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 Tales from the Borderlands series is being touted as a contender for Game of the year by many.
It's an interesting idea that 2K's world could have been made into an episodic story and dished out over 5 parts - something that you suspect Handsome Jack would have scoffed at.
But if anyone could make it work, it was always going to be Telltale Games, whose Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones series showed there's plenty in these worlds to explore.
Pulling together a ragtaggle bunch of misfits and setting them after Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands retains the quirk of the original game, while bringing some more depth to the protagonists. Set between two leads, Rhys and conwoman Fiona, the story's shared and is a similar tale of a deal gone wrong and a quest to get back what's thought to be rightfully theirs.
Embellishments, exaggerations and explosive revelations form the majority of this series - and it's a blast to play through all of those potential scenarios. IT's also helped by supporting characters who add edges to the story and nuances to the characters, while maintaining the world that 2K has constructed.
Comedic edges blur the story and are welcome, but the choices still figure highly in this series; while the cartoony execution of the world within is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the game.
As ever, a bit of familiarity with the Borderlands world will be welcomed and perhaps in this title, that's what feels the most lost to newcomers, but it's made up for by story and by character.
Ultimately, Tales from the Borderlands is another fine series from Telltale Games. It balances light with dark and with liberal dashings of comedy, it ensures that a new genre has been created. And bloody successfully too.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that the PlayStation®4 (PS4™) computer entertainment system has cumulatively sold through ore than 30.2 million units*1 worldwide as of November 22. PS4 continues to demonstrate the fastest and strongest growth in PlayStation® hardware history.
PS4 is a uniform system on which gamers everywhere can enjoy the same high-quality digital entertainment experiences. The rapid expansion of the PS4 platform further reinforces the foundation of delivering compelling entertainment experiences. Customers can choose from multiple offerings available on this most favored platform that ranges from games on discs or through digital download to a variety of services available on PlayStation™Network, including PlayStation®Plus membership service, apps for streaming video, music and TV content. The 30.2 million PS4 owners around the world are spending more time playing games and enjoying entertainment content as the company further enriches content and services. “We are sincerely grateful that gamers across the globe have continued to choose PS4 as the best place to play since launch two years ago,” said Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “We are committed to bringing engaging games and entertainment services to users worldwide. Thanks to the support of our partners, PS4 continues to be the premier platform for game and interactive entertainment innovation.”
The PS4 system’s games portfolio will continue to broaden this holiday season and beyond with highly anticipated titles such as DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS (SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.), Ryu Ga Gotoku KIWAMI (SEGA Games Co., Ltd.), Bloodborne The Old Hunters Edition, Gravity Rush Remastered, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (SCE Worldwide Studios). The independent development community will also continue to deliver innovative new titles for PS4 including GALAK-Z (17-BIT) and Super Time Force Ultra (Capybara Games).*2
SCE will continue to expand the world of PS4 to deliver entertainment experiences that are only possible on PlayStation. The PS4 system is currently available in 124 countries and regions*3 worldwide.
New Running Back Adversary Mode in GTA Online Today
Hi all,
Today, we've got a brand-new addition to the permanent roster of GTA Online Adversary Modes for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
In the spirit and tradition of American Football this Thanksgiving week, we present a new mode entitled “Running Back”.
Two teams (a total of 4-8 players) square off from opposing sides of a roadway. The elusive Runner, behind the wheel of a Benefactor Panto, must go the distance and get across the end zone line at the far end of the highway with the help of their offensive teammates in BF Biftas. Meanwhile, their defensive-minded opponents (also in Biftas) must ruthlessly block, crash and pummel their way to try to stop them.
This new mode is available at three different locations: Raton Canyon Bridge, La Mesa Bridge and Zancudo Tunnel.
FIRST 60 MINUTES OF GAMEPLAY RELEASED PLAYED BY AVALANCHE STUDIOS
Hi there,
Square Enix and Avalanche Studios are excited to broadcast the first hour of gameplay from JUST CAUSE 3. With a game world as vast, varied and as open as Medici - with its 400 square miles of beautiful beaches, towering mountain peaks and Mediterranean inspired towns - your first hour of play might be wildly different to ours. That said, we thought we’d focus on some of the early missions and content to whet your appetite ahead of next week’s launch.
Cast: Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Graham McTavish\
Director: Ryan Coogler
Legacy hangs heavy over Creed.
Not only is its titular protagonist (played by Fruitvale Station star Michael B Jordan who reteams with the same director) trying to escape the legacy of a father he never knew, but the film tries to simultaneously embrace the Rocky legacy and forge its own identity.
Thanks in large part to Jordan's straight down the line character and the film's largely realistic tone (even though it struggles with injecting some unnecessary melodrama in its back half) Creed emerges as a relative triumph, rather than ending in a major KO for anyone involved.
To all intents and purposes, Creed is the seventh Rocky film and follows the path you’ve come to expect these boxing films would do. Turning his back on a corporate job to pursue his dream of being a fighter, Adonis Johnson (Jordan) tracks down Rocky Balboa (an understated and suitably ageing Sylvester Stallone) to see if he will train him. But Balboa’s reticent, crippled by the beating that life’s given him (one of the best lines sees Stallone intoning that Time takes everyone out, it’s undefeated) and isn’t keen to get back into that world.
Creed works best as a film that revels in its realism.
While its second half piles on the melodrama a little too hard and the narrative conflicts border on contrivances rather than feeling organic, the film’s first half is nothing short of sensational, grounded as they are by the wearying realities of life and Coogler's virtuoso camera touches within the ring.
Stallone (in the first Rocky film he's not written) underplays his hand and goes for poignancy rather than over-blown emoting (but a later development for his character stretches belief too far); as a result, Stallone’s wearied Balboa is a real presence in the film from beginning to end - even if he is saddled with an unwelcome and unnecessary story that's poorly executed in the second half.
Equally, Michael B Jordan pulls together a great mix of bravado, gusto and pure terror as he edges into the reality of what he wants. All through out the film, it's clear that Creed's enemy isn't the one-note Liverpool boxing champion facing one last fight, but his own expectations, his own self-doubt and his inability to embrace his own legacy and all that it entails as he tries to make it on his own.
A couple of moments in Creed see Jordan really soar and a couple of moments don't fire as perhaps they should or could. (One sequence involving bikes, Creed, a street and Rocky is almost laughable)
Sadly, the underwriting and effective dumping of the burgeoning relationship with his neighbour Bianca (a singer losing her hearing played with empathy by Tessa Thompson) affects part of the film and feels rather unwelcomely like that side of the film was knocked out at the early script level. Also, a plot thread with Rocky's former gym manager dangles deliciously before losing the momentum it had early on.
But it's Cooglar's execution of an at times rough around the edges story which help Creed to soar.
One fight sequence is shot all in one take with the camera inveigling its way unobtrusively into the ring and works wonders at bringing the emotion and brutality of the fighters to life. Complete with shouts and noises from behind in the cinema, it's a bravura execution that exceeds the obligatory cornball and OTT final fight that's so cliched, overblown and yet incredibly redolent of this pugilistic genre.
Creed effectively shames Jake Gyllenhaal's leaden Southpaw from earlier this year by constantly underplaying its own hand and realistically playing out its drama against a muted and almost melancholy backdrop. There are swathes of nostalgia for the series and yet it's also smart enough to not wallow in these moments.
Crucially, it ends up seeing the Rocky franchise unexpectedly re-vitalised; it emerges from its own shadow and against all the odds, ends up being this year's could be critical - and hopefully - box office contender.
Peter Capaldi talks the return of an icon and meets NZ fans
Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi was in New Zealand last night for the "In conversation with" event.
Fans were given the chance to hear of the current Doctor's experiences on the show and had teases of Heaven Sent exclusively screened to them. It's the first time a current Doctor has appeared in New Zealand and happened the day after the show's 52nd anniversary.
Wearing his landmark shades in the second half, Peter Capaldi revealed that fans disgruntled by the wearable tech wouldn't have to wait long for the return of the sonic screwdriver - teasing that it would be back sooner than you'd think.
Two scenes from Heaven Sent were also shown, one with Peter Capaldi's Doctor facing the Veil and hinting that he was actually scared. Heaven Sent airs in New Zealand on Prime on Sunday at 7.30pm.
After the show, Peter spent over an hour chatting with fans and signing - he took particular time out with the youngsters who'd attended the event and waited for him after. In every moment and despite the late hours, he was both generous with his time and sincere to each and every single fan.
Rating: M Released by Universal Home Ent Asif Kapadia's doco Senna, which played the New Zealand International Film Festival a couple of years back was an exemplary piece of film-making.
Packed with insight, stuffed with home movie material and offering an inside look into a world previously never glimpsed, Senna ended with a shocking kick to the guts.
Likewise, Amy, the brand new doco from the same director, packs a visceral punch and emotional heft that's hard to rebut or shake once the cinema lights go up.
There can't be many who weren't aware of the 2011 destruction of Amy Winehouse, a woman whose powerhouse talent and whose voice shaped a generation of lost souls - and who, sadly, was as lost among them as the worlds she sang about.
Once again, assembling early footage and home movie material with interviews spliced over, Kapadia's created a richly involving, deeply moving and ultimately, upsetting film that immortalises Winehouse's singular talent as well as her destructive demons.
Opening with early footage of Winehouse singing Happy Birthday and sucking a lollipop and ending with a heartbreaking phone call to friends, this doco takes in all the highs and lows of the fame train, complete with a very subtle yet obvious blame game at those who were responsible for her demise.
But it's to Kapadia's talent and skill that it's never presented as anything less than balanced or nuanced and never seeks to assign blame to those who shoulder it. It's at pains early on to paint a portrait of a fragile Jewish girl, whose world was shaped by demons within who professes that she won't ever be famous and chillingly, that if it were to happen, she couldn't handle it. ( A foreboding if ever there was one)
Using footage and audio interviews with the likes of Blake Fielder, her husband, her manager at the time and others who came into orbit of her star, Kapadia's created a biography of a star rather than relying on narrative techniques to simply present the facts.
That doesn't make it any the less troubling though - there are many questions about who played what role in Amy's downfall, from the fact her absentee father shows up later when she's hit the big time and denied she needed help to Blake Fielder who stoked the fire of her demons. Equally, the paparazzi can't feel happy with their portrayal with scenes of so many flashbulbs going off, it's likely to set off a strobe-induced fit.
But it's the moments that Kapadia assembles that pack the emotional wallop that he unleashed to such devastating effect in Senna. It's utterly heartbreaking that when she wins Grammy's biggest award her words are "This is so boring without drugs", as her gaunt and skeletal frame leans out of the screen. To be frank though, Kapadia and his editing team doesn't need to do much but assemble the material - from songs that spring to life on screen with text, but drip with tragic autobiographical detail to fleeting glances, this is a story that tells itself and one that's all too familiar, even though the lack of judgement from the director means you inevitably know who's to blame.
Amy is a truly stunning film, a tough and explicit record of a life gone too quickly and of a star's Icarus-style ascent, but thanks to its sensitive telling and its wealth of material, it's a fascinating yet tragic film guaranteed to haunt you long after you've seen it - whether you're a fan or not.
