Matthew R. Reis: Film and TV Critic

Pray for me Blog exclusive! I rented “Prey” for free yesterday thanks to a Redbox Play Pass coupon I received. This isn’t a review of the entire game since I only rented it for a single night ($3 game rentals are rip-offs!) Small sample size aside, I came away mightily impressed by Arkane Studios’ reboot of the original “Prey” (2006) . Set in 2035, Morgan Yu (the protagonist) awakens inside a posh San Francisco apartment. Life is good, he or she (you choose which gender to play as) is a surefire one-percenter, but something’s afoot. A glitch reveals that Morgan’s inside a partially simulated environment and has had a memory wipe. It’s the player’s job to break out. Once outside the confines of the fake apartment, you realize that you’re onboard the Talos 1 Space Station. The crew aboard the space station had been studying a dangerous species of alien called the Typhon ( derived from Greek Mythology , meaning a giant, deadly monstrosity) for years. The hope was that the coll...

Blog exclusive! To all my readers: I hope each and every one of you had a splendid Thanksgiving with lots of food, company and laughter. I had a great time with my parents and for obvious reasons took some time off from writing for my blog. Though since I had the pleasure of seeing two of the year's best films in "Lincoln" and "Argo" I think now is as good a time as any to start blogging again. The first film I saw was Steven Spielberg's contemplative "Lincoln", followed shortly thereafter by Ben Affleck's gripping spy drama "Argo". From a visual standpoint "Lincoln" is breathtakingly shot and captures the true horror of war. The film has no bad moments whatsoever. Daniel Day-Lewis portrays the nation's 16th (and best) president will win the Oscar for Best Actor. "Argo" on the other hand is a tale of two nations that hate each other dearly. An Iranian mob has overrun the US consulate and taken captive doz...