Helldivers 2: PS5 Review

Developed by Arrowhead Games
Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PS5

Easily dismissed as Starship Troopers the video game, Helldivers 2's commitment to its own OTT language and visuals makes it a game that knows what it's doing and will have a damn good time doing it.

A Sequel to the top down 2015 hit Helldivers, Arrowhead Games' latest sees you back in the thrall of the Helldivers as they head to the outer reaches of space to bring their own level of justice and colonisation to their exploration.

If you're not familiar with Starship Troopers, much of the game's opening sequence which seems like an updated satire on the alien invasion will be lost on you - but the game's fairly open about what it wants to achieve. It wants to send you down to an alien world with a desire to team up with others and to kill.

From kitting out your crew member with the right kit, steeling them with strategems, and weapons, the game makes it pretty simple to face off against hordes of marauding aliens. But it's the element of strategy that comes largely into force with Helldivers 2 and the game's difficulty levels kick in the lower your ammo goes and the longer it takes for your various perks to cool down.

It also becomes harder to achieve the more simplistic tasks the further into the game you go, and while you level up as time goes on, so does the achievement levels you need to meet.

From chunky feeling weaponry that kicks in via the DualSense to crisp graphics on foreign worlds, Helldivers 2 is the kind of multiplayer shooter that's all encompassing - even if it's better played with friends than online unknowns who have a tendency to abandon the team on successful completion.

All in all, Helldivers 2 offers a strong argument for a simple co-op concept, brilliantly executed.

Win a double pass to see Wicked Little Letters in cinemas

To celebrate the release of Wicked Little Letters in cinemas March 21, thanks to StudioCanal New Zealand, you can win a double pass!

About Wicked Little Letters

When people in Littlehampton--including conservative local Edith--begin to receive letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. 

Suspecting that something is amiss, the town's women investigate.

Wicked Little Letters is in cinemas March 21, and stars Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman

Wicked Little Letters: Movie Review

Cast: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Hugh Skinner, Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones

Director: Thea Sharrock

Based on a true scandal that shocked 1920s England, comedic mystery movie Wicked Little Letters centres on the small town of Littlehampton as it recovers after the end of the war.

Colman stars as the pious and prim Edith Swan who begins to receive obscenity-filled letters and suspects they have come from her liberal neighbour Rose Gooding (Buckley). After getting the police involved, Rose is thrown in jail.

However, local constable Gladys Moss (Vasan) believes Rose is not to blame - and sets out to solve this perplexing case of curse words and vendettas.

Much of Wicked Little Letters' humour derives from the continual arrival of letters at the Swan house, complete with their language that feels like it's written by someone who doesn't really know how to swear or be obscene. There's plenty of mirth to be mined from the likes of Colman and an extremely uptight Spall as her father reading them out loud.

But scratch beneath the veneer of Wicked Little Letters' seemingly profane journey, and you'll find a story of societal tragedy.

From Edith's utter terror from her father's dominance in his house as he remonstrates against everything and everyone to Moss' frustration at her place as a woman police officer in a male-led environment and the subsequent prejudice, there's a social commentary going on here that's hard to ignore.

Yet most of the vicarious joys come from seeing the pairing of Colman's uptight God-fearing and darkly snobby woman pitched against Buckley's free-spirited honest immigrant. It's an odd couple story, a tale as old as time, a slight on gossip and malice in small towns, (and also social media tittle-tattle) given a fresh coat and tarted up for 2024.

From Colman's subtle facials, twitching at every salacious crumb that she overhears, delighted in the attention her situation has received through to Buckley's initially brash but gradually softening salt-of-the-earth mother, the two leads function excellently on the screen. Perhaps the only damp squib moment of the film is how Vasan's police officer suffers a little in amongst this boisterous triumvirate as she becomes confined to the sidelines and more part of a screwball detective spin-off.

Overall Wicked Little Letters coalesces into something that's a veritable crowd-pleasing affair, one that's simply deliciously told and pitch-perfectly executed. 

Oscars 2024: The Full list of winners

Here is the full list of winners from the Academy Awards 2024.

Best Picture

•  American Fiction
•  Anatomy of a Fall
•  Barbie
•  The Holdovers
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Maestro
•  Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Past Lives
•  Poor Things
•  The Zone of Interest

Director

•  Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
•  Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
•  Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Actor in a Leading Role

•  Bradley Cooper, Maestro
•  Colman Domingo, Rustin
•  Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
•  Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Actress in a Leading Role

•  Annette Bening, Nyad
•  Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
•  Carey Mulligan, Maestro
•  Emma Stone, Poor Things - WINNER

Actor in a Supporting Role

•  Sterling K Brown, American Fiction
•  Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Ryan Gosling, Barbie
•  Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Actress in a Supporting Role

•  Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
•  Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
•  America Ferrera, Barbie
•  Jodie Foster, Nyad
•  Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers - WINNER

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

•  American Fiction - WINNER
•  Barbie
•  Oppenheimer
•  Poor Things
•  The Zone of Interest

Writing (Original Screenplay)

•  Anatomy of a Fall - WINNER
•  The Holdovers
•  Maestro
•  May December
•  Past Lives

Cinematography

•  El Conde
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Maestro
•  Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Poor Things

Film Editing

•  Anatomy of a Fall
•  The Holdovers
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Poor Things

Animated Feature Film

• The Boy and the Heron - WINNER
•  Elemental
•  Nimona
•  Robot Dreams
•  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

International Feature Film

•  Io Capitano
•  Perfect Days
•  Society of the Snow
•  The Teachers' Lounge
•  The Zone of Interest WINNER

Documentary Feature

•  Bobi Wine: The People's President
•  The Eternal Memory
•  Four Daughters
•  To Kill a Tiger
•  20 Days in Mariupol - WINNER

Music (Original Score)

•  American Fiction
•  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Oppenheimer - WINNER
•  Poor Things

Music (Original Song)

•  'The Fire Inside', Flamin' Hot
•  'I'm Just Ken', Barbie
•  'It Never Went Away', American Symphony
•  'Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)', Killers of the Flower Moon
•  'What Was I Made For?', Barbie - WINNER

Sound

•  The Creator
•  Maestro
•  Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
•  Oppenheimer
•  The Zone of Interest - WINNER

Production Design

•  Barbie
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Napoleon
•  Oppenheimer
•  Poor Things - WINNER

Makeup and Hairstyling

•  Golda
•  Maestro
•  Oppenheimer
•  Poor Things - WINNER
•  Society of the Snow

Costume Design

•  Barbie
•  Killers of the Flower Moon
•  Napoleon
•  Oppenheimer
•  Poor Things - WINNER

Visual Effects

•  The Creator
•  Godzilla Minus One - WINNER
•  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
•  Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
•  Napoleon

Documentary Short Subject

•  The ABCs of Book Banning
•  The Barber of Little Rock
•  Island In Between
•  The Last Repair Shop - WINNER
•  Nai Nai and Wài Pó

Animated Short Film

•  Letter to a Pig
•  Ninety-Five Senses
•  Our Uniform
•  Pachyderme
•  War Is Over! Inspired By the Music of John and Yoko - WINNER

Live-Action Short Film

•  The After
•  Invincible
•  Knight of Fortune
•  Red, White and Blue
•  The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - WINNER

The Convert: Movie Review 

Cast: Guy Pearce, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Antonio Te Maioha, Jacqueline Mckenzie, Lawrence Makoare 
Director: Lee Tamahori

Dark, moody and perhaps muted, Kiwi director Lee Tamahori's foray into New Zealand's past is solid movie that never quite hits its emotional footing.

Guy Pearce plays lay preacher Thomas Munro, caught between his own violent past and the violence of 1830s New Zealand. As Munro heads to the newly-established settlement of Epworth, his ship is forced to anchor for repairs. However, he finds himself in a battle between rival Māori tribes - and offered a choice between saving two rivals, he is tasked with looking after a grieving Rangimai (Ngatai-Melbourne).

But as he heads to Epworth with his new charge, Munro finds he must battle entrenched racism and shifting allegiances as war begins to threaten.

With sparse locations adding to a feel of pre-colonisation, Tamahori's take on the bloody conflicts between the settlers and the land's inhabitants are perfect for world-building. In among the slow burn of The Covert, the film is less interested in any particularly deep characterisation outside of broad strokes for everyone.

Opening with a shot of one bird swooping the land before taking another out, The Convert is essentially about survival, as well as heavy-handed allegories about who exactly is converting - is it the local populace whose will must bend to the settlers, or is it Munro whose violent past is bending to something more akin to a saviour? (Perhaps Tamahori's biggest issue here is the white saviour trope).

There is a pensive almost aloof approach gifted Munro and while his more inward conflicts don't really bubble up until the end, Tamahori's lens on the Māori feels like it is less nuanced. Reduced only to conflict figures or objects by the villagers of Epworth, it's understandable to see for the narrative.

A proliferation of Māori language though marks The Convert out as a film that feels like it is paying debt to its forefathers, rather than simply using it to carry a story. And while it erupts in violence toward the end, both bloodied and shocking, the slow burn build serves The Convert well, even if its message of the dangers of imperialism is somewhat subdued in a well-shot period piece.

Foamstars: PS5 Review

Developed by Toylogic
Published by Square Enix
Platform: PS5

Foamstars may have a spiritual forebear in Splatoon, but the latest from Square Enix is a mix of the more traditional Japanese RPG fare the studio produces and the traditional PvP shooter that's become prolific in the genre.

Stepping aside the absolutely abysmal pushing of a paid series of packs before you've even entered the arena, the game essentially equips your hero with a gun, a large amount of soapy goodness and the ability to simply go crazy.

The foam party fight is incredibly confusing, a mash of colour and blobs that makes it difficult to work out what to do straight off - so it's better to engage with Foamstars in its earlier single player format. But even that has a curse attached to it, given how much dialogue is spewed out by characters intent on interacting via text bubbles.

It's a shame because the actual mechanics of using a soapy blaster to dispatch hordes of Chocobo-like enemies as they head toward your power source to destroy it does require a bit of thinking and planning - after all, there's nothing worse than an empty shooter unable to perform.

Along with some awful puns (Bath Vegas instead of Las Vegas) Foamstars' ability to engage the lower brow is never really far from its mind, but when the game calms itself down and concentrates on its mechanics, it does offer something a little more fun that's straying away from the traditional.

But unfortunately, along with aggressive microtransactions and a penchant for pushing its crazy dialogue in your face, those moments are few and far in between. From surfing through the foam to knock out your enemies to building an unassailable wall of foam to get high, there's a crazy inventiveness here that's not quite coalesced into something that's truly memorable, sadly.

Mixing Capture the flag games with PvP, Foamstars stakes its claim - and while it's fun for a while, it's to be hoped the long term roadmap relies on more inventiveness and a little less over reliance on screeds of dialogue that's difficult to discern while playing.