The Birdman is back

TONY HAWK’S^® PRO SKATER^™ 5 COMING TO CONSOLES

Activision Publishing, Inc.’s Pro Skater™ Series Returns After 13 Years with Mix of Classic Action, Brand-New Levels and Exciting Online Play

Auckland, New Zealand – May 8, 2015 – The Birdman is back with Tony Hawk’s^® Pro Skater^™ 5, coming to the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and expected to release later this year. The game retains the timeless, combo-driven energy and tightly designed levels of the Pro Skater games while expanding the experience with online play.

“Skateboarding has always been about the freedom of ripping with your friends, and creating a game that captures that feeling has been a vision of mine since the Pro Skaterseries began over 15 years ago,” said Tony Hawk. “I’m beyond excited to see that dream finally come true with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, which takes the old-school attitude of the original games online in a big way.”

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 rekindles the signature style of classic Pro Skater games in a brand-new set of levels with the same infamous focus on daring objectives, fine-tuned controls and high-score tricks – including manuals and reverts – for endless shredding. New items like power-ups and projectiles change up the core skating experience in a variety of fresh and entertaining ways. Tear up the pavement as one of today’s top pros, including Tony Hawk, Nyjah Huston, Riley Hawk, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki, Ishod Wair, Leticia Bufoni, Chris Cole, David Gonzalez, Andrew Reynolds, and Lizzie Armanto – or customise your own character.

Online multiplayer is where Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 truly takes off, letting players drop in and out of online skate sessions with friends and challengers from around the world for the first time. Complete missions, unlock new content and level up online or offline, or go head-to-head on the fly against all takers in competitive matches. Players can also build their own imaginative skateparks to share with the community.

Robomodo and Disruptive Games are developing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 for PlayStation®4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. The release dates for the various versions will be shared in the upcoming weeks. For more information, please visitwww.tonyhawkgames.com, and join the community on Facebook at facebook.com/TonyHawkGames and on Twitter and Instagram at @tonyhawkgames.

The Witcher Wild Hunt Rage and Steel and Wild Hunt Video Monsters

The Witcher Wild Hunt Rage and Steel and Wild Hunt Video Monsters

Garnering over 200 prestigious awards before launch, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is CD PROJEKT RED’s most ambitious endeavour up to date. 

Set within a truly open world, the game puts you in the role of a wandering bounty hunter and monster slayer, Geralt of Rivia. 

In The Witcher, you take on the greatest contract of your life -- tracking down the Child of Prophecy, a living weapon that can alter the shape of the world.

Releases May 19th.

Batman: Arkham Knight vocal cast unveiled

Batman: Arkham Knight vocal cast unveiled

An incredible new video's showcased the amazing voice talent coming to Batman Arkham Knight.

Voice Cast for Batman™: Arkham Knight Revealed

Jonathan Banks, Ashley Greene, John Noble and Scott Porter

Join the Cast of the Much-Anticipated Game

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment confirmed the voice talent behind some of the most notable characters in Batman™: Arkham Knight, the epic finale to the award winning Batman: Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady Studios.  Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) joins the cast as James Gordon, Ashley Greene (The Twilight Saga) as Barbara Gordon, John Noble (Sleepy Hollow, Fringe) as Scarecrow and Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights, Hart of Dixie) as Nightwing.

Banks, Greene, Noble and Porter join an ensemble cast that includes fan-favorites Kevin Conroy, who returns as Batman; Tara Strong as Harley Quinn; Troy Baker as Two-Face and Nolan North as Penguin.

Batman: Arkham Knight is based on DC Comics’ core Batman license and will be available on June 24, 2015 exclusively for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows PC. 

Batman: Arkham Knight brings the award-winning Batman: Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady Studios to its epic conclusion. Developed exclusively for the new generation of consoles and PCs,Batman: Arkham Knight introduces Rocksteady's uniquely designed version of the Batmobile. The highly anticipated addition of this legendary vehicle, combined with the acclaimed gameplay of the Batman: Arkham series, offers gamers the ultimate and complete Batman experience as they tear through the streets and soar across the skyline of the entirety of Gotham City. In this explosive finale, Batman faces the ultimate threat against the city that he is sworn to protect, as Scarecrow returns to unite the super criminals of Gotham City and destroy the Batman forever.

This is The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited

This is The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited

Today we are kicking off a new video series entitled This is The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited! This series will offer insight into the vast world of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited - which is available now on PC/Mac and arriving on console on June 9, 2015.

Check out the first video - Freedom and Choice in Tamriel – which explores the freedom to forge your own path and the countless choices you’ll face along the way including deciding your race, alliance, class, play style, and ability specializations. You can download the video from the link below.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, is the latest chapter in the award-winning franchise and brings the legendary experience online for the first time. The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited includes all the great gameplay from the original PC/Mac game, plus all the updates and content additions. Players will make a one-time purchase of the game and play, without restrictions, for as much as they like – without game subscription fees.

Tamriel Unlimited will be supported with special, optional downloadable content available for purchase and an in-game Crown Store for convenience and customization items. In addition, Bethesda will offer ESO Plus™ to players who wish to pay a single monthly charge for  a premium membership service, providing exclusive in-game bonuses, a monthly allotment of crowns to use in the store and access to all DLC game packs while a member.

Horrible Bosses 2: DVD Review

Horrible Bosses 2: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

Horrible Bosses 2 posits the theory that in order to not deal with Horrible Bosses, it's better if you have to branch out on your own.

In theory, self-starters are a great economic boon; but in cinematic practice, this second outing for the inept (and borderline annoying) gang is nothing short of once over lightly again, with the jokes stretched as repetitiously thin as the first time around.

Nick, Kurt and Dale (Bateman, Sudeikis and Day respectively) are sick of working for the man, so decide to become the man by starting up their own ShowerBuddy company. However, when they get ripped off by Christoph Waltz's CEO Bert Hanson and his son Rex (a brilliantly cast Chris Pine who steals scenes left, right and centre), they're suddenly facing a massive crisis.

So, brainstorming they decide the only way out of the predicament is to kidnap Hanson's son...

As with Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2 sets the bar low early on with a series of visual gross out gags that involve showers, shadows, Day and Sudeikis and doesn't really aim much higher throughout.

While the bond between the trio is still evident and the comic charisma is there among these starting -to-grate Three Stooges, the material simply isn't enough to propel this flick through. And things get worse when the characters from the previous film are rolled out to up the ante on what they did before; so Jennifer Aniston's sex-addicted dentist gets to be filthier, Kevin Spacey's jailed boss gets to rant and seethe through the other side of the prison glass and Jamie Foxx's criminal gets extended screen time, but none of them really add to the mix.

Waltz is wasted and Pine is the only one who actually helps propel the all-too familiar daddy- doesn't-love-me-how-can-I-get-his-attention storyline along with a unchained performance that actually brings some fire to the screen.

To be fair, a couple of moments hit their target including an amusing car chase that plays with the perceptions of what it should be and takes things to their logically absurd conclusion. End-credits come with the usual yuks and fluffs, but given the material wasn't that strong in the first place, even they feel tired.

Mediocre and just not funny enough, Horrible Bosses 2 is a massive disappointment.

Rating:

Ride: PS4 Review

Ride: PS4 Review

Released by Milestone
Platform: PS4

Get your motor running and head out on the highway indeed for this simulation that puts you front and centre on two wheels.

It's the enticing prospect of Ride, the new simulator that may give you a little feeling of deja vu when you head out with this game. Leather yourself up, get on your bike and get going - it's a simple enough idea and one which we've all seen before, thanks to the likes of progression through the game and passing through the tracks.

But with over 100 bikes, plenty of courses, time trials, world tours on offer, there's more than enough to keep you satisfied on this sim - which is perhaps a good thing, given the amount of time I spent enjoying the scenery while I skidded through it.

With a tutorial level built into the track, you can pretty much take the game at your own pace, whether you're new or not, but it's really when the racing starts that you can get into this game. If you know your physics. As I mentioned I ploughed off the seat a fair few times, but a gradual learning curve helps you to hit your straps and prevents you from coming a cropper when you go round the bends. It's infuriating though that you don't get any warning of when you're likely to head off (except for the obvious skidding into stones or smashing into the barriers) the bike so you can adjust your trajectory.

It's a very simple game, and in some ways, feels very old school - but visually it's up to the job, with the backgrounds simply looking stunning and no sign of any glitches. However, long loading times between courses and even crashes mires the title a little and slows the overall game flow, which for a simulation is not the best thing.

Granted, Ride is fun and fairly easy to get into - but it's probably more suited to the bike racing fraternity rather than all players.

Rating:

Pitch Perfect 2: Film Review

Pitch Perfect 2: Film Review

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Elizabeth Banks, Skylar Astin
Director: Elizabeth Banks

The pitches are back in the sequel to the phenomenally popular Pitch Perfect.

After a humiliating command performance at Lincoln Center, the Barden Bellas enter an international competition that no American group has ever won in order to regain their status and right to perform.

But Anna Kendrick's Beca's mind is on other things as she looks to move on from the Bellas, graduate from college and get a life.

Pitch Perfect 2 rarely hits the harmonious highs of the first flick, which perfectly mixed sentiment, warm fuzzies, acapella musical goodness and a deft sprinkling of characterisation as well as some damn funny laughs.

The problem is that this time around as the movie negotiates that difficult second album, the group's already known and so it's more left to the newbie Hailee Steinfeld (whose mum was once a Bella and whose desire is to follow in her shoes) to provide some of the life and vitality as the next generation of the Bellas to come to the ball.

But, it's not quite handled as well, with Steinfeld's Emily feeling very much one-note rather than the whole aria, with not the slightest hint of character coming through for most of the time she's on screen.

Equally, Anna Kendrick's Beca, the slightly acerbic yet eminently likeable character from the first, is forced to the sidelines a little, despite having the only real chance to develop away from the group, thanks to an internship at a music producer's company providing her a lifeline after the Barden Bellas.

Predictably, Aussie comedy behemoth Rebel Wilson gets her fair share of the awkward and offbeat funny lines, from her opening Wrecking Ball turn offending a certain Commander in Chief and precipitating the Bellas' fall from grace. But she's also saddled with a romantic subplot with the first flick's Bumper that really goes nowhere aside from one perfectly executed sequence that wraps it all up, leaving you feeling the movie has wasted too many opportunities.

The problem is this difficult second album doesn't feel like it has that much to the story, as it lurches from one musical number to the next with the flimsiest of threads, with each set piece energetically directed by Elizabeth Banks, delivering the frenzy and high energy you'd expect from music videos. Banks has an astute eye for the comic moments though, and the musical scenes fizzle where the rest of the film fails to crackle.

However, that's not enough to stop the energy levels sagging when the movie heads away and back into the rather underwritten Bellas' quest to regain their position at the top. There's no ebb and flow between these moments and it cripples the feel-good factor as it bounces between yet another excuse to launch into more singing.

There are two sequences in the film that remind you of the glory of the first; the opening dance for the president has the amusement factor of both the Bellas and Banks and her erstwhile co-commentator (and occasionally racist and bigoted) John Michael Higgins delivering the slightly bizarre laughs for maximum effect. The second collects all the girls together at a campfire as they try to re-discover their mojo, with a version of that Cups song and a slapstick punchline that mixes both the sweetness of the relationships and the broader laughs that the first Pitch Perfect captured so perfectly.

By not keeping the gang together, reducing most of the Bellas to stereotypes or punchlines of their own gags or ignoring them completely, this frothy over-long, over-stuffed feels like an excuse to launch Now That's What I Call Pitch Perfect - The Album, whereas in fact the second Pitch Perfect hits too many bum notes throughout.

Rating: