Valkyria Chronicles III Revisited

The art design in this game is
phenomenal.  It's further improved
from the already solid art design in VC2

THIS GAME IS FUCKING AWESOME!

Valkyria Chronicles III is probably my favorite game on the PSP.  Like Valkyria Chronicles II, it knows its limits and sticks to what the PSP can handle.  Although Valkyria Chronicles II is an incredibly good game, this game surpasses it without a doubt.

As far as game mechanics, the biggest reason why this one is better than the second game is because you don't have to beat your head against a wall trying to collect raw materials to buy better guns.  That was probably one of the only things that I didn't like about Valkyria Chronicles II.

The number of soldier classes have been narrowed down significantly.  The main soldier classes have remained intact; Scout, Shock Trooper, Lancer, Engineer, and Armored Tech.  However, they also kept the Sniper, Gunner, and Fencer classes.  However, this makes sense because the Sniper, Gunner, and Fencer classes are pretty different than the other classes.  So, instead of having the AT Sniper class, for example, you can just equip a sniper with an AT sniper rifle.  I'm pretty on the fence as far as which soldier class system I like better.  They both have their pros and cons.

The story is great!  It's probably my favorite story of the three games.  The story is centered around Kurt Irving, a graduate of Lanseal Military Academy.  Basically, he ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets in trouble.  Naturally, without any kind of trial, the military sentences Kurt to The Nameless, a penal unit similar to that of The Dirty Dozen from the movie Dirty Dozen (if you haven't seen that movie, it's pretty awesome.  Just saying...).  Now, I suppose The Nameless isn't quite as funny as The Dirty Dozen but they definitely have character.  Compared to Squad 7 or Class G from the other Valkyria Chronicles games, The Nameless have a much darker aura about them.  They're worn out. They're tired. They just really don't want to go on another suicide mission.  However, since this is a Japanese anime based game, the women in the unit tend to be timid or peachy at times.  So, how could people with that kind of personality end up in The Nameless?  Well, apparently some of the people volunteer and some others get thrown into The Nameless for the silliest of reasons.  There is a logical reason for this but it involves spoilers.

In fact, if you want to read more about what I thought of the story, you'll have to check out the spoilers section at the bottom of this post.  One last thing I would like to mention here about the story though is that this game takes place at the same time as the first Valkyria Chronicles.  I thought this was a pretty cool idea because you get to relate what you know about that game with this one.  Through each chapter, the game relates the events of the first game and Squad 7s actions and how they're chronologically related to what The Nameless are doing.  This aspect of the story I really enjoyed as a devout Valkyria Chronicles fan.

The game definitely gets you your money's worth.  It took me a little over 60 gameplay hours to play through the main story.  Of these 60 hours, very little of it was used for leveling up or replaying levels.  It wasn't until I got to the end of the game that I realized that there were also character specific missions I could have been playing all along (much like Valkyria Chronicles II).  I'm in the process of playing those short stories now.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find translations of these.  The summaries on the Valkyria Wikia will have to suffice.

My E2 version of the game also came with built-in DLC so that's pretty cool.  I haven't started playing those missions yet.

Remember in Valkyria Chronicles II how the fencers were basically invincible?  Well, in this game, they're actually pretty worthless.  I think that the developers realized from the last game how ridiculous the Fencer class was so not only did they make the Fencer's shield smaller, they also made it so that the fencer still takes some damage even when the bullets hit the shield.  Now you can't really do anything with the fencer!  If you try running more than a few feet with a fencer in the open field, the fencer will die.  The only thing I found myself using fencers for in this game was to take out multiple enemies at once if I was in a situation where I could get close enough without getting shot full of holes.

The Engineer class, though valuable in other Valkyria Chronicles games, is even more valuable in this game.  Engineers still can't fight very well but they combined the skills of the Anthem Corp class with the Engineer class.  What does this mean?  Well, it means that if you level your Engineer up to the veteran class level, you can carry not only the pistol, ragnaid (health pack), and wrench all at the same time, you can also carry an instrument as well (kind of looks like a Baritone, FYI).  Instruments add positive status effects to all of your allies or negative ones to all of the enemy units within the playing range of the instrument (depending on what model of instrument you have equipped).  This makes engineers even more useful due to all of their abilities.  They prove to be a powerful morale booster in seemingly hopeless situations.

What I like a lot about this game is that tanks only take up one turn token instead of two.  This is the first game of the series where a tank's turn didn't use up two turn tokens.  I like this a lot because I found myself never using the tanks in previous games because of the amount of turn tokens they used (unless I really needed something to take cover behind).

In the second game, you could replace your tank with an APC.  Though I never really used the APC, I thought the concept of the APC was pretty cool.  Basically, instead of being good for anti-tank combat and being impervious to bullets, the APC can travel really far and carry people in its hold.  This is pretty useful for moving multiple people at a time without wasting a ton of turn tokens.  In the third game, they have even more vehicles to choose from.  There are various utility trucks and half-tracks that you can buy.  Unfortunately, I haven't tried any of them out on the account that I have grown accustom to using tanks in my overall strategy.

This game reuses a lot of battlefields from the second Valkyria Chronicles game, however, it also has a whole host of new levels.  Some of these new levels are really oblong (which is something that we haven't seen in a Valkyria Chronicles game at all until now).  The oblong levels are really interesting as you will quickly realize that the high firepower and short distance shock troopers are essentially useless for traversing these long distances (unless if you have an APC).  In my case, I found myself traveling across the level with scouts and occasionally using snipers for supporting fire.

Imca's special ability

Probably my favorite addition to the series is the special abilities tokens.  Depending on the level, you will get anywhere from 0-3 special ability tokens to use.  You spend these tokens (plus a turn token) to use either Kurt's special ability, Riela's special ability, or Imca's special ability.  These abilities prove to be pretty useful.  Kurt's special ability allows him to bring other troops with him during his turn.  Imca can shoot multiple enemies with mortar shells at once (as many enemies as you can fit on the screen).  Riela's special ability I found myself using the most.  Her special ability involves invincibility with increased firepower.  It's actually pretty unfair because if the objective is to capture a base, then you can just run past all of the tanks, turrets, bunkers, and machine gunners to the base, kill the person in the immediate area, and capture it.  In my opinion, the Riela special ability should be at least two special tokens if not 3 three.  But, as long as it's only one special token, I'll keep taking advantage of it.

Overall, this Valkyria Chronicles is, in my opinion, the best of the series.  Although the game is only distributed in Japanese, you can still get all the translations and information needed to play the game over the internet.  You can also play this game with your North American PSP.  You don't need a Japanese one to play this game.  Not sure about Europe but I would probably assume you could play it on a European PSP as well.  This game is crazy good and, as a Valkyria Chronicles fan, I'm really glad that I hunted this one down.


Update 1-19-2014:  I don't know if you remember but in my PSP Reboot Epilogue:  Valkyria Chronicles III post I mentioned that there were a number of VC3 fans who had been working on an English patch for the game.

I said, "...it does seem to me that they are taking this seriously and that the project has not completely phased out yet."

Well, to my pleasant surprise, the team had released a completed patch sometime over the holidays.  I'm glad that I just happened to check their site for updates yesterday!  It's in what's practically a beta phase, but it works fantastic (certainly better than the Battlefield 4 day one release)!  Cutscenes, menus, item descriptions, etc., they're all translated in-game!

I think I might have just shit myself...

You'll need custom firmware on your PSP in order to play it (since you're patching your own, ripped, .iso version of the game).  What was also to my surprise was that now you can use custom firmware on your PSP WITHOUT hardware modification.  I repeat:  WITHOUT hardware modification.  This is great because now you don't have to risk bricking your PSP while trying to hack it (which is what held me back before).  This custom firmware is made by the PRO team and can be found here.

The download link and instructions for the VC3 English Patch can be found at the link below:
http://vc3translationproject.wordpress.com/patch-and-instructions/


Tank Screenshot Image:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvQuw_L5da0   
Imca's Special Ability Image:  http://www.wingdamage.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/valkyria-chronicles-3-hands-on-impressions-psp-3.jpg
PSP Gameplay Picture:  from me

***************SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT***************

Before I dig into the story, I just wanted to mention one thing about the gameplay that I couldn't above this point.  We finally get to play as the Valkyria.

Finally...

It's rather disappointing when in mid-battle you get to see the Valkyria doing all of this cool shit and you can't control any of it.  Well, finally we get to use Valkyrian powers via the special move tokens through Riela.  It's pretty cool.  However, the really heavy tanks can't be taken down with one hit of the Valkyrian lance.  Seems rather contrary to the first game where Selvaria would freaking tear tanks asunder and blast away whole regiments with her massive powers.  However, I guess Riela's surprising weakness does make sense since she doesn't have full control over her Valkyrian powers.

I really wanted to talk about the story of this game a little more because it's really flippin' good!  The character development in this game is way stronger than any of the other games.  The first mission with The Nameless literally involves most of the unit going AWOL because they don't want to follow Kurt's orders.  I like all of the subplots going on in this game.  Between the inner-conflict with Gusurg, the corruption of the Gallian army officers with Cardinal Bolgia, and the back story of Dahau and Calamity Raven, this game gives you a lot to be interested in.  It does a great job of weaving all of these plots together without forcing anything.

Unlike the first two Valkyria Chronicles games, the journey in this game isn't so obvious.  I'm always looking forward to the next cut scene and never really knowing what exactly is going to happen.  I love how The Nameless basically have their whole world turned upside down like three times.  It's like their lives weren't upsetting enough with all of the suicide missions.

As interesting as the story is, the story does fall into a little bit of a repeated formula in the middle of the game.  For a few chapters in the game, The Nameless get assigned a mission, then they run into someone that they know (or know of) who they either help, get helped by, or both.  Then they go back to Randgriz for their next assignment.  This formula isn't even particularly bad as it's similar to the other games.  However, the number of guest character appearances is excessive.  Just about every character from another Valkyria Chronicles game makes an appearance in this game.  I'm not kidding.  The Nameless run into Squad 7 (you get to control Squad 7 in one of the story missions), Avan, Cosette, and Zeri (all in separate occurances by the way), Leon, Julianna, even the Gassernarl siblings and Brixam (Avan's, Cosette's, and Zeri's professor).  I mean, holy moly!  This was way too excessive!  I mean, it's one thing to bring back one or two characters from another game.  But, this game had just about every major character in the Valkyria Chronicles series!  I mean, talk about the biggest coincidence ever!  In fact, when The Nameless went to Fouzen, I was actually surprised that they didn't run into Zeke somehow (you missed a guest appearance opportunity!).  The Nameless literally work with and/or fight alongside every single major character in Valkryia Chronicles II (both protagonists AND antagonists!).  It's just ridiculous.

But seriously, that was really the only flaw in this game's story.  The rest of it I thought was really good.  It really kept me interested the whole way through.  Actually, it kept me really interested.  If there were 60 hours in a day, I would have probably tried to beat this whole game in one sitting.  There were just so many unexpected events.  Like, when the Gallian higher-ups tried assassinating The Nameless in the desert in order to prolong the war for Cardinal Bolgia's motives.  That completely caught me napping.

The touching moments in this game work really well.  Gusurg's death is really powerful (though completely expected).  The plot has been used before but Kurt having to kill Gusurg (a dear friend) due to opposing sides worked really well in the story of this game.  A lot of this had to do with that the story really builds up their relationship.  In the beginning, Gusurg is the only one that is even willing to give Kurt a chance at leading the squad.  Then Gusurg works pretty hard to persuade the rest of the squad that Kurt is a capable leader.  Their time together after that really just strengthened their friendship.  Though Dahau's death is also pretty powerful, it's not quite as powerful of a death scene because we didn't have much exposure to how much of a connection Dahau had with his deceased wife.  However, Dahau's wife's spirit talking to Dahau during his last moments was pretty well done (her telling him that he has done enough and can rest now).  Cliche but done well.

Ramsey Crow

My favorite scene in this game happens just after the corrupt Gallian official, Isler, is convicted and The Nameless have been relieved of their crimes and integrated as a unit in the regular army.  Everyone in The Nameless is looking at promising futures, including Kurt who is, at this point, considered a pretty brilliant officer for getting The Nameless through all of that shit alive.  In fact, they even give up The Nameless title because everything that they do now officially goes down on paper (unlike before where their unit didn't officially exist, allowing command to force them into ridiculous missions that violate international rules of war).  Of course Ramsey, that perv with the mustache and hairy chest, tells Squad 422 that there's this Valkyrian weapon of mass destruction within the borders of the Empire that Dahau is probably going to use to try and blowup Randgriz (the capital of Gallia).  Of course, the Kurt at the beginning of the game would have said, "Hell no!  I want a military career!"  But, Kurt decides that he needs to stop this weapon in order to save Gallia and, potentially, the world (OF COURSE!).  He gets the squad to join him after a motivational speech.  But, going into another country without declaring war would be something that the Gallian army wouldn't want to have anything officially to do with.  So, Kurt and Squad 422 go back to being The Nameless and throw away their futures in Gallia.  In order to do this, Kurt asks Ramsey to eliminate their existence from military records.  However, instead of eliminating their existence from military records, Ramsey records them all as officially KIA, ending the trail for Squad 422.  I thought that this was really cool because it still keeps the legacy that The Nameless had left in Gallia while still letting The Nameless leave Gallia to do the right thing.

In taking on this mission, The Nameless have also determined that they could never come back to Gallia because they technically aren't supposed to exist.  I thought the title of this chapter of the game was very clever.  I'm not sure how the Japanese is but the English translation is very clever in its simplicity.  The chapter it simply called "Nameless Again."  I love the name of the chapter.  It's perfect.

The last level of the game is rather interesting.  To start, Dahau is invincible.  This kind of annoys me but, whatever.  The giant cannon thing is pretty interesting.  You can only get to the cannon area by taking a series of lifts to each section.  There are three sections and you can't travel between the sections while in the area.  You have to take the corresponding lift in one of the three other areas to get to the section of the cannon that you're trying to hit.  This is pretty unique compared to other Valkyria Chronicles games.  It's also particularly difficult because snipers spawn in the sections every turn to kill whoever is in there.  So, seemingly, you have to waste your time killing snipers in order to stay up there.  I found a pretty cheap way to get around this roadblock though.  Basically, you get an armored tech up there in each of the three sections and have them face in the direction the snipers are shooting from.  The AI is too stupid to figure out how to shoot above the armored tech's shield and the bullets just ricochet off the shield.  It's cheap but if they can spawn out of nowhere, I can cheat too.  lol

The endings are fucking hilarious in this game.  As far as I can tell, there are two different endings depending on which love interest path you pick to take towards the end of the game.  If you pick the Riela ending, the cut scene after the end credits is of Riela and Kurt getting married and coming out of the church.  The Nameless are all standing outside cheering them on.  This includes that old guy (I can't remember his name) drinking from a bottle.  When they get down to the street, The Nameless' tank is sitting there waiting to take them to....uh....wherever married couples go right after they get married.  I couldn't find subtitles or a translation for this ending so I don't know what Riela said but it doesn't matter too much.  When I saw the tank sitting out there, I couldn't help but to burst out laughing.  However, it also makes me want to have a tank at my wedding...

The Imca ending is probably even more humorous.  First of all, it just skips the wedding.  Yeah fuck that shit.  Let's get to the part where we have like six kids!  Then, the whole scene is basically Kurt making a joke about Imca eating a lot and all the kids making fun of her too.  Then Kurt makes what I assume is a suggestive remark in front of the children (though the English translation isn't suggestive).  So Imca gets embarrassed and the children make fun of her face turning red.  It's pretty humorous

One last thing I wanted to talk about is the intro cut scene of the game.  The intro cut scene of this game and the other Valkyria Chronicles games are really well done.  However, there is something I finally want to call the developers out on.  Basically, the intro cut scenes have all of this stuff in them that doesn't actually happen in the game.  This particularly bothered me with the one for this game because at the beginning of the intro cut scene, it seems like something really moving had either just happened or is about to happen.  So, part of me had been waiting the whole game for that moment but, to my demise, it never came.  Disappointing?  A little bit.  However, I enjoyed this game's story so much that at the end of the day, I didn't care that much.

Ramsey Crowe Image:  http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_small/3/30280/1646619-2132428298_full.jpg

Bet the Levels at The Bottom Lounge

The Distillers
Live at the Bottom Lounge 2003

So, I suppose the first thing that comes to mind about this performance is that the venue is much more well-known than past venues that I have seen Bet the Levels at.  To put things in perspective, there have been a few somewhat known artists that have performed at The Bottom Lounge in the past.  Some of these bands include The Dear Hunter, The Distillers, Local H, Titus Andronicus, Butch Walker, X, and, surprisingly, Bruno Mars.

Last Sunday was horrible driving weather.  This would have been a pretty good reason to take the train there instead of driving (The Bottom Lounge is on the near-west side in the Meat Packing District).  Of course, on top of the snowfall, the parking situation in the area is less than ideal.  Even if you want to pay, there are no parking garages nearby.  If you search reviews on The Bottom Lounge, one of the pluses people give is that there's plenty of parking due to the small lot next to the place.  However, when I went there, the lot was closed.  I'm not sure if it's normally closed or not but it was rather disappointing.

When we got in there, there was a band already playing.  I'm not sure what they were called but the whole band was two acoustic guitarists and two electric guitarists (peculiar instrumentation).  They were pretty good at what they did.  It was just softer, laid-back, rock/folk.  However, it got pretty stale after awhile.  There wasn't much variance between songs.  Probably the most notable thing to mention here is that one of the electric guitarists had a gazillion (I can't believe gazillion passes the google spell check lol) pedals.  I couldn't even begin to count how many pedals he had.  He had them all bolted or taped (or something) to a piece of plywood for easy transportation (probably because he didn't have any money left to buy an actual pedal board to put them on after buying all those pedals).

READY, SET, GO!!!
G.E. Days is a great way to
kick off a show!

After they performed, Bet the Levels came on.  I won't talk too much about Bet the Levels since I've talked about them a few times before.  They played mostly the same set list.  However, they didn't play "I am Error" which I was very disappointed in.  At the end of the set, they tried playing "Dammit," the blink-182 song.  They announced that they had just learned it the previous day... and it showed.  It was almost as bad as when they tried to play "My Generation" at the last show.  C'mon guys!  Play what you know!

You can check out videos of the whole concert on their Facebook page here.

After Bet the Levels was a band called Slightly Irritated.  They were decent to say the least.  They did mostly covers... mostly covers of blink-182.  They covered "Dammit," "All the Small Things," and "Feeling This."  They also covered "The Hell Song" by Sum-41 and "1985" by Bowling for Soup.  The few originals that they had were rather unmemorable.  There was one that sounded pretty good but it also  sounded like a blink-182 clone so it really didn't stand out in the overall scheme of things.  Probably the first thing you will notice about this band is that the singer has a very high voice.  This wasn't particularly a bad thing; he used this asset mostly to his advantage. However, he decided to take "The Hell Song" an octave down in the chorus.  This really wrecks the song.  All of the build-up that happens during the verses has a very lack-luster climax to follow it up if you take the vocals an octave down.  Not to mention that when the lead vocalist takes it an octave down, he does it less angrily.  By the end of the song, it certainly left me Slightly Irritated (hahaha, I can see you cringing at your computers now as you read that horrible joke).

Speaking of the name of the band, they seemed a lot less than slightly irritated.  A better name for the band probably would have been Generally Content.  Every song that they did was probably on the most pop side of the pop-punk genre that you could get (besides "The Hell Song" which lacked anger when they played it anyways).  Everything was rather peachy.  The guitars were bright.  The singing even seemed overly cheerful at times.  Probably what bothered me most about their sound was the sound of the bass guitar.  Being a bassist myself, I suppose I can be overly critical of bass guitar;  especially since I have pretty specific preferences on how bass guitar should sound in certain genres.  This guy basically had his mid knob cranked all the way and his tone cranked all the way down.  I don't think I've ever heard bass sound so peachy in my life!  It sounded like he would fit right into one of those Disney Channel bands for their next child star.  Actually, the bass guitar itself was a pretty interesting modding concoction.  If I'm not mistaking, he took an Ernie Ball Stingray neck and attached it to a Fender Precision Bass body.  The pickups looked like stock pickups but the aesthetic was a unique black body with a red pickguard.  I'm not really sure what would incline someone to combine an Ernie Ball Bass neck with a Fender body as the Ernie Ball basses are generally of a higher quality anyways.  But, as I just talked about, I don't really seem to understand the appeal of his sound to begin with.

Oh, I almost forgot that they did a cover of "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.  This cover was pretty alright except for the intro.  They changed the intro (or botched it, I'm not sure which) so much that I couldn't even recognize the song at the beginning (which the intro is pretty iconic).  When doing a cover of a well-known song, it's a requirement that the most recognizable parts of the song remain intact.  They failed at this, miserably.

I suppose one other thing I would like to mention about Slightly Irritated is that the bass player's back up vocals were very out of tune on "Feeling This."  They were so bad that the lead singer was singing a layer over the bass player's Mark Hoppus parts in the hopes of drowning him out.  Yikes!

After Slightly Irritated, I ended up leaving due to having a final exam the next morning and the weather conditions.  It took awhile to get home.  I also ended up seeing firetrucks and police cars at an accident along with a spun out Camaro stuck in the snow.  On top of that, I saw a guy in a Chevy Cobalt spin out right in front of me after flying past me a few moments before.  It was certainly an interesting trip home to say the least.

Anyhow, I'll keep you updated on Bet the Levels.  I will likely do a review of their next show and post it on this blog site.  Also, I am anxiously awaiting the release of Bet the Levels first studio album Little Miss Perfect.  Late last week, the band announced that they had finished recording it.  Obviously, if you have been to a Bet the Levels show, you have probably heard most of the songs already.  If the studio album is anything like the live show, it's going to be one hell of an album.  I'm impatiently waiting for my copy.


The Distillers Image:  http://bottomlounge.com/gallery/
Bet the Levels Image:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=404541879649381

Some Hypothetical Thinking...

So, with PSP reboot all finished, I've been throwing around some ideas for what I want to do next.  So, maybe I should review all of my Playstation 2 games!

haha...that would take forever...

Unless if I review like 3 or 4 games a day.  Or, I could do an abridged review where I do 5 word reviews of every Playstation 2 game that I own all in one blog post.

I may do some more How To satires.  At the moment however, I'm not really sure what about.

I may also post some videos of films that I have from the Axis and Allies RTS.  Some of them are kind of interesting.

One thing that I really ought to start blogging about is Karate.  I've only been doing it for about 15 years or so...

If anyone has any requests, leave them in the comments or let me know somehow.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

In this year where I just haven't been very inclined to go to the movie theater due to the lack of interesting movies, The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire actually got me to leave my house.  Granted, it also reminded me how much watching a movie in the theater can suck sometimes.  For instance, when people walk into the movie twenty minutes late, create a ruckus, and then continue to create a ruckus for at least ten minutes, it's really just rude at that point.  Why would you even pay money for a ticket if you're going to be that late?

Anyways, this movie is very good.  It surpasses the first film (which I also thought was very good).  Jennifer Lawrence is incredible in just about every movie she does.  Along with many other males in this country, I too have a crush on Jennifer Lawrence for her acting on the screen and her actions off of the screen.  I figure I should probably admit that on the account that it's going to automatically make me biased towards her work.

The cinematography is pretty good.  They don't do anything clever or fancy with the camera work, which plays in this film's favor.  Too many times in action films do we see shaky cameras or camera zooms to try and enhance the action.  For me personally, these things just make me nauseous.  The timing between camera angle changes was just about perfect.  They remained on a shot long enough to where you would get an idea of what had just happened but would still be left with a little bit of confusion (especially in night scenes or scenes in dark areas).  The camera angles never changed too quick like a music video but changed enough to keep the suspense going.

One thing about this film is that the CGI is rather obvious.  However, that's on par for any film this decade.  I should probably get used to it.  It's not going away.

The heavy moments in this film are beautifully done.  It's actually the camera work/direction here that is better than average.  Along with the decent musical score, this film really comes to life in those peak moments.

Like many movies based on books, the character development was limited.  In the movie's defense, there were more significant characters in this film than the last.  The thing is, some of the characters, were developed really well just by a few moments, (like Johanna).  We knew who Johanna was when it really counted.  Other characters, some of them even pretty significant, I had no idea who they were.  I didn't know much of their personalities or their attributes, etc.  For instance, we still hardly know who Finnick is by the end of the film.  We learn that he is selfless.  But that's about it.  It's really nothing as unique as what Johanna does in the film.  In fact, she's way more memorable of a character than Finnick.  Most other new characters are just Haymitch explaining to Katniss and Peeta who they are.

Overall, The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire is something that any movie goer should give a decent shot.  This film has won me over into being a fan of the series and I will probably start reading the books at some point.  This universe is particularly interesting to me.

Anyways, give this one a go.  You'll probably like it.



Oh, and if you can't get Donald Sutherland's role in Animal House out of your head, it will be really, really, hard to take the President Snow character seriously.  hahahaha

Image:  http://latino-review.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/thehungergams-catchingfire-ukposter.jpg