Mafia 2 Review & Valhalla Rising

Mafia 2 Review

Well, the Mafia 2 Review is in the books over at Associated Content.  Check out the Mafia II Review – “Family” is Thicker Than Blood article, and please share your thoughts on the game and feedback on the article.  Although the overall scores for the game are good, and praise for the Mafia II Soundtrack in particular has been high, there seems to be a fairly large faction of gamers who are “hating” on the game.  I attribute it to the ADD instant-gratification segment of gamers out there who wanted to just run around and murder prostitutes.  The ones who can’t be bothered to pay attention to that nuisance know as a narrative.

Valhalla Rising

Saw a movie this weekend at Cinema 21 that could only be described as interesting at best.  Valhalla Rising is a nordic/viking tale starring Mads Mikkelsen (great name).  You may remembers Mads as the villain in the first Daniel Craig Bond flick, Casino Royale.  Mads doesn’t say a word through the whole film which is ridiculously light on dialogue.  Valhalla Rising is all about mood and imagery and indeed the cinematography is wonderful.  The music I would describe as atmospheric in it’s deep base and tonal approach, but becomes overbearing and repetitive at points.

I appreciate what they were trying to do here, but it ended up being a waste of time and money.  I wouldn’t recommend this, particularly to the average movie-goer who may see the poster and expect a super action-based Viking war.  While Mads kicks ass when he needs to the action scenes are not nearly enough to balance out the slow, surreal pacing of Valhalla Rising