Swollen Pickles

Resident Evil: Degeneration is the first full length CG animation film based on the Resident Evil video games by Capcom. Unlike the Resident Evil live action films, Resident Evil: Degeneration is set within the same "universe" that the video games are. If you are into the games at all, Degeneration is said to take place around 12 months after the events of Resident Evil 4.

Clare Redfield (who featured in the Resident Evil 2 game) is at an airport to meet a friend when a passenger plan approaching the airport crash lands following an outbreak of the T-Virus on board. Takes about 20 seconds for the airport to turn into zombie central. Bunkering down in the airports VIP area with a handful of other survivors Clare is rescued by Leon Kennedy, another character from the games.

Meanwhile there's a big conspiracy going on with a dodgy Senator and a pharmaceutical company implicated in the zombie shenanigans.

There's also a terrorist group determined to expose the world to the truth of what happened at Racoon City. Are they behind the airport outbreak? Would they risk a Racoon repeat just to prove a point? Well you'll have to watch it I guess.

To be blunt, I found the plot of Resident Evil: Degeneration hard to follow. I haven't played the games so I didn't have a lot of the background, so I'm guessing a lot of the conspiracy stuff went over my head. The plot seemed to plod along for quite a while before picking up pace at the end. There were a couple of belated plot twists that seemed to just add to my confusion rather than anything else.

The real reason to watch Resident Evil: Degeneration is to check out the impressive CG animation. Some of it is genuinely jaw dropping in terms of it's realism. The one area that CG seems to fall down on at the moment is with characters facial expressions, lip syncing and expressing emotions facially. Once CG animators nail there's the potential to make 'real' actors obsolete. That being said, I'm not sure why they decided to make this film 100% CG as there wasn't a lot on show that couldn't have been achieved with live action. I wonder what the budget was like in comparison to a live action feature of the same kind and length?

In summary

If you are into a) CG animation b) Resident Evil or c) zombies give Resident Evil: Degeneration a look, just don't expect the story line to rock your world. Overall I'd give it a solid 6.5 out of 10.

PS2-RESIDENT-EVIL-REINVENTED-COMPLETE-MANUAL & CASE

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J622B Resident Evil The Umbrella Chronicles Light Sign

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Nintendo GameCube Game RESIDENT EVIL 4 Wii

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As the door closes on 2008, it also close on another 12 months of the Swollen Pickles goal project. It's been a big year, with some decent gains made in some areas, and some disappointments in others.

Join me, as I take a look at how I went in December 2008.

1. Develop Swollen Pickles into a website that can generate $350 per month.

To say that the past couple of months have been disappointing is probably an understatement. In November 2008 SwollenPickles.com limped to $98.55. December 2008 saw revenue increase to $121.83 for the month. I'm not much of a mathematician, but I doubt that increase is statistically significant.

I made ten bucks from AdBrite this month. I have set up AdBrite to run as an alternative to Adsense if no Adsense ads are able to be displayed.

2. Develop Swollen Pickles to the point where it receives 30,000 unique visits per month.

A grand total of 27,048 unique patrons stopped by in December 2008, up slightly from 25,101 unique visitors in November.

Here's a graph showing unique visits to this site for the past 2 years, comparing actual traffic to my target.

3. Develop Digital Burn into a website that can generate $150 per month.

December 2008 saw DigitalBurn nudge past is revenue goal, bringing in $159.54 for the month, well up on the $70.51 for November 2008.

4. Develop Digital Burn to the point where it receives 15,000 unique visits per month.

Another traffic increase, with 13,028 unique visits to the site in December 2008 up from 11,284 in November.

The first full month of statistics tracking on DigitalBurn for a couple of months. There were 11,284 unique visitors in November.

5. Develop Motor Dude into a website that can generate $50 per month.

A record high month for MotorDude.com, with the site generating $229 for December, up on $151.92 in November, and well over the goal I set at the start of the year of $50 per month.

6. Develop Motor Dude to the point where it receives 7,500 unique visits per month.

MotorDude.com seems to be proving that it is possible to do quite a bit with very little. There were only 697 unique visitors to the site in December, down from 740 in November.

7. Achieve my goal weight of 85kgs.

In a case of better late than never, the start of December saw me start up at a gym for three visits a week. While I know it's still early days, and my work hasn't really impacted on the scales, I think I can say that I actually feel better for it.

In summary 2008 was an interesting year for me and my little goal experiment. Besides the revenue generated by MotorDude I can't really say that I hit any of my goals for six (or out of the park - depending upon where you are from), but I can say that they gave me something to aim for. It's funny how things pan out, as I started 2008 with SwollenPickles.com as my 'flagship' and number one earner. At the end of 2008 that was no longer the case. It's left me scratching my head a little. On the one hand, I'm glad that a couple of other sites have developed the way they have, on the other, I'm disappointed SwollenPickles.com didn't live up to its financial promise in 2008.

I'm yet to sit down and think about what goals I should set/work on for 2009... any suggestions?

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I missed seeing Wanted at the movies, but on the weekend I finally got around to catching it on DVD. I found it to be an entertaining action movie, however my gripe with it was that it had very little in common with the graphic novel of which it was supposedly based on.

Wanted, the mini-series written by Mark Millar, is in my top 10 favorite graphic novels of all time. It's funny, thought provoking and entertaining. With that said, the film version had a lot to live up to. Here's my review of the graphic novel Wanted.

Wanted, the film, follows white collar office drone, Wesley Gibson's transformation into one of the worlds top assassins, working for "The Fraternity" dispatching those that 'fate' determines need to be removed from the playing field. The Fraternity are a guild of assassins that have existed for centuries, that take their kill orders from a binary code printing loom. Why? I don't know.

I originally thought that I'd write about the differences between the film and the graphic novel. However, on reflection, I'm not sure that there's much point. Similarities between the two are few and far between. In that respect, the film was somewhat disappointing.

Like the comic, the film opens with the assassination of an assassin, and an introduction into the daily grind experienced by Wesley Gibson. His life is dull and repetitive, and will have you drawing initial comparisons to Fight Club. After the first 10-15 minutes though, the comic and the film head off in completely different directions.

I can understand that some elements from the comic would be difficult to pull off, without causing a panic at the censors office, but surely the core of the story could have been retained?

Why the film makers would decide to stray so far from the source material is beyond me, however I can say that one of the things that saves the film from being just another action romp with the of director Timur Bekmambetov. Bekmambetov is the man behind the Russian film adaptation of Night Watch, and the guy certainly has a keen sense of cinematic style. The other major positive for the film is that it features Angelina Jolie. Enough said.

Watched independently of the comic, the film is an entertaining pop corn flick. Compared to the comic however, it doesn't quite make the grade.

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