screen, kind of like how it was with Batman: Arkham Asylum. The movement controls are still kind of slow, but a bit quicker than they were in the demo, and are more fluid. Within a half hour I was used to them and enjoying the game.

As I said, the main gist of the game is killing creatures. However, these creatures can take many a shot to the chest. Thus, it is essential to carefully aim your shots and shoot off their limbs. Using the default plasma cutter, you can shoot out their legs so they fall to the ground, but they will continue to crawl towards you. You will then have to shoot out their arms or head. However, a head shot is not always a one-shot kill, as sometimes the bodies will continue to blindly come at you without a head.

The sounds of the game only add to the creepiness of the creatures. There is rarely any background music, so the only sound you hear is the environment. This includes the creatures, as they scamper above you on grates or suddenly pop out of a wall or doorway. Both the visual and audio aspects of the game give it an eerie feel, and I havent been this creeped out by a game in a long time.

There is more to the game, which I will get into when I do a full review. However, the first hour in was a blast, and I am looking forward to getting more into it, including getting some game time in at night, to enhance the creepiness. As of right now, I think its definitely worth a rental to check out.

Sure, its meant to be a kids movie. Its made by Disney, has some young kids getting into trouble. My real interest in it is from the star: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I have loved pretty much every movie Johnson ever did (aside from Scorpion King). He made a big leap from wrestling to the movies, and he did a damn good job. He has proven to be one of the best actors today, and he is one of the few who dont piss me off. Like Hogan, he moved from the squared circle to the professional film circuit, but unlike Hulk he did a damn good job, and is not as corny. So I rent the movie for him.

The movie is a remake of an older movie, and based on a book. Basically, some kids are being hunted by federal agents because they are not kids, but aliens from another planet. Johnson’s character is a taxi driver who picks them up (not knowing they are aliens since they look like normal kids) and the adventure is born as he helps them evade capture. The point of it all is to get to Witch Mountain, where the kids spaceship is being held at a secret underground military base, so that they can blast off back to their home planet.

The movie was decent. It had the kiddy feel, and I know it wasnt too good because Shell fell asleep for it (and the Rock is her Hollywood Hunk, so that says a lot). It was an interesting premise, but the focus on being a kid-friendly film did have its limitations. A cyborg bounty hunter/Terminator was also thrown into the mix to assassinate the kids, and it visually reminded me of a Predator. Unfortunately, it was not as cool as it sounds, and did very little in the movie. Oh yeah, and aside from the agents and Terminator, there were also some gangsters looking for Johnson’s character because he wouldnt pay back a favor to their boss or some nonsense like that.

So yeah, the best way for me to say it is that its decent. I didnt hate the movie, and what I didnt like didnt have anything to do with Johnson, it was just the basic story and its presentation. I wouldnt recommend it unless you are a fan of Johnson’s work, or if you had some kids at home who would be interested in a story about young adult aliens on the lamb.