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.
The shuffling continues again with the return of the zombies in Zombi, a title that was previously on the Wii U.
Armed with but a cricket bat, and a torch, it's up to you to survive the hordes and escape to the safe house. From then on, it's nothing safe at all as you're given a heap of tasks to do and all while facing various perils from the undead masses. Get cornered on any of those tasks and it's all over, rover for you.
Except when it is over, it's a clever way of respawning. You die but you come back as someone else; it's re-incarnation game style in a way that's inventive and unusual - and certainly each time you head back, you get a different set of skills as well. (In theory, though it's just the usual kicking, stomping and smashing and bashing to get your persona home and safe).
Zombi is incredibly dark - a lot of time is spent clambering around in the murk of the world, in dark tunnels and awaiting the next attack. Graphically, the PS4 brings a sharper feel to it, which is welcome given how black most of the game actually is. It doesn't stop the jump scares or the moments when you lose your lunch as a chomper appears behind you.
Strategy is essential too - and avoiding being cornered is also a necessity if you're to survive. You stand little to no chance if you're trapped and the hordes are advancing. Much like many zombie games on show, there's little here that's original or new, but a lower price point and simple execution means that Zombi is as disposable and enjoyable as the likes of Dead Rising and many others that we've seen before.
The developers have gone for atmosphere and a large dose of pulpy sensibilities meaning that it's fairly easy to pick up and get into it, but long term, spending hours wiling away the game is not particularly a real possibility. But Zombi is to be commended for its execution and its relative ease of playability. It's just a shame that it has nothing outside of the genre to really give it a USP.
There's something inherently sinister about abandoned villages in the UK.
Just take a moment to reflect on the sleepy English countryside, stripped of all but ambient noise, the wind whistling through the trees and not a soul in sight.
It's this creepiness that The Chinese Room's played on for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, a first person story led piece that sees you supplanted in the middle of a sleepy village and left to your own devices to try and work out what exactly has happened.
As you start out you are near an observatory in a place called Yaughton Valley,a typical rural idyll where the English countryside is rife and no doubt, the house prices are through the roof. But normally, this place would be bustling, a hub of community life and nosy neighbours.
Except it's not.
It's deserted and it's just you facing off against nothing, no signs of life and merely the signs that wouldn't be out of place on the Marie Celeste. From an empty bike in a bike rack to a van with gates half unpacked, there's a sense of eeriness and unease from the beginning with Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.
As you walk around the village, you get to see orange lights zipping around the streets with no warning. Walking to near these will trigger memories and give you snapshots into conversations - with no idea of timelines, you have no idea what's fully going on - but gradually, these build into core memories and a picture of what's happened in Yaughton Valley.
Gradually, you get to pull together the puzzle strands of the game and it's quite hauntingly done. The best bit of it though, like Journey, is that the unspoiled will get the most out of this game.
From near perfect attention to detail to an atmosphere that's both welcoming and unsettling, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture has a kind of gaming ethos that's like something from a 1960s horror story. Why would people abandon a village? Why is the area quarantined? Why is a lone voice broadcasting through the radio?
Occasionally though, there are some problems with the world that's been created.
You can't fully go wandering through the fields and have to stick to the route that's been laid out. From time to time, you can't enter places for no explicable reason and these are minor stumbling blocks which frustrate the experience and don't give you a feeling of a fully open world. But it has to be said, following these set down routes pays off and gives you the weirdest gaming experience you'll have all year - it's a deceptively simple premise, a beautifully haunting and extrapolated game but Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is also the living proof that smaller games have an ethos and a credibility that some developers forget these days.
For a game that has nary a human in it, there's more humanity and exploration of what it means to be human than you could ever imagine.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Collection: XBox One Review
Platform: XBox One
Released by Microsoft / The Coalition
The shooter is a fine art.
When done perfectly and when everything is firing (pun intended), it can be a beautiful thing as it all comes together in both fluidity, story and blasting the hell out of everything.
When the first installment of Gears was released back in 2006, the gaming industry was still moving at a pace. Today, with the next gen consoles, it seems that everything old is new again, particularly if the word remaster has been thrown in. But also, for many, there is a new generation taking the games on - and these remasters really are a window to some of the finest material around, which has been dusted off, given a once over for the powerful consoles and let loose.
However, it's still all about the gameplay and Gears delivers, purely and simply.
Featuring every multiplayer mode and map from the original game, plus new content such as Team Deathmatch and King of the Hill modes, five campaign chapters never released on Xbox and more, there's more than enough for the seasoned player of Gears to reacquaint themselves with the game. With a cinematic opening telling of the Emergence Day, the game kicks in pretty quickly, thrusting you into the position of Marcus Fenix, a COG soldier and giving you a chance to fight back against the Locusts which have invaded. It's quick-paced, requires a degree of quick reaction and nerves of steel as you play this third person shooter. But it's also incredibly sharp too, from the enhanced graphics that give the game the sheen it needs too, to the reaction time which kicks in quicker than expected. Gameplay is seamless and fluid, and it's easy to get sucked into the various campaigns as well as the online mode.
All in all, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition makes a fine curtain raiser to the fourth installment later next year - and it makes a compelling argument for a remaster when they're done properly and lovingly, rather than a swift cash in that aims to grab the money and run. Complete with a smooth multiplayer and clever reaction, if you're serious about shooters, you can't afford to be without this. Rating:
There's something utterly fiendish about the wave of nostalgia riding through the gaming industry at the moment.
What with Rare Replay proffering up 30 games to dive into, it's currently en vogue to be surfing the wave - and Mega Man Legacy Collection gives you yet another chance to do exactly that.
The Blue Bomber's become synonymous with 8-bit gaming and this collection pulls together the 6 original 8-bit games to pit you into the agony of side-scrolling action once again. Bringing back iconic villain Dr Willy and his minions make things worse as Mega Man powers from one side of the screen to the other to try and fight through to the end.
Mega Man's collection is fiendishly hard - at times, there were echoes of Ghosts'n'Goblins level of difficulty as you try to fend off creatures, jump and shoot at the same time. It's incredibly hard in places, and thanks to the ethos of the 1980s gaming, there's no chance to pick up where you left off and dust yourself down when you're killed.
Even the critters you've despatched on the previous screen will be back if you inadvertently land back on a level area you've already cleared. It's a nice touch, and perhaps we've all got softer these days with gaming, but it has to be said, after a while there's a fair degree of frustration if it happens to you.
Also included in the game are a series of mode - Museum mode gives you a chance to look at concept sketches; challenge mode gives you the chance to encounter the game if you're new or just looking for something different. And the music is so incredibly retro and vaguely annoying that you'll either be singing along or slinging the mute button into action.
The thing with the Mega Man collection is that the authenticity rings through the six games - graphically the 8 bit recreation works well on the next gen console, and there's hardly any lag or glitches throughout
Unforgiving and unrelenting, Mega Man is 8 bit gaming heaven - just be aware that it's so incredibly difficult in places and you may find your blood pressure rising the moment you fire it up.
Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson
Director: Ken Kwapis
As the saying goes, it's not the destination, but the journey you are on.
In this latest flick from renowned comedy director Ken Kwapis, Robert Redford plays celebrated travel writer Bill Bryson, who's back in America and struggling to decide what to do next in his career.
So, challenging himself, he decides to walk the 2000 mile Appalachian Trail which winds its way through America's wilderness, giving an unforgiving challenge to those who try it but soaring rewards to those who complete it. Under direction from his wife (Emma Thompson) to not walk the route alone, he tries to find a companion from his contact file, but all turn him down. On the eve of heading off, a blast from the past, Stephen Katz (played by an extremely grizzly Nick Nolte) calls and offers to be his companion.
Reluctantly, the two team up and head out on their adventure...
Extremely broad right from the start, and inexorably episodic, the adaptation of Bryson's memoir, A Walk In the Woods is a hybrid of The Odd Couple and Laurel and Hardy slapstick.
Heading for gently easy and predictable laughs, it's cleared skewed for an older generation, willing to forgive every contrivance possible as the film heads for its obvious destinations. No doubt the more astute will find themselves distracted at how clearly out of shape Katz is for the journey and how unprepared the duo are for the trek, but if you're willing to forego these fairly big shortcomings, you may find yourself lapsing into a blanket of feel-good buddy road trip movie fuzz rather than an incisive examination of what motivates us later in life.
It doesn't help that the route is littered with oddballs and quirky characters at every turn, though points have to be given to Flight of the Conchords star Kristen Schaal as an irritatingly "shoulda done this" hiker whom the pair try to lose.
While Redford and Nolte have a reasonable chemistry, they are somewhat stuck in a rut of Redford's Bryson being irritated by Katz' presence - it's likely to strike a chord with an older audience, looking to bask in the lighter tones of the film, rather than those seeking a harder watch. It lacks the resonance that Redford portrayed in All Is Lost, forsaking that for a more comic edge.
Entirely predictable and bordering on irritating in its final stretch as the pair's escalating screwball farce heads into slightly more reflective territory, how you feel about A Walk In The Woods may well depend on how you deal with its succession of bumbling and another fine mess you've got me in ethos. There's no denying its geniality, but you may find this is one hike you'd rather sit out.
Cast: O'Shea Jackson Jr, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Paul Giamatti
Director: F Gary Gray
Like any good record, Straight Outta Compton boasts both an exciting A side and a bloated B side.
The biopic of the formation of seminal 1980s rap group NWA is all street and all bluster as it predominantly depicts the rise and fall of Dr Dre, Eazy E and Ice Cube. Starting in the ghettos of Compton, the film sees Eazy E (Jason Mitchell) teaming up with Dre (Hawkins) and Cube (Ice Cube's real life son O'Shea Jackson Jr) to try and break their version of rap through the clubs that were more concerned with R'n'B - or as one club promoter puts it early on, "pussy, not pistols".
Igniting a simmering rage that underlies the streets thanks to the continual harassment of the African American community by the mainly white LA police force and against a backdrop of their own personal experiences and the Rodney King beating, NWA rises to the top.
But, along the way, tensions simmer within the group when it's discovered that Eazy E and manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti, in his second record svengali role of the year after the brilliant Love and Mercy) appear to be making more money than the rest of the band members. Most put out about this is Ice Cube, whose lyrics arguably contributed to the band's rapid ascent....
There's no denying that Straight Outta Compton is a searing biopic and depiction of the social times and climes within an America that's continually ripped by race.
But there's also no denying there's a powerful film here that soars in its first half as it charts the rise and documents the energy and electricity of the performances of the band before it becomes bogged down. The second half of the film is mired by a myriad of plot strands and too many piecemeal threads being tied together, as well as drama that's not particularly dramatic as it negotiates contract disputes with Heller et al and the appearances of the likes of Snoop Dogg. It also suffers from a melodramatic soundtrack that crashes and underscores very heavily every dramatic beat in the back half.
Equally, there are tantalising hints of life outside the group for the main trio, specifically Dre, whose family tensions are hinted at with his wife but frustratingly thrown to one side, almost as if they had forgotten about Dre. And don't even get me started on the treatment of the mainly topless sexualised women within (yet another barb to be thrown at rap music in general)
Thankfully, some incredible performances from O'Jackson Jr, Hawkins and Mitchell give Straight Outta Compton its heart, humour and braggadacio. O'Jackson Jr in particular feels like you're watching a young Ice Cube, thanks largely to the son looking like the father - and he brings an energy to the early performances, which galvanise and unite the crowd, while ignoring some of the real controversy NWA's lyrics brought to the fore.
It's probably no surprise that with Dre and Cube being producers on the film that it's somewhat of a whitewash, glossing over the meatier parts of their career, the debate provoked by their rap and while the tensions with the police give an insight into the simmering feelings of the time, it's never anything more than black and white.
When Straight Outta Compton concentrates on the electric performances of NWA and their effect on a trodden on society, it's nothing short of searing and tremendously successful - it's just unfortunately that in the best part of 2 and a half hours, the energy lags and the second half of the film is like a B-side that you'd quite happily skip to go back to the A side again.
