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.
CD PROJEKT RED, creators of The Witcher series of games, announce the release date of Hearts of Stone, the first expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Step again into the shoes of Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster slayer, this time hired to defeat a ruthless bandit captain, Olgierd von Everec, a man who possesses the power of immortality. The expansion lets you choose your own way through an adventure that includes recruiting a crew of break-in artists, spending a night partying with a ghost and outsmarting the most bizarre creatures Geralt has ever faced.
Launching October 13th, 2015, Hearts of Stone packs over 10 hours of new adventures and introduces new characters, powerful monsters, unique romance, and a brand new storyline shaped by gamer choices. The expansion also introduces a brand new system of Runewords that significantly affects gameplay. Each Runeword will impact a different aspect of in-game mechanics and will allow the players to experiment with various strategies and tactics.
Along with the digital release, gamers will also be able to purchase a special, limited boxed edition of Hearts of Stone available at selected retailers worldwide. The box contains a digital download code for the expansion, two masterfully crafted physical decks of Gwent, the card game set in the world of The Witcher, and a detailed manual explaining the rules. With two unique sets of cards, Monsters and Scoia’tael ready to go, you and your friends can now engage in tactical combat on a grand scale outside of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt!
When Tearaway released back in 2013, it was nothing short of a victory for the format on which it was launched - the PS Vita.
Utilising the touch screen, the back pad and your sense of imagination, it did everything right - it packed cute into accessible and paved the way for the truly hands on adventure it was.
So it was a sense of trepidation that brings Tearaway to the PS4 with Unfolded, a not exactly remaster but a reinvention for the next gen console.
And boy, is it interactively brilliant.
It's the still same game as before. In Tearaway, you play either a female or male messenger, made from paper, tasked with getting to the sun to deliver a message. Sort of...You see, the kicker with this one is that the sun is actually you captured via the PS's camera capabilities - you're like the Teletubbies sun only more realistic. But the You of the game is actually an integral part to what exactly is going on, working in tandem with the messenger, you can use the interactive elements of the game to help throughout.
This is where Tearaway soars - and why Media Molecule have made it so important on the PS4. By using the light bar, you can literally shine your light on your messenger and the world around you, which creates a bond between the You and the character. That bond is unbreakable and really invests you in the surroundings, the mission and the rather cute story telling. But it's not just fingers that do the talking, as it were. Throughout the game, there are characters who need things - be it a squirrel who needs a crown or a plant that's drained of its colour. And this is where the crafting side of Tearaway comes into focus. Using pencil, paper and your imagination in the crafting area, you get to create parts of the world and sidebits which are used throughout - deftly done and crisply executed they are little bonuses, littering the game and which have a use later on. Items you create on the drawing board are scattered around ValleyFold for you to view.
The new touches include the use of the touch pad to create wind within the world, which deftly blows away your Scraps enemies, so hell-bent on removing the creativity around. They can also help you to propel yourself on a paper plane and soar through the air collecting confetti from high to reach places to help you trade and personalise your character. Also, the ability to throw things into your controller via your messenger (such as rocks, nuts) to then unleash onto the world around you is great too - yet another attempt at personalising the experience and growing the bond.
It's not all perfect though and sadly the camera angle can at times be nothing short of obtrusive as it sticks and leaves you unsure of how to centre your view or get an idea of where you are. It's occasionally frustrating too, as it can mean you're bowled for six by baddies that you can't see.
But that's a minor complaint for Tearaway Unfolded, as it's a game that has really embraced the technology - using the PS App and the PS Camera you can bring your own world into ValleyFold and personalise it even further. It's almost as if Media Molecule have taken every spec element of the game, and thought very seriously about how to bring it into the execution rather than shaping the execution around it.
I can't lie - I adore Tearaway Unfolded; its camera niggle aside, it's clever, bright, fun, inventive and easy to play. It's a massively entertaining distraction from day to day life and its simplicity of execution is its absolute joie de vivre. I defy you not to play Tearaway Unfolded and immerse yourself in this colourful world of paper where imagination has run riot and the gaming world is so much better for it.
Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Aiden Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Kaya Scodelario, Rosa Salazar
Director: Wes Ball
Whereas the first Maze Runner film served up a potent cocktail of intrigue, mystery, Lord of The Flies, Survivor and Ender's Game, the second, The Scorch Trials favours a rather more action-led thrill-ride in a post-apocalyptic dystopia.
Picking up from where The Maze Runner ended, the second YA outing concentrates purely on Dylan O'Brien's Thomas and his ragtag group of survivors from the Glade. Whisked away to a compound at the end of the first film by a mysterious organisation known as WCKD, Thomas and his fellow Gladers find their mistrust of the bigwigs thrust squarely into focus when not everything appears to add up.
So, leading the charge, Thomas et al bust out of the WCKD complex and away from their shadowy leader Janson (a smarmy Gillen) to head to the Mountain Ranges of the devastated outside world aka the Scorch in the hope of getting some answers and surviving.
Whereas the first Maze Runner was all about the character and establishing the trust/ mistrust elements (specifically a youth mistrust of adult intentions), The Scorch Trials eschews all of that character element and explanation in favour of a series of reasonably taut and exciting action sequences that simply segue from moment to moment and are usually preceded by Thomas shouting variations of the word "Run!".
That's not to deny that large portions of said action sequences are anything but thrilling and it's great to see a YA finally revel in those trappings rather than simply wallow in yet more moping. But it comes in place of people forwarding the script, which is frustrating - particularly given the work done with some of the characters in the Glade, the majority of whom this time around are simply given piecemeal screen time.
By varying quite considerably from the book, The Scorch Trials is its own beast - even if it relies on some unevenly executed CGI style zombies to bring the menace and jump scares. But by opening up the world and introducing a raft of new characters, there are only a few newbies who stand the transition. If anything, this film is Dylan O'Brien's to shoulder and he doesn't quite have the charisma to fully pull it off this time around and Scodelario makes scant use of what time she has, even if her arc is sign-posted early on. It misses the character bonding and determined resolution of the group of the Glade that pulled us in and had us in these characters' corner as it all transpired.
Problems persist with parts of the internal logic, with WCKD chasing the group and then backing off without any reason, other than for it to serve the wider narrative. Thankfully, some of those concerns are waylaid by the majority of the action scenes, which are tautly executed and guarantee you in parts to be on the edge of your seat. Unlike the second part of the Divergent series, this is a film that ups the action ante, even if the explanations of what is going on are put on the back burner.
However, there are moments that feel misplaced and could have been jettisoned; in one sequence, both Thomas and an escapee end up at some kind of drunken Bacchanalian party - it's an odd excursion and one that really should have ended up on the cutting room floor (even if it serves up a great Alan Tudyk in guy-liner).
The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is not a bad second serving, but it doesn't exactly build on the work on the first in quite the rounded way that you'd perhaps expect it to. It certainly in parts feels like an extended tease,dangling answers near you and plucking them away just because it can.
A weaker cliffhanger also doesn't serve to build as much anticipation into a conclusion as you'd hope, but Wes Ball has certainly made the dystopian as destructive as possible with a packed film of action - even if you do feel at times like you're being distracted from an ultimate resolution.
Orange Is The New Black Season 1 and 2: DVD Review
Rating: R16
Released by Roadshow Home Ent
A veritable Netflix sensation, and with a third season just having aired, Orange Is The New Black's first two seasons remain a pop culture phenomenon that really kickstarted the whole idea of binge watching.
Based on the book of the same name, it's the story of Taylor Schilling's Piper Kerman, a reasonably well to do Brooklynite who finds her past back to haunt her and who ends up in a women's prison. The first season is about Piper surviving and getting used to being in jail, as well as acclimatising. The second sees a hardened Piper falling into the routines and the power plays of the prison as newer inmates arrive.
Cleverly written and smartly using flashbacks to flesh out the various inmates and their backstories, Orange is the New Black is an engaging series that works slightly better in its first season than its second, which suffers from a lack of source material.
Schilling is by turns awkward, unlikeable, vulnerable, smart and stupid and makes a good heroine for people to latch onto as the jail set story plays out. Unlike the best prison show ever made, Oz, this series plays a little more on the comedy but there's an equal amount of drama and heartbreak over the 26 episodes - and it's the characters within that make it such a rich tapestry to behold.
Friends star Jennifer Aniston was unlucky to miss out on an award nomination for her turn as Claire, a woman dealing with chronic pain and who is fascinated by the suicide of a fellow member of her pain group.
Detailing relationships with others and interactions with the suicide victim's husband, it's a darkly acerbic piece that sees Aniston eschewing any kind of thrills and acting modestly and earnestly. Bleakly dark and occasionally somnambulent, this drama takes a bit of investment to get into and a time to get the rewards that it proffers.
But it's Aniston with adopts a no-thrills approach to Claire and a layered performance that gradually peels away to reveal the reasons for her condition and her outlook. IT's a bravura performance that's bolstered by a strong supporting cast, but a role that's not as showy (and perhaps indicates why she may have been overlooked).
Granted, this slice of Cake won't be to everyone's taste, but the inherent devotion to its conclusion will reward viewers in ways they perhaps could not have perceived.
Cast: Jemaine Clement, Stephanie Alleyne, Regina Hall, Jessica Williams
Director: James C Strouse
The gentle indie People, Places, Things is the latest film to showcase Jemaine Clement's softer side, while still revelling in the quirk.
He stars as Will Hall, a graphic novelist, newly single and trying to negotiate life with two young daughters, a lack of time to see them, while teaching a class on drawing. When he decides that he wants to see more of his girls, he finds himself out of his depth; and to further complicate matters, he ends up back in the relationship game...sort of.
With quirky dialogue, a touch of the melancholy and a very softly spoken Jemaine Clement, People, Places, Things is a lo-fi indie that has the charm, even if parts of its narrative feel like they have been thrown in for quirkiness' sake and to ensure the story goes on the right track for the audience's sake, rather than the characters.
But with a veracity and insight, there are moments to cherish such as the truth bombs dropped over the end of relationships - "She stopped talking and I enjoyed the silence too much" being one of the more candid moments that bristle with a stinging openness through the script.
Clement plays lost rather than man-child, and is never anything less than mopily plausible as the befuddled romantic lead who ambles from one moment to the next (even taking a moment to sass the American perception of New Zealand being solely about hobbits). Even if ironically, he ends up being the one with the most direct method to cut through life despite his earlier flailings, he makes Will a savvy individual who knows what the right thing to say is when the right moment comes along.
If anything, this piece is more The Unbearable Cuteness of Being, with cartoons helping with the narrative and helping set the back-story in a gently winsome way.
However, People Places Things succeeds in cutting through the usual romantic gloop and delivering an experience that is pleasant, pertinent and knowing.
Newstalk ZB Film Review - Straight Outta Compton, A Walk in The Woods and While We're Young
This week's film reviews on NewsTalk ZB were the NWA Biopic Straight Outta Compton, the Bill Bryson flick A Walk In The Woods and on DVD, Ben Stiller stars in While We're Young.
