The Star Trek reboot opened on Friday. Did I like it? Do you care?

Spoilers ahead…

As a JJ Abrams movie, Star Trek is eyeball sound effects entertaining. As a movie written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, it’s an absolute groan-fest.

The movie starts out with phasers on stunning. The USS Kelvin feels like a submarine in space; the bridge is tight quarters, the crew look busy, terrified when under attack yet still in control at their consoles. We get a sampling of the reboot’s visual and sound effects when Nero’s ship multi-torpedoes the Kelvin to surrender. When the computer announces Captain Robau has been terminated, we are then given a full serving of torpedoes and phasers, which are more spit out than surgical like Wrath of Khan or The Undiscovered Country’s.

And then for the rest of the movie the pie gets thrown in our face.

Star Trek has way too many comedy moments that serve no purpose other than to make you chuckle or clap howl – just like Orci and Kurtzman’s Transformers. Kirk running around the Enterprise hands swollen the size of pillows and then tongue swelling up – unnecessary, not at all funny. Other gags weaken the movie: Anton Yelchin’s accent and his inability to authorize his command codes because of said accent; all of Simon Pegg’s scenes, especially the scene where he gets transported in the water pipe, such a goddamn waste of time.

The worst scene in the entire movie is young Kirk driving the car off the cliff. When I saw the first trailer I thought – and hoped – it was just a scene filmed for the trailer, but as soon as I saw that car accelerate down the road, I wanted to toss my popcorn at the screen. I won’t go as far as saying this scene makes no fucking sense whatsoever – because it does set up the symmetry with young Spock and how he spent his childhood. Putting aside the execution of the scene, there is no need for the kid to scream out his full name because the previous scene already announced his name – yes, only as Jim and only as a newborn, but the idea is still the same when he’s a kid. It’s like they couldn’t make up their minds on which introduction of the iconic character was better so they simply used both.

The introduction of Hikaru Sulu – played on John Cho – is another comedic moment, but whereas the ones mentioned above are over-the-top and eye-rolling, this scene succeeds in every way possible. As the rest of the fleet warps to Vulcan, Sulu throttles but the starship crackles out an unwillingness to engage. After reassuring Captain Pike that he is the helmsman and Spock asking if he disengaged the magnetic field (or something to that effect), Cho delivers a subtle expression of disbelief for such an oversight on his part. And that’s the thing; for us the oversight isn’t obvious but Quinto’s inflection and Cho’s response tells us it is something he should have caught. Not only is the reaction chuckle-worthy it also serves a purpose because later on the Enterprise warps into the debris field comprised of the fleet that had warped on ahead.

Like Cho, solid performances come from Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana. Eric Bana – always terrific.

The one performance that is perfection: Karl Urban. Not only does he have the best lines (“space is a disease wrapped in darkness and silence”), he is never quirky, and the mannerisms he takes from the original McCoy (played by Deforest Kelley) never feel forced like a fanboy service; when he first meets Kirk and explains the consequences of a compromised hull plate, he projects the rhythms of Kelley right down tot he eye bulge. And when Urban has to deliver the famous line “are you out of your Vulcan mind?” he says it with a realistic urgency as opposed to a wink nod to the audience.

Unfortunately, like other Star Trek movies, the Enterprise does little in the way of showing off its armaments; and with this aside, I’d say this Enterprise has the least screen time. There are very few flyby or impulse-speed shots of the starship which is a shame since even though it’s not as sexy as the Undiscovered Country Enterprise, it is still a slick design.

Despite my many complaints, Star Trek is entertaining and worth repeat viewings because it begins and ends strong. The ending, specifically the moment Nero’s mining ship is caught in the Red Matter, is a showcase for the Enterprise to fire everything. But more importantly, the strength of the ending is what doesn’t get elaborated through melodramatic edits and effects. After all, if the person who killed your father was dying, would you sit back and watch without inflicting your own damage?

Last week I picked up Castlevania Order of Ecclesia for the DS. The game continues the gameplay mechanics of the two previous DS titles, and introduces a Glyph system. Up to three Glyphs can be equipped, acting as physical attacks (swords, axes, hammers), spells (fire, ice, lightning) or passive abilities (stat bonuses, familiars). Depending on the combination of equipped Glyphs, you can use hearts to trigger a special attack.

The single castle has been replaced with a world map that contains several areas and dungeons. They are basically themed sections like previous castles, isolated onto the map so you have the standard underwater area or the standard high tower and whatnot. A town in the middle of the map is the safe zone where you can buy/sell items and receive Quests, that is, once you rescue the villagers trapped in dungeons.

With the exception of the world map, the game is typical Symphony of the Night. You kill baddies, gain experience points, backtrack with your new abilities to unlock new areas, and kill a boss – although in Ecclesia sometimes the boss is located at the beginning of a dungeon.

Like SOTN, the attraction of Ecclesia is the RPG elements. Castlevania stopped being a platformer the moment it introduced experience points and an inventory Equip screen. The game’s levels are designed for repeat performance. The blocking off of areas is a backtraking mechanism, implies – or rather instills – progression not only in destination but in character proficiency since when you eventually reach a once inaccessible area, your character has become more powerful, accomplished through experience points and item drops. And with such systems in place, especially with baddies that respawn once a room is refreshed, grinding is inevitable.

The Quests are perhaps the weakest part of Ecclesia. With the exception of a few, the villagers are fetch quests, asking for items found either in treasure chests or as drops. Since chests randomize their rewards, the best approach is to find the baddie with the item drop you need, and pretty soon you fall into the pattern of killing the same baddie billions and billions of times until the shiny object drops. Even tasty meat shimmers.

What this grinding of baddies does is change the way you play, and perhaps not in the intended way. What the villager fetch Quests do is make you think of killing the baddie and leaving/re-entering the room in the fastest time possible; you take into account the distance between the baddie and the exit; you take into account the speed-damage ratio of your Glyph combo; you take into account which room has the greatest number of baddie instances in comparison to their distance from the exit. Unless you are speed-running, you never have to put this much thought into clearing dungeons or fighting bosses. The only thing you have to worry about is making sure your attack and jump patterns are asymptotic to the baddies’. Your level of thought goes further into item hunting when it should push you to clear rooms through the use of muscle memory and the occasional daredevil maneuver. And some rooms are populated with baddies that do allow this level of play but there are far too few.

For example, there is a room with one Ladycat and two Curse Divas. In isolation these baddies are more an annoyance than a threat (the only real threat in this game are the bosses) and I guess as a pack they are still more of an annoyance because of the Diva’s curse ability that drains your MP. The Divas are flyers while the Ladycat’s attacks are all ground-based, which means to dodge the cat’s attacks you have to jump but sometimes not so high as to hit the Divas who curse on contact.

And perhaps this has been its greatest failing as the series has continued. The later entries added a stat and inventory screen to allow for hero building and to put values and checks behind each hit. Whereas the original Castlevania could get away with one-on-one encounters or rooms with no more than half a dozen baddies I’m assuming in part because of hardware limitations, post-SOTN Vanias have more or less stuck with this restriction and at the same time weakened the baddies and strengthened the player to the point where your only worry is whether or not it’s going to take you 30-seconds or 30-minutes for the item you’re looking for to drop.