Tomb Raider The Definitive Edition: PS4 Review

Tomb Raider The Definitive Edition: PS4 Review

Released by Square Enix
Platform: PS4

Lara Croft's last adventure was a real doozy.

I can tell you that if you think this Lara Croft reboot isn't worth it, I will head over and kick your behind, because quite simply if you're a fan of gaming, then you really need to play this.

Setting out on her first expedition, Lara is bound for Japan, but nature intervenes and soon, she and a few other survivors find their way to a deserted island. As Lara investigates further, she finds herself drawn into an ancient civilisation and a prophecy. Cinematic and epic where it needs to be, this overlooked reboot is simply great gaming. It's got a depth of storytelling that works as well and successfully relaunches the Lara Croft franchise. Giving her a bow to use is a master-stroke and in just seconds, Square Enix has made her iconic again.

The game's been re-released and re-mastered for the PS4 too, with a definitive edition adding a pristine sheen to the overall feel of the product. While the remaster for the PS4 may have those who've already played it looking for spare cash, the upgrade is certainly worth it when it comes to the look and feel of the game.

It's a hell of a lot shinier and looks the part - the detail for the HD master is incredible and you may find yourself looking more at the hair than the surroundings. It's proof that the smaller details are the winnings of this game - and with the definition of Lara's face, there's certainly something to say for the work they've done.

All in all, with the Definitive edition coming with some DLC too, there's plenty to justify spending your pennies on this game - I'm really hoping there will be a sequel to come, because Tomb Raider is one of the most under-appreciated games of the current console - if you ever fancied playing Lara, now is the time to dive in. You won't be disappointed.

Fez: PS4 Review

Fez: PS4 Review

Released on PS4
By Polytron

It's all about perspective in Fez.

And what a cute little platformer this is for the HD world - even if its graphics and feel are somewhat retro.

You play Gomez, a kind of cat like creature, who lives within a flat world. But one day, he's visited by a cube who tells him there is more to life than just this dimension and gives him a 3D perspective on the world. But that vision comes with a price as there are 32 cubes scattered in pieces throughout this world which need restoring to some kind of completion. And gifted a fez, Gomez sets out on his quest.

However, now the world is a new place to explore and using the R1/ L1 buttons, you can shift a 2D landscape into a 3D one, meaning previously unassailable ledges and doors suddenly become more accessible. It's all about angles and using your brains to think a problem through laterally.

Fez may not be the most impressive of games when it comes to graphics, but it makes up for it with its playability. The more cubes you collect, the more worlds open up for exploration, gifting you the chance to enjoy the 3D and prolonging the game's lifespan. Occasionally, jumping proves difficult as you have to be incredibly precise in your movements or it's curtains - and the map facility of the game is puzzlingly head scratching to use, which seems a bit nuts given this is a game about exploration.

Fez benefits from being relatively cheap in the PSN store and manages to engage you by putting a different spin on the usual platformer. It's a game that challenges, makes you think and its imagination deserves to be applauded.

Rating:

Comedy Fest Q&A: Jarred Christmas

Comedy Fest Q&A: Jarred Christmas

1)     Tell us the name of your show

SNAFU

2)     Which came first – the show name or the show content?

The content is always there first. I might not know what shape or structure if any, but the content comes first. The name usually comes in a panic when venues and festivals are demanding it. I don’t feel the need to tie my show title in with the content of the show. I think that can bog you down. My show is called “How I dealt with a broken rib, bungee jumping and gay marriage. I will also mention my parents” That’s a bit clunky.

3) Any other working titles for the show?

FUBAR, Jarred Christmas “Don’t call me Pissmass”

4)     How long – honestly- have you been working on this?

Honestly I started working on this straight after the NZ fest last year. I came back to the UK and was building up for a tour, when I tour I do a first section of about an hour and then a 2^nd of roughly 45 minutes. So I beef up the original show with newer material, so hopefully by the end of the tour and year, I will have a new show. Which thankfully is what has happened this time around.

5)     What’s been the biggest challenge of pulling this show together?

The material really. Im telling some longer more personel stories. Last years show was heavily improvised, my aim was to be loose on stage and let the material come out when it did and not force a structure on it. This year I want to offer something different. It will still be loose as that’s my style, but there will be more storytelling. Don’t worry, the stories are funny and peppered with jokes. End of the day Im a comedian, people want to laugh. Its not good enough just being interesting. Im not doing a show at the NZ International Interesting festival.

6)     Who’s your biggest comedy rival – and why?

For shits and giggles I will say my rival is Nick Rado. I very worthy opponent, he is sly, good looking, cunning and very funny. It will be tough to take him down. My best plan so far is to get him while he is on stage. Just chuck a sack over his head, drag him off, lock him in a cupboard, go out and finish his gig and hopefully convert his audience into my audience. I have a feeling if an audience saw that, they would probably report it as a crime. Not may laughs to be had in prison, but at least I wont be up against “Ravishing” Rado.

7)     Who’s your biggest comedy friend – and why?

I have some very close friends in comedy. Although stand up is a very individual art form, there is a close bond between comics. We all know what each other is going through. That makes most of us very supporting. Also you get to hang with some of the funniest people on the planet. I would say my closest friends are: Al Pitcher (kiwi comic who is famous in Sweden) Rhys Darby and his wife Rosie (I met both of them when I first started in CHCH 1998) Nick Rado (although he is also my nemisis, keep your friends close and keep your enemies even closer)

8)     Which show is your must see? Why?

There are a couple. James Acaster, Tom Wrigglesworth and home grown greats James Nokise, Rhys Mathewson, Rhys Darby ( I have not seen a full show of his for years) and Nick Rado (know your enemy)

9)     Give us your definition of a great night out during the festival

My show sells well and we all have a great hour together. Some good friends have come along that I only get to see once a year. We go for some drinks and a late night meal at Tanuki’s cave (Auckland) or Monsoon Poon (Wellington)

10)     What goes through your mind, the minute before curtain goes up?

Panic, excitement, fear, joy, the thought “I need a poo” followed by “No, you have been twice already, you are fine” followed by “I cant feel my hands” followed by “Yes you can, stop being a dick” then I go on.

11)  What about when you’re on stage?

My goal onstage is to always be in the moment and play the room. I hate the feeling of going into auto pilot, if I feel even remotely like that, I will delve into the audiebnce to shake that out of me. It’s a live comedy experience for all involved, so I need to be alive onstage, not dead behind the eyes. I bloody well love it mate.

12)  How easily distracted are you?

I used to be like a magpie, anything shiney in the audience I would go for, but over the years I have learnt to focus. I don’t want to give the audience an hour of fluff with no substance. I get distracted when I need to.

13)  Give us your dream comedy line up

I would host with Loius CK, Tommy Teirnan, Eddie Murphy (Delerious era), Steve Martin, Robin Williams and Nick Rado.

14)  Just finally, where will you be in 5 years’ time

Coming Back to NZ with another show I’m proud of. This time it will be a bit more financially rewarding and I will have my family with me and have a  holiday afterwards. My daughters will be 9 and 7 by then, so we could have some proper kiwi adventures. Bungee jumps, white water rafting, visit Invercargill, the whole gambit.

The Invisible Woman: Movie Review

The Invisible Woman: Movie Review

Cast: Felicity Jones, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander
Director: Ralph Fiennes

For Ralph Fiennes' second directorial outing (after Coriolanus), he heads off to the world of Charles Dickens and 1850s London.

It's 1857 and Dickens (played by Fiennes) is at the peak of his career; afforded an almost rockstar status at the time, he's mobbed wherever he goes and universally adored. His life changes when he meets the aspiring (but hopeless) actress Nelly Ternan (Felicity Jones), who's from an acting dynasty and who's utterly besotted with the idea of Dickens and the man himself.

Taking him as her lover, Nelly finds herself confined to the shadows, spoken of and about but never directly to in social circles. But long after Dickens' death, she finds herself living in that veil of secrecy and haunted by what happened as those around her marvel in the wonder of the man - is it time now for her to speak up?

The Invisible Woman is resolutely maudlin throughout its near 2 hour run time - and it's ever so slightly off-putting.

While Fiennes impresses as Dickens, breathing energy into the fading marriage Dickens has and bringing life to Claire Tomalin's book (that's been adapated by the writer of The Iron Lady, Abi Morgan), there's just no real life in the piece and it's a curiously detached affair in more ways than one.

Granted, it's supposed to be the tale of a woman confined to the sidelines and a life whose official record is facing being expunged from the history books, but Felicity Jones can't manage to convey the turmoil without looking winsome and coy; she's so witheringly wet that you find it hard to believe that Dickens would ever fall for her.

There's little romantic tension and atmosphere either in this downbeat drama; the closest it comes is when Dickens despatches his wife to deliver a birthday gift for Nelly that's been wrongly sent to her. And even that sequence is lacking in real bite or discomfort.

While Fiennes has done a good solid job of bringing it all to life, there's little to lift this from a melancholy movie that doesn't quite fire on as many levels as it needs to. Moments of the writing are spot on with Jones' Nelly intoning to Dickens that "My name is whispered with yours and yet I have nothing", but there's little poignancy or hint that she's maligned by the denials - and there's little joie de vivre when the pair are together. I'm not saying there needs to be a full on affair or sequences thereof, merely that something more needed to be proffered up to hint at the underlying tragedy of a love denied rather than Jones merely looking coyly over her shoulder.Consequently, it's hard to really understand why Nelly is so angry and tortured in the present day sequences (such as they are) when we're denied details of Dickens' death and the implications upon her.

The film opens with Jones' Nelly pounding the beach, swept up in her growing discord at being in the shadows - and it's here that as a solo person on the beach, Fiennes manages to convey some of her loneliness and alienation. It's rare moments like this that convince because elsewhere, The Invisible Woman is just too cold, understated and detached to really care about.

Rating:

Filth: Blu Ray Review

Filth: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R18
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

Trainspotting tore up the cinema scene back in 1996, with its infusion of darkness, mixed with an ultra cool British OST and a rabid mix of Irvine Welsh's writing.

Now we have the latest outing for Welsh's depraved mind (albeit published back in 1998), a kind of Bad Lieutenant set in Scotland and replete with Welsh's repellant uncompromising outlook on life.

James McAvoy is corrupt policeman Bruce Robertson - he's in line for a promotion and has decided nothing will get in the way of his need to win this - as his wife is expecting him to bring home the bacon. Not even the aspirations of his useless colleagues and a brutal murder of a foreign student will stand in the way of his quest.

But Robertson has a plan to ensure that he gets the promotion - the systematic undermining of his colleagues, by stealing their wives, exposing their secrets and generally f***ing up everything that comes in his way. However, as Robertson starts to get deeper into his own skewed take on life, he starts to lose his way - his drug habit and own depravities begin to knock at the door of his subconsciousness, threatening to topple him from within....

Filth is utterly uncompromising and totally confrontational cinema.

It's also blessed by a ferociously sensational turn from McAvoy as the shockingly repugnant and corrupt asshole Robertson, who's teetering on the edge as the film goes on. In among the bleary eyes, wittily scathing and sarcastic comments and the scungy, grimy, dirty outlook on life, McAvoy manages to bring a degree of warmth and humanity to this latest anti-hero, who to be frank, deserves hardly any of our sympathy. It's a hard task to make you invest in his plight as he destroys everything and everyone around him; yet Baird manages to do this by throwing McAvoy a few scenes here and there which see this cocksure weasel of a man start to lose his grip on everything. McAvoy skates a thin line between self-loathing and self-destructive with considerable cinematic aplomb as the darker elements and tragic side of the story begin to emerge - and a human side emerges to great narrative effect.

As for the rest of the film, it'll depend on how you like your gallows humour - pitch black or utterly unforgiving. When it comes to a Welsh story, there are certainly lashings of all of those contained within and darkness and depravity abound. Some of the black-hearted feel of this tale set over Christmas may mean that viewers will be put off, but really you shouldn't be fearful of the black humour and darkness within. For the Welsh purists out there, a motif from the book where a tapeworm growing inside Bruce is supposed to provide some insight into his mindset - that's been ditched in favour of Jim Broadbent's Aussie psychiatrist giving us a peek into what's going on.

Eddie Marsan provides some great support and some hysterical moments come courtesy of his Bladesey character on drugs stealthily given to him by his so-called friend Bruce.

Completely uncompromising and unapologetic right to the very end, Filth rises on it's MacAvoy's searing and blisteringly unlikeably delirious anti-hero which stands head and shoulders above anything he's done in a while (including the brilliant Trance). 

Filth is confrontational cinema as it proffers up the view from a man on the edge and it's also a belter of a black British comedy.

Rating:

Ender's Game: Blu Ray Review

Ender's Game: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

Based on Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game stars Hugo star Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin, a youngster whose ability could hold the key to the survival of the Earth.

In 2086, the planet comes under attack from an alien race known as the Formic and their incursion nearly destroyed everything. It's under that foreboding that the International Fleet lives - and led by Colonel Hyrum Graff (a gruff, shouty Harrison Ford) the children of Earth are constantly being scanned to see if they have what it takes to help them end the war. Enter young Ender Wiggin, a bullied outsider, whose fight back against a bully demonstrates the necessary tactical thinking sought by the Fleet and Graff himself. Two of Wiggin's siblings have already been thrown off the military programme for not being good enough - but the young Ender displays the brains and tactical skill-set needed to help the human race gain the upper hand.

Under the tutelage of Graff, Ender's enrolled into Battle school with others of his age and ilk, and trained to do what it takes to win the war - no matter what the cost. As Ender starts to display brilliance of thinking under the threat of attack, he starts to progress through the ranks - and Graff champions him, believing that he is their saviour.

But, at what cost to the volatile Ender, who's already displayed tendencies toward violence, believing the ends justify the means...?

Ender's Game is a slice of sci-fi, served with a large dollop of Full Metal Jacket style military training and Harry Potter Quidditchy antics on the side.

There are some nice meaty, grey, moral questions which bubble away in the film (but are left largely untouched, which is a real shame) - such as the treatment of children in wartime, the psychological effects of shaping young minds, pro-war/ anti-war sentimentalities to name but a few. Sadly though, these are jettisoned for long sequences of Ender being trained and schooled at Battle School, command class and the film's narrative and some of the characters suffer because of it. (Chiefly, Viola Davis' questioning pyschologist who simply disappears when the story decides enough is enough)

With some exceptionally well realised zero-gravity sequences, the film seems to blow all of its creative wad on making the space age look great (and it largely succeeds) rather than concentrating a little more on the human angle of the conflict which would have proved more engaging for the audience and provoked the grey matter. That said, the battle sequences in the simulations are an overload of technology, techno-babble and impressive FX, which look dizzying up on a big screen.

In terms of the human talent, Butterfield does sullen and conflicted reasonably well with some average dialogue and Ford is pretty much gruff and harsh as the stereotype of a military commander. The worst offender though is Ben Kingsley, whose legendary Mazer Rackham shows towards the end of the film. Complete with facial moko and the worst New Zealand accent I've ever heard (it starts in Kiwi, heads to South Africa before settling into Aussie territory), Kingsley's character is enigmatically introduced too late in the piece to gain anything other than guffaws at vocal crimes.

A totally abrupt ending, twist too late in the day and sudden tonal shift from pro-war to anti-war buffets the end of this film and completely shortchanges the audience. It's a shame the greyer moral areas and bigger questions are ignored in favour of an FX piece because Ender's Game has promise. However, based on poor US box office returns, despite there being other books written, it could be Game Over for this franchise before it's even begun.

Extras: The making of, deleted scenes, easter eggs, extended scenes and audio commentaries

Rating:

X Men Days of Future Past trailer

X Men Days of Future Past trailer

The final X Men: Days of Future Past trailer is here


Mutants of the world unite, the X Men: Days of Future Past trailer is here!

The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods inX-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. 

The beloved characters from the original "X-Men" film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from "X-Men: First Class," in an epic battle that must change the past -- to save our future.
Watch the opening of XMen: Days of Future Past