At Darren's World of Entertainment - a movie, DVD and game review blog.
The latest movie and DVD reviews - plus game reviews as well. And cool stuff thrown in when I see it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Blood of Dawnwalker details released - what you need to know
The Blood of Dawnwalker will launch September 3 – Rebel Wolves revealed key details on its upcoming dark fantasy action RPG
A story trailer, new gameplay presentation, system requirements, details of each available edition and much more were revealed during the Road to Launch Event.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X on September 3 and is now available to pre-order in stores and digitally.
Story trailer - meet some of the allies Coen will encounter during his adventures across Vale Sangora.
Gameplay presentation – over 10 minutes of new gameplay footage from the latest PC build.
New track from the game’s soundtrack – presented in a video featuring a live band
Detailed system requirements.
Presentation of game editions details – available digitally and at game retailers worldwide.
Dev diary – in-depth commentary on the game’s open world and narrative.
Motion capture behind the scenes with former UFC champion Jan Błachowicz - one of the antagonists standing in Coen’s way.
Rebel Wolves, together with Bandai Namco Entertainment, revealed a wealth of new information about The Blood of Dawnwalker. The dark fantasy open world action RPG will launch on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on September 3, with pre-orders now open digitally and at major game retailers. The Road to Launch Event also showcased new gameplay footage, story details, game system requirements, and more.
The Blood of Dawnwalker – Watch the Road to Launch Event
The new story trailer introduces a cast of characters that Coen will encounter on his journey – some will become allies, others enemies, but all of them play a crucial role in the game’s story. Rebel Wolvesalso showcased never-before-seen locations across Vale Sangora, a mysterious region in the Carpathian Mountains, and offered deeper insight into the creative process behind bringing the game’s open world to life.
The developers also showcased over 10 minutes of footage captured on the most recent PC build, focusing on narrative-driven open-world activities. Players were shown how exploration can unlock new abilities, reveal hidden secrets, or introduce unexpected challenges that may alter the course of their journey. The gameplay also demonstrated how player actions influence the balance of power within the valley, reinforcing the game’s core principle: in The Blood of Dawnwalker, every action carries consequences.
All of the presented features, gameplay mechanics, and story details are explained in depth by members of the Rebel Wolves team, including Piotr Kucharski (Writer), Daria Bury-Zawada (Lead Gameplay Animator), Maciej Wiśniewski (Senior Level Designer), and Dorota Rutkowska (Producer).
Developers also prepared a behind-the-scenes video featuring former UFC champion Jan Błachowicz, who contributed to motion capture performances for one of the game’s antagonists, Bakir, a vampire from Brencis' clique. In the feature, Błachowicz explains how his combat expertise helped bring authenticity and weight to the game’s fight sequences, ensuring that every swing, stab, and punch feels impactful and believable.
Pre-orders are now available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Details about the upcoming editions, including the limited Collector’s Edition, have also been shared. In addition to the standard digital edition and the Day One Edition available in retail worldwide, players can purchase the Eclipse Edition, which includes digital bonuses such as a world compendium, game soundtrack, and a comic book.
Also revealed today were the official PC system requirements
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Finally, players got to hear a brand-new piece of music from the game - “Uphill Battle”, presented as a music video featuring the musicians behind The Blood of Dawnwalker’s soundtrack. The full recording from the Road to Launch Event is available here LINK.
The Blood of Dawnwalker, the first game by Rebel Wolves, is developed using Unreal Engine 5 and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game will launch on September 3 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Pre-orders on all platforms are already available, and players can add the game to their wishlist. More details can be found on the official website: dawnwalkergame.com.
To stay up to date with upcoming news from the Rebel Wolves pack, follow the official Dawnwalker social media channels: X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch, or join the community on Discord or Reddit.
More about The Blood of Dawnwalker
Fourteenth-century Europe is engulfed in chaos – bloody wars tear the continent apart, and the Black Death takes a deadly toll. This moment of weakness is seized by a clique of powerful vampires. The time of great change is coming - for everyone.
You play as Coen, a young man who has become a Dawnwalker – no longer human, but not fully a vampire, sharing the strengths and weaknesses of both worlds.
Players follow Coen’s journey as he fights to save his family from Brancis, the vampire lord who rules his homeland, Vale Sangora – a mysterious region in the Carpathian Mountains. Along the way, he navigates uneasy alliances and dramatic confrontations, forging his own path in a world where every choice shapes both the story and the gameplay.
About Rebel Wolves
Rebel Wolves is a studio built on talent and ambition. A mixture of gamedev veterans and fresh blood that aims to create the dark fantasy games of their dreams. Established in 2022 in Warsaw, Poland, with a plan to bring RPG adventure to the next level. Fueled by strong vision and fascination with story-driven approach to games.
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