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January 30, 2011 Leave a Comment
Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
This is the latest update to the full list.
Dead Space 2 January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
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T.J. Hooker 1.02 Streets, The (1982) Hooker gets involved with a serial mugger when he witnesses the culprit leaving the scene of a crime. 5/10 While Hooker’s miraculous expertise here runs to intimate knowledge of a bus route, the criminal and female journalist are both unconvincing and uninteresting. That said, Shatner convinces that he can’t stand the sight of her and he gets a couple of decent chase sequences including one very well filmed run along a high wall and jump onto a bus. This T.J. Hooker episode contains threatened violence.
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January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
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Les chevaliers du ciel aka Sky Fighters (2005) After a Mirage 2000 is stolen during the Farnborough Air Show, two French pilots shoot it down after it goes to fire a missile at them. Taken to see the President they are commended for their bravery, then taken aside into a room and informed that they shot down a fellow French pilot on a secret mission. But that doesn’t explain why the Mirage went to fire a missile at them. 5/10 This is a movie all about the aerial sequences. They are endlessly spectacular, beautiful, and convincing. Sadly, despite an interesting story nugget reminding us that not all terrorists are ‘beardies,’ the character and plot are flat and handled without passion or interest. Even worse, the climax is badly muffed. It should be spectacular, tense and thrilling, especially given the remarkable permission to film over the Paris Bastille Day parade. It’s not terribly clear what the baddies plan is and it’s all over in a few seconds without build-up or tension. Very much a case of ‘is that it?’ It’s still worth watching for the aerial sequences if you like that kind of thing and, if comparing it to Top Gun (it’s an EU requirement), they are lovelier to behold but the story and characters are much worse, almost broken. This movie contains sexual swear words, strong adult dialogue and violence and strong sensuality. |
January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
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Commander Shepherd is killed when the Normandy is obliterated by a giant ship of unknown origin. Pro-human organisation Cerberus goes to tremendous expense to obtain her body and resurrect her, certain that only such an icon of human heroism will be able to gather and lead a team to combat a new threat to the human species. 9/10 This is a thrilling action game with reams of strikingly presented content but, despite expectation to the contrary, it doesn’t really continue where the first game ended. Instead, everything is reset (you pointlessly and inexplicably die and are resurrected which dramatically devalues one of the potential endings) and you spend the entire time going on a mission to recruit a team member, then going on another mission to make them loyal. This transparent formula is almost instantly completely mechanical and does not quite provide the intended emotional connection to your team mates. Nevertheless, the sheer amount of fun visually impressive sci-fi content is astonishing and most of the gameplay and all of the graphics tweaks are welcome. Sadly, the climax leaves one filled with trepidation, wondering whether Mass Effect 3 will make us do the same thing all over again as every Normandy crew member (except Joker) can die. Including your Commander Shepherd. This game contains sexual swear words, adult dialogue and substance abuse and extended violence, gory and unpleasant scenes, some strong violence and optional sexuality, sensuality.
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January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
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As humans seek to ingratiate themselves with the tri-race Council ruling from The Citadel, an attack by a presumed-extinct species on the human-colonised planet Eden Prime hurls humanity, and Commander Shepherd in particular, into the middle of a crisis whose scope is beyond anything anyone alive has ever faced before. 10/10 An initial lack-of-fun, lack-of-focus and surplus-of-difficulty spike that is the first trap awaiting all RPGs is fallen headlong into here and an initial feeling of clunkiness in the game’s action may be enough to put off interested players. However, this is their very great loss as Mass Effect is a superb gaming achievement and successfully delivers a universe, characters and story worth playing through. Once the gameplay starts to come to the player (a natural curve in all RPGs), everything gels and makes this a game you’ll remember with fondness and look forward eagerly to playing through again. On PC, with no technical shortcomings, the game looks and plays magnificently and on repeat playthroughs (three times completed now) Mass Effect is a joy. It’s slightly better than it’s sequel because the story and character structure is better disguised, the climax is stronger and you are given a better hero moment as you come striding over the wreckage in the Citadel to the swell of the music. Though the sequel does have Miranda’s butt in it, so there’s that. This game contains mild swear words, adult dialogue, substance abuse-related dialogue and violence, strong unpleasant scenes, very occasional mild gore, very occasional graphic violence and sexuality, sensuality, mild nudity.
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January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
This is the latest update to the full list.
January 17, 2011 Leave a Comment
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Cast / crew |
Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief (2010) Percy Jackson thinks he’s an ordinary college kid but when Zeus’s master lightning bolt is nicked (yes, that Zeus), he learns the truth about himself: that he is a demi-god, the son of Poseidon. Oh, and Zeus thinks he’s the lightning thief. And Zeus wants it back. 5/10 Underwhelming fantasy adventure with a bland lead which totally wastes the monsters and potential for imaginative battle tactics (Jackson’s travelling companion is the daughter of the goddess of wisdom) behind off-the-shelf dialogue and flat direction. Additionally, the age of the performers seems wrong. They don’t look old enough to be having sex and driving and the story feels like they should be definitely children; not the weird sexually-confusing 25-year-old teenagers we get lumped with. Of the cast, Steve Coogan and Rosario Dawson score and Brandon T. Jackson does well despite playing The Black Guy (written by a white guy)®. Oddly, the strongest sequence is one without a monster: the Lotus Casino. Why? It is intriguing (we immediately sense there’s something a bit off), features an adversary not seen much in this genre and has strong audience recognition because of the materialistic nature of our society. Probably the most interesting thing is that the film ends with Percy Jackson killing his stepfather. It’s supposed to be funny… This movie contains adult dialogue and fictional substance abuse and graphic sword violence, fantasy violence and scary and unpleasant fantasy scenes.
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January 17, 2011 Leave a Comment
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Aurelio Zen, an Italian police detective, has a reputation for integrity but that will be severely tested when he is assigned to politically sensitive cases. While you can’t please all the people all the time, Zen’s going to give it a good try. 8/10 The BBC get their mystery drama output off to a great start in 2011 with Zen starring the inconsistent Rufus Sewell. Fortunately, Sewell appears to be awake for this piece of work and impressively casually strolls around Rome balancing attempts to manipulate him while ensuring justice is executed in whatever case he is on. The addition of the political machinations to the murder mystery works really well and is instantly what makes this show stand out. The central crime plots have all been good and would have been fine in their own right, but justice always looks elusive until Zen brings it all together. Additionally, the tone is light and fun, the scenery is lovely and there is very little objectionable content. This could easily be repeated endlessly on Sunday afternoons. I don’t really like Caterina Murino’s character who is endlessly and remarkably selfish – qualities that turn even the most beautiful woman into something repugnant – but that’s the only real problem I have. Looking forward to a season two. This Zen episode contains mild swear words, adult dialogue and gory and unpleasant scenes, violence and sexuality.
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January 14, 2011 1 Comment
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Operative Mike Thornton wakes up groggy, loosely manicled to a bed in a medical lab of some kind. As soon as he starts to get his bearings, someone tells him that his life is in danger and he needs to fight his way out. 6/10 Alpha Protocol is immediately underwhelming with unatmospheric graphics and a depressingly unoriginal opening (you wake up with amnesia and are talked through a training level) devoid of excitement, pacing, intrigue, spectacle or interest. Your dreary avatar humorously crouch-walks around the level giving you time to wonder why game designers have the bizarre belief that we bought a game about secret agents to be treated like an infant. We’re supposed to be amazing; the game and characters should treat us as such in order to instil the relevant atmosphere. The problems with the game are legion; most notably, cover that frequently doesn’t work, every boss fight being an exercise in gut-punching misery (despite one being brilliantly backed by Turn Up the Radio by Autograph) and being generally forced to choose a response before you hear enough of the lead-in. Additionally, the presence of sexual swear words feels wrong given the inspiration is clearly the bad-language-free JB spy gods of James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. Now while the action never gels, it certainly gets better and the game, as a whole, always feels just a hair away from greatness. Your on-going choices also have a significant effect on most missions (not just the ending) which is highly appreciated. So while Alpha Protocol got deservedly blown away by the superior Mass Effect 2, it’s certainly worth checking out now at it’s budget price. This game contains sexual swear words, adult dialogue and substance abuse (with unrealistic effects) and extreme gun violence, melee violence, a couple of unexpected and extremely graphic moments of gun violence and sensuality.
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January 13, 2011 Leave a Comment
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Le Corbeau aka The Raven (1942) A small French village becomes the domain of a poison pen writer who call themselves The Raven. Their target is Germain, a lascivious local doctor with a reputation for performing abortions, but soon their scope widens. 8/10 Splendidly riveting small-town drama. It always impresses me how films from this period had no real problem with presenting adult scenarios. They didn’t need to shy away from them and there is no confusion over what is going on. Here we have adultery, abortion, sex out of wedlock, insanity, jealousy, morphine abuse and murder-by-proxy without a thrusting bottom in sight. Oh, and plain murder (or justice, should we say). And the entire town degenerates into a mob. There’s even a brilliant scene where a politician finds out he’s been replaced by reading a newspaper which feels like a gag sixty years too early. This film where a French town writhes in the mire of mistrust caused by informants (and, we shouldn’t forget, the naughty goings on in the first place; the Raven doesn’t lie) was made by a French filmmaker in the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. Brilliantly, he managed to upset both the French (‘we’re not spineless immoral self-white-washing tattle-tales’) and the Nazis (‘no-one’s going to want be an informant after watching this’) at the same time. So, a bit brilliant, then. This movie contains a mild swear word, adult dialogue, references to substance abuse and gory and unpleasant scene and sensuality.
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January 12, 2011 Leave a Comment
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CIA operative Evelyn Salt is fingered by a walk-in as a sleeper Russian agent who will kill the Russian President at an upcoming diplomatic funeral. She denies it, of course, and is extremely concerned about her husband who is not answering his phone. However, she doesn’t help her cause when she violently breaks out of the CIA to find her husband. 6/10 Moderately successful is-she-isn’t-she espionage thriller. It’s successful in that it’s paced well and keeps you interested throughout. But not convinced, sadly. Part of the problem is the casting. Simply stated Liev Schreiber (the acting nemesis of auto-correct) should not have been cast because SPOILER he’s too often duplicitous in this kind of movie. Part of the problem comes from too many immediately unconvincing moments, especially in Salt’s infiltration (nope, she SPOILER doesn’t look like a man) and action sequences. The moments themselves are not the problem, exactly, but the fact that they are unconvincing as you watch them snaps you out of the movie. Part of the problem comes with the cost of the story for Salt and the United States. SPOILER Salt balances nine million lives against the death of the US President and key staff (and Salt’s husband in the director’s cut). That cost, however, only works on paper but not in the emotion and thrill of the movie. P.S.: The director’s cut is better with a couple of nice moments and more clarity of character and story. The blu-ray comes with a theme you can install for your PS3 which is really cool. This movie contains a single sexual swear word and violence (theatrical), strong violence and unpleasant scenes (director’s cut).
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January 6, 2011 Leave a Comment
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T.J. Hooker 3.21 Gang War (1984) Instrumental in getting two rival gangs to come together to talk peace, Hooker has to exert his authority and influence to keep the peace when someone tries to keep the gang war going. 5/10 As with most Shatner directed episodes, this is a bit weak but zips through the running time. This episode sees Hooker solve a gang war via car chases (good) but there is a giant hole in the plot (Maria must have seen her attacker but doesn’t say who it is and not out of fear or loyalty) which sticks out like a sore thumb as soon as it happens. Still, Hooker nearly throws a crim off a roof and tells us he ‘wants them bad,’ which is always good value, and Stacy gets to impotently jump into more scenes after they’ve finished than for a while. Links |
Classified 12 by BBFC. Suitable only for persons of 12 years and over. 
Classified 15 by BBFC. Suitable only for persons of 15 years and over.
Classified PG by BBFC. Parental Guidance. 
Classified 18+ by PEGI. The game is only suitable for adults who have reached the age of 18 or over.. 
Classified Violence by PEGI. Game contains depictions of violence. 
Classified Bad Language by PEGI. Game contains bad language. 
Classified Drugs by PEGI. Game refers to or depicts the use of drugs. 
Classified 12A by BBFC. Persons under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult. 
