Laser 14" Portable Screen: Review

Extra screens come in all shapes and sizes - especially in these work from home times.

But what generally they lack is portability. However, Laser's launched a new portable screen to deal with that very problem. 

At 14 inches, perhaps the first concern is that it barely matches the same size as most laptops. However, rather than simply going for a 16x9 monitor, Laser's delivered a 16x10 experience that adds an extra bit of height to its display.

Simplicity is the key here.

Taking it out of the box, it's obvious what the drawcard is here - weighing in at around just 560 grams, this is the kind of screen that will slide nicely into your laptop bag or under your arm. It's not weighed down by overly unnecessary buttons and with a simple plug in and go mentality, there's no real need to fiddle around - unless you want a second screen to extend.

Inside the box, there's just the screen and the USB-C and HDMI cables, meaning your setup is a simple one, and there's no need to raid that box of cables that you leave lying around. Perhaps the fiddliest part of the setup is the extender arm on the back of the device.

That's mainly because the LED screen is light, there's a feeling that applying any kind of pressure on the front could permanently damage the display. There's also the option to mount this too, should you so desire - though given the real plus of this device is its portability, that would be a little pointless. (And it's worth noting the mount doesn't come as part of the package, which is priced at around $179.)

Straight off the bat, the screen impresses with its display. Its crystal-clear imagery more than does what's needed for a second screen in the office. The brightness may very occasionally work better as a darker room piece of kit, rather than a fully sun-drenched room. It's a bit more of an intriguing proposition as a standalone device, but with HDMI cables, it can be used to attach to a gaming device to avoid a big screen experience.

As a presentation tool though, it's better than connecting to an office bigscreen monitor - and the more close-quarters workers will relish the fact the device can effectively and quickly display any propositions.

If anything, the sound pumped out by the screen's speakers is nothing more than fine - any audiophile who's looking for a more impressive sound experience won't really be investing in a portable monitor anyway, but given the portability is key here, the fact it pumps out sound better than a non-Bluetooth-connected laptop does gives it bonus points anyway. There's a jack on the side to plug in speakers, but when you start adding more tech to this, then it becomes less about portability. However, headphones work fine.

For the price you're paying and given how easy it is to simply set up and get on with what's needed without any fuss, the Laser 14" Portable Screen more than delivers on its promise and premise with ease. 

Marvel MaXimum Collection: PS5 Review

Developed by Limited Run Games
Published by Limited Run Games
Platform: PS5

The Marvel Universe is somewhat of a large beast.

From countless movies to endless TV shows, the Marvel tentacles spread far and wide. So, it's no surprise that there are a series of games for the fans to get their hands on - and this collection of a slew of the Marvel genre is more than a match for any serious gamer and fan - even if some of the gameplay is somewhat repetitive.

Originally released from the 1990s, these five games prove to be as difficult as any arcade game can be - from the movement-based gameplay of Silver Surfer (which is punishingly difficult to the point of irritation) through to the Street Fighter-esque beat'em'up of the Spider-Man games, there's more than enough to keep fans of the button-mashing gameplay busy.

Even with rewind capabilities (as the Ghosts'n'Goblins arcade game did when it came to console), there's no walk in the park for these titles - certainly Silver Surfer, where the slightest touch of anyone can send you back to the start of the game, is one of the toughest games out there and included in this collection.

Graphically, they're faithful to the 2D scroller originals, but lack some of the finesse of the next gen console's abilities to be frank. There's no fidelity upgrade here and while the games don't suffer from frame-rate drop out or the like, they're certainly not something to write home about visually. Except that in many ways, that's not the point - these are extremely faithful adaptations of the 90s titles, 8-bits and all - and on that front, they easily deliver.

This is a nice little collection, perhaps in some ways, it's a little niche - and certainly the repetition of gameplay leaves a fair bit of beat-em-up desirability to go. There's much to be said for nostalgia and given this collects together a wide raft of titles that only had Sega, Nintendo and Game Gear playability, getting them onto the next gen consoles is an X-cellent idea.

The collected games are: Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage, Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety, X-Men: The Arcade Game, Captain America and The Avengers, Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, and Silver Surfer. 

Screamer: PS5 Review

Developed by Milestone
Published by Milestone
Platform: PS5

Sometimes, arcade games can push you to the absolute edge.

Whether it's their addictive nature, their "just one more go" mentality or their ease of play, the genre is one that's always held sway with gamers - and so much so that fiddling with what's on offer can lead to a feeling of why mess with it if it's not broken.

Fortunately, arcade racer Screamer offers something of a halfway house for racing games, mixing both long anime-style cut scenes and cartoon-level racing in an update of the game that was first unleashed back in 1995.

With anime graphics and chapter-led storytelling, this latest from Milestone offers something a little different as it pulls you in with its story of street racing, different gangs and competitive edges. Digging into a dystopian-style future world and sci-fi trappings, it tells the story of rival gangs who thrash it all out on the track, pushing their racing to divulge their tale in a bitesize way that'll keep you engaged throughout.

With cars that feel just a little day-after-tomorrow stylings, and tracks that are like Blade Runner but on speed, the neon-soaked racing will see you needing to concentrate and learn mechanics as you drift around courses and take on other racers.

It's not an easy game to master and there are times when it distinctly feels like the levelling up process has happened to everyone else on the track but you. With its twin-stick system, the game does require concentration and a level head for blatting around courses - one wrong move and you're back to the dredges of the racing pack, destined not to catch up.

There's a kind of lunacy that works here as you battle other racers and take part in a plethora of other race options - and while the cut scenes can occasionally become annoying, skipping them leaves you missing out on some of the game's finer details.

Stripped of the seriousness of other racing sims and meshing anime with Forza Horizon and Wipeout works well here - just don't be surprised if you find yourself caught up in the fact you think you can beat others with just one more race.

The Devil Wears Prada 2: Movie Review

Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Simone Ashley, Kenneth Branagh, BJ Novak
Director: David Frankel

Twenty years ago, The Devil Wears Prada provided a sharp and satirical look at the world of fashion and the behaviour of toxic bosses. But the sequel is as shallow as fashion can be - all sheen and no substance below, a mannequin dressed in haute couture, yet shapeless and without form underneath.

Sure, there are the trademark barbs and bitter remarks tossed about by both Streep's beastly Runway fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (although she's warned by HR what she can and can't say, a la Scrubs 2026 reboot), but in a tale about the media landscape changing, this feels less insightful and as disposable as fast fashion itself.

Two decades on, Andy Sachs (Hathaway, solid and good at the more comedic elements of the script) has been working as a journalist and is about to receive an award when she's informed that her entire publication is being shut down after a buy-out. Meanwhile, Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Streep, haughty and indignant) is on the cusp of getting a prestigious promotion when an article promoting a brand using a sweatshop goes viral. 

However, when the owner of Runway magazine contacts Andy to head up their features department and tidy up the mess, it puts Andy and her former nemesis Miranda back on a collision path...

There are some things to admire in The Devil Wears Prada 2, a film that initially has ambition before squandering it all for a series of promo shoots, fashion darlings walking in montages and continual location changes that look ripped from a travel magazine's video pages before an antagonising sentimental ending that threatens to drown itself in syrup..

To begin with, the film seems to want to launch barbs at the industry itself, how media has turned on itself, how traditional media has given way to chasing page impressions, a rage against consolidation of media, and how there's no escaping from how one person can make you feel and act, no matter how far in your past they are.

But it throws all that to one side in a truly formulaic movie whose plot twists are ludicrously telegraphed and which has absolutely no consequences are felt. Characters appear and then disappear when their arc appears to be done, and most of what transpires is neatly wrapped up in a feel-good bow that belies some of the tart nature of the dialogue early on.

A Lady Gaga cameo appears to be nothing more than a promo for a song of her own catalogue; there's a Last Supper allegory that becomes literal and there's a railing at one point by Priestly about the dangers of AI. It all feels very timely, but it also somehow doesn't make the film timeless.

What's most criminal about The Devil Wears Prada 2 is how much it's abandoned the comedy elements of the story, in favour of something a little more piecemeal. It feels like the dramatic scenes have been bolted together in a myriad of ways (and don't even let's start on the Coke can product placement within) that all feel as slight and trivial as what Priestly's raging against.

Yet within the thinly sketched movie, there are some stand-out moments.

Some truly delicious one-liners are espoused, Tucci has real warmth and heart as Nigel, the perennially put-upon assistant, and both Hathaway and a slightly defanged Streep step back into their original iconic characters with ease. Some of the best scenes are in the cold interactions they have early on and the later thawing of that relationship. Emily Blunt steals the show once again as the vengeful former assistant now working for Dior. Fans of the original will be happy with it, everyone else may find their patience sorely tested in parts.

Early on, Tucci's Nigel delivers the verdict that "villains are always the most interesting" but in the case of this sequel, the devil's not quite in the details. 

As the iconic Madonna song Vogue (which makes its reappearance here) goes: "Strike a pose, there's nothing to it." It's just a shame The Devil Wears Prada 2 used that as a mantra for its own execution.

The Sheep Detectives: Movie Review

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Galitzine, Patrick Stewart, Hong Chau
Director: Kyle Balda

Imagine a film that takes the talking animal genius of Babe and fuses it with the kind of chocolate box cosy crime dramas, such as The Thursday Murder Club, that have become the norm in this day and age.

In a nutshell, that's what the charmingly wholesome The Sheep Detectives is, a bucolic slice of simplicity that follows shepherd George, who carries two bottles of milk in a holster belt and lives alone in a field on the outskirts of the idyllic English village of Denbrook.

Each night, at the end of his day tending to his flock, George (Messiah-like and gruff with humans, but soft with his animals) reads detective novels to the wooly masses and unbeknownst to him, has a thrilled and captivated audience. When the sheep awake one day to find George slumped in a field, they suspect he has been murdered and raised on a diet of grass and crime stories, Lily (Louis-Dreyfus) sets out to solve the crime.

Chernobyl screenwriter Craig Mazin wastes no time setting up a whole ewe-niverse within Denbrook as he adapts German crime author Leonie Swann's 2022 book Three Bags Full. From the nosey shopkeeper to the malevolent-looking butcher, everyone's a suspect and in the style of Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz, even the local law enforcement (Succession's Nicholas Braun) is clueless.

This is a story that very much conforms to the norms of the cosy crime world, raising the tropes and acknowledging them without subverting them, before ploughing it all through a wooly prism.

And yet, there's some darkness within the sentimental message of never forgetting those that are left behind. From outcast animals to the sheep's desire to simply stop remembering anything they don't like, along with ideologies on death and the negation of the horrors of farm life, this is a film that teeters on nightmarish moments - even if its key one is ripped directly from the most horrifying moment of George Miller's Babe.

Dame Emma Thomson delivers a perfectly pitched performance as a lawyer brought in to execute George's estate, but the real star of the film is the dialogue which has no qualms or compunction about mixing both silly word play with feel-good heartfelt sentiment.

It's perhaps a little too wooly in its duration, but this tale of a field full of Baa-Gatha Christie animals inspired to see their shepherd's killer put behind baa-rs is perhaps the sweetest intentioned film you'll see all year.

Pragmata: Xbox Series X Review

Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
Platform: PS5

If you've ever thought the perfect game would include shooting rogue robots powered by a vengeful AI and a hacking mini-game, then does Capcom have just the thing for you.

This latest sci-fi game is a blast, an incredible looking game that really does take the genre to the moon and back - literally.

When a team of engineers is sent out to the Moon to investigate a malfunctioning research station, disaster strikes. As the only member of the group left, Hugh is tasked with trying to find a way out of the station and back home - as well as solving the problem of the wrecked space station. However, he's not alone in this - when he comes to after the initial disaster, he finds a young girl tending to his wounds, an android on the station who befriends him and promises to help him escape the vengeful mechanical droids which have been awoken by an angry AI.

Glistening corridors and eerie areas mix to potent effect in Pragmata, a game that meshes I, Robot horrors with 2001: A Space Odyssey's aesthetics. It's no lie to say this game looks stunning - every edge of the characters is pristinely drawn and visualised and the marauding robots feel like the sharp creatures you'd get off a 3D printer.

There's a day-after-tomorrow ethos to the look of the game which makes it feel realistic and in its opening moments, the sense of scale on the Moon and within the base is just immersive and perfect. 

The game takes a little while to settle into its mechanics and the hacking ideology that it's pushing. The young girl, whom Hugh names Diana, can scrabble up on his back and hack into robots when they attack and open areas that have been locked. It's no lie to say the minigame takes a bit to get used to, given it happens simultaneously with Hugh being attacked - but once you've got into the swing of what's desired, it becomes like second nature.

If the sci-fi edges are perfect in Pragmata, the more human side of the tale is not lost in the mix. As Diana and Hugh grow closer, a father-daughter style bond emerges, something which is both touching and commendable, without being mawkish. A central hub for upgrades and interactions proves to be a welcome distraction from the fighting and exploration, with chances to build and nurture the relationship.

Pragmata may have been announced back in 2020 and taken a while to arrive, but its final destination is one of success - this is a game that impresses emotionally as much as it does visually - and for a new IP, it shows that originality is still key to any game.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Switch 2 and Xbox demo released

Start Playing Today with Save File Carryover; Digital and Physical Pre-orders Galore, Including Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Zack Fair Card Featuring Variant Art by Tetsuya Nomura for the physical Nintendo Switch 2 edition  

 

Prepare for the Final Entry of the Remake Trilogy, Currently in Development

 

 

Today, SQUARE ENIX released a free demo for FINAL FANTASY™ VII REBIRTH, the acclaimed sequel and second game in the FINAL FANTASY VII remake project, on Nintendo Switch™ 2, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox on PC with Xbox Play Anywhere support. Players can start their adventure today and carry their progress into the full game, set for release on June 3, 2026. Downloading and playing the demo rewards players with bonuses for the full game, such as a Kupo Charm that boosts the chance of collecting extra materials, along with a Survival Set.

 

The demo features Chapters 1 and 2 of the full game. In Chapter 1, Cloud Strife recalls a fateful moment from five years ago: “the Nibelheim incident.” Take control of a younger Cloud and the legendary war hero Sephiroth as they investigate the sudden appearance of monsters outside Cloud’s hometown. When a dark truth comes to light, the course of their lives and the fate of the planet will change forever.

 

In Chapter 2, Cloud and his friends set forth on a new adventure across the Grasslands region. Enjoy several hours of thrilling combat, hidden treasures, side stories and the beloved Queen’s Blood card game. Discover the acclaimed battle system featuring new Synergy Abilities and the flexible combination of real-time action with strategic commands. Take advantage of new “Streamlined Progression” features that allow players to focus on the story, such as unlimited HP and MP, always-full ATB gauge and easier weapon ability acquisition.

 

Players can pre-order the full game on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox to receive the following bonuses:

• Digital Edition
• Standard - Includes the Moogle Trio and Posh Chocobo Summoning Materia, Armor: Shinra Bangle Mk. II and Midgar Bangle Mk. II.
• Digital Deluxe Edition - Includes the Standard edition bonuses, plus the Magic Pot Summoning Materia, Accessory: Reclamant Choker, Armor: Orchid Bracelet, Digital Art Book and Digital Mini Soundtrack.

 

• Physical Edition - Those who pre-order the physical Nintendo Switch 2 edition of FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH will receive one Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Zack Fair card featuring variant art by Tetsuya Nomura, while supplies last.

 

Set across a vast and vibrant planet, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH sees Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith and Red XIII escape from the dystopian city of Midgar into the wide world beyond. To hunt down Sephiroth, a haunting figure from Cloud's past bent on ruling the planet, these unlikely heroes join forces with new companions like the spirited ninja operative Yuffie and the wisecracking, feline-shaped robot Cait Sith. FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH delivers an unforgettable experience to players filled with unexpected twists, memorable characters and jaw-dropping set pieces that longtime fans and newcomers can both enjoy.

 

Also available on PS5® and PC, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH has earned more than 125 perfect scores from media and 40 Game of the Year awards. With this upcoming release on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox, alongside the previous launch of FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE, the FINAL FANTASY VII remake trilogy-so-far will be available across all modern platforms. No matter where they play, fans can catch up and prepare for the third and final installment, currently in production.

 

For more information, visit: https://ffvii.square-enix-games.com/games/rebirth/.