I actually bought a new game this week to review; I shan’t be doing that a lot of the time though, I envisage myself trawling through my current games collection and thinking up new and more interesting ways of accusing them of not being good enough for the while. So I bought Sonic and Sega All-Stars racing, what of it? I bought it as a curiosity and because I have a certain soft spot for “battle-racers”, one of my first ever games was Wipeout 2097 which was a joy to play and fun even to the end of my Playstation’s life and my love of Mario Kart Double Dash has also been well expressed here, so it was interesting to play Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.

It should be mentioned that, as a battle-racer, The controls for All-Stars are simple, intuitive and perfectly functional… and better than Mario Kart Wii. Everything seems to work and it never feels as though the controls are letting you down, only your use of them. It should also be noted that when you take damage from a weapon your recovery time is a lot less than that of Mario Kart, which is good, it means you only fall back 2-3 places instead of the 4-5 of Mario Kart, which removes the frustration of making a mistake on the last lap. The levels are very well designed and visually sumptuous, the characters all have enchanting voiceovers and the commentary is amusing enough not to get too boring after repeated play throughs. Right, nice stuff out the way, on to the problems.

The racing is actually pretty boring, beginner difficulty seems to be for chimps but then again this game is aimed at children. The game does offer you a tutorial when you put the disc in and I’m glad it did, I wish Double-Dash had a similar feature because I remember being TERRIBLE at that when I first started. The grand-prix side of it is enjoyable enough, it’s just no Mario beater. The levels are pretty enough and it certainly takes a degree of skill but it lacks the “charm” of Mario Kart by trying to ram other franchises down your throat. It’s not the grand-prix segments you should be concentrating on though, the game comes alive in the missions. They’re a little repetitive but they let you play as every character before unlocking (like some of the Super Smash Bros Melee challenges) and are a good way to spice up the normal “race until your thumbs fall off” mantra of most battle-racers. If anything, it seems to be taking its cue from NFS Pro-Street with the campaign what with the drifting, boosting and timed challenges. There are also 2 battle challenges (the last mission being one of them) which don’t serve the game too well, they’re too vague and the graphical quality of the opponents is sadly lacking making for a less than enjoyable experience although the idea is good it becomes frustrating rather than fun.

I would compare this game, in a way, to Smash Bros rather than Mario Kart. I can’t really say why but it just makes me think of melee more, perhaps it’s the campaign mode and the unlockable features, but it just has that feel to it. The unlocking mechanic has nothing in common with either Mario Kart or SSBM. I don’t know whether to hate or love it actually. You accumulate “Sega Miles” by how well you do in terms of speed etc and these can be spent on characters, tracks and music. This sounds okay but since I completed the beginners grand prix all in one go (just so I didn’t look like a cocky prick jumping in at advanced) I could buy a good proportion of the characters straight off and then completed almost all of the missions and bought the other small percentage and a good deal of the tracks along with some of the music, rendering it a little useless. I understand that this is a children’s game, but surely unlocking through beating tracks or cups at certain difficulties would be better? Or perhaps after a certain number of Sega miles you could buy the chance to beat them in a race? I just found it all too easy and thus unlocked most of the achievements by accident meaning I could trade it in almost the next day (along with fucking Risen).

One of the stylistic complaints I want to make about this game concerns the weapons as (along with most of the game) they are mostly quite bland. Everyone’s special move is the Star from Mario Kart with a different animation which is both better and worse than the aforementioned game. When you released a signature move in Mario Kart it was usually something similar to a normal weapon but larger or more of them or stronger which was good fun and meant that although stars were still better and rarer, you had a slight advantage. The weapons don’t seem to tie into any of the games either, there’s a shield which is green and as far as I’m aware shields in Sonic are blue (I know there were fire and other shields in later Sonic games, but the blue one is most iconic), so even that feels as though it wasn’t from that game. The weapons are perfectly functional, and in some cases great fun but don’t “fit”, there’s no link between them and any of the games. There are no weapons from Billy Hatcher or any of the Sonic games specifically so I’m going to assume that this is the case for all the weapons (not having played Super Monkey Ball or Jet Set Radio Gaga or whatever it’s called) and this detracts from the integration, I’m glad that Sega didn’t go for a celebratory circle jerk with the weapons but that’s kind of why people are here and it leads to a very bland but functional playing experience.

The main problem with All-Stars is that there is no real variety to the actual levels. Everything is very pretty and there are obstacles but they’ve made a bizarre decision in having 3 levels per game series (selected games series I should say) and having them all around the same theme. Nothing sets this up more than the sonic levels of which there are 3 within 3. There are 3 levels set in seahill zone, 3 in final fortress and 3 in casino zone, all with pretty much the same features, all with pretty much the same layout and preferred kart types. Also, every level has 3 laps. No differentiation, just 3 laps. Some of the missions have 2 but every single level in grand prix is 3 laps. Double dash had some levels with 8 laps, some with 2 and this made for a slightly more interesting experience whereas All-Stars feels like a slog. The only time it does get interesting is on the FUCKING MONKEY BALL LEVELS! Designing the levels around kart-types is fair enough, but making it virtually impossible to get around the circuit without being that specific kart? Fuck off. It’s this sort of badly designed feature which makes All-Stars racing so fucking annoying on occasion, especially as one of the mission levels actually ASKS you to play through all 3 monkey ball levels… in a race… only one of which I can competently do and I’m no slouch at this game.

Actually, I want to bring this up. I understand that this is a children’s game first and foremost and that the beginner level is for them and that expert level is for people who don’t have brains but small super-computers with central processors equivalent to bugatti veyrons, but it quickly becomes very easy to do (apart from the Monkey Ball levels) and I’d hate to presume that it is any actual talent at the game considering I played the demo with friends and I sucked more arse than a german fetishist. When I say “I’m no slouch at this game”, I actually mean “I have thumbs, therefore I am no slouch at this game”.

Lastly, why the fuck does Sonic need a car? I know everyone has raised this point and I can kind of see why they did it because Sonic racing on his own would be unfair, but it doesn’t combat the fact it’s fucking moronic. Why aren’t there more Billy Hatcher characters? Billy Hatcher was great and even just a little more expansion would have been nice! I’ve tried to keep away from Mario Kart comparisons in this review and I’ve tried to keep away from slagging it off for being a copy and with good reason, this is better than Mario Kart Wii by a long shot but ultimately a little bland. It’s like a ham and cheese sandwich from a sandwich shop, it’s tasty enough and it’ll fill you up for a while but you’ll never say to yourself “this is one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time”. If I was going to describe this game in one word that word would be “functional”, if I was going to describe it in more than one word it would be this review. I can only recommend this game if you WANT to buy it, that sounds like a pretty tautological statement but unless you are actually interested in it then this isn’t for you, and that’s the way it is.

I was chatting with some friends earlier today (Yeah, I do have some) and I said how bored I was with my games collection. I told my friends clearly what I wanted, “I want a game called “Generic Beat ‘Em Up”” or perhaps “Generic Shooter”. I almost went for Battlefield: Bad Company but had to abandon it lest the game try and smother me with its story that’s as weak, limp and lifeless as Ashley Cole was before him and Cheryl split up. It was during this conversation that I said “We should just have a series of games which are generic; no story, no cutscenes, just 4 cliché levels and cliché weapons.” Later on I had a little jaunt through some Yahtzee columns and saw that he said something pretty similar so being the enterprising chap that I am I thought that I would outline you my plans for Generic Shooter, Generic Beat ‘Em Up, Generic Fighter, Generic RTS and Generic Platformer. I shall go through their Setting, Gameplay and Design in order.

Generic Shooter:

Gameplay- Simple really; first-person perspective, health bar, radar and ammo on the HUD, lots of guns and some baddies with some boss-fights. I’d have the weapons embarrassingly cool too, pistols which shoot green lasers, automatic weapons which shoot blue lasers, lightning guns, flamethrowers, rocket launchers and the obligatory MASSIVE gun which would simply be called “Anne” and fantastically over-designed. I’d also have all the baddies with completely distinguishable characteristics; clawed melee specialists, weedy snipers, big brutes which categorically carry big guns and drop armour and Bosses which can be identified by looking like big versions of whatever specialist enemy is in that area. Doesn’t this sound great?

Setting- This, is easy. Temple, City, Snow, Desert, Tropical Island, Volcano and Sewer. It would be great fun.

Design- the more exploratory you make it the better, big open levels with plenty of places to climb and kill shit, lots of big spaces to throw grenades into and end to the level which is a lady and the better you do the more clothes she removes.

Generic Beat ‘Em Up:

Gameplay- You know the wireframes from Super Smash Bros Melee? Them, just 4 of them, and simply controlled mechanics. A for jump, X for punch, B for kick and Y for special, Right Trigger for grab. Simple, brutal, effective, fun.

Setting- This is easy too, shaolin temple, city, forest clearing, warehouse and somewhere stupid… um… top of a lorry. Yep, sorted.

Design- I’d probably have 2 male and 2 female characters. They would be Skinny Powerful Kid, Massive Tank Dude, Agile Teen in Mini-Skirt and Character Inevitably Called Agatha.

Generic Fighter:

Gameplay- You have a sword and plenty of combos, bonuses for racking up hits, floods of enemies, third person perspective lots of corridors and bosses with increasingly large weapons. Also, whenever you score a critical hit it goes to a mini-cutscene like in Assassin’s Creed.

Setting- large open environment filled with enemies.

Design- You know how this works, it’s Fable 2 without the pretention of a story but proper combos. Might include tits for good measure.

Generic RTS:

Gameplay- You have men, big men, scout vehicles, light tanks, heavy tanks, jets, scout boats, attack boats and floating gun platforms also plenty of stationary weapons.

Setting- Different planets. Moon, Ice planet, dust planet, weird planet, strange alien planet and industrial planet.

Design- Y’know Starship Troopers? That.

Generic Platformer:

This is actually a little trick one, testing to see if you’ve read this far (and if not, why not, you should have been laughing and agreeing with everything I’ve said). Buy the Mega Drive ultimate collection, go to Flicky. There. Play that. See if you DON’T get hooked. It’s got everything, simplicity, intriguing level design, collectibles, enemies and a clear goal. Also fun bonus rounds. Go on, off you go.

I know I said that eventually I would do Dante’s Inferno but this has sort of come up and needed to be done. For the purpose of this review I will be looking at the Console versions only, I have played the SNES version, the Gamecube version, the Wii version and the DS version. I may well have played the N64 version in my youth but I don’t remember it and I will declare now that when I do, I will put a little edit here telling you how it went.

The original Mario Kart idea was a little fun title so that you could arse about with your mates and enjoy yourself  (which is what games should be about…), Mario Kart 64 is its next incarnation with the same emphasis but with updated graphics and tracks, Mario Kart Double Dash brought an unprecedented level of innovation to the proceedings and Mario Kart Wii… eurgh…

I have played the original Mario Kart and I loved it, simple, addictive, fun and a joy to play, most of the tracks and characters are on the DS version of the game (which some call the best, but it isn’t a console version so we sadly have to ignore it) and as it is technically “genesis” it should be praised for creating the whole genre (just as Eddie Van Halen should be praised for “inventing” tapping). Like most racing games applying a story is a little like applying commentary to a funny animal: ultimately pointless, so Nintendo thought “fuck it, they’re racing, deal with it” and you have to give some respect to them for being so brazen with their testicles and just making a game which really doesn’t make much sense in the “Mario World”. So what? Games don’t HAVE to make sense, they can just be fun. Tetris has no plot and yet it is easily recognised as one of the greatest games of all time, so fuck you story people (I can’t believe I said that either) and Graphics people you can fuck off too, this is about game play and level design and it’s virtually ALL perfect.

In fact, I’m willing to spread that sentiment across the entire line… if it wasn’t for Mario Kart Wii. Before I crucify that slime-shit of a game with my bare hands, let’s skip merrily to Double Dash and cuddle up to it for a second. I bought Double Dash for my Gamecube. I loved my Gamecube, 2 of my top 5 games come from that console (of which Double Dash is one) and I am willing to admit that perhaps my adoration of that console may colour my judgement slightly. Mario Kart double dash was the first game I’ve ever played where it didn’t matter if you lost because you would probably laugh your face off as you got blown up by a shell, or a bomb or as Wario drove past (“WAH-HAH!”), unlocking characters was fun and combining different characters for different car/special weapon combos was a slight science and me and my sister would spend hours with me being my beloved Parakoopa and my sister flitting between any of the light characters (sometimes we would go for a Yoshi/Parakoopa combo which ended up being a can of rape driven by me and my sisters impeccable timing and devious statistical cunning) It is this 1p & 2p Vs 3p & 4p system which made Double Dash so different to the other games and so much fun. The battle mode was an excuse to piss about looking for bombs/favourite weapons in specially designed arenas whilst giggling your face off as everyone exploded around you and the chance to unlock new modes, karts, levels and records was just too much fun to ignore. I remember vividly spending ages in time attack getting corners and tracks perfect, finding all the shortcuts and still enjoying it. I will happily admit I’m the kind of nerd who will happily sit down and work out army lists for tabletop games arguing the merits over whether a Fast Attack or an Elites choice is favourable in my 1,000 point game, but playing with Double Dash was a joy. This is partly down to the Gamecube itself, which I still proclaim has the best designed controller on earth.

Just quickly, I should point out this raised some debate amongst friends. Matt and others have rallied around the x-box 360 controller (which is the only controller out of the current 3 major consoles which actually fills my whole hand comfortably), Ant rallied behind the N64 controller (completely understandable when you take into account how innovative it is) and many others rallied behind the playstation controller, which has remained unchanged for decades since the original playstation analog controller. I hate that controller, simply because my giant man hands demand that I cripple myself just to use any other button during a racing game or fumble as the minute shoulder buttons become indistinguishable from each other.

Back to Mario Kart and after the tongue flicking which Double Dash got we come to Mario Kart Wii. What I’m about to write I don’t want to say, I want to tell you that the motion controls are slick, the levels fun and diverse. the characterisation is fun and that the wii graphics do the newest game justice.

Unfortunately I can’t. The controls are actually the thing I hate most about the game because it is simply better to use a gamecube controller, gimmicks are all well and good but they are only useful if they WORK. It seems to me that the wiimote can only understand that you are turning it, not by how much or to what degree, just that you happening to be turning it. I am fully prepared to admit I may be wrong, but it’s how it appears and this shows the complete lack of subtlety that the new version has to offer. The levels are more about spectacle than actual skill and are shoved so full of gimmicks it’s somehow hard to understand what the fuck is going on. Instead of the fresh, almost child-like simplicity of the original games it has become an over-loaded cluster-fuck of shite. Perhaps that is a bit harsh but I can’t help feel that having a wheel takes away the “game element” and simply replaces it with a gimmick. I know I have raised a contradiction here in that falling of the edge is funny in Double Dash and not in Wii, well it’s not a contradiction. If you fall off because YOU are shite not because the controls are then it is funny, if you end up playing a game of luck you might as well leave the controller where it is with a dead goldfish to weight the accelerator button down, luckily there is an option to use a gamecube controller, unfortunately anyone who uses the gamecube controller will instantly win because it’s better and will then proceed to shit over everyone. Great, you win the game but look like a sad wanker for doing it, this actually happened the other day during a friendly meet up and proved 2 things to me:

A) The Gamecube controller is the tits and should be hailed as a god.

B) Double Dash looks REALLY pretty when played on a Wii.

So there ya go, why you shouldn’t buy Mario Kart Wii- because it’s on the Wii, and why you should buy Mario Kart Double Dash- because it’s hilarious good fun.

Deadline is one of the last of Britney Murphy’s movies before her untimely death and since I got hold of the movie I thought I may as well review it.  An interesting note was the DVD I have to review has Murphy laying in the bath looking dead so yeah, that’s kind of creepy (and I know they have changed the artwork now, I must have got a version made before the change).

Murphy plays Alice, a screenwriter who moves into an old spooky house to finish something she is working on.  I’m sure you’ll agree with me that that’s now a typical ghost story movie is it? (Sarcasm).  Hearing spooky sounds around the house she investigates, which results in her finding mini-dv tapes which tells the story of some previous inhabitants of the old house.  As she views the tapes and discovers more about the couple who lived there her sanity seems to decay as the couple’s relationship falls apart, and strangely relate to Alice’s own troubles in her life.

As this is a straight to DVD movie I did not have much hope for the acting ability but it does have a strong cast (or should).  Thora Birch, the wife in the video segments is notable for making the best of what story she has and creates a believable character.  Marc Blucas (Riley from Buffy) who plays the husband in the video segments also plays his character well.  The problem is that the story in the flashback videos is more interesting than what is happening to Alice.  Britney Murphy seems to be lacking something in this movie and that surprises me because in the past she has played good roles.  Girl, Interrupted and Sin City would be examples of two movies where she is far superior to in this movie.  The number of times she was meant to look shocked or scared and all her face could manage was vacant really annoyed me.  As wrong as it feels to complain about her so soon after her death, her acting in this movie was poor and with other factors weakened the rest of the movie really.

This movie is watchable at best.  It tries to be quite inventive by using the mini-dv tapes to sell the ghost story but even with that it becomes far too recognisable as the average typical story.  Even the twist at the end is predictable to anybody as this type of story is over used.  It’s understandable that this was released as straight to DVD as I’m not sure I’d want to pay to go see it or even buy the DVD (I rented it).  Looking for positives in this movie I think I would pick out Thora Birch’s acting and the setting.  Although there was a failure to make the movie feel creepy the house still had a feeling of feeling empty and lonely (even if it was far from lonely).  It’s just a shame that the story and acting in general could not make better use of what was given to them.  For Murphy I’d rather remember her in Girl, Interrupted which I think is one of her better roles.  If I had to pick a horror movie to remember her by it would Cherry Falls which was a surprisingly entertaining movie.

rating 4/10

It’s nice that we’ve got the introductions over with, because now I can really let rip on a game I’ve wanted to talk about for quite a while; Battlefield: Bad Company. I hear some faint murmurings at the back there, what was that? Why am I reviewing a game from last year and not a new one? I think we should cover that point first.

I’m a student and therefore spend all my money on nice things to eat whilst lying down on comfortable things which I bought with taxpayer’s money.  Well, I don’t actually. I shall review Dante’s Inferno soon enough (after I’ve completed a bit more of it!) and we’ll see if I can really do this game reviewing business. Until then, however, we’re stuck with me and my backwards-looking, eagle-eyed hindsight.

This game has quite a lot going for it at first glance: It’s quite pretty, the levels are reasonably well designed, the controls are intuitive and fun, and it has one of the best online multiplayer services I’ve ever experienced. For those of you chomping at the bit to shout at me about that rather garrulous claim, please calm down, all will be explained in due course. Like most modern FPS’s you play a character with a name so boring you won’t remember it, who is sent to work for “Bad Company”, a company where all the naughty children go who can’t play nice. You spend a good proportion of the game listening to your witless “friends” babble about how they’re so amazing because they have to do this all on their own, and the other half calling in air strikes and waiting for supply drops whilst being spoon-fed your next objective by a rather stern sounding woman whose voice makes me cross my legs slightly.

As I have outlined before me and graphics don’t always see eye to eye, but there’s something to be said for the graphics in Battlefield: Bad Company that might seem slightly contradictory. Firstly, one of the major problems with shoot ‘em ups (when was the last time you heard that term?) is that you want to be able to see your enemy so that you can shoot at them, yet also you want to be hidden enough for them not to be able to shoot at you. You can already see the clusterfuck this creates. Originally shooters were quite well-balanced in that you were a red blob, your enemy was a blue blob and everything else was either grey (castle/city/public toilet/office), green (jungle/woods/Travis Perkins), brown (desert/mud huts/Australia/Mexico/Pyramids) or a combination of all 3 (Amazonian Temple/Hull/English Countryside) and very occasionally the surroundings would be blue for underwater (meaning the blue team were either invisible or had now become yellow) or white for a collection of giant’s cum-rags. Then as graphics became more and more advanced it transpired that people wanted it to be more realistic, so everything became brown/grey/green/Hull/white and no one could see who or where the fuck anybody was. Battlefield: Bad Company however manages to present a wide enough pallet of colours and rich enough textures so that you can see if you’re shooting at a foe, a friend or in fact a camouflaged portaloo.

Whilst we’re discussing scenery I’d like to discuss Battlefield: Bad Company’s main selling point: Destruct-o-scenery. Whilst a lot of games have managed some sort of destruct-o-scenery, Battlefield: Bad Company does it the best. Some scenery is destructible, some is not, although this seems a little like cheating it means that you can’t just blow the shit out of a bridge and sit back with mortars whilst your enemy advance, but it also means you can grenade the fuck out of a roof of a house then happily mow down everyone inside (which is very satisfying). The best way to describe why this is the selling point of the game is because at no point do you curse the fact it’s there. It’s not broken, if you hang around after a wall blows up that shit’s on you, it also means you develop a sense of “move and fire” and also you never get games where Mr.Kill_Snipe (as they’re always called in some sort of variation) sprints for indomitable cover and spends the whole game laughing his face off as he snipes your pretty little faces and calls missiles down on tanks. It brings the fun back to it. I suppose balance is fairly prevalent throughout the whole game actually; tanks aren’t indomitable (like fucking Call of Duty), helicopters aren’t flying rape and no class is overwhelmingly better than the others.

The controls are especially easy to get to grips with; Right trigger is for shooting things… um… that’s about it really. You’ve got a switch weapon button, a reload button, sprint and Close Quarters Instant Click of Death (pressing the right analogue stick) and also a delightful innovative little tactic whereby you cycle through items with the Left Bumper then press B to use. This saves so much time over an inventory screen and shows how well thought out the controls actually are. If I really wanted to showcase the point I’d point out that pressing the Right Bumper automatically switches to the secondary weapon on your gun so you can fir grenades then to switch back is the same button. Simple, effective, elegant and totally intuitive.

You may have noticed something about this review; I’ve written 850 words and not once brought up the story or the actual gameplay. Yeah… there’s a reason for that. Battlefield: Bad Company’s main problem can be summarised horribly easily and I don’t really want to do it because it’s so much fun to play. The single player is boring, indelibly dull, overwhelmingly numbing and repetitive. Foxy base-lady tells you to go somewhere, you go there (and you will, or no snoo-snoo for you), complete an objective then get told where to go next. I don’t actually know anyone who’s completed the story mode. We’ve just arsed about on multiplayer killing each other and laughing as buildings and people explode. It’s a lot of money for what it is, when what it is, isn’t very much.

In summary then, the game is well executed, beautiful, balanced, intuitive, innovative and great fun… as long as you play against mates and NEVER look at the campaign. EVER. Which is a lot of money for a multiplayer… shame really.

Last night I watched a discussion on Twitter that all started from an article which was written about how most Werewolf movies suck:

http://www.horrorsquad.com/2010/02/12/heres-why-most-werewolf-movies-suck/

Now, a lot of the points that were raised I did actually agree with and some I didn’t, but I thought I’d have a look at the Werewolf myself and show my point of view on if they suck or not.

My viewpoint has always been that if a werewolf movie can come close to American Werewolf in London then it’s a good movie.  Have many done it? No, one I would argue that has is the Howling.  This came out in the same year and offered a different view of the Werewolf mythology.  For one the werewolves were more man than wolf and appeared to be more in control of their wolf side.  Most of the victims of the “curse” seemed to relish the chance to let their inner wolf out, hiding away in the countryside in their little community.  Of course the sequels coming from this movie were pretty abysmal.  Who can say they have watched the Howling 2 and not be shocked at how bad it was? Even Christopher Lee could not save that mess.

Another of course is The Wolfman, this movie is arguably the inspiration for the werewolf becoming a tragic character.  Lon Chaney Jr’s wolfman is a pitiful character who has no control over his transformation or the events that take place while he is in wolf form.  This is the classical view of the werewolf of course.  This is also where the character is seen as simplistic.

To say simplistic though is a mistake as a good writer could pull a lot of character development out of the “curse” that being a werewolf is.  Being Human (the popular UK TV series) is a good example of how to create the tragic character of the werewolf and really extend its character.  Not to spoil it too much for people who have not seen it yet in series 2 George the werewolf tries to control his transformations and actually manages to stop his changes.  This leads to his daytime life being affected by violent episodes.  It turns out the werewolf feels “cheated” out of his time at the full moon and wants out.  This to me adds interest in the werewolf as it becomes a character in itself, a lot like Hyde in Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde.  Although at the start of the movie Jeckyll changes himself on purpose into the monster, by the end of the movie he has no control over the transformations which is arguably a lot like the werewolf curse.  It is the loss of control of our “darker selves”.

The idea of the werewolf is that it is an uncontrollable beast that dwells within us and only escapes at the full moon.  Movies and TV shows have proven that (as with vampires) these rules can be bent slightly to fit a story that can be quite entertaining when needed to be.  The werewolf character is not just a 2D monster lacking anything other than violence.  It is an examination into our inner selves and what truly happens when one lets the darker side go.

So, are werewolves boring? I would argue no, BUT I don’t think many good movies can be pulled out of the legend.  As stated in the above article 1981 was almost a magical year for the werewolf and I doubt it could ever be topped.  There will be a slight rise in interest now that the remake of The Wolfman has been released and with Being Human doing interesting things I’m sure the interest will rise on if there can be another good Werewolf movie.  True Blood season 3 will be featuring werewolves (not just shape shifters but actual werewolves) and of course there is the dreaded remake of An American Werewolf in London.  Let’s just see where the werewolf is going to take us in the next few years.  If it’s in a Twilight route….then fuck it, I don’t want to see it.

Antichrist; if you’ve seen it you’ll know how “controversial” it is, if not then just search for it online and you’ll get an idea that the politically correct can’t handle a movie that’s more about imagery than it is about in your face dumbed down storytelling.

After the death of their child a man and his wife (they remain nameless throughout the movie) deal with their loss, the wife deals with it badly and falls into deep depression.  Her husband a therapist decides to pull her away from her doctors and taken her to Eden, a cabin in the woods where they have travelled before.  This is a place the wife is scared of and the husbands belief is that if she faces her fears she can pull herself out of the depression she feels.  Once they make it to Eden it seems that nature is against them and is trying to send them into madness.

That is the basic plot of the movie, but what the movie actually is is an examination of how deep and dark depression can actually be.  Yes, it has explicit sex scenes and strong violence which includes sexual violence.  Some critics have questioned why there is no explanation of this violence and why is it so explicit? The question is why they cannot work that out for themselves.  If they forget about being so shocked for the sake of being shocked can they not look at the characters motives and work it out for themselves?

I’d say this is a movie where you form your own views and understanding on what is being shown to you.  You see the events through the eyes of both the husband and the wife and if you open your eyes you see the explanation.  You are given the evidence as to the woman’s insanity as well as the man’s (because in my opinion the husband is just as depressed as the woman but he lives his illness through his inability to cure his wife).  His wife who blames herself for the death of the child manifests her hatred of herself into the hatred of woman as a form, hiding in her research she once did that women were seen as evil.  She (being a woman) see’s the evilness she once argued against within her and sees herself as the personification of a that was argued to be evil within women.  This is not true of course but it is her illness that makes her believe it is.

Nature is the catalyst for both the husband and the wife’s downfall into insanity.  As a fox says to them “chaos reigns” and that is exactly what the movie is saying, that between these two people chaos does reign.  The one thing they have together that gives them any kind of happiness is sex, which is why they appear to do this so much.  They are fighting for the happiness that they can no longer find.  The fact that violence comes between this happiness is just another manifestation of the process in which they are going through.

It surprises me that when people open their eyes and take notice of what’s going on in the movie there is a meaning between all of the scenes in the movie.  I could watch it again and come up with a whole new theory based on the nature theme within the movie.  This is why this movie interests me so much, it is open to interpretation by the watcher and that is something we do not often see from Hollywood (and of course this is very far away from being a Hollywood movie).  So if you watch this movie watch it with your eyes open and not shut.  If all you are going to do is complain about explicit sex scenes and violence then you have missed the point completely and should stick to the Saw series for your entertainment.

When you watch a movie and think that you are going to watch it ever Halloween from now on you know that this is a special movie.  This is what I’ve discovered Trick ‘r Treat to be.  Not since The Creepshow has a compilation of horror stories been made into one movie so well.

At its base elements Trick ‘r Treat is everything Halloween should be.  It’s about pumpkins, mythical creatures, gore and scares.  Four stories all interwoven together are presented to the watcher with many plot lines started and seemingly not finished.  By the time you end watching you realise that every plot has been brought to its conclusion and every character from all of the stories have had their own little parts to play in each other’s story.  Yes, it’s that complex but done so expertly that you are never confused and are always pointing out somebody or something that connected with the previous story you just saw.  Through the use of urban legends both created for the stories and based on “true” urban legends in the real world we are taken through a fun fair ride of gruesome fables.  Also, don’t expect these stories to fit the usual stereotypes.  This movie has been written smartly and you won’t see most of the elements coming (or you will but still love the conclusions that are given.

Parts of the strength of this film are the actors that have been chosen to star.  These are recognisable actors from the likes of Anna Paquin, and Brian Cox, also Dylan Baker who plays his role just perfectly.  He’s one of those actors who always seem to be on top form even though he’s not really a huge Hollywood star.  In fact this movie is not full of Hollywood stars per say, just recognisable people who seem to actually want to give their time and create believable characters which helps this movie a lot.

I’d say this movie walks a fine line between failure and success and that’s probably why it was side-lined for so long.  Hollwood probably took one look at the structure and did not see a sell ability where movies like Saw can be churned out and just from the name make them millions.  It seems to be the way movies are released now.  It’s all about the mighty dollar not about the movie fan that would just lap this up.  Of course as True Blood took off and Anna Paquin stars in this movie (that makes her hot property) it’s not surprise that a small release is given.  This of course gives we the horror fans exactly what we want and we get to see this excellent movie.  So we all win out in the end.  Just a shame it took so long for them to get off their asses and let it be released.

If anybody has not seen this movie yet I highly recommend you get off your asses and buy it.  It should be on everybody’s list of movies to see at Halloween and should become a tradition.  It is rare that we get horror movies like this that is so well written and well produced, so let’s enjoy it while we have it.

9/10

I have to start this review with a couple of points about myself so we can get into the swing of things.

A) I am a cynic. I don’t like anything and I’m entirely skeptical of everything.

B) I don’t like hype, and I don’t like spectacle, part of the reason why I haven’t watched a film in a cinema for 3 years.

C) I like taking the piss out of things, even if I like them, so try and be objective about this review and imagine that I’m a slightly sunnier person than appears here.

Dragon Age is an RPG available on PS3, x-box 360 and PC. This alone should tell you about the kind of person that plays it. Saddos, freaks… VIRGINS. This is exceptionally true of me (apart from the last, because I get more pussy than the RSPCA), as the game seems to appeal to the small subsection of society that read the Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and thought “Fucking hell, at last, a reference tool to put the other books into context.”

Dragon Age: Origins is like almost every other fantasy RPG on the planet. Stuck somewhere between Middle-earth, Narnia and Topshop lies Ferelden. A world in apparent peace but occasionally assaulted by Darkspawn (fallen mages who have succumb to dark magicks, temptation and sexy naked demons). A mystical world of Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Darkspawn and Rats… Sorry, Humans. Yes, it appears that like every other fantasy setting humans are the biggest wankers since Leslie Grantham in Ferelden, and that Dwarves are borderline elitists who have to bear grudges lest they be seen as hippies and the Elves are either grim, stoic, self-important, nihilistic arseholes or over-optimistic proles. It’s up to you to decide which of these you want to be before you find out what they role they fit into.

I suppose this is Dragon Age’s biggest selling point. It allows you to make choices at the beginning of the game that can affect your path throughout the game and ultimately the choices you can make at the end. A choice system automatically means a lot of text and it is this premise on which Dragon age relies. You can’t walk 4 steps in Dragon Age without falling over something which updates your amazing codex of exposition, of course, you don’t have to read this but if you ever want to have a hope in hell of understanding why people react in a certain way you really have to. This appeals to me because I am a wordy bastard (you should be able to tell by now), and so I gleefully spent a whole 2 hours doing the starter mission asking every single elf I came across what an elf like me thinks. Turns out, incidentally, that an elf like me thinks everyones a pussy for not hiding in a wood. No, I can’t quite work it out either.

Wandering through the game as an elf everyone assumes that you’re subservient to man and when they finally realise that the huge sword on your back isn’t for someone else they show immediate deference to you as a weird apology. Playing as a Dwarf means everyone thinks you’re a bourgeois pisshead and playing as a human means everyone treats you with respect but expects you to behave like Charles Manson with a fetish for darkspawn.

You have 3 options of class: Warrior, Rogue and Mage. This is then seperated into 3-4 different types which essentially equate to “Fuck Magic/Rogue/Warrior up and Fuck Darkspawn up but with more blood” which is by no means a bad thing, it’s just slightly confusing on your first time through.

Most of the game is spent fucking shit up, which is good but based on the World of Warcraft style of “click and let die”, which I like. It actually gives me the chance to accurately press Y for my super deadly combo of death and then X for my not so good combo of death whilst Mr. Super Deadly is having a breather. Along the way you can learn how to make traps, poison shit up, making potions and talk to animals. You will never use any of these, you will invest all your points in coersion meaning people give you shit and combat tactics, allowing you to get the best combos. When you’re not fucking shit up you’re looting for better stuff than you have and equipping yourself with the best shit and occasionally letting your minions wear some old bicycle knee-pads you stole off a skeleton. In between killing and looting you will be bargaining the shit out of people in what is essentially a series of quick-time events in which you don’t have to be quick and you have a choice between being a saint, a twat or ambivalent.

You’re accompanied by several feckless morons who have nothing better to do than follow you around. Each comes with their own agenda, side-quests and likes. You have the option of sexing some of them up (Which I have successfully done with EVERYavailable partner I’d like it known), bargaining with them, sending them home like a naughty school-child and occasionally upgrading them. It’s this which brings Dragon Age to life, the interaction with the other elements of the world in which you occupy and how they react to you, the different types of party member and how willing they are to fuck shit up and their motivations. You will only ever use 2 combinations of squad though, if you wanna be a twat you’ll choose Zevran, Sten and Morrigan and you will fall in love with Morrigan. If you wanna be a pious saint (like me) then you will choose Wynne, Alistair and Leliana and fall desperately in love with the buxom redhead… hmmm… buxom redheads… If you decide for some variety you will choose the Dog or the Dwarf.

Enough of the mechanics and backplot, lets examine the actual game itself. Yes, it’s quite pretty and the story is engaging, the characters are well rounded and it’s actually got some lasting gameplay. You will WANT to progress with the story because you will WANT to know what happens next, and if you’re paying attention and the kind of person who likes these games then you’re going to pick up on all the tantalizing little tit-bits they leave lying around to pique your interest.

In essence the main point of this game is “If you’re that kind of person”. I know this is a pretty generic point to some,  but virtually everyone has played Fable 2, it’s accessible, fun and pretty quick to play through whereas that is not strictly the case with Dragon Age. You will need to be “of a certain type” to want to play this, and by that I mean someone who isn’t drawn in by Hype and Spectacle. If you need immediate action, constant enemies and only the slightest excuse to kill something play Halo, if you need a story line, engaging characters and a completely immersive world then buy Dragon Age: Origins.

When watching The Final Destination I tried to do one thing and that was to not let the 3D gimmick get in the way of my observations on the movie.  I first watched it in 2D then in 3D so I could see just what the difference was, which in truth turned out to be not a lot of difference at all.

The basic plot of the movie is almost a carbon copy of the first three movies.  A big accident happens and a random teenager has a “flash forward” to the whole thing; which includes the nice opportunity to see his friends die one after the other.  Waking up from the vision he drags them all out of the place before they die (dragging a few people along just for the fun and obviously because they needed to keep the number of deaths up throughout the movie).  Anybody who has ever seen the other Destination movies now start to feel at home as each of the survivors is not so mysteriously killed to rectify the issue that they should already be dead.

One difference I noticed with this movie is that there are no obvious stars , or at least actors you’ve noticed in the other Destination movies.  These could all be bit part players in daytime soaps for all know and the acting at times is on part with those shows too.  As harsh as that sounds it’s not important to the movie at all really because all of the actors are pretty much there as meat to be ripped apart for our pleasure.  One thing I will complain about is the fact Tony Todd is missing from this movie (he was also lacking in the third movie even though he was used as the voice for the devil on the rollercoaster ride I believe).  Todd made an interesting impact on the first two movies as the strange mortician who turned up to explain to the kids that the grim reaper was after them and fixing the mistake.

The thing that really bugged me about this movie is it was unintentionally funny, it was so cheesy at times that there was no real impact in the deaths.  This could arguably be a spoof of the original movies but if it was, it would have been a good spoof.  If they billed it as a spoof I think I’d have been more lenient on my views really because as a horror movie it was very weak really and should have been a straight to DVD sequel.  The 3D is just a gimmick here used to get a very below par movie into the movie theatre.  Yes, the 3D is handled better than in movies that have been converted to 3D; this one was 3D from the outset so filmed to really push that element at the watcher (pun intended).  The problem is this does not help the movie.  If they forgot the 3D effects and just added a darker tone with more believable deaths? It may have been a better movie.

5/10